Why Propositions Cannot be Sets of Truth-supporting Circumstances

No semantic theory satisfying certain natural constraints can identify the semantic contents of sentences (the propositions they express), with sets of circumstances in which the sentences are true–no matter how fine-grained the circumstances are taken to be. An objection to the proof is shown to fail by virtue of conflating model-theoretic consequence between sentences with truth-conditional consequence between the semantic contents of sentences. The error underlines the impotence of distinguishing semantics, in the sense of a truth-based theory of logical consequence, and semantics, in the sense of a theory of meaning.     

Why There Cannot be a Single Probabilistic Measure of Coherence

Bayesian Coherence Theory of Justification or, for short, Bayesian Coherentism, is characterized by two theses, viz. (i) that our degree of confidence in the content of a set of propositions is positively affected by the coherence of the set, and (ii) that coherence can be characterized in probabilistic terms. There has been a longstanding question of how to construct a measure of coherence. We will show that Bayesian Coherentism cannot rest on a single measure of coherence, but requires a vector whose components exhaustively characterize the coherence properties of the set. Our degree of confidence in the content of the information set is a function of the reliability of the sources and the components of the coherence vector. The components of this coherence vector are weakly but not strongly separable, which blocks the construction of a single coherence measure.     

Why Kamm's Principle of Secondary Permissibility Cannot Save the Doctrine of Double Effect

The DDE yields counterintuitive verdicts about certain cases: it may deem it permissible to kill a certain number of people when they are not used as means and their death is not intended, but deny that killing fewer of these people is permissible if that requires intending their death, or using them as means. To accommodate the judgement that we may kill the lesser number in such cases, supporters of the DDE may appeal to Frances Kamm's Principle of Secondary Permissibility (PSP). The principle says, roughly, that if it is permissible to kill n people when not intending their death, or using them as means, then it is permissible to kill n ? m people in a way that does involve intending their deaths, or using them as means, as ‘secondarily permissible’ (where m > 0). In this article I argue that appealing to the PSP to solve the puzzling cases of the DDE is generally misleading and that it fails in particular cases. The crux of my argument is that the PSP allows killings that go against the grain of the DDE.     

Legitimate Political Authority and Sovereignty: Why States Cannot be the Whole Story

States are believed to be the paradigmatic instances of legitimate political authority. But is their prominence justified? The classic concept of state sovereignty predicts the danger of a fatal deadlock among conflicting authorities unless there is an ultimate authority within a given jurisdiction. This scenario is misguided because the notion of an ultimate authority is conceptually unclear. The exercise of authority is multidimensional and multiattributive, and to understand the relations among authorities we need to analyse this complexity into its different aspects. Instead of ultimate authorities we can have actors endowed with superior authority over others in one regard, but not necessarily in another. And this limited superiority is sufficient for resolving conflicts. There is no need for ultimate authorities. Having discarded the notion of sovereignty we can embrace a different conception of legitimate authority, one that is not interested in the pedigree of actors, but in their capacity to serve its subjects. If states wish to retain their central role in the domain of political authority, they will have to earn it.     

A Brain-Based Account of the Development of Rule Use in Childhood

ABSTRACT— The ability to follow explicit rules improves dramatically during the course of childhood, but relatively little is known about the changes in brain structure and function that underlie this behavioral improvement. Drawing from neuroscientific studies in human adults and other animals, as well as from an emerging literature in developmental cognitive neuroscience, we propose a brain-based account of the development of rule use in childhood. This account focuses on four types of rules represented in different parts of the prefrontal cortex: simple rules for reversing stimulus–reward associations, pairs of conditional stimulus–response rules (both univalent and bivalent), and higher-order stimulus–response rules for selecting among task sets. It is hypothesized that the pattern of developmental changes in rule use reflects the different rates of development of specific regions within the prefrontal cortex.     

Why the Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever Cannot Be Solved in Less than Three Questions

Rabern and Rabern (Analysis 68:105–112 2) and Uzquiano (Analysis 70:39–44 4) have each presented increasingly harder versions of ‘the hardest logic puzzle ever’ (Boolos The Harvard Review of Philosophy 6:62–65 1), and each has provided a two-question solution to his predecessor’s puzzle. But Uzquiano’s puzzle is different from the original and different from Rabern and Rabern’s in at least one important respect: it cannot be solved in less than three questions. In this paper we solve Uzquiano’s puzzle in three questions and show why there is no solution in two. Finally, to cement a tradition, we introduce a puzzle of our own.     

