Commentator: Mark Purvis Commentator: Sheena McMain Commentator: Clare Connolly Commentator: Maggie Eisner Commentator: Shirley Brierley Commentator: Becky Ship.

The Twentieth Century has seen a dramatic rise in the use of probability and statistics in almost all fields of research. This has stimulated many new philosophical ideas on probability. _Philosophical Theories of Probability_ is the first book to present a clear, comprehensive and systematic account of these various theories and to explain how they relate to one another. Gillies also offers a distinctive version of the propensity theory of probability, and the intersubjective interpretation, which develops the subjective theory.

Go to John Cantwell’s response to the original paper from here › Go to Grazia Ietto-Gillies’ original paper from here ›.

The last couple of decades has brought a renewed interest in American conservatism among historians. Yet most recent studies have focused on the emergence of neoconservatism after World War II and virtually no recent scholarly work has pursued the history of conservatism before the 1920s. Both Richard Hofstadter and Clinton Rossiter agreed that the late nineteenth century was an important watershed in the evolution of American conservative thought. Hofstadter argued that the new laissez-faire conservatism that became dominant during the Gilded (...) Age was remarkable in that “it lacked many of the signal characteristics of conservatism as it is usually found.” Yet some conservatives refused to accept key features of what Clinton Rossiter once branded this new “contradictory conservatism.” This essay focuses mostly on Protestant clerical intellectuals who dissented from the new orthodoxy and attempted to preserve older conservative principles. Against the laissez-faire conservatives' hyperindividualism, these dissenting conservatives stressed an organic view of the social order and the importance of mediating institutions such as family and church. To the others' secularism, they offered a social theory suffused with evangelical Protestantism. This analysis highlights where these dissidents differed from their fellow conservatives and seeks also to elucidate their alternative conservative vision of the American republic. Such a study serves to clarify just how profound an ideological shift occurred among conservatives during the Gilded Age and illuminates some of the persistent tensions within American conservatism still evident today. (shrink)

The call of the wild -- A stranger in strange lands -- Song of myself -- Senses and sensibilities -- I, robot -- Lord of the things -- And then there were none.

Using two contemporary cases of the global #MeToo movement and UK-based collective Sisters Uncut, this paper argues that a more in-depth and critical concern with gendered difference is necessary for understanding radical democratic ethics, one that advances and develops current understandings of business ethics. It draws on practices of social activism and dissent through the context of Irigaray’s later writing on democratic politics and Ziarek’s analysis of dissensus and democracy that proceeds from an emphasis on alterity as the capacity to (...) transform nonappropriative self-other relations. Therefore, the aims of the paper are: to develop a deeper understanding of a culture of difference and to consider sexual difference as central to the development of a practical democratic ethics and politics of organizations; to explore two key cases of contemporary feminist social movements that demonstrate connected yet contrasting examples of how feminist politics develops through an appreciation of embodied, intercorporeal differences; and to extend insights from Irigaray and Ziarek to examine ways in which a practical democratic politics proceeding from an embodied ethics of difference forms an important advancement to theorising the connection between ethics, dissent and democracy. (shrink)

Why is understanding causation so important in philosophy and the sciences? Should causation be defined in terms of probability? Whilst causation plays a major role in theories and concepts of medicine, little attempt has been made to connect causation and probability with medicine itself. Causality, Probability, and Medicine is one of the first books to apply philosophical reasoning about causality to important topics and debates in medicine. Donald Gillies provides a thorough introduction to and assessment of competing theories of (...) causality in philosophy, including action-related theories, causality and mechanisms, and causality and probability. Throughout the book he applies them to important discoveries and theories within medicine, such as germ theory; tuberculosis and cholera; smoking and heart disease; the first ever randomized controlled trial designed to test the treatment of tuberculosis; the growing area of philosophy of evidence-based medicine; and philosophy of epidemiology. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in philosophy of science and philosophy of medicine, as well as those working in medicine, nursing and related health disciplines where a working knowledge of causality and probability is required. (shrink)

Counterfactuals are typically thought--given the force of Sobel sequences--to be variably strict conditionals. I go the other way. Sobel sequences and (what I call) Hegel sequences push us to a strict conditional analysis of counterfactuals: counterfactuals amount to some necessity modal scoped over a plain material conditional, just which modal being a function of context. To make this worth saying I need to say just how counterfactuals and context interact. No easy feat, but I have something to say on the (...) matter. (shrink)

The idea that infant participation in research is achievable by researchers ‘voicing’ infants’ experiences and ‘perspectives’ is a central feature of current moves towards participatory research. In this article we offer an alternative. Specifically, we suggest a different point of reference than infants’ own experiences and ‘perspectives’; namely, the encounter between researcher and infant as it unfolds in practice. Drawing from a large-scale study of infants in family day care, and Merleau-Ponty’s notions of écart and reversibility, we articulate the possibility (...) that infants’ participation in research encounters may be felt by researchers in the ways that infants evoke embodied responses. Drawing on Dillon’s ethics of particularity, which builds upon écart and reversibility, we discuss the idea that researchers’ embodied responses to infants provoke possibilities for ethical reflection, which can afford new ways of ‘going on’. We propose that space may be created for infants to influence ECEC practice when researchers attend to their own embodied responses to infants during the research encounter; and to the factors that may diminish infants’ capacities to affect such responses. (shrink)

