We show that the intersection of the class of 2-REA degrees with that of the ω-r.e. degrees consists precisely of the class of d.r.e. degrees. We also include some applications and show that there is no natural generalization of this result to higher levels of the REA hierarchy.

LetA be any nonrecursive set. We define a hierarchy of sets (and a corresponding hierarchy of degrees) that are reducible toA based on bounding the number of queries toA that an oracle machine can make. WhenA is the halting problemK our hierarchy of sets interleaves with the difference hierarchy on the r.e. sets in a logarithmic way; this follows from a tradeoff between the number of parallel queries and the number of serial queries needed to (...) compute a function with oracleK. (shrink)

We examine the effective categoricity of equivalence structures via Ershov's difference hierarchy. We explore various kinds of categoricity available by distinguishing three different notions of isomorphism available in this hierarchy. We prove several results relating our notions of categoricity to computable equivalence relations: for example, we show that, for such relations, computable categoricity is equivalent to our notion of weak ω-c.e. categoricity, and that $\Delta _2^0 $ -categoricity is equivalent to our notion of graph-ω-c.e. categoricity.

We study the jump hierarchy of d.c.e. Turing degrees and show that there exists a high d.c.e. degree d which does not bound any minimal pair of d.c.e. degrees.

We prove that for any computably enumerable degree c, if it is cappable in the computably enumerable degrees, then there is a d.c.e. degree d such that c d = 0′ and c ∩ d = 0. Consequently, a computably enumerable degree is cappable if and only if it can be complemented by a nonzero d.c.e. degree. This gives a new characterization of the cappable degrees.

People have three cognitive representations of the self, namely, the individual, relational, and collective selves, which are indispensable components of selfhood but not necessarily given equal preference. Previous studies found that people displayed varied self-hierarchy in miscellaneous tasks involving different research materials that had pre-existing learned associations established over long periods of time. Therefore, this study tries to explore a purer self-hierarchy without the influence of research materials, using perceptual matching tasks. The behavioral and event-related potentials’ findings showed (...) that people recognized information association with their individual self faster compared with their relational and CS. Smaller N2, stronger P3 and late positive complex amplitudes were evoked during IS compared with RS and CS. However, the three selves evoked equal P2 amplitudes at the early processing stage. Moreover, CS showed a weaker advantage than RS, demonstrating a longer reaction time, lower d prime, and weaker P3 and LPC amplitudes in the parietal region. Overall, self-hierarchy during simple perceptual processing manifested as IS > RS > CS at the late processing stage but manifested as IS = RS = CS at the early processing stage. Self-hierarchy varies according to the processing stage, even without meaningful information and during the simple perception processing. This result provides direct evidence that all selves can be tagged with neutral actions, which would fit the idea of an organism attuned to self-survival at multiple processing levels. (shrink)

Information and communication technology has a great impact on contemporary society and people’s lives. Especially with the pervasive access to rapidly developing technology, the impact of ICT on society and human values, the norms of ICT use, and the ethical issues derived from them are beyond the past ethical framework and deserve more research attention. The purpose of this study was to explore the key factors that influence the decision-making behaviors of information professionals when they are faced with information ethics (...) issues. The study adopted the analytic hierarchical process method to develop the evaluation framework and criteria for information professional ethics and employed the professional fields of library and information science and information technology as examples to compare whether information professionals in different fields make different judgments on the aforementioned decision-making criteria. The results of the study validated the professional information ethics hierarchy and criteria and contributed to the field of information ethics research by providing information on the aspects that need attention in the cultivation of professionals in different fields. (shrink)

We show that the structure R of recursively enumerable degrees is not a Σ₁-elementary substructure of Dn, where Dn (n > 1) is the structure of n-r.e. degrees in the Ershov hierarchy.

