Dada a importância de agentes inteligentes e sistemas multiagentes na Ciência da Computação e na Inteligência Artificial, a programação orientada a agentes (AOP, do inglês Agent-oriented programming) emergiu como um novo paradigma para a criação de sistemas computacionais complexos. Assim, nas últimas décadas, houve um florescimento da literatura em programação orientada a agentes e, com isso, surgiram diversas linguages de programação seguindo tal paradigma, como AgentSpeak (RAO, 1996; BORDINI; HUBNER; WOOLDRIDGE, 2007), Jadex (POKAHR; BRAUBACH; LAMERSDORF, 2005), 3APL/2APL (DASTANI; VAN RIEMSDIJK; MEYER, 2005; DASTANI, 2008), GOAL (HINDRIKS et al., 2001), entre outras. Programação orientada a agentes é um paradigma de programação proposto por Shoham (1993) no qual os elementos mínimos de um programa são agentes. Shoham (1993) defende que agentes autônomos e sistemas multiagentes configuram-se como uma forma diferente de se organizar uma solução para um problema computacional, de forma que a construção de um sistema multiagente para a solução de um problema pode ser entendida como um paradgima de programação. Para entender tal paradigma, é necessário entender o conceito de agente. Agente, nesse contexto, é uma entidade computacional descrita por certos atributos - chamados de atitudes mentais - que descrevem o seu estado interno e sua relação com o ambiente externo. Atribuir a interpretação de atitudes mentais a tais atributos é válida, defende Shoham (1993), uma vez que esses atributos se comportem de forma semelhante as atitudes mentais usadas para descrever o comportamento humano e desde que sejam pragmaticamente justificáveis, i.e. úteis à solução do problema. Entender, portanto, o significado de termos como ’crença’, ’desejo’, ’intenção’, etc., assim como suas propriedades fundamentais, é de fundamental importância para estabelecer linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes. Nesse trabalho, vamos nos preocupar com um tipo específico de linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes, as chamadas linguagens BDI. Linguagens BDI são baseadas na teoria BDI da Filosofia da Ação em que o estado mental de um agente (e suas ações) é descrito por suas crenças, desejos e intenções. Enquanto a construção de sistemas baseados em agentes e linguagens de programação foram tópicos bastante discutidos na literatura, a conexão entre tais sistemas e linguagens com o trabalho teórico proveniente da Inteligência Artificial e da Filosofia da Ação ainda não está bem estabelecida. Essa distância entre a teoria e a prática da construção de sistemas é bem reconhecida na literatura relevante e comumente chamada de “gap semântico” (gap em inglês significa lacuna ou abertura e representa a distância entre os modelos teóricos e sua implementação em linguagens e sistemas). Muitos trabalhos tentaram atacar o problema do gap semântico para linguagens de programação específicas, como para as linguagens AgentSpeak (BORDINI; MOREIRA, 2004), GOAL (HINDRIKS; VAN DER HOEK, 2008), etc. De fato, Rao (1996, p. 44) afirma que “O cálice sagrado da pesquisa em agentes BDI é mostrar uma correspondência 1-a-1 com uma linguagem razoavelmente útil e expressiva” (tradução nossa)1 Uma limitação crucial, em nossa opinião, das tentativas passadas de estabeler uma conexão entre linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes e lógicas BDI é que elas se baseiam em estabelecer a interpretação de um programa somente no nível estático. De outra forma, dado um estado de um programa, tais trabalhos tentam estabelecer uma interpretação declarativa, i.e. baseada em lógica, do estado do programa respresentando assim o estado mental do agente. Não é claro, entretanto, como a execução do programa pode ser entendida enquanto mudanças no estado mental do agente. A razão para isso, nós acreditamos, está nos formalismos utilizados para especificar agentes BDI. De fato, as lógicas BDI propostas são, em sua maioria, estáticas ou incapazes de representar ações mentais. O ato de revisão uma crença, adotar um objetivo ou mudar de opinião são exemplos de ações mentais, i.e. ações que são executadas internarmente ao agente e afetando somente seu estado mental, sendo portanto não observáveis. Tais ações são, em nossa opinião, intrinsecamente diferentes de ações ônticas que consistem de comportamento observável e que possivelmente afeta o ambiente externo ao agente. Essa diferença é comumente reconhecida no estudo da semântica de linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes (BORDINI; HUBNER; WOOLDRIDGE, 2007; D’INVERNO et al., 1998; MENEGUZZI; LUCK, 2009), entretanto os formalismos disponíveis para se especificar raciocínio