Logical Inconsistencies Research Articles

Kościół jako rzeczywistość wieczna w doktrynie Orygenesa

In Origen’s theological research, the term „Church” has a very wide meaning, which conveys the framework of the earthly religious institution and the community of believers. In its fundamental sense, it means the family of all rational beings created by God and His works relating to the history of angels and people. According to this Alexandrian, God created beings gifted with rational thinking, to make up one community closely bonded with Him, meaning the Church understood in a broad sense. There turned out to be an impediment to achieving this eternal plan of God because of the incorrectly used gift of free will by rational beings. The fall through sin caused a breakdown of the first heavenly and earthly Church, and at the same time initiated the long process of a return to the original state of harmony. It is divided into two stages: the Old Testament Church and the Church of Christ.The later, being the fullest manifestation of the community of united people by God in the annals of the visible world, does not have a status as the ultimate Church and only comprises an image of the eschatological reality. There will be a bringing together of the heavenly Church with the earthly Church and a complete union of rational beings with Christ. The Church understood in this way crosses the limits of the present time and becomes an everlasting reality, prepared in the preexistence and also having a continuation and fulfillment in eschatology. It is not eternity understood in an absolute way, pertaining only to God, but in the sense of a lengthy continuation which had a beginning but does not have an end.Origen’s ecclesiology wastonic teaching on the preexistence of the soul and the Platonic-formed in a climate of ancient Greek philosophy, under the strong influence of Platonic teaching on the preexistence of the soul and the Platonic-stoic theory of the wandering of worlds, which was a normal phenomenon in the Alexandrian environment at the turn of the II and III centuries. Despite such a dependency on erroneous philosophical theories and certain logical inconsistencies, Origen's concept of the eternal Church on many essential points turned out to be an inspiration for later Catholic ecclesiology, particularly in her ecumenical and mystical tendencies. It presents all of humanity as chosen from the beginning by God and called to be His Church. It acknowledges Christ as the foundation and Bridegroom not only of the Christian Church instituted by His incarnation, but the entire community of people for whom this Church of Christ is the visible sacramental sign and invitation to return to unity with God. It is proof that the world was created for Church which does not pass away but grows and changes, in order to finally become the perfect coronation of works as the only family under Christ as the Head, and through Him – the Father of the universe.

Transdisciplinarity: A Scientific Essential

Transdisciplinarity in science is necessary to counteract the rapid growth of scientific results and information, the elimination of logical inconsistencies, and the effect of specialization whereby uncomparable disciplines develop. A correspondence is drawn between the uncontrolled growth, immune system malfunction, repression/expansion, and isolation that are characteristic of cancer and of the scientific concept of modernity. Suggestions are presented regarding the promotion of healing in both of these realms.

Refining control balance theory

This article proposes revisions to control balance theory to address a logical flaw, mistaken categorization, and inconsistencies and conceptual ambiguity in the original formulation, and it attempts to accommodate empirical findings that challenge some of its premises. The reformulated theory addresses three forms of behavior—conformity, deviance and submission—and introduces the concept of ‘control balance desirability’ to help resolve some issues in the original formulation.

“Bad for the Body, Bad for the Heart”: Prostitution Harms Women Even if Legalized or Decriminalized

With examples from a 2003 New Zealand prostitution law, this article discusses the logical inconsistencies in laws sponsoring prostitution and includes evidence for the physical, emotional, and social harms of prostitution. These harms are not decreased by legalization or decriminalization. The article addresses the confusion caused by organizations that oppose trafficking but at the same time promote prostitution as a justifiable form of labor for poor women. The failure of condom distribution/harm reduction programs to protect women in prostitution from rape, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and HIV is discussed. The success of such programs in obtaining funding and in promoting prostitution as sex work is also discussed.

On the generation and ownership of alpha in medical studies

Much is known about how to split alpha between or among several comparisons, or how to preserve the nominal alpha level with an exact analysis, but the issue of how alpha is generated, or where it comes from, has not received a commensurate degree of attention. It would seem that there is little point in working out methods to allocate or conserve alpha if it is unlimited in supply. Moreover, there seems to be a logical inconsistency in requiring that a given amount of alpha, generally 0.05, be split among the primary comparisons performed by a given set of researchers, yet allowing other researchers to analyze the same data with a new 0.05 to work with. We will address these inconsistencies, and ask more generally where alpha comes from, how it can be generated, and under what conditions it should be one-tailed or two-tailed.

