bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Be okay with small steps, as the harmonic series grows without bound
Authors: D'Agostino Susan 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
“Be okay with small steps, as the harmonic series grows without bound” considers the question: if each term in the infinite sum represented a day or a fraction of a day you live, would you live forever? That is, does the harmonic series—an infinite sum in which you start with a 1 and then continue adding the reciprocals of increasingly positive integers—grow without bound? The discussion is illustrated with hand-drawn sketches. Mathematics students and enthusiasts are encouraged to appreciate that small steps in mathematical and life pursuits may accumulate, leading to progress over time. At the chapter’s end, readers may check their understanding by working on a problem. A solution is provided.
Work efficiently, like bacteriophages with icosahedral symmetry
Authors: D'Agostino Susan 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
“Work efficiently, like bacteriophages with icosahedral symmetry” explains in non-technical terms how an exceptionally small virus that infects bacteria uses its geometry to efficiently encode instructions for assembling the protein shell that stores its genetic material. Readers may cut out a template and construct a model of the bacteriophage’s icosahedron-shaped head. In addition, numerous hand-drawn sketches illustrate the mathematical symmetries of the bacteriophage’s replication. Mathematics students and enthusiasts are encouraged to learn a lesson from the bacteriophage by economizing time and effort in mathematical and life pursuits. At the chapter’s end, readers may check their understanding by working on a problem. A solution is provided.
Find balance, as in coding theory
Authors: D'Agostino Susan 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
“Find balance, as in coding theory” explains how mathematicians construct codes to transmit messages as accurately and efficiently as possible. Since “noise” may corrupt messages during transmission, a good code repeats some of the information in a sent message so that errors due to noise in the received message may be detected and (ideally) corrected. However, too much repetition increases not only the code word length but the transmission time—an undesirable outcome. Mathematician Claude Shannon proved that “optimal” codes with just the right balance between repetition in transmission and error detection exist. Mathematics students and enthusiasts are encouraged to find a balance that is just right between repetition and forward momentum in mathematical and life pursuits. At the chapter’s end, readers may check their understanding by working on a problem concerning book International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs). A solution is provided.
Update your understanding, with Bayesian statistics
Authors: D'Agostino Susan 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
“Update your understanding, with Bayesian statistics” provides an accessible introduction to Bayesian statistics, in which one begins with a belief, understanding, or prediction that is based on data and then, upon receiving new information, updates the prediction. Readers consider a Bayesian approach to hypothetical woman’s risk levels for breast cancer upon receiving notice of a positive mammogram. Mathematics students and enthusiasts are encouraged to consider a Bayesian approach whenever they are in a position to manage uncertainty in mathematics or life. At the chapter’s end, readers may check their understanding by working on a problem. A solution is provided.
Get disoriented, on a Klein bottle
Authors: D'Agostino Susan 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
“Get disoriented, on a Klein bottle” offers a basic introduction to a four-dimensional mathematical object known as a Klein bottle. The discussion is enhanced with numerous hand-drawn sketches. Although a Klein bottle appears to have an inside and an outside, it is an object with only one side and no edges. Readers will learn why a walk on a Klein bottle may turn them upside down. Klein bottles embody the art, science, seriousness, and even playfulness of mathematics. Mathematics students and enthusiasts are encouraged to embrace a Klein-bottle-like disorientation in mathematical and life pursuits as a way of exposing themselves to new ideas. At the chapter’s end, readers may check their understanding by working on a problem. A solution is provided.
Dignity and Shame
Authors: Killmister Suzy 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
This chapter focuses on personal and social dignity, exploring the source and scope of individuals’ moral claims against having their dignity violated, frustrated, or destroyed. For personal dignity, the grounds of such claims lie primarily in the import of self-respect, but these claims are constrained by the duties they would impose on others. For social dignity, the grounds of such claims lie primarily in the import of social standing, but depend on the individual being entitled to maintain that social standing. This framework sheds light on the wrongs of humiliating or degrading treatment, while avoiding the problematic implication that individuals can appeal to their dignity to protect bigoted behavior from sanction.
Human Dignity and Human Rights
Authors: Killmister Suzy 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
This chapter argues that human dignity should be understood as one more instantiation of status dignity. Accordingly, to have human dignity is to be a member of the human kind, where the human kind is a socially constructed category. This conception of human dignity is then integrated into an account of human rights, and it is shown that despite being socially constructed, human dignity can serve as the foundation of human rights. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the role of human rights practice in preventing the dehumanization of vulnerable people.
