Causal Non-Symmetry

2020 ◽  
pp. 344-381
Author(s):  
Paul Noordhof
Keyword(s):  
Transition Period ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Independence Condition ◽  
Asymmetric Relation ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Priority Ordering ◽  
The Way

Causation is a non-symmetric rather than asymmetric relation. Different bases of causal non-symmetry include an asymmetry of overdetermination, the independence condition, and agency. Causal non-symmetry can be rooted in one or more of these three while also recognizing a fourth non-symmetry appealing to a primitive non-symmetric chance-raising. Each counts as an appropriate basis for causal non-symmetry because it is a (partial) realization of non-symmetric chance-raising. Key moves involve a refinement of how to understand the way in which the asymmetry of overdetermination works, and how it interacts with the revised similarity weighting, the contribution of the independence condition to a proper understanding of the transition period, the role that appeals to primitive non-symmetric chance-raising should play in the treatment of problem cases, the circumstances in which an appeal to an interlevel non-symmetry of agency may be appropriate, and the priority ordering of these various realizations of causal non-symmetry.

May could face UK leadership challenge in October

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Transition Period ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
General Election ◽  
Election Outcome ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Election Manifesto ◽  
The Way

Significance This occasion came almost two weeks after a general election outcome that, to near universal surprise, saw the Conservative Party not only fail to achieve the substantial increase in its parliamentary majority that had been widely anticipated, but lose seats and hence become a minority administration dependent on the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) for certainty in office. All of this turbulence has coincided with the formal start of the Brexit negotiations. Impacts The government’s agenda over the next two years will be dominated by measures related to the implementation of Brexit. Most of the more controversial proposals outlined in the Conservative election manifesto have been sidelined. The current parliament may not last all the way through a likely transition period of 2-3 years after Brexit. May’s weakness limits her ability to make concessions in Brussels and a chaotic ‘cliff-edge’ Brexit has become more likely.

DEATH

Think ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (35) ◽  
pp. 101-108
Author(s):  
Clement Dore
Keyword(s):  
Derek Parfit ◽  
Thomas Nagel ◽  
Rational Person ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
The Way

In the final chapter of his book, The View from Nowhere, the American philosopher, Thomas Nagel, writes as follows about death:We do not regard the period before we were born in the same way we regard the prospect of death, yet most of the things that can be said about death are equally true of the former. Lucretius thought this showed that it was a mistake to regard death as an evil. But I believe it is an example of a more general future-past asymmetry... [Derek] Parfit has explored the asymmetry in connection with other values such as... pain. The fact that a pain (of ours) is in prospect rather than in the past has a very great effect on our attitude toward it, and this effect cannot be regarded as irrational... [the former asymmetry] can't be accounted for in terms of some other difference between past and future nonexistence, any more than the asymmetry in the case of pain can be accounted for in terms of some other differences between past and future pains, which makes the latter worse than the former.Nagel is maintaining in this quote that it is rational for a person to view pains which he is apt to experience in the future in a manner different from the way in which he views pains which he has experienced in the past. Nagel is saying that it is rational for a person to think of his future pains as more undesirable than his past ones. And Nagel claims that there is a similar asymmetry between a rational person's attitude towards a past in which he did not exist and a time in the future when he will not exist. In Nagel's view, just as a rational person will think of pains which he will experience as more undesirable than pains which he had in the past, he will think of his not existing in the future as much more undesirable than his not having existed in the past.

‘Book-Ends’: Statius Silvae 2.1 and 2.7

Ramus ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-77
Author(s):  
Carole Newlands
Keyword(s):  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
The Social ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Critical Literature ◽  
The Way

My purpose in this article is straightforward, to counter some misconceptions about two of Statius' poems,Silu.2.1, his consolatory poem for the death of the twelve-year old Glaucias, andSilu.2.7, his consolatory poem for the death of the poet Lucan. These are the first and last poems of Book 2. Poems of lament and consolation constitute the majority of the poems of Statius'Siluae. Yet these poems have been generally dismissed as wearisomely rhetorical and have been largely overlooked in the critical literature aboutconsolationesas they endorse lamentation, elaborate upon it, and thus run counter to philosophical strictures against overt grief. Issues of class also surely play a role in their dismissal as trivial poems. Unlike Augustan poems of lament—for instance Ovid's poem on the death of Tibullus—two of the poems in Book 2 mourn a child of low birth and a young slave (Silu.2.1 andSilu.2.6). A proper understanding of the social occasions and circumstances in whichSilu.2.1 andSilu.2.7 are embedded, however, will show that they can offer valuable insight into contemporary Flavian society. Such an understanding moreover can point the way to a freshliteraryappreciation of these poems, although that is not the chief aim of this article.

scholarly journals An Arabo-Islamic Lexicon of Russian Academic Islamic Studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 34-66
Author(s):  
Stanislav M. Prozorov
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Russian Translation ◽  
Professional Knowledge ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
Introductory Part ◽  
The Way

The structure of the proposed publication: The introductory part, were the author examines the necessity of the unification of Arab-Islamic terminology in Russian Academic Islamic studies as a step on the way to the proper understanding and translation of Arab-Islamic lexicon and as a measure contributing to the improvement of professional knowledge of Islam. Two subject-matter parts contain a database of Arab-Islamic vocabulary, prepared on the basis of the contents of original Arab-Islamic sources and presented in the form of two tables, in which the selected terminology is presented in Arabic script, Cyrillic alphabet and Latin transliteration, with an appended Russian translation.

scholarly journals Adam Thirlwell’s Kapow! – the Montage Book

2019 ◽  
Vol X (28) ◽  
pp. 27-44
Author(s):  
Andreia-Irina Suciu ◽  
Mihaela Culea
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Work ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Book Reading ◽  
Reading Habits ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Contemporary Writers ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
The Way ◽  
Ergodic Literature

