The Logic of Theory Assessment

This paper starts by indicating the analysis of Hempel’s conditions of adequacy for any relation of confirmation (Hempel, 1945) as presented in Huber (submitted). There I argue contra Carnap (1962, Section 87) that Hempel felt the need for two concepts of confirmation: one aiming at plausible theories and another aiming at informative theories. However, he also realized that these two concepts are conflicting, and he gave up the concept of confirmation aiming at informative theories. The main part of the paper consists in working out the claim that one can have Hempel’s cake and eat it too — in the sense that there is a logic of theory assessment that takes into account both of the two conflicting aspects of plausibility and informativeness. According to the semantics of this logic, α is an acceptable theory for evidence β if and only if α is both sufficiently plausible given β and sufficiently informative about β. This is spelt out in terms of ranking functions (Spohn, 1988) and shown to represent the syntactically specified notion of an assessment relation. The paper then compares these acceptability relations to explanatory and confirmatory consequence relations (Flach, 2000) as well as to nonmonotonic consequence relations (Kraus et al., 1990). It concludes by relating the plausibility-informativeness approach to Carnap’s positive relevance account, thereby shedding new light on Carnap’s analysis as well as solving another problem of confirmation theory. A precursor of this paper has appeared as “The Logic of Confirmation and Theory Assessment” in L. Běhounek & M. Bílková (eds.), The Logica Yearbook 2004, Prague: Filosofia, 2005, 161–176.     

Reciprocity and Reasonable Disagreement: From Liberal to Democratic Legitimacy

At the center of Rawls’s work post-1980 is the question of how legitimate coercive state action is possible in a liberal democracy under conditions of reasonable disagreement. And at the heart of Rawls’s answer to this question is his liberal principle of legitimacy. In this paper I argue that once we attend carefully to the depth and range of reasonable disagreement, Rawls’s liberal principle of legitimacy turns out to be either wildly utopian or simply toothless, depending on how one reads the ideal of reciprocity it is meant to embody. To remedy this defect in Rawls’s theory, I␣undertake to develop the outlines of a democratic conception of legitimacy, drawing first on Rawls’s generic conception of legitimacy in The Law of Peoples and second on a revised understanding of reciprocity between free and equal citizens. On this revised understanding, what free and equal citizens owe one another is not reciprocity in judgment, but reciprocity of interests. David A. Reidy, J.D. (Indiana University-Bloomington), Ph.D. (Philosophy, University of Kansas) is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee. He works in political philosophy and philosophy of law. He has published essays in journals such as Political Theory, Journal of Social Philosophy, Res Publica, Southern Journal of Philosophy, Public Affairs Quarterly, Polis, Journal of Value Inquiry, Kantian Review, Economics and Philosophy, Legal Studies Forum, as well as in various anthologies. He is the co-editor (with Mortimer Sellers) of Universal Human Rights: Moral Order in a Divided World (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005) and (with Rex Martin) of A Realistic Utopia: Essays on Rawls’s ‘The Law of Peoples’ (Blackwell, forthcoming 2005).     

Engineering the just war: Examination of an approach to teaching engineering ethics

The efficiency of engineering applied to civilian projects sometimes threatens to run away with the social agenda, but in military applications, engineering often adds a devastating sleekness to the inevitable destruction of life. The relative crudeness of terrorism (e.g., 9/11) leaves a stark after-image, which belies the comparative insignificance of random (as opposed to orchestrated) belligerence. Just as engineering dwarfs the bricolage of vernacular design—moving us past the appreciation of brush-strokes, so to speak—the scale of engineered destruction makes it difficult to focus on the charred remains of individual lives. Engineers need to guard against the inappropriate military subsumption of their effort. Fortunately, the ethics of warfare has been an ongoing topic of discussion for millennia. This paper will examine the university core class I’ve developed (The Moral Dimensions of Technology) to meet accreditation requirements in engineering ethics, and the discussion with engineering and non-engineering students focused by the life of electrical engineer Vannevar Bush, with selected readings in moral philosophy from the Dao de Jing, Lao Tze, Cicero, Aurelius Augustinus, Kant, Annette Baier, Peter Singer, Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and Judith Thomson. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.     

中国哲学中身心关系的几种形态

Ancient Chinese philosophers were inclined to preserve the doctrine of a unified body and mind rather than to engage in a discussion on the separation of the two. In addition, most traditional Chinese philosophers stressing in particular the function of mind. Based on the tradition of believing in the concept of qi, they traced the cause of their spiritual activities to the natural effect of the qi. The modalities display a phenomenological characteristic that looks at mental activities lightly, and examines language and action as a natural revelation of material force, qi. __________ Translated from Beijing Daxue Xuebao 北京大学学报 (Journal of Peking University), 2005, (5): 5–14     

A team-taught interdisciplinary approach to engineering ethics

This paper outlines the development and implementation of a new course in Engineering Ethics at the University of Tennessee. This is a three-semester-hour course and is jointly taught by an engineering professor and a philosophy professor. While traditional pedagogical techniques such as case studies, position papers, and classroom discussions are used, additional activities such as developing a code of ethics and student-developed scenarios are employed to encourage critical thinking. Among the topics addressed in the course are engineering as a profession and its role in society; ethical successes and failures; risk, safety, and the environment; professional responsibilities; credit and intellectual property; and international concerns. The most significant aspect of the course is that it brings both engineering and non-engineering points of view to the topics at hand. This is accomplished in two ways. First, as mentioned previously, it is team-taught by engineering faculty with an interest in ethical and societal issues, and by philosophy faculty with expertise in the field of professional ethics and an interest in science and technology. Second, the course is offered to both engineers and non-engineers. This mix of students requires that all students must be able to explain their technical and ethical decisions in a non-technical manner. Work teams are structured to maximize interdisciplinary interaction and to foster insights by each student into the professional commitments and attitudes of others. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.     

