In this paper, we investigate a new model theoretical tree property (TP), called the antichain tree property (ATP). We develop combinatorial techniques for ATP. First, we show that ATP is always witnessed by a formula in a single free variable, and for formulas, not having ATP is closed under disjunction. Second, we show the equivalence of ATP and [Formula: see text]-ATP, and provide a criterion for theories to have not ATP (being NATP). Using these combinatorial observations, we find (...) algebraic examples of ATP and NATP, including pure groups, pure fields and valued fields. More precisely, we prove Mekler’s construction for groups, Chatzidakis’ style criterion for pseudo-algebraically closed (PAC) fields, and the AKE-style principle for valued fields preserving NATP. We give a construction of an antichain tree in the Skolem arithmetic and atomless Boolean algebras. (shrink)

We prove the preservation theorems for NATP; many of them extend the previously established preservation results for other model-theoretic tree properties. Using them, we also furnish proper examples of NATP theories which are simultaneously TP2 and SOP. First, we show that NATP is preserved by the parametrization and sum of the theories of Fraïssé limits of Fraïssé classes satisfying strong amalgamation property. Second, the preservation of NATP for two kinds of dense/co-dense expansions, i.e. the theories of lovely pairs and (...) of [Formula: see text]-structures for geometric theories, and dense/co-dense expansion on vector spaces is proved. Next, we prove the preservation of NATP for the generic predicate expansion and the pair of an algebraically closed field and its distinguished subfield; for the latter, not only NATP, but also the preservation of NTP1 and NTP2 is considered. Finally, we present some proper examples of NATP theories using the results proved in this paper, including the parametrization of DLO and the expansion of an algebraically closed field by adding a generic linear order. In particular, we show that the model companion of the theory of algebraically closed fields with circular orders (ACFO) is NATP. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Transformation of Hearts and Minds:Chan Zen-Catholic Approaches to PreceptsHarry L. WellsCatholic and Buddhist priests, monastics, teachers, and community leaders participated in the second of an anticipated four annual dialogues. The series is sponsored by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, the San Francisco Zen Center, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The conference took place 4–7 March 2004 at Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA, whose own East-West (...) meditation program, led by Fr. Thomas Hand, celebrated its twentieth anniversary that year. A popular retreat center and home to the Sisters of Mercy of Burlingame, the Center offered participants tree-dotted, spacious grounds and strolling paths, as well as a labyrinth for contemplative walking.Each day began with both Catholics and Buddhists in Mercy Center's Rose Room, a Zen-style meditation space, for an hour of silent meditation in the morning. Catholic liturgy was celebrated in the afternoon in the main chapel, with all participants invited to attend and share prayer and blessings. On the two full days, Friday and Saturday, two sessions of presentations were held each morning, with one session following in the afternoon. Each of the six sessions focused on a position paper, with three papers given from a Buddhist and three from a Christian perspective. Each paper was presented by its authors, followed by two formal responses, one by a Buddhist and one by a Catholic participant. This was in turn followed by an open discussion within the whole group. A minute of silent meditation began and ended each session.The presentations focused on various meanings embraced by the term "precepts" in each tradition. One paper introduced perspectives on Buddhist precepts in three different Buddhist lineages. Another presented six guidelines as "Precepts on the [End Page 155] Mind-Ground" that connect ethical commitments with social engagement. A third paper focused on Bodhisattva practice, which embraces and unifies all sentient beings. On the Christian side, presentations discussed the precepts as signposts on the path that leads away from suffering, as motivations that move us, and as the practice of the presence of God, exemplified by the writings of Brother Lawrence.A glossary prepared by Fr. Francis Tiso helped define Catholic Christian terms for the Buddhist participants in the dialogue. Similarly, a book distributed to all participants by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association provided background on "Buddhism A–Z." Formal discussion sessions in the evenings, as well as informal talks by the participants while walking outside or in the form of impromptu hallway meetings added to the depth and richness of the dialogue. Some recurring themes were the importance and meaning of a personal teacher in both traditions; another was the "embodiment" of the teachings, the value of teaching through presence. Personal stories and practical experiences offered by individual participants were much appreciated and added poetry and emotion to the headiness of theological discussion.Members of both the Buddhist and the Catholic traditions reported that the encounter with the spiritual practices and beliefs of the other faith provides both affirmation of the familiar and welcome discovery of unexpected riches of the spirit. The next meeting will be held 20–23 January 2005 at the San Francisco Zen Center. The theme will be "Practice: Method and Experience Toward Transformation."Participating in the 2004 dialogue were Rev. Heng Sure (Berkeley Buddhist Monastery), Bishop John C. Wester (Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of San Francisco), Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton (Mountain Source Sangha), Fr. Arthur Kennedy (Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, USCCB), Bhikshuni Heng Liang (Dharma Realm Buddhist Association), Dr. Martin Verhoeven (Institute for World Religions), Dr. Ron Epstein (Institute for World Religions), Dr. Snjezana Akpinar (Dharma Realm Buddhist University), Rev. Shosan Victoria Austin (San Francisco Zen Center), Rev. Alan Senauke (Berkeley Zen Center), Jan Chozen Bays (Zen Community of Oregon), Sr. Phyllis D'Anna, SND (Center for the Practice of Applied Spirituality), Fr. Thomas W. Devereaux (Diocese of Santa Rosa), Robert Hale, OSB Cam. (Incarnation Monastery, Berkeley, CA), Thomas Hand, S.J. (Mercy Center, Burlingame, CA), Fr. Rafael Luévano (Diocese of Orange), Deacon Thomas McGowan (Diocese of Oakland), Lorraine Moriarity (St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Mateo County), Fr. Gerry O'Rourke (Archdiocese... (shrink)

