Philosophy in Vietnam is defined as a system of the most universal points of view on the world and the place of man in this world. Philosophy often plays a key role it plays in one’s worldview and methodology. The question is: on what problems should philosophy focus in order to successfully carry out its worldview andmethodological role in the present context? Firstly, if international philosophers are focusing their research on problems caused by globalization, Vietnamese philosophers should orient their research (...) on the practical problems raised by building and developing our country in the context of globalization and international economic integration. Secondly, one of the important tasks for Vietnamese philosophers is to research the philosophical thought of Vietnam. Thirdly, one of the no less important tasks for people engaging in research and teaching of philosophy in Vietnam is to investigate the trends and ideas of preeminent world philosophers, both in the East as well as in the West. (shrink)

In markets where vegetables are commonly cultivated with heavy use of synthetic pesticides, it is particularly important for consumers to be able to identify genuine organic produce. Organic Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) certification offers smallholder farmers an affordable way to build trust among consumers and secure premium prices for their organic produce. In Vietnam, the demand for vegetables with no, or low, pesticide residues is growing. The attractiveness of PGS certification should increase accordingly, but the number of organic PGS certified (...) farmers in Vietnam are stagnating or even decreasing. The aim of this study is to explain this paradox by investigating the factors that influence the adoption of organic PGS certification among Vietnamese vegetable farmers. We follow a mixed methods approach, combining a qualitative analysis of farmer interviews (_n_ = 62) and a quantitative analysis of a farm survey data (_n_ = 434) using a sample selection model that estimates adoption contingent on farmers’ awareness of PGS certification. Drawing on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, we found that social relationships and positive attitudes towards farming and the environment drive the adoption of organic PGS. Barriers include insufficient knowledge of organic farming techniques, labour shortages, and ageing farmers. At the systemic level, support by (non-)governmental institutions facilitates adoption, but challenges such as lower yields and limited access to premium markets remain. To promote organic PGS among Vietnamese vegetable farmers, efforts should focus on disseminating organic farming techniques that boost yields, alleviate labour demands, and ensure secure markets for premium-priced organic vegetables. (shrink)

Since 2013, Vietnam has implemented a plan to reform the whole education sector. However, there is little understanding on the status of educational research in Vietnam, which may lay the foundation for such plan. Thus, this research aims to analyze the whole picture of educational research from Vietnam, as seen from the Clarivate Web of Science (WOS) database: 215 publications were recorded, ranging from 1991 to 2018. These 215 publications were further analyzed from five perspectives: 1) number of publications by (...) year; 2) research fields and levels of education; 3) top institutions with the highest number of publications; 4) international collaboration; and 5) quality. Some of the most notable results are: 1) the educational sciences in Vietnam have been still under-developed until recently; 2) among different research topics research among educational sciences, some (e.g., Vocational Education and Training or Early Childhood Education) seemed to be overlooked whereas others (e.g., Higher Education and Teaching and Learning) seemed to receive more attention from educational scholars; 3) all the most major education – specialized universities did not appear among the top five institutions with highest number of publications; 4) Australia, Thailand, the USA, New Zealand and China were the countries with the highest number of co-publications with Vietnamese researchers; and 5) The majority of publications belonged to low-ranked journals. Implications would be withdrawn for Vietnamese policymakers, education leaders, educational researchers and teachers in order to adjust their policies and/or action plans; thus, enhancing the performance and impacts of educational research in the future. (shrink)

Nowadays, the power systems are getting more and more complicated because of the delays introduced by the communication networks. The existence of the delays usually leads to the degradation and/or instability of power system performance. On account of this point, the traditional load frequency control approach for power system sketches a destabilizing impact and an unacceptable system performance. Therefore, this paper proposes a new LFC based on adaptive integral second-order sliding mode control approach for the large-scale power system with communication (...) delays. First, a new linear matrix inequality is derived to ensure the stability of whole power systems using Lyapunov stability theory. Second, an AISOSMC law is designed to ensure the finite time reachability of the system states. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time the AISOSMC is designed for LFC of the LSPSwCD. In addition, the report of testing results presents that the suggested LFC based on AISOSMC can not only decrease effectively the frequency variation but also make successfully less in mount of power oscillation/fluctuation in tie-line exchange. (shrink)