In the context of new times, new types of writing are created in order to meet the demands and wishes of the contemporary public. Printed books make no exception especially given that the reading of (especially printed) books has declined, despite variable statistics over the years. The book reading habits have thus decreased, so making printed books attractive to readers has been a matter of concern for contemporary writers like Adam Thirlwell, as illustrated in his novella Kapow! (2012). In line with the contemporary mind-set of revolutionizing the way in which narrative is presented and the technique in which it is composed, Thirlwell plays with readers’ conceptions and expectations about literary texts, producing a highly experimental work. Along with the montage/collage technique, which will be discussed in the present paper, such concepts as ergodicity, autofiction, metatextuality, paratextuality, metamodernism or altermodernism are central to a proper understanding of how Thirlwell’s novella works and represent highlights of the exploratory undertaking of this article. Keywords: ergodic literature; metamodernism; altermodernist fiction; contemporary autofiction; revolution of the text; intra-notes; collage/montage.

scholarly journals Seguir regras e significado: o argumento cético-semântico revisitado

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-173
Author(s):  
Vinicius De Faria dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Skeptical Paradox ◽  
Proper Response ◽  
The Way

No presente artigo proponho-me a reconstruir, o mais claramente possível o “paradoxo cético” a partir do modo como apresentado por Saul Kripke em seu Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982). Seu argumento sustenta que não há fatos ou razões que justifiquem nosso emprego de termos como dotados de significados. Para tanto, interponho as distinções que julgo pertinentes à adequada compreensão do tema, formulando os requisitos necessários à sua adequada resposta, a saber, o ontológico, o normativo e o da identificação extensional no tempo. Ao final, contrasto o ceticismo ora objeto de análise com sua versão epistemológica clássica. AbstractIn the present paper I propose to rebuild as clearly as possible the “skeptical paradox” from the way presented by Saul Kripke in his Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982). His argument maintains that there are no facts or reasons justifying our use of terms as having meaning. Therefore, I interpose the distinctions that I consider relevant to the proper understanding of the subject and I formulate the requirements necessary for its proper response, namely the ontological, the normative and the extensional identification in time. Finally, I contrast semantic skepticism with its classical epistemological version.

Fallen Patriots

Eternal Dawn ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 17-61
Author(s):  
Ryan Gingeras
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Early History ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Young Turks ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

No appreciation for the early history of the Turkish Republic can begin without a proper understanding of the origins, desires, and tribulations of the Young Turks. Their era by no means constituted a mere placeholder or prologue to the dramatic events that occurred thereafter. Turkey, as it came to be defined philosophically, was the unintended offspring of this movement. The most profound attributes of Atatürk’s state, its thirst for radical social change, its predilection for chauvinistic nationalism, and its oligarchic structure, descended directly from the Committee of Union and Progress’ approach towards politics. Ultimately, their displacement from the imperial stage allowed for Mustafa Kemal to rise to prominence and paved the way for an altogether new regime.

‘Removing the Barriers’: Mary Midgley on Concern for Animals

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 249-262
Author(s):  
David E. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Animal Science ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Science Epistemology ◽  
Mary Midgley ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis paper focuses on Mary Midgley's influential discussions, over more than thirty years, of the relationship between human beings and animals, in particular on her concern to ‘remove the barriers’ that stand in the way of proper understanding and treatment of animals. These barriers, she demonstrates, have been erected by animal science, epistemology and mainstream moral philosophy alike. In each case, she argues, our attitudes to animals are warped by approaches that are at once excessively abstract, over-theoretical and guilty of a collective hubris on the part of humankind. In keeping with Midgley's own position, it is argued in this paper that, to remove these barriers, what is required is not yet another theory of how and why animals matter, but attention to actual engagements with animals and to the moral failings or vices that distort people's relationships with them.

Philosophical connections between the classical and the modern notion of corruption

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-100
Author(s):  
Michel Dion
Keyword(s):  
Transition Period ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
The Body ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Conditioning Factors ◽  
Classical Notion ◽  
Historical Periods ◽  
The Way

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to circumscribe the various philosophical connections between the classical and the modern notion of corruption from Enlightenment to post-modernity. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyzed to what extent the classical notion of corruption (Plato, Aristotle and Cicero) still influenced the way philosophers perceived the phenomenon of corruption during the Enlightenment (1625-1832), the transition period (1833-1900) and the post-modernity (1901 onward). Taking those historical periods as reference points, the author will see how literature about historical, social and political conditioning factors of corruption could convey the presence/absence of the classical or the modern notion of corruption. Findings The paper finds that the classical notion of corruption implies the degeneration of human relationships (Plato and Hegel), the degeneration of the body-and-mind unity (Aristotle, Pascal and Thomas Mann) or the degeneration of collective morality (Cicero, Locke, Rousseau, Hume and Kant). The modern notion of corruption as bribery was mainly introduced by Adam Smith. Nietzsche (and Musil) looked at corruption as degeneration of the will-to-power. The classical notion of corruption put the emphasis on the effects rather than on the cause itself (effects-based thinking). The modern notion of corruption as bribery insists on the cause rather than on the effects (cause-based thinking). Research limitations/implications In this paper, the author has taken into account the main representatives of the three historical periods. Future research could also analyze the works of other philosophers and novelists to see to what extent their philosophical and literary works are unveiling the classical or the modern notion of corruption. Originality/value The paper presents a philosophical and historical perspective about corruption. It sheds light on the way philosophers (and sometimes novelists) deal with the issue of corruption, whether it is from an effects-based or from a cause-based perspective.

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