Public sentiment regarding climate change in the United States is starkly divided, with the Republicans and Democrats holding markedly different views. Given the inherent connection between the water crisis and climate change, this research aimed to investigate the interplay between the residents’ beliefs about the impact of climate change on water supply unpredictability, their political identity, and their willingness to adopt direct and indirect potable water reuse. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was conducted on a dataset of 1,831 water (...) users in the arid region of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The findings reveal a complicated interplay among examined factors. Specifically, we discovered a positive association between the belief in the impacts of climate change and the willingness to adopt potable water reuse among non-Republican water users. In contrast, Republican water users exhibit a negative association between climate change belief and willingness to adopt potable water reuse. Interestingly, despite this, Republicans generally show a higher overall willingness to adopt potable water reuse compared to non-Republicans. These findings suggest that contextual factors in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in which challenges of aridity and economic dependence on water resources are pronounced, might be important aspects contributing to the Republican’s high willingness to adopt potable water reuse. Also, the current climate change communication strategy with the Republicans might not be appropriate, and it should be tailored to align with the Republicans’ beliefs and persuade them better. (shrink)

A challenge to the orthodoxy, which shows that quantificational accounts are not only as effective as direct reference accounts but also handle a wider range of ...

This chapter draws on insights from non-equilibrium thermodynamics to demonstrate the ontological inadequacy of the machine conception of the organism. The thermodynamic character of living systems underlies the importance of metabolism and calls for the adoption of a processual view, exemplified by the Heraclitean metaphor of the stream of life. This alternative conception is explored in its various historical formulations and the extent to which it captures the nature of living systems is examined. Following this, the chapter considers the metaphysical (...) implications of reconceptualizing the organism from complex machine to flowing stream. What do we learn when we reject the mechanical and embrace the processual? Three key lessons for biological ontology are identified. The first is that activity is a necessary condition for existence. The second is that persistence is grounded in the continuous self-maintenance of form. And the third is that order does not entail design. (shrink)

In this article, network science is discussed from a methodological perspective, and two central theses are defended. The first is that network science exploits the very properties that make a system complex. Rather than using idealization techniques to strip those properties away, as is standard practice in other areas of science, network science brings them to the fore, and uses them to furnish new forms of explanation. The second thesis is that network representations are particularly helpful in explaining the (...) properties of non-decomposable systems. Where part-whole decomposition is not possible, network science provides a much-needed alternative method of compressing information about the behavior of complex systems, and does so without succumbing to problems associated with combinatorial explosion. The article concludes with a comparison between the uses of network representation analyzed in the main discussion, and an entirely distinct use of network representation that has recently been discussed in connection with mechanistic modeling. (shrink)

The mechanistic perspective has dominated biological disciplines such as biochemistry, physiology, cell and molecular biology, and neuroscience, especially during the 20th century. The primary strategy is reductionist: organisms are to be decomposed into component parts and operations at multiple levels. Researchers adopting this perspective have generated an enormous body of information about the mechanisms of life at scales ranging from the whole organism down to genetic and other molecular operations.

I relate plural quantification, and predicate logic where predicates do not need a fixed number of argument places, to the part-whole relation. For more on these themes see later work by Boolos, Lewis, and Oliver & Smiley.

This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures (...) is better as a truth-tracker, assuming that there exists a true answer to be reached. On the basis of the Condorcet jury theorem, we show that the pbp is universally superior if the objective is to reach truth for the right reasons. If one instead is after truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which the cbp is more reliable, even though, for the most part, the pbp still is to be preferred. (shrink)

It is now more than half a century since I first began thinking about issues of free will. The libertarian views of free will I developed over this long period have been much debated and have been refined and further developed in response to the critical literature. The goal of this book is to provide an overview of recent developments of my views along with responses to the latest critical literature on them over the past twenty-five years since the publication (...) of my book, The Significance of Free Will (OUP, 1996). Chapters 1-5 present an overview of my current view with the recent additions and alterations to it defended in greater detail. Chapters 6-10 include critical examinations of influential views of many philosophers in the past twenty-five years who have defended alternative views of free will and moral responsibility, including prominent defenders of competing libertarian views, prominent defenders of compatibilist views, free will skeptical views, revisionist views, illusionist views, and others. The goal of these chapters is not merely to criticize these views, but to show what I believe they get right and what aspects of many of them can be accommodated in the libertarian view of free will I defend here. In the final chapter 11, I relate the view of free will of earlier chapters to ethical views I have developed in other works over this same period and to the philosophy of religion, including Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism) as well as theistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Free will, moral responsibility, self-forming actions, ultimate responsibility, incompatilism, AC/EC libertarianism, plural voluntary control, teleological guidance control, will-setting. (shrink)

