The paper applies to approval voting, under which the voter casts a ballot by casting one vote for each of k candidates, wherek=;1,2, ? , m-1 and there are m candidates. I assume (following Brams and Fishburn) that each of the voter's 2=;-2 strategies is equally likely to be chosen. Election-outcome types include: the m-way tie;(m-1) -way ties with the runner-up trailing by 1,2,?,m votes; (m-2)-way ties, and so on. The frequency distribution of outcome types varies only with m and (...) n and is necessary to the calculation of the expected utilities of successive ballots cast, in the same election, by a voter under a variant of approval voting. This variant allows the voter to cast several complete ballots provided that he pays the respective prices, which could reasonably be based on the expected utilities. The paper describes a shortcut method of calculating the distribution of outcome types when m=;4 andn rises to levels that make straightforward calculation computationally infeasible. The shortcut involves the combining of an outcome type, instead of each member of that type, with each of the 14 strategies available to the incremental voter. In going fromn-1 to n, for n=3, the number of outcome types increases by a factor of (n+3)/n whereas, the number of combinations of strategies increases by a factor of 14. (shrink)

Adaptive logics typically pertain to reasoning procedures for which there is no positive test. In [7], we presented a tableau method for two inconsistency-adaptive logics. In the present paper, we describe these methods and present several ways to increase their efficiency. This culminates in a dynamic marking procedure that indicates which branches have to be extended first, and thus guides one towards a decision — the conclusion follows or does not follow — in a very economical way.

This chapter argues that as the online informational landscape continues to expand, shortcuts to source credibility evaluation, in particular the revered checklist approach, falls short of its intended goal, and this method cannot replace the acquisition of a more formally acquired and comprehensive information literacy skill set. By examining the current standard of checklist criteria, the authors identify problems with this approach. Such shortcuts are not necessarily effective for online source credibility assessment, and the authors contend that in cases (...) of high-stakes informational needs, they cannot adequately replace the expertise of information professionals, nor displace the need for proper and continuous information literacy education. (shrink)

Abstract If voters do not understand the programs of rival candidates or their likely consequences, they cannot rationally exercise control over government. An ignorant electorate cannot achieve true democratic control over public policy. The immense size and scope of modern government makes it virtually impossible for voters to acquire sufficient knowledge to exercise such control. The problem is exacerbated by voters? strong incentive to be ?rationally ignorant? of politics. This danger to democracy cannot readily be circumvented through ?shortcut? methods (...) of economizing on voter knowledge costs. A truly democratic government must, therefore, be strictly limited in scope. (shrink)

In the recent past, attempts to revitalize historico-religious studies have challenged the charismatic appeal of some of the most celebrated scholars of the twentieth century. At the same time, the old and ideological frameworks that characterized the field have been critically analyzed and deconstructed. The disciplinary status quo, taken for granted for quite a long time, has been shaken to its foundation, paving the way for new approaches. However, the postmodern tenet of problematizing any authority has also become a convenient (...) shortcut to blur the distinction between scientific signal and nonepistemic noise. Despite this troublesome feature, some scholars have deployed postmodern and poststructuralist tools to study the genealogy, reception, implementation, and diffusion of cultural representations within the aforementioned academic discipline. The present article briefly reviews one of the most recent and remarkable examples of such scholarship, that is, The Scientification of Religion: An Historical Study of Discursive Change, 1800–2000. (shrink)

In a Los Angeles neighborhood plagued by guns, gangs, and drugs, there is a classroom known as Room 56. The fifth graders inside are first-generation immigrants who live in poverty and speak English as a second language. They also play Vivaldi, perform Shakespeare, score in the top 1% on standardized tests, and go on to attend Ivy League universities. Rafe Esquith is the teacher responsible for these accomplishments. Here, he reveals his techniques. The classroom's mottoes are "Be nice, work hard," (...) and "There are no shortcuts." His students voluntarily come to school at 6:30 in the morning and work until 5:00 in the afternoon. They pair Hamlet with rock and roll, learn to handle money responsibly, tackle algebra, and travel the country to study history. This is an inspiring road map for parents, teachers, and anyone who cares about the future success of our nation's children.--From publisher description. (shrink)

This paper asks a simple question: if we begin not with space, but with a network of relations, when is it legitimate to say that geometry has been recovered? -/- I study this question through the RZS-ELCL benchmark pipeline. The pipeline starts from weighted relational graphs, filters candidate geometric edges, builds local clique and simplicial structure, and then measures curvature with Regge-style operators. The goal is not to prove that spacetime emerges from a relational zero state. The goal is narrower (...) and more testable: to identify when a relational graph can be projected into a stable discrete geometry, and when that projection fails. -/- The results are deliberately presented as controlled benchmarks rather than as an asymptotic theorem. In low- and medium-damage regimes, explicit projectors recover the intended geometric graph and reject several families of synthetic contaminants. The error analysis separates two effects that are often mixed together: compression error from the spectral estimator, and discretization error from the Regge operator itself. This makes it possible to see whether a failure comes from the estimator or from the underlying discrete geometry. -/- The paper also records the limits of the method. Early 3D reconstruction fails under shortcut contamination, the 4D Regge operator depends on the correct internal-dihedral-angle convention, and high-damage repair succeeds only when scaffold incidence information is supplied. The main contribution is therefore not a claim that relational geometry has been solved, but a falsifiable framework for testing how much geometry can be recovered from relational data. (shrink)

