Countenancing unbounded utility in ethics gives rise to deep puzzles in formal decision theory. Here, these puzzles are taken as an invitation to assess the most fundamental principles relating probability and value, with the aim of demonstrating that unbounded utility in ethics is compatible with a desirable decision theory. The resulting theory frames further discussion of Expected Utility Theory and of principles concerning symmetries of utility.

Uncontroversially, the semantic interpretation of comparative adjectives such as rich or small depends, among other factors, on a contextually salient comparison standard. Two alternative theories have been proposed in order to account for such contextual dependence: an indexicalist view, according to which comparative adjectives are indexical expressions, and a hidden variable approach, which insists that a comparison standard is contributed as the semantic value of a variable occurring at the level of semantic representation. In this paper, I defend the (...) indexicalist view against an influential argument favoring the hidden variable approach, the so-called argument from binding. I argue that independent evidence favors an understanding of comparison standards as functions, and that on such a conception of comparison standards the evidence put forth by the argument from binding is naturally accountable within an indexicalist treatment. (shrink)

This paper argues against two extreme attitudes to the history of a discipline: on the one hand, ignorance and dismissiveness; and on the other hand, canonisation. The ever-present challenge is to find a balance between these two extremes. The paper attempts to walk the middle way by offering an alternative history of theories of law. It does so by revealing the basic characteristics of theories of law that tend towards either the explanatory paradigm of discourse or of tradition. Discourse -oriented (...) theories tend to give explanatory priority to autonomous systems or orders of already articulated rules or norms. They also tend to conceptualise behaviour from the first person ex ante perspective, and tend to require explicit deliberation, even at the level of social conventions. The political value behind these theories tends to be the imposition of social order from above and the constraint of the power of officials by the rule of law. Tradition-oriented theories tend to give explanatory priority to the long-term activities of persons interacting in certain distinct contexts. They tend to conceptualise behaviour as consisting of embodied, though not completely unreflective, learning, resulting in the formation of certain skills and propensities. They also tend to focus on the transmission of social knowledge via the involvement of persons in certain contexts of interaction. The political value behind these theories is that of responsiveness and attention to the needs of the disadvantaged. The paper does not set out to evaluate the strengths or weaknesses of either explanatory paradigm. Rather, the aim is to offer an alternative history of the discipline of jurisprudence, with the hope that it encourages the construction of other such histories, thereby opening up possibilities for finding new insights in the works of the past. If, as it is argued, the formation of a jurisprudential orientation is at least partly dependent on how a legal theorist understands the history of jurisprudence, then offering alternative ways of seeing that history also carries with it the potential for renewing the discipline. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and PurposeDaniel A. MetrauxJapan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose. By John Nathan. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.Immediately after my return from an eight-day visit to Japan in late March 2004, I happened upon a long article in the New York Times (March 27, 2004, p. A4) featuring Hitomi Kanehara, a twenty-year-old author of a novel about (...) her post-bubble generation. Her portrait of a radically changing society in Japan reflects what I learned from two dozen interviews with Japanese friends and colleagues over the course of my visit.The Times article praised Kanehara for the portrait of young people in Japan since the 1990 collapse of Japan's "bubble economy" of the 1970s and 1980s:It is a world of "freeters," young Japanese surviving on part-time jobs and unconcerned with their future; of unsentimental sex and a profound inability to communicate verbally; a world in which a killing is viewed with amorality. The institutions that built postwar Japan—the family, school and companies—are noticeable by their absence. In a nation known for its social cohesion, the characters have no interest in playing a role in society, but only in finding personal satisfaction among themselves. Unlike Japanese in, say, their 30s, the characters in the novel are not disillusioned at Japanese society, since they had few expectations to begin with. "There are many people who don't expect anything from society," Ms. Kanehara says. "That's precisely why they are looking inward or to people [End Page 678] closest to them. I never knew the bubble era, so my way of looking at things can't help being different. Since I was born, I've never experienced a time of prosperity. Without my being aware, it's possible that my writing reflects the era."The Japan that I observed ever so briefly in March 2004 after a four-year absence is a society that is undergoing revolutionary changes in values and behavior in every sphere of life from education and popular culture to business and government. The result is a process that is radically changing the Japanese cultural landscape, making it a place vastly different from its traditional and even recent past.This view of Japan is carefully chronicled in John Nathan's most recent work, Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose. Nathan, the Takashima Professor of Japanese Cultural Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara and author of highly praised books on Mishima Yukio and Sony, explores many facets of contemporary Japanese society ranging from education and families to business, politics, and foreign relations.Nathan analyzes a nation experiencing dramatic change as Japan moves away from many of its traditional values toward a very uncertain future. A long and demeaning recession has weakened the foundations of the traditional family system and has contributed to the rapid rise of divorce and an increase in the physical abuse of children by their families. The recession has contributed to the weakening of the bond between Japan's corporations and their employees, who are losing their right to lifetime employment. More and more Japanese are growing skeptical of their nation's dependant relationship of over a half-century with the United States, and nationalistic and xenophobic books are climbing up the best-seller list.One matter that Nathan discusses brilliantly is the traumatic breakdown of order and cohesion in Japan's primary and secondary schools and the increasingly rebellious nature of Japanese youth. He writes about riotous conditions in classrooms in a country once famous for respectful children. His best chapter depicts chaos in the classroom, where teachers across the country have simply lost control of their students. Disruptive students rule the roost, bringing intolerable disorder and engaging in physical attacks on other students as well as teachers and administrators. Nathan writes:Classroom breakdown is only part of a larger crisis of anger and withdrawal that has bewildered parents and educators.... In the United States, suspension is a legal option; in Japan suspension and expulsion are taboo under any circumstances. Promotion is based... (shrink)

