The whole brain-death criterion of death now enjoys a wide acceptance both within the medical profession and among the general public. That acceptance is in large part the product of the contention that brain death is the proper criterion for even a conservative definition of death – the irreversible loss of the integrated functioning of the organism as a whole. This claim – most recently made in the report of the Presidential Commission and in a comprehensive article by (...) James Bernat and others – is based upon a series of fallacious arguments. Chief among these is the argument that whole brain-death is the proper criterion for the conservative definition because the brain is the organ that integrates the rest of the organism. A central part of the paper shows that this argument rests upon a confusion between a function and the mechanism that performs it, and replies to the defenses that the Presidential Commission makes on this point. The concluding portion of the paper argues that this issue is not merely of academic interest, but has the potential for undermining the present consensus that supports the use of whole brain-death criteria. * Keywords: brain-death, definition of death, determination of death * I would like to thank Howard Brody and Bruce Miller for helpful suggestions and criticisms. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Negative subjective reports such as “I didn’t see the stimulus” can be interpreted as indicating either that the subject didn’t see the stimulus, or as indicating that, while the subject did see the stimulus, the strength of sensory signals associated with the stimulus fell below a conservative criterion for answering “seen”. Determining which of these two interpretations is correct is the criterion problem. I present two ways in which researchers can solve this problem. But there’s more. What I (...) call the “new criterion problem” consists in determining whether criteria effects reflect perceptual changes, or changes in response strategy. Through case studies, I argue that this new version of the problem can be solved as well, although there is currently no systematic way to solve it. I conclude that criterion problems do not constitute good reasons for skepticism about the scientific study of consciousness. (shrink)

A scientific mathematical law is causal if and only if it is a process law that contains a time derivative. This is the intrinsic criterion for causal laws we propose. A process is a space-time line along which some properties are conserved or vary. A process law contains a time variable, but only process laws that contain a time derivative are causal laws. An effect is identified with what corresponds to a time derivative of some property or magnitude in (...) a process law, whereas the other terms correspond to the cause(s). According to our criterion, causes are simultaneous with their effects and causality has no temporal direction. Several examples from natural and social disciplines support the applicability of our criterion to all scientific laws. Various objections to our proposal are presented and refuted. The merits our intrinsic theory of causality vis-à-vis the Salmon–Dowe conserved quantity theory are discussed. (shrink)

We investigate the Peres–Horodecki positive partial transpose criterion in the context of conserved quantities and derive a condition of inseparability for a composite bipartite system depending only on the dimensions of its subsystems, which leads to a bi-linear entanglement witness for the two qubit system. A separability inequality using generalized Schrodinger–Robertson uncertainty relation taking suitable operators, has been derived, which proves to be stronger than the bi-linear entanglement witness operator. In the case of mixed density matrices, it identically distinguishes (...) the separable and non separable Werner states. (shrink)

The time-scale dynamic equations play an important role in modeling complex dynamical processes. In this paper, the Mei symmetry and new conserved quantities of time-scale Birkhoff’s equations are studied. The definition and criterion of the Mei symmetry of the Birkhoffian system on time scales are given. The conditions and forms of new conserved quantities which are found from the Mei symmetry of the system are derived. As a special case, the Mei symmetry of time-scale Hamilton canonical equations is discussed (...) and new conserved quantities for the Hamiltonian system on time scales are derived. Two examples are given to illustrate the application of results. (shrink)

Abstract This paper develops an explanationist treatment of the problem of the criterion. Explanationism is the view that all justified reasoning is justified in virtue of the explanatory virtues: simplicity, fruitfulness, testability, scope, and conservativeness. A crucial part of the explanationist framework is achieving wide reflective equilibrium. I argue that explanationism offers a plausible solution to the problem of the criterion. Furthermore, I argue that a key feature of explanationism is the plasticity of epistemic judgments and epistemic methods. (...) The explanationist does not offer any fixed judgments or methods to guide epistemic conduct; even the explanatory virtues themselves are subject to change. This feature of explanationism gives it an advantage over non-explanationist views that offer fixed epistemic judgments and epistemic methods. The final section of this paper responds to objections to explanationism. (shrink)

When Dewey scholars and educational theorists appeal to the value of educative growth, what exactly do they mean? Is an individual's growth contingent on receiving a formal education? Is growth too abstract a goal for educators to pursue? Richard Rorty contended that the request for a “criterion of growth” is a mistake made by John Dewey's “conservative critics,” for it unnecessarily restricts the future “down to the size of the present.” Nonetheless, educational practitioners inspired by Dewey's educational writings may (...) ask Dewey scholars and educational theorists, “How do I facilitate growth in my classroom?” Here Shane Ralston asserts, in spite of Rorty's argument, that searching for a more concrete standard of Deweyan growth is perfectly legitimate. In this essay, Ralston reviews four recent books on Dewey's educational philosophy—Naoko Saito's The Gleam of Light: Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson, Stephen Fishman and Lucille McCarthy's John Dewey and the Philosophy and Practice of Hope, and James Scott Johnston's Inquiry and Education: John Dewey and the Quest for Democracy and Deweyan Inquiry: From Educational Theory to Practice—and through his analysis identifies some possible ways for Dewey-inspired educators to make growth a more practical pedagogical ideal. (shrink)

Alongside the analogy between maximal ideals and complete theories, the Jacobson radical carries over from ideals of commutative rings to theories of propositional calculi. This prompts a variant of Lindenbaum’s Lemma that relates classical validity and intuitionistic provability, and the syntactical counterpart of which is Glivenko’s Theorem. The Jacobson radical in fact turns out to coincide with the classical deductive closure. As a by-product we obtain a possible interpretation in logic of the axioms-as-rules conservation criterion for a multi-conclusion (...) Scott-style entailment relation over a single-conclusion one. (shrink)

