I show that there are good reasons to think that some individuals without any capacity for consciousness should be counted as welfare subjects, assuming that desire-fulfilment is a welfare good and that any individuals who can accrue welfare goods are welfare subjects. While other philosophers have argued for similar conclusions, I show that they have done so by relying on a simplistic understanding of the desire-fulfilment theory. My argument is intended to be sensitive to the complexities and nuances of contemporary (...) developments of the theory, while avoiding highly counter-intuitive implications of previous arguments for the same conclusion. (shrink)

Are doubt and suspension of judgment similar attitudes? In the burgeoning literature on suspension of judgment, the notion of doubt is curiously absent. This paper aims to argue for the plausibility of an identity claim, which I term the “No-Difference View.” This view suggests that there is no substantial difference between being in doubt and suspending judgment. The argument will draw on historical and systematic considerations that support the No-Difference View as a plausible view within the logical space of positions.

Several studies in experimental philosophy and semantics have shown that a substantial number of English speakers consider a statement true even if it does not align with the facts, as long as it is justified from the speaker's perspective. These findings challenge the prevailing view among philosophers that truth is uniformly based on a statement's correspondence to reality and suggest that for some speakers truth is sensitive to epistemic perspectives. In this study, we show that this behavior depends on how (...) the critical question assessing the statement's truth is phrased. When participants were asked whether the proposition itself is true (e.g., "Is it true that [the uttered proposition]?"), almost everyone answered negatively. It is when the original speaker was mentioned in the question (e.g., "Is what [the speaker] said true?" or "Is [the speaker]’s answer true?") that around half of the participants answered positively. We explore four possible explanations for this behavior: (1) "true" might be ambiguous between a basic correspondence sense and a coherence sense, which may be activated in some people by the explicit mentioning of the speaker; (2) "true" could be a context-sensitive expression with an implicit perspective parameter such that some speakers shift to the speaker’s perspective when prompted by the question; (3) those who select "true" might ad hoc relativize the term to the speaker’s perspective; (4) those who select "true" might unconsciously substitute it with "truthful". In addition, we discuss the implications of the findings for other philosophical discussions concerning norms of assertion, sincerity, and the theory of reference. (shrink)

Several studies in experimental philosophy and semantics have shown that a substantial number of English speakers consider a statement true even if it does not align with the facts, as long as it is justified from the speaker's perspective. These findings challenge the prevailing view among philosophers that truth is uniformly based on a statement's correspondence to reality and suggest that for some speakers truth is sensitive to epistemic perspectives. In this study, we show that this behavior depends on how (...) the critical question assessing the statement's truth is phrased. When participants were asked whether the proposition itself is true (e.g., "Is it true that [the uttered proposition]?"), almost everyone answered negatively. It is when the original speaker was mentioned in the question (e.g., "Is what [the speaker] said true?" or "Is [the speaker]’s answer true?") that around half of the participants answered positively. We explore four possible explanations for this behavior: (1) "true" might be ambiguous between a basic correspondence sense and a coherence sense, which may be activated in some people by the explicit mentioning of the speaker; (2) "true" could be a context-sensitive expression with an implicit perspective parameter such that some speakers shift to the speaker’s perspective when prompted by the question; (3) those who select "true" might ad hoc relativize the term to the speaker’s perspective; (4) those who select "true" might unconsciously substitute it with "truthful". In addition, we discuss the implications of the findings for other philosophical discussions concerning norms of assertion, sincerity, and the theory of reference. (shrink)

Nay bố cáo vậy để lỡ mai kia thấy vắng bóng Chẫu ta, thì tức là đang đi học đổi mới sáng tạo đấy, chứ không phải chơi nhởi, lang bạt gì đâu.

With wit, wisdom, and a “weird” approach through absurdity, Wild Wise Weird fosters readers’ awareness, self-reflection, informational connectivity, and even inspires them to confront stupidity to uncover wisdom. It may even inspire some readers to take up the pen. This book has the potential to resonate with readers, especially younger ones, embedding ecological sustainability in their humanistic values through the humor, vibrancy, and absurdity of its bird characters, as well as the wisdom woven throughout.

With wit, wisdom, and a “weird” approach through absurdity, Wild Wise Weird fosters readers’ awareness, self-reflection, informational connectivity, and even inspires them to confront stupidity to uncover wisdom. It may even inspire some readers to take up the pen. This book has the potential to resonate with readers, especially younger ones, embedding ecological sustainability in their humanistic values through the humor, vibrancy, and absurdity of its bird characters, as well as the wisdom woven throughout.

Working memory is thought to be the psychological capacity that enables us to maintain or manipulate information no longer in our environment for goal-directed action. Recent work argues that working memory is not a so-called natural kind and in turn cannot explain the cognitive processes attributed to it. This paper first clarifies the scope of this earlier critique and argues for a pluralist account of working memory. Under this account, working memory is variously realized by many mechanisms that contribute to (...) the maintenance and manipulation of information across tasks. This view in effect updates one of the earliest pluralist formulations of working memory. Juxtaposing this view against deflationary descriptions allows us to delineate two gradients that help us chart various accounts of working memory and identify their respective theoretical commitments. In turn, we can isolate those accounts that fail to accord with the evidence supporting a pluralist view, and we can begin to rehabilitate working memory as a pluralist, and ultimately more informative, construct. (shrink)

Traditionally, epistemology has been individualistic. Evidentialism fits squarely in this individualistic tradition. According to evidentialism, it is the mental states of the subject alone that fully determine what she is justified in believing. More recently, epistemology has become more and more social, moving away from this individualistic paradigm. Social epistemology examines the social nature of knowledge and rationality and thus engages in projects that are a departure from more traditional epistemology. It might be thought that social epistemology has no room (...) for the evidentialist. In this paper, I argue that one can be an evidentialist as well as a thoroughgoing social epistemologist. In section 1, I explain individualistic epistemology and evidentialism. In section 2, I highlight some of the central projects of social epistemology. In section 3, I argue that none of the projects in section 2 are in conflict with evidentialism and that many can be fruitfully pursued from within an evidentialist framework. In sections 4 – 7, I examine and respond to two challenges to a successful evidentialist social epistemology. The first, inspired by Goldberg (2010), claims that evidentialism is ill-equipped to handle the insights regarding the epistemic importance of what is happening in the minds of others. The second, inspired by Lackey (2018), claims that evidentialism is unable to address a form of epistemic injustice. I show that both challenges can be met by the evidentialist. (shrink)

A number of philosophers and logicians have argued for the conclusion that maps are logically tractable modes of representation by analyzing them in propositional terms. But in doing so, they have often left what they mean by "propositional" undefined or unjustified. I argue that propositions are characterized by a structure that is digital, universal, asymmetrical, and recursive. There is little positive evidence that maps exhibit these features. Instead, we can better explain their functional structure by taking seriously the observation that (...) maps arrange their constituent elements in a non-hierarchical, holistic structure. This is compatible with the more basic claim advanced by defenders of a propositional analysis: that (many) maps do have formal semantics and logic. (shrink)

Nick Shea’s Representation in Cognitive Science (OUP 2018) places a broadly teleosemantic account of mental representation on a realist footing by stressing the need to explain *how* a representational system tracks information, with different formats exploiting structural correspondences between vehicles and contents in different ways. I explore how representational realism interacts with ecumenicalism about format, and more specifically how different representational systems distribute the burden of representation between systemic and local levels. Variations in systematicity and structure matter functionally, by affecting (...) systems’ representational capacities and vulnerabilities. And they matter theoretically, by affecting where and how we posit and test for representational mechanisms. (shrink)

Ernie Lepore and Herman Cappelen (2005) argue that contextual influences on semantic content are much more restricted than most theorists assume, by presenting three tests for semantic context-sensitivity and concluding that only a very restricted class of expressions pass them. They combine this extreme semantic minimalism with an even more extreme speech-act pluralism, according to which a speaker has said anything that she can be reported as having said. I argue that because Lepore and Cappelen refuse to distinguish what is (...) said from what is claimed, their tests wrongly classify metaphor as semantically context-sensitive. I then argue that our ordinary linguistic practices support a distinction between what is said and what is claimed, and that underwrites a much more moderate form of speech act pluralism. (shrink)

