A normative reason for a person to? is a consideration which favours?ing. A motivating reason is a reason for which or on the basis of which a person?s. This paper explores a connection between normative and motivating reasons. More specifically, it explores the idea that there are second-order normative reasons to? for or on the basis of certain first-order normative reasons. In this paper, I challenge the view that there are second-order reasons so understood. I (...) then show that prominent views in contemporary epistemology are committed to the existence of second-order reasons, specifically, views about the epistemic norms governing practical reasoning and about the role of higher-order evidence. If there are no second-order reasons, those views are mistaken. (shrink)

Description logics refer to a family of formalisms concentrated around concepts, roles and individuals. They belong to the most frequently used knowledge representation formalisms and provide a logical basis to a variety of well known paradigms. The main reasoning tasks considered in the area of description logics are those reducible to subsumption. On the other hand, any knowledge representation system should be equipped with a more advanced reasoning machinery. Therefore in the current paper we make a step towards (...) integrating description logics with second-order reasoning. One of the important motivations behind introducing second-order formalism follows from the fact that many forms of commonsense and nonmonotonic reasoning used in AI can be modelled within the second-order logic. To achieve our goal we first extend description logics with a possibility to quantify over concepts. Since one of the main criticisms against the use of second-order formalisms is their complexity, we next propose second-order quantifier elimination techniques applicable to a large class of description logic formulas. Finally we show applications of the techniques, in particular in reasoning with circumscribed concepts and approximated terminological formulas. (shrink)

We introduce a second-order system V1-Horn of bounded arithmetic formalizing polynomial-time reasoning, based on Grädel's 35) second-order Horn characterization of P. Our system has comprehension over P predicates , and only finitely many function symbols. Other systems of polynomial-time reasoning either allow induction on NP predicates , and hence are more powerful than our system , or use Cobham's theorem to introduce function symbols for all polynomial-time functions . We prove that our system is (...) equivalent to QPV and Zambella's P-def. Using our techniques, we also show that V1-Horn is finitely axiomatizable, and, as a corollary, that the class of Σ1b consequences of S21 is finitely axiomatizable as well, thus answering an open question. (shrink)

We can understand and act upon the beliefs of other people, even when these conflict with our own beliefs. Children’s development of this ability, known as Theory of Mind, typically happens around age 4. Research using a looking-time paradigm, however, established that toddlers at the age of 15 months old pass a non-verbal false-belief task (Onishi and Baillargeon in Science 308:255–258, 2005). This is well before the age at which children pass any of the verbal false-belief tasks. In this study (...) we present a more complex case of false-belief reasoning with older children. We tested second-order reasoning, probing children’s ability to handle the belief of one person about the belief of another person. We find just the opposite: 7-year-olds pass a verbal false-belief reasoning task, but fail on an equally complex low-verbal task. This finding suggests that language supports explicit reasoning about beliefs, perhaps by facilitating the cognitive system to keep track of beliefs attributed by people to other people. (shrink)

We can understand and act upon the beliefs of other people, even when these conflict with our own beliefs. Children’s development of this ability, known as Theory of Mind, typically happens around age 4. Research using a looking-time paradigm, however, established that toddlers at the age of 15 months old pass a non-verbal false-belief task (Onishi and Baillargeon in Science 308:255–258, 2005). This is well before the age at which children pass any of the verbal false-belief tasks. In this study (...) we present a more complex case of false-belief reasoning with older children. We tested second-order reasoning, probing children’s ability to handle the belief of one person about the belief of another person. We find just the opposite: 7-year-olds pass a verbal false-belief reasoning task, but fail on an equally complex low-verbal task. This finding suggests that language supports explicit reasoning about beliefs, perhaps by facilitating the cognitive system to keep track of beliefs attributed by people to other people. (shrink)

In the language of second-order logic, first- and second-order variables are distinguished syntactically and cannot be grammatically substituted. According to a prominent argument for the deployment of these languages, these substitution failures are necessary to block the derivation of paradoxes that result from attempts to generalize over predicate interpretations. I first examine previous approaches which interpret second-order sentences using expressions of natural language and argue that these approaches undermine these syntactic restrictions. I then examine (...) Williamson’s primitivist approach according to which second-order sentences are not offered readings in a previously understood language. I argue that the syntactic restrictions alone do not block the derivation of the paradox, unless they are backed by a principled reason that the language cannot be expanded to allow the grammatical substitution of first- and second- order variables. I argue that there is neither a syntactic nor a semantic principle that prohibits such an expansion. (shrink)