This paper deals with the equilibria of games when the agents have multiple objectives and, therefore, their utilities cannot be represented by a single value, but by a vector containing the various dimensions of the utility. Our approach allows the incorporation of partial information about the preferences of the agents into the model, and permits the identification of the set of equilibria in accordance with this information. We also propose an additional conservative criterion which can be applied in this (...) framework in order to predict the results of interaction. The potential application of the theoretical results is shown with an analysis of a mixed oligopoly in which the agents value additional objectives other than their own benefit. These objectives are related to social welfare and to the profit of the industry. The flexibility of our approach provides a general theoretical framework for the analysis of a wide range of strategic economic models. (shrink)

Harmony and conservative extension are two criteria proposed to discern between acceptable and unacceptable rules. Despite some interesting works in this field, the exact relation between them is still not clear. In this article, some standard counterexamples to the equivalence between them are summarized, and a recent formulation of the notion of stability is used to express a more refined conjecture about their relation. Then Prawitz's proposal of a counterexample based on the truth predicate to this refined conjecture is shown (...) to rest on dubious assumptions. As a consequence, two new counterexamples are proposed: one uses the extension of logic with a small amount of arithmetic, while the other uses the extension of a small fragment of arithmetic with a problematic operator defined by Peano. It is argued that both these new counterexamples work fine to reject the conjecture and that the last one works also as a rejection of harmony as a complete criterion of acceptability of rules. (shrink)

Globalization and humanization form two different yet complementary processes. Globalization of human personality is the criterion of social progress. Doctrine of social humanism combines two aspects of knowledge: globalistics and humanistics, the political and the historical points of view. The humanistic project of globalization goes through three consequent stages: conservative, liberal and social. These stages are three giant leaps in human history, the civilization revolutions. On the microhistorical scale they form political rhythm of globalization that determines three kinds of (...) political revolutions. On every stage thepolitical ideologies fight to gain power but only a dialogue between conservative, liberal and social forms of humanism can provide realization of global project of humanity. (shrink)

Deflationsism about truth is a pot-pourri, variously claiming that truth is redundant, or is constituted by the totality of 'T-sentences', or is a purely logical device (required solely for disquotational purposes or for re-expressing finitarily infinite conjunctions and/or disjunctions). In 1980, Hartry Field proposed what might be called a 'deflationary theory of mathematics', in which it is alleged that all uses of mathematics within science are dispensable. Field's criterion for the dispensability of mathematics turns on a property of theories, (...) called conservativeness. I present some technical results, some of which may be found in Tarski (1936), concerning the logical properties of truth theories; in particular, concerning the conservativeness of adding a truth theory for an object level language to any theory expressed in it. It transpires that various deflationary truth theories behave somewhat differently from the standard Tarskian truth theory. These results suggest that Tarskian theories of truth are not redundant or dispensable. Finally, I hint at an analogy between the behaviour of mathematical theories and of standard (Tarskian) theories of truth with respect to their indispensability to, as Quine would put, our 'scientific world-view'. (shrink)

This paper evaluates and criticises the developmental systems conception of evolution and develops instead an extension of the gene's eye conception of evolution. We argue (i) Dawkin's attempt to segregate developmental and evolutionary issues about genes is unsatisfactory. On plausible views of development it is arbitrary to single out genes as the units of selection. (ii) The genotype does not carry information about the phenotype in any way that distinguishes the role of the genes in development from that other factors. (...) (iii) There is no simple and general causal criterion which distinguishes the role of genes in development and evolution. (iv) There is, however, an important sense in which genes but not every other developmental factor represent the phenotype. (v) The idea that genes represent features of the phenotype forces us to recognise that genes are not the only, or almost the only, replicators. Many mechanisms of replication are involved in both development and evolution. (vi) A conception of evolutionary history which recognises both genetic and non-genetic replicators, lineages of replicators and interactors has advantages over both the radical rejection of the replicator/interactor distinction and the conservative restriction of replication to genetic replication. (shrink)

Real kinds or categories, according to conventional wisdom, enter into lawlike generalizations, while nominal kinds do not. Thus, gold but not jewelry is a real kind. However, by such a criterion, few if any kinds or systems of classification employed in the social science are real, for the social sciences offer, at best, only restricted generalizations. Thus, according to conventional wisdom, race and class are on a par with telephone area codes and postal zones; all are nominal rather than (...) real. I propose an account of real kinds that recognizes the current reality of race but not zip codes and shows how a kind can be both constructed and real. One virtue of such an understanding of realism is the light shed on our current practice of racial classification. Race is not a real biological kind but neither is race a myth or illusion. However, the question of whether a social kind is real is separate from whether the category is legitimate. W. E. B. Du Bois maintained that while there are no biological races, race is real and should be conserved. My aim, in this paper, is not to argue for the legitimacy or conservation of race but to defend Du Bois's idea that kinds of people can be both made up and real and provide an understanding of realism that does justice to the social sciences. (shrink)

I was interested to read Greg Pritchard’s articles ‘Civilised Lands’ in past issues of your magazine. In general, I think he gave a good overview of places of interest and tips for an overseas visitor on a climbing holiday to Australia. He failed, however, to warn visitors of the Australian pastime of sandbagging (which, I might add, Mr. Pritchard is a deft exponent of himself). I don’t know what state sandbagging has reached in your country but in Australia it has (...) become a refined art form. It is for this reason that I feel compelled to write this article, so as to warn otherwise unsuspecting English climbers of the possible pitfalls (or perhaps ground-falls would be more appropriate here) they may face on an Australian holiday. Firstly, an outline of what sandbagging is. The basic aim of the game is for the bagger to get an unsuspecting victim (also known as a baggee or sometimes a bunny) to do a climb (which, in the context of the game, is known as “the bag”) which they (the baggee) will not enjoy for one or a combination of three basic reasons. The first is that the climb may be positively dangerous, either loose and/or unprotected. Secondly, the climb may be much harder than either the grade or appearances indicate. Thirdly, the climb may be simply repulsive; for example, it might look like a nice diagonal layback flake and yet turn out to be a smooth flared overhanging off-width. The baggee, naturally enough, has a really miserable time and of course this gives the bagger great delight—in perfect accord with Toadie’s Law of the Conservation of Happiness (“happiness can be neither created nor destroyed”). Now, different baggers operate with different emphasis on each of the three basic bagging criteria, and have as their goal different levels of baggee misery. For example, there are those extremists, operating largely on criterion one, who are not completely happy unless they have witnessed a ground-fall from a reasonable height, in which case, if you are the baggee, your Australian holiday may consist of a few weeks in traction in Natimuk Bush Nursing Hospital.. (shrink)

