We consider processes of emergence within the conceptual framework of the Information Loss principle and the concepts of systems conserving information; systems compressing information; and systems amplifying information. We deal with the supposed incompatibility between emergence and computability tout-court. We distinguish between computational emergence, when computation acquires properties, and emergent computation, when computation emerges as a property. The focus is on emergence processes occurring within computational processes. Violations of Turing-computability such as non-explicitness and incompleteness are intended to represent partially the (...) properties of phenomenological emergence, such as logical openness, given by the observer’s cognitive role; structural dynamics where change regards rules rather than only values; and multi-modelling where multiple non-equivalent models are required to model such structural dynamics. In this way, we validate, from an epistemological viewpoint, models and simulations of phenomenological emergence where the sequence of events constitutes the natural, analogical non-Turing computation which a cognitive complex system can reproduce through learning. Reproducibility through learning is different from Turing-like computational iteration. This paper aims to open a new, non-reductionist understanding of the conceptual relationship between emergence and computability. (shrink)

“Freedom” is a phenomenon in the natural world. This phenomenon—and indirectly the question of free will—is explored using a variety of systems-theoretic ideas. It is argued that freedom can emerge only in systems that are partially determined and partially random, and that freedom is a matter of degree. The paper considers types of freedom and their conditions of possibility in simple living systems and in complex living systems that have modeling subsystems. In simple living systems, types (...) of freedom include independence from fixed materiality, internal rather than external determination, activeness that is unblocked and holistic, and the capacity to choose or alter environmental constraint. In complex living systems, there is freedom in satisfaction of lower level needs that allows higher potentials to be realized. Several types of freedom also manifest in the modeling subsystems of these complex systems: in the transcending of automatism in subjective experience, in reason as instrument for passion yet also in reason ruling over passion, in independence from informational colonization by the environment, and in mobility of attention. Considering the wide range of freedoms in simple and complex living systems allows a panoramic view of this diverse and important natural phenomenon. (shrink)

Current debates on freedom of will disregard that understanding is a necessary presupposition to experience the will as free. Theories of freedom such as those by Frankfurt, Watson, and Wolf are demonstrably incapable of explaining freedom in several quotidian situations because of a lack of a concept of understanding. In explicating why understanding is a necessary condition for freedom, I present an alternative theory that I call the Understanding View. It proposes that the experience of (...) class='Hi'>freedom depends on the degree to which we understand the inner context of our identity and the outer context of a given situation. The Understanding View succeeds in accounting for freedom in those areas where its main rivals fail as well as in those situations to which they can successfully be applied. This makes the Understanding View more useful in addressing the question of the freedom of will. (shrink)

This introduction briefly lays out the basics of Kant’s concept, transcendental freedom, and some of its discontents. It also provides an overview of the dossier itself, introducing Katerina Deligiorgi’s discussion of ought-implies-can, Patrick Frierson’s account of degrees of responsibility, and Jeanine Grenberg’s treatment of the third-person.

The problem of religious freedom in Latin America is focused on the distinction between religious liberty and religious toleration. Religious freedom, by definition, must exclude the principle of toleration in religion. In most countries in Latin America, the power and prestige of the State is behind the Roman Catholic Church. Other beliefs and religions are merely tolerated to varying degrees. This and other factors are indications of religious coercion. God has not given any State the power to (...) compel human beings to religious observance. Equal rights to all and special privileges to none is the ideal which, in Latin America, seems to be neither explicitly nor implicitly evident. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 136-137 [Access article in PDF] John Watkins. Human Freedom after Darwin: A Critical Rationalist View. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1999. Pp. xi + 348. Cloth, $49.95. Paper, $24.95. John Watkins examines man's place in nature since Darwin. As a critical rationalist, using the methods of science, Watkins hopes to construct a world-view which challenges competing hypotheses and supports his own. (...) He recognizes that his view is, also, a candidate for critical rejection. All scientific views are, in principle, fallible. He divides his book into two parts: Naturalism and Freedom. [End Page 137]In evolutionary development, he accepts, as critically established, the sequence: matter before life, life before mind, and, no mind without a brain. Thus, naturalism is preferred beforesupernaturalism or divine intervention. These guides may support a continuous, steady evolutionaryprocess or discontinuity, mutations, and various stages of change. Darwin acceptedthe former and held physical changes were unaffected by consciousness. All change is, in principle,present from the beginning and unfolds over time. Darwin's view, then, is deterministic.Watkins challenges this position and argues for consciousness affecting physical change in new and unpredictable ways. It is herein that the possibility of animal and human freedom lies. Watkins gives examples of the actions of the hunter and hunted among animals, and of strategies developed by humans during crises, to support the view that there are novel and unpredictable actions by conscious beings. These actions can hardly be called predetermined in the nature of things. There is a huge difference between a general genetic structure for kinds of behavior and specific actions during crises (not that these are the only instances of freedom). At any rate, there is a reciprocal action between an individual and its environment and not merely a unilinear one.In Part II, Freedom, Watkins examines some classical, philosophical views of human freedom. He gives brief, but penetrating, analyses of Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Spinoza. Either they account for human action in strictly physical terms that are causally deterministic or they turn to non-empirical sources that are not verifiable. Since the latter make no difference in our account of behavior, they are entities multiplied beyond necessity. Those who give a completely deterministic view—Hobbes, Hume, and Schopenhauer—offer no continuum between cause and chance. Chance turns out to depend upon our ignorance of causes; further examination would show it causally determined.Watkins seems most sympathetic to Spinoza's treatment. In his hard-headed naturalism, Spinoza rejects any non-natural or supernatural accounts of human behavior. He is a strict determinist where man's confrontation with nature is concerned. Human emotions are passive and react to our environment; they do not affect it. Human reason makes no difference, but in its capacity to contemplate eternal truths it offers a way out. Instead of reacting to nature, man may transcend it. This transcendence is the key to Spinoza's view of the intellectual love of God, and human freedom. Watkins criticizes this flight from man's place in nature and the limited use of reason. In this vein, Spinoza seems to abandon the confrontation of nature for a flight to eternal truths. For Watkins, however, reasons must be used in confronting nature. As we saw, he claims that reason may have an effect upon the environment that is novel and unpredictable. Human agency is a part of the evolutionary story. Human agency is not an either/or proposition. There are degrees of effectiveness in human response to nature.In his analysis of human freedom, Watkins turns to the works of Newton, Faraday, Einstein, and others. In studying the problems posed by the consideration of natural phenomena during their time, they showed intellectual perspicacity of the highest order. Faraday's unified field theory brought electrical and magnetic phenomena, previously thought to be disparate, together. Newton's laws of motion brought celestial and terrestrial mechanics under one theory. Einstein changed the way in which space, time, mass, energy, and light were conceived. In a real sense, they were... (shrink)

