Debates about political correctness often proceed as if proponents see nothing to fear in erecting norms that inhibit expression on the one side, and opponents see nothing but misguided efforts to silence political enemies on the other.1 Both views are mistaken. Political correctness, as I argue, is an important attempt to advance the legitimate interests of certain groups in the public sphere. However, this type of norm comes with costs that mustn’t be neglected–sometimes in the form of conflict with other (...) values we hold dear, but often by creating an internal schism that threatens us with collective irrationality. Political correctness thus sets up dilemmas I wish to set out (but not, alas, resolve). The cliché is that political correctness tramples on rights to free-speech, as if the potential loss were merely expressive; the real issue is that in filtering public discourse, political correctness may defeat our own substantive aims. (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)

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.

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)

Der vorliegende Forschungsband möchte der kulturelle Bedeutung der Ersten Republik und deren Leistungen einen gebührenden Platz einräumen. Während sich nämlich Wiener Moderne und Weimarer Republik heute einer fortdauernden Aufmerksamkeit erfreuen, sind die Kultur der Ersten Republik und hier vorab des soziokulturellen Laboratoriums Wien – vermutlich schon in der Wahrnehmung vieler Zeitgenossinnen und Zeitgenossen unterbelichtet geblieben. Versammelt sind Beiträge zur Volksbildung im Roten Wien, zu Architektur und Stadtplanung, zu neuen Diskursen in der Psychoanalyse oder zur Neuorientierung Musils nach 1918, die später (...) zu seinem epochalen Roman »Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften« führen wird. Was ihn von anderen Publikationen unterscheidet, ist ein komparatistischer Aspekt, der etwa im Vergleich zwischen der Revolution 1918 in Wien und Österreich und der (kurzlebigen) Räterepublik in Ungarn aber auch in der Analyse der ungarischen Medien in der Zwischenkriegszeit zum Ausdruck kommt. Durch diese erhellenden Vergleiche fällt neues Licht auf die spezifische Besonderheit der Ersten Republik und der Situation im Roten Wien. (shrink)

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)

Does Normative Behaviourism Offer an Alternative Methodology in Political Theory?

My paper aims to outline the concept of the pathic foundation of political institutions. I depart from the observation of a lack of clarity concerning the resources of institutional stability in the work of Chantal Mouffe and the proponents of agonistic democracy. Drawing from the ideas of Claude Lefort and Carl von Clausewitz, I sketch the idea that the experience of confict itself generates the moral and epistemic groundings that legitimize and stabilize its institutional regulations. It is within the pathic (...) experience of exhaustion in the face of the results of escalating confict that a common ground of legitimacy is reached. The bulk of my paper is dedicated to the phenomenological analysis of the foundational pathic experience, of the pathic disposition of political subjectivity resulting from it, and of its institutional manifestations. (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)

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)

This is PhD thesis submitted to Institute Philosophy of Russian Academy of Science in March 2021.

In this article I examine the consequences of the dominance of intuitive thinking in moral judging and deciding for the role of moral reasoning in moral education. I argue that evidence for the reliability of moral intuitions is lacking. We cannot determine when we can trust our intuitive moral judgements. Deliberate and critical reasoning is needed, but it cannot replace intuitive thinking. Following Robin Hogarth, I argue that intuitive judgements can be improved. The expertise model for moral development, proposed by (...) Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, not only teaches us how we acquire intuitive moral judgements, it also shows the interconnectedness of intuitive thinking and deliberate reasoning. Analysing the expertise model in more detail, I show that it cannot do justice to the importance of reasoning skills. Reasoning skills are needed because we expect people to be able to argue for their standpoints. I conclude that moral education should not only aim at improving intuitive moral judgements, but also at acquiring reasoning skills. (shrink)

Christopher Hill contends that the metaphysical modalities can be reductively explained in terms of the subjunctive conditional and that this reductive explanation yields two tests for determining the metaphysical modality of a proposition. He goes on to argue that his reductive account of the metaphysical modalities in conjunction with his account of modal knowledge underwrites the further conclusion that conceivability does not provide a reliable test for metaphysical possibility. I argue (1) that Hill’s reductive explanation of the metaphysical modalities in (...) terms of the subjunctive conditional does not yield a reductive explanation of knowledge of metaphysical modality in terms of knowledge of subjunctive conditionals, and (2) that his account of modal knowledge is at odds with his contention that conceivability does not provide epistemic access to metaphysical possibility. (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)

