In recent years quantum probability models have been used to explain many aspects of human decision making, and as such quantum models have been considered a viable alternative to Bayesian models based on classical probability. One criticism that is often leveled at both kinds of models is that they lack a clear interpretation in terms of psychological mechanisms. In this paper we discuss the mechanistic underpinnings of a quantum walk model of human decision making and response time. The quantum walk (...) model is compared to standard sequential sampling models, and the architectural assumptions of both are considered. In particular, we show that the quantum model has a natural interpretation in terms of a cognitive architecture that is both massively parallel and involves both co-operative and competitive interactions between units. Additionally, we introduce a family of models that includes aspects of the classical and quantum walk models. (shrink)

Pothos & Busemeyer (P&B) argue that quantum probability (QP) provides a descriptive model of behavior and can also provide a rational analysis of a task. We discuss QP models using Marr's levels of analysis, arguing that they make most sense as algorithmic level theories. We also highlight the importance of having clear interpretations for basic mechanisms such as interference.

Historical records show that there was no real concept of probability in Europe before the mid-seventeenth century, although the use of dice and other randomizing objects was commonplace. Ian Hacking presents a philosophical critique of early ideas about probability, induction, and statistical inference and the growth of this new family of ideas in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Hacking invokes a wide intellectual framework involving the growth of science, economics, and the theology of the period. He argues that the (...) transformations that made it possible for probability concepts to emerge have constrained all subsequent development of probability theory and determine the space within which philosophical debate on the subject is still conducted. First published in 1975, this edition includes an introduction that contextualizes his book in light of developing philosophical trends. Ian Hacking is the winner of the Holberg International Memorial Prize 2009. (shrink)

This truly philosophical book takes us back to fundamentals - the sheer experience of proof, and the enigmatic relation of mathematics to nature. It asks unexpected questions, such as 'what makes mathematics mathematics?', 'where did proof come from and how did it evolve?', and 'how did the distinction between pure and applied mathematics come into being?' In a wide-ranging discussion that is both immersed in the past and unusually attuned to the competing philosophical ideas of contemporary mathematicians, it shows that (...) proof and other forms of mathematical exploration continue to be living, evolving practices - responsive to new technologies, yet embedded in permanent facts about human beings. It distinguishes several distinct types of application of mathematics, and shows how each leads to a different philosophical conundrum. Here is a remarkable body of new philosophical thinking about proofs, applications, and other mathematical activities. (shrink)

The _Mozi_ is a key philosophical work written by a major social and political thinker of the fifth century B.C.E. It is one of the few texts to survive the Warring States period and is crucial to understanding the origins of Chinese philosophy and two other foundational works, the _Mengzi_ and the _Xunzi_. Ian Johnston provides an English translation of the entire _Mozi_, as well as the first bilingual edition in any European language to be published in the West. His (...) careful translation reasserts the significance of the text's central doctrines, and his annotations and contextual explanations add vivid historical and interpretive dimensions. Part 1 of the _Mozi_ is called the "Epitomes" and contains seven short essays on the elements of Mohist doctrine. Part 2, the "Core Doctrines," establishes the ten central tenets of Mo Zi's ethical, social, and political philosophy, while articulating his opposition to Confucianism. Part 3, the "Canons and Explanations," comprises observations on logic, language, disputation, ethics, science, and other matters, written particularly in defense of Mohism. Part 4, the "Dialogues," presents lively conversations between Master Mo and various disciples, philosophical opponents, and potential patrons. Part 5, the "Defense Chapters," details the principles and practices of defensive warfare, a subject on which Master Mo was an acknowledged authority. Now available to English-speaking readers of all backgrounds, the Mozi is a rich and varied text, and this bilingual edition provides an excellent tool for learning classical Chinese. (shrink)

Historical records show that there was no real concept of probability in Europe before the mid-seventeenth century, although the use of dice and other randomizing objects was commonplace. Ian Hacking presents a philosophical critique of early ideas about probability, induction, and statistical inference and the growth of this new family of ideas in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Hacking invokes a wide intellectual framework involving the growth of science, economics, and the theology of the period. He argues that the (...) transformations that made it possible for probability concepts to emerge have constrained all subsequent development of probability theory and determine the space within which philosophical debate on the subject is still conducted. First published in 1975, this edition includes an introduction that contextualizes his book in light of developing philosophical trends. Ian Hacking is the winner of the Holberg International Memorial Prize 2009. (shrink)

