The Early Han enjoyed some prosperity while it struggled with centralization and political control of the kingdom. The Later Han was plagued by the court intrigue, corrupt eunuchs, and massive flooding of the Yellow River that eventually culminated in popular uprisings that led to the demise of the dynasty. The period that followed was a renewed warring states period that likewise stimulated a rebirth of philosophical and religious debate, growth, and innovations. Alan K. L. Chan and Yuet-Keung Lo's (...) Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on medieval China. It is a companion volume to their coauthored work, Interpretation and Literature in Early .. (shrink)

This article explores the enduring mysteries of consciousness and the afterlife, two enigmatic topics that have fascinated humanity for ages. Despite extensive scientific efforts, the existence of an afterlife remains unproven, and understanding consciousness remains a significant challenge. The research introduces innovative hypotheses through simple thought experiments with empirical evidence and robust theoretical foundations. It delves into the complexities of consciousness, its relationship with the brain, and the need for interdisciplinary approaches encompassing physics, psychology, and philosophy. Boldly contemplating the probability (...) of a continuous consciousness after death, the study argues that existing evidence strongly supports this idea. Beyond theoretical implications, it envisions practical outcomes, suggesting that insights into these mysteries could enhance human well-being and contribute to a more harmonious world. In summary, this article embarks on a quest to shed light on age-old questions about consciousness and the afterlife. Through fresh methodologies, it aims to provide new perspectives that could reshape our understanding of existence and inspire intellectuals to positive individual and societal advancements. -/- . (shrink)

Bilim felsefesinin temel tartışma konuları arasında yer alan bilimde rasyonalite ve sınır çizme problemleri, bilimin ne olduğundan hareketle, bilime bir alan belirleme, bilim olan ile olmayan arasına bir sınır çizme, söz konusu sınırı ve bilimi belirli bir rasyonalite düşüncesiyle temellendirme talepleri doğrultusunda şekillenen, birbiriyle bağlantılı iki problemdir. Bilimde rasyonalite ve sınır çizme problemleri, özellikle 20. yüzyıldan itibaren, mantıkçı pozitivizmle birlikte, temel bir konu olarak gündeme gelmektedir. Mantıkçı pozitivistler, bilimin sınırlarını belirlemek, bu doğrultuda bilim olmayanı bilimden elemek üzerinde durmaktadır. (...) Metafiziğin bilimden elenmesi, bilimsel metot, bilimsel açıklama söz konusu anlayışın temel tartışma konularını oluşturmaktadır. Mantıkçı pozitivistler bilimsel ölçüt olarak doğrulanabilirlik ilkesini ve bu ilkeye eşlik eden mantıksal çözümleme yöntemini öne sürmektedir. (shrink)

Here, I discuss how natural biological evolution might have selected human origin and the psychology of the better mind-brain. However, all humans are closely related; why do we make crimes, war, hate, and jealousy their primary reasons and overcoming methodologies? How can they gain their best happiness? What kind of philosophy apply to annalize this big question and convince humankind to evolve their mind? How we could achieve our optimum potential happiness by developing hidden intelligence to make the world a (...) happier place to live in. (shrink)

I have inquired as to what sort of knowledge humans need to make justifiable claims regarding free will. I defended the thesis that humans do not have the sort of knowledge which would allow them to make such claims. Adopting the view of mind based on cognitive science and Kant’s philosophy of mind, first I laid out the characteristics of that knowledge with the help of a simulation example I devised. Then, upon investigating the epistemic relations between the different sources (...) of knowledge and the agents of a system (such as the relation between the programmer and the simulated agents as well as god and humans), I claimed that knowledge bearing those characteristics cannot be accessible to human beings. (shrink)

The results are interpreted in terms of a deficit in initial rule learning and subsequent generalization of these rules to new stimuli. Negative feedback is adequately processed at a neural level but this information is not used to improve behaviour on subsequent trials. As learning is degraded, the process of error detection at the moment of the actual response is diminished. Therefore, the current study demonstrates that disturbed error-monitoring processes play a central role in the often reported learning deficits in (...) individuals with PP. (shrink)

What might be the fundamental psychology of intelligence naturally selected in biological evolution to minimize, prevent, and cure social and personal issues like war, crime, commit suicide, homicide, theft, drug addictions, and so on? How to achieve a higher level of well-being? I found a primary cognitive limiting factor called mind viruses (MV)(more than 3000) which regresses intelligence and well-being and makes the grand delusion: remedies are healthy mind viruses(HMV)(3000). Here, I show the disclosed core of early Buddhist teachings (on (...) learning, training the mind, and behavior on the 8-fold psychological course psychologically 'program' for better (intelligent) decisions. A theoretical 3D graph might represent the state of evolution of intelligence, nature, nurture, X-ultra quantum unique consciousness particle (X-UQUPC), and psychological well-being with the psychological time of a person. To this hypothesis, if the afterlife occurs, the natural selection of vacant zygote/early embryo neurons of the next life and their quality might depend on the finally evolved X-ultra quantum genomic particle of consciousness (X-UQGPC). Therefore, the quality, including the species of the new life and its nurture in the universe/s, depends on the quality of the finally evolved X-UQGPC. Such natural selection of a new nurturing environment for future (promising)life might be uncertain and, therefore, a high risk of finding a life-consciousness in great nature and nurture. However, there may be more mysterious issues to be solved in future research; therefore, the article might not discuss a theory of everything on the central theme. -/- . (shrink)

There is growing interest in the use of technology to enhance the tracking and quality of clinical information available for patients in disaster settings. This paper describes the design and evaluation of the Wireless Internet Information System for Medical Response in Disasters (WIISARD).

