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16369.667914
Discussive logic was introduced by Ja´skowski as a logic of discussion. In this note we show that some natural translation-based formalizations of discussive logic in modal logic do not yield a paraconsistent logic but rather classical logic. Some alternative modal formalizations of discussive logic that avoid the collapse into classical logic are put forward.
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16454.668018
Stanisław Ja´skowski is known to be one of the modern founders of paraconsistent logic, together with Newton C. A. da Costa. The most important contribution of Ja´skowski is that he clearly distinguished two notions for a theory, namely a theory being contradictory (or inconsistent in [18]) and a theory being trivial (or overfilled in [18]). In addition to this distinction, he also presented a system of paraconsistent logic known as D2 which is often referred to as discursive logic or discussive logic (cf. [18, 19]). In this article, the disjunction-free fragment of Ja´skowski’s discussive logic is shown to be complete with respect to three- and four-valued semantics. Note here that D2 is known to be not complete with respect to any finitely many-valued semantics, which is proved by Jerzy Kotas in [20]. As a byproduct of the main result, a simple axiomatization of the disjunction-free fragment of Ja´skowski’s discussive logic in the language of classical logic is obtained. For the problem of axiomatization of D2, see [24].
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31693.668033
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
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41859.668048
Wow! Biologists seem to have discovered an entirely new kind of life form. They’re called ‘obelisks’, and you probably have some in you. They were discovered in 2024—not by somebody actually seeing one, but by analyzing huge amounts of genetic data from the human gut. …
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86526.668055
If an agent can’t live up to the demands of ideal rationality, fallback norms come into play that take into account the agent’s limitations. A familiar human limitation is our tendency to lose information. How should we compensate for this tendency? The Seeping Beauty problem allows us to isolate this question, without the confounding influence of other human limitations. If the coin lands tails, Beauty can’t preserve whatever information she has received on Monday: she is bound to violate the norms of ideal diachronic rationality. The considerations that support these norms, however, can still be used. I investigate how Beauty should update her beliefs so as to maximize the expected accuracy of her new beliefs. The investigation draws attention to important but neglected questions about the connection between rational belief and evidential support, about the status of ideal and non-ideal norms, about the dependence of epistemic norms on descriptive facts, and about the precise formulation of expected accuracy measures. It also sheds light on the puzzle of higher-order evidence.
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89398.668061
The relative virtues of 8- and 18-column periodic tables are discussed, followed by a brief mention of a 32-column table. Next, the left-step periodic table, as first introduced by Janet, is presented, as are the various attractive features of this representation. The advantages include what is termed here as the regularization of atomic number triads and a better rationalization of first-member anomalies. The distinction between simple substance and element is also explained as is the significance of this issue to the left-step table. Finally, I respond to some recent criticisms of previous work that I have published on atomic number triads of elements. It is becoming increasingly acknowledged that the discovery of the periodic table took place at the hands of at least six individuals working independently in different parts of the world (Scerri, A Tale of Seven Scientists, Oxford University Press, New York, 2016). In the intervening 150 or so years since the most well known of these tables were published, by Dmitri Mendeleev, at least 1000 periodic systems have appeared either in print form (Van Spronsen, The Periodic System of Chemical Elements. A History of the First Hundred Years, Elsevier, New York, 1969; Mazurs, Graphic Representations of the Periodic System during One Hundred Years, University Alabama Press, Alabama, 1974) or more recently on the Internet (Leach, https:// www. meta- synth esis. com/ webbo ok/ 35_ pt/ pt_ datab ase. php).
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89535.66807
In their recent defense of randomization, Martinez and Teira (2022) endorsed Worrall’s (2002; 2007) arguments that randomization does not assert the balance of confounding factors and delivered two other epistemic virtues of random assignment (efficiency balance and Fisherian balance). Worrall’s criticism claiming that randomization does not assert Millean balance shape the philosophical debates concerned with the role of randomization in causal inference and evidence hierarchies in medicine. We take issue with Worrall’s claim that randomization does not assert the balance of confounders. First, we argue that randomization balances the influence of confounders on an outcome in the statistical sense. Second, we analyze the potential outcome approach to causal inference and show that the average treatment effect (ATE) is an unbiased estimator of the average causal effect and observe that actual causal inferences rely on randomization balancing the impact of confounders.
