In groupware tools, the activation of a function may affect other users who might have conflicting interests. We developed technical mechanisms to support users in resolving them. Contrary to current implementations of groupware tools, these mechanisms strengthen the position of the users who are affected by the activation of said functions. Supporting the visibility of a function's activation, and providing a channel for communication or means to intervene against the function's activation are approaches which constitute a framework to implement these (...) mechanisms. We conclude with showing implementation examples of the framework and their evaluation in the POLITeam project. (shrink)

Society is facing uncertainty on a multitude of domains and levels: usually, reasoning and decisions about political, economic, or health issues must be made under uncertainty. Among various approaches to probability, this chapter presents the coherence approach to probability as a method for uncertainty management. The authors explain the role of uncertainty in the context of important societal issues like legal reasoning and vaccination hesitancy. Finally, the chapter presents selected psychological factors which impact probabilistic representation and reasoning and discusses what (...) society can and cannot learn from the coherence approach from theoretical and practical perspectives. (shrink)

A student's future as a knowledge worker (one who "thinks for a living" with the task of problem solving) is the starting point of this book. With this in mind, the book combines a review of philosophical positions and problems with practical examples and perspectives gained from everyday challenges faced by knowledge workers in their businesses and organizations. Through the use of summative chapters, highlighted key concepts, questions for reflection, and illustrative examples on how to work with the theories presented, (...) the book provides a clear and accessible introduction to this challenging subject. Philosophy of Science primarily addresses students studying language, communication, marketing, economics, and management. However, the survey of the theoretical schools of thought - as well as the discussions on research ethics and the role of research in society - will be equally relevant for other students in the humanities and the natural and social sciences. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss how information theory has been used in the study of animal communication, as well as how these uses are justified. Biologists justify their use of Shannon’s information measures by the work they do in allowing for comparisons between different organisms and because they measure a quantity that is purported to be important for natural selection. I argue that there are problems with both sorts of justification. To make these difficulties clear, I focus on the use (...) of Shannon’s information measures to quantify the amount of information transmitted by the fire ant’s odor trail and the honeybee’s waggle dance. Both of these systems are relatively simple and well understood, and the application of Shannon’s information measure to these systems initially seemed very promising and relatively straightforward. They are therefore particularly suitable for revealing the benefits and difficulties of applying Shannon’s information measures to biological systems in general, and animal communication systems in particular. (shrink)

Legal decision-support systems have the potential to improve access to justice, administrative efficiency, and judicial consistency, but broad adoption of such systems is contingent on development of technologies with low knowledge-engineering, validation, and maintenance costs. This paper describes two approaches to an important form of legal decision support—explainable outcome prediction—that obviate both annotation of an entire decision corpus and manual processing of new cases. The first approach, which uses an attention network for prediction and attention weights to highlight salient case (...) text, was shown to be capable of predicting decisions, but attention-weight-based text highlighting did not demonstrably improve human decision speed or accuracy in an evaluation with 61 human subjects. The second approach, termed semi-supervised case annotation for legal explanations, exploits structural and semantic regularities in case corpora to identify textual patterns that have both predictable relationships to case decisions and explanatory value. (shrink)

IN "THE FUNCTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS ON MATTER", "CHINESE STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY" 12 (1981) PAGES 38-54, YU CLAIMS THAT IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND HOW CONSCIOUSNESS CAN AFFECT THE PHYSICAL WORLD, TWO CATEGORIES OF MATTER MUST BE DISTINGUISHED. I ARGUE THAT YU'S DISTINCTION HAS NO EXPLANATORY FORCE AND, MOREOVER, IS AT ODDS WITH HIS MATERIALIST ASSUMPTIONS. I THEN SUGGEST OTHER STRATEGIES.

Anche se siamo comunemente abituati a pensare alla scienza come a un qualcosa di assolutamente atemporale e indipendente da tutto, in realtà essa è profondamente influenzata dalla cultura e dalla società del tempo in cui vive. Infatti né la scienza è isolabile dalla società, né la società è isolabile dalla scienza, tanto meno come si sta configurando oggi. Per approfondire questi aspetti, esistono però due visioni antagoniste che bisogna superare: secondo la visione scolastica, retaggio del positivismo ottocentesco ancora molto diffuso (...) fra scienziati e pubblico di non esperti, la scienza è conoscenza senza soggetto conoscente. All'opposto, la visione cinica della scienza, sull'onda di talune elaborazioni della sociologia della scienza, la riduce a nient'altro che a una costruzione di soggetti che partecipano al gioco scientifico, una cultura come altre e da "mediare", e comunque una conoscenza relativa, se non frutto di una costruzione puramente soggettiva, arbitraria, ideologica. Un'analisi della costituzione sociale della scienza può, invece, mirare a un'indagine scientifica sulla scienza proprio configurando una relatività della conoscenza che supera sia l'assolutismo idealistico sia il relativismo soggettivistico. (shrink)