The “wisdom of the crowd” phenomenon refers to the finding that the aggregate of a set of proposed solutions from a group of individuals performs better than the majority of individual solutions. Most often, wisdom of the crowd effects have been investigated for problems that require single numerical estimates. We investigate whether the effect can also be observed for problems where the answer requires the coordination of multiple pieces of information. We focus on combinatorial problems such as the planar Euclidean (...) traveling salesperson problem, minimum spanning tree problem, and a spanning tree memory task. We develop aggregation methods that combine common solution fragments into a global solution and demonstrate that these aggregate solutions outperform the majority of individual solutions. These case studies suggest that the wisdom of the crowd phenomenon might be broadly applicable to problem-solving and decision-making situations that go beyond the estimation of single numbers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 211-222 [Access article in PDF] Criticism and the Terror of Nothingness C. Jason Lee DESTINY IS OFTEN ANOTHER NAME for narrative, it being the order we retrospectively find in scattered events. It is traditionally the role of the storyteller to create a believable narrative, with the reader investing attention into believing the story while the critic dissects the results to ascertain whether the magic (...) works. As Wallace Stevens put it, "we orchestrate a whole history and then imprison ourselves in the score, as if someone else had written it." 1 In the author's note to the second edition (1962) of Wise Blood (1949) Flannery O'Connor makes the point that her novel is a comic novel, yet its comedy does not lessen the depth of understanding it offers concerning the complexity of freedom. 2 The obsession with fate and destiny that swamps her characters, leads the reader into a gothic nightmare where humans in their attempt to re-create themselves dig themselves further into the graves of their dead relatives. For O'Connor free will does not mean one will but many wills conflicting in one man, and she explains the integrity of the central character of Wise Blood, Hazel Motes, as stemming from his vigorous attempts to rid himself of the "ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind."This figure is the Jesus of his grandfather, and it is also the religious preoccupation of the Deep South. Destiny has shaped his features and his character in the mold of his grandfather, and whomever he meets believes he too is a preacher. After establishing the Church Without Christ, like many sons attempting to shake off their origin, Hazel Motes realizes that his new way of behaving is in some sense being controlled [End Page 211] by his past and that he must shake off all vestiges to possess freedom. One might argue that, by eventually blinding himself, Hazel Motes is behaving as a soul who has given into the temptation of purgation, as if this is destiny. But it can be argued that this act is going against destiny, as it is an act that is perhaps trying to persuade God of something, despite the Oedipal connotations.Questioned by his landlady why he blinded himself he says to pay, and when asked to pay for what, he replies it does not matter what. Mrs. Flood is frightened of death, particularly death being one long blind existence, and Hazel Motes is a reminder to her of her destiny. This can be read as a judgment on life also. Yet she eventually decides to take care of him, for both altruistic and materialistic reasons, believing that his widow would inherit his war pension. Mrs. Flood, her name evocative of apocalyptic occurrences and Old Testament punishment, is a critic of the text; the text in this instance is nothing written but rather Motes himself. It seems that Hazel Motes, his name a reference to taking the mote out of one's own eye before you try and take the splinter out of another's, is punishing himself for his previous denial of Christ and for his sins, such as fornication, as with Mrs. Watts the prostitute and Sabbath Hawks, and murder, but also something more primal.After trying desperately to break the curse of his biological inheritance, his wise blood, just like the character Enoch Emery, it forces him to once again take on roles that deny him freedom. Hazel Motes may seem to a contemporary reader as a caricature, the mad preacher/antipreacher of the American South, but as V. S. Pritchett puts it, Hazel Motes is "entirely real" (p. viii). His self-blinding is part of his further alienation from the world, the world he has come back to after the "Great War." O'Connor shows how this watershed in human history was so devastating, Motes's new theology entirely rational. After having an insight into the world in reality through war, Hazel Motes is now "going to do some things... (shrink)