BDI, em nosso conhecimento, não provem recursos expressivos para codificar tal diferença. Nós acreditamos que, para atacar o gap semântico, precisamos de um ferramental semântico que permita a especificação de ações mentais, assim como ações ônticas. Lógicas Dinâmicas Epistêmicas (DEL, do inglês Dynamic Epistemic Logic) são uma família de lógicas modais dinâmicas largamente utilizadas para estudar os fenômenos de mudança do estado mental de agentes. Os trabalhos em DEL foram fortemente influenciados pela escola holandesa de lógica, com maior proponente Johna Van Benthem, e seu “desvio dinâmico” em lógica (dynamic turn em inglês) que propõe a utilização de lógicas dinâmicas para compreender ações de mudanças mentais (VAN BENTHEM, 1996). O formalismo das DEL deriva de diversas vertentes do estudo de mudança epistêmica, como o trabalho em teoria da Revisão de Crenças AGM (ALCHOURRÓN; GÄRDENFORS; MAKINSON, 1985), e Epistemologia Bayesiana (HÁJEK; HARTMANN, 2010). Tais lógicas adotam a abordagem, primeiro proposta por Segerberg (1999), de representar mudanças epistêmicas dentro da mesma linguagem utilizada para representar as noções de crença e conhecimento, diferente da abordagem extra-semântica do Revisão de Crenças a la AGM. No contexto das DEL, uma lógica nos parece particulamente interessante para o estudo de programação orientada a agentes: a Lógica Dinâmica de Preferências (DPL, do inglês Dynamic Preference Logic) de Girard (2008). DPL, também conhecida como lógica dinâmica de ordem, é uma lógica dinâmica para o estudo de preferências que possui grande expressibilidade para codificar diversas atiutudes mentais. De fato, tal lógica foi empregada para o estudo de obrigações (VAN BENTHEM; GROSSI; LIU, 2014), crenças (GIRARD; ROTT, 2014), preferências (GIRARD, 2008), etc. Tal lógica possui fortes ligações com raciocínio não-monotônico e com lógicas já propostas para o estudo de atitudes mentais na área de Teoria da Decisão (BOUTILIER, 1994b) Nós acreditamos que DPL constitui um candidato ideal para ser utilizado como ferramental semântico para se estudar atitudes mentais da teoria BDI por permitir grande flexibilidade para representação de tais atitudes, assim como por permitir a fácil representação de ações mentais como revisão de crenças, adoção de desejos, etc. Mais ainda, pelo trabalho de Liu (2011), sabemos que existem representações sintáticas dos modelos de tal lógica que podem ser utilizados para raciocinar sobre atitudes mentais, sendo assim candidatos naturais para serem utilizados como estruturas de dados para uma implementação semanticamente fundamentada de uma linguagem de programação orientada a agentes. Assim, nesse trabalho nós avançamos no problema de reduzir o gap semântico entre linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes e formalismos lógicos para especificar agentes BDI. Nós exploramos não somente como estabelecer as conexões entre as estruturas estáticas, i.e. estado de um programa e um modelo da lógica, mas também como as ações de raciocínio pelas quais se especifica a semântica formal de uma linguagem de programação orientada a agentes podem ser entendidas dentro da lógica como operadores dinâmicos que representam ações mentais do agente. Com essa conexão, nós provemos também um conjunto de operações que podem ser utilizadas para se implementar uma linguagem de programação orientada a agentes e que preservam a conexão entre os programas dessa linguagem e os modelos que representam o estado mental de um agente. Finalmente, com essas conexões, nós desenvolvemos um arcabouço para estudar a dinâmica de atitudes mentais, tais como crenças, desejos e inteções, e como reproduzir essas propriedades na semântica de linguagens de programação. / As the notions of Agency and Multiagent System became important topics for the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence communities, Agent Programming has been proposed as a paradigm for the development of computer systems. As such, in the last decade, we have seen the flourishing of the literature on Agent Programming with the proposal of several programming languages, e.g. AgentSpeak (RAO, 1996; BORDINI; HUBNER;WOOLDRIDGE, 2007), Jadex (POKAHR; BRAUBACH; LAMERSDORF, 2005), JACK (HOWDEN et al., 2001), 3APL/2APL (DASTANI; VAN RIEMSDIJK; MEYER, 2005; DASTANI, 2008), GOAL (HINDRIKS et al., 2001), among others. Agent Programming is a programming paradigm proposed by Shoham (1993) in which the minimal units are agents. An agent is an entity composed of mental attitudes, that describe the its internal state - such as its motivations and decisions - as well as its relation to the external world - its beliefs about the world, its