Reasoning About Knowledge is the first book to provide a general discussion of approaches to reasoning about knowledge and its applications to distributed ...

Humans are complex social beings. To understand human behaviour, an integrated perspective is required - one which considers both what we regularly do and what motivates us. Personality, Values, Culture uses an evolutionary perspective to look at the similarities and differences in personality and values across modern societies. Integrating research on personality and human values into a functional framework that highlights their underlying compatibilities, Fischer describes how personality is shaped by the complex interplay between genes and the environment, both over (...) the course of human evolution and within the lifespan of individuals. He proposes a gene-culture coevolution model of personality and values to explain how and why people differ around the world and how genes, economics, social conditions, and climate jointly shape personality. (shrink)

The arbitrariness of a signal has long been seen as a theoretically important but difficult to pin down notion. In this article, we suggest there are at least two different notions of arbitrariness at play in philosophical and scientific debates concerning the use of arbitrary signals, and work towards improved analyses of both. We then consider how these different types of arbitrariness can co-occur and come apart. Finally, we examine the connections between these two types of arbitrariness and the cognitive (...) complexity of signal users with an eye towards better evaluating one possible form of human-nonhuman communicative continuity. We show that each type of arbitrariness bears its own nuanced relationship to cognitive complexity, demonstrating the theoretical importance of keeping these two notions separate. (shrink)

The present research was guided by the important need for a diversion from an economistic to a humanistic management perspective of sustainability. It concentrates on the current importance of digital strategic communication, particularly regarding the concept of corporate sustainability in the context of the conflict arena of the oil industry. The focus is on the comparison of the persuasive effectiveness of the framings of corporate versus activist NGO website communications and their impacts on the perception of the triple pillars of (...) sustainability and, corporate greenwashing with respect to a proposed bituminous oil pipeline in Canada. The results of these pro and con messages were analyzed within the Elaboration Likelihood Model demonstrating a “non expert” peripheral route to a positive persuasion from exposure to the corporate communication versus an “expert” central route to a negative persuasion from the activist NGO communication. Subsequent exposure to the opposite website communication further emphasized the predominance of a negative persuasion based on both groups now being motivated as “expert” viewers of these strategic communications, leading to an important perception of greenwashing by participants resulting from vague claims, visual and linguistic contents of the corporate communication versus the mainly verifiable factual ones in that of the activist NGO. (shrink)

Ronald Barnett pursues this quest through an exploration of pairs of contending concepts that speak to the idea of the university such as space and time; being ...

Diane Vaughan’s analysis of the causes of the Challenger accident suggests ways to apply science and technology studies to the teaching of engineering ethics. By sensitizing future engineers to the ongoing construction of risk during mundane engineering practice, we can better prepare them to address issues of public health, safety, and welfare before they require heroic intervention. Understanding the importance of precedents, incremental change, and fallible engineering judgment in engineering design may help them anticipate potential threats to public safety arising (...) from routine aspects of workplace culture. We suggest modifications of both detailed case studies on engineering disasters and hypothetical, ethical dilemmas employed in engineering ethics classes. Investigating the sociotechnical aspects of engineering practice can improve the initial recognition of ethical problems in real-world settings and provide an understanding of the role of workplace organization and culture in facilitating or impeding remedial action. (shrink)

Robots are slowly, but certainly, entering people's professional and private lives. They require the attention of regulators due to the challenges they present to existing legal frameworks and the new legal and ethical questions they raise. This paper discusses four major regulatory dilemmas in the field of robotics: how to keep up with technological advances; how to strike a balance between stimulating innovation and the protection of fundamental rights and values; whether to affirm prevalent social norms or nudge social norms (...) in a different direction; and, how to balance effectiveness versus legitimacy in techno-regulation. The four dilemmas are each treated in the context of a particular modality of regulation: law, market, social norms, and technology as a regulatory tool; and for each, we focus on particular topics? such as liability, privacy, and autonomy? that often feature as the major issues requiring regulatory attention. The paper then highlights the role and potential of the European framework of rights and values, responsible research and innovation, smart regulation and soft law as means of dealing with the dilemmas. (shrink)

This paper utilizes Scott domains (continuous lattices) to provide a mathematical model for the use of idealized and approximately true data in the testing of scientific theories. Key episodes from the history of science can be understood in terms of this model as attempts to demonstrate that theories are monotonic, that is, yield better predictions when fed better or more realistic data. However, as we show, monotonicity and truth of theories are independent notions. A formal description is given of the (...) pragmatic virtues of theories which are monotonic. We also introduce the stronger concept of continuity and show how it relates to the finite nature of scientific computations. Finally, we show that the space of theories also has the structure of a Scott domain. This result provides an analysis of how one theory can be said to approximate another. (shrink)

The Theaetetus provides Plato's fullest discussion of human knowledge and is a rich vehicle for reflection upon its topic. Polansky's commentary demonstrates that the dialogue in fact holds the complete Platonic account of knowledge -- an account which is as sophisticated as any offered by contemporary philosophers.

