1,153 research outputs found
Preference purification and the inner rational agent:A critique of the conventional wisdom of behavioural welfare economics
Neoclassical economics assumes that individuals have stable and context-independent preferences, and uses preference-satisfaction as a normative criterion. By calling this assumption into question, behavioural findings cause fundamental problems for normative economics. A common response to these problems is to treat deviations from conventional rational-choice theory as mistakes, and to try to reconstruct the preferences that individuals would have acted on, had they reasoned correctly. We argue that this preference purification approach implicitly uses a dualistic model of the human being, in which an inner rational agent is trapped in an outer psychological shell. This model is psychologically and philosophically problematic
Methodological Individualism, the We-mode, and Team Reasoning
Raimo Tuomela is one of the pioneers of social action theory and has done as much as anyone over the last thirty years to advance the study of social action and collective intentionality. Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents (2013) presents the latest version of his theory and applications to a range of important social phenomena. The book covers so much ground, and so many important topics in detailed discussions, that it would impossible in a short space to do it even partial justice. In this brief note, I will concentrate on a single, though important, theme in the book, namely, the claim that we must give up methodological individualism in the social sciences and embrace instead irreducibly group notions. I wish to defend methodological individualism as up to the theoretical tasks of the social sciences while acknowledging what is distinctive about the social world and collective intentional action.
Tuomela frames the question of the adequacy of methodological individualism in terms of a contrast between what he calls the I-mode and the we-mode. He argues that we-mode phenomena are not reducible to I-mode phenomena, and concludes that we must reject methodological individualism. I will argue that the irreducibility of the we-mode to the I-mode, given how the contrast is set up, does not entail the rejection of methodological individualism. In addition, I will argue that the three conditions that Tuomela places on genuine we-mode activities, the group reason, collectivity, and collective commitment conditions, if they are understood in a way that does not beg the question, can plausibly be satisfied by a reductive account. Finally, I will argue that the specific considerations advanced in the book do not give us reason to think that a reductive account cannot be adequate to the descriptive and explanatory requirements of a theory of the social worl
Coordination when there are restricted and unrestricted options
One might expect that, in pure coordination games, coordination would become less frequent as the number of options increases. Contrary to this expectation, we report an experiment which found more frequent coordination when the option set was unrestricted than when it was restricted. To try to explain this result, we develop a method for eliciting the general rules that subjects use to identify salient options in restricted and unrestricted sets. We find that each such rule, if used by all subjects, would generate greater coordination in restricted sets. However, subjects tend to apply different rules to restricted and unrestricted sets
QUANTITATIVE NON-DESTRUCTIVE NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS OF SILVER IN COINS
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65909/1/j.1475-4754.1967.tb00617.x.pd
Proprietary Reasons and Joint Action
Some of the reasons one acts on in joint action are shared with fellow participants. But others are proprietary: reasons of oneâs own that have no direct practical significance for other participants. The compatibility of joint action with proprietary reasons serves to distinguish the former from other forms of collective agency; moreover, it is arguably a desirable feature of joint action. Advocates of âteam reasoningâ link the special collective intention individual participants have when acting together with a distinctive form of practical reasoning that purports to put individuals in touch with group or collective reasons. Such views entail the surprising conclusion that one cannot engage in joint action for proprietary reasons. Suppose we understand the contrast between minimal and robust forms of joint action in terms of the extent to which participants act on proprietary reasons as opposed to shared reasons. Then, if the team reasoning view of joint intention and action is correct, it makes no sense to talk of minimal joint action. As soon as the reason for which one participates is proprietary, then one is not, on this view, genuinely engaged in joint action
Team Reasoning and Collective Intentionality
Different versions of the idea that individualism about agency is the root of standard game theoretical puzzles have been defended by Regan 1980, Bacharach (Research in Economics 53: 117â147, 1999), Hurley (Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26: 264â265, 2003), Sugden (Philosophical Explorations 6(3):165â181, 2003), and Tuomela 2013, among others. While collectivistic game theorists like Michael Bacharach provide formal frameworks designed to avert some of the standard dilemmas, philosophers of collective action like Raimo Tuomela aim at substantive accounts of collective action that may explain how agents overcoming such social dilemmas would be motivated. This paper focuses on the conditions on collective action and intention that need to be fulfilled for Bacharachâs âteam reasoningâ to occur. Two influential approaches to collective action are related to the idea of team reasoning: Michael Bratmanâs theory of shared intention and Raimo Tuomelaâs theory of a we-mode of intending. I argue that neither captures the âagency transformationâ that team reasoning requires. That might be an acceptable conclusion for Bratman but more problematic for Tuomela, who claims that Bacharachâs results support his theory. I sketch an alternative framework in which the perspectival element that is required for team reasoning - the âwe-perspectiveâ - can be understood and functionally characterized in relation to the traditional distinction between mode and content of intentional states. I claim that the latter understanding of a collective perspective provides the right kind of philosophical background for team reasoning, and I discuss some implications in relation to Tuomelaâs assumption that switching between individual and collective perspectives can be a matter of rational choice
The Effects of Social Ties on Coordination: Conceptual Foundations for an Empirical Analysis
International audienceThis paper investigates the influence that social ties can have on behavior. After defining the concept of social ties that we consider, we introduce an original model of social ties. The impact of such ties on social preferences is studied in a coordination game with outside option. We provide a detailed game theoretical analysis of this game while considering various types of players, i.e., self-interest maximizing, inequity averse, and fair agents. In addition to these approaches that require strategic reasoning in order to reach some equilibrium, we also present an alternative hypothesis that relies on the concept of team reasoning. After having discussed the differences between the latter and our model of social ties, we show how an experiment can be designed so as to discriminate among the models presented in the paper
Racial and gender science achievement gaps in secondary education
ABSTRACT A substantial disparity exists for academic achievement in science between Black and White primary-school children. A similar gap exists between boys and girls. The extent to which secondary education influences these achievement gaps has not been established. The authors report analyses showing how these science achievement gaps change as a function of secondary education. Analyses of data from a large, nationally representative longitudinal study of academic achievement showed that racial disparities and disparities associated with gender continue to increase throughout high school
Searching for Radio Pulsars in 3EG Sources at Urumqi Observatory
Since mid-2005, a pulsar searching system has been operating at 18 cm on the
25-m radio telescope of Urumqi Observatory. Test observations on known pulsars
show that the system can perform the intended task. The prospect of using this
system to observe 3EG sources and other target searching tasks is discussed.Comment: a training project about MSc thesi
Discovery of an unrecognized nidovirus associated with granulomatous hepatitis in rainbow trout
Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is the principal species of inland-farmed fish in the Western hemisphere. Recently, we diagnosed in farmed rainbow trout a disease in which the hallmark is granulomatous-like hepatitis. No biotic agents could be isolated from lesions. Still, unbiased high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics analyses revealed the presence of a novel piscine nidovirus that we named âTrout Granulomatous Virusâ (TGV). TGV genome (28,767 nucleotides long) is predicted to encode non-structural (1a and 1 ab) and structural (S, M, and N) proteins that resemble proteins of other known piscine nidoviruses. High loads of TGV transcripts were detected by quantitative RT-PCR in diseased fish and visualized in hepatic granulomatous sites by fluorescence in situ hybridization. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed coronavirus-like particles in these lesions. Together, these analyses corroborated the association of TGV with the lesions. The identification and detection of TGV provide means to control TGV spread in trout populations
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