IT IS SHOWN IN DETAIL THAT RECENT ACCOUNTS FAIL TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN INTENTIONALITY AND MERELY CAUSALLY DISPOSITIONAL STATES OF INORGANIC PHYSICAL OBJECTS—A QUICK ROAD TO PANPSYCHISM. THE CLEAR NEED TO MAKE SUCH A DISTINCTION GIVES DIRECTION FOR FUTURE WORK. A BEGINNING IS MADE TOWARD PROVIDING SUCH AN ACCOUNT.

5‐methylcytosine (5mC) was long thought to be the only enzymatically created modified DNA base in mammalian cells. The discovery of 5‐hydroxymethylcytosine, 5‐formylcytosine, and 5‐carboxylcytosine as reaction products of the TET family 5mC oxidases has prompted extensive searches for proteins that specifically bind to these oxidized bases. However, only a few of such “reader” proteins have been identified and verified so far. In this review, we discuss potential biological functions of oxidized 5mC as well as the role the presumed reader proteins (...) may play in interpreting the genomic signals of 5mC oxidation products. (shrink)

According to probabilistic theories of reasoning in psychology, people's degree of belief in an indicative conditional `if A, then B' is given by the conditional probability, P(B|A). The role of language pragmatics is relatively unexplored in the new probabilistic paradigm. We investigated how consequent relevance a ects participants' degrees of belief in conditionals about a randomly chosen card. The set of events referred to by the consequent was either a strict superset or a strict subset of the set of events (...) referred to by the antecedent. We manipulated whether the superset was expressed using a disjunction or a hypernym. We also manipulated the source of the dependency, whether in long-term memory or in the stimulus. For subset-consequent conditionals, patterns of responses were mostly conditional probability followed by conjunction. For superset-consequent conditionals, conditional probability responses were most common for hypernym dependencies and least common for disjunction dependencies, which were replaced with responses indicating inferred consequent irrelevance. Conditional probability responses were also more common for knowledge-based than stimulus-based dependencies. We suggest. (shrink)

Geoffrey Marnell presents philosophical arguments favoring grammatical descriptivism over grammatical prescriptivism. I argue that his explanation and defence of descriptivism reveal that his descriptivism is itself prescriptivist.

The physical activity-related health competence model assumes that individuals require movement competence, control competence, and self-regulation competence to lead a healthy, physically active lifestyle. Although previous research has already established some measurement factors of the three dimensions, no attempts have so far been made to statistically aggregate them on the sub-competence level. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to test two additional factors for PAHCO and subsequently model the second-order structure with two samples from the fields of rehabilitation (...) and prevention. We conducted two questionnaire surveys with persons with multiple sclerosis and teaching students undergoing a basic qualification course in physical education. After performing exploratory items analysis, we used second-order confirmatory factor analysis and multidimensional scaling to investigate whether the scales could be bundled in accordance with the PAHCO model. The CFAs with 10 factors demonstrated a good model fit. In contrast, the second-order analysis with a simple loading structure on the three sub-competencies revealed an unacceptable model fit. Instead, a second-order model variant was preferred [comparative fit index = 0.926, root mean square error of approximation = 0.048, standardized root mean square residual = 0.065] in which body awareness and self-efficacy had theory-conform cross-loadings. The results of multidimensional scaling were in line with the extracted second-order structure. The present results suggested that the extension of the measurement instrument to 10 first-order factors was psychometrically justified for the two populations. The results from the second-order analyses provided the basis for the creation of sum scores, representing manifest indicators of movement competence, control competence, and self-regulation competence. Future studies are needed that cross-validate the extended measurement model with other populations and that relate the sub-competencies of PAHCO to indicators of health-enhancing physical activity. (shrink)

