A common strategy for simplifying complex systems involves partitioning them into subsystems whose behaviors are roughly independent of one another at shorter timescales. Dynamic causal models clarify how doing so reveals a system’s nonequilibrium causal relationships. Here I use these models to elucidate the idealizations and abstractions involved in representing a system at a timescale. The models reveal that key features of causal representations—such as which variables are exogenous—may vary with the timescale at which a system is considered. This has (...) implications for debates regarding which systems can be represented causally. (shrink)

Abstract:We analyzed data from a survey of employees of a large military base in order to assess possible differences in the whistle-blowing process due to type of wrongdoing observed. Employees who observed perceived wrongdoing involving mismanagement, sexual harassment, or unspecified legal violations were significantly more likely to report it than were employees who observed stealing, waste, safety problems, or discrimination. Further, type of wrongdoing was significantly related to reasons given by employees who observed wrongdoing but did not report it, across (...) all forms of wrongdoing. However, the primary reason that observers did not report it was that they thought nothing could be done to rectify the situation. Finally, type of wrongdoing was significantly related to the cost of the wrongdoing, the quality of the evidence about the wrongdoing, and the comprehensiveness of retaliation against the whistle-blower. These findings suggest that type of wrongdoing makes a difference in the whistle-blowing process, and it should be examined in future research. (shrink)

Research on whistle-blowing has been hampered by a lack of a sound theoretical base. In this paper, we draw upon existing theories of motivation and power relationships to propose a model of the whistle-blowing process. This model focuses on decisions made by organization members who believe they have evidence of organizational wrongdoing, and the reactions of organization authorities. Based on a review of the sparse empirical literature, we suggest variables that may affect both the members' decisions and the organization's responses.

The Witness of the Brothers. By Yaacov Oved, 342 pp.

Survey responses from Fortune 1000 firms were examined to assess whether firms changed their whistleblowing policies to response to changes in state statutes concerning whistleblowing. We predicted that firms might have created internal channels for whistleblowing in response to new legislation that increased their vulnerability to whistleblowing claims by employees. In fact, very few firms indicated that they had created their policies in responses to legal changes.

Theories of cultural evolution rest on the assumption that cultural inheritance is distinct from biological inheritance. Cultural and biological inheritance are two separate so-called channels of inheritance, two sub-systems of the sum total of developmental resources traveling in distinct ways between individual agents. This paper asks: what justifies this assumption? In reply, a philosophical account is offered that points at three related but distinct criteria that (taken together) make the distinction between cultural and biological inheritance not only precise but also (...) justify it as real, i.e. as ontologically adequate. These three criteria are: (a) the autonomy of cultural change, (b) the near-decomposability of culture, and (c) differences in temporal order between cultural and biological inheritance. (shrink)

When successful and ethical managers are alerted to possible organizational wrongdoing, they take corrective action before the problems become crises. However, recent research [e.g., Rynes et al. (2007, Academy of Management Journal50(5), 987–1008)] indicates that many organizations fail to implement evidence-based practices (i.e., practices that are consistent with research findings), in many aspects of human resource management. In this paper, we draw from years of research on whistle-blowing by social scientists and legal scholars and offer concrete suggestions to managers who (...) are interested in encouraging internal reporting of problems requiring attention, and to observers of questionable activity who are considering reporting it. We also identify ways that research suggests policy-makers can have a more positive influence. We hope that these suggestions will help foster evidence-based practice regarding whistle-blowing. (shrink)

Abstract:Statutory approaches toward whistle-blowing currently appear to be based on the assumption that most observers of wrongdoing will report it unless deterred from doing so by fear of retaliation. Yet our review of research from studies of whistle-blowing behavior suggests that this assumption is unwarranted. We propose that an alternative legislative approach would prove more successful in encouraging valid whistle-blowing and describe a model for such legislation that would increase self-monitoring of ethical behavior by organizations, with obvious benefits to society (...) at large.A defense contractor’s inspectors used improper calibration standards when inspecting missile parts and other military products, used noncertified inspectors when inspecting such products, and used employees without top-secret clearance to work on classified projects. This created potentially life-threatening products as well as potential compromises of military secrets.Quality-control officials on the Trans Alaska Pipeline were threatened with physical harm, demoted, and spied on in an effort to force them not to turn in negative reports or report problems. As a result, the likelihood of damaging oil spills due to improperly built and maintained equipment is heightened.A major corporation allegedly initiated an analysis of the cost savings that would result from circumventing or reducing compliance with health, safety and environmental standards. Two officers who objected to this noncompliance cost/benefit analysis were subsequently fired. (shrink)