Agent-relative reasons are an important feature of any nonconsequentialist moral theory. Many authors think that they cannot be accommodated within a value-first theory that understands all value as agent-neutral. In this paper, I offer a novel explanation of agent-relative reasons that accommodates them fully within an agent-neutral value-first view. I argue that agent-relative reasons are to be understood in terms of second-order value responses: when an agent acts on an agent-relative reason, she responds appropriately to the agent-neutral value (...) of her own appropriate response to some agent-neutral value. This view helps reconcile important elements of deontology and consequentialism. (shrink)

Quine’s most important charge against second-, and more generally, higher-order logic is that it carries massive existential commitments. The force of this charge does not depend upon Quine’s questionable assimilation of second-order logic to set theory. Even if we take second-order variables to range over properties, rather than sets, the charge remains in force, as long as properties are individuated purely extensionally. I argue that if we interpret them as ranging over properties more reasonably (...) construed, in accordance with an abundant or deflationary conception, Quine’s charge can be resisted. This interpretation need not be seen as precluding the use of model-theoretic semantics for second-order languages; but it will preclude the use of the standard semantics, along with the more general Henkin semantics, of which it is a special case. To that extent, the approach I recommend has revisionary implications which some may find unpalatable; it is, however, compatible with the quite different special case in which the second-order variables are taken to range over definable subsets of the first-order domain, and with respect to such a semantics, some important metalogical results obtainable under the standard semantics may still be obtained. In my final section, I discuss the relations between second-order logic, interpreted as I recommend, and a strong version of schematic ancestral logic promoted in recent work by Richard Heck. I argue that while there is an interpretation on which Heck’s logic can be contrasted with second-order logic as standardly interpreted, when it is so interpreted, its differences from the more modest form of second-order logic I advocate are much less substantial, and may be largely presentational. (shrink)

“Second-order Logic” in Anderson, C.A. and Zeleny, M., Eds. Logic, Meaning, and Computation: Essays in Memory of Alonzo Church. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001. Pp. 61–76. -/- Abstract. This expository article focuses on the fundamental differences between second- order logic and first-order logic. It is written entirely in ordinary English without logical symbols. It employs second-order propositions and second-order reasoning in a natural way to illustrate the fact that second-order logic (...) is actually a familiar part of our traditional intuitive logical framework and that it is not an artificial formalism created by specialists for technical purposes. To illustrate some of the main relationships between second-order logic and first-order logic, this paper introduces basic logic, a kind of zero-order logic, which is more rudimentary than first-order and which is transcended by first-order in the same way that first-order is transcended by second-order. The heuristic effectiveness and the historical importance of second-order logic are reviewed in the context of the contemporary debate over the legitimacy of second-order logic. Rejection of second-order logic is viewed as radical: an incipient paradigm shift involving radical repudiation of a part of our scientific tradition, a tradition that is defended by classical logicians. But it is also viewed as reactionary: as being analogous to the reactionary repudiation of symbolic logic by supporters of “Aristotelian” traditional logic. But even if “genuine” logic comes to be regarded as excluding second-order reasoning, which seems less likely today than fifty years ago, its effectiveness as a heuristic instrument will remain and its importance for understanding the history of logic and mathematics will not be diminished. Second-order logic may someday be gone, but it will never be forgotten. Technical formalisms have been avoided entirely in an effort to reach a wide audience, but every effort has been made to limit the inevitable sacrifice of rigor. People who do not know second-order logic cannot understand the modern debate over its legitimacy and they are cut-off from the heuristic advantages of second-order logic. And, what may be worse, they are cut-off from an understanding of the history of logic and thus are constrained to have distorted views of the nature of the subject. As Aristotle first said, we do not understand a discipline until we have seen its development. It is a truism that a person's conceptions of what a discipline is and of what it can become are predicated on their conception of what it has been. (shrink)

We discuss the differences between first-order set theory and second-order logic as a foundation for mathematics. We analyse these languages in terms of two levels of formalization. The analysis shows that if second-order logic is understood in its full semantics capable of characterizing categorically central mathematical concepts, it relies entirely on informal reasoning. On the other hand, if it is given a weak semantics, it loses its power in expressing concepts categorically. First-order set (...) theory and second-order logic are not radically different: the latter is a major fragment of the former. (shrink)

Second-order quantifier elimination in the context of classical logic emerged as a powerful technique in many applications, including the correspondence theory, relational databases, deductive and knowledge databases, knowledge representation, commonsense reasoning and approximate reasoning. In the current paper we first generalize the result of Nonnengart and Szałas [17] by allowing second-order variables to appear within higher-order contexts. Then we focus on a semantical analysis of conditionals, using the introduced technique and Gabbay’s semantics provided (...) in [10] and substantially using a third-order accessibility relation. The analysis is done via finding correspondences between axioms involving conditionals and properties of the underlying third-order relation. (shrink)

examine Nathan Salmon’s solution to the problem of trivialization, as it arises for conceptions of general term rigidity that construe it as identity of designation across possible worlds. I argue that he does not succeed in showing that some alleged general terms, such as “the colour of the sky” are non-rigid, but also that a small class of different examples that he presents, which can be construed as second order descriptions, are indeed non-rigid general terms, although for reasons (...) different from those he thought. (shrink)