Émile Durkheim remains one of the most controversial, and deeply misunderstood, classics of social theory. His work differs from the dominant version of sociology that has essentially accepted the modernist self-description of contemporary societies; and it contradicts the individualism that has come to dominate the social sciences. For everybody who is interested in constructing theoretical alternatives to this individualism, Durkheim's sociology can be a useful inspiration - not only because of the solutions it suggests, but already because of the questions (...) it asks. Making use of the theoretical possibilities offered by the Durkheimian tradition, however, requires going beyond the familiar appropriations. The Oxford Handbook of Émile Durkheim takes stock of the different recent debates on Durkheimian sociology, and makes them accessible to a wide audience spanning various disciplines; this includes crucial debates that, due to language barriers, are not easily accessible for an English-reading public. The handbook's chapters elucidate the controversial key concepts of Durkheimian sociology; situate them within the contemporary political and theoretical debates they were originally responding to; offer surveys of empirical research that uses Durkheimian concepts (on topics that were already central for Durkheim's own work as well as on topics that Durkheim hardly touched upon), thus demonstrating the possibilities of a Durkheimian sociology; bring out the divergent, and competing, ways in which Durkheim's ideas have been appropriated and reformulated within more recent theoretical developments in the social sciences. In doing so, this volume is an important resource for all scholars and students looking to understand Durkheimian sociology. (shrink)

We study probabilistically informative (weak) versions of transitivity by using suitable definitions of defaults and negated defaults in the setting of coherence and imprecise probabilities. We represent p-consistent sequences of defaults and/or negated defaults by g-coherent imprecise probability assessments on the respective sequences of conditional events. Moreover, we prove the coherent probability propagation rules for Weak Transitivity and the validity of selected inference patterns by proving p-entailment of the associated knowledge bases. Finally, we apply our results to study selected probabilistic (...) versions of classical categorical syllogisms and construct a new version of the square of opposition in terms of defaults and negated defaults. (shrink)

Simondon adopts some concepts of social psychology as ‘in group’ and ‘out group’, namely from Kurt Lewin and Gordon Allport, that allow him to describe the fundamental processes shaping the domain of collective individuation, and to challenge Bergson’s distinction between a ‘closed’ community and an ‘open’ society. Reconstructing Simondon’s sources is necessary to understand how he tries to provide an analysis of the social system without presupposing a given anthropology, but rather exploring different perspectives on the human/nature threshold through the (...) concept of transindividual. In his study of the social system Simondon progressively gives conceptual shape to the processes he calls transindividual thanks to the ontogenetic analysis of the phenomena of belief, work and language. In all these domains, a ‘basic community’ emerges just over the threshold of the biological group, where the structural ambivalence of all collective processes as simultaneously closed and open becomes clear. That is why Simondon does not present the concept of the transindividual as a solution to the epistemological problem of psychic and collective individuation, but rather as the ‘field’ in which a whole series of social, biological and technical dimensions can be made converge towards a science of anthropogenic processes. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher contains eleven chapters on the work of noted philosopher Philip Kitcher, whose work is known for its broad range and insightfulness. Topics covered include philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of mathematics, ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. Each of the chapters is followed by a reply from Kitcher himself. This first significant edited volume devoted to examining Kitcher's work is an essential reference for anyone interested in understanding this important philosopher.

This collection of essays looks at the relation between phenomenology and the political from a variety of possible positions both critical and complimentary.

There is wide support in logic, philosophy, and psychology for the hypothesis that the probability of the indicative conditional of natural language, P(if A then B), is the conditional probability of B given A, P(B|A). We identify a conditional which is such that P(if A then B)=P(B|A) with de Finetti’s conditional event, B | A. An objection to making this identification in the past was that it appeared unclear how to form compounds and iterations of conditional events. In this paper, (...) we illustrate how to overcome this objection with a probabilistic analysis, based on coherence, of these compounds and iterations. We interpret the compounds and iterations as conditional random quantities, which sometimes reduce to conditional events, given logical dependencies. We also show, for the first time, how to extend the inference of centering for conditional events, inferring B|A from the conjunction A ^ B, to compounds and iterations of both conditional events and biconditional events, B || A, and generalize it to n-conditional events. (shrink)

This book will gather contributions from international scholars with the aim of exploring the political reflection of Deleuze-Guattari’s and Foucault’s critical encounter with psychoanalytic thought: their possible connections, their divergences and the fields of reflection that this encounter opens, the problems and debates that lead Foucault and Deleuze to engage with psychoanalysis.

