Predicate Metric Tense Logic for ‘Now’ and ‘Then’

In a number of publications A.N. Prior considered the use of what he called ‘metric tense logic’. This is a tense logic in which the past and future operators P and F have an index representing a temporal distance, so that Pnα means that α was true n-much ago, and Fnα means that α will be true n-much hence. The paper investigates the use of metric predicate tense logic in formalising phenomena ormally treated by such devices as multiple indexing or quantification over times.     

The ‘Platforms’ for Comparing Incommensurable Taxonomies: A Cognitive-Historical Analysis

This paper examines taxonomy comparison from a cognitive perspective. Arguments are developed by drawing on the results of cognitive psychology, which reveal the cognitive mechanisms behind the practice of taxonomy comparison. The taxonomic change in 19th-century ornithology is also used to uncover the historical practice that ornithologists employed in the revision of the classification of birds. On the basis of cognitive and historical analyses, I argue that incommensurable taxonomies can be compared rationally. Using a frame model to represent taxonomy, I show how rational comparisons were achieved in the historical case through compatible contrast sets and attribute lists. Through analyzing the cognitive processes of classification and concept representation, I further explain how rival taxonomies in the historical case could be rationally compared on ‘platforms’ rooted in such cognitive mechanisms as relational assumptions and preferences for body parts in conceptual processing. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A Reappraisal of Children’s ‘Potential’

What does it mean for a child to fulfil his or her potential? This article explores the contexts and implications of the much-used concept of potential in educational discourses. We claim that many of the popular, political and educational uses of the term in relation to childhood have a problematic blind spot: interpersonality, and the necessary coexistence for the concept to be receivable of all children’s ‘potentials’. Rather than advocating abandoning the term—a futile gesture given its emotive force—we argue that the concept of children’s potential must be profoundly rethought to be workable as a philosophical notion in education. In an era marked by the unspoken assumption that ‘unlimited potential’ is always a good thing, we argue that it might be necessary to think about the limitations of the notion of individual potential; namely, the moment when it comes into contact with other people’s projects. We propose a conceptualisation of potential as the negotiated, situated, ever-changing creation of a group of individuals, in a process marked by conflict, and which remains essentially difficult.     

Rhetorical Strategies for Scientific Authority: A Boundary-Work Analysis of ‘Climategate’

The term ‘Climategate’ refers to the episode in November 2009 when emails between climate scientists were stolen and published online. The content of this private correspondence prompted criticism from diverse commentators who cast doubts on the methods, claims, and members of the climate science community. In response, individual scientists and scientific institutions published statements responding to the allegations of scientific fraud. Gieryn's concept of ‘boundary-work’ can be used to analyse the rhetoric of scientists in situations where their legitimacy is disputed. More specifically, boundary-work can be used to analyse the responses of scientists in terms of: how they represent the attributes of science, what types of boundary-work they undertake (e.g. expulsion, expansion, and protection), and the professional interests that come into play. A boundary-work analysis of the commentaries published in the aftermath of Climategate reveals that scientists characterised climate science as consensual, asocial, and open. Scientists depicted climate science as consensual with the purpose of expelling dissenters and protecting areas of climate science from criticism. Scientists also described knowledge about climate as being ideally produced apart from society so that they could preserve their autonomy and exclude individuals who are accused of being ‘politically biased’. Scientists characterised climate science as necessarily open as the means to justify both existing and additional public funding for science and to avoid external corrective interventions against scientific opacity. Scientists and their critics alike interpreted the stolen emails as embarrassing deviations from the alleged social demands of a consensual, objective, and accessible science.     

A League of Their Own? Evaluating Justifications for The Division of Sport into ‘Enhanced’ and ‘Unenhanced’ Leagues

Cheating through the use of illegal performance enhancements (such as doping) is a persistent problem in sport. It has been suggested that one response to this problem is to separate sport into two parallel leagues. One league would resemble sport as it is currently practised – i.e. with restrictions on use of particular enhancements – and the other would not possess these restrictions, allowing those that wish to use currently illegal enhancements to do so. In this paper I articulate the ‘two leagues’ proposal further and subject it to critical scrutiny. The proposal fails. It does so by failing to address conceptual confusion regarding enhancement use in sport; by replicating in the new league the current problems associated with enhancement-based cheating; and by creating new problems. In an attempt to revive it I describe other possible justifications for the proposal, based on its promotion of personal autonomy, and rights-based justifications. These fail, with the exception of a group right claiming provision of the enhanced league as a participatory good. I conclude that this latter use of the proposal is the only sensible one, but it nevertheless faces significant obstacles.     

Two senses for ‘givenness of consciousness’

The notion of ‘givenness of consciousness’ needs further elucidation. On the one hand, I agree with Lyyra (this volume) that one sense for ‘givenness of consciousness’ is not enough to account for consciousness and self-consciousness. On the other hand, I will argue that Lyyra’s paper is problematic precisely because he fails to consider one basic sense for ‘givenness of consciousness’. Lyyra and I thus agree that there must be (at least) two senses for ‘givenness of consciousness’; we disagree, however about which modes of givenness are involved.