This paper is not primarily about the philosophy of beauty with regard to landscape evaluation. Neither is it basically about the place of aesthetics in environmental philosophy. Rather, its aim is to argue that while aesthetics has a clear role to play, it cannot form the basis of an adequate environmental philosophy without presupposing that natural processes and their products have no role to play independent of the human evaluation of them in terms of their beauty. The limitations, especially of (...) a subjective aesthetics, are brought out through examining the decision of the National Trust in the Lake District to restore Yew Tree Tarn, thereby 'to ensure its beauty will be permanent'. But should a landscape (an ecosystem for that matter) be 'frozen' against natural changes in order that its beauty be preserved 'permanently'? If not, what counter principle(s) can one invoke to argue against such a philosophy of management or at least to limit such intervention in its name? The National Trust is committed 'to preserving the beauty and unique character of the Lake District'. Its unique character includes its geological formations which make the area beautiful. But geological processes are dynamic. Should their products necessarily be subordinated to aesthetic considerations? If so, are they not in danger of being treated like a work of art, an artefact which we, humans, are entitled to preserve against change? In a conflict between the requirement of conserving beauty of the landscape on the one hand and natural processes at work which might undermine that beauty on the other, should aesthetic considerations always have priority? This paper will explore these related issues. However, the restoration of Yew Tree Tarn as opposed to the failure in Yosemite to intervene to prevent one of its lakes from drying out are merely used as handy examples to lead into such theoretical exploration which should, most certainly, not be interpreted as a general indictment of the overall management policies of the National Trust on the one hand, or endorsement of those of the Yosemite National Park on the other. (shrink)

We consider five ordinal notation systems of ε0 which are all well-known and of interest in proof-theoretic analysis of Peano arithmetic: Cantor’s system, systems based on binary trees and on countable tree-ordinals, and the systems due to Schütte and Simpson, and to Beklemishev. The main point of this paper is to demonstrate that the systems except the system based on binary trees are equivalent as structured systems, in spite of the fact that they have their origins in different views (...) and trials in proof theory. This is true while Weiermann’s results based on Friedman-style miniaturization indicate that the system based on binary trees is of different character than the others. (shrink)

