It is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred (...) to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters. Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals. Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely lifelogging and self-monitoring, remote monitoring of vital signs, emotional state recognition, food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, activity and personal assistance, gesture recognition, fall detection and prevention, mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed. (shrink)

This paper introduces the reconstitutor as a comprehensive unit of heredity within the context of evolutionary research. A reconstitutor is the structure resulting from a set of relationships between different elements or processes that are actively involved in the recreation of a specific phenotypic variant in each generation regardless of the biomolecular basis of the elements or whether they stand in a continuous line of ancestry. Firstly, we justify the necessity of introducing the reconstitutor by showing the limitations of other (...) evolutionary conceptions of the unit of heredity, such as the replicator, the reproducer, and the Darwinian individual. We argue that these conceptions are based on the requirement of lineage formation, which we argue to be unnecessary for the existence of evolutionary heredity. In the second part, we introduce the reconstitutor, which we base on the concept of Stability of Traits, and illustrate how it covers cases of hereditary phenomena not covered by the previous accounts. Secondly, we illustrate how the reconstitutor could serve as a platform to rethink ecological inheritance and other forms of inheritance that have been recently introduced under the song/singer model of evolution. (shrink)

Do conceivability arguments work against physicalism if properties are causal powers? By considering three different ways of understanding causal powers and the modality associated with them, I will argue that most, if not all, physicalist powers theorists should not be concerned about the conceivability argument because its conclusion that physicalism is false does not hold in their favoured ontology. I also defend specific powers theories against some recent objections to this strategy, arguing that the conception of properties as powerful blocks (...) conceivability arguments unless a rather implausible form of emergence is true. (shrink)

In her recent paper ‘The Epistemology of Propaganda’ Rachel McKinnon discusses what she refers to as ‘TERF propaganda’. We take issue with three points in her paper. The first is her rejection of the claim that ‘TERF’ is a misogynistic slur. The second is the examples she presents as commitments of so-called ‘TERFs’, in order to establish that radical (and gender critical) feminists rely on a flawed ideology. The third is her claim that standpoint epistemology can be used to establish (...) that such feminists are wrong to worry about a threat of male violence in relation to trans women. In Section 1 we argue that ‘TERF’ is not a merely descriptive term; that to the extent that McKinnon offers considerations in support of the claim that ‘TERF’ is not a slur, these considerations fail; and that ‘TERF’ is a slur according to several prominent accounts in the contemporary literature. In Section 2, we argue that McKinnon misrepresents the position of gender critical feminists, and in doing so fails to establish the claim that the ideology behind these positions is flawed. In Section 3 we argue that McKinnon’s criticism of Stanley fails, and one implication of this is that those she characterizes as ‘positively privileged’ cannot rely on the standpoint-relative knowledge of those she characterizes as ‘negatively privileged’. We also emphasize in this section McKinnon’s failure to understand and account for multiple axes of oppression, of which the cis/trans axis is only one. (shrink)

William James famously tells us that there are two main goals for rational believers: believing truth and avoiding error. I argues that epistemic consequentialism—in particular its embodiment in epistemic utility theory—seems to be well positioned to explain how epistemic agents might permissibly weight these goals differently and adopt different credences as a result. After all, practical versions of consequentialism render it permissible for agents with different goals to act differently in the same situation. -/- Nevertheless, I argue that epistemic consequentialism (...) doesn’t allow for this kind of permissivism and goes on to argue that this reveals a deep disanalogy between decision theory and the formally similar epistemic utility theory. This raises the question whether epistemic utility theory is a genuinely consequentialist theory at all. (shrink)

In this article we explore an argumentative pattern that provides a normative justification for expected utility functions grounded on empirical evidence, showing how it worked in three different episodes of their development. The argument claims that we should prudentially maximize our expected utility since this is the criterion effectively applied by those who are considered wisest in making risky choices (be it gamblers or businessmen). Yet, to justify the adoption of this rule, it should be proven that this is empirically (...) true: i.e. that a given function allows us to predict the choices of that particular class of agents. We show how expected utility functions were introduced and contested in accordance with this pattern in the 18th century and how it recurred in the 1950s when Allais made his case against the neo-Bernoullians. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion on control has largely centred around control over our actions and beliefs. Yet this overlooks the question of whether we also have control over the reasons for which we act and believe. To date, the overriding assumption appears to be that we do not, and with seemingly good reason. We cannot choose to act for a reason and acting-for-a-reason is not itself something we do. While some have challenged this in the case of reasons for action, these claims (...) seem especially untenable regarding believing for a reason. And extending the scope of control in this way also faces the threat of regress. In the face of this orthodoxy, the present paper argues that we do in fact have control over both believing and acting for a particular reason. It also starts to develop an account of the way in which this would be possible. Given the broad importance of understanding control and agency, this paper bears on a number of topics in epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and ethics. (shrink)