In this paper I examine parallels between C.S. Peirce's most mature account of signs and contemporary philosophy of language. I do this by first introducing a summary of Peirce's final account of Signs. I then use that account of signs to reconstruct Peircian answers to two puzzles of reference: The Problem of Cognitive Significance, or Frege's Puzzle; and The Same-Saying Phenomenon for Indexicals. Finally, a comparison of these Peircian answers with both Fregean and Direct Referentialist approaches to the puzzles highlights (...) interesting parallels and important differences between Peirce's final account of signs, and the concepts used in analytic philosophy of language. (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)

According to some proponents of an empirical medical ethics, medical ethics should take the experience, insights, and arguments of doctors and other medical practitioners as their point of departure. Medical practitioners are supposed to have ‘moral wisdom.’ In this view, the moral beliefs of medical practitioners have a special status. In sections I-IV, I discuss two possible defences of such a status. The first defence is based on the special status of the moral beliefs of the health professional as an (...) expert in medical ethics, and the second defence on the special status of the health professional’s moral beliefs as a practitioner. The first defence is built up around the opposition between experts and laypersons, while the second defence rests on the opposition between practitioners and theorists. In sections V and VI, I examine the interrelations between empirical ethics and anti-theory in ethics. Some regard empirical ethics as a laudable alternative to theory-driven normative ethics. I explore their objections against ethical theory and ethical theorising, and conclude that they are not valid. In the last section, VII, I discuss the role of ethicists in medical practice. (shrink)

A. Efimov, D. Dubrovsky, and F. Matveev explore limitations on the development of AI presented by the need to understand language and be embodied.

Policy-making must always pay attention to race. That is the central claim of this chapter. Regardless of whether some particular policy debate is ostensibly “racial”, policy-makers must attend to questions of race, because race is a ubiquitous, but frequently unnoticed, feature of our world. I examine the type of philosophical question about race that I think philosophers and policy-makers would do well to examine and consider how the question “What is race?” is pertinent to policy debate. Examples will be drawn (...) from Australia, the United States, and Britain to illustrate these abstract arguments. (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)

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)

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)

We can say that we understand neural networks then and only then if you will come to me and say that the best model ever for some task has a 100 layers, and I will answer "No! 101 layers model is the best!".

There is an ongoing debate in animalethics on the meaning and scope of animalwelfare. In certain broader views, leading anatural life through the development of naturalcapabilities is also headed under the conceptof animal welfare. I argue that a concern forthe development of natural capabilities of ananimal such as expressed when living freelyshould be distinguished from the preservationof the naturalness of its behavior andappearance. However, it is not always clearwhere a plea for natural living changes overinto a plea for the preservation (...) of theirnaturalness or wildness. In the first part ofthis article, I examine to what extent theconcerns for natural living meet ``theexperience requirement.'' I conclude that someof these concerns go beyond welfare. In thesecond part of the article. I ask whether wehave moral reasons to respect concernsfor the naturalness of an animal's living thattranscend its welfare. I argue that the moralrelevance of such considerations can be graspedwhen we see animals as entities bearingnon-moral intrinsic values. In my view the``natural'' appearance and behavior of an animalmay embody intrinsic values. Caring for ananimal's naturalness should then be understoodas caring for such intrinsic values. Intrinsicvalues provide moral reasons for action iffthey are seen as constitutive of the good lifefor humans. I conclude by reinterpreting,within the framework of a perfectionist ethicaltheory, the notion of indirect dutiesregarding animals, which go beyond andsupplement the direct duties towardsanimals. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss whether intuitive moral judgements have epistemic value. Are they mere expressions of irrational feelings that should be disregarded or should they be taken seriously? In section 2, I discuss the view of some social psychologists that moral intuitions are, like other social intuitions, under certain conditions more reliable than conscious deliberative judgements. In sections 3 and 4, I examine whether intuitive moral judgements can be said not to need inferential justification. I outline a concept of (...) moral intuition as a seeming whose seemingness resides in special, phenomenological features such as a felt veridicality, appropriateness, familiarity, or confidence, and whose justificatory force is influenced by the reliability of the belief-producing procedures and by a subject's competence in applying moral concepts. I argue that subjects can come to realise that the beliefs expressed in their intuitive judgements evoke a sense of non-inferential credibility. In section 5, I first discuss the contribution of moral expertise to the non-inferential credibility of a person's intuitions. Subsequently, I discuss whether Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is right in saying that we can never claim non-inferential justification for our intuitions because they are subject to all kinds of distorting influences. (shrink)

Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Verwendung von einfachen konnektionistischen Systemen als Modelle für den Erwerb und die Repräsentation von Wissen über zeitdiskrete lineare dynamische Systeme in der Kognitionspsychologie. Ein ausgewähltes dynamisches System namens SINUS wird in Form eines „pattern associators“ repräsentiert und dessen Lernverhalten untersucht. Es wird versucht, daraus Annahmen über den Wissenserwerb von Probanden im Umgang mit solchen dynamischen Systemen abzuleiten, um insbesondere Hinweise darauf zu erhalten, was „gute“ von „schlechten“ Probanden unterscheidet. Ein weiterer hier betrachteter (...) Aspekt ist die Steuerung eines dynamischen Systems in einen vorgegebenen Zielzustand, der unter Beibehaltung des konnektionistischen Modells durch einen variierten Lernalgorithmus modelliert wird. Die abschließende Diskussion geht auf die Bedeutung der Modellierung für die kognitionspsychologische Theorienbildung ein. (shrink)

Some people wrongly believe that A. Turing’s works that underlie all modern computer science never discussed “physical” robots. This is not so, since Turing did speak about such machines, though making a reservation that this discussion was still premature. In particular, in his 1948 report [8], he suggested that a physical intelligent machine equipped with motors, cameras and loudspeakers, when wandering through the fields of England, would present “the danger to the ordinary citizen would be serious.” [8, ]. Due to (...) this imperfection of technology in the field of knowledge that we now call robotics, the methodology that he proposed was based on human speech, or rather on text. Other natural human skills were too difficult to implement, while the exchange of cues via written messages was much more accessible for engineering implementation in Turing’s time. Nevertheless, since then, the progress of computer technology has taken forms that the founder of artificial intelligence could not have foreseen. (shrink)

In the article, the author analyzes the problems of human-computer communication in the context of artificial intelligence, augmented reality and a Turing methodology for comparing the capabilities of artificial and natural intelligence in a dialogue. It is argued that the tool with which the computer and humans communicate is of no less importance than the computer program with which the dialogue is conducted. As an example of the implementation of such visualization, the project “E.LENA” of a digital television anchor created (...) at the Sberbank Robotics Laboratory was considered. The author gives his own version of Turing's specific test to study the features of non- verbal communication interfaces between a person and a computer. The key idea formulated by the author for further discussion is to provide artificial intelligence with visual avatar in order to avoid the alienation of man and computer and the loss of semantic information during its transmission from computer to person. (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)

This interview continues Albert Efimov’s series of discussions with scholars about the current state of artificial intelligence, its applications across various fields and tasks, and the ethical and social implications of its development. In the conversation regarding humanity’s place in the modern world, A.G. Asmolov discussed the importance of maintaining diversity within complex systems and managing complexity during their analysis. The dialogue clarified the role of the «contrarian,» the future anthropologist’s work, and how metaphor will drive scientific progress in the (...) age of artificial intelligence. Additional topics addressed include: the significance of tricksters in the search for new ideas and meanings; the reasons we condemn ourselves to a lack of free time and its impact on cognitive abilities; the mismatch between organizational structures created by humans and the levels of tasks and technologies emerging today; the core concepts underlying «human-centric organizations»; whether the development of artificial intelligence will lead to information asymmetry, where everyone knows everything, and the primary risks when humans begin to learn from machines; why AI developers can be seen as a «community of Pygmalions,» and the dangers of «humanizing» machines. (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)

This paper focuses on coherence and consistency as elements of moral integrity, arguing that several kinds of—mostly second-order—virtues contribute to establishing coherence and consistency in a person's judgements and behaviour. The virtues relevant for integrity always accompany other, substantive virtues, and their associated values, principles and rules. In moral education we teach children all kinds of substantive virtues with integrity as our goal. Nevertheless, many adults do not attain moral integrity, although they are clearly not immoral. What precisely are they (...) lacking? Education for moral integrity should focus on strengthening motivational self-sufficiency, furthering critical and imaginative thinking and promoting moral unity. (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)

What would be an adequate theory of social understanding? In the last decade, the philosophical debate has focused on Theory Theory, Simulation Theory and Interaction Theory as the three possible candidates. In the following, we look carefully at each of these and describe its main advantages and disadvantages. Based on this critical analysis, we formulate the need for a new account of social understanding. We propose the Person Model Theory as an independent new account which has greater explanatory power compared (...) to the existing theories. (shrink)