Branching morphogenesis of epithelia is an important mechanism in mammalian development. The last decade has seen the identification of many signalling pathways and intracellular mechanisms that control epithelial branching. Tissue‐level mechanisms that space new branches out have, however, remained an unsolved problem. A recent publication by Nelson et al.1 suggests—if extrapolation from their novel and abstract culture system is valid—that branches may be spaced out by a system of mutual inhibition based on diffusion of TGFβ. Such a system would allow (...) a developing tree to arrange itself, without detailed genetic specification, by adaptive self‐organization. BioEssays 29: 205–207, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show that what Gaston Bachelard called the “psychology of the imagination” often doubles as moral psychology. In Water and Dreams, for example, Bachelard presents “water’s morality,” which is a morality attained by an imagination of water’s purity. Similarly, in Air and Dreams, he explores the aerial imagination that forms the moral thought in Thus Spoke Zarathustra and calls the will to dynamism in Nietzschean philosophy “an experimental physics of moral life.” In Earth and (...) Reveries of Will, numerous terrestrial images are considered and the moralities they embody are discussed—among them the supreme hardness of the oak tree in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and the “counsel of solidity” it gives. As Bachelard becomes more inclined to call his endeavor a “phenomenology of the imagination,” concern for morality becomes less pronounced. And yet in two of his later works, The Poetics of Space and The Poetics of Reverie, Bachelard continues to delve into the ways imagination allies with moral life. Sensitively heeding the solicitations from the material world and our responses to them, Bachelard’s psychology of the imagination is a project of self-knowledge of an unusual sort: it uncovers “the autobiography of lost possibilities” and revives confidence in human strength. Finally, a comparison between Bachelard’s moral psychology with the work of Theodor Adorno and of John McDowell shows that its philosophical significance is best viewed as a re-enchantment project—the re-enchantment of nature and our relationship with it. (shrink)

In pre-modern Korea, paper was renowned for its white glossy surface and cloth-like strength, becoming an important item in both tributary exchanges and private trade. The unique material of the tak tree and related technical innovations, including toch’im, the repeated beating of just-produced paper that provides sizing and fulling effects, were crucial to this fame. However, the scholar-officials who integrated papermaking into the state production system in order to meet administrative and tributary needs initially made toch’im corvée and then (...) penal labor, thereby dismissing it as simple toil. They were not alone, though, in denigrating a form of manual labor. Historiographies of modern science and technology are generally silent about such work, focusing instead on how we invented the human out of drudgery. However, papermakers in late Chosŏn Korea chose to identify their artisanship with toch’im and eventually succeeded in securing recognition for that technique as a highly paid specialty. By examining this skilling of toch’im, this paper seeks to change the historiographical silence about toil. It overcomes the archival silence that accompanies manual skills by tracing toch’im’s contours through its changing locations and associations in society’s changing social and material networks, revealing paper artisans’ social techniques, or everyday politics that eventually dignified their laborious technique. Paper artisans’ changing relationships with tak barks, tools and facilities, central and local authorities, farmers, merchants, and scholar-officials reveal how such social skilling was made in late Chosŏn Korea, where papermaking became a most successful industry. This tracing of toch’im re-situates creative toil and everyday politics of artisanal hands in the interconnected transformation of social relations, craft, and knowledge practices. (shrink)

All that we see, all that we touch, all that we perceive, are naught but ideas. There are trees and rivers, to be sure, but these are simply collections of ideas. Is everything, then, in this world an idea or made up of ideas? No. I, for one, am not an idea. Besides ideas there are spirits. I know that I, an active being, exist. It would seem that to know this and to know God exists, nay even for there (...) to be any meaning in what I say when I use the words “I,” “God,” and “spirit,” I would have to have an idea of myself, an idea of God, and an idea of spirit. But this cannot be. Ideas are essentially passive and inert. Spriits are essentially active. How, then, could an idea represent or be an image of a spirit? And what sense is there to something being an idea if it does not represent its object? How, then, can my discourse about spirits have any meaning at all? I have a notion of spirit. (shrink)