Thick concepts, namely those concepts that describe and evaluate simultaneously, present a challenge to science. Since science does not have a monopoly on value judgments, what is responsible research involving such concepts? Using measurement of wellbeing as an example, we first present the options open to researchers wishing to study phenomena denoted by such concepts. We argue that while it is possible to treat these concepts as technical terms, or to make the relevant value judgment in-house, the responsible thing to (...) do, especially in the context of public policy, is to make this value judgment through a legitimate political process that includes all the stakeholders of this research. We then develop a participatory model of measurement based on the ideal of co-production. To show that this model is feasible and realistic, we illustrate it with a case study of co-production of a concept of thriving conducted by the authors in collaboration with a UK anti-poverty charity Turn2us. (shrink)

Recent years have seen increased interest among 4E cognition scholars in physical disability, leading to the development of the EE-model of disability. This paper contributes to the literature on disability and 4E cognition in three key ways. First, it examines the relationship between the EE-model and social constructivist views that address the bodily reality of disablement, highlighting commonalities and distinctions. Second, it critiques the EE-model’s focus on individual strategies for expanding disabled persons’ affordance landscapes, arguing that disability policy should integrate (...) insights from both the EE-model and social constructivist approaches. Finally, it assesses the EE-model against the 'dogma of harmony'. We argue that while the EE-model’s focus on active human-environment collaboration is valuable, it can inadvertently perpetuate this dogma. We contend that integrating certain social constructivist insights can help the EE-model avoid the dogma of harmony. (shrink)

Should citizens have equal say regarding the running of society? Following the principles of democracy, and most of political philosophy: yes (at least at a fundamental level, thus allowing for representatives and the like). Indeed, comparing the main alternative seemingly supports this intuition. Epistocracy would instead give power just to the most epistemically competent. Yet testing citizens’ political and economic knowledge looks apt to disproportionately disempower marginalised groups, making the position seem like a nonstarter and democracy the clear winner. Nevertheless, (...) this paper argues against giving citizens equal say, or at least, it offers the strongest possible motivation for this position. In particular, I introduce the progressive case for epistocracy, and what I term standpoint epistocracy. This account refigures the relevant notion of political competence such that it is not the most privileged classes who would most likely constitute our epistocracy, but rather, the least. The resulting picture considerably improves on traditional versions of epistocracy and also democracy. (shrink)

We distinguish between two different strategies in methodology of economics. The big picture strategy, dominant in the twentieth century, ascribed to economics a unified method and evaluated this m...

This paper introduces and motivates the claim that we possess doxastic agent’s awareness. I argue that this is a form of agentive awareness concerning our belief states that we enjoy in virtue of deliberating and judging. Namely, we experience these activities as those of making up our mind and keeping it made up regarding our beliefs. Following related work in the philosophy of action, I understand this awareness as a form of conscious experience which can then ground our self-ascriptions. As (...) such, this enables me to also propose a new account of self-knowledge of belief and the way in which deliberating and concluding that p can warrant us in self-ascribing the belief that p (i.e., employing the so-called ‘transparency method’). Philosophers often appeal to our arguably agentive relation to our beliefs in explaining this. I, though, I extend work in the philosophy of action in a way that is surprisingly flatfooted way given that belief is a state and not an action. (shrink)

Sophie Roux confronte la critique du « sokalisme » qu’on trouve dans La Querelle des imposteurs d’Yves Jeanneret et la manière dont Impostures intellectuelles dessine le partage entre « littéraires » et « scientifiques ».

This paper concerns a specific epistemic feature of believing for a reason (e.g., believing that it will rain on the basis of the grey clouds outside). It has commonly been assumed that our access to such facts about ourselves is akin in all relevant respects to our access to why other people hold their beliefs. Further, discussion of self-intimation - that we are necessarily in a position to know when we are in certain conditions - has centred largely around mental (...) states. In contrast to both assumptions, this paper argues that believing for a reason is (at least) very nearly self-intimating: necessarily, if a subject believes that q for the reason that p, then, provided relevant conceptual and rational capacities, she is in a position to form a justified true belief that she believes that q for the reason that p. We should think this on the basis of the role that believing for a reason plays from the subjects’ perspective, and in particular, the way in which it intellegises one’s belief. (shrink)

Four propositions relative to the laws of nature in the classical period must be noted. 1. Certain regularities in phenomena had been discovered. 2. A concept of law had emerged. 3. Classical science is characterized by the introduction of the notion of the legality of nature. 4. New uses of the word «law» had appeared in scientific texts. This article is devoted to the analysis of only this last proposition, that is to say to a terminological problem. First we will (...) describe the semantic uses of the word «law» that may have contributed to the constitution of its classical meaning: its specific usage, disciplinary usage, usage in physics, in mathematics, in metaphysics. Second we will analyze the various moments of the diffusion of the word in the sciences in the xviith century. The general thesis defended in the end is that if the term «law» had indeed been used in science with no reference to a law-giving God prior to the xviith century, only this reference, that is, the coming together of its physical and its metaphysical usage, allowed its generalization in the period between the xviith and xviiith centuries. (shrink)

Metaethics tends to take for granted a bare Democritean world of atoms and the void, and then worry about how the human world that we all know can possibly be related to it or justified in its terms. I draw on Wittgenstein to show how completely upside-down this picture is, and make some moves towards turning it the right way up again. There may be a use for something like the bare-Democritean model in some of the sciences, but the picture (...) has no standing as the basic objective truth about the world; if anything has that standing, it is ordinary life. I conclude with some thoughts about how the notion of bare, “thin” perception of non-evaluative reality feeds a number of philosophical pathologies, such as behaviourism, and show how a “thicker”, more value-laden, understanding of our perceptions of the world can be therapeutic against them. (shrink)

Short piece for The Philosophers' Magazine on why philosophers should pay attention to olfaction.

