ABSTRACT This article studies the theory of animal seeds as purely material entities in the early seventeenth-century medical writings of Antonio Ponce Santacruz, royal physician to the Spanish king Philipp IV. Santacruz adopts the theory of the eduction of substantial forms from the potentiality of matter, according to which new kinds of causal powers can arise out of material composites of a certain complexity. Santacruz stands out among the late Aristotelian defenders of eduction theory because he applies the (...) concept of an instrument of direction developed by the medieval Avicenna commentator Gentile da Foligno and gives a novel turn to this concept by interpreting animal seeds as separate instruments. The article situates Santacruz's theory in the context of early modern debates about the concept of the eduction of forms, as well as in the context of early modern debates about the concept of separate instruments. Particular attention is paid to Santacruz's responses to the biological views of Julius Caesar Scaliger and Thomas Feyens. Santacruz's response to Scaliger turns out to be central for his explication of the eduction relation, and Santacruz's response to Feyens turns out to be central for his explication of the nature of instrumental causation. (shrink)

Stoicism deserves everything that Broic$ are doing to its movement. This is because Stoics stuff the value of everything into their own heads, thus denying that external things are good and that other people have intrinsic value. Stoics are psychopathic narcissists and axiological solipsists. And this makes Stoicism easy to coopt into bro-y, shallow, self-help-y garbage.

El artículo presenta un análisis de cuatro temas centrales de Sen: su visión sobre el ser humano, la libertad individual, la evaluación moral y los derechos, y la igualdad. Con esto quiero mostrar que estas ideas no sólo son consistentes, sino que explican muchas de las reflexiones sobre temas sociales y económicos que lo han convertido en un referente en estas áreas. En las conclusiones presentaré una síntesis e interpretación de estas ideas fundamentales, mostrando cómo constituyen un núcleo filosófico y (...) qué relaciones mantienen entre ellas. Mi objetivo no es encasillarlo en algunas de las corrientes de filosofía actuales, sino destacar la solidez y pertinencia de su aporte filosófico, algo sumamente útil en un tiempo como el nuestro, deseoso de ideas frescas para los acuciantes problemas de siempre. (shrink)

Este artículo quiere investigar el lugar que tienen los afectos en el modo de hacer filosofía en América Latina. Para esto, la investigación se centra en las reflexiones de un grupo de filósofos que se autodenomina Equipo Jesuita de Reflexión Filosófica de América Latina, activo desde 1981. Utilizaré textos de su primera etapa cuando el equipo quiso expresamente reflexionar sobre una filosofía propia de América Latina, proyecto que denomina “filosofía inculturada”. Espero mostrar que las reflexiones de este grupo abordan tanto (...) el acto integral del filosofar como el pensamiento filosófico teórico. En el primer sentido, propone una “deontología del filósofo latinoamericano” cuyo método incluye como uno de sus pasos esenciales el “dejarse afectar” por la realidad según el principio de la simpatía, el cual generará otros sentimientos o afectos respecto a la realidad como encuadre para el filosofar. Pero el equipo no deja muy en claro la relación entre afectos y compromiso: ¿quién precede a quién? (shrink)

The open-question argument (OQA) is an argument in meta-ethics that is used against ethical naturalism, the thesis that moral properties are identical to natural properties. This argument has been rightfully criticized, and one notable criticism is that it overlooks the sense-reference distinction, viz. the distinction between the concept that a term refers to and the sense in which it is being used. Ayn Rand's Objectivism rejects the sense-reference distinction, and this paper will present an argument that uses the OQA to (...) argue against the underlying epistemological assumptions of Objectivism. (shrink)

esumen: Dada la aplicabilidad que tiene la noción de natura- leza para cualquier discusión filosófica, teológica, moral, jurídi- ca, etc., este trabajo es un intento por profundizar en el concep- to de naturaleza como principio de movimiento en el pensa- miento de Santo Tomás de Aquino. Aprovechando el legado filosófico de Santo Tomás y con el rigor y la precisión metafísi- ca que le caracteriza, se pretende profundizar en las notas meta- físicas esenciales de la naturaleza y en su relación (...) con el cono- cimiento. La visión de la naturaleza como realidad objetiva y el concepto de naturaleza como universal en la mente humana. El paso del plano físico al metafísico. También se pone de mani- fiesto que, para Santo Tomás, la fuente de todo dinamismo no puede ser otra que el ser de los entes, es decir, el hecho de que el ser es necesario en la comprensión de la naturaleza como principio de operaciones de las creaturas. Palabras clave: naturaleza - ser - principio - operación - bien. (shrink)

