Double Prevention and Mental Causation

<p>Double prevention is often mentioned in the causation literature but is not often discussed in depth. In this thesis my primary goal is to take a deep look at double prevention and evaluate one place it has been put to work. Briefly, a case of double prevention is a case where one event prevents another from preventing a third. While we have strong intuitions that such cases should be causally relevant at least, there is debate over whether they should be counted as fully causal. Sophie Gibb (2013) puts this concept to work by arguing that mental events act as double preventers to physical events. She frames this as an argument against the causal exclusion problem. I propose my own adaption of Gibb’s proposal which does not rest on the controversial premises the original does and as such has a wider appeal.</p>

Double Prevention and Mental Causation

<p>Double prevention is often mentioned in the causation literature but is not often discussed in depth. In this thesis my primary goal is to take a deep look at double prevention and evaluate one place it has been put to work. Briefly, a case of double prevention is a case where one event prevents another from preventing a third. While we have strong intuitions that such cases should be causally relevant at least, there is debate over whether they should be counted as fully causal. Sophie Gibb (2013) puts this concept to work by arguing that mental events act as double preventers to physical events. She frames this as an argument against the causal exclusion problem. I propose my own adaption of Gibb’s proposal which does not rest on the controversial premises the original does and as such has a wider appeal.</p>

Social exclusion and financial distress: evidence from Italy and Spain

This paper analyzes the phenomenon of severe material deprivation (SMD) in relation to socio-economic characteristics of Italian and Spanish households. Italy and Spain have registered very different shares of severe material deprivation (households that cannot afford a minimum acceptable way of life, which is a social exclusion problem) since the 2008–2009 economic crisis, despite having similar experiences of poverty as measured in monetary terms. The analysis divides SMD into low-severe (basic or secondary or financial deprivations), medium-severe (when household suffer of two categories of deprivation) and acute-severe (when households suffer from all deprivations) and finds many interesting features associated with these categories. For example, temporary work does not shield a household from acute SMD, especially in the south of both countries, and maximum work intensity does not protect against financial distress in Italy and the Spanish South. These findings should stimulate policymakers, as local policies are needed to alleviate social exclusion.

Heraclitus against the Naïve Paratactic Metaphysics of Mere Things

This article considers an interpretative model for the study of Heraclitus, which was first put forward by Alexander Mourelatos in 1973, and draws upon a related model put forward by Julius Moravcsik beginning in 1983. I further develop this combined model and provide a motivation for an interpretation of Heraclitus. This is also of interest for modern metaphysics due to the recurrence of structurally similar problems, including the ‘colour exclusion’ problem that was faced by Wittgenstein. Further, I employ the model to shed new light on Heraclitus’ image of the river, while relating potential readings to various contemporary metaphysical views.

Levels of Being

This chapter articulates an egalitarian ontology of levels of composition and realization that provides a foundation for the rest of the book. I reject the widespread assumption that levels form an ontological hierarchy such that some levels are more fundamental than others. On the contrary, neither wholes nor their proper parts are more fundamental; neither higher-level properties nor lower-level properties are more fundamental. Instead, higher levels are just invariant aspects of lower levels. Whole objects are invariants over additions, subtractions, and rearrangements of some parts; higher-level properties are invariant aspects of their lower-level realizers. This egalitarian ontology solves the causal exclusion problem and does justice to the special sciences—including cognitive neuroscience.

The Causal Efficacy of Consciousness

Mental causation is vitally important to the integrated information theory (IIT), which says consciousness exists since it is causally efficacious. While it might not be directly apparent, metaphysical commitments have consequential entailments concerning the causal efficacy of consciousness. Commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and the nature of causation determine which problem(s) a view of consciousness faces with respect to mental causation. Analysis of mental causation in contemporary philosophy of mind has brought several problems to the fore: the alleged lack of psychophysical laws, the causal exclusion problem, and the causal pairing problem. This article surveys the threat each problem poses to IIT based on the different metaphysical commitments IIT theorists might make. Distinctions are made between what I call reductive IIT, non-reductive IIT, and non-physicalist IIT, each of which make differing metaphysical commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and nature of causation. Subsequently, each problem pertaining to mental causation is presented and its threat, or lack thereof, to each version of IIT is considered. While the lack of psychophysical laws appears unthreatening for all versions, reductive IIT and non-reductive IIT are seriously threatened by the exclusion problem, and it is difficult to see how they could overcome it while maintaining a commitment to the causal closure principle. Yet, non-physicalist IIT denies the principle but is therefore threatened by the pairing problem, to which I have elsewhere provided a response that is briefly outlined here. This problem also threatens non-reductive IIT, but unlike non-physicalist IIT it lacks an evident response. The ultimate aim of this survey is to provide a roadmap for IIT theorists through the maze of mental causation, by clarifying which commitments lead to which problems, and how they might or might not be overcome. Such a survey can aid IIT theorists as they further develop and hone the metaphysical commitments of IIT.

An Algorithm to construct nondominated k-coteries

<p><span>One of the solution in solving k mutual exclusion problem is the concept of k-coterie. A k-coterie under a set S is a set of subsets of S or quorums such that any k + 1 quorums, there are at least two quorums intersect each other. The k mutual exclusion problern is the problem of managing processes in such a way that at most k processes can enter their critical sections simultaneously. Nondominated k-coteries are more resilient to network and site failures than doninated k-coteries; that is the availability and reliability of a distributed system is better if nondominated k-coteries are used. Algorithms to construct k-coteries have been proposed, unfortunately they have some restrictions, especially in constructing nondominated k-coteries. The restrictions are due to the combination of N, the number of nodes in a distributed system, and k, the number of processes allowed to enter their critical sections simultaneously. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an algorithm to construct nondominated k-coteries for all combination of N and k.</span></p>