The present research was guided by the important need for a diversion from an economistic to a humanistic management perspective of sustainability. It concentrates on the current importance of digital strategic communication, particularly regarding the concept of corporate sustainability in the context of the conflict arena of the oil industry. The focus is on the comparison of the persuasive effectiveness of the framings of corporate versus activist NGO website communications and their impacts on the perception of the triple pillars of (...) sustainability and, corporate greenwashing with respect to a proposed bituminous oil pipeline in Canada. The results of these pro and con messages were analyzed within the Elaboration Likelihood Model demonstrating a “non expert” peripheral route to a positive persuasion from exposure to the corporate communication versus an “expert” central route to a negative persuasion from the activist NGO communication. Subsequent exposure to the opposite website communication further emphasized the predominance of a negative persuasion based on both groups now being motivated as “expert” viewers of these strategic communications, leading to an important perception of greenwashing by participants resulting from vague claims, visual and linguistic contents of the corporate communication versus the mainly verifiable factual ones in that of the activist NGO. (shrink)

My thesis is that, although medicine is scientific, it is not and can not become a science. After rejecting as flawed an argument attempting to show that medicine is already a science, I argue that a comparison of such basic, defining features as internal aims, criteria of success, and principles regulating the enterprises demonstrate that medicine and science are inherently different. I then argue that while it may be possible to reduce the cognitive content of medicine to biology, medicine itself (...) cannot be reduced, for as an enterprise it possesses features that make it an inappropriate subject of reduction. I conclude by indicating four results that emerge from recognizing that medicine and science are basically distinct. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Discourse around assisted colonization focuses on the ecological risks, costs, and uncertainties associated with the practice, as well as on its technical feasibility and alternative approaches to it. Nevertheless, the ethical underpinnings of the case for assisted colonization are claims about the value of species. A complete discussion of assisted colonization needs to include assessment of these claims. For each type of value that species are thought to possess it is necessary to determine whether it is plausible that species possess (...) the type of value and, if so, to what extent their possessing it justifies assisted colonization. I conducted such an assessment for each of the predominant types of value ascribed to species: ecological, instrumental (including option value), existence, and intrinsic value (including interest‐based, objective, and valuer‐dependent intrinsic value). The vast majority of species, including several that have been proposed as candidates for assisted colonization, have much less value than is often presumed. Moreover, with respect to some types of value, assisted colonization would not fully preserve the value of the target species even if it were to keep the target species in existence. Therefore, the case for assisted colonization is significantly weaker and more qualified than its advocates often suppose. There may be exceptional species for which assisted colonization is well justified—and for this reason, case‐by‐case assessment is necessary—but in general the burden of justification generated by the ecological risks associated with assisted colonization is not met by the value potentially preserved by assisted colonization. This suggests that assisted colonization ought to have, at most, a very minor role in the portfolio of ecosystem management practices, even as it pertains to species conservation under conditions of rapid climate change. (shrink)

Meaning and communication -- Mighty dead: Kant and Hegel -- Scorekeeping -- Sentence meaning, term meaning, Anaphora -- Empirical content and empirical knowledge -- Logical discourse -- Representation and communication -- Objectivity and phenomenalism about norms.

Kinship plays a foundational role in organizing human social behavior on both local and more global scales. Hence, any adequate account of the evolution of human sociality must include an account of the evolution of human kinship. This article aims to make progress on the latter task by providing a few key pieces of an evolutionary model of kinship systems. The article is especially focused on the connection between primate social cognition and the origins of kinship systems. I argue that (...) early conceptions of kinship in our line were very likely scaffolded by preexisting forms of primate social cognition. It was only later, as linguistic resources increased in our line, and as human social life grew more complex, that these conceptions came to resemble kin categories as we now know them. I conclude by situating “kin cognition” within a broader cognitive science framework for studying capacities that reflect both innate knowledge and human cultural learning. (shrink)

My thesis is that biology is most plausibly regarded as a universal, as distinct from a provincial, science. First, I develop the general notion of a provincial science, formulate three criteria for applying the concept, and present brief examples illustrating their use. Second, I argue that a consideration of population genetics as a characteristic example of a basic biological theory strengthens the prior presumption that biology is not a provincial science. Finally, I examine two arguments to the effect that biology (...) is a provincial science. The first concerns biology's exclusively terrestrial evidence base, the second the logical character of its laws. I introduce considerations that weaken the persuasiveness of the first argument and then show that the second one rests upon a false premise and so should be rejected. (shrink)

Husserl has finally begun to be recognized as the precursor of current interest in intentionality — the first to have a general theory of the role of mental representations in the philosophy of language and mind. As the first thinker to put directedness of mental representations at the center of his philosophy, he is also beginning to emerge as the father of current research in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.

