Our aim in this paper is to employ conceptual negotiation to inform a method of rethinking defective food concepts, that is concepts that fail to suitably represent a certain food-related domain or that offer representations that run counter to the interests of their users. We begin by sorting out four dimensions of a food concept: the data upon which it rests and the methodology by which those data are gathered; the ontology that sustains it; the social acts that serve to (...) negotiate and establish the concept; and the aims and values that it fosters. We then discuss the conditions that make a food concept defective, pointing out four types of defects—fragility, polarization, incoherence, and schizophrenia—which we illustrate by means of two specific examples: local food and healthy food. (shrink)

This article focuses on defective conditionals ? namely indicative conditionals whose antecedents are false and whose truth-values therefore cannot be determined. The problem is to decide which formal connective can adequately represent this usage. Classical logic renders defective conditionals true whereas traditional mathematics dismisses them as irrelevant. This difference in treatment entails that, at the propositional level, classical logic validates some sentences that are intuitively false in plane geometry. With two proofs, I show that the same flaw is shared by (...) a family of trivalent logics. I go on to examine the strict conditional and its derivatives. This family is the only one to avoid the faulty inference but it does so without addressing the status of the truth-value assigned to defective conditionals. (shrink)

We argue that political propaganda is a negative phenomenon, against a recent strain of philosophical theorizing that argues that political propaganda can sometimes be neutral or even positive. After an exploration of the sense and connotation of the word ‘propaganda’ in ordinary use and in the scholarly literature, we discuss Ross’s (2002) account of propaganda as an epistemically defective form of political communication. We claim that, with some refinements, it is an explanatorily useful analysis. We then assess two prominent attempts (...) that aim at classifying legitimate cases of public communication as cases of propaganda, namely Ross’s (2013) revision of her previous model, and Stanley’s (2015) influential account. We show that some of the cases in contention are problematic and that the arguments the authors offer for classifying other non-problematic cases as propaganda are inconclusive. We also argue that the idea of considering legitimate public communication as propaganda is unmotivated. (shrink)

Meiotic defects cause abnormal chromosome segregation leading to aneuploidy in mammalian oocytes. Chromosome segregation is particularly error‐prone in human oocytes, but the mechanisms behind such errors remain unclear. To explain the frequent chromosome segregation errors, recent investigations have identified multiple meiotic defects and explained how these defects occur in female meiosis. In particular, we review the causes of cohesin exhaustion, leaky spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC), inherently unstable meiotic spindle, fragmented kinetochores or centromeres, abnormal aurora kinases (AURK), and clinical genetic variants (...) in human oocytes. We mainly focus on meiotic defects in human oocytes, but also refer to the potential defects of female meiosis in mouse models. (shrink)

In this chapter I hope to persuade you that defective contexts are more ubiquitous than we typically assume. In doing, so I will draw attention to a number of pressing social and theoretical issues which arise once we start to consider defective contexts. I will proceed by pointing to a number of ways in which defective contexts can emerge without self-correcting in the manner envisioned by Stalnaker. First I will consider situations in which some, but not all interlocutors recognise that (...) the context is defective. I will then consider cases of opaquely defective contexts, and the question of what it is for a context to be “close enough” to being non-defective. (shrink)

A defective word is defined by paradigm as incomplete compared with the major class it belongs to. Defectiveness signifies the unwanted intrusion of morphological idiosyncrasy into syntax. Although this phenomenon has been a constant subject of studies, it has been ill incorporated into the theories of language. This present volume brings together scholars from various theoretical schools for an overdue typological view of defectiveness. It concentrates on some samples of idiosyncratic gaps which are assumed as indicative of the phenomenon of (...) defectiveness. Before delving into the specified topics of each chapter, this introductory chapter presents a typology of defective paradigms. It discusses terms used to describe defectiveness in synchronotic terms, and the possible diachrony of defective paradigms. (shrink)

The Defective Image develops the argument that Darwinism is predicated on a profound epistemological flaw and proposes to demonstrate that the limitations in Darwinism can be illustrated by its inability to furnish a credible explanation for communication. The author argues that Darwinism is more faith-based ideology than scientific theory and that its character as a faith-based ideology accounts for much of the rancor that characterizes the current debate over evolution.

