Provides a robust theoretical and methodological framework for researching of resistance and social change.

This chapter proposes a version of epistemic contextualism, called inferentialist contextualism, as a promising research program within African epistemology. My suggestion should be seen against the background of the earlier debate between the seemingly incompatible positions of universalism and particularism. Whilst universalism has been charged with not allowing for diversity, of forcing African culture into the Procrustean bed of Western thought, particularism seems to block cross-cultural dialogue. A compromise is therefore called for. I argue that inferentialist contextualism can fill this (...) need. One promising feature is that whilst traditional epistemology always places the burden of justification on the subject of knowledge, inferentialist contextualism distinguishes between three different contexts: except for the traditional one, a second where the burden of proof is shared by both the subject and any fellow who might challenge the belief and a third context where the burden lies solely on the inquiring fellow. The notion of default entitlement depicts beliefs falling within this third context and will be elaborated in some detail here. I argue that inferential contextualism permits greater contextual variety than traditional epistemology without collapsing into relativism. (shrink)

A construction principle for natural deduction systems for arbitrary, finitely-many-valued first order logics is exhibited. These systems are systematically obtained from sequent calculi, which in turn can be automatically extracted from the truth tables of the logics under consideration. Soundness and cut-free completeness of these sequent calculi translate into soundness, completeness, and normal-form theorems for natural deduction systems.

The aim of this paper is to provide a case for the double-halfer position in the sleeping beauty. This case relies on the use of the so-called imaging rule for probabilistic dynamics as a substitute for conditionalization. It is argued that the imaging rule is the appropriate one for dealing with belief change in sleeping beauty and that under natural assumptions, this rule results in the double-halfer position.

This volume commemorates the life, work, and foundational views of Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), most famous for his hallmark works on the completeness of first-order logic, the incompleteness of number theory, and the consistency - with the other widely accepted axioms of set theory - of the axiom of choice and of the generalized continuum hypothesis. It explores current research, advances, and ideas for future directions not only in the foundations of mathematics and logic, but also in the fields of computer (...) science, artificial intelligence, physics, cosmology, philosophy, theology, and the history of science. The discussion is supplemented by personal reflections from several scholars who knew Gödel personally, providing some interesting insights into his life. By putting his ideas and life's work into the context of current thinking and perceptions, this book will extend the impact of Gödel's fundamental work in mathematics, logic, philosophy, and other disciplines for future generations of researchers. (shrink)

A general class of labeled sequent calculi is investigated, and necessary and sufficient conditions are given for when such a calculus is sound and complete for a finite -valued logic if the labels are interpreted as sets of truth values. Furthermore, it is shown that any finite -valued logic can be given an axiomatization by such a labeled calculus using arbitrary "systems of signs," i.e., of sets of truth values, as labels. The number of labels needed is logarithmic in the (...) number of truth values, and it is shown that this bound is tight. (shrink)

We give examples of calculi that extend Gentzen’s sequent calculusLKby unsound quantifier inferences in such a way that derivations lead only to true sequents, and proofs therein are nonelementarily shorter thanLK-proofs.

Contemporary decision theory places crucial emphasis on a family of mathematical results called representation theorems, which relate criteria for evaluating the available options to axioms pertaining to the decision-maker’s preferences. Various claims have been made concerning the reasons for the importance of these results. The goal of this article is to assess their semantic role: representation theorems are purported to provide definitions of the decision-theoretic concepts involved in the evaluation criteria. In particular, this claim shall be examined from the perspective (...) of philosophical theories of the meaning of theoretical terms. (shrink)

Ostracism—being excluded and ignored—thwarts satisfaction of four fundamental needs: belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence. The current study investigated whether training participants to focus their attention on the here-and-now reduces distress from an ostracism experience. Participants were first trained in either focused or unfocused attention, and then played Cyberball, an online ball-tossing game for which half the participants were included or ostracized. Participants reported their levels of need satisfaction during the game, and after a short delay. Whereas both training groups (...) experienced the same degree of need-threat in the immediate measure, participants who were trained in focused attention showed more recovery for the delayed measure. We reason that focused attention would not reduce the distress during the ostracism experience, but it aided in recovery by preventing participants from reliving the ostracism experience after it concludes. (shrink)

