The theory of concept lattices is approached from the point of view of fuzzy logic. The notions of partial order, lattice order, and formal concept are generalized for fuzzy setting. Presented is a theorem characterizing the hierarchical structure of formal fuzzy concepts arising in a given formal fuzzy context. Also, as an application of the present approach, Dedekind–MacNeille completion of a partial fuzzy order is described. The approach and results provide foundations for formal concept analysis of vague data—the propositions “object (...) x has attribute y”, which form the input data to formal concept analysis, are now allowed to have also intermediate truth values, meeting reality better. (shrink)

In this work - both psychologists working on concepts and mathematicians working on fuzzy logic - reassess the usefulness of fuzzy logic for the psychology of concepts.

This book combines the two most common approaches used to introduce students or general readers to ethics: the historical and the applied. Using these approaches, Sterba examines traditional ethical theories and disagreements, exploring Aristotelian, Kantian, and utilitarian ethics, as well as their contemporary defenders. But rather than focusing on formal aspects of these views, Sterba applies the best practical arguments from each of these perspectives to a variety of moral problems, such as sexual harassment, affirmative action, and international terrorism and (...) the second Iraqi war. (shrink)

We give a characterization of the fixed points and of the lattices of fixed points of fuzzy Galois connections. It is shown that fixed points are naturally interpreted as concepts in the sense of traditional logic.

The goal of this paper is to assess three arguments that have been proposed to rebut the idea that the notion of indeterminate identity is incoherent. In the first part, the author presents Gareth Evans’ argument purporting to show the incoherence of indeterminate identity. Next, the author assesses a rebuttal proposed by E. J. Lowe. Although the rebuttal seems sound, Harold Noonan has shown that its scope is limited. After that, a rebuttal by Peter van Inwagen is analysed. The author (...) compares it with Lowe’s and shows that consistent application of the principles van Inwagen uses leads to objects having inconsistent properties. In the final part, it is shown that although the answer proposed by Terence Parsons seems superior to both van Inwagen’s and Lowe’s, its scope is also limited. As a result, Evans’ argument seems to stand unrefuted by these three counterarguments. (shrink)

Článek nabízí kritickou reflexi způsobů, jimiž se filozofie snaží zajistit a zprostředkovat vědění o sobě samé, svých dějinách a klíčových problémech. Podrobně se věnuje procesům redukce a explikace, které jsou nedílnou součástí tohoto úsilí. S pomocí mnoha konkrétních příkladů ukazuje jejich úskalí a vzájemnou provázanost.

The goal of the essayistic speculation (intended also as a brief laudatio) is to illustrate on an example the way that Sloterdijk could transform literary impulses into themes that he subsequently processes philosophically and develops in his works. I will present several of such potential transformations by means of parts and themes from Bonaventura’s Nachtwachen (1804, especially vigils 9 and 14), which Sloterdijk commented on in his Vienna lectures in 1998. The aim is not to seek parallels between Bonaventura’s and (...) Sloterdijk’s works, but to illustrate the possibilities of a philosophical transformation, the exploitation of literary themes by philosophical imagination and subsequently a detailed elaboration of philosophical concepts. (shrink)

So much of the work that we do as philosophers is published without much critical commentary from our colleagues. Only rarely do we have the chance to improve our work through the extensive critical analysis of our colleagues. That is why I am very grateful to have this opportunity to benefit from the valuable critical analysis that the contributors to this volume have directed at my practical reconciliation argument for making people just. While in this brief response I cannot hope (...) to discuss all the interesting points that my distinguished commentators Kurt Baier, Gerald Doppelt, James Fishkin, John Hospers, Alison Jaggar, Eric Mack, Jeffrey Reiman, Rosemarie Tong and Iris Young have raised, I will try to lay to rest at least some of their doubts concerning my practical reconciliation argument for making people just. (shrink)

For a number of years now I have argued for a reconciliation of contemporary conceptions of justice. I have argued that a libertarian conception of justice with its ideal of liberty, a welfare liberal conception of justice with its ideal of fairness, a socialist conception of justice with its ideal of equality, a communitarian conception of justice with its ideal of the common good, and a feminist conception of justice with its ideal of androgyny can all be seen to support (...) the same practical requirements, specifically the practical requirements that are usually associated with a welfare liberal conception of justice, namely, a right to welfare and a right to equal opportunity. Since most people endorse one or another of these conceptions of justice, to reach agreement in practice it should suffice to show them that all these conceptions support the same practical requirements of a right to welfare and a right to equal opportunity. (shrink)