Slurs are incendiary terms so much that many ordinary speakers and theorists deny that sentences containing them can ever be true, and utterances where they occur embedded within normally "quarantining" contexts, like conditionals and indirect reports, are still typically offensive. At the same time, however, many speakers and theorists also find it obvious that sentences containing slurs can be true; and there are clear cases where embedding does inoculate a speaker from the slur's offensiveness. I argue that four standard accounts (...) of the "other" element that differentiates slurs from their more neutral counterparts semantic content, perlocutionary effect, presupposition, and conventional implicature all fail to account for this puzzling mixture of intuitions about truth, and for this mixture of projection and quarantining. Instead, I propose that slurs make two distinct, coordinated contributions to a sentence's conventional communicative role: predication of group membership and endorsement of a derogating perspective on the group. Predication of group membership is "at issue" by default, but different semantic and conversational contexts can alter the relative prominence and scope of the two contributions. (shrink)

I distinguish among a range of distinct representational devices, which I call "frames", all of which have the function of providing a perspective on a subject: an overarching intuitive principle or for noticing, explaining, and responding to it. Starting with Max Black's metaphor of metaphor as etched lines on smoked glass, I explain what makes frames in general powerful cognitive tools. I distinguish metaphor from some of its close cousins, especially telling details, just-so stories, and analogies, in ordinary cognition and (...) communication. And I use these distinctions to illustrate different sorts of gaps that frames or models can open up between representation and reality. (shrink)

Philosophers have long debated the relative priority of thought and language, both at the deepest level, in asking what makes us distinctively human, and more superficially, in explaining why we find it so natural to communicate with words. The “linguistic turn” in analytic philosophy accorded pride of place to language in the order of investigation, but only because it treated language as a window onto thought, which it took to be fundamental in the order of explanation. The Chomskian linguistic program (...) tips the balance further toward language, by construing the language faculty as an independent, distinctively human biological mechanism. Devitt (Ignorance of language. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006) attempts to swing the pendulum back toward the other extreme, by proposing that thought itself is fundamentally sentential, and that there is little or nothing for language to do beyond reflecting the structure and content of thought. I argue that both thought and language involve a greater diversity of function and form than either the Chomskian model or Devitt’s antithesis acknowledge. Both thought and language are better seen as complex, mutually supporting suites of interacting abilities. (shrink)

Our ordinary and theoretical talk are rife with “framing devices”: expressions that function, not just to communicate factual information, but to suggest an intuitive way of thinking about their subjects. Framing devices can also play an important role in individual cognition, as slogans, precepts, and models that guide inquiry, explanation, and memory. At the same time, however, framing devices are double-edged swords. Communicatively, they can mold our minds into a shared pattern, even when we would rather resist. Cognitively, the intuitive (...) power of a frame can blind us both to known features that don’t fit easily within the frame, and also to “unknown unknowns” we have not yet encountered. Thus, perhaps Locke is right to disavow such “eloquent inventions” as “perfect cheats” that “insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment.” Against this, I argue that while the metaphor of double-edged swords is indeed apt, this is because frames are tools for thought. Like any tool, they can be used well or badly; but they do not fall outside the realm of rationality altogether. I describe how framing devices express open-ended perspectives, which produce structured intuitive characterizations of particular subjects. I argue that frames can make effective, distinctive epistemic contributions in the course of inquiry, and that the cognitive structures that frames produce can contribute to, and constitute, epistemic achievements in their own right, even in highly idealized circumstances at the nominal end of inquiry. Throughout, I focus especially on scientific understanding, because it serves as a paradigm case of rational inquiry, from which frames and perspectives are most likely to be excluded. (shrink)

“Moral imagination” is the capacity to register that one’s perspective on a decision-making situation is limited, and to imagine alternative perspectives that reveal new considerations or approaches. We have developed a Moral Imagination approach that aims to drive a culture of responsible innovation, ethical awareness, deliberation, decision-making, and commitment in organizations developing new technologies. We here present a case study that illustrates one key aspect of our approach – the technomoral scenario – as we have applied it in our work (...) with product and engineering teams. Technomoral scenarios are fictional narratives that raise ethical issues surrounding the interaction between emerging technologies and society. Through facilitated role-playing and discussion, participants are prompted to examine their own intentions, articulate justifications for actions, and consider the impact of decisions on various stakeholders. This process helps developers to re-envision their choices and responsibilities, ultimately contributing to a culture of responsible innovation. (shrink)

This note introduces the word of “webjectivity,” to describe a concept that is well-known, the character of being epistemically dependence upon a situation within a network; and suggests that this word and its corresponding concept could be useful for clarifying discussions of the epistemic condition of the information age.

The use of artificial intelligence in philosophy opens new avenues for inquiry, particularly through dialogical methods inspired by the Socratic tradition. This paper exemplifies the engagement with ChatGPT-4o by OpenAI as a philosophical interlocutor, highlighting how this format facilitates a clear distinction between the philosopher's contributions and those generated by the AI. By allowing the philosopher to lead the dialogue, this technique liberates him from the constraints of drafting and formal writing, enabling a more spontaneous exploration of ideas. The conversation (...) begins with a foundational definition of intelligence and progresses toward a deeper and philosophically relevant understanding. This exchange not only showcases the potential of AI to enrich philosophical discourse but also emphasizes the significance of critical questioning in examining complex concepts such as intelligence and the implications of artificial cognition. (shrink)

El influjo de temáticas heideggerianas en la obra tardía de H. Marcuse, todavía implícito en 'Eros y civilización' (1955) ante al peso determinante del psicoanálisis freudiano (1), reaparece de modo explícito en 'El hombre unidimensional' (1964). Ello acontece en dos planos mutuamente interdependientes: el análisis de la reificación en las sociedades unidimensionales de posguerra (2) y la crítica de la racionalidad tecnológica (4). Algunas debilidades conceptuales de ambas obras, derivadas en gran parte de esta recepción de Heidegger, ya fueron subrayadas (...) en su momento por autores pertenecientes a la llamada izquierda husserliana (P. A. Rovatti y P. Piccone, etc.) (3). (shrink)

La crítica de Horkheimer al empirismo lógico del Círculo de Viena en su ensayo “El último ataque a la metafísica” (1937) motivó la respuesta de Neurath, principal blanco de las críticas, con la redacción del texto “Ciencia unificada y empirismo lógico: una réplica” (1937). En el presente artículo nos ocupamos de dilucidar el contexto de la polémica entre la Teoría Crítica y el empirismo lógico. Tomamos como eje argumental de nuestra exposición el conjunto de temáticas sobre las que Horkheimer fundamentó (...) sus críticas, así como las distintas respuestas que ofreció Neurath ante tales invectivas. Asimismo, se muestran los paralelismos existentes que vinculan esta primera polémica con la “disputa sobre el positivismo” (Positivismusstreit). (shrink)

La crítica de Horkheimer al empirismo lógico del Círculo de Viena en su ensayo “El último ataque a la metafísica” (1937) motivó la respuesta de Neurath, principal blanco de las críticas, con la redacción del texto “Ciencia unificada y empirismo lógico: una réplica” (1937). En el presente artículo nos ocupamos de dilucidar el contexto de la polémica entre la Teoría Crítica y el empirismo lógico. Tomamos como eje argumental de nuestra exposición el conjunto de temáticas sobre las que Horkheimer fundamentó (...) sus críticas, así como las distintas respuestas que ofreció Neurath ante tales invectivas. Asimismo, se muestran los paralelismos existentes que vinculan esta primera polémica con la “disputa sobre el positivismo” (Positivismusstreit). (shrink)

Like people born shortly after World War II, the international human rights movement recently had its sixty-fifth birthday. This could mean that retirement is at hand and that death will come in a few decades. After all, the formulations of human rights that activists, lawyers, and politicians use today mostly derive from the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the world in 1948 was very different from our world today: the cold war was about to break out, communism was (...) a strong and optimistic political force in an expansionist phase, and Western Europe was still recovering from the war. The struggle against entrenched racism and sexism had only just begun, decolonization was in its early stages, and Asia was still poor . Labor unions were strong in the industrialized world, and the movement of women into work outside the home and farm was in its early stages. Farming was less technological and usually on a smaller scale, the environmental movement had not yet flowered, and human-caused climate change was present but unrecognized. Personal computers and social networking were decades away, and Earth's human population was well under three billion. (shrink)

