In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Studies in Plato's Two-Level ModelIan MuellerHolger Thesleff. Studies in Plato's Two-Level Model. Helsinki: Societas Scientarum Fennica, 1999. Pp. vi + 143. N. P.After some 30 years of incisive intervention in Platonic scholarship, Holger Thesleff here offers us "an attempt to elaborate and ground more firmly some basic theses which I have propounded in various contexts before," (1) a rather modest description of what he also describes (...) as an attempt to contribute toward "a more general agreement on how to read and interpret Plato" (5). The richness of this book makes it impossible to describe in any detail, and I shall content myself with indicating some of what I take to be its principal points of view.Thesleff"s concern for agreement arises from his perception of the vastly discrepant schools of Plato interpretation, of which the most important for him might be labeled esotericist, analytic, and "literary." The last, which can hardly be called a school at all, includes a variety of scholars who downplay "literal" interpretation and emphasize such things as "dramatic artistry, the structure of the dialogues, the characterization of settings and persons, shifts of style, allusions, play, and irony" (3). Thesleff's sympathies clearly lie with these people, perhaps to an extent which, as I shall suggest, will limit the effectiveness of his attempt to move toward a consensus.As the title indicates Thesleff builds his reading around what he calls Plato's two-level model. This two-level model is not, as one might suppose, what has been called Plato's two worlds view, the belief in a world of pure being beyond the perceived world we inhabit. Indeed, it is not a doctrine or set of doctrines at all. Rather "it is an intuitive 'vision' which offers only crude basic patterns and frames for the structures of Plato's thinking, feelings, intuitions, and intentions, from his youth to his old age, and for our understanding of them" (123). Clearly one cannot expect a full and precise articulation of this vision. Thesleff proceeds by discussing in terms of their role in the earlier dialogues ten hierarchic pairs which form part of Plato's vision: divine/human, soul/body, leading/being led (particularly important in the conduct of a Socratic discussion), truth/appearance, knowledge/opinion, intellect/senses, defined/undefined, stability/change, one/many, same/different. These hierarchic or asymmetric pairs are contrasted by Thesleff with what he calls polar opposites like large/small and light/dark. He also stresses that the hierarchic pairs of Plato's two-level model involve no separation (chorismos), but rather a communion (koinônia).As the words "from his youth to his old age" in the quotation of the previous paragraph indicate, Thesleff is a "unitarian" in his approach to Plato. His Plato is not a philosopher whose positions changed through time as a result of reasoned argument. What many scholars take to be doctrines later given up, e.g., the view that learning is being reminded (anamnêsis), are "thought experiments," which are not followed up, thought experiments made within the context of the unchanging two-level vision.Although Thesleff is a unitarian in the sense I have indicated, he does believe that a kind of order of composition can be constructed for the dialogues. I say "kind of" because Thesleff's chronology involves assumptions of revisions over time, multiple authorship, and even dialogues "written down" by people other than Plato. The resulting chronology is complex, and I here only indicate it in rough form in a way which [End Page 272] brings out what I take to be its major points. Leaving out of account those Socratic" dialogues which Thesleff takes to be latish and the posthumously completed Laws, we can say that a series of late dialogues starts with the Parmenides and includes the Timaeus, Critias, Sophist, Politicus, and Philebus. All other dialogues, including the Theaetetus, were written prior to the Parmenides with the exception of the Republic, which Thesleff proposes is in its ultimate shape a late work, representing "only and purely Plato's 'own' and personal philosophy" (115). As for the other late dialogues, which have played an important... (shrink)

This article is a critical appraisal of the two-level model of Holger Thesleff as an interpretive paradigm for the philosophy of Plato. The primary emphasis is on the metaphysics of the model, which revolves around the idea of a single world composed of two levels. Conceived as an alternative to the dualism of worlds traditionally attributed to Plato, the levels in question complement each other in a symbiotic relationship between intelligible phenomena and sensible matter, which jointly account for the (...) whole of reality without the complications associated with a multiplication of worlds. The principal complication in the latter scenario is the difficulty of meaningful interaction under circumstances of radical separation, especially with a strict segregation requiring two different worlds: one for transcendent Forms, one for instantiating particulars. That difficulty does not even come up in the two-level model, which confines everything to a single world, where the possibility of interaction is not undermined by the reality of separation or the severity of segregation. The two-level model avoids that issue altogether by keeping everything together. A purported problem with this monistic alternative, on the other hand, is the inherent impediment to transcendence within a single world, where there would seem to be no room for the requisite ascension. How indeed can anything transcend the only place that exists? Promoting a solitary world as the intended framework for Plato’s metaphysics ostensibly requires retaining some semblance of transcendence, or else providing an acceptable alternative to it, while compressing everything into the same reality. The ultimate goal of the present article is to show why, given a natural challenge to both approaches, that is, despite an apparent obstacle to either perspective, the two-level model is preferable to the two-world alternative. Progress toward that end unfolds as an effort to illustrate and vindicate the way Thesleff meets the methodological challenge to his brand of monism with a philosophical vision originating with Plato himself. (shrink)