Attempts to extend the classical Hausdorff difference hierarchy to the case of partitions of a space to k > 2 subsets lead to non‐equivalent notions. In a hope to identify the “right” extension we consider the extensions appeared in the literature so far: the limit‐, level‐, Boolean and Wadge hierarchies of k ‐partitions. The advantages and disadvantages of the four hierarchies are discussed. The main technical contribution of this paper is a complete characterization of the Wadge degrees of (...) Δ02‐measurable k ‐partitions of the Baire space. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim). (shrink)

In spite of feminist recognition that hierarchical organizations are an important location of male dominance, most feminists writing about organizations assume that organizational structure is gender neutral. This article argues that organizational structure is not gender neutral; on the contrary, assumptions about gender underlie the documents and contracts used to construct organizations and to provide the commonsense ground for theorizing about them. Their gendered nature is partly masked through obscuring the embodied nature of work.jobs and hierarchies, common concepts in organizational (...) thinking, assume a disembodies and universal worker. This worker is actually a man; men's bodies, sexuality, and relationships to procreation and paid work are subsumed in the image of the worker. Images of men's bodies and masculinity pervade organizational processes, marginalizing women and contributing to the maintenance of gender segregation in organizations. The positing of gender-neutral and disembodied organizational structures and work relations is part of the larger strategy of control in industrial capitalist societies, which, at least partly, are built upon a deeply embedded substructure of gender difference. (shrink)

We establish some results on the Borel and difference hierarchies in φ-spaces. Such spaces are the topological counterpart of the algebraic directed-complete partial orderings. E.g., we prove analogs of the Hausdorff Theorem relating the difference and Borel hierarchies and of the Lavrentyev Theorem on the non-collapse of the difference hierarchy. Some of our results generalize results of A. Tang for the space Pω. We also sketch some older applications of these hierarchies and present a new application (...) to the question of characterizing the ω-ary Boolean operations generating a given level of the Wadge hierarchy from the open sets. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Contemporary evolutionary biology comprises a plural landscape of multiple co-existent conceptual frameworks and strenuous voices that disagree on the nature and scope of evolutionary theory. Since the mid-eighties, some of these conceptual frameworks have denounced the ontologies of the Modern Synthesis and of the updated Standard Theory of Evolution as unfinished or even flawed. In this paper, we analyze and compare two of those conceptual frameworks, namely Niles Eldredge’s Hierarchy Theory of Evolution (with its extended ontology of evolutionary entities) (...) and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (with its proposal of an extended ontology of evolutionary processes), in an attempt to map some epistemic bridges (e.g. compatible views of causation; niche construction) and some conceptual rifts (e.g. extra-genetic inheritance; different perspectives on macroevolution; contrasting standpoints held in the “externalism–internalism” debate) that exist between them. This paper seeks to encourage theoretical, philosophical and historiographical discussions about pluralism or the possible unification of contemporary evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This study examines the ethical values of respondents by level in the organizational hierarchy of a single firm. It also explores the possible impacts of gender, education and years of experience on respondents' values as well as their perceptions of how the organization and professional associations influence their personal values. Results showed that, although there were differences in individuals' ethical values by hierarchical level, significantly more differences were observed by the length of tenure with the organization. While respondents, as (...) a whole, were rather ambivalent in their perception of the organization's and professional associations' influence on their values, sales/service persons frequently felt pressured to modify their values in order to achieve company goals. (shrink)

Applied Evolutionary Epistemology is a scientific-philosophical theory that defines evolution as the set of phenomena whereby units evolve at levels of ontological hierarchies by mechanisms and processes. This theory also provides a methodology to study evolution, namely, studying evolution involves identifying the units that evolve, the levels at which they evolve, and the mechanisms and processes whereby they evolve. Identifying units and levels of evolution in turn requires the development of ontological hierarchy theories, and examining mechanisms and processes necessitates (...) theorizing about causality. Together, hierarchy and causality theories explain how biorealities form and diversify with time. This paper analyzes how Applied EE redefines both hierarchy and causality theories in the light of the recent explosion of network approaches to causal reasoning associated with studies on reticulate and macroevolution. Causality theories have often been framed from within a rigid, ladder-like hierarchy theory where the rungs of the ladder represent the different levels, and the elements on the rungs represent the evolving units. Causality then is either defined reductionistically as an upward movement along the strands of a singular hierarchy, or holistically as a downward movement along that same hierarchy. Upward causation theories thereby analyze causal processes in time, i.e. over the course of natural history or phylogenetically, as Darwin and the founders of the Modern Synthesis intended. Downward causation theories analyze causal processes in space, ontogenetically or ecologically, as the current eco-evo-devo schools are evidencing. This work demonstrates how macroevolution and reticulate evolution theories add to the complexity by examining reticulate causal processes in space–time, and the interactional hierarchies that such studies bring forth introduce a new form of causation that is here called reticulate causation. Reticulate causation occurs between units and levels belonging to different as well as to the same ontological hierarchies. This article concludes that beyond recognizing the existence of multiple units, levels, and mechanisms or processes of evolution, also the existence of multiple kinds of evolutionary causation as well as the existence of multiple evolutionary hierarchies needs to be acknowledged. This furthermore implies that evolution is a pluralistic process divisible into different kinds. (shrink)

