Results for 'Robert Elliott Allinson'

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  1. Circles within a circle: The condition for the possibility of ethical business institutions within a market system.Robert Elliott Allinson - 2004 - Journal of Business Ethics 53 (1-2):17-28.
    How can a business institution function as an ethical institution within a wider system if the context of the wider system is inherently unethical? If the primary goal of an institution, no matter how ethical it sets out to be, is to function successfully within a market system, how can it reconcile making a profit and keeping its ethical goals intact? While it has been argued that some ethical businesses do exist, e.g., Johnson and Johnson, the argument I would like (...)
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  2. Snakes and Dragons, Rat’s Liver and Fly’s Leg: The Butterfly Dream Revisited.Robert Elliott Allinson - 2012 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 11 (4):513-520.
    The Zhuangzi begins with Peng, a soaring bird transformed from a bounded fish, which is the first metaphor that points beyond limited standpoints to a higher point of view. The transformation is one-way and symbolizes that there is a higher viewpoint to attain which affords mental freedom and the clarity and scope of great vision. Under the alternate thesis of constant transformation, values and understandings must ceaselessly transform and collapse. All cyclical transformations must collapse into skeptical relativism and confusion. But (...)
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  3. The Primacy of Duty and Its Efficacy in Combating COVID-19.Robert Elliott Allinson - 2020 - Public Health Ethics 13 (2):179-189.
    Nyansa nye sika na w'akyekyere asie. One critical factor that has contributed to the spread of the virus COVID-19 and resulting illnesses and deaths is both the conceptual and the ethical confusion between the prioritization of individual rights over social duties. The adherence to the belief in the priority of rights over duties has motivated some individuals to refrain from social distancing and, as a result, has placed themselves and other individuals at serious risk to health and life. My argument (...)
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  4. Searle’s Master Insight and the Non-Dual Solution of the Sixth Patriarch: Sorting Through Some Problems of Consciousness.Robert Elliott Allinson - 2017 - Comparative Philosophy 8 (1):82-93.
    The Platform Sutra, which dates back to the seventh century C.E., is one of the classic documents of Chinese philosophy and is the intellectual autobiography of Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Ch’an Buddhism. In the Platform Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch demonstrates that the spiritual and intellectual problems of consciousness stem from a false adherence to the dualistic standpoint. The Sixth Patriarch utilizes ingenious arguments to demonstrate how one can escape the problems of dualism. An example of a constructive engagement (...)
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  5. Wittgenstein, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu: The art of circumlocution.Robert Elliott Allinson - 2007 - Asian Philosophy 17 (1):97 – 108.
    Where Western philosophy ends, with the limits of language, marks the beginning of Eastern philosophy. The Tao de jing of Laozi begins with the limitations of language and then proceeds from that as a starting point. On the other hand, the limitation of language marks the end of Wittgenstein's cogitations. In contrast to Wittgenstein, who thought that one should remain silent about that which cannot be put into words, the message of the Zhuangzi is that one can speak about that (...)
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  6. (1 other version)The general and the master: The subtext of the philosophy of emotion and its relationship to obtaining enlightenment in the Platform Sutra.Robert Elliott Allinson - 2005 - Revue Internationale de Philosophie 2:213-229.
    Examining the significance of the General’s enlightenment in the Platform Sutra, this article clarifies the fundamental role that emotions play in the development of one’s spiritual understanding. In order to do so, this article emphasizes that the way to enlightenment implicit in the story of the General and the Master involves first granting negative emotions a means for productive expression. By acting as a preparatory measure for calming the mind and surrendering control over it, human passions become a necessary, antecedent (...)
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  7. The Homogeneity and the Heterogeneity of the Concept of the Good in Plato.Robert Elliott Allinson - 1982 - Philosophical Inquiry 4 (1):30-39.
    The thesis I should like to advance in this essay is that Plato cannot and, in fact, does not adhere consistently to the doctrine that to know the good is to do the good. First, in order to display the paradoxes in the Platonic ethical system, I shall discuss the concept of the homogeneity of the good which Plato explicitly endorses. Second, by referring to Plato's practice, I shall endeavor to demonstrate that he treats the good as heterogeneous although this (...)
