This paper expands Rami Ali’s dissolution of the gamer’s dilemma (Ethics Inf Technol 17:267-274, 2015). Morgan Luck’s gamer’s dilemma (Ethics Inf Technol 11(1):31-36, 2009) rests on our having diverging intuition when considering virtual murder and virtual child molestation in video games. Virtual murder is seemingly permissible, when virtual child molestation is not and there is no obvious morally relevant difference between the two. Ali argues that virtual murder and virtual child molestation are equally permissible/impermissible when considered under different modes of (...) engagement. To this end, Ali distinguishes between story-telling gameplay and simulation games, discussing both in depth. I build on the dissolution by looking into competitive gameplay in order to consider what the morally relevant difference between virtual murder and virtual child molestation might be when competing in a video game. I argue that when competitors consent to participate in a competition, the rules of the competition supersede everyday moral intuitions. As such, virtual competitions ought to represent such consent from virtual characters. Virtual children cannot be represented as giving consent to be molested because (1) children cannot be represented as giving sexual consent, and (2) consent to be possibly molested cannot be given. This creates a morally relevant difference between murder and molestation. By fully addressing competitive gameplay, I answer Luck’s worry that Ali’s dissolution is incomplete (Ethics Inf Technol 20:157-162, 2018). (shrink)

Background: Recently, a singular survey titled “Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals,” which addresses shortcomings of previous instruments, has been validated. Aim: To determine how moral distress affects nurses and physicians differently across the various wards of a community hospital. Participant and research context: We distributed a self-administered, validated survey titled “Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals” to all nurses and physicians in the medical/surgical ward, telemetry ward, intensive care units, and emergency rooms of a community hospital. Findings: A total of 101 (...) surveys were included in the study. The mean Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals score for all respondents was 143.0 (standard deviation = 79.8). The mean Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals score was 1.75 greater for nurses than for physicians (92.5 vs 161.5, p <.001), and nurses were 2.52 times more likely to consider leaving their position due to moral distress (68% vs 27%). The mean Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals score for moral distress was least prevalent in the medical/surgical ward (92.5, SD = 38.2) and highest in the telemetry ward (197.7, SD = 83.6). The intensive care unit ward had a mean Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals score mildly greater than the emergency room. Ethical considerations: No participant identifying information or information connecting a survey response to an individual was collected. This study was approved by the Raritan Bay Medical Center’s Institutional Review Board. Discussion: This study provides insight into the level of moral distress in the community hospital setting. Telemetry nurses experience significantly more than nurses in other wards. Telemetry nurses typically manage patients sicker than medical/surgical wards, however do not have the resources of the critical care units. This scenario presents challenges for telemetry nurses and may explain their elevated moral distress. Conclusion: In community hospitals, telemetry nurses experience a considerably greater amount of moral distress compared to their colleagues in other wards. As measured by the Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals questionnaire, moral distress continues to be higher among nurses compared to physicians. (shrink)

This Special Issue of Journal of Critical Realism (JCR) is dedicated to the 2022 International Association for Critical Realism (IACR) Conference, which was hosted by the International Institute of...

The professions have focused considerable attention on developing codes of conduct. Despite their efforts there is considerable controversy regarding the propriety of professional codes of ethics. Many provisions of professional codes seem to exacerbate disputes between the profession and the public rather than providing a framework that satisfies the public''s desire for moral behavior.After examining three professional codes, we divide the provisions of professional codes into those provisions which urge professionals to avoid moral hazard, maintain professional courtesy and serve the (...) public interest. We note that whereas provisions urging the avoidance of moral hazard are uncontroversial, the public is suspicious of provisions protecting professional courtesy. Public interest provisions are controversial when the public and the profession disagree as to what is in the public interest. Based on these observations, we conclude with recommendations regarding the content of professional codes. (shrink)