Although finance is ubiquitous in modern life, its ontological foundation is rarely discussed. This essay considers some key characteristics of finance from a social ontological perspective. It initially argues that money requires some sort of representation, and that financial institutions rely on various forms of cognition as well as documents anchoring representations. From that standpoint, one of the crucial aspects of finance is that it provides reference points through the process of quantification. These reference points are numerical representations that allow (...) people to make comparisons. Comparing numbers inevitably creates different hierarchies. However, a specific hierarchy can become outdated or less significant. In such situations, a heterarchy can be created outside the hierarchy. This essay illustrates the appearance of heterarchy in the recent shift toward impact finance, in which financial hierarchies encompass heterarchical systems that are finally replaced by quantifiable hierarchical metrics. With this example, the present research demonstrates that finance tends to convert heterarchical systems into hierarchical ones by quantification through monetary units. (shrink)

The notion of “hierarchy” is one of the most commonly posited organizational principles in systems neuroscience. To this date, however, it has received little philosophical analysis. This is unfortunate, because the general concept of hierarchy ranges over two approaches with distinct empirical commitments, and whose conceptual relations remain unclear. We call the first approach the “representational hierarchy” view, which posits that an anatomical hierarchy of feed-forward, feed-back, and lateral connections underlies a signal processing hierarchy of (...) input-output relations. Because the representational hierarchy view holds that unimodal sensory representations are subsequently elaborated into more categorical and rule-based ones, it is committed to an increasing degree of abstraction along the hierarchy. The second view, which we call “topological hierarchy", is not committed to different representational functions or degrees of abstraction at different levels. Topological approaches instead posit that the hierarchical level of a part of the brain depends on how central it is to the pattern of connections in the system. Based on the current evidence, we argue that three conceptual relations between the two approaches are possible: topological hierarchies could substantiate the traditional representational hierarchy, conflict with it, or contribute to a plurality of approaches needed to understand the organization of the brain. By articulating each of these possibilities, our analysis attempts to open a conceptual space in which further neuroscientific and philosophical reasoning about neural hierarchy can proceed. (shrink)

The ubiquity of top-down causal explanations within and across the sciences is prima facie evidence for the existence of top-down causation. Much debate has been focused on whether top-down causation is coherent or in conflict with reductionism. Less attention has been given to the question of whether these representations of hierarchical relations pick out a single, common hierarchy. A negative answer to this question undermines a commonplace view that the world is divided into stratified ‘levels’ of organization and suggests (...) that attributions of causal responsibility in different hierarchical representations may not have a meaningful basis for comparison. Representations used in top-down and bottom-up explanations are primarily ‘local’ and tied to distinct domains of science, illustrated here by protein structure and folding. This locality suggests that no single metaphysical account of hierarchy for causal relations to obtain within emerges from the epistemology of scientific explanation. Instead, a pluralist perspective is recommended—many different kinds of top-down causation (explanation) can exist alongside many different kinds of bottom-up causation (explanation). Pluralism makes plausible why different senses of top-down causation can be coherent and not in conflict with reductionism, thereby illustrating a productive interface between philosophical analysis and scientific inquiry. (shrink)