Kleinberg describes a novel procedure for efficient search in a dense hyper-linked environment, such as the world wide web. The procedure exploits information implicit in the links between pages so as to identify patterns of connectivity indicative of “authorative sources”. At a more general level, the trick is to use this second-order link-structure information to rapidly and cheaply identify the knowledge-structures most likely to be relevant given a specific input. I shall argue that Kleinberg’s procedure is suggestive of (...) a new, viable, and neuroscientifically plausible solution to at least the so-called “Frame Problem” in cognitive science viz the problem of explaining global abductive inference. More accurately, I shall argue that Kleinberg’s procedure suggests a new variety of “fast and frugal heuristic” ) capable of pressing maximum utility from the vast bodies of information and associations commanded by the biological brain. The paper thus takes up the challenge laid down by Fodor ). Fodor depicts the problem of global knowledge-based reason as the point source of many paradigmatic failings of contemporary computational theories of mind. These failings, Fodor goes on to argue, cannot be remedied by any simple appeal to alternative modes of encoding and processing. I shall show, however, that connectionist models can provide for one neurologically plausible incarnation of Kleinberg’s procedure. The paper ends by noting that current commercial applications increasingly confront the kinds of challenge initially posed to biological thought and reason. (shrink)

Psychological game theory, as defined by Colman, is meant to offer a series of solution concepts that should reduce the indeterminacy of orthodox game theory when applied to a series of situations. My main criticism is that, actually, they introduce a second-order indeterminacy problem rather than offering a viable solution. The reason is that the proposed solution concepts are under-specified in their definition and in their scope.

Stephen Yablo [23,24] introduces a new informal paradox, constituted by an infinite list of semi-formalized sentences. It has been shown that, formalized in a first-order language, Yablo’s piece of reasoning is invalid, for it is impossible to derive falsum from the sequence, due mainly to the Compactness Theorem. This result casts doubts on the paradoxical character of the list of sentences. After identifying two usual senses in which an expression or set of expressions is said to be paradoxical, (...) since second-order languages are not compact, I study the paradoxicality of Yablo’s list within these languages. While non-paradoxical in the first sense, the second-order version of the list is a paradox in our second sense. I conclude that this suffices for regarding Yablo’s original list as paradoxical and his informal argument as valid. (shrink)

The most common first- and second-order modal logics either have as theorems every instance of the Barcan and Converse Barcan formulae and of their second-order analogues, or else fail to capture the actual truth of every theorem of classical first- and second-order logic. In this paper we characterise and motivate sound and complete first- and second-order modal logics that successfully capture the actual truth of every theorem of classical first- and second- (...) class='Hi'>order logic and yet do not possess controversial instances of the Barcan and Converse Barcan formulae as theorems, nor of their second-order analogues. What makes possible these results is an understanding of the individual constants and predicates of the target languages as strongly Millian expressions, where a strongly Millian expression is one that has an actually existing entity as its semantic value. For this reason these logics are called ‘strongly Millian’. It is shown that the strength of the strongly Millian second-order modal logics here characterised afford the means to resist an argument by Timothy Williamson for the truth of the claim that necessarily, every property necessarily exists. (shrink)

In this paper, we are concerned with the development of a general set theory using the single axiom version of Leśniewski’s mereology. The specification of mereology, and further of Tarski’s geometry of solids will rely on the Calculus of Inductive Constructions (CIC). In the first part, we provide a specification of Leśniewski’s mereology as a model for an atomless Boolean algebra using Clay’s ideas. In the second part, we interpret Leśniewski’s mereology in monadic second-order logic using names (...) and develop a full version of mereology referred to as CIC-based Monadic Mereology (λ-MM) allowing an expressive theory while involving only two axioms. In the third part, we propose a modeling of Tarski’s solid geometry relying on λ-MM. It is intended to serve as a basis for spatial reasoning. All parts have been proved using a translation in type theory. (shrink)

Because of its capacity to characterize mathematical concepts and structures?a capacity which first-order languages clearly lack?second-order languages recommend themselves as a convenient framework for much of mathematics, including set theory. This paper is about the credentials of second-order logic:the reasons for it to be considered logic, its relations with set theory, and especially the efficacy with which it performs its role of the underlying logic of set theory.

