We prove frame determination results for the family of many-valued modal logics introduced by M. Fitting in the early '90s. Each modal language of this family is based on a Heyting algebra, which serves as the space of truth values, and is interpreted on an interesting version of possible-worlds semantics: the modal frames are directed graphs whose edges are labelled with an element of the underlying Heyting algebra. We introduce interesting generalized forms of the classical axioms D, T, B, 4, (...) and 5 and prove that they are canonical for certain algebraic frame properties, which generalize seriality, reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity and euclideanness. Our results are quite general as they hold for any modal language built on a complete Heyting algebra. (shrink)

We introduce a bimodal epistemic logic intended to capture knowledge as truth in all epistemically alternative states and belief as a generalised ‘majority’ quantifier, interpreted as truth in most of the epistemically alternative states. This doxastic interpretation is of interest in knowledge-representation applications and it also holds an independent philosophical and technical appeal. The logic comprises an epistemic modal operator, a doxastic modal operator of consistent and complete belief and ‘bridge’ axioms which relate knowledge to belief. To capture the notion (...) of a ‘majority’ we use the ‘large sets’ introduced independently by K. Schlechta and V. Jauregui, augmented with a requirement of completeness, which furnishes a ‘weak ultrafilter’ concept. We provide semantics in the form of possible-worlds frames, properly blending relational semantics with a version of general Scott–Montague frames and we obtain soundness and completeness results. We examine the validity of certain epistemic principles discussed in the literature, in particular some of the ‘bridge’ axioms discussed by W. Lenzen and R. Stalnaker, as well as the ‘paradox of the perfect believer’, which is not a theorem of. (shrink)

In this paper we provide frame definability results for weak versions of classical modal axioms that can be expressed in Fitting's many-valued modal languages. These languages were introduced by M. Fitting in the early '90s and are built on Heyting algebras which serve as the space of truth values. The possible-worlds frames interpreting these languages are directed graphs whose edges are labelled with an element of the underlying Heyting algebra, providing us a form of many-valued accessibility relation. Weak axioms of (...) the form we treat here have been examined from the completeness perspective and further explored for applications in non-monotonic reasoning. Here, we introduce more weak many-valued modal axioms and prove a frame correspondence result for all of them. The classes of corresponding labelled frames possess algebraic properties which are strongly reminiscent of many classical ones, such as the Church-Rosser property, reflexivity, transitivity, partial functionality, etc. (shrink)

We prove frame determination results for the family of many-valued modal logics introduced by M. Fitting in the early '90s. Each modal language of this family is based on a Heyting algebra, which serves as the space of truth values, and is interpreted on an interesting version of possible-worlds semantics: the modal frames are directed graphs whose edges are labelled with an element of the underlying Heyting algebra. We introduce interesting generalized forms of the classical axioms D, T, B, 4, (...) and 5 and prove that they are canonical for certain algebraic frame properties, which generalize seriality, reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity and euclideanness. Our results are quite general as they hold for any modal language built on a complete Heyting algebra. (shrink)

Defeasible conditionals are statements of the form ‘if A then normally B’. One plausible interpretation introduced in nonmonotonic reasoning dictates that ) is true iff B is true in ‘most’ A-worlds. In this paper, we investigate defeasible conditionals constructed upon a notion of ‘overwhelming majority’, defined as ‘truth in a cofinite subset of \’, the first infinite ordinal. One approach employs the modal logic of the frame \\), used in the temporal logic of discrete linear time. We introduce and investigate (...) conditionals, defined modally over \\); several modal definitions of the conditional connective are examined, with an emphasis on the nonmonotonic ones. An alternative interpretation of ‘majority’ as sets cofinal ) rather than cofinite ) is examined. For these modal approaches over \\), a decision procedure readily emerges, as the modal logic \ of this frame is well-known and a translation of the conditional sentences can be mechanically checked for validity; this allows also for a quick proof of \-completeness of the satisfiability problem for these logics. A second approach employs the conditional version of Scott-Montague semantics, in the form of \-many possible worlds, endowed with neighborhoods populated by collections of cofinite subsets of \. This approach gives rise to weak conditional logics, as expected. The relative strength of the conditionals introduced is compared to KLM logics and other conditional logics in the literature. (shrink)

Weak filters were introduced by K. Schlechta in the ’90s with the aim of interpreting defaults via a generalized ‘most’ quantifier in first-order logic. They arguably represent the largest class of structures that qualify as a ‘collection of large subsets’ of a given index set |$I$|⁠, in the sense that it is difficult to think of a weaker, but still plausible, definition of the concept. The notion of weak ultrafilter naturally emerges and has been used in epistemic logic and other (...) knowledge representation (KR) applications. We provide a comprehensive exposition of weak filters and ultrafilters, comparing them with their classical counterparts that have found very important applications in logic, set theory and topology. Weak (ultra)filters capture the ‘majorities’ of social choice theory (which coincide with the commonsense understanding of a ‘large subset’) and in that respect, they outperform classical (ultra)filters in their role as ‘collections of large subsets’. Yet, they lack some of the elegant properties of classical (ultra)filters that make them an almost perfect match for logical theories. We investigate the extent to which some important classical results carry through in this new setting, and we focus on genuinely weak filters and genuinely weak ultrafilters. For weak ultrafilters, we proceed to provide concrete examples, answer questions of existence and characterize their construction. The class of weak (ultra)filters represents a genuine contribution of KR to set theory that might be of some interest to set theorists too and we initiate this study by providing a glimpse on natural set-theoretic questions. (shrink)

