This paper concerns the question of how to draw inferences common sensically from uncertain knowledge. Since the early work of Shore and Johnson (1980), Paris and Vencovská (1990), and Csiszár (1989), it has been known that the Maximum Entropy Inference Process is the only inference process which obeys certain common sense principles of uncertain reasoning. In this paper we consider the present status of this result and argue that within the rather narrow context in which we work this complete (...) and consistent mode of uncertain reasoning is actually characterised by the observance of just a single common sense principle (or slogan). (shrink)

La historia personal y profesional de Carlos París discurre al hilo de la convulsa historia de España del último medio siglo, y la narra con una honestidad de la que muy pocos pueden hacer gala. Así, sin ira y sin tapujos, describe, por ejemplo, cómo pasó de una adhesión inicial a presupuestos falangistas a ser candidato del PCE, valorando cada etapa y cada motivo de cambio con un gran sentido crítico. Por su pluma desfilan también personajes fundamentales en la vida (...) española de los últimos cincuenta años con quienes Carlos París ha tenido una sólida relación, como Manuel Fraga, Javier Solana, Manuel Castells, Rosa Regàs, Ricardo de la Cierva, José Antonio Maravall, José María Valverde, Nicolás Sartorius y un largo etcétera. De la lectura de estas memorias se desprende, en fin, el retrato de una gran figura intelectual y humana que jamás se ha limitado a ser convidado de piedra ni en su país ni en el tiempo que le ha tocado vivir.Carlos París (Bilbao, 1925) es Catedrático Emérito de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, en la que fundó su Departamento de filosofía y de cuya Facultad de Filosofía y Letras fue elegido decano en las primeras elecciones. Es Doctor Honoris Causa por la Universidad de Valencia y ha sido Presidente de la Sociedad Española de Filosofía y del Ateneo Científico, Literario y Artístico de Madrid. Su obra ha sido objeto de diversos estudios y congresos internacionales, y recientemente se ha creado un Foro dedicado al análisis y difusión de su pensamiento. Hay que destacar, sobre todo, sus ensayos: Física y filosofía, 1952; Crítica de la civilización nuclear, 1985 o Fantasía y razón moderna-Don Quijote, Odiseo y Fausto, 2001, entre muchos otros; y también sus obras de creación literaria: la novela Bajo constelaciones burlonas (1981) o el libro de relatos La machina speculatrix-Cuatro sarcasmos sobre el mundo actual (1989). (shrink)

Linda Zagzebski recently put forward a new theory, moral exemplarism, that is meant to provide an alternative to theories like consequentialism and deontology, and which proposes to define key moral terms by direct reference to exemplars. The theory’s basic structure is straightforward. A virtuous person is defined as a person like that, where that points to individuals like Leopold Socha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, and so on. A key component of this theory is the function played by the emotions, specifically the (...) emotion of admiration, which helps us identify moral exemplars, inspires our emulation of them, and grounds moral motivation. In other words, admiration tracks persons like that. The aim of this article is to show that unless moral exemplarism recognises and incorporates an aesthetic dimension to morality, as did, for instance, eighteenth-century sentimentalists by recognising the categories of moral beauty and ugliness, the theory suffers important theoretical difficulties, whilst failing to yield some of the theoretical merits that it boasts. To this end, I will cast doubt on the prominent role accorded to the emotion of admiration for morality, arguing that it has to either be qualified as a specific kind of admiration––namely that which takes the beautiful as its object––or be replaced altogether with the affective response to the beautiful, a mark of which is pleasure or delight in the contemplation of an object. In short, an aesthetics of character is necessary in order to properly theorise the affective and motivational components of morality under an exemplarist framework. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAlthough formative of modern value theory, the moral beauty view—which states that moral virtue is beautiful and moral vice is ugly—is now mostly neglected by philosophers. The two contemporary defences of the view mostly capitalize on its intuitive attractiveness, but to little avail: such considerations hardly convince sceptics of what is nowadays a rather unpopular view. Historically, the view was supported by thought experiments; and although these greatly increase its plausibility, they also raise empirical questions, which they leave unanswered. Here, (...) I offer a novel defence of the moral beauty view, capitalizing on empirical evidence and arguing via an inference to the best explanation. (shrink)

