Pascal’s and Tabarrok’s Wagers

In a recent paper A. Tabarrok [Believe in Pascal’s Wager? Have I Got a Deal for You!, Theory and Decision 48, 123--128, 2000] argued that a believer who accepts Pascal’s Wager should in addition accept payment of any given fee in return for a given increase in the probability of reaching God. However the conclusion is obtained from manipulations of infinities which are not valid in an expected utility model. In this note, an alternative model is formulated in which Tabarrok’s conclusion can be obtained.     

When ‘political demand’ meets ‘video-politics’

ABSTRACT

The emergence of a ‘macro-personification of politics’ within the political field of Aotearoa New Zealand alters the manner by which political demand needs to now operate if it is to succeed as a form of tactical strategy in political activism. A particular analytical initiative is identified as being central to success under these conditions, whereby given political demands enlarge from a ‘state of singularity’ to become ‘complex discursive demands’. Key to that initiative is the ‘dialectic of appearances’ and the ‘labour of the negative’ associated with the ideas-work of Hegel. This article identifies how this dynamic was playing out within a key event in the anti-surveillance movement of 2013, the August public rally in the Auckland Town Hall.     

Du Lianren’s Special Love for An’gang

Du Lianren is a professor with the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, a member of the Chinese Association of Fine Artists, and a noted traditional Chinese painting master. He cherishes a special love for the Anshan Iron and Steel Mill. His paintings of the mill include Take One's Own Way which he created in the 1970s and     

’98广州要闻

广州经济增长１３％广州人民克服各种困难，实现年经济增长１３％的目标。这一目标的实现，也使广州改革开放２０年来的年均增速达到１４．３％。广州市宣传思想工作实施“四大工程”１月１９一２０日，广州市召开宣传部长会议，指出１９９８年广州市宣传思想工作要实施四大工程，即“红棉工程”、文明城市“形象工程”、“金穗工程”和“光彩工程”。增创广州发展新优势自３月江泽民总书记对广东提出“增创新优势，更上一层楼”的要求后，从４月起，广州市委、市政府在全市开展了“增创广州发展新优势”的调研活动，提出增创中心城市、体制…     

临沧地区民政局’99工作思路

云南临沧地区属典型的边疆。山区。民族贫困地区，特殊的地理环境制约着各项民政事业的发展。面对诸多困难，怎样缩短差距，推进各项民政事业，是摆在本区各级民政干部尤其是领导干部面前的头等任务，也是1999年全区民政工作的首要任务。首先，要结合本地区、本部门工作的实际，继续深入贯彻党的十五大精神。认真学习邓小平理论，深刻领会和全面把握十五大精神实质，把全区民政干部的思想统一到十五大精神上来，以十五大精神为指导，深入研究和探讨边疆民族地区民政事业跨世纪发展的问题。要进一步解放思想，更新观念，改变因循守旧、不求进…     

’95江西民政新举措

记者从3月8日召开的江西地市民政局长会上获悉,江西省民政厅为贯彻落实第十次全国民政会议精神和全省第二十次民政会议精神,提出了在全面完成各项民政工作任务的同时,争取农村社会养老保险工作上新台阶,互助储金会工作上新台阶,社会福利有奖募捐工作上新台阶,全面铺开城市社区服务工作95民政工作新举措,这一新举措,归纳起来,就是“三个上新台阶,一个全面铺开”,民政厅长傅敏先就此专门讲了几点意见。(一)关于农村社会养老保险上新台阶傅敏先厅长指出,农村社会养老保险上新台阶,主要是指积累保险金的数额要上规模,管理要     

Let’S断舍离

人类一直在获得和放手的循环往复中螺旋式前进。断舍离是一种从扔东西开始的创练，让你觉察自己的欲望是过头还是不足。     

Post-Revolutionary ‘Left Art’