Enjoying great popularity in decision theory, epistemology, and philosophy of science, Bayesianism as understood here is fundamentally concerned with epistemically ideal rationality. It assumes a tight connection between evidential probability and ideally rational credence, and usually interprets evidential probability in terms of such credence. Timothy Williamson challenges Bayesianism by arguing that evidential probabilities cannot be adequately interpreted as the credences of an ideal agent. From this and his assumption that evidential probabilities cannot be interpreted as the actual credences of human (...) agents either, he concludes that no interpretation of evidential probabilities in terms of credence is adequate. I argue to the contrary. My overarching aim is to show on behalf of Bayesians how one can still interpret evidential probabilities in terms of ideally rational credence and how one can maintain a tight connection between evidential probabilities and ideally rational credence even if the former cannot be interpreted in terms of the latter. By achieving this aim I illuminate the limits and prospects of Bayesianism. (shrink)

Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

We debate whether permissivism is true. We start off by assuming an accuracy-oriented framework, and then discuss metaepistemological questions about how our epistemic evaluations promote accuracy.

We give an overview of Lakatos’ life, his philosophy of mathematics and science, as well as of this issue. Firstly, we briefly delineate Lakatos’ key contributions to philosophy: his anti-formalist philosophy of mathematics, and his methodology of scientific research programmes in the philosophy of science. Secondly, we outline the themes and structure of the masterclass Lakatos’ Undone Work – The Practical Turn and the Division of Philosophy of Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, which gave rise to this special issue. Lastly, (...) we provide a summary of the contributions to this issue. (shrink)

It is commonly held that our intuitive judgements about imaginary problem cases are justified a priori, if and when they are justified at all. In this paper I defend this view — ‘rationalism’ — against a recent objection by Timothy Williamson. I argue that his objection fails on multiple grounds, but the reasons why it fails are instructive. Williamson argues from a claim about the semantics of intuitive judgements, to a claim about their psychological underpinnings, to the denial of rationalism. (...) I argue that the psychological claim — that a capacity for mental simulation explains our intuitive judgements — does not, even if true, provide reasons to reject rationalism. (More generally, a simulation hypothesis, about any category of judgements, is very limited in its epistemological implications: it is pitched at a level of explanation that is insensitive to central epistemic distinctions.) I also argue that Williamson’s semantic claim — that intuitive judgements are judgements of counterfactuals — is mistaken; rather, I propose, they are a certain kind of metaphysical possibility judgement. Several other competing proposals are also examined and criticized. (shrink)

The History of scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza is often called upon to support three theses: first, that Descartes had a dogmatic notion of systematic knowledge, and therefore of physics; second, that the hypothetical epistemology of physics which spread during the xviith century was the result of a general sceptical crisis; third, that this epistemology was more successful in England than in France. I reject these three theses: I point first to the tension in Descartes’ works between the ideal of (...) a completely certain science and a physics replete with hypotheses; further, I argue that the use of hypotheses by mechanical philosophers cannot be separated from their conception of physics; finally I show that, at the end of the xviith century, physicists in France as well as in England spoke through hypotheses and I examine different ways of explaining this shared practice. Richard H. Popkin’s book serves therefore as a starting point for insights into the general problem: to what extent and for what reasons some propositions in physics have been presented as hypotheses in the xviith century? (shrink)

Introspective knowledge by acquaintance is knowledge we have by being directly aware of our phenomenally conscious states. In this paper, I argue that introspective knowledge by acquaintance is a sui generis kind of knowledge: it is irreducible to any sort of propositional knowledge and is wholly constituted by a relationship of introspective acquaintance. My main argument is that this is the best explanation of some epistemic facts about phenomenal consciousness and introspection. In particular, it best explains the epistemic asymmetry between (...) a subject who has never had a certain phenomenal state and one who has. I also consider two theoretical objections to my claim: an objection from disunity and an objection from mysteriousness. I show that these objections can be answered and that introspective knowledge by acquaintance being sui generis remains a live option on the table. (shrink)

As its Latin title says, this article inquires whether there is a single correct list of the moral virtues. Virtue ethics tells us to “act in accordance with the virtues” but can often be accused, for example in Aristotle's Ethics, of helping itself without argument to an account of what the virtues are. This paper is, stylistically, an affectionate tribute to the Angelic Doctor, and it works with a correspondingly Thomistic background and approach. It argues for the view that there (...) is at least one correct list of the virtues, and that we can itemise at least seven items in the list, namely, the four cardinal and the three theological virtues. (shrink)

