Actions and Other Events

Actions and Other Events PDF Author: Karl Pfeifer
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
How many things did the gunman do? Is his pulling of the trigger the same as his killing of the victim? Or are these two different actions or events? Such questions are at the heart of the dispute between «unifiers» and «multipliers» over the individuation of actions and events. In this study Karl Pfeifer defends the unifying approach of G.E.M. Anscombe and Donald Davidson against the criticisms and rival views of Alvin I. Goldman and others. Along the way, the discussion touches on a variety of problems concerning causality, time, explanation, language, ontology, and identity. What finally emerges is a clearer picture of the nature of criteria of identity and individuation for actions and events than has been available to date.

Actions and Other Events

Actions and Other Events PDF Author: Karl Pfeifer
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
How many things did the gunman do? Is his pulling of the trigger the same as his killing of the victim? Or are these two different actions or events? Such questions are at the heart of the dispute between «unifiers» and «multipliers» over the individuation of actions and events. In this study Karl Pfeifer defends the unifying approach of G.E.M. Anscombe and Donald Davidson against the criticisms and rival views of Alvin I. Goldman and others. Along the way, the discussion touches on a variety of problems concerning causality, time, explanation, language, ontology, and identity. What finally emerges is a clearer picture of the nature of criteria of identity and individuation for actions and events than has been available to date.

Essays on Actions and Events

Essays on Actions and Events PDF Author: Donald Davidson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199246262
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Donald Davidson has prepared a new edition of his classic 1980 collection of Essays on Actions and Events, including two additional essays.

Free Will

Free Will PDF Author: Joseph Keim Campbell
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745646662
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
What is free will? Why is it important? Can the same act be both free and determined? Is free will necessary for moral responsibility? Does anyone have free will, and if not, how is creativity possible and how can anyone be praised or blamed for anything? These are just some of the questions considered by Joseph Keim Campbell in this lively and accessible introduction to the concept of free will. Using a range of engaging examples the book introduces the problems, arguments, and theories surrounding free will. Beginning with a discussion of fatalism and causal determinism, the book goes on to focus on the metaphysics of moral responsibility, free will skepticism, and skepticism about moral responsibility. Campbell shows that no matter how we look at it, free will is problematic. Thankfully there are a plethora of solutions on offer and the best of these are considered in full in the final chapter on contemporary theories of free will. This includes a rigorous account of libertarianism, compatabilism, and naturalism. Free Will is the ideal introduction to the topic and will be a valuable resource for scholars and students seeking to understand the importance and relevance of the concept for contemporary philosophy.

Volume 3: Philosophy of Action

Volume 3: Philosophy of Action PDF Author: Guttorm Fløistad
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9789024726325
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Half title: International Institute of Philosophy, Institut international de philosophie.

Concurrency Theory

Concurrency Theory PDF Author: Howard Bowman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1846283361
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Intheworldweliveinconcurrencyisthenorm.Forexample,thehumanbody isamassivelyconcurrentsystem,comprisingahugenumberofcells,allsim- taneously evolving and independently engaging in their individual biological processing.Inaddition,inthebiologicalworld,trulysequentialsystemsrarely arise. However, they are more common when manmade artefacts are cons- ered. In particular, computer systems are often developed from a sequential perspective. Why is this? The simple reason is that it is easier for us to think about sequential, rather than concurrent, systems. Thus, we use sequentiality as a device to simplify the design process. However, the need for increasingly powerful, ?exible and usable computer systems mitigates against simplifying sequentiality assumptions. A good - ample of this is the all-powerful position held by the Internet, which is highly concurrent at many di?erent levels of decomposition. Thus, the modern c- puter scientist (and indeed the modern scientist in general) is forced to think aboutconcurrentsystemsandthesubtleandintricatebehaviourthatemerges from the interaction of simultaneously evolving components. Over a period of 25 years, or so, the ?eld of concurrency theory has been involved in the development of a set of mathematical techniques that can help system developers to think about and build concurrent systems. These theories are the subject matter of this book.

