Download or read book Essays on Paradoxes written by Terry Horgan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together many of Terence Horgan's essays on paradoxes: Newcomb's problem, the Monty Hall problem, the two-envelope paradox, the sorites paradox, and the Sleeping Beauty problem. Newcomb's problem arises because the ordinary concept of practical rationality constitutively includes normative standards that can sometimes come into direct conflict with one another. The Monty Hall problem reveals that sometimes the higher-order fact of one's having reliably received pertinent new first-order information constitutes stronger pertinent new information than does the new first-order information itself. The two-envelope paradox reveals that epistemic-probability contexts are weakly hyper-intensional; that therefore, non-zero epistemic probabilities sometimes accrue to epistemic possibilities that are not metaphysical possibilities; that therefore, the available acts in a given decision problem sometimes can simultaneously possess several different kinds of non-standard expected utility that rank the acts incompatibly. The sorites paradox reveals that a certain kind of logical incoherence is inherent to vagueness, and that therefore, ontological vagueness is impossible. The Sleeping Beauty problem reveals that some questions of probability are properly answered using a generalized variant of standard conditionalization that is applicable to essentially indexical self-locational possibilities, and deploys "preliminary" probabilities of such possibilities that are not prior probabilities. The volume also includes three new essays: one on Newcomb's problem, one on the Sleeping Beauty problem, and an essay on epistemic probability that articulates and motivates a number of novel claims about epistemic probability that Horgan has come to espouse in the course of his writings on paradoxes. A common theme unifying these essays is that philosophically interesting paradoxes typically resist either easy solutions or solutions that are formally/mathematically highly technical. Another unifying theme is that such paradoxes often have deep-sometimes disturbing-philosophical morals.
Download or read book Moore s Paradox written by Mitchell S. Green and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2007-01-11 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: G. E. Moore famously observed that to assert, 'I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don't believe that I did' would be 'absurd'. Moore calls it a 'paradox' that this absurdity persists despite the fact that what I say about myself might be true. Over half a century later, such sayings continue to perplex philosophers and other students of language, logic, and cognition. Ludwig Wittgenstein was fascinated by Moore's example, and the absurdity of Moore's saying was intensively discussed in the mid-20th century. Yet the source of the absurdity has remained elusive, and its recalcitrance has led researchers in recent decades to address it with greater care. In this definitive treatment of the problem of Moorean absurdity Green and Williams survey the history and relevance of the paradox and leading approaches to resolving it, and present new essays by leading thinkers in the area. Contributors Jonathan Adler, Bradley Armour-Garb, Jay D. Atlas, Thomas Baldwin, Claudio de Almeida, André Gallois, Robert Gordon, Mitchell Green, Alan Hájek, Roy Sorensen, John Williams
Download or read book Philosophy and the Human Paradox written by Alan Montefiore and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-09 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book collects essays by Alan Montefiore on the role philosophy plays in the formation of the self, and how philosophical questions regarding the nature of reason, truth, and identity inform ethics and politics. It offers a comprehensive overview of Montefiore’s influential, non-dogmatic philosophical voice. Throughout his 70-year career, Montefiore sought to bridge the analytic/continental divide and develop a new way of thinking about philosophy. He defines philosophy as the search for a higher-order understanding of whatever the situation or activity in which one may be involved or engaged, an understanding which may be achieved and expressed by and in a variety of different forms of philosophical persuasion, and which may serve to shed new light on particular problems. The book’s essays, half of which are previously unpublished, are divided into two thematic sections. The first focuses on the nature of philosophy, while the second addresses the relationship between philosophy and moral and political responsibilities. Philosophy and the Human Paradox will be of interest to philosophers and students who work on ethics, Kantian and post-Kantian continental philosophy, and political philosophy.
Download or read book Truth Vagueness and Paradox written by Vann McGee and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awarded the 1988 Johnsonian Prize in Philosophy. Published with the aid of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Download or read book Revenge of the Liar written by JC Beall and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-12-13 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Liar paradox raises foundational questions about logic, language, and truth (and semantic notions in general). A simple Liar sentence like 'This sentence is false' appears to be both true and false if it is either true or false. For if the sentence is true, then what it says is the case; but what it says is that it is false, hence it must be false. On the other hand, if the statement is false, then it is true, since it says (only) that it is false. How, then, should we classify Liar sentences? Are they true or false? A natural suggestion would be that Liars are neither true nor false; that is, they fall into a category beyond truth and falsity. This solution might resolve the initial problem, but it beckons the Liar's revenge. A sentence that says of itself only that it is false or beyond truth and falsity will, in effect, bring back the initial problem. The Liar's revenge is a witness to the hydra-like nature of Liars: in dealing with one Liar you often bring about another. JC Beall presents fourteen new essays and an extensive introduction, which examine the nature of the Liar paradox and its resistance to any attempt to solve it. Written by some of the world's leading experts in the field, the papers in this volume will be an important resource for those working in truth studies, philosophical logic, and philosophy of language, as well as those with an interest in formal semantics and metaphysics.
