We evaluate the asymptotic performance of boundedly-rational strategies in multi-armed bandit problems, where performance is measured in terms of the tendency (in the limit) to play optimal actions in either (i) isolation or (ii) networks of other learners. We show that, for many strategies commonly employed in economics, psychology, and machine learning, performance in isolation and performance in networks are essentially unrelated. Our results suggest that the appropriateness of various, common boundedly-rational strategies depends crucially upon the social context (if any) (...) in which such strategies are to be employed. (shrink)

Despite the widespread use of key concepts of the Neyman–Pearson (N–P) statistical paradigm—type I and II errors, significance levels, power, confidence levels—they have been the subject of philosophical controversy and debate for over 60 years. Both current and long-standing problems of N–P tests stem from unclarity and confusion, even among N–P adherents, as to how a test's (pre-data) error probabilities are to be used for (post-data) inductive inference as opposed to inductive behavior. We argue that the relevance of error probabilities (...) is to ensure that only statistical hypotheses that have passed severe or probative tests are inferred from the data. The severity criterion supplies a meta-statistical principle for evaluating proposed statistical inferences, avoiding classic fallacies from tests that are overly sensitive, as well as those not sensitive enough to particular errors and discrepancies. Introduction and overview 1.1 Behavioristic and inferential rationales for Neyman–Pearson (N–P) tests 1.2 Severity rationale: induction as severe testing 1.3 Severity as a meta-statistical concept: three required restrictions on the N–P paradigm Error statistical tests from the severity perspective 2.1 N–P test T(): type I, II error probabilities and power 2.2 Specifying test T() using p-values Neyman's post-data use of power 3.1 Neyman: does failure to reject H warrant confirming H? Severe testing as a basic concept for an adequate post-data inference 4.1 The severity interpretation of acceptance (SIA) for test T() 4.2 The fallacy of acceptance (i.e., an insignificant difference): Ms Rosy 4.3 Severity and power Fallacy of rejection: statistical vs. substantive significance 5.1 Taking a rejection of H0 as evidence for a substantive claim or theory 5.2 A statistically significant difference from H0 may fail to indicate a substantively important magnitude 5.3 Principle for the severity interpretation of a rejection (SIR) 5.4 Comparing significant results with different sample sizes in T(): large n problem 5.5 General testing rules for T(), using the severe testing concept The severe testing concept and confidence intervals 6.1 Dualities between one and two-sided intervals and tests 6.2 Avoiding shortcomings of confidence intervals Beyond the N–P paradigm: pure significance, and misspecification tests Concluding comments: have we shown severity to be a basic concept in a N–P philosophy of induction? (shrink)

The key problem in the controversy over group selection is that of defining a criterion of group selection that identifies a distinct causal process that is irreducible to the causal process of individual selection. We aim to clarify this problem and to formulate an adequate model of irreducible group selection. We distinguish two types of group selection models, labeling them type I and type II models. Type I models are invoked to explain differences among groups in their respective rates of (...) production of contained individuals. Type II models are invoked to explain differences among groups in their respective rates of production of distinct new groups. Taking Elliott Sober's model as an exemplar, we argue that although type I models have some biological importance--they force biologists to consider the role of group properties in influencing the fitness of organisms--they fail to identify a distinct group-level causal selection process. Type II models if properly framed, however, do identify a group-level causal selection process that is not reducible to individual selection. We propose such a type II model and apply it to some of the major candidates for group selection. (shrink)