Alexius Meinong developed a notion of defective objects in order to account for various logical and psychological paradoxes. The notion is of historical interest, since it presages recent work on the logical paradoxes by Herzberger and Kripke. But it fails to do the job it was designed for. However, a technique implicit in Meinong's investigation is more successful and can be adapted to resolve a similar paradox discovered by Romane Clark in a revised version of Meinong's Theory of Objects due (...) to Rapaport. One family of paradoxes remains, but it is argued that they are unavoidable and relatively harmless. (shrink)

Accurate and rapid defect identification based on pulsed eddy current testing plays an important role in the structural integrity and health monitoring of in-service equipment in the renewable energy system. However, in conventional data-driven defect identification methods, the signal feature extraction is time consuming and requires expert experience. To avoid the difficulty of manual feature extraction and overcome the shortcomings of the classic deep convolutional network, such as large memory and high computational cost, an intelligent defect recognition (...) pipeline based on the general Warblet transform method and optimized two-dimensional DCNN is proposed. The GWT method is used to convert the one-dimensional PECT signal to a 2D grayscale image used as the input of 2D DCNN. A compound method is proposed to optimize the baseline VGG16, a well-known DCNN, from four aspects including reducing the input size, adding batch normalization layer after every convolutional layer and fully connection layer, simplifying the FCs, and removing unimportant filters in Convs so as to reduce memory and computational costs while improving accuracy. Through a pulsed eddy current testing experiment considering interference factors including liftoff and noise, the following conclusion can be obtained. The time-frequency representation obtained by the GWT method not only has excellent ability in terms of the transient component analysis but also is less affected by the reduction of image size; the proposed optimized DCNN can accurately identify defect types without manual feature extraction. And compared to the baseline VGG16, the accuracy obtained by the optimized DCNN is improved by 7%, to about 99.58%, and the memory and computational cost are reduced by 98%. Moreover, compared with other well-known DCNNs, such as GoogLeNet, Inception V3, ResNet50, and AlexNet, the optimized network has significant advantages in terms of accuracy and computational cost, too. (shrink)

Alexius Meinong developed a notion of defective objects in order to account for various logical and psychological paradoxes. The notion is of historical interest, since it presages recent work on the logical paradoxes by Herzberger and Kripke. But it fails to do the job it was designed for. However, a technique implicit in Meinong's investigation is more successful and can be adapted to resolve a similar paradox discovered by Romane Clark in a revised version of Meinong's Theory of Objects due (...) to Rapaport. One family of paradoxes remains, but it is argued that they are unavoidable and relatively harmless. (shrink)

It is often assumed that concepts from the formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, have to be treated differently from concepts from non-formal sciences. This is especially relevant in cases of concept defectiveness, as in the empirical sciences defectiveness is an essential component of lager disruptive or transformative processes such as concept change or concept fragmentation. However, it is still unclear what role defectiveness plays for concepts in the formal sciences. On the one hand, a common view sees formal (...) concepts to be protected against defects because of their precise and stable nature. On the other, studies going back as far as Lakatos (1963) showcase the changeability of such concepts. -/- In this paper, I will investigate if and how defectiveness based on the occurrence of inconsistencies can appear with formal concepts. To make the case as strong as possible, I employ a strict notion of formal concept that assumes the concept to have a fixed and definite extension. I will show that there are indeed certain types of defectiveness that cannot occur with such concepts; but that there are other types of defectiveness that do occur. This means that while formal concepts have to be treated differently than non-formal concepts, questions about defectiveness---as raised in the conceptual engineering debate and philosophy of science---can still be applied to them. I will highlight this point by showing how formal sciences have special strategies available to them that allow them to resolve defectiveness of their concepts in a flexible and informative manner. (shrink)

Patrick Stokes has argued that although many conspiracy theories are true, we should reject the policy of particularism (that is, the policy of investigating conspiracy theories if they are plausible and believing them if that is what the evidence suggests) and should instead adopt a policy of principled skepticism, subjecting conspiracy theories – or at least the kinds of theories that are generally derided as such – to much higher epistemic standards than their non-conspiratorial rivals, and believing them only if (...) they are proven up to the hilt. The reason is that although some conspiracy theories are true (or otherwise epistemically kosher) there is a widespread practice of conspiracy theorizing which leads to the social acceptance of conspiracy theories which (much like Lord Byron) are mad, bad and dangerous to ‘know’, leading to radically false beliefs about the natural and political worlds (for instance to Trump’s claim that Global Warming is a ‘Chinese Hoax’). Thus Stokes is a defender of the epistemic status quo in which the punditocracy routinely dismisses and sneers at ‘conspiracy theories’, simply because they are conspiracy theories, whilst admitting sotto voce that once in a blue moon there are some conspiracy theories that are true. It is just the he would prefer the epistemic policy of the punditocracy to be the policy of the populace at large. Stokes seems to be suggesting that although particularism looks like a sensible epistemic policy (and might indeed be the correct policy in an ideal world), if it were put into practice at the level of public debate it would give a specious air of plausibility to many false and dangerous conspiracy theories with pernicious social effects. I reply that the actual moral costs of conspiracy ‘skepticism’ (as it is currently practiced) exceed the likely costs of particularism, especially if it is informed by some sensible heuristics, ruling out some conspiracy theories as crazy and ruling in others as relatively sane. For the conspiracy ‘skepticism’ as currently practiced is highly selective, pouring scorn and contempt on conspiracy theories which threaten current elites whilst giving the conspiratorial concoctions of those elites something close to a free pass. (shrink)