Currently, value sensitive design (VSD) does not commit to a particular ethical theory. Critiques contend that without such an explicit commitment, VSD lacks a methodology for distinguishing genuine moral values from mere stakeholders-preferences and runs the risk of attending to a set of values that is unprincipled or unbounded. We argue that VSD practitioners need to complement it with an ethical theory. We argue in favour of a mid-level ethical theory to fulfil this role.

When real-valued utilities for outcomes are bounded, or when all variables are simple, it is consistent with expected utility to have preferences defined over probability distributions or lotteries. That is, under such circumstances two variables with a common probability distribution over outcomes – equivalent variables – occupy the same place in a preference ordering. However, if strict preference respects uniform, strict dominance in outcomes between variables, and if indifference between two variables entails indifference between their difference and the status quo, (...) then preferences over rich sets of unbounded variables, such as variables used in the St. Petersburg paradox, cannot preserve indifference between all pairs of equivalent variables. In such circumstances, preference is not a function only of probability and utility for outcomes. Then the preference ordering is not defined in terms of lotteries. (shrink)

We extend a result of Dubins [3] from bounded to unbounded random variables. Dubins [3] showed that a finitely additive expectation over the collection of bounded random variables can be written as an integral of conditional expectations (disintegrability) if and only if the marginal expectation is always within the smallest closed interval containing the conditional expectations (conglomerability). We give a sufficient condition to extend this result to the collection Z of all random variables that have finite expected value (...) and whose conditional expectations are finite and have finite expected value. The sufficient condition also allows the result to extend some, but not all, subcollections of Z. We give an example where the equivalence of disintegrability and conglomerability fails for a subcollection of Z that still contains all bounded random variables. (shrink)

We extend de Finetti’s (1974) theory of coherence to apply also to unbounded random variables. We show that for random variables with mandated infinite prevision, such as for the St. Petersburg gamble, coherence precludes indifference between equivalent random quantities. That is, we demonstrate when the prevision of the difference between two such equivalent random variables must be positive. This result conflicts with the usual approach to theories of Subjective Expected Utility, where preference is defined over lotteries. In addition, we (...) explore similar results for unbounded variables when their previsions, though finite, exceed their expected values, as is permitted within de Finetti’s theory. In such cases, the decision maker’s coherent preferences over random quantities is not even a function of probability and utility. One upshot of these findings is to explain further the differences between Savage’s theory (1954), which requires bounded utility for non-simple acts, and de Finetti’s theory, which does not. And it raises a question whether there is a theory that fits between these two. (shrink)

This chapter identifies some of the unique ways in which uploading relates to transformations in values, as well as to collect, and to some extent integrate, diverse yet overlapping ideas and research relevant to the question of teleology in a transhumanist/posthuman context. The transition to a non‐biological substrate represents a nonpareil transformation of values. Given an unprecedented influx of novelty, it is difficult to anticipate new values and directions; however, the underlying patterns of human teleology, coupled with the fundamental values (...) carried forward to the transition, can suggest invariants in values and which directions might be pursued. Would uploaded persons spend most of their time inside or outside virtual reality? Would there be radical diversity in body shape and form, or a concentration of similar morphologies? While many provocative questions remain regarding a post‐biological future, some answers seem strongly supported. (shrink)

James A. Diefenbeck, Wayward Reflections on the History ofPhilosophyThomas R. Flynn Sartre, Foucault and Historical Reason. Volume 1:Toward an Existential Theory of HistoryMark Golden and Peter Toohey Inventing Ancient Culture:Historicism, Periodization and the Ancient WorldZenonas Norkus Istorika: Istorinis IvadasEverett Zimmerman The Boundaries of Fiction: History and theEighteenth‐Century British Novel.

