Performance Generating Systems (PGS) are rule- and task-based approaches to improvisation on stage in theatre, dance, and music. These systems require performers to draw on predefined source materials (texts, scores, memories) while working on complex tasks within limiting rules. An interdisciplinary research team at a large Western Canadian university hypothesized that learning to sustain this praxis over the duration of a performance places high demands on executive functions; demands that may improve the performers’ executive abilities. These performers need to continuously (...) shift attention while remaining responsive to embodied and environmental stimuli in the present, they are required to inhibit automated responses and impulses using the rules of the system, and they strive towards addressing multitasking challenges with fluidity and flexibility. This study set out to test the mentioned hypothesis deductively and identify mediating processes inductively, using mixed empirical methods. In a small sample experiment with a control group (28 participants; 15 in intervention group, 13 in control group), standardized quantitative tests of executive functions (D-KEFS) were administered before and after an eight-week intervention. Participant-reported qualitative observations from the praxis were also collected throughout the intervention for grounded analysis. Within the limitations of small sample data, we found both statistically significant and trending effects on inhibition, problem-solving initiation, fluidity, and cognitive flexibility. Examining the mediating process, we found that participants experienced significant challenges sustaining the practice halfway through the intervention. The participant-reported solutions to these challenges, which emerged as the strongest behavioural patterns when coding the qualitative data to saturation, were strategies of problem-solving and of re-directing attention. These strategies support and advance our understanding of the effects measured in the standardized tests. In terms of application, our results identify characteristics of PGS that could potentially maintain and strengthen executive functions over and above less demanding performing arts interventions. The results also deliver new insight into how PGS works, which may contribute to the development and teaching of this artistic practice. (shrink)

The ability of dance to address social isolation is argued, but there is a lack of both evidence of such an effect and interventions designed for the purpose. An interdisciplinary research team at University of Calgary partnered with Kaeja d’Dance to pilot test the effects of an intervention designed to facilitate embodied social connections among older adults. Within a mixed methods study design, pre and post behavioral tests and qualitative surveys about experiences of the body and connecting were administered to (...) thirteen participants along with test instruments of loneliness and body appreciation. In the short-term, no significant changes were found on quantitative tests. Exploratory analysis revealed intervention improvements on individual body appreciation questions only. This indication of change was strongly supported by converging qualitative data and identified as relating to: increased connection through task-based collaboration, increased awareness of interpersonal boundaries, and a shift to experiencing the body as responsive. These indications of increased relational capacity were deemed likely to cause further impact in the long term. Examining this possibility and the subsequently arisen factor of COVID-19 risks and restrictions, test instruments were administered again to 10 participants 4 and 5 months after the intervention. A significant increase in loneliness was found. Despite this negative impact of COVID-19 isolation, several positive intervention changes remained detectable and some continued to increase over time. Seventy percent of the participants, who made new social contacts during the intervention and later sought continued contact, improved significantly across all body appreciation measures over the full study. The qualitative data from the last two time-points revealed both consistent values and new, negative changes. While these preliminary findings speak to the durability of intervention changes, they also identify areas of urgent priority to help older adults restore embodied relational capacity that has declined during COVID-19. Within the limitations of a small-sample pilot study, converging mixed methods results support the hypothesis that dance interventions designed for the purpose can positively affect the social inclusion of older adults. Although we recommend further study, these promising results also indicate that dance interventions can help older adults recover from pandemic isolation. (shrink)

During the past decades, research collaboration between researchers from different disciplines has become more frequent. However, there is a need to look into the generic modalities and challenges. The article explores a series of potential obstructions to cross-disciplinary collaboration of methodological and epistemological nature. Furthermore, a number of contextual, inhibiting factors are outlined. As means of overcoming the obstacles, the importance of mutual knowledge, allocation of adequate time and conducive research management is emphasised. New teams may benefit from tutoring by (...) facilitators, who can help to make problem areas explicit and negotiate solutions. Owing to the training background of the author, most of the examples are drawn from the interface between biomedicine/natural science and applied medical anthropology. However, the issues raised basically apply to all sorts of cross-disciplinary research collaboration in various combinations. (shrink)

Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (TS) is a childhood neuropsychiatric disorder characterised by the presence of motor and vocal tics. Patients with malignant TS experience severe disease sequelae; risking morbidity and mortality due to tics, self-harm, psychiatric comorbidities and suicide. By definition, those cases termed ‘malignant’ are refractory to all conventional psychiatric and pharmacological regimens. In these instances, deep brain stimulation (DBS) may be efficacious. Current 2015 guidelines recommend a 6-month period absent of suicidal ideation before DBS is offered to (...) patients with TS. We therefore wondered whether it may be ethically justifiable to offer DBS to a minor with malignant TS. We begin with a discussion of non-maleficence and beneficence. New evidence suggests that suicide risk in young patients with TS has been underestimated. In turn, DBS may represent an invaluable opportunity for children with malignant TS to secure future safety, independence and fulfilment. Postponing treatment is associated with additional risks. Ultimately, we assert this unique risk-benefit calculus justifies offering DBS to paediatric patients with malignant TS. A multidisciplinary team of clinicians must determine whether DBS is in the best interest of their individual patients. We conclude with a suggestion for future TS-DBS guidelines regarding suicidal ideation. The importance of informed consent and assent is underscored. (shrink)

My target is the epistemological dimension of the realism debate. After establishing a stance voluntarist framework with a Jamesian background, drawing mostly on Wylie, Chakravarty, and van Fraassen, I argue that current voluntarists are too permissive. I show that especially various anti-realist stances but also some realist and selective realist stances block themselves from refutation by the history of science. I argue that such stances should be rejected. Finally, I propose that any disagreement that cannot be resolved by this strategy (...) frequently boils down to an epistemic value disagreement about balancing the truth-goal. (shrink)

In recent decades there has been increasing demand for and considerable efforts to conduct cross-disciplinary research. However, assessment of research quality in such endeavours still is often based on mono-disciplinary criteria and not seldom carried out by reviewers without strong cross-disciplinary experience. The authors suggest a two-pronged approach to cross-disciplinary research evaluation. One part should comprise an individual review of all the disciplines involved based on their mono-disciplinary sets of criteria. The other part should be a separate evaluation of the (...) cross-disciplinary aspects based on the review of “problem formulation”, “integration and scope of the disciplines”, “parts and the whole”, “practical managerial aspects” and “the applied aspects”. The pros and cons of implementing this approach in a stepwise manner or simultaneously is discussed. It is suggested that funding agencies develop more fair sets of review procedures for cross-disciplinary research and show willingness to allocate extra funds and time to such forms of research that sometimes are regarded as relatively more “risky” than conventional mono-disciplinary types. (shrink)

There is now a significant body of literature on consequentialist ethics that propose satisficing instead of maximizing accounts. Even though epistemology recently witnessed a widespread discussion of teleological and consequentialist theories, a satisficing account is surprisingly not developed yet. The aim of this paper is to do just that. The rough idea is that epistemic rules are justified if and only if they satisfice the epistemic good, i.e., reach some threshold of epistemic value (which varies with practical context), and believing (...) is justified if and only if it follows said rules.I argue that this alternative to the implicitly established way of thinking in maximizing terms has significant advantages. First, maximizing epistemic value can be unreasonably demanding; second, a satisficing theory can make finding reasonable rules for belief formation and sustenance much more accessible; and third, a satisficing approach is a better alternative to both general subjectivist and maximizing objectivist attempts to spell out epistemic blame. (shrink)

A Reply P. Flensted-Jensen/M. H. Hansen: Pseudo-Skylax' Use of the Term Polis M. H. Hansen: City-Ethnics as Evidence for Polis Identity .