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  8. Of Fish, Butterflies and Birds: Relativism and Nonrelative Valuation in the Zhuangzi.Robert Elliott Allinson - 2015 - Asian Philosophy 25 (3):238-252.
    I argue that the main theme of the Zhuangzi is that of spiritual transformation. If there is no such theme in the Zhuangzi, it becomes an obscure text with relativistic viewpoints contradicting statements and stories designed to lead the reader to a state of spiritual transformation. I propose to reveal the coherence of the deep structure of the text by clearly dividing relativistic statements designed to break down fixed viewpoints from statements, anecdotes, paradoxes and metaphors designed to lead the reader (...)
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  9. Five Dialogues on Knowledge and Reality.Robert Elliott Allinson - 1972 - Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin
    This dissertation investigates that which can only be known with the following criteria of knowledge: (i) it is unchangeable; (ii) it cannot be mistaken; (iii) it is identical with its object. It begins by addressing the following questions: what can and cannot exist in solely this sense? Can anything exist in this sense? A further thesis it explores is that the split between the subject of knowledge and the object of knowledge which has given rise to the unexplained and inexplicable (...)
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  10. Hillel and Confucius: The prescriptive formulation of the golden rule in the Jewish and Chinese Confucian ethical traditions.Robert Elliott Allinson - 2003 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 3 (1):29-41.
    In this article, the Golden Rule, a central ethical value to both Judaism and Confucianism, is evaluated in its prescriptive and proscriptive sentential formulations. Contrary to the positively worded, prescriptive formulation – “Love others as oneself” – the prohibitive formulation, which forms the injunction, “Do not harm others, as one would not harm oneself,” is shown to be the more prevalent Judaic and Confucian presentation of the Golden Rule. After establishing this point, the remainder of the article is dedicated to (...)
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  11. How to say What Cannot be Said: Metaphor in the Zhuangzi.Robert Elliott Allinson - 2014 - Journal of Chinese Philosophy 41 (3-4):268-286.
    I argue that it is only on the condition of a preconceptual understanding that Zhuangzi's metaphors can be cognitive. Kim-chong Chong holds that the choice between metaphors as noncognitive and cognitive is a choice between Allinson and Davidson. Chong's view of metaphors possessing multivalence is reducible to Davidson's choice, because there is no built-in parameter between multivalence and limitless valence. If Zhuangzi's metaphors were multivalent, the text would be subject to infinite interpretive viewpoints and the logical consequence of relativism. (...)
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  12. (1 other version)The Ethical Producer.Robert Allinson - 2004 - In László Zsolnai (ed.), Spirituality and ethics in management. Boston, Mass.: Kluwer Academic. pp. 53-73.
    Man essentially is a being who pursues meaning and love. How is it possible that today, the concept of man as the rational economic man dominates the current human stage of thought? Why and how has this concept of man taken precedence over the Platonic description? What has made for the triumph of Homo oeconomicus? What has happened to the human race since money has vanquished beauty as the defining essence of humanity? What does it mean that Plato’s ideas sound (...)
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  13. (1 other version)The Butterfly, the Mole and the Sage.Robert Elliot Allinson - 2009 - Asian Philosophy 19 (3):213-223.
    Zhuangzi chooses a butterfly as a metaphor for transformation, a sighted creature whose inherent nature contains, and symbolizes, the potential for transformation from a less valued state to a more valued state. If transformation is not to be valued; if, according to a recent article by Jung Lee, 'there is no implication that it is either possible or desirable for the living to awake from their dream', why not tell a story of a mole awakening from a dream? This would (...)
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  14. (1 other version)On the question of relativism in the Chuang-Tzu.Robert E. Allinson - 1989 - Philosophy East and West 39 (1):13-26.
    This article offers a meta-analysis of contemporary approaches aimed at resolving the internal, relativistic-non-relativistic tension within the text of the Chuang-Tzu. In the first section, the four most commonly applied approaches are unpacked and evaluated, ranging from relativistic approaches such as hard relativism and soft relativism, to approaches that acknowledge both relativism and non-relativism, as well as others which acknowledge neither of the two perspectives (relativism and non-relativism). After demonstrating the immanent difficulties these four types of approaches encounter, the latter (...)