With rapid growth in Far Eastern economies (in particular China’s), it is becoming imperative to understand the culturally driven ethical-value underpinnings of the management processes in this region of the world. In this study, we propose a broadened version of Hofstede’s and others’ conception of Confucian dynamics anchored in his teachings preserved in the Lunyu (or Analects), which form the foundation of individual-social moral interactions. Based on a content analysis of these Analects via a qualitative software, NVivo, we identified (...) six work-based values (Leadership Attributes, Appropriate Conduct, Authority Protocol, Governance Policies, Long term Orientation and Collegiality and Teamwork) and six life-based values (Virtuousness and Appropriate Behavior, Handling Life’s Emotions, Learning and Teaching, Parent/Elder Relationship, Friendship and Worship) of the society, prescribed by Confucius in his Analects. These factors are further analyzed and mapped in the context of the three Confucian ethical dimensions (Yi or Righteousness, Li or Propriety, and Ren or Benevolence and Unbounded). The business implications of the results and directions for future research are finally discussed. (shrink)

We study a predicate extension of an unbounded real valued propositional logic that has been recently introduced. The latter, in turn, can be regarded as an extension of both the abelian logic and of the propositional continuous logic. Among other results, we prove that our predicate extension satisfies the property of weak completeness (the equivalence between satisfiability and consistency) and, under an additional assumption on the set of premisses, the property of strong completeness (the equivalence between logical consequence and (...) provability). Eventually we discuss some topological properties of the space of types in our logic. (shrink)

By creating an unbounded topological reduction theory for complex Hilbert spaces over Stonean spaces, we can give a category-theoretic duality between Boolean valued analysis and topological reduction theory for complex Hilbert spaces. MSC: 03C90, 03E40, 06E15, 46M99.

We construct Hrushovski–Kazhdan style motivic integration in certain expansions of ACVF. Such an expansion is typically obtained by adding a full section or a cross-section from the RV-sort into the VF-sort and some extra structure in the RV-sort. The construction of integration, that is, the inverse of the lifting map , is rather straightforward. What is a bit surprising is that the kernel of is still generated by one element, exactly as in the case of integration in ACVF. The overall (...) construction is more or less parallel to the main construction of Hrushovski and Kazhdan , as presented in Yin and Yin . As an application, we show uniform rationality of Igusa zeta functions for non-archimedean local fields with unbounded ramification degrees. (shrink)

Ethical reasoning of all types is anthropocentric, in that it is addressed to agents, but anthropocentric starting points vary in the preference they accord the human species. Realist claims about environmental values, utilitarian reasoning and rights-based reasoning all have difficulties in according ethical concern to certain all aspects of natural world. Obligation-based reasoning can provide quite strong if incomplete reasons to protect the natural world, including individual non-human animals. Although it cannot establish all the conclusions to which anti-speciesists aspire, it (...) may establish many of them with some clarity. (shrink)

Should we make significant sacrifices to ever-so-slightly lower the chance of extremely bad outcomes, or to ever-so-slightly raise the chance of extremely good outcomes? *Fanaticism* says yes: for every bad outcome, there is a tiny chance of extreme disaster that is even worse, and for every good outcome, there is a tiny chance of an enormous good that is even better. I consider two related recent arguments for Fanaticism: Beckstead and Thomas's argument from *strange dependence on space and time*, and (...) Wilkinson's *Indology* argument. While both arguments are instructive, neither is persuasive. In fact, the general principles that underwrite the arguments (a *separability* principle in the first case, and a *reflection* principle in the second) are *inconsistent* with Fanaticism. In both cases, though, it is possible to rehabilitate arguments for Fanaticism based on restricted versions of those principles. The situation is unstable: plausible general principles tell *against* Fanaticism, but restrictions of those same principles (with strengthened auxiliary assumptions) *support* Fanaticism. All of the consistent views that emerge are very strange. (shrink)

In the two-envelope problem, one is offered a choice between two envelopes, one containing twice as much money as the other. After seeing the contents of the chosen envelope, the chooser is offered the opportunity to make an exchange for the other envelope. However, it appears to be advantageous to switch, regardless of what is observed in the chosen envelope. This problem has an extensive literature with connections to probability and decision theory. The literature is roughly divided between those that (...) attempt to explain what is flawed in arguments for the advantage of switching and those that attempt to explain when such arguments can be correct if counterintuitive. We observe that arguments in the literature of the two-envelope problem that the problem is paradoxical are not supported by the probability distributions meant to illustrate the paradoxical nature. To correct this, we present a distribution that does support the usual arguments. Aside from questions about the interpretation of variables, algebraic ambiguity, modal confusions and the like, most of the interesting aspects of the two-envelope problem are assumed to require probability distributions on an infinite space. Our next main contribution is to show that the same counterintuitive arguments can be reflected in finite versions of the problem; thus they do not inherently require reasoning about infinite values. A topological representation of the problem is presented that captures both finite and infinite cases, explicating intuitions underlying the arguments both that there is an advantage to switching and that there is not. (shrink)