Can we understand important social issues by studying individual personalities and decisions? Or are societies somehow more than the people in them? Sociologists have long believed that psychology can't explain what happens when people work together in complex modern societies. In contrast, most psychologists and economists believe that if we have an accurate theory of how individuals make choices and act on them, we can explain pretty much everything about social life. Social Emergence takes a new approach to these (...) longstanding questions. Sawyer argues that societies are complex dynamical systems, and that the best way to resolve these debates is by developing the concept of emergence, focusing on multiple levels of analysis - individuals, interactions, and groups - and with a dynamic focus on how social group phenomena emerge from communication processes among individual members. This book makes a unique contribution not only to complex systems research but also to social theory. (shrink)

In terms of Groenendijk and Stokhofs (1984) formalization of exhaustive interpretation, many conversational implicatures can be accounted for. In this paper we justify and generalize this approach. Our justification proceeds by relating their account via Halpern and Moses (1984) non-monotonic theory of only knowing to the Gricean maxims of Quality and the first sub-maxim of Quantity. The approach of Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984) is generalized such that it can also account for implicatures that are triggered in subclauses not entailed by (...) the whole complex sentence. (shrink)

Cumulative cultural evolution is often claimed to be distinctive of human culture. Such claims are typically supported with examples of complex and historically late-appearing technologies. Yet by taking these as paradigm cases, researchers unhelpfully lump together different ways that culture accumulates. This article has two aims: (a) to distinguish four types of cultural accumulation: adaptiveness, complexity, efficiency, and disparity and (b) to highlight the epistemic implications of taking complex hominin technologies as paradigmatic instances of cumulative culture. Addressing these (...) issues both clarifies the cumulative culture concept and demonstrates the importance of further cumulative culture research into non-human animals and ancestral hominins. (shrink)

This theoretical expose explores the complex notion of argumentative style, which has so far been largely neglected in argumentation theory. After an introduction of the problems involved, the theoretical tools for identifying the properties of the discourse in which an argumentative style manifests itself are explained from a pragma-dialectical perspective and a theoretical definition of argumentative style is provided that does full justice to its role in argumentative discourse. The article concludes with a short reflection upon the next steps (...) that need to be taken in argumentation theory in further substantiating the notion of argumentative style. (shrink)

In terms of Groenendijk and Stokhof’s (1984) formalization of exhaustive interpretation, many conversational implicatures can be accounted for. In this paper we justify and generalize this approach. Our justification proceeds by relating their account via Halpern and Moses’ (1984) non-monotonic theory of ‘only knowing’ to the Gricean maxims of Quality and the first sub-maxim of Quantity. The approach of Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984) is generalized such that it can also account for implicatures that are triggered in subclauses not entailed by (...) the whole complex sentence. (shrink)

This theoretical expose explores the complex notion of argumentative style, which has so far been largely neglected in argumentation theory. After an introduction of the problems involved, the theoretical tools for identifying the properties of the discourse in which an argumentative style manifests itself are explained from a pragma-dialectical perspective and a theoretical definition of argumentative style is provided that does full justice to its role in argumentative discourse. The article concludes with a short reflection upon the next steps (...) that need to be taken in argumentation theory in further substantiating the notion of argumentative style. (shrink)

Biological reproduction is a material process of intertwined, recursive propagule generation and development, assuming that development produces simple life cycles. Most organisms, however, have more or less complex life cycles. Here, I attempt to reconcile recent articulations of a reproducer account with traditional approaches to complex life cycles by generalizing genetic demarcation criteria for life cycle generations in terms of the “scaffolded” development of hybrid reproducers. I argue that scaffolding provides a general method for identifying developmental bottlenecks and (...) suggests in turn a new way of understanding developmental reaction norms. (shrink)