The small helm project: An academic activity addressing international corruption for undergraduate civil engineering and construction management students

This paper presents an academic project that addresses the issue of international corruption in the engineering and construction industry, in a manner that effectively incorporates several learning experiences. The major objectives of the project are to provide the students a learning activity that will 1) make a meaningful contribution within the disciplines being studied; 2) teach by experience a significant principle that can be valuable in numerous situations during an individual’s career, and 3) engage the minds, experiences, and enthusiasm of the participants in a real ethical challenge that is prevalent in all of their chosen professional fields. The paper describes the full details of the project, the actual implementation of it during Winter Semester 2005, the experiences gained during the initial trial, and the modifications and improvements incorporated for future implementation. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.     

On teaching computer ethics within a computer science department

The author has surveyed a quarter of the accredited undergraduate computer science programs in the United States. More than half of these programs offer a “social and ethical implications of computing” course taught by a computer science faculty member, and there appears to be a trend toward teaching ethics classes within computer science departments. Although the decision to create an “in house” computer ethics course may sometimes be a pragmatic response to pressure from the accreditation agency, this paper argues that teaching ethics within a computer science department can provide students and faculty members with numerous benefits. The paper lists topics that can be covered in a computer ethics course and offers some practical suggestions for making the course successful. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California, 9–10 June 2005.     

A Gentle Critique of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Mourning Religion</Emphasis>

This article offers three points of critical reflection about Mourning Religion, a collection of essays edited by William Parsons, Diane Jonte-Pace and Susan Henking, (University of Virginia Press 2008). It is suggested that the word “religion” and related terms ought to have been contextualized, that Melanie Klein’s theories ought to have been used more extensively and that nostalgia expressed for the loss of an idealized paternal authority ought to have been made more explicit.     

The other invisible hand: Jews and anarchists in London before the First World War

In the decades before the First World War, London worried about anarchist outrages, and particularly, about Jews said to instigate them. Jewish anarchists were rumoured to have been responsible for the ‘ripper’ murders in Whitechapel (1888), an attempt to blow up the Royal Observatory at Greenwich Park (1894) and the Houndsditch murders (1910)/Sidney Street affair (1911). Jews were a visible population in the East End, and editors, MPs, and police authorities offered Jewishness to explain the ‘who’ and ‘why’ of anarchist violence. Jews were also thought to have the capacity to become invisible, ‘outsiders’ who could pass for ‘insiders’. In the radical press, and fictionalised accounts in novels such as Conrad’s The Secret Agent, the image of the Jewish anarchist became that of agent provocateur paid by police to infiltrate and undermine the movement. Jews were said to operate behind-the-scenes, manipulating the economy and political structure. The invisible hand of the market and the invisible hand of anarchism were attached to a Jewish body. About the author: Paul Knepper (Ph.D. Arizona State) is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, and Research Fellow, Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester. Recent publications include ```Jewish Trafficking” and London Jews in the Age of Migration’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies (2008); ‘British Jews and the Racialisation of Crime in the Age of Empire’ British Journal of Criminology (2007); ‘Michael Polanyi and Jewish Identity’ Philosophy of the Social Sciences (2005); ‘Polanyi, “Jewish Problems”, and Zionism’ Tradition and Discovery (2005).     

Quantum logic as a dynamic logic

We address the old question whether a logical understanding of Quantum Mechanics requires abandoning some of the principles of classical logic. Against Putnam and others (Among whom we may count or not E. W. Beth, depending on how we interpret some of his statements), our answer is a clear “no”. Philosophically, our argument is based on combining a formal semantic approach, in the spirit of E. W. Beth’s proposal of applying Tarski’s semantical methods to the analysis of physical theories, with an empirical–experimental approach to Logic, as advocated by both Beth and Putnam, but understood by us in the view of the operational- realistic tradition of Jauch and Piron, i.e. as an investigation of “the logic of yes–no experiments” (or “questions”). Technically, we use the recently-developed setting of Quantum Dynamic Logic (Baltag and Smets 2005, 2008) to make explicit the operational meaning of quantum-mechanical concepts in our formal semantics. Based on our recent results (Baltag and Smets 2005), we show that the correct interpretation of quantum-logical connectives is dynamical, rather than purely propositional. We conclude that there is no contradiction between classical logic and (our dynamic reinterpretation of) quantum logic. Moreover, we argue that the Dynamic-Logical perspective leads to a better and deeper understanding of the “non-classicality” of quantum behavior than any perspective based on static Propositional Logic.