L'idée d'associer probabilité et induction n'est pas propre au xxe siècle, mais elle a reçu un développement systématique lorsque les philosophes néo-positivistes s'en sont emparés. Dès les années 1940, le philosophe Rudolf Carnap s'est proposé de relever le «défi humien» en fondant une théorie de la confirmation par la construction d'une logique probabiliste dite «inductive». Ce projet avait été esquissé à Cambridge dans les années 1920 par l'économiste John M. Keynes. Examiner le programme de Carnap dans sa totalité, le situer (...) dans son contexte historique, suivre son évolution et les influences qu'il a eues, tels sont les buts de cet article. The idea of associating probability and induction is not a theme suitable for the xxth century but it has received a systematic development when the neo-positivist philosophers seized it. Beginning with the 1940's, the philosopher Rudolph Carnap proposed to affront the «Humian challenge» by founding a theory of confirmation through the construction of a probabilistic logic called «inductive». This project had been outlined in Cambridge during the 1920's by the economist John M. Keynes. To examine Carnap's program in its totality, to situate it in its historical context, to follow its evolution and the influences it has had, these are the aims of this article. (shrink)

The paper gives a new light on the controversy between Popper and Carnap on the interpretation of probability and its use to solve the problem of induction. In his later work on probability and inductive logic, Carnap came nearer to the bayesian positions stressing an important shift from his ear..

This is a conversation that took place at Dr. Vladimir Safatle’s São Paulo home on 16 February, 2019, during Dr. Samir Gandesha’s time as a Visiting Professor at the Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas -FFLCH-USP. It addresses the South American roots of the authoritarian Neoliberalism that has now become a truly global phenomenon.

Resilience may be referred to as the capacity for positive adaptation and to quickly recover from difficulties and significant adversity. After examining operational definitions of related concepts, the article discusses resilience building exercises for functional fitness at the individual soldier level, to include among others, self-monitoring, self-evaluation, self-reinforcement, emotional regulation exercises, mindfulness training, relaxation and grounding exercises and importance of maintaining discipline and routine in the military. Using an acronym CARRIES, the article examines efforts to enhance resilience building through empirically (...) validated cognitive, behavioural and intrapersonal skills originating from best practices learned in the military. (shrink)

Does natural selection act primarily on individual organisms, on groups, on genes, or on whole species? The question of levels of selection - on which biologists and philosophers have long disagreed - is central to evolutionary theory and to the philosophy of biology. Samir Okasha's comprehensive analysis gives a clear account of the philosophical issues at stake in the current debate.

Samir Okasha offers a critical study of agential thinking in biology, where evolved organisms are seen as agents pursuing a goal. He examines the justification for transposing concepts from rational humans to the biological world, and considers whether agential thinking is mere anthropomorphism or plays a more intellectual role in the science.

In this paper, we draw inferences from the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s book, The Idea of Justice to inform the organisational justice literature. The extant societal-level theories of justice tend to emphasise aspects that are analogous to either the procedural or distributive dimensions of organisational justice. The Senian idea of comprehensive justice is different in that it synthesises the procedural- and distributive-related dimensions at the societal-level. We theorise that the Senian notion could be applied at the organisational-level to facilitate outcomes (...) that are actually valued by the workforce. Further, we contend that the emphasis on non-parochialism in the Senian notion of justice makes it particularly relevant to the ethics of multi-national corporations operating in alien cultures. To support our contention, we analyse the lean manufacturing practices of a Japanese MNC operating in India. Our case analysis demonstrates how Senian thinking helps one surface unjust outcomes that would otherwise go unacknowledged. Our analysis also offers tentative support to Senian claims about the capacity of human behaviour to undermine well-designed institutions. Concurring with the Senian view, which favours combating manifest injustice rather than fixating over designing perfectly just institutions, we derive some normative implications to advance the cause of striving for outcomes that are actually valued by the workforce. (shrink)

Derrida and the Inheritance of Democracy provides a theoretically rich and accessible account of Derrida's political philosophy. Demonstrating the key role inheritance plays in Derrida’s thinking, Samir Haddad develops a general theory of inheritance and shows how it is essential to democratic action. He transforms Derrida’s well-known idea of "democracy to come" into active engagement with democratic traditions. Haddad focuses on issues such as hospitality, justice, normativity, violence, friendship, birth, and the nature of democracy as he reads these deeply (...) political writings. (shrink)

Covering some of science's most divisive topics, such as philosophical issues in genetics and evolution, the philosophy of biology also encompasses more traditional philosophical questions, such as free will, essentialism, and nature vs nurture. Here, Samir Okasha outlines the core issues with which contemporary philosophy of biology is engaged.

