The Pursuit of Epistemic Good

Pace Zagzebski, there is no route from the value of knowledge to a non–reliabilist virtue–theoretic epistemology. Her discussion of the value problem is marred by an uncritical and confused employment of the notion of a "state" of knowledge, an uncritical acceptance of a "knowledge–belief" identity thesis, and an incoherent presumption that the widely held thought that knowledge is more valuable than true belief amounts to the view that knowledge is a state of true belief having an intrinsic property which a state of 'mere" true belief lacks. Her arguments against a "machine–product" conception of knowledge are undermined by these flaws, while the alternative "agent–act" model she recommends is unattractive, at odds with the knowledge–belief identity thesis she favours, and no solution to the problem of the value of knowledge she poses. I end with the observation that her version of virtue–theoretic epistemology points in the direction of cognitive decision–theoretic norms, and I briefly discuss the bearing of this fact upon her viewpoint.     

联合国教科文组织国际生命伦理学委员会第八届会议报告

2001年9月12～14日,国际生命伦理学委员会(IBC)第八届会议在联合国教科文组织(UNESCO)总部法国巴黎举行。会议讨论了由其工作小组起草的两个规划报告：第一是关于伦理学、知识产权和基因组学。第二是基因资料的收集、处理、贮存和使用。会议还召开了生命伦理学和青年人教育的圆桌会议,并在大会上介绍了蛋白质基因组学的伦理学方面的研究进展;最后,委员们讨论关于个人资料保护的问题,并形成了相关决议。     

Turning up the volume on the property view of sound

In the present article, I show that sounds are properties that are not physical in a narrow sense. First, I argue that sounds are properties using Moorean-style arguments and defend this property view from various arguments against it that make use of salient disanalogies between sounds and colors. The first disanalogy is that we talk of objects making sounds but not of objects making colors. The second is that we count and quantify over sounds but not colors. The third is that sounds can survive qualitative change in their auditory properties, but colors cannot survive change in their chromatic properties. Next, I provide a taxonomy of property views of sound. As the property view of sound has been so rarely discussed, many of the views available have never been articulated. My taxonomy will articulate these views and how they are related to one another. I taxonomize sounds according to three characteristics: dispositional/non-dispositional, relational/non-relational and reductive/non-reductive. Finally, mirroring a popular argument in the color literature, I argue that physical views in the narrow sense are unable to accommodate the similarity and difference relations in which sounds essentially stand. I end replying to three objections.     

2.5至7.5岁儿童关于图画作者能力特点的认知发展

借助2岁儿童图画作品,考察25至75岁儿童对于图画作者能力特点的认知发展状况。结果表明：2．5岁到55岁的儿童,在本实验情境的图画判断过程中尚不能考虑小年龄图画作者的能力特点,65岁以后儿童的这种能力得到了,发展。研究对儿童理解图画作者能力的心智基础进行了分析。     

公立医院体制改革的思考

公立医院体制改革给一些难以为继的中小医院带来一线生机,但是医院体制改革过程中存在的一些问题一直未得到妥善解决.通过对公立医院体制改革的益处及弊端的剖析,提出公立医院体制改革的建议,以保证改革的步伐健康有序地发展.     

The Beth Property in Algebraic Logic

The present paper is a study in abstract algebraic logic. We investigate the correspondence between the metalogical Beth property and the algebraic property of surjectivity of epimorphisms. It will be shown that this correspondence holds for the large class of equivalential logics. We apply our characterization theorem to relevance logics and many-valued logics. Dedicated to the memory of Willem Johannes Blok     

The Effective Use of Secondary Data

In primary data analysis the individuals who collect the data also analyze it; for meta-analysis an investigator quantitatively combines the statistical results from multiple studies of a phenomenon to reach a conclusion; in secondary data analysis individuals who were not involved in the collection of the data analyze the data. Secondary data analysis may be based on the published data or it may be based on the original data. Most studies of animal cognition involve primary data analysis; it was difficult to identify any that were based on meta-analysis; secondary data analysis based on published data has been used effectively, and examples are given from the research of John Gibbon on scalar timing theory. Secondary data analysis can also be based on the original data if the original data are available in an archive. Such an archive in the field of animal cognition is feasible and desirable.     

Interpolation and Definability in Guarded Fragments

The guarded fragment (GF) was introduced by Andréka, van Benthem and Németi as a fragment of first order logic which combines a great expressive power with nice, modal behavior. It consists of relational first order formulas whose quantifiers are relativized by atoms in a certain way. Slightly generalizing the admissible relativizations yields the packed fragment (PF). In this paper we investigate interpolation and definability in these fragments. We first show that the interpolation property of first order logic fails in restriction to GF and PF. However, each of these fragments turns out to have an alternative interpolation property that closely resembles the interpolation property usually studied in modal logic. These results are strong enough to entail the Beth definability property for GF and PF. Even better, every guarded or packed finite variable fragment has the Beth property. For interpolation, we characterize exactly which finite variable fragments of GF and PF enjoy this property.     

The ethical implications of the new research paradigm

Research is now an increasingly heterogeneous activity involving an expanded range of new actors and stake-holders and employing an eclectic range of epistemologies and methodologies. The emergence of these new research paradigms — and, in particular, of so-called ‘Mode 2’ knowledge production that is highly contextualised and socially distributed — raises new and challenging ethical issues and also important questions about the autonomy of science and the social responsibilities of scientists.