Here, we deal with the question of under which circumstances can scientists achieve a legitimate understanding of defective theories qua defective. We claim that scientists understand a theory if they can recognize the theory’s underlying inference pattern(s) and if they can reconstruct and explain what is going on in specific cases of defective theories as well as consider what the theory would do if non-defective –even before finding ways of fixing it. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of this approach to (...) understanding the meta-metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics, specifically with regard to Quasi-set theory. We illustrate this by employing Quasi-set theory to structure a defective scientific theory and make possible the understanding of the theory. (shrink)

This chapter explores what Emma and Austen might have to say about human agency and autonomy. Considered and challenged are Christine Korsgaard’s use of Austen’s characters (Emma Woodhouse and Harriet Smith) to exemplify a species of defective autonomous action. Austen's novel persistently addresses and clarifies the nature and sources of defective action. Harriet Smith’s happy subordination to Emma’s will, as Korsgaard maintains, is obviously problematic. But it is most often Emma Woodhouse herself, and not Harriet, whose conduct Austen presents as (...) compromised, and Emma’s behavior is not defective in such a way as to suggest an abdication of will. Moreover, it is evident that considering what another thinks one should do and allowing that to inform one’s conduct is not a course of action that is invariably deplored in Emma. The chapter investigates the light Austen’s novel can shed on defects in action and the inevitability (or not) of their connection with autonomy. (shrink)

There are three main problems in track fastener defect detection based on image: The number of abnormal fastener pictures is scarce, and supervised learning detection model is difficult to establish. The potential data features obtained by different feature extraction methods are different. Some methods focus on edge features, and some methods focus on texture features. Different features have different detection capabilities, and these features are not effectively fused and utilized. The detection of the track fastener clip will be interfered (...) by the track fastener bolt subimage. Aiming at the above three problems, a method for track fastener defects detection based on Local Deep Feature Fusion Network is proposed. Firstly, the track fastener image segmentation method is used to obtain the track fastener clip subimage, which can effectively reduce the interference of bolt subimage features on the track fastener clip detection. Secondly, the edge features and texture features of track fastener clip subimages are extracted by Autoencoder and Restricted Boltzmann Machine, and the features are fused. Finally, the similarity measurement method Mahalanobis Distance is used to detect defects in track fasteners. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by real Pandrol track fastener images. (shrink)

Christine Korsgaard’sSelf-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrityis an impressive endeavour to synthesize the ethics of Plato and Kant in a comprehensive account of action and agency that locates the key to understanding both in self-constitution. A purportedly comprehensive account of action and agency will fail on its own terms if it cannot adequately account for some morally salient phenomenon. Korsgaard’s account fails to adequately account for the possibility of evil actions and evil people. If self-constitution is key to action and agency, (...) then we must abandon the Platonic and Kantian elements that Korsgaard endorses.L’ouvrage de Christine Korsgaard intituléSelf-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrityreprésente un remarquable travail de synthèse des éthiques platonicienne et kantienne qui, de manière exhaustive, rend compte de l’action et de l’agentivité sous le prisme de la constitution de soi. Toute tentative de saisie parfaite de l’action et de l’agentivité en termes propres ne saurait aboutir sans une prise en compte adéquate d’un quelconque phénomène moral saillant. L’approche de Korsgaard ne prend pas suffisamment en compte la possibilité du mal sous forme d’actions ou d’individus. Si la constitution de soi demeure centrale pour l’action et l’agentivité, alors il faudra mettre à l’écart les éléments platoniciens et kantiens que Korsgaard fait siens. (shrink)