The idea that cognition makes use of one or more “languages of thought” remains central to much cognitive-scientific and philosophical theorizing. And yet, virtually no attention has been paid to the question of how a language of thought might evolve in the first place. In this article, I take some steps towards addressing this issue. With the aid of the so-called Sender–Receiver framework, I elucidate a family of distinctions and processes which enable us to see how languages of thought might (...) evolve via a series of small, incremental changes. While much work doubtlessly remains to be done in this area, I hope to at least show that there need be nothing mysterious about the existence of languages of thought on evolutionary grounds. (shrink)

Somatic cell gene therapy has yielded promising results. If germ cell gene therapy can be developed, the promise is even greater: hundreds of genetic diseases might be virtually eliminated. But some claim the procedure is morally unacceptable. We thoroughly and sympathetically examine several possible reasons for this claim but find them inadequate. There is no moral reason, then, not to develop and employ germ-line gene therapy. Taking the offensive, we argue next that medicine has a prima facie moral obligation to (...) do so. (shrink)

This article examines some recent work by Berwick and Chomsky as presented in their book Why Only Us? Language and Evolution. As I understand them, Berwick and Chomsky’s overarching purpose is to explain how human language could have arisen in so short an evolutionary period. After articulating their strategy, I argue that they fall far short of reaching this goal. A co-evolutionary scenario linking the mechanisms that realize the language system, both with one other and with cognitive mechanisms capable of (...) exploiting linguistic expressions, is surely unavoidable. And yet this is precisely what Berwick and Chomsky in effect rule out. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to show that adaptational sentences (i.e. sentences containing the terms "adaptive", "adapted", etc.) in evolutionary biology are best interpreted as equivalent to sentences about Darwinian or genetical selection. Thus, the use of adaptational languages does not introduce final purposes or other nonempirical notions into biology. I also try to demonstrate that adaptational sentences and functional sentences are not equivalent in an evolutionary context so that an analysis of function does not dispense with the need for (...) an analysis of adaptation. Finally, it is argued that, although some adaptational sentences might be construed as teleological explanations, given an empirical content, they do not serve as explanations. Rather, they express the outcome of selection, regarded in one way, and regarded in another, they express data for which a theory of evolution must account. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

What is an inference rule? This question does not have a unique answer. One usually finds two distinct standard answers in the literature; validity inference $(\sigma \vdash_\mathrm{v} \varphi$ if for every substitution $\tau$, the validity of $\tau \lbrack\sigma\rbrack$ entails the validity of $\tau\lbrack\varphi\rbrack)$, and truth inference $(\sigma \vdash_\mathrm{t} \varphi$ if for every substitution $\tau$, the truth of $\tau\lbrack\sigma\rbrack$ entails the truth of $\tau\lbrack\varphi\rbrack)$. In this paper we introduce a general semantic framework that allows us to investigate the notion of inference (...) more carefully. Validity inference and truth inference are in some sense the extremal points in our framework. We investigate the relationship between various types of inference in our general framework, and consider the complexity of deciding if an inference rule is sound, in the context of a number of logics of interest: classical propositional logic, a nonstandard propositional logic, various propositional modal logics, and first-order logic. (shrink)

The status of genes as bearers of semantic content remains very much in dispute among philosophers of biology. In a series of papers, Nicholas Shea has argued that his ‘infotel’ theory of semantics vindicates the claim that genes carry semantic content. On Shea’s account, each organism is associated with a ‘developmental system’ that takes genetic representations as inputs and produces whole-organism traits as outputs. Moreover, at least in his most recent work on the topic, Shea is explicit in claiming that (...) these genetic representations are ‘read in ontogenetic time, in the course of individual development’. Here I argue that a close examination of the process of reading, in Shea’s sense, reveals that acts of reading do not actually occur over the course of developmental time at all. To make this vivid, I contrast the process of reading for Shea with another type of developmental process that is widely seen as a form of reading directed on inherited genes, and which certainly does occur over the course of developmental time, namely, gene expression. I suggest that this error in Shea’s thinking can be traced back to an equivocation on Shea’s part in the meaning of ‘reads’, and also to a reliance on an invalid principle regarding the transference of representational content from one token gene to another. The issues at play are bound up with questions about causation and in particular about causation over time. Thus, having first presented my arguments in a way that doesn’t depend on any particular theory of causation, I then make use of Kenneth Waters’ framework of difference-making causation to conceptually sharpen and shed further light on matters. I conclude by discussing a consequence of the fact that acts of reading do not occur in development. 1 Introduction2 Reading for Shea3 Gene Expression as Reading4 Are Genetic Representations Read in Development? Part 15 The Manipulability Theory of Causation and Difference-Making Causation6 Are Genetic Representations Read in Development? Part 27 Conclusion. (shrink)