This article discusses different theoretical and methodological approaches in the humanities and social sciences which strive to analyse and understand, interpret and explain texts and discourses in systematic, qualitative ways. After reviewing some of the salient theories in the social sciences, I argue that critical discourse studies require a ‘trichotomy’ consisting of explanation, interpretation and critique. Other approaches such as Ricoeur’s ‘hermeneutic arc’ seem to neglect important structural and material dimensions of context as well as critical self-reflection. Moreover, I argue (...) that much intuitive and non-transparent speculation in Hermeneutics might be transcended if more historical, cultural, linguistic and philological knowledges would be systematically and explicitly integrated into the analysis of text and discourse, in a retroductable manner. The latter possibility is illustrated by applying an interdisciplinary framework to some brief examples. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures (...) is better as a truth-tracker, assuming that there exists a true answer to be reached. On the basis of the Condorcet jury theorem, we show that the pbp is universally superior if the objective is to reach truth for the right reasons. If one instead is after truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which the cbp is more reliable, even though, for the most part, the pbp still is to be preferred. (shrink)

The logic of genetic discovery has changed little over time, but the focus of biology is shifting from simple genotype–phenotype relationships to complex metabolic, physiological, developmental, and behavioral traits. In light of this, the traditional reductionist view of individual genes as privileged difference‐making causes of phenotypes is re‐examined. The scope and nature of genetic effects in complex regulatory systems, in which dynamics are driven by regulatory feedback and hierarchical interactions across levels of organization are considered. This review argues (...) that it is appropriate to treat genes as specific actual difference‐makers for the molecular regulation of gene expression. However, they are often neither stable, proportional, nor specific as causes of the overall dynamic behavior of regulatory networks. Dynamical models, properly formulated and validated, provide the tools to probe cause‐and‐effect relationships in complex biological systems, allowing to go beyond the limitations of genetic reductionism to gain an integrative understanding of the causal processes underlying complex phenotypes. (shrink)

In the last 20 years, a stream of research emerged under the label of „complex problem solving“ (CPS). This research was intended to describe the way people deal with complex, dynamic, and intransparent situations. Complex computer-simulated scenarios were as stimulus material in psychological experiments. This line of research lead to subtle insights into the way how people deal with complexity and uncertainty. Besides these knowledge-rich, realistic, intransparent, complex, dynamic scenarios with many variables, a second line of (...) research used more simple, knowledge-lean scenarios with a low number of variables („minimal complex systems“, MCS) that have been proposed recently in problem-solving research for the purpose of educational assessment. In both cases, the idea behind the use of microworlds is to increase validity of problem solving tasks by presenting interactive environments that can be explored and controlled by participants while pursuing certain action goals. The main argument presented here is: both types of systems - CPS and MCS – can only be dealt with successfully if causal dependencies between input and output variables are identified and used for system control. System knowledge is necessary for control and intervention. But CPS and MCS differ in their way of how causal dependencies are identified and how the mental model is constructed; therefore, they cannot be compared directly to each other with respect to the cognitive processes that are necessary for solving the tasks. Knowledge-poor MCS tasks address only a small fraction of the cognitive processes and structures needed for knowledge-rich CPS situations. (shrink)

The current state of knowledge in psychology, cognitive neuroscience and behavioral ecology allows a fairly robust characterization of at least some, so-called ?basic emotions? - short-lived emotional responses with homologues in other vertebrates. Philosophers, however are understandably more focused on the complex emotion episodes that figure in folk-psychological narratives about mental life, episodes such as the evolving jealousy and anger of a person in an unraveling sexual relationship. One of the most pressing issues for the philosophy of emotion is (...) the relationship between basic emotions and these complex emotion episodes. In this paper, I add to the list of existing, not necessarily incompatible, proposals concerning the relationship between basic emotions and complex emotions. I analyze the writings of ?transactional? psychologists of emotion, particularly those who see their work as a contribution to behavioral ecology, and offer a view of the basic emotion that focuses as much on their interpersonal functions as on their intrapersonal functions. Locating basic emotions and their evolutionary development in a context of processes of social interaction, I suggest, provides a way to integrate our knowledge of basic emotions into an understanding of the larger emotional episodes that have more obvious implications for philosophical disciplines such as moral psychology. (shrink)

A long-standing challenge to evolutionary theory has been whether it can explain the origin of complex organismal features. We examined this issue using digital organisms—computer programs that self-replicate, mutate, compete and evolve. Populations of digital organisms often evolved the ability to perform complex logic functions requiring the coordinated execution of many genomic instructions. Complex functions evolved by building on simpler functions that had evolved earlier, provided that these were also selectively favoured. However, no particular intermediate stage was (...) essential for evolving complex functions. The first genotypes able to perform complex functions differed from their non-performing parents by only one or two mutations, but differed from the ancestor by many mutations that were also crucial to the new functions. In some cases, mutations that were deleterious when they appeared served as stepping-stones in the evolution of complex features. These findings show how complex functions can originate by random mutation and natural selection. (shrink)