From the perspective of Christian theology, divine freedom is the paradigm of human freedom, but it is also completely unlike ours in its infinity. This is the paradox of the analogy of being: in its infinity, the Archetype of our being is also completely other. In contrast, likeness between contingent beings is limited in that each being is individuated yet similar to those of like species. No matter how alike beings are, “unlikeness” increases with generic distance. At the (...) asymptotic limit, the Archetype is infinitely unlike us, but remains the ultimate blueprint for each being. If as Archetype, God’s infinite freedom is qualitative of infinite being, then all finite beings must possess freedom to some finite degree. Herein lies the problem treated in this paper: how can bothanimate and inanimate being possess freedom? To answer this question, the author draws upon the first volume of part two of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s sixteen volume trilogy, Theo-logic: The Truth of the World. (shrink)

The article overviews all known approaches to formalization of a problem of Liberty / Freedom (« Liberty from », « Liberty for », « being for her/his own sake, not a other's », « absence of sovereign other », individual freeing in a context of the Master-Slave Dialectics, Social Freedom) and problems of emancipation (« restricting privileges of upper class minorities », « giving privileges to marginalized minorities – affirmative actions »). Then, the article discusses a version of (...) formalization of level of social freedom through comparison of what is allowed for an individuals in the society with what is allowed for «a sheep in herd »: each additional degree of freedom gives unit in plus, each additional restriction gives unit in minus. The proposed model was tested for a case of the post-Soviet transit, when the level of freedom evolved from minus two for the USSR up to plus two for the contemporary Russian Federation. It also shows the ways for further emancipation of people in Russia in « politically easy version » - i.e. without essential change of its political system. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to examine the long-term evolution of the material reproductive vehicles of society. The fairly continuous trend of economic integration and progressive enfranchisement of the world’s people is indicated, ascertainable even with the emergence from general slavery of ancient times, through feudalism to the modern stage of industrialism and widespread national sovereignties. With greater political expression has come higher degrees and penetration of economic prosperity. Both vicious and virtuous tendencies of automation are considered. The (...) necessary foundation of living labor is recognized. (shrink)

Spinoza is known for his radical views on freedom. In this article, it is explored to what extent this reputation is justified. He integrates human actions in the necessary development of the universe and seems to leave no room for human freedom. The position of God is relevant, since it is Spinoza's starting-point in general and appears to require an intricate conception of freedom; it may be demanded whether this can be clarified. In the case of man, (...) the difficulty lies primarily in the degree to which Spinoza takes his own characterization of necessity seriously; there seems to be an inconsistency here. The final section provides a possible way out of this conundrum, by focusing on the possible basis of an action. (shrink)

This thesis concerns the measurement of freedom, and its value. Specifically, I am concerned with three overarching questions. First, can we measure the extent of an individual’s freedom? It had better be that we can, otherwise much ordinary and intuitive talk that we would like to vindicate – say, about free persons being freer than slaves – will turn out to be false or meaningless. Second, in what ways is freedom valuable, and how is this value measured? (...) It matters, for example, whether freedom is valuable only insofar as it enables us to pursue specific ends we happen to value for independent reasons, or whether it is also valuable in itself. In the latter case, but not the former, more freedom will always be better. Likewise, it’s important to get clarity on what ends, exactly, freedom is especially instrumentally valuable in promoting, since this goes to how much we should care about it. And finally, the liberal political tradition asserts that there is a special sphere of personal choices within which individuals should be free to do as they please, for reasons over and above the value of freedom itself. Now, can we measure the extent to which states and individuals respect individual liberties, and can we weigh the importance of respecting liberty against competing values like social welfare? To answer these questions, I follow the axiomatic tradition of social choice theory, and I develop several novel measures of freedom – including the first measure of freedom ever proposed that is sensitive to how modally robustly our options are available – a novel approach to measuring the diversity of an opportunity set, and I develop an account of the value of freedom according to which an important part of why freedom matters is that it enables us to improve our preferences through learning, and I construct ways of measuring the value of freedom along this dimension of value. Finally, in later chapters, I provide a representation result for a measure of illiberalism, i.e. of the degree to which states fail to respect the rights of their citizens, and I extend this result to provide a characterization of moral theories that express concern for respecting the rights of others. The final chapter closes by discussing how this concern may be weighed against concerns for social welfare. (shrink)

