Complex systems research is becoming ever more important in both the natural and social sciences. It is commonly implied that there is such a thing as a complex system, different examples of which are studied across many disciplines. However, there is no concise definition of a complex system, let alone a definition on which all scientists agree. We review various attempts to characterize a complex system, and consider a core set of features that are widely associated with complex systems in (...) the literature and by those in the field. We argue that some of these features are neither necessary nor sufficient for complexity, and that some of them are too vague or confused to be of any analytical use. In order to bring mathematical rigour to the issue we then review some standard measures of complexity from the scientific literature, and offer a taxonomy for them, before arguing that the one that best captures the qualitative notion of the order produced by complex systems is that of the Statistical Complexity. Finally, we offer our own list of necessary conditions as a characterization of complexity. These conditions are qualitative and may not be jointly sufficient for complexity. We close with some suggestions for future work. (shrink)

As well as aiming to revive interest in Meinong's thought, this book challenges many of the most widespread assumptions of philosophical logic.

Ordinary judgments about personal identity are complicated by the fact that phrases like “same person” and “different person” have multiple uses in ordinary English. This complication calls into question the significance of recent experimental work on this topic. For example, Tobia (2015) found that judgments of personal identity were significantly affected by whether the moral change described in a vignette was for the better or for the worse, while Strohminger and Nichols (2014) found that loss of moral conscience had more (...) of an effect on identity judgments than loss of biographical memory. In each case, however, there are grounds for questioning whether the judgments elicited in these experiments engaged a concept of numerical personal identity at all (cf. Berniūnas and Dranseika 2016; Dranseika 2017; Starmans and Bloom 2018). In two pre-registered studies we validate this criticism while also showing a way to address it: instead of attempting to engage the concept of numerical identity through specialized language or the terms of an imaginary philosophical debate, we should consider instead how the identity of a person is described through the connected use of proper names, definite descriptions, and the personal pronouns “I”, “you”, “he”, and “she”. When the experiments above are revisited in this way, there is no evidence that the differences in question had an effect on ordinary identity judgments. (shrink)

The basic theory of scientific understanding presented in Sections 1–2 exploits three main ideas.First, that to understand a phenomenonP (for a given agent) is to be able to fitP into the cognitive background corpusC (of the agent).Second, that to fitP intoC is to connectP with parts ofC (via arguments in a very broad sense) such that the unification ofC increases.Third, that the cognitive changes involved in unification can be treated as sequences of shifts of phenomena inC. How the theory fits (...) typical examples of understanding and how it excludes spurious unifications is explained in detail. Section 3 gives a formal description of the structure of cognitive corpuses which contain descriptive as well as inferential components. The theory of unification is then refined in the light of so called puzzling phenomena, to enable important distinctions, such as that between consonant and dissonant understanding. In Section 4, the refined theory is applied to several examples, among them a case study of the development of the atomic model. The final part contains a classification of kinds of understanding and a discussion of the relation between understanding and explanation. (shrink)

This volume brings together philosophers and psychologists to investigate the phenomenon of transformative change and a host of fascinating questions it prompts. Taking their departure from seminal work on transformative choice and experience by L. A. Paul and Edna Ullmann-Margalit, the authors pursue fundamental questions concerning the nature of rationality, the limits of the imagination, and the metaphysics of the self. They also strike out into new areas, including value theory, aesthetics, moral and political philosophy. Several chapters present the results (...) of experimental investigation into the psychology of transformation, self-concept, and moral learning. (shrink)

In “Crisis? What Crisis?” Gregg Lambert explores the concept of “crisis” through historical, philosophical, and contemporary lenses, using the COVID-19 pandemic as a focal point. Drawing inspiration from Étienne Balibar’s 2020 lecture, Lambert examines the etymology of “crisis,” originating from the Greek krisis (decision), and its evolution into a medical and political term. He critiques the modern understanding of crisis, arguing that repeated shocks have normalized a “permanent state of exception,” where crises are no longer perceived as extraordinary. Lambert highlights (...) the pandemic’s role in exposing global inequalities and the fragility of governance systems, emphasizing the interplay between biopolitical strategies and societal counter-conducts. He questions whether the pandemic has truly created a shared global experience or merely amplified existing disparities. Ultimately, Lambert advocates for rethinking the inherited philosophical paradigm of crisis, suggesting that the concept itself has become abstract and insufficient to address contemporary global challenges. (shrink)