Download or read book The Yablo Paradox written by Roy T Cook and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-05-29 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roy T Cook examines the Yablo paradox—a paradoxical, infinite sequence of sentences, each of which entails the falsity of all others later than it in the sequence—with special attention paid to the idea that this paradox provides us with a semantic paradox that involves no circularity. The three main chapters of the book focus, respectively, on three questions that can be (and have been) asked about the Yablo construction. First we have the Characterization Problem, which asks what patterns of sentential reference (circular or not) generate semantic paradoxes. Addressing this problem requires an interesting and fruitful detour through the theory of directed graphs, allowing us to draw interesting connections between philosophical problems and purely mathematical ones. Next is the Circularity Question, which addresses whether or not the Yablo paradox is genuinely non-circular. Answering this question is complicated: although the original formulation of the Yablo paradox is circular, it turns out that it is not circular in any sense that can bear the blame for the paradox. Further, formulations of the paradox using infinitary conjunction provide genuinely non-circular constructions. Finally, Cook turns his attention to the Generalizability Question: can the Yabloesque pattern be used to generate genuinely non-circular variants of other paradoxes, such as epistemic and set-theoretic paradoxes? Cook argues that although there are general constructions-unwindings—that transform circular constructions into Yablo-like sequences, it turns out that these sorts of constructions are not 'well-behaved' when transferred from semantic puzzles to puzzles of other sorts. He concludes with a short discussion of the connections between the Yablo paradox and the Curry paradox.
Download or read book The Paradox of Cause and Other Essays written by John William Miller and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1978 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays, deceptively simple in phrasing, address current and historic issues.
Download or read book Essays Paradoxes Soliloquies written by Miguel de Unamuno and published by . This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays, Paradoxes, Soliloquies is a new selection of Unamuno's essays from across two previously published collections, 1925's Essays and Soliloquies, translated by J. E. Crawford Flitch, and 1945's Perplexities and Paradoxes, translated by Stuart Gross. Here Unamuno forcefully and eloquently expresses his beliefs about religion, ethics, philosophy, and Spanish literature."What remain today are the argumentative Essays, perhaps the most living and enduring of all he wrote[.]" - Jorge Luis Borges
Download or read book Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence written by Richard K. Betts and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of a three part collection in honour of the teachings of Michael I. Handel, one of the foremost strategists of the late 20th century, this collection explores the paradoxes of intelligence analysis, surprise and deception from both historical and theoretical perspectives.
Download or read book Liars and Heaps written by J. C. Beall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Logic is fundamental to thought and language. But which logical principles are correct? The paradoxes play a crucial role in answering that question. The so-called Liar and Heap paradoxes challenge our basic ideas about logic; at the very least, they teach us that the correct logical principles are not as obvious as common sense would have it. The essays in this volume, written by leading figures in the field, discuss novel thoughts about the paradoxes.
Download or read book The Pine Island Paradox written by Kathleen Dean Moore and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2011-12-18 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can the love reserved for family and friends be extended to a place? “Luminous essays” on nature and environmental stewardship (Booklist). Named one of the Top Ten Northwest Books of the Year by the Oregonian In this book, acclaimed author Kathleen Dean Moore, a winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award for Holdfast, reflects on how deeply the environment is entrenched in the human spirit, despite the notion that nature and humans are somehow separate. Moore’s essays, deeply felt and often funny, make connections in what can appear to be a disconnected world. Written in parable form, her stories of family and friends—of wilderness excursions with her husband and children, camping trips with students, blowing up a dam, her daughter’s arrest for protesting the war in Iraq—affirm an impulse of caring that belies the abstract division of humans from nature, of the sacred from the mundane. Underlying these wonderfully engaging stories is the author’s belief in a new ecological ethic of care, one that expands the idea of community to include the environment, and embraces the land as family. “Stands with the best tradition of nature writing.” —The Oregonian
Download or read book Paradoxes of Gambling Behaviour written by Willem A. Wagenaar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-10-14 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does a large proportion of the population engage in some form of gambling, although they know they are most likely to lose, and that the gambling industry makes huge profits? Do gamblers simply accept their losses as fate, or do they believe that they will be able to overcome the negative odds in some miraculous way? The paradox is complicated by the fact that those habitual gamblers who are most aware that systematic losses cannot be avoided, are the least likely to stop gambling. Detailed analyses of actual gambling behaviour have shown gamblers to be victims of a variety of cognitive illusions, which lead them to believe that the general statistical rules of determining the probability of loss do not apply to them as individuals. The designers of gambling games cleverly exploit these illusions in order to promote a false perception of the situation. Much of the earlier interest in gambling behaviour has been centred on the traditional theories of human decision-making, where decisions are portrayed as choices among bets. This led to a tradition of studying decision-making in experiments on betting. In this title, originally published in 1988, the author argues that betting behaviour should not be used as a typical example of human decision-making upon which a general psychological theory could be founded, and that these traditional views can in no way account for the gambling behaviour reported in this book.