Tinkering with technologies and other human-made artifacts is a longstanding practice. Freedom to tinker has largely existed without formal legal recognition. Tinkering has typically taken place in an unregulated zone within which people were at liberty to act unobstructed by others so long as they did not harm others. The main reason why it now seems desirable to articulate some legal principles about freedom to tinker and why it needs to be preserved is because freedom to tinker (...) is being challenged by some legal developments. This Article explains that user-innovators have traditionally had considerable freedom to tinker under trade secrecy, patent, and trademark laws. Although copyright law permits a modest degree of tinkering with existing products, it restricts freedom to tinker more than other IP laws. Copyright law and sometimes contract law place substantial constraints on user rights to tinker with and modify computer programs and other digital works. These constraints are of particular concern to tinkerers because computer programs are embedded in such a wide range of technologies these days. This Article offers suggestions about how and why the law should protect a zone of freedom to tinker for socially beneficial purposes. (shrink)

Val Plumwood and Richard Sylvan argued from their joint paper The Semantics of First Degree Entailment and onward that the variable sharing property is but a mere consequence of a good entailment relation, indeed they viewed it as a mere negative test of adequacy of such a relation, the property itself being a rather philosophically barren concept. Such a relation is rather to be analyzed as a sufficiency relation free of any form of premise suppression. Suppression of premises, therefore, gained (...) center stage. Despite this, however, no serious attempt was ever made at analyzing the concept. This paper shows that their suggestions for how to understand it, either as the Anti-Suppression Principle or as the Joint Force Principle, turn out to yield properties strictly weaker than that of variable sharing. A suggestion for how to understand some of their use of the notion of suppression which clearly is not in line with these two mentioned principles is given, and their arguments to the effect that the Anderson and Belnap logics T, E and R are suppressive are shown to be both technically and philosophically wanting. Suppression-freedom, it is argued, cannot do the job Plumwood and Sylvan intended it to do. (shrink)

Moral Freedom reconciles three apparently inconsistent truisms about morality: first, moral rules are society's rules; second, morality is a matter of individual choice: and third, some things are wrong regardless of what any society or individual has to say. In developing a moral theory that accommodates all three truisms, Jeffrey Olen offers a view of morality that allows individuals a generous degree of moral freedom.The author explores various answers to the question, "Does anybody or anything have any moral (...) authority over how I live my life?" His answer is "No." In a lively, conversational style, Olen leads the reader through the arguments, examples, and exceptions that contribute to this conclusion. Along the way, he contends that what most philosophers call the moral point of view, but what he refers to as the impersonal moral point of view, is but one of two moral points of view. The other is the personal moral point of view, which Olen defends against the allegedly overriding demands of impersonal morality.Moral Freedom considers the work of philosophers as diverse as Kant, Nietzsche, Kurt Baier, Bernard Williams, and Daniel Dennett. Admitting that this is a personal discussion of the nature of morality, Olen claims the "freedom" to engage these intellectual issues in a personal style to illustrate the personal moral point of view that he champions. Author note: Jeffrey Olen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Equality and freedom have been represented as conflicting values. In this paper, I propose to argue that the idea of freedom has clear egalitarian implications. Freedom is commonly represented as being negative or positive, but it has both senses in ordinary usage, and the distinction fails adequately to explain the relationship between views on freedom and poverty. An alternative representation of the concept distinguishes individual freedom, based on the autonomous individual, from social freedom, (...) which sees freedom as a social relationship. Equality implies the elimination of disadvantage. Freedom is a redistributive idea, implying that the freedom of some must be restricted to increase the freedom of others. Although the individual concept of freedom is restrictive, equal treatment and equality of opportunity are largely compatible with it, and even equality of outcome can be reconciled with it to some degree. The social concept of freedom is broader, extending the scope of redistribution to all forms of social disadvantage. This demands a high degree of equality; it also defines the boundaries of the pursuit of equality, which is justifiable in so far as it increases freedom. Freedom is not, therefore, in conflict with equality. Certain egalitarian assumptions are part of its normative base, and it actively requires a degree of redistribution. (shrink)

In order to show that freedom is measurable, one must show that the different kinds of constraint on freedom can be aggregated so as to provide overall freedom judgements. This can be done by reducing all of these kinds of constraint to the constraint of physical impossibility. This solution does not involve a “restrictivist” conception of constraints on freedom. Once it is recognized that overall freedom is a function of the physical compossibility of actions, it (...) should also be recognized that agents for whom particular actions are difficult or costly, or who are subjected to coercion, generally suffer reductions in their degrees of overall freedom. Further analysis of the notion of constraints shows that this liberal conception of freedom is not, as is often supposed, ultimately distinguishable either from traditionally socialist conceptions or from the republican conception recently proposed by Philip Pettit. (shrink)