This paper does two things. First, it interprets the work of W. E. B. Du Bois to reveal that the meanings of race terms are grounded by both a historical and an aspirational component. Race terms refer to a backward-looking component that traces the history of the group to its present time, as well as a forward-looking component that sets out values and goals for the group. Race terms thus refer to a complex cluster of concepts that involve biological, sociological, (...) historical, moral, and political properties. Second, the paper defends W. E. B. Du Bois’s conservationist thesis about races, which holds that we should maintain race talk and racial distinctions. But instead of offering philosophical evidence, this paper defends the plausibility of the conservationist thesis with evidence from contemporary biology and psychology. It argues that, instead of eliminating race terms or concepts, we should conserve and revise them. (shrink)

Emil Cioran offers novel arguments against suicide. He assumes a meaningless world. But in such a world, he argues, suicide and death would be equally as meaningless as life or anything else. Suicide and death are as cumbersome and useless as meaning and life. Yet Cioran also argues that we should contemplate suicide to live better lives. By contemplating suicide, we confront the deep suffering inherent in existence. This humbles us enough to allow us to change even the deepest aspects (...) of ourselves. Yet it also reminds us that our peculiar human ability—being able to contemplate suicide—sets us above anything else in nature or in the heavens. This paper assembles and defends a view of suicide written about in Cioran’s aphorisms and essays. (shrink)

Constituent power : the concept of a crisis -- Virtue and fortune : the machiavellian paradigm -- The Atlantic model and the theory of counterpower -- Political emancipation in the American constitution -- The revolution and the constitution of labor -- Communist desire and the dialectic restored -- The constitution of strength.

La pobreza y la democracia guardan relaciones complejas y ya bastante estudiadas por los científicos sociales. En este artículo no volveré sobre estos enfoques, ni tampoco insistiré en los problemas de gobernabilidad que nacen de la pobreza, sino que presentaré la crítica filosófico-política al ideal democrático que resulta cuando consideramos a la pobreza como privación de libertad individual. A la pobreza se la puede entender desde múltiples perspectivas filosóficas, pero el interpretarla como privación de libertad individual, como lo hace Amartya (...) Sen, la pone en relación directa y problemática con un sistema de gobierno que precisamente hace de las libertades, y de la libertad humana en general, su nervio central. Quisiera sostener que la existencia de la pobreza pone en duda que vivamos en sociedades democráticas porque cuestiona la finalidad y la esencia de estas comunidades, a la vez que les desafía a pensar cómo pueden convertirse realmente en sociedades justas. Comenzaré con una interpretación filosófica de la pobreza a partir de algunas ideas de Sen (sección 1). Seguiré con el análisis de la relación que se podría establecer entre la privación de libertad y la comunidad política según tres filósofos de la tradición occidental: Aristóteles, Baruch de Espinosa y John Locke (sección 2), y terminaré presentando tres desafíos que la pobreza presenta a nuestras democracias (sección 3). (shrink)

This paper aims to establish the importance of mathematical thinking in the work of Vilém Flusser. For this purpose highlights the concept of escalation of abstraction with which the Czech German philosopher finishes by reversing the top of the traditional pyramid of knowledge, we know from Plato and Aristotle. It also assumes the implicit cultural revolution in the refinement of the numerical element in a process of gradual abandonment of purely alphabetic code, highlights the new key code, together with the (...) technological and telematic culture and uses the concepts of game theory, of probability theory and computing to analize the society and culture. Of particular importance is the affirmation of a new kind of imagination, a projective one, ranging from the model to the world. Today's society and culture can´t be understood without resorting to the concepts and results coined and made ​​in the course of developing a type of thinking entirely dominated by the mathematics. The limits and boundaries of scientific disciplines overlap under number development, requiring reflection and rethinking traditional concepts of social and natural sciences. (shrink)

