As indicated in the title this article is a brief description of the body, soul and spirit of man, based on the divine revelations received by the Austrian mystic Jakob Lorber between 1840 and 1864. While it is common knowledge that man has a body and a soul, very little is known about the spirit in man which is the primary source of knowledge and power, penetrating both the soul and body.

We have been observing how infants between 3 and 21 months react when a vibrotactile stimulation (a buzzer) is applied to different parts of their bodies. Responses included in particular movement of the stimulated body part and successful reaching for and removal of the buzzer. Overall, there is a pronounced developmental progression from general to specific movement patterns, especially in the first year. In this article we review the series of studies we conducted and then focus on possible mechanisms that (...) might explain what we observed. One possible mechanism might rely on the brain extracting “sensorimotor contingencies” linking motor actions and resulting sensory consequences. This account posits that infants are driven by intrinsic motivation that guides exploratory motor activity, at first generating random motor babbling with self-touch occurring spontaneously. Later goal-oriented motor behavior occurs, with self-touch as a possible effective tool to induce informative contingencies. We connect this sensorimotor view with a second possible account that appeals to the neuroscientific concepts of cortical maps and coordinate transformations. In this second account, the improvement of reaching precision is mediated by refinement of neuronal maps in primary sensory and motor cortices—the homunculi—as well as in frontal and parietal corti- cal regions dedicated to sensorimotor processing. We complement this theoretical account with modeling on a humanoid robot with artificial skin where we implemented reaching for tactile stimuli as well as learning the “somatosensory homunculi”. We suggest that this account can be extended to reflect the driving role of sensorimotor contingencies in human development. In our conclusion we consider possible extensions of our current experiments which take account of predictions derived from both these kinds of models. (shrink)

An action-oriented perspective changes the role of an individual from a passive observer to an actively engaged agent interacting in a closed loop with the world as well as with others. Cognition exists to serve action within a landscape that contains both. This chapter surveys this landscape and addresses the status of the pragmatic turn. Its potential influence on science and the study of cognition are considered (including perception, social cognition, social interaction, sensorimotor entrainment, and language acquisition) and its impact (...) on how neuroscience is studied is also investigated (with the notion that brains do not passively build models, but instead support the guidance of action). A review of its implications in robotics and engineering includes a discussion of the application of enactive control principles to couple action and perception in robotics as well as the conceptualization of system design in a more holistic, less modular manner. Practical applications that can impact the human condition are reviewed (e.g., educational applications, treatment possibilities for developmental and psychopathological disorders, the development of neural prostheses). All of this foreshadows the potential societal implications of the pragmatic turn. The chapter concludes that an action-oriented approach emphasizes a continuum of interaction between technical aspects of cognitive systems and robotics, biology, psychology, the social sciences, and the humanities, where the individual is part of a grounded cultural system. (shrink)

Whether Albert Camus’s “existentialist” thought expresses an “ethics” is a subject of disagreement among commentators. Yet, there can be no reading of Camus’s philosophical and literary works without recognizing that he was engaged in the post-WW2 period with two basic questions: How must we think? What must we do? If his thought presents us with an ethics, even if not systematic, it seems to be present in his ideas of “remaking” both man and world that are central to his (...) The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel. Curiously, however, this apparent recommendation is ambiguous for the fact that while Camus proposes as much he does so “comme si,” i.e., form a perspective of “as if.” A clarification of this qualification is presented here in the light of the fact that Camus rejects any nihilist project that countenances either suicide or murder. Thereby one may argue that Camus indeed has an ethics that remains pertinent to today. (shrink)

This twelfth volume of Collected Papers includes 86 papers comprising 976 pages on Neutrosophics Theory and Applications, published between 2013-2021 in the international journal and book series “Neutrosophic Sets and Systems” by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 112 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 21 countries: Abdel Nasser H. Zaied, Muhammad Akram, Bobin Albert, S. A. Alblowi, S. Anitha, Guennoun Asmae, Assia Bakali, Ayman M. Manie, Abdul Sami Awan, Azeddine Elhassouny, Erick González-Caballero, D. Dafik, Mithun Datta, Arindam (...) Dey, Mamouni Dhar, Christopher Dyer, Nur Ain Ebas, Mohamed Eisa, Ahmed K. Essa, Faruk Karaaslan, João Alcione Sganderla Figueiredo, Jorge Fernando Goyes García, N. Ramila Gandhi, Sudipta Gayen, Gustavo Alvarez Gómez, Sharon Dinarza Álvarez Gómez, Haitham A. El-Ghareeb, Hamiden Abd El-Wahed Khalifa, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Ibrahim M. Hezam, German Acurio Hidalgo, Le Hoang Son, R. Jahir Hussain, S. Satham Hussain, Ali Hussein Mahmood Al-Obaidi, Hays Hatem Imran, Nabeela Ishfaq, Saeid Jafari, R. Jansi, V. Jeyanthi, M. Jeyaraman, Sripati Jha, Jun Ye, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Abdullah Kargın, J. Kavikumar, Kawther Fawzi Hamza Alhasan, Huda E. Khalid, Neha Andalleb Khalid, Mohsin Khalid, Madad Khan, D. Koley, Valeri Kroumov, Manoranjan Kumar Singh, Pavan Kumar, Prem Kumar Singh, Ranjan Kumar, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, A.N. Mangayarkkarasi, Carlos Rosero Martínez, Marvelio Alfaro Matos, Mai Mohamed, Nivetha Martin, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Talea, K. Mohana, Muhammad Irfan Ahamad, Rana Muhammad Zulqarnain, Muhammad Riaz, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Saqlain, Muhammad Shabir, Muhammad Zeeshan, Anjan Mukherjee, Mumtaz Ali, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Iqra Nawaz, Munazza Naz, Roan Thi Ngan, Necati Olgun, Rodolfo González Ortega, P. Pandiammal, I. Pradeepa, R. Princy, Marcos David Oviedo Rodríguez, Jesús Estupiñán Ricardo, A. Rohini, Sabu Sebastian, Abhijit Saha, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, A.A. Salama, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Seyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Sajana Shaik, Soufiane Idbrahim, S. Sowndrarajan, Mohamed Talea, Ruipu Tan, Chalapathi Tekuri, Selçuk Topal, S. P. Tiwari, Vakkas Uluçay, Maikel Leyva Vázquez, Chinnadurai Veerappan, M. Venkatachalam, Luige Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Xiao Long Xin.‬‬‬‬‬‬. (shrink)