Emotion development research centrally concerns capacities to produce emotions and to think about them. We distinguish these enterprises and consider a novel account of how they might be related. On one recent account, the capacity to have emotions of various kinds comes by way of the acquisition of emotion concepts. This account relies on a constructionist theory of emotions and an embodied theory of emotion concepts. We explicate these elements, then raise a challenge for the approach. It appears to be (...) incompatible with various familiar ways in which cognitions about one’s own emotions can come apart from episodes of emotion. (shrink)

When we read a list of words, are we doing something, or is it something that just happens to us? On the one hand, according to intention-for-action theories, reading can be active only if we do it intentionally, meaning that the action is caused and sustained by the agent’s intention. Many cases of reading seem to be intentional: consider, for instance, when a person is reading a novel, a newspaper article, or an academic paper. Yet, reading often seems to be (...) something that passively happens to us. It is sufficient that a word appears in front of us to make us read it. Numerous studies on the Stroop task – a well-known experimental set-up in the cognitive sciences – make clear that reading is unavoidable, suggesting that reading takes place regardless of the agent’s intention. This tension constitutes the reading puzzle. I argue that if intention is necessary for a process to be active, then intention-for-action theories fail to account for such a distinctive human activity as reading. I conclude that reading represents a real challenge to the intention-for-action theories and shows that what an agent can actively do should not be limited to behaviors that involve intentions. (shrink)

This article critically examines the feminist movement in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, highlighting the struggles and activism of Juarense women against social injustices, particularly those exacerbated by machismo, the Narco War, and the manufacturing industry. The analysis explores the roots of machismo in Mexican culture, the impact of the maquiladora industry on women's lives, and the rise of feminist activism in response to these challenges. Emphasizing the intersection of gender violence and legal frameworks, the article incorporates feminist legal theory to argue (...) for substantial legal reforms to combat the normalization of machismo and feminicide. It further discusses the resilience and determination of Juarense women, portraying their efforts as part of the broader global feminist movement. (shrink)

This article critically examines the feminist movement in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, highlighting the struggles and activism of Juarense women against social injustices, particularly those exacerbated by machismo, the Narco War, and the manufacturing industry. The analysis explores the roots of machismo in Mexican culture, the impact of the maquiladora industry on women's lives, and the rise of feminist activism in response to these challenges. Emphasizing the intersection of gender violence and legal frameworks, the article incorporates feminist legal theory to argue (...) for substantial legal reforms to combat the normalization of machismo and feminicide. It further discusses the resilience and determination of Juarense women, portraying their efforts as part of the broader global feminist movement. (shrink)

At the heart of Jennifer Lackey's recent book is highly original work in identifying a form of testimonial injustice that is quite distinct from those hitherto identified. Since the publication of Miranda Fricker’s Epistemic Injustice there has been an enormous flurry of work done on injustices where people are wronged as givers of knowledge (testimonial injustice) or where people are wronged in their capacity as a subject of social understanding (hermeneutical injustice). Fricker’s focus in that book was on cases where (...) people are not believed or where deflated credibility is given to their word as a result of prejudice in the hearer . However, Lackey points out that there are many instances where people are wronged not by being granted too little credibility but by being given too much credibility. False confessions, guilty pleas, and eyewitness testimony are sometimes taken as sufficient to imprison people or even execute them, despite the fact that the testimony in question has been extracted through manipulation, deception, and coercion and despite the fact that other evidence is lacking or conflicts with the false confessions, guilty pleas, or eyewitness testimony. (shrink)

Machine and Sovereignty offers a future-oriented mode of political thought that encompasses the unprecedented global challenges we are confronting: the rise of artificial intelligence, the ecological crisis, and intensifying geopolitical conflicts. Arguing that a new approach to planetary thinking is urgently needed, Yuk Hui presents new epistemological and technological frameworks for understanding and rising to the crises of our present and our future.

In his classic article, “Hegel's Phenomenological Method” (1970), Kenley R. Dove suggests that in chapters 1-3 of the Phenomenology of Spirit, “we” (understood roughly as the readers) actively participate in the dialectic of consciousness. In this paper I show – drawing on Joseph Gauvin's work on the “for us” written the same year as Dove's – that the latter's account regarding the “we” is inexact. I argue that this misunderstanding stems from a quid pro quo between merely stylistic occurrences of (...) the word “we” and interventions of texts “for us”, i.e. texts that express the particular viewpoint on experience attributed in the Phenomenology to its readers. Beyond the historical interest of reassessing Dove's commentary, this paper is intended to help readers avoid similar confusions themselves. This, by providing a rule of thumb enabling a more accurate identification of texts expressing “our” point of view. This is important since in the Phenomenology texts that are “for us” contain – in contrast to mere appearance “for consciousness” – the philosophical position Hegel considers to be true. (shrink)

The present paper presents experimental evidence confirming that contextually mismatching scalar implicatures can be generated even when quantifiers range over empty domains. In the literature, this possibility has been interpreted as providing further evidence for a grammatical approach to scalar implicatures. The main result presented here is that scalar sentences with empty domains are judged as more infelicitous when associated with a mismatching implicature than variants with the same empty domains but associated with a non-mismatching implicature. We interpret this result (...) as suggesting that the infelicity judgment associated with the first kind of sentence stems from the cumulative effect of the mismatching implicature and the contextual domain emptiness. Compared to previous literature on blind implicatures, our results indicate that the body of knowledge involved in relevance assignments is restricted to ignoring existential determination while still considering the properties attributed to nonexistent entities. They also show that, while not blocking implicature generation, contextual domain emptiness plays a role in speakers’ evaluation of scalar sentences, reflecting the unconscious nature of scalar implicature generation. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the role of the imagination in creativity, using aphantasia as a case study. It first distinguishes between imagination and mental imagery, before giving an overview of what we know about aphantasia to date, focusing in particular on findings pertaining to creativity, imagination, and memory. It then turns to the role of the imagination in creativity, agreeing with philosophers that the imagination plays an essential role in creativity, which allows individuals to imagine a multitude of possibilities. This (...) view is then supplemented with a theory of the neuro-cognitive underpinnings of the imagination, whereby both the imagination and memory are supported by the same neural network – the default mode network. Finally, the chapter argues that this fuller picture allows us to understand the creative abilities of people with aphantasia, thoroughly resisting the thought that they might generally be unimaginative or uncreative. (shrink)

There is growing attention towards atypical brain-body interactions and interoceptive processes and their potential role in psychiatric conditions, including affective and anxiety disorders. This paper aims to synthesize recent developments in this field. We present emerging explanatory models and focus on brain-body coupling and modulations of the underlying neurocircuitry that support the concept of a continuum of affective disorders. Grounded in theoretical frameworks like peripheral theories of emotion and predictive processing, we propose that altered interoceptive processes might represent transdiagnostic mechanisms (...) that confer common vulnerability traits across multiple disorders. A deeper understanding of the interplay between bodily states and neural processing is essential for a holistic conceptualization of mental disorders. (shrink)

Politeia (Πολιτεία in Hellenic) as a fundamental concept of legal philosophy and political philosophy can be interpreted in various meanings such as state, constitution, republic, citizenship etc. Though the fact that this term has a broad scale of meaning might, prima facie, seem confusing, such nature of the concept can, in light of its hermeneutics, hold light to ancient conception of law, ethics and politics. To this end, this study aims a thorough analysis of the concept by handling every meaning (...) attached to the term Politeia in ancient texts that survive today, and suggesting possible hermeneutic connections between those meanings. It is expected that this method would not only clarify the entire possible meanings of the term Politeia, but would help understanding ancient legal and political conceptions of the ancient times. (shrink)

