This volume brings together a collection of essays on the history and philosophy of probability and statistics by one of the eminent scholars in these subjects. Written over the last fifteen years, they fall into three broad categories. The first deals with the use of symmetry arguments in inductive probability, in particular, their use in deriving rules of succession. The second group deals with four outstanding individuals who made lasting contributions to probability and statistics in very different ways: Frank Ramsey, (...) R. A. Fisher, Alan Turing, and Abraham de Moivre. The last group of essays deals with the problem of 'predicting the unpredictable' - making predictions when the range of possible outcomes is unknown in advance. The essays weave together the history and philosophy of these subjects and document the fascination that they have exercised for more than three centuries. (shrink)

This paper has the aim of making Johannes von Kries’s masterpiece, Die Principien der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung of 1886, a little more accessible to the modern reader in three modest ways: first, it discusses the historical background to the book ; next, it summarizes the basic elements of von Kries’s approach ; and finally, it examines the so-called “principle of cogent reason” with which von Kries’s name is often identified in the English literature.

This chapter describes the logic of inductive inference as seen through the eyes of the modern theory of personal probability, including a number of its recent refinements and extensions. The structure of the chapter is as follows. After a brief discussion of mathematical probability, to establish notation and terminology, it recounts the gradual evolution of the probabilistic explication of induction from Bayes to the present. The focus is not in this history per se, but in its use to highlight the (...) key assumptions, criticisms, refinements, and achievements of that theory. Along the way, the structure of the modern theory is presented, and its relation to the problem of induction discussed. (shrink)

This paper argues for a realist position in the metaphysics of aesthetic properties. Realist positions about aesthetic properties are few and far between, though sometimes developed by analogy to realism about colours. By contrast, my position is based on a disanalogy between aesthetic properties and colours. Unlike colours, aesthetic properties are perceived as relatively unsteady properties: as powers that objects have to cause a certain experience in the observer. Following on from this observation, I develop a realist account of aesthetic (...) properties as causally efficient powers, analogous to properties like fragility or poisonousness. To show how such a view can be made ontologically respectable, I draw on recent ‘dispositionalist’ accounts of powers in philosophical metaphysics. I then offer two arguments in favour of this view. First, the view matches the phenomenology of aesthetic judgement. Second, the view offers an explanation of how it is that critics can demand agreement with their aesthetic judgements. (shrink)

Critical discussion on definition of the work "Mithya" in the Advaitabrahamasiddhi of Madhusudanasarasvati.

A major difficulty for currently existing theories of inductive inference involves the question of what to do when novel, unknown, or previously unsuspected phenomena occur. In this paper one particular instance of this difficulty is considered, the so-called sampling of species problem.The classical probabilistic theories of inductive inference due to Laplace, Johnson, de Finetti, and Carnap adopt a model of simple enumerative induction in which there are a prespecified number of types or species which may be observed. But, realistically, this (...) is often not the case. In 1838 the English mathematician Augustus De Morgan proposed a modification of the Laplacian model to accommodate situations where the possible types or species to be observed are not assumed to be known in advance; but he did not advance a justification for his solution. (shrink)

Much art is committed to political causes. However, does art contribute something unique to political discourse, or does it merely reflect the insights of political science and political philosophy? Here I argue for indispensability of art to political discourse by building on the debate about artistic cognitivism, the view that art is a source of knowledge. Different artforms, I suggest, make available specific epistemic resources, which allow audiences to overcome epistemic obstacles that obtain in a given ideological situation. My goal (...) is to offer a general model for identifying cognitive advantages for artworks belonging to distinct artforms and genres, in a way that can account for each artwork’s historical and cultural specificity. More speculatively, however, my account also comments on the ancient struggle between philosophy and the arts as competing modes of persuasion, and expands our notion of legitimate political discourse to include a greater plurality of discursive genres. (shrink)

What role do images play in philosophical persuasion? With the advent of bio-art in the 1990s, a new vista opened up for this age-old puzzle: the possibility of creating images through bioengineering of living matter. Here, I test the critical intentions of bio-artists by setting up a comparison between, on the one hand, bio-art, and on the other, bioethics, a philosophical discipline, which developed at around the same time as this new artform. I argue there is an aspect of ethics--'the (...) difficulty of reality' in Cora Diamond's coinage--which analytic bioethics obscures, and which art can help us come to terms with. I develop my argument by comparing the work of artists Eduardo Kac, Stelarc and Maja Smrekar, with utilitarian bioethics by philosophers like Julian Savulescu. Philosophical concepts of the living presence, the viral image and the pensive image are revisited through this inquiry. (shrink)

The last twenty‐five years have seen a radical shift in the work of politically committed artists. No longer content to merely represent social reality, a new generation of artists has sought to change it, blending art with activism, social regeneration projects, and even violent political action. I assess how this form of contemporary art should lead us to rethink theories of artistic value and argue that these works make a convincing case for an often‐dismissed position, namely, the pragmatic view of (...) artistic value. However, the pragmatic view, when properly applied, sets the bar high indeed—art that tries to change society should be considered good art only when it succeeds in making a tangible difference. (shrink)

