A generalized Wittgensteinian semantics for propositional languages is presented, based on a lattice of elementary situations. Of these, maximal ones are possible worlds, constituting a logical space; minimal ones are logical atoms, partitioned into its dimensions. A verifier of a proposition is an elementary situation such that if real it makes true. The reference (or objective) of a proposition is a situation, which is the set of all its minimal verifiers. (Maximal ones constitute its locus.) Situations are shown to form (...) a Boolean algebra, and the Boolean set algebra of loci is its representation. Wittgenstein's is a special case, admitting binary dimensions only. (shrink)

The paper applies the theory presented in A Formal Ontology of Situations (this journal, vol. 41 (1982), no. 4) to obtain a typology of metaphysical systems by interpreting them as different ontologies of situations. Four are treated in some detail: Hume's diachronic atomism, Laplacean determinism, Hume's synchronic atomism, and Wittgenstein's logical atomism. Moreover, the relation of that theory to the situation semantics of Perry and Barwise is discussed.

The main objective of the present paper is to introduce some features of fake/bogus conferences and some viable approaches to differentiate them from the real ones. These fake/bogus conferences introduce themselves as international conferences, which are multidisciplinary and indexed in major scientific digital libraries. Furthermore, most of the fake/bogus conference holders offer publishing the accepted papers in ISI journals and use other techniques in their advertisement e-mails.

The paper considers a version of the problem of linguistic creativity obtained by interpreting attributions of ordinary semantic knowledge as attributions of practical competencies with expressions. The paper explains how to cope with this version of the problem without invoking either compositional theories of meaning or the notion of `tacit knowledge' (of such theories) that has led to unnecessary puzzlement. The central idea is to show that the core assumption used to raise the problem is false. To render precise argument (...) possible, the paper first identifies and removes some relevant semantic indeterminacy in philosophical talk of `semantic knowledge' and `information'. This yields rules for attributing the two to human speakers and information-processors, respectively. The paper then shows, first, that ordinary speakers qualify as possessing all along an other than finite and definite stock of semantic knowledge and, second, that a very simple information-processor running a procedural semantics qualifies as possessing an analogous stock of semantic information. The second result is used to bring out that the first is neither unduly impressive nor particularly puzzling. (shrink)

The transition to the market economy, which began in Russia more than 30 years ago, has dramatically affected the performance of the Russian academic sphere. The market transformation in the country coincided with significant changes in the global academia. Bureaucratization and obsession with performance indicators have been very welcomed by the Russian system and have been incorporated in various academic excellence programs adopted in the country. A closer look at these programs reveals that the real driving force behind the initiatives (...) is not public spiritedness of the country’s policymakers but wishes of various groups to be engaged in the rent-seeking activities of contemporary Russia. The present paper focuses on the interplay between the predatory publishing industry and the apparent encouragement of fraudulent practices by some universities in Russia. It highlights the problem of “predatory universities” and explains the evolution of such strategies in the academic sphere of the country. The Russian case allows to look at the problems of the global academia from a new angle. It should be acknowledged that the predatory publishing industry is much greater than it seems within the initial “open access” model. It is clear that the authors are very often not less predators than the publishers, and this predatory ecosystem has been significantly expanded beyond the merely publisher-author interactions. Moreover, the noticeable players in these predatory markets are universities and governments that play with the systems designed by the leading citation databases and global ranking organisations, which apparently also benefit from these arrangements. (shrink)

This is the third installment of a paper which deals with comparison and evaluation of the standard slingshot argument (for the claim that all true sentences, if they refer, refer to the same object) with the doxastic formulation.

Science progresses through debate and disagreement, and scientific controversies play a crucial role in the growth of scientific knowledge. However, not all controversies and disagreements are progressive in science. Sometimes, controversies can be pseudoscientific; in fact, bogus controversies, and what seem like genuine scientific disagreements, can be a distortion of science set up by non-scientific actors. Bogus controversies are detrimental to science because they can hinder scientific progress and eventually bias science-based decisions. The first goal of this paper (...) is to elucidate the distinction between bogus and genuine scientific controversies and provide a qualitative methodology, based on the literature on expertise, for distinguishing between the two. We will illustrate six epistemic criteria for distinguishing bogus from genuine scientific debates in science and medicine. This heuristic strategy applies directly to scientific reports, and it relies mostly on the social structure of science. We will then apply the above criteria to a case study: the controversy over statins, which are widely prescribed drugs for reducing the level of cholesterol and preventing cardiovascular disease. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 167-169.

A PDF version (automatically generated) which may be slightly out of date is also available http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/the-self.pdf..