This paper reviews factors influencing Vietnamese youth’s adoption of Fintech, including technology access, perceived usefulness, government support, and financial literacy. While the Vietnamese government has promoted Fintech expansion through financial inclusion strategies and supportive regulations, gaps in financial education remain. Youth engagement with Fintech is shaped by ease of use, user innovativeness, and social influence, though financial risk concerns limit adoption. For sustained growth, focused financial literacy programs and regulatory improvements are essential to unlock Fintech’s potential for economic development and (...) financial inclusion among Vietnamese youth. (shrink)

This paper seeks to intervene in environmental ethics and social epistemology. Within a predominant strand of environmental ethics, one witnesses accounts based on nonhumans’ ability to suffer, and consequently, the passivity of nonhumans. On the other hand, social epistemology is often not social enough insofar as it does not include nonhumans. Seminal accounts of epistemic injustice often conceal or exclude the possibility that nonhumans can be subjects of knowledge and victims of epistemic injustice because of an anthropocentric bias that maintains (...) propositional language is a necessary condition for knowledge. By presenting a non-anthropocentric, corporeal epistemology, this paper reveals a more affirmative account of nonhumans as epistemic agents with tacit, embodied knowledge. To prevent epistemic depreciation turning into ethical indifference or wrongdoing, this paper focuses on whether it is possible to commit epistemic injustices against nonhumans. In particular, this paper argues that humans can commit fourth-order epistemic exclusion, testimonial injustice, and testimonial smothering against nonhumans. (shrink)

This paper seeks to intervene in environmental ethics and social epistemology. Within a predominant strand of environmental ethics, one witnesses accounts based on nonhumans’ ability to suffer, and consequently, the passivity of nonhumans. On the other hand, social epistemology is often not social enough insofar as it does not include nonhumans. Seminal accounts of epistemic injustice often conceal or exclude the possibility that nonhumans can be subjects of knowledge and victims of epistemic injustice because of an anthropocentric bias that maintains (...) propositional language is a necessary condition for knowledge. By presenting a non-anthropocentric, corporeal epistemology, this paper reveals a more affirmative account of nonhumans as epistemic agents with tacit, embodied knowledge. To prevent epistemic depreciation turning into ethical indifference or wrongdoing, this paper focuses on whether it is possible to commit epistemic injustices against nonhumans. In particular, this paper argues that humans can commit fourth-order epistemic exclusion, testimonial injustice, and testimonial smothering against nonhumans. (shrink)

Contrary to the dominant arguments put forth by Black feminist scholars, this essay argues that W.E.B. Du Bois’ pioneering role in establishing the principles of Black sociology, ethnological arguments and long-range development of Pan-Africanism as an ideological rival to colonial imperialism/Westernism suggests that the masculine roots informing his approach to the Black intellectual endeavor is a positive and humanistic rather than a restrictive marker of his thought. If Du Bois’ masculinization of Black agency and intellectual endeavors were simply indicative of (...) mimesis – his internalization of the very sexism against which he fought anchored to a view of freedom for Black people which materialized as a struggle among men over the control of the bodies of Black women – then there should be textual evidence demonstrating that he (like some of his Black female peers) supported the relegation of Black women to domesticity or was in favor of US imperialism against darker races abroad. But rather than an imitative aspiration towards Black nationalist patriarchy and the subordination of Black women to men’s will, the logical consequence of Du Bois’ masculinist (ethnological) thinking as it relates to the Black intellectual endeavor and the problem of race in America materialized as the formulation of Black sociology to study Black men and women as agents of history who were endowed with unique insights stemming from their experiences of marginalization, his articulation of an anti-colonial and egalitarian Black manhood, and his laying an intellectual basis for Pan-Africanism to emerge as an anti-colonial ideology. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore numerical methods for simulating scalar field con-figurations in non-commutative two-dimensional spaces. We focus on the finite difference techniques employed to compute mixed partial derivatives and the action functional in the presence of non-commutative corrections. The methods presented address the challenges posed by non-commutative geometry, specifically in computing the mixed derivative terms that arise due to the deformation of spatial coordinates. We introduce semi-implicit time-stepping schemes to en-sure numerical stability when dealing with stiff nonlinear terms. The (...) approaches discussed here provide a framework for simulating and analyzing physical systems influenced by non-commutativity, which are not extensively documented in existing literature. (shrink)

Vitamin D deficiency and its effect have attracted considerable research interest due to its relation to glucose homeostasis, insulin secretion, sensitivity and synthesis. This study aimed to evaluate vitamin D levels in patients with type II diabetes mellitus aged between 35-65 years and investigate their relations with glycemic control and obesity. The study included 74 Libyan patients with a known history of type II diabetes mellitus (33 males and 41 females). Serum glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and vitamin D levels were (...) biochemically estimated in these patients. Further, body mass index (BMI) was calculated for all diabetic patients (weight in kilogram per height in meter square). The mean level of plasma glucose level was 150.58±63.82 mg/dl (mean±SD). The mean of HbA1c level was 7.90±8.48% (mean±SD). The mean level of vitamin D was 22.75±14.97 ng/ml. The mean of BMI was 26.55±4.10 Kg per m2. The findings showed that 58.10% of the cases had vitamin D deficiency (Out of which 24.24% were males and 85.36% were females). This study showed significant differences in glucose, HbA1c, vitamin D and BMI between male and female patients. Moreover, elderly ages for both sexes had adverse effects on vitamin D status. Vitamin D levels have negatively been correlated with levels of glucose, HbA1c and BMI. It is concluded that vitamin D deficiency has an adverse effect on glucose homeostasis in patients with type II diabetes mellitus and this can be a contributing risk factor in complications of type II diabetes mellitus development in Libyan patients. (shrink)

Inflammation is said to be a healthy component of the body's immune system's reaction. Inflammation is characterised by four key symptoms: pain, redness, heat or warmth and swelling. As secondary metabolites, plants may produce a wide range of phytochemical compounds, which possess anti-inflammatory characteristics. Herbal remedies are important therapies for a wide range of ailments all over the world. There are around 7,500 species of medicinal plants, including representatives from over 17,000 flowering plant species. Even though synthetic chemistry has developed (...) its expectations, the use of natural ingredients in the manufacture of drugs used in contemporary medicine is unparalleled. By interfering with the biology of inflammation, anti-inflammatory medications may assist to minimising tissue damage and increase patient comfort. Because of the bulky figure of species reachable for study, the effective development of novel naturally taking place anti-inflammatory drugs is mostly dependent on a multidisciplinary approach to discovering new chemicals. Despite the statistic that many review papers have been produced in this field, the conventional of them simply examined the issue from an area perspective. Several non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have been shown to reduce inflammation and pain by decreasing the isoform of the cyclooxygenase enzyme's digestion of arachidonic acid, hence lowering prostaglandin production. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have a host of harmful effects. There are, however, medicinal herbs with anti-inflammatory pharmacological properties that have few or no negative effects. (shrink)

The relationship between flamenco and politics is one of the great flamenco debates in history; a controversy that, for decades, not only researchers have participated in, but all the tiers of the jondo world. Numerous have been the opinions expressed and the answers given to those that could be considered as three of the archetypal questions of this polemic: if flamenco can be understood as a manifestation (of thematic) politics, if it is (or expresses) rebellious and protest in it, or (...) the question about the ideological question in which the lyrics of cante would be framed. The present article tries to shed light on one of the subjects that more interest have raised, with respect to the studies on the flamenco, as it is the politician. (shrink)

Comprender la Historia de la Filosofía Contemporánea supone entender en muchos y muy significativos aspectos el mundo actual y sus vicisitudes históricas, éticas y políticas, epistemológicas, antropológicas, estéticas, metafísicas, etc. De ahí la enorme importancia que supone el estudio de una materia como esta para el alumnado del Doble Grado en Derecho y Filosofía en tanto que pilar que permite situar la filosofía presente y navegar desde ella por el flujo de los, anchamente entendidos, tiempos actuales, en todas sus ramas (...) fundamentales. (shrink)