A decrease in cortical excitability tends to be easily followed by an increase induced by external stimuli via a mechanism aimed at restoring it; this phenomenon is called “homeostatic plasticity.” In recent years, although intervention methods aimed at promoting motor learning using this phenomenon have been studied, an optimal intervention method has not been established. In the present study, we examined whether subsequent motor learning can be promoted further by a repetitive passive movement, which reduces the excitability of the primary (...) motor cortex before motor learning tasks. We also examined the relationship between motor learning and the brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Forty healthy subjects participated. Subjects were divided into two groups of 20 individuals each. The first group was assigned to perform the motor learning task after an intervention consisting in the passive adduction–abduction movement of the right index finger at 5 Hz for 10 min, while the second group was assigned to perform the task without the passive movement. The motor learning task consisted in the visual tracking of the right index finger. The results showed that the corticospinal excitability was transiently reduced after the passive movement in the RPM condition, whereas it was increased to the level detected in the control condition after the motor learning task. Furthermore, the motor learning ability was decreased immediately after the passive movement; however, the motor performance finally improved to the level observed in the control condition. In individuals carrying the Val/Val genotype, higher motor learning was also found to be related to the more remarkable changes in corticospinal excitability caused by the RPM condition. This study revealed that the implementation of a passive movement before a motor learning tasks did not affect M1 excitatory changes and motor learning efficiency; in contrast, in subjects carrying the Val/Val polymorphism, the more significant excitatory changes in the M1 induced by the passive movement and motor learning task led to the improvement of motor learning efficiency. Our results also suggest that homeostatic plasticity occurring in the M1 is involved in this improvement. (shrink)

The relationship between greenwashing and visitors' green behavior remains an under-researched topic in the tourism and hospitality literature, despite evidence of the harmful effect of greenwashing on the reputation and competitive advantage of organizations. This study extends attribution theory into the green context to develop a research framework for investigating the interrelationship between greenwashing, green trust, and green word-of-mouth (WOM), especially the roles of green trust and connectedness to nature. We conducted a survey of 289 visitors staying in four- and (...) five-star hotels in Vietnam. The findings indicated that hotels should avoid greenwashing due to its negative impact on visitors' green trust and green WOM. Moreover, the study found that greenwashing had an indirect and negative influence on green WOM based on visitors' green trust. Importantly, the research revealed the value of connectedness in moderating green attitudes and behaviors among visitors. (shrink)

Vietnam, with a geographical proximity and a high volume of trade with China, was the first country to record an outbreak of the new Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2. While the country was expected to have a high risk of transmission, as of April 4, 2020—in comparison to attempts to contain the disease around the world—responses from Vietnam are being seen as prompt and effective in protecting the interests of its citizens, (...) with 239 confirmed cases and no fatalities. This study analyzes the situation in terms of Vietnam’s policy response, social media and science journalism. A self-made web crawl engine was used to scan and collect official media news related to COVID-19 between the beginning of January and April 4, yielding a comprehensive dataset of 14,952 news items. The findings shed light on how Vietnam—despite being under-resourced—has demonstrated political readiness to combat the emerging pandemic since the earliest days. Timely communication on any developments of the outbreak from the government and the media, combined with up-to-date research on the new virus by the Vietnamese science community, have altogether provided reliable sources of information. By emphasizing the need for immediate and genuine cooperation between government, civil society and private individuals, the case study offers valuable lessons for other nations concerning not only the concurrent fight against the COVID-19 pandemic but also the overall responses to a public health crisis. (shrink)