Capturing expert knowledge for threatened species assessments: a case study using NatureServe conservation status ranks

Assessments for assigning the conservation status of threatened species that are based purely on subjective judgements become problematic because assessments can be influenced by hidden assumptions, personal biases and perceptions of risks, making the assessment process difficult to repeat. This can result in inconsistent assessments and misclassifications, which can lead to a lack of confidence in species assessments. It is almost impossible to understand an expert’s logic or visualise the underlying reasoning behind the many hidden assumptions used throughout the assessment process. In this paper, we formalise the decision making process of experts, by capturing their logical ordering of information, their assumptions and reasoning, and transferring them into a set of decisions rules. We illustrate this through the process used to evaluate the conservation status of species under the NatureServe system (Master, 1991). NatureServe status assessments have been used for over two decades to set conservation priorities for threatened species throughout North America. We develop a conditional point-scoring method, to reflect the current subjective process. In two test comparisons, 77% of species’ assessments using the explicit NatureServe method matched the qualitative assessments done subjectively by NatureServe staff. Of those that differed, no rank varied by more than one rank level under the two methods. In general, the explicit NatureServe method tended to be more precautionary than the subjective assessments. The rank differences that emerged from the comparisons may be due, at least in part, to the flexibility of the qualitative system, which allows different factors to be weighted on a species-by-species basis according to expert judgement. The method outlined in this study is the first documented attempt to explicitly define a transparent process for weighting and combining factors under the NatureServe system. The process of eliciting expert knowledge identifies how information is combined and highlights any inconsistent logic that may not be obvious in subjective decisions. The method provides a repeatable, transparent, and explicit benchmark for feedback, further development, and improvement.

From Philosophy to Psychotherapy: A Phenomenological Model for Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book Forum: Psyche and BrainFull AccessFrom Philosophy to Psychotherapy: A Phenomenological Model for Psychology, Psychiatry, and PsychoanalysisAARON H. ESMAN, M.D., AARON H. ESMANSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., New York, N.Y.Published Online:1 Jul 2004https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.7.1314-aAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail We have long been aware that neither our perceptions nor our conceptions are innocent; some theoretical foundation, conscious or unconscious, formulated or inchoate, underlies all our thoughts. It is the purpose of Dr. Hersch, a practicing Canadian psychiatrist, to make explicit the philosophical underpinnings of a wide range of approaches to psychiatry and psychotherapy and to propose another model, based on Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, which he believes represents a substantial advance on schools based on an outmoded Cartesian view of the world, from behaviorism through the variants of psychoanalysis.This is a serious book, clearly the product of years of thought and extensive scholarship. Hersch develops and elaborates at length what he terms a “hierarchical model of levels of theoretical inquiry” ranging from ontology through both general and “field-specific” epistemology to psychology. He employs this model to assess and criticize the several therapeutic approaches he seeks to evaluate, pointing out the unspoken assumptions and logical flaws he detects in each. He devotes a good deal of attention to explicating methods of validation and assessments of the value of truth; these sections alone are worthy of serious attention. Hersch is witheringly and appropriately critical of the ostensibly “atheoretical” approach of the formulators of the DSMs.To illustrate: Freudian psychoanalysis, Hersch contends, is founded on a Cartesian-dualist ontology that is realist, objectivist, and wedded to a correspondence theory of truth. Although Freud’s subject matter was subjectivist, his epistemology was objectivist in that it was based on a belief in the existence of objective facts accessible to scientific inquiry and interpretable as such. Freud’s psychology laid emphasis on intrapsychic phenomena to the exclusion of other sorts of mentation. Hersch finds logical and epistemological inconsistencies here and suggests that Freud must have seen them, too; thus his expressed disdain for philosophy in general.Hersch emerges from these sometimes repetitive and often rather abstract reflections with a method he calls (not very fortunately) “beams of light through time,” which is essentially an interactional, non-Cartesian model, neither totally objectivist nor subjectivist, that concentrates on the interactive processes of the patient-therapist dyad and is hermeneutic in its approach to truth. The distinctions between Hersch’s and other intersubjective approaches are often rather subtle; of the different familiar models, perhaps that of Hans Loewald is the most comparable.Clinical illustrations are few and far between. The book is not easy reading and requires (or did for me, at least) frequent back-checking to keep one’s bearings. I suspect that the general run of clinicians, content to leave their ontological and epistemological roots unexplored, will find it somewhat remote from their daily activities. For those who are curious about such matters or who wonder what contribution Heidegger, despite his Nazi sympathies, might bring to their intellectual and professional development, this book will repay the time and study invested.By Edwin L. Hersch. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2003, 417 pp., $65.00. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byNone Volume 161Issue 7 July 2004Pages 1314-a-1315 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 July 2004 Published in print 1 July 2004