Book Description (Blurb): Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds explains the crucial role that human cognition research plays in the design and realization of artificial intelligence systems, illustrating the steps necessary for the design of artificial models of cognition. It bridges the gap between the theoretical, experimental and technological issues addressed in the context of AI of cognitive inspiration and computational cognitive science. -/- Beginning with an overview of the historical, methodological and technical issues in the field of Cognitively-Inspired Artificial Intelligence, (...) Lieto illustrates how the cognitive design approach has an important role to play in the development of intelligent AI technologies and plausible computational models of cognition. Introducing a unique perspective that draws upon Cybernetics and early AI principles, Lieto emphasizes the need for an equivalence between cognitive processes and implemented AI procedures, in order to realise biologically and cognitively inspired artificial minds. He also introduces the Minimal Cognitive Grid, a pragmatic method to rank the different degrees of biologically and cognitive accuracy of artificial systems in order project and predict their explanatory power with respect to the natural systems taken as source of inspiration. -/- Providing a comprehensive overview of cognitive design principles in constructing artificial minds, this text will be essential reading for students and researchers of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. (shrink)

In actuarial parlance, the price of an insurance policy is considered fair if customers bearing the same risk are charged the same price. The estimate of this fair amount hinges on the expected value obtained by weighting the different claims by their probability. We argue that, historically, this concept of actuarial fairness originates in an Aristotelian principle of justice in exchange (equality in risk). We will examine how this principle was formalized in the 16th century and shaped in life insurance (...) during the following two hundred years, in two different interpretations. The Domatian account of actuarial fairness relied on subjective uncertainty: An agreement on risk was fair if both parties were equally ignorant about the chances of an uncertain event. The objectivist version grounded any agreement on an objective risk estimate drawn from a mortality table. We will show how the objectivist approach collapsed in the market for life annuities during the 18th century, leaving open the question of why we still speak of actuarial fairness as if it were an objective expected value. (shrink)

In this paper we identify and characterize an analysis of two problematic aspects affecting the representational level of cognitive architectures (CAs), namely: the limited size and the homogeneous typology of the encoded and processed knowledge. We argue that such aspects may constitute not only a technological problem that, in our opinion, should be addressed in order to build arti cial agents able to exhibit intelligent behaviours in general scenarios, but also an epistemological one, since they limit the plausibility of the (...) comparison of the CAs' knowledge representation and processing mechanisms with those executed by humans in their everyday activities. In the fi nal part of the paper further directions of research will be explored, trying to address current limitations and future challenges. (shrink)

Aristotle argued that you need some wealth to live well. The Stoics argued that you could live well with or without wealth. But the Cynics argued that wealth is a hinderance. For the Cynics, a good life consists in self-sufficiency, or being able to rule and help yourself. You accomplish this by living simply and naturally, and by subjecting yourself to rigorous philosophical exercises. Cynics confronted people to get them to abandon extraneous possessions and positions of power to live better. (...) And while the Cynics were experts in living in this way, their ascetic lifestyles made their message curious to some audiences. This paper reflects on Cynic ascetic practices and the ways others perceived them. (shrink)

When considering the value of friendship, most philosophers ignore the negatives. Most assume that humans need friends to flourish, and some argue that friendships can be good, no matter the risks entailed. This makes conversations about the value of friendship one-sided. Here, I argue that Cynics and Pessimists have an important view on friendship, despite it being ignored. They hold that: (a) friendship is unnecessary for flourishing, and (b) friendship presents ethical risks, especially to one’s own self-sufficiency. I defend these (...) views. Then I conclude with reflections on why Cynics and Pessimists actually make great friends. By helping people to focus on vulgar human nature and the flaws that humans have, they create an unpretentious basis for friendship. (shrink)