This book presents Robert S. Hartman’s formal theory of value and critically examines many other twentieth century value theorists in its light, including A.J. Ayer, Kurt Baier, Brand Blanshard, Paul Edwards, Albert Einstein, William K. Frankena, R.M. Hare, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, G.E. Moore, P.H. Nowell-Smith, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Charles Stevenson, Paul W. Taylor, Stephen E. Toulmin, and J.O. Urmson.

Theories of graded causation attract growing attention in the philosophical debate on causation. An important field of application is the controversial relationship between causation and moral responsibility. However, it is still unclear how exactly the notion of graded causation should be understood in the context of moral responsibility. One question is whether we should endorse a proportionality principle, according to which the degree of an agent’s moral responsibility is proportionate to their degree of causal contribution. A second question is whether (...) a theory of graded causation should measure closeness to necessity or closeness to sufficiency. In this paper, we argue that we should indeed endorse a proportionality principle and that this principle supports a notion of graded causation relying on closeness to sufficiency rather than closeness to necessity. Furthermore, we argue that this insight helps to provide a plausible analysis of the so-called ‘Moral Difference Puzzle’ recently described by Bernstein. (shrink)

A key challenge for probabilistic causal models is to distinguish non-causal probabilistic dependencies from true causal relations. To accomplish this task, causal models are usually required to satisfy several constraints. Two prominent constraints are the causal Markov condition and the faithfulness condition. However, other constraints are also needed. One of these additional constraints is the causal sufficiency condition, which states that models must not omit any direct common causes of the variables they contain. In this paper, I argue that the (...) causal sufficiency condition is problematic: (1) it is incompatible with the requirement that the variables in a model must not stand in non-causal necessary dependence relations, such as mathematical or conceptual relations, or relations described in terms of supervenience or grounding, (2) it presupposes more causal knowledge as primitive than is actually needed to create adequate causal models, and (3) if models are only required to be causally sufficient, they cannot deal with cases where variables are probabilistically related by accident, such as Sober’s example of the relationship between bread prices in England and the sea level in Venice. I show that these problems can be avoided if causal models are required to be monotonic in the following sense: the causal relations occurring in a model M would not disappear if further variables were added to M. I give a definition of this monotonicity condition and conclude that causal models should be required to be monotonic rather than causally sufficient. (shrink)

From the early reception of Thomas Aquinas up to the present, many have interpreted his theory of liberum arbitrium to imply intellectual determinism: we do not control our choices, because we do not control the practical judgments that cause our choices. In this paper we argue instead that he rejects determinism in general and intellectual determinism in particular, which would effectively destroy liberum arbitrium as he conceives of it. We clarify that for Aquinas moral responsibility presupposes liberum arbitrium and thus (...) the ability to do otherwise, although the ability to do otherwise applies differently to praise and blame. His argument against intellectual determinism is not straightforward, but we construct it by analogy to his arguments against other deterministic threats. The non-determinism of the intellect’s causality with respect to the will results from his claims that practical reasoning is defeasible and that the reasons for actions are not contrastive reasons. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, the capabilities approach has become an increasingly influential theory of development. It conceptualises human wellbeing in terms of an individual's ability to achieve functionings we have reason to value. In contrast, the African ethic of ubuntu views human flourishing as the propensity to pursue relations of fellowship with others, such that relationships have fundamental value. These two theoretical perspectives seem to be in tension with each other; while the capabilities approach focuses on individuals as the (...) locus of ethical value, an ubuntu ethic concentrates on the relations between individuals. In this article, we ask: to what extent is the capabilities approach compatible with this African ethical theory? We argue that, on reflection, relations play a much stronger role in the capabilities approach than often assumed. There is good reason to believe that relationality is part of the concept of a capability itself, where such relationality has intrinsic ethical value. This understanding of the ethical centrality of relations grounds new normative perspectives on the capabilities approach, and offers a more comprehensive grasp of the relevance of relationships to empirical enquiry. (shrink)

Medieval authors generally agreed that we have the freedom to choose among alternative possibilities. But most medieval authors also thought that there are situations in which one cannot do otherwise, not even will otherwise. They also thought when willing necessarily, the will remains free. The questions, then, are what grounds the necessity or contingency of the will’s acts, and – since freedom is not defined by the ability to choose – what belongs to the essential character of freedom, the ratio (...) libertatis. This article studies medieval theories of freedom without choice from William of Auxerre to William of Ockham and their background in Augustine, Anselm of Canterbury, and Bernard of Clairvaux. (shrink)

Author: Thomas Sören Hoffmann. Translated by Pedro Sepúlveda Zambrano.