Teaching students to ask and answer questions is critically important if they are to engage in reasoned argumentation, problem-solving, and learning. This study involved 35 groups of grade 6 children from 18 classrooms in three conditions (cognitive questioning condition, community of inquiry condition, and the comparison condition) who were videotaped as they worked on specific inquiry-based science tasks. The study also involved the teachers in these classrooms who were audio-taped as they interacted with the children during these tasks. The results (...) show that while there were no significant differences in the children's explanatory behaviour across the two time periods, there were significant differences in the total verbal interactions between the children in the cognitive questioning condition and their peers in the community of inquiry and comparison conditions. Furthermore, the children in the cognitive questioning condition obtained higher reasoning and problem-solving scores than peers in the other conditions. Interestingly, while there were no significant differences between the teachers’ basic and extended mediating behaviours in the three conditions at Times 1 and 2, there was a significant difference in extended mediation behaviours with the teachers demonstrating nearly three times more extended mediation to promote students’ learning at Time 2 than they did at Time 1. Teacher intervention in providing guidance in how to interact during cooperative, inquiry-based science appears to be critical to helping students engage in higher-level thinking and learning. (shrink)

This is a handbook article about indicative conditionals.

This reissue of D. A. Gillies highly influential work, first published in 1973, is a philosophical theory of probability which seeks to develop von Mises’ views on the subject. In agreement with von Mises, the author regards probability theory as a mathematical science like mechanics or electrodynamics, and probability as an objective, measurable concept like force, mass or charge. On the other hand, Dr Gillies rejects von Mises’ definition of probability in terms of limiting frequency and claims that (...) probability should be taken as a primitive or undefined term in accordance with modern axiomatic approaches. This of course raises the problem of how the abstract calculus of probability should be connected with the ‘actual world of experiments’. It is suggested that this link should be established, not by a definition of probability, but by an application of Popper’s concept of falsifiability. In addition to formulating his own interesting theory, Dr Gillies gives a detailed criticism of the generally accepted Neyman Pearson theory of testing, as well as of alternative philosophical approaches to probability theory. The reissue will be of interest both to philosophers with no previous knowledge of probability theory and to mathematicians interested in the foundations of probability theory and statistics. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence and Scientific Method examines the remarkable advances made in the field of AI over the past twenty years, discussing their profound implications for philosophy. Taking a clear, non-technical approach, Donald Gillies shows how current views on scientific method are challenged by this recent research, and suggests a new framework for the study of logic. Finally, he draws on work by such seminal thinkers as Bacon, Gdel, Popper, Penrose, and Lucas, to address the hotly-contested question of whether computers (...) might become intellectually superior to human beings. (shrink)

The paper begins with an exposition of Aristotle’s own philosophy of mathematics. It is claimed that this is based on two postulates. The first is the embodiment postulate, which states that mathematical objects exist not in a separate world, but embodied in the material world. The second is that infinity is always potential and never actual. It is argued that Aristotle’s philosophy gave an adequate account of ancient Greek mathematics; but that his second postulate does not apply to modern mathematics, (...) which assumes the existence of the actual infinite. However, it is claimed that the embodiment postulate does still hold in contemporary mathematics, and this is argued in detail by considering the natural numbers and the sets of ZFC. (shrink)

Theft, grievances and absenteeism show the need to examine mutual loyalty and establish a‘win‐win’policy.

Modern medicine consumes vast amounts of resources, ranging from human to technological and financial. In a well-functioning and well-equipped health system, resource allocation considerations rarely impact clinical decision-making as all patients that need care will (eventually) receive it. In light of this, health care providers (HCPs) are often taught to focus on the patient in front of them, driven by a type of patient-centred ethics (of care) that prioritizes the individual person’s well-being above the aggregate. Informed by the principle of (...) autonomy and respect for individual self-determination, patients in well-resourced health systems often have the autonomy to make decisions that require high resource utilization with little concern directed to how these choices may impact the care provided to other patients or groups of patients. In fact, it is generally accepted that if resources are sufficient, patients and their providers should be able to make medical decisions unencumbered by considerations related to broader resource allocation (with some caveats related to personal or national health insurance schemes). This means that the average HCP in the best case and in their daily routine spends little time considering how their clinical choices might impact the care available to others—concerns related to how resources are allocated, and who receives care are far removed from clinical interaction and related medical decision-making. (shrink)

Moore's paradox pits our intuitions about semantic oddnessagainst the concept of truth-functional consistency. Most solutions tothe problem proceed by explaining away our intuitions. But``consistency'' is a theory-laden concept, having different contours indifferent semantic theories. Truth-functional consistency is appropriateonly if the semantic theory we are using identifies meaning withtruth-conditions. I argue that such a framework is not appropriate whenit comes to analzying epistemic modality. I show that a theory whichaccounts for a wide variety of semantic data about epistemic modals(Update Semantics) buys (...) us a solution to Moore's paradox as a corollary.It turns out that Moorean propositions, when looked at through the lenseof an appropriate semantic theory, are inconsistent after all. (shrink)

[Un]disciplined Gestures and [Un]common sense: The Sensual, Acoustic Logic[s] of Paradox and Art Photography and the Representation of Modernist Architectural Space: From the Melancholy Fragment to the Colour of Utopia.