Within an ethics framework, this article explores mental health practitioners' use of credentials that lack acceptable accreditation or authority. Increased competition among mental health care providers has elevated the importance of credentials for marketing professional services. Practitioners worried about economic survival, along with certain personality characteristics (e.g., sheer ego), are tempted to rely on credentials that lack proof of quality, thereby potentially jeopardizing professionalism. Specific assertions and recommendations are set forth in the interest of safe-guarding consumers and promoting professionalism.

This paper discusses Lee’s argument that Lewis’s reformed conditional analysis of dispositions is preferable to the simple conditional analysis of dispositions. Lee’s argument is basically that there are some examples that can be adequately handled by Lewis’s analysis but cannot by the simple conditional analysis of dispositions. But I will reveal that, when carefully understood, they spell no trouble for the simple conditional analysis of dispositions, failing to serve a motivating role for Lewis’s analysis.

Pseudoskepticism, which typically is portraying someone's work as despicable with scientifically unsound polemics, is a modern day threat to the traditional standard of discussion in science and popular science. This essay gives seven tell-tale signs by which pseudoskepticism can be recognized.

Preceding his Arcadia with a non-existing quotation, Jim Crace proves to be no Arcadian innocent: challenging the shrewdness of his readers, the contemporary novelist seems to take pleasure in inviting them to an intellectual game which begins before the novel unfolds. The highly evocative title and the bogus quotation are bound to evoke associations which become the subject of minute examination in the novel. Its result turns out to be as astounding as the uncommon aphoristic trap laid for the (...) readers. This article examines the significance of the bogus quotation as a part of the novel’s message and a key to its interpretation. (shrink)

General criticism of Frank Arntzenius's paper ``Some problems for conditionalization and reflection''.

A number of philosophers working in applied ethics and bioethics are now earnestly debating the ethics of what they term “moral bioenhancement.” I argue that the society-wide program of biological manipulations required to achieve the purported goals of moral bioenhancement would necessarily implicate the state in a controversial moral perfectionism. Moreover, the prospect of being able to reliably identify some people as, by biological constitution, significantly and consistently more moral than others would seem to pose a profound challenge to egalitarian (...) social and political ideals. Even if moral bioenhancement should ultimately prove to be impossible, there is a chance that a bogus science of bioenhancement would lead to arbitrary inequalities in access to political power or facilitate the unjust rule of authoritarians; in the meantime, the debate about the ethics of moral bioenhancement risks reinvigorating dangerous ideas about the extent of natural inequality in the possession of the moral faculties. (shrink)

Schrödinger averred that entanglement is the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics. The first part of this paper is simultaneously an exploration of Schrödinger’s claim and an investigation into the distinction between mere entanglement and genuine quantum entanglement. The typical discussion of these matters in the philosophical literature neglects the structure of the algebra of observables, implicitly assuming a tensor product structure of the simple Type I factor algebras used in ordinary Quantum Mechanics . This limitation is overcome by adopting the (...) algebraic approach to quantum physics, which allows a uniform treatment of ordinary QM, relativistic quantum field theory, and quantum statistical mechanics. The algebraic apparatus helps to distinguish several different criteria of quantum entanglement and to prove results about the relation of quantum entanglement to two additional ways of characterizing the classical versus quantum divide, viz. abelian versus non-abelian algebras of observables, and the ability versus inability to interrogate the system without disturbing it. Schrödinger’s claim is reassessed in the light of this discussion. The second part of the paper deals with the relativity-to-ambiguity threat: the entanglement of a state on a system algebra is entanglement of the state relative to a decomposition of the system algebra into subsystem algebras; a state may be entangled with respect to one decomposition but not another; hence, unless there is some principled way to choose a decomposition, entanglement is a radically ambiguous notion. The problem is illustrated in terms a Realist versus Pragmatist debate, the former claiming that the decomposition must correspond to real as opposed to virtual subsystems, while the latter claims that the real versus virtual distinction is bogus and that practical considerations can steer the choice of decomposition. This debate is applied to the fraught problem of measuring entanglement for indistinguishable particles. The paper ends with some remarks about claims in the philosophical literature that entanglement undermines the separability or independence of subsystems while promoting holism. (shrink)

pt. I. Matter: 1. Philosophy as worldview ; 2. Classical matter: bodies and fields ; 3. Quantum matter: weird but real ; 4. General concept of matter: to be is to become ; 5. Emergence and levels ; 6. Naturalism ; 7. Materialism -- pt. II. Mind: 8. The mind-body problem ; 9. Minding matter: the plastic brain ; 10. Mind and society ; 11. Cognition, consciousness, and free will ; 12. Brain and computer: the hardware/software dualism ; 13. Knowledge: (...) genuine and bogus -- pt. III. Appendices: 14. Appendix A: Objects ; 15. Appendix B. Truths. (shrink)