Freedom is the central theme of classical German philosophy. Kant s theory of freedom as a function of autonomy provided the first theoretical framework that expressed the political turn in self-understanding emerging from the French Revolution. For champions of philosophy who came after Kant, freedom became a fundamental element in their philosophical systems. Volume 9 of the Internationalen Jahrbuchs des Deutschen Idealismus/International Yearbook of German Idealism addresses different interpretations of the notion of freedom that were put (...) forward in Kant s aftermath. It also demonstrates the degree to which the concept of freedom continues to be of current relevance in our times.". (shrink)

Ian Carter argues against what he calls the ?specific freedom thesis?, which claims that in asking whether our society or any individual is free, all we need or can intelligibly concern ourselves with is their freedom to do this or that specific thing. Carter claims that issues of overall freedom are politically and morally important and that, in valuing freedom as such, liberals should be committed to a measure of freedom overall. This paper argues against (...) Carter?s further claim that rejection of the specific freedom thesis requires rejection of morally based determinations of degrees of overall freedom. Using a concept of freedom as a capacity to pursue one?s interests, it is argued that the value of freedom overall is not reducible to the value of specific freedoms, and that conditions of action can be determined as constraints only within the context of their impact on freedom overall. Taking the case of coercive proposals, it is argued that we must evaluate the morality of the circumstances in which conditional proposals are made if we are to weigh the opportunities and constraints contained in the proposal to determine whether its recipient suffers a loss of overall freedom. We must therefore appeal to values other than that of liberty itself to determine degrees of liberty overall, which we require in turn to determine whether threats or offers are coercive. (shrink)

This paper explains some of the uses of the word ‘freedom’ in Western as well as in Indian philosophy. Regarding the psychological concept of freedom or free will, this paper focuses on the distinction between fatalism, determinism, types of compatibilism, and libertarianism. Indian philosophers, by and large, are compatibilists, although some minor systems, such as Śākta Āgama, favor a type of libertarianism. From the Indian perspective the form of life of human beings has also been mentioned in the (...) discussion of free will. Regarding metaphysical freedom, I discuss the views of the Bhagavad Gītā and Swami Vivekananda in Sect. III. K.C. Bhattacharyya, a neo-Advaita Vedāntin, has discussed degrees of freedom of the subject at several levels. According to him, spiritual progress lies in the progressive realization of the freedom of the subject. I compare his view with the classical Advaita concept of freedom. I have also addressed the question of whether freedom from suffering can be realized at social and global levels. In this context I have mentioned some of the interpretations of the great saying ‘I am Brahman,’ and how freedom can be realized at the global level by using the Advaita concept of ‘oneness.’. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine how nudges affect the autonomy and freedom of those nudged. I consider two arguments put forth by Thaler and Sunstein for the claim that these effects can only be minor. According to the first of these arguments, nudges cannot significantly restrict a person’s autonomy or freedom since they are easy to resist. According to the second argument, the existence of nudges is inevitable, and thus, pursuing libertarian paternalism by nudging people doesn’t make a (...) relevant difference to people’s autonomy and freedom. After arguing that both of these arguments fail, I elucidate the general conditions in which, and the degrees to which, a person’s autonomy and freedom are affected by nudges. One focus of this discussion concerns how people’s autonomy and freedom are affected if—for example, due to progress in information technology—nudges become more effective, more individualized and more common, and affect more people. (shrink)

In this paper I will briefly discuss flourishing and freedom, relating them to health and disease; discuss the tensions between flourishing and freedom; and exemplify how those discussions are relevant to chronic disease suffering. The concept of freedom has significant connections with the concepts of health, disability and disease. Understanding disease and disability in terms of the loss of aspects of freedom may help our understanding of the suffering that arises from chronic disease. On the other (...) hand, flourishing may require a degree of adversity. Therefore disability and disease may be conducive to flourishing. Flourishing may be understood as subordinated to freedom, as a path to freedom, or as transcending freedom. It is suggested that freedom and flourishing are expressed as mutually enhancing cycles, actualized according to the personal circumstances that will ground their expression. In a distant horizon of innocent spontaneous self-expression, flourishing and freedom may become coincident. Regarding chronic disease as a constraint on ‘species-typical’ abilities to fulfill one’s significant life interests, as well as an unwanted intrusion into the patient’s life, presents chronic disease suffering as a loss of both positive and negative freedom. The conceptual relation between flourishing and freedom will thus organise the possibilities the sufferer sees as open to their self. (shrink)

This book attacks the assumption found in moral philosophy that social control as such is an intellectually and morally destructive force. It replaces this view with a richer and deeper perspective on the nature of social character aimed at showing how social freedom cannot mean immunity from social pressure. The author demonstrates how our competence as rational and social agents depends on a constructive adaptation of social control mechanisms. Our facility at achieving our goals is enhanced, rather than undermined, (...) by social control. The author then articulates sources, contracts, and degrees of legitimate social control in different social and historical settings. Drawing on a wide range of material in moral and political philosophy, law, cognitive and social psychology, anthropology and literature, Professor Schoeman shows how the aim of moral philosophy ought to be to understand our social character, not to establish fortifications against it in the name of rationality and autonomy. (shrink)