In this article we present an advanced version of Dual-PECCS, a cognitively-inspired knowledge representation and reasoning system aimed at extending the capabilities of artificial systems in conceptual categorization tasks. It combines different sorts of common-sense categorization (prototypical and exemplars-based categorization) with standard monotonic categorization procedures. These different types of inferential procedures are reconciled according to the tenets coming from the dual process theory of reasoning. On the other hand, from a representational perspective, the system relies on the hypothesis of conceptual (...) structures represented as heterogeneous proxytypes. Dual-PECCS has been experimentally assessed in a task of conceptual categorization where a target concept illustrated by a simple common-sense linguistic description had to be identified by resorting to a mix of categorization strategies, and its output has been compared to human responses. The obtained results suggest that our approach can be beneficial to improve the representational and reasoning conceptual capabilities of standard cognitive artificial systems, and –in addition– that it may be plausibly applied to different general computational models of cognition. The current version of the system, in fact, extends our previous work, in that Dual-PECCS is now integrated and tested into two cognitive architectures, ACT-R and CLARION, implementing different assumptions on the underlying invariant structures governing human cognition. Such integration allowed us to extend our previous evaluation. (shrink)

We propose a nonmonotonic Description Logic of typicality able to account for the phenomenon of the combination of prototypical concepts. The proposed logic relies on the logic of typicality ALC + TR, whose semantics is based on the notion of rational closure, as well as on the distributed semantics of probabilistic Description Logics, and is equipped with a cognitive heuristic used by humans for concept composition. We first extend the logic of typicality ALC + TR by typicality inclusions of the (...) form p :: T(C) v D, whose intuitive meaning is that “we believe with degree p about the fact that typical Cs are Ds”. As in the distributed semantics, we define different scenarios containing only some typicality inclusions, each one having a suitable probability. We then exploit such scenarios in order to ascribe typical properties to a concept C obtained as the combination of two prototypical concepts. We also show that reasoning in the proposed Description Logic is EXPTIME-complete as for the underlying standard Description Logic ALC. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the specific shift in the meaning of “civilization” that took place in texts and documents of early American philosophical naturalism. Particularly, it will focus on the specific role that naturalization plays in the edification of a newly secularized, science-oriented, and democratic society, as well as of a naturalized conception of culture and civilization. Indeed, as the work of many philosophers and intellectuals of the Forties highlights, naturalism represents not only the banner of a new idea of civilization, (...) but at the same time becomes the symbol of a powerful postwar ideology. (shrink)

In this paper we propose a computational framework aimed at extending the problem solving capabilities of cognitive artificial agents through the introduction of a novel, goal-directed, dynamic knowledge generation mechanism obtained via a non monotonic reasoning procedure. In particular, the proposed framework relies on the assumption that certain classes of problems cannot be solved by simply learning or injecting new external knowledge in the declarative memory of a cognitive artificial agent but, on the other hand, require a mechanism for the (...) automatic and creative re-framing, or re-formulation, of the available knowledge. We show how such mechanism can be obtained trough a framework of dynamic knowledge generation that is able to tackle the problem of commonsense concept combination. In addition, we show how such a framework can be employed in the field of cognitive architectures in order to overcome situations like the impasse in SOAR by extending the possible options of its subgoaling procedures. (shrink)

We propose a nonmonotonic Description Logic of typicality able to account for the phenomenon of combining prototypical concepts, an open problem in the fields of AI and cognitive modelling. Our logic extends the logic of typicality ALC + TR, based on the notion of rational closure, by inclusions p :: T(C) v D (“we have probability p that typical Cs are Ds”), coming from the distributed semantics of probabilistic Description Logics. Additionally, it embeds a set of cognitive heuristics for concept (...) combination. We show that the complexity of reasoning in our logic is EXPTIME-complete as in ALC. (shrink)