The Role of the Number-After Rule in the Invention of Computational Shortcuts

How children invent a counting-on from the larger addend (COL) strategy is un-clear. An effort to understand how a child classified as mentally handicapped devised this strategy has suggested a plausible developmental mechanism. The child appeared to master the n + 1 combinations just before the invention of counting-on. This suggests he used a number-after rule for n + 1 combinations as a scaffold for constructing a counting-on strategy. (For example, if the sum of 7 + 1 is the number after seven in the count sequence, then 7 + 2 must be two numbers after seven in the count sequence-i.e., "Eight, nine.") Moreover, the child appeared to master the 1 + n combinations just before he recognized that addend order was irrelevant and started counting-on from the larger of the addends. This suggests that a general number-after rule (the sum of either n + 1 or 1 + n combinations is the number after n) may provide a basis for recognizing that order can be overlooked for any combination. Follow-up analyses of nine other mentally handicapped children and five kindergartners in the normal IQ range confirmed that the number-after rule for n + 1 combinations develops before and may provide a basis for counting-on. The follow-up data indicated that a generalized number-after rule for 1 + n combinations provides one (but not the only) way that children discover the computational shortcut of disregarding addend order.     

Why We Did It: An Anscombian Account of Collective Action

Abstract

In this paper, I am concerned with persons’ capacity for joint action. I start by suggesting that approaches which seek to account for that capacity in terms of collective intentionality face a problem: there are actions that clearly seem to qualify as collective even though the involved persons cannot be said to entertain an overarching ‘We’‐intention (however one characterizes this notion). I then go on to develop an alternative account of action that loosely draws on Elizabeth Anscombe’s action theory and show how this alternative account can be applied to joint action. In so doing, I stress the importance of the phenomenal dimension of agency.     

儒家的德治为什么产生了人治的结果

儒家思想家 ,尤其是孔子和孟子 ,本质上是将德政和人治紧密联系起来了。德政和德治的思想 ,原本并非人治的同义词 ,但儒家的德治和德政思想为什么导致了人治的结果 ?人们为什么自觉不自觉地将德治与人治等而视之 ?本文试图从儒家德治思想的本源、儒家德治导致人治的根本原因、古今德治依赖的社会制度的根本分野等方面回答 :究竟是儒家的德治思想导致了人治、等同于人治 ,还是中国古代实际的社会政治制度造成了儒家的德治思想与人治思想难以分离或者不可分离的状况。     

One Play Cannot be Known to Win or Lose a Game: a Fallibilist Account of Game

This paper discusses what it means to be a good sport. It offers an account of sportsmanship rooted in the proper understanding of the limited role each participant plays during a specific sporting contest. It aims at showing that, from a fallibilist perspective, although it may perhaps be logically possible for a single play to win or lose a sporting event, it makes epistemologically no sense to single out a particular game action, moment or decision as the crucial one which determined victory or defeat. Our view, we shall argue, is consistent with the empirical nature of sporting activities. Since there can be no such a thing as a perfect game, and because no single known human mind is in a position to know with any degree of certainty how each act of game-playing relates to the outcome of a whole game, it makes almost no sense to assign whole-game success or failure to single acts of brilliance or failure.     

Why the Psychological Experience of Respect Matters in Group Life: An Integrative Account

The psychological experience of respect has implications for the nature and quality of group life and for the individual's psychological and physical well‐being. However, the manner in which respect has been studied and defined has frequently differed among researchers, making it difficult to connect the various findings. Whereas some researchers have focused on the implications of respectful treatment from group members (e.g., authorities, peers), others have focused on individuals’ perceptions of how they are generally evaluated by the group. We present the dual pathway model of respect in which these various lines of research are integrated within a single framework. Organized around two basic social motives – the need for status and the need to belong – the model describes two pathways (status evaluation and liking) through which respect from the group shapes social engagement, self‐esteem, and health. These evaluative dimensions are informed by interactions with group authorities and peers and differentially predict social psychological outcomes.     

The Role of General Cognitive Ability and Job Performance: Why There Cannot Be a Debate

Given the overwhelming research evidence showing the strong link between general cognitive ability (GCA) and job performance, it is not logically possible for industrial -organizational (I/O) psychologists to have a serious debate over whether GCA is important for job performance. However, even if none of this evidence existed in I/O psychology, research findings in differential psychology on the nature and correlates of GCA provide a sufficient basis for the conclusion that GCA is strongly related to job performance. In I/O psychology, the theoretical basis for the empirical evidence linking GCA and job performance is rarely presented, but is critical to understanding and acceptance of these findings. The theory explains the why behind the empirical findings. From the viewpoint of the kind of world we would like to live in-and would like to believe we live in-the research findings on GCA are not what most people would hope for and are not welcome. However, if we want to remain a science-based field, we cannot reject what we know to be true in favor of what we would like to be true.