Fuzzy Logic and Corporate Governance Theories

[Excerpt] “Fuzzy logic is a theory that categorizes concepts or things belonging to more than one group. A methodology that explains how things function in multiple groups (not fully in one group or another) offers advantages when no one definition or membership in a group accounts for belonging to multiple groups. The principal/agent model of corporate governance has some characteristics of fuzzy logic theory. Under traditional agency theory of corporate governance, shareholders, directors, and senior corporate officers each belong to groups having multiple attributes. In the principal/agent model of corporate governance, shareholders are owners or principals; directors are shareholders and agents of the corporation; and senior corporate officers are directors’ agents, shareholders’ agents, and agents of the corporation. Each one functions within multiple groups serving multiple agency roles, and each owes fiduciary duties that vary depending on whose agent they are functioning as. Such a multi-dimensional role for corporate actors is a consequence of multi-definitional corporate purpose within agency theory of governance. This multi-dimensional group membership is not easily reconciled within agency theory and is therefore not always explained. However, traditional corporate governance theory can borrow another basic tenet of fuzzy logic theory. Fuzzy theory not only accounts for membership in multiple groups, but also explains how things work because they are multidimensional or ambiguous. This article seeks to explain the ambiguities of corporate governance theory and suggests a framework that accounts for the multi-agent role of senior corporate officers of public companies. It offers a kind of fuzzy logic theory for understanding the fiduciary duties of senior officers. The purpose of this article is to evaluate other models of corporate governance that account for the multi-agent role of senior officers of public companies and assess the ability of various models to hold senior officers accountable to the corporation.

On the axiomatisation of Elgesem's logic of agency and ability

In this paper we show that the Hilbert system of agency and ability presented by Dag Elgesem is incomplete with respect to the intended semantics. We argue that completeness result may be easily regained. Finally, we shortly discuss some issues related to the philosophical intuition behind his approach. This is done by examining Elgesem's modal logic of agency and ability using semantics with different flavours

Reasoning about coalitional agency and ability in the logics of "bringing-it-about"

The logics of "bringing-it-about" have been part of a prominent tradition for the formalization of individual and institutional agency. They are the logics to talk about what states of affairs an acting entity brings about while abstracting away from the means of action. Elgesem\u27s proposal analyzes the agency of individual agents as the goal-directed manifestation of an individual ability. It has become an authoritative modern reference. The first contribution of this paper is to extend Elgesem\u27s logic of individual agency and ability to coalitions. We present a general theory and later propose several possible specializations. As a second contribution, we offer algorithms to reason with the logics of bringing-it-about and we analyze their computational complexity

Dynamic agent safety logic : theory and applications

Modal logic is a family of logics for reasoning about relational structures, broadly construed. It sits at the nexus of philosophy, mathematics, software engineering, and economics. By modeling a target domain as a relational structure, one can define a modal logic for reasoning about its properties. Common examples include modal logics for knowledge, belief, time, program execution, mathematical provability, and ethics. This thesis presents a modal logic that combines several modalities in order to reason about realistic human-like agents. We combine knowledge, belief, action, and safe action, which we call Dynamic Agent Safety Logic, or DASL. We distinguish DASL from other modal logics treating similar topics by arguing that the standard models of human agency are not adequate. We present some criteria a logic of agency should strive to achieve, and then compare how related logics fare. We use the Coq interactive theorem prover to mechanically prove soundness and completeness results for the logic, as well as apply it to case studies in the domain of aviation safety, demonstrating its ability to model realistic, minimally rational agents. Finally, we examine the consequences of modeling agents capable of a certain sort of self-reflection. Such agents face a formal difficulty due to Lob's Theorem, called Lob's Obstacle in the literature. We show how DASL can be relaxed to avoid Lob's Obstacle, while the other modal logics of agency cannot easily do so.Includes bibliographical reference

Agential Obligation as Non-Agential Personal Obligation plus Agency

I explore various ways of integrating the framework for predeterminism, agency, and ability in[P.McNamara, Nordic J. Philos. Logic 5 (2)(2000) 135] with a framework for obligations. However,the agential obligation operator explored here is defined in terms of a non-agential yet personal obligation operator and a non-deontic (and non-normal) agency operator. This is contrary to the main current trend, which assumes statements of personal obligation always take agential complements. Instead, I take the basic form to be an agent’s being obligated to be such that p. I sketch some logics for agential obligation based on personal obligation and agency, first in a fairly familiar context that rules out conflicting personal obligations (and derivatively, conflicting agential obligations), and then in contexts that do allow for conflicts (of both sorts)

On the relationship between playing rationally and knowing how to play: a logical account