Since the original UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights1 laid out the general principles of human rights, there has been a split between what have been regarded as civil and political rights as opposed to economic, cultural and social rights. It was, in fact, the denial that both could be considered “rights” that prevented them from being included in the same covenant.2 Essentially, the argument for distinguishing the two concerns the nature of freedom. The civil rights to the freedoms of (...) speech, religion, assembly, association, and so on do not specify the content of the speech, the theology of the religion or the purpose of the assembly or association. 3 Freedom in such cases is necessarily value-neutral. In leaving the choice up to the individual, these rights purposefully abstract from the content of this choice. The case is quite different for economic, cultural and social rights. All of these necessarily express values with regard to the forms of our social organization. This is because they move beyond individual choices to consider the purposes or goals of our existence together. Thus, the rights to the cultivation of a cultural identity necessarily impact more than the individuals exercising them. As collective, they affect the society as a whole. The same holds for the UN sponsored rights of a person “to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.”4 For a society to honor these rights involves specific choices with regard to its social content and collective organization. Such choices embody a particular value—in the UN’s words, that of the “social security” of the individual.5 Freedom, here, is freedom for specific social goals. Since these goals are collective, they.. (shrink)

En este texto tiene el objetivo de recopilar y presentar los posicionamientos y argumentos históricos más relevantes en torno al acerca de la originalidad de Isidoro de Sevilla y su obra, y, además, con ello, el de mantener vigente un tema, de gran relevancia histórica y filosófica, del que aún queda mucho que indagar y decir.

Este texto pretende dar respuestas a la pregunta acerca de (y justificar) la importancia de la filosofía de Max Stirner, principalmente expuesta en El Único y su propiedad, en el curso de la historia de la filosofía, y, por ende, la conveniencia de su conocimiento, esto es, su investigación y estudio.

Ensayo de acercamiento general al núcleo metafísico fundamental del pensamiento de Max Stirner, principalmente expuesto en 'El Único y su propiedad' y en el opúsculo de contrargumento a las respuestas crí-ticas a su obra titulado Recensores de Stirner.

Comprender la Historia de la Filosofía Contemporánea supone entender en muchos y muy significativos aspectos el mundo actual y sus vicisitudes históricas, éticas y políticas, epistemológicas, antropológicas, estéticas, metafísicas, etc. De ahí la enorme importancia que supone el estudio de una materia como esta para el alumnado del Doble Grado en Derecho y Filosofía en tanto que pilar que permite situar la filosofía presente y navegar desde ella por el flujo de los, anchamente entendidos, tiempos actuales, en todas sus ramas (...) fundamentales. (shrink)

In the twenty-fifth chapter of the second book of Etymologies, epitome of the Isagoge of Profirius, the sevillian philosopher Isidore of Seville, taking the example of the tyrian thinker, takes up the anthropo-philosophical theory of homo risv capax, that is, the human being defined as the only living being, mortal or immortal, irrational or rational, capable of laughing. Or, in others words, laughter understood as what is (most) proper -in the sense of exclusive- to the human being. A theory that (...) has a long trajectory in the history of ancient Western philosophy up to the approach of the philosopher from Seville (and also after him). This article presents the Isidorean proposal by showing the background, both general and specific, to the question of laughter as a singular and distinctive human property, as well as a delimitation of the sense exposed in the thought and work of Isidore of Seville, together with the existing differences between those of the Sevillian thinker and his philosophical precedents, that is, his specific contributions. (shrink)

In the twenty-fifth chapter of the second book of Etymologies, epitome of the Isagoge of Profirius, the sevillian philosopher Isidore of Seville, taking the example of the tyrian thinker, takes up the anthropo-philosophical theory of 'homo risv capax', that is, the human being defined as the only living being, mortal or immortal, irrational or rational, capable of laughing. Or, in others word, laughter understood as what is (most) proper -in the sense of exclusive- to the human being. A theory that (...) has a long trajectory in the history of ancient Western philosophy up to the approach of the philosopher from Seville (and also after him). This article presents the Isidorean proposal by showing the background, both general and specific, to the question of laughter as a singular and distinctive human property, as well as a delimitation of the sense exposed in the thought and work of Isidore of Seville, together with the existing differences between those of the Sevillian thinker and his philosophical precedents, that is, his specific contributions. (shrink)

Integration as an objective and aspiration, the tendency toward synthesis and eclecticism emerges as a fundamental trait in the works and life of Isidore of Seville, both on a theoretical and practical level. This distinctive peculiarity also constitutes an element of interest in the research (and historical debate) regarding the originality of the Sevillian philosopher’s work. This article delves into this issue, its meaning, and implications through both the texts of the Sevillian metropolitan and the considerations of authorities in Isidorian (...) studies. -/- . (shrink)

In studying in depth Nietzsche’s description of Greek tragedy and Dionysian art, as well as flamenco art –both phenomenologically and hermeneutically–, enormous similarities appear. Especially between the characteristics of the fundamental aesthetic category of flamenco, lo jondo –the deep–, and the features of Dionysian art. What shows that, just as those of the beautiful and the sublime are the aesthetic categories of the Apollonian, the aesthetic category of Dionysian art is the deep.

In this article, I apply Australian logician and ecofeminist philosopher Val Plumwood’s Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, specifically its alternative logic of “the dance of interaction,” to a controversial community-engagement program in my home state of Alabama. At Rural Studio, Auburn University students design free housing and public works for one of the poorest regions in the United States, known as the “Black Belt.” Through the lens of Plumwood’s ecofeminist dancing logic, the marginalized source of Rural Studio’s survival is (...) revealed to be the resilience of the disempowered majority-Black community. Inspired thereby, I sketch an ecofeminist choreography with three “dancing” concepts (namely Plumwood’s “the master model,” Vandana Shiva’s “nature’s logic,” and Ariel Salleh’s “holding”), acknowledging the resilience of the disempowered as a necessary step toward an ethically-sustainable aesthetics. (shrink)

Chapter 8, "From Tools to Authors" of "Artificial Aesthetics" discusses the evolving role of AI in artistic creation, moving from a tool to a potential creative agent. It explores the concept of "extended aesthetics," where technology enhances both human creativity and perception. The chapter outlines different levels of AI autonomy and examines how this shift challenges traditional ideas of authorship, comparing AI collaborations to historical artistic practices. It raises questions about the value of effort in art, contrasting human struggle with (...) AI's apparent ease, and suggests that AI might ultimately reshape how we perceive creative intentionality and authorship. (shrink)

A social fact S is grounded by some plurality of grounds. And the fact that S has the grounding-conditions it does is anchored by some set of anchors. Epstein has recently suggested (2019) that the anchoring relation is a cross-world determination relation. In this paper we put forward three arguments against this view. First, we argue from the analogy between social and non-social kinds: there is no cross-world determination involved in non-social natural kinds. Secondly, we take issue with the very (...) idea of cross-world determination: no determination relation in our current metaphysical toolkit can have relata that occupy different possible worlds (in the relevant sense). Thirdly, we argue that cross-world anchoring generates an indeterminacy problem: if S holds in an anchorless world w, and there are distinct anchors (for S) holding at w1 and w2 respectively, then it is indeterminate whether S’s grounding-conditions hold in virtue of the w1-anchors or the w2-anchors. (shrink)

The development of artificial perception technologies has surpassed the limitations of human natural senses, expanding humanity's perspectives on the world and self-awareness. However, it has simultaneously introduced new ethical challenges. These emerging challenges necessitate a philosophical reexamination of concepts such as 'nature,' 'artificial,' and ' invasiveness ' to better address associated issues. The advancement of artificial perception technologies not only involves scientific and practical applications but also profoundly influences human values, social ethics, and the future trajectory of human civilization. Amidst (...) the current transformation and transition in modes of cognition, reevaluating the relationship between technology and humanity becomes a crucial task. (shrink)

Artificial Cognition (AC) has provoked a great deal of controversy in recent years. Concerns over its development have revolved around the questions of whether or not a moral status may be ascribed to AC and, if so, how could it be characterized? This paper provides an analysis of consciousness as a means to query the moral status of AC. This method suggests that the question of moral status of artificial cognition depends upon the level of development of consciousness achieved. As (...) a means by which to distinguish among different levels of technological capabilities, we propose a scale of AC statuses in the relationship with natural cognition of humans: no status, low status, equal status and high status. This research draws from classical theories of ethics, in particular utilitarianism and deontology, to explain the differences and shortcomings of the four propositions. The philosophical arguments presented serve to challenge common assumptions about natural cognition of human relationships with AC as well as to suggest that future technological advances should be directed toward the achievement of a position of equality in those relationships. This shows that artificial cognition has no moral status at present, but could have the same moral status as natural cognition of human beings in the future. (shrink)

Perception, as the most fundamental process in cognition, serves as the foundation for human understanding and cognition of the external world and the self. In recent years, emerging artificial perception technologies have surpassed human sensory limitations, expanding human cognition of the world and the self. This transition from natural perception to artificial perception poses new challenges to human cognition. Artificial perception technology not only mimics human sensory capabilities but also transcends traditional modes of perception, possessing distinct characteristics from natural senses. (...) By integrating artificial technology with human brain interaction, artificial perception creates a novel form of human perception. However, a unilateral enhancement of human perception through artificial means may not necessarily achieve cognitive enhancement; instead, it may disrupt and interfere with innate human natural perception and existing logical reasoning. (shrink)

In this paper, the author will explore the relationship between agency and intentionality of the artificial agent in the following seven ways.