헤어의 아크라시아에 관한 전기 입장을 살펴보면, 진실한 도덕 판단에 이르는 한, 아크라시아 현상은 불가능한 것이다. 하지만 헤어의 아크라시아에 관한 전기 입장은 언어 논리에 지나치게 치중한 나머지, 현실에서 종종 볼 수 있는 도덕적 갈등, 죄책감, 후회와 같은 일상의 경험을 설명하는 데 부족하다는 비판을 받는다. 이와 달리 헤어의 아크라시아에 관한 후기 입장은 인간학적 한계를 고려하여 현실의 인간을 설명함으로써 아크라시아 문제에 관해 좀 더 설득력 있는 논의를 펼친다. 헤어의 아크라시아에 관한 후기 입장은 도덕적 사유의 두 수준 이론을 통해, 아크라시아에 관한 논의를 2가지 관점에서 (...) 분석하여 아크라시아 문제를 바라본다. 즉, 비판적 수준의 도덕적 사유를 하게 되면 아크라시아 현상이 불가능하다는 입장을 따르게 되지만, 직관적 수준의 도덕적 사유를 하게 되면 아크라시아 현상은 가능한 것이다. 하지만 헤어의 아크라시아 논의가 타당성을 지니기 위해서는 실험윤리학의 연구 성과를 바탕으로 면밀히 검토하고 그 한계를 분석해 볼 필요가 있다. 비판적 수준의 도덕적 사유의 측면에서 바라본 아크라시아 문제에 관한 검토는 도덕주의자가 현실적으로 존재 가능성 유무와 설사 있다 하더라도 그들을 확인할 수 있는 객관적인 방법이 없기 때문에 실험윤리학적으로 검토하기는 쉽지 않을 것이다. 또한, 직관적 수준의 도덕적 사유의 측면에서 바라본 아크라시아 문제를 검토하기 위해 vmPFC 손상 환자에 관한 다양한 연구 결과를 살펴보았지만, 여전히 헤어의 아크라시아 문제를 정당화하기 위해서는 더 많은 경험 과학적 증거들이 필요한 시점이다. 결국, 헤어의 아크라시아 문제에 관한 논의는 더 많은 경험 과학적 증거를 통해 학문적 실효성이 검증될 필요가 있다. 따라서 제한된 연구 성과를 바탕으로 단정적인 결론을 내리는 것은 바람직하지 않기 때문에, 실험윤리학적 증거를 바탕으로 철저히 검토하여 더 나은 방향으로 발전하고 진화되어야 할 것이다. (shrink)

In this commentary, I advocate for strict relations between Marr's levels of analysis. Under a strict relationship, each level is exactly implemented by the subordinate level. This yields two benefits. First, it brings consistency for multilevel explanations. Second, similar to how a sculptor chisels away superfluous marble, a modeler can chisel a computational-level model by applying constraints. By sculpting the model, one restricts the set of possible algorithmic- and implementational-level theories.

During the COVID-19 epidemic, personal safety has received increasing attention, leading to behavioral changes. Mobile-wallet makes it easier for people to keep social distance, which helps stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Evolving Internet technology has brought about changes in consumer lifestyle. The current situation of COVID-19 has created a business environment to shift from traditional ways and adopt e-commerce solutions worldwide. Grounded in technology acceptance model theory, this study’s objective is two-fold: First, this study intends to examine perceived (...) susceptibility to COVID-19, perceived severity of COVID-19, insecurity and discomfort as the predictors of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Second, the current research intends to test the moderating effect of electronic words-of-mouth on the relationship between attitude and usage intention. Using survey methods, 226 usable responses were collected through a mall intercept survey in Pakistan. Data were analyzed using partial least square. The results revealed that PEOU and PU positively influence attitude toward M-wallet. This study has found that attitude positively influences the usage intention in adopting M-wallet. The results also support the moderating role of eWOM. These findings contribute to the marketing literature in several ways, particularly in Pakistan. This is the first study to use eWOM as a moderating variable in the TAM theory. In addition, this study adds to the current body of knowledge by considering eWOM as a multi-dimensional construct novel in m-wallet literature. (shrink)

It is well known that working memory performance changes with age. Two recent computational models of working memory, TBRS* and SOB-CS, developed from young adults WM performances are opposed regarding the postulated causes of forgetting, namely time-based decay and interference for TBRS* and SOB-CS, respectively. In the present study, these models are applied on a set of complex span data produced by young and older adults. As expected, these models are unable to account for the older adult (...) data. An investigation on the effect of the main parameters of these models showed that the poorer performance of older adults does not come from a weaker encoding of item but rather from difficulties during the free time that immediately follows each distractor, as well as from a higher level of confusion between items. These results are discussed with respect to the current theories of working memory and aging. (shrink)

We discuss two named-entity recognition models which use characters and character n-grams either exclusively or as an important part of their data representation. The first model is a character-level HMM with minimal context information, and the second model is a maximum-entropy conditional markov model with substantially richer context features. Our best model achieves an overall F1 of 86.07% on the English test data (92.31% on the development data). This number represents a 25% error reduction over the same model (...) without word-internal (substring) features. (shrink)