This book-length series of dialogues presents a functional model of consciousness called the BAL-looping framework, which accounts for all forms of subjective experience – including recollection, imagination, and conscious perception. The model begins with a basic principle: any functioning brain, even a nonhuman animal brain, must build an internal model of its environment, using internal stand-ins called neuronal proxies to represent things in the world and guide goal-directed behavior. In humans, language adds a new capability by allowing these proxy configurations (...) to be transferred from one person to another, activating in the listener the same internal patterns that would arise through real-world interaction. This bidirectional channel of expression and reception is called the proxy transfer device (PTD). In infants, a further step emerges: through the scientifically validated process known as neuronal reuse, the brain gradually begins to anticipate its own expressive output. When this happens, the brain at large can access the meaning of that potential expression through proxy activation – just as it would when grasping the gist of a PTD-transmitted message from another person. The result of this shortcut from potential expression to experienced meaning is what we normally refer to as conscious experience. About the format of presentation: because the framework involves a sequence of tightly interdependent concepts, it is developed through a fictional dialogue between two interlocutors – a method used by thinkers like Plato, Galileo, and Berkeley to hone new ideas with more precision than is possible through expository prose, as it allows ideas to be approached from multiple angles, naturally. The seven dialogues unfold in sequence: I. Basic Mechanics – how animal brains model the world and pursue goals, and a brief introduction to the PTD; II. The Gateway Opens – how the human brain gains and uses an added function: predictive reuse of expressive output; III. Dreams and Reconstruction/Construction – how dream phenomena validate the model; IV. The Hardest Questions Become Clear – more validations from split-brain cases, blindsight, and various previously hard-to-explain phenomena from daily life; V. They Saw It Before – how ancient thinkers caught glimpses of the framework, expressing their insights through myth, religion, and philosophy; VI. An Emergent Realm – an extension of the model to society; VII. Ethics and Integration – applying the framework to ethics, meaning, and eudaimonia. (Updated June 26, 2026: Same as the May 19 version, with revisions to the split-brain section of Dialogue 4 to improve readability and clarify reportability, confabulation, right-hemisphere language competence, cross-cueing, and the role of BAL-looping in cognition.). (shrink)

The epidemic of misinformation has been identified as one of the most significant concerns in contemporary society. Misinformation is on the rise, and it seems that artificial intelligence (AI) is the primary conduit for it. AI is a double-edged sword for misinformation that can do good—but also worsen misinformation. Advances in machine learning and algorithms have brought to life a highly effective method for conveying misinformation. In the midst of a “misinfodemic,” the psychology of misinformation—existing bias, mental shortcuts, illusions, (...) and confusions that encourage us to believe information that is not true—can tell us what misinformation is and how to prevent its detrimental effects, why we are vulnerable to misinformation, what affects whether corrections work, and what we have to do to combat misinformation. Misinformation concerns and potential methods for mitigating those threats can be discussed in terms of cognitive processes connected to perception, understanding, heuristics, sensemaking, cognitive processing, and decision-making. (shrink)

Today there are two major theoretical frameworks in biology. One is the ‘chemical paradigm’, the idea that life is an extremely complex form of chemistry. The other is the ‘information paradigm’, the view that life is not just ‘chemistry’ but ‘chemistry-plus-information’. This implies the existence of a fundamental difference between information and chemistry, a conclusion that is strongly supported by the fact that information and information-based-processes like heredity and natural selection simply do not exist in the world of chemistry. Against (...) this conclusion, the supporters of the chemical paradigm have pointed out that information processes are no different from chemical processes because they are both described by the same physical quantities. They may appear different, but this is only because they take place in extremely complex systems. According to the chemical paradigm, in other words, biological information is but a shortcut term that we use to avoid long descriptions of countless chemical reactions. It is intuitively appealing, but it does not represent a new ontological entity. It is merely a derived construct, a linguistic metaphor. The supporters of the information paradigm insist that information is a real and fundamental entity of Nature, but have not been able to prove this point. The result is that the chemical view has not been abandoned and the two paradigms are both coexisting today. Here it is shown that an alternative does exist and is a third theoretical framework that is referred to as the ‘code paradigm’. The key point is that we need to introduce in biology not only the concept of information but also that of meaning because any code is based on meaning and a genetic code does exist in every cell. The third paradigm is the view that organic information and organic meaning exist in every living system because they are the inevitable results of the processes of copying and coding that produce genes and proteins. Their true nature has eluded us for a long time because they are nominable entities, i.e., objective and reproducible observables that can be described only by naming their components in their natural order. They have also eluded us because nominable entities exist only in artifacts and biologists have not yet come to terms with the idea that life is artifact making. This is the idea that life arose from matter and yet it is fundamentally different from it because inanimate matter is made of spontaneous structures whereas life is made of manufactured objects. It will be shown, furthermore, that the existence of information and meaning in living systems is documented by the standard procedures of science. We do not have to abandon the scientific method in order to introduce meaning in biology. All we need is a science that becomes fully aware of the existence of organic codes in Nature. (shrink)

Mevlânâ appears in many aspects of life. His works, especially the Masnavi, are significant both as a means of teaching and as sources that provide insights into the religious, social, and economic conditions of his time. Mevlânâ and his works serve as a reference for many researchers, among whom Ülgener is one. Mevlânâ is one of the most frequently cited figures in Ülgener's studies. His works, particularly the Masnavi, constitute an important source for Ülgener’s books. The aim of this article (...) is to compile and present a general portrait of Mevlânâ's economic understanding, which is scattered throughout Ülgener’s works and extensively referenced. In this research, Ülgener’s books were reviewed, and the fragments related to Mevlânâ were gathered. The study follows a deductive method; accor-dingly, it first addresses the economic ethics found in the early or original Islamic understanding, then discusses the economic approach of Sufism, particularly Melâmîsm, and finally examines Mevlânâ’s views at the point where these paths diverge. In Ülgener’s works, Mevlânâ’s economic unders-tanding becomes distinctly visible. Mevlânâ appears as a figure at the point of divergence in the struggle between Melâmîsm and Bâtınîsm. His goal is to prevent the partially opened door from being further widened. Mevlânâ sided with effort and labor, criticizing a passive understanding of reliance on God (tawakkul). He condemned those who sought to gain wealth easily and emphasized earning through lawful and rightful means instead of ta-king shortcuts. Moreover, he did not separate worship from labor; rather, he considered work as a part of worship. All these principles bring Mevlânâ closer to the early Islamic understanding. (shrink)

Information technology has played a remarkably important role in developing the contemporary educational system. It not only provides easy access to enormous stores of information but also increases students' scientific efficiency. However, the availability of this technology has also led to increased plagiarism. This study attempted to explore how access to Internet technology contributes to plagiarism problems from the perspective of university students in Iran. A qualitative method to semistructured interviews with 20 students suggested important themes: uncertainty avoidance, tendency (...) to use shortcuts to progress, symbolic certification, social learning and modeling of faculty members as mentors, and plagiarism in the name of justice. Survey data from 180 university students suggest that the personality characteristic of conscientiousness had a negative effect on using information technology to commit plagiarism. (shrink)