In this paper, we identify some key features of what makes something a disease, and consider whether these apply to pregnancy. We argue that there are some compelling grounds for regarding pregnancy as a disease. Like a disease, pregnancy affects the health of the pregnant person, causing a range of symptoms from discomfort to death. Like a disease, pregnancy can be treated medically. Like a disease, pregnancy is caused by a pathogen, an external organism invading the host’s body. Like a (...) disease, the risk of getting pregnant can be reduced by using prophylactic measures. We address the question of whether the ‘normality’ of pregnancy, its current necessity for human survival, or the value often attached to it are reasons to reject the view that pregnancy is a disease. We point out that applying theories of disease to the case of pregnancy, can in many cases illuminate inconsistencies and problems within these theories. Finally, we show that it is difficult to find one theory of disease that captures all paradigm cases of diseases, while convincingly excluding pregnancy. We conclude that there are both normative and pragmatic reasons to consider pregnancy a disease. (shrink)

White, Christensen, and Feldman have recently endorsed uniqueness, the thesis that given the same total evidence, two rational subjects cannot hold different views. Kelly, Schoenfield, and Meacham argue that White and others have at best only supported the weaker, merely intrapersonal view that, given the total evidence, there are no two views which a single rational agent could take. Here, we give a new argument for uniqueness, an argument with deliberate focus on the interpersonal element of the thesis. Our argument (...) is that the best explanation of the value of promoting rationality is an explanation that entails uniqueness. (shrink)

On sait peu de choses d’Edme Mariotte, membre de l’Académie royale des sciences de 1668 à 1684. Une analyse de son Essai de logique montre cependant que, pour défendre ses pratiques expérimentales, il s’appropria des bribes venues de différentes traditions intellectuelles. Ainsi, ce livre examine ce qu’on entendait par « méthode » à la fin du XVIIe siècle, les épistémologies de la physique qui s’affrontaient alors, quelques débats ouverts par la gestion de l’héritage cartésien. Mais l’essentiel sera peut-être la question (...) suivante : comment reconstituer les idées d’un savant ordinaire, qui n’a ni bouleversé l’ordre des sciences, ni montré une perspicacité épistémologique exceptionnelle ? (shrink)

This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behavior in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature (...) of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, discussing French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu), and pointing to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages. -- -/- 1. What this book is about and how to use it; 2. Generalized quantifiers and their elements: operators and their scopes; 3. Generalized quantifiers in non-nominal domains; 4. Some empirically significant properties of quantifiers and determiners; 5. Potential challenges for generalized quantifiers; 6. Scope is not uniform and not a primitive; 7. Existential scope versus distributive scope; 8. Distributivity and scope; 9. Bare numeral indefinites; 10. Modified numerals; 11. Clause-internal scopal diversity; 12. Towards a compositional semantics of quantifier words. (shrink)

We present a new argument in favor of the Awareness Principle, the principle that one is always aware of one’s concurrent conscious states. Informally, the argument is this: (1) Your conscious states are such that you can attend to them without undertaking any action _beyond mere shift of attention_; but (2) You cannot come to attend to something without undertaking any action beyond mere shift of attention unless you are already aware of that thing; so, (3) Your conscious states are (...) such that you are aware of them. We open by introducing more fully the Awareness Principle (§ 1) and explicating the crucial notion of “mere shift of attention” (§ 2). We then develop the argument more fully, first in an intuitive form (§ 3) and then more formally (§ 4), before replying to a series of objections (§§ 5–7). (shrink)

This collection of papers builds on the idea that the bioeconomy provides a framework for potentially effective solutions addressing the grand global challenges by a turn towards an increased use of biological resources, towards renewability and circularity. Consequently, it cannot be perceived as an end in itself. Thus, innovative endeavors within this bioeconomy framework require a serious examination of their normative premises and implications. From different perspectives, the five contributions to the collection demonstrate that for a bioeconomy that is to (...) contribute to the transformation towards sustainability, inquiries into norms, values, and paradigms of innovators and other stakeholders are indispensable. Originating in the spirit of an interdisciplinary workshop on the "The Normative Dimension of Transformations towards a Sustainable Bioeconomy", the collection at hand provides an attempt to facilitate an increased commitment of social sciences into bioeconomy discourses. We learn: the bioeconomy is on the rise as it is, but whether it will guide us the way towards an equitable, environmentally sound, and future-proof economy, heavily depends on the normative guardrails imposed by science, society, and business. Recent discussions have shown that the pressing problems and complex challenges humanity is currently facing cannot be adequately tackled by approaches that. (shrink)

