Coincidence Puzzles

This chapter presents and discusses a general schema that subsumes a variety of puzzles having to do with the modal behaviour of material objects, some new and some familiar. These puzzles involve ‘Robustness’ premises according to which certain objects of a given kind are counterfactually robust in certain respects; ‘Non-coincidence’ premises according to which distinct objects of that kind are incapable of coinciding, and ‘Non-distinctness’ premises that rule out the scenarios in which actually distinct objects could have been identical; these jointly entail an absurd conclusion.

Tolerance Puzzles

This chapter provides a general schema for regimenting a broad family of puzzles of modal variation. These puzzles begin with a ‘Tolerance’ premise according to which an objects (or a certain kind of object) can differ in any small way along a certain parameter. This is supplemented with a ‘Non-contingency’ premise according to which the Tolerance premise is necessarily true if true at all, an ‘Iteration’ premise according to which anything possibly possible is possible, and a ‘Persistent Closeness’ premise according to which what counts as a ‘small difference’ is modally constant. These premises jointly imply the conclusion, ‘Hypertolerance’, that the object or objects in question can differ arbitrarily along the relevant parameter. We show how this schema is general enough to subsume puzzles involving time or objective chance, and discuss some difficulties that arise in trying to formulate compelling instantiations of the schema involving variation in originating matter.

Automatic textual description of interactions between two objects in surveillance videos

The purpose of our work is to automatically generate textual video description schemas from surveillance video scenes compatible with police incidents reports. Our proposed approach is based on a generic and flexible context-free ontology. The general schema is of the form [actuator] [action] [over/with] [actuated object] [+ descriptors: distance, speed, etc.]. We focus on scenes containing exactly two objects. Through elaborated steps, we generate a formatted textual description. We try to identify the existence of an interaction between the two objects, including remote interaction which does not involve physical contact and we point out when aggressivity took place in these cases. We use supervised deep learning to classify scenes into interaction or no-interaction classes and then into subclasses. The chosen descriptors used to represent subclasses are keys in surveillance systems that help generate live alerts and facilitate offline investigation.

Rara and theory testing in typology: The natural evolution of non‐canonical agreement

In typology, rara provide valuable tests for theoretical hypotheses. Here I consider the rarum of PERSON inflection in Kayardild, which has only two surface contrasts but is found across all words in complementized subordinate clauses. I introduce a general schema for reasoning about the diachronic emergence of rara, and reconstruct the evolution of Kayardild subordinate PERSON agreement, from an earlier state in which a main‐clause inverse system was coupled to a system of complementizing CASE agreement. Serendipitously, the same synchronic facts have been analysed twice earlier without the benefit of the full diachronic backstory, and so present a retrospective case study in what diachrony offers for the analysis of rara, structures which by definition are difficult to contextualize using synchronic typology alone. I argue that since rara are so valuable for the testing of typological theories, and since diachrony may offer the only source of convincing explanation for them, it follows that typological science will need to refer to diachrony for the successful development of theory. It cannot rely on synchrony alone .

Of absent mothers, strong sisters and peculiar daughters: the constructional network of English NPN constructions

This paper analyzes symmetric NPN constructions (e.g., day to day, face to face, step by step) qualitatively and quantitatively by examining data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (Davies, Mark. 2008–. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): 570 million words, 1990–present. http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/). The constructions’ frequency and productivity, as well as their semantics and extension potential (i.e., modification, complementation) is investigated (e.g., by conducting collostructional analysis). In terms of theoretical modeling, the paper takes a Usage-based, Cognitive Construction Grammar approach (UCCxG) and sketches the constructional network of this constructional family, postulating various constructional templates on different levels of specificity – among others – the existence of the following subtypes [CNsg,time i after CNsg,time i]Cx (e.g., day after day, night after night), [CNsg,measurement i by CNsg,measurement i]Cx (e.g., inch by inch, step by step) or [CNsg,bodypart i to CNsg,bodypart i]Cx (e.g., skin to skin, shoulder to shoulder). We show how these templates are vertically and horizontally connected to each other. Ultimately, we argue that in a usage-based model which strives for cognitive plausibility it is not always feasible to postulate the entrenchment of an abstract overarching schema (i.e., a ‘mothernode’) like [CNi P CNi]Cx or even [N P N]Cx high up in the network. It is unlikely that speakers abstract such a general schema in a bottom-up acquisition process for this family. Rather, the NPN group is a constructional family characterized by many sister ties and by the absence of mother nodes from which information can be inherited.