Ultrasonic excitation has been widely used in the detection of microcracks on metal surfaces, but there are problems such as poor excitation effect of ultrasonic pulse, long time to reach the best excitation, and difficult to find microcracks. In this paper, an adaptive ultrasonic pulse excitation device and infrared thermal imaging technology have been combined, as well as their control method, to solve the problem. The adaptive ultrasonic pulse excitation device adds intelligent modules to realize automatic adjustment of detection parameters, (...) which can quickly obtain reliable excitation; the multidegree-of-freedom base realizes the three-dimensional direction change of the ultrasonic gun to adapt to different excitation occasions. When the appropriate ultrasonic excitation makes microcracks in the resonance state, the microcracks can be frictionated, which produce heat rise with the temperature. Then, the microcrack defect can be detected by the infrared thermal instrument through the different surface temperatures with imaging recognition method. Our detection experiments of the titanium alloy plates and the aluminum alloy profiles of marine engineering show that the method can get reliable detection parameters in a short time and measure the crack length effectively. It can be used in many aspects such as crack detection in mechanical structures or complex equipment operating conditions and industrial production processes. (shrink)

The current study investigates how native speakers of a morphologically complex language handle uncertainty related to linguistic forms that have gaps in their inflectional paradigms. We analyze their strategies of dealing with paradigmatic defectivity and how these strategies are motivated by subjective contemporaneousness, frequency, acceptability, and other lexical and structural characteristics of words. We administered a verb production task with Finnish native speakers using verbs from a small non-productive inflectional type that has many paradigmatic gaps and asked participants to inflect (...) the verbs in a given context. Inflectional uncertainty was measured by the number of different forms the participants produced for each verb. We classified produced forms that were not expected as either synonymous or novel and measured their optimal string alignment distance to expected forms. Our analyses revealed that a usage-based approach to paradigmatic defectivity fits better with the obtained results than a classical approach typically met in dictionaries and descriptive grammars. Thus, we argue, that paradigmatic defectivity can be better described as a dynamic rather than a static system, where gaps represent a continuum of possible inflectional choices rather than a lack of an inflectional variant. (shrink)

This is a translation from the Russian of Nikolai Lossky’s “Heдocтaтки гнoceoлoгiи Бepгcoнa и влiянie иxъ нa eгo мeтaфизикy” (The Defects of Bergson’s Epistemology and Their Consequences on His Metaphysics), which was published in the journal Boпpocы филocoфiи и пcиxoлoгiи (Questions of Philosophy and Psychology) in 1913. In this article, Lossky criticizes Bergson’s epistemological dualism, which completely separates intuition from reason, and which rejects reason in favor of intuition. For Bergson, reality is continuous, indivisible, fluid, etc., and reason distorts it (...) through its acts of division, abstraction, extraction, and so on. Lossky argues that this conclusion does not follow. Reason does not distort the living flow of reality; it rather provides a window unto aspects of the otherwise undivided seamless flowing organic whole. In fact, reason is itself a species of intuition in its own right, namely an intellectual intuition, the object of which is the atemporal facet of the world (the Platonic ideal realm), which is necessary for the existence of its temporal facet. Lossky thus challenges Bergson’s one-sided and self-defeating reduction of being to a flux of changes devoid of changing things. (Frédéric Tremblay). (shrink)

Increased amyloid beta (Aβ) production by sequential cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) by the β‐ and γ‐secretases contributes to the etiological basis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). This process requires APP and the secretases to be in the same subcellular compartments, such as the endosomes. Since all membrane organelles in the endomembrane system are kinetically and functionally linked, any defects in the trafficking and sorting machinery would be expected to change the functional properties of the whole system. The Golgi (...) is a primary organelle for protein trafficking, sorting and modifications, and Golgi defects have been reported in AD. Here we hypothesize that Golgi fragmentation in AD accelerates APP trafficking and Aβ production. Furthermore, Golgi defects may perturb the proper trafficking and processing of many essential neuronal proteins, resulting in compromised neuronal function. Therefore, molecular tools that can restore Golgi structure and function could prove useful as potential drugs for AD treatment. (shrink)

What epistemic defect needs to show up in a skeptical scenario if it is to effectively target some belief? According to the false belief account, the targeted belief must be false in the skeptical scenario. According to the competing ignorance account, the targeted belief must fall short of being knowledge in the skeptical scenario. This paper argues for two claims. The first is that, contrary to what is often assumed, the ignorance account is superior to the false belief account. (...) The second is that the ignorance account ultimately hobbles the skeptic. It does so for two reasons. First, when this account is joined with either a closure-based skeptical argument or a skeptical underdetermination argument, the best the skeptic can do is show that we don’t know that we know. And second, the ignorance account directly implies the maligned KK principle. (shrink)

AP‐2 is a recent significant addition to the list of transcription factors that have been demonstrated by targeted gene disruption to be essential for normal development. Two recent reports of AP‐2 null mutant mice(1,2) indicate that AP‐2 holds a key position in the network of genes and proteins controlling developmental pattern and morphogenesis, and that it is particularly important for development of the cranial region and for midline fusions.

