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The Faculty of Arts is home to one of the most multidisciplinary academic communities on campus. From neuroscience, through ancient languages to choreography and music and drama composition, our researchers and students lead critical and creative research inquiry that engages communities and fosters innovation, leadership and creative practice. Composed of 12 departments and two schools, our faculty fosters a culture of critical and creative inquiry, debate, imagination, discovery and entrepreneurial thinking. Our vision for energizing arts is to engage, inspire, discover. Continue reading to find out more about research in the Faculty of Arts.
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Browsing Arts by Department "Philosophy"
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Item Open Access Ability, Frankfurt Examples, and Obligation(Springer, 2018-04-21) Haji, Ishtiyaque; Hebert, RyanFrankfurt examples invite controversy over whether the pertinent agent in these examples lacks the specific (as opposed to the general) ability to do otherwise, and whether what she does can be obligatory or permissible. We develop an account of ability that implies that this agent does not have the specific ability to refrain from performing the germane action. The account also undergirds a view of obligation that entails that it is morally required or prohibited for an agent to perform an action only if she has the specific ability to do, and to do otherwise than, perform it. Therefore, in Frankfurt examples, it is neither obligatory nor impermissible for the relevant agent to do what she does.Item Open Access Are “Nudges” Manipulative? Evaluating Libertarian Moralism as a Solution to Global Poverty(University of Calgary, 2016) Lee, Mark S; Habib, AllenItem Open Access Art/ificial intelligence: a short bibliography on AI and the arts(1990-01) Zach, Richard; Widmer, Gerhard; Trappl, RobertItem Open Access Blameworthiness and Time(2021-09-03) Haji, IshtiyaqueThe following theses concerning moral obligation are widely accepted. Future Obligation: it is possible that at some time you are morally obligated to do something that you have not yet done but will do at a future time. Obligation-Changeability: it is possible that although it is obligatory, at some specified time, for you to do something later, at a time pursuant to this specified time you no longer have this obligation. The author argues that analogous theses concerning moral blameworthiness are true too: it’s possible that you may now be blameworthy for something you have not yet done but will do, and that blameworthiness can change with the passage of time.Item Open Access Contrast and Contrastivism: The Logic of Contrastive Knowledge(2010) Scobbie, TaylorItem Open Access Divine and Conventional Frankfurt Examples(2021-08-13) Haji, IshtiyaqueThe principle of alternate possibilities (PAP) says that you are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy for something you do only if you could have done otherwise. Frankfurt examples are putative counterexamples to PAP. These examples feature a failsafe mechanism that ensures that some agent cannot refrain from doing what she does without intervening in how she conducts herself, thereby supposedly sustaining the upshot that she is responsible for her behavior despite not being able to do otherwise. I introduce a Frankfurt example in which the agent who could not have done otherwise is God. Paying attention to the freedom requirements of moral obligation, the example is commissioned, first, to assess whether various states of affairs that are unavoidable for God can be obligatory for God and for which God can be praiseworthy. The example is, next, used to unearth problems with conventional Frankfurt examples that feature human agents. I argue that conceptual connections between responsibility and obligation cast suspicion on these examples. Pertinent lessons that the divine Frankfurt example helps to reveal motivate the view that divine foreknowledge and determinism, assuming that both preclude freedom to do otherwise, may well imperil obligation and responsibility.Item Open Access Dual systems of sequents and tableaux for many-valued logics(European Association for Theoretical Computer Science, 1993-01) Baaz, Matthias; Fermüller, Christian G.; Zach, RichardThe aim of this paper is to emphasize the fact that for all finitely-many-valued logics there is a completely systematic relation between sequent calculi and tableau systems. More importantly, we show that for both of these systems there are always two dual proof systems (not just only two ways to interpret the calculi). This phenomenon may easily escape one's attention since in the classical (two-valued) case the two systems coincide. (In two-valued logic the assignment of a truth value and the exclusion of the opposite truth value describe the same situation.Item Open Access Elimination of cuts in first-order finite-valued logics(Institut für Informatik, 1994-01) Baaz, Matthias; Fermüller, Christian G.; Zach, RichardA uniform construction for sequent calculi for finite-valued first-order logics with distribution quantifiers is exhibited. Completeness, cut-elimination and midsequent theorems are established. As an application, an analog of Herbrand’s theorem for the four-valued knowledge-representation logic of Belnap and Ginsberg is presented. It is indicated how this theorem can be used for reasoning about knowledge bases with incomplete and inconsistent information.Item Open Access Explication, Open-Texture, and Church’s Thesis(University of Calgary, 2016) Curtis-Trudel, AndreItem Open Access Fuzzy Logic & Vagueness(2005) Serchuk, Phil; Zach, RichardItem Open Access Gödel vs. Mechanism(2013) Darnell, Eamon; Zach, RichardItem Open Access Hilbert’s Finitism: Historical, Philosophical, and Metamathematical Perspectives(2001-05) Zach, RichardIn the 1920s, David Hilbert proposed a research program with the aim of providing mathematics with a secure foundation. This was to be accomplished by first formalizing logic and mathematics in their entirety, and then showing—using only so-called finitistic