obligations, etc. This programming paradigm stems from the work on Philosophy of Action and Artificial Intelligence concerning the notions of intentional action and formal models of agents’ mental states. As such, the meaning (and properties) of notions such as belief, desire, intention, etc. as studied in these disciplines are of central importance to the area. Particularly, we will concentrate in our work on agent programming languages influenced by the so-called BDI paradigm of agency, in which an agent is described by her beliefs, desires, intentions. While the engineering of such languages has been much discussed, the connections between the theoretical work on Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence and its implementations in programming languages are not so clearly understood yet. This distance between theory and practice has been acknowledged in the literature for agent programming languages and is commonly known as the “semantic gap”. Many authors have attempted to tackle this problem for different programming languages, as for the case of AgentSpeak (BORDINI; MOREIRA, 2004), GOAL (HINDRIKS; VAN DER HOEK, 2008), etc. In fact, Rao (1996, p. 44) states that “[t]he holy grail of BDI agent research is to show such a one-to-one correspondence with a reasonably useful and expressive language.” One crucial limitation in the previous attempts to connect agent programming languages and BDI logics, in our opinion, is that the connection is mainly established at the static level, i.e. they show how a given program state can be interpreted as a BDI mental state. It is not clear in these attempts, however, how the execution of the program may be understood as changes in the mental state of the agent. The reason for this, in our opinion, is that the formalisms employed to construct BDI logics are usually static, i.e. cannot represent actions and change, or can only represent ontic change, not mental change. The act of revising one’s beliefs or adopting a given desire are mental actions (or internal actions) and, as such, different from performing an action over the environment (an ontic or external action). This difference is well recognized in the literature on the semantics of agent programming languages (D’INVERNO et al., 1998; BORDINI; HUBNER; WOOLDRIDGE, 2007; MENEGUZZI; LUCK, 2009), but this difference is lost when translating their semantics into a BDI logic. We believe the main reason for that is a lack of expressibility in the formalisms used to model BDI reasoning. Dynamic Epistemic Logic, or DEL, is a family of dynamic modal logics to study information change and the dynamics of mental attitudes inspired by the Dutch School on the “dynamic turn” in Logic (VAN BENTHEM, 1996). This formalism stems from various approaches in the study of belief change and differs from previous studies, such as AGM Belief Revision, by shifting from extra-logical characterization of changes in the agents attitudes to their integration within the representation language. In the context of Dynamic Epistemic Logic, the Dynamic Preference Logic of Girard (2008) seems like an ideal candidate, having already been used to study diverse mental attitudes, such as Obligations (VAN BENTHEM; GROSSI; LIU, 2014), Beliefs (GIRARD; ROTT, 2014), Preferences (GIRARD, 2008), etc. We believe Dynamic Preference Logic to be the ideal semantic framework to construct a formal theory of BDI reasoning which can be used to specify an agent programming language semantics. The reason for that is that inside this logic we can faithfully represent the static state of a agent program, i.e. the agent’s mental state, as well as the changes in the state of the agent program by means of the agent’s reasoning, i.e. by means of her mental actions. As such, in this work we go further in closing the semantic gap between agent programs and agency theories and explore not only the static connections between program states and possible worlds models, but also how the program execution of a language based on common operations - such as addition/removal of information in the already mentioned bases - may be understood as semantic transformations in the models, as studied in Dynamic Logics. With this, we provide a set of operations for the implementation of agent programming languages which are semantically safe and we connect an agent program execution with the dynamic properties in the formal theory. Lastly, by these connections, we provide a framework to study the dynamics of different mental attitudes, such as beliefs, goals and intentions, and how to reproduce the desirable properties proposed in theories of Agency in a programming language semantics.

