A logical constant is weakly disharmonious if its elimination rules are weaker than its introduction rules. Substructural weak disharmony is the weak disharmony generated by structural restrictions on the eliminations. I argue that substructural weak disharmony is not a defect of the constants which exhibit it. To the extent that it is problematic, it calls into question the structural properties of the derivability relation. This prompts us to rethink the issue of controlling the structural (...) properties of a logic by means of harmony. I argue that such a control is possible and desirable. Moreover, it is best achieved by global tests of harmony. (shrink)

On one predominant conception of virtue, the virtuous agent is, among other things, wholehearted in doing what she believes best. I challenge this condition of wholeheartedness by making explicit the connections between the emotion of boredom and the states of continence and akrasia. An easily bored person is more susceptible to these forms of disharmony because of two familiar characteristics of boredom. First, that we can be – and often are – bored by what it is that we know (...) would be best to do, and second, that occurrent states of boredom tend to give rise to positive interest in performing actions that we know are bad to perform. Moreover, while a person’s susceptibility to boredom can indicate a lack of attentiveness or acuity, or be evidence of a vice such as ingratitude or shallowness, it can in others indicate positive qualities of character, such as perspicacity, liveliness, and certain forms of intelligence. Upon imagining certain bored akratics without the psychological qualities that give rise to their boredom, we will either imagine them without these positive qualities, or with others that – though perhaps psychologically possible – are not clearly better. This yields the result that a person who is continent or even akratic because of her susceptibility to boredom may have a character no less excellent than that of the wholehearted agent. (shrink)

One difficulty in understanding recent debates is that not only have many terms been used to refer to weakness of will – “akrasia” and “incontinence” have often been used as synonyms of “weakness of will” – but quite different phenomena have been discussed in the literature. This is why the present entry starts with taxonomic considerations. The second section turns to the question of whether it is possible to freely and intentionally act against one’s better judgment.

Modifying the descriptive and theoretical generalizations of Relativized Minimality, we argue that a significant subset of weak island violations arise when an extracted phrase should scope over some intervener but is unable to. Harmless interveners seem harmless because they can support an alternative reading. This paper focuses on why certain wh-phrases are poor wide scope takers, and offers an algebraic perspective on scope interaction. Each scopal element SE is associated with certain operations (e.g., not with complements). When a wh-phrase (...) scopes over some SE, the operations associated with that SE are performed in its denotation domain. The requisite operations may or may not be available in a domain, however. We present an empirical analysis of a variety of wh-phrases. It is argued that the wh-phrases that escape all weak islands (i.e., can scope over any intervener) are those that range over individuals, the reason being that all Boolean operations are defined for their domain. Collectives, manners, amounts, numbers, etc. all denote in domains with fewer operations and are thus selectively sensitive to scopal interveners—a “semantic relativized minimality effect”. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called ' weak analogy'. As Patrick Hurley writes, the weak analogy fallacy “occurs when the conditions of an argument depend on an analogy (or similarity) that is not strong enough to support the conclusion”. Often, vegetarians and vegans will hear the following argument from analogy in defense of carnivorism: “Animals eat each other in nature, so it's permissible for us to eat them as well”. By focusing (...) on the similarities between animals and humans, and by arguing that these similarities are indeed relevant to the issue at hand, philosopher Peter Singer presents a strong argument from analogy in favor of the conclusion that animals are indeed sentient beings. (shrink)

Breaking one's dieting rule or resolution to quit smoking, procrastination, convenient lies, even the failure of entire nations to follow through with plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions or keep a pandemic in check - these phenomena have been discussed by philosophers and behavioural scientists as examples of weakness of will and delay discounting. Despite the common subject matter both fields have to date rarely worked together for mutual benefit. For the empirical literature is hardly accessible to a reader not (...) familiar with econometric theory; and researchers in the behavioural sciences may find philosophical accounts invoking discounting models difficult to understand without inside knowledge of the debates and historical background. -/- Nora Heinzelmann targets this lacuna by making the ideas and findings from both disciplines intelligible to outsiders. This reveals that discounting - as philosophers have conceived of it - is neither necessary nor sufficient for weakness of will, even though there is substantial overlap. Heinzelmann develops a richer descriptive account of weakness of will that is based on the empirically founded assumption that weak-willed behaviour is determined by uncertainty about whether or when a good materialises. She also explains why weakness of the will understood in this way is irrational: the agent yields to a cognitive bias that leads them to underestimate the greater good they think they ought to and can obtain. Finally, she explores practical implications for individuals and policymakers. (shrink)

