Traditional combinatory logic uses combinators S and K to represent all Turing-computable functions on natural numbers, but there are Turing-computable functions on the combinators themselves that cannot be so represented, because they access internal structure in ways that S and K cannot. Much of this expressive power is captured by adding a factorisation combinator F. The resulting SF-calculus is structure complete, in that it supports all pattern-matching functions whose patterns are in normal form, including a function that decides structural equality (...) of arbitrary normal forms. A general characterisation of the structure complete, confluent combinatory calculi is given along with some examples. These are able to represent all their Turing-computable functions whose domain is limited to normal forms. The combinator F can be typed using an existential type to represent internal type information. (shrink)

The internal language of a monoidal category yields simple proofs of results about a natural numbers object therein.

Offers an internalist and perspectivalist reading of G. E. Moore's epistemological views. Challenges Barry Stroud's influential interpretation and defends Moore's rejection of scepticism, his ‘defence of common sense’ and his ‘proof of an external world’ against Stroud's criticisms. The conception of knowledge‐yielding enquiry, as addressed to determinate questions, within a setting of defeasible agreements regarding epistemic methods, norms, and background beliefs, is worked out in greater detail.

Marxism and Totality. The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to Habermas. by Martin Jay Adorno by Martin Jay Permanent Exiles. Essays on the Intellectual Migration from Germany to America by Martin Jay.

Juxtaposing two dates in human evolution poses a mystery. Anatomically modern people (with our bodies, brains, and genes) apparently first appear in Africa 100,000 years ago. Yet there is no evidence of them behaving like us — no evidence of modern human culture — until 50,000 years ago. For the first 50,000 years of our existence we were archaeologically indistinct from Neanderthal or erectus. Then everything quickly changed, forever. Why this gap? What were we waiting for? Klein, a leading American (...) paleoanthropologist, denies that these facts are complete. There had to be more biological evolution, right up to the moment people started behaving like modern humans, which he attributes to a relatively recent genetic mutation. Yet it is biologically possible that "the dawn of culture" is not a biological event at all. It could be a cascade of consequences following the delayed expression of what Steven Jay Gould calls an evolutionary spandrel, a coincidental side-consequence of evolved structures, not directly shaped by natural selection. Modern culture would have been potential from the biological beginning, but waited on an expression it took time and circumstance to discover. (shrink)

This volume presents Rosenberg's previously published studies of the central elements and implications of Sellars' philosophy, along with three new essays that ...

We can anticipate what is yet to happen, remember what has already happened, but our immediate experience is confined to the present, the here and now. So much seems common sense. So much so that it is no surprise to see Thomas Reid, that pre-eminent champion of common sense in philosophy, advocating precisely this position.

The practice of using race or ethnic origin as a distinguishing feature of populations or individuals seeking health care is a universal and well-accepted custom in medicine. Although the origin of this practice may, in part, reflect past prejudicial attitudes, its use today can certainly be defended as a useful means of improving diagnostic and therapeutic efforts. Indeed, the tradition of dividing populations by some racial distinction in clinical research has nearly always revealed differences in mechanisms of disease and disease (...) frequency that can enhance diagnostic and therapeutic precision.At the conference occasioning this symposium, Professors Duster and Rotimi provided persuasive evidence that so-called race is not an accurate way to distinguish populations and that identification by race has led to serious prejudice. Professor Cho pleaded that race should never be used to characterize population differences. (shrink)

Previous studies substantiate that religious social norms influence individual and organizational decisions. Using debt financing settings, we examine whether a firm’s religious environment influences outside parties’ perceptions in contracting with the firm. We document that firms located in the more religious areas use less debt financing and receive better credit ratings. Bond investors require lower yields and impose fewer covenants on such firms. Using the 2002 revelation of sex abuse by Catholic priests as an exogenous shock, we verify that these (...) findings are not driven by endogeneity issues. Our study highlights the role of social norms in financial transactions. (shrink)

Although many find it hard to believe that every physical thing—no matter how simple or small—involves some form of consciousness, panpsychists offer the reassurance that their claims are perfectly compatible with everything physics has to say about the physical world. This is because although physics has a lot to say about causal and structural properties it has nothing to say about the intrinsic natures of physical things, and if physics is silent in this regard it is perfectly possible that everything (...) physical has an experiential intrinsic nature. Following in Thomas Nagel’s footsteps, panpsychists have also argued that by revealing that everything is composed of the same fundamental ingredients, physics provides grounds for holding that if any physical things (e.g. our neural processes) have an experiential intrinsic nature then all must. My main contention in this paper is that the relationship between physics and panpsychism is considerably more complex than panpsychists have tended to assume. Nagel’s reasoning may be sound in the context of simplistic atomic theories which posit just one kind of fundamental particle. However, it begins to look distinctly dubious in the context of the diverse range of primitive entities that are to be found in the Standard Model of particle physics. Galen Strawson has suggested that mass-energy interconvertibility should be regarded as evidence that everything physical has the same intrinsic nature. I suggest Strawson’s claim relies on a dubious construal of the nature of energy. Special relativity is another of the cornerstones of contemporary physics, and it too makes life difficult for panpsychists, a fact which emerges when we consider what it would like to be a ray of light. However in this case I suggest that there is an interesting—if radical—move open to the panpsychist: they can simply deny that light exists. To conclude I briefly consider whether what QCD has revealed about the nature of mass poses a problem for panpsychism. (shrink)