In recent years, educational institutions have started using the tools of commercial data analytics in higher education. By gathering information about students as they navigate campus information systems, learning analytics “uses analytic techniques to help target instructional, curricular, and support resources” to examine student learning behaviors and change students’ learning environments. As a result, the information educators and educational institutions have at their disposal is no longer demarcated by course content and assessments, and old boundaries between information used for assessment (...) and information about how students live and work are blurring. Our goal in this paper is to provide a systematic discussion of the ways in which privacy and learning analytics conflict and to provide a framework for understanding those conflicts. -/- We argue that there are five crucial issues about student privacy that we must address in order to ensure that whatever the laudable goals and gains of learning analytics, they are commensurate with respecting students’ privacy and associated rights, including (but not limited to) autonomy interests. First, we argue that we must distinguish among different entities with respect to whom students have, or lack, privacy. Second, we argue that we need clear criteria for what information may justifiably be collected in the name of learning analytics. Third, we need to address whether purported consequences of learning analytics (e.g., better learning outcomes) are justified and what the distributions of those consequences are. Fourth, we argue that regardless of how robust the benefits of learning analytics turn out to be, students have important autonomy interests in how information about them is collected. Finally, we argue that it is an open question whether the goods that justify higher education are advanced by learning analytics, or whether collection of information actually runs counter to those goods. (shrink)

“Big Data” and data analytics affect all of us. Data collection, analysis, and use on a large scale is an important and growing part of commerce, governance, communication, law enforcement, security, finance, medicine, and research. And the theme of this symposium, “Individual and Informational Privacy in the Age of Big Data,” is expansive; we could have long and fruitful discussions about practices, laws, and concerns in any of these domains. But a big part of the audience for this symposium is (...) students and faculty in higher education institutions (HEIs), and the subject of this paper is data analytics in our own backyards. Higher education learning analytics (LA) is something that most of us involved in this symposium are familiar with. Students have encountered LA in their courses, in their interactions with their law school or with their undergraduate institutions, instructors use systems that collect information about their students, and administrators use information to help understand and steer their institutions. More importantly, though, data analytics in higher education is something that those of us participating in the symposium can actually control. Students can put pressure on administrators, and faculty often participate in university governance. Moreover, the systems in place in HEIs are more easily comprehensible to many of us because we work with them on a day-to-day basis. Students use systems as part of their course work, in their residences, in their libraries, and elsewhere. Faculty deploy course management systems (CMS) such as Desire2Learn, Moodle, Blackboard, and Canvas to structure their courses, and administrators use information gleaned from analytics systems to make operational decisions. If we (the participants in the symposium) indeed care about Individual and Informational Privacy in the Age of Big Data, the topic of this paper is a pretty good place to hone our thinking and put into practice our ideas. (shrink)

This article explores the philosophical concept of akrasia, also known as weakness of will, and demonstrates its relevance to clinical practice. In particular, it challenges an implicit notion of control over one’s actions that might impede recovery from substance misuse. Reflecting on three fictional case vignettes, we show how philosophical work on akrasia helps avoid this potentially harmful notion of control by supporting a holistic engagement with people for whom substance misuse is a problem. We argue that such engagement enhances (...) their prospects of recovery by focusing on agency over time, as opposed to individual lapses. (shrink)

There is increasing concern about “surveillance capitalism,” whereby for-profit companies generate value from data, while individuals are unable to resist (Zuboff 2019). Non-profits using data-enabled surveillance receive less attention. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have embraced data analytics, but the wide latitude that private, profit-oriented enterprises have to collect data is inappropriate. HEIs have a fiduciary relationship to students, not a narrowly transactional one (see Jones et al, forthcoming). They are responsible for facets of student life beyond education. In addition to (...) classrooms, learning management systems, and libraries, HEIs manage dormitories, gyms, dining halls, health facilities, career advising, police departments, and student employment. HEIs collect and use student data in all of these domains, ostensibly to understand learner behaviors and contexts, improve learning outcomes, and increase institutional efficiency through “learning analytics” (LA). ID card swipes and Wi-Fi log-ins can track student location, class attendance, use of campus facilities, eating habits, and friend groups. Course management systems capture how students interact with readings, video lectures, and discussion boards. Application materials provide demographic information. These data are used to identify students needing support, predict enrollment demands, and target recruiting efforts. These are laudable aims. However, current LA practices may be inconsistent with HEIs’ fiduciary responsibilities. HEIs often justify LA as advancing student interests, but some projects advance primarily organizational welfare and institutional interests. Moreover, LA advances a narrow conception of student interests while discounting privacy and autonomy. Students are generally unaware of the information collected, do not provide meaningful consent, and express discomfort and resigned acceptance about HEI data practices, especially for non-academic data (see Jones et al. forthcoming). The breadth and depth of student information available, combined with their fiduciary responsibility, create a duty that HEIs exercise substantial restraint and rigorous evaluation in data collection and use. (shrink)