The Development of Timing Control and Temporal Organization in Coordinated Action

The Development of Timing Control and Temporal Organization in Coordinated Action PDF Author: J. Fagard
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080867359
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
This volume examines the development of timing in coordinated action from several different ontogenetic perspectives. Some chapters emphasize the qualitative changes in manifest motor behavior during the early growth years and examine the relation between temporal characteristics of pre- and perinatal movements and goal directed actions with qualitatively different rules of temporal organization. Other contributors stress the developmentally invariant timing characteristics of species-typical and perhaps genetically programmed motor patterns of nonhuman organisms.Also examined is the molecular machinery that generates circumscribed motor patterns with stable temporal characteristics, as well as the reversible influences of peripheral feedback on and the interactions among discrete pattern generators. Despite their basic theoretical differences, both formulations imply the same generic hypothesis: that the temporal characteristics of manifest movement or action are controlled by central agencies acting on the peripheral skeleto-muscular system in a hierarchic top-down mode.

The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality

The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality PDF Author: Marija Jankovic
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317666852
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality provides a wide-ranging survey of topics in a rapidly expanding area of interdisciplinary research. It consists of 36 chapters, written exclusively for this volume, by an international team of experts. What is distinctive about the study of collective intentionality within the broader study of social interactions and structures is its focus on the conceptual and psychological features of joint or shared actions and attitudes, and their implications for the nature of social groups and their functioning. This Handbook fully captures this distinctive nature of the field and how it subsumes the study of collective action, responsibility, reasoning, thought, intention, emotion, phenomenology, decision-making, knowledge, trust, rationality, cooperation, competition, and related issues, as well as how these underpin social practices, organizations, conventions, institutions and social ontology. Like the field, the Handbook is interdisciplinary, drawing on research in philosophy, cognitive science, linguistics, legal theory, anthropology, sociology, computer science, psychology, economics, and political science. Finally, the Handbook promotes several specific goals: (1) it provides an important resource for students and researchers interested in collective intentionality; (2) it integrates work across disciplines and areas of research as it helps to define the shape and scope of an emerging area of research; (3) it advances the study of collective intentionality.

Mathematics of Collective Action

Mathematics of Collective Action PDF Author: James Samuel Coleman
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 0202367312
Category : Decision making
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
"Philosophers, social scientists, and laymen have used two perspectives in analyzing social action. One sees man's action as the result of causal forces, and the other sees action as purposive and goal directed. Mathematical treatment of social action has shown this same dichotomy. Some models of behavior describe a causal process, in which there is no place for intention or purpose. Most stochastic models of behavior, whether individual or group, are like this. Another body of work, however, employs purpose, anticipation of some future state, and action designed to maximize the proximity to some goal. Classical microeconomic theory, statistical decision theory, and game theory exemplify this direction. This book examines these two directions of work, and makes original contributions to the second. An introductory chapter outlines these two bodies of work, and casts them in a common frame, to display their similarities and differences. Chapter 2 reviews at length recent work in stochastic processes that makes up the first body of work, which sees social action as the resultant of causal forces. The remaining chapters develop a mathematical framework for the study of systems of social action using a purposive theoretical base. These chapters are designed particularly to contribute to the study of collective decisions, a form of social action that has proved particularly challenging to theoretical analysis. First published in 1973, this became a significant work both in problem solving and in the future career of the author. It is of continuing importance to researchers and students interested in statistical analysis."--Provided by publisher.

Methodology for the Human Sciences

Methodology for the Human Sciences PDF Author: Donald Polkinghorne
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780873956635
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
This book presents the historical background of the development of methodology for the human sciences, in order to provide readers with a context for understanding the present concerns and issues in research methodology.

Discourse Analysis beyond the Speech Event

Discourse Analysis beyond the Speech Event PDF Author: Stanton Wortham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317563263
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Winner of the 2016 Edward Sapir Book Prize from the Society for Linguistic Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association Discourse Analysis beyond the Speech Event introduces a new approach to discourse analysis. In this innovative work, Wortham and Reyes argue that discourse analysts should look beyond fixed speech events and consider the development of discourses over time. Drawing on theories and methods from linguistic anthropology and related fields, this book is the first to present a systematic methodological approach to conducting discourse analysis of linked events, allowing researchers to understand not only individual events but also the patterns that emerge across them. Discourse Analysis beyond the Speech Event Provides a method for detailed examination of speech, writing and other communication Introduces students and researchers to the discourse analytic tools and techniques required to analyse the relationships between discourse events Offers explicit guidelines that direct the reader through different stages of discourse analytic research, including worked examples from conversation, magazines and social media Incorporates sample analyses from ethnographic, archival and new media data. This book is essential reading for advanced students and researchers working in the area of discourse analysis.