The formation of DNA photoproducts by ultraviolet (UV) light is responsible for induction of mutations and development of skin cancer. To understand UV mutagenesis, it is important to know the mechanisms of formation and repair of these lesions. Cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers and (6–4)photoproducts are the two major classes of UV‐induced DNA lesions. Their distribution along DNA sequences in vivo is strongly influenced by nucleosomes and other DNA binding proteins. Repair of UV photoproducts is dependent on the transcriptional status of the (...) sequences to be repaired and on the chromatin environment. Sensitive techniques are now available to study repair of UV damage at the level of nucleotide resolution in mammalian cells. With the aid of in vitro systems, the entire nucleotide excision repair process has been reconstituted from purified protein components with naked DNA as a substrate. Future work will focus on the development of in vitro assays for transcription‐coupled repair and repair in chromatin. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the structural concept of representation, as defined by homomorphisms, against its main objections, namely: logical objections, the objection from misrepresentation, theobjection from failing necessity, and the copy theory objection. The logical objections can be met by reserving the relation ‘to be homomorphic to’ for the explication of potential representation (or, of the representational content). Actual reference objects (‘targets’) of representations are determined by (intentional or causal) representational mechanisms. Appealing to the independence of (...) the dimensions of ‘content’ and ‘target’ also helps to see how the structural concept can cope with misrepresentation. Finally, I argue that homomorphic representations are not necessarily ‘copies’ of their representanda, and thus can convey scientific insight. (shrink)

The paper defends the structural concept of representation, defined by homomorphisms, against the main objections that have been raised against it: Logical objections, the objection from misrepresentation, the objection from failing necessity, and the copy theory objection. Homomorphic representations are not necessarily ‘copies’ of their representanda, and thus can convey scientific insight.

This article investigates the hitherto under-examined relations between affirmative action, paternalism and respect. We provide three main arguments. First, we argue that affirmative action initiatives are typically paternalistic and thus disrespectful towards those intended beneficiaries who oppose the initiatives in question. Second, we argue that not introducing affirmative action can also be disrespectful towards these potential beneficiaries because such inaction involves a failure to adequately recognize their moral worth. Third, we argue that the paternalistic disrespect involved in affirmative action is (...) alleviated when the potential beneficiaries’ preferences against such initiatives are adaptive. We conclude that although there is a relevant sense in which paternalistic affirmative action is disrespectful, it may well be more disrespectful not to pursue such policies. (shrink)

Responsibility as accountability is normally taken to have stricter control conditions than responsibility as attributability. A common way to argue for this claim is to point to differences in the harmfulness of blame involved in these different kinds of responsibility. This paper argues that this explanation does not work once we shift our focus from other-directed blame to self-blame. To blame oneself in the accountability sense is to feel guilt and feeling guilty is to suffer. To blame oneself in the (...) attributability sense, it will be argued, is to feel shame and feeling shame is also to suffer. The different control conditions cannot be explained by a difference in the harm of blame. Instead, this paper argues that accountability and attributability are governed by different kinds of appropriateness: an agent S is accountability blameworthy for X only if S deserves to feel guilty; an agent S is attributability blameworthy for X only if it is fitting that S feels shame for X. (shrink)

The paper defends the structural concept of representation, defined by homomorphisms, against the main objections that have been raised against it: Logical objections, the objection from misrepresentation, the objection from failing necessity, and the copy theory objection. Homomorphic representations are not necessarily ‘copies’ of their representanda, and thus can convey scientific insight.

The philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy that examines the profound philosophical questions that arise from scientific research and theories. A sub-discipline of philosophy that emerged in the twentieth century, the philosophy of science is largely a product of the British and Austrian schools of thought and traditions. The first in-depth reference in the field that combines scientific knowledge with philosophical inquiry, The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia is a two-volume set that brings together an international team of (...) leading scholars to provide over 130 entries on the essential concepts in the philosophy of science. The areas covered include biology, chemistry, epistemology and metaphysics, physics, psychology and mind, the social sciences, and key figures in the combined studies of science and philosophy. Essays range in length from 3,000 to 7,500 words and represent the most up-to-date philosophical thinking on timeless scientific topics such as determinism, explanation, laws of nature, perception, individuality, time, and economics as well as timely topics like adaptation, conservation biology, quantum logic, consciousness, evolutionary psychology, and game theory. Offering thorough explorations and destined to become the most authoritative presentation of the field available, this Encyclopedia is a unique and groundbreaking guide to this fascinating field. (shrink)