In Perfection and Disharmony in the Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jonathan Marks offers an interpretation of the philosopher's thought and its place in the contemporary debate between liberals and communitarians. Against prevailing views, he argues that Rousseau's thought revolves around the natural perfection of a naturally disharmonious being. At the foundation of Rousseau's thought he finds a natural teleology that takes account of and seeks to harmonize conflicting ends. The Rousseau who emerges from this interpretation is a radical critic (...) of liberalism who is nonetheless more cautious about protecting individual freedom than his milder communitarian successors. Marks elaborates on the challenge that Rousseau poses to liberals and communitarians alike by setting up a dialogue between him and Charles Taylor, one of the most distinguished ethical and political theorists at work today. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Motivational Externalism Avoiding Brinksmanship Motivational Internalism A Creative High Shall We Close the Gateway?

A consequence relation is strongly classical if it has all the theorems and entailments of classical logic as well as the usual meta-rules (such as Conditional Proof). A consequence relation is weakly classical if it has all the theorems and entailments of classical logic but lacks the usual meta-rules. The most familiar example of a weakly classical consequence relation comes from a simple supervaluational approach to modelling vague language. This approach is formally equivalent to an account of logical consequence according (...) to which α1, ..., αn entails β just in case □α1, ..., □αn entails □β in the modal logic S5. This raises a natural question: If we start with a different underlying modal logic, can we generate a strongly classical logic? This paper explores this question. In particular, it discusses four related technical issues: (1) Which base modal logics generate strongly classical logics and which generate weakly classical logics? (2) Which base logics generate themselves? (3) How can we directly characterize the logic generated from a given base logic? (4) Given a logic that can be generated, which base logics generate it? The answers to these questions have philosophical interest. They can help us to determine whether there is a plausible supervaluational approach to modelling vague language that yields the usual meta-rules. They can also help us to determine the feasibility of other philosophical projects that rely on an analogous formalism, such as the project of defining logical consequence in terms of the preservation of an epistemic status. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article is a response to Nani Ranken's paper ‘Morality in business: disharmony and its consequences’ . There she attacked the analogy sometimes made between businesses and persons, and concluded that businesses cannot be regarded as moral agents. Her thesis relies centrally on a very strict notion of a person's ‘true good’. By exploring and expanding the concepts of ‘true good’ and ‘moral agency’ we are able to recover a sense in which businesses are indeed members of the (...) moral community. Moreover, admitting businesses to the moral community also provides a working framework to examine the claim that what is good for business is in harmony with the dictates of morality. (shrink)

Rovelli argues that the there is disharmony with respect to the arrow of time from the perspective of testable predictions, as compared to the perspective of Schroedinger evolution, and uses this claim as evidence against realist interpretations of the wave function. I argue on the contrary that this disharmony arises only out of a non-standard definition of time reversal that ignores the 'big-T', and that harmony is restored when the standard definition is adopted.

This volume brings together studies in the domain of weak referentiality, the phenomenon that a definite or indefinite noun phrase lacks its usual referential force. Several papers investigate syntactic or semantic properties of indefinite noun phrases, such as modality, number neutrality, narrow scope, incorporation, predication, and case marking, and that in a range of languages (Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, German, Papiamentu, Russian). Other papers deal with weakly referential definite noun phrases in various languages (Basque, Dutch, English, French) involving scrambling, (...) modification, possession, and accessibility. The papers demonstrate a range of empirical methods and theoretical models. This volume will not only be of interest to researchers and students in syntax and semantics, but also in psycholinguistics and language typology. (shrink)