This paper argues that liberal freedom (non-interference) is epistemologically prior to republican freedom (non-domination). I start investigate three relations between liberal and republican freedom: (i) Logical Equivalence, or the question whether republican freedom entails liberal freedom (and vice versa); (ii) Degree Supervenience, or whether changes in the degree (amount, quantity) of republican freedom are mirrored by changes in the degree of liberal freedom (and vice versa); and (iii) Epistemological Priority, that is, whether knowledge (...) about arrangements of republican freedom presupposes knowledge about arrangements of liberal freedom. If Logical Equivalence holds, liberals are right to claim that republicans have not introduced a new concept of freedom. It is easy to see, though, that Logical Equivalence does not hold. If Degree Supervenience holds, liberals can maintain that while republican freedom is a new concept of freedom, fostering or promoting it is not very different from fostering or promoting liberal freedom. Degree Supervenience does not hold either, though, and as a result two straightforward counterarguments against republican freedom fail. Yet, I argue, first, that the relation of Epistemological Priority holds: knowing something about arrangements of republican freedom presupposes that you know something about arrangements of liberal freedom. Using Epistemological Priority, I show, second, that the benefits claimed for republican freedom over and above liberal freedom (it minimizes the need for strategic deference, it minimizes uncertainty, and it minimizes subordination) can be accounted for in purely liberal terms. (shrink)

The emergence of organic, metabolic, cognitive and cultural codes points us to the need for a new kind of explanatory causality, and a different kind of bio-logic— one dependent on, but different from, the deterministic logic derived from mechanical causality, and one which can account for the increase in semiotic freedom which is evident in the biological hierarchy. Building upon previous work (Bruni 2003), in this article I provide a stipulative definition of semiotic freedom and its relation to (...) causality in biological and cognitive systems. To do so, I will first discuss the close relation that triadic causality and semiotic freedom have to the notions of teleology and emergence, and how the latter two are interrelated in living systems. I pinpoint some of the reservations that these notions have encountered in the history of science (including evolutionary biology and cognitive science), but stress also their necessity in the study of any given biological and cognitive system. I draw a distinction between horizontal and vertical emergence in order to arrive at a notion of ‘second order emergence’ that affords us a more viable definition of semiotic freedom. I will then attempt to show that all of these concepts are of paramount importance when we come to study processes of sensing, perception andcognition at any level of a living system. Accordingly, these ideas are part of a framework-in-development to research the scale of thresholds of semiotic freedom, by assuming a top-down approach i.e., by starting from the highest levels of semiotic freedom and cognitive processes, and exploring how those processes disaggregate into lesser degrees of freedom. I thus hope to bridge the gap between those levels from above. (shrink)

A long-standing position in philosophy, law, and theology is that a person can be held morally responsible for an action only if they had the freedom to choose and to act otherwise. Thus, many philosophers consider freedom to be a necessary condition for moral responsibility. However, empirical findings suggest that this assumption might not be in line with common sense thinking. For example, in a recent study we used surveys to show that – counter to positions held by (...) many philosophers – lay people consider actions to be free when they are spontaneous rather than being based on reasons. In contrast, responsibility is often considered to require that someone has thought about the alternative options. In this study we use an online survey to directly test to which degree lay judgements of freedom and responsibility match. Specifically, we test whether manipulations of deliberation affect freedom and responsibility judgements in the same way. Furthermore, we also test the dependency of these judgements on a person’s belief that their decision had consequences for their personal life. We find that people are generally considered to be more responsible for their actions than they are considered free, across most of the conditions tested. Furthermore, we found that deliberation had an opposite effect on freedom and responsibility judgements. People were considered more free when they acted spontaneously, whereas they were considered more responsible when they deliberated about their actions. These results seem to suggest that deliberating about reasons is crucially important for the lay concept of responsibility, while it is not obviously …. (shrink)

Academic freedom has become the enemy of the individual professors working in colleges and universities across the United States. Despite its historical (and maybe even essential) roots in the First Amendment, contemporary case law has consistently shown that professors, unlike most members of society, have no rights to free speech on their respective campuses. (Ironically, this is especially true on our State campuses.) Outlined is the dramatic change in the history of the courts from recognizing “academic freedom” as (...) a construct needed to protect professors from the status quo, to the abuse of “academic freedom” appropriated to protect the institution from “undesirable” professorial actions such as politically incorrect speech or research. Klein warns all those in the academy to become familiar with this pernicious 180-degree turn in the use of the “academic freedom” construct. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to offer an assessment of the conceptual relations between 'power' and 'freedom'. The two concepts are normally thought of as standing in a relation of mutual exclusion, and are often defined in reciprocal terms: while being free means not being subject to someone's power, to have power is to constrain someone's freedom. In this article I propose a more detailed interpretation of their conceptual relations, distinguishing between two different cases. In the case (...) in which power and freedom are understood as properties of two different individuals involved in a social relation, I shall argue that they are not necessarily in a relation of mutual exclusion: power can be exercised in ways which do not reduce, and which might even increase, the power-subject's freedom. In the case, by contrast, in which they are understood as properties of the same individual, I shall claim that power and freedom show a significant degree of correspondence. (shrink)

