Predication and Immanence: Anaxagoras, Plato, Eudoxus, and Aristotle

A theory of predication invokes immanence if it explains why snow is white by introducing something that is in snow that accounts for its being white. Aristotle\u27s theory of predication in the Categories is partly immanentist, see Cat. 2, 1a24-25. My object here is to shed some indirect light on this passage. I suggest that the comment is a disclaimer responding to an immanentist theory of predication under discussion in the Academy, according to which the something that is immanent in snow that makes it white is a physical ingredient. This theory was an idea of Eudoxus\u27. Aristotle was sympathetic to the position, and his own sounded a lot like it, but his was not that position, and so it was important to distance himself from it

Reminiscences of the Civil War

Life reminiscences of James M. Dancy, who first saw the light of day at Buena Vista on the east bank of the St. Johns River, on the 15 day of January, 1845; son of Francis L. and Florida F. Dancy; now at this date [June 30, 1933] eighty-eight and one-half years of age, writing this without glasses

Towards a physio-cognitive model of the exploration exploitation trade-off.

Managing the exploration vs exploitation trade-off is an important part of our everyday lives. It occurs in minor decisions such as choosing what music to listen to as well as major decisions, such as picking a research direction to pursue. The dilemma is the same despite the context: does one exploit the environment, using current knowledge to acquire a satisfactory solution, or explore other options and potentially find a better answer. An accurate cognitive model must be able to handle this trade-off because of the importance it plays in our lives. We are developing physio-cognitive models to better understand how physiological and cognitive processes interact to mediate decisions to explore or exploit. To accomplish this, we utilize the ACT-R/Φ hybrid architecture (Dancy, 2013; Dancy et al., 2015) and the Project Malmo AI platform (Johnson et al., 2016)

Simulating Human-AI Collaboration with ACT-R and Project Malmo

We use the ACT-R cognitive architecture (Anderson, 2007) to explore human-AI collaboration. Computational models of human and AI behavior, and their interaction, allow for more effective development of collaborative artificial intelligent agents. With these computational models and simulations, one may be better equipped to predict the situations in which certain classes of intelligent agents may be more suited to collaborate with people. One can more tractably understand and predict how different AI agents affect task behavior in these situations. To simulate human-AI collaboration, we are developing ACT-R models that work with more traditional AI agents to solve a task in Project Malmo (Johnson et al., 2016). We use existing AI agents that were originally developed as the AI portion of the Human-AI collaboration. In addition, creating a model in ACT-R to simulate human behavior gives us the opportunity to play out these interactions much faster than would be possible in real time

ethical reasons and political commitment

Political commitments to resist oppression play a central role in the moral lives of many people. Such commitments are also a source of ethical reasons. They influence and organize ethical beliefs, emotions and reasons in an ongoing way. Political commitments to address oppression often contain a concern for the dignity and well-being of others and the objects of political commitments often have value, according to ideal moral theories, such as Kantian and utilitarian theory. However, ideal moral theories do not fully explain the ethical reasons political commitments engender. First, ideal moral theories do not explain the normative priority that agents give to politically committed ethical reasons. Their profound effect on a politically committed agent’s ethical deliberation and choice and the precedence they are given over other ends cannot be wholly understood through the moral obligations within ideal theories. Second, although politically committed reasons are valuable in ideal theory for the benefits they bring to others, they are not fungible with other reasons ideal theory would regard as having equal ethical value. A person might substitute another beneficial humanitarian aim for that to which she is politically committed and nevertheless regard herself as having done a morally wrong thing for failing or betraying her commitment. Politically committed ethical reasons are also motivated and informed by the social location of agents and their relationship to structures of oppression. Although there are universal ethical reasons to oppose oppression, this means that some of a person’s actual ethical reasons will be irreducibly particular

An argument for the use of Aristotelian method in bioethics

The main claim of this paper is that the method outlined and used in Aristotle's Ethics is an appropriate and credible one to use in bioethics. Here “appropriate” means that the method is capable of establishing claims and developing concepts in bioethics and “credible” that the method has some plausibility, it is not open to obvious and immediate objection. It begins by suggesting why this claim matters and then gives a brief outline of Aristotle's method. The main argument is made in three stages. First, it is argued that Aristotelian method is credible because it compares favourably with alternatives. In this section it is shown that Aristotelian method is not vulnerable to criticisms that are made both of methods that give a primary place to moral theory (such as utilitarianism) and those that eschew moral theory (such as casuistry and social science approaches). As such, it compares favourably with these other approaches that are vulnerable to at least some of these criticisms. Second, the appropriateness of Aristotelian method is indicated through outlining how it would deal with a particular case. Finally, it is argued that the success of Aristotle's philosophy is suggestive of both the credibility and appropriateness of his method.</p

Affective Experience, Desire, and Reasons for Action

What is the role of affective experience in explaining how our desires provide us with reasons for action? When we desire that p, we are thereby disposed to feel attracted to the prospect that p, or to feel averse to the prospect that not-p. In this paper, we argue that affective experiences – including feelings of attraction and aversion – provide us with reasons for action in virtue of their phenomenal character. Moreover, we argue that desires provide us with reasons for action only insofar as they are dispositions to have affective experiences. On this account, affective experience has a central role to play in explaining how desires provide reasons for action

Economics, Agency, and Causal Explanation

The paper considers three questions. First, what is the connection between economics and agency? It is argued that causation and explanation in economics fundamentally depend on agency. So a philosophical understanding of economic explanation must be sensitive to an understanding of agency. Second, what is the connection between agency and causation? A causal view of agency-involving explanation is defended against a number of arguments from the resurgent noncausalist tradition in the literature on agency and action-explanation. If agency is fundamental to economic explanation, it is argued, then so is causation. Third, what is the connection between causal explanation and the natural sciences? It is argued that, though the explanations given in economics and other social sciences are causal explanations, they are different in kind from the causal explanations of the natural sciences. On the one hand, then, the causal explanations of the social sciences are irreducible to those found in the natural sciences. On the other hand, the causal relations described by the social sciences are not completely autonomous; they do not float free of, or operate independently from, the causal relations charted by the natural sciences

Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics

In this manuscript, I introduce and describe the work of mathematicians and mathematics educators in the group Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics (TPSE Math or TPSE, pronounced "tipsy", for short). TPSE aims to coordinate and drive constructive change in education in the mathematical sciences at two-year colleges, four-year colleges, and universities across the nation. It seeks to build on the successes of the entire mathematical sciences community. This manuscript reviews the events that led to the founding of TPSE Math and articulates its vision and mission. In its first phase with national events, TPSE found broad consensus with the mathematical sciences community on the challenges facing the community. Learning from educational transformations experiences in other scientific fields, and with the support of the Mathematical Advisory Group of 34 mathematical sciences department chairs and leaders, TPSE moves into a second phase focused on action. This is a snapshot in time, and TPSE's ongoing activities will continue to be documented and disseminated. The piece concludes with a reflection of the impact that my involvement in this work has had on my career.Comment: 17 page