The very existence of society depends on the ability of its members to influence formatively the beliefs, desires, and actions of their fellows. In every sphere of social life, powerful human agents (whether individuals or institutions) tend to use coercion as a favorite shortcut to achieving their aims without taking into consideration the non-violent alternatives or the negative (unintended) consequences of their actions. This propensity for coercion is manifested in the doxastic sphere by attempts to shape people’s beliefs (and (...) doubts) while ignoring the essential characteristics of these doxastic states. I argue that evidential persuasion is a better route to influence people’s beliefs than doxastic coercion. Doxastic coercion perverts the belief-forming mechanism and undermines the epistemic and moral faculties both of coercers and coercees. It succeeds sporadically and on short-term. Moreover, its pseudo doxastic effects tend to disappear once the use of force ceases. In contrast to doxastic coercion, evidential persuasion produces lasting correct beliefs in accordance with proper standards of evidence. It helps people to reach the highest possible standards of rationality and morality. Evidential persuasion is based on the principles of symmetry and reciprocity in that it asks all persuaders to use for changing the beliefs of others only those means they used in forming their own beliefs respecting the freedom of will and assuming the standard of rationality. The arguments in favor of evidential persuasion have a firm theoretical basis that includes a conceptual clarification of the essential traits of beliefs. Belief is treated as a hypercomplex system governed by Leibniz’s law of continuity and the principle of self-organization. It appears to be a mixture consisting of a personal propositional attitude and physical objects and processes. The conceptual framework also includes a typology of believers according to the standards of evidence they assume. In this context, I present a weak version of Clifford’ ethical imperative. In the section dedicated to the prerequisites for changing beliefs, I show how doxastic agents can infuse premeditated or planned changes in the flow of endogenous changes in order to shape certain beliefs in certain desired forms. The possibility of changing some beliefs in a planned manner is correlated with a feedback doxastic (macro-mechanism) that produces a reaction when it is triggered by a stimulus. In relation with the two routes to influence beliefs, a response mechanism is worth taking into consideration – a mechanism governed to a significant extent by human conscience and human will, that appears to be complex, acquired, relatively detached from visceral or autonomic information processing, and highly variable in reactions. Knowing increasingly better this doxastic mechanism, we increase our chances to use evidential persuasion as an effective (although not time-efficient) method to mold people’s beliefs. (shrink)

Abstract: The First World War breaks out, and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, alias Lenin, withdraws to Switzerland to read a book entitled The Science of Logic, written by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel a century earlier and commonly regarded—so it is often said—as one of the most arduous and demanding texts in the Western philosophical canon. Its difficulty is legendary. -/- Lenin’s reading was urgent, though not in a psychological sense; rather, it was a reading that could not be postponed, one that (...) required a kind of tactical retreat in pursuit of a strategy for victory, a reading that would unfold in parallel with the collapse of the world, with that war which would wipe more than ten million people from the face of the earth. -/- That Lenin did not merely withdraw to Switzerland to read that book; no, he withdrew and annotated it, annotated it and underlined it as one annotates and underlines things that admit of no shortcuts, things that demand patience from even the most impatient. At times Lenin placed question marks in the text; at times he commented on it with brief phrases or isolated words; and at times, too, he besieged Hegel’s words with exclamation marks in the margins. -/- In the world of facts, states were underlining their sovereignty, while Lenin was underlining that the sovereignty of the mathematical method might not be the sovereignty governing the method of philosophy. -/- Empieza la primera guerra mundial y Vladímir Illich Uliánov, alias Lenin, se retira a Suiza a leer un libro llamado Ciencia de la Lógica, libro escrito por Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel un siglo antes y libro considerado, se dice suele decir, uno de los textos más arduos y exigentes del canon filosófico occidental. Su dificultad es célebre. Era la de Lenin una lectura urgente, pero no en el sentido psicológico, no; era más bien una lectura que no se podía posponer, que exigía una suerte de retirada táctica en pos de una estrategia de victoria, una lectura que correría de manera paralela al colapso del mundo, a aquella guerra que borraría a más de diez millones de personas de la faz de la tierra. No solo se retiró aquel Lenin a aquella Suiza a leer aquel libro, no; se retiró y lo anotó, lo anotó y lo subrayó como se anotan y subrayan las cosas que no admiten atajos, que exigen paciencia al más impaciente, y a veces colocaba Lenin interrogaciones y a veces comentaba Lenin el texto con pequeñas frasecillas o palabras sueltas, y, a veces también, acosaba Lenin las palabras de Hegel con exclamaciones en los márgenes. Los Estados subrayaban en el mundo de los hechos su soberanía, y Lenin subrayaba que la soberanía del método matemático tal vez no era la soberanía que rige el método de la Filosofía. (shrink)

To paraphrase Batman: “[humans] are a superstitious and cowardly lot”. We cling to our preconceptions against all evidence, literally unable to see the unexpected forest when we find that our field of view is crowded with an unanticipated number of trees. Our preconceptions and other cognitive biases weaken our individual ability to perceive the world around us. Telling fact from fantasy requires cooperation and formal, unintuitive thought. Scientific thinking may be the single greatest intellectual tool ever developed. Contrary to popular (...) belief, it is not a way of proving things true, but a way of proving them false. It is not the work of a singular intellect, but a social activity. It is a method of altering the inherent iterative cycles of bias reinforcement and leaps of faith that we consider intuitive thinking, so that we explicitly define the weaknesses in our own ideas and count on others to help us find the flaws we’ve missed. But how does one teach this unintuitive style of thinking? How do we keep our students from exchanging one set of preconceptions and cognitive shortcuts for another? Personally, I use mental models with which they are already familiar. Personally, I use Star Trek. (shrink)

