Philosophy

The conflation between debt and duty has defined the ethical analysis of debt hitherto. The issue of debt has increasingly become an important issue in the lives of individuals where credit-sustained consumption is necessary for attaining the basic means of subsistence, yet economic conditions have rendered them destitute and unable to repay. This raises the question of whether it is morally permissible to not repay, and whether the institution of debt and its imperative to repay, must always be honoured, by which is considered a number of principles for grounding the responsibilities of indebted individuals. Through considering a number of given defences of the institution of debt in terms of the principles of utility, consent, and intention, it is shown that there exists no rational basis for this conflation, but reaches a deadlock whereby the formal analysis cannot demonstrate that one system, one with debt, is preferable to another, one without debt. By turning to Kant, Hegel, and Marx, this question is reoriented in terms of freedom as the absolute ethical principle: is the institution of debt conducive to freedom, or not? It is then shown that the institution of debt is not conducive to freedom, but inseparable from a structural unfreedom, such that the institution of debt and its imperative to repay at all costs ought not to always be honoured, but rather overcome.

This thesis is composed of three essays on the perdurantist approach to persistence and identity over time. In Chapter 1, I discuss how the following papers are to be understood as parts of a unified perdurantist account of persistence over time. This chapter also outlines some of my philosophical assumptions and provides some background information about the metaphysics of persistence. In Chapter 2, I respond to the objection that the worm theory is unable to account for our intuitions about ordinary counting sentences. I do this by invoking the standard linguistic phenomenon of covert quantifier domain restriction and supplementing the worm theory with situation semantics. My version of the worm theory makes our intuitive judgements come out true, and it does so well enough that there is no need to adopt the stage theory or revisionary theories of counting. Furthermore, my version of the worm theory offers a unified account of event- and object-related counting. Chapter 3 focuses ...

In this thesis I investigate Donnellan’s Referential / Attributive distinction (R/A distinction); a distinction about using (say) definite descriptions in two truth-conditionally different ways. I propose an argument from non-misdescriptions to the R/A distinction which does not utilise those cases of misdescriptions that Donnellan focused on. After arguing that the distinction should not be captured via conversational implicature, I point out a certain systematicity between the two relevant uses which tells against the view that the R/A distinction arises due to lexical ambiguity. I then extend the R/A distinction to demonstratives like ‘that F’ as well as some pronouns and suggest that it may be even more pervasive. Given this systematicity and pervasiveness of the R/A distinction, I propose two unified semantic treatments. The first is a treatment under which terms that exhibit the R/A distinction (R/A terms) are intention-sensitive indexicals and the second is a treatment under which R/A terms induce a syntactic ambiguity in the sentences they are embeded in. I conclude by distinguishing my argument from non-misdescriptions to the R/A distinction from the (perhaps) more familiar argument from misdescriptions to the R/A distinction, to which I adopt the well-known Kripkean (1977) position.

This article documents the first implementation of a parallel algorithm for solving the governing equations of the hydrodynamic formulation of quantum mechanics. The algorithm employs a quantum trajectory method (QTM) based on the serial algorithm introduced by Wyatt and Lopreore. The OpenMP API is employed to parallelize the code across the quantum trajectories in a shared memory environment. An outline of the parallel algorithm is provided; the analytical solution for a moving free particle is used to verify the solution obtained by the parallel algorithm. Further validation against several of the results obtained by Wyatt and Lopreore is also provided. The parallel speedups and runtimes are presented, and several performance issues are noted. Finally, the results of a preliminary accuracy study examining a moving free particle are provided. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2001

Using exact diagonalization, we calculate the density of states of the two-dimensional Hubbard model on a 4 x 4 square lattice at U/t= 0. 5, 4, and 10, and even number of electrons with Filling factors n ranging from a quarter filling up to half filling. We compare the ground-state energy and density of states at U/t= 0. 5 and 4 with second-order perturbation theory in U/t in the paramagnetic phase, and find that while the agreement is reasonable at U/t= 0. 5, it becomes worse as the perturbatively determined (ie, using Stoner s criterion) ...

This work examines the accuracy of a parallel moving least squares algorithm for solving the governing equations of the hydrodynamic formulation of quantum mechanics. The algorithm solves the associated linear least squares problems using either normal equations or QR factorization. The accuracy of the algorithm is studied for both the free particle and the harmonic oscillator, and the results of a series of experiments designed to determine the spatial and temporal dependence of the accuracies are presented. In closing, a few qualitative observations concerning the performance of the algorithm are offered for consideration.

Our 1991 paper on the logic of the ontological argument contained an analysis of the structure of Anselm's argument for the existence of God. We showed that there is a valid argument for God's existence in Proslogion II. However, in that paper, we deliberately decided not to include a discussion and analysis of the soundness of the argument. In these afterthoughts, we shall take up this question. We plan to argue for the following:

Saint Anselm of Canterbury offered several arguments for the existence of God. We examine the famous ontological argument in Proslogium II. Many recent authors have interpreted this argument as a modal one.'But we believe that Jonathan Barnes has argued persuasively that Anselm's argument is not modal.

Our 1991 paper on the logic of the ontological argument contained an analysis of the structure of Anselm's argument for the existence of God. We showed that there is a valid argument for God's existence in Proslogion II. However, in that paper, we deliberately decided not to include a discussion and analysis of the soundness of the argument. In these afterthoughts, we shall take up this question. We plan to argue for the following:

Abstract It is commonly believed that it makes no difference whether one starts with relational types or functional types in formulating type theory, since one can either start with relations as primitive and represent functions as relations or start with functions as primitive and represent relations as functions. It is also commonly believed that the formula-based logic of relational type theory is equivalent to the term-based logic of functional type theory.

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Though Frege was interested primarily in reducing mathemat- ics to logic, he succeeded in reducing an important part of logic to mathematics by defining relations in terms of functions. By con- trast, Whitehead & Russell reduced an important part of mathe- matics to logic by defining functions in terms of relations (using the definite description operator). We argue that there