Consider the concept combination ‘pet human’. In word association experiments, human subjects produce the associate ‘slave’ in relation to this combination. The striking aspect of this associate is that it is not produced as an associate of ‘pet’, or ‘human’ in isolation. In other words, the associate ‘slave’ seems to be emergent. Such emergent associations sometimes have a creative character and cognitive science is largely silent about how we produce them. Departing from a dimensional model of human conceptual space, this (...) article will explore concept combinations, and will argue that emergent associations are a result of abductive reasoning within conceptual space, that is, below the symbolic level of cognition. A tensor-based approach is used to model concept combinations allowing such combinations to be formalized as interacting quantum systems. Free association norm data is used to motivate the underlying basis of the conceptual space. It is shown by analogy how some concept combinations may behave like quantum-entangled particles. Two methods of analysis were presented for empirically validating the presence of non-separable concept combinations in human cognition. One method is based on quantum theory and another based on comparing a joint probability distribution with another distribution based on a separability assumption using a chi-square goodness-of-fit test. Although these methods were inconclusive in relation to an empirical study of bi-ambiguous concept combinations, avenues for further refinement of these methods are identified. (shrink)

Is the virtue of the good citizen the same as the virtue of the good man? Aristotle addresses this in Politics 3.4. His answer is twofold. On the one hand, (the account for Difference) they are not the same both because what the citizen’s virtue is depends on the constitution, on what preserves it, and on the role the citizen plays in it, and because the good citizens in the best constitution cannot all be good men, whereas the good man’s (...) virtue is uniform. On the other hand, (the account for Identity) the two virtues are identical in the good men in the best constitution, in which all are good citizens, each possessing the ability for ruling and for being ruled. This nuanced answer can be seen as Aristotle’s synthesis of a Periclean view (contribution to state blots out personal wrongs) and a Socratic view (no good citizen is without justice). Its nuances reflect the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of good citizenship and the best constitution accommodate deviations of what is probable from the human ideal set out in his ethical writings. In the present chapter, I will first address three puzzles regarding the nuances of Aristotle’s answer. Second, I will consider one question about its implication: Does Aristotle’s account for Difference turn out to entail something ultra-Periclean: that no one can simultaneously be a good man and a good citizen in any constitution other than the best? I shall argue the negative. (shrink)

This collection brings together fourteen contributions by authors from around the globe. Each of the contributions engages with questions about how local and global bioethical issues are made to be comparable, in the hope of redressing basic needs and demands for justice. These works demonstrate the significant conceptual contributions that can be made through feminists' attention to debates in a range of interrelated fields, especially as they formulate appropriate responses to developments in medical technology, global economics, population shifts, and poverty.

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

[This download includes the table of contents and chapter 1.] -/- When we praise, blame, punish, or reward people for their actions, we are holding them responsible for what they have done. Common sense tells us that what makes human beings responsible has to do with their minds and, in particular, the relationship between their minds and their actions. Yet the empirical connection is not necessarily obvious. The “guilty mind” is a core concept of criminal law, but if a defendant (...) on trial for murder were found to have serious brain damage, which brain parts or processes would have to be damaged for him to be considered not responsible, or less responsible, for the crime? The authors argue that evidence from neuroscience and the other cognitive sciences can illuminate the nature of responsibility and agency. They go on to offer a novel and comprehensive neuroscientific theory of human responsibility. (shrink)

Higher education institutions are mining and analyzing student data to effect educational, political, and managerial outcomes. Done under the banner of “learning analytics,” this work can—and often does—surface sensitive data and information about, inter alia, a student’s demographics, academic performance, offline and online movements, physical fitness, mental wellbeing, and social network. With these data, institutions and third parties are able to describe student life, predict future behaviors, and intervene to address academic or other barriers to student success (however defined). Learning (...) analytics, consequently, raise serious issues concerning student privacy, autonomy, and the appropriate flow of student data. We argue that issues around privacy lead to valid questions about the degree to which students should trust their institution to use learning analytics data and other artifacts (algorithms, predictive scores) with their interests in mind. We argue that higher education institutions are paradigms of information fiduciaries. As such, colleges and universities have a special responsibility to their students. In this article, we use the information fiduciary concept to analyze cases when learning analytics violate an institution’s responsibility to its students. (shrink)

In this paper we attempt to reply to the thoughtful comments made on our book, Responsible Brains, by a stellar group of scholars. Our reply focuses on two topics discussed in the commenting papers: first, the issue of responsibility for negligent behavior; and second, the broad claim that facts about brain function are normatively inert. In response to worries that our theory lacks normative implications, we will concentrate on an area where our theory has clear relevance to law and legal (...) policy: juvenile responsibility. (shrink)

This article presents the findings of a seven-week case study which aimed to identify the benefits of self-assessment in EFL writing classes at tertiary level. The study was conducted with 17 B1- English language proficiency level students studying at an English preparatory programme of a foundation university. First, the students were introduced to using rubrics to assess a written product. Then, each week after students composed a writing, a paragraph for the first three weeks and an essay for the remaining (...) four weeks, the students were asked to assess their own writing by using the relevant rubric and filling in the self-assessment form. In addition, a questionnaire was conducted at the beginning of the study to investigate whether the students could identify their own strengths and weaknesses in writing, whether they could make sense of the criteria that are used for writing quizzes, and whether they made sense of the feedback given by the teachers for their writings. The same questionnaire was conducted again on the last day of the research to check whether the participants changed their opinions. The results revealed that the students improved their understanding of the rubrics over time by practice, they felt more responsible for their own learning, they were able to reflect on their own performance, and they became more autonomous learners. (shrink)