This article employs the descriptive and exegetical methods. It found several ways by which patriarchy precipitates marital disharmony in Nigeria. For instance, the custom of the bride price instils in the husband the feeling of ownership of the wife, which encourages some men to treat their wives like their property. The nature of marital disharmony varies with couples, but there are some common characteristics. The husband may withdraw from his wife, avoiding all forms of contact and communication with (...) her; wife beating is also common. Ephesians 5:22-33 mitigates the patriarchal view of marriage, redefining the concepts of submission and leadership. The wife should submit to her husband’s authority as she would to Christ whilst the husband should exercise his authority with love in imitation of Christ. When this new definition of marital relationship is understood and applied by Christian couples, disharmony will be considerably alleviated. The church should be involved in the application of the text, teaching husbands particularly the need to exercise their authority in sacrificial love.Contribution: The article endorses the journal’s focus on the combination of the notions ‘source’ and ‘interpretation’ by its emphasis on the exegesis of writings in the field of early Christian literature. (shrink)

Weak emergence is the view that a system’s macro properties can be explained by its micro properties but only in an especially complicated way. This paper explains a version of weak emergence based on the notion of explanatory incompressibility and “crawling the causal web.” Then it examines three reasons why weak emergence might be thought to be just in the mind. The first reason is based on contrasting mere epistemological emergence with a form of ontological emergence that (...) involves irreducible downward causation. The second reason is based on the idea that attributions of emergence are always a reflection of our ignorance of non-emergent explanations. The third reason is based on the charge that complex explanations are anthropocentric. Rather than being just in the mind, weak emergence is seen to involve a distinctive kind of complex, macro-pattern in the mind-independent objective micro-causal structure that exists in nature. The paper ends by addressing two further questions. One concerns whether weak emergence applies only or mainly to computer simulations and computational systems. The other concerns the respect in which weak emergence is dynamic rather than static. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of the meaning of `ought', and the distinction between weak necessity modals (`ought', `should') and strong necessity modals (`must', `have to'). I argue that there is nothing specially ``strong'' about strong necessity modals per se: uses of `Must p' predicate the (deontic/epistemic/etc.) necessity of the prejacent p of the actual world (evaluation world). The apparent ``weakness'' of weak necessity modals derives from their bracketing whether the necessity of the prejacent is verified in the (...) actual world. `Ought p' can be accepted without needing to settle that the relevant considerations (norms, expectations, etc.) that actually apply verify the necessity of p. I call the basic account a modal-past approach to the weak/strong necessity modal distinction (for reasons that become evident). Several ways of implementing the approach in the formal semantics/pragmatics are critically examined. The account systematizes a wide range of linguistic phenomena: it generalizes across flavors of modality; it elucidates a special role that weak necessity modals play in discourse and planning; it captures contrasting logical, expressive, and illocutionary properties of weak and strong necessity modals; and it sheds light on how a notion of `ought' is often expressed in other languages. These phenomena have resisted systematic explanation. In closing I briefly consider how linguistic inquiry into differences among necessity modals may improve theorizing on broader philosophical issues. (shrink)

D. In doing x an agent acts incontinently if and only if: 1) the agent does x intentionally; 2) the agent believes there is an alternative action y open to him; and 3) the agent judges that, all things considered, it would be better to do y than to do x.

Though the study of grounding is still in the early stages, Kit Fine, in ”The Pure Logic of Ground”, has made a seminal attempt at formalization. Formalization of this sort is supposed to bring clarity and precision to our theorizing, as it has to the study of other metaphysically important phenomena, like modality and vagueness. Unfortunately, as I will argue, Fine ties the formal treatment of grounding to the obscure notion of a weak ground. The obscurity of weak (...) ground, together with its centrality in Fine’s system, threatens to undermine the extent to which this formalization offers clarity and precision. In this paper, I show how to overcome this problem. I describe a system, the logic of strict ground (LSG) and demonstrate its adequacy; I specify a translation scheme for interpreting Fine’s weak grounding claims; I show that the interpretation verifies all of the principles of Fine’s system; and I show that derivability in Fine’s system can be exactly characterized in terms of derivability in LSG. I conclude that Fine’s system is reducible to LSG. (shrink)

In the paper we study the class of weakly algebraizable logics, characterized by the monotonicity and injectivity of the Leibniz operator on the theories of the logic. This class forms a new level in the non-linear hierarchy of protoalgebraic logics.