This article is a critique of Thaddeus Metz’s modal relational approach to moral status in African ethics. According to moral relationalism, a being has moral status if it exhibits the capacity for communal relationship as either a subject or an object. While Metz defends a prima facie plausibility of MR as an African account of moral status, this article provides a fresh perspective to the debate on moral status in environmental and ethical discourse. It raises two objections against MR: the (...) capability criterion inherent in MR is not only exogenous to African thought but also undermines the viability of MR; and MR cannot account for the standing of species populations. Both objections have severe implications for biodiversity conservation efforts in Africa and beyond. (shrink)

An overlap between the general relativist and particle physicist views of Einstein gravity is uncovered. Noether's 1918 paper developed Hilbert's and Klein's reflections on the conservation laws. Energy-momentum is just a term proportional to the field equations and a "curl" term with identically zero divergence. Noether proved a \emph{converse} "Hilbertian assertion": such "improper" conservation laws imply a generally covariant action. Later and independently, particle physicists derived the nonlinear Einstein equations assuming the absence of negative-energy degrees of freedom for (...) stability, along with universal coupling: all energy-momentum including gravity's serves as a source for gravity. Those assumptions imply that the energy-momentum is only a term proportional to the field equations and a symmetric curl, which implies the coalescence of the flat background geometry and the gravitational potential into an effective curved geometry. The flat metric, though useful in Rosenfeld's stress-energy definition, disappears from the field equations. Thus the particle physics derivation uses a reinvented Noetherian converse Hilbertian assertion in Rosenfeld-tinged form. The Rosenfeld stress-energy is identically the canonical stress-energy plus a Belinfante curl and terms proportional to the field equations, so the flat metric is only a convenient mathematical trick without ontological commitment. Neither generalized relativity of motion, nor the identity of gravity and inertia, nor substantive general covariance is assumed. The more compelling criterion of lacking ghosts yields substantive general covariance as an output. Hence the particle physics derivation, though logically impressive, is neither as novel nor as ontologically laden as it has seemed. (shrink)

In this paper we will investigate different axiomatic theories of truth that are minimal in some sense. One criterion for minimality will be conservativity over Peano Arithmetic. We will then give a more fine-grained characterization by investigating some interpretability relations. We will show that disquotational theories of truth, as well as compositional theories of truth with restricted induction are relatively interpretable in Peano Arithmetic. Furthermore, we will give an example of a theory of truth that is a conservative extension (...) of Peano Arithmetic but not interpretable in it. We will then use stricter versions of interpretations to compare weak theories of truth to subsystems of second-order arithmetic. (shrink)

This article aims to highlight the productivity of falsehood in the context of its asymmetrical position with truth. The core of the discussion can be summarized in the following statement: if only truths can be drawn from truths, it cannot be said that truth cannot be drawn from falsehood. The central thesis of the text is that the asymmetrical behavior of falsehood promotes the dissociation between the criterion (based on the conservation of truth) and the field of validity (...) so that the latter, broader than the former, incorporates the movement not only from truth to truth, but also from falsehood to falsehood and, above all, from falsehood to truth. The distinction between the symmetrical and asymmetrical fields allows understanding, for example, the emergence of certain logical fallacies, the separation between demonstration and deduction, the thesis of Popperian fallibilism, and the use of the hypothetical-deductive method. Truth does not have functions analogous to those of falsehood. (shrink)

Debate persists over the place of conscience in medicine. Some argue for the complete exclusion of conscientious objection, while others claim an absolute right of refusal. This paper proposes that claims of conscientious objection can and should be permitted if they concern kinds of actions which fall outside of the normative standard of medicine, which is the pursuit of health. Medical practice which meets this criterion we call medicine qua medicine. If conscientious refusal concerns something consonant with the health-restoring (...) aims of medicine, it entails a desertion of professional duty. If, however, it relates to something other than medicine qua medicine, it can rightly be refused. It thus becomes possible to test instances of conscientious objection to determine their validity, and thereby conserve both the principle of conscientious objection and define its scope. This test of conscience prevents arbitrary discrimination, and preserves doctors’ agency. It is a theoretical razor rooted in the pra... (shrink)

When we are fatigued, we feel that our performance is worse than when we are fresh. Yet, for over 100 years, researchers have been unable to identify an objective, behavioral measure that covaries with the subjective experience of fatigue. Previous work suggests that the metrics of signal detection theory —response bias and perceptual certainty —may change as a function of fatigue, but no work has yet been done to examine whether these metrics covary with fatigue. Here, we investigated cognitive fatigue (...) using SDT. We induced fatigue through repetitive performance of the n-back working memory task, while functional magnetic resonance imaging data was acquired. We also assessed cognitive fatigue at intervals throughout. This enabled us to assess not only whether criterion and d’ covary with cognitive fatigue but also whether similar patterns of brain activation underlie cognitive fatigue and SDT measures. Our results show that both criterion and d’ were correlated with changes in cognitive fatigue: as fatigue increased, subjects became more conservative in their response bias and their perceptual certainty declined. Furthermore, activation in the striatum of the basal ganglia was also related to cognitive fatigue, criterion, and d’. These results suggest that SDT measures represent an objective measure of cognitive fatigue. Additionally, the overlap and difference in the fMRI results between cognitive fatigue and SDT measures indicate that these measures are related while also separate. In sum, we show the relevance of SDT measures in the understanding of fatigue, thus providing researchers with a new set of tools with which to better understand the nature and consequences of cognitive fatigue. (shrink)