Biological ontologies are used to organize, curate, and interpret the vast quantities of data arising from biological experiments. While this works well when using a single ontology, integrating multiple ontologies can be problematic, as they are developed independently, which can lead to incompatibilities. The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies Foundry was created to address this by facilitating the development, harmonization, application, and sharing of ontologies, guided by a set of overarching principles. One challenge in reaching these goals was that the (...) OBO principles were not originally encoded in a precise fashion, and interpretation was subjective. Here we show how we have addressed this by formally encoding the OBO principles as operational rules and implementing a suite of automated validation checks and a dashboard for objectively evaluating each ontology’s compliance with each principle. This entailed a substantial effort to curate metadata across all ontologies and to coordinate with individual stakeholders. We have applied these checks across the full OBO suite of ontologies, revealing areas where individual ontologies require changes to conform to our principles. Our work demonstrates how a sizable federated community can be organized and evaluated on objective criteria that help improve overall quality and interoperability, which is vital for the sustenance of the OBO project and towards the overall goals of making data FAIR. Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. (shrink)

Contemporary discourse is littered with nasty and derailed disagreements. In this paper we hope to help clean things up. We diagnose two patterns of thought that often plague and exacerbate controversy. We illustrate these patterns and show that each involves both a logical mistake and a failure of intellectual charity. We also draw upon recent work in social psychology to shed light on why we tend to fall into these patterns of thought. We conclude by suggesting how the intellectual virtues (...) can militate against these fallacies, focusing on the virtues of charity and humility. (shrink)

Achieving space situational awareness requires, at a minimum, the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Leveraging the resultant space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and conjunction assessment presents major challenges. This is in part because in characterizing space objects we reference a variety of identifiers, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, operational processes, operational statuses, and so forth, which tend to be defined in highly heterogeneous and sometimes inconsistent (...) ways. The Space Domain Ontologies are designed to provide a consensus-based realist framework for formulating such characterizations in a way that is both consistent and computable. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in a suite of ontologies built around the existing Space Object Ontology. They are stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space situational awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators and analysts. This paper provides an overview of the Space Domain Ontologies and their development and use. It presents the motivation for and advantages of the Space Domain Ontologies, including the benefits they provide for enhancing and maintaining long-term space situational awareness. (shrink)

In December 2013, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a petition for a common law writ of habeas corpus in the New York State Supreme Court on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee living alone in a cage in a shed in rural New York (Barlow, 2017). Under animal welfare laws, Tommy’s owners, the Laverys, were doing nothing illegal by keeping him in those conditions. Nonetheless, the NhRP argued that given the cognitive, social, and emotional capacities of chimpanzees, Tommy’s confinement constituted (...) a profound wrong that demanded remedy by the courts. Soon thereafter, the NhRP filed habeas corpus petitions on behalf of Kiko, another chimpanzee housed alone in Niagara Falls, and Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees held in research facilities at Stony Brook University. Thus began the legal struggle to move these chimpanzees from captivity to a sanctuary, an effort that has led the NhRP to argue in multiple courts before multiple judges. The central point of contention has been whether Tommy, Kiko, Hercules, and Leo have legal rights. To date, no judge has been willing to issue a writ of habeas corpus on their behalf. Such a ruling would mean that these chimpanzees have rights that confinement might violate. Instead, the judges have argued that chimpanzees cannot be bearers of legal rights because they are not, and cannot be persons. In this book we argue that chimpanzees are persons because they are autonomous. (shrink)

We have witnessed the athleticization of political discourse, whereby debate is treated like an athletic contest in which the aim is to vanquish one's opponents. When political discourse becomes a zero-sum game, it is characterized by suspicions, accusations, belief polarization, and ideological entrenchment. Unfortunately, athleticization is ailing the classroom as well, making it difficult for educators to prepare students to make valuable contributions to healthy civic discourse. Such preparation requires an educational environment that fosters the intellectual virtues that characterize an (...) examined life. This, in turn, requires an amicable and hospitable atmosphere in which a student enjoys the freedom to discover and articulate what she believes, how well her beliefs hang together, and what underlying assumptions or biases might be at work—without the fear that her self-disclosure will trigger immediate accusations and pigeonholing from fellow students. Educating for intellectual virtue is crucial for meeting these challenges and in this chapter we contribute to this strategy by offering some tools and guidance for promoting productive discussion of controversial issues. In the first two sections, we identify and explain two fallacious patterns of thought that often encumber discussion of controversial issues: assailment-by-entailment and the attitude-to-agent fallacy. In effect, these sections diagnose two diseases of discourse. We conclude each section with practical suggestions—in the form of thinking routines—for curing these ills. We will argue that part of the cure is to be found in the intellectual virtues. In particular, we will discuss how the virtues of intellectual charity, humility and carefulness can inoculate the mind against the fallacies we identify. (shrink)

Vaccine research, as well as the development, testing, clinical trials, and commercial uses of vaccines involve complex processes with various biological data that include gene and protein expression, analysis of molecular and cellular interactions, study of tissue and whole body responses, and extensive epidemiological modeling. Although many data resources are available to meet different aspects of vaccine needs, it remains a challenge how we are to standardize vaccine annotation, integrate data about varied vaccine types and resources, and support advanced vaccine (...) data analysis and inference. To address these problems, the community-based Vaccine Ontology (VO) has been developed through collaboration with vaccine researchers and many national and international centers and programs, including the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO), the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) Initiative, and the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI). VO utilizes the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) as the top ontology and the Relation Ontology (RO) for definition of term relationships. VO is represented in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and edited using the Protégé-OWL. Currently VO contains more than 2000 terms and relationships. VO emphasizes on classification of vaccines and vaccine components, vaccine quality and phenotypes, and host immune response to vaccines. These reflect different aspects of vaccine composition and biology and can thus be used to model individual vaccines. More than 200 licensed vaccines and many vaccine candidates in research or clinical trials have been modeled in VO. VO is being used for vaccine literature mining through collaboration with the National Center for Integrative Biomedical Informatics (NCIBI). Multiple VO applications will be presented. (shrink)