This paper intends to examine the development of conflictual interactions, how they might be resolved, and the socio-cultural norms involved, by adopting an analytical framework in an online gaming context. The current paper was inspired by Kádár and Haugh’s framework as it enables me to investigate both the macro and micro aspects of (im)politeness. The study’s aim is to further examine how impoliteness, language aggression and conflict are realised in two online gaming platforms, namely Fortnite and PUBG Mobile. Thus, I (...) will explore discursively how these phenomena are subjective in a Tunisian Arabic setting and discuss how participants reach their subjective perception of conflict in ways that do not always correspond to the supposed intentions of the ostensible offender. The results indicate that conflict is subjective as it is evaluated in different ways by different gamers and could be a result of a conflictual intention. The findings also reveal that conflict may also be created/ escalated as a result of a non-conflictual intention. Thus, this paper contributes to understanding of conflict, how impoliteness can lead to conflict and the various aspects of impoliteness/the perception of impoliteness. (shrink)

Kuhn’s famous thesis that there is ‘no unique algorithm’ for choosing between rival scientific theories is analysed using the machinery of social choice theory. It is shown that the problem of theory choice as posed by Kuhn is formally identical to a standard social choice problem. This suggests that analogues of well-known results from the social choice literature, such as Arrow’s impossibility theorem, may apply to theory choice. If an analogue of Arrow’s theorem does hold for theory choice this would (...) refute Kuhn’s thesis, but it would also pose a threat to the rationality of science, a threat that is if anything more worrying than that posed by Kuhn. Various possible ‘escape routes’ from Arrow’s impossibility result are examined, in particular Amartya Sen’s idea of ‘enriching the informational basis’. It is shown that Sen’s idea can be applied to the problem of theory choice in science. This in turn sheds light on two well-known approaches to inductive inference in philosophy of science: Bayesianism and statistical model selection. (shrink)

Biological agency has received much attention in recent philosophy of biology. But what is the motivation for introducing talk of agency into biology and what is meant by “agent”? Two distinct motivations can be discerned. The first is that thinking of organisms as agents helps to articulate what is distinctive about organisms vis-à-vis other biological entities. The second is that treating organisms as agent-like is a useful heuristic for understanding their evolved behavior. The concept of agent itself may be understood (...) in at least four different ways: minimal agent, intelligent agent, rational agent, and intentional agent. Which understanding is most appropriate depends on which of the two motivations we are concerned with. (shrink)

Several logical puzzles, riddles and problems are defined based on the notion of games in informative contexts. Hintikka argues that epistemology or the theory of knowledge must be considered from the notion of information. So, knowledge cannot just be based on the notions of belief and justification. The present proposal will focus on the logical structure of information, and not only on the quantification of information as suggested by Claude A. Shannon. In many cases, the information bits, although seemingly or (...) factually contradictory, are quite relevant. The paraconsistent systems of logic offer a formalization of reasoning that can support certain contradictions. The well-known “Bar-Hillel–Carnap Paradox” causes embarrassment when it concludes that the informational content of a contradiction would be maximum, opposing the traditional notion that the semantic information must be true, and that contradictions are necessarily false. (shrink)