Analyzing causation in terms of Woodward's interventionist theory and describing the structure of the world in terms of causal powers are usually regarded as quite different projects in contemporary philosophy. Interventionists aim to give an account of how causal relations can be empirically discovered and described, without committing themselves to views about what causation really is. Causal powers theorists engage in precisely the latter project, aiming to describe the metaphysical structure of the world. In this paper, I argue that interventionism (...) can benefit from incorporating considerations about causal powers. I describe a previously undiscussed problem for Woodward's definition of an intervention variable that arises when interventionist causal models include disjunctive variables. This problem is solved not by excluding disjunctive (or logically compound) variables per se, but by excluding variables whose values represent disjunctions of too different causal powers. This suggests that interventionism and causal powers theories may be less distant from each other than is often assumed. (shrink)

According to Field’s influential incompleteness objection, Tarski’s semantic theory of truth is unsatisfactory since the definition that forms its basis is incomplete in two distinct senses: (1) it is physicalistically inadequate, and for this reason, (2) it is conceptually deficient. In this paper, I defend the semantic theory of truth against the incompleteness objection by conceding (1) but rejecting (2). After arguing that Davidson and McDowell’s reply to the incompleteness objection fails to pass muster, I argue that, within the constraints (...) of a non-reductive physicalism and a holism concerning the concepts of truth, reference and meaning, conceding Field’s physicalistic inadequacy conclusion while rejecting his conceptual deficiency conclusion is a promising reply to the incompleteness objection. (shrink)

The superassertability theory of truth, inspired by Crispin Wright (1992, 2003), holds that a statement is true if and only if it is superassertable in the following sense: it possesses warrant that cannot be defeated by any improvement of our information. While initially promising, the superassertability theory of truth is vulnerable to a persistent difficulty highlighted by James Van Cleve (1996) and Terrence Horgan (1995) but not properly fleshed out: it is formally illegitimate in a similar sense that unsophisticated epistemic (...) theories of truth are widely acknowledged to be. Sustained analysis reveals that the unrestricted formal legitimacy argument is firmly grounded in first person conceivability evidence. (shrink)

One implication of Vetter's theory of modality is that necessity and possibility are regarded as unitary natural kinds. In this paper, I argue that from the perspective of the philosophy of causation, there are good reasons to distinguish between different kinds of necessity: causal necessity, which is nomologically necessary, and non-causal necessity, which is metaphysically necessary. One challenge for Vetter's approach is to explain this distinction.

A central tenet of Heil's ontological conception is a no-levels account of reality, according to which there is just one class of basic properties and relations, while all higher-level entities are configurations of these base-level entities. I argue that if this picture is not to collapse into an eliminativist picture of the world – which, I contend, should be avoided –, Heil's ontological framework has to be supplemented by an independent theory of which configurations of basic entities should count as (...) complex entities. However, such an amendment represents a substantial ontological enhancement, so that the ensuing ontological picture is not as parsimonious as Heil claims it to be. (shrink)

On rationalist infallibilism, a wide range of both (i) analytic and (ii) synthetic a priori propositions can be infallibly justified (or absolutely warranted), i.e., justified to a degree that entails their truth and precludes their falsity. Though rationalist infallibilism is indisputably running its course, adherence to at least one of the two species of infallible a priori justification refuses to disappear from mainstream epistemology. Among others, Putnam (1978) still professes the a priori infallibility of some category (i) propositions, while Burge (...) (1986, 1988, 1996) and Lewis (1996) have recently affirmed the a priori infallibility of some category (ii) propositions. In this paper, I take aim at rationalist infallibilism by calling into question the a priori infallibility of both analytic and synthetic propositions. The upshot will be twofold: first, rationalist infallibilism unsurprisingly emerges as a defective epistemological doctrine, and second, more importantly, the case for the a priori infallibility of one or both categories of propositions turns out to lack cogency. (shrink)

Engineers fine-tune the design of robot bodies for control purposes, however, a methodology or set of tools is largely absent, and optimization of morphology (shape, material properties of robot bodies, etc.) is lagging behind the development of controllers. This has become even more prominent with the advent of compliant, deformable or ”soft” bodies. These carry substantial potential regarding their exploitation for control—sometimes referred to as ”morphological computation”. In this article, we briefly review different notions of computation by physical systems and (...) propose the dynamical systems framework as the most useful in the context of describing and eventually designing the interactions of controllers and bodies. Then, we look at the pros and cons of simple vs. complex bodies, critically reviewing the attractive notion of ”soft” bodies automatically taking over control tasks. We address another key dimension of the design space—whether model-based control should be used and to what extent it is feasible to develop faithful models for different morphologies. (shrink)

Gerade weil das Bestehen auf Rangordnungen in der heutigen Gesellschaft anstößig und fremd wirkt, ist es lohnenswert, sich ihnen mit Nietzsche neu zu stellen, der sie als sein Problem bezeichnete. Er richtet sie gezielt gegen die Gleichheit, von der er befürchtet, ihr Anspruch auf Universalität verunmögliche Individualität, Anders-Sein und damit auch alle Größe. Den moralischen Wert der Gleichheit kritisieren heißt nicht, sich von demokratischen Grundprinzipien oder Errungenschaften zu verabschieden. Geklärte Rangverhältnisse reduzieren Komplexität, vereinfachen die Kommunikation, machen Verhalten erwartbar und vereinfachen (...) so die Orientierung. So könnte gerade in den modernen Ausprägungen der Demokratie ein offenerer Umgang mit Rangordnungen zu ihrer Stärkung beitragen. Die Nietzsche-Forschung hat eine Beschäftigung mit dem Begriff bisher weitgehend vermieden. Alberts schließt diese Forschungslücke. Er geht persönlichen, philologischen und philosophischen Anhaltspunkten für Nietzsches Denken nach und untersucht die Perspektiven, die dabei auf verschiedenste Lebensbereiche wie Natur, Religion, Moral, Wissenschaft und Interindividualität eröffnet werden. (shrink)

“Doğal din” terimi, bazen doğanın kendisinin ilahi olduğu bir panteistik doktrine atıfta bulunur. “Doğal teoloji” terimi ise aksine, başlangıçta gözlemlenen doğal gerçekler temelinde (ve bazen) Tanrı’nın varlığını savunmaya yönelik projeye atıfta bulunur. Bununla birlikte çağdaş felsefede, hem “doğal din” hem de “doğal teoloji” genel olarak, dinî veya teolojik konuları araştırmak için insana, “doğal” olan bilişsel yetilerini – akıl, algı, içgözlem- kullanma projesini ifade eder. Doğal din veya teoloji, mevcut anlayış üzerine, doğayla ilgili ampirik araştırmalarla sınırlı olmamakla birlikte ayrıca panteistik bir (...) sonuçla da bağlantılı değildir. Bununla birlikte o, özel doğal olmayan yetilere (ESP, telepati, mistik deneyim) veya doğaüstü bilgi kaynaklarına (kutsal metinler, vahiy teolojisi, inanç otoriteleri, doğrudan doğaüstü iletişim) hitap etmekten kaçınır. Genel olarak, doğal din veya teoloji (bundan böyle “doğal teoloji” olarak anılacaktır), diğer felsefi ve bilimsel girişimlerle aynı rasyonel inceleme standartlarına uymayı amaçlamaktadır ve aynı değerlendirme ve eleştiri yöntemlerine tabidir. (shrink)

