Suchergebnisse

Hao Wang (1921-1995) was one of the few confidants of the great mathematician and logician Kurt Godel. A Logical Journey is a continuation of Wang's Reflections on Kurt Godel and also elaborates on discussions contained in From Mathematics to Philosophy. A decade in preparation, it contains important and unfamiliar insights into Godel's views on a wide range of issues, from Platonism and the nature of logic, to minds and machines, the existence of God, and positivism and phenomenology. The impact of Godel's theorem on twentieth-century thought is on a par with that of Einstein's theory of relativity, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, or Keynesian economics. These previously unpublished intimate and informal conversations, however, bring to light and amplify Godel's other major contributions to logic and philosophy. They reveal that there is much more in Godel's philosophy of mathematics than is commonly realized, and more in his philosophy than merely a philosophy of mathematics.

Abstract
Franke Philosophy & Technology, 35(4), 1-7, (2022) offers an interesting claim that algorithmic transparency as manipulation does not necessarily follow that it is good or bad. Different people can have good reasons to adopt different evaluative attitudes towards this manipulation. Despite agreeing with some of his observations, this short reply will examine three crucial misconceptions in his arguments. In doing so, it defends why we are morally obliged to care about the manipulative potential of algorithmic transparency. It suggests that we as society have a moral duty to incorporate the value of transparency into algorithmic systems while keeping algorithmic transparency itself sensitive to power relations.

AbstractAutomated algorithms are silently making crucial decisions about our lives, but most of the time we have little understanding of how they work. To counter this hidden influence, there have been increasing calls for algorithmic transparency. Much ink has been spilled over the informational account of algorithmic transparency—about how much information should be revealed about the inner workings of an algorithm. But few studies question the power structure beneath the informational disclosure of the algorithm. As a result, the information disclosure itself can be a means of manipulation used by a group of people to advance their own interests. Instead of concentrating on information disclosure, this paper examines algorithmic transparency from the perspective of power, explaining how algorithmic transparency under a disciplinary power structure can be a technique of normalizing people's behavior. The informational disclosure of an algorithm can not only set up some de facto norms, but also build a scientific narrative of its algorithm to justify those norms. In doing so, people would be internally motivated to follow those norms with less critical analysis. This article suggests that we should not simply open the black box of an algorithm without challenging the existing power relations.

The Grand Strategy of the United States, including its strategy toward China, has always been the product of the interaction of geopolitics and domestic politics. After the Cold War, with the end of the bipolar structure of the international system and the increasing polarization of domestic politics in the United States, the impact of geopolitics on the formulation of the foreign policy of the United States has been weakened to some degree, while the spillover effect of domestic politics has weighed more heavily than before. This change could be explained in the way that while two opposing trends of Partisan Realignment began to emerge in the post-financial crisis era in the United States, the elites from both Democratic and Republican Parties had often focused on the preferences of their core political coalition as basis in foreign policy making, in order to further their own respective political interests. In regard to the American strategy toward China, with the deepening of the structural contradictions between China and the United States as well as changes in their respective external strategic choices, geopolitics became the primary logic in the formulation of American strategy toward China since 2009, thus the "strategic competition" has become the dominant mode of bilateral relations. In the view of Washington, China and the United States have formed a competitive relationship in the areas relating to the core interests of the United States, such as economy, security, values and the dominance of the existing international order. However, the questions of reality, such as how to compete with China and how to decide the priorities of their own core interests, are defined by demands of core political coalitions represented by the elites from both Democratic and Republican Parties in the context of a new round of Partisan Realignment. From Obama to Trump, different domestic political logics made the focus of American strategy toward China shifted from "institution–values" competition based on globalism to "economy–security" competition based on nationalism. Therefore, the changes in American domestic politics will present an important channel through which the orientation of American strategy toward China would be clearly observed in the future.

The rise and fall of the major powers have been the most fundamental driving force in shaping international systems since the Industrial Revolution. During this recurrent process, the rise of new major powers and their impacts on the established international systems have been the core concern of dominant states. Therefore, American scholars of international politics have been dedicating themselves to the study of how to appropriately manage the rising-versus-dominant-power dyads to maintain the stability of systems and the dominant states' leading position. On the other hand, from the Chinese perspective, this question is of equal importance and deserves some more attention, because China, as a rising power, needs to be aware of grand strategies that dominant states may adopt in managing potential challengers, both in theory and history. Only in this way could China finally achieve its goal of a peaceful rise. However, after literature review, we found that, partly attributable to the mainstream Realist paradigm, the existing researches have three main deficiencies: ambiguity of analytical levels, lack of case studies and incomplete theoretical construction. Therefore, this paper first summarizes, layers and combines strategies of dominant states in managing the rising powers. Then, it goes beyond the mainstream Realist paradigm, taking into consideration the factors of timing of industrialization, domestic politics and strategic choices, demonstrating that different rising powers, as well as the same rising power in different periods of history, have exerted varying degrees of impacts on the established international systems. Thus, the dominant states should apply targeted grand strategies to manage them. Finally, based on the theoretical and historical research findings, this paper specifically analyzes the US–China relations today, pointing out the problems within American grand strategy in managing the rise of China since 2010, and the theoretically appropriate choice in the future.

ABSTRACTA previous study finds that in a market where a manufacturer faces uncertain demand and sells to consumers through competitive retailers, the manufacture wishes to support adequate retail inventories by imposing resale price maintenance (RPM). I show that if retail inventories are allocated to consumers through first‐come‐first‐served rule rather than efficient rationing rule in the game with unconstrained retail competition, imposing RPM may not be profitable. It may not encourage more retail inventories either. RPM may also lower consumer surpluses and social welfare. This study casts some doubt on the demand uncertainty theory that supports RPM.

Market-oriented reforms in a developing economy cannot be treated as a simple process of economic liberalisation heading for a laissez-faire market economy. The economic development of the People's Republic of China, as a huge developing country with an overwhelmingly peasant population, requires effective interventions from a development state of the East Asian type. Although China is now facing some severe economic problems that erode its long-term growth potential, the central government is gradually losing its policy capacity to undertake effective development management in the process of rapid economic growth. The trend will cause instability in the near future if the increasing tensions between tradition and emerging agents of change cannot be eased so that the reform of the Chinese state can keep pace with the largely market-driven economy.

AbstractA previous study finds that increased competition in health care markets improves social welfare, although consumers use "too much" health care when they have health insurance. The analysis assumes that consumers have a constant Arrow-Pratt coefficient of absolute risk aversion. This note shows that this finding can be extended to the case where consumers are simply risk averse. Furthermore, if insurers offered insurance policies with slightly lower usage prices than the equilibrium level, social welfare would be improved.