Negative Arguments Research Articles

Feyerabend ¿un filósofo de la ciencia posmoderno?

El pensamiento de Feyerabend ha sido objeto de múltiples y divergentes interpretaciones. Pero entre ellas parece ser unánime la inscripción de su obra dentro de las coordenadas de una epistemología posmoderna. Estas lecturas podrían encontrar sustento en su anarquismo epistemológico el cual constituye en sí mismo una reducción al absurdo de los intentos del positivismo lógico y del racionalismo crítico por definir axiomática o metodológicamente la ciencia. En este sentido, su obra puede ser entendida, en parte, como una argumentación negativa y escéptica respecto a aquellas nociones de ciencia. No obstante, esta hermenéutica no deja de ofrecer una visión fragmentaria y parcial de su pensamiento y, particularmente, de su obra tardía. Nuestro propósito es reconstruir el pensamiento que formula en sus últimos años, con el fin de mostrar que éste no cumple las características posmodernas que habitualmente se le adjudican. Y, particularmente, determinar el sentido por el cual sería legítimo caracterizar su obra como posmoderna.

Planning for sustainable cities? A comparative content analysis of the master plans of eco, low-carbon and conventional new towns in China

Of all sustainable city concepts, eco-cities and low-carbon cities have received a national endorsement in China, with such pilot towns under construction nationwide. However, the performance of eco and low-carbon cities in China has long been heatedly debated, with many negative arguments delineating them as profit-seeking and image-building projects simply capped with impressive names. In reality, while some projects have not fulfilled expectations, most are still at the first stage of construction, so it is too early to regard eco and low-carbon cities as a failure. In this paper, the question of how eco and low-carbon new towns differ from conventional ones in their social, environmental and economic characteristics is posed. Compared to conventional new town plans, the eco and low-carbon city plans incorporate more of a focus on sustainability principles. We examine such perceptions by comparing the master plans of eco, low-carbon and conventional new towns in various aspects ranging from general principles to specific design. The analysis indicates the master plans of the three groups of new towns vary in different ways. The eco-cities and low-carbon cities reflect two trends to promote urban sustainability. The eco new towns are more concerned with the promotion of a sustainable way of life, with its planning focus evenly distributed among all aspects. They particularly stress the creation of an aesthetically pleasing livable environment. In contrast, low-carbon new towns are concerned with the promotion of a sustainable way of production, with an uneven emphasis on the economic sectors such as industrial integration and transformation. However, the master plans only reveal how eco/low-carbon cities are originally intended to differ from non-eco/low-carbon-cities when they start and more comprehensive studies are needed for it to be possible to predict where they will go in the future.

Rethinking Britain and the European Union: Politicians, the Media and Public Opinion Reconsidered

AbstractThis article re‐examines the role of the media in the UK debate on EU membership. It argues that the embedding of euroscepticism in the UK stems neither from a single phase in the UK–EU relationship, nor from the agency of the UK press or its proprietors. Rather, it resulted from the long‐standing absence of any pro‐European faction within the British polity was able to argue for, or defend, the European Union within the UK national debate. In explaining this, we expand on the concept of ‘issue capture’ understood as the ability of a vocal minority to dominate the UK's political debate about the EU in the absence of genuine opposition to counteract negative claims and arguments. The findings are drawn from analysis of a dataset that codes more than 16,400 UK newspaper articles published between 1974–2013.

Comments by Shigeyuki Abe, on RMBI or RMBR? Is the Renminbi Destined to Become a Global or Regional Currency?

January 01 2017 Comments by Shigeyuki Abe, on RMBI or RMBR? Is the Renminbi Destined to Become a Global or Regional Currency? Author and Article Information Online Issn: 1536-0083 Print Issn: 1535-3516 © 2017 by the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2017Massachusetts Institute of Technology Asian Economic Papers (2017) 16 (1): 62–63. https://doi.org/10.1162/ASEP_a_00485 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Comments by Shigeyuki Abe, on RMBI or RMBR? Is the Renminbi Destined to Become a Global or Regional Currency?. Asian Economic Papers 2017; 16 (1): 62–63. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/ASEP_a_00485 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsAsian Economic Papers Search Advanced Search Shigeyuki Abe: This paper gives an interesting and informative analysis through a superb literature survey and empirical tests of whether the renminbi (RMB) can be either a global or a regional currency. The idea set at the beginning is clear and the authors’ conclusion is sharp because both negative and positive arguments for the RMB as a key currency are explained and no concrete future direction is shown, reflecting the fact that the paper has not only two views but also two authors. Negative arguments are that the RMB is different from the US$, China has dubious macro statistics, and global currency requires more than RMB. The US$ was initially linked with gold until 1971 and hysteresis has kept the US$ as a strong global currency. Global currency rests on amazingly high score macro statistics, but China has questionable macro statistics. In particular, important conditions that China does not fulfill... You do not currently have access to this content.