This paper is a sequel to an earlier result of the authors that in making inferences from certain probabilistic knowledge bases the maximum entropy inference process, ME, is the only inference process respecting “common sense.” This result was criticized on the grounds that the probabilistic knowledge bases considered are unnatural and that ignorance of dependence should not be identified with statistical independence. We argue against these criticisms and also against the more general criticism that ME is representation dependent. In a (...) final section, however, we provide a criticism of our own of ME, and of inference processes in general, namely that they fail to satisfy compactness. (shrink)

There is a tendency in contemporary (analytic) aesthetics to consider- ably restrict the scope of things that can be beautiful or ugly. This peculiarly modern tendency is holding back progress in aesthetics and robbing it of its potential contribution to other domains of inquiry. One view that has suffered neglect as a result of this tendency is the moral beauty view, whereby the moral virtues are beautiful and the moral vices are ugly. This neglect stems from an assumption to the (...) effect that virtues and vices simply cannot be beautiful or ugly. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it develops an account of form, under which, it argues, possession of form suffices for an object’s candidature for beauty and ugliness. Second, it argues that, under the foregoing proposal, the moral beauty view turns out to be a coherent position, and so should be taken seriously in both aesthetics and ethics. (shrink)

We’ve all heard people say ‘Beauty is only skin-deep’, or ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’: our culture promulgates a conception of beauty as subjective, superficial, and independent of other values like moral goodness or knowledge and understanding. Yet our taste in beauty affects many aspects of our lives, sometimes playing a decisive––and often detrimental––role in areas as wide-ranging as our identity and self-esteem, our morally salient decisions, and our relationship to the environment. This presents us with a (...) choice: we can either ignore the facts––leaving our conception of beauty unchanged and allowing our taste to influence much in our lives while either not acknowledging such influence, or perhaps seeking to reprimand it; or we can take the power of beauty seriously and seek to harmonise our taste with our values. I argue for the latter option, and propose a way of bringing beauty and taste in line with what matters to us using the notion of functional beauty. Adopting this strategy, I suggest, can have a powerful––and positive––impact on our self-esteem and wellbeing, our relationship to others, as well as our attitudes towards the environment. (shrink)

Reasoning under uncertainty, that is, making judgements with only partial knowledge, is a major theme in artificial intelligence. Professor Paris provides here an introduction to the mathematical foundations of the subject. It is suited for readers with some knowledge of undergraduate mathematics but is otherwise self-contained, collecting together the key results on the subject, and formalising within a unified framework the main contemporary approaches and assumptions. The author has concentrated on giving clear mathematical formulations, analyses, justifications and consequences of (...) the main theories about uncertain reasoning, so the book can serve as a textbook for beginners or as a starting point for further basic research into the subject. It will be welcomed by graduate students and research workers in logic, philosophy, and computer science as a textbook for beginners, a starting point for further basic research into the subject, and not least, an account of how mathematics and artificial intelligence can complement and enrich each other. (shrink)

Ugliness is a neglected topic in contemporary analytic aesthetics. This is regrettable given that this topic is not just genuinely fascinating, but could also illuminate other areas in the field, seeing as ugliness, albeit unexplored, does feature rather prominently in several debates in aesthetics. This paper articulates a ‘deformity-related’ conception of ugliness. Ultimately, I argue that deformity, understood in a certain way, and displeasure, jointly suffice for ugliness. First, I motivate my proposal, by locating a ‘deformity-related’ conception of ugliness in (...) aesthetic tradition, offering examples in support, and rejecting related alternative suggestions. Second, I argue that the proposal boasts considerable merits. Not only does it capture much of what we ordinarily think of as ugly, but it also comprises an objective criterion for ugliness, offers unity and comprehensiveness, and is informative and explanatorily potent. Third, I discuss a number of objections, thereby demonstrating that the proposal withstands reflective scrutiny. (shrink)