Il tema sviluppato nel presente intervento è il rapporto tra narrazione e costruzione storica. Si prenderà in esame l’accezione di narrativa correntemente utilizzata nel mondo storiografico facendola dialogare con il paradigma dei _global middle ages_, espressione coniata nel 2018 dalle storiche Catherine Holmes e Naomi Standen. Per meglio mettere in risalto tali dinamiche un caso di studio sarà offerto dalla vicenda di Federico II, con particolare enfasi alla costruzione biografica e dei miti nel rapporto con le culture altre. Il fine (...) sarà di superare le due tradizionali macro interpretazioni dell’idea di Medioevo, analizzate da Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri e David Matthews: Medioevo arretrato regno di oscurità e Medioevo vagheggiato come luce del mattino, all’origine di molte identità politiche contemporanee – non ultima quella dell’Unione Europea. _The topic we intend to develop in this essay is the relationship between narration and historical construction. We will examine the meaning behind the current concept of narrative in historiography, with a dialectical approach towards the paradigm of _global Middle Ages_, an expression firstly used by historians Catherine Holmes and Naomi Standen in 2018. To perform an in depth analysis of the abovementioned relationship, we will use as a case study the figure of Frederick II. A significant emphasis will be put on the biographical construction and myths, especially in the relationship with other cultures. The aim of our essay is to provide a framework within it would be easier to overcome the two traditional macro interpretations of Middle Ages, studied by Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri and David Matthews: Middle Ages as a backward reign of darkness and Middle Ages as the morning light, at the origin of many contemporary political identities – not least that of the European Union_. (shrink)

Theories of statistical testing may be seen as attempts to provide systematic means for evaluating scientific conjectures on the basis of incomplete or inaccurate observational data. The Neyman-Pearson Theory of Testing (NPT) has purported to provide an objective means for testing statistical hypotheses corresponding to scientific claims. Despite their widespread use in science, methods of NPT have themselves been accused of failing to be objective; and the purported objectivity of scientific claims based upon NPT has been called into question. The (...) purpose of this paper is first to clarify this question by examining the conceptions of (I) the function served by NPT in science, and (II) the requirements of an objective theory of statistics upon which attacks on NPT's objectivity are based. Our grounds for rejecting these conceptions suggest altered conceptions of (I) and (II) that might avoid such attacks. Second, we propose a reformulation of NPT, denoted by NPT*, based on these altered conceptions, and argue that it provides an objective theory of statistics. The crux of our argument is that by being able to objectively control error frequencies NPT* is able to objectively evaluate what has or has not been learned from the result of a statistical test. (shrink)

An influential argument against the possibility of truth by linguistic convention holds that while conventions can determine which proposition a given sentence expresses, they (conventions) are powerless to make propositions true or false. This argument has been offered in the literature by Lewy, Yablo, Boghossian, Sider and others. But despite its influence and prima facie plausibility, the argument: (i) equivocates between different senses of “making true”; (ii) mistakenly assumes hyperintensional contexts are intensional; and (iii) relies upon an implausible vision of (...) the way that language works. (shrink)

Crito thinks Socrates should agree to leave the prison and escape from Athens. Socrates is also determined that he and Crito should have a ‘common plan of action’ (koinē boulē: 49d3), but he wants Crito to share his preferred plan of remaining and submitting to the court’s sentence. Much of the drama of the Crito is generated by the interplay of these two old friends, both determined that they should come to an agreement, but differing radically in what they think (...) the two of them should agree to do. I show how agreements of various kinds—including agreements about how to agree—play important roles in the dialogue and how Socrates’ commitment to a certain method for determining what to do underpins his own integrity. What’s more, attention to that theme helps to explain one of the most pressing questions for any interpretation of the Crito: Why does Socrates choose, at the end of the dialogue, to present to Crito a speech in the voice of the personified laws of Athens? (shrink)

In the latter half of the twentieth century, philosophers of science have argued (implicitly and explicitly) that epistemically rational individuals might compose epistemically irrational groups and that, conversely, epistemically rational groups might be composed of epistemically irrational individuals. We call the conjunction of these two claims the Independence Thesis, as they together imply that methodological prescriptions for scientific communities and those for individual scientists might be logically independent of one another. We develop a formal model of scientific inquiry, define four (...) criteria for individual and group epistemic rationality, and then prove that the four definitions diverge, in the sense that individuals will be judged rational when groups are not and vice versa. We conclude by explaining implications of the inconsistency thesis for (i) descriptive history and sociology of science and (ii) normative prescriptions for scientific communities. (shrink)