There is wide support in logic, philosophy, and psychology for the hypothesis that the probability of the indicative conditional of natural language, P(if A then B), is the conditional probability of B given A, P(B|A). We identify a conditional which is such that P(if A then B)=P(B|A) with de Finetti's conditional event, B|A. An objection to making this identification in the past was that it appeared unclear how to form compounds and iterations of conditional events. In this paper, we illustrate (...) how to overcome this objection with a probabilistic analysis, based on coherence, of these compounds and iterations. We interpret the compounds and iterations as conditional random quantities which, given some logical dependencies, may reduce to conditional events. We show how the inference to B|A from A and B can be extended to compounds and iterations of both conditional events and biconditional events. Moreover, we determine the respective uncertainty propagation rules. Finally, we make some comments on extending our analysis to counterfactuals. (shrink)

Gesellschaften sind heute von funktionaler Ausdifferenzierung, Individualisierung und Pluralisierung gekennzeichnet. Dies lasst die Frage nach dem gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt virulent werden. Die Politik sucht nach Wegen, mit dieser Vielfalt umzugehen und den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt zu starken. Davon zeugen Debatten uber Bildungspolitik, Sprachkurse und Leitkultur, Runde Tische oder Islamkonferenzen. Die Politische Philosophie hat in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten darauf aufmerksam gemacht, dass der Umgang mit Pluralitat einer differenzierten und multiperspektivischen Diskussion im Lichte der vielfaltigen Parameter von gesellschaftlicher Vielfalt bedarf. Was also halt Gesellschaften (...) uberhaupt zusammen? Und wie gelingt der Umgang mit legitimer Pluralitat? Der Band versammelt Beitrage aus der Philosophie und aus den Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften, die aus ihren jeweiligen Perspektiven Antwortvorschlage formulieren. (shrink)

Affirmative action is standardly pursued in relation to admissions to prestigious universities, in hiring for prestigious jobs, and when it comes to being elected to parliament. Central to these forms of affirmative action is that they have to do with competitive goods. A good is competitive when, if we improve A’s chances of getting the good, we reduce B’s chances of obtaining the good. I call this Competitive Affirmative Action. I distinguish this from Non-competitive Affirmative Action. The latter has to (...) do with non-competitive goods, e.g., being granted early parole or freedom from arbitrary arrest. I argue that some of the most prominent objections against affirmative action—in particular, the reverse discrimination objection and the merit objection—speak less against Non-competitive Affirmative Action. And that some of the most prominent arguments in favor of affirmative action, insofar as they justify Competitive Affirmative Action, also justify Non-competitive Affirmative Action. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical analysis of the work of western humanitarian NGOs operating in the African continent. We argue that in most cases, NGOs and their supporters are deaf to the actual wants, needs, and desires ? or, in other words, the agency ? of those they are trying to aid. We do this by first offering a series of ways of understanding the ideological commitments that inform the work of many humanitarian NGOs and those who donate to them. (...) In this, we expose the reasons leading to the failure of such individuals and organizations to recognize and take account of the agency of those they seek to help. Second, we offer evidence of the problematic outcome of this failure when coupled with a lack of recognition of the wider context of many of the conflicts that lead to the suffering of those that such NGOs intend to aid. In doing this, we expose the ways in which an NGO's own position can reinforce and contribute to the continuance of this suffering. This, we argue results from the simplified, inaccurate, and de-politicized ways in which NGOs tend to portray the problem of suffering both to those they solicit for donations and in their own conception of the problems and the ?moral? role that the organization itself plays in its work. (shrink)

Relational egalitarianism is a theory of justice according to which justice requires that people relate as equals. According to some relational egalitarians, X and Y relate as equals if, and only if, they (1) regard each other as equals; and (2) treat each other as equals. In this paper, we argue that relational egalitarians must give up 1.

In this paper, we propose a regularity theory of causation. The theory aims to be reductive and to align with our pre‐theoretic understanding of the causal relation. We show that our theory can account for a wide range of causal scenarios, including isomorphic scenarios, omissions, and scenarios which suggest that causation is not transitive.

We study probabilistically informative (weak) versions of transitivity by using suitable definitions of defaults and negated defaults in the setting of coherence and imprecise probabilities. We represent p-consistent sequences of defaults and/or negated defaults by g-coherent imprecise probability assessments on the respective sequences of conditional events. Finally, we present the coherent probability propagation rules for Weak Transitivity and the validity of selected inference patterns by proving p-entailment of the associated knowledge bases.

This book explores the relationship between democracy and republicanism, and its consequences; and articulates new theoretical insights into connections between liberty, law and democratic politics.

The aim of this paper is to defend the structural concept of representation, as defined by homomorphisms, against its main objections, namely: logical objections, the objection from misrepresentation, theobjection from failing necessity, and the copy theory objection. The logical objections can be met by reserving the relation.

