The aggregation of propositional attitudes: towards a general theory

How can the propositional attitudes of several individuals be aggregated into overall collective propositional attitudes? Although there are large bodies of work on the aggregation of various special kinds of propositional attitudes, such as preferences, judgments, probabilities and utilities, the aggregation of propositional attitudes is seldom studied in full generality. In this paper, we seek to contribute to filling this gap in the literature. We sketch the ingredients of a general theory of propositional attitude aggregation and prove two new theorems. Our first theorem simultaneously characterizes some prominent aggregation rules in the cases of probability, judgment and preference aggregation, including linear opinion pooling and Arrovian dictatorships. Our second theorem abstracts even further from the specific kinds of attitudes in question and describes the properties of a large class of aggregation rules applicable to a variety of belief-like attitudes. Our approach integrates some previously disconnected areas of investigation.mathematical economics;

Putting the Event in its Place: Territories, Bodies, Thresholds

The purpose of our paper is to re-conceive the event and the site of the event as a relational environment of immanence occupied by invention in its processual emergence using the work of Deleuze and Guatarri, Massumi, Simondon and Whitehead. The event is usually understood as an activity “taking place” in a bounded container—a room—explicated in terms of Euclidian geometry and a Newtonian conception of space and time. This place within absolute space expresses potential for activity where naming its purpose conditions its teleological intent and functionally defines the event it can contain. Instead, we propose a conception of the space of the event as the locus of inclusion created by neighbourhoods of relational participation as process. This allows us to understand the event as a dynamic cohesion composed of the inter-penetration of immanent co-arisings of territorialities and bodies which constitute an individuated spacetime. Territorialities are understood as active, conditioned expanses of relation that go beyond the internalism/externalism debate: they are mappings of fuzzy-bounded, gradated zones of relational intensities. Bodies (human and non-human alike) are no longer pre-constituted static entities mechanically interacting with each other; they become dynamic individuations of a reciprocal, recursive relational causality within fields of experience. At the intersection of overlapping territorializations and bodies, thresholds must be crossed for the operative-self-solidarity to take place. Thus, the event becomes an immanent, coherent whole, where the process of coming-to-being requires a spatio-temporal convergence, a contemporaneous coming together of territories and bodies within the associated milieu

Probabilistic Reasoning with Abstract Argumentation Frameworks

Abstract argumentation offers an appealing way of representing and evaluating arguments and counterarguments. This approach can be enhanced by considering probability assignments on arguments, allowing for a quantitative treatment of formal argumentation. In this paper, we regard the assignment as denoting the degree of belief that an agent has in an argument being acceptable. While there are various interpretations of this, an example is how it could be applied to a deductive argument. Here, the degree of belief that an agent has in an argument being acceptable is a combination of the degree to which it believes the premises, the claim, and the derivation of the claim from the premises. We consider constraints on these probability assignments, inspired by crisp notions from classical abstract argumentation frameworks and discuss the issue of probabilistic reasoning with abstract argumentation frameworks. Moreover, we consider the scenario when assessments on the probabilities of a subset of the arguments are given and the probabilities of the remaining arguments have to be derived, taking both the topology of the argumentation framework and principles of probabilistic reasoning into account. We generalise this scenario by also considering inconsistent assessments, i.e., assessments that contradict the topology of the argumentation framework. Building on approaches to inconsistency measurement, we present a general framework to measure the amount of conflict of these assessments and provide a method for inconsistency-tolerant reasoning

Self Organized Swarms for cluster preserving Projections of high-dimensional Data

A new approach for topographic mapping, called Swarm-Organized Projection (SOP) is presented. SOP has been inspired by swarm intelligence methods for clustering and is similar to Curvilinear Component Analysis (CCA) and SOM. In contrast to the latter the choice of critical parameters is substituted by self-organization. On several crucial benchmark data sets it is demonstrated that SOP outperforms many other projection methods. SOP produces coherent clusters even for complex entangled high dimensional cluster structures. For a nontrivial dataset on protein DNA sequence Multi Dimensional Scaling (MDS) and CCA fail to represent the clusters in the data, although the clusters are clearly defined. With SOP the correct clusters in the data could be easily detected

Universities, Knowledge Societies and Development in the 21st Century: Values, Institutions and Capacities

Given Nigeria’s present state of social anomie and normlessness, it is only fair to expect the current state of economic growth without development to persist; unless there is a radical redirection of the value system necessary to re-examine the nature and mission of the university as the primary institution that shapes the intellectual landscape, defines and conserves the values of the society

The Role of Imagination in Literary Journalism

Despite a range of scholars, media ethicists, and practitioners claiming its centrality to journalistic practice, the role of the imagination in literary journalism is somewhat ambiguous and, consequently, often misunderstood. This is arguably due to the ambivalent relationship scholars and philosophers have historically had with this powerful mental faculty and the close connection between the imagination, invention, and the writing of fiction. As this essay argues, however, invention and imagination are not synonymous; indeed, according to epistemologist Lorraine Code, reason and imagination work together to produce narrative forms that are essential for the characterization of human action. This inquiry begins with a brief historical survey of the historical developments that inform a contemporary understanding of the role of the imagination and continues by offering an initial investigation into a range of ways such an understanding can impact literary journalistic practice. Some of the areas discussed include: time, immersion, emplotment, and the relationship between knowledge and understanding. The study also suggests that the imagination has an ethical role to play in the construction of literary journalism, arguing that imaginative projection should not be thought of as a fanciful invention, but rather as an epistemological and moral exercise that recognizes the potential radical difference of experience between practitioner and subject. Thus, the exploration finds that the imagination is indeed a key component of literary journalistic practice and further proposes that practitioners and theorists alike can benefit from a deeper understanding of its role in the representation of reality

The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: Psychological versus Physical Bases for the Multiplicity of "Worlds"

This unpublished 1990 preprint argues that a crucial distinction in discussions of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (MWI) is that between versions of the interpretation positing a physical multiplicity of worlds, and those in which the multiplicity is merely psychological, and due to the splitting of consciousness upon interaction with amplified quantum superpositions. It is argued that Everett's original version of the MWI belongs to the latter class, and that most of the criticisms leveled against the MWI, in particular that it is illogical or incoherent, are not valid against such "psychological-multiplicity" versions. Attempts to derive the quantum-mechanical probabilities from the many-worlds interpretation are reviewed, and Everett's initial derivation is extended in an attempt to show that these are the unique possible probabilities. But there remains a challenge for proponents of the MWI: to show that their interpretation requires probabilities, rather than merely nonprobabilistic indeterminacy. A 2002 preface, revised in 2004, briefly discusses the extent to which I still agree with the claims in the paper. While its derivation of probabilities used, and failed to justify, noncontextuality, I still agree with the paper's general interpretation of the MWI, though not with the MWI itself