Güvenilirci (reliabilist) bilgi teorisi, çağdaş epistemik gerekçelendirme kuramları içerisinde, dışsalcı (externalist) kuramın bir türü olarak kendisine yer bulmaktadır. Kısaca, bir inancı gerekçelendiren şeyin o inancın oluşturulduğu sürecin güvenilirliği olduğunu öne süren bu yaklaşım, bu bilişsel süreçleri özne dışı unsurlara bağladığı içinde dışsalcı bir pozisyonda yer almaktadır. Bu bilgi teorisinin tam karşı konumunda yer alan içselci (internalist) bilgi teorisi ise, özne merkezli bir yaklaşımla, doğru inancı gerekçelendirecek yöntemin, kişinin kendi zihinsel yapısından yola çıkarak, belli kognitif süreçler sonucunda ulaşılabileceğini öne sürmektedir. Epistemik (...) gerekçelendirme kuramları içerisinde birçok tartışmada kendisine yer bulan bu iki bilgi teorisi, kendi içerisinde de birçok farklı kurama kapı aralamıştır. Burada içselci bilgi teorisinden ortaya çıkan erişim içselciliği, farkındalık içselciliği gibi kuramları ve dışsalcı bilgi teorisinden ortaya çıkan süreç güvenilirciliği, gösterge güvenilirciliği ve erdem güvenilirciliği gibi farklı türden kuramları örnek olarak verebiliriz. Öte yandan çağdaş epistemolojideki bu tartışmalar, dini epistemoloji içerisinde de kendisine yer bulmuştur. Özellikle Alvin Plantinga, kendi dini epistemolojisi içerisinde dışsalcı bir tutum sergilemiş ve son dönem çalışmaları içerisinde de güvenilirci bir anlayışla Tanrı inancının epistemik mahiyetini ortaya koymaya çalışmıştır. Bu makalede öncelikle dışsalclık ve onun bir türü olan güvenilirci bilgi anlayışını ve bu kuramlara getirilen eleştirileri ele almaya çalışacağız, daha sonra A. Plantinga’nın son dönem dini epistemolojisinin de yönünü belirleyen güvence (warrant) kavramını açıklayıp, bu kavramın bütün teist dinlere uygulanabilirliğini sorgulayacağız. (shrink)

This article offers comprehensive criticism of the Turing test and develops quality criteria for new artificial general intelligence (AGI) assessment tests. It is shown that the prerequisites A. Turing drew upon when reducing personality and human consciousness to “suitable branches of thought” re-flected the engineering level of his time. In fact, the Turing “imitation game” employed only symbolic communication and ignored the physical world. This paper suggests that by restricting thinking ability to symbolic systems alone Turing unknowingly constructed “the wall” (...) that excludes any possi-bility of transition from a complex observable phenomenon to an abstract image or concept. It is, therefore, sensible to factor in new requirements for AI (artificial intelligence) maturity assessment when approaching the Tu-ring test. Such AI must support all forms of communication with a human being, and it should be able to comprehend abstract images and specify con-cepts as well as participate in social practices. (shrink)

The human self has many facets: there is the physical body and then there are different concepts or representations supported by processes in the brain such as the ecological, social, temporal, conceptual, and experiential self. The mechanisms of operation and formation of the self are, however, largely unknown. The basis is constituted by the ecological or sensorimotor self that deals with the configuration of the body in space and its action possibilities. This self is prereflective, prelinguistic, and initially perhaps even (...) largely independent of visual inputs. Instead, somatosensory (tactile and proprioceptive) information both before and after birth may play a key part. In this paper, we propose that self-touch experience may be a fundamental mechanisms to bootstrap the formation of the sensorimotor self and perhaps even beyond. We will investigate this from the perspectives of phenomenology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience. In light of the evidence from fetus and infant development, we will speculate about the possible mechanisms that may drive the formation of first body representations drawing on self-touch experience. (shrink)

W niniejszym artykule opisany i zbadany został jeden z wyznaczników dowcipu słownego, jakim jest szeroko pojęta wieloznaczność. Technika wykorzystywana w przypadku dowcipu polisemicznego polega na neutralizacji czynników, które sygnalizują w tekście różne znaczenia każdego wieloznacznego wyrazu. Elementem wyodrębniającym jedno konkretne znaczenie jest kontekst, czyli najbliższe leksykalne lub syntaktyczne otoczenie wyrazu kluczowego. W przypadku dowcipu polisemantycznego kompozycja kontekstu charakteryzuje się dużą różnorodnością – kontekst jest maksymalnie neutralny i sygnalizuje znaczenie, które nie może być zrealizowane.