The paper defends the view that there is a constitutive relation between believing something and believing that one believes it. This view is supported by the incoherence of affirming something while denying that one believes it, and by the role awareness of the contents one’s belief system plays in the rational regulation of that system. Not all standing beliefs are accompanied by higher-order beliefs that self-ascribe them; those that are so accompanied are ones that are “available” in the sense (...) that their subjects are poised to assent to their contents, to use them as premises in reasoning, and to be guided by them in their behavior. The account is compatible with the possibility of negative self-deception—mistakenly believing that one does not believe something—but the closest thing to positive self-deception it allows is believing falsely that a belief with a certain content is one’s dominant belief on a certain matter through failure to realize that one has a stronger belief that contradicts it. The view has implications about Moore’s paradox that contradict widely held views. On this view self-ascriptions of beliefs can be warranted and grounded on reasons—but the reasons are not phenomenally conscious mental states (as held by Christopher Peacocke) but rather available beliefs. (shrink)

One reliabilist option against the problem of bootstrapping is to argue that circular reasoning is bad, but reliabilism can avoid circular reasoning. Vogel dismisses this option on the grounds that reliabilists need circular reasoning in order to circumvent skepticism. Briesen argues, however, that although reliabilists need circular reasoning to block second-order skepticism, they do not need it to block first-order skepticism. But I argue in this paper that reliabilists cannot legitimately reject first- (...) class='Hi'>order skepticism unless they can block second-order skepticism. In particular, I argue that reliabilists cannot meet the non-undermining provision for justification unless they can somehow block second-order skepticism. (shrink)

I argue that procrastination with respect to environmental preservation is in the class of procrastination problems that are particularly difficult to overcome because of the presence of factors that support second-order procrastination. If my reasoning is correct, then second-order procrastination can help explain the distressing fact — assuming it is a fact — that, despite widespread professions of serious concern, the issue of environmental preservation is not getting as much of our attention as it deserves. (...) My reasoning also suggests that improving our situation may require that some of the efforts now focused on promoting concern for environmental preservation be rerouted into tracking procrastination and deploying insights on how to cope with it. (shrink)

Access can either be first-order or second-order. First order access concerns whether contents achieve representation in phenomenal consciousness at all; second-order access concerns whether phenomenally conscious contents are selected for metacognitive, higher order processing by reflective consciousness. When the optional and flexible nature of second-order access is kept in mind, there remain strong reasons to believe that exclusion failure can indeed isolate phenomenally conscious stimuli that are not so accessed. Irvine’s [Irvine, (...) E. . Signal detection theory, the exclusion failure paradigm and weak consciousness—Evidence for the access/phenomenal distinction? Consciousness and Cognition.] partial access argument fails because exclusion failure is indeed due to lack of second-order access, not insufficient phenomenally conscious information. Further, the enable account conforms with both qualitative differences and subjective report, and is simpler than the endow account. Finally, although first-order access may be a distinct and important process, second-order access arguably reflects the core meaning of access generally. (shrink)

Arguments about fallacies generally attempt to distinguish real from apparent modes of argumentation and reasoning. To examine the structure of these arguments, this paper develops a theory of dialectical distinction. First, it explores the connection between Nicholas Rescher's concept of distinction as a "dialectical countermove" and Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrecht-Tyteca's "dissociation of ideas." Next, it applies a theory of distinction to Aristotle's extended arguments about fallacies in De Sophisticis Elenchis, primarily with a view to analyzing its underlying strategies (...) of argumentation. Finally, it examines how second-order distinctions (those designed to challenge previously formulated distinctions) underpin current arguments against the Aristotelian or "Standard Treatment" of the fallacies. (shrink)

Braüner, Blackburn and Polyanskaya relate children’s being deceived to their theory of mind skills. Second‐order false‐belief tasks are often used to test children’s second‐order theory of mind development. The article gives a logical analysis of the reasoning needed to solve four types of second‐order false belief tasks, distinguished on whether a story character is deceived, and on whether the story hinges on facts in the world changing. The principle of inertia plays an important (...) role. [74]. (shrink)

Access can either be first-order or second-order. First order access concerns whether contents achieve representation in phenomenal consciousness at all; second-order access concerns whether phenomenally conscious contents are selected for metacognitive, higher order processing by reflective consciousness. When the optional and flexible nature of second-order access is kept in mind, there remain strong reasons to believe that exclusion failure can indeed isolate phenomenally conscious stimuli that are not so accessed. Irvine’s [Irvine, (...) E. . Signal detection theory, the exclusion failure paradigm and weak consciousness—Evidence for the access/phenomenal distinction? Consciousness and Cognition.] partial access argument fails because exclusion failure is indeed due to lack of second-order access, not insufficient phenomenally conscious information. Further, the enable account conforms with both qualitative differences and subjective report, and is simpler than the endow account. Finally, although first-order access may be a distinct and important process, second-order access arguably reflects the core meaning of access generally. (shrink)