The psychological reality of an inner awareness built into conscious experience has traditionally been a central element of philosophy of consciousness, from Aristotle, to Descartes, Brentano, the phenomenological tradition, and early and contemporary analytic philosophy. Its existence, however, has recently been called into question, especially by defenders of so-called transparency of experience and first-order representationalists about phenomenal consciousness. In this paper, I put forward a defense of inner awareness based on an argument from memory. Roughly, the idea is that since (...) we can only recall something if we were aware of it at the time of its occurrence, and since we can recall our own experiences, we must be aware of our own experiences at the time of their occurrence. The argument is far from new: it goes back to the Buddhist tradition and has been revived more recently in Buddhist Scholarship but also in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind, in particular by Uriah Kriegel. However, I believe that, since it is the best extant argument for inner awareness, it deserves more extensive treatment. My goal is to strengthen the memory argument by making some conceptual distinctions as to the exact thesis about inner awareness that the argument is supposed to support, considering different ways the argument may be reconstructed depending on the exact thesis to be supported, and defending the argument from a new objection, raised very recently by Daniel Stoljar. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a new version of the acquaintance view of the nature of introspection of phenomenal states. On the acquaintance view, when one introspects a current phenomenal state of one's, one bears to it the relation of introspective acquaintance. Extant versions of the acquaintance view neglect what I call the phenomenal modification problem. The problem, articulated by Franz Brentano in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, is that drawing introspective attention to one's current conscious experience may modify (...) its phenomenology. Failing to take phenomenal modification into account affects the adequacy of extant versions of the acquaintance view. The purpose of this paper is to develop a better version, the integration account, that meets the phenomenal modification challenge while preserving the merits of other versions. (shrink)

I talk about the relation between the direct encounters with values that I take to be a key part of ordinary moral phenomenology, and the well-worn topic of demandingness. I suggest that an ethical philosophy based on (inter alia) such encounters sheds interesting light on some familiar problems.

Most recent philosophical theories of consciousness account for it in terms of representation, the bulk of the debate revolving around whether (suitably) representing something is sufficient for consciousness (as per first-order representationalism) or some further (meta-)representation is needed (as per higher-order representationalism and self-representationalism). In this paper, I explore an alternative theory of consciousness, one that aims to explain consciousness not in terms of representation but in terms of the epistemically and metaphysically direct relation of acquaintance. I call this the (...) Inner Acquaintance Theory of consciousness (IAT). Roughly, on IAT, what makes a mental state conscious is its subject being acquainted with it. Though not wholly unprecedented, IAT is still at the fringe of consciousness debates and remains largely underexplored. The main goal of this paper is to take some steps toward developing the details of IAT, illustrate its potential explanatory power, and put it forward as a plausible alternative to representational theories, with the hope that this will contribute to shifting IAT closer to the center of the debate. Here is how I proceed. In §2 I introduce a notion—inner awareness—that is crucial both to contextualize and to understand IAT. In §3 I provide some preliminary motivation for exploring IAT. In §4 I explain the notion of acquaintance and illustrate some of the features that are typically attributed to it in the literature. The details of IAT are then shaped through four main decision points. I address them in §§5-8, where I suggest a particular choice at each decision point, thereby progressively building up a view that I consider particularly promising. (shrink)

Questioning the nature of individuality has a long and a rich history, both in philosophy and in biology. Because they differ in several features from the pervasive vertebrate-human model, plants have been considered as complicating the question. Here, the various plant species on which authors—whether biologists or philosophers—rely to build the picture of plant individuality are examined and tracked for their peculiarities, thus constituting an “herbiary” of plant individuality. The herbiary of plant individuality has as its members species exhibiting a (...) diverse collection of traits and illustrating different questions related to plant individuality. This essay assesses the peculiarity of the features of these plants and the reality of their differences from animals. Because some plant features are supposed to pose a threat to individual genetic homogeneity, higher heterogeneity has been assumed for plants compared to animals. Moreover, individual plants are sometimes identified with communities. How does this supposed heterogeneity appear in particular species? Cultivated plants exhibit distinctive diversity, and their overrepresentation in the study of plant diversity might bias the way plant individuality is understood. Just as there is a vertebrate bias, there may also be a cultivated plant bias. Recent results bring plants much closer to animals in terms of cellular functioning, so plants might not be so different from animals with respect to their diversity, and consequently their individuality. (shrink)

Dans un texte court, dense, poétique et technique à la fois, Martin Buber nous invite à considérer autrement nos compagnes végétales. Cette forme de considération nouvelle peut s’étendre aux autres humains, aux autres vivants. Les êtres humains constituent une espèce vivante qui entretient des relations, de toutes natures, avec quantité d’espèces vivantes, très diverses, plus ou moins visibles ou perceptibles, selon des modalités conscientes ou pas. Les humains se sont entourés d’espèces domestiquées, végétales et animales, avec lesquelles les relations sont (...) anciennes, conscientes et proches. Partis d’un arbre et de sa contemplation, nous sommes invités à une prise de conscience de son existence d’être vivant face à la nôtre, de notre puissance, éventuellement destructive, jusqu’à notre capacité à lui reconnaître sa dignité et à la possibilité d’entrer en relation réciproque avec lui. Dans la continuité de cette démarche, nous nous tournons vers les autres vivants, jusqu’à atteindre une forme d’invisibilité qui n’est ni la réciprocité de la relation ni la conscience de l’arbre mais l’existence des micro-organismes, qui ne nous sont pas accessibles directement, mais qui se révèlent être, également, dans des relations fortes avec les autres vivants. (shrink)