There exist two conjectures for constraint satisfaction problems of reducts of finitely bounded homogeneous structures: the first one states that tractability of the CSP of such a structure is, when the structure is a model-complete core, equivalent to its polymorphism clone satisfying a certain nontrivial linear identity modulo outer embeddings. The second conjecture, challenging the approach via model-complete cores by reflections, states that tractability is equivalent to the linear identities satisfied by its polymorphisms clone, together with the natural uniformity on (...) it, being nontrivial. We prove that the identities satisfied in the polymorphism clone of a structure allow for conclusions about the orbit growth of its automorphism group, and apply this to show that the two conjectures are equivalent. We contrast this with a counterexample showing that [Formula: see text]-categoricity alone is insufficient to imply the equivalence of the two conditions above in a model-complete core. Taking another approach, we then show how the Ramsey property of a homogeneous structure can be utilized for obtaining a similar equivalence under different conditions. We then prove that any polymorphism of sufficiently large arity which is totally symmetric modulo outer embeddings of a finitely bounded structure can be turned into a nontrivial system of linear identities, and obtain nontrivial linear identities for all tractable cases of reducts of the rational order, the random graph, and the random poset. Finally, we provide a new and short proof, in the language of monoids, of the theorem stating that every [Formula: see text]-categorical structure is homomorphically equivalent to a model-complete core. (shrink)

Journal of Mathematical Logic, Ahead of Print.

Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, even contradictory (...) ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

Ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) is gaining popularity due to its superior mechanical properties, including high strength, toughness, durability, and excellent seismic performance. However, the risk of explosive spalling in UHPC structures exposed to fire poses a significant challenge, fundamentally hindering comprehensive studies on fire safety and limiting the broader engineering applications of UHPC. In this study, the mixture proportion of UHPC was developed and optimized by comparing the usage of yellow river and standard sands, different types of chemical admixtures, and different (...) curing regimes. Furthermore, a sensitive case study was also conducted to optimize the calcined bauxite content to improve UHPC's fire resistance. For these purposes, 189 UHPC cubes, incorporating variations in particle types, superplasticizer types, and curing regimes, were tested under three thermal levels, such as 200℃,400℃, and 600℃. The microstructural evolution of heated cube specimens was then observed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) examination. Calcined bauxite was then considered to replace the standard sand to improve the fire resistance of UHPC and enhance the residual compressive strength of cube specimens under thermal conditions. For this purpose, 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% calcined bauxite content was designed as six case studies. Furthermore, the degradation of UHPC strength was also investigated for the corresponding six case studies by conducting the uniaxial compressive experiments. Finally, the microstructural evolution under both thermal conditions and calcined bauxite content was observed and discussed. (shrink)

Objectives: The official implementation of clinical pharmacy in Vietnam has arrived relatively late, resulting in various stressors. This study aims to evaluate job stress level and suggest viable solutions.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on clinical pharmacists in 128 hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City. Job stress questions were derived from the Healthcare Profession Stress Inventory.Results: A total of 197 CPs participated, giving a response rate of 82.4%. Participants were found to have moderate job stress with an overall mean stress (...) score of 1.5 and stress rate of 52.8%. The sample size was statistically adequate and the HPSI was valid and reliable. Patient care responsibility was the main stressor, especially in public hospitals, followed by job conflicts. Lack of experience, low income, and inability to participate in clinical ward rounds caused significant stress to CPs regarding job recognition and job uncertainty. More practice-oriented training programs in bachelor curricula and clinical practice should be applied to help CPs gain more experience, self-confidence, and diminish job stress.Conclusion: CPs in HCMC have moderate stress. More practice-oriented training programs should be prioritized to lessen stress for CPs. (shrink)

