The idMirror project consists of a tablet computer, specially equipped with a small mirror and a newly developed android app. The Android application uses face recognition to detect the location of the user’s face in relation to the device and based on this renders a computer graphic at the location of his or her reflection. The goal of the idMirror project setting as a research tool was to make an exploratory study on cultural differences at exhibition venues. For this study, (...) we have analyzed 150 participants’ face images aged between 18 and 75; among them, 50 participants’ face images collected in Europe, 50 participants’ face images collected in the USA, and 50 participants’ face images collected in Japan. We found global exhibitions a good research platform for random sampling of the subjects. For the study, we examined the first 50 participants at each exhibition and we found some significant differences. Through the explanatory study in the form of an art installation, we wanted to learn if the facial expression upon one’s own self-observation is a function of gender and place of exhibition setting origin. (shrink)

Should advance directives (ADs) such as living wills be employed to direct the care of the severely demented? In considering this question, I focus primarily on the claims of Rebecca Dresser who objects in principle to the use of ADs in this context. Dresser has persuasively argued that ADs are both theoretically incoherent and ethically dangerous. She proceeds to advocate a Best Interest Standard as the best way for deciding when and how the demented ought to be treated. I put (...) forth a compromise position: both ADs and the Best Interest Standard have roles to play in guiding the care of the severely demented. (shrink)

Nelson Goodman’s work is universally regarded as pioneering and fundamental, and his attempts to clarify the nature of induction, symbol systems, art, theorizing and understanding have received and continue to receive great attention. Central to that work is a view Goodman describes as “radically relativist.” Goodman’s unusual brand of relativism, however, while basic to the entire Goodman corpus, has yet to be carefully delineated and studied. I hope in this paper to begin such a study. I will first briefly review (...) the development of Goodmanian relativism through his earlier books and articles. Then I will develop a more detailed and elaborate account of the relativist position Goodman develops in his most recent book, Ways of Worldmaking. Because Goodman’s relativism is significantly different from more traditional accounts of relativism, I will attempt to shed light on Goodmanian relativism by contrasting it with those more traditional accounts. Finally, I will argue that there is a crucial ambiguity in Goodman’s portrayal and defense of relativism, having to do with the role of “criteria of rightness” in Goodman’s system, and that this ambiguity licenses two quite distinct versions of Goodmanian relativism. I will argue that the weak version of relativism is defensible, and important, but that the strong, or “radical,” relativist position suffers from a fatal flaw. My hope is that the paper will serve to clarify not only Goodman’s position, but epistemological relativism more generally. (shrink)

Certainty (and the lack thereof) is a major issue in mathematics and computer science. Mathematicians strongly believe in a special kind of certainty for their theorems.

Educating Reason: Critical Thinking, Informal logic, and the Philosophy of Education.

We give a consistency proof within a weak fragment of arithmetic of elementary algebra and geometry. For this purpose, we use EFA (exponential function arithmetic), and various first order theories of algebraically closed fields and real closed fields.

We present several selection theorems for Borel relations, involving only Borel sets and functions, all of which can be obtained as consequences of closely related theorems proved in [DSR 96,99,01,01X] involving coanalytic sets. The relevant proofs given there use substantial set theoretic methods, which were also shown to be necessary. We show that none of our Borel consequences can be proved without substantial set theoretic methods. The results are established for Baire space. We give equivalents of some of the main (...) results for the reals. (shrink)

We have been recently engaged in this search, and have announced a long series of successively simpler and more convincing examples. See [Fr09-10].

This is an immediate conse-quence of a more general combinatorial theorem called Ramsey’s theorem, but it is much simpler to state. We call this adjacent Ramsey theory.

I. WKL0 is a conservative extension of PRA for ’-0-2 sentences. II. ACA0 is a conservative extension of PA for arithmetic sentences. III. ATR0 is a conservative extension of IR for arithmetic sentences. IV. ’-1-1-CA0 is a conservative extension of ID(

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The goal is to show that various exotic prefix classes can be "tamed by large cardinals". I.e., every statement in the class is either provable or refutable using presently formulated large cardinals. Some of these exotic prefix classes consist entirely of explicitly P01 sentences.

We present some new set and class theoretic independence results from ZFC and NBGC that are particularly simple and close to the primitives of membership and equality. They are shown to be equivalent to familiar small large cardinal hypotheses. We modify these independendent statements in order to give an example of a sentence in set theory with 5 quantifiers which is independent of ZFC. It is known that all 3 quantifier sentences are decided in a weak fragment of ZF without (...) power set. (shrink)

Corporate responsibility, governance and business ethics are 'leading edge' issues in contemporary management. Their recent origins are in the concern about the social legitimacy of the corporation, the rights of stakeholders versus shareholders, and specific developments including consumerism, environmentalism and the management search for quality and excellence. The book focuses on practical issues, with illustrations and mini-cases. It provides an effective introduction to ethical concepts and their applications for the student or professional manager.

All axiomatizations in sections 1,2,4-8 are in the language L(Î,W) with just Î and the constant symbol W standing for a Subworld. Think of W as yesterday's world, and think of the quantifiers in the theory as ranging over today's world. The philosophy is that since the universe cannot be completed, every time we reflect on the universe and what we have reflected on previously, we obtain a larger universe.