_An exploration of the relationship between contemporary art, politics, and activism, Artists Remake the World introduces readers to the political ambitions of contemporary art in the early twenty-first century and puts forward a new, wide-ranging account of art’s political potential. Surveying such innovations as evidence-driven art, socially engaged art, and ecological art, the book explores how artists have attempted to offer bold solutions to the world’s problems. Vid Simoniti offers original perspectives on contemporary art and its capacity as a force (...) for political and social change. At its best, he argues, contemporary art allows us to imagine utopias and presents us with hard truths, which mainstream political discourse cannot yet articulate. Covering subjects such as climate change, social justice, and global inequality, Simoniti introduces the reader to a host of visionary contemporary artists from across the globe, including Ai Weiwei, Olafur Eliasson, Wangechi Mutu, Naomi Rincón Gallardo, and Hito Steyerl. Offering a philosophy of contemporary art as an experimental branch of politics, the book equips the reader with a new critical apparatus for thinking about political art today. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to make a simple observation regarding the Johnson -Carnap continuum of inductive methods. From the outset, a common criticism of this continuum was its failure to permit the confirmation of universal generalizations: that is, if an event has unfailingly occurred in the past, the failure of the continuum to give some weight to the possibility that the event will continue to occur without fail in the future. The Johnson -Carnap continuum is the mathematical consequence (...) of an axiom termed Johnson 's sufficientness postulate, the thesis of this paper is that, properly viewed, the failure of the Johnson -Carnap continuum to confirm universal generalizations is not a deep fact, but rather an immediate consequence of the sufficientness postulate; and that if this postulate is modified in the minimal manner necessary to eliminate such an entailment, then the result is a new continuum that differs from the old one in precisely one respect: it enjoys the desideratum of confirming universal generalizations. (shrink)

We propose an "explanation scheme" for why the Gibbs phase average technique in classical equilibrium statistical mechanics works. Our account emphasizes the importance of the Khinchin-Lanford dispersion theorems. We suggest that ergodicity does play a role, but not the one usually assigned to it.

V prispevku raziščem, kaj je o Homerju in arhaični epiki trdil Matija Murko. Čeprav je Murko v sodobnem homeroslovju razmeroma poznan, vsaj kot predhodnik Milmana Parryja in Alberta Lorda, pa ni še nihče temeljiteje analiziral, kaj je zapisal o homerski epiki. V prispevku obravnavam njegove najpomembnejše ugotovitve, ki neposredno ali posredno zadevajo Homerja in homeroslovje. Osre­dotočim se na raziskovanje kompozicijskih tehnik in pevcev, na literarne primerjave, na razumevanja slepih pevcev in na Murkov odnos do sočasnega homeroslovja. Kot pokažem, je Murko (...) v svojih spisih postavil precej različnih tez o homerski epiki, do katerih so se klasični filologi po vsem svetu dokopali šele več desetletij kasneje. (shrink)

Works of literature represent stories, characters, and events: these are the contents of a work. Often, the contents of literary works are fictional; however, it is just as characteristic of works of literature that these contents are narrated in a distinct style of writing, in an author’s distinct literary “voice.” In this paper, I consider whether works of literature might represent something over and above their fictional contents in virtue of their style alone and what consequences this might have for (...) our thinking about aesthetic education. Both of these concerns—with what works of art represent and what kind of knowledge they make available to us—have been central to recent analytic philosophy of art. While I.. (shrink)

In the foreground stands the idea to decipher law as starting point of continuous emancipation and alientation processes. Emancipation and alienation refer to an ethos of specific societies including forms of rational knowledge and inherited convention as much as individual needs and techniques securing domination. Insofar, law is no postulated „fact“ only to be discovered or (de-)constructed. We rather should understand it as dense texture of interests and convictions, theories and practices. The meaning of this can be illustrated with the (...) example of today’s dominating individuality paradigm. Securing status and political governing of the individuum can be regarded as consequence of an interdependence in which legally bound practice and normative dynamics of the law are referring to one another. Taking this logic seriously, one cannot only sketch the crossing of emancipation and alientation processes in the individuum. One can also see the whole dilemma of modern law: wanting to be the promise of autonomy and having to establish the culture of order securing power. (shrink)

In Art Incorporated, you seek to debunk the myth of the artworld as autonomous of the market forces of global capitalism. Instead, you argue, works of art have become yet another commodity. However, one could say that works of art have always been commodities as well as objects of aesthetic appreciation. What makes the problem pertinent now, in the age of artists like Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst?