The relationship between philosophy and science in contemporary times is closer than ever. From the methodology perspective, scientific and philosophical research has a clear sequential relationship. It is highlighted in the following aspects: 1. the methodology of scientific research, including theoretical assumptions and data modeling, parallels with apparent similarities in conceptual analysis and logical deduction in philosophy;2. consistency of analytical argumentation methods in scientific research and philosophical research;3. naturalism is currently a research approach that both scientific and philosophical research adopt. (...) There has been a significant dispute over the relationship between philosophy and science among contemporary philosophers. This dispute focuses on the impact of scientific development on philosophy research. Nowadays, no one would deny the existence of this impact, but there is no consensus on the impact's nature, scope, and role. Wittgenstein's conception of certainty can provide valuable insights to understand the relationship between philosophy and science. In addition, we conclude the pragmatic turn in cognitive science because we misinterpret the cognitive scientists' emphasis on action as a practical claim and interpret the cognitive scientists' views with pragmatism. The theoretical analysis and research suggestions philosophers provide are becoming essential focuses in contemporary artificial intelligence research, including the interpretability of computer technology, the ethical norms of artificial intelligence technology, and the possible conception of human beings in the future. The interdisciplinary study of science and philosophy will achieve more significant development. In sum, understanding the nature of philosophy can be given a new explanation from a future perspective. The future outlook here refers to the starting point from possible world scenarios that can be conceived and traced back to all the facts happening in the present world, thereby giving an appropriate explanation to the real world. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and science in contemporary times is closer than ever. From the methodology perspective, scientific and philosophical research has a clear sequential relationship. It is highlighted in the following aspects: 1. the methodology of scientific research, including theoretical assumptions and data modeling, parallels with apparent similarities in conceptual analysis and logical deduction in philosophy;2. consistency of analytical argumentation methods in scientific research and philosophical research;3. naturalism is currently a research approach that both scientific and philosophical research adopt. (...) There has been a significant dispute over the relationship between philosophy and science among contemporary philosophers. This dispute focuses on the impact of scientific development on philosophy research. Nowadays, no one would deny the existence of this impact, but there is no consensus on the impact's nature, scope, and role. Wittgenstein's conception of certainty can provide valuable insights to understand the relationship between philosophy and science. In addition, we conclude the pragmatic turn in cognitive science because we misinterpret the cognitive scientists' emphasis on action as a practical claim and interpret the cognitive scientists' views with pragmatism. The theoretical analysis and research suggestions philosophers provide are becoming essential focuses in contemporary artificial intelligence research, including the interpretability of computer technology, the ethical norms of artificial intelligence technology, and the possible conception of human beings in the future. The interdisciplinary study of science and philosophy will achieve more significant development. In sum, understanding the nature of philosophy can be given a new explanation from a future perspective. The future outlook here refers to the starting point from possible world scenarios that can be conceived and traced back to all the facts happening in the present world, thereby giving an appropriate explanation to the real world. (shrink)

In "Experience as a Way of Knowing" (this journal), the author tries to create some troubles for philosophers who believe in "qualia" or "what it is like". I think the author has underestimated the complexity of the issues, and I will voice my concerns in five sections. Besides presenting my interpretation of the author's position and challenging it, I will (1) challenge the author's treatment of the knowledge argument, especially the author's treatment of "this is what it is like to (...) see red", (2) challenge the author's interpretation of "what-it-is-like" talk and the author's view that phenomenal properties are theoretical postulates, (3) challenge the author's rejection of "apparent properties", and (4) point out some issues with the author's interpretation of several authors who write about the knowledge argument. (shrink)

It is first shown that many questions could be raised about phenomenal concepts and the popular answer to the question what Mary learns upon release, namely, that this is what it is like to see red. It is then shown that the category of quale is actually a postulate of philosophical theories and philosophers posit qualia because they fail to see how to account for the two related features of experience, namely, subjectivity and phenomenality. It is argued that we don't (...) need qualia to explain the subjectivity and phenomenality of experience because we don't have to posit apparent properties. It is then proposed that experiencing is a way of knowing and that the new knowledge Mary acquires upon release is her knowledge by acquaintance with red. (shrink)

Huw Price and Ken Wharton claimed recently in their paper published in The Conversation that quantum mechanics shows that the future can influence the past. According to their paper, many scientists are convinced about it. However, there is still something mystical for philosophers. The first is about the definition of retrocausality and its philosophical relation to causality. Second, it is concerned with understanding the relationship between cause and effect, not only scientifically but also logically. In this talk, I will answer (...) the two questions by analyzing the concept of temporality and by examining the counterfactual and overdetermination. I found a tension in understanding the concept of necessity in the physical and logical sense. Finally, I will argue that the time reversal asymmetry does not imply retrocausality, and the phenomenon of retrocausality does not exist in reality but only in logic. (shrink)

Practical knowledge, in the sense made famous by G. E. M. Anscombe, is “the knowledge that a man has of his intentional actions”. This knowledge is very ordinary, but philosophically it is not easy to understand. One illuminating approach is to see practical knowledge as a kind of self-knowledge or self-consciousness. I offer an enrichment of this approach, by (1) exploiting Gilbert Ryle’s discussion of heeding (that is, paying attention), in particular paying attention to one’s own intentional action, and (2) (...) constructing and applying a practical analogue of Kant’s apperceptive “I think”. Combining (1) and (2), I offer an argument for my main claim—paying attention to what one is doing is an exercise of practical self-consciousness – it is how practical self-consciousness gets “schematized”. (shrink)

We present the negative phenomena of understanding in relation to scientific explanations. We begin by formulating the distinction between genuine understanding and lack of understanding, to define the epistemic category of misunderstanding. We illustrate misunderstanding with a short meta-philosophical study on the current debates about distinctively mathematical explanations.

We present the negative phenomena of understanding in relation to scientific explanations. We begin by formulating the distinction between genuine understanding and lack of understanding, to define the epistemic category of misunderstanding. We illustrate misunderstanding with a short meta-philosophical study on the current debates about distinctively mathematical explanations.

We present the negative phenomena of understanding in relation to scientific explanations. We begin by formulating the distinction between genuine understanding and lack of understanding, to define the epistemic category of misunderstanding. We illustrate misunderstanding with a short meta-philosophical study on the current debates about distinctively mathematical explanations.

We present the negative phenomena of understanding in relation to scientific explanations. We begin by formulating the distinction between genuine understanding and lack of understanding, to define the epistemic category of misunderstanding. We illustrate misunderstanding with a short meta-philosophical study on the current debates about distinctively mathematical explanations.