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.1 (2003) 57-62 [Access article in PDF] Listening to People Or Listening to Prozac?Another Consideration of Causal Classifications Jennifer Hansen Keywords causal classification, descriptivism, melancholia, neurasthenia, depression, cultural relativism. The shape and detail of depression have gone through a thousand cartwheels, and the treatment of depression has alternated between the ridiculous and the sublime, but the excessive sleeping, inadequate eating, suicidiality, withdrawal from social (...) interaction, and relentless despair are all as old as the hill tribes, if not as old as the hills. In the years since man achieved the capacity for self-reference, shame has come and gone; treatments for bodily complaints have alternated and crossed with treatments for spiritual ones; pleas to external gods have echoed pleas to internal demons. To understand the history of depression is to understand the invention of human being as we now know and are him. Our Prozac-popping, cognitively focused, semi-alienated postmodernity is only a stage in the ongoing understanding and control of mood and character. (Solomon 2001, 286) ALTHOUGH ANDREW SOLOMON clearly believes that "the shape and detail of depression have gone through a thousand cartwheels," Jennifer Radden gives us pause before assuming that depression is just another name for Dame Melancholy. Solomon's claim depends on a deeper metaphysical claim about the nature of depression and its causes. The current method of psychiatric nosology, descriptivism, does not necessarily support equating melancholia and depression. Furthermore, it appears that adopting descriptivism as the sole method of classifying mental disorders commits us to cultural relativist psychiatry. Below I reconsider whether we want to rule out causal classifications and suggest that embracing both descriptivism and causal classifications offer us greater possibilities in understanding human illness and culture.Although the occasion for Jennifer Radden's essay is to investigate whether or not melancholia and depression refer to the same thing, her essay detours into a consideration of extra-descriptivist models of psychiatric illness versus the descriptivism of current psychiatric nosology. This detour turns out to be warranted; her purely academic question yields to a timelier question concerning the proper methodology for classifying mental disorders. Whereas debates about psychiatric nosology are perennial, the recent success of the new generation of antidepressants [End Page 57] is reviving biological psychiatry and its search for the neurochemical origins of depression. Hence, embedded in Radden's question concerning whether or not melancholia is the same thing as clinical depression, is another important question concerning the causes of mental illness, particularly depression.Currently, with its descriptivist approach, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) does not classify mental illness, such as clinical depression, based on underlying causes. The cluster of symptoms and behavioral signs that lead a clinician to diagnose one as depressed that are contained in either the DSM or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) may be too fuzzy or elusive to give any clear distinction between major depression, mild depression, and the blues. For example, one group of epidemiologists points out that [t]he DSM-III, DSM-III-R, and DSM-IV acknowledge that depression, like many mental disorders, has no currently obvious natural classes... If natural classes of depression exist, then their nosology awaits the discovery of distinct and reliable genetic, biological, clinical, or other predictors of risk, severity, or clinical course. Clinicians have a tradition of separating depressions into subtypes; however, this subtyping has not yet led to clear-cut delineations of syndromes in populations. (Kaelber 1995, 4) The evidence is still insufficient to establish the biological or psychological origins of depression. Although many theories exist that explain why people become depressed, scientifically we are not yet in a position to determine which is the right theory. From a pragmatic perspective, however, whether or not we know what causes depression, we can nonetheless attempt to alleviate suffering from depression. And it is with this goal in mind that the DSM-IV and ICD-10 classify mental disorders.Now, given that our current methodology for psychiatric nosology does not establish causes, it is also insufficient for determining what... (shrink)

In order to reconnect Quine's views to the current debate on scientific realism, I reframe Quine's scientific realism into a semantic, a metaphysical, and an epistemological dimension. With this conceptual background, I review the historical development of Quine's scientific realism from the late 1940s until his death in 2000. I challenge Soames's view that Quine is a phenomenalist at the time of “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951) and show that he remains agnostic between a realist and an anti‐realist conceptual scheme (...) instead. I also argue that Quine's early views on regimentation are incompatible with a strong formulation of semantic realism. I proceed in reconstructing how he becomes a metaphysical and epistemological realist in the mid‐1950s and argue against the view of Keskinen and Fogelin that interprets Quine as being a metaphysical anti‐realist. Contrary to Davidson, I defend the view that he never gave up normative epistemology and really is a proper epistemological realist. Finally, I discuss how he tries to reconcile his realism with his thesis of ontological relativity and how this necessitates the switch to a stronger form of semantic realism. (shrink)