Suffering from Vulnerability. On the Relation Between Law, Contingency and Solidarity The COVID-19 crisis has produced or amplified disruptive processes in societies. This article wants to argue for the fact that we understand the meaning of the COVID-19 crisis only if we relate it to the fundamental vulnerability of modern life and the awareness of vulnerability of whole societies. Vulnerability in modernity are expressions of a reality of freedom that is to some extent considered contingent and therefore unsecured. It is (...) true that law is understood today as the protective power of freedom. The thesis of the article, however, boils down to the fact that the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in a new way of thinking about the protection of freedom. This also means that the principle of solidarity must be assigned a new social role. Individual and societal vulnerability refer thereafter to an interconnectedness, dependency, and a future perspective of freedom margins that, in addition to the moral one, can also indicate a need for legal protection. In this respect, law has not only a function of delimitation, but also one of inclusion. (shrink)

Face-to-face meetings are often preferred over other forms of communication because meeting in person provides the “richest” way to communicate. Face-to-face meetings are so rich because many ways of communicating are available to support mutual understanding. With the progress of digitization and driven by the need to reduce personal contact during the global pandemic, many face-to-face work meetings have been shifted to videoconferences. With webcams turned on, video calls come closest to the richness of face-to-face meetings. However, webcam use often (...) remains voluntary, and some participants choose not to turn their cameras on. In order to find ways to support webcam use—when desired—we analyzed how social norms in groups affect the decision to activate a webcam in a specific meeting. Based on an online survey with N = 333 participants, we found that social norms are related to an individual’s decision to turn on the webcam, even when controlling for group size. If the number of participants with activated webcams in a university meeting increased by 25%, it was 5.92 times more likely that an individual decided to turn their webcam on, too. Furthermore, 81.84% of respondents indicated they would turn on their webcam if participants in a meeting were explicitly asked to do so. The results demonstrate a strong relation between social norms and the decision to activate a webcam in online meetings. They build a basis for enhancing webcam use and enable a greater richness of communication in online meetings. (shrink)

How can conceptual art contribute to political discourse? By the late 1960s, New York conceptual artists like Adrian Piper were faced with this difficult question. Conceptual artistic experiments seemed removed from the anti-war, anti-racist and feminist struggles, while personally many artists became increasingly involved in activism. I revisit the knotty relationship between art and politics through a close analysis of Piper's work in this period. Against the received view, I argue that Piper's early work was remarkably devoid of political concerns, (...) however, I also show how Piper’s later, anti-racist work, crucially derived from the rhetorical strategies, which she had developed earlier. Bridging art historical and philosophical approaches, this investigation culminates in a new philosophical view of the relationship between art and (anti-racist) political discourse: art emerges as a creative form of political rhetoric. (shrink)

Fears caused by crisis reveal the fragility of open societies. The usual narrative sees liberal right securing individual freedom, yet it guarantees this promise by means of constant government interventions. Specifically in light of the example of dealing with fear, one can show how a network of technologies of care arises out of the guarantee of the freedom of right - a network that fosters repressive and paternalistic tendencies. In opposition to this “liberal logic” of freedom, one ought to adhere (...) to a self-reflexivity of right that overturns the aporias in a productive manner. (shrink)

Art, as discussed in the third book of Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation, plays a double role in his philosophical system. On one hand, beholding an object of aesthetic worth provides the spectator with a temporary cessation of the otherwise incessant suffering that Schopenhauer takes life to be; on the other, art creates an epistemological bridge between ourselves and the world as it really is: unlike science which only studies relations between things, contemplation of art leads to (...) knowledge of that which is “alone really essential to the world, the true content of its phenomena.” (WWR1: 184) It is this second aspect of Schopenhauer's aesthetics that is both appealing and curious: while Schopenhauer's aesthetics and epistemology are both rooted in his picture of the world as Will, which is (taken at face value) deeply counter-intuitive, it yet seems to me that by assigning epistemic value to art, he manages to capture the quality of profundity with which certain works of art strike us – a profundity that is accounted for neither by reference to mere enjoyment nor by reference to paraphrasable, propositional knowledge. (shrink)

Brian Skyrms (1987, 1990, 1993, 1997) has discussed the role of dynamic coherence arguments in the theory of personal or subjective probability. In particular, Skryms (1997) both reviews and discusses the utility of martingale arguments in establishing the convergence of beliefs within the context of radical probabilism. The classical martingale converence theorem, however, assumes the countable additivity of the underlying probability measure; an assumption rejected by some subjectivists such as Bruno de Finetti (see, e.g., de Finetti 1930 and 1972). This (...) brief note has a very modest goal: to briefly consider the extent to which Skyrms’s argument can be extended to the finitely additive case. (shrink)

This paper analyses the personal documents of two early explorers of the Eastern Desert who recorded several monastic monuments in the area: Sir John Gardner Wilkinson and James Burton. We argue that these papers are an important source for the history of early monasticism as they record many of the monuments now destroyed, severely damaged, or forgotten. It is also suggested that Burton preceded Wilkinson in visiting and documenting some of these archaeological sites, even though Wilkinson was the first to (...) publish them. (shrink)