Many people find comparisons of the value of persons distasteful, even immoral. But what can be said in support of the claim that persons have incomparable worth? This chapter considers an argument purporting to show that the value of persons is incomparable because it is so great—because it is infinite. The argument rests on two claims: that the value of our capacity for valuing must equal or exceed the value of things valued and that our capacity (...) for valuing is unbounded in a very strong sense. After laying out this argument, I consider its implications for how we should regard each other. In particular, I suggest that it complicates efforts to understand morality as a system of principles. Instead, I propose that an aesthetic attitude, not unlike our experience of the sublime, is an apt response to humanity’s infinite value. -/- . (shrink)

We study a real valued propositional logic with unbounded positive and negative truth values that we call ‐valued logic. Such a logic is semantically equivalent to continuous propositional logic, with a different choice of connectives. After presenting the deduction machinery and the semantics of ‐valued logic, we prove a completeness theorem for finite theories. Then we define unital and Archimedean theories, in accordance with the theory of Riesz spaces. In the unital setting, we prove the equivalence of consistency and (...) satisfiability and an approximated completeness theorem similar to the one that holds for continuous propositional logic. Eventually, among unital theories, we characterize Archimedean theories as those for which strong completeness holds. We also point out that ‐valued logic provides alternative calculi for Łukasiewicz logic and for propositional continuous logic. (shrink)

Puzzles can arise in value theory and deontic (permissibility) theory when infinity is involved. These puzzles can arise for ethics, for prudence, or for any normative perspective. For the sake of simplicity, we focus on the ethical versions of these problems. We start by addressing problems that can arise in determining what is permissible, either in a given choice situation when there are an infinite number of options or in infinite sequence of choice situations, each with only finitely many (...) options. There is a common theme here: standard and plausible decision rules, such as the dominance principle or maximising principles, run into conflict with other plausible principles. We then address problems that can arise in determining whether one option is more valuable than another, when the options have infinite, or undefined, value. This includes cases where a single bearer of value has infinite or undefined value, as well as cases where each bearer of value is finite but the total for the collection is infinite or undefined totals. Our focus is on introducing the puzzles, rather than canvassing potential solutions. (shrink)

We expand on the fixed point semantic approach of Kripke via the addition of two unary intensional operators: a paradoxicality operator Π where Π(Φ) is true at a fixed point if and only if Φ is paradoxical (i.e., if and only if Φ receives the third, non-classical value on all fixed points that extend the current fixed point), and an unbounded truth operator Υ⊤ where Υ⊤(Φ) is true at a fixed point if and only if any fixed point (...) extending the current fixed point can be extended to one on which Φ receives the value true. We prove a generalized version of Kripke’s fixed point theorem guaranteeing the existence of models of this new language, as well as an expressive completeness result. We conclude with an exploration of the significant improvements in expressive power that result from the addition of these new operators, and we precisely identify what still cannot be said on this intensional extension of the Kripkean framework. (shrink)

Bilattices, introduced by Ginsberg as a uniform framework for inference in artificial intelligence, are algebraic structures that proved useful in many fields. In recent years, Arieli and Avron developed a logical system based on a class of bilattice-based matrices, called logical bilattices, and provided a Gentzen-style calculus for it. This logic is essentially an expansion of the well-known Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic to the standard language of bilattices. Our aim is to study Arieli and Avron’s logic from the perspective of abstract (...) algebraic logic . We introduce a Hilbert-style axiomatization in order to investigate the properties of the algebraic models of this logic, proving that every formula can be reduced to an equivalent normal form and that our axiomatization is complete w.r.t. Arieli and Avron’s semantics. In this way, we are able to classify this logic according to the criteria of AAL. We show, for instance, that it is non-protoalgebraic and non-self-extensional. We also characterize its Tarski congruence and the class of algebraic reducts of its reduced generalized models, which in the general theory of AAL is usually taken to be the algebraic counterpart of a sentential logic. This class turns out to be the variety generated by the smallest non-trivial bilattice, which is strictly contained in the class of algebraic reducts of logical bilattices. On the other hand, we prove that the class of algebraic reducts of reduced models of our logic is strictly included in the class of algebraic reducts of its reduced generalized models. Another interesting result obtained is that, as happens with some implicationless fragments of well-known logics, we can associate with our logic a Gentzen calculus which is algebraizable in the sense of Rebagliato and Verdú . We also prove some purely algebraic results concerning bilattices, for instance that the variety of distributive bilattices is generated by the smallest non-trivial bilattice. This result is based on an improvement of a theorem by Avron stating that every bounded interlaced bilattice is isomorphic to a certain product of two bounded lattices. We generalize it to the case of unbounded interlaced bilattices. (shrink)