According to immoralists, some artworks are better aesthetically in virtue of their immorality. A. W. Eaton recently offered a novel defence of this view, seeking to overcome shortcomings in previous accounts, thereby occasioning a reconsideration of immoralism. Yet, as I argue in this paper, Eaton’s attempt is unsuccessful, insofar as it consists partly of inadequately supported claims, and partly—and more interestingly, albeit paradoxically––of covert moralist assumptions that are, eo ipso, incompatible with immoralism. I then turn to a parallel debate in (...) ethics concerning the possibility of admirable immorality, suggesting that a consideration of the state of that debate further supports my argument against immoralism. I close by suggesting some strategies by which immoralists may offer a rejoinder, although I note that their prospects are rather dim, not least because available defences of immoralism and similar positions all seem to share the same flawed pattern. (shrink)

Les rencontres avec les travaux d'Anne-Françoise Schmid que présente cet ouvrage, mettent la philosophie générique au coeur des pratiques contemporaines des sciences, ouvrant ainsi une nouvelle voie pour la création épistémologique. Comment produire une description non disciplinaire des sciences? Qu'est-ce qui permet aux sciences d'être conceptives? - De quoi a-t-on besoin pour une science sans exclusions? Quels sont les nouveaux opérateurs de rigueur des sciences contemporaines? Les travaux d'Anne-Françoise Schmid montrent que les objets contemporains des sciences ne se prêtent pas (...) à des définitions standard, et que les convergences de perspectives disciplinaires ne permettent pas non plus d'assurer un point de vue théorique unifié, mais seulement des trajectoires particulières et multiples. Il n'y a pas d'objet sans rapport à l'objet. Ce rapport n'est pas simplement une mise en contexte, elle met en jeu l'intime et l'intention des chercheurs. Les disciplines cachent cet aspect. Sa philosophie travaille à la mise en lumière des opérations qui permettent l'ouverture d'un espace générique : c'est-à-dire un espace qui ne dépend pas d'une seule discipline et qui est condition d'une nouvelle mise en relation des concepts d'humain et de sciences. Les contributions de cet ouvrage mettent en évidence des nouvelles logiques de découpage, de réarticulation et d'invention de concepts dans une grande diversité de champs disciplinaires. Ce livre offre une entrée dans un espace générique. Le générique permet de voir ainsi ce que l'on ne voit pas avec l'épistémologie classique."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

I offer a set of sufficient conditions for beauty, drawing on Parsons and Carlson’s account of ‘functional beauty’. First, I argue that their account is flawed, whilst falling short of...

George Turnbull is one of the figures of the Scottish Enlightenment who has been largely overlooked. In this thesis I give the first detailed analysis of his major writings by focusing on a set of principles that guided and unified his work. I show that he constructed a unified system of philosophy and a proper Science of Man, which in turn draws attention to his relevance as an important figure of the early stages of the Scottish Enlightenment. I present an (...) interpretation of Turnbull’s work that takes into account the deep interconnectedness of his texts and considers his anatomy of the human mind as the foundation on which he develops his theories of education, painting, religion, law, and politics. The unity of his work and the set of principles that guide it allow us to gain a deeper understanding of Turnbull’s thought and its place within its eighteenth-century context, highlighting his unique contribution to the development of the Science of Man. (shrink)

Philosophical aesthetics has recently been expanding its purview—with exciting work on everyday aesthetics, somaesthetics, gustatory aesthetics, and the aesthetics of imperceptibilia like mathematics and human character—reclaiming territory that was lost during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the discipline begun concentrating almost exclusively on the philosophy of art and restricted the aesthetic realm to the distally perceptible. Yet there remains considerable reluctance towards acknowledging the aesthetic character of many of these objects. This raises an important question—partly made salient again by (...) the ongoing expansion of the aesthetic domain, and partly by the fact that many still seem resistant to this aesthetic diversification—which aestheticians seem to avoid: what, if anything, constrains the scope of beauty or the aesthetic? I argue that form, construed as comprising a degree, however minimal, of experienceable complexity, is necessary and sufficient for an object's candidature for the possession of aesthetic properties. Such a condition serves to discriminate between attempts to expand the scope of the aesthetic that are legitimate and those that are not. If correct, my view suggests that the aesthetic realm, though not limitless, is very broad indeed—but this, I think, is as it should be. (shrink)

We give a complete characterization of Priest's Finite Inconsistent Arithmetics observing that his original putative characterization included arithmetics which cannot in fact be realized.