Desire Lines are grassy pathways formed when many people walk the same way over and over again – exploring or shortcutting through city space. Thus, they display an urban history while shaping a space’s present as well. From May to August 2012, I mapped and documented Desire Lines in Edmonton. This paper chronicles my methods and findings, and situates the concept of Desire Lines in a larger theoretical context.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Time, Will, and Purpose: Living Ideas from the Philosophy by Randall E. AuxierDavid W. RodickRandall E. Auxier Time, Will, and Purpose: Living Ideas from the Philosophy of Josiah Royce Chicago, Illinois: Open Court Press, 2013. 424 pages, incl. index.Randy Auxier’s long awaited book is a major milestone in Royce studies—a systematic tour de force engaging the entire course of Royce’s thought. Auxier’s goal is to achieve an all-round (...) reappraisal of Royce, setting the record straight about major misconceptions accrued throughout the course of Royce scholarship over the past 65 years—if not longer.One of the most significant events in Royce scholarship during the 20th Century was the appearance of John E. Smith’s Royce’s Social Infinite: The Community of Interpretation.1 As Auxier notes: “For the purposes for which it was intended, Smith’s book will never be surpassed in its excellence. Smith’s book is outstanding in numerous ways … but its clarity and brevity are high among its chief virtues” (13). The problem with Smith’s book, for Auxier, is that readers have used it for a purpose it was never intended to serve—that of a crutch or “shortcut to a full understanding of Royce” (13). This tendency has had a compounding effect: “[N]ot only scholarship, but scholarly consciousness about Royce is formed by Smith’s book” (14). [End Page 166]The shortcomings of Smith’s book are partly due lack of available historical information concerning the Peirce-Royce relationship at the time it was written: “The inferences about Peirce and Royce that Smith drew from the available resources were mostly warranted at the time, but they turned out to be only a drop in the pond, if not the ocean, of what was the case” (15–16). But the most damning consequence of Smith’s book is its claim that Royce’s thought underwent a decisive shift in its later stages: “[T]he all-important change in Royce’s conception of the Absolute consists in the shift from the idea that the Infinite thought is an all-embracing consciousness apprehending at a glance all truth … to the idea that the Infinite is actual as a well-ordered system … having a generally triadic form and involving a type of cognition called interpretation” (19).2 Once a bifurcation between the “early” and the “later” Royce is introduced, the tendency is to identify Royce’s “Peircean moment” of 1912 as the decisive point of rupture between the “two Royces”—an incorrect view stemming from the inability to take a longer view of the Peirce-Royce relationship:But our recognition of the intense, constant and long term character of their exchange also eliminates the supposition that that Royce took a sudden turn in 1912. It is not a “Peircean turn” due to some late discovery, it was an insight about how to use Peirce’s theory of signs (which Royce had known for years) as a tool for the application of his (long held) triadic theory of community. … Peirce did not save Royce from absolutism or turn him in any fundamentally new direction.(17)Failure to grasp the integral unity of Royce’s thought results in a tendency to miss the ethical basis of his philosophy—“ethics as first philosophy.” Unlike Smith, and others, who err toward the side of viewing Royce’s philosophical project as an epistemological attempt at a conception of knowledge warranted in terms of ability to provide truth and certainty, “Royce’s method is a hypothetical ontology … not aimed primarily at securing certainty or knowledge, but rather at maintaining intellectual norms … that govern clear thinking and facilitate intelligent practice and action” (23). Royce’s hypothetical ontology underscores the religious dimension of experience because practical, faith-based postulates are recognized as unavoidably intertwined in the process of knowing. Living in a universe of postulates requires formulating ideals as if they were ontologically constitutive; and acting in accordance with these ideals in a way that validates their existence—while recognizing the fallibility and risk of the entire enterprise. Royce’s argument amounts to saying “[W]ell no, we don’t get more than postulates, but don... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Place of Imagination: Wendell Berry and the Poetics of Community, Affection, and Identity by Joseph R. WiebeJacob Alan CookThe Place of Imagination: Wendell Berry and the Poetics of Community, Affection, and Identity Joseph R. Wiebe waco, tx: baylor university press, 2017. 272 pp. $49.95The Place of Imagination is an artful narration of Wendell Berry's poetics focused distinctively on his works of fiction. Moralists concerned about issues of (...) land use or racialization could commend or criticize "what" they assume Berry's stories (re)present—nostalgia or some abstract, principial program. But Joseph Wiebe ventures a thesis about "how" Berry's imaginary Port William community discloses the nature of good, real-world community. Understanding how Berry's poetics reflect his real-world moral imagination clarifies what we may learn from his fiction. So, in part 1, Wiebe traces Berry's journey of local adaptation, through which he developed a moral imagination and discovered the agonizing details of his entanglement in his place's history and his neighbors' problems.Berry's poetics starts with imagination opening itself to the genius of a place and the other (friend and foe alike) as a living soul. Such imagination engages our sympathy to see others as complex subjects without controlling their stories, objectifying them to realize some idealist worldview. In sympathy, we [End Page 203] perceive the other as a neighbor and develop affection for them in their difference. This affection is no mere sentiment but a Humean moral sentiment that motivates behavior and, when properly nurtured, makes moral reasoning subservient to itself. Affection "disrupts habits of pity" that reduce others to mental objects and inspires a kenotic movement toward concrete neighbors (37). Problems felt at the societal level are habituated in local communities. While idealist solutions may satisfy the white, Western mind's impulse for complete knowledge, their resources prove incompetent before these problems as such. We must affectionately open ourselves to others who disrupt our mental worlds and draw us into real-world habits that change underlying communal dynamics. Relinquishing control of our storied identities (or idealist worldviews) to the others in our place, we might truly locate ourselves in those problems—and start undoing them.In part 2, Wiebe offers glimpses of "what" Berry's poetics teach us about a placed life together through select members of a quaint Kentucky farming community: Jack Beechum, Jayber Crow, and Hannah Coulter. His imaginative attentiveness to each character exemplifies the art of discovering the virtues of place-based identity. The way through Port William offers no shortcuts. Its imaginary community does not merely stand in for some universal idea of community. Neither potential solution nor nostalgic phantasm, Port William is the setting for parables that reveal something true about good community. "If there is something to imitate, it is the underlying processes that generate the particulars of Berry's narratives rather than the characters that furnish them" (152). In Port William, one can practice relinquishing control and patiently "imagining" the contours of a place; in the real world, one can deploy that imagination to develop fidelity to their place.Wiebe aptly follows Berry's method, yielding control over Berry's biography and work by taking a third-person narrator's perspective. He focuses on what Berry's life and writing reveal parabolically to the patient reader. The book beckons readers to hold Berry and his stories as a mirror—to engage in introspection and self-interrogation—that we might learn something about sympathy and affection needed for engaging our places non-imperialistically. Wiebe's adept style may appear to some as a flaw; the narrator gives no academic cues (e.g., "I will argue") for rapidly consuming principial content. There are only Berry's life and work and the reader, hopefully changed. The Place of Imagination will be of greatest interest to those who already have some affection for that "artful crank from Kentucky" (10). Beyond the agrarian crowd and its auditors, this book holds appeal for a range of explorations, from the fecundity of poetics in ethics to the disruptiveness of Christian imagination vis-à-vis whiteness. [End Page 204]Jacob Alan CookFriends UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society... (shrink)