Plato of Athens, who laid the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition and in range and depth ranks among its greatest practitioners, was born to a prosperous and politically active family circa 427 BC. In early life an admirer of Socrates, Plato later founded the first institution of higher learning in the West, the Academy, among whose many notable alumni was Aristotle. Traditionally ascribed to Plato are thirty-five dialogues developing Socrates' dialectic method and composed with great stylistic virtuosity, together with (...) the Apology and thirteen letters. The four works in this volume recount the circumstances of Socrates' trial and execution in 399 BC. In Euthyphro, set in the weeks before the trial, Socrates and Euthyphro attempt to define holiness. In Apology, Socrates answers his accusers at trial and unapologetically defends his philosophical career. In Crito, a discussion of justice and injustice explains Socrates' refusal of Crito's offer to finance his escape from prison. And in Phaedo, Socrates discusses the concept of an afterlife and offers arguments for the immortality of the soul. This edition, which replaces the original Loeb edition by Harold North Fowler, offers text, translation, and annotation that are fully current with modern scholarship." -- Publisher's description. (shrink)

It is widely held that a successful theory of the mind will be neuroscientific. In this paper we ask, first, what this claim means, and, secondly, whether it is true. In answer to the first question, we argue that the claim is ambiguous between two views--one plausible but unsubstantive, and one substantive but highly controversial. In answer to the second question, we argue that neither the evidence from neuroscience itself nor from other scientific and philosophical considerations supports the controversial view.

This essay links Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology of fine art to his description of Christian love. It does so by carefully showing how Marion's overall project is closely related to Kant's well-known account of the relationship between aesthetics and morality. While Kant and Marion both believe that aesthetic experience can lay the groundwork for moral action, their contrasting views of morality lead them to very different articulations of such a relationship. While Kant sees encounters with fine art as preparing individuals for (...) the particular kinds of disinterested judgments characteristic of moral decision-making, Marion sees artwork as preparing the subject for the openness toward intuitive excess that is necessary for love. (shrink)

A prominent tradition in Nietzsche scholarship reads his views about will to power as a psychological thesis and his claims about the value of power as an attempt to derive normativity from psychological necessity. This article shows that these interpretations have failed to articulate a cogent reading faithful to Nietzsche’s texts, and so casts doubt on such an approach. My argument bears not only on how we read Nietzsche, but also on the viability of one recent constitutivist reading. After presenting (...) these critical arguments, I consider an original interpretation of will to power in terms of the motivation to grow. This revised interpretation, however, still fails to support the tradition’s derivation of normativity. Thus, I conclude we should look elsewhere for Nietzsche’s normative argument. (shrink)

L'évêque anglican Joseph Butler proclama, au XVIIIe siècle, que " la probabilité est le guide même de la vie ". Aujourd'hui, probabilités et statistiques ont envahi quasiment tous les domaines de nos vies privées et publiques. Les politiques gardent les yeux rivés sur les sondages, les organismes de retraite nous annoncent des années noires au vu des courbes démographiques, et dans l'intimité de nos salles de bains, perchés sur la balance, nous nous demandons si notre poids est conforme à la (...) moyenne. Dans le domaine scientifique, l'usage de la probabilité semble avoir détrôné un goût de la certitude plus cartésien : l'irruption de la mécanique quantique et de sa fameuse fonction d'onde a fait couler des fleuves d'encre philosophique. Mais une querelle d'interprétation continue à opposer deux conceptions irréductibles : selon l'une, la probabilité est une affaire foncièrement subjective qui relève essentiellement de l'état des croyances de chacun ; selon l'autre, elle est avant tout une question objective relative à la fréquence d'apparition de phénomènes dits aléatoires. De ce concept essentiel et délicat, Ian Hacking tente ici l'archéologie. Comment la probabilité a-t-elle pu devenir aussi envahissante, en politique comme en science, et qu'a-t-elle à voir avec l'opinion? Comment une notion apparemment aussi fugace est-elle devenue l'objet d'un calcul? Quels défis lance-t-elle au raisonnement et à la logique? Dans cette quête aux allures de roman policier, Pascal, Leibniz ou Huygens côtoient des politiques mettant en place un système de rentes à vie, des amateurs tentant de déceler dans des épidémies un ordre sous-jacent, des joueurs impénitents et des inconditionnels de la loterie. (shrink)