In the chapter alarmist ideas that exponential development of technologies is an exceptional source of the crisis of modern civilization are considered and reasonably questioned. The role of tools in the establishment of human and technologies is underlined, including information and computative processes in the formation of the modern culture. The role of information processes in nature and culture is explored, which enables us to make a conclusion that technologies including artificial intelligence and intelligent robotics are a compile and an (...) integral part of a human being. The role of algorithms as a deep basis of crisis events due to the new opportunities of a dialogue between the machine and the human and the Transition of information without a cultural context in human-machine system is justified. Various ways to overcome crisis events whilst human transformation are offered. Firstly it is the augmentation of human possibilities with the help of exoprosthetic devices or exocortexes which broaden physical and cognitive capabilities. Secondly it is the transformation of technologies basing on deep social and humanitarian research which demand expert answers to vital questions of using the developing technologies. The use of technologies is analyzed from the position of postneoclassic rationality and in this framework an attempt is taken to use postturing methodology which was used before on the example of intellectual robitics. There is also shown an opportunity to broaden the sphere of using this postturing methodology in the other kinds of technology, because gradually the ingress of artificial intelligence into all the tools of human activity will make any tool "an intellectual robot". The use of postturing methodology will enable to break a fundamental barrier which divides a human and a machine which will make the interaction of human and machine more effective and less antagonistic. To the further discussion a theological ground of technogenic civilization as creating an opportunity for life to overcome biological barriers and watch the change of cosmic scale is brought. Such ground enables to save the main achievement of the mankind - the culture. (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.

This research explored the utilization of video-based instructional material in enhancing learning competency among a group of sixty (60) students enrolled in grade 8 at Satriwithaya School in Bangkok, Thailand. The study was carried out. out during the 2nd semester of S.Y. 2023–2024. The respondents were chosen using the approach of purposive sampling. The research study employed an experimental approach and utilized quantitative research. Through the use of of a one-group pre- and post-test, the researcher was able to gather the (...) necessary data. The study included statistical measures such as percentages, means, and standard deviations, as well as dependent and independent t-tests, to assess and compare the proficiency and efficacy of utilizing video-based educational materials among students at Satriwithaya School in Bangkok, Thailand. Study findings also revealed that there is a significant difference in pre- and post-test assessment scores before and after using the video-based instructional materials. The research outcomes indicated that the application of video-based teaching resources as an instructional strategy in the field of biology resulted in an increased degree of effectiveness in the students' learning process. The findings of the study suggest that the utilization of video-based instructional materials has favorable outcomes in terms of enhancing pedagogical and educational achievements in the field of biology. This methodology has been demonstrated to provide learners with with the chance to enhance their comprehension through active participation, cultivate their imagination and cleverness, consequently facilitating enhanced educational achievements. Furthermore, the establishment of a conducive learning atmosphere that is both engaging and pleasurable for students can enhance their overall learning experience. Moreover, this approach enhances the teacher's capacity to convey their intended educational objectives to their students proficiently. -/- . (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to examine the role of intuition in conceptual analysis and to assess whether that role can be parlayed into a plausible defense of a priori knowledge. The focus of my investigation is George Bealer’s attempt to provide such a defense. I argue that Bealer’s account of intuition and its evidential status faces three problems. I go on to examine the two primary arguments that Bealer offers against empiricism: the Starting Points Argument and the Argument (...) from Epistemic Norms. I argue that the Starting Points Argument fails because Bealer fails to show that intuitions are a priori evidence and that the Argument from Epistemic Norms fails because it is open to the Stalemate Problem. I conclude by offering an alternative approach to defending the a priori status of intuitions that avoids the Stalemate Problem. The alternative approach highlights the role of empirical investigation in defending the a priori. (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)

Is it possible for me to refer to someone other than myself with the word "I"? Or somewhere other than where I am with the word "here"? Or some time other than the present with the word "now"? David Kaplan, who provides the best worked out semantics for pure-indexical terms like "I," "here," and "now" suggests, quite intuitively, that I could not. Put simply, "I am here now" looks as though I can never utter it and have it turn out (...) false. But, intuitive as this seems, one need only hear the answering machine message, "Sorry! I am not here now," to see that there may be problems. If! can't fail to refer to where I am and when I'm there with "here" and "now," why is my apparently contradictory assertion so readily comprehensible? Many have been quick to abandon Kaplan's account of pure-indexicals in the face of such problems. The focus of this paper, though, is those who develop sophisticated accounts of how we determine different contexts for applying pure-indexicals. The hope is that this handles problem cases while allowing us to retain most of Kaplan's theory. However, this paper introduces and examines some additional uses of pure-indexicals which pose an interesting problem for the context-determination adaptation of Kaplan's account. It is argued that context-determination theorists cannot explain these cases in the same way that they explain standard problem cases, and that any reason they can offer for denying the relevance of such cases to accounts of pure-indexicals will apply equally well to the cases that motivate their theories, thus rendering context-determination accounts superfluous. In what follows, then, there is a brief summary of Kaplan's account, the problem cases that threaten it, and the context-determination theorist's response to these problem cases. The interesting and problematic uses of pure-indexicals that context-determination accounts cannot explain are then introduced, and an explanation is given of why there is no way for the context-determination theorist to exclude these cases from our accounts of pure-indexicals without also excluding the cases that motivate their own theory. (shrink)