The present paper focuses on the nurse–patient relationship in forensic psychiatric care. From research in the field six categories of nurse–patient interactions are identified: ‘building and sustaining relationships’, ‘supportive/encouraging interactions’, ‘social skills training’, ‘reality orientation’, ‘reflective interactions’ and ‘practical skills training’. The content of each category of interaction in the context of forensic psychiatric care is described. A conceptual model is presented together with an empirical, philosophical and theoretical foundation for the use of verbal and social interactions in nurse–patient interactions (...) in forensic psychiatric nursing care. The implications and possible uses of the model in the practical field of forensic psychiatric care are discussed. (shrink)

Means of transportation are changing through advances in automation. One issue to be considered in this development is public opinion regarding these systems, yet existing studies of automated transportation do not provide theoretical or methodological means for exploring public imagination, even though this would be relevant in exploring public acceptance of future technologies. Applied for studying public views on a future automated metro system, a method was devised that includes quantitative and qualitative analysis of media and questionnaire data. Although supportive (...) arguments dominated media discussion, people’s attitudes were negative. The two most prominent models of media influence, repetition and cultural resonance, could not fully explain the results; therefore, public imagination, which reflected daily experiences and science fiction, was explored with reference to social representations literature. It is suggested in general that public imagination, along with media discourses and societal settings that contribute to explanations, should be considered in the design and study of automated systems. It is also discussed that the social representations approach could be beneficial for media frame studies by providing explications as to why certain frames might have or lack cultural resonance. (shrink)

Ever since their invention, photographic images have often been thought to be a special kind of image. Often, photography has been claimed to be a particularly realistic medium. At other times, photographs are said to be epistemically superior to other types of image. Yet another way in which photographs apparently are special is that our subjective experience of looking at photographs seems very different from our experience of looking at other types of image, such as paintings and drawings. While the (...) other seemingly distinctive aspects of photography have been quite thoroughly discussed in the literature, theories of the experience of photography, or in other words, theories of its special phenomenology, are less common. To be sure, the phenomenon has often been pointed out and described, but explanations of the phenomenology of photography are rare. In this essay, I attempt an explanation of at least part of the phenomenology of photography by appealing to the idea, borrowed from André Bazin, that a photograph is a certain kind of trace. Along the way, it is also argued that Kendall Walton's so called “transparency thesis” cannot give a plausible explanation of the phenomenology associated with looking at photographs. (shrink)

This article examines the Kierkegaard reception of the Danish theologians K. Olesen Larsen and Johannes Sløk, who both understood Kierkegaard as attempting to radically subvert the freedom of the human being. Initially, I show how current Kierkegaard research on the question of subjectivity, freedom and indirect communication differs from the readings of Olesen Larsen and Sløk. Subsequently, and in contrast to this, Olesen Larsen’s somewhat ambivalent attempt to read Kierkegaard as undermining human freedom is presented. Third, I show how Sløk (...) arrives at a somewhat similar result, though in a more coherent way. In conclusion, the article offers a brief discussion on the plausibility of this interpretation. (shrink)

We investigate interpolation properties of many-valued propositional logics related to continuous t-norms. In case of failure of interpolation, we characterize the minimal interpolating extensions of the languages. For finite-valued logics, we count the number of interpolating extensions by Fibonacci sequences.

Scientific perspectivism, or perspectival realism, is a view according to which scientific knowledge is neither utterly objective nor independent of the world “as it is”, but always tied to some particular ways of conceptualization and interaction with Nature. In the present paper, I employ Robert Rosen’s concept of the modeling relation for arguing that there are two basic reasons why our knowledge of natural systems is perspectival in this sense. The first of these pertains to the dualism between a system (...) and its environment, which is necessarily imposed by a scientist focusing on the former. The second pertains to the complexity of complex systems; a complex system understood as a system in which different kinds of causal entailments intertwine together. As I discuss in the paper besides developing the argument, perspectivism thus understood ties together several issues ranging from organicism to emergentism and to processual philosophy, and from the ceteris paribus talk of biology to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. I also discuss Rosen’s relational formalisms as a concrete example of how perspectival epistemology might directly suggest novel strategies and practices of doing theoretical science. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a detailed review of previous classifications of 2 × 2 games and suggest a mathematically simple way to classify the symmetric 2 × 2 games based on a decomposition of the payoff matrix into a cooperative and a zero-sum part. We argue that differences in the interaction between the parts is what makes games interesting in different ways. Our claim is supported by evolutionary computer experiments and findings in previous literature. In addition, we provide a (...) method for using a stereographic projection to create a compact 2-d representation of the game space. (shrink)