Previous work employing graph theory and nonlinear analysis has found increased spatial and temporal disorder, respectively, of functional brain connectivity in schizophrenia. We present a new method combining graph theory and nonlinear techniques that measures the temporal disorder of functional brain connections. Multichannel electroencephalographic data were windowed and functional networks were reconstructed using the minimum spanning trees of correlation matrices. Using a method based on Shannon entropy, we found elevated connection entropy in gamma activity of patients with schizophrenia; however, gamma (...) connection entropy remained elevated in patients with schizophrenia even after a reduction in symptoms due to treatment with antipsychotics. Our results are consistent with several possibilities: aberrant functional connectivity is epiphenomenal to schizophrenia, aberrant functional connectivity is a central feature but antipsychotics reduce symptoms by an independent mechanism, or connection entropy is not an appropriately sensitive measure of brain abnormalities in schizophrenia. (shrink)

PurposeTo use the power of knowledge acquisition and machine learning in the development of a collaborative computer classification system based on the features of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).MethodsA vocabulary was acquired from four AMD experts who examined 100 ophthalmoscopic images. The vocabulary was analyzed, hierarchically structured, and incorporated into a collaborative computer classification system called IDOCS. Using this system, three of the experts examined images from a second set of digital images compiled from more than 1000 patients with AMD. Images (...) were annotated, and features were identified and defined. Decision trees, a machine learning method, were trained on the data collected and used to extract patterns. Interrelationships between the data from the different clinicians were investigated.ResultsSix drusen classes in the structured vocabulary were largely sufficient to describe all the identified features. The decision trees classified the data with 76.86% to 88.5% accuracy and distilled patterns in the form of hierarchical trees composed of 5 to 15 nodes. Experts were largely consistent in their characterization of soft, and to a lesser extent, hard drusen, but diverge in definition of other drusen. Size and crystalline morphology were the main determinants of drusen type across all experts.ConclusionsMachine learning is a powerful tool for the characterization of disease phenotypes. The creation of a defined feature set for AMD will facilitate the development of an IDOCS-based classification system. (shrink)

Is a human more conscious than an octopus? In the science of consciousness, it’s oftentimes assumed that some creatures (or mental states) are more conscious than others. But in recent years, a number of philosophers have argued that the notion of degrees of consciousness is conceptually confused. This paper (1) argues that the most prominent objections to degrees of consciousness are unsustainable, (2) examines the semantics of ‘more conscious than’ expressions, (3) develops an analysis of what it is for a (...) degreed property to count as degrees of consciousness, and (4) applies the analysis to various theories of consciousness. I argue that whether consciousness comes in degrees ultimately depends on which theory of consciousness turns out to be correct. But I also argue that most theories of consciousness entail that consciousness comes in degrees. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea of "objective phenomenology," or a way of understanding the phenomenal character of conscious experiences that doesn’t require one to have had the kinds of experiences under consideration. My central thesis is that structural facts about experience—facts that characterize purely how conscious experiences are structured—are objective phenomenal facts. I begin by precisifying the idea of objective phenomenology and diagnosing what makes any given phenomenal fact subjective. Then I defend the view that structural facts about experience are (...) objective. I also argue that structural facts about experience, despite being objective, nevertheless still give rise to an explanatory gap. (shrink)

Totalitarianism is perhaps unanimously regarded as one of the greatest political evils of the last century and has been the grounds for much of Anglo-American political theory since. Confucianism, meanwhile, has been gaining credibility in the past decades among sympathizers of democratic theory in spite of criticisms of it being anti-democratic or authoritarian. I consider how certain key concepts in the classical Confucian texts of the Mencius and the Xunzi might or might not be appropriated for ‘legitimising’ totalitarian regimes. Under (...) an Arendtian approach to understanding totalitarianism, it is precisely an unproblematised relation to a normative History and Nature that underlies the potential compatibility or incompatibility. I argue against a longstanding prejudice that if any form of Confucianism would be totalitarian, it would have to be Xunzian. Against this, I hope to show that if any form of Confucianism would be totalitarian, it might well be a naturalistic Mencian Confucianism instead of a constructivist Xunzian one. (shrink)