Albert Einstein taught us that c, the speed of light in vacuum, is nature's ultimate speed limit, the highest speed at which matter, energy, and information can travel through space-time. In several AV columns I've discussed ways for getting around this annoying natural law, the law that SF writers and fans most wish to violate. Two AV columns discussed the possibility of getting around the lightspeed limit by popping through a trans-spatial wormhole shortcut. See [ Analog-6-89, "Wormholes and Time (...) Machines"] and [Analog-5-90, "Wormholes II: Getting There in No Time"]. Two others discussed the possible use the faster-than-light nonlocal handshaking implicit in quantum mechanics for FTL messages and travel. See [Analog-11-86, "The Quantum Handshake"] and [Analog-9-88, "Paradoxes and FTL Communication"]. Both of those methods, however, are beyond our present technology, and the latter is probably impossible. (shrink)

In relation to moral judgment, it is the 'reasoning' and 'intuition' of human representative decision mechanism in cognitive science. The first type is intuitive and automatical way of thinking, and second is ratiocinative and reflecting one. Kohlberg asserted that the most powerful impetus comes from moral reasoning to lead moral judgment and behavior. Haidt explained that intuition plays an leading role and reasoning charges only role of post-justification, in the almost majority of moral situation, via social intuitionism model. Greene elucidates (...) that deontological judgement is deduced intuitively by emotional response automatic and immediately, and judgment due to result does so by reasoning, conscious and reflecting cognitive reaction, through dual process theory. Kahneman maintains that humans make incomplete and irrational judgment, because they have incomplete ability of information processing inherently. To make good judgment, there are so many data to be processed, and we need to make decisions rapidly. Therefore, we use, so-called 'shortcut of judgment' of heuristic, that is, intuition. They acknowledges biased intuition as subject to overcome and upholds the effect of intuition used widely in decision-making at the same time. On the other hand, Gigerenzer claims that it does not necessarily define intuition as source of irrational bias and needs to think it as useful environmental adaptation tool box. In current moral education, the reasoning education is being utilized as core factor to enhance the ability of moral judgment. However, according to the opinions of intuitionist along with Haidt, it suggests strongly that it is not so useful the method of moral education based on reasoning in making moral judgment. This might be clearly significant challenge to moral education. It is because that it supports Haidt's argument that plays an important role for intuition resulting from emotion in moral decision making by many empirical studies recently. In this study, it argues that it guards against the view of underestimating role of moral reasoning, and reasoning could be utilized significantly in decision-making. Reasoning used in situation requiring more complex deliberation differs from intuition system used in context to make rapid decision more effectively, in its roles. (shrink)

This paper considers a special case of belief updating—when an agent learns testimonial data, or in other words, the beliefs of others on some issue. The interest in this case is twofold: (1) the linear averaging method for updating on testimony is somewhat popular in epistemology circles, and it is important to assess its normative acceptability, and (2) this facilitates a more general investigation of what it means/requires for an updating method to have a suitable Bayesian representation (taken (...) here as the normative standard). The paper initially defends linear averaging against Bayesian-compatibility concerns raised by Bradley (Soc Choice Welf 29:609-632, 2007), as well as problems associated with multiple testimony updates. The resolution of these issues, however, requires an extremely nuanced interpretation of the parameters of the linear averaging model—the so-called weights of respect. We go on to propose a role that the parameters of any 'shortcut' updating function should play, by way of minimal interpretation of these parameters. The class of updating functions that is consistent with this role, however, excludes linear averaging, at least in its standard form. (shrink)

One very common argument for establishing or challenging the moral relevance of a given feature or distinction consists in comparing two cases where everything else is held constant, but the feature being examined varies between the two cases. If the two cases seem to vary in their moral status (for example, the act which has the feature is permissible, while the one that lacks it is not), then the conclusion is drawn that the feature in question has general moral significance. (...) Similarly, if the two cases seem morally the same (for example, the act has the same moral status regardless of whether it has the feature or not), then the conclusion drawn instead is that the feature in question lacks moral significance. This essay examines the assumptions that lie behind our use of such “contrast arguments,” and suggests that they are far more controversial than we ordinarily realize. In particular, they seem to presuppose a specific model of how morally relevant factors jointly determine moral status, where each factor makes the same positive or negative contribution across the board, regardless of context, and these individual contributions are then summed or added together. Since there is no reason to assume without argument that this picture is correct, and since some familiar moral examples suggest that it doesn’t hold generally, the essay concludes that we need to be much more cautious in the use of such arguments. Contrast arguments (and their cousins) provide no shortcut to the goal of defending fundamental moral theory. (shrink)

Book. From the Publisher. An influential scientist in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) explains its fundamental concepts and how it is changing culture and society. A particular form of AI is now embedded in our tech, our infrastructure, and our lives. How did it get there? Where and why should we be concerned? And what should we do now? The Shortcut: Why Intelligent Machines Do Not Think Like Us provides an accessible yet probing exposure of AI in its (...) prevalent form today, proposing a new narrative to connect and make sense of events that have happened in the recent tumultuous past, and enabling us to think soberly about the road ahead. This book is divided into ten carefully crafted and easily digestible chapters. Each chapter grapples with an important question for AI. Ranging from the scientific concepts that underpin the technology to wider implications for society, it develops a unified description using tools from different disciplines and avoiding unnecessary abstractions or words that end with -ism. The book uses real examples wherever possible, introducing the reader to the people who have created some of these technologies and to ideas shaping modern society that originate from the technical side of AI. It contains important practical advice about how we should approach AI in the future without promoting exaggerated hypes or fears. Entertaining and disturbing but always thoughtful, The Shortcut confronts the hidden logic of AI while preserving a space for human dignity. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in AI, the history of technology, and the history of ideas. General readers will come away much more informed about how AI really works today and what we should do next. Table of Contents ABOUT THE AUTHOR. PROLOGUE. 1 The Search for Intelligence. 2 The Shortcut. 3 Finding Order in the World. 4 Lady Lovelace Was Wrong. 5 Unintended Behaviour. 6 Microtargeting and Mass Persuasion. 7 The Feedback Loop. 8 The Glitch. 9 Social Machines. 10 Regulating, Not Unplugging. EPILOGUE. BIBLIOGRAPHY. INDEX. (shrink)

The current paradigm of Artificial Intelligence emerged as the result of a series of cultural innovations, some technical and some social. Among them are apparently small design decisions, that led to a subtle reframing of the field’s original goals, and are by now accepted as standard. They correspond to technical shortcuts, aimed at bypassing problems that were otherwise too complicated or too expensive to solve, while still delivering a viable version of AI. Far from being a series of separate problems, (...) recent cases of unexpected effects of AI are the consequences of those very choices that enabled the field to succeed, and this is why it will be difficult to solve them. In this chapter we review three of these choices, investigating their connection to some of today’s challenges in AI, including those relative to bias, value alignment, privacy and explainability. We introduce the notion of “ethical debt” to describe the necessity to undertake expensive rework in the future in order to address ethical problems created by a technical system. (shrink)

(2013). Cognitive shortcuts in causal inference. Argument & Computation: Vol. 4, Formal Models of Reasoning in Cognitive Psychology, pp. 64-88. doi: 10.1080/19462166.2012.682655.