If architectural judgment were a city, a city of ideas and forms, then it is a very imperfect city. When architects judge the success or failure of a building, the range of ways and criteria which can be used for this evaluation causes many contentious and discordant arguments. Proposing that the increase in number and intensity of such arguments threatens to destabilize the very grounds upon which judgment is supposed to rest, this book examines architectural judgment in its historical, cultural, (...) political, and psychological dimensions and their convergence on that most expressive part of architecture, namely: architectural character. It stresses the value of reasoned judgment in justifying architectural form -a judgment based on three sets of criteria: those criteria that are external to architecture, those that are internal to architecture, and those that pertain to the psychology of the architect as image-maker. External criteria include, philosophies of history or theories of modernity; internal criteria include architectural character and architectural composition; while the psychological criteria pertain to 'mimetic rivalry', or rivaling desires for the same architectural forms. Yet, although architectural conflicts can adversely influence judgment, they can at the same time, contribute to the advancement of architectural culture. (shrink)

We propose a new relevance sensitive model for representing and revising belief structures, which relies on a notion of partial language splitting and tolerates some amount of inconsistency while retaining classical logic. The model preserves an agent's ability to answer queries in a coherent way using Belnap's four-valued logic. Axioms analogous to the AGM axioms hold for this new model. The distinction between implicit and explicit beliefs is represented and psychologically plausible, computationally tractable procedures for query answering and belief..

Such obvious truth must be made even more obvious, and this is exactly what Samir Selmanovic is doing for all of us and for the future of humanity.

What is science? Is there a real difference between science and myth? Is science objective? Can science explain everything? This Very Short Introduction provides a concise overview of the main themes of contemporary philosophy of science. Beginning with a short history of science to set the scene, Samir Okasha goes on to investigate the nature of scientific reasoning, scientific explanation, revolutions in science, and theories such as realism and anti-realism. He also looks at philosophical issues in particular sciences, including (...) the problem of classification in biology, and the nature of space and time in physics. The final chapter touches on the conflicts between science and religion, and explores whether science is ultimately a good thing. (shrink)

Samir Amin depicts a world in which NATO has taken over the role of the United Nations, in which US hegemony is more or less complete, in which millions are condemned to die in order to preserve the social order of the US, Europe and Japan. Amin's analyses of the Gulf War, the wars in former Yugoslavia and the war in Central Asia reveal the scope of US strategic aims. He argues that the political and military dimension of US (...) dominance is as significant as US economic preponderance in determining the future of capitalist development. (shrink)

Cancer is often seen as a case of multilevel selection, in which selfish cancer cells pursue short-term proliferation to the detriment of the collective. Thus cancer cells are described as ‘cheats’, and an analogy is often drawn between the mechanisms by which organisms fight cancer and the mechanisms by which social groups enforce cooperation. Recently, Andy Gardner and Max Shpak and Jie Lu have argued that cancer is not a true case of multilevel selection, that cancer cells should be not (...) regarded as cheats, and that the analogy between anti-cancer adaptations and suppression mechanisms in social groups is misleading. Their arguments are powerful. However, by drawing on the (presumed) link between cancer and the evolution of multicellularity, the notion that cancer represents a form of selective conflict between cells and organisms can be salvaged. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers of biology typically regard essentialism about speciesas incompatible with modern Darwinian theory. Analytic metaphysicians such asKripke, Putnam and Wiggins, on the other hand, believe that their essentialist thesesare applicable to biological kinds. I explore this tension. I show that standard anti-essentialist considerations only show that species do not have intrinsic essential properties. I argue that while Putnam and Kripke do make assumptions that contradict received biological opinion, their model of natural kinds, suitably modified, is partially applicable to (...) biological species. However, Wiggins'' thesis that organisms belong essentially to their species is untenable, given modern species concepts. I suggest that Putnam''s, Kripke''s and Wiggins'' errors stem from adopting an account of the point of scientific classification which implies that relationally-defined kinds are likely to be of little value, an account which is inapplicable to biology. (shrink)

Derrida lived almost his entire life attached to educational institutions, his work was received across the globe predominantly in the academy, and he was politically and philosophically preoccupied with issues related to teaching and educational institutions for a decade. The author uses these two events to organize his presentation of the main themes in Derrida's discussions of education. With two opponents, themselves opposed, Groupe de recherches sur l’enseignement philosophique (GREPH) and Derrida thus had a double task – to prevent the (...) particular reforms from coming to pass, while developing alternative reforms in their place. The author examines Derrida's pursuit of this double task by focusing on his re‐articulation of three themes, each one central to the traditional view: the role of the teacher; the age of the student, and philosophy's relation to a national language. (shrink)

Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays ftz Evolution: Findings, hypotheses and speculations (response to DOI 10.1002/bies.201100019) AbstractOn the border of the homeotic function: Re‐evaluating the controversial role of cofactor‐recruiting motifs AbstractControl of DNA replication: A new facet of Hox proteins? AbstractClassification of sequence signatures: a guide to Hox protein function Abstract.