Cảm xúc là yếu tố cơ bản thúc đẩy con người đưa ra quyết định và xử lý thông tin. Sợ hãi là một trong những cảm xúc phổ biến nhất ảnh hưởng đến hành vi của nhà đầu tư cá nhân trên thị trường chứng khoán. Mặc dù nhiều nghiên cứu đã được thực hiện để khám phá tác động của nỗi sợ hãi đối với hiệu quả đầu tư và hành vi giao dịch của nhà đầu tư cá (...) nhân, nhưng vẫn còn rất ít thông tin về các yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến nỗi sợ hãi của nhà đầu tư cá nhân trong thời kỳ thị trường sụt giảm (hoặc những giai đoạn cực kỳ biến động). Vì thế, nghiên cứu này được thực hiện để tìm hiểu liệu các nguồn thông tin ảnh hưởng đến quyết định đầu tư của nhà đầu tư có ảnh hưởng đến sự sợ hãi của họ khi khủng hoảng xảy ra hay không. Nghiên cứu đã sử dụng phương pháp phân tích Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) trên bộ dữ liệu từ 1526 nhà đầu tư Trung Quốc và Việt Nam. Kết quả nghiên cứu chỉ ra rằng các nhà đầu tư tiếp cận các loại thông tin khác nhau khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư sẽ ảnh hưởng đến tần suất phản ứng sợ hãi khác nhau. Cụ thể, các nhà đầu tư tham khảo thông tin từ chuyên gia hoặc tự phân tích khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư ít bị đóng băng (biểu hiện của tâm lý sợ hãi) hơn trong thời kỳ thị trường sụt giảm. Ngược lại, những người đưa ra quyết định đầu tư dựa trên thông tin từ người quen hay bạn bè và trực giác sẽ bị đóng băng thường xuyên hơn. Kết quả nghiên cứu này giúp gợi ý nhà đầu tư cá nhân nên trang bị cho mình các kiến thức về tài chính cũng như tham khảo các ý kiến chuyên gia trên thị trường, hoặc những nguồn thông tin đáng tin cậy, khi đưa ra quyết định đầu tư. Bên cạnh đó, cơ quan quản lý thị trường cần có hoạt động phổ cập kiến thức về thị trường chứng khoán, hạn chế ảnh hưởng của các kênh thông tin không chính thống, và khuyến khích nhà đầu tư ít kinh nghiệm mua chứng chỉ quỹ của các quỹ đầu tư. (shrink)

As thousands of healthy research participants are being included in small and large imaging studies, it is essential that dilemmas raised by the detection of incidental findings are adequately handled. Current ethical guidance indicates that pathways for dealing with incidental findings should be in place, but does not specify what such pathways should look like. Building on an interview study of researchers’ practices and perspectives, we identified key considerations for the set-up of pathways for the detection, management and communication of (...) incidental findings in imaging research. We conducted an interview study with a purposive sample of researchers at research facilities across the Netherlands. Based on a qualitative analysis of these interviews and on existing guidelines found in the literature, we developed a prototype ethical framework, which was critically assessed and fine-tuned during a two-day international expert meeting with bioethicists and representatives from large population-based imaging studies from the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. Practices and policies for the handling of incidental findings vary strongly across the Netherlands, ranging from no review of research scans and limited feedback to research participants, to routine review of scans and the arrangement of clinical follow-up. Respondents felt that researchers do not have a duty to actively look for incidental findings, but they do have a duty to act on findings, when detected. The principle of reciprocity featured prominently in our interviews and expert meeting. We present an ethical framework that may guide researchers and research ethics committees in the design and/or evaluation of appropriate pathways for the handling of incidental findings in imaging studies. The framework consists of seven steps: anticipation of findings, information provision and informed consent, scan acquisition, review of scans, consultation on detected abnormalities, communication of the finding, and further clinical management and follow-up of the research participant. Each of these steps represents a key decision to be made by researchers, which should be justified not only with reference to costs and/or logistical considerations, but also with reference to researchers’ moral obligations and the principle of reciprocity. (shrink)