Free logic, an alternative to traditional logic, has been seen as a useful avenue of approach to a number of philosophical issues of contemporary interest. In this collection, Karel Lambert, one of the pioneers in, and the most prominent exponent of, free logic, brings together a variety of published essays bearing on the application of free logic to philosophical topics ranging from set theory and logic to metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. The work of such distinguished philosophers as Bas (...) van Fraassen, Dana Scott, Tyler Burge, and Jaakko Hintikka is represented. Lambert provides an introductory essay placing free logic in the logical tradition beginning with Aristotle, developing it as the natural culmination of a trend begun in the Port Royal logic of the 1600s, and continuing through current predicate logic--the trend to rid logic of existence assumptions. His Introduction also provides a useful systematic overview of free logic, including both a standard syntax and some semantical options. (shrink)

The essays in this volume are based on addresses presented during a colloquium on free logic, modal logic and related areas held at the University of California at Irvine, in May of 1968. With the single exception of Dagfinn F011esdal, whose revised address is included in a recent issue of Synthese honoring W. V. Quine, all of the speakers at the Irvine colloquium are contributors to this volume. Thanks are due to Professor A. I. Melden, Chairman of the Department of (...) Philosophy at Irvine, for his enthusiastic support of the colloquium, and to Drs. Gordon Brittan and Daniel Dennett for their help in the administration of the colloquium. Finally. I should also like to thank Professor Ralph W. Gerard, Dean of the Graduate Division of the University of California at Irvine, for the financial support which made the colloquium possible. KAREL LAMBERT Laguna Beach, California, 1969 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE V KAREL LAMBERT and BAS C. VAN FRAASSEN/ Meaning Relations, Possible Objects, and Possible Worlds 1 JAAKKO HINTIKKA / Existential Presuppositions and Uniqueness Presuppositions 20 RICHMOND H. THOMASON / Some Completeness Results for Modal Predicate Calculi 56 H. LEBLANC and R. K. MEYER / Truth-Value Semantics for the Theory of Types 77 J. M. VICKERS / Probability and Non Standard Logics 102 PETER W. WOODRUFF / Logic and Truth Value Gaps 121 DANA SCOTT / Advice on Modal Logic 143 INDEX OF NAMES 175 KAREL LAMBER T AND BAS C. (shrink)

Foundation models such as GPT-4 are fine-tuned to avoid unsafe or otherwise problematic behavior, such as helping to commit crimes or producing racist text. One approach to fine-tuning, called reinforcement learning from human feedback, learns from humans' expressed preferences over multiple outputs. Another approach is constitutional AI, in which the input from humans is a list of high-level principles. But how do we deal with potentially diverging input from humans? How can we aggregate the input into consistent data about "collective" (...) preferences or otherwise use it to make collective choices about model behavior? In this paper, we argue that the field of social choice is well positioned to address these questions, and we discuss ways forward for this agenda, drawing on discussions in a recent workshop on Social Choice for AI Ethics and Safety held in Berkeley, CA, USA in December 2023. (shrink)

Printbegrænsninger: Der kan printes 10 sider ad gangen og max. 40 sider pr. session.

