A Computational Theory of Subjective Probability

In this article we demonstrate how algorithmic probability theory is applied to situations that involve uncertainty. When people are unsure of their model of reality, then the outcome they observe will cause them to update their beliefs. We argue that classical probability cannot be applied in such cases, and that subjective probability must instead be used. In Experiment 1 we show that, when judging the probability of lottery number sequences, people apply subjective rather than classical probability. In Experiment 2 we examine the conjunction fallacy and demonstrate that the materials used by Tversky and Kahneman (1983) involve model uncertainty. We then provide a formal mathematical proof that, for every uncertain model, there exists a conjunction of outcomes which is more subjectively probable than either of its constituents in isolation.Comment: Maguire, P., Moser, P. Maguire, R. & Keane, M.T. (2013) "A computational theory of subjective probability." In M. Knauff, M. Pauen, N. Sebanz, & I. Wachsmuth (Eds.), Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 960-965). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Societ

Socialists, Savages and Hydroelectric Schemes: A Historical Anthropological Account of the Construction of Ardnacrusha.

During the summer of 1995, I began to conduct research in the Lower Shannon region. In particular, I was interested in investigating the famed hydroelectric works at Ardnacrusha. However, getting information on the Dam proved to be difficult. With some persistence, and more than a little luck, I secured a personal tour of the facility. My guide was a local man named Seán Craig who had risen to managerial level “on the Scheme.” Seán’s circuitous route to management inspired wonderful anecdotes and insights into the institution’s insular class system, from senior management to the more-or-less blue-collar local workforce. I mentioned to him that I had been finding it difficult to get information on Ardnacrusha. He suggested that “the foreign tourists have seen better,” and as for domestic school tours: “Ardnacrusha is no Disneyland.” Seán added that the institution was “going semi-automatic” in the next couple of years, shedding more than half its workforce and echoing global trends of postindustrial labour flexibility. I asked whether there was any chance of closure and he replied, in a mystical tone, “Ardnacrusha will keep going.

Constructing Culture in the West of Ireland: Representations of Identity in Text and Space

This article considers the apparent homogenisation of cultures. Contrary to this view, I focus on the incorporation of novel circumstances into existing structures in a small Irish fishing community displaced by modernity. One cannot consider them as separately structured, however. I use Foucauldian analysis to suggest that modernity, in repressing separateness, may also be productive of it

Emergent Issues in Ethnic Youth Studies: A Historical and Ethnographic Study of the Vietnamese- Irish Experience

This article traces the history of the Vietnamese-Irish minority ethnic community from their initial resettlement to the present day. Attention is paid to the structural dimensions of resettlement and the pattern of integration that emerged. The central focus is the second and third-generation Vietnamese-Irish. Through an analysis of schooling, family, identity and work/home life I suggest what life is like for minority young people in this context.However, the article aims beyond the specifics of the case study.The broader question is: what can we learn about ethnic minority youth issues in Ireland today through a close, longitudinal and ethnographic exploration of the Vietnamese-Irish example

The Space of the Nation: History, Culture and Conflict in Modern Ireland

Abstract included in tex

New Questions of Evidence: Comment on Shore and Wright's 'Audit Culture Revisited: Rankings, Ratings, and the Reassembling of Society'

In 2012, an Irish magazine introduced the Dublin-based director of “government services” at one of the Big Four auditing firms. The executive spoke from expertise in organizational change: transparency and efficiency would inevitably flow, he explained, from reengineering state institutions to be measurably customer focused according to best practice. The magazine provided another update on the quiet revolution that Shore and Wright have tracked for more than a decade—the relentless rise of audit culture

Global and EU Security: A Forum Essay

When I look at social anthropology today, from the perspective of my own research on security, I see extraordinary potential. I see the intellectual richness of anthropology informing scholarship and activism, and I see the methodological and ethical challenges that we need to face in order to realise this potential. The ‘bleeding edge’ topic of security brings a lot into sharp focus. Today, security discourses and practices abound, provoking French philosopher Frédéric Gros to proclaim ours as the age of security

Constructing Culture in the West of Ireland: Representations of Identity in Text and Space

This article considers the apparent homogenisation of cultures. Contrary to this view, I focus on the incorporation of novel circumstances into existing structures in a small Irish fishing community displaced by modernity. One cannot consider them as separately structured, however. I use Foucauldian analysis to suggest that modernity, in repressing separateness, may also be productive of it

On the Other Side of the Hyphen: Vietnamese-Irish Identity

In August 1979 the first of a small number of refugees from Vietnam arrived in Dublin. They came to Ireland via camps in Hong Kong and Malaysia with harrowing tales of escape and of long periods of travel across the South China Sea. These were the so-called ‘Boat People’, whose plight was captured in newspaper headlines from the late 1970s onwards. Those who came to Ireland—some 212 persons in the first instance—were invited to do so by the Irish Government. Religious and non-governmental organisations carried out much of the resettlement work, however. The majority of the refugees were dispersed to a variety of locations throughout Ireland, from Tralee and Portlaoise to Cork City. In the early 1980s most re-migrated to Dublin. This is the story of the Vietnamese-Irish, of takeaway businesses, achievement in education, family, diaspora and identity. Much of this story is told in the words and through the eyes of the people themselves. What emerges is an ethnographic portrait of a minority confronting its own identity in a fastchanging Irish society. This thesis is an exploration of Vietnamese-Irish identity. In order to explore identity for this small, yet heterogeneous and widely dispersed minority, my emphasis has been on a number of ‘sites’, such as education, work and homes. Theoretically, I explore spatial dimensions of identity in detail, as well as arguing against current approaches to migration and minority life in Ireland

Limits in Wittgenstein and in Anthropology: comment on Nigel Rapport's 'Anthropology through Levinas: Knowing the Uniqueness of Ego and the Mystery of Otherness'

Nigel Rapport must be congratulated for this sophisticated essay on the nature of the pre- or nontextual sphere of human life. He challenges a long intellectual arc in which the symbolic and language-based dimensions of collective life have been foregrounded and treated as determining at the expense of self-conscious, reflexive persons. He does not, however, erect a straw anthropological man fashioned out of discursive determinism; rather, it is a version of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy that he attacks. And his theoretical concerns fold into questions about writing: he uses Stirner and Levinas contra Wittgenstein to attend to a richness and beauty in human life that have often been left unattended