Submitted by Jorge Silva (jorgelmsilva@ufrrj.br) on 2017-02-22T19:19:05Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2016 - Julio Cesar Araujo dos Santos.pdf: 6913194 bytes, checksum: 9b333a5cbf9f2fbd3637734c9fbb0d7a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-22T19:19:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2016 - Julio Cesar Araujo dos Santos.pdf: 6913194 bytes, checksum: 9b333a5cbf9f2fbd3637734c9fbb0d7a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-25 / The sanction of Law 10,639 / 03 changed the LDBEN with the inclusion of Article 26 -A and the obligation by governments to implement the DCN Erer strengthened the questioning on the training of teachers in relation to the hegemonic discourse on ethnic-racial relations in the country and practices that contributed to the consolidation of our model of exclusion. Thus, the research was compiled from the numerous difficulties of / colleagues in the early years, when required / them deal with Brazilian racial reality and the implications of these issues to propose another possible education in my work as a professional in more than twenty years in basic education. These reflections have become responsible for structuring the survey of fulcrum in shaping that process of future professionals of the early years in education institutes in the Baixada Fluminense region, with cut in the cities of Duque de Caxias and Nova Igua?u territory where the processing social and racial tensions of exclusion that has shaped our historical links with the past. From this perspective, the survey is present the actions and procedures that hinder the participation and implementation of the respective laws in the training of future professionals of education in the early grades Institutes of Education. The difficulties filed by the responsible agency of the State of Rio de Janeiro to carry out the research institutions also help to observe the possible correlation between the questioning regarding the myth of racial democracy and the state of neglect of changes in LDBEN and DCN Erer and real possibility of changes in teaching practices. These difficulties raised in the investigations, reinforced the methodological organization of working documents that gave rise to these institutes, the literature review, interviews with teachers trained in these institutions and students in an attempt to reflect and understand, therefore, on the speeches and on possible pertinence regarding the practices and effects of the constant process of cultural negotiation, which end up causing the impressions of those who suffered from the emptying of their cultural references and consequently of their ethnic and cultural identity. / A san??o da Lei 10.639/03 alterou a LDBEN com inclus?o do artigo 26.-A e a obriga??o pelos governos em implementar as DCN ERER refor?ou a problematiza??o sobre a forma??o dos docentes em rela??o ao discurso hegem?nico sobre as rela??es ?tnico-raciais no pa?s e as pr?ticas que contribu?ram para a consolida??o o nosso modelo de exclus?o. Dessa forma, a pesquisa foi elaborada a partir das in?meras dificuldades das/os colegas dos anos iniciais, quando obrigadas/os a lidar com a realidade racial brasileira e as implica??es desses problemas em propor uma outra educa??o poss?vel em minha atua??o enquanto profissional em mais de vinte anos na educa??o b?sica. Essas reflex?es tornaram-se respons?veis por estruturar a pesquisa com fulcro na forma??o que se processa dos futuros profissionais dos anos iniciais nos Institutos de Educa??o na regi?o da Baixada Fluminense, com recorte nas cidades de Duque de Caxias e Nova Igua?u, territ?rio onde se processam as tens?es sociais e raciais da exclus?o que moldou as nossas liga??es hist?ricas com o passado. Dessa perspectiva, a pesquisa apresenta as a??es e os procedimentos que dificultam a participa??o e a implementa??o das respectivas Leis na forma??o dos futuros profissionais da educa??o das s?ries iniciais nos Institutos de Educa??o. As dificuldades interpostas pelo ?rg?o respons?vel do Estado do Rio de Janeiro para realiza??o da pesquisa nas institui??es tamb?m ajudam observar a poss?vel correla??o entre o questionamento em rela??o ao mito da democracia racial e a neglig?ncia do estado sobre as altera??es na LDBEN e as DCN ERER e a real possibilidade de mudan?as nas pr?ticas docentes. Essas dificuldades levantadas nas investiga??es, refor?aram na configura??o metodol?gica do trabalho os documentos que deram origem aos referidos Institutos, an?lise bibliogr?fica, entrevistas com os docentes formados nessas institui??es e discente na tentativa de refletir e compreender, por conseguinte, sobre os discursos e a sobre poss?veis pertin?ncias em rela??o as pr?ticas e aos efeitos dos processos constantes de negocia??o cultural, que acabam acarretando as impress?es de quem sofreu com o esvaziamento de seus referenciais culturais e, consequentemente, da sua identidade ?tnico-cultural.