A trenchant defense of hierarchy in different spheres of our lives, from the personal to the political All complex and large-scale societies are organized along certain hierarchies, but the concept of hierarchy has become almost taboo in the modern world. Just Hierarchy contends that this stigma is a mistake. In fact, as Daniel Bell and Wang Pei show, it is neither possible nor advisable to do away with social hierarchies. Drawing their arguments from Chinese thought and culture (...) as well as other philosophies and traditions, Bell and Wang ask which forms of hierarchy are justified and how these can serve morally desirable goals. They look at ways of promoting just forms of hierarchy while minimizing the influence of unjust ones, such as those based on race, sex, or caste. Which hierarchical relations are morally justified and why? Bell and Wang argue that it depends on the nature of the social relation and context. Different hierarchical principles ought to govern different kinds of social relations: what justifies hierarchy among intimates is different from what justifies hierarchy among citizens, countries, humans and animals, and humans and intelligent machines. Morally justified hierarchies can and should govern different spheres of our social lives, though these will be very different from the unjust hierarchies that have governed us in the past. A vigorous, systematic defense of hierarchy in the modern world, Just Hierarchy examines how hierarchical social relations can have a useful purpose, not only in personal domains but also in larger political realms. (shrink)

This paper seeks to resolve a fairly simple question in ethics: Why do seemingly reasonable people disagree about ethical problems? My paper seeks both to analyze this question and attempts to find a solution. My premise is that disagreement happens because of differences in hierarchical value ranking, or quite simply because some problems are more important to some people than others. Theories of choice, however, influenced by concepts such as "freedom of choice," conceal the hierarchical nature of our choices, leading (...) to confusion over the nature and degree of our ethical disagreements. I propose then that ethical disagreements can be reduced when we understand hierarchy as an essential element in moral choice theory. (shrink)

Category-specific impairments of object recognition and naming are among the most intriguing disorders in neuropsychology, affecting the retrieval of knowledge about either living or nonliving things. They can give us insight into the nature of our representations of objects: Have we evolved different neural systems for recognizing different categories of object? What kinds of knowledge are important for recognizing particular objects? How does visual similarity within a category influence object recognition and representation? What is the nature of our semantic knowledge (...) about different objects? We review the evidence on category-specific impairments, arguing that deficits even for one class of object cannot be accounted for in terms of a single information processing disorder across all patients; problems arise at contrasting loci in different patients. The same apparent pattern of impairment can be produced by damage to different loci. According to a new processing framework for object recognition and naming, the hierarchical interactive theory, we have a hierarchy of highly interactive stored representations. HIT explains the variety of patients in terms of lesions at different levels of processing and different forms of stored knowledge used both for particular tasks and for particular categories of object. Key Words: category-specific deficits; functional imaging; hierarchical models; interactive activation models; neuropsychology; object recognition; perceptual and functional knowledge. (shrink)

A trenchant defense of hierarchy in different spheres of our lives, from the personal to the political All complex and large-scale societies are organized along certain hierarchies, but the concept of hierarchy has become almost taboo in the modern world. Just Hierarchy contends that this stigma is a mistake. In fact, as Daniel Bell and Wang Pei show, it is neither possible nor advisable to do away with social hierarchies. Drawing their arguments from Chinese thought and culture (...) as well as other philosophies and traditions, Bell and Wang ask which forms of hierarchy are justified and how these can serve morally desirable goals. They look at ways of promoting just forms of hierarchy while minimizing the influence of unjust ones, such as those based on race, sex, or caste. Which hierarchical relations are morally justified and why? Bell and Wang argue that it depends on the nature of the social relation and context. Different hierarchical principles ought to govern different kinds of social relations: what justifies hierarchy among intimates is different from what justifies hierarchy among citizens, countries, humans and animals, and humans and intelligent machines. Morally justified hierarchies can and should govern different spheres of our social lives, though these will be very different from the unjust hierarchies that have governed us in the past. A vigorous, systematic defense of hierarchy in the modern world, Just Hierarchy examines how hierarchical social relations can have a useful purpose, not only in personal domains but also in larger political realms. (shrink)

We introduce and study hierarchies of extensions of the propositional modal and temporal languages with pairs of new syntactic devices: point of reference-reference pointer which enable semantic references to be made within a formula. We propose three different but equivalent semantics for the extended languages, discuss and compare their expressiveness. The languages with reference pointers are shown to have great expressive power (especially when their frugal syntax is taken into account), perspicuous semantics, and simple deductive systems. For instance, Kamp's and (...) Stavi's temporal operators, as well as nominals (names, clock variables), are definable in them. Universal validity in these languages is proved undecidable. The basic modal and temporal logics with reference pointers are uniformly axiomatized and a strong completeness theorem is proved for them and extended to some classes of their extensions. (shrink)

