The so-called "non-commutativity" of probability kinematics has caused much unjustified concern. When identical learning is properly represented, namely, by identical Bayes factors rather than identical posterior probabilities, then sequential probability-kinematical revisions behave just as they should. Our analysis is based on a variant of Field's reformulation of probability kinematics, divested of its (inessential) physicalist gloss.

Gyenis and Rédei (G&R) have shown that any prior _p_ on a finite algebra _A_, however chosen, significantly restricts the set of posteriors derivable from _p_ by Jeffrey conditioning (JC) on a nontrivial measurable partition (i.e., a partition consisting of members of _A_, at least one of which is not an atom of _A_). They support this claim by proving that the set of potential posteriors _not derivable_ from _p_ in this way, which they call the _Bayes blind spot of (...) p_, is large, having cardinality _c_ and normalized Lebesgue measure 1, as well as being of second Baire category for a natural metrizable topology. In the present paper, we establish results analogous to those of G&R for probability measures on any infinite sigma algebra of subsets of a countably infinite set (which requires distinctly different treatments of the topological and measure-theoretic cases). We also show, in both the finite and infinite cases, that all of the limitative results for a single prior _p_ continue to hold for the intersection of the Bayes blind spots of countably many priors. This leads us to reject the claim of G&R that the large size of blind spots in the single prior case is attributable to the limitations imposed by priors. We argue instead that it is the so-called _rigidity property_ of JC that accounts for the large size of Bayes blind spots. G&R also prove that _any_ potential posterior _q_ can be derived from a prior _p_ by at most two applications of JC on nontrivial partitions. But they remark that their particular two-stage derivation of an \(r \in BS(p)\) from _p_ is barely distinguishable from a single, complete reassessment on a trivial partition. We show, however, that there are two-stage derivations of _r_ from _p_ that require no direct assessment of the probability of any atom at either stage. Finally, in order to situate the aforementioned limitative results in the proper context, we demonstrate that a probability revision that would amount to complete reassessment within a Jeffrey evidentiary framework may arise, in a different evidentiary framework, in a way that involves no direct assessment of the probability of any atom, as, for example, in a generalization of Jeffrey’s solution to the problem of old evidence and new explanation. (shrink)

Garber (1983) and Jeffrey (1991, 1995) have both proposed solutions to the old evidence problem. Jeffrey's solution, based on a new probability revision method called reparation, has been generalized to the case of uncertain old evidence and probabilistic new explanation in Wagner 1997, 1999. The present paper reformulates some of the latter work, highlighting the central role of Bayes factors and their associated uniformity principle, and extending the analysis to the case in which an hypothesis bears on a countable family (...) of evidentiary propositions. This extension shows that no Garber-type approach is capable of reproducing the results of generalized reparation. (shrink)

Given someone’s fully specified posterior probability distribution q and information about the revision method that they employed to produce q, what can you infer about their prior probabilistic commitments? This question provides an entrée into a thoroughgoing discussion of a class of parameterizations of Jeffrey conditioning in which the parameters furnish information above and beyond that incorporated in \. Our analysis highlights the ubiquity of Bayes factors in the study of probability revision.

A stunning collection of conservationist and explorer Oberholtzer's photographs and journal entries from his famous paddle to Hudson Bay.

The mind's arrows , by Clark Glymour, combines several of the author's previous essays on causal inference. Glymour deploys causal Bayes nets (CBNs) to provide a descriptive psychological model of human causal inference and a prescriptive model for making inferences in cognitive neuropsychology and the social sciences. Though The mind's arrows is highly original and provocative, its labyrinthine organization and technical style render it inaccessible to the uninitiated. Here we attempt to distill, package and dress some of Glymour's more interesting (...) theses. We note that the psychological model is developed with minimal attention to evidence concerning human causal inference and that his prescriptive models fail to do justice either to the many sources of evidence in cognitive neuropsychology or to the serious challenges of making causal inferences in the social sciences. Considerable work remains to be done to complete Glymour's ambitious projects and to clearly communicate them to others. (shrink)

Over the years, Skolem’s Paradox has generated a fairly steady stream of philosophical discussion; nonetheless, the overwhelming consensus among philosophers and logicians is that the paradox doesn’t constitute a mathematical problem (i.e., it doesn’t constitute a real contradiction). Further, there’s general agreement as to why the paradox doesn’t constitute a mathematical problem. By looking at the way firstorder structures interpret quantifiers—and, in particular, by looking at how this interpretation changes as we move from structure to structure—we can give a technically (...) adequate “solution” to Skolem’s Paradox. So, whatever the philosophical upshot of Skolem’s Paradox may be, the mathematical side of Skolem’s Paradox seems to be relatively straightforward. (shrink)