Purpose – To review and discuss Luciano Floridi’s 2019 book The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design, the latest instalment in his philosophy of information (PI) tetralogy, particularly with respect to its implications for library and information studies (LIS). Design/methodology/approach – Nine scholars with research interests in philosophy and LIS read and responded to the book, raising critical and heuristic questions in the spirit of scholarly dialogue. Floridi responded to these questions. Findings – Floridi’s PI, including (...) this latest publication, is of interest to LIS scholars, and much insight can be gained by exploring this connection. It seems also that LIS has the potential to contribute to PI’s further development in some respects. Research implications – Floridi’s PI work is technical philosophy for which many LIS scholars do not have the training or patience to engage with, yet doing so is rewarding. This suggests a role for translational work between philosophy and LIS. Originality/value – The book symposium format, not yet seen in LIS, provides forum for sustained, multifaceted and generative dialogue around ideas. (shrink)

Robert Adams defends a platonic account of goodness, understood as excellence, claiming that there exists a platonic good that all other good things must resemble, identifying the Good with God. Mark Murphy agrees, but argues that this platonic account is in need of Aristotelian supplementation, as resemblance must take into account a thing’s kind-membership. While this article will accept something like Murphy’s account of goodness, it will further develop its details and support. Without relying on theistic premises, I show that (...) the metaphysical status of an individual’s goodness consists in resemblance with the platonic good. As for the distinct question of what that goodness holds in virtue of, I conclude it holds in virtue of exactly: the thing’s own properties, those properties being such as to satisfy its kind-based standards, and those K-standards resembling the platonic good. I then develop an account of how K-standards resemble the platonic good: The K-standards resemble it firstly with respect to requiring activities, as the platonic good will be posited to be active, and must resemble it secondly also at the level of what teleology those activities are directed towards. I also motivate the need for a third respect of resemblance, to be developed in future work. The article ends with a discussion of the nature of the platonic good. (shrink)

When agents insert technological systems into their decision-making processes, they can obscure moral responsibility for the results. This can give rise to a distinct moral wrong, which we call “agency laundering.” At root, agency laundering involves obfuscating one’s moral responsibility by enlisting a technology or process to take some action and letting it forestall others from demanding an account for bad outcomes that result. We argue that the concept of agency laundering helps in understanding important moral problems in a number (...) of recent cases involving automated, or algorithmic, decision-systems. We apply our conception of agency laundering to a series of examples, including Facebook’s automated advertising suggestions, Uber’s driver interfaces, algorithmic evaluation of K-12 teachers, and risk assessment in criminal sentencing. We distinguish agency laundering from several other critiques of information technology, including the so-called “responsibility gap,” “bias laundering,” and masking. (shrink)

New trends in the economic systems management in the context of modern global challenges: collective monograph / scientific edited by M. Bezpartochnyi, in 2 Vol. // VUZF University of Finance, Business and Entrepreneurship. – Sofia: VUZF Publishing House “St. Grigorii Bogoslov”, 2020. – Vol. 1. – 309 p.

Initial responses to questionnaires used to assess participants' understanding of informed consent for malaria vaccine trials conducted in the United States and Mali were tallied. Total scores were analyzed by age, sex, literacy (if known), and location. Ninety-two percent (92%) of answers by United States participants and 85% of answers by Malian participants were correct. Questions more likely to be answered incorrectly in Mali related to risk, and to the type of vaccine. For adult participants, independent predictors of higher scores (...) were younger age and female sex in the United States, and male sex in Mali. Scores in the United States were higher than in Mali (P = 0.005). Despite this difference participants at both sites were well informed overall. Although interpretation must be qualified because questionnaires were not intended as research tools and were not standardized among sites, these results do not support concerns about systematic low understanding among research participants in developing versus developed countries. (shrink)

Algorithmic systems and predictive analytics play an increasingly important role in various aspects of modern life. Scholarship on the moral ramifications of such systems is in its early stages, and much of it focuses on bias and harm. This paper argues that in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems it is essential to understand the relation between algorithms, autonomy, and agency. We draw on several recent cases in criminal sentencing and K–12 teacher evaluation to outline four key ways in (...) which issues of agency, autonomy, and respect for persons can conflict with algorithmic decision-making. Three of these involve failures to treat individual agents with the respect they deserve. The fourth involves distancing oneself from a morally suspect action by attributing one’s decision to take that action to an algorithm, thereby laundering one’s agency. (shrink)

"[L]ove is not merely a contributor - one among others - to meaningful life. In its own way it may underlie all other forms of meaning....by its very nature love is the principal means by which creatures like us seek affective relations to persons, things, or ideals that have value and importance for us. I. The Look of Love.