흄(D. Hume)은 도덕적 주제에 대한 과학적 탐구의 결과 ‘이성에 대한 정념의 우위’라는 도덕에서의 일반 원리를 도출한다. 오직 이성만으로는 의지에 영향을 줄 수 없다는 ‘동기 유발 논변’과 도덕적 구별은 이성적 판단이 아니라 느끼는 것이라는 ‘도덕적 구별 논변’에 의해 정립된다. 흄의 도덕론에 대한 입증에도 불구하고, 도덕에서 ‘이성에 대한 정념의 우위 논제’는 2가지 핵심적인 비판에 당면한다. 첫 번째는 정념에 의한 구별은 주관주의 또는 상대주의로 나아가 도덕적 불일치의 문제를 해결할 수 없다는 비판이고, 두 번째는 도덕에서 이성을, 즉 기존에 실천 이성이라고 불리는 것을 무시할 가능성이 (...) 있다는 비판이다. 이를 해결하기 위해서 흄이 언급하는 정념을 차분한 정념과 격렬한 정념의 두 수준으로 나누면, 이성에 대한 정념의 우위라는 흄의 도덕론의 일관성을 유지하면서, 제기된 두 문제를 논박할 수 있다. (shrink)

The Group Cohesiveness Scale measures patient-rated group cohesiveness. The English version of the scale has demonstrated good psychometric properties. This study describes the validation of the Czech version of the GCS. A total of 369 patients participated in the study. Unlike the original study, the ordinal confirmatory factor analysis supported a two-dimensional solution. The analysis demonstrated the existence of two moderately to highly associated domains of group cohesiveness—affective and behavioral. The two-dimensional model was invariant across genders, age, education, and time (...) up to factor means level. Internal consistency reached satisfactory values for both domains. In terms of convergent validity, only weak association was found between the GCS domains and the group working alliance measured by the Group Outcome Rating Scale. This is the first revision of the factor structure of the GCS in the European context. The scale showed that the Czech version of the GCS is a valid and reliable brief tool for measuring both aspects of group cohesiveness. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism has come under a lot of criticism for its apparent harshness towards negligent victims of voluntary actions (the harshness objection) and its inability to respond to morally-acceptable voluntary acts that lead to disadvantage (the discrimination objection). This paper surveys a series of responses in the luck egalitarian literature, showing that for the most part each one is unable to respond, on its own, to the crux of the objections. These responses often face a dilemma: Either they must bite (...) the bullet on the objections to retain their luck egalitarian commitments, or they must propose a reply to the objection that diverges from their core luck egalitarian principles. In this paper, I advance a preliminary framework for grounding luck egalitarian theories of justice based upon a two-level model and what I shall call the Fact of Inherent Normativity. Two-level luck egalitarianism makes fundamental rights and basic needs de facto insensitive to responsibility at the first level, while retaining the scope for responsibility for the distribution of second-level goods. The account remains distinctly luck egalitarian, while leaving scope for the consideration of rights, respect, and a host of other morally relevant considerations within the luck egalitarian framework. Luck egalitarianism, properly understood as a two-level theory, can successfully respond to objections against its harshness and propensity to discriminate. (shrink)

Many of the commentaries cohere around two major points of criticism. The first is that we have omitted discussion of the mechanisms that are assumed to operate at levels 2, 3, and 4.Campbell, Cloak, Dewsbury, Eckberg, Mundinger, Pulliam, Richerson & Boyd, Slobodkin, Simon, Williams, andWahlstenall make comments that bear on this point. The second point is that we have omitted discussion of the fact that "organisms change the environment by their activities" and thereby modify the selection pressures that act on (...) them. Apart from Lewontin, this point has been raised in different forms byBarkow, Chase, Hull, Perzigian, Ruyle, and less directly bySlobodkin. Stemming from these two basic omissions there is a third general criticism. Numerous commentators have pointed out that we have failed to discuss sufficiently either the extent or nature of the constraints that may or may not be operating on supraordinate evolutionary processes as a function of their nested relationships to subordinate evolutionary processes within our scheme. We start by acknowledging these three basic omissions. We agree that they exist and that they are serious. (shrink)

It is evident that, being a member of the organization, the team has to cue the influx of the green management concepts. This study focuses on the aspect of team management in green enterprises. Applying leadership theory to sample green enterprises, this paper proposes that political skills of team leadership have moderating effects on the relationship between team conflict and performance at both the individual and team levels. Empirical data were collected from 85 dyads of leaders and team members in (...) 36 green enterprises in China. It was found that the leaders’ political skills weakened the negative effects of relationship conflict on individual performance and team performance. Further, leaders’ political skills strengthened the positive effects of task conflict on individual and team performance. The results of this study deepen the cognition of two types of team conflict in theory and provide theoretical guidance for green enterprises in carrying out effective team conflict management and practical political skills training for leaders. (shrink)

This paper proposes a two-level modeling perspective which combines intrinsic 'betterness' and reason-based extrinsic preference, and develops its static and dynamic logic in tandem. Our technical results extend, integrate, and re-interpret earlier theorems on preference representation and update in the literature on preference change.