This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such as overcoming disagreements, citizens' political ignorance, or poor-quality deliberation. However, all these shortcut proposals require citizens (...) to blindly defer to actors over whose decisions they cannot exercise control. Implementing such proposals would therefore undermine democracy. Moreover, it seems naive to assume that a community can reach better outcomes 'faster' if it bypasses the beliefs and attitudes of its citizens. Unfortunately, there are no 'shortcuts' to make a community better than its members. The only road to better outcomes is the long, participatory road that is taken when citizens forge a collective will by changing one another's hearts and minds. However difficult the process of justifying political decisions to one another may be, skipping it cannot get us any closer to the democratic ideal. Starting from this conviction, the book defends a conception of democracy ''without shortcuts''. This conception sheds new light on long-standing debates about the proper scope of public reason, the role of religion in politics, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. It also proposes new ways to unleash the democratic potential of institutional innovations such as deliberative minipublics. (shrink)

This paper argues that the later Wittgenstein’s philosophical practice constitutes an elaboration of the Socratic search for truth by question-and-answer adversary argument, which led Wittgenstein to develop new methods for uncovering and resolving deep disagreements. On a methodological level, it is argued that this Socratic method (known as Socratic elenchus) is essentially a search for deep disagreement and necessarily raises philosophical questions concerning morality.

Democracy without Shortcuts is a book written in the shadow of the work of the later Rawls while within the framework of the later Habermas to whom the book is dedicated. The ultimate contention of...

The paper aims to contribute to the ongoing conversation on critical phenomenology with reflections on its method. The key argument is that critical phenomenology should be understood as a form of historico-transcendental inquiry and therefore it cannot forgo the phenomenological reduction. Rather, this methodological step should be centered in critical phenomenology, and appropriated in problematized and rethought forms. The methodological assessment of critical phenomenology has implications also for how we read its canon. The paper shows that while Simone de (...) Beauvoir did not adopt the phenomenological reduction in its full Husserlian meaning, her analyses of experience did not remain on the level of personal or experiential description either. The contention is that if we want to read her as a critical phenomenologist, we should focus on her seminal modification of the historico-transcendental method of phenomenology. (shrink)

When diagnosing psychological disorders, doctors are expected to take the mental anguish of patients and offer fast and accurate explanations. The pressure that comes with this often leaves doctors in need of epistemic shortcuts for faster diagnoses. One such epistemic shortcut is to lean on statistical data when offering a diagnosis. When used justly, doctors consider a patient’s testimony, exhibited symptoms and statistical data relating to the general features of the patient such as age, weight and sex to determine (...) if a patient has a given disorder or illness. Practices such as this have the capacity to yield good results at a quick pace, however, such practices may also be abused. With a focus on gender statistics and psychological diagnoses, I argue that systematic practices of epistemic injustice may occur when the statistical data becomes over-valued and the epistemic privilege of patients to be able to assert their own bodily and mental experiences is ignored. This places patients at risk of misdiagnosis, long-term damage and pain, or even death. It also produces patient mistrust both of themselves and of the medical community, which can carry further repercussions for public health. (shrink)

Among Plato's works, the Statesman is usually seen as transitional between the Republic and the Laws. This book argues that the dialogue deserves a special place of its own. Whereas Plato is usually thought of as defending unchanging knowledge, Dr Lane demonstrates how, by placing change at the heart of political affairs, Plato reconceives the link between knowledge and authority. The statesman is shown to master the timing of affairs of state, and to use this expertise in managing the conflict (...) of opposed civic factions. To this political argument corresponds a methodological approach which is seen to rely not only on the familiar method of 'division', but equally on the unfamiliar centrality of the use of 'example'. The demonstration that method and politics are interrelated transforms our understanding of the Statesman and its fellow dialogues. (shrink)

This essay is part of a dossier on Cristina Lafont's book Democracy without Shortcuts.

The idea that disputes which are heated, and apparently important, may nonetheless be 'merely verbal' or 'just semantic' is surely no stranger to any philosopher. I urge that many disputes, both in and out of philosophy, are indeed plausibly considered verbal, and that it would repay us to more frequently consider whether they are so or not. Asking this question is what I call ‘The Method of Verbal Dispute’. Neither the notion nor the method of verbal dispute is (...) new. What I do here is to urge its wider application, to suggest how widespread is the phenomenon of verbal disputes, and to clarify certain misconceptions about what is, or needs to be, involved in a verbal dispute. One central claim is that verbal disputes need not be ‘merely’ verbal disputes – that often, there is a real disagreement to be had, but it is not the one suggested by the surface form of the disagreement. I also discuss the relation between verbal disputes, relativism and cases in which ‘there is no fact of the matter’. (shrink)

This paper addresses skepticism about progress in philosophy. After distinguishing four problems regarding philosophical progress ('existential,' 'comparative,' 'practical,' and 'theoretical'), the authors propose that the deep question is methodological: is there a method whose proper execution facilitates the realization of theoretical understanding about philosophical topics? The paper develops a method designed to answer this question affirmatively, and then shows how the method helps to resolve all four problems of progress.