A set of basic static predicates, ?in itself, ?existing through itself, ?free?, and others are taken to be (at least) extensionally equivalent, and some consequences are drawn in Parts A and ? of the paper. Part C introduces adequate causation and adequate conceiving as extensionally equivalent. The dynamism or activism of Spinoza is reflected in the reconstruction by equating action with causing, passion (passive emotion) with being caused. The relation between conceiving (understanding) and causing is narrowed down by introducing grasping (...) (?α?????) as a basic epistemological term. Part D, ?The road to freedom through active emotion?, introduces a system of grading with respect to the distinctions introduced in the foregoing, including ?being in itself, ?freedom?, etc. Active emotions are seen to represent transitions to a higher degree of freedom, the stronger and more active ones being the more conducive to rapid increase in degree of freedom. Elementary parts of the calculus of predicates are used in order to facilitate the survey of conceptual relations and to prove some theorems. (shrink)

The freedom of a group of individuals is best understood as the sum of the degrees of freedom of its individual members. G. A. Cohen has opposed this view, arguing that a group can suffer from “collective unfreedom”, where collective unfreedom signifies the incompossibility of given actions of different individuals, and can coexist with the individual freedom of each to perform her respective action. A closer analysis of the notion of collective unfreedom suggests that what is (...) true in claims about collective unfreedom can be stated in terms of individual unfreedom. Cohen is nevertheless right in suggesting that degrees of group freedom can vary depending, among other things, on the structure of property rights. This contradicts Hillel Steiner’s claim that group freedom is constant-sum, a claim which arises out of a failure to distinguish between the number of actions a possible world can contain and the number of freedoms it can contain. (shrink)

A set of basic static predicates, 'in itself, 'existing through itself, 'free', and others are taken to be (at least) extensionally equivalent, and some consequences are drawn in Parts A and? of the paper. Part C introduces adequate causation and adequate conceiving as extensionally equivalent. The dynamism or activism of Spinoza is reflected in the reconstruction by equating action with causing, passion (passive emotion) with being caused. The relation between conceiving (understanding) and causing is narrowed down by introducing grasping (λ (...) μβ?νω) as a basic epistemological term. Part D, 'The road to freedom through active emotion', introduces a system of grading with respect to the distinctions introduced in the foregoing, including 'being in itself, 'freedom', etc. Active emotions are seen to represent transitions to a higher degree of freedom, the stronger and more active ones being the more conducive to rapid increase in degree of freedom. Elementary parts of the calculus of predicates are used in order to facilitate the survey of conceptual relations and to prove some theorems. (shrink)

Freedom is the least discussed thesis of Descartes' works. Two major issues are: (i) the Fourth Meditation is seen as an unfounded theodicy, an interlude, an interruption to the analytic order; (ii)some passages in Descartes' other works are seen as inconsistent with the Fourth Meditation. First, I argue that Descartes' treatment is philosophical, that freedom underlies his entire philosophical project, defending the indispensability of the Fourth to his metaphysics.I demonstrate that Descartes' conception of freedom differs from the (...) mainstream conceptions, in particular it admits of degrees of higher or lower quality or worth. The latter is connected with indifference, error and sin. The former with spontaneity, truth and goodness. I argue that autonomy and spontaneity are a sine qua non of freedom of highest grade. Secondly, I offer a solution to two problematic passages: Principles I 37, and the notorious letter to Mesland, drawing on Descartes' conception of freedom as the greatest good, on the internal relation between reason and freedom, and demonstrating that there is no inconsistency. Descartes' treatment and indispensability of freedom gives his conception a certain sublimity, and his conception of man a certain serenity: an autonomous rational human being irreducibly and substantially real. (shrink)

Both existentialists and ethicists have made much of the concept of freedom. While these two camps make very different use of the concept, the relationship between the two is important: the nature and limits of freedom have an important bearing on moral responsibility, while the moral obligations to promote the development of freedom require that we understand just how free thinking is possible. In this paper, I will make some general observations about the prevailing trends in moral (...) thought, both theoretically and culturally. I argue that now as much as in the past, existentialist descriptions of how freedom is experienced are a crucial complement to theoretical work on morality. Specifically, I argue that the uncertainty of our moral horizons and suspicions of the degree to which we are really free makes Nietzsche’s view of freedom a good fit for the ethical work that faces us in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