Submitted by Jorge Silva (jorgelmsilva@ufrrj.br) on 2017-11-01T18:04:06Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2015 - Jalber Luiz da Silva.pdf: 1694584 bytes, checksum: b5150f88c573af2e6a10fb0fb41c57c9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-11-01T18:04:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2015 - Jalber Luiz da Silva.pdf: 1694584 bytes, checksum: b5150f88c573af2e6a10fb0fb41c57c9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-05-20 / CNPq / This text aims to present my interest in the occurrence of research and identification of forms of prejudice and discrimination against the knowledge and ability of Brazilian religions of African origin in school units of basic education. Of particular interest to analyze episodes of discrimination, directly or indirectly, by the denial, silencing and exclusion that knowledge in teaching practices and syllabus of basic education, especially knowledge inherent to its manifestations and religious knowledge. In the search field, the maroon community of Santa Rita do Bracu? in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro; I follow a process of continuing education of teachers of a public school, discussions of Education of Etnicorraciais Relations. Debating, investigated the Quilombo, the "death" of the religious knowledge of Cumba Master3 and Jongo wheel and can evaluate the various forms of discrimination existing in this community and in your school. / Este texto tem como objetivo apresentar meu interesse na investiga??o de ocorr?ncia e identifica??o das formas de preconceito e discrimina??o contra os conhecimentos e saberes das religi?es brasileiras de matriz africana em unidades escolares da educa??o b?sica. Interessa especialmente analisar epis?dios de discrimina??o, de maneira direta ou indireta, mediante a nega??o, o silenciamento e a exclus?o desse conhecimento nas pr?ticas de ensino e conte?dos program?ticos da educa??o b?sica, principalmente conhecimentos inerentes ?s suas manifesta??es e saberes religiosos. No campo de pesquisa, a comunidade quilombola de Santa Rita do Bracu?, em Angra dos Reis-RJ, acompanho um processo de forma??o continuada de professores de uma escola municipal, as discuss?es sobre Educa??o das Rela??es Etnicorraciais. Problematizando, investiguei no Quilombo, a ?morte? dos conhecimentos religiosos do Mestre Cumba2 e da Roda do Jongo, podendo avaliar as diversas formas de discrimina??o existentes nessa comunidade e na sua escola.

La recherche se centre sur trois études de cas pour caractériser la manière dont les savoirs de la danse et de la création chorégraphique sont mobilisés dans différentes institutions : séances de travail entre un chorégraphe et des danseurs en contexte de création, interventions d’un artiste chorégraphique en milieu scolaire, pratique scolaire de la danse menée par une enseignante à l’école élémentaire. Notre approche relève d’une anthropologie didactique, en s’appuyant sur la théorie de l’action conjointe en didactique (TACD), qui amène à analyser les transactions des différents acteurs observés (chorégraphe, danseurs, enseignantes, élèves), pour saisir à travers la construction des oeuvres chorégraphiques, la vie des savoirs qui leurs donnent forme. Elle conduit à caractériser la création comme un processsus d’enquête, à partir duquel chorégraphes et danseurs s’engagent dans un milieu d’invention. La mise en perspective des différentes études de cas permet de reconsidérer les conditions et les enjeux d’un enseignement-apprentissage de la danse à l’école, par un rapprochement entre pratiques chorégraphiques professionnelles et pratiques scolaires. En particulier, la question de l’expérience des élèves dans les processus de création en contexte scolaire est ici interrogée à l’aune d’une analyse de l’activité effective des artistes en situation de création. La recherche amène à questionner la manière dont les pratiques artistiques peuvent être pratiquées au sein de l’institution scolaire. L’approche didactique retenue permet de reconsidérer la relation professeur/élèves, à la lumière des spécificités inhérentes à ces pratiques. / The research focuses on three case studies to characterize how knowledge of dance and choreographic creation is mobilized in different institutions: work sessions between a choreographer and dancers in a context of creation, interventions by a choreographic artist in schools, and school dance practice conducted by an elementary schoolteacher. Our approach is based on a didactic anthropology, based on the Joint Action Theory in Didactics (JATD), which leads us to analyse the transactions of the different actors we observe (choreographers, dancers, teachers, students) in order to understand through the construction of choreographic works, the life of the knowledge that shapes them. It results in characterizing creation as a process of inquiry, from which implies that choreographers and dancers get involved into an inventive milieu. The different case studies we put into perspective lead us to reconsider the conditions and issues of dance teaching and learning in schools, and to argue for a closer relatioship between professional choreographic practices and school practices. In particular, the question of students' experience in creative processes in the school context is questioned here on the basis of an analysis of the actual activity of artists in creative situations. The research raises questions about how artistic practices can be practiced within the school institution. The didactic approach chosen allows us to reconsider the teacher-student relationship in the light of the specificities inherent in these practices.