During the last decades, many cognitive architectures (CAs) have been realized adopting different assumptions about the organization and the representation of their knowledge level. Some of them (e.g. SOAR [35]) adopt a classical symbolic approach, some (e.g. LEABRA[ 48]) are based on a purely connectionist model, while others (e.g. CLARION [59]) adopt a hybrid approach combining connectionist and symbolic representational levels. Additionally, some attempts (e.g. biSOAR) trying to extend the representational capacities of CAs by integrating diagrammatical representations and reasoning are (...) also available [34]. In this paper we propose a reflection on the role that Conceptual Spaces, a framework developed by Peter G¨ardenfors [24] more than fifteen years ago, can play in the current development of the Knowledge Level in Cognitive Systems and Architectures. In particular, we claim that Conceptual Spaces offer a lingua franca that allows to unify and generalize many aspects of the symbolic, sub-symbolic and diagrammatic approaches (by overcoming some of their typical problems) and to integrate them on a common ground. In doing so we extend and detail some of the arguments explored by G¨ardenfors [23] for defending the need of a conceptual, intermediate, representation level between the symbolic and the sub-symbolic one. In particular we focus on the advantages offered by Conceptual Spaces (w.r.t. symbolic and sub-symbolic approaches) in dealing with the problem of compositionality of representations based on typicality traits. Additionally, we argue that Conceptual Spaces could offer a unifying framework for interpreting many kinds of diagrammatic and analogical representations. As a consequence, their adoption could also favor the integration of diagrammatical representation and reasoning in CAs. (shrink)

La aspiración a formar sociedades justas se choca con alarmantes niveles de pobreza y desigualdad, un problema al cual toda reflexión sobre la justa sociedad debe ofrecer una respuesta convincente. Esta ponencia afirma (1ª parte) que la experiencia que tenemos de las injusticias – como la pobreza – puede dar origen a una reflexión sobre la justicia. Luego (2ª parte) presenta el concepto de pobreza según el enfoque de las capacidades de Amartya Sen y lo completa con una interpretación filosófica (...) de la pobreza como privación radical de libertad individual. Finalmente (3ª parte) analiza y critica la forma en que la teoría de la justicia de John Rawls no aborda el problema de la pobreza y propone un principio de justicia previo a los dos de Rawls – el principio “cero” – que recoge el desafío que la pobreza plantea al concepto de sociedad justa. (shrink)

Exploramos aquí la conexión entre los conceptos de riesgo e igualdad en el argumento del observador imparcial. La concepción de la justicia que elegiría un observador imparcial se justifica por la pureza del procedimiento de elección. Sin embargo, si modelizamos esta decisión utilizando medidas del riesgo habituales en matemática financiera, veremos cómo el criterio de elección del observador bajo el velo de la ignorancia contiene una preferencia implícita por el grado de desigualdad resultante. Esto nos obliga a reconsiderar la pureza (...) procedimental de la elección. (shrink)

The paper introduces an extension of the proposal according to which conceptual representations in cognitive agents should be intended as heterogeneous proxytypes. The main contribution of this paper is in that it details how to reconcile, under a heterogeneous representational perspective, different theories of typicality about conceptual representation and reasoning. In particular, it provides a novel theoretical hypothesis - as well as a novel categorization algorithm called DELTA - showing how to integrate the representational and reasoning assumptions of the theory-theory (...) of concepts with the those ascribed to the prototype and exemplars-based theories. (shrink)

Cualquiera que sea la opinión que uno tenga sobre la participación de la Iglesia católica en los debates políticos del Ecuador, nadie negará que ha sido y sigue siendo un actor importante de estos debates. Conocer sus ideas políticas contribuye a entender mejor este rol y a juzgarlo con más fundamento y menos apasionamiento. Por esto, el actual volumen reúne textos selectos de cinco pensadores católicos ecuatorianos representativos, desde fines del siglo XIX hasta las últimas décadas del siglo XX. Hablamos (...) de: • Monseñor Federico González Suárez (1844 – 1917). Historiador, arqueólogo, Obispo de Ibarra (1895 – 1905) y Arzobispo de Quito (1906 – 1917). • Cardenal Carlos María de la Torre (1873 – 1968). Arzobispo de Quito (1933-1967) y Cardenal desde 1953. • Julio Tobar Donoso (1894 – 1981). Jurista, diplomático, historiador. • Cardenal Pablo Muñoz Vega (1903 – 1994). Arzobispo de Quito (1967- 1985) y Cardenal desde 1969. • Monseñor Leonidas Proaño (1910 – 1988). Obispo de Riobamba (1954-1985) y candidato al Premio Nobel de la Paz en 1986. El objetivo de esta publicación es ofrecer una síntesis coherente del pensamiento político de estos autores, a pesar de las diferencias que entre ellos existen. No ofrecemos una compilación sobre “el” pensamiento político católico, así dicho en general, porque sería exhaustivo y pretencioso. Nos limitaremos a presentar una síntesis que nos introduzca a las principales cuestiones sociales y políticas que han preocupado a estas cinco figuras. Este trabajo tiene naturalmente sus límites debidos al amplio espacio de tiempo considerado, las múltiples cuestiones políticas implicadas y la productividad de los autores, todos ellos pensadores a la vez que personas de acción. (shrink)