Cubical Agda: A dependently typed programming language with univalence and higher inductive types

Proof assistants based on dependent type theory provide expressive languages for both programming and proving within the same system. However, all of the major implementations lack powerful extensionality principles for reasoning about equality, such as function and propositional extensionality. These principles are typically added axiomatically which disrupts the constructive properties of these systems. Cubical type theory provides a solution by giving computational meaning to Homotopy Type Theory and Univalent Foundations, in particular to the univalence axiom and higher inductive types (HITs). This paper describes an extension of the dependently typed functional programming language Agda with cubical primitives, making it into a full-blown proof assistant with native support for univalence and a general schema of HITs. These new primitives allow the direct definition of function and propositional extensionality as well as quotient types, all with computational content. Additionally, thanks also to copatterns, bisimilarity is equivalent to equality for coinductive types. The adoption of cubical type theory extends Agda with support for a wide range of extensionality principles, without sacrificing type checking and constructivity.

Bacon’s Metaphysical Method

In this paper, I would like to examine the method that Bacon proposes in Novum organum II.1-20 and illustrates with the example of the procedure for discovering the form of heat. One might think of a scientific method as a general schema for research into nature, one that can, in principle, be used independently of the particular conception of the natural world which one adopts, and independently of the particular scientific domain with which one is concerned. Indeed, Bacon himself suggested that as with logic, his method, or as he calls it there his “system of interpreting” is widely applicable to any domain, and not just to natural philosophy. [Novum organum I.127] Now, recent studies of Bacon have emphasized his own natural philosophical commitments, and the underlying conception of nature that runs through his writings. In my essay I argue that the method Bacon illustrates in Novum organum II is deeply connected to this underlying view of nature: far from being a neutral procedure for decoding nature, Bacon’s method is a tool for filling out the details of a natural philosophy built along the broad outlines of the Baconian world view.

Newcomb dilemma in development management

Newcomb dilemmas show a discrepancy in our rational reasoning, as made clear by comparing Evidential Decision Theory with Causal Decision Theory. In this paper, I look at three versions of the dilemma: the original, highly technical and abstract one plus two more mundane cases. I also account for the general schema of the dilemma possibly appearing in macroeconomic situations. Ahmed (2014) aims to provide a solution for macroeconomic cases that opens room for forming a development management Newcomb dilemma – an imaginary case of electric motor competition between Toyota and Tesla. I argue that Ahmed’s solution may solve the macroeconomic Newcomb dilemma, but it cannot be applied to the development management dilemma. If I am right, similar Newcomb situations could be cropping up regularly in development management, leading to seemingly insoluble strategic decisions having to be made. This may create an inevitable pitfall for development management.

Schemes, Critical Questions, and Complete Argument Evaluation

According to the argument scheme approach, to evaluate a given scheme-saturating instance completely does entail asking all critical questions (CQs) relevant to it. Although this is a central task for argumentation theorists, the field currently lacks a method for providing a complete argument evaluation. Approaching this task at the meta-level, we combine a logical with a substantive approach to the argument schemes by starting from Toulmin’s schema: ‘data, warrant, so claim’. For the yet more general schema: ‘premise(s); if premise(s), then conclusion; so conclusion’, we forward a meta-level CQ-list that is arguably both complete and applicable. This list should inform ongoing theoretical efforts at generating appropriate object-level CQs for specific argument schemes.

Sotto voce: Inscription as Voiceover in Malick’s Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick’s widespread use of voiceover is generally noted, as is its nonstandard bearing. Malick’s use of voiceover is non-standard in virtue of its loose narrative fit. That too is often marked. Much less discussed is the philosophical basis for Malick’s voiceover, more specifically its ontological function in bounding the filmworld with intentionality. This paper addresses such ontological questions. It first develops a general schema for voiceover and Malick’s use of it in several of his films. Malick’s discovery of the potential for oblique forms of voiceover in Truffaut is treated. The discussion then focuses on the film Days of Heaven (1978) and, in particular, on an undiscussed and easy to miss visual riddle in one of the key scenes, involving the marriage of two of the principal characters. The riddle concerns an inscription in what for most viewers will be indecipherable symbols written on a backdrop formed by the side of a wagon. It turns out that the inscription is in Blackfoot syllabary and translates the opening of the Te Deum prayer. The paper argues that the inscription is best understood as a cousin to voiceover and, in particular, to Malick’s conception of voiceover. The inscription has, accordingly, an ontological and critical function in conjunction with the scene it accompanies. The paper concludes with remarks concerning The New World (2005), a Malick film that includes several prayers in voiceover and more comprehensively and resolutely represents the linguistic presence and expressiveness of Native Americans.