This volume marks a unique collaboration by internationally distinguished scholars in the history, rhetoric, philosophy, and sociology of science. Converging on the central issues of rhetoric of science, the essays focus on figures such as Galileo, Harvey, Darwin, von Neumann; and on issues such as the debate over cold fusion or the continental drift controversy. Their vitality attests to the burgeoning interest in the rhetoric of science.

Are LLMs cultural technologies like photocopiers or printing presses, which transmit information but cannot create new content? A challenge for this idea, which we call bibliotechnism, is that LLMs generate novel text. We begin with a defense of bibliotechnism, showing how even novel text may inherit its meaning from original human-generated text. We then argue that bibliotechnism faces an independent challenge from examples in which LLMs generate novel reference, using new names to refer to new entities. Such examples could be (...) explained if LLMs were not cultural technologies but had beliefs, desires, and intentions. According to interpretationism in the philosophy of mind, a system has such attitudes if and only if its behavior is well explained by the hypothesis that it does. Interpretationists may hold that LLMs have attitudes, and thus have a simple solution to the novel reference problem. We emphasize, however, that interpretationism is compatible with very simple creatures having attitudes and differs sharply from views that presuppose these attitudes require onsciousness, sentience, or intelligence (topics about which we make no claims). (shrink)

Without trust there is no credible human health research (HHR). This article accepts this truism and addresses a crucial question that arises: how can trust continually be promoted in an ever-changing and uncertain HHR environment? The article analyses long-standing mechanisms that are designed to elicit trust—such as consent, anonymization, and transparency—and argues that these are best understood as trust represented by proxies of trustworthiness, i.e., regulatory attempts to convey the trustworthiness of the HHR system and/or its actors. Often, such proxies (...) are assumed to operate as markers that trust exists or, at least, has not been lost. But, since trust can neither be “built” nor “secured,” this is a precarious assumption. Worryingly, there is no existing theoretical account of how to understand and evaluate these proxies of trustworthiness as part of a trusted HHR ecosystem. To remedy this, the paper argues for a radical reimagining of trust and trustworthiness as performative acts that ought to be understood in relation to each other and by reference to the common values at stake. It is shown that proxies of trustworthiness are the operational tools used to perform trustworthiness. It advocates for a values-based approach to understanding the relationship between trust and trustworthiness. This establishes a strong basis for an evaluative framework for proxies of trustworthiness, i.e., to determine how to perform trustworthiness well. Five common proxies in HHR are scrutinized from a values perspective. The contribution is to provide a far-reaching normative and practical framework by which existing and future proxies of trustworthiness can be identified, assessed, maintained, or replaced in rapidly changing HHR regulatory ecosystems where trust itself is crucial to the success of the entire HHR enterprise. (shrink)

Remarks on method in the history of Chinese philosophy for analytic philosophy. (Published in a Chinese Translation.).

In this paper I examine how the constituent elements of a firm's organizational structure affect the ethical behavior of workers. The formal features of organizations I examine are the compensation practices, performance and evaluation systems, and decision-making assignments. I argue that the formal organizational structure, which is distinguished from corporate culture, is necessary, though not sufficient, in solving ethical problems within firms. At best the formal structure should not undermine the ethical actions of workers. When combined with a strong culture, (...) however, the organizational structure may be sufficient in promoting ethical conduct. While helpful, ethics training and corporate codes are neither necessary nor sufficient in promoting ethical behavior within firms. (shrink)

This paper introduces the axiom of Negative Dominance, stating that if a lottery f is strictly preferred to a lottery g, then some outcome in the support of f is strictly preferred to some outcome in the support of g. It is shown that if preferences are incomplete on a sufficiently rich domain, then this plausible axiom, which holds for complete preferences, is incompatible with an array of otherwise plausible axioms for choice under uncertainty. In particular, in this setting, Negative (...) Dominance conflicts with the standard Independence axiom. A novel theory, which includes Negative Dominance, and rejects Independence, is developed and shown to be consistent. (shrink)

In his 1983 article, Paul A. Roth defends the Quinean project of naturalized epistemology from the criticism presented in my 1980 article. In this note I would like to respond to Roth's effort. I will argue that, while helpful in advancing and clarifying the issues, Roth's defense of naturalized epistemology does not succeed. The primary topic to be clarified is Quine's "no first philosophy" doctrine; but I will address myself to other points as well.

The existence of a definite tangent space structure (metric with Lorentzian signature) in the general theory of relativity is the consequence of a fundamental assumption concerning the local validity of special relativity. There is then at the heart of Einstein's theory of gravity an absolute element which depends essentially on a common feature of all the non-gravitational interactions in the world, and which has nothing to do with space-time curvature. Tentative implications of this point for the significance of the vacuum (...) solutions in general relativity, and for the issue of quantising gravity, are briefly examined. (shrink)

We introduce insertion domains that support the placement of new, higher, vertices into finite trees. We prove that every nonincreasing insertion domain has an element with simple structural properties in the style of classical Ramsey theory. This result is proved using standard large cardinal axioms that go well beyond the usual axioms for mathematics. We also establish that this result cannot be proved without these large cardinal axioms. We also introduce insertion rules that specify the placement of new, higher, vertices (...) into finite trees. We prove that every insertion rule greedily generates a tree with these same structural properties; and every decreasing insertion rule generates (or admits) a tree with these same structural properties. It is also necessary and sufficient to use the same large cardinals (in the precise sense of Corollary D.25). The results suggest new areas of research in discrete mathematics called "Ramsey tree theory" and "greedy Ramsey theory" which demonstrably require more than the usual axioms for mathematics. (shrink)