We use evidence from cognitive psychology and the history of science to examine the issue of the theory-ladenness of perceptual observation. This evidence shows that perception is theory-laden, but that it is only strongly theory-laden when the perceptual evidence is ambiguous or degraded, or when it requires a difficult perceptual judgment. We argue that debates about the theory-ladenness issue have focused too narrowly on the issue of perceptual experience, and that a full account of the scientific process requires an examination (...) of theory-ladenness in attention, perception, data interpretation, data production, memory, and scientific communication. We conclude that the evidence for theory-ladenness does not lead to a relativist account of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

The expression ‘free logic,’ coined by the author in 1960, is an abbreviation for ‘logic free of existence assumptions with respect to its terms, singular and general, but whose quantifiers are treated exactly as in standard quantifier logic.’ In more traditional language, such logics do not presume that either singular or general terms — the two distinct categories of terms emphasized in modern logical grammar — have existential import. A singular term ‘t’ has existential import just in case t exists (...) (or, equivalently, there exists an object the same as t) and a general term (or predicate) ‘G’ has existential import just in case G exist (or, equivalently, there exists an object that is G).1 Examples from colloquial English customarily taken to be singular terms are expressions such as ‘Socrates’, ‘the planet causing perturbations in the orbit of Mercury’, ‘5’, ‘5/0’, ‘the square of 3’ and ‘having a heart’. Some of these do not have existential import — in particular, ‘5/0’ and ‘the planet causing perturbations in the orbit of Mercury’. Examples from colloquial English customarily taken to be general terms are expressions such as ‘is a philosopher’, ‘is a planet causing perturbations in the orbit of Mercury’, ‘number’, ‘is divisible by 0’, and ‘has a heart’. Some of these general terms do not have existential import — in particular, ‘is a planet causing perturbations in the orbit of Mercury’ and ‘is divisible by 0’. To say that the quantifers are treated exactly as in standard quantifier logic is to say, roughly, that the operator symbol ‘∃’ (the existential quantifier) reads: ‘There exists an object’, and the operator symbol ‘∀’ (the universal quantifier) reads: ‘Every existent object’. (shrink)

Free logic is an important field of philosophical logic that first appeared in the 1950s. J. Karel Lambert was one of its founders and coined the term itself. The essays in this collection explore the philosophical foundations of free logic and its application to areas as diverse as the philosophy of religion and computer science. Amongst the applications on offer are those to the analysis of existence statements, to definite descriptions and to partial functions. The volume contains a proof that (...) free logics of any kind are non-extensional and then uses that proof to show that Quine's theory of predication and referential transparency must fail. The purpose of this collection is to bring an important body of work to the attention of a new generation of professional philosophers, computer scientists and mathematicians. (shrink)

The authors contend that most contemporary logic textbooks fail the average student because they emphasize the evaluation of arguments over their clarification, assuming that the student already understands what motivations underlie logic.

Do philosophic views affect job performance? The authors found that possessing a belief in free will predicted better career attitudes and actual job performance. The effect of free will beliefs on job performance indicators were over and above well-established predictors such as conscientiousness, locus of control, and Protestant work ethic. In Study 1, stronger belief in free will corresponded to more positive attitudes about expected career success. In Study 2, job performance was evaluated objectively and independently by a supervisor. Results (...) indicated that employees who espoused free will beliefs were given better work performance evaluations than those who disbelieve in free will, presumably because belief in free will facilitates exerting control over one’s actions. (shrink)

In vivo explore des questions fondamentales et des moments cruciaux de l’existence humaine – l’entrée en interaction avec une culture étrangère, la décision de se sortir d’une condition de vie routinière ou malheureuse, une action généreuse posée dans un contexte quotidien ordinaire – en fonction de leur potentiel de transformation de l’existence. En recourant à des illustrations tirées de la vie réelle et d’œuvres de fiction, Gabor Csepregi révèle le rôle primordial des sentiments personnels dans le façonnement de la vie (...) humaine et démontre le pouvoir formateur de la spontanéité en dehors du contexte traditionnel de l’éducation formelle. Ces moments, et notamment la façon dont ils perturbent l’ordre temporel ordinaire constituent des expériences vécues de notre vitalité. « Recourant à un langage clair et précis, In vivo captivera les philosophes et les intellectuels. Csepregi engage un dialogue entre diverses traditions, faisant appel aux meilleurs courants de plusieurs philosophies pour développer un point de vue unique ». - Gaëlle Fiasse, Université McGill. (shrink)