A number of well-known Hegel-inspired theorists have recently defended a distinctive type of social freedom that, while bearing some resemblance to Isaiah Berlin’s famous description of positive freedom, takes its bearings from a theory of social recognition rather than a theory of moral self-determination. Berlin himself argued that recognition-based theories of freedom are really not about freedom at all but about solidarity, More strongly, he argued that recognition-based theories of freedom, like most accounts of solidarity, (...) oppose what Kant originally understood to be the essence of positive freedom, namely the setting of volitional ends in accordance with an individual’s exercise of his or her own reason, apart from social authority. In this chapter I argue that recognition might describe an essential social condition of positive freedom, or moral autonomy, as Kant and Berlin understand that term, but only with qualification: Only if recognition doesn’t imply a strong state of social solidarity, understood as a psychological state of identifying with, viz., feeling totally at home with and completely affirmed by, one’s society, and instead assumes only a weak form of democratic civic solidarity, can it function as a category of social freedom, and then only in the narrow sense of political freedom. To the degree that the different institutionalized forms of recognition in modern democracies compete with each other, social freedom will presuppose a second-order recognition of society’s affirmation of their freedom by those whose identities are invested in these forms, to wit: that such forms are or can be sufficiently harmonized with each other by means of judicious government policies and constitutional safeguards. Recognition that one is not overly dominated by a given social role or social expectation in living one’s life can enable one to become rationally reconciled to society and its primary recognition orders in a way that can be socially freedom-affirming. Detached in this way from any positive solidarity with society, recognition-based social freedom cum recognition of non-domination might also be conceived as a species of negative social freedom. I conclude that rational reconciliation remains at best an imperfectly achievable goal in modern societies marked by basic constitutional and institutional tensions. (shrink)

For political reasons, the social control functions of psychiatry are not openly recognized as such but are disguised as benevolent medical treatment. The roots of this disguise may be traced to the political revolutions in which the rule of man was replaced by the rule of law. This transformation generated a conflict between the desire for freedom under law and the desire for a greater degree of social control than is provided by law. Involuntary mental hospitalization is the neurotic (...) resolution of this conflict by society. The social control functions of psychiatry are disguised and justified by the medical model which describes the moral action of both psychiatrist and patient in the ostensibly value neutral language of science and medicine. The cost of this disguise is great. It negates individuals as moral agents and obscures the moral nature of the problems that psychiatrists seek to understand which, in turn, handicaps them in helping the persons they seek to assist. The task of the philosopher in this situation is honestly and critically to analyze and evaluate psychiatric language, psychiatric practices and the moral issues involved. (shrink)

In the contemporary western, liberal, constitutional and secularized state, the need is felt for a cohesionconserving force. Human rights and citizenship, assets of Enlightenment and Revolution, prove to be individualizing powers that miss the communitarian inclination of former times. With the rise of violence, crime and other ways of breaking the law the state seems less able to fulfil its role as guardian of assets like freedom and security. The call for a strong state that interferes in people's behavior (...) is often heard nowadays. Is there a way in which the state can promote a certain degree of moral substance without becoming paternalistic or even totalitarian? In this paper it is argued that the political philosophy of John Dewey might provide us with some tools to approach this problem in a refreshing way. (shrink)

Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner find Hobbes's understanding of freedom as non-interference inadequate because it fails to appreciate what is wrong with a life lived as a slave. Though their critiques have some force, however, Hobbes's view of freedom has virtues of its own. It is highly sensitive to the fact that freedom is a matter of degree. It is also unlikely to mistake freedom for something else, like security or dignity. Moreover, Hobbes is not as (...) unmindful of the dangers of servility as many think. (shrink)

In this paper we first give a variant of a theorem of Jockusch–Lewis– Remmel on existence of a computable, degree-preserving homeomorphism between a bounded strong ${\Pi^0_2}$ class and a bounded ${\Pi^0_1}$ class in 2 ω . Namely, we show that for mathematically common and interesting topological spaces, such as computably presented ${\mathbb{R}^n}$ , we can obtain a similar result where the homeomorphism is in fact the identity mapping. Second, we apply this finding to give a new, priority-free proof of existence (...) of a tree of shadow points computable in 0′. (shrink)

This note provides a proof that the formula L is not equivalent to any first degree formula in the context of the quantified version of the modal logic S5. This solves a problem posed by Max Cresswell.

The classical field theories that underlie the quantum treatments of the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces share a peculiar feature: specifying the initial state of the field determines the evolution of some degrees of freedom of the theory while leaving the evolution of some others wholly arbitrary. This strongly suggests that some of the variables of the standard state space lack physical content-intuitively, the space of states of such a theory is of higher dimension than the corresponding space (...) of genuine physical possibilities. The structure of such theories can helpfully be characterized in terms of the action of symmetry groups on their space of states; and the conceptual problems surrounding their strange behavior can be sharpened in light of the observation that it is usually possible to eliminate the redundant variables associated with these symmetries-which turn out to be precisely those variables whose evolution is unconstrained by the dynamical laws of the theory. This paper discusses this approach, uses it to frame questions about the interpretation of classical gauge theories, and to reflect (pessimistically) on our prospects of reaching satisfactory answers to these questions. (shrink)

Say that a d.c.e. degree d is nonisolated if for any c.e. degree adegrees and the jump operator. We prove that there is a high nonisolated d.c.e. degree such that all c.e. degrees below it are bounded by a low d.c.e. degree.