Equity was first established as a terminus technicus by Aristotle, but the word was initially shaped by Plato in his Statesman. Aristotle considers equity as a necessary criterion of the interpretation of human action, i.e., the ultimate, the particular moral situation, given that law is general, and every moral agent makes different moral choices, since man exhibits a multiplicity of purposes as a being and every person acts on the basis of a variety of moral perspectives and values. Therefore, the (...) task of every judge is to trace the moral choice made by a moral agent, as well as to interpret the law and attribute justice, since, as it is attested, law may be deficient, whereas this does not necessarily apply to justice itself. (shrink)

S4.2 is the modal logic of directed partial pre-orders and/or the modal logic of reflexive and transitive relational frames with a final cluster. It holds a distinguished position in philosophical...

A new methodology for developing theories of action has recently emerged which provides means for formally evaluating the correctness of such theories. Yet, for a theory of action to qualify as a solution to the frame problem, not only does it need to produce correct inferences, but moreover, it needs to derive these inferences from a concise representation of the domain at hand. The new methodology however offers no means for assessing conciseness. Such a formal account of conciseness is developed (...) in this paper. Combined with the existing criterion for correctness, our account of conciseness offers a framework where proposed solutions to the frame problem can be formally evaluated. (shrink)

In this paper we define and examine frame constructions for the family of manyvalued modal logics introduced by M. Fitting in the '90s. Every language of this family is built on an underlying space of truth values, a Heyting algebra H. We generalize Fitting's original work by considering complete Heyting algebras as truth spaces and proceed to define a suitable notion of H-indexed families of generated subframes, disjoint unions and bounded morphisms. Then, we provide an algebraic generalization of the canonical (...) extension of a frame and model, and prove a preservation result inspired from Fitting's canonical model argument in [FIT 92a]. The analog of a complex algebra and of a principal ultrafilter is defined and the embedding of a frame into its canonical extension is presented. (shrink)

Abstract:In this work, we consider the essence of human freedom as a living link among the forces of the individuation process thought aesthetically; that is, because human understanding is synthetic, imagination can elaborate a whole world that is not linked to conceptual knowledge. Precisely because of that, we can find a way of relationship between ourselves and the environment that is not binary, such as when we ask ourselves whether the emission of carbon gas resulting from our human intervention is (...) harmful to the environment or not. To do so, we will initially outline the meaning of the symbolic (Sinnbild) in Schelling. Then, we will see how Schelling reaches the material conditions of objectification for an extra-theoretical synthesis by which, in a single move, the universe is immediately given. Finally, we turn to the specificity of human freedom and the dual nature of the I, which allows us to understand that the possibility of our human freedom does not consist in being able to choose between good and evil; rather, its possibility consists in a capacity (Vermögen) for good and evil. (shrink)

This is a study of the nature of time. In it, redeploying an argument first presented by McTaggart, the author argues that although time itself is real, tense is not. He accounts for the appearance of the reality of tense - our sense of the passage of time, and the fact that our experience occurs in the present - by showing how time is indispensable as a condition of action. Time itself is further analysed, and Dr Mellor gives answers to (...) most of the metaphysical questions it provokes, concerning the relation of time to space, the dissection of time, and its relation to change and causation. (shrink)

The indexicality of film and sound recordings remains an unresolved problem in contemporary documentary theory. The prevailing conceptualisation of the documentary assigns it the status of a sober discourse, a framing in which history is modelled as absent cause and the unqualified distinction between fiction and non-fiction is considered sacrosanct. The denotative literalism characteristic of indexical media, however, confounds this conceptualisation, which in turn encourages the devaluing of documentary aesthetics; the documentary is not a medium of art, it is said, (...) but of argument. In this article, I examine how philosopher Jacques Rancière offers an alternative account of the documentary grounded on aesthetics rather than sobriety. I show how, in rethinking the absent cause model of history as well as the relationship between fiction and nonfiction, Rancière's aesthetic approach resolves the conceptual problem posed by indexicality and brings clarity to the value and function of indexical media with respect to the documentary. (shrink)