Four studies measured or manipulated beliefs in free will to illuminate how such beliefs are linked to other aspects of personality. Study 1 showed that stronger belief in free will was correlated with more gratitude, greater life satisfaction, lower levels of perceived life stress, a greater sense of self-efficacy, greater perceived meaning in life, higher commitment in relationships, and more willingness to forgive relationship partners. Study 2 showed that the belief in free will was a stronger predictor of life satisfaction, (...) meaning in life, gratitude, and self-efficacy than either locus of control or implicit person theory. Study 3 showed that experimentally manipulating disbelief in free will caused a reduction in the perceived meaningfulness of life. Study 4 found that inducing a stronger belief in free will caused people to set more meaningful goals for themselves. The possible concern that believers in free will simply claim all manner of positive traits was contradicted by predicted null finding.. (shrink)

This paper considers whether theism is compatible with moral error theory. This issue is neglected, perhaps because it is widely assumed that these views are incompatible. I argue that this is mistaken. In so doing, I articulate the best argument for thinking that theism and moral error theory are incompatible. According to it, these views are incompatible because theism entails that God is morally good, and moral error theory entails that God is not. I reject this argument. Since it is (...) the best argument for thinking that theism and moral error theory are incompatible, I conclude that these views are compatible: one can coherently accept both views. (shrink)

Gregg Lambert demonstrates that since the publication of _Proust and Signs_ in 1964 Gilles Deleuze’s search for a new means of philosophical expression became a central theme of all of his oeuvre, including those written with psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. Lambert, like Deleuze, calls this “the image of thought.” Lambert’s exploration begins with Deleuze’s earliest exposition of the Proustian image of thought and then follows the “tangled history” of the image that runs through subsequent works, such as _Kafka: Toward a Minor (...) Literature_, _The Rhizome_ (which serves as an introduction to Deleuze’s_ A Thousand Plateaus_), and several later writings from the 1980s collected in _Essays Critical and Clinical._ Lambert shows how this topic underlies Deleuze’s studies of modern cinema, where the image of thought is predominant in the analysis of the cinematic image—particularly in _The Time-Image_. Lambert finds it to be the fundamental concern of the brain proposed by Deleuze in the conclusion of _What Is Philosophy? _By connecting the various appearances of the image of thought that permeate Deleuze’s entire corpus, Lambert reveals how thinking first assumes an image, how the images of thought become identified with the problem of expression early in the works, and how this issue turns into a primary motive for the more experimental works of philosophy written with Guattari. The study traces a distinctly modern relationship between philosophy and non-philosophy (literature and cinema especially) that has developed into a hallmark of the term “Deleuzian.” However, Lambert argues, this aspect of the philosopher’s vision has not been fully appreciated in terms of its significance for philosophy: “not only ‘for today’ but, to quote Nietzsche, meaning also ‘for tomorrow, and for the day after tomorrow.’”. (shrink)

Gregg Lambert examines two facets of the return to religion in the 21st century: the resurgence of overtly religious themes in contemporary philosophy and the global 'post-secular' turn that has been taking place since 9/11. He asks how these two 'returns to religion' can be taking place simultaneously, and explores the relationship between them. Lambert reflects on statements of these returns from contemporary philosophers including Alain Badiou, John D. Caputo, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy. He discovers a unique - and (...) forboding - sense of the term 'religion' that belongs exclusively to our contemporary perspective. (shrink)

An exploration of the role of pleasure or delight (le樂) in classical Confucian ethics. Building on Michael Nylan's account of the role of pleasure in public spectacle and social order, I explore how the meaning of delight (le樂) derives from the features and effects of music (yue樂). Drawing on Dewey's aesthetics and accounts of music in Confucian texts, I explore a conception of Confucian ethics, in which delight—like states generated through everyday social interaction are foundational.

The essay outlines the character of free logic, and motivation for its construction and development. It details some technical achievements of high philosophical interest, but urges that the role of existence assumptions in logic is still not fully understood, that unresolved old problems, both technical and philosophical, abound, and presents some new problems of considerable philosophical import in free logic.