I develop an account of weakness of the will that is driven by experimental evidence from cognitive and social psychology. I will argue that this account demonstrates that there is no such thing as weakness of the will: no psychological kind corresponds to it. Instead, weakness of the will ought to be understood as depletion of System II resources. Neither the explanatory purposes of psychology nor our practical purposes as agents are well-served by retaining the concept. I therefore suggest that (...) we ought to jettison it, in favour of the vocabulary and concepts of cognitive psychology. (shrink)

The standard case of weakness of will involves a strong temptation leading us to reconsider or act against our judgments. Here, however, I consider cases of what I call ‘habitual weakness', where we resolve to do one thing yet do another not to satisfy any grand desire, but out of habit. After giving several examples, I suggest that habitual weakness has been under-discussed in the literature and explore why. These cases are worth highlighting for their ubiquity, and I show three (...) further advantages of appreciating habitual weakness as a kind of weakness: It challenges purportedly necessary conditions on akrasia, it side-steps outstanding skeptical concerns, and it provides a new model for considering the weak-willed behavior of group agents. I conclude by arguing that cases of habitual weakness are genuine cases of akrasia and weakness of will. Rather than lacking strength of will, habitual weakness involves lacking diligence, vigilance, or fortitude. (shrink)

Many of us view the world of science as a firm bastion of knowledge, with each new discovery and further illumination adding to an unshakable foundation of natural truths. Weak Knowledge aims to rattle our faith, not in core certainties of scientific findings but in their strength as accessible resources. The authors show how, throughout history, many bodies of research have become precarious due to a host of factors. These factors have included cultural or social disinterest, feeble empirical evidence (...) or theoretical justifications, and a lack of practical applications in a given field's findings. This book brings together cases from a range of historical periods and disciplines, ranging from personal medicine to climatology, to illuminate the specific forms, functions, and dynamics of so-called "weak" bodies of knowledge. (shrink)

Informal construction -- Formal construction -- Limiting results.

Experimental philosophers have recently begun to investigate the folk conception of weakness of will (e.g., Mele in Philos Stud 150:391–404, 2010; May and Holton in Philos Stud 157:341–360, 2012; Beebe forthcoming; Sousa and Mauro forthcoming). Their work has focused primarily on the ways in which akrasia (i.e., acting contrary to one’s better judgment), unreasonable violations of resolutions, and variations in the moral valence of actions modulate folk attributions of weakness of will. A key finding that has emerged from this research (...) is that—contrary to the predominant view in the history of philosophy—ordinary participants do not think of weakness of will solely in terms of akrasia but see resolution violations and moral evaluations as playing equally important roles. The present article extends this line of research by reporting the results of four experiments that investigate (i) the interplay between hastily revising one’s resolutions and the degree of reasonableness of the actions one had resolved to undertake, (ii) whether ordinary participants are willing to ascribe weakness of will to agents whose actions stem from compulsion or addiction, and (iii) the respects in which akratic action, resolution violations, and the seriousness of an addiction impact attributions of weakness of will to agents acting in accord with their addictions. (shrink)

This paper investigates Wittgenstein's remarks on happiness and harmony in the context of Wittgensteinian antitheodicy. Philosophers of religion inspired by Wittgenstein's philosophy often criticize theodicies seeking to justify apparently meaningless evil and suffering within God's overall harmonious plan. The paper analyses Wittgenstein's early views on happiness as harmony with the world, examining whether they are incompatible with an antitheodicist approach abandoning the very project of theodicy by acknowledging a certain kind of disharmony. However, antitheodicy may also, at the transcendental (...) meta-level, be considered a “harmonious” way of “seeing the world aright,” which raises a reflexive problem for any Wittgenstein-inspired antitheodicy. (shrink)

In arguing for his theory of pure reflective judgments of taste Kant extensively analyses beauty, but almost wholly disregards ugliness. We commonly take ugliness as paradigmatic when we reflect on our negative aesthetic judgments, and so does Kant. Consequently, there ought to be a more explicit story explaining how Kantian judgments of ugliness are possible. In this paper I argue that a disharmony is the key to understanding Kantian ugliness. This way, an answer to the question of ugliness in (...) Kant can be given in terms of a disharmonious free play of the faculties of imagination and understanding. (shrink)

Classically, weak König's lemma and Brouwer's fan theorem for detachable bars are equivalent. We give a direct constructive proof that the former implies the latter.

An innocent form of emergence—what I call "weak emergence"—is now a commonplace in a thriving interdisciplinary nexus of scientific activity—sometimes called the "sciences of complexity"—that include connectionist modelling, non-linear dynamics (popularly known as "chaos" theory), and artificial life.1 After defining it, illustrating it in two contexts, and reviewing the available evidence, I conclude that the scientific and philosophical prospects for weak emergence are bright.

