Artificial intelligence has often been seen as an attempt to reduce the natural mind to informational processes and, consequently, to naturalize philosophy. The many criticisms that were addressed to the so-called “old-fashioned AI” do not concern this attempt itself, but the methods it used, especially the reduction of the mind to a symbolic level of abstraction, which has often appeared to be inadequate to capture the richness of our mental activity. As a consequence, there were many efforts to evacuate the (...) semantical models in favor of elementary physiological mechanisms simulated by information processes. However, these views, and the subsequent criticisms against artificial intelligence that they contain, miss the very nature of artificial intelligence, which is not reducible to a “science of the nature”, but which directly impacts our culture. More precisely, they lead to evacuate the role of the semantic information. In other words, they tend to throw the baby out with the bath-water. This paper tries to revisit the epistemology of artificial intelligence in the light of the opposition between the “sciences of nature” and the “sciences of culture”, which has been introduced by German neo-Kantian philosophers. It then shows how this epistemological view opens on the many contemporary applications of artificial intelligence that have already transformed—and will continue to transform—all our cultural activities and our world. Lastly, it places those perspectives in the context of the philosophy of information and more particularly it emphasizes the role played by the notions of context and level of abstraction in artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Among others, the term problem plays a major role in the various attempts to characterize interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity, as used synonymously in this paper. Interdisciplinarity is regarded as problem solving among science, technology and society and as problem orientation beyond disciplinary constraints. The point of departure of this paper is that the discourse and practice of ID have problems with the problem. The objective here is to shed some light on the vague notion of problem in order to advocate a (...) specific type of interdisciplinarity: problem-oriented interdisciplinarity. The outline is as follows: Taking an ex negativo approach, I will show what problem-oriented ID does not mean. Using references to well-established distinctions in philosophy of science, I will show three other types of ID that should not be placed under the umbrella term problem-oriented ID : object-oriented ID, theory-oriented ID, and method-oriented ID. Different philosophical thought traditions can be related to these distinguishable meanings. I will then clarify the notion of problem by looking at three systematic elements: an undesired state, a desired state, and the barriers in getting from the one to the other. These three elements include three related kinds of knowledge: systems, target, and transformation knowledge. This paper elaborates further methodological and epistemological elements of problem-oriented ID. It concludes by stressing that problem-oriented ID is the most needed as well as the most challenging type of ID. (shrink)

. Gustav Radbruch is one of the most important German-speaking philosophers of law of the twentieth century. This paper raises the question of how to classify Radbruch's theories in the international context of legal philosophy and philosophy in general. Radbruch's work was mainly influenced by the southwest German school of Neo-Kantianism, represented by Windelband, Rickert, and Lask. Their theories of culture and value show an affirmative-holistic understanding of philosophy as a source of wisdom and meaningfulness. Kant, on the other hand, (...) belongs more to a fundamentally different, critical camp of philosophy. Although Radbruch has incorporated Kantian Elements into his theory, he is rather a member of the affirmative-holistic camp. In the end the question will be raised as to what ought to be preserved of his philosophy. (shrink)

Philosophy and Structure. On why it is necessary for hermeneutic philosophy to make use of structural theory. In this essay I give reasons for the thesis that hermeneutic philosophy has to adopt considerations on structural theory in order to avoid the paradox of historism. Concepts of structure like 'criticism', 'centralism', 'creativity' etc. possess both a metaphilosophical and an empirical status which enables us to compare and to combine differend and opposed philosophies by means of common structures. Such an hermeneutic reflection (...) on philosophical structures requires the methodical work of fiction and selection. Otherwise relativism concerning the evaluation of philosophical traditions would be the result. (shrink)

Value judgments are meaningless. This thesis was one of the notorious tenets of Carnap's mature logical empiricism. Less well known is the fact that in the Aufbau values were considered as philosophically respectable entities that could be constituted from value experiences. About 1930, however, values and value judgments were banished to the realm of meaningless metaphysics, and Carnap came to endorse a strict emotivism. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the question why Carnap abandoned his originally (...) positive attitude concerning values. It is argued that his non-cognitivist attitude was the symptom of a deep-rooted and never properly dissolved tension between conflicting inclinations towards Neokantianism and Lebensphilosophie. In America Carnap's non-cognitivism became a major obstacle for a closer collaboration between logical empiricists and American pragmatists. Carnap's persisting adherence to the dualism of practical life and theoretical science was the ultimate reason why he could not accept Morris's and Kaplan's pragmatist theses that cognitivism might well be compatible with a logical and empiricist scientific philosophy. (shrink)