Epistemic beliefs are individuals’ beliefs about the nature of knowledge, how knowledge is constructed, and how knowledge can be justified. This study employed a mixed-methods approach to examine: (a) middle and high school students’ self-reported epistemic beliefs (quantitative) and epistemic beliefs revealed from practice (qualitative) during a problem-based, scientific inquiry unit, (b) How do middle and high school students’ epistemic beliefs contribute to the construction of students’ problem solving processes, and (c) how and why do students’ epistemic beliefs change by engaging in PBL. Twenty-one middle and high school students participated in a summer science class to investigate local water quality in a 2-week long problem-based learning (PBL) unit. The students worked in small groups to conduct water quality tests at in their local watershed and visited several stakeholders for their investigation. Pretest and posttest versions of the Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire were conducted to assess students’ self-reported epistemic beliefs before and after the unit. I videotaped and interviewed three groups of students during the unit and conducted discourse analysis to examine their epistemic beliefs revealed from scientific inquiry activities and triangulate with their self-reported data. There are three main findings from this study. First, students in this study selfreported relatively sophisticated epistemic beliefs on the pretest. However, the comparison between their self-reported beliefs and beliefs revealed from practice indicated that some students were able to apply sophisticated beliefs during the unit while others failed to do so. The inconsistency between these two types of epistemic beliefs may due to students’ inadequate cognitive ability, low validity of self-report measure, and the influence of contextual factors. Second, qualitative analysis indicated that students’ epistemic beliefs of the nature of knowing influenced their problem solving processes and construction of arguments during their inquiry activities. Students with more sophisticated epistemic beliefs acquired knowledge, presented solid evidence, and used it to support their claims more effectively than their peers. Third, students’ self-reported epistemic beliefs became significantly more sophisticated by engaging in PBL. Findings from this study can potentially help researchers to better understand the relation between students’ epistemic beliefs and their scientific inquiry practice.

The thesis aims at analyzing the concepts of risk and safety as well as the class of concepts to which they belong, thick concepts, focusing in particular on the normative aspects involved. Essay I analyzes thick concepts, i.e. concepts such as cruelty and kindness that seem to combine descriptive and evaluative features. The traditional account, in which thick concepts are analyzed as the conjunction of a factual description and an evaluation, is criticized. Instead, it is argued that the descriptive and evaluative aspects must be understood as a whole. Furthermore, it is argued that the two main worries evoked against non-naturalism – that non-naturalism cannot account for disagreement and that it is not genuinely explanatory – can be met. Essay II investigates the utilization of the Kripke/Putnam causal theory of reference in relation to the Open Question Argument. It is argued that the Open Question Argument suitably interpreted provides prima facie evidence against the claim that moral kinds are natural kinds, and that the causal theory, as interpreted by leading naturalist defenders, actually underscores this conclusion. Essay III utilizes the interpretation of the Open Question Argument argued for in the previous essay in order to argue against naturalistic reduction of risk, i.e. reduction of risk into natural concepts such as probability and harm. Three different normative aspects of risk and safety are put forward – epistemic uncertainty, distributive normativity and border normativity – and it is argued that these normative aspects cannot be reduced to a natural measure. Essay IV provides a conceptual analysis of safety in the context of societal decision-making, and argues for a notion that explicitly includes epistemic uncertainty, the degree to which we are uncertain of our knowledge of the situation at hand. Some formal versions of a comparative safety concept are also proposed. Essay V puts forward a normative critique against a common argument, viz. the claim that the public should follow the experts’ advice in recommending an activity whenever the experts have the best knowledge of the risk involved. The importance of safety in risk acceptance together with considerations from epistemic uncertainty makes the claim incorrect even after including plausible limitations to exclude ‘external’ considerations. Furthermore, it is shown that the scope of the objection covers risk assessment as well as risk management. Essay VI provides a systematized account of safety engineering practices that clarifies their relation to the goal of safety engineering, namely to increase safety. A list of 24 principles referred to in the literature of safety engineering is provided, divided into four major categories. It is argued that important aspects of these methods can be better understood with the help of the distinction between risk and uncertainty, in addition to the common distinction between risk and probability. / QC 20100803

This dissertation consists in a defence of the claim that belief is a state on which its bearer can reflect only deliberatively. That partial characterization of the concept is intended to throw light on the status of belief as a rational phenomenon. I defend it by appeal to features of our actual and imagined practices of ascribing belief linguistically, both to others and ourselves. Having set out the characterization in the first of four chapters, in the second chapter I survey the ways of learning from words: evidentially, by report, and by belief-expression. I go on to propose that where a person’s words afford belief of his belief, they do so through the belief-expressive character of assertoric speech. In the third chapter, I defend that claim as it applies to the case of ascribing belief to another. I argue that my characterization best explains the fact that we do not ordinarily report our beliefs or invite others to do so. I explain our ordinarily ascribing belief from the expressive character of assertoric speech by appeal to the relation between assertion and belief. In the fourth chapter, I turn to the prospect of ascribing oneself belief based on one’s own words. I argue that self-ascribing belief through the expressive character of words is alone consistent with the self-ascriber’s basic psychological and linguistic integrity. I recommend my characterization of belief for its capacity to explain the disintegrating effects of self-ascribing belief by one’s own report. I again appeal to the relation between assertoric speech and belief to explain the feasibility of self-ascribing belief through the expressive character of one’s words.