This paper answers the question of how, according to Hegel, we can do philosophy of right. The first part of the paper deals with a critical dimension of Hegel’s understanding of the method of the philosophy of right. In the second part, it is shown that in the philosophy of right we consciously look at the present as forming a comprehensive context, as something that is resistant to mere thought and as something that is temporal. According to Hegel, what (...) we consider in this way is concrete. (shrink)

In a criminal trial, a judge or jury needs to reason about what happened based on the available evidence, often including statistical evidence. While a probabilistic approach is suitable for analysing the statistical evidence, a judge or jury may be more inclined to use a narrative or argumentative approach when considering the case as a whole. In this paper we propose a combination of two approaches, combining Bayesian networks with scenarios. Whereas a Bayesian network is a popular tool for analysing (...) parts of a case, constructing and understanding a network for an entire case is not straightforward. We propose an explanation method for understanding a Bayesian network in terms of scenarios. This method builds on a previously proposed construction method, which we slightly adapt with the use of scenario schemes for the purpose of explaining. The resulting structure is explained in terms of scenarios, scenario quality and evidential support. A probabilistic interpretation of scenario quality is provided using the concept of scenario schemes. Finally, the method is evaluated by means of a case study. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a wealth of literature arguing the need for empirical and interdisciplinary approaches to bioethics, based on the premise that an empirically informed ethical analysis is more grounded, contextually sensitive and therefore more relevant to clinical practice than an ‘abstract’ philosophical analysis. Bioethics has (arguably) always been an interdisciplinary field, and the rise of ‘empirical’ (bio)ethics need not be seen as an attempt to give a new name to the longstanding practice of interdisciplinary collaboration, but (...) can perhaps best be understood as a substantive attempt to engage with the nature of that interdisciplinarity and to articulate the relationship between the many different disciplines (some of them empirical) that contribute to the field. It can also be described as an endeavour to explain how different disciplinary approaches can be integrated to effectively answer normative questions in bioethics, and fundamental to that endeavour is the need to think about how a robust methodology can be articulated that successfully marries apparently divergent epistemological and metaethical perspectives with method. This paper proposes ‘Reflexive Bioethics’ (RB) as a methodology for interdisciplinary and empirical bioethics, which utilizes a method of ‘Reflexive Balancing’ (RBL). RBL has been developed in response to criticisms of various forms of reflective equilibrium, and is built upon a pragmatic characterization of Bioethics and a ‘quasi-moral foundationalism’, which allows RBL to avoid some of the difficulties associated with RE and yet retain the flexible egalitarianism that makes it intuitively appealing to many. (shrink)

Spiritualism designates a philosophy that lays claim to the separation of mind and body and the ontological and epistemological primacy of the former. In France, it is associated with the names of Victor Cousin and René Descartes, or more precisely with what Cousin made of Descartes as the founding father of a brittle rational psychology, closed off from the positive sciences, and as a critic in respect to the empiricist legacy of the idéologues. Moreover, by considering merely the end result, (...) severed from its polemical genesis, we are prevented from understanding how the category of experience constituted a crucial question for spiritualism itself. Through returning to the origin of these discussions in the 1826 preface to Cousin’s Fragments philosophiques, this essay pursues a threefold path: to show that the public birth of Cousinian spiritualism coincides with the affirmation of applying the experimental method, issuing from Bacon, to the study of facts of consciousness; that Cousin’s later evolution follows a process of radicalization—that is, in this context, of ontologization and of reduction; and that by recovering this genesis, we can distinguish many forms of spiritualisms committed to the experimental method, both in alliance with the early Cousin and against the later Cousin. In this way, we can rediscover the interwoven philosophical links, lost in the process of institutionalization, between metaphysical demands and empiricist concerns, or between “French” philosophy and the legacy of Condillac. (shrink)

This study of Plato's Phaedo promotes better understanding of its arguments for the soul's immortality by showing how Plato intended them, not as proofs, but as properly dialectical arguments functioning in accordance with the method of hypothesis. Unlike the argument for the soul's immortality in the Phaedrus, which does seem intended as a proof, the Phaedo arguments are proceeding toward the first principles that could serve as the basis for a proof - the most important being an account of (...) the soul's own essential nature. This study attends to the substantial progress the Phaedo makes toward such an account. It also considers Socrates' epistemic situation in the dialogue and the problem of whether his confidence in the face of death is misplaced if his arguments have not been proofs before considering how the concluding myth draws together several of the dialogue's main themes. (shrink)

This textbook presents the phenomenological method(s) not only theoretically, but also in their current intra- and interdisciplinary applications. “Back to the things themselves as they are given in experience” – this is the motto of phenomenology starting from Edmund Husserl. For this we have to question the self-evident and bracket all presuppositions. But how can we do this? How do we arrive at an unprejudiced description? How can the general be determined in the concrete? And how can we inquire (...) into the conditions of experience? This will be explained with reference to historical texts and illustrated using contemporary examples. The present text is an updated and re-worked version of “Phänomenologie. Eine Einführung” (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, J.B. Metzler 2022). The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent manual revision was done primarily in terms of content. (shrink)

Despite its successes, to date Artificial Intelligence (AI) is still characterized by a number of shortcomings with regards to different application domains and goals. These limitations are arguably both conceptual (e.g., related to the underlying theoretical models, such as symbolic vs.connectionist), and operational (e.g., related to robustness and ability to generalize). Biologically inspired AI, and more specifically brain-inspired AI, promises to provide further biological aspects beyond those that are already traditionally included in AI, making it possible to assess and possibly (...) overcome some of its present shortcomings. This article examines some conceptual, technical, and ethical issues raised by the development and use of brain-inspired AI. Against this background, the paper asks whether there is anything ethically unique about brain-inspired AI. The aim of the paper is to introduce a method that has a heuristic nature and that can be applied to identify and address the ethical issues arising from brain-inspired AI (and from AI more generally). The conclusion resulting from the application of this method is that, compared to traditional AI, brain-inspired AI raises new foundational ethical issues and some new practical ethical issues, and exacerbates some of the issues raised by traditional AI. (shrink)

The science called 'harmonics' was one of the major intellectual enterprises of Greek antiquity. Ptolemy's treatise seeks to invest it with new scientific rigour; its consistently sophisticated procedural self-awareness marks it as a key text in the history of science. This book is a sustained methodological exploration of Ptolemy's project. After an analysis of his explicit pronouncements on the science's aims and the methods appropriate to it, it examines Ptolemy's conduct of his investigation in detail, concluding that despite occasional uncertainties, (...) the declared procedure is followed with remarkable fidelity. Ptolemy pursues tenaciously his novel objective of integrating closely the project's theoretical and empirical phases and shows astonishing mastery of the concept, the design and the conduct of controlled experimental tests. By opening up this neglected text to historians of science, the book aims to provide a point of departure for wider studies of Greek scientific method. (shrink)