The ArgumentWhen we actually perform an experiment, we do many different things simultaneously – some belonging to the realm of theory, some to the realms of methodology and technique; however, a great deal of what happens is expressible in terms of socially determined images of knowledge or in terms of concepts of reflectivity – second-order concepts – namely thoughts about thoughts.The emergence of experiment as a second-order concept in late antiquity exemplifies the historical development of (...) class='Hi'>second-order concepts; it is shown to be rooted in the Sophists' cunning reason and is followed up in the work of Ptolemy, Copernicus and Galileo.Then, by way of epistemological explication, the three levels of representation of an experiment are shown to be analogous to Baxandall's three levels of representation of a picture.Finally it is shown that such an interpretation only makes sense in terms of two-tier thinking: realism, inside a conceptual framework which is chosen or arrived at, relativistically. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Second-Order Science: Logic, Strategies, Methods” by Stuart A. Umpleby. Upshot: This article argues that we do not need a new scientific method or a “second-order science” to deal with the facts that the individual characteristics of observers may affect the nature and quality of their observations and that the application of scientific theories may affect the systems they describe. It also argues that Umpleby has not given us good reason to (...) think that we do. (shrink)

An exceptional chain of events in science, technology, art and planning took place in Latin America in the 1970s. Does this wonder shed light upon our view of the basic roots of cultural, social and political blooming? This paper intends to adduce evidence on second-order cybernetics processes underlying five outstanding cases in real societies and to disclose the links between democracy and unfettering momentum for freedom and creativity. Namely, Oscar Varsavsky, national projects, styles of development, scientific and technological (...) autonomy; Stefano Varese, cultural and political autonomy of indigenous people; Mario Pedrosa, creation of the Museum of Solidarity in Chile; Stafford Beer, Cybersyn project for cybernetics and self-management in Chile; and Humberto Maturana, concepts of autopoiesis, cognition, language and multiverse. The reasoning counts with the author's direct participation in all cases. The paper sets a similarity worthy of being noticed between Allende’s Unidad Popular in Chile and Pericles’ Golden Age in Greece and outlines why these historic realms albeit far apart have lasting importance and similar historical impetus. Highlights the essential and seminal features of each stream and comes to the conclusion that effective democracy is the necessary condition for participation and creativity. Upsurges in social participation and creativity are neither frequent nor cyclical. Still, such sudden and usually large increase in ingenuity, flair and aim to improve living conditions, although limited in time, remain in our mind as a joy forever. Nowadays, the world witnesses a contrary motion towards sterile art patterns and restrained behaviour. Hence, it becomes even more important to better understand the basic roots of cultural, social and political blooming. (shrink)

Proximal mirroring of distal similarities is, at present, the only solution to the problem of representation that is both theoretically sound (for reasons discussed in the target article) and practically feasible (as attested by the performance of the Chorus model). Augmenting the latter by a capability to refer selectively to retinotopically defined object fragments should lead to a comprehensive theory of shape processing.

The major point of contention among the philosophers and mathematicians who have written about the independence results for the continuum hypothesis (CH) and related questions in set theory has been the question of whether these results give reason to doubt that the independent statements have definite truth values. This paper concerns the views of G. Kreisel, who gives arguments based on second order logic that the CH does have a truth value. The view defended here is that although (...) Kreisel's conclusion is correct, his arguments are unsatisfactory. Later sections of the paper advance a different argument that the independence results do not show lack of truth values. (shrink)

This Article makes three moves. First it suggests and elaborates a distinction—already implicit in the literature—between what I will call the first and second order of arguments for justice (hereinafter FOAJ and SOAJ). In part, it is a distinction somewhat similar to that between just war and justice in war. SOAJ are akin to the rules governing justice in war or rules of engagement, while bracketing the reasons and causes of the conflict. FOAJ on the hand are those (...) principles of justice and arguments that derive their power from the distribution of entitlements, rights and duties of the parties prior to the conflict they are supposed to adjudicate. FOAJ aim in many ways to restore the distribution of entitlements that existed on the eve of the conflict. Thus, all arguments for corrective or historical justice could be viewed as FOAJ. The second move in the paper associates FOAJ with the Palestinians and SOAJ with Zionism first and Israel later on. The more the settler Zionist project became a reality, the more the Palestinian population felt a threat to their national project and exercised resistance, including violent resistance. The more Palestinians showed resistance, the more appealing and more relevant SOAJ of self-defense, security, and emergency. The third move in the paper is to ask questions regarding the relation between FOAJ and SOAJ offer a critique of the distinction itself, and offers a critique of the way the distinction is being deployed in the case of Israel-Palestine. The Israeli claims for self-defense and security(SOAJ) are becoming so pervasive that they threaten to suspend the claims for historical justice forever (FOAJ), to the point that everything, even the regime that is crystallizing in front of our eyes as an Apartheid regime, is being justified as a temporal necessity. Israel deployment of SOAJ is done in bad faith. (shrink)

