Essays on Paradoxes

Essays on Paradoxes
Title Essays on Paradoxes PDF eBook
Author Terry Horgan
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 337
Release 2017
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 019985842X

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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.

Philosophy and the Human Paradox

Philosophy and the Human Paradox
Title Philosophy and the Human Paradox PDF eBook
Author Alan Montefiore
Publisher Routledge
Pages 272
Release 2019-12-09
Genre Philosophy
ISBN 1000765717

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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.

Paradoxes of the Public School

Paradoxes of the Public School
Title Paradoxes of the Public School PDF eBook
Author James E. Schul
Publisher IAP
Pages 242
Release 2024-07-01
Genre Education
ISBN

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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.

Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence

Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence
Title Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence PDF eBook
Author Richard K. Betts
Publisher Routledge
Pages 236
Release 2004-08-02
Genre History
ISBN 1135759650

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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.

Essays, Paradoxes, Soliloquies

Essays, Paradoxes, Soliloquies
Title Essays, Paradoxes, Soliloquies PDF eBook
Author Miguel de Unamuno
Publisher
Pages
Release 2022-02-08
Genre
ISBN 9781955190268

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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

Revenge of the Liar

Revenge of the Liar
Title Revenge of the Liar PDF eBook
Author JC Beall
Publisher OUP Oxford
Pages 384
Release 2007-12-13
Genre Philosophy
ISBN 0191528501

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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.

Schall on Chesterton

Schall on Chesterton
Title Schall on Chesterton PDF eBook
Author James V. Schall
Publisher CUA Press
Pages 292
Release 2000-06
Genre Literary Collections
ISBN 9780813209630

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In this book of essays, Father James V. Schall, a prolific author himself and a prominent Catholic writer, brings readers to Chesterton through a witty series of original reflections prompted by something Chesterton wrote--timely essays on timeless issues.