Ob im Fitnessstudio, in der Mode oder bei der Ernährung – heute wird ständig Körperoptimierung betrieben. Durch neue technologische Entwicklungen wie Neuroimplantate und Brain-Computer-Interfaces (neurologisches Enhancement) wird die Körperoptimierung auf eine neue Ebene gehoben. Mittels Pharmazeutika sollen Kognition (kognitives Enhancement) oder moralische Verhaltensweisen (moralisches Enhancement) verbessert werden, Prothesen werden in den Körper integriert und es werden ästhetisch-chirurgische Eingriffe vorgenommen. 2019 wurden insgesamt 983.432 ästhetische Eingriffe in Deutschland unternommen.1 Im Alltag sind Wearables wie Smartwatches mit ihren Fitnessprogrammen und vielfältige Smartphone-Apps zur (...) Körperoptimierung allgegenwärtig. Technologische Körperoptimierung spielt eine wichtige Rolle im menschlichen Leben und bedarf einer ethischen Auseinandersetzung. Der Beitrag behandelt die Frage, wie die gegenwärtigen technologischen Körperoptimierungen ethisch bewertet werden können und stellt dabei die Autonomie ins Zentrum der ethischen Überlegungen. Inwiefern kann die Entscheidung für eine Körperoptimierung autonom getroffen werden? Welche ethischen Aspekte spielen eine Rolle und wie wirken sich die Optimierungen auf das Selbstverständnis des Individuums aus? -/- Die Fülle an Optimierungsmaßnahmen macht es notwendig, in Kap. 1 zunächst in den Begriff, die Formen und Ziele der Körperoptimierung einzuführen und Differenzierungen vorzunehmen. In Kap. 2 wird die Autonomie in den Fokus gerückt und mit Rückgriff auf Foucaults Konzepte der „Bio-Macht“ und „Technologien des Selbst“ untersucht, wie die Optimierungsentscheidungen zwischen individueller Selbstbestimmung und gesellschaftlicher Fremdbestimmung verortet werden können. Daran anknüpfend wird in Kap. 3 nach einer ethischen Bewertung der Optimierungsmaßnahmen gefragt. Der Aufsatz sucht nach einer ethischen Einordnung der Körperoptimierungen und gelangt letztlich zu wichtigen Erkenntnissen über den Zusammenhang von Identität/ Körper, Gesellschaft und Technik. Kap. 4 führt dazu die These aus, dass Technik mithervorbringt, was Körper bedeutet und zeigt auf, wie Technologien auf diese Weise eine Chance sein können, das Menschenund Körperverständnis neu und inklusiv auszuhandeln. Aus den Untersuchungsergebnissen werden letztlich in Kap. 5 Schlüsse für die Theologie abgeleitet und Wege dargestellt, wie die Theologie einen Beitrag zu den Optimierungen leisten kann. Abschließend wird in Kapitel 6 ein Fazit gezogen und ein Ausblick für die zukünftige ethische Forschung eröffnet. (shrink)

Puzio, Anna: Zeig mir deine Technik und ich sag dir, wer du bist? Was Technikanthropologie ist und warum wir sie dringend brauchen. In: Diebel-Fischer, Hermann/Kunkel, Nicole/Zeyher-Quattlender, Julian (Hg.): Mensch und Maschine im Zeitalter "Künstlicher Intelligenz". Theologisch-ethische Herausforderungen. LIT 2023. -/- Abstract: Der Aufsatz untersucht das vielschichtige Verhältnis von Mensch und Technik und plädiert für eine Technikanthropologie. Wie schon Gernot Böhme für die Technikphilosophie diagnostiziert hat, gibt es die Technikanthropologie „faktisch [ . . . ] nämlich mit einschlägigen Publikationen, Curricula (...) und Lehrstühlen“ und doch scheint es „kein überzeugendes Paradigma“ der Technikanthropologie und keine Technikanthropologie als voll entwickelte Disziplin oder Denkrichtung zu geben. Der Beitrag trägt zur Profilierung der Technikanthropologie bei. Es werden Aufgaben der Technikanthropologie herausgestellt, neue Ansätze vorgestellt und wegweisende Perspektiven für eine theologische Technikanthropologie entwickelt. Im ersten Schritt wird in Abschnitt 1 in die Technikanthropologie eingeführt. Es erfolgen die Einordnung technikanthropologischer Konzepte und die Erklärung wichtiger Begriffe. Anschließend wird in Abschnitt 2 das Verhältnis von Mensch und Maschine/Technik reflektiert und verdeutlicht, wie beide im Verhältnis zueinander neu ausgehandelt werden. Es wird gegen ein vorgängiges Verständnis sowohl desMenschen als auch derMaschine/Technik plädiert und auf die jahrhundertelangen Einschreibungen in die Vorstellungen von beiden hingewiesen. Zeig mir deine Technik und ich sag dir, wer du bist? Abschnitt 3 führt aus, wie Technik Mensch und Körper verändert und mitbestimmt, wasMensch und Körper bedeuten. In diesem Kontext wird bereits die Notwendigkeit einer Neukonzeption von Technikanthropologie deutlich. Abschnitt 4 zeigt, anhand zweier Ansätze, neue Wege der Technikanthropologie auf: einen radikalen Neuentwurf des Menschen durch Donna Haraway und des Sozialen durch Bruno Latour. Schließlich werden in Abschnitt 5 Perspektiven für eine konkrete theologische Technikanthropologie entwickelt. Gerade der anthropologische Zugang zur Technik wird sich als wichtiger Zugang der Theologie zum Technikdiskurs erweisen. (shrink)