Orthodox decision theory is fanatical in the way it treats small probabilities of enormous value, if unbounded utility functions are allowed. Some have suggested a fix, Nicolausian discounting, according to which outcomes with small enough probabilities should be ignored when making decisions. However, there are lotteries involving only small-probability outcomes, none of which should intuitively be ignored. So the Nicolausian discounter needs a procedure for distinguishing the problematic cases of small-probability outcomes from the unproblematic ones. In this paper, (...) I present a dilemma for Nicolausian discounting: the view must be coupled either with a procedure that delivers fanatical verdicts of its own, as bad as those of orthodox decision theory, or with one that entails intransitive cyclic preferences. (shrink)

We introduce the property “F-linked” of subsets of posets for a given free filter F on the natural numbers, and define the properties “μ-F-linked” and “θ-F-Knaster” for posets in a natural way. We show that θ-F-Knaster posets preserve strong types of unbounded families and of maximal almost disjoint families. Concerning iterations of such posets, we develop a general technique to construct θ-Fr-Knaster posets (where Fr is the Frechet ideal) via matrix iterations of <θ-ultrafilter-linked posets (restricted to some level of (...) the matrix). This is applied to prove consistency results about Cichoń's diagram (without using large cardinals) and to prove the consistency of the fact that, for each Yorioka ideal, the four cardinal invariants associated with it are pairwise different. At the end, we show that three strongly compact cardinals are enough to force that Cichoń's diagram can be separated into 10 different values. (shrink)

There is a remedy available for many of our ailments: Psychopharmacology promises to alleviate unsatisfying memory, bad moods, and low self-esteem. Bioethicists have long discussed the ethical implications of enhancement interventions. However, they have not considered relevant evidence from psychology and economics. The growth in autonomy in many areas of life is publicized as progress for the individual. However, the broadening of areas at one’s disposal together with the increasing individualization of value systems leads to situations in which the (...) range of options asks too much of the individual. I scrutinize whether increased self-determination and unbound possibilities are really in a person’s best interests. Evidence from psychology and economics challenges the assumption that unlimited autonomy is best in all cases. The responsibility for autonomous self-formation that comes with possibilities provided by neuro-enhancement developments can be a burden. To guarantee quality of life I suggest a balance of beneficence, support, and respect for autonomy. (shrink)

We study and compare two combinatorial lowness notions: strong jump-traceability and well-approximability of the jump, by strengthening the notion of jump-traceability and super-lowness for sets of natural numbers. A computable non-decreasing unbounded function h is called an order function. Informally, a set A is strongly jump-traceable if for each order function h, for each input e one may effectively enumerate a set Te of possible values for the jump JA, and the number of values enumerated is at most h. (...) A′ is well-approximable if can be effectively approximated with less than h changes at input x, for each order function h. We prove that there is a strongly jump-traceable set which is not computable, and that if A′ is well-approximable then A is strongly jump-traceable. For r.e. sets, the converse holds as well. We characterize jump-traceability and strong jump-traceability in terms of Kolmogorov complexity. We also investigate other properties of these lowness properties. (shrink)

Recent discussions of rational deliberation in science present us with two extremes: unbounded optimism and sober pessimism. Helen Longino (1990) sees rational deliberation as the foundation of scientific objectivity. Miriam Solomon (1991) thinks it is overrated. Indeed, she has recently argued (2006) that group deliberation is detrimental to empirical success because it often involves groupthink and the suppression of dissent. But we need not embrace either extreme. To determine the value of rational deliberation we need to look more (...) closely at the practice and practitioners of science. I offer a closer look here by exploring the joint agency of small research teams. Although there are factors that contribute to the suppression of dissent in group contexts, a closer look at the literature on group dynamics suggests that there are ways to mitigate the effects of groupthink. Thus, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about the value of rational deliberation within certain scientific contexts. (shrink)

People with the kind of preferences that give rise to the St. Petersburg paradox are problematic---but not because there is anything wrong with infinite utilities. Rather, such people cannot assign the St. Petersburg gamble any value that any kind of outcome could possibly have. Their preferences also violate an infinitary generalization of Savage's Sure Thing Principle, which we call the *Countable Sure Thing Principle*, as well as an infinitary generalization of von Neumann and Morgenstern's Independence axiom, which we call (...) *Countable Independence*. In violating these principles, they display foibles like those of people who deviate from standard expected utility theory in more mundane cases: they choose dominated strategies, pay to avoid information, and reject expert advice. We precisely characterize the preference relations that satisfy Countable Independence in several equivalent ways: a structural constraint on preferences, a representation theorem, and the principle we began with, that every prospect has a value that some outcome could have. (shrink)