Any great new theoretical framework has an epistemological and an ontological aspect to its philosophy as well as an axiological one, and one needs to understand all three aspects in order to grasp the deep aspiration and idea of the theoretical framework. Presently, there is a widespread effort to understand C. S. Peirce's (1837–1914) pragmaticistic semeiotics, and to develop it by integrating the results of modern science and evolutionary thinking; first, producing a biosemiotics and, second, by integrating it (...) with the progress in cybernetics, information science, and system theory to create a cybersemiotics. In this paper, we focus on the understanding of the evolution of the universe that Peirce produced as an alternative to the mechanistic view underlying classical physics and try to place man in an evolving universe as a creative, aesthetical agent. It is true that modern non-equilibrium physics has made a modern foundation for a profound physical understanding of the basic evolutionary processes in the universe. But science still has not produced a theory that can explain how the creativity of the universe could produce signification, interpretation, and first-person consciousness. To this end, Peirce's thoughts on agapastic evolution coupled with the aesthetically influence of the growth of ideas and reasonableness on man could make a contribution. (shrink)

This paper presents decomposition of the fourth-order Euler-type linear time-varying system as a commutative pair of two second-order Euler-type systems. All necessary and sufficient conditions for the decomposition are deployed to investigate the commutativity, sensitivity, and the effect of disturbance on the fourth-order LTVS. Some systems are commutative, and some are not commutative, while some are commutative under certain conditions. Based on this fact, the commutativity of fourth-order Euler-type LTVS is investigated by introducing the commutative (...) requirements, theories, and conditions. The fourth-order Euler-type LTVSs are investigated into commutative pairs of twice Euler-type second-order linear time-varying systems. The decomposition theories and conditions are derived, proved, and solved to simplify the use of commutativity for practical and industrial uses. Some fourth-order systems are sensitive toward change in initial conditions or parameters while others are not, and the effect due to disturbance also varies within systems. Furthermore, the stability and robustness of systems have so many issues. But we consider fourth-order Euler-type LTVS to observe, investigate, and tackle these issues. Lastly, the realization of fourth-order LTVS from cascaded two second-order systems can be laboratory experimented which is an open problem for future engineers to investigate. However, the theoretical results show a good agreement with the simulation results is considered in this work. Perhaps it might have unlimited physical applications in science and engineering as well as theoretical contribution. But beyond any reasonable doubt, the novelty is guaranteed because this study is the first of its kind that introduces the decomposition of the fourth-order Euler-type linear time-varying system as a commutative pair of two second-order Euler-type systems. Illustrative examples are presented to support the results. (shrink)

ABSTRACT While Katherine Dormandy claims Kierkegaard is an anti-epistemological partialist, Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling provides a second-order partialism that takes evidence and reason seriously but sees these considerations as exceeded for a self who stands in relationship with the absolute.

In his seminal book, The Second-Person Standpoint, Stephen Darwall argues that second-personal reasons can only occur within the realm of practical reason. In order to demonstrate this, Darwall builds on David Velleman’s distinction between substantive and formal aims of thought and action. I show that this distinction shapes Darwall’s conception of the nature of the difference between third-personal and second-personal reasons in such a way that the difference is conceived of as substantive rather than formal. As (...) a consequence, Darwall is left without a satisfactory rendering of both the distinctions between third-and second-personal reasons and the distinction between theoretical and practical reason. Conceiving of these distinctions as formal, however, would open up the possibility of second-personal forms of theoretical reason. (shrink)