Student cheating and reporting of that cheating represents one form of organizational wrong-doing and subsequent whistle-blowing, in the context of an academic organization. Previous research has been hampered by a lack of information concerning the validity of survey responses estimating the incidence of organizational wrongdoing and whistle-blowing. An innovative method, the Randomized Response Technique (RRT), was used here to assess the validity of reported incidences of wrongdoing and whistle-blowing. Surprisingly, our findings show that estimates of these incidences did not vary (...) significantly when RRT questionnaire results were compared to those obtained from standard surveys. In fact, a large number of business undergraduates admitted cheating while only a small percentage reported peers'' cheating when they observed it. These results should be sobering for managers and their implications are considered in some detail. (shrink)

Why do employees break organizational rules and why are organizations unable to prevent this? Past studies have suggested three predictors of rule-breaking: _predisposition_ due to normalization of rule-breaking; _pressure_ due to competitive and performance strain; and _opportunity_ to break the rules due to job characteristics associated with the assigned role and the time at work (e.g., Baucus, 1994). We used a purposive sample of 14,472 observations from 5,735 individuals nested in 199 organizations, to investigate these predictors in a sports context (...) where rule-breaking was likely to be low because of a high risk of detection and a strong compliance system. This allowed us to hold constant the effects of compliance systems and rules that were universally applied in all organizations so that we could compare differences in rule-breaking associated with predisposition, pressure, and opportunity. Compared to previous research, our method permitted us to draw four unique conclusions: (a) all three theories about predictors of rule-breaking were supported, even when all predictors were included simultaneously in a multivariate analysis; (b) individual rule-breaking was predicted by individual and organizational variables in multilevel models, suggesting that employees, the organization, and the industry all support rule-breaking under some conditions; (c) temporal precedence of predictor variables in longitudinal analysis suggested that they influenced current rule-breaking rather than the other way around; and (d) the use of a single-industry sample allowed us to collect nested data from individuals and organizations whose rule-breaking was more likely to be detected and penalized than in other industries, thus reducing undercount of rule-breaking. (shrink)

The notion of emergence has accompanied philosophy of science since the late XIX century, claiming that in some systems there are properties in certain levels that cannot be deduced from properties of their components as seen in more fundamental levels. Throughout the XX century, emergence has been characterized by four pillars: unpredictability, novelty, restriction and downward causation. These four pillars have been related to the assumption of a hierarchical order of reality in different levels of organization. In this paper, we (...) show that it is possible to explain the nature of the emergent properties through the nearly-decomposability criterion introduced by Herbert Simon. (shrink)

In the social sciences we hardly can create laboratory conditions, we only can try to find out which kinds of experiments Nature has carried out. Knowledge about Nature's designs can be used to infer conditions for reliable predictions. This problem was explicitly dealt with in Haavelmo's (1944) discussion of autonomous relationships, Friedman's (1953) as-if methodology, and Simon's (1961) discussions of nearly-decomposable systems. All three accounts take Marshallian partitioning as starting point, however not with a sharp ceteris paribus razor but with (...) the blunt knife of negligibility assumptions. As will be shown, in each account reflection on which influences are negligible, for what phenomena and for how long, played a central role. (shrink)

Complexity in our universe, Herbert Simon once noted, generally takes a hierarchical, nearly decomposable form. If our purpose as biologists is to "carve Nature at the joints," then the quantitative biologist's pattern questions must embody some tentative claim of where the explanatory joints are—only after meaningful qualifications can notions of variance and covariance make sense. In morphometrics, specimens and variables alike can be "carved at the joints," with a correspondingly great gain in explanatory power in both versions. Simon's advice is (...) that the competent biologist's measurements should lie entirely within a single organismal component or else deal entirely with one of the joints. In either context, our best contemporary rhetorics of explanation in biology may resemble morphometrics in their frank combination of carefully supervised parallel quantifications that, taken together, result in new qualifications, leading in turn to new quantifications, and so on. In short, the relation between qualitative and quantitative in the organismal biological sciences is not an opposition but a complementarity, and the modern biometrical statistics of organismal form may be a particularly apposite praxis for exploring it. (shrink)

Complexity theory attempts to explain, at the most general possible level, the interesting behaviors of complex systems. Two such behaviors are the emergence of simple or stable high-level behavior from relatively complex low-level behavior, and the emergence of sophisticated high-level behavior from relatively simple low-level behavior; they are often found nested in the same system. Concerning the emergence of simplicity, this essay examines Herbert Simon's explanation from near-decomposability and a stochastic explanation that generalizes the approach of statistical physics. A (...) more general notion of an abstract difference-making structure is introduced with examples, and a discussion of evolvability follows. Concerning the emergence of sophistication, this essay focuses on, first, the energetics approach associated with dissipative structures and the fourth law of thermodynamics, and second, the notion of a complex adaptive system. (shrink)