This book examines central themes in the thought of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas (c. 1340-1410/11), the great Catalan Jewish philosopher who contributed to the revolution of modern science and profoundly influenced Spinoza. Part I treats of Crescas' radical critique of the Aristotelian concepts of space, time, and the vacuum, and analyzes his vision of an infinite universe; it discusses his criticisms of Maimonides' proofs of God, and expounds his own proof; and it concludes with a discussion of his concept of God (...) as infinite Love. Part II contains three essays on Crescas' strictly deterministic theory of human choice. (shrink)

The study of similarity is fundamental to biological inquiry. Many homology concepts have been formulated that function successfully to explain similarity in their native domains, but fail to provide an overarching account applicable to variably interconnected and independent areas of biological research despite the monistic standpoint from which they originate. The use of multiple, explicitly articulated homology concepts, applicable at different levels of the biological hierarchy, allows a more thorough investigation of the nature of biological similarity. Responsible epistemological pluralism as (...) advocated herein is generative of fruitful and innovative biological research, and is appropriate given the metaphysical pluralism that underpins all of biology. (shrink)

In the work of both Matti Eklund and John Hawthorne there is an influential semantic argument for a maximally expansive ontology that is thought to undermine even modest forms of quantifier variance. The crucial premise of the argument holds that it is impossible for an ontologically "smaller" language to give a Tarskian semantics for an ontologically "bigger" language. After explaining the Eklund-Hawthorne argument (in section I), we show this crucial premise to be mistaken (in section II) by developing a Tarskian (...) semantics for a mereological universalist language within a mereological nihilist language (a case which we, and Eklund and Hawthorne, take as representative). After developing this semantics we step back (in section III) to discuss the philosophical motivations behind the Eklund- Hawthorne argument’s demand for a semantics. We ultimately conclude that quantifier variantists can meet any demand for a semantics that might reasonably be imposed upon them. (shrink)

Quantifier variance is a well-known view in contemporary metaontology, but it remains very widely misunderstood by critics. Here we briefly and clearly explain the metasemantics of quantifier variance and distinguish between modest and strong forms of variance (Section I), explain some key applications (Section II), clear up some misunderstandings and address objections (Section III), and point the way toward future directions of quantifier-variance-related research (Section IV).