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89551.668076
In a recent reply to my criticisms (Found Phys 55:5, 2025), Carcassi, Oldofredi and Aidala admitted that their no-go result for ψ-ontic models is based on the implicit assumption that all states are equally distinguishable, but insisted that this assumption is a part of the ψ- ontic models defined by Harrigan and Spekkens, and thus their result is still valid. In this note, I refute their argument again.
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89569.668082
Charbonneau (2014) and Papale (2021) challenge the necessity of reproduction for evolution by natural selection (ENS) by contending that what really matter for ENS are memory and (re)generation at the population level, rather than lineage-forming reproduction at the local level. In this article, we critically evaluate their reproduction-independent accounts of ENS and defend the importance of lineage-forming reproduction in paradigmatic ENS on both empirical and theoretical grounds. We argue that none of the empirical cases they cite can be used as evidence to demonstrate the existence of paradigmatic ENS without lineage-forming reproduction, and adopting their reproduction-independent views would lead to an account of ENS that is both too liberal and too strict.
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89589.668088
NEIMS: Neuro-endocrine-immune-microbiota systems, a term used to indicate a recomposition of elements of historically distinct biological systems (which were largely based on anatomical criteria or the mapping of one function to one structure) based on functional criteria at a systemic level. Structure: Roughly, anything that can be ordered with respect to some criteria can be considered “structured.” On the molecular level, primary, secondary, and tertiary structure denote sequences or three-dimensional folding patterns, respectively. On a “higher” level, cellular structures or objects at higher levels of organization are often divided into individual structures (e.g., organelles, organs, specific systems).
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90365.668095
Aristotle seems to have thought that the earth and the species inhabiting it are eternal. This seems extremely implausible for reasons that should have been available to Aristotle. It is difficult to wipe out a species, but surely not possible: all it takes is to kill each of the finitely many individuals. …
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127457.668102
This paper examines two approaches to presuppositions: one viewing them as inferences projecting from sentences under negation and other logical operators, and another defining them as admittance conditions of utterances. Neither approach fully accounts for the ‘proviso problem’, which arises when a sentence’s presuppositional inferences are logically stronger than its necessary admittance conditions. To address this challenge, we propose a calculus of a trivalent logic that formally distinguishes between admittance and projection, extending Karttunen’s dynamic, logical form-based analysis. The resulting framework enables a simple pragmatic strategy: presuppositional conclusions are accommodated unless overridden by a contextually likelier admittance condition. We provide evidence that this approach is empirically superior to methods that address the proviso problem using pragmatic strengthening.
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127505.668109
The mass/count distinction is often semantically manifested in comparative judgements as a difference between counting and measurement. Thus, the count nouns in more stones/packs trigger counting whereas the mass nouns in more stone/sugar involve measuring. Object mass nouns (OMNs) like furniture, weaponry and baggage are exceptional among mass nouns in showing strong counting effects in comparatives. There is little agreement on the interpretation of this fact. Some works propose that OMNs have discrete meanings while others attribute their countability in comparatives to other reasons. Deciding between these approaches is challenging, partly because it has remained unclear if OMNs in comparatives show any semantic distinction from count nouns. In this paper we demonstrate that they do. We report experimental findings showing that in contexts that favor measurement, counting with OMNs is less frequently preferred than with count nouns. We analyze these results by proposing that although referents of both common nouns and OMNs are perceived as discrete objects, OMN denotations are continuous. The tolerant mass/count syntax of the comparative leaves the discrete perception of both kinds of nouns as the prominent factor in their interpretation.
