Negative Equivalence of Extensions of Minimal Logic

Two logics L₁ and L₂ are negatively equivalent if for any set of formulas X and any negated formula ¬, ¬ can be deduced from the set of hypotheses X in L₁ if and only if it can be done in L₂. This article is devoted to the investigation of negative equivalence relation in the class of extensions of minimal logic.The author acknowledges support by the Alexander von Humboldt-StiftungPresented by Jacek Malinowski     

Interactions between Knowledge,Action and Commitment within Agent Dynamic Logic

This paper considers a new class of agent dynamic logics which provide a formal means of specifying and reasoning about the agents activities and informational, motivational and practical aspects of the behaviour of the agents. We present a Hilbert-style deductive system for a basic agent dynamic logic and consider a number of extensions of this logic with axiom schemata formalising interactions between knowledge and commitment (expressing an agent s awareness of her commitments), and interactions between knowledge and actions (expressing no learning and persistence of knowledge after actions). The deductive systems are proved sound and complete with respect to a Kripke-style semantics. Each of the considered logics is shown to have the small model property and therefore decidable.Presented by Ewa Orlowska     

Government Subsidized Academic Research: Economic and Ethical Conflicts

Justification for public funding of academic research is based on the linear model of technological advance first proposed by Francis Bacon. The model hypothesizes that government subsidized science generates new technology which creates new wealth. Mainstream economics supports Bacons model by arguing that academic research is a public good. The Bayh–Dole Act allows universities to privatize federally funded research and development (R&D) which is in direct conflict with the public good argument. Diminishing returns to university R&D, challenges to Bacons linear model and the labor exploitation of young scientists by research universities suggest that policy makers may want to reconsider the system for allocating federal R&D to universities and colleges.     

On Alternative Geometries,Arithmetics, and Logics; a Tribute to Łukasiewicz

The paper discusses the similarity between geometry, arithmetic, and logic, specifically with respect to the question of whether applied theories of each may be revised. It argues that they can - even when the revised logic is a paraconsistent one, or the revised arithmetic is an inconsistent one. Indeed, in the case of logic, it argues that logic is not only revisable, but, during its history, it has been revised. The paper also discusses Quine's well known argument against the possibility of logical deviancy.     

Categorical Abstract Algebraic Logic Metalogical Properties

Metalogical properties that have traditionally been studied in the deductive system context (see, e.g., [21]) and transferred later to the institution context [33], are here formulated in the -institution context. Preservation under deductive equivalence of -institutions is investigated. If a property is known to hold in all algebraic -institutions and is preserved under deductive equivalence, then it follows that it holds in all algebraizable -institutions in the sense of [36].     

《孔丛子》中的“孔子诗论”

《孔丛子》六卷当出自“汉魏孔氏家学” ,其前三卷记孔子、子思言行 ,可能是辑先秦孔氏遗文。《孔丛子·记义》篇载有一大段孔子对《诗》的评论 ,其与上博简《孔子诗论》有着内在的关系 ,可以将它们视为同一个体系而相互参释和补充。《孔丛子》“诗论”与上博简《诗论》都反映了先秦儒家早期说诗的风格和内容 ,而与汉代形成的《诗序》传统不同。《孔丛子》“诗论”对朱熹的《诗经集传》有一定影响 ,在从汉代诗学向宋代诗学的转变过程中起了一定的作用。     

Argumentation and Evidence

This essay explores the role of informal logicand its application in the context of currentdebates regarding evidence-based medicine. This aim is achieved through a discussion ofthe goals and objectives of evidence-basedmedicine and a review of the criticisms raisedagainst evidence-based medicine. Thecontributions to informal logic by StephenToulmin and Douglas Walton are explicated andtheir relevance for evidence-based medicine isdiscussed in relation to a common clinicalscenario: hypertension management. This essayconcludes with a discussion on the relationshipbetween clinical reasoning, rationality, andevidence. It is argued that informal logic hasthe virtue of bringing explicitness to the roleof evidence in clinical reasoning, and bringssensitivity to understanding the role ofdialogical context in the need for evidence inclinical decision making.     

Towards a research programme for ethics and technology

In this editorial contribution, two issues relevant to the question, what should be at the top of the research agenda for ethics and technology, are identified and discussed. Firstly: can, and do, engineers make a difference to the degree to which technology leads to morally desirable outcomes? What role does professional autonomy play here, and what are its limits? And secondly, what should be the scope of engineers' responsibility; that is to say, on which issues are they, as engineers, morally obliged to reflect? The research agendas proposed by the authors contributing to this special section, implicitly, give different answers to these questions. We suggest that an explicit discussion of these issues would greatly help in constructing a common research agenda.     

Logic and Aggregation

Paraconsistent logic is an area of philosophical logic that has yet to find acceptance from a wider audience. The area remains, in a word, disreputable. In this essay, we try to reassure potential consumers that it is not necessary to become a radical in order to use paraconsistent logic. According to the radicals, the problem is the absurd classical account of contradiction: Classically inconsistent sets explode only because bourgeois classical semantics holds, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that both A and A cannot simultaneously be true! We suggest (more modestly) that there is, at least sometimes, something else worth preserving, even in an inconsistent, unsatisfiable premise set. In this paper we present, in a new guise, a very general version of this preservationist approach to paraconsistency.