Combining all four distinct volumes in the series, this compilation explores the philosophical reasons behind the existence of humanity. The first volume investigates the concept of relations, revealing that unique, complex relationships come into being simultaneously and exponentially through the combination of multiple elements. The second volume focuses on intellect, probing the most obscure corners of comprehension and conducting a fascinating tour of the human psyche. The third volume addresses volition, analyzing the extent to which human judgment, decisions, and actions (...) impact future prospects for mankind and deflect the course of nature. The fourth and final volume delves into affections, dispassionately highlighting the merits and shortcomings of man’s most ethereal faculties. (shrink)

In this essay I will examine the various ways in which the concept of decision emerges in the writings of Kierkegaard focusing mainly on the Philosophical Fragments and the Postscript. This prepares the way for revisiting Kierkegaard’s concept of decision. Doing so indicates the radical way in which Kierkegaard connects the concept of decision to an aporia. The crucial existential concept of decision not only concerns the difficulty, or even the impasse, pertaining to knowledge, but also relates to the question (...) of how the singular finds his or her own way through existence. (shrink)

Restrictions on research on therapeutic cloning are questionable as they inhibit the development of a technique which holds promise for succesful application of pluripotent stem cells in clinical treatment of severe diseases. It is argued in this article that the ethical concerns are less problematic using therapeutic cloning compared with using fertilised eggs as the source for stem cells. The moral status of an enucleated egg cell transplanted with a somatic cell nucleus is found to be more clearly not equivalent (...) to that of a human being. Based on ethical considerations alone, research into therapeutic cloning should be encouraged in order to develop therapeutic applications of stem cells. (shrink)

Since USA constitutional precedent established in 1976, adolescents have increasingly been afforded the right to access contraception without first obtaining parental consent or authorisation. There is general agreement this ethically permissible. However, long-acting reversible contraception methods have only recently been prescribed to the adolescent population. They are currently the most effective forms of contraception available and have high compliance and satisfaction rates. Yet unlike other contraceptives, LARCs are associated with special procedural risks because they must be inserted and removed by (...) trained healthcare providers. It is unclear whether the unique invasive nature of LARC changes the traditional ethical calculus of permitting adolescent decision-making in the realm of contraception. To answer this question, we review the risk–benefit profile of adolescent LARC use. Traditional justifications for permitting adolescent contraception decision-making authority are then considered in the context of LARCs. Finally, analogous reasoning is used to evaluate potential differences between permitting adolescents to consent for LARC procedures versus for emergency and pregnancy termination procedures. Ultimately, we argue that the invasive nature of LARCs does not override adolescents’ unique and compelling need for safe and effective forms of contraception. In fact, LARCs may oftentimes be in the best interest of adolescent patients who wish to prevent unintended pregnancy. We advocate for the specific enumeration of adolescents’ ability to consent to both LARC insertion and removal procedures within state policies. Given the provider-dependent nature of LARCs and the stigma regarding adolescent sexuality, special political and procedural safeguards to protect adolescent autonomy are warranted. (shrink)

Existing research on the formation of employee ethical climate perceptions focuses mainly on organization characteristics as antecedents, and although other constructs have been considered, these constructs have typically been studied in isolation. Thus, our understanding of the context in which ethical climate perceptions develop is incomplete. To address this limitation, we build upon the work of Rupp to develop and test a multi-experience model of ethical climate which links aspects of the corporate social responsibility, ethics, justice, and trust literatures and (...) helps to explain how employees’ ethical climate perceptions form. We argue that in forming ethical climate perceptions, employees consider the actions or characteristics of a complex web of actors. Specifically, we propose that employees look outward at how communities are impacted by their organization’s actions, upward to make inferences about the ethicality of leaders in their organizations, and inward at their own propensity to trust others as they form their perceptions. Using a multiple-wave field study conducted at a privately held US corporation, we find substantial evidence in support of our model. (shrink)