Modal ontolojik argüman, Tanrı’nın varlığını sadece bilfiil gerçek olan bu dünyada değil, bütün mümkün dünyalarda göstermeye yönelik bir argümandır. Anselm’in (1033-1109) Proslogion adlı eserinin 3. bölümünde “kendisinden daha büyüğü düşünülemeyen” şeklinde tanımlanan; Tanrı’nın var olmamasının da düşünülemeyeceğini, bu yüzden de varolmamasının imkansızlığı üzerinde kurulu yeni bir argüman bulunduğunu öne süren bazı araştırmacılar, bu argümanı mümkün dünyalar semantiği yardımıyla formüle edip, “modal ontolojik argüman” şeklinde adlandırmışlardır. Çok farklı şekillerde formüle edilmiş bu argüman kabaca Tanrı’nın mümkünse zorunlu olması, dolayısıyla bilfiil gerçek olan (...) bu dünyada da var olması gerektiğini savunur. (shrink)

Çağdaş epistemoloji içerisinde, dışsalcı, güvenilirci ve erdeme dayalı epistemolojik tartışmaların bir benzerini, dini epistemoloji içerisinde etkili bir şekilde yer edinen ve reformcu epistemoloji olarak bilinen yaklaşım üzerinden görebilmek mümkündür. Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff ve William Alston gibi filozofların öne çıktığı bu yaklaşımın ana iddiası, kanıta ya da argümana dayanmaksızın, Tanrı’nın varlığına inanmanın bütünüyle doğru, rasyonel, makul ve güvenilir olacağı şeklindeki bir tezdir. Kanıtın, gerekçelendirme için zorunlu bir koşul olmadığı fikri, algısal deneyimlerin gerekçelendirilmesine benzer şekilde, dini deneyimlerin de öyle olduğu ve (...) dolayısıyla, aynı epistemik statüye sahip olması gerektiğini öne süren, eşitlik tezine dayanır. İlk ortaya çıktığı günden bugüne, üzerinde çokça konuşulan ve tartışılan bir yaklaşım olan reformcu epistemoloji, özellikle son beş yıl içerisinde, oldukça farklı bir hale gelmiştir. Zira bu yaklaşımı, kanıtsalcılıkla uyumlu, erdem epistemolojisiyle bağlantılı ve diğer teistik dinler üzerinden değerlendiren yeni çalışmalar ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu nedenle, bu makalede, reformcu epistemoloji ana hatlarıyla ele alınmıştır. Beraberinde, ona yöneltilen itirazlara değinilmiş ve sonrasında, bahsi geçen yenilik iddiaları soruşturulmaya çalışılmıştır. Son olarak, teistik inancın rasyonalitesiyle ilgili, farklı bir bakış açısı sunulmuştur. (shrink)

The contribution of the body to cognition and control in natural and artificial agents is increasingly described as “off-loading computation from the brain to the body”, where the body is said to perform “morphological computation”. Our investigation of four characteristic cases of morphological computation in animals and robots shows that the ‘off-loading’ perspective is misleading. Actually, the contribution of body morphology to cognition and control is rarely computational, in any useful sense of the word. We thus distinguish (1) morphology that (...) facilitates control, (2) morphology that facilitates perception and the rare cases of (3) morphological computation proper, such as ‘reservoir computing.’ where the body is actually used for computation. This result contributes to the understanding of the relation between embodiment and computation: The question for robot design and cognitive science is not whether computation is offloaded to the body, but to what extent the body facilitates cognition and control – how it contributes to the overall ‘orchestration’ of intelligent behaviour. (shrink)

A large body of compelling evidence has been accumulated demonstrating that embodiment – the agent’s physical setup, including its shape, materials, sensors and actuators – is constitutive for any form of cognition and as a consequence, models of cognition need to be embodied. In contrast to methods from empirical sciences to study cognition, robots can be freely manipulated and virtually all key variables of their embodiment and control programs can be systematically varied. As such, they provide an extremely powerful tool (...) of investigation. We present a robotic bottom-up or developmental approach, focusing on three stages: (a) low-level behaviors like walking and reflexes, (b) learning regularities in sensorimotor spaces, and (c) human-like cognition. We also show that robotic based research is not only a productive path to deepening our understanding of cognition, but that robots can strongly benefit from human-like cognition in order to become more autonomous, robust, resilient, and safe. (shrink)

Mitos ve Logos kavramları Antik Yunan uygarlığında söz kavramına karşılık gelen sözcükleri karşılamak için kullanılmıştır. Felsefe tarihinin başlangıcı için yapılan tanımlamalarda ise mitos kavramının yerine logos kavramının tercih edilmesi iki kavram arasında bir farklılığı ortaya koymak için yapılmaktadır. Bu ayrımın nedeni ise mitos’un daha çok dinsel içerikle anılması logos’un ise içerisinde bir tür akılsallık barındırması şeklindeki yorumlarda kendini göstermektedir. Ancak söz konusu ayrımın ilk doğa filozofu/ilk felsefeci olarak nitelendirilen Thales için geçerli olup olmadığı geçmişte olduğu gibi günümüzde de halen tartışılmaktadır. (...) Felsefe tarihi yazımlarında ilk sıraya konan Thales’in anılan kavramları gerçekten farklı şekilde yorumlayıp yorumlamadığı bizce de tartışmaya açık bir husustur. Bu açıdan bakıldığında Thales, söz konusu kavramları iki farklı problemler alanı olarak mı görmüştür? Onun düşüncelerinde kendinden önceki mitolojik mirasın izleri bulunabilir mi? O, katışıksız bir rasyonel midir, yoksa henüz felsefenin yeni filizlendiği bir toplumda bir ara basamağı mı temsil etmektedir? Bu makalenin içerisinde tartışacağımız bu sorular, felsefe tarihinin başlangıcına ilişkin kavramsal arka planın ne olduğu hakkında bize katkı sağlayacaktır. (shrink)

This paper offers a review of the catalogue composed by Myriam Vogelaar of one of the largest and most important collections of Fight Books and fencing manuals in the field of Historical European Martial Arts Studies (HEMAS). The Mokken Collection is named after Wiebe Mokken, the man who meticulously built it up over the past decades in Amsterdam. The book also highlights the glaring lack of contemporary knowlegde about other major historical fencing-related collections, like Gotti’s spectacular private collection held at (...) the Museo dell Arte Marziale in Brescia, Italy. Others, such as the Corble collection at the KU Leuven Libraries, recently published their catalogue on line. This catalogue thus constitutes an important milestone for this exciting and still relatively new subdomain in the field of European cultural studies, by making accessible one of the most important collections of source materials dedicated to it. (shrink)