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Edmund Husserl and Eugen Fink: Beginnings and Ends in Phenomenology, 1928–1938Nicolas de WarrenRonald Bruzina. Edmund Husserl and Eugen Fink: Beginnings and Ends in Phenomenology, 1928–1938. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. xxvii + 627. Cloth, $45.00.Edmund Husserl defined a new field and method of philosophical research that required the employment of students in the pursuit of a rigorous and elusive science called transcendental phenomenology. Husserl's most famous (...) student, Heidegger, quickly proved a disappointment to the phenomenological cause, and it is in the shadow of Heidegger's waywardness that Eugen Fink, known primarily as the author of spirited defenses of Husserl's thinking, developed a close intellectual relationship with Husserl as his assistant from 1928 until 1938. Fink's collaboration with Husserl and his metaphysical recasting of phenomenology are the principal themes of Bruzina's scrupulously researched study, largely based on Fink's unpublished writings.A first chapter presents a narrative of Fink's significant influence on Husserl's thinking and writing. In chapter two, "Orientation I: Phenomenology Beyond the Preliminary," Bruzina details how Fink further developed Husserl's phenomenology in a systematic and self-critical direction. Whereas Husserl cautiously argued that the noetic-noematic schema "runs through all levels of constitution," including the seemingly intractable level of absolute time-consciousness, Fink—under the influence of Heidegger—rejects the universality of the "apriori-correlation" and its attending "philosophy of reflection." Working out the "being of transcendental subjectivity" and its distinctive temporality is, for Fink, the "remaining task of phenomenology." Bruzina pursues the confrontation between Husserl and Heidegger in Fink's thinking in chapter three, "Orientation II: Whose Phenomenology?" According to Fink, Husserl remains "blind to transcendence," yet Heidegger remains blind to "constitution" (132). What emerges from this chapter, however, is the significance of Hegel as Fink recasts the difference between Husserl and Heidegger into a difference between a philosophy of reflection and a philosophy of Being. Against this backdrop, Bruzina signals Fink's proposal to re-think the concept of origin in a speculative register of the "meontic," that is, as "non-being."Before launching directly into Fink's "meontic" recasting of metaphysics, Bruzina presents three thematically defined chapters. In chapter four, "Fundamental Thematics I: The World," Bruzina discusses Fink's sublimation of Husserl's "natural attitude" into the concept of "world-captivation" and his charge that Husserl presupposes the horizon of the world as a whole. Chapter five, "Fundamental Thematics II: Time," examines Fink's writings on time-consciousness. A first set of writings speaks to the task of rendering Husserl's "Bernau Manuscripts" into a publishable form; a second set reflects Fink's intention to complete his own larger work on "Time and Temporalization." Both projects were abandoned, the later manuscript destroyed by Fink himself. Fink emphasizes the "special character of retention-protention intentionality as depresencing (Entgegenwärtigung), providing therein the basic consideration for addressing the question of finiteness in the stream of consciousness" (261). This insight allows Fink to propose a critique of Husserl's "presentialism" and his own thesis that "the Absolute is origin" in both a temporal and non-temporal sense, as the "excess/superabundance (Überschwang) of depresencing," further characterized the Plotinian idea of "emanation" (273). "Life" and "Spirit" are the final set of fundamental themes discussed by Bruzina in chapter six. For Fink, the essence of life is conceived as the "play of being," which he understands with a Nietzschean emphasis on "creation" (333). The "self-realization" of life in its creative self-performance delivers a "meontic" definition of the absolute; subjectivity is displaced (entstellt) in its self-performance such that it remains incomplete, a "metaphysical gap in the cosmos" (341).In chapter seven, we arrive at the "critical-systematic core" of Fink's "meontic" speculations. Here, much of Fink's pronouncements are a heady mixture of Heidegger and Plotinus. Bruzina admits that Fink "freely draws" from the traditions of Neo-Platonism and Gnosticism; yet a quick attempt to distance Fink from his sources remains unconvincing. The "radical difference between the One of ultimate origin and all else" (448) that Bruzina takes as the exceptional focus of Fink's thinking is also of metaphysical concern in... (shrink)

Several current debates in the epistemology of testimony are implicitly motivated by concerns about the reliability of rules for changing one’s beliefs in light of others’ claims. Call such rules testimonial norms (tns). To date, epistemologists have neither (i) characterized those features of communities that influence the reliability of tns, nor (ii) evaluated the reliability of tns as those features vary. These are the aims of this paper. I focus on scientific communities, where the transmission of highly specialized information is (...) both ubiquitous and critically important. Employing a formal model of scientific inquiry, I argue that miscommunication and the “communicative structure” of science strongly influence the reliability of tns, where reliability is made precise in three ways. (shrink)

La seriedad que ha dominado la lectura de la obra de Platón en nuestra tradición no es ajena al temprano protagonismo que adquirió la interpretación neoplatónica de la obra del filósofo ni a la importante presencia que el neoplatonismo adquirió en el largo proceso de elaboración doctrinal del cristianismo a partir del siglo II. Este olvido del recurso al humor condicionaría con frecuencia y de modo significativo la recta comprensión de los diálogos. Al leer la obra de Platón, descubrimos, por (...) otro lado, que el recurso al humor no se reduce a la muy comentada ironía socrática, sino que encontramos también bromas entre los personajes, juegos de palabras, imitaciones paródicas de hombres ilustres, chascarrillos graciosos, burlas y comedia de situaciones; encontramos, en resumen, un extenso y variado repertorio de recursos cómicos puestos al servicio de la eficaz transmisión de contenidos serios. Porque, no lo olvidemos, el humor en Platón está sometido a la expresión eficaz de lo que el filósofo entiende que debe ser tanto el modo de transmisión filosófica como los propios contenidos filosóficos. Con la intención de descifrar las claves que permitan comprender mejor el uso de los recursos humorísticos en los diálogos platónicos presentamos este volumen colectivo en el que once autores abordan distintos aspectos de la cuestión. (shrink)

