scholarly journals Degrees of Freedom: Is Good Philosophy Bad Science?

Disputatio ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (61) ◽  
pp. 73-94
Author(s):  
Timothy Williamson

Abstract The lecture starts by considering analytic philosophy as a tradition, and its global spread over recent years, of which Disputatio’s success is itself evidence. The costs and benefits of the role of English as the international language of analytic philosophy are briefly assessed. The spread of analytic philosophy is welcomed as the best hope for scientific philosophy, in a sense of ‘science’ on which mathematics, history, and philosophy can all count as sciences, though not as natural sciences. Arguably, experimental philosophy provides no plausible alternative methodology for philosophy, only a way of psychologizing it. However, it serves a useful purpose by highlighting the inadequacy of current methods for detecting errors in judgments on possible cases, which may result from reliance on possibly universal but imperfectly reliable cognitive heuristics. The problem is exacerbated by analytic philosophers’ tendency to regard increased flexibility in a theoretical framework as progress, where natural scientists would treat it as methodologically vicious profligacy with degrees of freedom. The result is a familiar type of bad science, overfitting theory to uncritically accepted data. The recent ‘hyperintensional revolution’ may be an example of such overfitting, it is suggested. The lecture ends with a call for a more miserly attitude to degrees of freedom.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-18
Author(s):  
M. A. Rodionov ◽  
I. V. Akimova

In the submitted study the problem of the formation of financial literacy of students at informatics lessons and relevant training of future informatics teachers is considered. Financial literacy is understood as a set of basic knowledge in the field of finance, banking, insurance, as well as budgeting for personal finances that allow a person to choose the right financial product or service, soberly assess and take risks that may arise during the use of these products, correctly accumulate savings and identify doubtful (fraudulent) investment schemes. The authors conclude that successful development of meaningful lines of the course of financial literacy requires integration of a few school subjects, such as mathematics, history, informatics, social science and literature. The role of modern informatics teacher in the formation of financial literacy of students is great. Therefore, in the training of a future informatics teacher, it should be paid the attention to issues related to the study of elements of financial literacy in informatics lessons. In order to solve the problem, the authors propose to use the special course “Basics of work in 1С:Enterprise”, which is implemented at Penza State University. The article contains a program of the course and the methodological recommendations for its implementation.


2007 ◽  
pp. 70-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Demidova

This article analyzes definitions and the role of hostile takeovers at the Russian and European markets for corporate control. It develops the methodology of assessing the efficiency of anti-takeover defenses adapted to the conditions of the Russian market. The paper uses the cost-benefit analysis, where the costs and benefits of the pre-bid and post-bid defenses are compared.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Andi Samsu Rijal ◽  
Andi Mega Januarti Putri

The essence of language is human activity. Communication with language is carried out through two basic human activities; speaking and listening during the interaction in a group of people. Immigrants in Makassar city communicate with immigrant communities and Makassar people. They used English and Indonesia to communicate with others. The aims of this article were to find out determinant factors of English as language choice among Unaccompanied Migrant Children (UMC) in Makassar and why they used English as their language choice to communicate with other people out of them. The data were taken from UMC in the shelter under the auspices of Makassar’s Social Office and in the public area of Makassar. This research was a qualitative approach; it was from a sociolinguistic perspective and focuses its analysis with the language choice among UMC. This research showed that most immigrants chose English as their language choice since they were in Makassar because they have acquired better than other international language and it has been mastered naturally by doing social interaction among themselves and people outside their community. UMC had more difficulties to socialize with Indonesian than the adult of Immigrants. Other than their lack of language mastery, they also have the anxiety to adapt to other immigrants and Makassar people. English was used by UMC to show their status as a foreigner who lived in a multicultural situation. Language becomes a power for a human being and it becomes a social identity for language user in one community. During the interaction of UMC in Makassar city, the role of English as an International language is shown.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Spezia ◽  
Hichem Dammak

<div> <div> <div> <p>In the present work we have investigated the possibility of using the Quantum Thermal Bath (QTB) method in molecular simulations of unimolecular dissociation processes. Notably, QTB is aimed in introducing quantum nuclear effects with a com- putational time which is basically the same as in newtonian simulations. At this end we have considered the model fragmentation of CH4 for which an analytical function is present in the literature. Moreover, based on the same model a microcanonical algorithm which monitor zero-point energy of products, and eventually modifies tra- jectories, was recently proposed. We have thus compared classical and quantum rate constant with these different models. QTB seems to correctly reproduce some quantum features, in particular the difference between classical and quantum activation energies, making it a promising method to study unimolecular fragmentation of much complex systems with molecular simulations. The role of QTB thermostat on rotational degrees of freedom is also analyzed and discussed. </p> </div> </div> </div>