Lately in the past couple of years, there are an increasing in the normal rate of playing computer games or video games compared to the E-learning content that are introduced for the safety of our children, and the impact of the video game addictiveness that ranges from (Musculoskeletal issues, Vision problems and Obesity). Furthermore, this paper introduce an intelligent tutoring system for both parent and their children for enhancement the experience of gaming and tell us about the health problems and (...) how we can solve them, with an easy user interface that way can our children be happy and excited about the information and their health. (shrink)

Longtermists have argued that humanity should significantly increase its efforts to prevent catastrophes like nuclear wars, pandemics, and AI disasters. But one prominent longtermist argument overshoots this conclusion: the argument also implies that humanity should reduce the risk of existential catastrophe even at extreme cost to the present generation. This overshoot means that democratic governments cannot use the longtermist argument to guide their catastrophe policy. In this paper, we show that the case for preventing catastrophe does not depend on longtermism. (...) Standard cost-benefit analysis implies that governments should spend much more on reducing catastrophic risk. We argue that a government catastrophe policy guided by cost-benefit analysis should be the goal of longtermists in the political sphere. This policy would be democratically acceptable, and it would reduce existential risk by almost as much as a strong longtermist policy. (shrink)

Carl Craver investigates what we are doing when we sue neuroscience to explain what's going on in the brain.

Jung has never pursued the "psychology of religion" apart from general psychology. The unique importance of his work lies rather in his discovery and treatment of religious, or potentially religious, factors in his investigation into the unconscious as a whole and in his general therapeutic practice. In Answer to Job , first published in Zurich in 1952, Jung employs the familiar language of theological discourse. Such terms as "God," "wisdom," and "evil" are the touchstones of his argument. And yet, Answer (...) to Job , perhaps Jung's most controversial work, is not an essay in theology as much as it is an examination of the symbolic role that theological concepts play in a person's psychic life. (shrink)

Carl F. Craver investigates what we are doing when we use neuroscience to explain what's going on in the brain. When does an explanation succeed and when does it fail? Craver offers explicit standards for successful explanation of the workings of the brain, on the basis of a systematic view about what neuroscientific explanations are.

Discrimination, understood as differential treatment of individuals on the basis of their respective group memberships, is widely considered to be morally wrong. This moral judgment is backed in many jurisdictions with the passage of equality of opportunity legislation, which aims to ensure that racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, sexual-orientation, disability and other groups are not subjected to discrimination. This chapter explores the conceptual underpinnings of discrimination and equality of opportunity using the tools of analytical moral and political philosophy.

In this systematic introduction to the philosophy of Charles S. Peirce, the author focuses on four of Peirce's fundamental conceptions: pragmatism and Peirce's development of it into what he called 'pragmaticism'; his theory of signs; his phenomenology; and his theory that continuity is of prime importance for philosophy. He argues that at the centre of Peirce's philosophical project is a unique form of metaphysical realism, whereby continuity and evolutionary change are both necessary for our understanding of experience. In his final (...) chapter Professor Hausman applies this version of realism to contemporary controversies between anti-realists and anti-idealists. Peirce's views are compared to those of such contemporary figures as Davidson, Putnam, and Rorty. The book will be of particular interest to philosophers concerned with American philosophy and current debates on realism as well as linguists working in semiotics. (shrink)

Written three years before his death, The Undiscovered Self combines acuity with concision in masterly fashion and is Jung at his very best. Offering clear and crisp insights into some of his major theories, such as the duality of human nature, the unconscious, human instinct and spirituality, Jung warns against the threats of totalitarianism and political and social propaganda to the free-thinking individual. As timely now as when it was first written, Jung's vision is a salutary reminder of why we (...) should not become passive members of the herd. With a new foreword by Sonu Shamdasani. (shrink)

Under what conditions are people responsible for their choices and the outcomes of those choices? How could such conditions be fostered by liberal societies? Should what people are due as a matter of justice depend on what they are responsible for? For example, how far should healthcare provision depend on patients' past choices? What values would be realized and which hampered by making justice sensitive to responsibility? Would it give people what they deserve? Would it advance or hinder equality? The (...) explosion of philosophical interest in such questions has been fuelled by increased focus on individual responsibility in political debates. Political philosophers, especially egalitarians, have responded to such developments by attempting to map out the proper place for responsibility in theories of justice. This book both reflects on these recent developments in normative political theory and moves the debate forwards. (shrink)