The gap between Marx’s theoretical writings on political economy and his historical writings arises out of certain limitations that Marx placed upon his political-economic enquiries. These limitations are outlined in the Grundrisse where Marx distinguishes between the universality of the metabolic relation to nature, the generality of the laws of motion of capital, the particularities of distribution and exchange, and the singularities of consumption. What an analysis of the content of Capital shows is that Marx largely confined his efforts to (...) identifying the law-like character of production to the exclusion of all else. While this allowed him to identify certain laws of motion of capital within any form of the capitalist mode of production, it did not and could not constitute a total theory of a capitalist mode of production. A better understanding of what it is that Marx can do for us through his identification of the general laws of motion leads to a far better appreciation of what it is that we have to do for ourselves in order to make Marx’s theoretical findings applicable to particular conjunctural conditions, such as those that have arisen throughout the economic crisis that began in 2007. (shrink)

We consider a number of statements involving restrictions and extensions of algebras, and derive connections with large cardinal axioms.

We axiomatize EFA in strictly mathematical terms, involving only the ring operations, without extending the language by either exponentiation, finite sets of integers, or polynomials.

The notion of interpretation is absolutely fundamental to mathematical logic and the foundations of mathematics. It is also crucial for the foundations and philosophy of science - although here some crucial conditions generally need to be imposed; e.g., “the interpretation leaves the mathematical concepts unchanged”.

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)

Is 'education' a thick epistemic concept? The answer depends, of course, on the viability of the 'thick/thin' distinction, as well as the degree to which education is an epistemic concept at all. I will concentrate mainly on the latter, and will argue that epistemological matters are central to education and our philosophical thinking about it; and that, insofar, education is indeed rightly thought of as an epistemic concept. In laying out education's epistemological dimensions, I hope to clarify the degree to (...) which it makes sense to regard the concept as 'thick'. I also discuss the relationship between philosophy of education and virtue epistemology and the sense in which being educated might itself be thought to be an epistemic virtue. Finally, I urge virtue epistemologists in particular and epistemologists generally to turn their attention to questions of education, to further both the philosophy of education and epistemology itself. (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.

Responding to claims to the contrary, this essay shows how liberal education, the education of critical exposure, indoctrinates students into a style of belief and belief formation. It argues that a common liberal view about what constitutes freedom from indoctrination is precisely the form of indoctrination feared by many conservative communitarians. While I support the style and procedures of liberal education, I argue that we cannot excise all indoctrinating components from it by semantic, logical or epistemic analyses of what indoctrination (...) or education means. (shrink)

Let ℜ be an o-minimal expansion of (ℝ, <+) and (φk)k∈ℕ be a sequence of positive real numbers such that limk→+∞f(φk)/φk+1=0 for every f:ℝ→ ℝ definable in ℜ. (Such sequences always exist under some reasonable extra assumptions on ℜ, in particular, if ℜ is exponentially bounded or if the language is countable.) Then (ℜ, (S)) is d-minimal, where S ranges over all subsets of cartesian powers of the range of φ.

It turns out, time and time again, in order to make serious progress in f.o.m., we need to take actual reasoning and actual development into account at precisely the proper level. If we take these into account too much, then we are faced with information that is just too difficult to create an exact science around - at least at a given state of development of f.o.m. And if we take these into account too little, our findings will not have (...) the relevance to mathematical practice that could be achieved. (shrink)

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.

A wide-ranging collection of authoritative accounts covering all major areas of current research in Early Christian studies by a distinguished team of international authors. It is thematically arranged to encompass the inter-disciplinary nature of the field, examining history, literature, thought, practices, and material culture.

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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This paper proposes a reconsideration of Karl Mannheim and his work from the viewpoint of the needs of sociological theory. It points out certain affinities between Mannheim and some contemporary theorists, such as Gramsci and Foucault, and then reflects on certain problems in Mannheim's work, particularly the response to "relativism" and the hope of creating new "syntheses" through the sociology of knowledge. Finally, it proposes ways to draw on the sociology of intellectuals, inspired by Mannheim, in order to advance the (...) understanding of social theory. (shrink)

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)

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.

An unprovable theorem is a mathematical result that can-not be proved using the com-monly accepted axioms for mathematics (Zermelo-Frankel plus the axiom of choice), but can be proved by using the higher infinities known as large cardinals. Large car-dinal axioms have been the main proposal for new axioms originating with Gödel.

We present some formal systems in the language of linearly ordered rings with finite sets whose nonlogical axioms are strictly mathematical, which correspond to polynomially bounded arithmetic. With an additional strictly mathematical axiom, the systems correspond to exponentially bounded arithmetic.

The brain scanner is a piece of philosophical fiction made fact. It was among the most common creations of thought experiments, along with the brain-vat and the mindless robot. With the imaginary scanner, readings were taken of each other's brain activity, thereby learning everything about other minds, or very little, depending on the outcome of the thought experiment. The scanners that are now in use—those that allow us to do functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), for example—are a little different to (...) those imagined, perhaps, but they have very much arrived. They are in daily use in hundreds of laboratories, and for the past 15 years or so have been grabbing headlines the world over with breakthrough .. (shrink)