An ontology of Leibnizian relationalism, consisting in distance relations among sparse matter points and their change only, is well recognized as a serious option in the context of classical mechanics. In this paper, we investigate how this ontology fares when it comes to general relativistic physics. Using a Humean strategy, we regard the gravitational field as a means to represent the overall change in the distance relations among point particles in a way that achieves the best combination of being simple (...) and being informative. (shrink)

I say: “Oh, what a beautiful surrealist picture!” With quite precise awareness: this páthos, these emotions of mine do not stem from our common sense. An aesthetic judgment is founded on an immediate subjective intuition: an emotion or a free feeling of a single subject towards an object. A universal sense, possibly. Some judgments of ours in ethics and in law are no different from our perceptions in front of art. It would be the same for a hypothetical sentence of (...) the judge that concluded with these words: “I acquit Arsenio Lupin because of his magnificent handlebar moustache like that of Guy de Maupassant”. Everyone would think intuitively that it is an unfair sentence. Is there aesthetics of terror? The case that the article intends to examine is that of the famous kidnapping and murder of the Italian statesman Aldo Moro by the “Brigate Rosse” [Red Brigades] (1978). The method used here consists in studying the image of the kidnapping as iconic documentation of reality, and, above all, as an ethical-legal judgment about the terrorist crime. Moro was photographed during his kidnapping. There are at least two pictures. Both constitute an extraordinary source for a judgment on the basis of an image. In both of them, Aldo Moro is pictured in front of a Red Brigades banner during the captivity. In what sense do these pictures document an aesthetic judgment concerning the “case Moro”? The answer can be found in a remarkable iconic coincidence of these pictures with a masterpiece by Georges Rouault (Paris 1871-1958) devoted to the theme of the “Ecce Homo”. The Gospel in the “Ecce Homo” scene (John: 19, 4-5) narrates how Pontius Pilate wanted to arouse the compassion of the people with a scourging and the exposure of Jesus to the crowd. The plate under consideration is entitled “Qui ne se grime pas?” [Who does not have a painted face?] and is a key work in Rouault’s suite of prints Miserere, dated for 1923. (shrink)

The paper discusses from a metaphysical standpoint the nature of the dependence relation underpinning the talk of mutual action between material and spatiotemporal structures in general relativity. It is shown that the standard analyses of dependence in terms of causation or grounding are ill-suited for the general relativistic context. Instead, a non-standard analytical framework in terms of structural equation modeling is exploited, which leads to the conclusion that the kind of dependence encoded in the Einstein field equations is a novel (...) one. (shrink)

The proposal of moral enhancement as a valuable means to face the environmental, technological and social challenges that threaten the future of humanity has been criticized by a number of authors. One of the main criticisms has been that moral enhancement would diminish our freedom. It has been said that moral enhancement would lead enhanced people to lose their ‘freedom to fall’, that is, it would prevent them from being able to decide to carry out some morally bad actions, and (...) the possibility to desire and carry out these bad actions is an essential ingredient of free will, which would thus be limited or destroyed—or so the argument goes. In this paper we offer an answer to this criticism. We contend that a morally enhanced agent could lose the ‘freedom to fall’ without losing her freedom for two reasons. First, because we do not consider that a morally well-educated person, for whom the ‘freedom to fall’ is a remote option, is less free than an evildoer, and there is no reason to suppose that bioenhancement introduces a significant difference here. Second, because richness in the amount of alternative possibilities of action may be restored if the stated loss is compensated with an improvement in sensitivity and lucidity that can lead to seeing new options and nuances in the remaining possible actions. (shrink)