Natural languages are compositional in that the meaning of complex expressions depends on those of the parts and how they are put together. Here, I ask the following question: why are languages compositional? I answer this question by extending Lewis–Skyrms signaling games with a rudimentary form of compositional signaling and exploring simple reinforcement learning therein. As it turns out: in complex worlds, having compositional signaling helps simple agents learn to communicate. I am also able to show that learning (...) the meaning of a function word, once meanings of atomic words are known, presents no difficulty. (shrink)

This book proposes a new theory of the origins of human language ability and presents an original account of the early evolution of language. It explains why humans are the only language-using animals, challenges the assumption that language is a consequence of intelligence, and offers a new perspective on human uniqueness. The author draws on evidence from archaeology, linguistics, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology. Making no assumptions about the reader's prior knowledge he first provides an introductory but critical survey of (...) all sources of evidence for language evolution. He then considers what language itself reveals about its own and human origins and evolution. He shows that certain central aspects of language do not, unexpectedly, reflect what they are used for, are maladapted for their function. He considers why this should be, and argues that these odd aspects of language reveal important clues about its evolutionary origin. The Origins of Complex Language fulfils the promise of its title. In doing so it turns upside down conventional theories about the relation between cognition and expression, truth and reference, and the co-evolution of mind and body. Original in conception, brilliantly executed, stylishly written, this book will attract a wide range of readers interested in the evolution and origins of language. (shrink)

climate scientists have been engaged in a decades-long debate over the standing of satellite measurements of the temperature trends of the atmosphere above the surface of the earth. This is especially significant because skeptics of global warming and the greenhouse effect have utilized this debate to spread doubt about global climate models used to predict future states of climate. I use this case from an under-studied science to illustrate two distinct philosophical approaches to the relation among data, scientists, measurement, models, (...) and theory. I argue that distinguishing between 'direct' empiricist and 'complex' empiricist approaches helps us understand and analyze this important scientific episode. I also introduce a complex empiricist account of testing and evaluation, and contrast it with the basic Hypothetico-Deductive approach to the climate models used by the direct empiricists. This more developed complex empiricist apporach will serve philosophy of science well, as computational models become more wide-spread in the sciences. (shrink)

This paper makes and defends four interrelated claims. First: most conscious experiences are complex in the sense that they have discernible constituent structure with discernible parts that can feature as parts of other experiences, and might occur as standalone experiences. Second: complex experiences have simple constituents that have no further discernible parts. Third: the phenomenal quality of having a complex experience is jointly determined by the phenomenal quality of its simple constituents plus the phenomenal structure simple constituents (...) are organised into. And fourth: physical descriptions can convey all the relevant information about the discernible phenomenal structure of conscious experiences. The combination of these four claims tells us that there is no further explanatory gap related to the phenomenal quality of complex experiences given that one is familiar with the phenomenal qualities of the simple parts constituting the complex experience in question, and that it is possible to acquire knowledge about the phenomenal quality of yet unexperienced complex experiences on the basis of previous acquaintances with constituent parts plus structural information. That is, the paper argues for a ‘summation’ model of phenomenal qualities. (shrink)

The development of technologies for gene editing in the wild has the potential to generate tremendous benefit, but also raises important concerns. Using some form of public deliberation to inform decisions about the use of these technologies is appealing, but public deliberation about them will tend to fall back on various forms of heuristics to account for limited personal experience with these technologies. Deliberations are likely to involve narrative reasoning—or reasoning embedded within stories. These are used to help people discuss (...) risks, processes, and fears that are otherwise difficult to convey. In this article, we identify three forms of collective narrative that are particularly relevant to debates about modifying genes in the wild. Our purpose is not to privilege any particular narrative, but to encourage people involved in deliberations to make these narratives transparent. Doing so can help guard against the way some narratives—referred to here as “crafted narratives”—may be manipulated by powerful elites and concentrated economic interests for their own strategic ends. (shrink)