Social philosophers often invoke the concept of false consciousness in their analyses, referring to a set of evidence-resistant, ignorant attitudes held by otherwise sound epistemic agents, systematically occurring in virtue of, and motivating them to perpetuate, structural oppression. But there is a worry that appealing to the notion in questions of responsibility for the harm suffered by members of oppressed groups is victim-blaming. Individuals under false consciousness allegedly systematically fail the relevant rationality and epistemic conditions due to structural distortions of (...) reasoning or knowledge practices, undermining their status as responsible moral agents. But attending to the constitutive mechanisms and heterogeneity of false consciousness allows us to see how having it does not eo ipso render someone an inappropriate target of blame. I focus here on the 1889 anti-suffragist manifesto “An Appeal Against Female Suffrage,” arguing that its signatories, despite false consciousness, satisfy both conditions for ordinary blameworthiness. I consider three prominent signatories, observing that the irrationality characterisation is unsustainable beyond group-level diagnoses, and that their capacity to respond appropriately to reasons was not compromised. Following recent work on epistemic injustice, I also argue that culpable mechanisms constituted their false consciousness, rendering them blameworthy for the Appeal. (shrink)

False consciousness requires a general explanation for why, and how, oppressed individuals believe propositions against, as opposed to aligned with, their own well-being in virtue of their oppressed status. This involves four explanatory desiderata: belief acquisition, content prevalence, limitation, and systematicity. A social constructionist approach satisfies these by understanding the concept of false consciousness as regulating social research rather than as determining the exact mechanisms for all instances: the concept attunes us to a complex of mechanisms conducing oppressed individuals to (...) mistake social understandings of themselves as natural self-understandings—the limits lie where these overlap (sometimes), or are entirely absent. (shrink)

Shun Kwong-loi argues that the distinction between first- and third-person points of view does not play as explanatory a role in our moral psychology as has been supposed by contemporary philosophical discussions. He draws insightfully from the Confucian tradition to better elucidate our everyday experiences of moral emotions, arguing that it offers an alternative and more faithful perspective on our experiences of anger and compassion. However, unlike the distinction between first- and third-person points of view, Shun’s descriptions of anger and (...) compassion leave unarticulated what would be necessary to differentiate these responses from non-moral responses. Here, I make a friendly suggestion on how this explanatory gap might be filled, providing complementary grounding for Shun’s observations by way of K. C. Bhattacharyya’s phenomenological analysis of feeling. It fills the gap by means of a gradation in the possible depth of emotional responses found in the a priori structure of a feeling experience for any subject. The payoff of such a comparison between Shun’s explication of Confucian moral psychology and Bhattacharyya’s explication of rasa theory is not only a possible phenomenological grounding for the former but also a potential way to articulate a missing ethics in Bhattacharyya’s thought. (shrink)

Dorothy Edgington’s work has been at the centre of a range of ongoing debates in philosophical logic, philosophy of mind and language, metaphysics, and epistemology. This work has focused, although by no means exclusively, on the overlapping areas of conditionals, probability, and paradox. In what follows, I briefly sketch some themes from these three areas relevant to Dorothy’s work, highlighting how some of Dorothy’s work and some of the contributions of this volume fit in to these debates.

The future is kid stuff -- Sinthom-osexuality -- Compassion's compulsion -- No future.

I sketch here an intuitive picture of repeatable artworks as created types, which are individuated in part by historical paths (re)production. Although attractive, this view has been rejected by a number of authors on the basis of general claims about abstract objects. On consideration, however, these general claims are overgeneralizations, which whilst true of some abstracta, are not true of all abstract objects, and in particular, are not true of created types. The intuitive picture of repeatable artworks as created types (...) is, then, left in place. (shrink)

What is post-truth? -- Science denial as a road map for understanding post-truth -- The roots of cognitive bias -- The decline of traditional media -- The rise of social media and the problem of fake news -- Did post-modernism lead to post-truth? -- Fighting post-truth.