The two opposing trends of dogmatism and relativism pervade the thought of the last few centuries. They are as irreconcilable in public opinion as in the different philosophical systems that embody these attitudes as two separate and conflicting elements.Frequently we find united in the same system of thought a tendency to doubt everything, to qualify and limit every statement, to penetrate by an insistent critique to the fundamentals, and at the same time an inclination towards naive faith in everything and (...) blind subjection to conceptions and ways of thought that have been made absolute. This phenomenon has its roots in the social conditions of the time : while the capabilities of the individual were being developed with the material wealth of society, the same process involved at the same time a growing instability und uncertainty.In the philosophical system of Kant which is given short consideration, this dual relationship to truth was given characteristic expression. Hegel with his dialectic attempted to overcome this opposition. He recognized that each single system of thought is historically conditioned, yet that it nevertheless is part and parcel of the all-embracing totality of knowledge. Hegel, however, declared the totality of a definite historical period, namely his own philosophy, to be the total and absolute truth, and thus fell back into a new type of dogmatism. At the same time, his teachings acquired a relativistic aspect, because his standpoint, which he declares transcends history, makes all particular ideas and purposes appear equally relative.The essay proceeds to analyze the consequences which result from freeing dialectics from the metaphysics of the absolute, and develops the conception of an ever progressing dialectical thought. Confirmation here becomes an all-important criterion of truth, and a distinction is drawn between this concept and the concept as it appears in modern pragmatism. Further, the difference between traditional and dialectical logic is explained. Finally the religious philosophy of Troeltsch is used to illustrate the dual relationship to truth that was characteristic of the last period, and, in this way, a further clarification of the principles of dialectical thought is attempted.L’opposition du dogmatisme et du relativisme traverse la pensée des siècles derniers. Ce n’est pas dans la conscience collective seulement, mais aussi à l’intérieur des systèmes philosophiques qu’on retrouve juxtaposées et non reconciliées ces deux conceptions, ces deux attitudes opposées. D’un côté le doute poussé à son point extrême, la tendance à limiter la validité de toute affirmation, la critique pénétrante, de l’autre l’adhésion à une foi naïve et la soumission aveugle à des concepts portés à l’absolu ou à d’autres instances : ces démarches contradictoires caractérisent souvent la doctrine du même penseur. Il convient de chercher les origines sociales de ce phénomène dans le fait que, pour l’individu, le développement de ses capacités était lié à une insécurité permanente. Après un rapide exposé du système Kantien dans lequel cette double relation à la vérité s’exprime d’une manière particulièrement nette, l’article montre dans la dialectique de Hegel la tentative la plus grandiose pour surmonter cette opposition. La méthode dialectique reconnaît que tous les points de vue sont conditionnés, mais, en même temps, elle conserve chacun d’eux en le mettant à sa place dans le tout de la connaissance. Mais comme Hegel donne cette totalité à une certaine phase historique, à savoir sa propre philosophie, comme la vérité absolue, il retombe dans un nouveau dogmatisme. Du même coup le relativisme s’attache aussi à sa doctrine, car son point de vue qu’il tient pour suprahistorique, rabaisse également toutes les idées, tous les buts déterminés au niveau du relatif. L’article étudie ensuite les conséquences qui se produisent si l’on détache la dialectique de cette métaphysique de l’absolu, puis développe l’idée d’une pensée dialectique ouverte. Dans une telle pensée, la notion de confirmation (Bewährung) en tant que critérium de la vérité, joue un rôle important. Dans une discussion avec la théorie pragmatiste moderne de la connaissance, H. tâche d’élucider ce concept. A partir de là, il expose la différence entre la logique traditionnelle et la logique dialectique. A la fin H. illustre l’attitude contradictoire à l’égard de la vérité qui caractérise la dernière période de l’histoire, par exemple la philosophie de la religion de Troeltsch, et il confronte cette dernière avec la manière dialectique de penser. (shrink)

Abstract:Representations of the space of the village, the wilderness, and the overlapping edge of the forest between them often play a critical role in intercultural collisions between the “developing” world's spaces and pressures from the ‘developed’ world's activities within them. These collisions include land grabs and resource extraction, conversion of forest or wilderness to mechanized agriculture, uneven legal disputes over what constitutes ownership and use, and conservation efforts to reduce climate change or restore genetic biodiversity in forests. This study (...) illuminates how the physical and perceptual spaces of village, wilderness, and forest change, resist change, and are forced to change in three key domains: health (traditional medicine), food security (hunting, farming, and resource extraction in general), and use-ownership (as indigenous knowledge, occupancy, and access to land-use generally). Findings from the study disclose a need to include time (as the pace of change) whenever changed perceptions of space are proposed or occur. Recommendations include applying the criterion to strive always for the least disruptive (short-term) procedures for addressing a problem such that those outcomes achieve the most sustainable impacts over the long-term. (shrink)

In spite of the many efforts made to clarify von Neumann’s methodology of science, one crucial point seems to have been disregarded in recent literature: his closeness to Hilbert’s spirit. In this paper I shall claim that the scientific methodology adopted by von Neumann in his later foundational reflections originates in the attempt to revaluate Hilbert’s axiomatics in the light of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. Indeed, axiomatics continues to be pursued by the Hungarian mathematician in the spirit of Hilbert’s school. I (...) shall argue this point by examining four basic ideas embraced by von Neumann in his foundational considerations: a) the conservative attitude to assume in mathematics; b) the role that mathematics and the axiomatic approach have to play in all that is science; c) the notion of success as an alternative methodological criterion to follow in scientific research; d) the empirical and, at the same time, abstract nature of mathematical thought. Once these four basic ideas have been accepted, Hilbert’s spirit in von Neumann’s methodology of science will become clear. (shrink)