This paper examines the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure scores on the firm value of European listed companies before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a two-level model and a unique dataset of 264 multinational firms covering the period 2019–2022, we find a negative relationship between ESG disclosure scores and firm value. Nevertheless, the effect of the social and environmental disclosure scores disappears during the crisis, and returns negative during the recovery period. Almost all empirical (...) studies to date have found the inverse effect, suggesting that even though ESG transparency can improve firm reputation, it can also damage it and reduce firm value. We also show that firm-specific factors remain the biggest source of variability in firm value, even during the crisis. Thus, this paper contributes to the existing literature by suggesting that the impact of ESG disclosure on firm value may vary depending on the economic and financial context in which firms operate. More specifically, it shows that the benefits of ESG disclosure, namely the reduction of agency costs, stakeholder trust, and firm legitimacy, which are expected to increase firm value, may not have the predicted effect in a crisis context. Consequently, these findings provide both an empirical and a theoretical contribution to the existing literature on agency theory, signal theory, and legitimacy theory. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore practices and strategies that have successfully reduced time-to-proficiency of the workforce in large multinational organisations and develop a model based on them. The central research question of this study was: How can organisations accelerate time-to-proficiency of employees in the workplace? The study addressed three aspects: the meaning of accelerated proficiency, as seen by business leaders; the business factors driving the need for shorter time-to-proficiency and benefits accrued from it; and practices and strategies to shorten time-to-proficiency (...) of the workforce. 85 participants (n=85) from 7 countries who represented 10 economic sectors, 20 business sectors and 28 industry groups contributed 66 successful bounded project cases. A qualitative research approach was used. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with project leaders and by collecting additional project case documents. Data were analysed using thematic analysis to identify the themes in the data. Matrix analysis was then used to perform within-case and cross-case analysis to compare the project cases. 11 overarching themes were developed from the data analysis, out of which two overarching themes explained the characteristics of job-role proficiency and accelerated proficiency, while three overarching themes described the magnituide and scale of time-to-proficiency business problem, business drivers for accelerating proficiency and business benefits of reduced time-to-proficiency. Six overarching themes revealed the business practices employed by organisations to reduce time-to-proficiency: (1) Defining business-driven proficiency measures in terms of expected business outcomes from a job role; (2) Developing a proficiency reference map of all the inputs, conditions and roadblocks that determine or influence how required business outcomes are being produced in a job role; (3) Sequencing an efficient proficiency path of activities and experiences ordered to produce the desired business outcomes in the shortest possible time; (4) Manufacturing accelerated contextual experiences by leveraging on-the-job opportunities or training interventions in a compressed time-frame; (5) Promoting an active emotional immersion through engagements, consequences, stakes, feedback and proficiency assessments; and (6) Setting up a proficiency eco-system, providing timely support to performers while doing the job such as enabling job environment, highly involved manager, structured mentoring from experts, purposeful social connectivity with peers, leveraging subject matter experts and on-demand performance support systems. Organisations orchestrated these six business practices as an input-output-feedback system to reduce time-to-proficiency of the workforce. A conceptual model (Accelerated Proficiency Model) was developed representing interactions among six business-level practices/processes as a closed-loop system to explain the concept and process of accelerated proficiency in the workplace. These practices were implemented through a set of twenty-four strategies proven successful in various contexts. The strategies employed were much beyond the boundaries of conventional training interventions. The job itself acted as the primary mechanism to accelerate proficiency. A two-level hierarchical framework (6/24 framework of strategies) was also constructed in the form of a checklist consisting of six practices and twenty-four strategies for practitioners. Overall, the findings of this research study contribute significantly to the body of knowledge on accelerated proficiency. In particular, the conceptual model and the framework developed in this study can be implemented across a range of contexts, business sectors, job types and settings to reduce time-to-proficiency of the workforce. (shrink)

The “problem” of dreaming in NREM sleep continues to challenge models that propose a causal relationship between REM mechanisms and the psychological features of dreaming. I suggest that, ultimately, efforts to identify correspondences among multiple levels of analysis will be more productive for dream theory than attempts to reduce dreaming to any one level of analysis. [Hobson et al. ; Nielsen].