The study aimed to identify the effect of applying detection and prevention tools for career fraud in combating and preventing fraud and reducing its risks through an applied study on Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza Strip, Palestine. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers used the questionnaire as a main tool to collect data, and the descriptive and analytical approach to conducting the study. The study population consisted of (501) supervisory employees working at MOH in Gaza Strip, (...) Palestine. The researchers used the stratified random sample method and the multiple regression method to measure the effect. The study concluded a set of results, the most important of which is a positive evaluation among respondents about the levels of application of tools to detect and prevent job fraud within MOH, and the presence of a high interest in tools to prevent job fraud during the implementation of its various work. The study recommended the necessity for the Palestinian National Authority to develop and approve laws regulating health sector, so that those laws guarantee the prevention of conflicts of interest, especially for the category of doctors, by preventing job duplication of doctors working in the government sector. Also study recommended the need for MOH to adopt principles of health sector governance and begin immediately to implement them. This process to ensure transparency, disclosure and accountability in the business framework in a manner that realizes the effective protection of stakeholders and does not compromise or discriminate in the application of these principles, which ensures that all forms of job fraud are organized in an organized manner and within fixed legal frameworks. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: One important criticism of algorithmic systems is that they lack transparency. Such systems can be opaque because they are complex, protected by patent or trade secret, or deliberately obscure. In the EU, there is a debate about whether the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) contains a “right to explanation,” and if so what such a right entails. Our task in this chapter is to address this informational component of algorithmic systems. We argue that information access is integral for respecting (...) autonomy, and transparency policies should be tailored to advance autonomy. -/- To make this argument we distinguish two facets of agency (i.e., capacity to act). The first is practical agency, or the ability to act effectively according to one’s values. The second is what we call cognitive agency, which is the ability to exercise what Pamela Hieronymi calls “evaluative control” (i.e., the ability to control our affective states, such as beliefs, desires, and attitudes). We argue that respecting autonomy requires providing persons sufficient information to exercise evaluative control and properly interpret the world and one’s place in it. We draw this distinction out by considering algorithmic systems used in background checks, and we apply the view to key cases involving risk assessment in criminal justice decisions and K-12 teacher evaluation. -/- The link below is to an open access version of the chapter. (shrink)

Монографія "Проблеми та перспективи розвитку системи вищої освіти в сучасному суспільстві" присвячена висвітленню особливостей функціонування сучасної вищої освіти, що виникають під впливом сучасних викликів у VUCA-світі, а також – визначенню перспектив подальшого розвитку вищої освіти. Особливу увагу авторам монографії потрібно приділяти вивченню тих умов реформування вищої освіти, які забезпечать сталий та результативний розвиток майбутніх фахівців. Автори колективної монографії дослідили комплекс нагальних проблем вищої освіти в Україні та за кордоном; визначили шляхи їх вирішення в умовах сучасних викликів на тлі трансформаційних змін (...) у суспільстві. Це, у свою чергу, вплинуло на побудову логічної структури монографії. У першому розділі монографії "Врядування у системі вищої освіти України" висвітлено проблеми ефективного управління в сучасних університетах, а також перехід від управління до врядування у закладах вищої освіти та фактори, що сприяють цьому процесу. Розглянуто український досвід щодо участі студентів у діяльності університетів. У другому розділі "Розвиток потенціалу університетів: від теорії до практики" автори вивчають фактори, які впливають на розвиток ЗВО. Особлива увага приділяється вивченню розвитку наукового-педагогічного персоналу та впровадженню інноваційних технологій у розвиток працівників закладів вищої освіти. У третьому розділі «Забезпечення якості вищої освіти: європейський та український досвід» увагу авторів монографії зосереджено на вивченні сучасних підходів до оцінювання студентів та аналізі стейкхолдерів забезпечення якості системі вищої освіти в Україні та в ЄС. (shrink)

Epistemolojik olarak bilgiye başvuran ve bilme faaliyetinde bulunan insanın, Kur’an’da önemli bir yeri vardır. Buradaki bilme faaliyetini, salt teolojik bir buyruk olarak, yani Allah’ı bilmek olarak değil, doğru bilgi ile yanlış bilgi arasında hem teorik hem de ahlaki bir farklılık olarak anlamak ve Kur’an'da insana epistemik özellikler atfedildiğini ve böylece insanın epistemik başarılarından dolayı övüldüğünü söyleyebilmek mümkündür. Bu açıdan bakıldığında herhangi bir önermeye yönelik olarak rasyonel bir tutum benimseyen, yani bilen özne ile bu faaliyette isteyerek ve istemeyerek giren kişinin durumu (...) arasında bir fark olduğu açıktır. Doğrusu bu farkın epistemik önceliği kadar, ahlaki önceliği de dikkate değerdir. Nitekim buradaki ahlaki üstünlük, doğru bilgiyi hedefleme ve ona ulaşma noktasında ortaya çıkan erdemdir. Doğru bilgiye ulaşmanın entelektüel bir erdem olduğu düşünüldüğünde, Kur’an’ın Erdem epistemolojisi üzerinden değerlendirilmesi bu noktada önemlidir. Doğrusu erdemli bir bilişsel faaliyet, Kur'an’da açık bir şekilde ana fikir olarak ortaya konulur ve buna göre cehaletten kaçınmak ve doğru bilgiye ulaşmak için erdemli bir çaba göstermek önem taşır. Kur’an’daki ifadeleri bilgeliğe ulaşmak olarak anlayacak olursak, asıl hedef; bilgi ve anlayışımızın, entelektüel ve ahlaki vicdanımızı veya takvamızı güçlendirmesi için kullanılabileceği söylenilebilir ve bu inanç, erdem epistemolojisine dayalı bir yaklaşım içerisinde şekillendirilebilir. (shrink)