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  15. (1 other version)Value Creation as the Foundation of Economics.Robert Allinson - 2009 - In L. Zsolnai, L. Boda & Z. Fekete (eds.), Ethical Prospects. pp. 63-87.
    The argument of this paper, written by an ethicist and a philosopher, is that self-interest economics is fundamentally flawed and needs to be replaced by a spiritual economics or a value based economics. Its argument contains two interwoven threads. One thread is an attempt to show why the fundamental philosophical notions of Adam Smith, taken as an illustration of self-interest economics, cannot lead to an equitable society. Smith’s Wealth of Nations, according to Jacob Viner, ‘ became a significant factor in (...)
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  16. The Birth of Spiritual Economics.Robert Allinson - 2004 - In László Zsolnai (ed.), Spirituality and ethics in management. Boston, Mass.: Kluwer Academic. pp. 61-74.
    Man essentially is a being who pursues meaning and love. Socrates’ speech in the Symposium well characterizes man as driven by Eros, or Love. Socrates, expounding Diotema’s Ladder of Love, explains that man is driven by the erotic impulse. Nowhere in her teachings does Diotema mention the concept of self-interest or maximizing profit as the essential nature of man. Despite this, the concept of man as the rational economic man dominates the human stage of thought. Why and how has this (...)
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  17. (1 other version)An Idealistic Reply To The Later Moore.Robert Allinson - 1980 - Indian Philosophical Quarterly 7 (3):375-379.
    This article is a response to the paradoxical nature of Moore's views on sense perception. By arguing that Moore's later stance on the objective world (that there are both mind-dependent and mind-independent features) requires a causal theory of perception, this article suggests that Moore lacks the epistemic justification needed to make assertions about the nature of mind-independent matter. Instead, the idealistic reply proposed in this article is to first dissolve Moore's distinction between mind-dependent and mind-independent features of the world, and (...)
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  18. (1 other version)On the Very Idea of Risk Management: Lessons from the Space Shuttle Challenger.Robert Allinson - 2012 - In Risk Management - Current Issues and Challenges. pp. 133-154.
    In this chapter, we will argue that the very concept of risk management must be called into question. The argument will take the form that the use of the phrase ‘risk management’ operates to cover over the ethical dimensions of what is at the bottom of the problem, namely, risky decision making. Risky decision making takes place whenever and wherever decisions are taken by those whose lives are not immediately threatened by the situation in which the risk to other people’s (...)
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  19. (1 other version)Evil Banalized: Eichmannʼs Master Performance in Jerusalem.Robert Allinson - 2011 - Iyyun 60:275-300.
    The immediate purpose of this article is to examine Hannah Arendtʼs analysis of Adolf Eichmann in order to point out the groundlessness of her argument that evil, whether in the person of Eichmann himself or in general, can be treated as banal. The wider purpose of this article is to divest any argument that is based on the concept that evil is banal, ordinary, or trivial of any valid grounding. To develop the immediate purpose, the article begins with a close (...)
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  20. Ethical values as part of the definition of business enterprise and part of the internal structure of the business oganization.Robert E. Allinson - 1998 - Journal of Business Ethics 17 (9-10):1015 - 1028.
    The orientation of this paper is that there is no special science of "business ethics" any more than there is one of "medical ethics" or "legal ethics". While there may be issues that arise in medicine or law that require special treatment, the ways of relating to such issues are derived from a basic ethical stance. Once one has evolved such an ethical stance and thus has incorporated a fundamental mode of relating to her or his fellow human beings, the (...)
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  21. The golden rule as the core value in confucianism & christianity: Ethical similarities and differences.Robert E. Allinson - 1992 - Asian Philosophy 2 (2):173 – 185.
    One side of this paper is devoted to showing that the Golden Rule, understood as standing for universal love, is centrally characteristic of Confucianism properly understood, rather than graded, familial love. In this respect Confucianism and Christianity are similar. The other side of this paper is devoted to arguing contra 18 centuries of commentators that the negative sentential formulation of the Golden Rule as found in Confucius cannot be converted to an affirmative sentential formulation (as is found in Christianity) without (...)