Symplectic reduction is a formal process through which degeneracy within the mathematical representations of physical systems displaying gauge symmetry can be controlled via the construction of a reduced phase space. Typically such reduced spaces provide us with a formalism for representing both instantaneous states and evolution uniquely and for this reason can be justifiably afforded the status of fun- damental dynamical arena - the otiose structure having been eliminated from the original phase space. Essential to the application of symplectic reduction (...) is the precept that the first class constraints are the relevant gauge generators. This prescription becomes highly problematic for reparameterization invariant theories within which the Hamiltonian itself is a constraint; not least because it would seem to render prima facie distinct stages of a history physically identical and observable functions changeless. Here we will consider this problem of time within non-relativistic me- chanical theory with a view to both more fully understanding the temporal struc- ture of these timeless theories and better appreciating the corresponding issues in relativistic mechanics. For the case of nonrelativistic reparameterization invariant theory application of symplectic reduction will be demonstrated to be both unnec- essary; since the degeneracy involved is benign; and inappropriate; since it leads to a trivial theory. With this anti-reductive position established we will then examine two rival methodologies for consistently representing change and observable func- tions within the original phase space before evaluating the relevant philosophical implications. We will conclude with a preview of the case against symplectic re- duction being applied to canonical general relativity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Biographical Encyclopedia of British IdealismKarim DharamsiWilliam Sweet, editor. Biographical Encyclopedia of British Idealism. New York-London: Continuum, 2010. Pp. xx + 724. Cloth, $295.00.The term ‘British Idealism’ underdetermines the interests and geographies of philosophers classed under its heading. It may imply a common goal or, indeed, location. This is misleading. The Biographical Encyclopedia of British Idealism goes a long way in demonstrating the challenge of grouping together philosophers with (...) divergent interests and historical pedigrees, sharing some affiliation with Idealist thinking in Britain from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many transcend so-called Analytic and Continental categories, and if not transcend, certainly sidestep them. William Sweet’s volume is at once an archaeological guide to British Idealism and a guide to its relevance today. The volume excavates deeply hidden contributions to philosophy and may destabilize our customary assumptions about the geographical limits of Western philosophy; the contributors to the volume ask readers to extend their community of interest to scholars from Southern Africa, India, and East Asia. Calling philosophers working in India and East Asia “British” is also an important reminder; it has its obvious links to British imperium while at the same time speaking to the influence of Idealist thinking outside the frame of colonial England to thinkers working outside the canonical disputes of Western philosophy.This massive volume, uncompromisingly detailed and comprehensive, does have the elements of a survey, but this is not its intent, nor does one get this impression on reading its entries. This Encyclopedia aims to historically and philosophically contextualize Idealist thought. The first six chapters do just this. They are “Idealism in Britain” (William Sweet); “Idealism in Australia and New Zealand” (Mark Weblin); “The Impact of Idealism in North America” (Leslie Armour); “British Idealism in Southern Africa” (William Sweet); “British Idealism in India” (William Sweet); and “British Idealism in East Asia” (William Sweet). [End Page 146] The remainder of the volume includes entries on well-known Idealist philosophers, lesser known thinkers, and important critics of Idealist philosophy, including the familiar and highly influential Russell and Moore. I will say a little bit about the excellent chapter on British Idealism in India.While readers may have familiarity with Idealism in North America and Britain, it may come as a surprise to learn that Indian philosophers, influenced by a great deal of British philosophy, were particularly keen on Idealism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sweet provides readers with a short history of Indian higher education and the place, for instance, of Kant and Hegel in the philosophy curriculum throughout India in the late nineteenth century; it was not long after that British Idealists were being taught to students in Bombay (Mumbai), Madras, and Calcutta (still important centres of higher education in India) along with Allahabad, Mysore, Pondicherry, and Amalner. Idealists in India, much like their counterparts in Britain, labored beyond academic philosophy, extending their discussions to questions of nationalism in India and contributing to ideas in social and political thought.The attraction of British Idealism (indeed, any “Western” Idealist philosophy) to Indian intellectuals may seem mysterious to some readers. Sweet maintains that Indian philosophy was and is by its own historical sense idealist and so the British variant was not so much as “imported” as finding a natural home. Sweet thinks that the revival of interest in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta can be reasonably traced to the influence of British Idealism’s place in Indian philosophy. There is little dispute that Kant, Hegel, and the British thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries influenced how Indian philosophers understood the discipline’s Western identity and aims. Indian philosophers had begun to enter discussions belonging to another history. Hiralal Halder’s Hegelianism and Human Personality, published in 1910, and Ras-Vihari Das’s doctoral dissertation of 1930, The Self and the Ideal, could easily be taken as titles of works in Western European or North American libraries. Philosophy no doubt includes philosophers who come from many histories, and the discipline may be resistant to simple geographical reduction.Sweet cautions readers that Indian philosophers contributed to the development of Indian philosophical thought; they were not merely expositors... (shrink)

