Accepting a contract with a high performance sensitivity is normally interpreted as a signal of high ability. However, an extremely high self-assessment may be an incompetent forecast by an incompetent worker. The authors do not want a portfolio manager who expects nearly riskfree returns of 50%/year! We study a model in which optimistic forecasters have low ability. In one type of equilibrium,...

In Gibb’s theory of moral development Piagetian ideas concerning egocentrism play an important role. Based on these ideas Gibbs offers a detailed analysis of transitions in moral development. However, Gibbs still fails to utilize the full potential offered by Piaget’s equilibration theory, because he does not generalize the idea of overcoming egocentrism, as an important mechanism, to all stage...

In his overlooked 1955 book, The Phenomenology of Moral Experience, Maurice Mandelbaum presented a nuanced moral phenomenology, on the basis of which he defended a kind of moral objectivism, specifically moral realism, against the sorts of non-objectivist views in ethics that were popular in analytic philosophy in the 1940s and early 1950s. A central feature of Mandelbaum's moral phenom-enology...

In this study we explore how knowledge produced on the Internet can reflect objectivist or subjectivist views. These different views shape participation dynamics in the knowledge production process in ways that are bound up with power. To explore these issues, we conducted a comparative case study of websites under the Development Gateway, an initiative launched by the World Bank in 2001. We ex...

According to a new program known as "Cognitive Semantics," there exists an intimat erelation between perception and meaning. The allegedly " higher" cognitive functions thatconstruct meaning and make reasoning possible are continuous with and inseparable from oursensorimotor activities . I explore the nature of an "image schema" as the basic imaginativestructure that connects ou...

Probability theory is important because of its relevance for decision making, which also means: its relevance for the single case. The propensity theory of objective probability, which addresses the single case, is subject to two problems: Humphreys’ problem of inverse probabilities and the problem of the reference class. The paper solves both problems by restating the propensity theory using (...

The paper proposes a novel approach to the semantics of communication of self-interested and autonomous agents in open systems. It defines the semantics of communicative acts primarily as the observable effect of their actual use in social encounters, and differs thus fundamentally from mentalistic and current objectivist approaches to the semantics of agent communication languages. Empirical c...

the term paradigm has become a central issue in philosophy of science. increasing attention to paradigm in public administration, as a branch of social science, is also highlighted. this paper attempts to analysis seven paradigms in public administration research and to study ontological, epistemological, methodological, rhetorical and axiological assumptions of the each paradigm. finally, we b...

Abstract Along with hallucinations and illusions, afterimages have shaped the philosophical debate about nature of perception. Often referred to as optical or visual experiences been abundantly exploited by philosophers argue against naïve realism. This paper offers an alternative account this traditional view providing a tentative colors from objectivist perspective. Contrary widespread approa...