At a time when some modicum of formal gender equality has been won in many late‐capitalist societies of the West, what explains the persistence of practices that extract labor and value from women and girls while granting a “surplus” of value to men and boys? Gendered shame is a central mechanism of the apparatus that secures the continued subordination of women across a number of class and race contexts in the mediatized, late‐capitalist West. Focusing on the story of (...) Amanda Todd, two forms of shame are distinguished. “Ubiquitous shame” is that shame that accrues to feminine existence as such, and is structured in relation to a futural temporality of redemption. “Unbounded shame” is a brute form of value‐extraction that has found its ecological niche in social media—and destroys all futural aspirations. (shrink)

In what follows, we intervene in the long history of the study of curiosity to propose curiosity studies proper. Such a field, we argue, traverses the many disciplinary and experiential contexts in which curiosity appears, in order to generate theories, analytics, and practices of curiosity that are as complex and ubiquitous as the phenomenon of curiosity itself. Assuming an ecology of knowledge framework, which expressly resists academic silos and intellectual monocultures, we envision curiosity studies as an unbounded inquiry built (...) on three simple principles: (1) Curiosity is multiple; its markers shift across history, geography, species, social identities, institutions, contexts, and circumstances; therefore it requires immensely flexible analytic attention; (2) Curiosity is praxiological; far from something that is simply felt, curiosity is something that is done, expressed in behaviors, habits, architectures, and movements across physical, conceptual, and social space; and (3) Curiosity is political; its manifestations within sociocultural worlds are marked by inherited hierarchies of value among scientific methodologies, people groups, and ideologies. And yet, precisely because it is multiple, praxiological, and political, curiosity bears a keen subversive potential. It has the capacity to upend what we know, how we learn, how we relate, and what we can change. Curiosity has the capacity to become radical, to get at the root of things. We therefore propose curiosity studies not only as a field of scholarship but as a way of reimagining the world, both within the classroom and far beyond it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:On the Inconvenience of Other People by Lauren BerlantNicholas AdlerBerlant, Lauren. On the Inconvenience of Other People. Duke University Press, 2022. 256pp.An Ambivalent TriumphAttachment is a double-edged sword. This idea is the scaffolding of the late Lauren Berlant's pivotal work, Cruel Optimism (2011), which explores the idea that attachment to a collectively invested fantasy of "the good life" acts in disservice of personal growth and lasting fulfillment. The (...) Inconvenience of Other People ostensibly repeats this structure while reattributing the role of fantasy. The premise here is that attachments to other people act in disservice to the fantasy of personal sovereignty. Of course, both texts argue for collectivity and for a recasting of the ordinary that structures current fantasies. But while Cruel Optimism builds around the unavoidable condition of fantasy, Inconvenience takes relations within the present as its fundamentally unavoidable condition, specifically the drive to be in relation even though such relations are inconvenient. "People" in the work's title stands for any attachment, any person or thing to which we exist in relation. To be part of the world is to be constantly taking in and living with the objects around us. This constant process of adjustment generates constant friction with our fantasy of sovereignty, or control, over ourselves. In Berlant's words, "inconvenience is another way of pointing to the experience of nonsovereign relationality," making our inconvenience drive the urge to maintain and explore those nonsovereign relations despite the uncomfortable friction they produce (18). Berlant's final monograph investigates the complexities of living with that inconvenience as well the potential for "loosening [those inconvenient objects] and becoming loose with them" in order to make that inconvenience generative of new perspectives and approaches (150).The prospect of overhauling our relationship with inconvenience takes place on multiple registers, both in terms of the affective states that guide the experience of inconvenience and the frameworks that determine its expression in the world. Refiguring ambivalence and dissociation, [End Page 123] the traditional affective responses to inconvenience, as well as offering a more dynamic structure for engaging with inconvenience than that of the institution, Berlant demonstrates—in a contained and structured way—the very object-loosening for which the text advocates. Although the book is presented as a collection of "assays...clusters of actions that become forms of life that shift the pressures of being in relation," it is nonetheless broken into three distinct chapters that focus on the role of the inconvenient in political relations, sexual relations, and relations with the self (11). These chapters, respectively, take up the inconvenient with regard to infrastructure, ambivalence, and dissociation.To productively engage with inconvenience, it must be accommodated within a social infrastructure. The term infrastructure positions the material of lived relationality as more flexible than that of institutions and more legible than that of expressive causality. For Berlant, "infrastructures are productive, durationally extensive spaces for the pliable forms of life that people use to make rules and norms and other means of extending the world" (23). In Chapter 2, they invoke the concept of the commons, "an orientation toward life and value unbound by concepts of property as constituted by division and ownership," using it as a way to illustrate infrastructuralism in effect (82). The commons can refer to as concrete a physical space as the Boston Common, as explored through Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature," or as abstract an inheritance as shared language, as explored through Juliana Spahr's lyrical autobiography, The Transformation (2007).The commons of both Emerson and Spahr make use of the concept of analogy. For Emerson, it stands for "the separation within the nonsovereign relation [of the commons] that makes linking possible" (Berlant 94). Spahr takes a more critical approach, continuing Emerson's use of the term while shining light on the glitches that emerge when any analogy is examined too closely. Acknowledging the rhetorical gymnastics required to "figure equally valued social being" within "imperialist capitalist infrastructures" reveals every possible analogy as both grossly oversimplifying and only temporarily comprehensible (105). Objects within these commons are constantly adjusting and generating new relations. The sense of an ongoing dynamic is what Berlant hopes this... (shrink)