Social workers frequently encounter ethical dilemmas in their daily practice. This paper examines the utility of hierarchies of ethical principles as tools for ethical decision making. Because of limited research on this topic, the degree of agreement on ordering of ethical principles is unknown. This paper presents illustrative data that suggest variability in individual hierarchies and priorities, which may depend on the circumstances of a situation. Recommendations for using hierarchies of ethical principles in social work education and practice are discussed (...) and a detailed example of how different hierarchies may lead to making different decisions is provided. (shrink)

We classify ultrafilters on ω with respect to sequential contours (see [4].[5]) of different ranks. In this way we obtain an ω1 sequence {Pα}1≤α≤ω1 of disjoint classes. We prove that non-emptiness of Pα for successor α ≥ 2 is equivalent to the existence of P-point. We investigate relations between P-hierarchy and ordinal ultrafilters (introduced by J. E. Baumgartner in [1]), we prove that it is relatively consistent with ZFC that the successor classes (for α ≥ 2) of P-hierarchy (...) and ordinal ultrafilters intersect but are not the same. (shrink)

We examine some assumptions about the nature of 'levels of reality' in the light of examples drawn from physics. Three central assumptions of the standard view of such levels (for instance, Oppenheim and Putnam 1958) are (i) that levels are populated by entities of varying complexity, (ii) that there is a unique hierarchy of levels, ranging from the very small to the very large, and (iii) that the inhabitants of adjacent levels are related by the parthood relation. Using examples (...) from physics, we argue that it is more natural to view the inhabitants of levels as the behaviors of entities, rather than entities themselves. This suggests an account of reduction between levels, according to which one behavior reduces to another if the two are related by an appropriate limit relation. By considering cases where such inter-level reduction fails, we show that the hierarchy of behaviors differs in several respects from the standard hierarchy of entities. In particular, while on the standard view, lower-level entities are 'micro' parts of higher-level entities, on our view, a system's macro-level behavior can be seen as a ('non-spatial') part of its micro-level behavior. We argue that this second hierarchy is not really in conflict with the standard view and that it better suits examples of explanation in science. (shrink)

The topological arithmetical hierarchy is the effective version of the Borel hierarchy. Its class Δta 2 is just large enough to include several types of pointsets in Euclidean spaces ℝ k which are fundamental in computable analysis. As a crossbreed of Hausdorff's difference hierarchy in the Borel class ΔB 2 and Ershov's hierarchy in the class Δ0 2 of the arithmetical hierarchy, the Hausdorff-Ershov hierarchy introduced in this paper gives a powerful classification within (...) Δta 2. This is based on suitable characterizations of the sets from Δta 2 which are obtained in a close analogy to those of the ΔB 2 sets as well as those of the Δ0 2 sets. A helpful tool in dealing with resolvable sets is contributed by the technique of depth analysis. On this basis, the hierarchy properties, in particular the strict inclusions between classes of different levels, can be shown by direct constructions of witness sets. The Hausdorff-Ershov hierarchy runs properly over all constructive ordinals, in contrast to Ershov's hierarchy whose denotation-independent version collapses at level ω 2. Also, some new characterizations of concepts of decidability for pointsets in Euclidean spaces are presented. (shrink)

The human history has evidenced various systems of hierarchy and power, various manifestations of power and hierarchy relations in different spheres of social life from politics to information networks, from culture to sexual life. A careful study of each particular case of such relations is very important, es-pecially within the context of contemporary multipolar and multicultural world. In the meantime it is very important to see both the general features typical for all or most of the hierarchy (...) and power forms, and their variation. This set of issues has been treated by a series of international conferences titled ‘Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations’ held in 2000–2006. Most articles of this volume were originally presented at the 4th conference of this series (Moscow, 2006). Needless to mention that all those presentations have been substantially re-worked for the publication in this volume. The relations of hierarchy and power are relevant for all the spheres as they penetrate the whole of social life, establishing a sort of framework for the human agency. Cultural sphere is not an exclusion, although reflection of power relations in culture has its specific traits. First, within the cultural sphere power relations are usually informal, as they are more connected to traditions than to norms. Second, in cultural sphere there are less power institutions which have legal right to the coercion. (shrink)