The paper "Does Epistemological Holism lead to Meaning – Holism" (Cozzo, 2002) touches one of the main problems of a molecularist theory of meaning: how to restrict the class of inferences connected with a word, in order to define the sense of the word. I will discuss the starting point of this approach, mainly the pre-theoretical criterion against meaning holism: meaning holism, following a well-known argument by Dummett, reduces communication to a mystery. However there is a strong background assumption (...) of this argument: communication is sharing the same meanings. Accepting this assumption without acknowledging it makes the entire proposal more problematic than it appears at first sight. In what follows I will try to clarify the possibility of a different reaction to meaning holism, putting forward some distinctions which come to light when the above stated assumption is made explicit. Then, some other comments will follow on the difficulty of avoiding extreme meaning holism, even within Cozzo's elegant attempt to implement a molecularist vision; in the end, his notion of the sense of a word will appear to be difficult to define, if these holistic aspects of language take the space they deserve even in his theory. I conclude with two remarks regarding two relevant requirements for a theory of meaning (conservativeness and harmony). (shrink)

The concept of sustainable development considers environmental, social and economic issues in general. And the goals of resource conservation and socio-economic development do not contradict each other, but contribute to mutual reinforcement. The purpose of this study is to build and test an economic and mathematical model for the formation of strategies for the behavior of an economic entity with an increase in the impact of negative environmental factors. The proposed strategies and their models are based on the income-expenditure (...) balance equation, which takes into account both quantitative and qualitative characteristics. The constructed models are considered in the state space. The research methodology is based on building models in the form of linear combinations of functions of a homogeneous external impact and various spatial combinations of economic sources (sinks). The study makes it possible to assess the dependence of the amount of resources used for life support on the chosen adaptive strategy. Within the framework of the proposed model, it was found that the criterion for the effectiveness of the applied strategy can be an indicator of satisfaction with the state, the preservation of which, simultaneously with the preservation of the size of resources used, corresponds to the direction of optimization. This approach is consistent with the concept of sustainable development. (shrink)

Concepts of stability and symmetry in irreversible thermodynamics are developed through the analysis of system energy flows. The excess power function, derived from a local energy conservation equation, is shown to yield necessary and sufficient stability criteria for linear and nonlinear irreversible processes. In the absence of symmetry-destroying external forces, the linear range may be characterized by a set of phenomenological coefficient symmetries relating coupled forces and displacements, velocities, and accelerations, whereas rotational phenomena in nonlinear processes may be characterized (...) by skew-symmetric components of the phenomenological coefficients. A physical interpretation of the nature of the skew-symmetric parts is given and the variational principle of minimum dissipation of energy is related to a stability criterion. (shrink)

In contrast to the readings that oppose a first 'revolutionary' Simone Weil to a second 'conservative' Simone Weil, this article supports the thesis of a profound continuity and coherence in Weil's political thought, parallel to the overall unity of her philosophy. Just as there is no opposition between her political thought of the early and the late 1930s, there is no opposition between her 'mystical' philosophy from the period in Marseille and her "political" philosophy from the period in London. However, (...) this does not abolish the distance that must be maintained between religion, mysticism and politics, because the "synthesis" of these levels is not historical-political, but eschatological. Ultimately, we show that Weilian thought supports both the dual necessity and the mutual insufficiency of mysticism and politics, which enables it to escape both totalitarian idolatry and the mysticism of a pure afterlife. If she ignores the opposition so common in modern thought between "Amor Dei" and "Amor Mundi", it is because she wishes to comply with the dual Platonic and Christian injunction to bring the Good down into necessity without confusing both, thus making political action the criterion of truth of political thought. (shrink)