'Mass terms', words like water, rice and traffic, have proved very difficult to accommodate in any theory of meaning since, unlike count nouns such as house or dog, they cannot be viewed as part of a logical set and differ in their grammatical properties. In this study, motivated by the need to design a computer program for understanding natural language utterances incorporating mass terms, Harry Bunt provides a thorough analysis of the problem and offers an original and detailed solution. An (...) extension of classical set theory, Ensemble Theory, is defined, and this provides the conceptual basis of a framework for the analysis of natural language meaning which Dr Bunt calls Two-level model-theoretic semantics. The validity of the framework is convincingly demonstrated by the formal analysis of a fragment of English including sentences with quantified and modified mass terms. Separate chapters of the book are devoted to an axiomatic definition of Ensemble Theory and a detailed discussion of its status as a mathematical formalism. (shrink)

There are indications that the interpersonal affective factor and the social deviation factor, both of which are underlying dimensions of psychopathy, have a positive and a negative relationship, respectively, with executive functioning. However, this is seldom taken into consideration in the research on the relationship between executive functioning and psychopathy, which may be an explanation for the many inconsistent results in this area as reported in the literature (e.g., Rogers, 2006). In the present study, executive functioning was studied using the (...) Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) in 53 inpatients of a Dutch forensic psychiatric clinic who were classified by means of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Special attention was given to the relationship between the two separate factors and executive functioning. Age, educational level, and substance abuse were controlled for in the analysis. No difference was found between psychopathic (N = 17) and nonpsychopathic (N = 36) patients in the WCST scoring categories, nor was there a significant difference in the four diagnostic subgroups defined by the two factors. However, the trends observed do justify further study in this direction. (shrink)

I present—in an extremely sketchy form—a model of two-level, open, plastic and multidimensional human nature. Due to the included attribute of multidimensionality this model opposes the reductive conceptions of man dominating in today’s philosophy. The main objective of the paper is the ontological status of man, especially the ontic foundation of multidimensional man. I demonstrate that this status remains a riddle; one only knows that from the ontological perspective man is a wholly exceptional object, not explainable by to-date ontological (...) constructions. -/- . (shrink)

The Recursive Bayesian Net (RBN) formalism was originally developed for modelling nested causal relationships. In this paper we argue that the formalism can also be applied to modelling the hierarchical structure of mechanisms. The resulting network contains quantitative information about probabilities, as well as qualitative information about mechanistic structure and causal relations. Since information about probabilities, mechanisms and causal relations is vital for prediction, explanation and control respectively, an RBN can be applied to all these tasks. We show in particular (...) how a simple two-level RBN can be used to model a mechanism in cancer science. The higher level of our model contains variables at the clinical level, while the lower level maps the structure of the cell's mechanism for apoptosis. (shrink)

The paper considers three main models of temporal consciousness proposed in grappling with the “paradox of temporal awareness”. They are based on the notion that there is a basic element of perception in the form of some “mental frame” or “apparent present” which, while effective for describing some perceptual features, does not fully reflect our phenomenal experience. It is argued that a two-level model based on the separation of the “specious present” and “current present” is best correlated with (...) higher-order theories of consciousness and should act as a basis for further development of the temporal model of consciousness. (shrink)

We present a two-level theory to formalize constructive mathematics as advocated in a previous paper with G. Sambin.One level is given by an intensional type theory, called Minimal type theory. This theory extends a previous version with collections.The other level is given by an extensional set theory that is interpreted in the first one by means of a quotient model.This two-level theory has two main features: it is minimal among the most relevant foundations for constructive mathematics; (...) it is constructive thanks to the way the extensional level is linked to the intensional one which fulfills the “proofs-as-programs” paradigm and acts as a programming language. (shrink)

Emotion recognition plays an important part in human-computer interaction. Currently, the main challenge in electroencephalogram -based emotion recognition is the non-stationarity of EEG signals, which causes performance of the trained model decreasing over time. In this paper, we propose a two-level domain adaptation neural network to construct a transfer model for EEG-based emotion recognition. Specifically, deep features from the topological graph, which preserve topological information from EEG signals, are extracted using a deep neural network. These features are then passed (...) through TDANN for two-level domain confusion. The first level uses the maximum mean discrepancy to reduce the distribution discrepancy of deep features between source domain and target domain, and the second uses the domain adversarial neural network to force the deep features closer to their corresponding class centers. We evaluated the domain-transfer performance of the model on both our self-built data set and the public data set SEED. In the cross-day transfer experiment, the ability to accurately discriminate joy from other emotions was high: sadness, anger, and fear on the self-built data set. The accuracy reached 74.93% on the SEED data set. In the cross-subject transfer experiment, the ability to accurately discriminate joy from other emotions was equally high: sadness, anger, and fear on the self-built data set. The average accuracy reached 87.9% on the SEED data set, which was higher than WGAN-DA. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed TDANN can effectively handle the domain transfer problem in EEG-based emotion recognition. (shrink)

A key challenge for probabilistic causal models is to distinguish non-causal probabilistic dependencies from true causal relations. To accomplish this task, causal models are usually required to satisfy several constraints. Two prominent constraints are the causal Markov condition and the faithfulness condition. However, other constraints are also needed. One of these additional constraints is the causal sufficiency condition, which states that models must not omit any direct common causes of the variables they contain. In this paper, I (...) argue that the causal sufficiency condition is problematic: (1) it is incompatible with the requirement that the variables in a model must not stand in non-causal necessary dependence relations, such as mathematical or conceptual relations, or relations described in terms of supervenience or grounding, (2) it presupposes more causal knowledge as primitive than is actually needed to create adequate causal models, and (3) if models are only required to be causally sufficient, they cannot deal with cases where variables are probabilistically related by accident, such as Sober’s example of the relationship between bread prices in England and the sea level in Venice. I show that these problems can be avoided if causal models are required to be monotonic in the following sense: the causal relations occurring in a model M would not disappear if further variables were added to M. I give a definition of this monotonicity condition and conclude that causal models should be required to be monotonic rather than causally sufficient. (shrink)