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145584.668115
I visited an old estate today
Whose gardens, much acclaimed throughout the world,
Spread out beyond the gated entranceway
In scenic splendors gradually unfurled. Bright potted blooms sprung beaming by the drive,
While further off, large topiary yews
Rose stoutly in the air. …
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189725.668121
I give an account of the meaning of θ-roles that derives their exhaustivity. I also propose a modification to Tom Wasow’s Novelty Constraint – a condition that governs how definite descriptions in a sentence can, or cannot, be referentially dependent. Together, these two proposals get close to deriving Chomsky’s Principle B.
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189808.668127
Hotze is known now for his work on tense, and on the vagaries of pronouns, but I got to know him when he was working on questions. His work on the semantics of wh-questions — a lot of it with Sigrid Beck — heavily influenced my thinking about the syntax of movement. I blame him for my resulting, years-long, obsession with multidominance. His work was the first step in a long line of interesting work on the syntax and semantics of wh-questions that continues today. The immediate predecessor to this work was Hotze’s equally important dissertation: one of the first attempts to explain an island condition entirely from its semantics. It remains an important role model for the contemporary work on the semantics of islands, and opened my eyes to the wider possibilities of finding the source of islands. Thank you Hotze for starting me on a journey that has dominated my research life. But the reason I’m contributing to your volume is even more personal: it’s because the other thing I learned when I got to know you is how much I like you. In this note, I’ll sketch a few facts about wh-movement that expand on the view in Beck and Rullman (1998) and Rullmann and Beck (1998) that wh-phrases are interpreted in their underlying position, no matter where they show up in the surface representation. In addition to the semantic reasons for this conclusion, there are straightforward facts about anaphora that animate this view. A famous kind of example of this is (1).
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189928.668134
I will look at the idea that personal pronouns and reflexives compete to express certain meanings. I’m going to ignore plurals (because the semantics is too hard) (3) and I’m going to adopt the view that reflexives can be divided into two classes: one in which the reflexive expresses a local anaphoric dependency, and another in which reflexives express other relations (“emphatic,” logophoric, etc.). (See Pollard and Sag 1992.) It is only the first class of reflexives that figure in my presentation.
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190749.66814
Aristotle’s positing matter is driven by trying to respond to the Parmenidean idea that things can’t come from nothing, and hence we must posit something that persists in change, and that is matter. But there two senses of “x comes from nothing”:
x is uncaused
x is not made out of pre-existing materials. …
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192366.668146
We present the problem of perceptual agreement (of determinate color) and submit that it proves to be a serious and long overlooked obstacle for those insisting that colors are not objective features of objects, viz., nonobjectivist theories like C. L. Hardin’s (2003) eliminativism and Jonathan Cohen’s (2009) relationalism.
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200114.668151
Nathan enjoys spending time on X. He finds discussions on this platform entertaining, though sometimes rude. He thinks that things have changed since Elon Musk took control of the social network to turn it into a political and ideological weapon. …
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200913.668157
Genecally complete yet authorless artworks seem possible, yet it’s hard to understand how they might really be possible. A natural way to try to resolve this puzzle is by construcng an account of artwork compleon on the model of accounts of artwork meaning that are compable with meaningful yet authorless artworks. I argue, however, that such an account of artwork compleon is implausible. So, I leave the puzzle unresolved.