In this retrospective for Ethics, I discuss H.M. Oliver’s “Established Expectations and American Economic Policies.” This article, by a then-modestly-famous economist, has been ignored (no citations) since its 1940 publication. Yet it bears directly on a normative problem at the intersection of ethics and economics that challenges today’s policymakers but has received comparatively little philosophical attention: how should we balance potentially desirable institutional change against the disruption of established expectations? -/- Oliver details how the principle of fulfilling established expectations cuts (...) across political lines. Conservatives, he observes, criticized inflation for disrupting expectations, and demanded the protection of established corporations. New Deal progressives achieved “the safeguarding of the economic positions of certain important sections of the American people” (104) via statutes designed to protect income and homeownership status. And labor leaders lobbied for the preservation of occupational status. Oliver criticizes these demands on two grounds. First, they are noncompossible: they can’t simultaneously be fulfilled. Second, they are economically inefficient. He concludes that “in a modern dynamic economy, the preservation of status is not and cannot be a feasible criterion of economic justice” (107). -/- I argue that Oliver accurately recognizes both the wide endorsement and the moral ill-foundedness of fulfilling expectations. However, I criticize Oliver’s belief in the noncompossibility of expectations. The established expectations of the wealthy, middle-class homeowners and retirees, and current workers can all be maintained, but at the price of constricting the opportunities of new graduates, immigrants, and the poor—all groups yet to develop settled expectations. This insight renders the protection of expectations not merely inefficient but also unjust. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ABORTION AS A SACRAMENT: MIMETIC DESIRE AND SACRIFICE IN SEXUAL POLITICS Bernadette Waterman Ward SUNY-Oswego "If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." That familiar taunt is mostly aimed at Roman Catholics to humiliate them for their purportedly religious and anti-rational opposition to abortion. It is conventional to sniffthat the "religious assumptions" on which disapproval of abortion is "typically based" are "highly questionable" (Chambers 1). But the cultural (...) theories of René Girard suggest that it is because men don't get pregnant that abortion already is a sacrament. The key elements of sacrificial religion, as Girard defines it, are the presence of intolerable tension that must lead to social disruption; the choice of a victim who cannot strike back to absorb the community's violence; and the concealment ofthe function ofthe sacrifice, which employs actual violence for the purpose of stabilizing institutional violence. Abortion in America is upheld not as medical or even political policy, but as, in fact, a religious sacrifice. Girard's definition ofreligion requires neither a moral code nor a divinity nor a metaphysical grounding. The cult of Dionysus, to name only one example, evidently endorsed nothing we would recognize as a general code of morality; Buddhism, a far more august example, does not focus on a divinity; animism proposes no universal metaphysics. As to sacraments, Bernadette Waterman Ward19 Thomas Aquinas, following St. Augustine, did not scruple to call nonChristian sacrifices sacraments oftheir religions, "Whether true or false."' Scapegoating defines religious sacrifice. It protects the sacrificing community and promotes its unity—so long as all believe that the scapegoat must suffer. Often the victim is called an enemy to some established order; sacrifice is always conservative, even if it upholds an inherently unstable system. Because powerlessness, not real disruptive power, is the criterion for becoming a scapegoat, sacrifice requires a strong shared illusion. Classical religions provide unopposable gods to choose the tragically necessary victims, allowing strong ambivalence to surround the sacrifice itself. Ifthis is not present, the death or banishment takes on a different character—more political than religious, though Girard notes a fundamental unity between those two methods ofcontrolling mimetic violence. Mimetic violence originates in illusion surrounding a rivalry. Often there is an object involved, such as territory or wealth or political rank, but the object, which seems important, is actually irrelevant. The rivalry can continue, seeking new objects, whatever concrete acquisitions either party makes or loses. General, aimless rivalry dominates a social world of fragile, undefined selves in which anyone can be a model for imitation, and therefore anyone can be a threat to one's sense ofself. What an imitator actually seeks is to have whatever is desirable; most desirable ofall, perhaps, is the ability to know what is desirable, a mysterious quality that is constantly attributed to others; Girard calls this quality "being." From the nursery we are each other's disciples, wanting each other's toys not because of their inherent virtue so much as because someone else has seen some virtue in them. As human desire has no real single object, it has no closure; envy and revenge threaten others in a widening net of destruction. In the classic scenario, the model whose "being" has become matter for imitation finds himself in competition for the object, and attacks the rival, who returns in kind. A disciple who can rally aspire to the model's status can become a dangerous, even a deadly rival; in imagination, and sometimes in reality, they turn each other intp monsters. Yet as the desire has no single object, neither has the rage: the violence can be easily transferred to another object than one's rival. Sometimes those who are uneasy about their status in relation to one another can cement a powerful unity by focusing blame on some common target: a scapegoat. The Orwellian scenario is in fact the normal scenario: individuals caught in the maelstrom of social instability 'Summa Theologiae, 3a.61.1 31. 20Abortion as a Sacrament seek to avoid victimization by diverting the violence into blame and destruction directed, first of all, against someone else—and, if possible, against someone who cannot strike back: a sacrifice. Not all sacrificial religious... (shrink)

Interval time-varying delay is common in control process, e.g., automatic robot control system, and its stability analysis is of great significance to ensure the reliable control of industrial processes. In order to improve the conservation of the existing robust stability analysis method, this paper considers a class of linear systems with norm-bounded uncertainty and interval time-varying delay as the research object. Less conservative robust stability criterion is put forward based on augmented Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional method and reciprocally convex combination. (...) Firstly, the delay interval is partitioned into multiple equidistant subintervals, and a new Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional comprising quadruple-integral term is introduced for each subinterval. Secondly, a novel delay-dependent stability criterion in terms of linear matrix inequalities is given by less conservative Wirtinger-based integral inequality approach. Three numerical comparative examples are given to verify the superiority of the proposed approach in reducing the conservation of conclusion. For the first example about closed-loop control systems with interval time-varying delays, the proposed robust stability criterion could get MADB about 0.3 more than the best results in the previous literature; and, for two other uncertain systems with interval time-varying delays, the MADB results obtained by the proposed method are better than those in the previous literature by about 0.045 and 0.054, respectively. All the example results obtained in this paper clearly show that our approach is better than other existing methods. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Acceptance of the Other as a Similarly Valid Path and Awareness of One's Self-Culpability:A Deepening Realization of My Religious Identity through DialogueKenneth K. TanakaAs the title of my paper indicates, two features of my identity have become more vivid as the result of my participation in the International Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter (IBCTE) sessions. The first of the two stemmed from my rude awakening that not everyone involved with our (...) sessions accepted the assumption that the other was a similarly valid soteriological path.In one of our sessions a few years back, the discussion moved to a topic of the nature of "ultimate path," which, as it turned out, began to raise some extremely sensitive issues. An unusually tense atmosphere hung over the discussion table, a rare turn of events for our usually jovial dialogue group composed mostly of liberal-minded members. One of the Christian members gave voice to her fundamental view that Jesus was the sole path through which one can be saved. It was clearly what anyone would regard as an exclusivist position. In asking for further clarification, she reiterated her view that her Christian faith necessitated that she took that position, and that I as a Buddhist was, therefore, not included in that soteriological scheme. I responded to her that I understood that I would not be in her scheme since I was not Christian, but would I nevertheless be saved? After some hesitation, in so many words, she replied that I would not be! Had she been a member of a more conservative group, it would have been easier to accept that kind of a response, but coming from an academic with liberal leanings, her comments caught me off guard. But on the other hand, I appreciated her honesty in being true to her understanding of the tradition, for it seemed to me that it was not an easy thing for her to say.This short encounter has been etched firmly in my mind and, ironically, remains for me the most memorable moment among all of the IBCTE sessions attended. I did not pursue the matter further at that time (aside from the fact that time had run [End Page 41] out for that particular session), since I was aware that such an exclusive position (as distinguished from those of inclusivism and pluralism) was common among Christians. I just happened to have encountered it in a rather unexpected circumstance and was not prepared with a comeback.This encounter forced me to inquire about my own position concerning the salvation of people other than Buddhists. Would I regard her as not being saved? After some probing and reflection on my part, I can say with little hesitation that I would never be able to say, "no, you are not." I have no basis on which to refute what her time-tested tradition promises. I am not in a position to negate the claims of her tradition or to question the sincerity of her commitment. From my Buddhist perspective there is no universal criterion on which to make judgments about others. My personal view on this issue has been similar to John Hick's pluralism position, but without his insistence that all paths reflect and lead to the same truth.Perhaps, my view reflects a prevailing, modern or postmodern understanding of Shinran (1173–1262), the founder of my tradition (Jodo-Shinshu), who is often portrayed as an extremely liberal thinker as seen in the following words attributed to him from the Tannisho (emphasis added):Now, whether you accept the Nembutsu, entrusting yourself to it, or reject it, that is your own decision.These rather well-known passages reinforce the image of Shinran, particularly in the Jodo-Shinshu community in the United States, as an accommodating and tolerant thinker.However, the picture is a little more complex, for I am also aware that Shinran held what I refer to as an "exceptionalist" view. Based largely on his historical belief that with the arrival of Mappo, the Last Period of the Dharma, there were no other teachings appropriate for the age of spiritual decadence. While he was tolerant of others, thereby allowing even his... (shrink)