In this accomplished, comprehensive and accessible book Barry Smart explores these questions. The book examines the social and economic processes which have shaped and continue to shape life today. It also provides exemplary critical assessments of the various `modern' and `postmodern' thinkers who have sought to explain these processes. Judicious in its judgements and superbly informed, the text is a major contribution to the debate on Modernity and Postmodernity.

Thomas Merton wrote extensively on spiritual and social issues, and his theories have profound implications on many areas of life. This book focuses on the significance of his reflections on work, which seek to transcend the complexities of professional life.

Events in the history of thought have often moved as elements of drama—now tense, now tragic, now triumphant. And, it would appear, sometimes ludicrous. This latter is the thrust of a parody which Molière visited upon the savants of his day; he pictures a candidate for a medical degree being solemnly asked why opium puts people to sleep. Just as solemnly and sagaciously, the candidate replies..

This is the first comprehensive view of the work of scholars in several different disciplines contributing to the development of the psychology of science. This new field of inquiry is a systematic elaboration and application of psychological concepts and methods to clarify the nature of the scientific enterprise. While the psychology of science overlaps the philosophy, history, and sociology of science in important ways, its predominant focus is on individuals and small groups, rather than broad social institutions and concepts. The (...) introduction surveys the field and traces its evolution in a historical context. Several contributors address epistemological issues raised by the psychology of science. Subsequent chapters discuss developments in the cognitive psychology of science, scientific theory, and the influence of social relationships on scientists' work. The conclusion proposes an agenda for further progress in this new approach to understanding science. (shrink)

Water has been a critical resource for Anangu peoples across the remote inland for millennia, underpinning their ability to live in low rainfall environments. Anangu biocultural knowledge of kapi developed in complex ways that enabled this resource to be found. Such biocultural knowledge included deep understandings of weather patterns and of species behavior. Kapi and its significance to desert-dwelling peoples can be seen in ancient mapping practices, whether embedded in stone as petroglyphs or in ceremonial song and dance practices associated (...) with the Tjukurpa. While in the past the sustainability of kapi was facilitated by mobility that spread human dependence on this resource across multiple sites, since the 1940s Anangu have been coerced by the settler-colonial state to live a sedentary lifestyle in remote communities such as Haasts Bluff, Papunya and Yuendemu. In many of these communities the supply of kapi is becoming increasingly insecure in terms of viability of supply, cost, quality and threats from mining. This paper provides a brief insight into how kapi has become devalued in the context of contemporary remote communities with particular reference to my area of expertise – Aboriginal identity, well-being and Australian sports. (shrink)

Theories regarding the nature and achievement of personhood in a communitarian context appear to differ in significant respects in the writings of several contemporary African philosophers. Ifeanyi Menkiti seems to regard ethnic differences as sufficient to warrant a national accommodation of multiculturalism with respect to moralities and attendant beliefs. Kwasi Wiredu argues that there is a substantive universal moral principle that undercuts such apparent and relatively superficial diversity. Communitarianism also seems to provide a better framework for explaining how a human (...) being becomes a person than classical liberal theory as enunciated by someone like John Rawls. (shrink)

Barry Stroud; XV*—The Physical World, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 87, Issue 1, 1 June 1987, Pages 263–277, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotel.

Race or ethnic identity, despite its imprecise categorization, is a useful means of identifying population differences in mechanisms of disease and treatment effects. Therefore, race and other arbitrary demographic and physiological variables have appropriately served as a helpful guide to clinical management and to clinical trial participation. The African-American Heart Failure Trial was carried out in African-Americans with heart failure because prior data had demonstrated a uniquely favorable effect in this subpopulation of the drug combination in BiDil. The remarkable effect (...) of the drug in reducing mortality in this study has illuminated an important new mechanism of therapy for heart failure. Application of these findings need not be confined to the population studied, but the observation highlights the need for more precise ways to identify individual responsiveness to therapy. (shrink)

Discusses Quine's views on the impossibility of taking up a vantage point outside conceptual schemes. It explores issues in Quine's theory of language, among which are the theory of the inscrutability of reference and the doctrine of ‘being at home’ in our language.