This paper connects veritistic teleological epistemology, VTE, with the epistemological dimension of the scientific realism debate. VTE sees our epistemic activities as a tradeoff between believing truths and avoiding error. I argue that van Fraassen’s epistemology is not suited to give a justification for a crucial presupposition of his Bad Lot objection to inference to the best explanation (IBE), the presupposition that believing that p is linked to p being more likely to be true. This makes him vulnerable to a (...) counterargument, tailored after Musgrave’s defense of IBE, which would result in a stalemate between them about presuppositions of rationality. I will, however, show that switching to VTE can justify van Fraassen’s presupposition. This leads to a dismissal of common IBE arguments for realism as presented by Boyd and Musgrave, but I also argue that a more cautious version of realism can be rescued from the Bad Lot objection. Finally, I raise some worries about epistemic risk-attitude consistency for constructive empiricists and develop an alternative anti-realist position.1. (shrink)

This essay aims to outline in what ways Kierkegaard’s thinking of existence not only brings into view a concept of existence, but, more fundamentally, enables one to locate an opening to questioning anew the relation of thinking and existence. This thinking of existence does not seek to dissolve existence into knowledge but aims at intensifying the question of a thinking grounded not in the conclusion made in “an external relation between a knower and a non-knower” of which non-knowledge is the (...) negative determination of knowledge, but rather of a thinking grounded in existence. (shrink)

Decision-makers frequently struggle to base their choices on an exhaustive evaluation of all options at stake. This is particularly so when the choice problem at hand is complex, because the available alternatives are hard to compare. Rather than striving to choose the most valuable alternative, in such situations decision-makers often settle for the choice of an alternative which is not inferior to any other available alternative instead. In this paper, we extend two established models of boundedly rational choice, the categorize (...) then choose heuristic and the rational shortlist method, to incorporate this kind of “indecisive” choice behavior. We study some properties of these extensions and provide full behavioral characterizations. (shrink)

In this article we refine the design of context shifting experiments, which play a central role in contextualist debates, and we subject a large number of scenarios involving different types of expressions of interest to contextualists, including ‘know’ and color adjectives like ‘green’, to experimental investigation. Our experiment (i) reveals an effect of changing contexts on the evaluation of uses of the sentences that we examine, thereby overturning the absence of results reported in previous experimental studies (so‐called null results), (ii) (...) uncovers evidence for a ‘truth bias' in favor of positive over negative sentences, and (iii) reveals previously unnoticed distinctions between the strength of the contextual effects displayed by scenarios involving knowledge ascriptions and scenarios concerning color and other miscellaneous scenarios. (shrink)

Social network analysis (SNA) is an increasingly popular approach that provides researchers with highly developed tools to map and analyze complexes of social relations. Although a number of network scholars have explicated the assumptions that underpin SNA, the approach has yet to be discussed in relation to established philosophies of science. This article argues that there is a tension between applied and methods-oriented SNA studies, on the one hand, and those addressing the social-theoretical nature and implications of networks, on the (...) other. The former, in many cases, exhibits positivist tendencies, whereas the latter incorporate a number of assumptions that are directly compatible with core critical realist views on the nature of social reality and knowledge. This article suggests that SNA may be detached from positivist social science and come to constitute a valuable instrument in the critical realist toolbox. (shrink)

In this paper, we draw attention to the epistemological assumptions of market liberalism and standpoint theory and argue that they have more in common than previously thought. We show that both traditions draw on a similar epistemological bedrock, specifically relating to the fragmentation of knowledge in society and the fact that some of this knowledge cannot easily be shared between agents. We go on to investigate how market liberals and standpoint theorists argue with recourse to these similar foundations, and sometimes (...) diverge, primarily because of normative pre-commitments. One conclusion we draw from this is that these similarities suggest that market liberals ought to, by their own epistemological lights, be more attentive towards various problems raised by feminist standpoint theorists, and feminist standpoint theorists ought to be more open to various claims made by market liberals. (shrink)

Sinologists tend toward self-descriptions of their methodology that suggests that they read ancient Chinese Philosophy texts and then interpret them as separate steps. The "reading" is what training in the language is supposed to enable and interpreters who are skeptical of traditional readings (e.g. the present author) can be portrayed as people who have not learned (or not learned properly) how to read. I argue here that reading in its natural sense in this context presupposes understanding, that is, a theory (...) of meaning. The theory requires justification and that the best framework for a justification theory is radical translation using the principle of humanity as the guide for selecting from among translation manuals. (shrink)