The series of conversations between Angela Y. Davis and Eduardo Mendieta entitled Abolition Democracy is a powerful investigation of the failed moral imagination of imperial democracies. After examining their discussion of how truncated political discourses enable abuses in both war and imprisonment, I look to the “exceptional” status of war prisons such as at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. I argue that domestic prisons, like international war prisons, are means for the paradigmatic functioning of the exception in modern democracy, as described (...) by Giorgio Agamben, and thus constitute no less of an “ultimate carceral threat.” Within the domestic prison, the legal status of inmates is virtually suspended and they are reduced to bare life. I conclude that we may yet share the hopes of Davis and Mendieta for an abolition democracy, and that such a democracy would bear the echoes of the unconditional sovereignty “to come” theorized by Jacques Derrida. (shrink)

When there is a conflict between parents and the physician over appropriate care due to an infant whose decision prevails? What standard, if any, should guide such decisions?This article traces the varying standards articulated over the past three decades from the proposal in Duff and Campbell’s 1973 essay that these decisions are best left to the parents to the Baby Doe Regs of the 1980s which required every life that could be salvaged be continued. We conclude with support for the (...) policy articulated in the 2007 guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics on non-intervention or withdrawal of intensive care for high-risk newborns. (shrink)

"The legendary Cava di Gioia quarry in Carrara, Italy, was the source of the luminous white marble used by Michelangelo, Bernini, Henry Moore, and other renowned sculptors.... Wylie is the first photographer to extensively document Cava di Gioia since Ilario Besi... For six years, Wylie photographed the changing landscape of the quarry, and his images capture the intense physical scale of the site, the dramatic setting, and the character of the stonecutters, or cavatori, who have worked the quarry for generations."--Book (...) jacket flap. (shrink)

Considerable progress in personality and social psychology has been largely ignored by philosophers, many of whom still remain sceptical concerning whether the conception of character presupposed by virtue theory is descriptively adequate. Here, I employ the five-factor model of personality, currently the consensus view in personality psychology, to respond to a strong reading of the situationist challenge, whereby most people lack dispositions that are both cross-situationally consistent and temporally stable. I show that situationists rely on a false dichotomy between character (...) traits and situations, and that evidence supports the empirical adequacy of the sorts of character traits presupposed by virtue ethics. Additionally, I suggest that the personality traits of the five-factor model are relevant to virtue theory, in so far as they are malleable, morally salient, and seem to structurally parallel Aristotelian virtues and vices. Thus, contra situationism, the five-factor model supports the descriptive adequacy of a virtue-theoretical framework. (shrink)

We give an account of some relationships between the principles of Constant and Atom Exchangeability and various generalizations of the Principle of Instantial Relevance within the framework of Inductive Logic. In particular we demonstrate some surprising and somewhat counterintuitive dependencies of these relationships on ostensibly unimportant parameters, such as the number of predicates in the overlying language.

It took nearly two thousand years for society to recognize the Hippocratic insistence that “the doctor knows best”1 was an inadequate approach to medical decisionmaking. Today, patient-centered medicine has come to understand that the individual patient has a significant role in the decisionmaking process.2.

“Playing God” is the charge frequently leveled when physicians and patients agree to withdraw life-sustaining medical treatments and let the patient die. The accusation rings hollow in the context of four hundred years of moral reflection on the duty of an individual to undergo medical treatments to preserve life. From the teachings of Soto and Banez in the 16th century through the President's, Commission 1983 report ‘deciding to forego life-sustaining treatments’ there is a clear and constant teaching that though life (...) is sacred it is not an absolute and our moral duty to preserve it is limited and based on rational reflection. No patient need undergo any treatment or procedure that is “disproportionately” costly, burdensome, or painful. The assessment of whether to accept or reject a proposed treatment is in part subjective and belongs to the individual patient. The only remaining issue is how to make that judgment for those unable to speak for themselves. (shrink)

This essay will analyze a single script, the television commercial that advertises the Fiat 500L in the United States, released in 2013. This commercial has stimulated wide debate both in Italy and the United States. It was generally well received by the press, even if it did attract some criticism on the part of those who simply read it as the latest version of a series of stereotypes of Italian mores. Without neglecting the functional dynamic of advertising, this analysis will (...) focus in particular on the decisive role played by Italianness and the Italian language. (shrink)