principles—that these formalizations are free of contradictions. In the area of logic, the Hilbert school accomplished major advances both in introducing new systems of logic, and in developing central metalogical notions, such as completeness and decidability. The analysis of unpublished material presented in Chapter 2 shows that a completeness proof for propositional logic was found by Hilbert and his assistant Paul Bernays already in 1917-18, and that Bernays’s contribution was much greater than is commonly acknowledged. Aside from logic, the main technical contribution of Hilbert’s Program are the development of formal mathematical theories and proof-theoretical investigations thereof, in particular, consistency proofs. In this respect Wilhelm Ackermann’s 1924 dissertation is a milestone both in the development of the Program and in proof theory in general. Ackermann gives a consistency proof for a second-order version of primitive recursive arithmetic which, surprisingly, explicitly uses a finitistic version of transfinite induction up to ω^ω^ω. He also gave a faulty consistency proof for a system of second-order arithmetic based on Hilbert’s epsilon-substitution method. Detailed analyses of both proofs in Chapter 3 shed light on the development of finitism and proof theory in the 1920s as practiced in Hilbert’s school. In a series of papers, Charles Parsons has attempted to map out a notion of mathematical intuition which he also brings to bear on Hilbert’s finitism. According to him, mathematical intuition fails to be able to underwrite the kind of intuitive knowledge Hilbert thought was attainable by the finitist. It is argued in Chapter 4 that the extent of finitistic knowledge which intuition can provide is broader than Parsons supposes. According to another influential analysis of finitism due to W. W. Tait, finitist reasoning coincides with primitive recursive reasoning. The acceptance of non-primitive recursive methods in Ackermann’s dissertation presented in Chapter 3, together with additional textual evidence presented in Chapter 4, shows that this identification is untenable as far as Hilbert’s conception of finitism is concerned. Tait’s conception, however, differs from Hilbert’s in important respects, yet it is also open to criticisms leading to the conclusion that finitism encompasses more than just primitive recursive reasoning.Item Open Access Indeterministic Choice and Ability(Springer, 2018-04-27) Haji, Ishtiyaque; Hebert, RyanThe problem of luck is advanced and defended against libertarian theories of responsibility-enabling ability. An outline of an account of ability is articulated to explore some features of the sort of ability moral responsibility requires. The account vindicates the luck objection and suggests a novel puzzle: Libertarianism is structurally barred from answering the problem of luck because responsibility requires, but inherently lacks, an explanation from reason states to actions that preserves reliability of connection between responsibility-grounding reasons-sensitivity and action.Item Open Access Note on calculi for a three-valued logic for logic programming(1992) Baaz, Matthias; Zach, RichardItem Open Access Obligation Incompatibilism and Blameworthiness(2021-07-05) Haji, IshtiyaqueObligation incompatibilism is the view that determinism precludes moral obligation. I argue for the following. (i) Two principles, ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ and ‘ought not’ is equivalent to ‘impermissible’, generate a powerful argument for obligation incompatibilism. (ii) Assuming conceptual ties between blameworthiness and impermissibility or belief in impermissibility, these principles also imperil blameworthiness provided determinism is true. If determinism undermines blameworthiness, it also undermines proposed justifications of punishment that presuppose blameworthiness. Allegedly blameworthiness-free justifications of punishment fare no better given their moral presuppositions. (iii) The most promising compatibilist reply to the argument for obligation incompatibilism should concede that obligation requires alternatives but of a variety that one can have even if determinism is true.Item Open Access Obligation, Responsibility, and History(Springer, 2018-01-03) Haji, IshtiyaqueI argue that, each of the following, appropriately clarified to yield a noteworthy thesis, is true. (1) Moral obligation can affect moral responsibility. (2) Obligation succumbs to changes in responsibility. (3) Obligation is immune from changes in responsibility.Item Open Access The Paradox of Knowability and Semantic Anti-Realism(2007) Chung, Julianne; Zach, RichardItem Open Access Proof Theory of Finite-valued Logics(1993-09-21) Zach, RichardThe proof theory of many-valued systems has not been investigated to an extent comparable to the work done on axiomatizatbility of many-valued logics. Proof theory requires appropriate formalisms, such as sequent calculus, natural deduction, and tableaux for classical (and intuitionistic) logic. One particular method for systematically obtaining calculi for all finite-valued logics was invented independently by several researchers, with slight variations in design and presentation. The main aim of this report is to develop the proof theory of finite-valued first order logics in a general way, and to present some of the more important results in this area. In Systems covered are the resolution calculus, sequent calculus, tableaux, and natural deduction. This report is actually a template, from which all results can be specialized to particular logics.Item Open Access Systematic Construction of Natural Deduction Systems for Many-valued Logics: Extended Report(IEEE, 1993-05-01) Baaz, Matthias; Fermüller, Christian G.; Zach, RichardWe exhibit a construction principle for natural deduction systems for arbitrary finitely-many-valued first order logics. These systems are systematically obtained from sequent calculi, which in turn can be extracted from the truth tables of the logics under consideration. Soundness and cut-free completeness of these sequent calculi translate into soundness, completeness and normal form theorems for the natural deduction systems.