Introduction
Authors: Duncombe Matthew 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
The introduction draws some distinctions and uses them to articulate the scope, argument, and approach of this book. First, the chapter distinguishes: relatives (things that are related); relational properties (certain properties that related things have); and relations (items which do the relating). These distinctions delineate three approaches to ancient relativity that scholars have adopted: relativity does not involve relations; relativity is a matter of incomplete relational predicates; relations constitute relatives. Since the book focuses on this latter view, the chapter describes constitutive relativity in more detail. In particular, I identify some ‘formal features’ of constitutive relativity: exclusivity, reciprocity, aliorelativity, and existential symmetry. These are features that relatives have simply in virtue of being relatives, on the constitutive view.
Relativity and partition in Republic
Authors: Duncombe Matthew 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
In Republic IV, Socrates argues that the soul has three parts. Before arguing that the soul has three parts, Socrates argues that it has at least two parts. I call this the Partition Argument. This argument crucially involves relatives, but commentators have thought the partition argument falls to one of two objections. In this chapter, I argue that, once we understand that constitutive relativity is in play, neither objection is fatal. But this approach reveals a tension within constitutive relativity: some of the formal features may turn out to form an inconsistent set. The chapter ends with some reflections on how Plato articulates this tension in the Statesman and how one might respond.
Stoic relativity
Authors: Duncombe Matthew 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
This chapter focuses on our most comprehensive record of Stoic relativity. In his commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, Simplicius reports two sorts of Stoic relativity, and plots them in a taxonomy. The orthodox reading of Simplicius’ report faces philosophical and textual difficulties. Moreover, Simplicius’ taxonomy appears inconsistent. This chapter reads the report in light of constitutive relativity: some Stoic relatives are directly constituted by a relation while some are indirectly constituted by a relation. The chapter goes on to show how reading Stoic relatives in this light makes better sense of Simplicius’ report and also offers a new, less puzzling, account of Simplicius’ taxonomy.
Conclusion
Authors: Duncombe Matthew 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
The conclusion summarizes the results of the book, by returning to discuss three broad theses that the book has defended: that Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Sextus share a broadly constitutive view of relativity; that the wider philosophical pictures of these thinkers affected how they precisely each understand constitutive relativity; and that how these thinkers viewed relativity, in turn, affects their wider philosophical positions. The conclusion also offers some reflections on the ancient and modern reception of ancient thinking about relativity. These reflections focus on relational inferences in Aristotle, Galen, De Morgan, and Russell. The conclusion briefly discusses the notorious objection that Aristotle’s logic cannot validate some obviously valid inferences involving relativity: the famous horses’ heads inference.
Demons and Devices
Authors: Truitt E. R. 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Although no single term or even set of terms exists from the long medieval period to refer to objects that we might recognize as artificial intelligence, numerous examples, from artificial servants to elaborate optical devices, exist on a spectrum from augmented human perception to sentient machines. Because natural phenomena and causation were understood different from now, the possible paths to artificial intelligence included astral science, natural philosophy, demons, and natural magic. Yet although there were believed to be a number of ways to create artificial intelligence in this period, the uses to which it was put are fairly limited. Throughout this era, artificial intelligence appears in imaginative contexts to gain, consolidate, and exercise power. This sometimes took the form of maintaining class and gender hierarchies, but could also be used for military or political dominance, or to gain knowledge of the future that could be used to a person’s advantage.
The Android of Albertus Magnus
Authors: Kang Minsoo , Halliburton Ben 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
In medieval and early modern writings, there is a cluster of stories concerning an artificial construct in the shape of a human body or a head that is animated for the purpose of divination, associated with such figures as Gerbert of Aurillac, Robert Grosseteste, Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon. Among them, the Albertus legends have been retold numerous times in interesting variations that provide insight into the changing attitudes towards intellectual magic. Given the fact that the wondrous object is described as being able to converse and even reason, its nature as a kind of medieval AI has made it an object of interest in recent books on AI, robotics, and posthumanity. In this article, the major appearances of Albertus’s speaking statue/head story will be examined in detail to show that the explanation for the wonder moved from astrology to demonic agency, as well as to pure mechanics.