Is attention both necessary and sufficient for consciousness? Call this central question of this treatise, “Q.” We commonly have the experience of consciously paying attention to something, but is it possible to be conscious of something you are not attending to, or to attend to something of which you are not conscious? Where might we find examples of these? This treatise is a quest to find an answer to Q in two parts. Part I reviews the foundations upon which the (...) discourse on Q is built. Different inputs to Q produce different answers. After consideration of the many ways “attention” and “consciousness” have been defined, I settle upon phenomenal consciousness and Executive Attention (defined as a suite of strategies for structuring cognition for further processing implemented by the executive of working memory) as the most interesting inputs to Q, and the ones on which Part II focuses. Attention without consciousness seems relatively easy to establish empirically, but consciousness without attention is much harder. The putative candidates all seem to have major problems, but I build a strong abductive case for the hitherto ignored case of foveal phenomenal overflow. We consciously see far more detail in our foveal fields than we can Executively Attend, although there is a serious obstacle to our ever confirming that empirically—identifying conscious content relies on Executive Attentional report. Triangulating the capacity limitations of attention, consciousness, and working memory strengthens this case for consciousness without attention, and suggests that cognition must work something like my “Witches’ Hat Model,” on which content can become conscious outside of Executive Attention or working memory. I conclude with some reflections on the implications of my arguments for the discourse on Q, and for other discourses such as the ontologies of attention and consciousness, theories of consciousness, some other cognitive concepts, and ethical considerations in humans, animals, and machines. A conclusive answer to Q continues to elude us. It may perhaps be an ultimately insoluble conundrum. But it is the very essence of humanity to seek an answer, and in so doing, to improve our understanding of our own nature: “The proper study of mankind is man.”1. (shrink)

This paper elaborates on relationalism about space and time as motivated by a minimalist ontology of the physical world: there are only matter points that are individuated by the distance relations among them, with these relations changing. We assess two strategies to combine this ontology with physics, using classical mechanics as example: the Humean strategy adopts the standard, non-relationalist physical theories as they stand and interprets their formal apparatus as the means of bookkeeping of the change of the distance relations (...) instead of committing us to additional elements of the ontology. The alternative theory strategy seeks to combine the relationalist ontology with a relationalist physical theory that reproduces the predictions of the standard theory in the domain where these are empirically tested. We show that, as things stand, this strategy cannot be accomplished without compromising a minimalist relationalist ontology. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is twofold. First, it provides a quick look at the foundations of modern relational mechanics by tracing its development from Julian Barbour and Bruno Bertotti's original ideas until present-day's pure shape dynamics. Secondly, it discusses the most appropriate metaphysics for pure shape dynamics, showing that relationalism is more of a nuanced thesis rather than an elusive one. The chapter ends with a brief assessment of the prospects of pure shape dynamics in light of quantum physics.

We overview the main historical and technological elements characterising the rise, the fall and the recent renaissance of the cognitive approaches to Artificial Intelligence and provide some insights and suggestions about the future directions and challenges that, in our opinion, this discipline needs to face in the next years.

This capstone is centered around the development of an efficient electronic property inventory system tailored for school assets, driven by the overarching objective of resource optimization to ensure equitable access to vital materials for all learners. The methodology follows the “ISSO” framework (Ignite, Strategize, Systematize, Operationalize), complemented by a Logical Framework. The project employs a homegrown digitalized system constructed through a waterfall model approach, which undergoes alpha and beta testing. The study’s analysis utilizes a t-Test to evaluate its impact. The (...) outcomes reveal that real-time property monitoring significantly enhances custodianship, while digitalization yields improvements in reliability, efficiency, and usability, effectively overhauling the conventional inventory process. The electronic system fosters stakeholder engagement, supporting communication, budget allocation, and audits. Comparative testing demonstrates clear advantages over traditional manual methods. In conclusion, this study underscores the merits of a refined electronic property inventory system. Notably, the research suggests a need for careful consideration of process complexities in outsourcing decisions and showcases the swift, precise, and transparent accounting provided by e-AIMSS deployments, thereby nurturing transparency and public confidence. This innovative approach holds promise for broader application within the realm of e-government processes. (shrink)