In pre-Columbian times, the Zenu Indians established drainage systems in the wetlands of the Colombian Caribbean that enabled them to exploit this rich ecosystem in a sustained manner. Modern inhabitants of the region are, however, exposed to a regimen of periodic flooding that limits their productive activities. In addition, they are surrounded by large cattle ranches that occupy almost all the land and are responsible for the disappearance of forests that sustain the wild fauna. These peasants employ a classification system (...) for the fauna that favors the criterion of habitat over that of morphology to distinguish categories of animals. Secondary forest animals inspire carnival dances, folk tales, poetry, and songs, while insects and other invertebrates are barely represented in the oral tradition. Fishing provides the principal source of protein for many families, but there are no mechanisms to control the use of large nets that exhaust the resource. The capture of reptiles such as iguanas, turtles, and crocodilians is intensive and is not based on studies that determine the state of the populations and the impact of hunting activities. The author draws attention to the need to take into account local representations of animals in programs aimed at conserving the wetlands and their fauna. She discusses the popular nomenclature, knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding the fauna of a wetland region of the Colombian Caribbean to assist in the design of programs for the sustainable exploitation of the resources of this ecosystem, vital to the survival of local fishermen and peasants. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to philosophy and have not received professional training, but are engaged in professional ethics teaching university teachers teach to share my personal views of professional ethics. Basically, the professional ethics courses, each of us is being in the study. My idea is to敎good this course, we must first increase the individual's moral experience, and the introduction of the professional conduct of the consideration; Second, to strengthen their own for the professional in the most optimal (...) technology knowledge for professional societies code or the industry standard to be familiar with, discuss and reach a consensus, in addition, it should gradually increase their knowledge of the basic ethics. Among them, the benefits on to deontology, virtue theory by the obligation on the layers to turn into, should be more clearly identified, as well as any professional conduct, can be used to preserve, develop, free will, excellence and harmony criterion, training moral judgments, to implement in practice behavior. This is an essay on what university professors, not philosophically trained, should do when teaching professional ethics. Initially, they should employ ethical reflection toward their professional behavior. They should also familiarize themselves with optimal technical rules and professional ethical codes. Through these ethical values , they could then transform technical rules and codes of behavior into ethical rules. These rules could not be properly called ethical unless they brought these codes up to the level of ethical theory and ethical criteria. In this essay we will examine ethical theories such as utilitarianism , obligation ethics and virtue. We will then discuss five criteria derived from the theories: conservation, development, free will, excellence and harmony. In summation, we will refer them to concrete applications in professional ethics. (shrink)

Originally published in 1948, at the height of post–World War II optimism and confidence in collective security, _Ideas Have Consequences_ uses “words hard as cannonballs” to present an unsparing diagnosis of the ills of the modern age. Widely read and debated at the time of its first publication,the book is now seen asone of the foundational texts of the modern conservative movement. In its pages, Richard M. Weaver argues that the decline of Western civilization resulted from the rising acceptance of (...) relativism over absolute reality. In spite of increased knowledge, this retreat from the realist intellectual tradition has weakened the Western capacity to reason, with catastrophic consequences for social order and individual rights. But Weaver also offers a realistic remedy. These difficulties are the product not of necessity, but of intelligent choice. And, today, as decades ago, the remedy lies in the renewed acceptance of absolute reality and the recognition that ideas—like actions—have consequences. This expanded edition of the classic work contains a foreword by _New Criterion _editor Roger Kimball that offers insight into the rich intellectual and historical contexts of Weaver and his work and an afterword by Ted J. Smith III that relates the remarkable story of the book’s writing and publication. (shrink)

This article examines the place of tragic poetry within the early history and development of ancient literary criticism. It concentrates on Euripides, both because his works contain many more literary-critical reflections than those of the other tragedians and because he has been thought to possess an unusually 'critical' outlook. Euripidean characters and choruses talk about such matters as poetic skill and inspiration, the social function of poetry, contexts for performance, literary and rhetorical culture, and novelty as an implied criterion (...) for judging literary excellence. It is argued that the implied view of literature which emerges from Euripidean tragedy is both coherent and conventional. As a critic, Euripides, far from being a radical or aggressively modern figure (as he is often portrayed), is in fact distinctly conservative, looking back in every respect to the earlier Greek poetic tradition. (shrink)

This paper discusses the stability of semi-Markovian jump networked control system containing time-varying delay and actuator faults. The system dynamic is optimized while the network resource is saved by introducing an improved static event-triggered mechanism. For deriving a less conservative stability criterion, the Bessel–Legendre inequalities approach is employed to the stability analysis and plays a major role. By constructing the enhanced Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional relevant to the Legendre polynomials, a stability criterion with lower conservativeness indexed by N is derived, (...) and the conservativeness will decrease as N increases. In addition, a controller is designed. To prove the validity of this paper, numerical examples are provided at the last. (shrink)