In the management academic research, academic advancement, job security, and the securing of research funds at one’s university are judged mainly by one’s output of publications in high impact journals. With bogus resumes filled with published journal articles, universities and other allied institutions are keen to recruit or sustain the appointment of such academics. This often places undue pressure on aspiring academics and on those already recruited to engage in research misconduct which often leads to research integrity. This structured (...) review focuses on the ethics and integrity of management research through an analysis of retracted articles published from 2005 to 2016. The study employs a structured literature review methodology whereby retracted articles published between 2005 and 2016 in the field of management science were found using Crossref and Google Scholar. The searched articles were then streamlined by selecting articles based on their relevance and content in accordance with the inclusion criteria. Based on the analysed retracted articles, the study shows evidence of ethical misconduct among researchers of management science. Such misconduct includes data falsification, the duplication of submitted articles, plagiarism, data irregularity and incomplete citation practices. Interestingly, the analysed results indicate that the field of knowledge management includes the highest number of retracted articles, with plagiarism constituting the most significant ethical issue. Furthermore, the findings of this study show that ethical misconduct is not restricted to a particular geographic location; it occurs in numerous countries. In turn, avenues of further study on research misconduct in management research are proposed. (shrink)

Recent work in psychology and experimental philosophy has shown that judgments of actual causation are often influenced by consideration of defaults, typicality, and normality. A number of philosophers and computer scientists have also suggested that an appeal to such factors can help deal with problems facing existing accounts of actual causation. This article develops a flexible formal framework for incorporating defaults, typicality, and normality into an account of actual causation. The resulting account takes actual causation to be both graded and (...) comparative. We then show how our account would handle a number of standard cases. 1 Introduction2 Causal Models3 The HP Definition of Actual Causation4 The Problem of Isomorphism5 Defaults, Typicality, and Normality6 Extended Causal Models7 Examples7.1 Omissions7.2 Knobe effects7.3 Causes versus background conditions7.4 Bogus prevention7.5 Causal chains7.6 Legal doctrines of intervening causes7.7 Pre-emption and short circuits8 Conclusion. (shrink)

In this essay I analyse Kant’s view on the regulative role of reason, and in particular on what he describes as the ‘indispensably necessary’ role of ideas qua foci imaginarii in the Appendix. I review two influential readings of what has become known as the ‘transcendental illusion’ and I offer a novel reading that builds on some of the insights of these earlier readings. I argue that ideas of reason act as imaginary standpoints, which are indispensably necessary for scientific knowledge (...) by making inter-conversational agreement possible. Thus, I characterise scientific knowledge as a distinctive kind of perspectival knowledge. This novel reading can illuminate the role of reason in complementing the faculty of understanding and sheds light on the apparent dichotomy between the first and the second part of the Appendix. More to the point, this novel reading takes us right to the heart of what scientific knowledge is, according to Kant, and how it differs from bogus knowledge and opinion. (shrink)

Analyticity is a bogus explanatory concept, and is so even granting genuine synonomy. Definitions can't explain the truth of a statement, let alone its necessity and/or our a priori knowledge of it. The illusion of an explanation is revealed by exposing diverse confusions: e.g., between nominal, conceptual and real definitions, and correspondingly between notational, conceptual, and objectual readings of alleged analytic truths, and between speaking a language and operating a calculus. The putative explananda of analyticity are (alleged) truths about (...) essential properties. Real definitions (a la Socrates) are the (alleged) explananda, not the explanans of analyticity. Their truth can be explained neither by conceptual definitions (a la Kant), nor by nominal definitions (a la Frege). The Quinean assault on synonomy is unsuccessful and in any case misplaced, because analyticity turns on the explanatory import of synonomy, not its existence. Synonym substitution in a logical truth cannot yield a necessary truth for it doesn't preserve logical form. Self-identity statements (for properties and/or individuals) differ in logical form from alter-identity statements. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett distinguishes real patterns from bogus patterns by appeal to compressibility. As information theorists have shown, data are compressible if and only if those data exhibit a pattern....