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258730.668163
I think we can imagine a species which have moral agency, but moral agency is a minor part of their flourishing. I assume wolves don’t have moral agency. But now imagine a species of canids that live much like wolves, but every couple of months get to make a very minor moral choice whether to inconvenience the pack in the slightest way—the rest is instinct. …
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265504.668169
You’ve been imprisoned in a cell with a torture robot. The cell is locked by a combination lock, and your estimate is that you will be able to open it in a week. If the torture robot is left running, it will stimulate your pain center, causing horrible pain but no lasting damage, and not slowing down your escaping at all. …
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278643.668175
Consider a trolley problem where on both tracks there is exactly one innocent stranger. Alice is driving the trolley. If she does nothing, the trolley will head down the left track. But the right track will get Alice to her destination three minutes sooner. …
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283833.668185
I explore an unorthodox perspective on the logical foundations of English on which speakers apply their logical competence by building and composing alternative sets, or ‘menus’, of entities or states throughout the grammar. logical connectives are ‘menu constructors’: The conjunction is a collective operation for putting combinations of items ‘on’ a menu, disjunction contributes nondeterminism or choice between items, while negation renders items ‘off menu’ by introducing negative entities or states. The system allows for determiner phrases to be interpreted uniformly in a lower type as menus compiled of positive, negative, or hybrid entities, rather than in the higher-order type of generalized quantifiers. Through a new compositional method, the negation contributed by a non-positive entity is able to pass through a semantic derivation in a well-behaved manner. This approach enables a “non-Boolean” collective treatment of sentences involving determiner phrase conjunctions with non-upward entailing conjuncts, which have previously been considered one of the toughest challenges for the collective theory.
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283903.668191
This paper presents a uniform analysis of free choice constructions in English that incorporates a mechanism of arbitrary variability directly into their meaning. I propose that speakers interpret the values of certain variables or discourse referents as ‘fungible’, such that they could equally have taken any other value within an appropriate range. The semantics tracks this fungibility or arbitrariness, which can project to the sentential level and generate free choice readings with conjunctive or universal force.
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295669.668198
Wittgenstein distinguished between two uses of ‘I’, one “as object” and the other “as subject”, a distinction that Shoemaker elucidated in terms of a notion of immunity to error through misidentification (‘IEM’); in their use “as subject”, first-personal claims are IEM, but not in their use “as object”. Shoemaker argued that memory judgments based on “personal”, episodic memory are only de facto IEM, not strictly speaking IEM, while Gareth Evans disputed it. In the past two decades research on memory has produced very significant results, which have changed the philosophical landscape. As part of it, several new arguments have been made for and against the IEM of personal memories. The paper aims to defend the Shoemaker line by critically engaging with some compelling recent contributions.
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295689.668203
Wittgenstein distinguished between two uses of “I”, one “as object” and the other “as subject”, a distinction that Shoemaker elucidated in terms of a notion of immunity to error through misidentification (“IEM”); first-personal claims are IEM in the use “as subject”, but not in the other use. Shoemaker argued that memory judgments based on “personal”, episodic memory are not strictly speaking IEM; Gareth Evans disputed this. Similar issues have been debated regarding self-ascriptions of conscious thoughts based on first- personal awareness, in the light of claims of “thought insertion” in schizophrenic patients. The paper aims to defend a Shoemaker-like line by critically engaging with some compelling recent contributions. Methodologically, the paper argues that to properly address these issues the all-inclusive term “thought” should be avoided, and specific types of thoughts countenanced.
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310641.668211
David Hume famously remarked on a curious response we have to certain
works of art that cause us to feel unhappiness or distress:
It seems an unaccountable pleasure, which the spectators of a
well-written tragedy receive from sorrow, terror, anxiety, and other
passions, that are in themselves disagreeable and uneasy. The more
they are touched and affected, the more are they delighted with the
spectacle; and as soon as the uneasy passions cease to operate, the
piece is at an end. (1757 [1987: 216])
This odd connection between the simultaneous pleasure and distress
caused by tragic drama is remarked upon in Aristotle’s
Poetics, the earliest philosophical attempt in the West to
construct an aesthetic theory.
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357768.668217
The claim that at the so-called Planck scale our current physics breaks down and a new theory of quantum gravity is required is ubiquitous, but the evidence is shakier than the confidence of those assertions warrants. In this paper, I survey five arguments in favour of this claim - based on dimensional analysis, quantum black holes, generalised uncertainty principles, the nonrenormalisability of quantum gravity, and theories beyond the standard model - but find that none of them succeeds. The argument from nonrenormalisability is the most convincing, yet it requires the unwarranted assumption that the same constant of action occurs in every quantum field theory. Therefore, our theories don’t (yet) predict that quantum gravity happens at the Planck scale.