Plagiarism detection is the process of finding similarities on electronic based documents. Recently, this process is highly required because of the large number of available documents on the internet and the ability to copy and paste the text of relevant documents with simply Control+C and Control+V commands. The proposed solution is to investigate and develop an easy, fast, and multi-language support plagiarism detector with the easy of one click to detect the document plagiarism. This process will be done with the (...) support of intelligent system that can learn, change and adapt to the input document and make a cross-fast search for the content on the local repository and the online repository and link the content of the file with the matching content everywhere found. Furthermore, the supported document type that we will use is word, text and in some cases, the pdf files –where is the text can be extracting from them- and this made possible by using the DLL file from Word application that Microsoft provided on OS. The using of DLL will let us to not constrain on how to get the text from files; and will help us to apply the file on our Delphi project and walk throw our methodology and read the file word by word to grantee the best working scenarios for the calculation. In the result, this process will help in the uprising the documents quality and enhance the writer experience related to his work and will save the copyrights for the official writer of the documents by providing a new alternative tool for plagiarism detection problem for easy and fast use to the concerned Institutions for free. (shrink)

One of the most significant political philosophers of the twentieth century, Carl Schmitt is a deeply controversial figure who has been labeled both Nazi sympathizer and modern-day Thomas Hobbes. First published in 1938, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes used the Enlightenment philosopher’s enduring symbol of the protective Leviathan to address the nature of modern statehood. A work that predicted the demise of the Third Reich and that still holds relevance in today’s security-obsessed society, this volume (...) will be essential reading for students and scholars of political science. “Carl Schmitt is surely the most controversial German political and legal philosopher of this century. . . . We deal with Schmitt, against all odds, because history stubbornly persists in proving many of his tenets right.”— Perspectives on Political Science “[A] significant contribution. . . . The relation between Hobbes and Schmitt is one of the most important questions surrounding Schmitt: it includes a distinct, though occasionally vacillating, personal identification as well as an association of ideas.”— Telos. (shrink)

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the recent debate about responsibility and distributive justice. It traces the recent philosophical focus on distributive justice to John Rawls and examines two arguments in his work which might be taken to contain the seeds of the focus on responsibility in later theories of distributive justice. It examines Ronald Dworkin's ‘equality of resources’, the ‘luck egalitarianism’ of Richard Arneson and G. A. Cohen, as well as the criticisms of their work put forward by (...) Elizabeth Anderson, Marc Fleurbaey, Susan Hurley, and Jonathan Wolff. Key concepts such as responsibility (individual and collective), luck (thin and thick; brute and option), control, desert, and equality of opportunity are delineated, and the implementation of responsibility-sensitive accounts of justice is considered. The chapters of this book are positioned in relation to the wider literature on responsibility and distributive justice, and a brief outline of the chapters is provided. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against one variety of contextualism about aesthetic predicates such as “beautiful.” Contextualist analyses of these and other predicates have been subject to several challenges surrounding disagreement. Focusing on one kind of contextualism— individualized indexical contextualism —I unpack these various challenges and consider the responses available to the contextualist. The three responses I consider are as follows: giving an alternative analysis of the concept of disagreement ; claiming that speakers suffer from semantic blindness; and claiming that (...) attributions of beauty carry presuppositions of commonality. I will argue that none of the available strategies gives a response which both satisfactorily explains all of the disagreement -data and is plausible independent of significant evidence in favor of contextualism. I conclude that individualized indexical contextualism about the aesthetic is untenable, although this does not rule out alternative contextualist approaches to the aesthetic. (shrink)

Traces the development of the integral and the differential calculus and related theories since ancient times.

This chapter identifies three contrasts between responsibility-sensitive justice and desert-sensitive justice. First, while responsibility may be appraised on prudential or moral grounds, it is argued that desert is necessarily moral. As moral appraisal is much more plausible, responsibility-sensitive justice is only attractive in one of its two formulations. Second, strict responsibility sensitivity does not compensate for all forms of bad brute luck, and forms of responsibility-sensitive justice like luck egalitarianism that provide such compensation do so by appealing to independent moral (...) concerns such as equality. Desert-sensitive justice can deliver the appropriate compensation without relying on external moral resources. Finally, while responsibility-sensitive justice harshly refuses to provide for those whose basic needs are unsatisfied due to their own negligent actions, this result can be averted by desert-sensitive justice as it can take into account responsibility-independent considerations. In sum, desert-sensitive justice appears to offer a tighter fit with considered judgments about justice. (shrink)

This paper concerns Tarski’s use of the term “model” in his 1936 paper “On the Concept of Logical Consequence.” Against several of Tarski’s recent defenders, I argue that Tarski employed a non-standard conception of models in that paper. Against Tarski’s detractors, I argue that this non-standard conception is more philosophically plausible than it may appear. Finally, I make a few comments concerning the traditionally puzzling case of Tarski’s ω-rule example.