Ateistlerin teizmi reddetme gerekçeleri, genellikle kötülük sorununun teizme karşı en güçlü argüman olduğunu iddia etmelerinde yatmaktadır. Nitekim ateizme göre teizm, bu soruna başarılı bir şekilde cevap verememektedir. Bununla birlikte kötülük sorununun sadece teistler için bir problem olmadığı iddia edilebilir. Bizde bu makale içerisinde bu savdan yola çıkarak, yakın dönemde Yujin Nagasawa’nın geliştirdiği “sistematik kötülüğün varoluşsal sorunu” açısından bu iddiayı ele almaya çalıştık. Bu sorun, başlangıçta, yalnızca dünyadaki belirli olayların veya belirli olay türlerinin kötü olduğunu değil, aynı zamanda insan varoluşunun dayandığı (...) tüm biyolojik sistemlerin kötü olduğunu göstererek, teizm için bir meydan okuma yaratmaktadır. Ancak hem teistlerin hem de ateistlerin tipik olarak dünyanın genel olarak iyi olduğunu ve içinde yaşamaktan mutlu ve minnettar olmamız gerektiğini onaylayan varoluşsal iyimserliği benimsedikleri düşünüldüğünde, kötülüğün bu versiyonu, teizm için olduğu kadar, ateizm içinde bir problem olmaktadır. Makale içerisinde sorunun bu versiyonuna yanıt verirken ateizmin teizme kıyasla önemli bir dezavantajla karşı karşıya kalması nedeniyle, bunun ateizme karşı güçlü bir argüman olabileceğini iddia ediyoruz. (shrink)

Review of Searching Eyes: Privacy, the State, and Disease Surveillance in America – By Amy L. Fairchild, Ronald Bayer, and James Colgrove.

Dini epistemoloji, teistik inançların rasyonel zeminde gerekçelendirilme yollarını arayan, çağdaş epistemolojinin bir alt dalıdır. Musa Yanık, bu kitapta günümüzdeki en güçlü yaklaşım olan reform epistemolojisinden güvenilircilik bakış açısıyla yani “daha yüksek bir olasılıkla doğru olması yönünden” İslam inancının rasyonelliğini ortaya koymakta ve uygulamalı dini epistemolojinin sağlam ve cesur bir örneğini sergilemektedir. (Prof. Dr. Hasan Yücel Başdemir) -/- Epistemoloji topyekûn insan zihnini biçimlendirme ve inanç da dahil olmak üzere bilişsel faaliyetleri yönlendirme potansiyeline sahip bir alandır. Zira Allah’ın varlığı, birliği, nübüvvet ve (...) ahiretle ilişkili meseleler “nasıl bilebilirim, neleri bilebilirim, bildiğim şeyin kesinliğinden nasıl emin olabilirim?” gibi epistemik sorulardan bağımsız olamaz. Bu nedenle konu İslam düşüncesinde felsefecilerin olduğu kadar kelâmcıların da ilgisini çekmiştir.Bu bağlamda Musa Yanık tarafından modern teoriler de dikkate alınarak yazılan bu kitabın dini epistemoloji konusunda bir farkındalık oluşturmasını umuyorum. (Doç. Dr. Mehmet Bulgen) -/- Analitik felsefe ülkemizde yeni yeni tanınmaya başlanmış olmasına rağmen özellikle İslam entelektüel tarihindeki kelâm geleneği ile etkileşime geçme potansiyeli oldukça yüksek bir gelenektir. Musa Yanık, bu çalışmasıyla günümüzün en önemli analitik din felsefecilerinden AlvinPlantinga’nın dini epistemolojisini tanıtmakta ve kelâmla irtibatını eleştirel bir zeminde kurmaya çalışmaktadır. Çalışmanın güncel tartışmaları takip etmesi kadar bu tartışmalara farklı geleneklerden bakabilme becerisi felsefenin çok-yönlü bir çerçevede nasıl yapılabileceğine dair güzel bir örnek oluşturuyor. Musa Yanık’ın bu eseri, her şeyin birbiriyle etkileşime geçmeye başladığı global dünyada felsefe yapmanın olanaklarına dair yenilikçi bir yaklaşım ortaya koyuyor. -/- (Doç. Dr. Nazif Muhtaroğlu) -/- Elinizde tuttuğunuz bu kitap, dini epistemoloji ve erdem epistemolojisi kesişiminde yer almakla birlikte, inanç ve imanın epistemik statüsünü incelemek ve bunu yaparken ise İslam inancını merkeze almaktadır. Bu haliyle Türkçe literatür açısından önemli bir boşluğu doldurmaktadır. Okuyucunun bu kitap aracılığıyla karşılaşacağı bazı sorular şunlardır: İnanç ve bilgi nedir? Kanıt olmadan inanmak ahlaken yanlış mıdır? İnançlarımızı rasyonel olarak gerekçelendirmenin yolları nelerdir? İslam inancı reform ve erdem epistemolojisi açısından güvenilir bir temele sahip midir? Fakat belki de en büyük kadim soru şudur: Tanrı’nın varlığını bilmek mümkün müdür? -/- (Taner Beyter-Öncül Analitik Felsefe Dergisi). (shrink)

Review of T. K. Johansen's book Aristotle on the sense organs. Aristotle seeks to explain the characteristics of the different sense organs by reference to the goal that they serve, that of enabling animals to perceive. A material basis is necessary for sense perception but it is an open question whether the material in question undergoes a physiological change.