Whether intentional suppression of an unpleasant or unwanted memory reduces the ability to recall that memory subsequently is a contested issue in contemporary memory research. Building on findings that similar processes are recruited when individuals remember the past and imagine the future, we measured the effects of thought suppression on memory for imagined future scenarios. Thought suppression reduced the ability to recall emotionally negative scenarios, but not those that were emotionally positive. This finding suggests that intentionally avoiding thoughts about emotionally (...) negative episodes may inhibit representations of those memories, progressively reducing their availability to recall. (shrink)

This study explores how paradoxical tensions between economic growth and environmental protection are avoided through organizational mythmaking. By examining the European oil and gas supermajors’ “CEO-speak” about climate change, we show how mythmaking facilitates the disregarding, diverting, and/or displacing of sustainability tensions. In doing so, our findings further illustrate how certain defensive responses are employed: regression, or retreating to the comforts of past familiarities, fantasy, or escaping the harsh reality that fossil fuels and climate change are indeed irreconcilable, and projecting, (...) or shifting blame to external actors for failing to address climate change. By highlighting the discursive effects of enacting these responses, we illustrate how the European oil and gas supermajors self-determine their inability to substantively address the complexities of climate change. We thus argue that defensive responses are not merely a form of mismanagement as the paradox and corporate sustainability literature commonly suggests, but a strategic resource that poses serious ethical concerns given the imminent danger of issues such as climate change. (shrink)

As theorists, developers, and practitioners of the anticipatory governance of emerging technologies, we applaud Ankeny et al.’s...

Please find below the Bibliography in PDF format for Who's Afraid of Deleuze and Guattari? Whors"s Afraid of Del.

According to expressivism, normative sentences express desire-like states of mind. But what is the expression relation? In this paper, I defend an underexplored account of the expression relation that I call ‘the agreement account’. I begin by identifying three constraints that an expressivist account of expression must satisfy. I then argue that extant accounts of the expression relation fail to satisfy these constraints. I then outline the agreement account of expression, according to which a sentence S expresses a mental state (...) M if and only if and because M is part of the agreement conditions of S. I defend this account against objections and conclude that the agreement account is a promising expressivist account of expression. (shrink)

Translated, with a philosophical introduction.

Li Zehou’s work can be understood as an account of a Chinese modernity, a vision for Chinese society that seeks to integrate three distinct philosophical approaches. These are Chinese history and culture, which Li understands as largely Confucian; Marxism, which has exerted such influence on a modernizing China; and Western learning more generally, as expressed by figures such as Immanuel Kant and Sigmund Freud. Li also frequently expresses the hope that a Chinese modernity will be one in which the importance (...) of the individual is recognized, and rights and freedoms upheld (e.g., 2006, p. 182). But this stance raises an important question: how are individuality and freedom understood in Li’s philosophical system? In this paper, I want to examine what resources Li offers to help us conceptualize their place in a modernity with Chinese characteristics. Confucian culture is often regarded as authoritarian and hierarchical, less interested than more liberal traditions in an ideal such as freedom. So how does freedom relate to the Confucian root of Chinese culture, as construed by Li? In this paper I explore how Li Zehou’s study of Confucian aesthetics can deliver a novel conception of freedom, one grounded in Confucian thinking about personal cultivation, and aimed at the free creation of delight (樂). (shrink)