It was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who referred to family as the precedent of citizenship, but the authors here adopt a more extended approach claiming that the Cultural and Identity politics in Bosnia can be recognized as politicizing of the ethno-family maxim. With the return of identity as a core activity in world politics, the already unsettled environment in Bosnia gains in its intensity. The Authors analyzing theoretical and philosophical background of the concept of ethnic divide within the Country represent (...) an alternative concept of a cultural plurality based on secular comprehension of Identity, without referring to any absolute or substantial criteria. (shrink)

This paper overviews the role of tradition in the structure, processes and behaviour of Chinese work organ izations. The traditional value frameworks combining Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist principles and prac tices had long been the surrogate of a well-defined legal structure in China. Social interaction based on the strong guanxi bonds dominates the managerial culture and such vehicles of social capital development are prerequisites of any substantive partnership building with China. The analysis presented in this overview attempts to explore the (...) reasons for relative underdevelopment of managerial autonomy and innovation, and the predominance of collective face and networking. It is suggested that there are a number of strengths in the Chinese traditions that may be helpful in the emerging managerial transitions, while pointing out areas where breaking with the past may be necessary. This paper signals the importance of more research in Asian management to alleviate the ethnocentric basis of Western-oriented mainstream management. (shrink)

We present a model for first-order belief revision that is characterized by an underlying relevance-like relation and a background proof system. The model is extremely general in order to allow for a wide variety in these characterizing parameters. It allows some weakenings of beliefs which were initially implicit to become explicit and survive the revision process. The effects of revision are localized to the part of the theory that is influenced by the the new information. Iterated revision in this model (...) is handled trivially since the revision operator is constructive by definition. The usage of deductively limited proof systems permits an inconsistency tolerant model. The notion of a part of a theory capable of being influenced by new information (designed to accomodate the specific character of first-order languages) is shown to satisfy some intuitive and desirable properties. We show that for particular parametrizations, standard revision schemes can be embedded into our paradigm. (shrink)

in Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2007.

This article argues that the figure of Oedipus lies at the heart of Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. Oedipus is the prototypical Aufklärer as no one can rival him in his courageous attempt to employ his own autonomous reason `without direction from another'; yet self-knowledge remains beyond his grasp. Indeed, Oedipus' obsessive drive to bring the truth to light ultimately leads him to put out his own eyes because he is unable to bear the sight of the catastrophe that (...) this drive engenders. Oedipus' demise represents in allegorical form the self-destruction of enlightenment itself. Enlightenment is similarly driven to illuminate the world in its totality by reducing it to philosophical concepts. In the process, however, it becomes blind to the question of its dependence upon that which it purports to possess. In its attempt at total illumination, therefore, enlightenment does not effectuate an exit or Ausgang from the opacity of myth, as Kant had held, but rather is blinded, paradoxically, by the radiance of its own projections. Reading the dialectic of enlightenment through the tragedy of Oedipus leads back to the enigmatic question of art as the means by which the rationalization and disenchantment of the world can be reflected upon critically. (shrink)

The UNESCO research projects focusing on The Silk Routes and The Slave Routes were launched at just the right time to remind us that globalization is not a novel dimension of the history of humanity. Not only am I among those who analyze capitalism as a worldwide system from its very inception, but I have also found it pertinent to recall that prior to the sixteenth century, societies were not at all isolated from one another but rather competing within regional (...) systems (and perhaps within one global system). To underestimate this fact is to condemn ourselves to a misunderstanding of the very dynamics of change within societies. At the same time, I maintain that in the history of the world, capitalism represents a qualitative rupture that had its beginnings around 1500. Accordingly I emphasize the distinction that must be made between the integrated structure of the worldwide capitalist system and the protocapitalist elements that are to be found in earlier societies; I also underline the specificity of the contrast between centers and peripheries, which is unique to global capitalism and which differs from previous forms of polarization. (shrink)