We develop an account of laboratory models, which have been central to the group selection controversy. We compare arguments for group selection in nature with Darwin's arguments for natural selection to argue that laboratory models provide important grounds for causal claims about selection. Biologists get information about causes and cause-effect relationships in the laboratory because of the special role their own causal agency plays there. They can also get information about patterns of effects and antecedent conditions in nature. (...) But to argue that some cause is actually responsible in nature, they require an inference from knowledge of causes in the laboratory context and of effects in the natural context. This process, cause detection, forms the core of an analogical argument for group selection. We discuss the differing roles of mathematical and laboratory models in constructing selective explanations at the group level and apply our discussion to the units of selection controversy to distinguish between the related problems of cause determination and evaluation of evidence. Because laboratory models are at the intersection of the two problems, their study is crucial for framing a coherent theory of explanation for evolutionary biology. (shrink)

Ethics involves an organized, reasoned approach to gathering and processing data in order to arrive at decisions about what to do, what to value, and/or what virtues to cultivate. A model is proposed for conceptualizing this complex dynamic, which incorporates elements of both rule-and-principle ethics and the ethic of care. The model suggested here has two levels. The first level identifies the components that comprise philosophical reasoning; the second contextualizes and operationalizes the model in relation to the processor’s philosophical (...) stance on the nature of knowing. Three philosophical stances are identified and described: science-dominant, person-dominant, and science-person equilibrium. Physicians tend to process patients from first perspectives, nurses from second. Hence, health team collaboration in moral problem solving is critically important. (shrink)

Building on and partially refining previous theoretical work, this paper presents an extended simulation model of ancestral warfare. This model (1) disentangles attack and defense, (2) tries to differentiate more strictly between selfish and altruistic efforts during war, (3) incorporates risk aversion and deterrence, and (4) pays special attention to the role of brutality. Modeling refinements and simulation results yield a differentiated picture of possible evolutionary dynamics. The main observations are: (i) Altruism in this model is more likely to evolve (...) for defenses than for attacks. (ii) Risk aversion, deterrence and the interplay of migration levels and brutality can change evolutionary dynamics substantially. (iii) Unexpectedly, one occasional simulation outcome is a dynamically stable state of ‘tolerated intergroup theft’, raising the question if corresponding patterns also exist in real intergroup conflicts. Finally, possible implications for theories of the co-evolution of bellicosity and altruism in humans are discussed. (shrink)

Saturated models constitute one of the powerful methods of conventional model theory, with many applications. Here we develop a categorical abstract model theoretic approach to saturated models within the theory of institutions. The most important consequence is that the method of saturated models becomes thus available to a multitude of logical systems from logic or from computing science. In this paper we define the concept of saturated model at an abstract institution-independent level and develop the fundamental (...) existence and uniqueness theorems. As an application we prove a general institution-independent version of the Keisler–Shelah isomorphism theorem “any two elementarily equivalent models have isomorphic ultrapowers” (assuming Generalized Continuum Hypothesis). (shrink)

During active vision, the eyes continually scan the visual environment using saccadic scanning movements. This target article presents an information processing model for the control of these movements, with some close parallels to established physiological processes in the oculomotor system. Two separate pathways are concerned with the spatial and the temporal programming of the movement. In the temporal pathway there is spatially distributed coding and the saccade target is selected from a Both pathways descend through a hierarchy of levels, the (...) lower ones operating automatically. Visual onsets have automatic access to the eye control system via the lower levels. Various centres in each pathway are interconnected via reciprocal inhibition. The model accounts for a number of well-established phenomena in target-elicited saccades: the gap effect, express saccades, the remote distractor effect, and the global effect. High-level control of the pathways in tasks such as visual search and reading is discussed; it operates through spatial selection and search selection, which generally combine in an automated way. The model is examined in relation to data from patients with unilateral neglect. (shrink)

There is an increasing amount of empirical work investigating the sense of agency, i.e. the registration that we are the initiators of our own actions. Many studies try to relate the sense of agency to an internal feed-forward mechanism, called the ‘‘comparator model’’. In this paper, we draw a sharp distinction between a non-conceptual level of feeling of agency and a conceptual level of judgement of agency. By analyzing recent empirical studies, we show that the comparator model is (...) not able to explain either. Rather, we argue for a two-step account: a multifactorial weighting process of different agency indicators accounts for the feeling of agency, which is, in a second step, further processed by conceptual modules to form an attribution judgement. This new framework is then applied to disruptions of agency in schizophrenia, for which the comparator model also fails. Two further extensions are discussed: We show that the comparator model can neither be extended to account for the sense of ownership (which also has to be differentiated into a feeling and a judgement of ownership) nor for the sense of agency for thoughts. Our framework, however, is able to provide a unified account for the sense of agency for both actions and thoughts. (shrink)