Professor Robert John Barrett died suddenly, after a long and difficult illness, on January 12th, 2007. At the time of his death, at the age of 57, he was Head of the Discipline of Psychiatry at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, University of Adelaide. His passing was mourned by countless individuals in Australia and internationally. The celebration of his life, held in the University of Adelaide’s Bonython Hall, from which generations of scholars have received their parchments upon graduation, was an emotive (...) ritual of which Rob would have both approved and also enjoyed immensely. The Hall was filled to capacity, with over 1,300 people listening to a collection of his favourite music and tributes delivered by eight of his friends and family members. Dignitaries in full academic regalia, including the Vice-Chancellor, the immediate past and current Deans of Medicine, and the Head of School oversaw proceedings from an elevated position in the Hall, the symbolic meaning of which would have caused Rob to smile wryly. A reflection of his life in pictures, at the conclusion of the ceremony, before the pall-bearers carried his coffin to the hearse, evoked yet more tears and grief at the tragic and untimely loss of this man: an outstanding intellectual, wise mentor, gifted teacher, caring doctor, and true and loyal friend. (shrink)

There is no systematic research on the rites and rituals associated with companion animal death in modern Australian society. Three cremation service providers were interviewed and asked to consider which caretakers have their companion animals cremated. Seven people who had recently had a companion animal cremated were then asked about their views on the process. Five interrelated themes emerged from the two data sets about who uses cremation services for companion animals: “Everyone uses companion animal cremation services”; “People who consider (...) the companion animal as a family member, as a child”; “People who want memorials for their companion animals”; “Grieving people”; and “People who seek compassion and social support.” With scant recognition of the impact of companion animal death and the role of rites and rituals in facilitating the grieving process, further research in the area is needed, including into attachment as a possible mediator. (shrink)

This article studies the Islamic State's only remaining periodical, Al-Naba, identifying the most common tropes and patterns in the periodical's Sub-Saharan Africa coverage, and on Mozambique in particular. The Islamic State's increasingly important coverage of Africa focuses on terror attacks, military campaigns and on the fight against Christianity. However, it also employs more traditional anti-colonial arguments that have been used by other, more accepted, political actors during the struggle for decolonisation. Al-Naba also functions as a 'shamer' of non-African Muslims, to (...) get them to join jihad by pointing to the African successes of the organisation and set these successes up as examples to be followed. In this sense, the article illustrates how African jihadist branches can have global agency. (shrink)

In Visions of Statesmanship: A Statesman's Imagination and Autonomy, I provide a critical examination of the figure of the statesman as it has been presented in the philosophical reflections of three key thinkers: Plato, Yannis Markrygiannis, and Cornelius Castoriadis.

In Politikos Plato draws a picture of the true statesman, a picture that has baffled several of the scholars who have analysed the dialogue, because it appears to be very abstract and remote from what we know about the development of the political organization of the poleis in the Archaic and Classical periods. In this article I argue that there is a clear historical background to the person whom Plato calls a statesman, viz., the famous legislators of the Archaic period, (...) in particular Lykourgos, Charondas, Zaleukos and Solon. My argument proceeds in two parts: first a survey of Plato’s general description of the statesman and second a sketch of the historical prototype of Plato’s statesman. (shrink)

The social sciences are facing numerous crises including those related to replication, theory, and applicability. We highlight that these crises imply epistemic malfunctions and affect science communication negatively. Several potential solutions have already been proposed, ranging from statistical improvements to changes in norms of scientific conduct. In this paper, we propose a structural solution: the elimination of the discussion section from social science research papers. We point out that discussion sections allow for an inappropriate narrativization of research that disguises actual (...) results and enables the misstatement of true limitations. We go on to claim that removing this section and outsourcing it to other publications provides several epistemic advantages such as a division of academic labour, adversarial modes of progress, and a better alignment of the personal aims of scientists with the aims of science. After responding to several objections, we conclude that the potential benefits of moving away from the traditional model of academic papers outweigh the costs and have the potential to play a part in addressing the crises in the social sciences alongside other reforms. As such, we take our paper as proffering a further potential solution that should be applied complimentarily with other reform movements such as Open Science and hope that our paper can start a debate on this or similar proposals. (shrink)