Although fairness is a key moral trait, limited research focuses on participants' observed fairness behavior because moral traits are generally measured through self-report. This experiment focused on day-to-day interpersonal fairness rather than impersonal justice, and fairness was assessed as observed behavior. The experiment investigated whether a self-reported fairness trait would moderate a situational influence on observed fairness behavior, such that individuals with a stronger fairness trait would be less affected by a situational influence than those with a weaker fairness trait. (...) We used an iterated resource game in which participants could withdraw resources as they chose, and we manipulated the number of resources bogus players withdrew. The number of resources participants withdrew was the behavioral measure of fairness. Results confirmed the expected moderation of the unfairness manipulation by a fairness trait on observed behavior. Those reporting a stronger fairness trait were unaffected by the manipulation, whereas those reporting a weaker fairness trait were more strongly influenced. (shrink)

Course Description: Science appears to be extraordinarily successful is two crucial respects. First, science apparently serves as an extremely reliable vehicle for arriving at the truth (as contrasted with astrology or palm reading). Second, the methodology of science seems eminently rational (again as opposed to the methodologies of astrology or palm reading). Philosophers have been quite interested in these two apparent virtues of science. Some philosophers think that the two virtues are illusory and that, upon reflection, science is not significantly (...) superior to astrology or palm reading. Some philosophers even reject concepts like truth and rationality as somehow bogus or illegitimate. Our basic goal in this course is to survey 20th century philosophy of science as centered upon such disputes. To this end, our focus will be upon the following question: are truth and rationality genuine features of scientific inquiry, or are they mere illusions? (shrink)

To learn whether criticism and regulation of research practices have been followed by a reduction of deception or use of more acceptable approaches to deception, the contents of all 1969, 1978, 1986, and 1992 issues of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology were examined. Deception research was coded according to type of (non)informing (e.g., false informing, consent to deception, no informing), possible harmfulness of deception employed (e.g., powerfulness of induction, morality of the behavior induced, privacy of behavior), method of (...) deception (e.g., bogus device or role, false purpose of study, false feedback), and debriefing employed. Use of confederates has been partly replaced by uses of computers. "Consent" with false informing declined after 1969, then rose in 1992. Changes in the topics studied (e.g., attribution, socialization, personality) largely accounted for the decline in deception in 1978 and 1986. More attention needs to be given to ways of respecting subjects' autonomy, to appropriate debriefing and desensitizing, and to selecting the most valid and least objectionable deception methods. (shrink)

Berkeley asserts that (a) the mind perceives ideas, (b) the mind is wholly distinct from its ideas, and (c) the alleged distinction between (i) the perceiving of an idea and (ii) the idea perceived, is a bogus one. in this paper, the author does the following. first, he gives textual justification for his claim that berkeley did in fact hold each of the theses (a)-(c). he then shows that (a), (b), and (c) together constitute an inconsistent triad of propositions. (...) then he gives berkeley's reasons for asserting (b) and (c) and assesses the merits of these reasons. finally, he indicates the most plausible moves berkeley might make to extricate himself from inconsistency. (shrink)

The idea of sustainable consumption is discussed as a plausible alternative to consumerism on condition that it has an anthropological and moral underpinning. Contrary to what many people believe, the real dilemma regarding the consumer society is neither ecological, nor technological, but moral. Deplorable side-effects of consumerism, including environmental damage, are due to its extremely reductive vision of the human nature. Selected moral consequences of this false anthropology are presented. Integral human formation is indicated as a major solution to the (...) degenerate anthropology and bogus happiness of the consumer society. (shrink)

This paper examines the resources of Kantian ethics to establish corporate moral responsibility. I defend Matthew Altman’s claim that Kantian ethics cannot hold corporations morally responsible for corporate malfeasance. Rather than following Altman in interpreting this inability as a reason not to use Kantian ethics, however, I argue that the Kantian framework is correct: business ethicists should not seek to hold corporations morally responsible. Instead, they should use Kantian resources to criticize the actions of individual businesspeople. I set forth a (...) model for decomposing business actions into their individual parts and reconstituting them in a context-specific “maxim” that Kantian ethics can evaluate. The reconstituted form of Kantian ethics that I defend is better able to manage decision-making complexity than traditional interpretations. To demonstrate the usefulness of my approach, I apply it to the recent Wells Fargo bogus-accounts scandal. (shrink)

Metaphysics-—the enquiry into the constitution of reality-seems like the very crown of philosophy. What could be more exciting, more important, and more substantive than the pursuit of such a discipline? The majority of philosophers have been content to assume that metaphysics is a viable enterprise; they have held various metaphysical views and engaged in metaphysical arguments. But there has always been a small but persistent maverick minority of philosophers who have cast aspersions on the whole undertaking. Metaphysics, they tell us, (...) cannot be what it seems. There is something desperately wrong at the heart of the discipline. The jewel is a fake; it is in fact worthless glass. Philosophers make a lot of noise about metaphysics, but perhaps there are really no genuine metaphysical issues—only a lot of bogus hot air. Perhaps metaphysics is a meaningless tale told by idiot philosophers—full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. These pessimistic philosophers may have been few, but they rank among their numbers no less than Wittgenstein, the positivists, and perhaps Kant. So the attitude is to be taken seriously. (shrink)