This paper offers an evaluation of Wittgenstein's critique of Cantorian set theory, illustrating his broader philosophical stance on mathematics. By emphasizing the constructed nature of mathematical theories, Wittgenstein encourages a reflective approach to mathematics that acknowledges human agency in its development. His engagement with Cantorian set theory provides valuable insights into the philosophical and practical dimensions of mathematics, urging a reconsideration of its foundations and the nature of mathematical proofs. This perspective aligns closely with the philosophy of mathematical practice, which (...) emphasizes the human side of mathematics by its focus on mathematical practice. (shrink)

In recent decades, non-representational approaches to mental phenomena and cognition have been gaining traction in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. In these alternative approach, mental representations either lose their central status or, in its most radical form, are banned completely. While there is growing agreement that non-representational accounts may succeed in explaining some cognitive capacities, there is widespread skepticism about the possibility of giving non-representational accounts of cognitive capacities such as memory, imagination or abstract thought. In this paper, I (...) will critically examine the view that there are fundamental limitations to non-representational explanations of cognition. Rather than challenging these arguments on general grounds, I will examine a set of human cognitive capacities that are generally thought to fall outside the scope of non-representational accounts, i.e. numerical cognition. After criticizing standard representational accounts of numerical cognition for their lack of explanatory power, I will argue that a non-representational approach that is inspired by radical enactivism offers the best hope for developing a genuine naturalistic explanatory account for these cognitive capacities. (shrink)

This article will explore a problem which is related to our moral obligations towards species. Although the re-creation of extinct animals has been discussed to some degree both in lay deliberations as well as by scientists, advocates tend to emphasize the technological and scientific value of such an endeavour, and the “coolness” factor, 32–33, 2013). This article will provide an argument in favour of re-creation based on normative considerations. The environmentalist community generally accepts that it is wrong to exterminate species, (...) for reasons beyond any instrumental value these species may have. It is often also claimed that humanity has a collective responsibility to either preserve or at least to not exterminate species. These two beliefs are here assumed to be correct. The argument presented here departs from and places these two ideas in a deontological framework, from which it is argued that when humanity causes the extinction of a species, this is a moral transgression, entailing a residual obligation. Such an obligation implies a positive duty to mitigate any harm caused by our moral failure. In light of recent scientific progress in the field of genetic engineering, it will be argued that humanity has a prima facie obligation to re-create species whose extinction mankind may have caused, also known as de-extinction. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 1 Seiten: 216-233.

Disease prioritarianism is a principle that is often implicitly or explicitly employed in the realm of healthcare prioritization. This principle states that the healthcare system ought to prioritize the treatment of disease before any other problem. This article argues that disease prioritarianism ought to be rejected. Instead, we should adopt ‘the problem-oriented heuristic’ when making prioritizations in the healthcare system. According to this idea, we ought to focus on specific problems and whether or not it is possible and efficient to (...) address them with medical means. This has radical implications for the extension of the healthcare system. First, getting rid of the binary disease/no-disease dichotomy implicit in disease prioritarianism would improve the ability of the healthcare system to address chronic conditions and disabilities that often defy easy classification. Second, the problem-oriented heuristic could empower medical practitioners to address social problems without the need to pathologize these conditions. Third, the problem-oriented heuristic clearly states that what we choose to treat is a normative consideration. Under this assumption, we can engage in a discussion on de-medicalization without distorting preconceptions. Fourth, this pragmatic and de-compartmentalizing approach should allow us to reconsider the term ‘efficiency’. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is becoming part of our everyday experience and is expected to be ever more integrated into ordinary life for many years to come. Thus, it is important for those in product development, research, and public policy to understand how the public’s perception of AI is shaped. In this study, we conducted focus groups and an online survey to determine the knowledge of AI held by the American public, and to judge whether entertainment media is a major influence on (...) how Americans perceive AI. What we found is that the American public’s knowledge of AI is patchy: some have a good understanding of what is and what is not AI, but many do not. When it came to understanding what AI can do, most respondents believe that AI could “replace human jobs” but few thought that it could “feel emotion.” Most respondents were optimistic about the future and impact of AI, though about one third were not sure. Most respondents also did not think they could develop an emotional bond with or be comfortable being provided care by an AI. Regarding the influence of entertainment media on perceptions of AI, we found a significant relationship between people’s beliefs about AI in entertainment media and their beliefs about AI in reality. Those who believe AI is realistically depicted in entertainment media were more likely to see AIs as potential emotional partners or apocalyptic robots than to imagine AIs taking over jobs or operating as surveillance tools. (shrink)

The `problem of time' is a cluster of interpretational and formal issues in the foundations of general relativity relating to both the representation of time in the classical canonical formalism, and to the quantization of the theory. The purpose of this short chapter is to provide an accessible introduction to the problem.