This book examines the goals of civic education in liberal democracy, and demonstrates how we can recognize the value of the kinds of character formation that civic education has traditionally involved without losing the portion of the truth that can be found in the orthodox view which favors critical autonomy.

Smith's experience at Balliol College was disappointing, since the dons he encountered were not interested in teaching, and their easy enjoyment of sinecures as Fellows did not encourage that competition for students, and therefore revenue, prevalent among the Glasgow professors, which kept them abreast of their subjects and in touch with the advances of Enlightenment thought, especially the New Philosophy of Locke and the New Science of Newton. Smith read widely on his own, in politics and modern languages, but with (...) no one to supervise him, he seems to have overdone study and suffered a kind of nervous breakdown. He may have started reading Hume at this time, and been punished for doing so; certainly the religious orthodoxy of Balliol and the Jacobitism there, perhaps inflamed by the ’45 Rising’, must have repelled him, and he is reported to have left Oxford in 1746 ‘in disgust.’. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation interventions are novel devices being investigated for the management of severe treatment-resistant psychiatric illnesses. These interventions require the invasive implantation of high-frequency neurostimulatory probes intracranially aiming to provide symptom relief in treatment-resistant disorders including obsessive-compulsive disorder and anorexia nervosa. In the scientific literature, these neurostimulatory interventions are commonly described as reversible and to be used as a last resort option for psychiatric patients. However, the ‘last resort’ status of these interventions is rarely expanded upon. Contrastingly, usages of (...) DBS devices for neurological symptoms have paved the way for established safety and efficacy standards when used earlier in a disease’s timeline. As DBS treatments for these neurological diseases progress to have earlier indications, there is a parallel ethical concern that early implementation may one day become prescribed for psychiatric illnesses. The purpose of this article is to build off contemporary understandings of reversible neurostimulatory interventions to examine and provide clarifications on the ‘last resort’ status of DBS to better address its ethically charged use in psychiatric neurosurgery. To do this, evaluative differences between DBS treatments will be discussed to demonstrate how patient autonomy would be a paramount guiding principle when one day implementing these devices at various points along a psychiatric disease’s timeline. In presenting the clarification of ‘last resort’ status, the ethical tensions of early DBS interventions will be better understood to assist in providing psychiatric patients with more quality of life years in line with their values. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the development of formal languages for describing mereological (part-whole) and topological relationships between objects in space. Typically, the non-logical primitives of these languages are properties and relations such as `x is connected' or `x is a part of y', and the entities over which their variables range are, accordingly, not points, but regions: spatial entities other than regions are admitted, if at all, only as logical constructs of regions. This paper considers (...) two first-order mereotopological languages, and investigates their expressive power. It turns out that these languages, notwithstanding the simplicity of their primitives, are surprisingly expressive. In particular, it is shown that infinitary versions of these languages are adequate to express (in a sense made precise below) all topological relations over the domain of polygons in the closed plane. (shrink)

The vast majority of experimental studies of music to date have explored music in terms of the processes involved in the perception and cognition of complex sonic patterns that can elicit emotion. This paper argues that this conception of music is at odds both with recent Western musical scholarship and with ethnomusicological models, and that it presents a partial and culture‐specific representation of what may be a generic human capacity. It argues that the cognitive sciences must actively engage with the (...) problems of exploring music as manifested and conceived in the broad spectrum of world cultures, not only to elucidate the diversity of music in mind but also to identify potential commonalities that could illuminate the relationships between music and other domains of thought and behavior. (shrink)

Introduction THE FACES OF GOD How many faces has God? Egyptologists have wrestled with the problem over many years ...