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  22. (2 other versions)Aristotle and Averroes.Robert E. Allinson - 2003 - Philosophical Inquiry 25 (3-4):189-197.
    This article begins by taking issue with Husserl’s claims on the inseparability of fact and essence. It is shown that factuality and essence are independent from each other, although not epistemologically separable. Turning to Aristotle and Averroes, it examines the claim that in order to have become aware of necessity as necessity one would have to have been aware of contingency. Establishing a difference between the world of necessary existence and the world of contingent existence as two realms of truth, (...)
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  23. Plato's Forgotten Four Pages of the Seventh Epistle.Robert E. Allinson - 1998 - Philosophical Inquiry 20 (1-2):49-61.
    This essay sheds light on Plato’s Seventh Epistle. The five elements of Plato’s epistemological structure in the Epistle are the name, the definition, the image, the resultant knowledge itself (the Fourth) and the proper object of knowledge (the Form, or the Fifth). Much of contemporary Western philosophy has obsessed over Plato’s Fifth, relegating its existence to Plato’s faulty imagination after skillful linguistic analyses of the First (name) and the Second (definition). However, this essay argues against this reduction of knowledge to (...)
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  24. (2 other versions)Anselm's One Argument.Robert E. Allinson - 1993 - Philosophical Inquiry 15 (1-2):16-19.
    This essay argues that Anselm’s Proslogium II is self-invalidating and that it must be so in order for Proslogium III to be a valid argument. It begins by differentiating between necessary existence, logical possibility, and contingency, establishing that necessary existence can never be treated as a matter of logical possibility. In turn, possibility must always be defined alongside the concept of contingency. It is then further shown that necessity can in no sense be possible, for the possible implies the contingent (...)
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  25. (2 other versions)The “Cog in the Machine” Manifesto. [REVIEW]Robert E. Allinson - 1998 - Business Ethics Quarterly 8 (4):743-756.
    As a response to Diane Vaughan’s controversial work on the NASA Challenger Disaster, this article opposes the conclusion that NASA’s decision to launch the space shuttle was an inevitable outcome of techno-bureaucratic culture and risky technology. Instead, the argument developed in this article is that NASA did not prioritize safety, both in their selection of shuttle-parts and their decision to launch under sub-optimal weather conditions. This article further suggests that the “mistake” language employed by Vaughan and others is inappropriate insofar (...)
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  26. Epistemological Issues in Classical Chinese Philosophy (Review). [REVIEW]Robert Allinson - 1994 - China Review International 1:167-173.
    The stated intent of the volume is "to broaden the exposure of Chinese Studies outside America and Great Britain" (p. vii). In this respect, the book succeeds admirably, as one of its distinctive features is the introduction of German scholarly approaches to an Anglo-American audience. As this fills a lacuna in Chinese studies, this volume is to be welcomed.
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  27. (1 other version)Book Review: The Sense of Antirationalism: The Religious Thought of Zhuangzi and Kierkegaard. [REVIEW]Robert Allinson - 2003 - Journal of Religion 83:477-479.
    This book is co-written in a lively, engaging form by Karen Carr, from the discipline of religious studies and Philip Ivanhoe, whose background is in the disciplines of religious studies and Asian languages and philosophy. Unlike typical co-authorship, these two authors write separate pieces about Zhuangzi and Soren Kierkegaard and then together offer a combined vision. Refreshingly, the emphasis is on contrast of exemplars of two different and irreconcilable ways instead of comparison between similar thinkers. The two authors are to (...)
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  28. An account of conserved functions and how biologists use them to integrate cell and evolutionary biology.Jeremy G. Wideman, Steve Elliott & Beckett Sterner - 2023 - Biology and Philosophy 38 (5):1-23.
    We characterize a type of functional explanation that addresses why a homologous trait originating deep in the evolutionary history of a group remains widespread and largely unchanged across the group’s lineages. We argue that biologists regularly provide this type of explanation when they attribute conserved functions to phenotypic and genetic traits. The concept of conserved function applies broadly to many biological domains, and we illustrate its importance using examples of molecular sequence alignments at the intersection of evolution and cell biology. (...)