With a characteristically broad and provocative treatment, Dahlhaus examines a single music-aesthetical idea from various historical and philosophical viewpoints. "Essential reading for anyone interested in the larger intellectual framework in which Romantic music found its place, a framework that to a remarkable degree has continued to shape our image of music."--Robert P. Morgan, Yale University Carl Dahlhaus (1928-1989) is the author of a highly influential body of works on the foundations of music history and aesthetics.

It is not my claim that the ‘L¨ owenheim-Skolem paradox’ is an antinomy in formal logic; but I shall argue that it is an antinomy, or something close to it, in philosophy of language. Moreover, I shall argue that the resolution of the antinomy—the only resolution that I myself can see as making sense—has profound implications for the great metaphysical dispute about realism which has always been the central dispute in the philosophy of language.

This collection of articles and associated discussion papers focuses on a problem that has attracted increasing attention from linguists and psychologists throughout the world during the past several years. Reduced to essentials, the problem is that of discovering the character of the mental capacities that make it possible for human beings to attain knowledge of their language on the basis of fragmentary and haphazard early linguistic experience. A fundamental assumption running through all of these contributions is that people possess strong (...) innate predispositions that are critical for success in this task. (shrink)

I present two generalizations of Putnam's model-theoretic argument against realism. The first replaces Putnam's model theory with some new, and substantially simpler, model theory, while the second replaces Putnam's model theory with some more accessible results from astronomy. By design, both of these new arguments fail. But the similarities between these new arguments and Putnam's original arguments illuminate the latter's overall structure, and the flaws in these new arguments highlight the corresponding flaws in Putnam's arguments.

According to one large family of views, scientific explanations explain a phenomenon (such as an event or a regularity) by subsuming it under a general representation, model, prototype, or schema (see Bechtel, W., & Abrahamsen, A. (2005). Explanation: A mechanist alternative. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(2), 421–441; Churchland, P. M. (1989). A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge: MIT Press; Darden (2006); Hempel, C. G. (1965). Aspects of scientific (...) explanation. In C. G. Hempel (Ed.), Aspects of scientific explanation (pp. 331–496). New York: Free Press; Kitcher (1989); Machamer, P., Darden, L., & Craver, C. F. (2000). Thinking about mechanisms. Philosophy of Science, 67(1), 1–25). My concern is with the minimal suggestion that an adequate philosophical theory of scientific explanation can limit its attention to the format or structure with which theories are represented. The representational subsumption view is a plausible hypothesis about the psychology of understanding. It is also a plausible claim about how scientists present their knowledge to the world. However, one cannot address the central questions for a philosophical theory of scientific explanation without turning one’s attention from the structure of representations to the basic commitments about the worldly structures that plausibly count as explanatory. A philosophical theory of scientific explanation should achieve two goals. The first is explanatory demarcation. It should show how explanation relates with other scientific achievements, such as control, description, measurement, prediction, and taxonomy. The second is explanatory normativity. It should say when putative explanations succeed and fail. One cannot achieve these goals without undertaking commitments about the kinds of ontic structures that plausibly count as explanatory. Representations convey explanatory information about a phenomenon when and only when they describe the ontic explanations for those phenomena. (shrink)

A core, constitutive norm of science is to remove or remedy the artefacts in one’s data. Here, we consider examples of artefacts from many fields of science (for example, astronomy, economics, electrophysiology, psychology, and systems neuroscience) and discuss their contribution to a more general evidential selection problem at the heart of the epistemology of evidence. Synthesizing and building on previously disparate discussions in many areas of the philosophy of science, we provide a novel, causal–pragmatic account that fits the examples and (...) clarifies the practices by which artefacts are discovered and remedied. (shrink)

This work presents a dialogue between classical and contemporary Indian and postmodern thinkers. Juxtaposing the diverse perspectives of Indian philosophers and philosophies, including Buddhism, Sankara, and Radhakrishnan, and western postmodern thinkers such as Lacan and Derrida, Olson addresses topics such as desire, suffering, the self, and identity.