How Not to Think about the Ethics of Deceiving into Sex

It is widely held that some kinds of deception into sex (e.g., lying about what pets one likes) do not undermine the moral force of consent while other kinds of deception do (e.g., impersonating the consenter’s partner). Tom Dougherty argues against this: whenever someone is deceived into sex by the concealment of a “deal breaker” fact, the normative situation is the same as there being no consent at all. Here it is argued that this conclusion is unwarranted. Dougherty’s negative arguments against alternative theories of the deceptive undermining of consent are flawed, and his two positive arguments are unjustified.

Existence as a Property

This paper is a defense of the view that existence is a property. Since the view is still a minority one, a fair amount of space is allotted to defending it against objections and counter-arguments. Positive arguments aren’t lacking, however, and emerge in the course of the discussion. Not all of the many positive or negative arguments which follow are wholly original—a fact to be expected in this context—but a fair number are, and both sorts of argument are seamlessly interwoven in the warp and woof of what follows.

Examining Biased Assimilation of Brand-related Online Reviews

This paper examines the impact of pre-existing brand attitudes on consumer processing of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). This topic is particularly important for brands that simultaneously possess strongly pronounced proponents as well as opponents. Two experimental studies using univalent (study 1, N=538) and mixed (study 2, N=262) sets of online reviews find indications for biased assimilation effects of eWOM processing. Consumers perceive positive (negative) arguments in online reviews as more (less) persuasive when having a positive (negative) attitude towards the brand. Perceived persuasiveness in turn influences behavioral intentions and acts as a mediator on the relationship between attitude and behavioral intentions. We examine two moderators of this effect. When priming individuals to focus on other consumers (vs. a self-focus prime), the biased assimilation effect is weaker (study 3a, N=131). In contrast, we show that biased assimilation becomes stronger under conditions of high (vs. low) cognitive impairment (study 3b, N=124). Our findings contribute to the literature on the relationship between eWOM and brands and advance our understanding of potential outcomes of brand polarization.

Why Truth-Conditional Semantics in Generative Linguistics is Still the Better Bet

In his “Meaning and Formal Semantics in Generative Grammar” (Erkenntnis 80(1):61–87, 2015), Stephen Schiffer argues that truth-conditional semantics is a poor fit with generative linguistics. In particular, he thinks that it fails to explain speakers’ abilities to understand the sentences of their language. In its place, he recommends his “Best Bet Theory”—a theory which aims to directly explain speakers’ abilities to mean things by their utterances and know what others mean by their utterances. I argue that Schiffer does not provide good reason to prefer the Best Bet Theory over truth-conditional semantics in the context of generative linguistics. First, his negative arguments against the truth-conditional approach are unpersuasive, and second, the Best Bet Theory involves an explanatory circularity which makes it unfit for linguistic theorizing. I conclude that the Best Bet Theory is thus not even a viable competitor to truth-conditional semantics in generative linguistics.

The self consistent expansion applied to the factorial function

Abstract Most of the interesting systems in statistical physics can be described as nonlinear stochastic field theories. A common feature in the theoretical study of such systems is that ordinary perturbation theory seldom works. On the other hand, there exists a useful tool for the study of systems of that generic nature. That tool, the Self Consistent Expansion (SCE) is technically similar to the ordinary perturbation expansion, in the sense that it is an expansion around a solvable problem. The key point which distinguishes the SCE from an ordinary perturbation expansion, is that the small parameter of the expansion is adjustable and determined inherently by optimization of the expansion. Therefore, it allows the adaptive SCE to remain accurate relative to the inflexible ordinary expansion. The goal of the present paper is to present the SCE by applying it to a well-known zero dimensional problem. We choose the evaluation of the factorial function, x ! , as the test case for the SCE, because the Stirling approximation for that function is one of the best known asymptotic expansions, with a very wide use in statistical physics. We show that the SCE approximation holds for small and even negative arguments of the factorial function, where the Stirling expansion fails miserably. It does so without paying any penalty at high values of the argument, where the Stirling formula is excellent. We present numerical as well as analytic SCE approximations of the factorial function.

Inverse of some matrix related to double zeta values of odd weight

In this paper, we give a proof of a conjecture made by Zagier in [4] about the inverse of some matrix related to double zeta values of parity (even,odd). As a result, we obtain a family of Bernoulli number identities. We further generalize this family to a more general setting involving binomial coefficients of negative arguments.

Slippery slope arguments imply opposition to change.

Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) of the form if A, then C describe an initial proposal (A) and a predicted, undesirable consequence of this proposal (C) (e.g., "If cannabis is ever legalized, then eventually cocaine will be legalized, too"). Despite SSAs being a common rhetorical device, there has been surprisingly little empirical research into their subjective evaluation and perception. Here, we present evidence that SSAs are interpreted as a form of consequentialist argument, inviting inferences about the speaker's (or writer's) attitudes. Study1 confirmed the common intuition that a SSA is perceived to be an argument against the initial proposal (A), whereas Study2 showed that the subjective strength of this inference relates to the subjective undesirability of the predicted consequences (C). Because arguments are rarely made out of context, in Studies 3 and 4 we examined how one important contextual factor, the speaker's known beliefs, influences the perceived coherence, strength, and persuasiveness of a SSA. Using an unobtrusive dependent variable (eye movements during reading), in Study3 we showed that readers are sensitive to the internal coherence between a speaker's beliefs and the implied meaning of the argument. Finally, Study4 revealed that this degree of internal coherence influences the perceived strength and persuasiveness of the argument. Together, these data indicate that SSAs are treated as a form of negative consequentialist argument. People infer that the speaker of a SSA opposes the initial proposal; therefore, SSAs are only perceived to be persuasive and conversationally relevant when the speaker's attitudes match this inference.

Comparative Study of Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Modelling of Water-Gas Shift Reaction with Macro-or Micro-kinetics

This paper presents critical studies on water-gas shift reaction (WGSR) kinetic models as well as the modelling approaches of the reactor, in which the reaction is conducted – the packed-bed tubular reactor (PBTR). There are two different types of models often used to represent the WGSR kinetics: (1) macro-kinetics and (2) micro-kinetics types. The PBTR models can be divided into homogeneous and heterogeneous types. There have been lots of positive and negative arguments regarding the use of different models for the WGSR reactor simulation and design. So far, no solid evidence regarding which form of kinetics model is considered to be the most accurate and suitable for reactor design and simulation. Answering this question is the main objective of this paper, where several major kinds of kinetic-reactor models are compared based on the same Cu (111) catalyst. The different models are used to predict the CO conversion of the shift reactor and their accuracies are compared against a reported experimental data. The analysis shows that the micro-kinetics gives better accuracy than the macro-kinetics model. Interestingly, the results show that the macro-kinetics model used in the homogeneous reactor modelling can give prediction as accurate as that of the more complex micro-kinetics model provided in the former case, the transfer limitation correction factor is included. The comparison among these different models shall provide a better understanding on the selection of model form when it comes to designing the reactor involved.

La noción positiva de ciencia de Paul Karl Feyerabend

El pensamiento de Feyerabend ha sido objeto de múltiples y divergentes interpretaciones, entre las que parece ser unánime la inscripción de su obra dentro de las coordenadas de un escepticismo radical. Estas lecturas encuentran parcialmente sustento en su anarquismo epistemológico, el cual constituye en sí mismo una reducción al absurdo de los intentos del positivismo lógico y del racionalismo crítico de definir axiomática o metodológicamente la ciencia. En este sentido, su obra puede ser entendida, en parte, como una argumentación negativa y escéptica con respecto a aquellas nociones de ciencia. No obstante, esta hermenéutica no deja de ofrecer una visión fragmentaria y parcial de su pensamiento. El propósito de este artículo es reconstruir el itinerario intelectual a partir del cual Feyerabend va madurando su comprensión positiva de la ciencia para trascender las hermenéuticas de su obra en la clave del escepticismo.

Financial compensation for damage to livestock by lions Panthera leo on community rangelands in Kenya

AbstractCompensation schemes can contribute to equitable sharing of benefits from wildlife. We describe a scheme that uses tourist fees for partial and conditional compensation of damage to livestock caused by wildlife on Kuku Group Ranch, Kenya. The explicit aim of the scheme is to decrease the killing of lions Panthera leo by Maasai on community land in the Amboseli–Tsavo ecosystem. During 2008–2013 the scheme spent a mean of USD 100,000 per year, and although livestock losses remained constant the killing of lions decreased significantly. The percentage of claims where part of the compensation was withheld as a penalty for negligent husbandry practices decreased significantly over time but remained high; poor herding in particular remains a problem. We weigh our results against arguments found in a literature survey; our findings support the negative arguments of moral hazard (i.e. the risk that compensation reduces the incentive to prevent damage) and post-project collapse. Despite these weaknesses the compensation scheme was effective, affordable and sustainable. We conclude that compensation is a useful conservation tool in situations where there is an imminent threat to biodiversity, and sustainable funding sources are available.

Functional brain imaging predicts public health campaign success.