Advocates of Extended Evolutionary Synthesis claim that the gene-centric framework of Modern Synthesis (MS) inadequately addresses epigenetics and extended heredity. Historically, epigenetic inheritance relates to Lamarck's inheritance of acquired characters, which was widely accepted before the dominance of MS. In this talk, I argue that the challenge posed by epigenetic inheritance to the gene-centric view arises partly from the ambiguous use of "gene," "phenotype," and "environment" concepts. A functional analysis of the gene concept played in the formal evolutionary models shows (...) that the gene can include materials like exogenes, demonstrating the flexibility of evolutionary theory beyond the verbal MS. Properly understanding the evolutionary gene concept reveals that incorporating epigenetic inheritance does not demand a radical revision of the contemporary evolutionary theory. (shrink)

He drove a taxi. Now he drives a truck. So, must he be driving the truck right now? Must he, as long as he's working as a truck driver, keep driving his truck all day and all night? What do we speak of, when we speak of "now"? In this talk, some popular conceptions in the philosophy of time will be put under critical scrutiny: (1) The present (the "now") is an instant, a time point with no length; (2) the (...) "content" of the present is always an event, a happening, which constitutes a segment of a larger process; (3) what (time) is now, is determined by the passage of time (itself). The following points will be defended respectively: (1) The present may be a time period. "Now" is not an indivisible time-atom in the substantival sense. (2) What is now can be an event, a process, or a state. "Driving a truck now" – in the sense of being a truck driver – is neither an event nor something happening to him. (3) "Now", among other temporal concepts, is not a name for any thing, but schemata under which we understand ways things being themselves. There are variety of ways of being, and accordingly there are multiple aspects of now-ness. (shrink)

He drove a taxi. Now he drives a truck. So, must he be driving the truck right now? Must he, as long as he's working as a truck driver, keep driving his truck all day and all night? What do we speak of, when we speak of "now"? In this talk, some popular conceptions in the philosophy of time will be put under critical scrutiny: (1) The present (the "now") is an instant, a time point with no length; (2) the (...) "content" of the present is always an event, a happening, which constitutes a segment of a larger process; (3) what (time) is now, is determined by the passage of time (itself). The following points will be defended respectively: (1) The present may be a time period. "Now" is not an indivisible time-atom in the substantival sense. (2) What is now can be an event, a process, or a state. "Driving a truck now" – in the sense of being a truck driver – is neither an event nor something happening to him. (3) "Now", among other temporal concepts, is not a name for any thing, but schemata under which we understand ways things being themselves. There are variety of ways of being, and accordingly there are multiple aspects of now-ness. (shrink)

In philosophy, the distinction between the history of philosophy and systematic philosophy has a great influence not only on the organization of teaching, but also on appointments and research funding. Above all, however, it is decisive for the self-understanding of philosophy. In recent years, the significance and function of the history of philosophy has been the subject of controversial debate. After being more or less ignored in analytic philosophy for a long time, there has been an increasing turn to the (...) history of philosophy in recent years. Some authors even speak of a historical turn in analytic philosophy. Since the 1980s there have been growing attempts to theorize the different approaches to the history of philosophy and their presuppositions. Another focus has been on the relationship between the history of philosophy and systematic research. Numerous authors have argued for the importance of historical research for systematic philosophical research or for philosophical education. In this talk, I will be concerned with the distinction between history of philosophy and systematic philosophy itself. I am interested in how exactly this distinction is justified. So my question is: what exactly distinguishes work in the history of philosophy from systematic research? I go through the criteria proposed for this distinction and show that they are often problematic and unclear. I first address the historical distance of the authors, the significance of philosophical discourse, the question of the object of historical research and its unique method. Originality and systematicity turn out to be two essential distinguishing criteria. Ultimately, the common distinction between primary and secondary literature is also related to this. However, using two historical examples, I argue that these criteria are problematic and can hardly justify the wide-ranging distinction. In the third section, I discuss the historical origins of the division between the history of philosophy and systematic philosophy. I argue that the notions of originality and systematicity that emerged in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century are crucial in this respect, and that these notions are still effective today, albeit unreflectively. (shrink)

In this essay, I review one of my beloved fictional titles, Wild Wise Weird: The Kingfisher Story collection. The minimal sense of humor and satire in storytelling of Wild Wise Weird are sure to bring readers smiles, better yet, moments of quiet reflection, a much under-appreciated remedy in the world driven almost insane with the abundance of information co-created with AI technologies. I hope to deliver justice to the book.

In this paper, I present and discuss critically the main elements of Mario Bunge’s philosophy of mathematics. In particular, I explore how mathematical knowledge is accounted for in Bunge’s systemic emergent materialism.

In this review, we present a rigorous construction of an algebraic method for quantum unstable states, also called Gamow states. A traditional picture associates these states to vectors states called Gamow vectors. However, this has some difficulties. In particular, there is no consistent definition of mean values of observables on Gamow vectors. In this work, we present Gamow states as functionals on algebras in a consistent way. We show that Gamow states are not pure states, in spite of their representation (...) as Gamow vectors. We propose a possible way out to the construction of averages of observables on Gamow states. The formalism is intended to be presented with sufficient mathematical rigor. (shrink)

Many authors writing on slurs think that they are lexically rich, in the sense that their lexical meaning comprises both a descriptive dimension and an expressive/evaluative one, the latter accounting for their derogatory character. However, more fine-grained theories of slurs have recently been proposed, drawing on frameworks from lexical semantics. My main aim in this paper is to compare three such fine-grained rich-lexicon theories – the one put forward by myself in previous work with two similar ones, Croom’s (2011, 2013) (...) and Neufeld’s (2019, 2022). While my primary aim is to underlie the commonalities and differences between the three views, I also aim at showing that the latter views have some issues that are easily avoided in the framework I propose. (shrink)

Many authors writing on slurs think that they are lexically rich, in the sense that their lexical meaning comprises both a descriptive dimension and an expressive/evaluative one, the latter accounting for their derogatory character. However, more fine-grained theories of slurs have recently been proposed, drawing on frameworks from lexical semantics. My main aim in this paper is to compare three such fine-grained rich-lexicon theories – the one put forward by myself in previous work with two similar ones, Croom’s (2011, 2013) (...) and Neufeld’s (2019, 2022). While my primary aim is to underlie the commonalities and differences between the three views, I also aim at showing that the latter views have some issues that are easily avoided in the framework I propose. (shrink)

The article overviews all known approaches to formalization of a problem of Liberty / Freedom (« Liberty from », « Liberty for », « being for her/his own sake, not a other's », « absence of sovereign other », individual freeing in a context of the Master-Slave Dialectics, Social Freedom) and problems of emancipation (« restricting privileges of upper class minorities », « giving privileges to marginalized minorities – affirmative actions »). Then, the article discusses a version of formalization of (...) level of social freedom through comparison of what is allowed for an individuals in the society with what is allowed for «a sheep in herd »: each additional degree of freedom gives unit in plus, each additional restriction gives unit in minus. The proposed model was tested for a case of the post-Soviet transit, when the level of freedom evolved from minus two for the USSR up to plus two for the contemporary Russian Federation. It also shows the ways for further emancipation of people in Russia in « politically easy version » - i.e. without essential change of its political system. (shrink)

The ongoing digital transformation of almost all areas of human action and agency calls for a readjustment of the norms that regulate these practices. For example, the digitisation of communicative practices poses new challenges to their functioning. This paper explains some of these challenges and argues that they cannot be met by a normative framework that focuses mainly on defensive (free speech and property) rights. In the context of mediated digital communication, the application of such a framework may even have (...) paradoxical consequences. Accordingly, this paper argues for a broader system of communicative rights, understood as rights to meaningful participation in well-functioning communicative practices. (shrink)

Digitalisierung ist nicht nur ein technisches Geschehen, sondern erfasst als machtvoller kultureller Prozess alle Lebensbereiche. Die Einsicht, dass soziotechnische Vorgänge gestaltbar sind, erlaubt eine grundsätzliche Reflexion über die neuen Handlungsmöglichkeiten und Zumutungen sowohl in individueller wie auch in kollektiver Perspektive. Welche Herausforderungen stellen sich für unsere bewährten Überzeugungen und sozialen Praktiken in den Prozessen von Verantwortung, Verständigung, Vernunft und Macht? Die Beiträger*innen analysieren aktuelle Entwicklungen der Digitalisierung und tragen im Lichte provisorischer Maßstäbe praktischer Vernunft zu einer aufgeklärten öffentlichen Diskussion über (...) (nicht) wünschenswerte technokulturelle Zukünfte bei. (shrink)

В книге представлена концепция Современности (Модерна) в ее приложении к обществоведению. Рассмотрены теоретические вопросы национального государства, нации, демократии, свободы, постиндустриальной экономики, и связанные с этим необходимые качества развитых обществ Модерна. Особое внимание уделено тщательности логической проработки используемых понятий. Полученная рамка применена к анализу текущих социальных процессов в России с использованием различного рода статистических данных и данных социологических исследований. Обсуждаются проблемы трансформации России в национальное демократическое государство, развития постиндустриальной экономики, запуска в стране цикла генерации экономических и социальных инноваций, а также проблемы (...) российской демографии и развития человеческого капитала. Показано, что практически все проблемы в своем разрешении упираются в менталитет постсоветской элиты. Выявлен основной психо-социальный ментальный комплекс, ответственный за элитную аномию, и показаны пути его деконструкции. Книга рассчитана на широкие слои образованных читателей с рациональным складом мышления, комфортно себя чувствующих в больших коллективах. (shrink)

Review of Chris Mortensen, The Impossible Arises: Oscar Reutersvärd and his Contemporaries, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022, pp. vii + 152, $50.00 (hardback).