TURTLE: A Real-Time UML Profile Supported by a Formal Validation Toolkit

We present a UML 1.5 profile named TURTLE (Timed UML and RT-LOTOS Environment) endowed with a formal semantics given in terms of RT-LOTOS. TURTLE relies on UML's extensibility mechanisms to enhance class and activity diagrams. Class diagrams are extended with specialized classes named Tclasses, which communicate and synchronize through gates. Also, associations between Tclasses are attributed by a composition operator (Parallel, Synchro, Invocation, Sequence, or Preemption) which provides them with a formal semantics. TURTLE extends UML activity diagrams with synchronization actions and temporal operators (deterministic delay, nondeterministic delay, time-limited offer, and time-capture). The real-time dimension of TURTLE has been further improved by the addition of two composition operators, periodic and suspend, as well as suspendable delay, latency, and time-limited offer operators at the activity diagram level. Core characteristics of TURLE are supported by TTool - the TURTLE toolkit - which includes a diagram editor, a RT-LOTOS code generator and a result analyzer. The toolkit reuses RTL, a RT-LOTOS validation tool offering debug-oriented simulation and exhaustive analysis. TTool hides RT-LOTOS to the end-user and allows him/her to directly check TURTLE modeling against logical errors and timing inconsistencies. Besides the foundations of the TURTLE profile, this paper also discusses its application in the context of space-based embedded software.

A Response to Drs. Crandall and Singer

In October 2003, the Phoenix Center released its POLICY BULLETIN NO. 7 entitled The Positive Effects of Competition on Employment in the Telecommunications Industry. This Bulletin included an analysis of employment trends in the telecommunications industry before and after the 1996 Telecommunications Act. A number of figures and statistical tests revealed that employment in the wireline telecommunications sector grew substantially, and almost immediately, after the 1996 Act. BellSouth hired Robert W. Crandall and Hal J. Singer (Criterion Economics) to respond to POLICY BULLETIN NO. 7 in their paper An Accurate Scorecard of the Telecommunications Act of 1996: Rejoinder to the Phoenix Center Study No. 7 (January 2004) (hereinafter the Rejoinder). The authors claim that the analysis presented in Figure 1 of Policy Bulletin No. 7 was flawed (at 1). Although the majority of the Rejoinder does not go to the merits of Policy Bulletin No. 7, but is instead a polemic against the Federal Communications Commission's unbundling policies of the last eight years, in an effort to ensure the accuracy and legitimacy of all analysis performed and released by the Phoenix Center, we have evaluated carefully the Rejoinder to see if the document contains any legitimate criticisms or offers any material improvements to the analysis in Policy Bulletin No. 7. After review, we find that by incorporating the Rejoinder's plausibly legitimate suggestions into our empirical analysis in a theoretically appropriate manner does not materially alter the estimated employment effects summarized in Policy Bulletin No. 7. We also find that the methods used in Policy Bulletin No. 7 are preferred, in a statistical sense, to those proposed in the Rejoinder. Second, we were somewhat surprised the number of factual inaccuracies and logical inconsistencies in the Rejoinder, and some of these are listed in Section III. Finally in Section IV, although completely unrelated to anything contained in Policy Bulletin No. 7, we discuss Crandall's and Singer's contention that a UNE-Loop entry strategy is a non sustainable business plan (at 13). We do so because based on the arguments in the Rejoinder related to investment and cash flow, Crandall's and Singer's analysis appears to call for policies aimed at increasing the availability of UNE-P while reducing the opportunities for UNE-L and facilities-based entry (the latter, according to Crandall and Singer, includes only entry that replicates the local loop in some way).