Any intermediate propositional logic can be extended to a calculus with epsilon- and tau-operators and critical formulas. For classical logic, this results in Hilbert’s $\varepsilon $ -calculus. The first and second $\varepsilon $ -theorems for classical logic establish conservativity of the $\varepsilon $ -calculus over its classical base logic. It is well known that the second $\varepsilon $ -theorem fails for the intuitionistic $\varepsilon $ -calculus, as prenexation is impossible. The paper investigates the effect of adding critical $\varepsilon $ - (...) and $\tau $ -formulas and using the translation of quantifiers into $\varepsilon $ - and $\tau $ -terms to intermediate logics. It is shown that conservativity over the propositional base logic also holds for such intermediate ${\varepsilon \tau }$ -calculi. The “extended” first $\varepsilon $ -theorem holds if the base logic is finite-valued Gödel–Dummett logic, and fails otherwise, but holds for certain provable formulas in infinite-valued Gödel logic. The second $\varepsilon $ -theorem also holds for finite-valued first-order Gödel logics. The methods used to prove the extended first $\varepsilon $ -theorem for infinite-valued Gödel logic suggest applications to theories of arithmetic. (shrink)

Dans un environnement organisationnel instable et concurrentiel, l'usage des outils de groupware serait tributaire de la convergence entre, d'une part, les formes de communication permises par ces outils et, d'autre part, les stratégies relationnelles mises en oeuvre pour développer la confiance entre les acteurs. Les pratiques de collaboration qui font appel aux technologies informatiques de travail en groupe dépendraient alors de cette logique d'usage. Une recherche empirique, réalisée dans des entreprises et des centres de recherche de la Silicon Valley, conforte (...) ces hypothèses.In a changing and competitive organizational environment, the use of groupware tools seems to rely on the convergence of the communication allowed by these tools and the relational strategies necessary to develop trust. Consequently, computer supported collaborative practices would depend on this logic of use. Empirical research realised in firms and in research centres in Silicon Valley tends to confirm these hypotheses. (shrink)

What is it to see something in a picture? Most accounts of pictorial experience—or, to use Richard Wollheim’s term, ‘seeing-in’—seek, in various ways, to explain it in terms of how pictures somehow display the looks of things. However, some ‘things’ that we apparently see in pictures do not display any ‘look.’ In particular, most pictures depict empty space, but empty space does not seem to display any ‘look’—at least not in the way material objects do. How do we see it (...) in pictures, if we do? In this chapter, I offer an account of pictorial perception of empty space by elaborating on Wollheim’s claim that ‘seeing-in’ is permeable to thought. I end by pointing to the aesthetic relevance of seeing—or not seeing—empty space in pictures. (shrink)

This interview addresses Andreas Reckwitz’s main work, A Society of Singularities, but puts it in relation to his earlier and later writings. It starts with the strong and broad reception of this work in Germany. Next, it turns to how his understanding of the transformation of the social logics of modernity is related to other sociological understandings. In this way, the crucial distinctions of his work between the general and the particular, between formal rationalisation and culturalisation, are thematised. The next (...) part addresses Reckwitz’s Foucault-inspired concept of critique and his understanding of the relation between theoretical and empirical work. The interview then goes on to the transformation of class structure, which is understood in terms of a culturalisation of inequality. The interview ends with a section about the kind of sufferings and problems that are typical of the present age, and how they might affect social transformation. (shrink)

We introduce Gentzen calculi for intuitionistic logic extended with an existence predicate. Such a logic was first introduced by Dana Scott, who provided a proof system for it in Hilbert style. We prove that the Gentzen calculus has cut elimination in so far that all cuts can be restricted to very simple ones. Applications of this logic to Skolemization, truth value logics and linear frames are also discussed.

