Uncovering the world’s ethnic inequalities is hampered by a lack of ethnicity-annotated datasets. Name-ethnicity classifiers (NECs) can help, as they are able to infer people’s ethnicities from their names. However, since the latest generation of NECs rely on machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), they may suffer from the same racist and sexist biases found in many AIs. Therefore, this paper offers an algorithmic fairness audit of three NECs. It finds that the UK-Census-trained EthnicityEstimator displays large accuracy biases with regards (...) to ethnicity, but relatively less among gender and age groups. In contrast, the Twitter-trained NamePrism and the Wikipedia-trained Ethnicolr are more balanced among ethnicity, but less among gender and age. We relate these biases to global power structures manifested in naming conventions and NECs’ input distribution of names. To improve on the uncovered biases, we program a novel NEC, N2E, using fairness-aware AI techniques. We make N2E freely available at www.name-to-ethnicity.com. (shrink)

We study the proof-theoretic strength and effective content of the infinite form of Ramsey's theorem for pairs. Let RT n k denote Ramsey's theorem for k-colorings of n-element sets, and let RT $^n_{ denote (∀ k)RT n k . Our main result on computability is: For any n ≥ 2 and any computable (recursive) k-coloring of the n-element sets of natural numbers, there is an infinite homogeneous set X with X'' ≤ T 0 (n) . Let IΣ n and BΣ (...) n denote the Σ n induction and bounding schemes, respectively. Adapting the case n = 2 of the above result (where X is low 2 ) to models of arithmetic enables us to show that RCA 0 + IΣ 2 + RT 2 2 is conservative over RCA 0 + IΣ 2 for Π 1 1 statements and that $RCA_0 + I\Sigma_3 + RT^2_{ , is Π 1 1 -conservative over RCA 0 + IΣ 3 . It follows that RCA 0 + RT 2 2 does not imply BΣ 3 . In contrast, J. Hirst showed that $RCA_0 + RT^2_{ does imply BΣ 3 , and we include a proof of a slightly strengthened version of this result. It follows that $RT^2_{ is strictly stronger than RT 2 2 over RCA 0. (shrink)

This volume, an expanded edition of the philosophy of language issue of the journal Midwest Studies in Philosophy (1977), includes essays by some of the ...

We show there is a non-recursive r.e. set A such that if W is any low r.e. set, then the join W $\oplus$ A is also low. That is, A is "almost deep". This answers a question of Jockusch. The almost deep degrees form an definable ideal in the r.e. degrees (with jump.).

Rich with historical and cultural value, these works are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

This addition to the Midwest Studies in Philosophy series comprises the most recent volume on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein to date. Here 16 philosophers explore both the challenges Wittgenstein presented to philosophy as well as the responses to those challenges from such noted thinkers as Kripke. By addressing various questions raised by Wittgenstein's work, these original essays aim to illuminate in one way or another the impact Wittgenstein's legacy has had on 20th-century philosophy.

Contemporary Perspectives on the History of Philosophy was first published in 1983. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. The authors of the 27 appears in Volume 8, Midwest Studies in Philosophy,have established reputations as historians of philosophy, but their vantage point, here, is from "contemporary perspectives" - they use contemporary analytic skills to examine problems and issues considered by past philosophers. The (...) papers, arranged in historical order, fall into six groups: ancient philosophy (the Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle); the seventeenth-century rationalists (Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza); the empiricists (Locke, Berkeley, and Hume); Kant; the nineteenth century (Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Mill); and, in conclusion, an essay on Wittgenstein's Tractatus and two broad, retrospective papers entitled "Old Analyses of the Physical World and new Philosophies of Language" and "Moral Crisis and the History of Ethics.". (shrink)

This work presents 26 essays that address the issue of moral concepts. Many of the essays contain examples that should make this volume suitable for teaching moral concepts in a college or university.

This volume in the Midwest Studies in Philosophy series contains 18 essays which discuss the range of of religious traditions which inform the discussion of contemporary issues.

The 21 essays collected in this volume of Midwest Studies in Philosophy question and debate the primary assumptions of science. These are its conception of an orderly universe; its ability to define; and its ability to explain. The contributors approach these topics from varying perspectives, including the historic development of our understanding of the scientific enterprise; the controversy of opposing paradigms; and the challenges raised by quantum mechanics.

Rich with historical and cultural value, these works are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

This is Volume V in the series Midwest Studies in Philosophy In 1979 the University of Minnesota Press assumed publication of the annual Midwest Studies in ...

Presents essays (previously unpublished) by prominent philosophers on topics such as rationality and alien cultures, moral realism and social science, human sciences in the case of literature, Foucault's genealogical method, Vigotsky and artificial intelligence. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

In , Peter van Inwagen asked a good question. (Asking the right question is often the hardest part.) He asked: what do you have to do to some objects to get them to compose something---to bring into existence some further thing made up of those objects? Glue them together or what?1 Some said that you don’t have to do anything.2 No matter what you do to the objects, they’ll always compose something further, no matter how they are arranged. Thus (...) we learned of the fusion of the coins in our pockets and the Eiffel tower. (shrink)

We often speak of an object being composed of various other objects. We say that the deck is composed of the cards, that a road is the sum total of its sections, that a house is composed of its walls, ceilings, floors, doors, etc. Suppose we have some material objects. Here is a philosophical question: what conditions must obtain for those objects to compose something? In his recent book Material Beings, Peter van Inwagen addresses this question, which he calls (...) the ‘special composition question’; his answer is:1 (1) For any material objects X , the X s compose something iff the activity of the X s constitutes a life, or there is only one of the Xs. Additionally, he accepts a simpler thesis that follows from (1):2 (2) Every material object is either a mereological atom or a living thing, where a mereological atom is an object lacking proper parts. (2) may seem radical. If it is true then there are no tables, chairs, planets, protons, galaxies, gas stations, etc. But van Inwagen does not hold it lightly— there are serious difficulties with alternate views. Moreover, he claims that.. (shrink)

If we accept that all plagiarism is wrong, the issue is black and white. But are there more challenging questions that color the issue with shades of gray that may influence or help clarify the ethical underpinnings of the act? Does intent matter? Does the venue matter? Does the form of writing matter? What about a professor when working as a private citizen, rather than in his/her academic role? Might plagiarism be mitigated when there is no associated financial gain? Is (...) a writer’s history that exhibits impeccable ethical integrity relevant? Should these factors, and/or other factors, even be considered in a university’s administrative response — or non-response? What might employing an ethical approach contribute to wrestling with the dilemma? The authors explore critical issues that might face a senior academic administrator when confronting the need to respond on behalf of a university to a charge of plagiarism leveled by an influential newspaper against a university professor for a social responsibility-focused opinion-editorial published in this newspaper. (shrink)

Peter Forrest and D.M. Armstrong have given an argument against a theory of naturalness proposed by David Lewis based on the fact that ordered pairs can be constructed from sets in any of a number of different ways. 1. I think the argument is good, but requires a more thorough defense. Moreover, the argument has important consequences that have not been noticed. I introduce a version of Lewis’s proposal in section one, and then in section two I present and (...) defend my version of the argument. After addressing a worry about my argument in section three, in section four I argue that a similar “argument from arbitrariness” jeopardizes Lewis’s solution to the Kripke/Wittgenstein puzzle of the content of thought. (shrink)