In noise we hear the possibility of a signal, indeed different signals, and in the multiplicity of signals we hear noise. With variation and selection comes dynamic evolution, a contingent state, one that could be otherwise. The term ‘polemogenous’ (from the French, polémogène) means that which generates polemics. And polemics are creative. If everyone, every system, were to reason in the same way, there would be silence. Every remark would be redundant, having no informational value. Thus noise is not bad. (...) The essence of finance economics, like all that is social in nature, is a forming of meaning. Whatever cannot be formed meaningfully is not available to the system. This unavailability, as ‘noise’, is the dynamic difference (noise/information) that scintillates the system. Information, like morality, is polemogenous – it stirs contention. Without noise and the possibility of its conversion to information there would be no opportunities to exploit. This paper applies a systems theoretical understanding of observation to conceive of finance economics as the economy’s means of observing its noise and capitalizing on that polemic. Niklas Luhmann’s method is utilized to explicate some ideas on noise by financial economist Fischer Black, who suggests the incomprehensible is computable. This is finance. The fact that logical grounds, absolute deductions, and clear calculations are claimed to be rare in finance is no barrier to understanding it. Rather, this polyphonic and polemogenous information-selection is the ‘ground’ of finance, not as totalizing logic, but as different difference-production for the sake of deriving economic opportunity. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Daniel Whiting has argued that there are no exclusionary reasons (i.e., second-order reasons not to act for a reason). The premise of the argument is what he calls the motivation constraint, according to which for the fact that p to be a reason for you to ϕ, it must be possible for you to ϕ for the reason that p. However, the argument goes, it is not possible to act (or not to act) for (...) a reason for a reason. Therefore, he concludes, there are no second-order reasons. In this paper, I shall argue that Whiting's argument ought to be rejected. Thus, I will argue that we should not accept the motivation constraint on which it is based. It is true that for the fact that p to be a reason for you to ϕ, it must be possible for you to ϕ guided in the right way by the consideration that p favours you ϕing. However, I shall argue that it is possible for exclusionary reasons to guide us in the right way, even if it not possible for us to not to ϕ for a reason for a reason. (shrink)

We argue that the use of the term “supernatural” is problematic in philosophy of religion in general, and in the contribution by Thornhill-Miller and Millican in particular. We address the disturbing parallel between Hume’s case against the rationality of belief in miracles and his dismissal of reports of racial equality. We do not argue that because Hume was a racist therefore his view against miracles is faulty, but we draw attention to how Hume sets up a framework that, for similar (...) reasons, discounts evidence of black intelligence and divine intelligence. We go on to argue against TMM’s revision of Hume on miracles. We then argue that empirical testing on the veracity of petitionary belief is impossible for there is no control case and that empirical testing can no more evaluate the evidential merits of most religious experiences than it can assess the merits of any robust philosophical position in epistemology, metaphysics, value theory, logic and mathematics. We express doubts about the integrity and scope of how one might enjoy the good of religion without belief. In a final section we offer a defense of the rationality of believing in specific religious traditions based on religious experience along with what we refer to as sufficient philosophical reasoning. (shrink)

“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them...well, I have others.”Groucho MarxWe also know of another superstition of that time: that of the Man of the Book. On some shelf in some hexagon (men reasoned) there must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the rest: some librarian has gone through it and he is analogous to a god.... How could one locate the venerated and secret hexagon which housed Him? Someone proposed a (...) regressive method: To locate book A, consult first book B which indicates A’s position; to locate book B, consult first a book C, and so on to infinity... In adventures such as these, I have squandered and wasted my years.2 J.L. Borges, The Library of Babel. (shrink)

In this innovative and important work, Gerald Gaus advances a revised and more realistic account of public reason liberalism, showing how, in the midst of fundamental disagreement about values and moral beliefs, we can achieve a moral and political order that treats all as free and equal moral persons. The first part of this work analyzes social morality as a system of authoritative moral rules. Drawing on an earlier generation of moral philosophers such as Kurt Baier and Peter Strawson (...) as well as current work in the social sciences, Gaus argues that our social morality is an evolved social fact, which is the necessary foundation of a mutually beneficial social order. The second part considers how this system of social moral authority can be justified to all moral persons. Drawing on the tools of game theory, social choice theory, experimental psychology and evolutionary theory, Gaus shows how a free society can secure a moral equilibrium that is endorsed by all, and how a just state respects, and develops, such an equilibrium. (shrink)

First, we describe a psychological experiment in which the participants were asked to determine whether sentences of first-order logic were true or false in finite graphs. Second, we define two proof systems for reasoning about truth and falsity in first-order logic. These proof systems feature explicit models of cognitive resources such as declarative memory, procedural memory, working memory, and sensory memory. Third, we describe a computer program that is used to find the smallest proofs in the (...) aforementioned proof systems when capacity limits are put on the cognitive resources. Finally, we investigate the correlation between a number of mathematical complexity measures defined on graphs and sentences and some psychological complexity measures that were recorded in the experiment. (shrink)

In the first part of the paper, Gaus’ ground for the ideal of persons as free and equal is described. Doubts are raised about the appropriateness of the use of his account of this ideal as endogenous to our moral practice. Th e worries are related to the use of the concept of having a reason that Gaus makes in his book, as well as to the aptness of his account of our moral practice from the viewpoint of our moral (...) phenomenology. Some doubts are raised in relation to the pertinence of Gaus’ concept of having a reason from the perspective of the motivation of the public reason project. In the second part of the paper, a summary is off ered of Gaus’ model of public justification and some of its consequences are discussed. Th e primary intention here is to show that, contrary to Gaus’ view, egalitarian liberalism, and not classical liberalism, is the most appropriate result of such a model of justification. (shrink)