The emotional strength of his mother, Margaret Douglas, and close kinship bonds, to some degree, compensated Adam Smith for the loss of his father. In addition, he was well prepared at the Kirkcaldy burgh school for his student years, and found his vocation as a moral philosopher, in an era marked by a strong drive for advance in agriculture and other economic sectors. Most important of all, his Presbyterian inheritance, together with training in the Latin and Greek classics, instilled in (...) him the values of self‐command of a Stoic cast, frugality, diligence in his calling, and strict justice towards others tempered with benevolence, which characterized his actions and his teaching. At the same time, he seemed to have developed an independence of mind, which led him to rebel against the strict controls of Calvinism meant to check human depravity, and to set store by human goodness, and the will to enjoy natural liberty. (shrink)

Smith was devoted in his attentions to Hume as he lay dying, but, ever the man of prudence, gave his best friend some pain through unwillingness to see through the press the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. In the event, Smith was violently abused by Christians for describing Hume in a published letter as approaching as near to the idea of a ‘perfectly wise and virtuous man’ as human weakness permits. Smith would have been in further trouble if his 1778 Machiavellian (...) advice about a solution to the American problem had been published, for it advocated returning Canada to the French, and Florida to the Spaniards, to ensure that independent Americans would become allies of Britain. (shrink)

Terminally ill in 1776, Hume was relieved from anxieties over Smith's masterwork when it finally reached him on 1 April, and he gave it unstinted praise, though not without offering cogent criticism. The two‐part structure of WN is discussed in context. Books I and II are analytical and identify the principles, chiefly division of labour, which naturally lead to economic growth where the free‐market system, or something close to it, is adopted. Books III to V are historical and evaluative, focused (...) on what legislators, to whom the book is addressed, have done and should do to promote growth. This second part of WN assesses alternatives to the free‐market system, denouncing mercantilism's injudicious restraints and incentives, and Physiocracy's blindness to the benefits of industry and trade. Smith settles for some restrictions on individual economic freedom, to provide resources for society's chief needs identified as defence, justice, public works, and education, and he manifests grave concern about the mental torpor found in workers subjected to extensive division of labour. (shrink)

Smith's correspondence of this period of his life suggests that he believed that raising a revenue in a non‐discriminatory way did not gravely affect the tendency towards price equilibrium on which economic efficiency depends. There was also the necessity of providing for justice, education, and public works in Scotland. Smith was consequently willing, on the grounds of utility, to regulate and enforce the mercantile system, even though he viewed some of its features as unwise and unjust, for example, prohibiting certain (...) imports and punishing smugglers harshly. Smith's activities as an administrative judge and director of import police are assessed, and highlights of his service are described, such as his coastguard command role in gathering intelligence about the entry of John Paul Jones with units of the American navy, supported by France, into the Firth of Forth in September 1779. As well, his views of this time about the issue of free trade for Ireland are examined. (shrink)

Returning to London in November 1766, Smith spent the next six months as an adviser to Buccleuch, and engaged in government research projects on taxation and management of the Sinking Fund intended to reduce public debt. Other assignments were inquiries into Pacific exploration and the history of Roman colonies as a guide, perhaps, to problems in North America. Buccleuch married in May 1767 and Smith spent the next seven years in Kirkcaldy, struggling with bouts of ill health and the perplexing (...) task of composing WN to his satisfaction. Correspondence of this period reveals that Smith was absorbing new information about grain prices and values of silver, with a view to improving his economic system, through refining its self‐correcting feature governed by the price mechanism, in which rents, wages, and profits are detailed as the factors of production. (shrink)

Adam Smith was baptized on 5 June 1723 in the Fife seaport of Kirkcaldy, where his father, who died on 9 January 1723, had served as Comptroller of Customs. Father Adam Smith studied the liberal arts in Aberdeen, took legal training in Edinburgh qualifying him for estate management, and became secretary to a Campbell magnate. He hesitated about taking up a Customs post in Kirkcaldy, because his income there depended on volume of trade, which was falling off. However, he handled (...) his money well, and married the daughter of a substantial Fife laird. His Will specified that his widow, Margaret Douglas, would get help in raising young Adam from guardians associated with intellectual and economic improvement in Scotland. (shrink)