The article is divided into five parts that take readers through a historical and sociological analysis of the birth of European nationalism and concludes by emphasizing the need to overcome nationalism. In the first three parts, the author provides readers with detailed arguments on the historical background of nationalism. These show that the ideas of nationalism provided modern society with an important type of social bond. However, the article also focuses on why this type of social bond became the source (...) of serious trouble in central Europe. It has produced many disastrous events, such as wars, the holocaust, and ethnic-cleansing. Moreover, it has brought about a style of thinking that is too rigid and out of date in our globalizing world. The fourth part shows that nationalism operates through nationalist identity-myths. In the final part of the article, the author demonstrates how this new type of nationalism type has influenced the philosophy of education, teaching and national curricula and suggests a few maxims that should govern the transition from nationalist to trans-nationalist perspectives (not only) in education. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the disproportion the author sees in Rorty’s work. While the author appreciates highly Rorty’s antirepresentationalism, he criticizes Rorty’s social and political philosophy, which, an his opinion, is rooted in early modern philosophy. The latter, he argues, emphasizes the dichotomy between subject and object – an approach characteristic for that period. In support of his claiming a big difference between full-fledge pragmatism and purely pragmatic eclecticism, the author compares Rorty’s and Dewey’s works to show that those of (...) Dewey are considerably promising as for as the resolution of the problems of our society and politics. (shrink)

Libertarianism has long been known for its opposition to a right to welfare, In this paper, I will oppose this view of libertarianism, maintaining that the libertarian’s own ideal of liberty requires just such a right to welfare. I begin by showing that there are conflicts of negative liberty between the rich and the poor. I then argue that when these conflicts are evaluated by the “ought “ implies “can” principle, the liberty of the poor has priority over the liberty (...) of the rich, and it is this priority that provides the grounds for a right to welfare. Along the way, I argue that there are not two interpretations of libertarianism - an ideal based versionand a rights-based version - but only one and this interpretation supports a right to welfare. (shrink)

The only textbook devoted to these basic challenges to ethicsIntroduces some of the problems of traditional ethics and solutions to themExamines each of the challenges separatelySuggests how traditional ethics can meet the challengesThis book's author argues that traditional ethics has yet to face up to three important challenges that come from environmentalism, feminism, and multiculturalism. This failure to face up to these challenges has meant that no matter how successful traditional ethics has been at dealing with the problems it recognizes, (...) it has failed to deal with the possibility that its solutions to these problems are biased in favour of humans, biased in favour of men, and biased in favour of Western culture. Failure to deal with these challenges has clearly put the justification of traditional ethics into question. Thus those concerned with the justification of traditional ethics have no alternative but to try to determine how these challenges can be met. To meet the challenges, Sterba argues that traditional ethics must incorporate conlfict resolution principles that favour nonhumans over humans in a significant range of cases, must rule out gendered family structures and implement an ideal of androgyny, and must endorse an ethics that is secular in character and one that can survive a wide-ranging comparative evaluation of both Western and non-Western moral ideals and cultures.Readership: This text is indended for students in introductory ethics and moral problems courses and lay readers interested in evironmentalism, feminism, and multiculturalism. (shrink)

Although the theory of memetics appeared highly promising at the beginning, it is no longer considered a scientific theory among contemporary evolutionary scholars. This study aims to compare the genealogy of memetics with the historically more successful gene-culture coevolution theory. This comparison is made in order to determine the constraints that emerged during the internal development of the memetics theory that could bias memeticists to work on the ontology of meme units as opposed to hypotheses testing, which was adopted by (...) the gene-culture scholars. I trace this problem back to the diachronic development of memetics to its origin in the gene-centered anti-group-selectionist argument of George C. Williams and Richard Dawkins. The strict adoption of this argument predisposed memeticists with the a priori idea that there is no evolution without discrete units of selection, which in turn, made them dependent on the principal separation of biological and memetic fitness. This separation thus prevented memeticists from accepting an adaptationist view of culture which, on the contrary, allowed gene-culture theorists to attract more scientists to test the hypotheses, creating the historical success of the gene-culture coevolution theory. (shrink)

This is a topically organized anthology which covers a wide range of competing positions. No other anthology offers as many competing positions under each problem and covers fourteen problems in all.