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  29. Explanation and Cognition.Frank C. Keil & Robert A. Wilson - 2000 - MIT Press. Edited by Frank C. Keil & Robert A. Wilson.
    These essays draw on work in the history and philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and language, the development of concepts in children, conceptual..
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  30. A Theory of Metaphysical Indeterminacy.Elizabeth Barnes & J. Robert G. Williams - 2011 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Volume 6. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 103-148.
    If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.
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  31. The Goals of Moral Worth.Nathan Robert Howard - 2021 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics.
    While it is tempting to suppose that an act has moral worth just when and because it is motivated by sufficient moral reasons, philosophers have, largely, come to doubt this analysis. Doubt is rooted in two claims. The first is that some facts can motivate a given act in multiple ways, not all of which are consistent with moral worth. The second is the orthodox view that normative reasons are facts. I defend the tempting analysis by proposing and defending a (...)
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  32. Philosophical Dialogue for Beginners.Zachary Odermatt & Robert Weston Siscoe - 2023 - American Association of Philosophy Teachers Studies in Pedagogy 8:6-29.
    Inspired by the practice of dialogue in ancient philosophical schools, the Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWOL) Project at the University of Notre Dame has sought to put dialogue back at the center of philosophical pedagogy. Impromptu philosophical dialogue, however, can be challenging for students who are new to philosophy. Anticipating this challenge, the Project has created a series of manuals to help instructors conduct dialogue groups with novice philosophy students. Using these guidelines, we incorporated PWOL-style dialogue groups into (...)
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  33. Epistemic democracy: Generalizing the Condorcet jury theorem.Christian List & Robert E. Goodin - 2001 - Journal of Political Philosophy 9 (3):277–306.
    This paper generalises the classical Condorcet jury theorem from majority voting over two options to plurality voting over multiple options. The paper further discusses the debate between epistemic and procedural democracy and situates its formal results in that debate. The paper finally compares a number of different social choice procedures for many-option choices in terms of their epistemic merits. An appendix explores the implications of some of the present mathematical results for the question of how probable majority cycles (as in (...)
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  34. Epistemic value in the subpersonal vale.J. Adam Carter & Robert D. Rupert - 2020 - Synthese 198 (10):9243-9272.
    A vexing problem in contemporary epistemology—one with origins in Plato’s Meno—concerns the value of knowledge, and in particular, whether and how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of mere true opinion. The recent literature is deeply divided on the matter of how best to address the problem. One point, however, remains unquestioned: that if a solution is to be found, it will be at the personal level, the level at which states of subjects or agents, as such, appear. We (...)
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  35. Ontic vagueness and metaphysical indeterminacy.J. Robert G. Williams - 2008 - Philosophy Compass 3 (4):763-788.
    Might it be that world itself, independently of what we know about it or how we represent it, is metaphysically indeterminate? This article tackles in turn a series of questions: In what sorts of cases might we posit metaphysical indeterminacy? What is it for a given case of indefiniteness to be 'metaphysical'? How does the phenomenon relate to 'ontic vagueness', the existence of 'vague objects', 'de re indeterminacy' and the like? How might the logic work? Are there reasons for postulating (...)
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  36. Eligibility and inscrutability.J. Robert G. Williams - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (3):361-399.
    Inscrutability arguments threaten to reduce interpretationist metasemantic theories to absurdity. Can we find some way to block the arguments? A highly influential proposal in this regard is David Lewis’ ‘ eligibility ’ response: some theories are better than others, not because they fit the data better, but because they are framed in terms of more natural properties. The purposes of this paper are to outline the nature of the eligibility proposal, making the case that it is not ad hoc, but (...)
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  37. Maternal Autonomy and Prenatal Harm.Nathan Robert Howard - 2023 - Bioethics 37 (3):246-255.