Smith understood that as a professor he was required to publish his work and help administer his University. While his reputation for absent‐mindedness grew, his Glasgow colleagues benefited from his sound practical bent and entrusted him with a wide range of university management issues. As for publishing, he began by contributing to the two numbers of the first Edinburgh Review: commenting on Johnson's Dictionary in 1755; and in 1756, on d’Alembert's Encyclopédie, also on Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, whose argument about (...) self‐love as an economic driving force he took up in TMS and WN. Following the publication of TMS in 1759, Smith concentrated more on political economy, also began work on the long process of the composition of WN, adding to his system lessons learned from a banking crisis in Scotland as his professorship came to an end in 1764. (shrink)

Smith wrote that his thirteen years as a Glasgow professor formed the most useful, and, therefore, the happiest and most honourable period of his life. His students joked about his absent‐mindedness and loved him for his benevolence and learning and also for the care he took over the delivery of his lectures. In due course, they disseminated Smith's ideas. Some were sons of local merchants, from whose fathers Smith learned about Glasgow's growing wealth from trading and manufacturing activities, then reflected (...) on related moral and economic problems and offered solutions. Others were from foreign countries: e.g. S.E. Desnitsky and I.A. Tret’yakov, sent abroad by Catherine the Great to complete their education, who then assisted her reform programme in Russia, by passing on Smith's liberal economic policy advice, at least eight years before it was published in WN. (shrink)

From 1773 until 1776, Smith remained in London ‐adding finishing touches to WN, whose publication was timed to seize Parliament's attention, and influence Members to support a peaceful resolution of the conflict with the American colonies. North America offered a major point of application for free‐market theory, and if Smith could win supporters, there was some hope of ending the cycle of violence induced by efforts to preserve the old colonial system involving economic restraints and prohibitions. Smith advocated the creation (...) of an Atlantic union, which would accommodate economic dynamism, develop new political institutions, and allow a place for the revolutionary spirit to be exercised. He foresaw that the pace of American economic growth would inevitably guarantee that leadership would pass from Britain to the former colonies. On an entirely different front at this period, Smith, in commenting on a proposal for reform in university medical education, revealed the strength of his endorsement of competition and detestation of monopolies of any kind. (shrink)

Smith's two‐year tour abroad with young Buccleuch was modest rather than ‘grand,’ but allowed him to investigate a range of regional economies and two unfamiliar political systems: France's autocracy and republican oligarchy in Switzerland. France's taxation problems in the aftermath of war were of particular interest to him, a topic found in WN. Most of his time was spent in Toulouse, when Voltaire was leading a successful fight for a posthumous retrial there of Jean Calas, a victim of religious bigotry (...) and miscarriage of justice. Smith later visited Voltaire, who was his intellectual hero, at his home, Ferney, near Geneva. When in Paris, Smith was introduced to leading philosophes, who were impressed by TMS, also to Turgot and Quesnay, whose Physiocratic views on circular flow in the economy persuaded him to make adjustments in his system. (shrink)

This article analyses the aesthetics of digital compression as revealed in Thomas Ruff’s Jpegs series of photographs (2004–07). These images exhibit a poor standard of digital picture resolution fixed as large-scale, high-quality, lustrous C-type photographic prints. With reference to Vilém Flusser’s writing on photography, I argue that Ruff’s work discloses a ‘horror of digital photography’: a system of automated representation, which inverts our relationship to the photographic image.

What will be the future of war? No-one can tell for sure, and so there is much speculation and many contending views. In this article I discuss one of those views, the notion that war of the future will primarily be a protracted form of terrorism, insurgency, and low-intensity conflict within 'failed' states and civilizations, which will sometimes lapse into ethnic cleansing and genocide. It will be 'dirty war'. The antagonists will be rage-filled 'warriors'. War will be fought in the (...) wastelands of the Third World. Wars will occur because of state failure, rather than because of state strength and expansion. They will feature 'irregular' forces rather than the disciplined hierarchical armies that have been the defining characteristic of recent Western military history. Frequently, the military forces of developed societies will be drawn into these conflicts. This is a plausible view of the future, one that is influential in Washington, and a number of serious academics2 subscribe to it. (shrink)