Perceptual theories of emotion purport to avoid the problems of traditional cognitivism and noncognitivism by modelling emotion on perception, which shares the most conspicuous dimensions of emotion, intentionality and phenomenality. In this paper, I shall reconstrue and discuss four key arguments that perceptual theorists have presented in order to show that emotion is a kind of perception, or that there are close analogies between emotion and perception. These arguments are, from stronger to weaker claims: the perceptual system argument; the argument (...) from noninferential structure; the argument from epistemic role; and the argument from phenomenology. I argue that, while the arguments in favour of assimilating emotion to perception fail, the analogies between emotion and perception are not as close as perceptual theorists suggest even if some emotions resemble perception more than others, thanks to the two-levelled structure of emotional processing. (shrink)

In this essay, it is argued that naturalism of an even moderate sort speaks strongly against a certain widely held thesis about the human mental (and cognitive) architecture: that it is divided into two distinct levels, the personal and the subpersonal, about the former of which we gain knowledge in a manner that effectively insulates such knowledge from the results of scientific research. -/- An empirically motivated alternative is proposed, according to which the architecture is, so to speak, flattened from (...) above. On this flattened view, although the states and processes typically associated with the personal level likely appear in our best models of the production of human behavior, they appear alongside states and processes normally associated with the subpersonal level. Moreover, the success of such models depends nowise on a levels-based distinction between the various causal contributors. It is argued that the flattened view has methodological implications of significant import. (shrink)

Predictions about the health risks of low level radiation combine two sorts of measures. One estimates the amount and kinds of radiation released into the environment, and the other estimates the adverse health effects. A new field called health physics integrates and applies nuclear physics to cytology to supply both these estimates. It does so by first determining the kinds of effects different types of radiation produce in biological organisms, and second, by monitoring the extent of these effects produced (...) by given levels of exposure. This essay examines the interplay between evidential constraints and external, contextual interests and values in studying the biological hazards of radiation. By analyzing the debate over linear vs. quadratic dose response models, the essay focuses on problems of developing quantitative, rather than qualitative, estimates of the risks of increased cancer incidence in an exposed population. (shrink)

In computational cognitive science, a valuationist picture of human agent architecture has become widespread. At the heart of valuationism is a simple and sweeping claim: Every time an agent acts, they do so on the basis of value representations, which are, roughly, representations of the expected value of one’s response options. In this essay, I do three things. First, I give a systematic, philosophically rich account of the valuationist picture of agency. I also highlight the generality of the model in (...) explaining diverse forms of person-level agency. Second, I discuss connections between the valuationist model and two traditional models in philosophy, the belief/desire model and the decision-theoretic model. Third, I canvas the wide-ranging implications of valuationism for philosophical inquiry. Among other things, valuationism illuminates the elusive boundary between activity and passivity; it flips the standard philosophical view of decision around, with decision being a source of, rather than a product of, one’s agency; it understands motivation as, in part, a representational phenomenon; it challenges a philosophical dogma that control over action is more extensive than control over belief; and it highlights an underappreciated connection between deviations from rational agency and inaccurate value representations. (shrink)

Johnson-Laird's mental models theory claims that reasoning is a semantic process of construction and manipulation of models in working memory of limited capacity. Accordingly, both a deduction and a given interpretation of a premise would be all the harder the higher the number of models they require. The purpose of the present experiment was twofold. First, it aimed to demonstrate that the interpretation of if...then conditional sentences in children (third, sixth, and ninth graders) evolves as a function (...) of the number of models the children can produce. We proposed a theory of conditional reasoning development that hypothesises a developmental trend of three successive levels of interpretations underlain by one, two, and then three models, i.e. conjunctive, biconditional, and conditional respectively. Second, we aimed to show that these different levels correlate with working memory capacities: the higher the working memory span, the higher the number of models underlying the conditional interpretation. These two hypotheses were verified, supporting the mental models theory. The results are compared with the rival theory of mental logic. (shrink)

The article revisits two basic questions of political theory posed by Jon Elster. First, should the political process be defined as private or public, and second, should its purpose be understood instrumentally or intrinsically? Having posed these questions, Elster arrives at three views of politics: social choice , republican and discourse theory . I argue for a fourth view , and explain Elster's omission of this model by referring to his underlying paradigm of politics, that is, as will formation. The (...) main thesis in Elster's article is about whether the process of will formation should be relegated to the market mechanism or dealt with via deliberative forums. I reject this paradigm and argue instead for politics as jurisdiction. This notion of politics is concerned with the question of how both market and forum processes of will formation should be institutionalized. Defining politics as jurisdiction strongly improves the plausibility of the missing fourth model of democratic will formation, as a depiction of democratic will formation as private in its process and intrinsic in its purpose illustrates the importance of distinguishing between two levels of democracy: namely, the civil level of will formation and the political level of jurisdiction. (shrink)