The (dis)continuism debate—the debate over whether remembering is a form of imagining—is a prominent one in contemporary philosophy of memory. In recent work, Langland-Hassan (2021) has argued that this debate is best understood as a dispute over whether remembering is a form of constructive imagining. In this paper, I argue that remembering is not a form of constructive imagining because constructive processes in remembering and imagining are constrained, and hence controlled, in different ways at the level of consciousness. More specifically, (...) I argue that remembering and imagining differ in terms of the interventions we can make on the constructive processes as they unfold. If this is correct, then a form of discontinuism is vindicated: remembering and imagining are, on this view, processes of different kinds. (shrink)

„Ich bin Iron Man.“ Mit diesem Satz bekennt sich Tony Stark, genialer Technik-Erfinder und Leiter von „Stark Industries“, zu seiner neuen High-Tech-Rüstung: ein fliegendes Roboter-Exoskelett, das ihm übernatürliche Fähigkeiten verleiht. Dieses Pressestatement wird zum Auftakt der Iron Man-Identität. Doch was hat es mit Iron Man eigentlich auf sich? Was verraten die Action- und Science-Fiction-Filmreihen „Iron Man“ (2008–2013) und „The Avengers“ (2012–2018) über uns selbst? -/- Puzio, Anna: Die Helden und Monster in uns – ein technikphilosophischer Blick auf "Iron Man" (...) und die "Avengers". Auf: zem::dg. (shrink)

Difficulty is often treated as blame-mitigating, and even exculpating. But on some occasions difficulty seems to have little or no bearing on our assessments of moral responsibility, and can even exacerbate it. In this paper, I argue that the relevance (and irrelevance) of difficulty with regard to assessments of moral responsibility is best understood via Quality of Will accounts. I look at various ways of characterising difficulty – including via sacrifice, effort, skill and ‘trying’ – and set out to demonstrate (...) that these factors are only blame-mitigating where, and to the extent that, they complicate ascriptions of insufficient concern. Matters become more complex, however, when we turn to difficult circumstances that seem to generate such objectionable attitudes. This is arguably the case with epistemic difficulty and certain instances of moral ignorance. Here I argue that certain difficult circumstances diminish the sense in which false moral beliefs are genuinely revelatory of the agents who hold them. In particular, I draw on the distinction between difficulty that generates objectionable attitudes, and objectionable attitudes that generate difficulty. I argue that the former, but not the latter, can plausibly be viewed as blame mitigating, and that this would apply to (limited) cases of moral ignorance. (shrink)

Le texte suivant s'appuie assez largement sur des informations scientifiques de la biologie végétale. Ce choix de philosopher à partir de la technicité et de l'historicité des objets botaniques correspond à un parti pris. La proximité de l’humain à ses objets d’étude, sa tendance à anthropomorphiser, voire anthropocentrer, les observations ou les problèmes qui se présentent à lui, a fait l’objet de multiples réflexions philosophiques et épistémologiques. Kant, pour qui « tout intérêt est finalement pratique [...] même celui de la (...) raison spéculative n’est que conditionné et n’est complet que dans l’usage pratique » 1 , Bachelard, qui appelle à « substituer à la notion anthropomorphe de cause la notion scientifique de fonction » 2 , ou Canguilhem pour qui « l’anthropocentrisme est plus aisé à rejeter que l’anthropomorphisme [...] Peut-on être biologistes sans se sentir du côté des vivants ? » 3 . Ces réflexions ne sont-elles pas toujours centrées sur les modes de connaissance ou de pensée de l’humain, alors que les « objets d’étude » en question demeurent souvent dans un certain flou, voire une large indétermination ? La démarche suivie ici tente d’aller dans une autre direction. Elle interroge les effets de l’anthropocentrisation d’objets spécifiques à la biologie végétale, envisagée aussi bien dans sa profondeur historique que dans ses développements techniques récents. Nous tentons ici un pari : une analyse précise de nos connaissances botaniques, actuelles et passées, peut nourrir la réflexion philosophique sur notre rapport aux plantes et, à travers elles, sur nous-mêmes. (shrink)