The present study addressed two related problems: The status of the concept of the soul in folk psychological conceptualizations across cultures, and the nature of mind-body dualism within Chinese folk psychology. We compared folk intuitions about three concepts – mind, body, and soul – among adults from China and Poland. The questionnaire study comprised of questions about the functional and ontological nature of the three entities. The results show that the mind and soul are conceptualized differently in the two countries: (...) The Chinese appear to think of the soul similarly to how they view the mind, while Poles differentiate it both in ontological and functional respects. The study provides important insights into cross-cultural differences in conceptualizing the soul as well as into the nature of Chinese mind-body dualism. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Tool use research has suffered from a lack of consistent theoretical frameworks. There is a plethora of tool use definitions and the most widespread ones are so inclusive that the behaviors that fall under them arguably do not have much in common. The situation is aggravated by the prevalence of anecdotes, which have played an undue role in the literature. In order to provide a more rigorous foundation for research and to advance our understanding of the interrelation between tool use (...) and cognition, we suggest the adoption of Fragaszy and Mangalam's (2018) tooling framework, which is characterized by the creation of a body-plus-object system that manages a mechanical interface between tool and surface. Tooling is limited to a narrower suite of behaviors than tool use, which might facilitate its neurocognitive investigation. Indeed, evidence in the literature indicates that tooling has distinct neurocognitive underpinnings not shared by other activities typically classified as tool use, at least in primates. In order to understand the extent of tooling incidences in previous research, we systematically surveyed the comprehensive tool use catalog by Shumaker et al. (2011). We identified 201 tool use submodes, of which only 81 could be classified as tooling, and the majority of the tool use examples across species were poorly supported by evidence. Furthermore, tooling appears to be phylogenetically less widespread than tool use, with the greatest variability found in the primate order. However, in order to confirm these findings and to understand the evolution and neurocognitive mechanisms of tooling, more systematic research will be required in the future, particularly with currently underrepresented taxa. (shrink)

Big data refers to extremely large data generated at high volume, velocity, variety, and veracity. The nurse scientist is uniquely positioned to leverage big data to suggest novel hypotheses on patient care and the healthcare system. The purpose of this paper is to provide an introductory guide to understanding the use and capability of big data for nurse scientists. Herein, we discuss the practical, ethical, social, and educational implications of using big data in nursing research. Some practical challenges with the (...) use of big data include data accessibility, data quality, missing data, variable data standards, fragmentation of health data, and software considerations. Opposing ethical positions arise with the use of big data, and arguments for and against the use of big data are underpinned by concerns about confidentiality, anonymity, and autonomy. The use of big data has health equity dimensions and addressing equity in data is an ethical imperative. There is a need to incorporate competencies needed to leverage big data for nursing research into advanced nursing educational curricula. Nursing science has a great opportunity to evolve and embrace the potential of big data. Nurse scientists should not be spectators but collaborators and drivers of policy change to better leverage and harness the potential of big data. (shrink)

Since Chenyang Li’s (1994) groundbreaking article there has been interest in reading early Confucian ethics through the lens of care ethics. In this paper, I examine the prospects for dialogue between the two in light of recent work in both fields. I argue that, despite some similarities, early Confucian ethics is not best understood as a form of care ethics, of the kind articulated by Nel Noddings (1984, 2002) and others. Reasons include incongruence deriving from the absence in the Chinese (...) texts of a developed account of need, and doubts about whether the parent-child relationship in Confucian thought is best characterized by ‘care’. More importantly, care is merely one value directing the Confucian commitment to family and personal bonds, with different kinds of relationship, including the five relationships presented in the Mencius, entailing different idealized modes of relating to others. (shrink)

It has been proposed that performance in the think – no think task represents a laboratory analogue of the voluntary form of memory repression. The central prediction of this repression hypothesis is that performance in the TNT task will be influenced by emotional characteristics of the material to be remembered. This prediction was tested in two experiments by asking participants to learn paired associates in which the first item was either emotionally positive or emotionally negative . The second word was (...) always emotionally neutral . Consistent with the repression hypothesis, significant memory suppression was observed in both experiments following ‘no think’ instructions for memories associated with emotionally negative material. No suppression was observed for memories associated with emotionally positive information. Implications of these findings for the relationship between performance in the TNT task and the controversial notion of memory repression are considered. (shrink)