How We Detect Logical Inconsistencies

How do individuals detect inconsistencies? According to the theory described in this article, they search for a possibility represented in a mental model, in which each proposition in a description is true. If they find such a possibility, the description is consistent; otherwise, it is inconsistent. Evidence corroborates the theory. The evaluation of consistency is easy when the first possibility generated from the start of a description fits later propositions in the description; it is harder when this possibility does not fit later propositions, and individuals have to look for an alternative possibility. The theory postulates that models represent what is true, not what is false. As a result, individuals succumb to systematic illusions of consistency and of inconsistency.

Galaxy luminosity evolution: How much is due to model choice?

The cluster and field luminosity functions (LFs) determined on large homogeneous samples (N>2200 galaxies each) are almost indistinguishable, down to M^*+4 in the r and i filters, hence suggesting that the effect of the cluster environment on the galaxy properties does not affect the galaxy luminosity function in red bands. The similarity of the red band LFs in different environments suggests that the galaxy mass function is preserved during the galaxy infall in the cluster. By analyzing a large sample of galaxies in clusters, ideal from many points of view (multicolor data, large size, many clusters, metric magnitudes) we found that luminosity evolution is required by the data but the latter do not unambiguously derive its flavour if a differential luminosity evolution between bright and faint galaxies is allowed. We show that the LF parameters (slope, characteristic magnitude and their evolution) and errors depend on assumptions in a way seldom recognized in literature. We also point out logical inconsistencies between hypothesis assumed in deriving literature LF and presented results, suggesting caution in interpreting similar published results.

Modification of Goodman-Cowin theory and its Application to the Constitutive Models of Flowing Granular Materials

Goodman and Cowin proposed in 1972 a continuum theory of a dry cohesionless granular material in which the solid volume fraction ν is treated as an independent kinematical field for which an additional balance law of equilibrated force is postulated. In the derivation of said balance of equilibrated of force there exists some logical inconsistency and it results in the incorrect explanation of this balance equation and the incorrect balance of internal energy. It is demonstrated that the balance of equilibrated force can be modified by a simple dimensional analysis. The resulted modified Goodman-Cowin theory is then applied to investigate the consti- tutive models of flowing granular materials. A complete thermodynamic analysis based upon Muller-Liu approach is performed and the constitutive responses of a granular material in ther- modynamic equilibrium are obtained. From the theoretical investigations it shows that the results are more general than those obtained from the original theory and for simple shearing flow problems the current theory can reproduce all results from previous works based on the original theory.

The validity and reliability of EQ-5D health state valuations in a survey of Măori.

This note reports on a 2000 study of the content validity of the EQ-5D's representation of health for 66 Măori (New Zealand's indigenous people, comprising 14.5% of the population) accessed through cultural networks. Also examined was the construct validity of the health state valuation instrument and its test-retest reliability based on repeated valuations for the two extreme health states. The possibility that the EQ-SD fails to capture what Măori regard as 'health' derives from the so-called 'Măori health model' that augments biological health with mental, spiritual and family well-being. Seventy six percent of respondents considered the EQ-5D's representation of health to be adequate. This proportion is not statistically significantly different from the rates for non-Măori and Măori respectively in an earlier study and might suggest the EQ-5D has content validity for Măori. However, the high prevalence of missing valuations, particularly for dead, and logical inconsistencies suggests that the health state valuation instrument lacks construct validity, although there is evidence of test retest reliability.

Logic and groups

Abelian group logic (AGL) — in other words, the logic which is sound and complete w.r.t. Abelian groups — is a non-trivial inconsistent logic, i.e. what some paraconsistent logicians call a “dialethic” logic.

Logical Inconsistency in EI-Based Second-Stage Regressions

Logical Inconsistency in EI-Based Second-Stage Regressions

Board Certification in Clinical Neuropsychology: A Response to Rohling et al.