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM - whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part I of this article took up the first two questions. Part II will take up the second two questions. Question 3 deals with the question as to whether DSM-V should assume a conservative or assertive posture in making changes from DSM-IV. That question in turn breaks down into discussion of diagnoses that depend on, and aim toward, empirical, scientific validation, and diagnoses that are more value-laden and less amenable to scientific validation. Question 4 takes up the role of pragmatic consideration in a psychiatric nosology, whether the purely empirical considerations need to be tempered by considerations of practical consequence. As in Part 1 of this article, the general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)

Focussing on the thirteenth-century endings of Byzantine writings against the Latin innovation of the Filioque, the present study aims, on the basis of the work De processione Spiritus sancti (1283), to provide the reader with an insight into the nature of the Orthodox argumentation refuting the Filioque. The work was until now attributed to Gregorios Kyprios Patriarch of Konstantinople (1283–1289). However, it is not a product of his pen, but a compiled version of his earlier work, the “Antirrheticos against Bekkos”. (...) Throughout the study the writer follows step by step Kyprios' reasoning and tries to control the validity and soundness of the arguments advanced, making at the same time specific references to the patristic and philosophical background of Kyprios' thinking. The study shows beyond any doubt that Kyprios is indebted to his predecessors, mostly to the Cappadocians and Dionysius Areopagites, and that he argues on the same line of reasoning with them in respect to the idea of the “Monarchy” of the Father, of the incommunicable of hypostatic properties, and of the possibility of beings to be in communion with God only through the divine energies. On the ground of these three fundamental ideas, a procession of the Spirit also from the Son is categorically rejected. Only the mission of the Spirit (what is implied here, are the gifts of the Spirit and not the Spirit itself) into the world through the Son is acceptable. (shrink)

En 1968 ocurrieron dos hechos sobre los cuales cabe hacer una reflexión orientada por la bioética: la llamada Revolución del 68 y la aparición de la Carta encíclica Humanae Vitae. El Concilio Vaticano II, que fue presentado como una actualización de la Iglesia católica al mundo moderno, fue el escenario de los estudios previos a la redacción del documento pontificio, donde Pablo VI dejó clara la postura del Magisterio de la Iglesia sobre la moral sexual y anticipa los errores prácticos (...) que se seguirían a planteamientos conceptuales antropológicos erróneos o equivocados sobre esa temática. Hay necesidad de rehabilitar la Humanae vitae para volver a percibir el acto conyugal en su “verdad inalterable”, donde no se puede separar el bien y la belleza de la donación mutua de los cónyuges, que redunda en el bien común de la sociedad para defender su célula básica y nuclear que es la familia. In 1968, two events occurred on which it is worth reflecting on bioethics: the so-called Revolution of 1968 and the appearance of the Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae. The Second Vatican Council, which was presented as an update of the Catholic Church to the modern world, was the scene of the studies prior to the drafting of the pontifical document, where Paul VI made clear the position of the Magisterium of the Church on sexual morality and it anticipates the practical errors that would follow erroneous or mistaken anthropological conceptual approaches on this subject. There is a need to rehabilitate Humanae vitae in order to re-perceive the conjugal act in its "unalterable truth", where good and beauty cannot be separated from the mutual donation of the spouses, which results in the common good of society to defend its basic and nuclear cell which is the family. (shrink)

Estudios de lingüística ugarítica: Una selección. By Gregorio del Olmo Lete. Aula Orientalis-Supplementa, vol. 30. Barcelona: Editorial Ausa, 2016. Pp. ii + 383.