Skolem's Paradox involves a seeming conflict between two theorems from classical logic. The Löwenheim Skolem theorem says that if a first order theory has infinite models, then it has models whose domains are only countable. Cantor's theorem says that some sets are uncountable. Skolem's Paradox arises when we notice that the basic principles of Cantorian set theory—i.e., the very principles used to prove Cantor's theorem on the existence of uncountable sets—can themselves be formulated as a collection of first order sentences. (...) How can the very principles which prove the existence of uncountable sets be satisfied by a model which is itself only countable? How can a countable model satisfy the first order sentence which says that there are uncountably many mathematical objects—e.g., uncountably many real numbers? (shrink)

In his new paper, “Eligibility and Inscrutability,” J. R. G. Williams presents a surprising new challenge to David Lewis’ theory of interpretation. Although Williams frames this challenge primarily as a response to Lewis’ criticisms of Putnam’s model-theoretic argument, the challenge itself goes to the heart of Lewis’ own account of interpretation. Further, and leaving Lewis’ project aside for a moment, Williams’ argument highlights some important—and some fairly general—points concerning the relationship between model theory and semantic determinacy.

In order to explore whether and how Jewish teachings influence the attitudes of strictly-orthodox Jews to clinical trials, 10 strictly-orthodox Jews were purposively selected and interviewed, using a semi-structured schedule. Relevant literature was searched for similar studies and for publications covering relevant Jewish teachings. Thematic analysis was used to analyse transcribed interviews and explore relationships between attitudes and Jewish teachings identified in the review. Participants’ attitudes were influenced in a variety of ways: by Jewish teachings on the over-riding importance of (...) preserving life—the need to avoid risks affecting life and health, while taking risks to preserve life—and the religious obligation to help others, as well as by previous experience. Attitudes mirrored those in the general population, enabling many participants to reach conclusions that did not differ materially from those of the general population or research ethics committees. (shrink)

_Black Intellectual Thought in Education_ celebrates the exceptional academic contributions of African-American education scholars Anna Julia Cooper, Carter G. Woodson, and Alain Leroy Locke to the causes of social science, education, and democracy in America. By focusing on the lives and projects of these three figures specifically, it offers a powerful counter-narrative to the dominant, established discourse in education and critical social theory--helping to better serve the population that critical theory seeks to advocate. Rather than attempting to "rescue" a few (...) African American scholars from obscurity or marginalization, this powerful volume instead highlights ideas that must be probed and critically examined in order to deal with prevailing contemporary educational issues. Cooper, Woodson, and Locke’s history of engagement with race, democracy, education, gender and life is a dynamic, demanding, and authentic narrative for those engaged with these important issues. (shrink)

The Proliferation of Rights explores how the assertion of rights has expanded dramatically since World War II. Carl Wellman illuminates for the reader the historical developments in each of the major categories of rights, including human rights, civil rights, women’s rights, patient rights, and animal rights. He concludes by assessing where this proliferation has been legitimate and helpful, cases where it has been illusory and unproductive, and alternatives to the appeal to rights.

We argue that intelligible appeals to interlevel causes (top-down and bottom-up) can be understood, without remainder, as appeals to mechanistically mediated effects. Mechanistically mediated effects are hybrids of causal and constitutive relations, where the causal relations are exclusively intralevel. The idea of causation would have to stretch to the breaking point to accommodate interlevel causes. The notion of a mechanistically mediated effect is preferable because it can do all of the required work without appealing to mysterious interlevel causes. When interlevel (...) causes can be translated into mechanistically mediated effects, the posited relationship is intelligible and should raise no special philosophical objections. When they cannot, they are suspect. (shrink)

Here a distinguished American historian challenges the belief that the eighteenth century was essentially modern in its temper. In crystalline prose Carl Becker demonstrates that the period commonly described as the Age of Reason was, in fact, very far from that; that Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, and Locke were living in a medieval world, and that these philosophers “demolished the Heavenly City of St. Augustine only to rebuild it with more up-to-date materials.” In a new foreword, Johnson Kent Wright looks (...) at the book’s continuing relevance within the context of current discussion about the Enlightenment. “Will remain a classic—a beautifully finished literary product.”—Charles A. Beard, _American Historical Review_ “_The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers _remains_ _one of the most distinctive American contributions to the historical literature on the Enlightenment.... [It] is likely to beguile and provoke readers for a long time to come.”—Johnson Kent Wright, from the foreword. (shrink)