    Inflicting harm is generally preferable to inflicting death. If you must choose between the two, you should generally choose to harm. But prenatal harm seems different. If a mother must choose between harming her fetus or aborting it, she may choose either, at least in many cases. So it seems that prenatal harm is particularly objectionable, sometimes on a par with death. This paper offers an explanation of why prenatal harm seems particularly objectionable by drawing an analogy to the all-or-nothing (...)
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  38. Beyond Bad Beliefs.Nathan Robert Howard - 2021 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 18 (5):500-521.
    Philosophers have recently come to focus on explaining the phenomenon of ​bad beliefs,​ beliefs that are apparently true and well-evidenced but nevertheless objectionable. Despite this recent focus, a consensus is already forming around a particular explanation of these beliefs’ badness called ​moral encroachment​, according to which, roughly, the moral stakes engendered by bad beliefs make them particularly difficult to justify. This paper advances an alternative account not just of bad beliefs but of bad attitudes more generally according to which bad (...)
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  39. Perfectoid Diamonds and n-Awareness. A Meta-Model of Subjective Experience.Shanna Dobson & Robert Prentner - manuscript
    In this paper, we propose a mathematical model of subjective experience in terms of classes of hierarchical geometries of representations (“n-awareness”). We first outline a general framework by recalling concepts from higher category theory, homotopy theory, and the theory of (infinity,1)-topoi. We then state three conjectures that enrich this framework. We first propose that the (infinity,1)-category of a geometric structure known as perfectoid diamond is an (infinity,1)-topos. In order to construct a topology on the (infinity,1)-category of diamonds we then propose (...)
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  40. Illusions of gunk.J. Robert G. Williams - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):493–513.
    Worlds where things divide forever ("gunk" worlds) are apparently conceivable. The conceivability of such scenarios has been used as an argument against "nihilist" or "near-nihilist" answers to the special composition question. I argue that the mereological nihilist has the resources to explain away the illusion that gunk is possible.
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  41. The virtues of interpretable medical artificial intelligence.Joshua Hatherley, Robert Sparrow & Mark Howard - forthcoming - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics.
    Artificial intelligence (AI) systems have demonstrated impressive performance across a variety of clinical tasks. However, notoriously, sometimes these systems are 'black boxes'. The initial response in the literature was a demand for 'explainable AI'. However, recently, several authors have suggested that making AI more explainable or 'interpretable' is likely to be at the cost of the accuracy of these systems and that prioritising interpretability in medical AI may constitute a 'lethal prejudice'. In this paper, we defend the value of interpretability (...)
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  42. Puzzles for ZFEL, McShea and Brandon’s zero force evolutionary law.Martin Barrett, Hayley Clatterbuck, Michael Goldsby, Casey Helgeson, Brian McLoone, Trevor Pearce, Elliott Sober, Reuben Stern & Naftali Weinberger - 2012 - Biology and Philosophy 27 (5):723-735.
    In their 2010 book, Biology’s First Law, D. McShea and R. Brandon present a principle that they call ‘‘ZFEL,’’ the zero force evolutionary law. ZFEL says (roughly) that when there are no evolutionary forces acting on a population, the population’s complexity (i.e., how diverse its member organisms are) will increase. Here we develop criticisms of ZFEL and describe a different law of evolution; it says that diversity and complexity do not change when there are no evolutionary causes.
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  43. Distinguishing ecological from evolutionary approaches to transposable elements.Stefan Linquist, Brent Saylor, Karl Cottenie, Tyler A. Elliott, Stefan C. Kremer & T. Ryan Gregory - 2013 - Biological Reviews 88 (3):573- 584.
    Considerable variation exists not only in the kinds of transposable elements (TEs) occurring within the genomes of different species, but also in their abundance and distribution. Noting a similarity to the assortment of organisms among ecosystems, some researchers have called for an ecological approach to the study of transposon dynamics. However, there are several ways to adopt such an approach, and it is sometimes unclear what an ecological perspective will add to the existing co-evolutionary framework for explaining transposon-host interactions. This (...)
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  44. Conversation and conditionals.J. Robert G. Williams - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 138 (2):211 - 223.