AI and Cyberpunk Networks
Authors: McFarlane Anna 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Cyberpunk science fiction broke new ground in terms of AI representation; William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984), the ur-text of cyberpunk, introduced the term ‘cyberspace’, and this spatialized metaphor for data creates an environment that can be inhabited by AIs, rather than an idea of the AI being located in one ‘body’, or in one static place. This chapter explores the possibilities opened by this innovation and by cyberpunk’s continued interrogation of AI as a phenomenon that is dispersed throughout networks, particularly focusing on William Gibson, in the Afrofuturist movement through a reading of Samuel R. Delany’s Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984), and on the work of writers who have been characterized as ‘post-cyberpunk’, such as Cory Doctorow, who shows how algorithms and artificial intelligences can have unexpected, international, and economic consequences.
The Fall and Rise of AI
Authors: Recchia Gabriel 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
By applying techniques used to understand large corpora within the digital humanities to a dataset of over 100,000 film subtitles ranging from the era of silent film to the present, this chapter presents a qualitative and quantitative overview of salient themes and trends in the way artificial intelligence is portrayed and discussed in twentieth- and twenty-first-century film. Examples are provided that demonstrate how combining the tools of traditional literary analysis with computational techniques for analysing large quantities of text can lead us to important texts, patterns, and nuanced insights that complement those derived from manual study alone.
Theories as Sets of Propositions
Authors: French Steven 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
In this chapter, the so-called ‘Syntactic Approach’ is outlined that takes theories to be sets of propositions. This account has come under fire for its perceived inadequacy in capturing various aspects of scientific practice. However, recent developments in this approach have indicated how it may have the resources to accommodate these features. These developments are presented and the nature of propositions themselves explored, as abstract entities and fictions. The former raises obvious concerns about ontological inflation, whereas the latter requires changes in how we talk about the practices of scientists. A more economical view is offered by eliminativism and thus this chapter lays the groundwork for discussion of these issues in the rest of the book.
Theories as Families of Models
Authors: French Steven 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
The alternative to the ‘Syntactic Approach’ is the Semantic Approach, according to which theories should be characterized in terms of families of models. The issue of the linguistic independence of this framework is discussed and it is suggested that this approach offers a ‘toolbox’ of resources that can be deployed to capture various features of scientific practice. One such tool is the notion of a ‘partial structure’ by which such models can be formally presented, together with the associated device of partial isomorphisms, as deployed elsewhere. A recent critique of this approach is also discussed in some detail and it is argued that this critique assumes that theories are things with well-defined identity conditions, which is precisely the claim that is denied here. The chapter concludes by noting van Fraassen’s point that the critique also ignores the representational function of these models, which leads into Chapter 3.
Theories as Abstract Artefacts
Authors: French Steven 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
An alternative way of resolving the dilemma is to regard both artworks and theories as ‘abstract artefacts’ in some sense. The work of both Popper and Thomasson is drawn upon to help articulate this view and again comparisons are made between theories and artworks, particularly literary works. One obstacle to the extension of this view into science is that theories appear to be multiply discoverable and modally flexible in ways that artworks are not. However, on closer examination it appears that this barrier is not as significant as might be thought. Nevertheless, the ‘abstract artefacts’ view runs into serious problems in accommodating the heuristic moves underlying scientific ‘discovery’.
Theories Eliminated!
Authors: French Steven 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Finally, a way forward through all these debates and dilemmas is suggested which involves adopting a form of eliminativism previously applied to musical works and deploying it in the philosophy of science. This eliminates theories as things but allows us to continue to talk about them and about their scientific and aesthetic qualities by adopting a form of ‘truth-maker’ theory, according to which that talk is made true by the relevant scientific practices. This shifts the philosophical focus to where it should be, namely on those practices but it is important to recognise that this does not amount to the claim that theories are constituted by such practices. According to the view motivated and defended here, there are no theories!
Theories in the Realism Debate
Authors: French Steven 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
If there are no theories, how can they be said to represent anything? And how can one be a realist or antirealist about them? In this final chapter the notion of ‘practice’ is extended to cover philosophical practices in order to answer these questions. Furthermore, returning to the topics of Chapters 1 and 2, we should understand the Syntactic and Semantic Approaches and the accounts of representation based on them, as meta-representational devices that allow us to capture those features of practices that we are interested in. This offers the possibility of a suitably reflective philosophy of science that is better adapted to accommodate the hetereogeneous and multi-faceted nature of science itself.
