The Benefits,Costs, and Paradox of Revenge

In this article, we examine the psychology of revenge. We begin by discussing challenges associated with defining revenge. We then review the relative costs and benefits associated with taking revenge. Although revenge can deter future harm, promote cooperation, and restore avengers’ self-worth and power, it can also contribute to conflict escalation and adverse psychological outcomes for avengers, such as depression and reduced life satisfaction. Next, we examine the prevalence of revenge. In distinguishing between the desire for revenge and act of revenge, we challenge the notion that the act of revenge is an automatic or pervasive response to injustice. We highlight four factors that influence whether victims of injustice choose to take revenge: the persistence of anger, perceptions of the costs of revenge, cultural and religious values regarding revenge, and the presence of external systems that can restore justice on behalf of victims.     

The No-No Paradox Is a Paradox

The No-No Paradox consists of a pair of statements, each of which ‘says’ the other is false. Roy Sorensen claims that the No-No Paradox provides an example of a true statement that has no truthmaker: Given the relevant instances of the T-schema, one of the two statements comprising the ‘paradox’ must be true (and the other false), but symmetry constraints prevent us from determining which, and thus prevent there being a truthmaker grounding the relevant assignment of truth values. Sorensen's view is mistaken: situated within an appropriate background theory of truth, the statements comprising the No-No Paradox are genuinely paradoxical in the same sense as is the Liar (and thus, on Sorensen's view, must fail to have truth values). This result has consequences beyond Sorensen's semantic framework. In particular, the No-No Paradox, properly understood, is not only a new paradox, but also provides us with a new type of paradox, one which depends upon a general background theory of the truth predicate in a way that the Liar Paradox and similar constructions do not.     

触控名车的小小细节 全球顶级汽车钥匙的豪华主义设计精品

在这个比创意比设计的竞争时代,所有跟设计有关的场面,都衍变成一场场有输有赢的游戏。而全世界都在用智慧的设计商机来角逐,让生活变得更加丰盛多彩。如果你的东西和大家一样,那干嘛还设计它?Philippe starck的一句话,我们足以看出设计这件事的本质。当我们把图纸上的想法变为实物的时候,需要一个平台让它问世。德国博朗国际工业设计大赛正是这样一个梦想集结地,自1968年以来,每两年举行一次,鼓励参与者自由选题,并完全独立于博朗公司的产品计划,更好激发梦想的创造力。     

Paradox,truth and logic part I: Paradox and truth

Conclusion The discussion of the semantics of inconsistent truth theories now comes to a pause. The preceding is of course but a sketch; many interesting questions remain to be answered. The second part of this essay, however, will not seek to answer them. Rather, I will turn to the discussion of the proof theory of truth theory: the local and global logic of truth.Under the first heading, I show how to replace the inductive construction of models with an appropriate infinitary proof theory, and relate this on the one hand to the so-called dependence approach to inductive truth theories (Davis, 1979; Yablo, 1982) and on the other to van Fraassen's fact semantics for relevance logic.Under the second heading, I offer formals systems which capture the inferences valid in all approximate models. Not surprisingly, these turn out to be relevant logics.With formalism in hand, I discuss finally the extent to which the gap and/or glut approach can in fact be said to solve the paradoxes; that is, to allow us to say that the very language we are speaking is of the sort described in our theory.     

The Mere Addition Paradox,Parity and Vagueness*

Derek Parfit’s mere addition paradox has generated a large literature. This paper articulates one response to this paradox—which Parfit himself suggested—in terms of a formal account of the relation of parity. I term this response the ‘parity view’. It is consistent with transitivity of ‘at least as good as’, but implies incompleteness of this relation. The parity view is compatible with critical‐band utilitarianism if this is adjusted to allow for vagueness. John Broome argues against accounts which involve incompleteness. He thinks they are based on an intuition of ‘neutrality’, which is most naturally understood in terms of equality. There is no rationale, on Broome’s view, for seeing it as ‘incommensurateness’ which leads to incompleteness. Parity provides one. Broome’s worries that ‘incommensurateness’ makes neutrality implausibly ‘greedy’, and that ‘incommensurateness’ and vagueness are incompatible do not constitute a knock‐down case against the parity view. Similar worries arise for his preferred vagueness view.     

The Cookie Paradox

We’ve all been at parties where there's one cookie left on what was once a plate full of cookies, a cookie no one will eat simply because everyone is following a rule of etiquette, according to which you’re not supposed to eat the last cookie. Or at least we think everyone is following this rule, but maybe not. In this paper I present a new paradox, the Cookie Paradox, which is an argument that seems to prove that in any situation in which everyone is truly following the rule, no one eats any cookies at all, no matter how many there are to be eaten. The ‘Cookie Argument’ resembles the more familiar argument that surprise exams are impossible, but it's not exactly the same. I argue that the biggest difference is that, unlike the surprise exam argument, the Cookie Argument is actually sound! I conclude the paper by explaining how it could be possible for a group of people to engage in behavior (eating cookies) that guarantees that at least one of the members of the group will violate a rule, even when it's common knowledge in the group that everyone is committed to following that very rule.

Sometimes me think, “What is friend?” and then me say, “Friend is someone to share the last cookie with.” ‐ Cookie Monster, http://youtu.be/LHh0A_bH5ig 1 1 I’m grateful to Eric Carter for this quote.