In this paper, I suggest that the notion of module explicitly defined by Peter Carruthers in The Architecture of The Mind (Carruthers 2006) is not really In use in the book. Instead, a more robust notion seems to be actually in play. The more robust notion, albeit implicitly assumed, seems to be far more useful for making claims about the modularity of mind. Otherwise, the claims would become trivial. This robust notion will be reconstructed and improved upon by putting it (...) into a more general framework of mental architecture. I defend the view that modules are the outcome of structural rather than functional decomposition and that they should be conceived as near decomposable systems. (shrink)

Most philosophical accounts of emergence are incompatible with reduction. Most scientists regard a system property as emergent relative to properties of its parts if it depends upon their mode of organization-a view consistent with reduction. Emergence is a failure of aggregativity, in which ``the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts''. Aggregativity requires four conditions, giving powerful tools for analyzing modes of organization. Differently met for different decompositions of the system, and in different degrees, the structural conditions (...) can provide evaluation criteria for choosing decompositions, ``natural kinds'', and detecting functional localization fallacies, approximations, and various biases of vulgar reductionisms. This analysis of emergence and use of these conditions as heuristics is consistent with a broader reductionistic methodology. (shrink)

La psychologie a toujours traité le comportement et l’expérience comme étant enchâssés dans un flux temporel unidimensionnel, « le courant du comportement » dans lequel les événements et les actions occupent des intervalles de temps qui ne se chevauchent pas. Pourtant, une analyse phénoménologique révèle que la structure de nos vies est bien plus riche et intéressante. En utilisant la notion de « quasidécomposabilité » de Herbert Simon, je décris cette structure comme un assemblage d’épisodes quasi-indépendants se réalisant de façon (...) concurrente, et de nature asynchrone. Il s’agit d’une « structure profonde» des vies contrairement à la conception courante qui conçoit les vies comme « plates » Psychology has always treated behavior and experience as embedded in a unidimensional flow in time, the "stream of behavior." This means that events and actions occupy non-overlapping time-intervals in this stream. Nevertheless a phenomenological analysis reveals that the structure of lives is richer and far more interesting. Using Herb Simon's notion of near-decomposability, I describe the structure of lives as a composite of nearly independent strands that run concurrently, and are asynchronous. This is a "deep structure"' of lives in contrast to the current conception, which conceives of lives as "flat." . (shrink)

In the last 20 years network science has become an independent scientific field. We argue that by building network models network scientists are able to tame the vagueness of propositions about complex systems and networks, that is, to make these propositions precise. This makes it possible to study important vague properties such as modularity, near-decomposability, scale-freeness or being a small world. Using an epistemic model of network science, we systematically analyse the specific nature of network models and the logic (...) behind the taming mechanism. (shrink)

Gigerenzer et al.'s is an extremely important book. The ecological validity of the key heuristics is strengthened by their relation to ubiquitous Poisson processes. The recognition heuristic is also used in conspecific cueing processes in ecology. Three additional classes of problem-solving heuristics are proposed for further study: families based on near-decomposability analysis, exaptive construction of functional structures, and robustness.

Evolution is often characterized as a tinkerer that creates efficient but messy solutions to problems. We analyze the nature of the problems that arise when we try to explain and understand cognitive phenomena created by this haphazard design process. We present a theory of explanation and understanding and apply it to a case problem – solutions generated by genetic algorithms. By analyzing the nature of solutions that genetic algorithms present to computational problems, we show that the reason for why evolutionary (...) designs are often hard to understand is that they exhibit non-modular functionality, and that breaches of modularity wreak havoc on our strategies of causal and constitutive explanation. (shrink)