As presidential campaigns and “Saturday Night Live” have repeatedly demonstrated, debate is an uninteresting mode of communication, imitating dialogue without engaging in it. Formally it encourages infinite regress: my misreading of your misreading of my misreading of your misreading. Intellectually its conclusions are in some ways predetermined. In the short run, the winner is whoever speaks last; in the long run, whoever has the greater power. Rather than occasion or remark on further “shifty moments” , then, I will try to (...) review some general areas of contention suggested in my exchange with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.Although Sedgwick and I value the personal and the theoretical both, we disagree on the lines of intersection. I am struck by her initial situation of “Van Leer” in the ranks of those who feel silenced. The complaint might just as easily have been that he has entirely too much to say. Nor, if autobiography is really the issue, do I in any way regret the notoriety of Sedgwick’s work? From what I take to be my point of view, Sedgwick’s book has opened up for me a far more visible space in the academy than has my own. And I attribute to myself at least enough self-consciousness to recognize the disingenuousness of “feeling silenced” in Critical Inquiry. David Van Leer is associate professor of English and American literature at the University of California, Davis. The author of Emerson’s Epistemology: The Argument of the Essays , he is currently examining the issue of contextualism in a book to be called The Queening of America. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 47, Issue 1, Page 5-36, Winter 2019.

We propose a dynamic logic of lying, wherein a ‘lie that $\varphi $ ’ (where $\varphi $ is a formula in the logic) is an action in the sense of dynamic modal logic, that is interpreted as a state transformer relative to the formula $\varphi $ . The states that are being transformed are pointed Kripke models encoding the uncertainty of agents about their beliefs. Lies can be about factual propositions but also about modal formulas, such as the beliefs of (...) other agents or the belief consequences of the lies of other agents. We distinguish two speaker perspectives: (Obs) an outside observer who is lying to an agent that is modelled in the system, and (Ag) an agent who is lying to another agent, and where both are modelled in the system. We distinguish three addressee perspectives: (Cred) the credulous agent who believes everything that it is told (even at the price of inconsistency), (Skep) the skeptical agent who only believes what it is told if that is consistent with its current beliefs, and (Rev) the belief revising agent who believes everything that it is told by consistently revising its current, possibly conflicting, beliefs. The logics have complete axiomatizations, which can most elegantly be shown by way of their embedding in what is known as action model logic or in the extension of that logic to belief revision. (shrink)

In this paper a corporate social responsibility audit is developed following the underlying methodology of the quality award/excellence models. Firstly the extent to which the quality awards already incorporate the development of social responsibility is examined by looking at the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the European Quality Award. It will be shown that the quality awards do not yet include ethical aspects in relation to social responsibility. Both a clear definition of social responsibility and an improved audit instrument (...) are required. A definition and an audit instrument are developed which stimulate movement in that direction and help organisations to reflect on their position in relation to social responsibility. (shrink)

Multiple authors in cognitive science of religion (CSR) argue that there is something about the human mind that disposes it to form religious beliefs. The dispositions would result from the internal architecture of the mind. In this article, I will argue that this disposition can be explained by various forms of (cultural) learning and not by the internal architecture of the mind. For my argument, I draw on new developments in predictive processing. I argue that CSR theories argue for the (...) naturalness of religious belief in at least three ways; religious beliefs are adaptive; religious beliefs are the product of cognitive biases; and religious beliefs are the product of content biases. I argue that all three ideas can be integrated in a predictive coding framework where religious belief is learned and hence not caused by the internal architecture of the mind. I argue that the framework makes it doubtful that there are modular cognitive mechanisms for religious beliefs and that the human mind has a fixed proneness for religious belief. I also argue that a predictive coding framework can incorporate a larger role for cultural processes and allows for more flexibility. (shrink)