Hristiyan inancı içerisinde merkezi konuma sahip olan mevzulardan birisi de, İsa’nın ölümünden üç gün sonra diriltildiğine yönelik olan inançtır. Hristiyan eskatolojisinin de dayanak noktasını oluşturan bu mevzu, dinler tarihi ya da teoloji gibi disiplinlerin içerisinde tartışıldığı gibi, çeşitli Hristiyan düşünürlerce, din felsefesi disiplini içerisinde de tartışılmıştır. Din felsefesi açısından bakıldığında, konunun merkezi konumda olması, bu mevzunun rasyonel bir zeminde tartışılıp tartışılamayacağını da beraberinde getirmektedir. Bu bağlamda, özellikle din felsefesi içerisinde birçok Hristiyan düşünür tarafından konu ele alınmış ve farklı çevrelerce de (...) mevzuya yönelik karşı itirazlar dile getirilmiştir. Bu noktada yapılan tartışmaların içeriğine baktığımızda, mucize kavramı önem taşımakla birlikte, Hristiyan düşünürlerin argüman haline getirdikleri ve bir delil olarak öne sürdükleri “Boş mezar” ve “Tanıklıklar gibi birçok farklı husususun din felsefesi açısından tartışıldığını söyleyebiliriz. Ayrıca bazı ateist düşünürlerin bu delillere yönelik itirazları olmakla birlikte, bazı Hristiyan tarihçilerinde konuya ilişkin ciddi itirazları bulunmaktadır. Biz de bu makalemizde, İsa’nın ölümünden sonra dirilişinin rasyonel bir şekilde izahının nasıl olabileceği sorusunu merkeze alıp, konuyu Hristiyan düşünürlerin bakış açısından değerlendirmeye çalıştık. Bu noktada İslam gibi farklı dinlerde ve farklı anlatılarda karşımıza çıkan Hz. İsa figürünü konumuzun dışında tuttuğumuzu ayrıca belirtelim. Çünkü bizim yazımızın konusunu oluşturan kişi Hristiyan inancındaki İsa ve bu din içerisinde önem taşıyan kutsal metinler ve bu metinlerde geçen anlatılar oldu. Bu açıdan bakıldığında yazımız içerisinde, konuya ilişkin doğrudan bir teoloji ya da dinler tarihi çerçevesinde değerlendirme yapmaktan çok, din felsefesi içerisinde bize sunulan tartışmalardan yola çıkarak eleştirilerimizi ve tahlillerimizi dile getirmeye çalıştığımızı ifade edebiliriz. (shrink)

This bibliography contains primary and secondary literature on Duns Scotus and Scotism.

In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences. Some authors in medical ethics even speak of a new phase in the history of ethics, hailing "empirical ethics" as a logical next step in the development of practical ethics after the turn to "applied ethics." The name empirical ethics is ill-chosen because of its associations with "descriptive ethics." Unlike descriptive (...) ethics, however, empirical ethics aims to be both descriptive and normative. The first question on which I focus is what kind of empirical research is used by empirical ethics and for which purposes. I argue that the ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the context-sensitivity of ethics. The second question is whether empirical ethics is essentially connected with specific positions in meta-ethics. I show that in some kinds of meta-ethical theories, which I categorize as broad contextualist theories, there is an intrinsic need for connecting normative ethics with empirical social research. But context-sensitivity is a goal that can be aimed for from any meta-ethical position. (shrink)

In Necessary Beings, Bob Hale addresses two questions: What is the source of necessity? What is the source of our knowledge of it? He offers novel responses to them in terms of the metaphysical notion of nature or, more familiarly, essence. In this paper, I address Hale’s response to the first question. My assessment is negative. I argue that his essentialist explanation of the source of necessity suffers from three significant shortcomings. First, Hale’s leading example of an essentialist explanation merely (...) asserts that the nature of an entity explains some necessity, but leaves unexplained how it does so. Second, his essentialist explanation of particular necessities introduces new necessities that remain unexplained. Third, Hale’s version of essentialism presupposes a controversial metaphysical theory of properties, for which he offers no defense. (shrink)

Rationalists often argue that empiricism is incoherent and conclude, on that basis, that some knowledge is a priori. I contend that such arguments against empiricism cannot be parlayed into an argument in support of the a priori since rationalism is open to the same arguments. I go on to offer an alternative strategy. The leading idea is that, instead of offering a priori arguments against empiricism, rationalists should marshal empirical support for their position.

Debates over the reality of race often rely on arguments about the connection between race and science—those who deny that race is real argue that there is no significant support from science for our ordinary race concepts; those who affirm that race is real argue that our ordinary race concepts are supported by scientific findings. However, there is arguably a more fundamental concern here: How should we define race concepts in the first place? The reason I claim that this definitional (...) question is more fundamental is that our handling of the underlying definitional problem often determines the scientific support our ordinary race concepts need, and importantly the likelihood of finding such support. In short, the defini- tional question, “How do we define race?” often undercuts the question of whether race is scientifically meaningful. (shrink)

This paper addresses a family of issues surrounding the biological phenomenon of resistance and its representation in realist ontologies. The treatments of resistance terms in various existing ontologies are examined and found to be either overly narrow, internally inconsistent, or otherwise problematic. We propose a more coherent characterization of resistance in terms of what we shall call blocking dispositions, which are collections of mutually coordinated dispositions which are of such a sort that they cannot undergo simultaneous realization within a single (...) bearer. A definition of ‘protective resistance’ is proposed for use in the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) and we show how this definition can be used to characterize the antibiotic resistance in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The ontological relations between entities in our MRSA case study are used alongside a series of logical inference rules to illustrate logical reasoning about resistance. A description logic representation of blocking dispositions is also provided. We demonstrate that our characterization of resistance is sufficiently general to cover two other cases of resistance in the infectious disease domain involving HIV and malaria. (shrink)

