Boring Infinite Descent

In formal ontology, infinite regresses are generally considered a bad sign. One debate where such regresses come into play is the debate about fundamentality. Arguments in favour of some type of fundamentalism are many, but they generally share the idea that infinite chains of ontological dependence must be ruled out. Some motivations for this view are assessed in this article, with the conclusion that such infinite chains may not always be vicious. Indeed, there may even be room for a type of fundamentalism combined with infinite descent as long as this descent is “boring,” that is, the same structure repeats ad infinitum. A start is made in the article towards a systematic account of this type of infinite descent. The philosophical prospects and scientific tenability of the account are briefly evaluated using an example from physics.     

Low temporal precision for high impulsive individuals

Previous studies have shown that impulsive people perceive time differently from non-impulsive people. However, these studies either recruited participants from the clinical population or used impulsive behavior (rather than impulsivity trait itself) as the index of impulsivity. We investigated the relationship between time perception and self-report impulsivity trait (measured by the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale; BIS-11) in non-patient participants. We used the oddball paradigm to measure subjective duration and discrimination precision in high- and low-impulsive groups. Results show that high impulsive participants’ discrimination precision was lower than low impulsive participants (Experiment 1). The possibility that this is due to high impulsive participants having weaker attentional maintenance of the task was excluded (Experiment 2). By removing potentially confounding factors that existed in previous studies, our results demonstrate a more convincing relationship between temporal precision and the impulsivity trait in healthy participants.     

The First Antinomy and Spinoza

Scholars commonly assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism. However, in his later writings Kant argues several times that Spinozism is the most consistent form of transcendental realism. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the first Antinomy, debating the age and size of the world, already reflects Kant's confrontation with Spinozist metaphysics. Specifically, the position articulated in the Antithesis – according to which the world is infinite and uncreated – is Spinozist, not Leibnizian, as commonly assumed. In the second part of the paper, I raise the chief Spinozist challenge to the Antinomy, arising from Spinoza's reliance on a cosmological `totum analyticum' – an infinite whole which is prior to its parts. In conclusion, I begin to elaborate a defence of the Kantian position, confronting Spinoza's infinite whole with Kant's account of the absolutely infinite in his discussion of the sublime.     

Leibniz on Infinite Numbers,Infinite Wholes,and Composite Substances

Leibniz claims that nature is actually infinite but rejects infinite number. Are his mathematical commitments out of step with his metaphysical ones? It is widely accepted that Leibniz has a viable response to this problem: there can be infinitely many created substances, but no infinite number of them. But there is a second problem that has not been satisfactorily resolved. It has been suggested that Leibniz's argument against the world soul relies on his rejection of infinite number, and, as such, Leibniz cannot assert that any body has a soul without also accepting infinite number, since any body has infinitely many parts. Previous attempts to address this concern have misunderstood the character of Leibniz's rejection of infinite number. I argue that Leibniz draws an important distinction between ‘wholes’ – collections of parts that can be thought of as a single thing – and ‘fictional wholes’ – collections of parts that cannot be thought of as a single thing, which allows us to make sense of his rejection of infinite number in a way that does not conflict either with his view that the world is actually infinite or that the bodies of substances have infinitely many parts.     

Generalization of equivalence relations from photos to objects by preschool children

Generalized equivalence classes are stimulus classes that consist of equivalent stimuli and other physically similar class‐member stimuli. The present study evaluated whether preschool children would form equivalence classes among photos of abstract objects (2D) and show equivalence generalization to the corresponding objects (3D), printed photos (2D stimuli), and to black‐and‐white drawn pictures (2D stimuli). Six typically developing children were taught arbitrary relations to establish three 3‐member equivalence classes with 2D stimuli presented on a computer screen. AB‐AC baseline relations (for half of the participants) and AB‐BC relations (for the other half) were taught using a multiple‐probe design to assess taught and tested relations. After class formation, three types of generalization probes were conducted: generalization to 3D stimuli, generalization between 2D (printed photos) and 3D stimuli, and generalization to drawn pictures (2D). All of the participants formed the equivalence classes. Two participants met the criterion for all three generalization probe types. Two participants presented mixed results across tests, and two participants did not exhibit equivalence generalization. The results demonstrated equivalence generalization from 2D to 3D stimuli in preschool children, although the variability across participants suggests that such generalization cannot be assumed a priori.     

大医院过度扩张与医疗行业的社会使命

大医院过度扩张已是不争的事实,加速了医疗资源的不合理分配,是造成看病贵的重要原因。医院自身有责任,主管部门与权威媒体实际上在鼓励大医院过度扩张。是医院社会使命重要,还是过度扩张重要,这是培育职业精神、践行社会使命必须做出的艰难抉择。     

Individual and dyadic associations among relational self‐expansion potential,affect, and perceived health

A growing body of literature suggests that specific markers of relationship quality are meaningfully linked to health outcomes. We tested whether relational self‐expansion potential might be one of these markers in cross‐sectional samples of individuals and romantic couples. Study 1 found that greater self‐expansion potential was linked to better perceived physical health via both higher positive affect (PA) and lower negative affect (NA). Study 2 replicated these findings for PA (but not NA) and revealed both actor and partner effects of self‐expansion potential. Results remained robust when statistically accounting for gender, age, body mass index, agreeableness, neuroticism, and perceived partner responsiveness. These findings identify a new relationship‐level “active ingredient” associated with health and have implications for future physical health studies.     

Potential Infinite Models and Ontologically Neutral Logic

The paper begins with a more carefully stated version of ontologically neutral (ON) logic, originally introduced in (Hailperin, 1997). A non-infinitistic semantics which includes a definition of potential infinite validity follows. It is shown, without appeal to the actual infinite, that this notion provides a necessary and sufficient condition for provability in ON logic.     

Theology and the Actual Infinite: Burley and Cantor

Aristotle held that there is no limit to how small a line segment can be, but he insisted that a segment is not composed of points. Points are a potential infinity, since there is no limit to the ability to produce them (say, by continually bisecting a line segment), but there is no actual infinity of points. Like most thinkers of his period, Walter Burley accepted this Aristotelian conception of the continuum, but he argued that God can and does see all of the points on a given line segment. One of the main founders of the contemporary conception of the continuum, Georg Cantor, invoked similar, but more far-reaching theological themes and arguments in his spirited articulation and defense of the actual infinite, ultimately yielding the contemporary conception that a line segment is, literally, composed of points.