The central theme running throughout this outstanding new survey is the nature of the philosophical debate created by modern science's foundation in experimental and mathematical method. More recently, recognition that reasoning in science is probabilistic generated intense debate about whether and how it should be constrained so as to ensure the practical certainty of the conclusions drawn. These debates brought to light issues of a philosophical nature which form the core of many scientific controversies today. _Scientific Method: A (...) Historical and Philosophical Introduction_ presents these debates through clear and comparative discussion of key figures in the history of science. Key chapters critically discuss * Galileo's demonstrative method, Bacon's inductive method, and Newton's rules of reasoning * the rise of probabilistic `Bayesian' methods in the eighteenth century * the method of hypotheses through the work of Herschel, Mill and Whewell * the conventionalist views of Poincaré and Duhem * the inductivism of Peirce, Russell and Keynes * Popper's falsification compared with Reichenbach's enumerative induction * Carnap's scientific method as Bayesian reasoning The debates are brought up to date in the final chapters by considering the ways in which ideas about method in the physical and biological sciences have affected thinking about method in the social sciences. This debate is analyzed through the ideas of key theorists such as Kuhn, Lakatos, and Feyerabend. (shrink)

Reliabilism is an intuitive and attractive view about epistemic justification. However, it has many well-known problems. I offer a novel condition on reliabilist theories of justification. This method coherence condition requires that a method be appropriately tested by appeal to a subject’s other belief-forming methods. Adding this condition to reliabilism provides a solution to epistemic circularity worries, including the bootstrapping problem.

Sir Anthony Kenny is one of the most distinguished and prolific philosophers of our time. In the wide range and historical breadth of his interests, he has influenced many parts of the philosophical landscape, especially in the philosophy of mind and the theory of human action and responsibility. In contrast to many of his contemporaries, who have played down philosophy's debt to its past, Kenny's work has always been rooted in the great tradition of Western philosophical inquiry. Mind, Method (...) and Morality celebrates Kenny's work by focusing on the four great philosophers to whom Kenny has given special attention, namely Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, and Wittgenstein. It contains sixteen essays (four on each philosopher) written by leading specialists in the relevant area. Strongly linked together by their focus on philosophy of mind, action and responsibility, the papers make a significant contribution to those areas of philosophy that Kenny has made particularly his own, and constitute a timely celebration of his work. While keeping to the highest standards of scholarship and philosophical rigour, the volume aims to be engaging and comprehensible to a wide audience, thus mirroring the clarity and accessibility that are the hallmarks of Kenny's own philosophical writings. A preface by the Editors describes Anthony Kenny's philosophical career, and the volume also includes a complete bibliography of his writings. (shrink)

Following a brief summation of the phenomenological method, the paper considers three metaethical positions adopted by phenomenologists and the implications of those positions for a normative ethics. The metaethical positions combine epistemological and ontological viewpoints. They are non-intellectualism and strong value realism as represented by the axiological views of phenomenologists such as Scheler, Meinong, Reinach, Stein, Hartmann, von Hildebrand, and Steinbock; non-intellectualism and anti-realism as represented by the freedom-centered phenomenologies of Sartre, Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty; and weak intellectualism and weak (...) value realism as represented by Husserl and Drummond. The paper argues that only the third metaethical view can support a normative ethics that is consistent with the essential features of the phenomenological method, that allows for freedom in an agent’s choosing from a multiplicity of first-order goods, including vocational goods, practical identities, and life plans, available in the agent’s factical circumstances, and that provides norms governing the correctness of our actions and our obligations to others. The normative dimension is introduced, first, by the requirement that the fulfillment of first-order evaluations and choices be truthful, that is, that the evaluations be appropriate and the actions right. Second, transcendental considerations revealed in the phenomenological analysis of intentional experience disclose a notion of second-order goods of agency that universally bind agents in their exercise of freedom and their dealings with others. (shrink)

How should we understand the method of the critique of political economy in Capital? Returning to the epistemic problem endemic to the notion of critique in Marx is essential today. The method organizes the relation between the economic analysis of exploitation and the historical analysis of expropriation central to current debates concerning Marx’s corpus. In this article, I seek to establish the significance of the epistemic problem, pointing out the gaps generated when the dialectical character of Marx’s (...) class='Hi'>method is suppressed. To this end, I consider two interpretations of Capital, one normative, exemplified by the work of Karen Ng, the other dialectical, exemplified by the work of Stephanie Smallwood. (shrink)

The general principles of the scientific method, which are applicable across all of the sciences, are essential for perspective, productivity, and innovation. These principles include deductive and inductive logic, probability, parsimony, and hypothesis testing, as well as science's presuppositions, limitations, ethics, and bold claims of rationality and truth. The implicit contrast is with specialized techniques confined to a given discipline, such as DNA sequencing in biology. Neither general principles nor specialized techniques can substitute for one another, but rather the (...) winning combination for scientists is mastery of both. The purposes of this book are to enhance perspective on science by drawing insights from the humanities, and to increase productivity by fostering a deep understanding of the general principles of scientific method. The examples and case studies span the physical, biological, and social sciences; include applications in agriculture, engineering, and medicine; and also explore science's interrelationships with disciplines in the humanities such as philosophy and law. This book engages a great diversity of viewpoints on science, both historical and contemporary, and responds by affirming science's rationality. Informed by position papers on science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Academy of Sciences, and National Science Foundation, this book aligns with a distinctively mainstream vision of science. It is an ideal resource for anyone undertaking a systematic study of scientific method for the first time, from undergraduates to professionals in both the sciences and the humanities. (shrink)

This volume explores the many different meanings of the notion of the axiomatic method, offering an insightful historical and philosophical discussion about how these notions changed over the millennia. The author, a well-known philosopher and historian of mathematics, first examines Euclid, who is considered the father of the axiomatic method, before moving onto Hilbert and Lawvere. He then presents a deep textual analysis of each writer and describes how their ideas are different and even how their ideas progressed (...) over time. Next, the book explores category theory and details how it has revolutionized the notion of the axiomatic method. It considers the question of identity/equality in mathematics as well as examines the received theories of mathematical structuralism. In the end, Rodin presents a hypothetical New Axiomatic Method, which establishes closer relationships between mathematics and physics. Lawvere's axiomatization of topos theory and Voevodsky's axiomatization of higher homotopy theory exemplify a new way of axiomatic theory building, which goes beyond the classical Hilbert-style Axiomatic Method. The new notion of Axiomatic Method that emerges in categorical logic opens new possibilities for using this method in physics and other natural sciences. This volume offers readers a coherent look at the past, present and anticipated future of the Axiomatic Method. (shrink)