The study of race and racism is an area of growth in philosophy. The quantity of research published under the banner of ‘the philosophy of race’ is increasing; research monographs and edited collections are appearing in greater numbers, and there is even a noticeable though still lamentably small increase in the number of professional posi- tions being advertised in the philosophy of race. However, one notable feature of this research is how much it focuses upon the racial context of the (...) USA. Most of its active and prominent researchers are based in the USA, nearly all new posts with designated research specialisms in race are at universities in the USA, and most of its key research questions are framed in the racial idiom and social context of the contemporary USA. In many respects, this is a good thing: if the philosophy of race cannot find fertile ground in the USA, there is little hope of it flourishing anywhere. However, this emphasis on the US context may have a negative side too. (shrink)

“1950’li yıllarda dönemin büyük felsefecileri arasında dinsel inancı savunan bir kişi bile yoktu. 1990’lı yıllarda Yale’den UCLA’ya, Oxford’dan Heidelberg’e kadar birçok yerde insanın manevi yanını savunan ve geliştiren yüzlerce kitap yazılacak, sel olup akacaktı. Aradaki 40 yıllık süre zarfındaysa sadece ve sadece Alvin Plantinga vardı.” Kelly James Clark Tanrı’nın veya tanrıların varlığı sorusu felsefenin ezeli sorularından biri olagelmişse de Nietzsche’nin Tanrı’nın ölümünü ilan ettiği günden bu yana onu doğrularcasına yaşanan acılar, savaşlar, kötülükler bu konudaki tartışmaların sesini uzun süre bastırdı. Ama (...) özellikle yüzyılın ikinci yarısından sonra palazlanan analitik felsefede meydana gelen “metafiziğe dönüş”, dine yakınlık duyan, en azından dinle ilgilenen filozofların tekrar Yahudi-Hıristiyan ve İslam geleneklerinde anlaşıldığı şekliyle Tanrı’nın varlığına duyulan inancın gerekçelerini yeniden değerlendirmelerine, konuya yeni bir bakış ve araçlarla bakmalarına vesile oldu. Alvin Plantinga’nın bu kitabı, yayımlandığı tarihten itibaren “analitik din felsefesi” alanının da en önemli ve sarsıcı eserlerinden biri hâline geldi ve Tanrı’nın ölmediğini ilan etti. Anselmus’tan Hume’a, Kant ve pozitivistlerden John Mackie gibi modern ateologlara kadar felsefe geleneğiyle hesaplaşan Plantinga, bu abidevi çalışmasında ontolojik, kozmolojik ve teleolojik tanrı kanıtlamalarının eski ve yeni biçimlerinin çıkmazlarını, meziyetlerini ve sunduğu imkânları değerlendiriyor. Tanrı’nın varlığına duyulan inanç ile diğer insanların varlığına ve zihinlerine duyulan inanç arasındaki şaşırtıcı ve sarsıcı bağlantıyı ortaya koyuyor. (shrink)

In my paper, I develop a phenomenological and pragmatist reflection on the fragility of liberal democracy’s moral foundations in times of war. Following Judith Shklar’s conception of the “liberalism of fear”, the legitimacy of the liberal-democratic order is seen as grounded in experiences of suffering caused by political violence. It is also assumed that the liberalism of fear delivers an adequate conception of the normative foundations of the European project. With the help of phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (...) and Michel Henry, the paper ants to philosophically deepen the liberalism of fear by outlining a theory of “pathic evidence” as a normative foundation and the concept of a common “flesh of the political” as a shared moral sensitivity that sets boundaries to political conflict as well as the political imaginary, excluding what I call the production of “monumental meaning”. It then examines the question which political conditions are needed for this evidence to become a shared, communal criteria of ethical thought, and considers inner and outer challenges to the transmission and reproduction of this evidence in time, drawing especially on John Dewey’s ideas of democratic communication and social intelligence. In the current war, the following problem appears as crucial for the “soul” of European democracies which are confronted with the need to respond to Russia’s attack: How can a political morality grounded in pathic evidence be sustained, once it is challenged by an aggressor who, out of cultural and political reasons, shows a higher level of toleration towards violence? Besides aggression from an external foe, there are also temporal dynamics that further the loss of the inhibiting force of pathic evidence from the inside. As it shall be argued, boredom can be such a factor. The paper concludes by drawing conclusions for the current war in Ukraine. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess different interpretations of Bohmian mechanics that are not committed to an ontology based on the wave function being an actual physical object that inhabits configuration space. More specifically, my aim is to explore the connection between the denial of configuration space realism and another interpretive debate that is specific to Bohmian mechanics: the quantum potential versus guidance approaches. Whereas defenders of the quantum potential approach to the theory claim that Bohmian mechanics is better formulated (...) as quasi-Newtonian, via the postulation of forces proportional to acceleration; advocates of the guidance approach defend the notion that the theory is essentially first-order and incorporates some concepts akin to those of Aristotelian physics. Here I analyze whether the desideratum of an interpretation of Bohmian mechanics that is both explanatorily adequate and not committed to configuration space realism favors one of these two approaches to the theory over the other. Contrary to some recent claims in the literature, I argue that the quasi-Newtonian approach based on the idea of a quantum potential does not come out the winner. (shrink)

