Revising Probabilities and Full Beliefs

Journal of Philosophical Logic - A new formal model of belief dynamics is proposed, in which the epistemic agent has both probabilistic beliefs and full beliefs. The agent has full belief in a...     

Blockage Contraction

Blockage contraction is an operation of belief contraction that acts directly on the outcome set, i.e. the set of logically closed subsets of the original belief set K that are potential contraction outcomes. Blocking is represented by a binary relation on the outcome set. If a potential outcome X blocks another potential outcome Y, and X does not imply the sentence p to be contracted, then Y?≠?K ÷ p. The contraction outcome K ÷ p is equal to the (unique) inclusion-maximal unblocked element of the outcome set that does not imply p. Conditions on the blocking relation are specified that ensure the existence of such a unique inclusion-maximal set for all sentences p. Blockage contraction is axiomatically characterized and its relations to AGM-style operations are investigated. In a finite-based framework, every transitively relational partial meet contraction is also a blockage contraction.     

Diakonia and diaconate in the World Council of Churches

Since the World Council of Churches (WCC) was founded in 1948 both diakonia and diaconate have been on the agenda of the organisation. As time has passed the understanding of these concepts has changed, and the theological importance given to them has varied due to external and internal factors. In this article I shall describe this development. My basic hypothesis is that the reflection on diakonia and diaconate has followed two separate tracks, the first considering diakonia as inter-church aid in contexts of human need, while the entry point of the second has been the ecumenical perception of the Church's ministry and within it a possible renewal of the diaconate. It is my hypothesis that these two tracks to a large degree have not been interrelated, but have mainly been isolated from each other. In my opinion this has limited the reflection on both concepts, and consequently both have lost momentum in ecumenical theology.     

European Public Deliberation on Brain Machine Interface Technology: Five Convergence Seminars

We present a novel procedure to engage the public in ethical deliberations on the potential impacts of brain machine interface technology. We call this procedure a convergence seminar, a form of scenario-based group discussion that is founded on the idea of hypothetical retrospection. The theoretical background of this procedure and the results of five seminars are presented.     

AGM 25 Years

The 1985 paper by Carlos Alchourrón (1931–1996), Peter Gärdenfors, and David Makinson (AGM), “On the Logic of Theory Change: Partial Meet Contraction and Revision Functions” was the starting-point of a large and rapidly growing literature that employs formal models in the investigation of changes in belief states and databases. In this review, the first twenty-five years of this development are summarized. The topics covered include equivalent characterizations of AGM operations, extended representations of the belief states, change operators not included in the original framework, iterated change, applications of the model, its connections with other formal frameworks, computatibility of AGM operations, and criticism of the model.     

Finite Contractions on Infinite Belief Sets

Contractions on belief sets that have no finite representation cannot be finite in the sense that only a finite number of sentences is removed. However, such contractions can be delimited so that the actual change takes place in a logically isolated, finite-based part of the belief set. A construction that answers to this principle is introduced, and is axiomatically characterized. It turns out to coincide with specified meet contraction.     

The Lutheran Confessions in Western Europe: Past and Future

Abstract: The idea of a church uniting confession began with the Lutherans in the late 1520s; and with translations of the Augsburg Confession (AC) it spread throughout Europe with the advance of the Reformation. As European culture slips further toward postmodern relativism, the absolute nature of divine claims reflected in confessions will seem odd and unwelcome. Christians must take up the challenge of developing a hermeneutic for interpreting the confessions so that the Truth of God can be respected.     

Expression of negative affect during face‐to‐face interaction: a double video study of young infants' sensitivity to social contingency

The purpose was to assess infants' sensitivity to social contingency, taking affective state into account, during face‐to‐face interaction with the mother in a double video set‐up. Infants' behaviour during three sequences of live face‐to‐face interaction were compared to two sequences where the interaction between the infant and the mother was set out of phase, by presenting either the infant or the mother with a replay of their partners' behaviour during earlier live interaction. We found a significant negative correlation between the infant's degree of negative affect and the average time of looking at the mother during the live sequences. A median split was calculated to separate the infants into a high‐negative‐affect group and a low‐negative‐affect group on the basis of their emotional responses during the experiment. The low‐negative‐affect infants looked significantly more at their mothers than other foci during the live but not the replay sequences, while the high‐negative‐affect infants did not show this difference. The results suggest that 2–4‐month old infants are able to distinguish between experimental distortion of contingent aspects in live and replay sequences, but that this effect of the replay condition may not be shown by moderate to highly distressed infants. Our findings underline the importance of taking infants' emotional state into account in experiments intended to assess their capacity for intersubjective communication. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Field-dependence/independence: ability in relation to mobility-fixity

Previous authors have pointed out that, while the classic Rod-and-Frame Test (RFT) yields a measure of ability to perform field-independently, it is unsuitable for identifying stylistic preference, such as mobility-fixity within the field-dependence/independence dimension. To relate mobility-fixity and ability aspects of field-dependence/independence, we compared data obtained from two versions of the test: one with a "free" instruction, on which the subjects were invited to adjust the rod to any position(s) they preferred on each of 10 trials and a process-oriented version (RFT-P), involving 20 trials with the standard instruction but with a constant rod-and-frame configuration, making possible analysis of the process of adaptation. Mobility versus fixity was defined in terms of more or less frequent changes of rod positions and choice of a high or a low proportion of nongeometrical positions in the RFT-Free. 38 female and 23 male university students completed first the RFT-Free and thereafter the RFT-Process. Women were more field-dependent than men throughout the RFT-Process trials; there were no differences between the sexes over trials or in choice of positions in the RFT-Free. Compared with field-dependent subjects, field-independent subjects more often changed rod positions in the RFT-Free and preferred nongeometrical positions somewhat more. Among field-independent subjects, those with consistently low deviations in RFT-Process more often preferred a variety of nongeometrical positions in RFT-Free than did those with gradually increasing deviations. We conclude that field-independence is associated with mobility and field-dependence with fixity, as defined by the RFT-Free variables, and that a prerequisite for high mobility is a relative stability of field-independence as reflected on the RFT-Process. Theoretical implications of this conclusion are discussed.