53,892 research outputs found
CP violation in D meson decays: would it be a sign of new physics ?
Ascribing the large SU(3) violations in the Cabibbo forbidden decays of
neutral D mesons to the final state interactions, one gets large strong phase
differences, necessary for substantial direct CP violation. While the absolute
value of the CP violating asymmetries depend on the uncertain strength of the
penguin contribution, we predict an asymmetry for the decays into charged pions
more than twice as large and having opposite sign with respect to that for
charged kaons.Comment: 9 pages, added references, minor changes in the text, results
unchanged. Accepted for publication in Physical Review
Learning from Evaluation
{Excerpt} Evaluation serves two main purposes: accountability and learning. Development agencies have tended to prioritize the first, and given responsibility for that to centralized units. But evaluation for learning is the area where observers find the greatest need today and tomorrow.
Because the range of types (not to mention levels) of learningis broad, organizations have, from the early days, followed a division-of-labor approach to ascribing responsibility for learning. Typically, responsibility is vested in a policy (or research) unit to allow managers to focus on decision making while other organizational constituents generate information and execute plans. Without doubt, this has encouraged compartmentalization of whatever learning is generated. What is more, since organizational constituents operate in different cultures to meet different priorities, each questions the value added by the arrangement
The Effects of Scenic and Environmental Amenities on Agricultural Land Values
Ascribing land value solely to productive capacity does not accurately capture the impact environmental amenities provide on western land prices. Agricultural land prices in Wyoming are estimated using a hedonic price model and Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) data. These GIS measurements include on-parcel wildlife and fish habitat, viewscape attributes and distance to protected federal lands. A feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) approach is used to address both spatial autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity. The estimation is robust and highly significant. Results indicate that amenities as well as productivity are significant in explaining land values for the sample analyzed. Such information is useful for landscape management in the face of amenity threatening parcel fragmentation.Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,
De Se Beliefs, Self-Ascription, and Primitiveness
De se beliefs typically pose a problem for propositional theories of content. The Property Theory of content tries to overcome the problem of de se beliefs by taking properties to be the objects of our beliefs. I argue that the concept of self-ascription plays a crucial role in the Property Theory while being virtually unexplained. I then offer different possibilities of illuminating that concept and argue that the most common ones are either circular, question-begging, or epistemically problematic. Finally, I argue that only a primitive understanding of self-ascription is viable. Self-ascription is the relation that subjects stand in with respect to the properties that they believe themselves to have. As such, self-ascription has to be primitive if it is supposed to do justice to the characteristic features of de se beliefs
Epistemological Implications of Relativism
Relativists about knowledge ascriptions think that whether a particular use of a knowledge-ascribing sentence, e.g., âKeith knows that the bank is openâ is true depends on the epistemic standards at play in the assessorâs contextâviz., the context in which the knowledge ascription is being as- sessed for truth or falsity. Given that the very same knowledge-ascription can be assessed for truth or falsity from indefinitely many perspectives, relativism has a striking consequence. When I ascribe knowledge to someone (e.g., when I say that, at a particular time, âKeith knows that the bank is openâ), what Iâve said does not get a truth-value absolutely, but only relatively. If this semantic thesis about the word âknowsâ and its cognates is true, what implications would this have for epistemology, the philosophical theory of knowledge? e present aim will be to engage with this mostly unexplored question, and then to consider how the epistemological conclusions drawn might bear on the plausibility of a relativist semantics for âknowsâ
Gestalt Shifts in the Liar Or Why KT4M Is the Logic of Semantic Modalities
ABSTRACT: This chapter offers a revenge-free solution to the liar paradox (at the centre of which is the notion of Gestalt shift) and presents a formal representation of truth in, or for, a natural language like English, which proposes to show both why -- and how -- truth is coherent and how it appears to be incoherent, while preserving classical logic and most principles that some philosophers have taken to be central to the concept of truth and our use of that notion. The chapter argues that, by using a truth operator rather than truth predicate, it is possible to provide a coherent, model-theoretic representation of truth with various desirable features. After investigating what features of liar sentences are responsible for their paradoxicality, the chapter identifies the logic as the normal modal logic KT4M (= S4M). Drawing on the structure of KT4M (=S4M), the author proposes that, pace deflationism, truth has content, that the content of truth is bivalence, and that the notions of both truth and bivalence are semideterminable
Psychological Eudaimonism and Interpretation in Greek Ethics
Plato extends a bold, confident, and surprising empirical challenge. It is implicitly a claim about the psychological â more specifically motivational â economies of human beings, asserting that within each such economy there is a desire to live well. Call this claim âpsychological eudaimonismâ (âPEâ). Further, the context makes clear that Plato thinks that this desire dominates in those who have it. In other words, the desire to live well can reliably be counted on (when accompanied with correct beliefs about the role of morality or virtue in living well) to move people be virtuous.