A challenge to ‘self’ centred ‘psycho’: Therapy as an introduction to an ‘inter-relational therapy’

This paper focuses on ‘psychotherapy’, particularly exploring the emphasis on the ‘psyche’. The term ‘psyche’ is described as potentially having different interpretations depending on the underlying ontological assumptions that influence its understanding and these, it is suggested, will have considerable implications for the therapy that identifies with the label ‘psychotherapy’. Two very different ontological perspectives are highlighted in this paper in order to illustrate the different conception of the term ‘psyche’; firstly, Freud’s interpretation of what is meant by ‘psyche’, which is then contrasted with a phenomenological perspective, with reference to the philosophy of Husserl and Heidegger. Both the Freudian and phenomenological approaches are then criticised for focusing on, what is described here as, an egocentric perspective and it is suggested that the term ‘psycho-therapy’ will inevitably lead to a preoccupation with putting the ‘self’ first as a basis for relating to the external world. An alternative term, ‘Inter-relational therapy’, is presented based on the ideas of Levinas and MacMurray, both of who are critical of a cultural preoccupation with focusing on the ‘self’ and suggest a need to acknowledge relationships with the external world, including the other people that populate it, prior to a ‘self’ reflective process.     

Adding ‘Flock’ to ‘Fight and Flight’: A Honeycomb of Resilience Where Supply of Relationships Meets Demand for Support

In this article I explain how solidarity can support positive adjustment, collective in nature, where people face chronic, cumulative stress and largely lack resources. I propose that when individuals use relationships as a way to access and mobilise resources, an enabling ecology is configured to foster positive adjustment. Applying a collectivist, transactional-ecological view of resilience I propose Relationship-Resourced Resilience (RRR) as a generative theory to explain how resilience occurs as collective, rather than individual and subjective processes. To do this, I draw on eight years of longitudinal case study data that were generated using a Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) approach with partnership schools (N = 12, primary = 9, secondary = 3; urban = 9, rural = 3) and teachers (N = 74, female = 63, male = 11). The RRR model posits that, when under threat of chronic stress in a poverty setting, a collective response is to flock (rather than fight or flight). Flock entails a process of alone-standing individuals, experiencing shared and persistent burdens, connecting to access, share, mobilise and sustain use of resources for positive adaptation. RRR extends current resilience views of subjective, individual adjustment to individually reported stress in the direction of resilience as collective experiences of continual stress with subsequent collective positive adaptation.     

Is ‘human action’ A category?

It seems to have been taken for granted that we all know what a human action is. However in attempting to draw from what philosophers have said about actions the necessary clues as to their distinguishing features, one finds little to discourage the idea that there is no way of distinguishing one category of occurrences, human actions, from the complex of different sorts of things which happen. From this I am tempted to conclude that there is no category of human action. But before drawing such a conclusion an ancient but terrible question must be faced: What sorts of things happen in the world ? This ancient question is faced but not answered. It is brought up because the failure to find a satisfactory answer to the question, Is human action a category? is a failure even to find a satisfactory assumption about what kind of reference the term ‘human action’ is supposed to have.     

A note on ‘scepticism and absurdity’

In ‘Scepticism and Absurdity’ (Inquiry, Vol. 7, No. 2) Ingemund Gullvag concludes that recent attempts to counter scepticism have failed. It is suggested that where the attempts Gullvåg investigates are complex theories of a sociological and linguistic‐psychological nature, we need only refer to a simple and inspectable fact of language to counter scepticism.     

A physicalist reinterpretion of ‘phenomenal’ spaces

This paper argues that phenomenal or internal metrical spaces are redundant posits. It is shown that we need not posit an internal space-time frame, as the physical space-time suffices to explain geometrical perception, memory and planning. More than the internal space-time frame, the idea of a phenomenal colour space has lent credibility to the idea of internal spaces. It is argued that there is no phenomenal colour space that underlies the various psychophysical colour spaces; it is parasitic upon physical and psychophysical colour spaces. The argumentation is further extended to other sensory spaces and generalised quality spaces.     

‘强攻’难敌‘智取’

在某单位的分房办公室里,一场唇枪舌战正激烈地展开。“交战”的一方是素有“善辨王”之称的职工罗良,另一方则是该单位的分房工作人员王珏。“86年原单位曾为我调过房,这是事实,但没有分过房。咱分房方案明明规定:1985年以来,原单位曾分过房,因转让、出售、子女结婚等原因造成的住房困难,此次分房不予解决。我虽把调过的房转让给我妹,但也不属於分房方案规定之列。因为我是调过房,而不是分过房。”罗良口齿伶俐,一串串“连珠炮”不停地开火:     

The ‘Conditional Position Problem’ for epistemic externalism

Synthese - In this paper, I develop a problem I call the “Conditional Position Problem” that arises for Ernest Sosa’s externalist epistemology. The problem is that, due to a...