In this article I consider whether the legalization of sex-same marriage implies a right to incestuous marriage. I begin by suggesting that the liberal state get out of the 'marriage' business by leveling down to a universal civil union status. The question is then whether incestuous unions should be both legal and eligible for this status. I argue that the arguments compatible with public reason for prohibiting them outright, or even for excluding them from the permissible types of legally registered (...) partnerships, are quite weak. The objections to allowing such relations are those from (1) child abuse; (2) unfair burdening of society; and (3) the creation of bad lives. I argue that while rape and other forms of child abuse would be no more legal or tolerated than they are now, the concern about any form of weakening a society's legal and political resources to combat such abuses does indeed register on the justificatory scale, but does not prove that such first-degree incestuous sexual relations are inherently bad enough to warrant intervention in their own right. I then argue that the concern about unfairly burdening society with unhealthy persons is not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, but nor is it strong enough to justify an outright prohibition. Finally, I argue that a concern to dissuade persons from creating certain kinds of lives (children with extreme birth defects) is also not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, and in fact goes further towards explaining why we might have a legitimate interest in intervening. Nonetheless, I argue that the criminalization of such acts only make sense when they are indicators of other offenses, namely negligence or abuse, and it thus seems that the act of consanguineous reproduction is itself insufficient. (shrink)

Background: Double degrees in nursing and midwifery have evolved in Australia as a proposed solution to possible impending shortages of qualified midwives in the healthcare workforce. The double degree is seen as a more acceptable option in non-metropolitan areas in particular. Concern has been expressed however, about dilution of midwifery philosophy and graduates opportunities in respect of future clinical practice. Aim: This study aimed to provide a better understanding of motivations and intentions of students who undertake the Bachelor of (...) Nursing Science/Bachelor of Midwifery double degree. Methods: A cross-sectional survey design was employed at four universities that offered double degrees in nursing and midwifery in three states of Australia. Students enrolled in first and fourth year of a double degree and graduates of a double degree were invited to complete an online survey comprised of Likertscales and items requiring free text responses. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS and thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. Findings: Participants indicated a clear preference for midwifery as a career with this preference increasing for each cohort at each stage of study. Discussion: Primary reasons for selecting a double degree were perceived increased opportunity for employment and use of nursing skills to enhance midwifery practice in a population with growing co-morbidities. A strong identification with midwifery philosophy and identity was also demonstrated.Conclusion: An understanding of motivations and career intentions of students undertaking double degree studies can inform future program development and workforce planning. (shrink)

In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Philosophy of Education, Department of Educational Foundations.

Here is a puzzle, which I learned from Terence Parsons in his “True Contradictions” [8]. First Degree Entailment is a logic which allows for truth value gaps as well as truth value gluts. If you are agnostic between assigning paradoxical sentences gaps and gluts, then this looks no different, in effect, from assigning them a gap value? After all, on both views you end up with a theory that doesn’t commit you to the paradoxical sentence or its negation. How is (...) the fde theory any different from the theory with gaps alone? In this paper, I will present a clear answer to this puzzle – an answer that explains how being agnostic between gaps and gluts is a genuinely different position than admitting gaps alone, by using the formal notion of a bi-theory, and showing that while such positions might agree on what is to be accepted, they differ on what is to be rejected. (shrink)

This paper investigates gaps in degree phrases with too, as in John is too rich [for the monastery to hire ___ ]. We present two curious restrictions on such gapped degree phrases. First, the gaps must ordinarily be anteceded by the subject of the associated gradable adjective. Second, when embedded under intensional verbs, gapped degree phrases are ordinarily restricted to surface scope, unlike their counterparts without gaps. Just as puzzlingly, we show that these restrictions are lifted when there is overt (...) wh-movement in the main clause, revealing a striking similarity between the distribution of gapped degree phrases and so-called parasitic gap constructions. These findings, we argue, suggest that the theory of parasitic gaps needs to accommodate gapped degree phrases. Specifically, they argue that parasitic constituents are null operator structures—and under the right conditions need not be accompanied by matrix wh-movement. (shrink)

Let G V, E be a simple undirected complete graph with vertex and edge sets V and E, respectively. In this paper, we consider the degree-constrained k -minimum spanning tree problem which consists of finding a minimum cost subtree of G formed with at least k vertices of V where the degree of each vertex is less than or equal to an integer value d ≤ k − 2. In particular, in this paper, we consider degree values of d ∈ (...) 2,3. Notice that DC k MST generalizes both the classical degree-constrained and k -minimum spanning tree problems simultaneously. In particular, when d = 2, it reduces to a k -Hamiltonian path problem. Application domains where DC k MST can be adapted or directly utilized include backbone network structures in telecommunications, facility location, and transportation networks, to name a few. It is easy to see from the literature that the DC k MST problem has not been studied in depth so far. Thus, our main contributions in this paper can be highlighted as follows. We propose three mixed-integer linear programming models for the DC k MST problem and derive for each one an equivalent counterpart by using the handshaking lemma. Then, we further propose ant colony optimization and variable neighborhood search algorithms. Each proposed ACO and VNS method is also compared with another variant of it which is obtained while embedding a Q-learning strategy. We also propose a pure Q-learning algorithm that is competitive with the ACO ones. Finally, we conduct substantial numerical experiments using benchmark input graph instances from TSPLIB and randomly generated ones with uniform and Euclidean distance costs with up to 400 nodes. Our numerical results indicate that the proposed models and algorithms allow obtaining optimal and near-optimal solutions, respectively. Moreover, we report better solutions than CPLEX for the large-size instances. Ultimately, the empirical evidence shows that the proposed Q-learning strategies can bring considerable improvements. (shrink)