The analysis of the temporal structure of canonical general relativity and the connected interpretational questions with regard to the role of time within the theory both rest upon the need to respect the fundamentally dual role of the Hamiltonian constraints found within the formalism. Any consistent philosophical approach towards the theory must pay dues to the role of these constraints in both generating dynamics, in the context of phase space, and generating unphysical symmetry transformations, in the context of a hypersurface (...) embedded within a solution. A first denial of time in the terms of a position of reductive temporal relationalism can be shown to be troubled by failure on the first count, and a second denial in the terms of Machian temporal relationalism can be found to be hampered by failure on the second. A third denial of time, consistent with both of the Hamiltonian constraints roles, is constituted by the implementation of a scheme for constructing observables in terms of correlations and leads to a radical Parmenidean timelessness. The motivation for and implications of each of these three denials are investigated. (shrink)

Embodied and extended cognition is a relatively new paradigm within cognitive science that challenges the basic tenet of classical cognitive science, viz. cognition consists in building and manipulating internal representations. Some of the pioneers of embodied cognitive science have claimed that this new way of conceptualizing cognition puts pressure on epistemological and ontological realism. In this paper I will argue that such anti-realist conclusions do not follow from the basic assumptions of radical embodied cognitive science. Furthermore I will show that (...) one can develop a form of realism that reflects rather than just accommodates the core principles of non-representationalist embodied cognitive science. (shrink)

In 1981 Unruh proposed that fluid mechanical experiments could be used to probe key aspects of the quantum phenomenology of black holes. In particular, he claimed that an analogue to Hawking radiation could be created within a fluid mechanical `dumb hole', with the event horizon replaced by a sonic horizon. Since then an entire sub-field of `analogue gravity' has been created. In 2016 Steinhauer reported the experimental observation of quantum Hawking radiation and its entanglement in a Bose-Einstein condensate analogue black (...) hole. What can we learn from such analogue experiments? In particular, in what sense can they provide evidence of novel phenomena such as black hole Hawking radiation? (shrink)

We define the notion has the NIP (not the independence property) in A, where A is a subset of a model, and give some equivalences by translating results from function theory. We also discuss the number of coheirs when A is not necessarily countable, and revisit the notion “ has the NOP (not the order property) in a model M”.

BackgroundObtaining informed consent for participation in genomic research in low-income settings presents specific ethical issues requiring attention. These include the challenges that arise when providing information about unfamiliar and technical research methods, the implications of complicated infrastructure and data sharing requirements, and the potential consequences of future research with samples and data. This study investigated researchers’ and participants’ parents’ experiences of a consent process and understandings of a genome-wide association study of malaria involving children aged five and under in Mali. (...) It aimed to inform best practices in recruiting participants into genomic research.MethodsA qualitative rapid ethical assessment was undertaken. Fifty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted with the parents of research participants. An additional nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior research scientists, research assistants and with a member of an ethics committee. A focus group with five parents of research participants and direct observations of four consent processes were also conducted. French and translated English transcripts were descriptively and thematically coded using OpenCode software.ResultsParticipants’ parents in the MalariaGEN study had differing understandings of the causes of malaria, the rationale for collecting blood samples, the purposes of the study and the kinds of information the study would generate. Genomic aspects of the research, including the gene/environment interaction underlying susceptibility or resistance to severe malaria, proved particularly challenging to explain and understand.ConclusionsThis study identifies a number of areas to be addressed in the design of consent processes for genomic research, some of which require careful ethical analysis. These include determining how much information should be provided about differing aspects of the research and how best to promote understandings of genomic research. We conclude that it is important to build capacity in the design and conduct of effective and appropriate consent processes for genomic research in low and middle-income settings. Additionally, consideration should be given to the role of review committees and community consultation activities in protecting the interests of participants in genomic research. (shrink)

We give a new characterization of _SOP_ (the strict order property) in terms of the behaviour of formulas in any model of the theory as opposed to having to look at the behaviour of indiscernible sequences inside saturated ones. We refine a theorem of Shelah, namely a theory has _OP_ (the order property) if and only if it has _IP_ (the independence property) or _SOP_, in several ways by characterizing various notions in functional analytic style. We point out some connections (...) between dividing lines in first order theories and subclasses of Baire 1 functions, and give new characterizations of some classes and new classes of first order theories. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore ethical considerations that might arise from the use of collaborative filtering algorithms on dating apps. Collaborative filtering algorithms can predict the preferences of a target user by looking at the past behavior of similar users. By recommending products through this process, they can influence the news we read, the movies we watch, and more. They are extremely powerful and effective on platforms like Amazon and Google. Recommender systems on dating apps are likely to group people (...) by race, since they exhibit similar patterns of behavior: users on dating platforms seem to segregate themselves based on race, exclude certain races from romantic and sexual consideration, and generally show a preference for white men and women. As collaborative filtering algorithms learn from these patterns to predict preferences and build recommendations, they can homogenize the behavior of dating app users and exacerbate biased sexual and romantic behavior. (shrink)