In recent years, several systematic theories of linguistic meaning have been offered that give pride of place to linguistic practice, or the process of linguistic communication. Often these theories are referred to as neo-pragmatist or new pragmatist; I call them 'practice-based'. According to practice-based theories of meaning, the process of linguistic communication is somehow constitutive of, or otherwise essential for the existence of, propositional linguistic meaning. Moreover, these theories disavow, or downplay, the semantic importance of inflationary notions of representation. I (...) introduce the basic ideas and motives behind some practice-based theories of meaning, and offer some reasons why an eliminativist, non-quietist, epistemic practice-based approach to meaning that 1) disavows any explanatory role for the linguistic community as such, 2) prioritizes sentence meaning over word meaning, and 3) may , in the end, be naturalistic, should be favored over its practice-based competitors. (shrink)

St. Augustine is the bridge that links ancient philosophy and early Christian theology to the thought patterns of the Middle Ages. But the influence of Augustine's philosophy in general and his epistemology in particular extends far beyond medieval philosophy. Such modern philosophers as Descartes and Malebranche carry the stamp of Augustinism upon their philosophies. What is not so well known is that even some of the most original ideas of Berkeley and Kant can be found anticipated in Augustine.

The principles and practices of research peer review are described. While the principles are fundamentally generic and apply to peer review across the full spectrum of performing institutions as well as to manuscript/proposal/program peer review, the focus of this paper is peer review of proposed and ongoing programs in federal agencies. The paper describes desireable characteristics and important intangible factors in successful peer review. Also presented is a heuristic protocol for the conduct of successful peer review research evaluations and impact (...) assessments. Problems with peer review are then outlined, followed by examples of peer review of proposed and existing programs in selected federal agencies. Some peer review variants, such as the Science Court, are described, and then research requirements to improve peer review are discussed. (shrink)

Grunbaum has argued that the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction hypothesis is not ad hoc since the Kennedy-Thorndike experiment can be used to provide a test that is significantly different from that provided by the Michelson-Morley experiment. In the first part of the paper, I show that the differences claimed by Grunbaum to hold between these two experiments are not sufficient for establishing independent testability. A dilemma is developed: either the Kennedy-Thorndike experiment, because of experimental realities, cannot test the uncontracted Fresnel aether theory, (...) or if experimental difficulties are ignored, the Kennedy-Thorndike experiment degenerates into a version of the Michelson-Morley experiment. The second part of the paper is a feasibility study of the prospects for defining experimental types according to aims of measurement and determination. This approach is applied to the contraction hypothesis, where it is suggested that the usual analysis of independent testability be modified. (shrink)

This research takes a retrospective look at modern consumption opportunities of the U.S. poor from both sides of the marketing exchange relationship. The paper opens with a critical assessment of the consumer-behavior literature and its primary focus on middle-class Americans. The next section profiles the impoverished and their purchasing habits and closes with a summary of how both have changed over the last forty years. Then a theoretical account is presented using consumer literature from the same timeframe. The paper ends (...) with a discussion of common business practices and moral dilemmas that have continued over these decades, along with an ethical paradigm involving distributive justice to guide future management tactics. (shrink)

Somewhere along the course of evolution, and at some time in any one of us on the way from zygote to adult, some forms of detection became beliefs, and some tropisms turned into deliberate desires. Two transitions are involved: from functional responses to intentional ones, and from non-conscious processes to conscious ones that presuppose language and are powered by neocortical re- sources. Unconscious and functional mental processes remain and constitute an 'intuitive' system that collaborates uneasily with the conscious intentionality of (...) the 'analytic' system. Emotions bridge these divides: in particular, specifc feelings affect inference, cognition and metacognition. In what follows, after a brief reminder of the crucial role of emotions to rational thought and action in general, I first look at how fear affects belief. I then narrow my focus to some examples of what I shall refer to as epistemic feelings. These include specialized variants of fear and greed; and feelings of doubt, certainty, knowing and familiarity. I shall also describe some surprising recent findings about the influence of oxytocin on trust and about the direct influence of social conformity on perception and belief. (shrink)