The question of the unity of consciousness is often treated as the question of how different conscious experiences are related to each other in order to be unified. Many contemporary views on the unity of consciousness are based on this bottom-up approach. In this paper I explore an alternative, top-down approach, according to which (to a first approximation) a subject undergoes one single conscious experience at a time. From this perspective, the problem of unity of consciousness becomes rather the problem (...) of how we can distinguish a multiplicity of goings-on within our conscious experience at any time, given that it is unique. I will present three possible top-down approaches to unity of consciousness, which I call Priority unity monism, Existence unity monism, and Brentanian unity monism. Priority monism and Existence monism are defined in analogy with the homonymous metaphysical theories of object constitution. Brentanian monism retraces Franz Brentano’s view on unity of consciousness, and is defined by appeal to some of his mereological ideas. I will argue that the latter is the best top-down approach to unity of consciousness. (shrink)

Ways of Scope Taking is concerned with syntactic, semantic and computational aspects of scope. Its starting point is the well-known but often neglected fact that different types of quantifiers interact differently with each other and other operators. The theoretical examination of significant bodies of data, both old and novel, leads to two central claims. (1) Scope is a by-product of a set of distinct Logical Form processes; each quantifier participates in those that suit its particular features. (2) Scope interaction is (...) further constrained by the semantics of the interacting operators. The arguments are developed using Minimalist syntax, Generalized Quantify theory, Discourse Representation Theory, and algebraic semantics. The contributors (Beghelli, Ben-Shalom, Doetjes, Farkas, Gutiérrez Rexach, Honcoop, Stabler, Stowell, Szabolcsi and Zwarts) make tightly related theoretical assumptions and focus on related empirical phenomena, which include the direct and inverse scope of quantifiers, distributivity, negation, modal and intensional contexts, weak islands, event-related readings, interrogatives, wh/quantifier interactions, and Hungarian syntax. An introduction to the formal semantics background is provided. Audience: Linguists, philosophers, computational and psycholinguists; advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in these fields. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel account of the contents of memory. By drawing on insights from the philosophy of perception, I propose a hybrid account of the contents of memory designed to preserve important aspects of representationalist and relationalist views. The hybrid view I propose also contributes to two ongoing debates in philosophy of memory. First, I argue that, in opposition to eternalist views, the hybrid view offers a less metaphysically-charged solution to the co-temporality problem. Second, I show how the (...) hybrid view conceives of the relationship between episodic memory and other forms of episodic thinking. I conclude by considering some disanalogies between perception and memory and by replying to objections. I argue that, despite there being important differences between memory and perception, those differences do not harm my project. (shrink)

This review provides an overview of the ethics of extinctions with a focus on the Western analytical environmental ethics literature. It thereby gives special attention to the possible philosophical grounds for Michael Soulé’s assertion that the untimely ‘extinction of populations and species is bad’. Illustrating such debates in environmental ethics, the guiding question for this review concerns why – or when – anthropogenic extinctions are bad or wrong, which also includes the question of when that might not be the case (...) (i.e. which extinctions are even desirable). After providing an explanation of the disciplinary perspective taken (section “Introduction”), the concept of extinction and its history within that literature are introduced (section “Understanding extinction”). Then, in section “Why (or when) might anthropogenic extinctions be morally problematic?”, different reasons for why anthropogenic extinctions might be morally problematic are presented based on the loss of species’ value, harm to nonhuman individuals, the loss of valuable biological variety and duties to future generations. This section concludes by also considering cases where anthropogenic extinctions might be justified. Section “How to respond to extinctions?” then addresses a selection of topics concerning risks and de-extinction technologies. Finally, the section on “Extinction studies” introduces other viewpoints on the ethics of extinction from the extinction studies literature, followed by the “Conclusion”. (shrink)

Can we build machines with which we can have interesting conversations? Observing the new optimism of AI regarding deep learning and new language models, we set ourselves an ambitious goal: We want to find out how far we can get in creating a digital replica of a philosopher. This project has two aims; one more technical, investigating of how the best model can be built. The other one, more philosophical, explores the limits and risks which are accompanied by the creation (...) of digital replicas. In cooperation with Daniel Dennett, we took his complete works to fine-tune a GPT-3. In this paper, we share our first results with some piloting models and discuss legal and ethical questions about creating and interacting with digital replicas. (shrink)

The philosophical debate around the nature of moods has mostly focused on their apparent undirectedness: unlike mental states such as perceptual experiences, thoughts, and emotions, moods do not seem to be directed at any specific object, and indeed they do not seem to be directed at anything at all. In this paper, I want to draw attention to a different feature of moods, one that is as important and in need of explanation as their apparent undirectedness, but which has been (...) overlooked by most participants in the debate: the fact that moods involve a particularly marked salience of the subjective aspect of experience. I argue that any adequate theory of moods should account for this fact. I call this the “subjective salience desideratum.” In the bulk of the paper, I articulate and motivate the desideratum, show that extant theories of moods do not satisfy it, and offer a preliminary overview of possible (yet unexplored) theories that have the subjective salience desideratum at their core. (shrink)