This book focuses on resource allocation in military and humanitarian medicine during times of scarcity and austerity. It is in these times that health systems bend, break, and even collapse and where resource allocation becomes a paramount concern and directly impacts clinical decision-making. Such times are challenging and this book covers this very important, yet, scarcely researched topic within the field of bioethics. This work brings together experts and practitioners in the fields of military health care, philosophy, ethics, and other (...) disciplines to provide analysis on a variety of related topics ranging from case studies and first-hand experiences to policy and philosophical analysis. It is of great interest to to academics, practitioners, policy makers and students who are looking for analyses and guidance regarding the fair provision of medical care and the use of medical rules of eligibility under adverse conditions. (shrink)

This article draws on a study of infant participation in research, and work in philosophical-empirical inquiry, to illuminate some of the inexhaustible entanglements constituting the collec...

How biological form is generated remains one of the most fascinating but elusive challenges for science. Moreover, it is widely documented in contemporary literature that development is tightly coordinated. The idea that such development is governed by a coordinating field of force, the morphogenetic field, and its position in embryology research paradigms, is traced in this article. Empirical evidences for field phenomena are described, ranging from bioelectromagnetic effects, morphology, transplantation, regeneration, and other data. Applications of medical potential including treatment of (...) cancer, birth defects, and wound healing are highlighted. The article hypothesizes that distinct morphological forms may have distinct field parameters. Experimentally tractable field parameters may thus provide an exciting research program for probing morphogenesis and phylogenetic diversity. (shrink)

This paper introduces what is called the intersubjective interpretation of the probability calculus. Intersubjective probabilities are related to subjective probabilities, and the paper begins with a particular formulation of the familiar Dutch Book argument. This argument is then extended, in Section 3, to social groups, and this enables the concept of intersubjective probability to be introduced in Section 4. It is then argued that the intersubjective interpretation is the appropriate one for the probabilities which appear in confirmation theory whether of (...) a Bayesian or a Popperian variety. The final section of the paper states and tries to answer an objection due to Putnam. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to consider whether critical rationalism has any ideas which could usefully be applied to the internet. Today we tend to take the internet for granted and it is easy to forget that it was only about two decades ago that it began to be used to any significant extent. Accordingly in section 1 of the paper, there is a brief consideration of the history of the internet. At first sight this makes it looks implausible (...) that any of Popper’s ideas could be applicable to the internet, since Popper died before the internet came into general use. However, section 2 argues that Popper’s theory of World 3 does apply very well to the internet. This application is significant because, as shown in section 3, it leads to the problem of misinformation, which is one of the most significant problems generated by the internet. In section 4 there is an attempt to solve this problem using ideas taken from Popper’s epistemology. It is argued that there should be changes in education designed to prepare students for the internet age. Teaching in the internet age should focus on presenting to the students not just the accepted theories but also the evidence on which they are based. An illustration of how this might be done is given by considering an example from science teaching, namely the teaching of Newtonian mechanics in the last years of school or first years of university. (shrink)

This paper has three main goals. First, to motivate a puzzle about how ignorance-expressing terms like maybe and if interact: they iterate, and when they do they exhibit scopelessness. Second, to argue that there is an ambiguity in our theoretical toolbox, and that exposing that opens the door to a solution to the puzzle. And third, to explore the reach of that solution. Along the way, the paper highlights a number of pleasing properties of two elegant semantic theories, explores some (...) meta-theoretic properties of dynamic notions of meaning, dips its toe into some hazardous waters, and offers characterization theorems for the space of meanings an indicative conditional can have. (shrink)

This paper problematises the ways women’s leadership has been understood in relation to male leadership rather than on its own terms. Focusing specifically on ethical leadership, we challenge and politicise the symbolic status of women in leadership by considering the practice of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. In so doing, we demonstrate how leadership ethics based on feminised ideals such as care and empathy are problematic in their typecasting of women as being simply the other to men. We apply (...) different strategies of mimesis for developing feminist leadership ethics that does not derive from the masculine. This offers a radical vision for leadership that liberates the feminine and women’s subjectivities from the masculine order. It also offers a practical project for changing women’s working lives through relationality, intercorporeality, collective agency and ethical openness with the desire for fundamental political transformation in the ways in which women can lead. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction The Breakthrough with Expert Systems in the 1970s The Emergence of Bayesian Networks in the 1980s Philosophical Problems Connected with Probability in AI Appendix.