ABSTRACTLinguistic evidence supports the claim that certain, weak rejections are less specific than assertions. On the basis of this evidence, it has been argued that rejected sentences cannot be premisses and conclusions in inferences. We give examples of inferences with weakly rejected sentences as premisses and conclusions. We then propose a logic of weak rejection which accounts for the relevant phenomena and is motivated by principles of coherence in dialogue. We give a semantics for which this logic is (...) sound and complete, show that it axiomatizes the modal logic KD45 and prove that it still derives classical logic on its asserted fragment. Finally, we defend previous logics of strong rejection as being about the linguistically preferred interpretations of weak rejections. (shrink)

We show that we can interpret concatenation theories in arithmetical theories without coding sequences by identifying binary strings with \(2\times 2\) matrices with determinant 1.

Weakly Aggregative Modal Logic (WAML) is a collection of disguised polyadic modal logics with n-ary modalities whose arguments are all the same. WAML has some interesting applications on epistemic logic and logic of games, so we study some basic model theoretical aspects of WAML in this paper. Specifically, we give a van Benthem-Rosen characterization theorem of WAML based on an intuitive notion of bisimulation and show that each basic WAML system Kn lacks Craig Interpolation.

Applying an ever more radical hermeneutics, John D. Caputo breaks down the name of God in this irrepressible book. Instead of looking at God as merely a name, Caputo views it as an event, or what the name conjures or promises in the future. For Caputo, the event exposes God as weak, unstable, and barely functional. While this view of God flies in the face of most religions and philosophies, it also puts up a serious challenge to fundamental tenets (...) of theology and ontology. Along the way, Caputo’s readings of the New Testament, especially of Paul’s view of the Kingdom of God, help to support the "weak force" theory. This penetrating work cuts to the core of issues and questions—What is the nature of God? What is the nature of being? What is the relationship between God and being? What is the meaning of forgiveness, faith, piety, or transcendence?—that define the terrain of contemporary philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Two entities are weakly discernible when an irreflexive and symmetric relation holds between them. That weak discernibility holds in quantum mechanics is fairly uncontroversial nowadays. The ontological consequences of weak discernibility, however, are far from clear. Part of the literature seems to imply that weak discernibility points to a definite metaphysics to quantum mechanics. In this paper we shall discuss the metaphysical contribution of weak discernibility to quantum mechanics and argue that, contrary to part of current (...) literature, it does not provide for a fully naturalistic determination of metaphysics. Underdetermination of the metaphysics still plagues the way of the naturalist. (shrink)

Too many somersaults -- The strange creature that I am -- Giving meaning to reality -- The sincerity of true kindness -- Embracing our condition -- Drawing strength from our weakness -- Pity anesthetizes -- The other's gaze -- The joy of being alive -- They talked and analyzed -- Culture shock -- Conditional happiness -- A man of God -- A craving for learning -- Genuine friends -- Marginal.

This paper introduces and explores a conservative extension of inquisitive logic. In particular, weak negation is added to the standard propositional language of inquisitive semantics, and it is shown that, although we lose some general semantic properties of the original framework, such an enrichment enables us to model some previously inexpressible speech acts such as weak denial and ‘might’-assertions. As a result, a new modal logic emerges. For this logic, a Fitch-style system of natural deduction is formulated. The (...) main result of this paper is a theorem establishing the completeness of the system with respect to inquisitive semantics with weak negation. At the conclusion of the paper, the possibility of extending the framework to the level of first order logic is briefly discussed. (shrink)

Weakness of will has been widely discussed from at least three points of view. It has been examined historically, with Aristotle recently occupying centre stage. It has been analysed conceptually, with the question of its nature and possibility in the forefront. It has been considered normatively in relation to both rational action and moral character. My concern is not historical and is only secondarily conceptual: while I hope to clarify what constitutes weakness of will, I presuppose, rather than construct, an (...) account of it. My chief aim is to assess the bearing of weakness of will on the rationality of actions that exhibit it--incontinent actions. Philosophers have tended to assume that incontinent action is a paradigm of irrationality, and none to my knowledge has seriously criticised this assumption. I challenge it and in doing so try to clarify rationality in general. (shrink)