Quantum anomalies in the inverse square potential are well known and widely investigated. Most prominent is the unbounded increase in oscillations of the particle’s state as it approaches the origin when the attractive coupling parameter is greater than the critical value of 1/4. Due to this unphysical divergence in oscillations, we are proposing that the interaction gets screened at short distances making the coupling parameter acquire an effective (renormalized) value that falls within the weak range 0–1/4. This (...) prevents the oscillations form growing without limit giving a lower bound to the energy spectrum and forcing the Hamiltonian of the system to be self-adjoint. Technically, this translates into a regularization scheme whereby the inverse square potential is replaced near the origin by another that has the same singularity but with a weak coupling strength. Here, we take the Eckart as the regularizing potential and obtain the corresponding solutions (discrete bound states and continuum scattering states). (shrink)

Roman Stoicism is typically read as a therapeutic philosophy that is centered around the care of the self and presented in the form of a self-help manual. Closer examination reveals a less reassuring and more challenging side to the school’s teachings, one that provokes ethical reflection at the limits of the self’s intactness and coherence. The self is less an object of inquiry than the by-product of a complex set of experiences in the face of nature and society and across (...) any number of flashpoints, from one’s own or others’ beliefs, actions, values, and relationships to the difficulty of sizing up one’s place in the universe. The pressures of natural and ethical reflection put intuitive conceptions of the self at considerable risk. The Roman Stoic self proves to be vulnerable, contingent, unbounded, relational, and opaque—in short, a rich matrix of problems that point beyond the individual self and anticipate contemporary critiques of the self. (shrink)

Say that κ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\kappa}$$\end{document}’s measurability is destructible if there exists a κ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\kappa}$$\end{document}. It then follows that A1={δ<κ∣δ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${A_{1} = \{\delta < \kappa \mid \delta}$$\end{document} is measurable, δ is not a limit of measurable cardinals, δ is not δ+ strongly compact, and δ’s measurability is destructible when forcing with partial orderings having rank below λδ} is (...) class='Hi'>unbounded in κ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\kappa}$$\end{document}. On the other hand, under the same hypotheses, A2={δ<κ∣δ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${A_{2} = \{\delta < \kappa \mid \delta}$$\end{document} is measurable, δ is not a limit of measurable cardinals, δ is not δ+ strongly compact, and δ′s measurability is indestructible when forcing with either Add or Add} is unbounded in κ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\kappa}$$\end{document} as well. The large cardinal hypothesis on λ is necessary, as we further demonstrate by constructing via forcing two distinct models in which either A1=∅\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${A_{1} = \emptyset}$$\end{document} or A2=∅\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${A_{2} = \emptyset}$$\end{document}. In each of these models, both of which have restricted large cardinal structures above κ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\kappa}$$\end{document}, every measurable cardinal δ which is not a limit of measurable cardinals is δ+ strongly compact, and there is an indestructibly supercompact cardinal κ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\kappa}$$\end{document}. In the model in which A1=∅\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${A_{1} = \emptyset}$$\end{document}, every measurable cardinal δ which is not a limit of measurable cardinals is <λδ strongly compact and has its <λδ strong compactness indestructible when forcing with δ-directed closed partial orderings having rank below λδ. The choice of the least beth fixed point above δ is arbitrary, and other values of λδ are also possible. (shrink)