Sber Science Award 2023 winner in the “Digital Universe” category, full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Head of the Chair of Computational Technology and Modeling of the Department of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University, Director of the Marchuk Institute for Computational Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Evgeny Evgenyevich Tyrtyshnikov dedicated his lecture entitled “Dimension: Is it a curse or a blessing?” to methods of presentation of multi-dimensional data based (...) on the idea of separation of variables and to algorithms that even now successfully help resolve problems that are beyond the capabilities of supercomputers. -/- The lecture was followed by a panel discussion attended by: Evgeny Evgenyevich Tyrtyshnikov, full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Director of the Institute for Computational Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Alexander Vladimirovich Gasnikov, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, President of Innopolis University; Gleb Gennadyevich Gusev, PhD of Physics and Mathematics, Head of Sberbank’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The discussion was moderated by Albert Ruvimovich Efimov, PhD of Philosophy, Vice President, Director of the Research and Innovation Division of Sberbank. (shrink)

A selective annotated bibliography of recent literature on a priori knowledge.

Representing the kinetic state of a patient (posture, motion, and activity) during vital sign measurement is an important part of continuous monitoring applications, especially remote monitoring applications. In contextualized vital sign representation, the measurement result is presented in conjunction with salient measurement context metadata. We present an automated annotation system for vital sign measurements that uses ontologies from the Open Biomedical Ontology Foundry (OBO Foundry) to represent the patient’s kinetic state at the time of measurement. The annotation system is applied (...) to data generated by a wearable personal status monitoring (PSM) device. We demonstrate how annotated PSM data can be queried for contextualized vital signs as well as sensor algorithm configuration parameters. (shrink)

We introduce the Vital Sign Ontology (VSO), an extension of the Ontology for General Medical Science (OGMS) that covers the consensus human vital signs: blood pressure, body temperature, respiratory rate, and pulse rate. VSO provides a controlled structured vocabulary for describing vital sign measurement data, the processes of measuring vital signs, and the anatomical entities participating in such measurements. VSO is implemented in OWL-DL and follows OBO Foundry guidelines and best practices. If properly developed and extended, we believe the VSO (...) will find applications for the EMR, clinical informatics, and medical device communities. (shrink)

This paper traces a lost genealogical connection between Charles S. Peirce’s later theory of signs and contemporary work in the philosophy of language by John Perry. As is shown, despite some differences, both accounts offer what might be termed a multi-level account of meaning. Moreover, it is claimed that by adopting a ‘Peircian turn’ in his theory, Perry might overcome alleged shortcomings in his account of cognitive significance.

Many authors claim that being conscious constitutively involves being self-conscious, or conscious of oneself. This claim appears to be threatened by reports of `selfless' episodes, or conscious episodes lacking self-consciousness, recently described in a number of pathological and nonpathological conditions. However, the credibility of these reports has in turn been challenged on the following grounds: remembering and reporting a past conscious episode as an episode that one went through is only possible if one was conscious of oneself while undergoing it. (...) Call this the Memory Challenge. This paper argues that the Memory Challenge fails to undermine the credibility to reports of selfless episodes, because it rests on problematic assumptions about episodic memory. The paper further argues that we should distinguish between several kinds of self-representation that may be involved in the process of episodic remembering, and that once we do so, it is no longer mysterious how one could accurately remember and report a selfless episode as an episode that one went through. Thus, we should take reports of this kind seriously, and view them as credible counter-examples to the claim that consciousness constitutively involves self-consciousness. (shrink)

An accurate classification of bacteria is essential for the proper identification of patient infections and subsequent treatment decisions. Multi-Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) is a genetic technique for bacterial classification. MLST classifications are used to cluster bacteria into clonal complexes. Importantly, clonal complexes can serve as a biological species concept for bacteria, facilitating an otherwise difficult taxonomic classification. In this paper, we argue for the inclusion of terms relating to clonal complexes in biomedical ontologies.