The metabolic defect which results in the accumulation of cystine within tissues of children with the recessively inherited disease cystinosis has baffled investigators for almost half a century. Investigations by numerous laboratories have finally culminated in the delineation of the basic defect in this unusual disorder.

This chapter evaluates the defective verbal paradigms in the Hungarian language. The first section of the chapter provides an overview of the defectiveness in Hungarian, with emphasis on the systematic, phonotactically motivated defectiveness of the paradigms of some verbal stems. The aim of this section is to be as theoretically neutral and descriptive as possible to facilitate a good comparison with other types of defectiveness in other languages. The second section of the chapter discusses the results of the experiments which (...) are conducted in order to determine the various aspects of the defectiveness in the verbal paradigm. Some of the aspects tested include: the gap locations such as the occurrence and variation of forms in other designated cells of the verbal paradigm, and the correlations between the occurrence of forms in some designated cells; and the gap properties such as the differences in the classification of some verb stems into various stem-classes, and the range of variation exhibited by the forms that native Hungarian speakers accept as fill-ins for the gaps that are present in the paradigms of the defective verbs. (shrink)

Cognitive psychologists have uncovered a number of natural tendencies to systematic errors in thinking. This paper proposes some ways that intellectual character virtues might help correct these sources of epistemic unreliability. We begin with an overview of some insights from recent work in dual-process cognitive psychology regarding ‘biases and heuristics’, and argue that the dozens of hazards the psychologists catalogue arise from combinations and specifications of a small handful of more basic patterns of thinking. We expound four of these, and (...) sketch how they conspire to produce the myriad biases, heuristics, and illusions. We then offer accounts of two character virtues—self-vigilance and intellectual vitality—and explain how these virtues could help correct our error-prone thinking. The self-vigilant person appreciates her vulnerability to natural epistemic defects, is on the watch for cues to the working of these possible error-makers, and intelligently acts to correct for them. The intellectually vital person is naturally or has learned to be energetic, active, alert, attentive, and inquisitive, contrary to the natural tendency to cognitive laziness. We suggest that these intellectual virtues, like the moral virtues, will cluster in the personality, and will tend to be mutually reinforcing and mutually recruiting, even as each has its own corrective function. (shrink)

This paper examines the general prospects for conceptual role expressivism, expressivist theories that embrace conceptual role semantics. It has two main aims. The first aim is to provide a general characterisation of the view. The second aim is to raise a challenge for the general view. The challenge is to explain why normative concepts are not a species of defective concepts, where defective concepts are those that cannot meaningfully embed and participate in genuine inference. After rejecting existing attempts to answer (...) the challenge, I propose an alternative solution. However, the solution leaves conceptual role expressivism a far less distinctive and interesting position than its proponents claim. I conclude that we should be sceptical about how much expressivists gain by appealing to conceptual role semantics. (shrink)

Recent work in science and technology studies has looked at how chemical industries manufacture doubt about the toxicity of their products and manage to establish their scientific views in the field of international regulations on toxic substances. Rather than examining yet another “victory” for the industry, this article analyzes the deployment of a “pro-industrial” scientific position, punctuated mainly by failure and opposition. This trajectory is tracked through the analysis of several data sets: archives, scientific documentation, and sociological interviews. The first (...) part of the article charts the development of a biochemical concept, “peroxisome proliferation,” within an academic subfield and its subsequent appropriation by certain industrial parties who used it as a defensive weapon for their commercial interests. Through the example of the International Agency for Research on Cancer and its network of interdependent institutions, the article goes on to analyze the multiple attempts of chemical industry players to establish their interpretation of the concept within the regulatory bodies for carcinogenic substances. The study of such systems of sociological interdependence shows that a full analysis of the “doubt manufacturing” requires an examination not only of the manufacturing process but also of the reception of the ideas produced. (shrink)

I argue that the conception of reflective equilibrium that is generally accepted in contemporary philosophy is defective and should be replaced with a conception of fruitful reflective disequilibrium which prohibits ad hoc manoeuvres, encourages new approaches, and eschews all justification in favour of continuous improvement. I suggest how the conception of fruitful disequilibrium can be applied more effectively to moral enquiry, to encourage genuine progress in moral knowledge, if we make moral theory empirically testable by adopting a meta-ethical postulate which (...) is independently plausible. (shrink)

An Islamic coffin discovered in the church of Maria Spilaiotissa near the old Seljuk capital of Konya in central Anatolia bears the following Greek inscription: “Here lies the descendant of men born in the purple, Michael Amiraslan, the grandson of the great-grandson of the blessed emperor born in the purple, Kyr John Komnenos Maurozomes, the son of the humble John Komnenos.”.