Deductive Logic is an introductory textbook in formal logic. The book is divided into four parts covering (i) truth-functional logic, (ii) monadic quantifi- cation, (iii) polyadic quantification and (iv) names and identity, and there are exercises for all these topics at the end of the book. In the truth-functional logic part, the reader learns to produce paraphrases of English statements and arguments in logical notation (this subsection is called “analysis”), then about the semantic properties of such paraphrased statements and arguments, (...) such as satisfiability, implication and equivalence (“logical assessment”) and finally (“reflection”) there is an axiomatic proof method and some important extras such as disjunctive normal form and expressive adequacy. Parts two and three mirror this analysis/assessment/reflection structure for monadic and polyadic quantification, though this time the proof system is a natural deduction one, and part three contains a completeness proof for that system. The fourth part of the book introduces names, the identity predicate and descriptions and examines the additional expressive power which these provide. (shrink)

This is the second and concluding volume of a biography of Edmund Burke, a key figure in eighteenth-century British and Irish politics and intellectual life. Covering the most interesting years of his life, its leading themes are India and the French Revolution. Burke was largely responsible for the impeachment of Warren Hastings, former Governor-General of Bengal. The lengthy trial of Hastings is recognized as a landmark episode in the history of Britain's relationship with India. Lock provides the first day-by-day (...) account of the entire trial, highlighting some of the many disputes about evidence as well as the great set speeches by Burke and others. In 1790, Burke published Reflections on the Revolution in France, the earliest sustained attack on the principles of the Revolution. Continuously in print ever since, the Reflections remains the most widely read and quoted book about the Revolution. The Reflections was followed by a series of anti-revolutionary writings, as Burke maintained his crusade against the Revolution to the end of his life. In addition to these leading themes, the biography examines many other topics in its coverage of Burke's busy and varied life: his parliamentary career; his family, friendships, and philanthropy; and his often difficult and obsessive personality. There are more than thirty illustrations, including many contemporary caricatures that convey how Burke was perceived by an often hostile and uncomprehending public. Controversial in his time, Burke is now regarded as one of the greatest of orators in the English language, as well as one of the most influential political philosophers in the Western tradition. (shrink)

A distanza di tredici anni dalla pubblicazione del primo, e più corposo, volume dei Theologica di Michele Psello, curato da Paul Gautier, vede ora la luce il secondo e ultimo volume degli opuscoli teologici del grande poligrafo bizantino, ad arricchire ulteriormente la ormai lunga serie delle edizioni pselliane comparse nella Bibliotheca Teubneriana. Il vol. si apre con una Praefatio essenziale (pp. VII–XVIII), incentrata sulla tradizione manoscritta dei singoli opuscoli, nella quale vengono rapidamente elencati tutti i codici dai quali ogni trattatello (...) ci è stato trasmesso e le (eventuali) precedenti edizioni. Dopo il Conspectus editionum (limitato agli scritti pubblicati nel II vol.) e il consueto elenco dei Sigla (pp. XIX–XXI) segue il testo dei quarantacinque opuscoli (pp. 1–153), ventitré dei quali fino ad oggi inediti. Tali opuscoli risultano di dimensioni assai variabili: si va da veri e propri saggi lunghi fino a venticinque pagine a stampa (op. 3) a semplici schede di una manciata di righi (op. 22). In essi Psello prende prevalentemente in esame loci delle Sacre Scritture; talora discute invece passi problematici del prediletto Gregorio Nazianzeno, oppure affronta questioni puntuali, come l'eresia di Eunomio (op. 14) o l'aspetto degli angeli (op. 38). Come accade anche per scritti di Psello di altro genere (si pensi, ad es., agli opuscoli retorici e filosofici), anche questi trattatelli teologici si configurano non di rado come centoni di passi mutuati da opere altrui e sapientemente assemblati da Psello: si vedano, ad es., op. 14, nel quale vengono combinati loci tratti dall'Adversus Eunomium di Basilio di Cesarea e dall'omonima opera di Gregorio di Nissa, oppure op. 10, largamente debitore delle Quaestiones in Leviticum di Teodoreto di Cirro. Il vol. si chiude con l'elenco degli Initia (pp. 154–155) e tre indici (pp. 155–176): Index auctorum, Index nominum e Index verborum (propriamente, un delectus verborum). (shrink)