Gerald Doppelt's recent ?Kuhn's Epistemological Relativism: An Interpretation and Defense? (Inquiry, Vol. 21 [1978], pp. 33?86) offers a reconstruction of Thomas Kuhn's views concerning theory choice in science in which Kuhn's ?incommensurability thesis?, and his epistemological relativism, are defended. It is argued that Doppelt's reconstruction fails to provide an adequate defense, and that both Kuhn's incommensurability thesis, and his epistemological relativism, as reconstructed by Doppelt, remain philosophically unacceptable.

We present a range of mathematical theorems whose proofs require unexpectedly strong logical methods, which in some cases go well beyond the usual axioms for mathematics.

Tversky and Kahneman (1974) originally discussed three main heuristics: availability, representativeness, and anchoring-and-adjustment. Research on judgemental forecasting suggests that the type of information on which forecasts are based is the primary factor determining the type of heuristic that people use to make their predictions. Specifically, availability is used when forecasts are based on information held in memory; representativeness is important when the value of one variable is forecast from explicit information about the value of another variable; and anchoring-and-adjustment is employed (...) when the value of a variable is forecast from explicit information about previous values of that same variable. Although there has been increased emphasis on the adaptiveness of heuristics and increased interest in specifying their use in terms of computational models, this way of structuring our knowledge about judgemental forecasting continues to be a useful one. I use it to frame discussion of some recent debates in the area. (shrink)

The quantum theory of de Broglie and Bohm solves the measurement problem, but the hypothetical corpuscles play no role in the argument. The solution finds a more natural home in the Everett interpretation.

We focus on two formal methods contexts which generate investigations into decision problems for finite strings.

Whitman was not one to be troubled about the solution of the problem of knowledge in particular, much less in general, nor for that matter was Emerson. Their way was to postulate solutions to problems just before they encountered them. My point, however, is that Whitman, with Emerson, did encounter a problem, the Diltheyan solution to which has tempted philosophers of history into our own time. If quoting Dilthey as a gloss on Emerson I would seem to want to involve (...) Whitman in philosophical issues beyond his ken, then instead I would recall an earlier, quite fundamental statement of the mood, rather than one of the mode: "That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." The King James version of these words from Revelations 3:16 is perhaps clarified in the Revised Standard version: "That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been , and God seeks what has been driven away."Roy Harvey Pearce is a professor of American literature at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of The Savages of America: A Study of the Indian and the American Mind; The Continuity of American Poetry; and Historicism Once More: Problems and Occasions for the American Scholar. (shrink)

In 1995 we gave a new simple principle of combinatorial set theory and showed that it implies the existence of a nontrivial elementary embedding from a rank into itself, and follows from the existence of a nontrivial elementary embedding from V into M, where M contains the rank at the first fixed point above the critical point. We then gave a “diamondization” of this principle, and proved its relative consistency by means of a standard forcing argument.

Atran & Norenzayan (A&N) survey a substantial body of theory and evidence on which there is broad agreement in the cognitive science of religion. Some parts of their argument (for instance, concerning the causes of costly commitment to religious beliefs) are more speculative and remain a focus of lively debate and further research.

Shem-Tov Falaquera (c. 1225-1295) was a student of the writings of Maimonides and a leading expositor of the medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophical traditions. His Epistle of the Debate (Iggeret ha-Vikkuah) is a delightful dialogue between two Jews, one learned in philosophy and the other not, about the permissibility and desirability of philosophical investigation by Jews. It is perhaps the most important medieval text devoted to the theme of the relationship between reason and religion by a Jewish thinker, and it (...) is an excellent introduction to Jewish philosophy. This volume contains the first critical edition of the Hebrew text of the Epistle of the Debate and an annotated English translation, the first into a modern language. The volume also includes essays on the sources of the Epistle and on Falaquera's position on the relation between reason and religion. (shrink)

In this new book, David Harvey seeks to determine what is meant by the term in its different contexts and to identify how accurate and useful it is as a description of contemporary experience.

I present a new puzzle about choice under uncertainty for agents whose preferences are sensitive to multiple dimensions of outcomes in such a way as to be incomplete. In response, I develop a new theory of choice under uncertainty for incomplete preferences. I connect the puzzle to central questions in epistemology about the nature of rational requirements, and ask whether it shows that preferences are rationally required to be complete.

Few philosophers endorse a virtue theory of praiseworthiness. The widespread aversion to any virtue theory of moral worth rests chiefly on a skeptical argument that emphasizes the fact that praiseworthy acts can be performed by people who lack the relevant virtue. This chapter studies this skeptical argument closely. It concludes that the skeptical argument's core premise has been misleadingly characterized. Once the core premise has been clarified, the virtue theory appears to escape the grip of the skeptical argument.

Reichenbach's well-known distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification has recently come under attack from several quarters. In this paper I attempt to reconsider the distinction and evaluate various recent criticisms of it. These criticisms fall into two main groups: those which directly challenge Reichenbach's distinction; and those which (I argue) indirectly but no less seriously challenge that distinction by rejecting the related distinction between psychology and epistemology, and defending the "naturalizing" of epistemology. I argue that (...) these recent criticisms fail, and that the distinction remains an important conceptual tool necessary for an adequate understanding of the way in which scientific claims purport to appropriately portray our natural environment. (shrink)