As we will argue, this general claim appears in not only Plato but Aristotle and the Stoics as well. But it is one we might wonder about, in three ways. First, we might wonder about its warrant. After all, the claim is universal in scope; yet it is about a highly contingent fact about the motivational propensities of individual human organisms, and there is abundant variability in the individual forms human nature takes. What grounds could the ancients have for their confidence that there are no outliers (assuming, as we do, that they do not merely misspeak in framing general claims as universal ones)? Second, we might wonder about its truth. For were it true, it would entail something remarkable about the nature of rationality that we (post-)moderns would be wise to heed. And third, we might wonder about its relationship with normative eudaimonism. By ânormative eudaimonismâ (âNEâ) we mean the claim that we have conclusive reason to act in ways that conduce to our own eudaimonia.
As we will show, the key to these three questions is the first. If we consider what justification the ancients have for their claim, we can see why that claim must be true. Moreover, as we will also show, it must be true because of the nature of practical rationality as the ancients understood it â that is, in terms of normative eudaimonism. We will show this by marshalling unexpected resources: Donald Davidsonâs work in understanding how we interpret others and in so doing make sense of them as rational beings. If we couple Davidsonâs account of interpretation with the eudaimonist structure of practical rationality essential to these ancient ethical theories, psychological eudaimonism is a consequence.
The paper proceeds as follows. In Section I, we lay out the textual basis for ascribing PE to Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. In Section II, we introduce Davidsonâs account of interpretation. This allows us to appropriate that account in Section III to the particular purposes of normative eudaimonism, to support the claim that we must ascribe the desire to live well to those whom we would see as rational. Finally, in Section IV we consider challenges to this strategy
Quantum Theory: a Pragmatist Approach
While its applications have made quantum theory arguably the most successful
theory in physics, its interpretation continues to be the subject of lively
debate within the community of physicists and philosophers concerned with
conceptual foundations. This situation poses a problem for a pragmatist for
whom meaning derives from use. While disputes about how to use quantum theory
have arisen from time to time, they have typically been quickly resolved, and
consensus reached, within the relevant scientific sub-community. Yet rival
accounts of the meaning of quantum theory continue to proliferate . In this
article I offer a diagnosis of this situation and outline a pragmatist solution
to the problem it poses, leaving further details for subsequent articles
Does belief have an aim?
The hypothesis that belief aims at the truth has been used to explain three features of belief: (1) the fact that correct beliefs are true beliefs, (2) the fact that rational beliefs are supported by the evidence and (3) the fact that we cannot form beliefs `at will. I argue that the truth-aim hypothesis cannot explain any of these facts. In this respect believing differs from guessing since the hypothesis that guessing aims at the truth can explain the three analogous features of guessing. I conclude that, unlike guessing, believing is not purposive in any interesting sense
Teleology and mentalizing in the explanation of action
In empirically informed research on action explanation, philosophers and developmental psychologists have recently proposed a teleological account of the way in which we make sense of peopleâs intentional behavior. It holds that we typically donât explain an agentâs action by appealing to her mental states but by referring to the objective, publically accessible facts of the world that count in favor of performing the action so as to achieve a certain goal. Advocates of the teleological account claim that this strategy is our main way of understanding peopleâs actions. I argue that common motivations mentioned to support the teleological account are insufficient to sustain its generalization from children to adults. Moreover, social psychological studies, combined with theoretical considerations, suggest that we do not explain actions mainly by invoking publically accessible, reason-giving facts alone but by ascribing mental states to the agent
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