Albert Musschenga | : The central question of this article is, Are animals morally responsible for what they do? Answering this question requires a careful, step-by-step argument. In sections 1 and 2, I explain what morality is, and that having a morality means following moral rules or norms. In sections 3 and 4, I argue that some animals show not just regularities in their social behaviour, but can be rightly said to follow social norms. But are the norms they (...) follow also moral norms? In section 5, I contend, referring to the work of Shaun Nichols, that the basic moral competences or capacities are already present in nonhuman primates. Following moral rules or norms is more than just acting in accordance to these norms; it requires being motivated by moral rules. I explain, in section 6, referring to Mark Rowlands, that being capable of moral motivation does not require agency; being a moral subject is sufficient. Contrary to moral agents, moral subjects are not responsible for their behaviour. Stating that there are important similarities between animal moral behaviour and human, unconscious, automatic, habitual behaviour, I examine in section 7 whether humans are responsible for their habitual moral behaviour, and if they are, what then the grounds are for denying that moral animals are responsible for their behaviour. The answer is that humans are responsible for their habitual behaviour if they have the capacity for deliberate intervention. Although animals are capable of intervention in their habitual behaviour, they are not capable of deliberate intervention. | : La question centrale dans cet article est celle de savoir si les animaux sont moralement responsables de ce qu’ils font. Répondre à cette question nécessite une argumentation minutieuse et progressive. Dans les sections 1 et 2, j’explique ce qu’est la moralité, et qu’être doté de moralité signifie de se conformer à des règles ou à des normes morales. Dans les sections 3 et 4, je pose que certains animaux ne se contentent pas de montrer des régularités dans leur comportement social, mais qu’ils suivent aussi véritablement des normes sociales. Toutefois, les normes qu’ils suivent sont-elles morales? Dans la section 5, je prétends, en me référant aux travaux de Shaun Nichols, que les compétences ou capacités morales de base sont déjà présentes chez les primates non humains. Respecter des règles ou des normes morales est bien plus que d’agir conformément à ces normes; cela requiert d’être motivé par des règles morales. Dans la section 6, me référant à Mark Rowlands, j’explique que d’être capable de motivation morale ne nécessite pas d’être un agent moral; le fait d’être un sujet moral suffit. Contrairement aux agents moraux, les sujets moraux ne sont pas responsables de leur comportement. Affirmant qu’il y a de grandes similitudes entre le comportement moral d’un animal et le comportement inconscient, automatique et habituel d’un humain, je me penche, dans la section 7, sur la question de savoir si les humains sont responsables de leur comportement moral habituel, et si tel est le cas, sur quelle base on peut alors nier le fait que les animaux sont eux aussi responsables de leur comportement. La réponse à cette question est que les humains sont responsables de leur comportement habituel s’ils disposent d’une capacité d’intervention réfléchie, délibérée. Bien que les animaux soient capables d’intervenir dans leurs comportements habituels, ils ne peuvent le faire de manière réfléchie, délibérée. (shrink)

Although the index is one of the best known features of Peirce's theory of signs there is little appreciation of Peirce's theory of the index amongst contemporary philosophers of language. Amongst Peirce scholars, the value placed on Peirce's account is greater, but is largely based on Thomas Goudge's paper, "Peirce's Index" (Goudge, 1965). Despite marking a crucial milestone in our comprehension of Peirce's theory, our understanding of indices and indexical reference has grown markedly over the last forty years. Time has (...) now come, then, to develop the work that Goudge began and to provide a full analysis of Peirce's account that makes its value to the philosophy of language clear. I undertake this enterprise here. (shrink)

A repository of clinically associated Staphylococcus aureus (Sa) isolates is used to semi‐automatically generate a set of application ontologies for specific subfamilies of Sa‐related disease. Each such application ontology is compatible with the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) and uses resources from the Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry. The set of application ontologies forms a lattice structure beneath the IDO‐Core and IDO‐extension reference ontologies. We show how this lattice can be used to define a strategy for the construction of a new (...) taxonomy of infectious disease incorporating genetic, molecular, and clinical data. We also outline how faceted browsing and query of annotated data is supported using a lattice application ontology. (shrink)

The distinction between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge has come under attack in the recent literature by Philip Kitcher, John Hawthorne, C. S. Jenkins, and Timothy Williamson. Evaluating the attacks requires answering two questions. First, have they hit their target? Second, are they compelling? My goal is to argue that the attacks fail because they miss their target. Since the attacks are directed at a particular concept or distinction, they must accurately locate the target concept or distinction. Accurately (...) locating the target concept or distinction requires correctly articulating that concept or distinction. The attacks miss their target because they fail to correctly articulate the target concept or distinction. I go on to present a different challenge to the a priori-a posteriori distinction. This challenge is not directed at the coherence or significance of the distinction. Its target is the traditional view that all knowledge (or justified belief) is either a priori or a posteriori. (shrink)

This paper addresses the use of dispositions in the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO). IDO is an ontology constructed according to the principles of the Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry and uses the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) as an upper ontology. After providing a brief introduction to disposition types in BFO and IDO, we discuss three general techniques for representing combinations of dispositions under the headings blocking dispositions, complementary dispositions, and collective dispositions. Motivating examples for each combination of dispositions is given (...) along with a specific use case in IDO. Description logic restrictions are used to formalize statements relating to these combinations. (shrink)

The article discusses the main trends in the development of artificial intelligence systems and robotics (AI&R). The main question that is considered in this context is whether artificial systems are going to become more and more anthropomorphic, both intellectually and physically. In the current article, the author analyzes the current state and prospects of technological development of artificial intelligence and robotics, and also determines the main aspects of the impact of these technologies on society and economy, indicating the geopolitical strategic (...) nature of this influence. The author considers various approaches to the definition of artificial intelligence and robotics, focusing on the subject-oriented and functional ones. It also compares AI&R abilities and human abilities in areas such as categorization, pattern recognition, planning and decision making, etc. Based on this comparison, we investigate in which areas AI&R’s performance is inferior to a human, and in which cases it is superior to one. The modern achievements in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence create the necessary basis for further discussion of the applicability of goal setting in engineering, in the form of a Turing test. It is shown that development of AI&R is associated with certain contradictions that impede the application of Turing’s methodology in its usual format. The basic contradictions in the development of AI&R technologies imply that there is to be a transition to a post-Turing methodology for assessing engineering implementations of artificial intelligence and robotics. In such implementations, on the one hand, the ‘Turing wall’ is removed, and on the other hand, artificial intelligence gets its physical implementation. (shrink)