Two compelling principles, the Reasonable Range Principle and the Preservation of Irrelevant Evidence Principle, are necessary conditions that any response to peer disagreements ought to abide by. The Reasonable Range Principle maintains that a resolution to a peer disagreement should not fall outside the range of views expressed by the peers in their dispute, whereas the Preservation of Irrelevant Evidence Principle maintains that a resolution strategy should be able to preserve unanimous judgments of evidential irrelevance among the peers. No standard (...) Bayesian resolution strategy satisfies the PIE Principle, however, and we give a loss aversion argument in support of PIE and against Bayes. The theory of imprecise probability allows one to satisfy both principles, and we introduce the notion of a set-based credal judgment to frame and address a range of subtle issues that arise in peer disagreements. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of analog representation. We first argue that the mark of the analog is to be found in the nature of a representational system’s interpretation function, rather than in its vehicles or contents alone. We then develop the rulebound structure theory of analog representation, according to which analog systems are those that use interpretive rules to map syntactic structural features onto semantic structural features. The theory involves three degree-theoretic measures that capture three independent ways in which (...) a system can be more or less analog. We explain how our theory improves upon prior accounts of analog representation, provides plausible diagnoses for novel challenge cases, extends to hybrid systems that are partially analog and partially symbolic, and accounts for some of the advantages and disadvantages of representing analogically versus symbolically. (shrink)

The standard semantics for counterfactuals ensures that any counterfactual with a true antecedent and true consequent is itself true. There have been many recent attempts to amend the standard semantics to avoid this result. I show that these proposals invalidate a number of further principles of the standard logic of counterfactuals. The case against the automatic truth of counterfactuals with true components does not extend to these further principles, however, so it is not clear that rejecting the latter should be (...) a consequence of rejecting the former. Instead I consider how one might defuse putative counterexamples to the truth of true-true counterfactuals. (shrink)

Is A & C sufficient for the truth of ‘if A were the case, C would be the case’? Jonathan Bennett thinks not, although the counterexample he gives is inconsistent with his own account of counterfactuals. In any case, I argue that anyone who accepts the case of Morgenbesser's coin, as Bennett does, should reject Bennett’s counterexample. Moreover, I show that the principle underlying his counterexample is unmotivated and indeed false. More generally, I argue that Morgenbesser’s coin commits us to (...) the sufficiency of A & C for the truth of the corresponding counterfactual. (shrink)

Conscious experiences are characterized by mental qualities, such as those involved in seeing red, feeling pain, or smelling cinnamon. The standard framework for modeling mental qualities represents them via points in geometrical spaces, where distances between points inversely correspond to degrees of phenomenal similarity. This paper argues that the standard framework is structurally inadequate and develops a new framework that is more powerful and flexible. The core problem for the standard framework is that it cannot capture precision structure: for example, (...) consider the phenomenal contrast between seeing an object as crimson in foveal vision versus merely as red in peripheral vision. The solution I favor is to model mental qualities using regions, rather than points. I explain how this seemingly simple formal innovation not only provides a natural way of modeling precision, but also yields a variety of further theoretical fruits: it enables us to formulate novel hypotheses about the space and structures of mental qualities, formally differentiate two dimensions of phenomenal similarity, generate a quantitative model of the phenomenal sorites, and define a measure of discriminatory grain. A noteworthy consequence is that the structure of the mental qualities of conscious experiences is fundamentally different from the structure of the perceptible qualities of external objects. (shrink)

I present and discuss a counterexample to Kendall Walton's necessary condition for fictionality that arises from considering serial fictions. I argue that although Walton has not in fact provided a necessary condition for fictionality, a more complex version of Walton's condition is immune from the counterexample.