American political culture has virtually precluded public discussion about the fundamental weaknesses of capitalism, forcing media reformers to argue defensively that commercial broadcasting is a special case of market failure. This investigation questions the historical inevitability of commercialized mass media structure by examining how the ideology of media professionalism is deployed in public debate over noncommercial uses of mass media resources. The work of John Dewey and Walter Lippmann frame a theoretical understanding of how professional autonomy works in opposition to community, and thus how professionalization works in opposition to a shared democratic sphere. Relying on the fundamental concepts of discursive formations studied in depth by Michel Foucault, three case studies analyze historic moments (the invention of listener support by Lewis Hill, the rise of news reporting by community television volunteers, and the introduction of media literacy in K-12 public education) that offer evidence of discursive breaks within the constructions of professionalism that support commercialization, and what those breaks suggest about the re-instantiation of the historical inevitability of the commercial regime. The conclusion discusses how conditions have led us to a point of deprofessionalization, a state in which media consumers disarm the notion of professionalism before it can be deployed as a governing relation, and how deproduction of authoritative texts effectively contains the power of professionalized norms. INDEX WORDS: Professionalism, Professionalization, Media reform, Commercialization, Noncommercial media, Dewey-Lippmann debate, Lewis Hill, Community television, Media literacy, Deproduction, Deprofessionalization

This dissertation consists in a defence of the claim that belief is a state on which its bearer can reflect only deliberatively. That partial characterization of the concept is intended to throw light on the status of belief as a rational phenomenon. I defend it by appeal to features of our actual and imagined practices of ascribing belief linguistically, both to others and ourselves. Having set out the characterization in the first of four chapters, in the second chapter I survey the ways of learning from words: evidentially, by report, and by belief-expression. I go on to propose that where a person’s words afford belief of his belief, they do so through the belief-expressive character of assertoric speech. In the third chapter, I defend that claim as it applies to the case of ascribing belief to another. I argue that my characterization best explains the fact that we do not ordinarily report our beliefs or invite others to do so. I explain our ordinarily ascribing belief from the expressive character of assertoric speech by appeal to the relation between assertion and belief. In the fourth chapter, I turn to the prospect of ascribing oneself belief based on one’s own words. I argue that self-ascribing belief through the expressive character of words is alone consistent with the self-ascriber’s basic psychological and linguistic integrity. I recommend my characterization of belief for its capacity to explain the disintegrating effects of self-ascribing belief by one’s own report. I again appeal to the relation between assertoric speech and belief to explain the feasibility of self-ascribing belief through the expressive character of one’s words.

An instrumental defense of a right to do wrong is plausible because we cannot directly intervene in an individual's choices so as to effectively promote that individual's moral good, if her moral good is conceived as being some form of individual autonomy. An epistemic defense is also plausible if we reorient J.S. Mill's epistemological argument for his Harm Principle in "On Liberty" to center on the agent's knowledge, rather than on the interfering observer's knowledge. Restrictions on harmless acts that are imposed because the acts are wrong are only justifiable to that individual if she herself knows that her acts are wrong. Both approaches depend upon the limited subjectivity and fallibility of the agent or interfering observer. Moreover, both approaches make the justification for a right to knowingly do wrong problematic.