This English translation of the author's original work has been thoroughly revised, expanded and updated. The book covers logical systems known as type-free or self-referential . These traditionally arise from any discussion on logical and semantical paradoxes. This particular volume, however, is not concerned with paradoxes but with the investigation of type-free sytems to show that: (i) there are rich theories of self-application, involving both operations and truth which can serve as foundations for property theory and formal semantics; (ii) these (...) theories provide a new outlook on classical topics, such as inductive definitions and predicative mathematics; (iii) they are particularly promising with regard to applications. Research arising from paradoxes has moved progressively closer to the mainstream of mathematical logic and has become much more prominent in the last twenty years. A number of significant developments, techniques and results have been discovered. Academics, students and researchers will find that the book contains a thorough overview of all relevant research in this field. (shrink)

In this paper we exploit the notions of conjoined and iterated conditionals, which are defined in the setting of coherence by means of suitable conditional random quantities with values in the interval [0,1]. We examine the iterated conditional (B|K)|(A|H), by showing that A|H p-entails B|K if and only if (B|K)|(A|H) = 1. Then, we show that a p-consistent family F={E1|H1, E2|H2} p-entails a conditional event E3|H3 if and only if E3|H3= 1, or (E3|H3)|QC(S) = 1 for some nonempty subset S (...) of F, where QC(S) is the quasi conjunction of the conditional events in S. Then, we examine the inference rules And, Cut, Cautious Monotonicity, and Or of System P and other well known inference rules (Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens, Bayes). We also show that QC(F)|C(F) = 1, where C(F) is the conjunction of the conditional events in F. We characterize p-entailment by showing that F p-entails E3|H3 if and only if (E3|H3)|C(F) = 1. Finally, we examine Denial of the antecedent and Affirmation of the consequent, where the p-entailment of (E3|H3) from F does not hold, by showing that (E3|H3)|C(F) is not equal to 1. (shrink)

Memory of historical trauma has a unique power to generate works of art. This book analyzes the relation of public memory to history, forgetting, and selective memory in Berlin, Buenos Aires, and New York—three late-twentieth-century cities that have confronted major social or political traumas. Berlin experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall and the city’s reemergence as the German capital; Buenos Aires lived through the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s and their legacy of state terror and disappearances; and New (...) York City faces a set of public memory issues concerning the symbolic value of Times Square as threatened public space and the daunting task of commemorating and rebuilding after the attack on the World Trade Center. Focusing on the issue of monumentalization in divergent artistic and media practices, the book demonstrates that the transformation of spatial and temporal experience by memory politics is a major cultural effect of globalization. (shrink)

There is a long tradition in formal epistemology and in the psychology of reasoning to investigate indicative conditionals. In psychology, the propositional calculus was taken for granted to be the normative standard of reference. Experimental tasks, evaluation of the participants’ responses and psychological model building, were inspired by the semantics of the material conditional. Recent empirical work on indicative conditionals focuses on uncertainty. Consequently, the normative standard of reference has changed. I argue why neither logic nor standard probability theory provide (...) appropriate rationality norms for uncertain conditionals. I advocate coherence based probability logic as an appropriate framework for investigating uncertain conditionals. Detailed proofs of the probabilistic non-informativeness of a paradox of the material conditional illustrate the approach from a formal point of view. I survey selected data on human reasoning about uncertain conditionals which additionally support the plausibility of the approach from an empirical point of view. (shrink)

As cardiopatias congênitas são caracterizadas por anormalidade na estrutura cardiovascular, presente desde a vida fetal, sendo estimados 30 mil casos por ano, no Brasil. Apresentam alta taxa de mortalidade, requerendo, muitas vezes, hospitalizações, intervenções e cirurgias. É necessário atentar para necessidades das figuras maternas e paternas e suas formas de enfrentamento, pois fazem parte do suporte na recuperação da criança. Este estudo transversal objetivou identificar as estratégias de enfrentamento adotadas pelos pais, durante a hospitalização da criança, verificar se existe diferença (...) entre os gêneros. Foram avaliados 20 cuidadores, em acompanhamento ao filho hospitalizado para tratamento de cardiopatia congênita. Responderam questionário sociodemográfico e Escala de Enfrentamento de Problemas. Verificou-se que não há diferença na adoção de estratégias entre cuidadores materno e paterno, entretanto observou-se correlação entre fatores sociodemográficos e predominância do enfrentamento focado no problema e religiosidade. (shrink)