Each Morning the crowd carefully perused all the new decrees, still wet with paste, that appeared on the walls of buildings. They wanted to know what was permitted and what forbidden. Once I saw a crowd in front of a broadside headed Decree No. 1 on Democratization of the Arts. Someone was reading aloud: "With the destruction of the tsarist system there shall be no more storing of art in those warehouses and barns of human genius - in palaces, galleries, salons, libraries and theaters." An old lady wheezed, "Dear me, they're taking away the barnsl" The bespectacled man who had been reading aloud explained, "It doesn't say anything here about barns, but of course, they will close the libraries and the theaters too… ." The broadside was the work of futurists, and it was signed by Mayakovsky, Kamensky and Burliuk. The names meant nothing to the passers-by but all of them knew the magic word "decree."     

Resolving Zeckhauser’s paradox

Theory and Decision - Zeckhauser’s paradox has puzzled and entertained many rationality enthusiasts for almost half a century. You are forced to play a Russian Roulette with a 6-chamber...     

Resolving Rabin’s paradox

We present a theoretical model of Rabin’s famous calibration paradox that resolves confusions in the literature and that makes it possible to identify the causes of the paradox. Using suitable experimental stimuli, we show that the paradox truly violates expected utility and that it is caused by reference dependence. Rabin already showed that utility curvature alone cannot explain his paradox. We, more strongly, do not find any contribution of utility curvature to the explanation of the paradox. We find no contribution of probability weighting either. We conclude that Rabin’s paradox underscores the importance of reference dependence.

     

On misunderstanding ‘understanding’

Philosophers of Science have recently put a good deal of energy into locating the precise methodological boundaries between the natural and the social sciences. The methodological affinities of the latter with certain aspects of the humanities have been as yet too little explored. A convenient starting point for this discussion, and one which is adopted in this paper, is a reconsideration of the role and nature of interpretive understanding in the social sciences. However, before a serious examination of this issue can be undertaken, a clearing operation on the encrusted misunderstandings which are part of the legacy of logical positivism is necessary. In this paper I argue that the neo-positivistic account of understanding rests on a misunderstanding of the concept; that a more adequate conception of the issues involved - and one closer to the traditional Verstehen problematic of Dilthey et al. - can be gleaned from the work of Peter Winch; and that this development is furthered in a number of important respects by recent work done in hermeneutic philosophy - especially that of H.-G. Gadamer. The discussion of Gadamer suggests that the problem of locating the boundaries with the humanities might be as serious a problem for the theory of the social sciences as has been that concerning the natural sciences. The paper concludes with several suggestions as to the implications of the analysis of understanding for the thesis of the methodological unity of the sciences.     

’94黑龙江期刊出版综述

’９４黑龙江期刊出版综述李曙光，马新１９９４年，黑龙江省期刊紧紧围绕“抓住机遇、深化改革、扩大开放、促进发展、保持稳定”这个全党工作的大局，坚持团结、稳定、鼓励和正面宣传为主的方针，为全省经济发展、社会进步提供了强大的思想保证、精神动力和智力支持，为...     

’96国人关注些什么

日月如梭,时光飞逝,新世纪发出了呼唤,如火如荼的1996,国人关注的重点将是什么呢?——远景目标:开拓进取有方向。八届人大四次会议审议批准了《国民经济和社会发展“九五”计划和2010年远景目标纲要》。今后的15年,是我国社会主义现代化建设承前后后、继往开来的重要时期。根据刚刚通过的“九五”计划和2010年远景目标纲要规划的蓝图,“九五”期间,我们将全面完成现代化建设的第二步战略部署,实现人均国民生产总值比1980年翻两番,使人民生活达到小康水平,并初步建立社会主义市场经济体制。2010年,将实现国民生产总值比2000年翻一番,使人民的小康生活更加宽裕,形成比较完善的社会主义市场经济体制。在推进改革和发展的同时,社会主义精神文明和民主法制建设也将取得显著进展,实现社会全面进步。这个奋斗目标,展