This anthology of essays presents a sample of studies from recent philosophy of medicine addressing issues which attempt to answer very general (interdependent) questions: (a) what is a disease and what is health? (b) How do we (causally) explain diseases? (c) And how do we distinguish diseases, id est define classes of diseases and recognize that an instance X of disease belongs to a given class B? (d) How do we assess and choose cure/ therapy? The book is divided into (...) three sections: classification, disease, and evidence. In general, attention is focused on statistics in medicine and epidemiology, issues in psychiatry, and connecting medicine with evolutionary biology and genetics. Many authors position the theories that they address within their historical contexts. The nature of health and disease will be addressed in several essays that also touch upon very general questions about the definition of medicine and its status. Several chapters scrutinize classification because of its centrality within philosophical problems raised by medicine and its core position in the philosophical questioning of psychiatry. Specificities of medical explanation have recently come under a new light, particularly because of the rise of statistical methods, and several chapters investigate these methods in specific contexts such as epidemiology or meta-analysis of random testing. Taken together this collection addresses the question of how we gather, use and assess evidence for various medical theories. The rich assortment of disciplines featured also includes epidemiology, parasitology, and public health, while technical aspects such as the application of game theory to medical research and the misuse of the DSM in forensic psychiatry are also given an airing. The book addresses more than the construction of medical knowledge, however, adding cogent appraisal of the processes of decision making in medicine and the protocols used to justify therapeutic choices. (shrink)

The thirteenth-century logician Lambert of Auxerre was well known for his Summa Lamberti, or simply Logica, written in the mid-1250s, which became an authoritative textbook on logic in the Western tradition. Our knowledge of medieval logic comes in great part from Lambert's Logica and three other texts: William of Sherwood's Introductiones in logicam, Peter of Spain's Tractatus, and Roger Bacon's Summulae dialectics. Of the four, Lambert's work is the best example of question-summas that proceed principally by asking and answering questions (...) on the subject matter. Thomas S. Maloney's translation of Logica, the only complete translation of this work in any language, is a milestone in the study of medieval logic. More than simply a translation, Maloney's project is a critical, comprehensive study of Lambert's logic situated in the context of his contemporaries and predecessors. As such, it offers a wealth of annotation and commentary. The lengthy introduction and extensive notes to the text explain the origin, theoretical context, and intricacies of the text and its doctrines. Maloney also addresses the disputed issues of authorship, date, and place of publication of the Summa Lamberti and makes available to the English-only audience the French, German, and Italian secondary sources--all translated--that are needed to enter the discussion. "Thomas S. Maloney fully commands the primary and secondary sources necessary to elucidate Lambert's Logica. An expert on Roger Bacon's philosophy, he demonstrates a rare proficiency in medieval Latin and scholastic logic. His references to sources from the ancient (Aristotle and Boethius) and medieval worlds are apposite, perspicuous, and useful. The volume's presentation with an appropriate introduction and commentary in the endnotes will no doubt establish it as an indispensable resource for scholars in the twenty-first century." --Alan Perreiah, University of Kentucky. (shrink)

At the outset of an ethnographic inquiry, we navigated national and international resources to search for theoretical and practical guidance on obtaining parents and children’s informed consent/assent. While much theoretical guidance debating ethical issues to children’s participation in research was found, a paucity of published papers offering practical guidance on assent processes and/or visual representations of child assent forms and information sheets was discovered. The purpose of this article is to describe our experiences, both theoretically and practically, of negotiating the (...) process of obtaining informed consent and assent with parents and children for a non-therapeutic qualitative research study. We hope this article instigates a platform for others to explicate their experience and contributes to the construction of a coherent body of knowledge which will clearly delineate important elements that must be considered when negotiating children’s agreement to participate in research. (shrink)

This paper deals with the Meinong-Russell controversy on nonsubsistent objects. The first part notes the similarity of certain contemporary semantical developments to Meinonj;'s theory of nonsubsistent objects. Then it lays out the major features of Meinong's famous theory, considers Russell's objections to same and Meinong's counter-objections to Russell, and argues that Russell's well-known argument fails. However, it is possible to augment Russell's argument against Meinong with sound Russellian principles in such a way that it presents at least a strong inclining (...) reason against Meinong's theory of impossible objects. (shrink)