Standard time series structure learning algorithms assume that the measurement timescale is approximately the same as the timescale of the underlying system. In many scientific contexts, however, this assumption is violated: the measurement timescale can be substantially slower than the system timescale. This assumption violation can lead to significant learning errors. In this paper, we provide a novel learning algorithm to extract systemtimescale structure from measurement data that undersample the underlying system. We employ multiple algorithmic optimizations that exploit the problem (...) structure in order to achieve computational tractability. The resulting algorithm is highly reliable at extracting system-timescale structure from undersampled data. (shrink)

Causal structure learning from time series data is a major scientific challenge. Existing algorithms assume that measurements occur sufficiently quickly; more precisely, they assume that the system and measurement timescales are approximately equal. In many scientific domains, however, measurements occur at a significantly slower rate than the underlying system changes. Moreover, the size of the mismatch between timescales is often unknown. This paper provides three distinct causal structure learning algorithms, all of which discover all dynamic graphs that could explain the (...) observed measurement data as arising from undersampling at some rate. That is, these algorithms all learn causal structure without assuming any particular relation between the measurement and system timescales; they are thus rate-agnostic. We apply these algorithms to data from simulations. The results provide insight into the challenge of undersampling. (shrink)

The fact that Gilbert Ryle and J.L. Austin seem to disagree about the ordinary use of words such as ‘voluntary’, ‘involuntary’, ‘voluntarily’, and ‘involuntarily’ has been taken to cast doubt on the methods of ordinary language philosophy. As Benson Mates puts the worry, ‘if agreement about usage cannot be reached within so restricted a sample as the class of Oxford Professors of Philosophy, what are the prospects when the sample is enlarged?’ (Mates, Inquiry 1:161–171, 1958, p. 165). In this chapter, (...) we evaluate Mates’s criticism alongside Ryle’s and Austin’s specific claims about the ordinary use of these words, assessing these claims against actual examples of ordinary use drawn from the British National Corpus (BNC). Our evaluation consists in applying a combination of methods: first aggregating judgments about a large set of samples drawn from the corpus, and then using a clustering algorithm to uncover connections between different types of use. In applying these methods, we show where and to what extent Ryle’s and Austin’s accounts of the use of the target terms are accurate as well as where they miss important aspects of ordinary use, and we demonstrate the usefulness of this new combination of methods. At the heart of our approach is a commitment to the idea that systematically looking at actual uses of expressions is an essential component of any approach to ordinary language philosophy. (shrink)

In recent decades there has been increasing demand for and considerable efforts to conduct cross-disciplinary research. However, assessment of research quality in such endeavours still is often based on mono-disciplinary criteria and not seldom carried out by reviewers without strong cross-disciplinary experience. The authors suggest a two-pronged approach to cross-disciplinary research evaluation. One part should comprise an individual review of all the disciplines involved based on their mono-disciplinary sets of criteria. The other part should be a separate evaluation of the (...) cross-disciplinary aspects based on the review of “problem formulation”, “integration and scope of the disciplines”, “parts and the whole”, “practical managerial aspects” and “the applied aspects”. The pros and cons of implementing this approach in a stepwise manner or simultaneously is discussed. It is suggested that funding agencies develop more fair sets of review procedures for cross-disciplinary research and show willingness to allocate extra funds and time to such forms of research that sometimes are regarded as relatively more “risky” than conventional mono-disciplinary types. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to reflect on the place and importance of the question of address and to show how it comes to the fore in Søren Kierkegaard’s writings. What shall be attempted, with regard to Kierkegaard’s already widely recognized renown as an existential thinker, is to catch a glimpse of issues that make up the larger background in which the question of address is embedded. In doing so, the essay explores several features of Kierkegaard’s inquiry into the (...) question of existence in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and connect them with the notion of the reader. This latter notion provides a way of understanding the singularity of voice, while offering an account of the testimony to existence. After a brief recapitulation, the essay identifies in conclusion unresolved issues relating to speech, silence, confidentiality, and listening. (shrink)