Mass media can powerfully affect health decision-making. Pre-testing through focus groups or surveys is a standard, though inconsistent, predictor of effectiveness. Converging evidence demonstrates that activity within brain systems associated with self-related processing can predict individual behavior in response to health messages. Preliminary evidence also suggests that neural activity in small groups can forecast population-level campaign outcomes. Less is known about the psychological processes that link neural activity and population-level outcomes, or how these predictions are affected by message content. We exposed 50 smokers to antismoking messages and used their aggregated neural activity within a 'self-localizer' defined region of medial prefrontal cortex to predict the success of the same campaign messages at the population level (n = 400,000 emails). Results demonstrate that: (i) independently localized neural activity during health message exposure complements existing self-report data in predicting population-level campaign responses (model combined R(2) up to 0.65) and (ii) this relationship depends on message content-self-related neural processing predicts outcomes in response to strong negative arguments against smoking and not in response to compositionally similar neutral images. These data advance understanding of the psychological link between brain and large-scale behavior and may aid the construction of more effective media health campaigns.

Toward an understanding of perezhivanie for sociocultural SLA research

Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory has been invaluable for informing new theoretical approaches to the study of L2 acquisition. However, the concept of perezhivanie has been overlook despite playing a central role in crystallising ideas in both Vygotsky's negative arguments and his positive theory. Here, I revisit the concept as a potential means to inform the kind of emic approach to research Firth and Wagner (1997; 2007) had argued was necessary for balance in the field of SLA. As a first step, I examine perezhivanie as discussed in 'The Problem of the Environment' (Vygotsky, 1994), and within the context of other aspects of Vygotsky’s work – his criticisms of psychology; the functional unity of consciousness; the concept of the unit; and holism - to clarify misunderstandings and expand on its theoretical content. I conclude with a discussion of the issues raised when perezhivanie is applied in the study of memory.

Toward an understanding of perezhivanie for sociocultural SLA research

Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory has been invaluable for informing new theoretical approaches to the study of L2 acquisition. However, the concept of perezhivanie has been overlook despite playing a central role in crystallising ideas in both Vygotsky's negative arguments and his positive theory. Here, I revisit the concept as a potential means to inform the kind of emic approach to research Firth and Wagner (1997; 2007) had argued was necessary for balance in the field of SLA. As a first step, I examine perezhivanie as discussed in 'The Problem of the Environment' (Vygotsky, 1994), and within the context of other aspects of Vygotsky’s work – his criticisms of psychology; the functional unity of consciousness; the concept of the unit; and holism - to clarify misunderstandings and expand on its theoretical content. I conclude with a discussion of the issues raised when perezhivanie is applied in the study of memory.

Is the archivist a “radical atheist” now? Deconstruction, its new wave, and archival activism

Hagglund’s “radical atheism”—innovative thinking within the philosophical current of “speculative materialism”—revitalizes deconstruction and provides an important basis to define parameters for the archivist’s role as activist for social justice. This paper argues postmodern archival theory gets deconstruction wrong by misreading Derrida’s “Archive fever” as a theory of “archontic power”; this misleads archivists on the call for justice. Properly understanding that justice is undecidable, radical atheism explodes the tension between postmodernists’ appreciation of all views and perspectives and their commitment to right unjust relations of power. This paper first advances the negative argument that “Archive fever” is not about power and injustice. It then advances the positive argument that “Archive fever” is Derrida’s effort to look at actual archives to resolve Freud’s problematic theorizing of a “death drive.” In a close and comprehensive reading of “Archive fever,” this paper explores the notion of “archive fever” as a death drive and suggests Derrida’s efforts are inconclusive. Viewed through the lens of radical atheism, the archive’s “traces”—the material of actual archives writ large in the manner of Derrida’s thinking about a universal archive—serve to mark the flow of time. Understanding the structure of the trace reveals the source of internal contradictions, discontinuities, and instabilities in the meaning of all things. It explains why justice is undecidable. In face of the unconditional condition of this undecidability, we as archivists and humans are compelled to make decisions and to act. Deconstruction politicizes our actions and evokes a responsibility that cannot be absolved.

Irony in interpersonal conflict scenarios

The uses of indirect argument strategies, such as irony, remain understudied. This study examined a variety of ironic arguments and the production and suppression rather than reception of those arguments. Hyperbole, understatement, rhetorical question, jocularity, and sarcasm were examined in close versus distant relationships. Findings point to a tendency to use more negative arguments in closer relationships than those that are more casual. In sum, we are more likely to be negative in closer relationships despite what our typical behavior would indicate.

Rethinking common belief, revision, and backward induction

Whether rationality and common belief in rationality jointly entail the backward inductive outcome in centipede games has long been debated. Stalnaker’s compelling negative argument appeals to the AGM belief revision postulates to argue that off-path moves may be rational, given the revisions they may prompt. I counter that the structure of common belief and the principles of AGM justify an additional assumption about revision. I then prove that, given my proposed constraint, for all finite, n-player, extensive form, perfect information games with a unique backward inductive solution, if there is initial common belief in rationality, then backward induction is guaranteed.