Salivary testosterone levels were measured in a population of New World indigenous adult hunter-gatherer males in order to compare circulating levels of free unbound bioactive steroid with those previously reported among Boston and nonwestern males. The study population consisted of adult Aché hunter-gatherer males (n=45) living in eastern Paraguay. Morning and evening salivary testosterone levels (TsalA.M.; TsalP.M.) among the Aché were considerably lower than western values (Boston) and even lower than other previously reported nonwestern populations (Efe, Lese, Nepalese). No association (...) was observed between height, weight, or age and salivary testosterone levels within the Aché group, although older men (ages>40) were poorly represented in the study sample. Nevertheless, a mild correlation was observed between Aché TsalA.M. levels and BMI (r=0.133,p=0.0725). Comparison of Aché values with those for other populations confirms the prevalence of significant interpopulational variation in testosterone levels among adult males. Interpopulational variation in male testosterone is not as great, however, as has been documented for ovarian steroids among females, nor is it likely that such variation reflects differences in male fecundity. Nevertheless, such interpopulational variation in salivary testosterone levels may have a functional significance in the regulation of protein anabolism in skeletal muscle, thereby affecting the overall energy budget of the organism. It is suggested that relative suppression of average testosterone may be adaptive under conditions of chronic energy shortage. (shrink)

In spite of its infinite expectation value, the St. Petersburg game is not only a gamble without supply in the real world, but also one without demand at apparently very reasonable asking prices. We offer a rationalizing explanation of why the St. Petersburg bargain is unattractive on both sides (to both house and player) in the mid-range of prices (finite but upwards of about $4). Our analysis – featuring (1) the already-established fact that the average of finite ensembles of (...) the St. Petersburg game grows with ensemble size but is unbounded, and (2) our own simulation data showing that the debt-to-entry fee ratio rises exponentially – explains why both house and player are quite rational in abstaining from the St. Petersburg game. The house will be unavoidably (and intentionally) exposed to very large ensembles (with very high averages, and so very costly to them), while contrariwise even the well-heeled player is not sufficiently capitalized (as our simulation data reveals) to be able to capture the potential gains from large-ensemble play. (Smaller ensembles, meanwhile, enjoy low means, as others have shown, and so are not worth paying more than $4 to play, even if a merchant were to offer them at such low prices per trial.) Both sides are consequently rational in abstaining from entry into the St. Petersburg market in the mid-range of asking prices. We utilize the concept of capitalization vis-à-vis a gamble to make this case. Classical analyses of this question have paid insufficient attention to the question of the propriety of using expected values to assess the St. Petersburg gamble. And extant analyses have not noted the average-maximum-debt-before-breaking-even figures, and so are incomplete. (shrink)

This dissertation is an investigation into the degree to which the mathematics used in physical theories can be constructivized. The techniques of recursive function theory and classical logic are used to separate out the algorithmic content of mathematical theories rather than attempting to reformulate them in terms of "intuitionistic" logic. The guiding question is: are there experimentally testable predictions in physics which are not computable from the data? ;The nature of Church's thesis, that the class of effectively calculable functions on (...) the natural numbers is identical to the class of general recursive functions, is discussed. It is argued that this thesis is an example of an explication of the very notion of an effectively calculable function. This is contrary to a view of the thesis as a hypothesis about the limitations of the human mind. ;The extension to functions of a real variable of the notion of effective calculability is discussed, and it is argued that a function of a real variable must be continuous in order to be considered effectively calculable . The relation between continuity and computability is significant for the problem at hand. The results of a well-designed experiment do not depend critically upon the precise values of the relevant parameters. Accordingly, if the solution to a problem in mathematical physics depends discontinuously upon the data, it cannot be regarded as an experimentally testable prediction of the theory. The principle that the testable predictions of a physical theory cannot be singular is known as the principle of regularity. This principle is significant, because discontinuities generate non-computability, but they also disqualify a prediction from being experimentally testable. ;A mathematical framework is set up for discussing computability in physical theories. This framework is then applied to the case of quantum mechanics. It is found that, due to the use of unbounded operators in the theory, noncomputable objects appear, but predictions which satisfy the principle of regularity are nevertheless computable functions of the data. (shrink)

Explores the development of Chinese thought, highlighting its concern with questions of coherence. Providing a bracing expansion of horizons, this book displays the unsuspected range of human thinking on the most basic categories of experience. The way in which early Chinese thinkers approached concepts such as one and many, sameness and difference, self and other, and internal and external stand in stark contrast to the way parallel concepts entrenched in much of modern thinking developed in Greek and European thought. Brook (...) Ziporyn traces the distinctive and surprising philosophical journeys found in the works of the formative Confucian and Daoist thinkers back to a prevailing set of assumptions that tends to see questions of identity, value, and knowledge—the subject matter of ontology, ethics, and epistemology in other traditions—as all ultimately relating to questions about coherence in one form or another. Mere awareness of how many different ways human beings can think and have thought about these categories is itself a game changer for our own attitudes toward what is thinkable for us. The actual inhabitation and mastery of these alternative modes of thinking is an even greater adventure in intellectual and experiential expansion. Brook Ziporyn is Professor of Chinese Philosophy, Religion, and Comparative Thought at the University of Chicago Divinity School and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Singapore. His books include The Penumbra Unbound: The Neo-Taoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang, also published by SUNY Press. (shrink)