The human history has evidenced a great number of systems of hierarchy and power, various manifestations of power and hierarchy relations in different spheres of social life from politics to information networks, from culture to sexual life. A careful study of each particular case of such relations is very im-portant, especially within the context of contemporary multipolar and multicultural world. In the meantime it is very important to see both the general features, typical for all or most of (...) the hierarchy and power forms, and their variation. This set of issues has been treated by a series of international conferences titled ‘Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations’ held in 2000–2006. Most articles of this volume were originally presented at the 4th conference of this series (Moscow, 2006). Needless to mention that all those presentations have been substantially re-worked for the publication in this volume. Notwithstanding the fact that the relations of hierarchy and power are rele-vant for all the spheres as they penetrate the whole of social life, establishing a sort of framework for the human agency, they are naturally most visible in the political sphere. They existed long before the formation of the earliest states – ethologists maintain that complex systems of hierarchy and power can be found among many highly organized animals. Yet, this was with the formation of the state and civilization when the power and hierarchy relations acquired their mature forms. Although ancient and medieval systems of government and domination always attract special attention, contemporary systems are much closer for every scholar. At the same time relations of power and hierarchy in the modern political world system demonstrate a great number of variants, levels and dimensions. In the present edited volume we only focus on three aspects of this important subject. These are revolutionary transformations (in the broad sense of this notion), violence, and globalization. Each volume section is devoted to one of those themes. (shrink)

The paper examines the book Martin Buber’s Theopolitics and analyzes the conflict between the hierarchy in nature and in human society. Buber qualifies our relations to nature and to other non-living objects as darker than human relations. This creates an imbalance between the human You and the other type of You. This reflection allows us to think about the meaning of the principle of humanity in relation to personhood, and in relation to different forms of communities (natural, or inorganic (...) communities). It is an important question in the light of “conflicts” and tensions created by the environmental crisis we are facing today. The paper explains how to use the word “conflict” in this context and whether it is justified. (shrink)

The application of evolutionary perspectives to analyzing sex differences in aggressive behavior and dominance hierarchies has been found useful in multiple areas. We draw attention to the parallel of gender differences in the worsening health status of restructuring societies. Drastic socio-economic changes are interpreted as examples of hierarchy disruption, having differential psychological and behavioral impact on women and men, and leading to different changes in health status.

We consider fine hierarchies in recursion theory, descriptive set theory, logic and complexity theory. The main results state that the sets of values of different Boolean terms coincide with the levels of suitable fine hierarchies. This gives new short descriptions of these hierarchies and shows that collections of sets of values of Boolean terms are almost well ordered by inclusion. For the sake of completeness we mention also some earlier results demonstrating the usefulness of fine hierarchies.

The requirement of naturalness has long served as an influential constraint on model-building in theoretical particle physics. Yet there are many ways of understanding what, precisely, this requirement amounts to, from restrictions on the amount of fine-tuning that a model can exhibit, to prohibitions on sensitive dependence between physics at different scales, to the requirement that dimensionless parameters defining the Lagrangian of a theory all be of order one unless they are protected by a symmetry. This workshop aims to clarify (...) the relationships among these concepts of naturalness and their connection to the hierarchy problem, as well as to assess arguments for and against imposing various forms of naturalness as a requirement on particle physics model-building. (shrink)

Some philosophers of fiction – most famously Jerold Levinson1 - have tried to argue that fictional narrators can never be identified with real authors. This argument relies on the claim that narration involves genuine assertion (not just the pretense of assertion that lacks truthfulness) and that real authors are not in a position to assert anything about beings on the fictional plain - given that they don’t rationally believe in their existence. This debate on the status of narrators depends on (...) the idea that fictional beings and beings in the real worlds reside, as it were, at different levels. The assumption that there is a gap separating the levels of fiction and reality serves as a rationale for the claim that real authors could not possibly be en rapport with the fictional characters that they create (e.g. entertain beliefs about them, etc.). (shrink)