Author(s):  
Jonathon W. Moses ◽  
Bjørn Letnes

This chapter considers the role of international oil companies (IOCs) as global political actors with significant economic and political power. In doing so, we weigh the ethical costs and benefits for individuals, companies, and states alike. Using the concepts of “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) and “corporate citizenship” as points of departure, we consider the extent to which international oil companies have social and political responsibilities in the countries where they operate and what the host country can do to encourage this sort of behavior. We examine the nature of anticorruption legislation in several of the sending countries (including Norway), and look closely at how the Norwegian national oil company (NOC), Statoil, has navigated these ethical waters.


Author(s):  
David M. Willumsen

The central argument of this book is that voting unity in European legislatures is not primarily the result of the ‘disciplining’ power of the leadership of parliamentary parties, but rather the result of a combination of ideological homogeneity through self-selection into political parties and the calculations of individual legislators about their own long-term benefits. Despite the central role of policy preferences in the subsequent behaviour of legislators, preferences at the level of the individual legislator have been almost entirely neglected in the study of parliaments and legislative behaviour. The book measures these using an until now under-utilized resource: parliamentary surveys. Building on these, the book develops measures of policy incentives of legislators to dissent from their parliamentary parties, and show that preference similarity amongst legislators explains a very substantial proportion of party unity, yet alone cannot explain all of it. Analysing the attitudes of legislators to the demands of party unity, and what drives these attitudes, the book argues that what explains the observed unity (beyond what preference similarity would explain) is the conscious acceptance by MPs that the long-term benefits of belonging to a united party (such as increased influence on legislation, lower transaction costs, and better chances of gaining office) outweigh the short-terms benefits of always voting for their ideal policy outcome. The book buttresses this argument through the analysis of both open-ended survey questions as well as survey questions on the costs and benefits of belonging to a political party in a legislature.


Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology. Since the 1970s, psychologists have carried out intriguing experiments testing the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, and have found a great deal of variation in categorization behaviour across individuals and cultures. During the same period, philosophers of language and mind did important work on the semantic properties of concepts, and on how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. An important motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared, across individuals and cultures. However, there was little interaction between these two research programs until recently. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. Moreover, in the last decade, philosophers have approached questions about the tension between conceptual variation and shared concepts in communication from a new perspective: that of ameliorating concepts for theoretical or for social and political purposes. The volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers working on concepts who come from these different research traditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Woo Seung Ham ◽  
Abdul-Muizz Pradipto ◽  
Kay Yakushiji ◽  
Kwangsu Kim ◽  
Sonny H. Rhim ◽  
...  

AbstractDzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI) is considered as one of the most important energies for specific chiral textures such as magnetic skyrmions. The keys of generating DMI are the absence of structural inversion symmetry and exchange energy with spin–orbit coupling. Therefore, a vast majority of research activities about DMI are mainly limited to heavy metal/ferromagnet bilayer systems, only focusing on their interfaces. Here, we report an asymmetric band formation in a superlattices (SL) which arises from inversion symmetry breaking in stacking order of atomic layers, implying the role of bulk-like contribution. Such bulk DMI is more than 300% larger than simple sum of interfacial contribution. Moreover, the asymmetric band is largely affected by strong spin–orbit coupling, showing crucial role of a heavy metal even in the non-interfacial origin of DMI. Our work provides more degrees of freedom to design chiral magnets for spintronics applications.


Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Nils Andersson

As mature neutron stars are cold (on the relevant temperature scale), one has to carefully consider the state of matter in their interior. The outer kilometre or so is expected to freeze to form an elastic crust of increasingly neutron-rich nuclei, coexisting with a superfluid neutron component, while the star’s fluid core contains a mixed superfluid/superconductor. The dynamics of the star depend heavily on the parameters associated with the different phases. The presence of superfluidity brings new degrees of freedom—in essence we are dealing with a complex multi-fluid system—and additional features: bulk rotation is supported by a dense array of quantised vortices, which introduce dissipation via mutual friction, and the motion of the superfluid is affected by the so-called entrainment effect. This brief survey provides an introduction to—along with a commentary on our current understanding of—these dynamical aspects, paying particular attention to the role of entrainment, and outlines the impact of superfluidity on neutron-star seismology.


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