Sustainable development is an everlasting theme and lasting strategy in today’s era. Low-carbon economy is an inevitable approach to the implementation of sustainable development. Cold chain logistics has become one of the main sources of carbon emissions. However, in the research on location planning of cold chain logistics, the costs of carbon emissions have not been taken into consideration in previous studies. The two-stage stochastic optimization model was established based on the comprehensive consideration of transportation costs, time penalty costs, and (...) carbon emission costs. In this case, it is extremely difficult to deal with uncertainty in TSSO model. Therefore, this paper constructs a two-stage robust optimization model using data-driven method and robust optimization theory and verifies the validity of this model through an actual case. The application of this method to a cold chain logistics enterprise showed that the service level of logistics cannot be guaranteed by stochastic optimization model. In the TSRO model, the costs increase by 2.18% at the price of robustness, whereas logistics service level shows an upward trend. In the TSRO model, enterprises are forced to choose a better distribution path when carbon tax increases, which not only helps enterprises save costs but also achieves low-carbon environmental benefits. (shrink)

The article revisits two basic questions of political theory posed by Jon Elster. First, should the political process be defined as private or public, and second, should its purpose be understood instrumentally or intrinsically? Having posed these questions, Elster arrives at three views of politics: social choice , republican and discourse theory . I argue for a fourth view , and explain Elster's omission of this model by referring to his underlying paradigm of politics, that is, as will formation. The (...) main thesis in Elster's article is about whether the process of will formation should be relegated to the market mechanism or dealt with via deliberative forums. I reject this paradigm and argue instead for politics as jurisdiction. This notion of politics is concerned with the question of how both market and forum processes of will formation should be institutionalized. Defining politics as jurisdiction strongly improves the plausibility of the missing fourth model of democratic will formation, as a depiction of democratic will formation as private in its process and intrinsic in its purpose illustrates the importance of distinguishing between two levels of democracy: namely, the civil level of will formation and the political level of jurisdiction. (shrink)

The key problem in the controversy over group selection is that of defining a criterion of group selection that identifies a distinct causal process that is irreducible to the causal process of individual selection. We aim to clarify this problem and to formulate an adequate model of irreducible group selection. We distinguish two types of group selection models, labeling them type I and type II models. Type I models are invoked to explain differences among groups in their (...) respective rates of production of contained individuals. Type II models are invoked to explain differences among groups in their respective rates of production of distinct new groups. Taking Elliott Sober's model as an exemplar, we argue that although type I models have some biological importance--they force biologists to consider the role of group properties in influencing the fitness of organisms--they fail to identify a distinct group-level causal selection process. Type II models if properly framed, however, do identify a group-level causal selection process that is not reducible to individual selection. We propose such a type II model and apply it to some of the major candidates for group selection. (shrink)

Mipam (‘ju mi pham rgya mtsho, 1846–1912), an architect of the Nyingma (rnying ma) tradition of Tibet in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, articulates two distinct models of the two truths that are respectively reflected in Madhyamaka and Yogācāra Buddhist traditions. The way he positions these two models sheds light on how levels of description are at play in his integration of these traditions. Mipam positions one kind of two-truth model as the product of an ontological (...) analysis while another model can be seen as resulting from a phenomenological reduction. He accommodates both models into his systematic interpretation, and for him, each one has an important role to play in coming to understand the nature of the Buddhist truths of emptiness and Buddha-nature. Since each model reflects a different style of analysis, or a different perspective on truth, his presentation reveals how neither model alone has the last word on the nature of what is and how it is experienced. This paper analyzes the means by which he lays out these two models of the two truths, and explores the implications of their integration in his philosophical works. A primary concern for Mipam, and a factor that guides his attempt to integrate these two approaches to truth, is his aim to both induce authentic experience and true knowledge on the one hand, and represent reality and the experience of it on the other. These competing and complimentary objectives are a central focus around which both styles of critical reflection, and both models of the two truths, revolve. (shrink)

To deal with reactive sequential decision tasks we present a learning model which is a hybrid connectionist model consisting of both localist and distributed representations based on the two level approach proposed in..

I am arguing that it is only by concentrating on the role of models in theory construction, interpretation and change, that one can study the progress of science sensibly. I define the level at which these models operate as a level above the purely empirical (consisting of various systems in reality) but also indeed below that of the fundamental formal theories (expressed linguistically). The essentially multi-interpretability of the theory at the general, abstract linguistic level, implies (...) that it can potentially make claims about systems in reality, other than the particular one which originally induced it. Any so-called correspondence relation between (systems in) reality and the entities and relations in some scientific theory, thus consists of two jumps or interpretations: from the theory (linguistic level) to some model of it (constructural level); and from there to some system in reality. Clearly then the level of fundamental theories cannot be ignored la Nancy Cartwright - in studying the relations between a theory and reality, because the particular features of the theory (the various systems in reality onto which the theory can be mapped) cannot be studied without the underlying knowledge that these systems have one common feature, namely that each of them is the range (or other pole) of a mapping of a context-specific model of the theory - which in itself, is a mapping, or more specifically, an interpretation of the theory. I am also claiming that the nature of these levels and the relations between them necessitate an epistemological rather than an ontological notion of truth criteria, and a referential rather than a representational link between science and reality. (shrink)