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly advanced, offering significant potential to transform business decision-making. This paper delves into how AI can be harnessed to enhance strategic decision-making within business contexts. It investigates the integration of AI-driven analytics, predictive modeling, and automation, emphasizing their role in improving decision accuracy and operational efficiency. By examining current applications and case studies, the paper underscores the opportunities AI offers, including improved data insights, risk management, and personalized customer experiences. It also addresses the challenges businesses (...) face when adopting AI, such as data privacy concerns, integration difficulties, and the need for skilled professionals. The paper concludes by offering recommendations for successfully implementing AI solutions to maximize benefits while mitigating potential challenges. (shrink)

Facing marginalization under the Awami League and historical stigma, the BNP’s recent outreach to India signals a pivotal shift. This commentary explores how the BNP seeks to establish legitimacy, distance itself from past associations, and connect with a younger electorate by advocating for democratic principles, social justice, and individual empowerment. It argues that a renewed commitment to ethical leadership and social justice will allow the BNP to bridge socio-economic divides and appeal to a disillusioned, younger electorate. This reorientation could shape (...) a more inclusive, equitable political landscape, offering a foundation for Bangladesh’s democratic future. (shrink)

Is skeptical theism tenable once one acknowledges, as proponents of that view do, one's cognitive limitations vis-à-vis religious matters? In this article, I aim to answer that question both by examining the apparent radical skeptical implications of the skeptical component of skeptical theism and by comparing this view with fideism and Pyrrhonism, which also lay emphasis on our cognitive limitations. My ultimate purpose is to determine which of the three stances it makes more sense to adopt once the limitations of (...) human cognitive powers are recognized. (shrink)

Given the various shortcomings of classical phenomenological methods identified by critical and liberatory theorists, this paper considers what phenomenology has to offer theorists of multiply marginalized experience. The paper begins with an account of the major reasons for which Latinx feminists such as Linda Martín Alcoff, Jacqueline Martinez, and Mariana Ortega have found a phenomenological approach useful in their projects. This account reveals that though Latinx feminist phenomenologists have found useful resources for theorizing multiply marginalized theory and identity in the (...) classical texts of phenomenology, experiences unique to those subjected to marginalization remain significantly underdeveloped or absent from classical accounts. Taking seriously the primacy of lived experiences of ‘rupture’, this paper argues, is therefore necessary in the development of a phenomenological approach that does justice to life in the borderlands and the lived experience of being-between-worlds. Informed by the work of Latinx feminist theorists such as Gloria Anzaldúa and María Lugones, this paper closes with a proposed critical feminist phenomenological approach that centers the moment of ‘rupture’ described in such work. Ultimately, this paper argues that the communication and documentation of these ruptures in the form of phenomenological description allows for the examination and interrogation of sedimented logics of oppression on the way to liberatory ends. (shrink)

شكلت الرؤية الإستراتيجية أهم حدث بارز في إصلاح منظومة التربية والتكوين في الآونة الأخيرة، غير أن المتتبع للحقل التربوي منذ بداية الإصلاحات سيقارن بين المنطلقات التي بني عليها الإصلاح منذ وبين المحطات البارزة التي مر منها، وبين النتائج التي وصل إليها على رأس كل مرحلة، إضافة إلى انعكاسات نتائجه على شخصية المتعلمين والمربين، وكذا على واقع المجتمع الذي عشناه والذي نعيشه الآن، وربما لكل واحد رؤية عن هذا الواقع ولو بشكل مبسط. فهل فعلا نحن راضون على واقع المدرسة المغربية؟ هل (...) نحن واثقون من أهدافها وقدرتها على التأهيل والتطوير والإدماج المهني والاجتماعي؟ أم نحن متأكدون من نوع الخريطة التي رسمتها وترسمها باستمرار، خاصة في علاقتها بالواقع المعيش؟ هل هناك رؤية واضحة بإجماع القوى السياسية والثقافية والاجتماعية، أم الأمر يتعلق برؤية قارة عمودية؟ وما هي المكاسب التي جناها التلميذ والأسرة والمجتمع من كل الإصلاحات السابقة والحالية؟ وكيف أصبح حال الأجيال المتعاقبة والمجتمع في جميع أبعاده؟ ومن المسؤول عن الوضعية الحالية التي تتخبط فيها المنظومة التربوية؟ هل هو الأستاذ؟ أم التلميذ؟ أم المنهاج؟ أم...؟ أو الإرادة؟ و إرادة من، إذن؟! المدرسة مؤسسة اجتماعية تشتغل إلى جانب مؤسسات المجتمع الأخرى، فلا يمكن تصور أي مجتمع ناجح من دون تكامل وظيفي بين جميع بنياته، ولا يمكن تصور مدرسة فعالة من دون انفتاحها على المجتمع في الشكل والمضمون، وفي الرأي والموقف والمبدأ، قبل الحديث عن الانفتاح السوسيو اقتصادي. فمخرجات المؤسسات التعليمية لا تجد مكانها في المجتمع، لأن هذه المؤسسة تشتغل بأساليب خاصة، والمجتمع متعدد المشارب والحاجيات، أما التنظير للتربية والتكوين بلغ مستوى المثاليات، وأصبحت الهوة واضحة بين التنظير والتطبيق، وبين المنطلقات والمرامي الكبرى التي لازال الجميع ينتظرها ويحلم بها. (shrink)

This short paper seeks to throw light on the sense in which the prior knowledge used by AlphaFold is to be understood in ontological terms. The paper is a comment on the 2022 ICBO presentation by Jobst Landgrebe entitled “What AlphaFold teaches us about deep learning with prior knowledge”.

The ambition of this paper is extensive: to bring about a new paradigm and firm mathematical foundations to Metaphysics, to aid its progress from the realm of mystical speculation to the realm of scientific scrutiny. -/- More precisely, this paper aims to introduce the field of Metaphysical Cosmology. The Metaphysical Cosmos here refers to the complete structure containing all entities, both existent and non-existent, with the physical universe as a subset. Through this paradigm, future endeavours in Metaphysical Science could thus (...) analyse non-physical parts of the Metaphysical Cosmos. New logical notions are displayed as tools for Metaphysical Cosmology, such as a Metric-Space-based predicate system, as well as a revised version of the Existential Quantifier. -/- A type system is presented to derive a construction of the Metaphysical Cosmos. The system is structured through semantic and syntactic definitions in a coherent way and holds only one proper axiom: the existence of (at least) one entity. This paper itself serves as an empirical proof for this axiom. Formulae and equations that depict a clear logical and mathematical structure of the Metaphysical Cosmos are derived from the definitions of the system and this axiom. -/- This culminates in the "Sixth Theorem", whose proof displays logically that there must be something rather than nothing. A computational simulation of the Sixth Theorem is also provided, alongside with methods for a future Metaphysical Science. Thus, this paper does not aim to provide a traditional philosophical argument but rather a mathematical foundation and new paradigm for the science of Metaphysics. (shrink)