Modal logics of strategic ability usually focus on capturing what it means for an agent to have a feasible strategy that brings about some property. While there is a general agreement on abilities in scenarios where agents have perfect information, the right semantics for ability under incomplete information is still debated upon. Epistemic Temporal Strategic Logic, an offspring of this debate, can be treated as a logic that captures properties of agents’ rational play. In this paper, we provide a semantics of ETSL that is more compact and comprehensible than the one presented in the original paper by van Otterloo and Jonker. Second, we use ETSL to show that a rational player knows that he will succeed if, and only if, he knows how to play to succeed while the same is not true for rational coalitions of players. Keywords: multi-agent systems, theories of agency, game-theoretical foundations, modal logic

FIVE STEPS TO RESPONSIBILITY

Responsibility has entered the academic discourse of logicians hardly more than few decades ago. I suggest a logical concept of responsibility which employs ideas both from a number of theories belonging to different branches of logic as well from other academic areas. As a comment to this concept, I suggest five steps narrative scenario in order to show how the logical dimension of responsibility emerges from diverse tendencies in logic and other sciences. Here are the five steps briefly stated: Step 1. Developing modal formalisms capable of evaluative analysis of situations (deontic, epistemic and etc.). Step 2. Drawing a conceptual borderline between normal and non-normal (weak) logical systems. Step 3. Using different kinds of models. Step 4. Agent- and action- friendly turn in logic. Step 5. Creating formalisms for modeling different types of agency. An idea advocated here within 5-Steps route to responsibility is that this concept is a complex causal and evaluative (axiological) relation. A logical account may be given for causal and normative aspects of this relation. Unfolding the responsibility back and forth through 5 Steps will result in different concepts. The technicalities are minimized for the sake of keeping the philosophical scope of the paper. For the same reason I also refrain from discussing legal and juridical ramifications of the issue

A method for rigorous design of reconfigurable systems

Reconfigurability, understood as the ability of a system to behave differently in different modes of operation and commute between them along its lifetime, is a cross-cutting concern in modern Software Engineering. This paper introduces a specification method for reconfigurable software based on a global transition structure to capture the system's reconfiguration space, and a local specification of each operation mode in whatever logic (equational, first-order, partial, fuzzy, probabilistic, etc.) is found expressive enough for handling its requirements. In the method these two levels are not only made explicit and juxtaposed, but formally interrelated. The key to achieve such a goal is a systematic process of hybridisation of logics through which the relationship between the local and global levels of a specification becomes internalised in the logic itself.This work is financed by the ERDF – European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation – COMPETE 2020 Programme and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016692 and UID/MAT/04106/2013. The first author is further supported by the BPD FCT Grant SFRH/BPD/103004/2014, and R. Neves is sponsored by FCT Grant SFRH/BD/52234/2013. M.A. Martins is also funded by the EU FP7 Marie Curie PIRSESGA-2012-318986 project GeTFun: Generalizing Truth-Functionality

Towards a Theory of Teacher Agency: Conceptualizing the Political Positions and Possibilities of Teacher Movements

In response to a need for increased engagement given the #RedForEd movement, this article draws upon my experience as an organizer and participant in the recent wave of teacher activism to provide implications for theories of teacher agency and political transformation. First, I conceptualize the Arizona #RedForEd movement’s unique position beyond the state’s logics of political power, considering the possibilities that such a position created for teacher-activists in Arizona. I then confront the decreasing power of the movement in order to demonstrate the need for increased theorizations of the reflexive capacities of institutionalized power structures to sustain oppositional education social movements. I consider the recent history of the RedForEd movement with the hope of forwarding renewed considerations of political transformation, power, and teacher agency, which can inform movements that challenge the hegemonic limits placed upon social-justice-oriented movement work

Pointwise intersection in neighbourhood modal logic

We study the logic of neighbourhood models with pointwise intersection, as a means to characterize multi-modal logics. Pointwise intersection takes us from a set of neighbourhood sets $\mathcal{N}_i$ (one for each member $i$ of a set $G$, used to interpret the modality $\square_i$) to a new neighbourhood set $\mathcal{N}_G$, which in turn allows us to interpret the operator $\square_G$. Here, $X$ is in the neighbourhood for $G$ if and only if $X$ equals the intersection of some $\mathcal{Y} = \{Y_i \mid i\in G\}$. We show that the notion of pointwise intersection has various applications in epistemic and doxastic logic, deontic logic, coalition logic, and evidence logic. We then establish sound and strongly complete axiomatizations for the weakest logic characterized by pointwise intersection and for a number of variants, using a new and generally applicable technique for canonical model construction.Comment: Submitted to Advances in Modal Logic 201