Board certification is intended to protect the public by identifying practitioners that have met minimum standards for education and training in their specialty or discipline. For varied reasons, clinical neuropsychology, like professional psychology as a whole, has struggled to achieve levels of board certification comparable to the medical profession. Rohling, Lees-Haley, Langhinrichsen-Rohling, & Williamson (2003) have recently published a critique of the board certification process in clinical neuropsychology as it is conducted by American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology (ABCN), arguing that one reason for this failure is the overly restrictive nature of the process. In their paper, Rohling et al. provide a signal detection analysis that makes several assumptions about the process and conclude with recommendations for improving the process to better identify “competent” neuropsychologists in practice. While we agree in principle with many of their recommendations, and ABCN had, in fact, implemented several prior to publication of their article, the article contains many faulty assumptions and logical inconsistencies that we believe are harmful to constructive review of the certification process. In this article, we provide a critical review of their analysis and present new and additional data that demonstrate the procedure is not overly restrictive. A primary consideration is the low incidence of seeking board certification among professionals who identify themselves as neuropsychologists (i.e., a low application rate), rather than an overly restrictive process. We describe steps taken to improve the process and conclude that there are numerous areas of agreement with Rohling et al., including the need for ongoing review and continued improvement in the board certification process in all psychological specialties.

Dual‐perspective SWOT: a synthesis of marketing intelligence and planning

This paper proposes a cognitive approach of integrating marketing and intelligence views into a new “dual‐perspective” SWOT framework. The new dimensions of SWOT are proposed to address the logical inconsistencies faced by marketing managers synthesizing SWOT components. By representing SWOT as the focus of practitioners’ cognition, researchers and consultants can capture the variability in managerial core logic employed to integrate a coherent strategic situation from a dual intelligence‐and‐planning perspective. Directions are outlined for this new avenue of marketing research.

QUANTUM CRITICALITY, EVENT HORIZONS AND COSMIC GAMMA RAY BURSTS

The logical inconsistency of quantum mechanics and general relativity can be avoided if the relativity principle fails for length scales smaller than the quantum coherence length for the vacuum state. This has dramatic consequences for the phenomenology of compact astrophysical objects. If we assume that at the Planck scale elementary particles interact via a universal four-point interaction and baryon number conservation is violated, then nucleons approaching an event horizon surface can disintegrate into gamma rays and high energy leptons. Integrating the Altarelli–Parisi equations to find the Planck scale parton distribution function for a nucleon, we find that nucleon decays produce a fluorescence gamma ray spectrum strikingly similar to that observed for cosmic gamma ray bursts.

Logical Inconsistency in EI‐Based Second‐Stage Regressions

The statistical procedure EI–R, in which point estimates produced by the King (1997) ecological inference technique are used as dependent variables in a linear regression, can be logically inconsistent insofar as the assumptions necessary to support EI–R's first stage (ecological inference via King's technique) can be incompatible with the assumptions supporting its second stage (linear regression). In light of this problem, we develop a specification test for logical consistency of EI–R and describe options available to a researcher who confronts test rejection. We then apply our test to the implementation of EI–R in Burden and Kimball's (1998) study of ticket splitting and find that this implementation is logically inconsistent. In correcting for this problem we show that Burden and Kimball's substantive results are artifacts of a self‐contradictory statistical technique.

Antinomies of the United Nations: Hans Kelsen and Alf Ross on the Charter

In Towards a Realistic Jurisprudence, Alf Ross locates his theoretical position as a via media between the ‘pure theory of law’ of his teacher, Hans Kelsen, and the American legal realism he identified with Jerome Frank. When Ross and Kelsen came, however, to publish their respective studies of the UN Charter in 1950 — Ross' Constitution of the United Nations and Kelsen's massive The Law of the United Nations — their perspectives converge. This article places their analysis of the UN Charter in the context of their theoretical writings, but despite Kelsen's pure theory of law and Ross' Scandinavian realism, the two share a sense of law's dependence upon sanction and an understanding of the political underpinning of law's creation. And both held a strong commitment to international law doctrine, so that when they came to criticize the Charter, whether for its logical inconsistencies or the increased role of the political, they depict the Charter as ultimately representing a legal system that takes up the space of traditional international law. In their two works, Kelsen and Ross both register a tragic concern about that disappearing act of traditional international law doctrine.