This book begins with the question 'Who am I?' and immediately sets off in an astonishingly original direction. Why didn't anyone before Harding think of responding to this question like this? It's so obvious, once you see it. Harding presents a new vision of our place in the universe that uses the scientific method of looking to see what is true. It turns out that the truth about ourselves is not only true but also very good, and breathtakingly beautiful. We (...) live in a sacred, many-layered, living universe - or rather it lives in us. Though it was completed in 1950, this book is still ahead of its time. One day it will surely be widely recognised for its greatness: its all-encompassing vision, its originality and freshness, its depth of insight, its wide-ranging knowledge, the clarity and poetry of its language, its humanity. It is a world-view not dependent on local culture or religion, but on universally verifiable facts. It is also a world-view that respects our manifest differences whilst celebrating our underlying unity - the unity not just of oneself with other people but with all of life, indeed with the whole universe. Harding died in 2007 aged 97, leaving behind him an impressive body of work. He was a highly creative person who was passionate about - he was in love with - this living universe and the immortal treasure that abides at its centre - at our centre. "A work of the highest genius." C. S. Lewis. (shrink)

Western liberal societies are described by a mix of two contrasting ethical presuppositions, that which commences from a perspective that views persons as natural equals and that which commences from a perspective that classifies persons hierarchically. Differences in this mix among separate polities may create difficulties as principles of justice are extended across national boundaries in response to continuing globalization.

Purpose : The purpose of this paper is to bring the concept of a 'hierarchy of action', as it is currently being used in other fields, into library and information science . Design/methodology/approach Hierarchy theory is adopted to describe three hierarchies of action, which include the human processes of semantic and social innovation, as well as a system of biological interpretence, from which human processes are thought to have evolved as a development of biosemiosis in nature. By way (...) of example, it is argued that a text is a complex achievement, and hierarchy theory shows how to account for this complexity; the everyday definition of text is augmented with accounts from different levels of observation. Findings: The concept of a hierarchy of action enables a person to account for a text as a meaning/symbolic product; include in that account the processes whereby texts are produced and used; and say why these processes are important to the health of the biosphere that is called home. Originality/value Hierarchy of action has been developed as a concept in biology and ecology; it belongs to a way of thinking whereby human reality, like nature, is construed as dynamical processes operating in symbiotic relationship with each other; it has not yet been adopted in LIS with reference to hierarchy theory and its potential is yet to be explored. Keywords Hierarchy theory, Complexity theory, Process philosophy, Natural philosophy, Hierarchies of action, Complex systems, Libraries, Information science Paper type Conceptual paper. (shrink)

The purpose of this work is to elaborate an empirically grounded mathematical model of the magnitude of consequences component of “moral intensity” (Jones, Academy of Management Review 16 (2),366, 1991) that can be used to evaluate different ethical situations. The model is built using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) (Saaty, The Analytic Hierarchy Process , 1980) and empirical data from the legal profession. One contribution of our work is that it illustrates how AHP can be applied in the (...) field of ethics. Following a review of the literature, we discuss the development of the model. We then illustrate how the model can be used to rank-order three well-known ethical reasoning cases in terms of the magnitude of consequences. The work concludes with implications for theory, practice, and future research. Specifically we discuss how this work extends the previous work by Collins ( Journal of Business Ethics 8 , 1, 1989) regarding the nature of harm variable. We also discuss the contribution this work makes in the development of ethical scenarios used to test hypotheses in the field of business ethics. Finally, we discuss how the model can be used for after-action review, contribute to organizational learning, train employees in ethical reasoning, and aid in the design and development of decision support systems that support ethical reasoning. (shrink)

The paper provides a new argument against the classical invariance criterion for logical terms: if all terms with a permutation invariant extension qualify as logical, then for any arbitrary true contingent sentence K of the meta-language, there would be a logically true object-language sentence 'φ' such that K follows from the sentence 'φ is true'. Thus, many logically true sentences would be a posteriori. To prevent this fatal consequence, we propose to alter the invariance criterion: not only the term's extension, (...) but also its semantic clause must satisfy certain invariance conditions. The paper ends with the observation that the new criterion makes explicit the dependency of the classification of terms into logical and non-logical ones at the different levels of the Tarskian hierarchy of languages. (shrink)