According to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the distinction between doing and allowing harm is morally significant. Doing harm is harder to justify than merely allowing harm. This paper is the second of a two paper critical overview of the literature on the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing. In this paper, I consider the moral status of the distinction between doing and allowing harm. I look at objections to the doctrine such as James’ Rachels’ Wicked Uncle Case and Jonathan (...) Bennett’s argument that any acceptable analysis of the distinction leaves it implausible that the distinction is morally relevant. I consider putative defences of the Doctrine from Philippa Foot and Warren Quinn. I argue that neither Foot not Quinn provides a satisfactory justification of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, but that the idea of self-ownership discussed by Quinn can be developed to provide a justification of the doctrine. (shrink)

Gregorio Baldin’s book, La croisée des savoirs, concerns the intellectual relations among Hobbes, Mersenne, and Descartes. The study is limited to the time between 1634 and 1648, starting when Hobbes first met Mersenne in Paris and ending when Mersenne died. It covers three main topics. Part i is devoted to the relations maintained by Hobbes with the circle of Mersenne during 1634–1636, which Baldin thinks are essential for the development of Hobbes’ scientific thought. Part ii develops the theme of (...) the “hidden” influence of Mersenne on Hobbes’ thought, highlighting points of contact between the two authors, such as mechanism, research in optics, and their approach to epistemology. Part iii concerns Hobbes’ influence on Mersenne’s thought. It addresses several themes, starting with Mersenne’s interest in Hobbes’ system, the attitudes of Mersenne, Gassendi, and Hobbes toward Cartesian metaphysics, and ending with scientific themes debated in Mersenne’s circle during the 1640s. (shrink)

El Concilio III de Toledo, celebrado en mayo del año 589 a instancias del rey Recaredo, constituye un acontecimiento excepcional para la historia de España y para la historia de la Iglesia. La liturgia ocupa un lugar de gran importancia en este Concilio, pues en ella se recoge y se expresa la fe. Al mismo tiempo, la liturgia sirve para alimentar la fe, como se ve en la introducción del rezo del Credo en la celebración de la Misa, prescrito (...) por el Concilio. Otros aspectos relacionados con la liturgia se abordan en el Concilio y aquí se comentan. (shrink)

Este artículo establece una fecha nueva, más precisa, para la conclusión del trabajo de Maquiavelo en El Príncipe . Documentos de julio de 1515 descubiertos recientemente en archivos florentinos revelan que Nicolás Maquiavelo y su familia se estuvieron esforzando para salir de una crisis inesperada en la que habían caído durante los meses anteriores. Lo que motivó dicha crisis no fue otra cosa sino el fracaso del Príncipe de Maquiavelo a la hora de lograr el favor de la persona a (...) la que estaba dedicado: Lorenzo II de’ Medici. Así, la presentación del libro a Lorenzo puede ahora datarse entre el 15 de mayo y el 3 de julio de 1515, siendo más probable que sucediera a principios de este periodo. La versión final del texto fue completada en algún momento entre el 14 de febrero de 1515 y la presentación, varios meses después. (shrink)

This text provides a critique of the subjective Bayesian view of statistical inference, and proposes the author's own error-statistical approach as an alternative framework for the epistemology of experiment. It seeks to address the needs of researchers who work with statistical analysis.

What is the source of logical and mathematical truth? This book revitalizes conventionalism as an answer to this question. Conventionalism takes logical and mathematical truth to have their source in linguistic conventions. This was an extremely popular view in the early 20th century, but it was never worked out in detail and is now almost universally rejected in mainstream philosophical circles. Shadows of Syntax is the first book-length treatment and defense of a combined conventionalist theory of logic and mathematics. It (...) argues that our conventions, in the form of syntactic rules of language use, are perfectly suited to explain the truth, necessity, and a priority of logical and mathematical claims, as well as our logical and mathematical knowledge. (shrink)