Many social situations require a mental model of the knowledge, beliefs, goals, and intentions of others: a Theory of Mind (ToM). If a person can reason about other people’s beliefs about his own beliefs or intentions, he is demonstrating second-order ToM reasoning. A standard task to test second-order ToM reasoning is the second-order false belief task. A different approach to investigating ToM reasoning is through its application in a strategic game. Another (...) task that is believed to involve the application of second-order ToM is the comprehension of sentences that the hearer can only understand by considering the speaker’s alternatives. In this study we tested 40 children between 8 and 10 years old and 27 adult controls on (adaptations of) the three tasks mentioned above: the false belief task, a strategic game, and a sentence comprehension task. The results show interesting differences between adults and children, between the three tasks, and between this study and previous research. (shrink)

First-order evidence is evidence which bears on whether a proposition is true. Higher-order evidence is evidence which bears on whether a person is able to assess her evidence for or against a proposition. A widespread view is that higher-order evidence makes a difference to whether it is rational for a person to believe a proposition. In this paper, I consider in what way higher-order evidence might do this. More specifically, I consider whether and how higher-order (...) evidence plays a role in determining what it is rational to believe distinct from that which first-order evidence plays. To do this, I turn to the theory of reasons, and try to situate higher-order evidence within it. The only place I find for it there, distinct from that which first-order evidence already occupies, is as a practical reason, that is, as a reason for desire or action. One might take this to show either that the theory of reasons is inadequate as it stands or that higher-order evidence makes no distinctive difference to what it is rational to believe. I tentatively endorse the second option. (shrink)

Much contemporary first-order moral theory revolves around the debate between consequentialists and deontologists. Depressingly, this debate often seems to come down to irresolvable first-order intuition mongering about runaway trolleys, drowning children in shallow ponds, lying to murderers at doors, and the like. Prima facie, common sense morality contains both consequentialist and deontological elements, so it may be no surprise that direct appeal to first-order intuitions tend towards stalemate. One might infer from this that we should simply embrace (...) some sort of pluralism in the style of W.D. Ross, but there are problems with this approach too.I of course have in mind the sort of view defended by W.D. Ross. See W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930). For one thing, pluralism provides precious little guidance in hard cases. For another, there is something inherently conservative about giving Rossian pluralism any sort of default status as the corr. (shrink)

This paper critically explores the path of some of the controversies over public reason and religion through four distinct steps. The first part of this article considers the engagement of John Finnis and Robert P. George with John Rawls over the nature of public reason. The second part moves to the question of religion by looking at the engagement of Nicholas Wolterstorff with Rawls, Robert Audi, and others. Here the question turns specifically to religious reasons, and their permissible use (...) by citizens in public debate and discourse. The third part engages Jürgen Habermas's argument that while citizens must be free to make religious arguments, still, there is an obligation of translation, and a motivational constraint on lawmakers. The final section argues that even though Habermas's proposal fails, nevertheless he recognizes a key difficulty for religious citizens in contemporary liberal polities. Restoration of a full role for religiously grounded justificatory reasons in public debate is one part of an adequate solution to this problem, but a second plank must be added to the solution: recognition that religious reasons can enter into public deliberation not just as first-order justifications of particular policies, but as second-order reasons, to be considered by any polity that respects its religious citizens and, more broadly, the good of religion. (shrink)

Recent authors have drawn attention to a new kind of defeating evidence commonly referred to as higher-order evidence. Such evidence works by inducing doubts that one’s doxastic state is the result of a flawed process – for instance, a process brought about by a reason-distorting drug. I argue that accommodating defeat by higher-order evidence requires a two-tiered theory of justification, and that the phenomenon gives rise to a puzzle. The puzzle is that at least in some situations involving (...) higher-order defeaters the correct epistemic rules issue conflicting recommendations. For instance, a subject ought to believe p, but she ought also to suspend judgment in p. I discuss three responses. The first resists the puzzle by arguing that there is only one correct epistemic rule, an Über-rule. The second accepts that there are genuine epistemic dilemmas. The third appeals to a hierarchy or ordering of correct epistemic rules. I spell out problems for all of these responses. I conclude that the right lesson to draw from the puzzle is that a state can be epistemically rational or justified even if one has what looks to be strong evidence to think that it is not. As such, the considerations put forth constitute a non question-begging argument for a kind of externalism. (shrink)