Classical (Bayesian) probability (CP) theory has led to an influential research tradition for modeling cognitive processes. Cognitive scientists have been trained to work with CP principles for so long that it is hard even to imagine alternative ways to formalize probabilities. However, in physics, quantum probability (QP) theory has been the dominant probabilistic approach for nearly 100 years. Could QP theory provide us with any advantages in cognitive modeling as well? Note first that both CP and QP theory share the (...) fundamental assumption that it is possible to model cognition on the basis of formal, probabilistic principles. But why consider a QP approach? The answers are that (1) there are many well-established empirical findings (e.g., from the influential Tversky, Kahneman research tradition) that are hard to reconcile with CP principles; and (2) these same findings have natural and straightforward explanations with quantum principles. In QP theory, probabilistic assessment is often strongly context- and order-dependent, individual states can be superposition states (that are impossible to associate with specific values), and composite systems can be entangled (they cannot be decomposed into their subsystems). All these characteristics appear perplexing from a classical perspective. However, our thesis is that they provide a more accurate and powerful account of certain cognitive processes. We first introduce QP theory and illustrate its application with psychological examples. We then review empirical findings that motivate the use of quantum theory in cognitive theory, but also discuss ways in which QP and CP theories converge. Finally, we consider the implications of a QP theory approach to cognition for human rationality. (shrink)

The processing of information within the retino-tectal visual system of amphibians is decomposed into five major operational stages, three of them taking place in the retina and two in the optic tectum. The stages in the retina involve a spatially local high-pass filtering in connection to the perception of moving objects, separation of the receptor activity into ON- and OFF-channels regarding the distinction of objects on both light and dark backgrounds, spatial integration via near excitation and far-reaching inhibition. Variation (...) of the spatial range of excitation and inhibition allows to account for typical activities observed in a variety of classes of retina ganglion cells.Mathematical description of the operations in the tectum opticum include spatial summation of retinal output, and direct or indirect lateral inhibition between tectal cells. In the computer simulation, first the output of the mathematical retina model is computed which, then, is used as the input to the tectum model. The full spatio-temporal dynamics is taken into account.The simulations show that different combinations of strength of lateral inhibition on the one side and the response properties of the retina ganglion cells on the other side determine the response properties of tectal cell types involved in object recognition. (shrink)

It is remarkable how similar today's mind-body debates are to the philosophical critiques of biological science, such as Henri Bergson's Vitalism at the turn of the last century. Philosophers like Bergson became famous arguing that science could never account for life. One reason was that living creatures could not be decomposed into fundamental units, in spite of the empirical finding that all animate things consist of basic cells with remarkably general properties in a bewildering profusion of variation. Today we know (...) that each of those cells has nearly identical DNA-RNA mechanisms, and that, to give one example, humans have about 50% of DNA in common with such creatures as yeast and C. elegans, the tiny worms that is now almost completely defined in genotype and phenotype. The cell and its genetic machinery can plausibly be called the atom of life. So Bergson's anti-atomism was wrong in large part. Indeed, had we followed his advice about 1900, we would still be living in the first great industrial age. (shrink)

The processing of information within the retino-tectal visual system of amphibians is decomposed into five major operational stages, three of them taking place in the retina and two in the optic tectum. The stages in the retina involve (i) a spatially local high-pass filtering in connection to the perception of moving objects, (ii) separation of the receptor activity into ON- and OFF-channels regarding the distinction of objects on both light and dark backgrounds, (iii) spatial integration via near excitation and (...) far-reaching inhibition. Variation of the spatial range of excitation and inhibition allows to account for typical activities observed in a variety of classes of retina ganglion cells.Mathematical description of the operations in the tectum opticum include (i) spatial summation of retinal output (mainly of class-2 and class-3 retina ganglion cells), and (ii) direct or indirect lateral inhibition between tectal cells. In the computer simulation, first the output of the mathematical retina model is computed which, then, is used as the input to the tectum model. The full spatio-temporal dynamics is taken into account. (shrink)

In this paper we prove that the free algebras in a subvariety equation image of the variety equation image of semi-Heyting algebras are directly decomposable if and only if equation image satisfies the Stone identity.

There is growing evidence from the science of human behavior that our everyday, folk understanding of ourselves as conscious, rational, responsible agents may be mistaken. The new essays in this volume display and explore this radical claim. folk concept of the responsible agent after abandoning the image of a central executive and "decomposing" the notion of the conscious will into multiple interlocking aspects and functions.

In this paper we prove that the free pseudocomplemented residuated lattices are decomposable if and only if they are Stone, i.e., if and only if they satisfy the identity ¬ x ∨ ¬¬ x = 1. Some applications are given.

The complexity of intracellular molecular pathways can be simplified by the use of Network Biology that breaks down the intricacy of biological processes into components and interactions among them. In the paper we show that any complex interactome, that is, a biological network representing protein-protein, protein-DNA and DNA-RNA interactions, can be decomposed into a conjunction of logical theorems expressed in terms of Zsyntax, a formal language which allows representing biological pathways. This result, illustrated with the case study of melanoma network, (...) opens the possibility for a computable model of the cell expressed in a logical language and shows how a formal way of intending philosophy can be useful to cope with the complexity of the biological world. (shrink)

We discuss in the paper the following problem: Given a function in a given Baire class, into "how many" (in terms of cardinal numbers) functions of lower classes can it be decomposed? The decomposition is understood here in the sense of the set-theoretical union.