    I outline and motivate a way of implementing a closest world theory of indicatives, appealing to Stalnaker's framework of open conversational possibilities. Stalnakerian conversational dynamics helps us resolve two outstanding puzzles for a such a theory of indicative conditionals. The first puzzle -- concerning so-called 'reverse Sobel sequences' -- can be resolved by conversation dynamics in a theoryneutral way: the explanation works as much for Lewisian counterfactuals as for the account of indicatives developed here. Resolving the second puzzle, by contrast, (...)
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  45. Ambidextrous Reasons (or Why Reasons First's Reasons Aren't Facts).Nathan Robert Howard - 2021 - Philosophers' Imprint 21 (30):1-16.
    The wrong kind of reason (WKR) problem is a problem for attempts to analyze normative properties using only facts about the balance of normative reasons, a style of analysis on which the ‘Reasons First’ programme depends. I argue that this problem cannot be solved if the orthodox view of reasons is true --- that is, if each normative reason is numerically identical with some fact, proposition, or state-of-affairs. That’s because solving the WKR problem requires completely distinguishing between the right- and (...)
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  46. The possibility of onion worlds: Rebutting an argument for structural universals.J. Robert G. Williams - 2007 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (2):193 – 203.
    Some argue that theories of universals should incorporate structural universals, in order to allow for the metaphysical possibility of worlds of 'infinite descending complexity' ('onion worlds'). I argue that the possibility of such worlds does not establish the need for structural universals. So long as we admit the metaphysical possibility of emergent universals, there is an attractive alternative description of such cases.
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  47. Consciousness and Complexity: Neurobiological Naturalism and Integrated Information Theory.Francesco Ellia & Robert Chis-Ciure - 2022 - Consciousness and Cognition 100 (C):103281.
    In this paper, we take a meta-theoretical stance and aim to compare and assess two conceptual frameworks that endeavor to explain phenomenal experience. In particular, we compare Feinberg & Mallatt’s Neurobiological Naturalism (NN) and Tononi’s and colleagues' Integrated Information Theory (IIT), given that the former pointed out some similarities between the two theories (Feinberg & Mallatt 2016c-d). To probe their similarity, we first give a general introduction to both frameworks. Next, we expound a ground plan for carrying out our analysis. (...)
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  48. The Shutdown Problem: Incomplete Preferences as a Solution.Elliott Thornley - manuscript
    I explain and motivate the shutdown problem: the problem of creating artificial agents that (1) shut down when a shutdown button is pressed, (2) don’t try to prevent or cause the pressing of the shutdown button, and (3) otherwise pursue goals competently. I then propose a solution: train agents to have incomplete preferences. Specifically, I propose that we train agents to lack a preference between every pair of different-length trajectories. I suggest a way to train such agents using reinforcement learning: (...)
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  49. Linguistic Corpora and Ordinary Language: On the Dispute between Ryle and Austin about the Use of 'Voluntary', 'Involuntary', 'Voluntarily', and 'Involuntarily'.Michael Zahorec, Robert Bishop, Nat Hansen, John Schwenkler & Justin Sytsma - 2023 - In David Bordonaba-Plou (ed.), Experimental Philosophy of Language: Perspectives, Methods, and Prospects. Springer Verlag.
    The fact that Gilbert Ryle and J.L. Austin seem to disagree about the ordinary use of words such as ‘voluntary’, ‘involuntary’, ‘voluntarily’, and ‘involuntarily’ has been taken to cast doubt on the methods of ordinary language philosophy. As Benson Mates puts the worry, ‘if agreement about usage cannot be reached within so restricted a sample as the class of Oxford Professors of Philosophy, what are the prospects when the sample is enlarged?’ (Mates 1958, p. 165). In this chapter, we evaluate (...)
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  50. Realization.Carl F. Craver & Robert A. Wilson - 2006 - In Paul Thagard (ed.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science. Elsevier.
    For the greater part of the last 50 years, it has been common for philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists to invoke the notion of realization in discussing the relationship between the mind and the brain. In traditional philosophy of mind, mental states are said to be realized, instantiated, or implemented in brain states. Artificial intelligence is sometimes described as the attempt either to model or to actually construct systems that realize some of the same psychological abilities that we and (...)
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