In this paper, we advocate the usage of the family of Heyting-valued modal logics, introduced by M. Fitting, by presenting a simple 3-valued modal language and axiomatizing an interesting 3-valued logic of belief. We give two simple bisimulation relations for the modal language, one that respects non-falsity and one that respects the truth value. The doxastic logic axiomatized, apart from being interesting in its own right for KR applications, it comes with an underlying 3-valued propositional logic which is a syntactic (...) variant of the ‘logic of here-and-there’, whose importance in KR and Logic Programming is well-known, it is endowed from its very inception with a Gentzen-style proof theory from [Fit92] and a completeness theorem from [KNP02], it can be equivalently seen as a logic describing the epistemic agreement of two interrelated agents: a K45 agent who ‘dominates’ an S5 agent, as we show here, its satisfiability problem is NP-complete, i.e. at the lower level one can expect for applied logics. This is the first concrete example of an epistemic logic from Fitting's framework, that has been overlooked hitherto, despite its many attractive characteristics. (shrink)

Organ donation after a circulatory determination of death is possible in selected patients where consent is given to support donation and the patient has been legally declared dead by two doctors. The National Health Act (61 of 2003) and regulations provide strict controls for the certification of death and the donation of organs and tissues after death. Although the National Health Act expressly recognises that brain death is death, it does not prescribe the medical standards of testing for the determination (...) of brain death (neurological determination of death), circulatory death (circulatory determination of death) or for determination of death based on somatic criteria. However, in all cases of organ donation, including after circulatory death, the National Health Act mandates that two doctors certify the death, with one doctor possessing more than 5 years of experience. Additionally, both doctors must be independent from the transplant team. The standard for such determination, as for brain death, aligns with accepted medical standards. The Critical Care Society of Southern Africa has published South African (SA) Guidelines on Death Determination that outline rigorous standards for death determination in hospital settings by either a neurological or circulatory method. Legislation and the Health Professions Council of SA’s (HPCSA) professional guidance direct clinicians on obtaining informed consent for donation either from the patient or in cases of incapacity from their surrogate decision maker. Collectively, the legislation, regulations and professional guidelines in SA provide a robust ethical framework that supports organ donation after circulatory death. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:This article examines Harold Ramis’s 2005 noir comedy The Ice Harvest as the critically dystopian counter-panel to his beloved 1993 film Groundhog Day, a film frequently discussed within the paradigm of utopia. While starkly different in genre, tone, and reception, the two films comprise a dialectical dyad that registers the historical transition from the utopian cultural effervescence of the early 1990s to the tragic foreclosure of imaginative horizons and the dystopian transformation of economic, political, and social landscapes in the new (...) millennium. In The Ice Harvest, the author argues, this is achieved through a strategic reactivation of film noir as a variant of the critical dystopia. (shrink)

This paper is written in an analytic style, but it is meant to deprive analysis of an important prop. The title needs a short introduction. The mistake is to take ‘real’ as governed in its separate uses by criteria; and this paper is meant to show that this is a mistake and that Ausin makes it. In the course of the argument I try to develop my own account and, although I am not altogether satisfied with it, the result gives (...) something to build upon. I believe the mistake is by no means confined to Austin, but that it is connected with a particular conception of philosophy. (shrink)

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

This chapter explores the debate between contemporary projectivists or expressivists, and the advocates of sensibility theory. Both positions are best viewed as forms of sentimentalism — the theory that evaluative concepts must be explicated by appeal to the sentiments. It argues that the sophisticated interpretation of such notions as “true” and “objective” that are offered by defenders of these competing views ultimately undermines the significance of their meta-ethical disputes over “cognitivism” and “realism” about value. Their fundamental disagreement lies in moral (...) psychology; it concerns how best to understand the emotions to which sentimentalist theories must appeal. (shrink)

Breaking new ground in the debate about the relation of mind and body, David Armstrong's classic text - first published in 1968 - remains the most compelling and comprehensive statement of the view that the mind is material or physical. In the preface to this new edition, the author reflects on the book's impact and considers it in the light of subsequent developments. He also provides a bibliography of all the key writings to have appeared in the materialist debate.

This is a study of a crucial and controversial topic in metaphysics and the philosophy of science: the status of the laws of nature. D. M. Armstrong works out clearly and in comprehensive detail a largely original view that laws are relations between properties or universals. The theory is continuous with the views on universals and more generally with the scientific realism that Professor Armstrong has advanced in earlier publications. He begins here by mounting an attack on the orthodox and (...) sceptical view deriving from Hume that laws assert no more than a regularity of coincidence between instances of properties. In doing so he presents what may become the definitive statement of the case against this position. Professor Armstrong then goes on to establish his own theory in a systematic manner defending it against the most likely objections, and extending both it and the related theory of universals to cover functional and statistical laws. This treatment of the subject is refreshingly concise and vivid: it will both stimulate vigorous professional debate and make an excellent student text. (shrink)

In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...) rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Introduces students to theories that have stood the test of time and those that have provided the historical foundation for the best of contemporary educational theory and practice.

Commentary and summarization of the selected works of Yaḥyá ibn Ḥabash Suhrawardī, 1152 or 1153-1191.