Intractability is a growing concern across the cognitive sciences: while many models of cognition can describe and predict human behavior in the lab, it remains unclear how these models can scale to situations of real-world complexity. Cognition and Intractability is the first book to provide an accessible introduction to computational complexity analysis and its application to questions of intractability in cognitive science. Covering both classical and parameterized complexity analysis, it introduces the mathematical concepts and proof techniques that can be used (...) to test one's intuition of tractability. It also describes how these tools can be applied to cognitive modeling to deal with intractability, and its ramifications, in a systematic way. Aimed at students and researchers in philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, and linguistics who want to build a firm understanding of intractability and its implications in their modeling work, it is an ideal resource for teaching or self-study. (shrink)

What is empiricism? There can be no authoritative answer to any such question. A historian of philosophy can at best try to call what is common to philosophers who either identified themselves, or have traditionally been identified, as empiricists. But what has set those philosophers apart from others, and especially from those whom they criticized, may not be captured in common views or doctrines. The historian may, in trying to fix the label, rely tacitly on a view of what philosophical (...) positions are and how they are to be identified. Finally, it is typical of philosophers who decide to range themselves under some pre-existing banner ("empiricism", "pragmatism", "phenomenology") to change the very philosophy they take on, as much as did their historical heroes in their day. I will here try to give a sustained argument about what empiricism cannot be, and then enter upon a tentative exploration of what it should be (taken to be). (shrink)

Gödel always claimed that he did not know Skolem's Helsinki lecture when writing his dissertation. Some questions and doubts have been raised about this claim, in particular on the basis of a library slip showing that he had requested Skolem's paper in 1928. It is shown that this library slip does not constitute evidence against Gödel's claim, and that, on the contrary, the library slip and other archive material actually corroborate what Gödel said.

The paper is meant to be a contribution to the study of Indian and comparative ethics. It treats the Vajjālaggam, an anthology of Prākrit stanzas (subhāsita literature) dealing with a variety of topics. Focusing on the ‘ethical’ sections of the VL, it tries to describe and analyse its underlying ethical system. In Part I the different ethical themes of the VL (Valour and Destiny, Virtues and Vices, Masters and Servants, Friendship and Affection, Poverty and Charity) are described in detail. In (...) Part II it is shown that the VL. offers a clear example of a virtue ethic with a strong emphasis on self‐regarding virtues (gunas), based on a pluralistic and instrumental theory of the good. The paper also treats the crucial ethical problem of the relationship between personal well‐being and virtuousness as described in the VL. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

I started out as a student of physics, hard-working, interested, but alas, not ‘in love’ with my subject. Then logic struck, and having become interested in this subject for various reasons – including the fascinating personality of my first teacher –, I switched after my candidate’s program, to take two master’s degrees, in mathematics and in philosophy. The beauty of mathematics was clear to me at once, with the amazing power, surprising twists, and indeed the music, of abstract arguments. As (...) our professor of Analysis wrote at the time in our study guide “Mathematics is about the delight in the purity of trains of thought”, and oldfashioned though this phrasing sounded in the revolutionary 1960s, it did resonate with me. Then I had the privilege of being taught set-theoretic topology by a group of brilliant students around De Groot, our leading expert around the time, who worked with Moore’s method of discovering a subject for oneself. Topology unfolded from a few definitions and examples to real theorems that we had to prove ourselves – and the take-home exam took sleepless nights, as it included proving some results from scratch which came from a recent dissertation (as it turned out later). Only at the very end did De Groot appear, to give one lecture on Tychonoff’s Theorem where an application was made of the Axiom of Choice, a sacral act only to be performed by tenured full professors. (shrink)

This volume contains a selection of papers from the International Conference on Argumentation by prominent international scholars of argumentation theory. It provides an insightful cross-section of the current state of affairs in argumentation research. It will be of interest to all those working in the field of argumentation theory and to all scholars who are interested in recent developments in this field.

Many cognitive activities are irreducibly social, involving interaction between several different agents. We look at some examples of this in linguistic communication and games, and show how logical methods provide exact models for the relevant information flow and world change. Finally, we discuss possible connections in this arena between logico-computational approaches and experimental cognitive science.