It is often assumed that there is a hard line between theistic evolution (TE) and intelligent design (ID). Many theistic evolutionists subscribe to the idea that God only acts through natural processes, as opposed to the ID assertion that God, at certain points in natural history, has acted in a direct manner; directly causing particular features of the world. In this article, I argue that theistic evolutionists subscribe to what might be called Natural Divine Causation (NDC). NDC does not merely (...) provide a nonsupernaturalist and noninterventionist model of divine action, it provides a line of demarcation between TE and ID. I make the critique that NDC is philosophically untenable and argue, consequently, that the line between TE and ID is blurred. (shrink)

Pictures let us see what is not there. Or rather, since what pictures depict is not really there, we do not really see the things they are pictures of. Ever since Richard Wollheim introduced the notion of seeing-in into philosophical aesthetics, as part of his theory of depiction, there has been a lively debate about how, precisely, to understand this experience. However, one (alleged) feature of seeing-in that Wollheim pointed to has been almost completely absent in the subsequent discussion, namely (...) that seeing-in allows for non-localization. When looking at a picture, Wollheim says, there is not always an answer to the question of where one sees a certain thing in a picture. If Wollheim is right in this, pictures indeed let us see what is not there: we see things in pictures, but there is no ‘there’ where we see those things. In this paper I argue against Wollheim's claim that object-seeing-in allows for non-localization. But there is, I argue, a pictorial experience, which is closely tied to seeing-in and which is non-localized, namely (what I call) pictorial perceptual presence. (shrink)

Modern social orders are legitimized by the ideal of freedom. Most conceptions of this ideal are theorized against the backdrop of nature understood as governed by its own laws beyond the realm of the social. However, such an understanding of nature is now being challenged by the ‘Anthropocene’ hypothesis. This article investigates the consequences of this hypothesis for freedom as an ideal legitimizing social order. We begin by discussing the conception of legitimation, after which we examine three classical notions of (...) freedom (developed by Hobbes, Kant, and Hegel), in light of the Anthropocene. Following our claim that these notions all have severe weaknesses in view of the Anthropocene, we argue that modern social orders are facing a new legitimation crisis. Such a crisis, we suggest, involves a ‘brutalization of social conflicts’, which under the conditions of the Anthropocene assumes the form of geo-social conflict. (shrink)

This study addresses the Bible as a coping tool in a sample of Swedish practising Christians living with cancer, gathered through a qualitative, in-depth interview study, on religious experiences and expressions that serve in the process of coping with a life situation changed by the disease. Through content analyses, and case studies combining tools from Pargament’s coping theory with, above all, role theory, it is shown that the Bible is a part of the coping process for approximately half of the (...) informants. Furthermore, the Bible plays very different roles in the coping process, even for one single person. In the analyzed material, two different ways of using the Bible in the coping process occurs: Biblical passages as bearer of meaning for the informants, and the actual reading as such of the Bible. The former with two different functions in the coping process: in the Biblical passages, see a direct appeal from God to the individual on a personal level and a specific character in a Bible passage serves as an object of identification for the informant. In the coping process, the Bible provides coping tools for the identified coping methods meditative reading, role taking, and interpretation of biblical passages. As such, it mainly serves within the framework of the preserving comprehensive coping method. It is also shown that there are changes in the use of the Bible in connection with the changed life situation, as a result of the disease. (shrink)

A uniform construction for sequent calculi for finite-valued first-order logics with distribution quantifiers is exhibited. Completeness, cut-elimination and midsequent theorems are established. As an application, an analog of Herbrand’s theorem for the four-valued knowledge-representation logic of Belnap and Ginsberg is presented. It is indicated how this theorem can be used for reasoning about knowledge bases with incomplete and inconsistent information.

The metaphysical vision of Advaita Vedānta has been making its way into some corners of Western analytic philosophy, and has especially garnered attention among those philosophers who are seeking to develop metaphysical systems in opposition to both reductionist materialism and dualism. Given Vedānta’s monistic view of consciousness, it might seem natural to put Vedānta in dialogue with the growing position of panpsychism which, although not fully monistic, similarly takes mind to be a fundamental feature of reality. This paper will evaluate (...) to what extent Śaṅkara’s monism can bypass the most pressing issues facing panpsychism, namely combination and individuation problems. As will be seen in this paper, while Advaita Vedānta is able to avoid some of the panpsychist problems, it struggles ultimately to ontologically ground illusion in a coherent manner. As a result, a conclusion of this paper is that although Śaṅkara’s vision offers a promising route for those philosophers who take consciousness to be fundamental – including panpsychists – it cannot be uncritically adopted due to the problem of grounding Illusion. (shrink)