A thought-provoking comparative take on two seminal thinkers in Christian history In this book -- the first volume in the Kierkegaard as a Christian Thinker series -- Lee Barrett offers a novel comparative interpretation of early church father Augustine and nineteenth-century philosopher-theologian Soren Kierkegaard. Though these two intellectual giants have been paired by historians of Western culture, the exact nature of their similarities and differences has never before been probed in detail. Barrett demonstrates that on many essential theological levels Augustine (...) and Kierkegaard were more convergent than divergent. Most significantly, their parallels point to a distinctive understanding of the Christian life as a passion for self-giving love. Approaching Kierkegaard through the lens of Augustine, Barrett argues, enables the theme of desire for fulfillment in God to be seen as much more central to Kierkegaard's thought than previously imagined. (shrink)

Are a material object, such as a statue, and its constituting matter, the clay, parts of one another? One wouldn't have thought so, and yet a number of philosophers have argued that they are. I review the arguments for this surprising claim showing how they all fail. I then consider two arguments against the view concluding that there are both pre-theoretical and theoretical considerations for denying that the statue and the clay are mutual parts.

Bartky draws on the experience of daily life to unmask the many disguises by which intimations of inferiority are visited upon women. She critiques both the male bias of current theory and the debilitating dominion held by notions of "proper femininity" over women and their bodies in patriarchal culture.

This research note analyzes the relationship between indicators of corporate social and financial performance within a comprehensive theoretical framework. The results, based on data for 67 large U.S. corporations for 1982-1992, reveal no significant negative social-financial performance relationships and strong positive correlations in both contemporaneous and lead-lag formulations.

Are counterfactuals with true antecedents and consequents automatically true? That is, is Conjunction Conditionalization: if (X & Y), then (X > Y) valid? Stalnaker and Lewis think so, but many others disagree. We note here that the extant arguments for Conjunction Conditionalization are unpersuasive, before presenting a family of more compelling arguments. These arguments rely on some standard theorems of the logic of counterfactuals as well as a plausible and popular semantic claim about certain semifactuals. Denying Conjunction Conditionalization, then, requires (...) rejecting other aspects of the standard logic of counterfactuals, or else our intuitive picture of semifactuals. (shrink)

Some philosophers think that life is worth living not merely because of the goods and the bads within it, but also because life itself is good. I explain how this idea can be formalized by associating each version of such of a view with a function from length of life to the value generated by life itself. Then I argue that every version of the view that life itself is good faces some version of the following dilemma: either (1) good (...) human lives are worse than very long lives wholly devoid of pleasure, desire-satisfaction, knowledge, or any other goods, or (2) very short lives containing nothing but suffering are worth living. Since neither result is plausible, we ought to reject the view that life itself is good. On the view I favor, any given life may be worth living because of the goods that it contains, but life itself is neutral. (shrink)

I reply to Ahmed’s rejection (2011) of my argument (Walters 2009) that all counterfactuals with true antecedents and consequents are themselves true.

At a time when the analytic/continental split dominates contemporary philosophy, this ambitious work offers a careful and clear-minded way to bridge that divide. Combining conceptual rigor and clarity of prose with historical erudition, A Thing of This World shows how one of the standard issues of analytic philosophy—realism and anti-realism—has also been at the heart of continental philosophy. Using a framework derived from prominent analytic thinkers, Lee Braver traces the roots of anti-realism to Kant's idea that the mind actively organizes (...) experience. He then shows in depth and in detail how this idea evolves through the works of Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida. This narrative presents an illuminating account of the history of continental philosophy by explaining how these thinkers build on each other's attempts to develop new concepts of reality and truth in the wake of the rejection of realism. Braver demonstrates that the analytic and continental traditions have been discussing the same issues, albeit with different vocabularies, interests, and approaches. By developing a commensurate vocabulary, his book promotes a dialogue between the two branches of philosophy in which each can begin to learn from the other. (shrink)