The article introduces a special themed issue of Theory of Science on epistemologies of spaces and places. It provides a disciplinary context of the theme and reviews some of the key arguments that led to the so-called spatial turn in social sciences and the humanities. Science studies in the broad sense have also been affected by this shift of research interest to spatial aspects of science at both micro- and macro-levels. Scientific knowledge has been subject to analyses that stress its (...) local contingencies, mobility and dependencies on spatial arrangements. The ensuing new epistemologies require novel concepts or reconsideration of the older terms, such as universality or objectivity. (shrink)

This book conveys the breadth and interconnectedness of questions of justice - a rarity in contemporary moral and political philosophy. James P. Sterba argues that a minimal notion of rationality requires morality, and that a minimal libertarian morality requires the welfare and equal opportunity endorsee by welfare liberals and the equality endorsed by socialists, as well as a full feminist agenda. Feminist, racial, homosexual, and multicultural justice, are also shown to be mutually supporting. The author further shows the compatibility between (...) anthropocentric and biocentric environmental ethics, as between just war and pacifist theories. Finally, he spells out when normal politics, legal protest, civil disobedience, revolutionary action, and criminal disobedience are morally permitted by justice for here and now. This highly original and potentially controversial book is ideal for courses in moral and political philosophy, applied ethics, women's studies, environmental studies, and peace studies. (shrink)

Recenzní studie vychází z kolektivní monografie editorů Charlese Bazermana, Adairy Bo- nini a Débory Figueiredo, Genre in a Changing World a věnuje se tématům souvisejícím s významem žánrů ve vědecké a akademické praxi. Identifikuje zejména dvě oblasti, na něž se ve zvýšené míře soustředí badatelské aktivity pra- cující s žánrem jako analytickým nástrojem: žánrovou pedagogiku na univerzitní úrovni a oborovou enkulturaci. Zatímco první oblast ohraničuje akademické texty vůči jiným textovým formám, druhá se zabývá jejich vnitřní rozrůzněností. Studie zdůrazňuje demonstro- vaný (...) přínos přístupů založených na žánrech pro výzkumy vědecké praxe, avšak dochází k závěru, že je zapotřebí důsledněji promýšlet jejich epistemologické implikace. (shrink)

The Pursuit of Justice: A Personal Philosophical History is a collection of renowned scholar and philosopher James P. Sterba’s finest works - essays spanning the full spectrum of his illustrious career along with new scholarship on the enduring struggle for justice we face as a society, and as individuals in the modern world. That struggle, or pursuit, may be ongoing, but – as this book details – it has come a long way, and that progress, however frustrating it may be (...) to obtain and secure, is a testament to the work to which scholars like Sterba have devoted their lives and careers. (shrink)

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In this timely collection of thoughtful and provocative essays, a diverse group of prominent philosophers and political scientists discuss critical issues such as the nature and definition of terrorism.

[The neo-Meinongian conception of existence].

Studie předkládá novou interpretaci zpráv o oběhu nebeských těles podle Anaximena z Mílétu. Nebeská tělesa se v jeho pojetí nemají pohybovat pod Zemí, ale naopak kolem Země. Anaximenés měl danou koncepci přiblížit motivem plstěného klobouku, který se otáčí kolem naší hlavy. Případné vysvětlení oběhů nebeských těles pomocí nakloněné Země podél její horizontální osy však patrně mylně vychází až z koncepce kulové Země a sklonu ekliptiky. Je možné, že dochované texty ve skutečnosti navazují na problém sklonu nebeské osy a popisují původní (...) situaci oběhů nebeských těles předtím, než se „nebe naklonilo“. (shrink)

Aristotle ascribes to Thales of Miletus the notion of the Earth resting on water. However, in archaic Ionian cosmologies the Earth was not viewed as a cosmic body resting on physical support. The very motif is likely to have originated in the Near East. If Aristotle claims that this was the oldest conception of stability of the Earth it is possible that Thales may have been associated with it anachronistically.