This study addresses the psychological functions of physical religious objects in religious coping by presenting case studies on the use of prayer cloths. The cases are selected from a qualitative, in-depth interview study among Swedish practising Christians suffering from cancer, on religious experiences and expressions that serve in the process of coping with a life situation changed by the disease. It is argued that current psychological theories on coping and religion lack tools for understanding the role of physical religious objects (...) in the process of religious coping. A theoretical framework that remedies this problem is suggested and applied to the case studies. The key feature of the theoretical framework is that it modifies and extends the coping theory of Kenneth Pargament by drawing on resources from object relations theory, especially the concept of “transitional object”. The results suggests that the creation and/or handling of transitional objects is a reconstructing or preserving coping method, and that prayer cloths function as transitional objects when they facilitate transition/movement between the inner subjective world and the outer objective world by being charged with significance, and function as a coping tool for conserving this significance. (shrink)

The world is in constant flux—this handy book helps make sense of it. From business cycles to budding trends, models make sense of a world that never stops spinning. The Change Book delivers 52 simple and effective models—each with a visual component—about how change happens. Drawing on myth-busting theories and breakthrough discoveries from thinkers of all stripes, Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler, authors of the international bestseller The Decision Book, apply their characteristic wit and knack for the succinct to (...) show what fuels the internet, why empires rise and fall, and why change hurts—but ultimately helps us grow. Whether you’re starting a new job, lobbying for a cause, or wondering how Jesus would invest, The Change Book is your clever guide through transformations in business, culture, technology, relationships, and more. (shrink)

There exists a significant disparity within society between individuals in terms of intelligence. While intelligence varies naturally throughout society, the extent to which this impacts on the life opportunities it affords to each individual is greatly undervalued. Intelligence appears to have a prominent effect over a broad range of social and economic life outcomes. Many key determinants of well-being correlate highly with the results of IQ tests, and other measures of intelligence, and an IQ of 75 is generally accepted as (...) the most important threshold in modern life. The ability to enhance our cognitive capacities offers an exciting opportunity to correct disabling natural variation and inequality in intelligence. Pharmaceutical cognitive enhancers, such as modafinil and methylphenidate, have been shown to have the capacity to enhance cognition in normal, healthy individuals. Perhaps of most relevance is the presence of an ‘inverted U effect’ for most pharmaceutical cognitive enhancers, whereby the degree of enhancement increases as intelligence levels deviate further below the mean. Although enhancement, including cognitive enhancement, has been much debated recently, we argue that there are egalitarian reasons to enhance individuals with low but normal intelligence. Under egalitarianism, cognitive enhancement has the potential to reduce opportunity inequality and contribute to relative income and welfare equality in the lower, normal intelligence subgroup. Cognitive enhancement use is justifiable under prioritarianism through various means of distribution; selective access to the lower, normal intelligence subgroup, universal access, or paradoxically through access primarily to the average and above average intelligence subgroups. Similarly, an aggregate increase in social well-being is achieved through similar means of distribution under utilitarianism. In addition, the use of cognitive enhancement within the lower, normal intelligence subgroup negates, or at the very least minimises, several common objections to cognitive enhancement. Subsequently, this paper demonstrates that there is a compelling case for cognitive enhancement use in individuals with lower, normal intelligence. (shrink)

We study cut-elimination in first-order classical logic. We construct a sequence of polynomial-length proofs having a non-elementary number of different cut-free normal forms. These normal forms are different in a strong sense: they not only represent different Herbrand-disjunctions but also differ in their propositional structure. This result illustrates that the constructive content of a proof in classical logic is not uniquely determined but rather depends on the chosen method for extracting it.

A t-tautology is a propositional formula which is a tautology in all fuzzy logics defined by continuous triangular norms. In this paper we show that the problem of recognizing t-tautologies is coNP complete, and thus decidable.

Law and the Formation of Modern Europe explores processes of legal construction in both the national and supranational domains, and it provides an overview of the modern European legal order. In its supranational focus, it examines the sociological pressures which have given rise to European public law, the national origins of key transnational legal institutions and the elite motivations driving the formation of European law. In its national focus, it addresses legal questions and problems which have assumed importance in parallel (...) fashion in different national societies, and which have shaped European law more indirectly. Examples of this are the post-1914 transformation of classical private law, the rise of corporatism, the legal response to the post-1945 legacy of authoritarianism, the emergence of human rights law and the growth of judicial review. This two-level sociological approach to European law results in unique insights into the dynamics of national and supranational legal formation. (shrink)