Download or read book This Book Needs No Title written by Raymond Smullyan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1986-10-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Simon & Schuster, This Book Needs No Title is Raymond Smullyan's budget of living paradoxes—the author of What is the Name of This Book? Including eighty paradoxes, logical labyrinths, and intriguing enigmas progress from light fables and fancies to challenging Zen exercises and a novella and probe the timeless questions of philosophy and life.
Download or read book The Heroic Paradox written by Cedric Hubbell Whitman and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The late Cedric H. Whitman was widely acclaimed for his studies of classical poetry. In the ten years before his death in 1979 he gave a number of lectures in which he developed his concept of Greek heroic humanism. Five of the six essays collected here are edited from the texts of those lectures. According to Whitman, the tragic hero in Greek literature confronts crucial moral questions and chooses to suffer and die rather than to submit or conform to answers dictated by religious dogmatism. Whitman's first two essays explore this idea in a discussion of the "Iliad", Aeschylus, and Sophocles. The next two essays study the poetic artistry of the "Iliad" in terms of the techniques of oral narrative, the symbolism of Homer, and the character of Achilles. Sophocles' "Antigone" is the subject of another essay in which Whitman focuses on the conjunction of the divine will, the natural world, and the heroism of Antigone herself. The final essay restores Aristophanes to his rightful place as a poet of the city. -- From publisher's description.
Download or read book Paradoxes of the Public School written by James E. Schul and published by IAP. This book was released on 2024-07-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revised thoroughly and updated, this second edition of Paradoxes of the Public School comprehensively explores public education in the United States. Researchers, faculty, and students will find this book accessible, insightful, and provocative. The book is packed with school history, theory, and data that are practically applied to a clear and fluid treatment of contemporary issues. Such issues include those related to areas such as religion, democratic citizenship, the teaching profession, race, academic freedom, social class, exceptionality, gender, technology, and privatization. Written with a clear and engaging prose, Paradoxes of the Public School is designed to be useful for both individuals seeking a first encounter to understand public education as well as longstanding education scholars.
Download or read book The Liar written by Jon Barwise and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together powerful new tools from set theory and the philosophy of language, this book proposes a solution to one of the few unresolved paradoxes from antiquity, the Paradox of the Liar. Barwise and Etchemendy model and compare Russellian and Austinian conceptions of propositions, and develop a range of model-theoretic techniques--based on Aczel's work--that open up new avenues in logical and formal semantics.
Download or read book The Power Paradox written by Dacher Keltner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revolutionary and timely reconsideration of everything we know about power. Celebrated UC Berkeley psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner argues that compassion and selflessness enable us to have the most influence over others and the result is power as a force for good in the world. Power is ubiquitous—but totally misunderstood. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, Dr. Dacher Keltner presents the very idea of power in a whole new light, demonstrating not just how it is a force for good in the world, but how—via compassion and selflessness—it is attainable for each and every one of us. It is taken for granted that power corrupts. This is reinforced culturally by everything from Machiavelli to contemporary politics. But how do we get power? And how does it change our behavior? So often, in spite of our best intentions, we lose our hard-won power. Enduring power comes from empathy and giving. Above all, power is given to us by other people. This is what we all too often forget, and it is the crux of the power paradox: by misunderstanding the behaviors that helped us to gain power in the first place we set ourselves up to fall from power. We abuse and lose our power, at work, in our family life, with our friends, because we've never understood it correctly—until now. Power isn't the capacity to act in cruel and uncaring ways; it is the ability to do good for others, expressed in daily life, and in and of itself a good thing. Dr. Keltner lays out exactly—in twenty original "Power Principles"—how to retain power; why power can be a demonstrably good thing; when we are likely to abuse power; and the terrible consequences of letting those around us languish in powerlessness.