Architectural theory arises from building, when the mind considers its symbolic relations to its own constructions. The intent of this essay is to discuss the intellectual causes that precede building and precede theory. It considers certain fundamental dualities in our thinking about architecture—such as image and word; type and model; imitation and invention—and the role they play in its making, its perfection as an art, and the eventual elaboration of its tenets into a theory. At a time when theories of (...) architecture proliferate as expressions of ‘personal philosophies,’ a careful and incisive philosophical approach to if, how, and when does theory become formative of building, may ensure that architecture remain faithful to its intrinsic purposes. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper explores the contrast between mentalistic and behaviouristic interpretations of decision theory. The former regards credences and utilities as psychologically real, while the latter regards them as mere representations of an agent's preferences. Philosophers typically adopt the former interpretation, economists the latter. It is argued that the mentalistic interpretation is preferable if our aim is to use decision theory for descriptive purposes, but if our aim is normative then the behaviouristic interpretation cannot be dispensed with.

We consider the question: under what circumstances can the concept of adaptation be applied to groups, rather than individuals? Gardner and Grafen (2009, J. Evol. Biol.22: 659–671) develop a novel approach to this question, building on Grafen's ‘formal Darwinism’ project, which defines adaptation in terms of links between evolutionary dynamics and optimization. They conclude that only clonal groups, and to a lesser extent groups in which reproductive competition is repressed, can be considered as adaptive units. We re-examine the conditions under (...) which the selection–optimization links hold at the group level. We focus on an important distinction between two ways of understanding the links, which have different implications regarding group adaptationism. We show how the formal Darwinism approach can be reconciled with G.C. Williams’ famous analysis of group adaptation, and we consider the relationships between group adaptation, the Price equation approach to multi-level selection, and the alternative approach based on contextual analysis. (shrink)

Routledge (New Media and Cyberculture Series), July 2007.

The axiom of recovery, while capturing a central intuition regarding belief change, has been the source of much controversy. We argue briefly against putative counterexamples to the axiom—while agreeing that some of their insight deserves to be preserved—and present additional recovery-like axioms in a framework that uses epistemic states, which encode preferences, as the object of revisions. This makes iterated revision possible and renders explicit the connection between iterated belief change and the axiom of recovery. We provide a representation theorem (...) that connects the semantic conditions we impose on iterated revision and our additional syntactical properties. We show interesting similarities between our framework and that of Darwiche–Pearl (Artificial Intelligence 89:1–29 1997). In particular, we show that intuitions underlying the controversial (C2) postulate are captured by the recovery axiom and our recovery-like postulates (the latter can be seen as weakenings of (C2)). We present postulates for contraction, in the same spirit as the Darwiche–Pearl postulates for revision, and provide a theorem that connects our syntactic postulates with a set of semantic conditions. Lastly, we show a connection between the contraction postulates and a generalisation of the recovery axiom. (shrink)

In this paper I demonstrate that the analysis supporting Derrida’s identification of the desire for a pure, originary idiom in Heidegger’s reading of Trakl in Geschlecht III provides a framework with which we can understand the call for a new language in Monolingualism of the Other. While acknowledging how his interpretation of Heidegger provides important insights that guide Derrida’s later negotiation with the dual dangers of nationalism and colonialism, I argue that the proximity to Heidegger, manifest in Derrida’s articulation of (...) a desire for language in the singular, threatens to close down possibilities latent in the promising definition of deconstruction as plus d’une langue—both more than a language and no more of a language. (shrink)

The relationship between national languages and schooling is a recurring theme in Derrida’s writings on education, playing an important role in the challenge he mounts to traditional understandings of the French State’s involvement in the teaching of philosophy. In this essay, I follow this thread of thinking across several of Derrida’s texts, paying specific attention to his diagnoses of positions arguing for a universal philosophical language on the one hand, and those elevating French as the proper language of philosophy on (...) the other. I demonstrate how, against these positions, an alternative understanding of relation between language and philosophical education starts to emerge in Derrida’s work, one in which translation is a key element. (shrink)