In "Frailty Triage: Is Rationing Intensive Medical Treatment on the Grounds of Frailty Ethical?," Wilkinson (2021) argues that the use of frailty scores in ICU triage does not necessarily involve discrimination on the basis of disability. In support of this argument, he claims, “it is not the disability per se that the score is measuring – rather it is the underlying physiological and physical vulnerability." While we appreciate the attention Wilkinson explicitly pays to disability in this piece, we find the (...) distinction between disability and underlying vulnerability untenable both theoretically and practically. In this peer commentary, we begin with a brief overview of research in philosophy of disability concerning the meaning of the concept itself. We argue that this research demonstrates that many forms of disability do not involve underlying vulnerabilities, and, furthermore, that Wilkinson equivocates between "disability" understood as a medical category vs. "disability" understood as a feature of lived experience. We reject Wilkinson’s distinction on these grounds and offer further considerations to avoid disability discrimination in emergency and crisis standards of care contexts. (shrink)

This paper explores the ethical dilemma of conflicting loyalties found in whistleblowing. Central to this dilemma is the internal/external disclosure dichotomy; disclosure of organisational wrongdoing to an external recipient is seen as disloyal, whilst disclosure to an internal recipient is seen as loyal. Understanding how the organisation and society have dealt with these problems over the last 30 years is undertaken through an analysis of Vandekerckhove’s project, which seeks to place the normative legitimisations of whistleblowing legislation and organisational whistleblowing policies (...) within a globalisation semantic able to contain this conflict between society and the organisation. This project fails, it is argued, because of Vandekerckhove’s particular understanding of the organisation as an autopoietic system, i.e. an operationally closed system. A case is made to understand organisations as complex systems, i.e. operationally open systems. Critical Complexity theory sees the identities of systems and components as coterminous. In the context of the organisation, this means that the identities of the corporation and its corporate members arise and die together. The whistleblower’s disclosure reconfigures the organisation by forcing the organisation to open up and make its boundaries flexible, making the designation ‘internal’ or ‘external’ to the organisation, and, therefore, who qualifies as a recipient of a disclosure of wrongdoing, flexible. The organisation is restrained from retailing against the whistleblower, because its identities are coterminous. Furthermore, as the disclosure cannot be categorically defined as either internal or external, the question of whether an external disclosure can qualify as an act of organisational loyalty becomes moot. (shrink)

Starting from the special theory of relativity it is argued that the structure of an experience is extended over time, making experience dynamic rather than static. The paper describes and explains what is meant by phenomenal parts and outlines opposing positions on the experience of time. Time according to he special theory of relativity is defined and the possibility of static experience shown to be implausible, leading to the conclusion that experience is dynamic. Some implications of this for the relationship (...) of phenomenology to the physical world are considered. (shrink)

The notion of representation in neuroscience has largely been predicated on localizing the components of computational processes that explain cognitive function. On this view, which I call “algorithmic homuncularism,” individual, spatially and temporally distinct parts of the brain serve as vehicles for distinct contents, and the causal relationships between them implement the transformations specified by an algorithm. This view has a widespread influence in philosophy and cognitive neuroscience, and has recently been ably articulated and defended by Shea. Still, I am (...) skeptical about algorithmic homuncularism, and I argue against it by focusing on recent methods for complex data analysis in systems neuroscience. I claim that analyses such as principle components analysis and linear discriminant analysis prevent individuating vehicles as algorithmic homuncularism recommends. Rather, each individual part contributes to a global state space, trajectories of which vary with important task parameters. I argue that, while homuncularism is false, this view still supports a kind of “vehicle realism,” and I apply this view to debates about the explanatory role of representation. (shrink)

A pervasive aspect of human communication and sociality is argumentation: the practice of making and criticizing reasons in the context of doubt and disagreement. Argumentation underpins and shapes the decision-making, problem-solving, and conflict management which are fundamental to human relationships. However, argumentation is predominantly conceptualized as two parties arguing pro and con positions with each other in one place. This dyadic bias undermines the capacity to engage argumentation in complex communication in contemporary, digital society. This book offers an ambitious (...) alternative course of inquiry for the analysis, evaluation, and design of argumentation as polylogue: various actors arguing over many positions across multiple places. Taking up key aspects of the twentieth-century revival of argumentation as a communicative, situated practice, the polylogue framework engages a wider range of discourses, messages, interactions, technologies, and institutions necessary for adequately engaging the contemporary entanglement of argumentation and complex communication in human activities. (shrink)

Robert Brandom; XII*—The Significance of Complex Numbers for Frege's Philosophy of Mathematics1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 96, Issue 1, 1.