Pascal: Reasoning and Belief
Authors: Moriarty Michael 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
The book is a study of Pascal’s defence of Christian belief in the Pensées. It aims to expound, and in places to criticize, what it argues (drawing on existing scholarship about the history of the text) is a coherent and original apologetic strategy. It sets out the basic philosophical and theological presuppositions of his project, drawing the distinction between convictions attained by reason and those inspired by God-given faith. It sets out his view of the contradictions within human nature, between the ‘wretchedness’ (our inability to live the life of reason, to attain secure and durable happiness) and the ‘greatness’ (the power of thought, manifested in the very awareness of our wretchedness). His mind–body dualism and his mechanistic conception of non-human animals are discussed. Pascal invokes the biblical story of the Fall and the doctrine of original sin as the only credible explanation of these contradictions. His analysis of human occupations as powered by the twin desire to escape from painful thoughts and to gratify one’s vanity is subjected to critical examination, as is his conception of the self and self-love. Pascal argues that, just as Christianity propounds the only explanation for the human condition, so it offers the only kind of happiness that would satisfy our deepest longings. He thus argues that we have an interest in investigating its truth-claims as rooted in the Bible and in history. The closing chapters discuss his view of Christian morality and the famous ‘wager’ argument for opting in favour of Christian belief.
Introduction
Authors: Moriarty Michael 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
The Introduction discusses why it is worth reading Pascal’s religious thought today, and why he has a negative image in certain quarters, where he is perceived as a pessimistic misanthrope. This is partly on account of his adherence to the Jansenist movement in Roman Catholicism, which was committed to a hard-line interpretation of St Augustine. His approach to the task of writing a defence of Christian belief is analysed, and the kind of apologetic argument he employs is clarified. The problem for the exegete of the fragmentary nature of the work is discussed; it is argued that we have enough evidence of Pascal’s intended apologetic approach to reconstruct his overall plan, though there are areas of uncertainty; we can also evaluate the effectiveness of different plans for different audiences.
Order and Disorder
Authors: Moriarty Michael 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Pascal holds that the persuasive power of an argument depends greatly on its order or disposition. But he himself claims to be writing without order. This chapter aims at reconciling this apparent contradiction. Evidence for the manner in which he intended to arrange his materials is discussed, and the rival theories of different scholars, in particular Jean Mesnard and Philippe Sellier, are expounded in some detail. Aware that unbelievers may be hostile to Christianity, Pascal argues, first, that Christianity is not contrary to reason (it deserves respect, because it shows real knowledge of human nature), and, secondly, that it is attractive because it promises genuine happiness, presumably by reference to Scripture. The expository order adopted in this book is explained.
Futility and Wretchedness
Authors: Moriarty Michael 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
The attention now turns to the Pensées. Futility and wretchedness are two aspects of the human condition as depicted by Pascal (his ‘anthropology’). All our efforts to attain happiness are doomed to failure. The pursuit of glory is pointless; we sacrifice real goods for the sake of our imaginary existence in the eyes of others. The pursuit of wealth or knowledge is precarious. Our activities are mostly distractions from an unwelcome present. We pursue our goals with all seriousness, while partly aware that they are futile. History is governed by chance and social order has no relation to justice. If there is an ideal authentic justice, we are unable to realize it—witness the variety of moral and political values. This is only one example of a general weakness of our cognitive powers (which Pascal emphasizes by appealing to Pyrrhonist sceptical arguments). Our capacity to reason is swamped by the power of imagination; we are vulnerable to forces beyond our control. Pascal’s view of the human condition is compared to Camus’s conception of the absurd.
Self
Authors: Moriarty Michael 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Pascal believes that human beings are in thrall to an uncontrollable self-love, a self-centredness that sets them at odds with their fellow creatures and that is intrinsically unjust. (For this reason he rejects the ethic of honnêteté—politeness, consideration for others—as inadequate.) Self-love involves both the urge to tyrannize over others and the desire for recognition from them. A long fragment on the nature of the self establishes that we know others only through their qualities, and thus that a direct self-to-self relationship is impossible. Love between human beings is intrinsically flawed since no human being can be another’s fulfilment. Various objections to this line of argument are considered (Pascal’s conception of love is a very partial one), and the conclusion is that, powerful though his analysis his, he has not established that the nature of self-love is a further reason for believing in the Fall.
Diversion
Authors: Moriarty Michael 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Having established that Christianity, through the doctrine of the Fall, throws light on the contradictions of human nature, Pascal turns his attention to its capacity to satisfy our desire for happiness. He begins by arguing that our particular day-to-day activities are driven, first, by the desire to keep at bay painful reflections on our vulnerable and mortal condition, and, secondly, by the desire to gratify our vanity. This applies both to recreational activities and to work. This analysis is subjected to critical examination: Pascal has overlooked our natural impulse to exercise our capacities and to find pleasure in the exercise. But the question as to the ultimate value of these activities remains.