Points of variation manifested by adjectives crosslinguistically have received much recent attention in the literature. This paper argues that one way in which adjectives may differ is in their projection of a degree argument position in the syntax. Under standard analyses of adjectival meaning, semantic transitivity implies syntactic transitivity. However, the Navajo data presented in this paper suggests that while all Navajo adjectives have a degree argument in their semantics, syntactic projection of the degree argument is only licensed by special (...) morphology on the adjective. (shrink)

We prove that if f is a partial Borel function from one Polish space to another, then either f can be decomposed into countably many partial continuous functions, or else f contains the countable infinite power of a bijection that maps a convergent sequence together with its limit onto a discrete space. This is a generalization of a dichotomy discovered by Solecki for Baire class 1 functions. As an application, we provide a characterization of functions which are countable unions of (...) continuous functions with domains of type Πn0, for a fixed n<ω. For Baire class 1 functions, this generalizes analogous characterizations proved by Jayne and Rogers for n=1 and Semmes for n=2. (shrink)

We use Shelah's theory of possible cofinalities in order to solve some problems about ultrafilters. Theorem: Suppose that $\lambda$ is a singular cardinal, $\lambda ' \lessthan \lambda$, and the ultrafilter $D$ is $\kappa$ -decomposable for all regular cardinals $\kappa$ with $\lambda '\lessthan \kappa \lessthan \lambda$. Then $D$ is either $\lambda$-decomposable or $\lambda ^+$-decomposable. Corollary: If $\lambda$ is a singular cardinal, then an ultrafilter is ($\lambda$,$\lambda$)-regular if and only if it is either $\operator{cf} \lambda$-decomposable or $\lambda^+$-decomposable. We also give applications to (...) topological spaces and to abstract logics. (shrink)

In this paper we prove that the free pseudocomplemented residuated lattices are decomposable if and only if they are Stone, i.e., if and only if they satisfy the identity ¬x ∨ ¬¬x = 1. Some applications are given.

I will assume (without explicitly argue for it here) that the verb’s external argument is not an argument of the verb root itself, but is introduced by a separate head in a neo-Davidsonian way. The content argument can be saturated by DPs denoting the kinds of things that can be believed or reported.

In this paper we distinguish two issues that are often run together in discussions about physicalism. The first issue concerns levels. How do entities picked out by non-physical terminology, such as biological or psychological terminology, relate to physical entities? Are the former identical to, or metaphysically supervenient on, the latter? The second issue concerns physical parts and wholes. How do macroscopic physical entities relate to their microscopic parts? Are the former generally determined by the latter? We argue that views on (...) these two issues are independent of one another and should not be conflated. (shrink)

The claim that corporations are not people is perhaps the most frequently voiced criticism of the United States Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. There is something obviously correct about this claim. While the nature and extent of obligations with respect to group agents like corporations and labor unions is far from clear, it is manifest in moral understanding and deeply embedded in legal practice that there is no general requirement to treat them like natural persons. Group (...) agents may be denied rights to marry, vote, or run for public office. More generally the need to guard against discrimination, the core injustice in racism and sexism, has no direct application to the case of group agents. There is also something obviously incorrect about the claim that corporations are not people. The legal practice of treating some group agents as persons under law is ancient, found already in Roman law at the time of Justinian. In this essay I propose that reflection on this tension reveals that fundamental revision to the doctrine of legal personhood is needed. More specifically I propose that legal personhood be decomposed into at least two elements—standing and liability—and that legal systems reject the principle that an entity possesses one just in case it possesses the other. The import of this change ramifies broadly. Decomposing legal personhood not only enables a satisfactory account of the status of corporations and labor unions, who as such have liability but not standing, it also enables a satisfactory account of the status of those who as such have standing but not liability: severely mentally disabled persons, very young children, and non-human animals with phenomenal consciousness but lacking capacities to understand reasons and justifications. (shrink)

Many accounts of scientific modelling assume that models can be decomposed into the contributions made by their accurate and inaccurate parts. These accounts then argue that the inaccurate parts of the model can be justified by distorting only what is irrelevant. In this paper, I argue that this decompositional strategy requires three assumptions that are not typically met by our best scientific models. In response, I propose an alternative view in which idealized models are characterized as holistically distorted representations that (...) are justified by allowing for the application of various modelling techniques. (shrink)