The capability approach assigns a central role to the contexts within which social interactions take place, which make individual liberty achievable. However, an auxiliary concept is necessary to explain the contexts of collective action more accurately. In this paper I shall present Taylor’s concept of irreducibly social goods as a supplement to the capability approach. I shall also introduce the concept of hermeneutics as a strategy suitable for evaluating which capabilities are to be considered valid, as an alternative to aggregative (...) methodologies. This conceptual development at the core of the capability approach demands to be framed by a normative criterion that enables us to distinguish between emancipatory and conservative contexts of social action; for that purpose I make use of the subject idealization that Honneth and Anderson present. (shrink)

The performance of a connectionist learning system on a simple problem has been described by Hinton and is briefly reviewed here: a finite set is learned from a finite collection of finite sets, and the system generalizes correctly from partial information by finding simple "features" of the environment. For comparison, a very similar problem is formulated in the Gold paradigm of discrete learning functions. To get generalization similar to the connectionist system, a non-conservative learning strategy is required. We define a (...) simple, non-conservative strategy that generalizes like the connectionist system, finding simple "features" of the environment. By placing an arbitrary finite bound on the number and complexity of the features to be found, learning can be guaranteed relative to a probabilistic criterion of success. However, this approach to induction has essentially the same problems as many others that have failed. (shrink)

The idea of enlightenment entails liberty, equality, rationalism, secularism, and the connection between knowledge and human well being. In spite of the setbacks of revolutionary violence, political mass murder, and two world wars, the spread of enlightenment values has become the yardstick by which moral, political, and even scientific advances are measured. Indeed, most critiques of the enlightenment ideal point to failure in implementation rather than principle. By contrast, David Stove, in On Enlightenment, attacks the intellectual roots of enlightenment thought, (...) to define the limitations of its successes and the areas of its likely failures. Stove is not insensitive to the many valuable aspects of enlightenment thought. He champions the use of reason and rationality, and recognizes the falsity of religious claims as well as the importance of individual liberty. What he rejects is the enlightenment's uncritical optimism regarding social progress and its willingness to embrace revolutionary change. What evidence is there that the elimination of superstition will lead to happiness? Or that it is possible to accept Darwinism without Social Darwinism? Or that the enlightenment's liberal, rationalistic outlook will ever lead to the kind of social progress envisioned by its advocates. Despite their best intentions, social reformers who attempt to improve the world as a whole inevitably make things worse. He advocates a conservative "go slow" approach to change, pointing out that today's social structures are so large and complex that any widespread social reform will have innumerable unforeseen consequences. For example, the welfare state may diminish individual initiative, the use of pesticides may increase the food supply while polluting the water supply, the popularizing of university education may lead to a decline in academic standards. Since government has a virtual monopoly on large-scale change, it follows, in Stove's view, that its powers must be limited in order to prevent large-scale damage. Instead, he argues that reforms, when they are to be made at all, must be realistic, local, necessary and never coercive. Writing in the conservative tradition of Edmund Burke with the same passion for clarity and intellectual honesty as George Orwell, David Stove was one of the most precise, articulate, and insightful philosophers of his day. "Never just an academic, Stove was also a prominent, often crotchety, public intellectual of a conservative and, all too often, reactionary bent, many of whose views were extremist on any account, and his targets were many.... For Stove the important question about a belief is not whether it is extreme or mainstream, but whether it is true, or probable, or has sound evidentiary and/or rational credentials. In this he was surely right." -D. D. Todd, Philosophy in Review David Stove taught philosophy at the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney. He is the author of Against the Idols of the Age and Scientific Irrationalism, both available from Transaction. Andrew Irvine is professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Roger Kimball is managing editor of the New Criterion. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the consideration of the relationship of T. Kuhn (and his followers) with representatives of the school of internal realism. Theses of the article: Kuhn’s teaching does not contain an unambiguous understanding of the basis on which ideas within the paradigm are acceptable to a scientist; post-Kuhn discussions in the field of epistemology of scientific knowledge acquire not historical, but “human” character; they are conducted around the concept of “rational acceptability”; theoretical positions as epistemological anarchism, similarly, (...) internalism can equally be deduced from Kuhn’s teaching; the essentialist program of internal realists is excessively focused on criticizing the relativistic consequences of the doctrine of the paradigm; the revealed contradictions of Kuhn’s relativistic and internalist receptions prompt rejection of both these receptions. It is shown that Kuhn’s theory initially disposes to its transformation into a more consistent one in two ways: either due to radical antirealism, or due to an internalist approach, when its own epistemology is built within the framework of the paradigm with a mandatory definition of what is considered real and objective. Rational acceptability regulates the “value” aspect, i.e. preference for a certain theoretical model. Conclusions of the study: in internalism, the idea of the intersubjective nature of scientific knowledge is not lost; rational acceptability in internalism plays a restraining role in relation to the individual wills of scientists, acting as a collective form of intentionality that precedes any private scientific research with epistemological prerequisites; the criterion of rational acceptability is conservative, since it allows us to restrain the tendency of any language to lock itself in its own context; rational acceptability in internalism successfully balances between dogmatism and skepticism; the realistic and rational nature of the concept of “acceptability” allows us to reject the relativistic thesis about the closeness of science within a particular paradigm and assume that there is always “not-paradigmatic” component, rooted in the philosophical understanding of science. (shrink)

This article is a critical review of Stephen Schiffer’s monograph The Things We Mean . The text discusses some novel contributions made by Schiffer to the philosophy of meaning, in particular, Schiffer’s proposal for the reification of certain abstract entities and the application of his argument to the philosophical problem of vagueness in natural language. Special attention is paid both to Schiffer’s ingenious use of the notion of conservative extension , here employed as a criterion for distinguishing legitimate from (...) illegitimate reifications and to Schiffer’s notion of vague partial belief and its relation to standard partial belief. Schiffer’s particular understanding of vagueness and its relation to the sorites paradox is also considered, with some remarks made concerning the relationship between these related philosophical problems and human perception. Key Words: meaning • vagueness • sorites • perception • conservative extension • fictional entities. (shrink)