South Africa implemented a comprehensive response to COVID-19 comprising of several coercive public health measures. As in many countries, COVID-19 measures were subject to a number of legal challenges on the grounds that these measures infringed on individual rights and liberties. Here, courts were required to assess the extent to which these limitations were justifiable against the state’s imperative to improve public health. Consequently, the acceptability of different justifications of coercive public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa (...) may be understood and assessed through the lens of its jurisprudence. This paper seeks to outline the approach to allowing, or disallowing, coercive public health measures as adopted by the judiciary as arbiters of allowable human rights infringements and thus permitting or prohibiting the state from exercising coercive powers. Specifically, this analysis aims to identify the principles underpinning the decisions with an expressly ethical lens with a view to providing content for the operationalisation of justifications for coercive state action such as the harm principle, reciprocity, least restrictive means in relation to the promotion of public health and the limitation of individual liberty. (shrink)

For centuries, if not millennia, philosophers have been debating the question of how science works and what it essentially is. Many have claimed that science is fundamentally characterized by the application of a specific method: the scientific method. What constitutes this method precisely, has been the subject of an extensive debate. In the 17th century, scholars like Francis Bacon or Isaac Newton advocated a strongly empiricist and inductivist method for science. According to this method, general empirical statements must be derived (...) in a stepwise process from observational data: a theory may be seen as confirmed if its statements are generated and tested according to the rules of inductive inference. In the 19th... (shrink)

A numeral system is an infinite sequence of different closed normal -terms intended to code the integers in -calculus. Barendregt has shown that if we can represent, for a numeral system, the functions Successor, Predecessor, and Zero Test, then all total recursive functions can be represented. In this paper we prove the independancy of these three particular functions. We give at the end a conjecture on the number of unary functions necessary to represent all total recursive functions.

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 1 Seiten: 1-34.

El artículo trata de la importancia de Rm 5, 12 para san Agustín. Presta atención a su desarrollo inicial de la doctrina del pecado original. Además examina cómo esta doctrina se convirtió en tema de un candente debate en los siglos XVI y XVII, especialmente al explicar la relación entre naturaleza y gracia, dentro de la controversia bayanista. Presenta también las explicaciones que reviven este mismo tema en la primera mitad del siglo XX.

Review of ‘Physical Theory: Method and Interpretation’ edited by Lawrence Sklar.

Both mainstream cognitive science and analytic philosophy of mind remain wedded to the Cartesian picture of the mind as an isolated, self-sufficient, and constitutively individual phenomenon. However, recently approaches to the mind (e.g. extended mind thesis, enactivism) that depart from the standard view have emerged. Aunifying thread that runs through these approaches can be summed up in the slogan: “to understand mental phenomena one cannot do away with the environment”. Differences between these related views pertain to the strength of the (...) modal operator “cannot”. On the strongest reading the slogan implies that the mind is constituted by the environment. While this interpretation is akin to Marx view on the constitution of consciousness, this link is overlooked in the literature. In this paper, I will argue that Marxists philosophical thinking about the mind, as exemplified by the activity approach, offers a sound philosophical basis for the further development of post-Cartesian views in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Furthermore, I will argue that the materialistic method proposed by these thinkers is the most promising approach to the problem of naturalizing the mind. (shrink)

In an evolving global market of procreation, surrogacy is increasingly practiced and raises many ethical issues in terms of respect of the dignity of women, their bodily integrity and the consideration of the best interests and kinship of the unborn child. Faced with such ethical questions, the legal response in international law was tepid, while that of the States was fundamentally disparate, varying between systems of prohibition or legal framing of this practice and others that tolerate surrogacy but do not (...) regulate it. This article seeks to analyze the different ethical issues raised by surrogacy, then focuses on the various legal trends prohibiting or totally or partially authorizing this practice, and studying the legal treatment reserved by international law to this question. (shrink)