På mange måter er dette en bok som blir utgitt alt for sent. Det er den første antologien av sitt slag, og retter fokus på kvinnelige metafysikere som virket i den tidlige moderne perioden (16. og tidlig 17. århundre). Redaktør Emily Thomas skriver i introduksjonen at til tross for at flere antologier om moderne metafysikk allerede finnes, er kvinnelige filosofer fortsatt underrepresentert og den filosofiske kanon mannsdominert. De ni filosofene som blir omtalt i totalt 13 kapitler var alle originale og (...) velkjente tenkere i sin samtid, men har blitt glemt i filosofihistoriens løp. (shrink)

Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on W. K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief”. Published in Clifford, W.K. “L’ètica de la creença”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 129–150. // Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on William James’s “The Will to Believe”. Published in James, William. “La voluntat de creure”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 151–172. [Introductory study published in Oya, Alberto. “Introducció. El debat entre W. K. Clifford i William James”. Quaderns (...) de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 123–127]. (shrink)

Sözde-bilim ile ilgili bu tartışmalar uluslararası literatürde yapılıyor olsa da Türkiye’de henüz bu konuların eleştirel olarak ele alındığı söylenemez. Dolayısıyla sözde-bilimlerin eleştirel olarak ele alındığı öğrenme ortamlarının öğrencilerin bilime ve sözde-bilime ilişkin algılarına etkisi üzerine yapılacak araştırmalar konunun daha iyi anlaşılmasını sağlayabilir ve belki de ilerideki program değişiklerinde öğretim programlarında sözde-bilimin yer bulmasının yolunu açabilir.

Bu araştırmanın ilk amacı, sınıf öğretmeni adaylarının tartışmaya yönelik özyeterlikleri, bilimin doğası inanışları ve eleştirel düşünmeleri arasında sınıf düzeyine göre anlamlı bir fark olup olmadığını incelemektir. İkinci amacı ise, sınıf öğretmeni adaylarının tartışmaya yönelik öz-yeterlikleri, bilimin doğası inanışları ve eleştirel düşünmeleri arasındaki ilişkilerin yapısal eşitlik modeli ile incelenmesidir. Araştırmanın modeli ilişkisel tarama çalışmasıdır. Araştırmanın örneklemini Aydın Adnan Menderes Üniversitesi, Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi, Pamukkale Üniversitesi, Muğla Sıtkı Koçman Üniversitesi ve Afyon Kocatepe Üniversitesi Temel Eğitim Bölümü Sınıf Öğretmenliği programının birinci, ikinci, üçüncü (...) ve dördüncü sınıflarında öğrenim gören 858 öğretmen adayı oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmanın örneklemi seçilirken uygun örnekleme tekniği tercih edilmiştir. Veriler “Tartışmaya Yönelik Öz-yeterlik Ölçeği”, “Bilimin Doğası İnanışları Ölçeği” ve “Eleştirel Düşünme Standartları Ölçeği ile toplanmıştır. Verilerinin analizinde SPSS 18, LISREL 8.80 ve MPLUS 7 programlarından faydalanılmıştır. Tartışmaya Yönelik Öz-Yeterlik Ölçeği, Bilimin Doğası İnanışları Ölçeği ve Eleştirel Düşünme Standartları Ölçeği puanlarının anlamlı bir farklılık gösterip göstermediğini belirlemek için tek yönlü varyans analizi (ANOVA) kullanılmıştır. Argümantasyona dayalı öz-yeterliğin, bilimin doğasına yönelik inançları ve eleştirel düşünmeyi yordayıp yordamadığını belirlemek amacıyla kurulan model, yapısal eşitlik modeli ile test edilmiştir. (shrink)

X. Mantık Çalıştayı 2-4 Eylül 2021 tarihlerinde Kapadokya Üniversitesi’nin ev sahipliğinde gerçekleştirildi. Mantık Derneği’nin 10 yıldır aralıksız bir şekilde düzenlediği çalıştaylara, Covid-19 dolayısıyla iki yıl ara verilmek zorunda kalındı. Çalıştay’ın pandemi sonrası tekrar gerçekleştirilmesinde her türlü olanağı sağlayan Kapadokya Üniversitesi’ne, Rektör Prof. Dr. Hasan Ali Karasar’a ve emeği geçen herkese teşekkürlerimizi sunuyoruz.

Dеspitе thе prеvаlеncе оf cоmmоn mеntаl hеаlth prоblеms, cоllеgе studеnts sееk prоfеssiоnаl аssistаncе аt а lоw rаtе. Pеrcеptiоns оf sоciеtаl stаndаrds аrоund аid sееking cоuld bе оnе оf thе fаctоrs influеncing hеlp sееking prоclivity. Thе currеnt study lооkеd аt pеrcеivеd pееr nоrms fоr sееking hеlp fоr dеprеssеd symptоms аnd thеir rеlаtiоnship tо оnе's оwn hеlp sееking prоclivity in urbаn cоllеgе yоuth. Thе mеthоds utilizеd wеrе а crоss-sеctiоnаl survеy аpprоаch. Thе mоst likеly sоurcе оf gеtting suppоrt fоr dеprеssiоn symptоms wаs friеnds. (...) Sееking prоfеssiоnаl trеаtmеnt frоm оnеsеlf аnd оnе's pееrs wаs аssеssеd аs lеss likеly whеn dеprеssiоn wаs prеcеdеd by а lifе incidеnt vеrsus whеn it wаs nоt. Whеn cоllеgе studеnts еvаluаtеd thеir clаssmаtеs' chаncе оf sееking prоfеssiоnаl аid, thеy еstimаtеd thеir оwn likеlihооd оf sееking prоfеssiоnаl hеlp аs highеr. Pеrcеivеd pееr nоrms аbоut sееking hеlp fоr dеprеssiоn cаn hаvе а significаnt impаct оn cоllеgе studеnts' willingnеss tо sееk hеlp frоm prоfеssiоnаl sоurcеs. Thе implicаtiоns fоr crеаting intеrvеntiоns tо imprоvе yоuth hеlp sееking аrе discussеd. Hеlp-sееking, Sоciаl stаndаrds, Dеprеssiоn, Yоuth, Trеаtmеnt Gаp аrе sоmе kеy phrаsеs. (shrink)