This article aims to study the intersection between critical realism and complexity theories through the existing literature on complex systems via an engagement with Luhmann’s autopoiesis. With reference to the philosophies of substance and persistence, I build on previous critical realist scholarship and provide an explanation for what the literature has only noted as the limitations and potentials of autopoiesis for complex systems thinking and its compatibility with Critical Realism. By highlighting how Luhmann’s autopoiesis is not a trans-immanent/ perdurantist-exdurantist system, (...) I show first how a trans immanent system through the method of calibration entails a complex causation involving objects in the environment of systems and not just within their boundaries. Second, I explain how a trans-immanent system fits with CR via the Morphogenetic Régulation framework by exploring the theme of crisis in terms of the movement from inadequate to adequate understanding of objects. (shrink)

The canonical formalism of general relativity affords a particularly interesting characterisation of the infamous hole argument. It also provides a natural formalism in which to relate the hole argument to the problem of time in classical and quantum gravity. In this paper we examine the connection between these two much discussed problems in the foundations of spacetime theory along two interrelated lines. First, from a formal perspective, we consider the extent to which the two problems can and cannot be precisely (...) and distinctly characterised. Second, from a philosophical perspective, we consider the implications of various responses to the problems, with a particular focus upon the viability of a `deflationary' attitude to the relationalist/substantivalist debate regarding the ontology of spacetime. Conceptual and formal inadequacies within the representative language of canonical gravity will be shown to be at the heart of both the canonical hole argument and the problem of time. Interesting and fruitful work at the interface of physics and philosophy relates to the challenge of resolving such inadequacies. (shrink)

We give in this paper a short semantical proof of the strong normalization for full propositional classical natural deduction. This proof is an adaptation of reducibility candidates introduced by J.-Y. Girard and simplified to the classical case by M. Parigot.

Review of Bryan W. Roberts: Reversing the Arrow of Time, Cambridge University Press, 2022.

A fundamental tenet of Paul Feyerabend’s pluralistic view of science has it that theory proliferation, that is, the availability of theoretical alternatives, is of crucial importance for the detection of anomalies in established theories. Paul Hoyningen-Huene calls this the Anomaly Importation Thesis, according to which anomalies are imported, as it were, into well-established theories from competing alternatives. This article pursues two major objectives: (a) to work out the systematic details of Feyerabend’s ideas on theory proliferation and anomaly import as they (...) are presented in his early publications and his Against Method and (b) to compare Feyerabend’s ideas on theory proliferation and anomaly import with corresponding features in Popper’s critical rationalist philosophy of science. As it turns out, neither the Principle of Proliferation nor the Anomaly Importation Thesis are necessarily incompatible with critical rationalism. In spite of Feyerabend’s general anti-Popperian attitude, I argue that theoretical pluralism can be seen as an advancement of the critical rationalist philosophy and that critical rationalism provides good arguments for pluralism. (shrink)

We claim that, as it stands, the Deutsch–Wallace–Everett approach to quantum theory is conceptually incoherent. This charge is based upon the approach’s reliance upon decoherence arguments that conflict with its own fundamental precepts regarding probabilistic reasoning in two respects. This conceptual conflict obtains even if the decoherence arguments deployed are aimed merely towards the establishment of certain ‘emergent’ or ‘robust’ structures within the wave function: To be relevant to physical science notions such as robustness must be empirically grounded, and, on (...) our analysis, this grounding can only plausibly be done in precisely the probabilistic terms that lead to conceptual conflict. Thus, the incoherence problems presented necessitate either the provision of a new, non-probabilistic empirical grounding for the notions of robustness and emergence in the context of decoherence, or the abandonment of the Deutsch–Wallace–Everett programme for quantum theory. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that Rawls is unable to offer a ground for the normativity of his freestanding politics, where his account is susceptible to a number of criticisms he raises against Hobbes. Rawls identifies three problems in Hobbes’s political view: the absence of reasonableness, the lack of a social role for morality, and finally resorting to an absolute sovereign to maintain stability. I maintain that Rawls’s Kantian account circumvents these problems. However, I argue that his move to a (...) freestanding politics that disposes of the Kantian moral basis is unable to justify normative commitments and ultimately resorts to contingent justifications resulting from uncritically accepting norms institutions inculcate. (shrink)

This issue of Essays in Philosophy brings together five articles that work in the spirit of the philosophy of history3⁄4broadly construed. Each author provides us a glimpse into the methodological relationship between philosophy and history.

We study model theory of random variables using finitary integral logic. We prove definability of some probability concepts such as having F as distribution function, independence and martingale property. We then deduce Kolmogorov's existence theorem from the compactness theorem.