Persuasive technologies can adopt several strategies to change the attitudes and behaviors of their users. In this work I synthesize the lessons learned from three empirical case studies on automated persuasion that have been carried out in the last decade in the contexts of: persuasive news recommendations, social robotics, and e-commerce, respectively. In particular, such studies have assessed, in the technological domain, the effects of nudging techniques relying on well known persuasive argumentation schemas and on framing strategies. In discussing the (...) main findings, I will argue that the obtained persuasive effects are due to the fact that such techniques leverage on cognitive mechanisms that refer to the “system 1” types of automatic processes hypothesized in the context of the dual process theory of reasoning. As a consequence of this state of affairs, any automated persuasive systems (used for ethical purposes: e.g. suggesting good health habits) should be able to re-use these types of system 1 strategies in order to gradually take the users in an argumentation territory where system 2 processes can take place. -/- . (shrink)

The term attention has been used to mean so many different things that some have despaired of it being useful at all. This paper is devoted to bringing a modicum of order to the chaos through the time-honored device of categorization. The chief purpose of this paper is to introduce a comprehensive descriptive taxonomy of the nuanced ways the term attention may be employed. It is presented in table form, followed by elucidations and illustrations of each of its items. But (...) first, I offer reasons why a taxonomy of attention is needed and explore some of its possible benefits. After presenting the taxonomy, I sketch by way of example how it might be applied to two interesting questions: is the umbrella term attention still useful?; and, what is it that ties the subdefinitions of attention together yet distinguishes them from other kinds of cognition? (shrink)

En torno a la simplificación que liga el término "postmodernidad" con el final histórico, cronológico, de la Modernidad se concitan dos posiciones opuestas: la de quienes (en la estela de Habermas) denuncian el talante conservador y apocalíptico, anti-moderno, de buena parte de los filósofos del siglo XX, especialmente en sus últimas décadas, y la de quienes (por ejemplo, Lyotard) celebran la caída de los referentes clásicos. Lejos de tal dicotomía, se trata de realizar del ambiguo "post" una lectura atenta no (...) a la noción de tiempo sino a la de lugar o espacio semántico: la postmodernidad no vendría a finalizar nada, antes al contrario, se trataría de una perspectiva práctica desde la que entender los problemas aún vigentes de la Modernidad, de la que el "post" antepuesto sería modulación radical, extremo Kunstwollen, voluntad crítica basada siempre en la descreencia última en toda trascendencia, incluida la propia de la lógica moderna del progreso y la emancipación. (shrink)

Algunos presupuestos teológicos de la crisis de Occidente Some theological presuppositions of the crisis of the West -/- Manuel Ocampo Ponce Universidad Panamericana Departamento de Humanidades -/- Resumen. Muchos hablan de una crisis en occidente y de los distintos factores que han contribuido a la misma. Sin embargo, no son tantos los que involucran los factores teológicos que han influido en dicha crisis. De aquí que el presente estudio sea un intento por presentar algunos de los presupuestos teológicos de (...) lo que se ha llamado “la crisis de occidente”. Se trata de presentar ciertas ideas filosóficas que han repercutido en las propuestas de algunos teólogos y pensadores del siglo XX y lo que va del XXI, y de demostrar que dichas ideas han producido cambios significativos en la concepción de Dios, en la concepción de las dimensiones personal y social del hombre, y con estas en la organización del mundo contribuyendo, en distintos niveles, lo que se ha denominado la crisis de Occidente. -/- Palabras clave: Dios, Cristianismo, ser, Teología, Metafísica, crisis, agnosticismo, relativismo, secularismo. -/- Abstract. Many speak of a crisis in the West and of the various factors that have contributed to it. However, few mention the theological factors that have influenced this crisis. Hence, the present study is an attempt to present some of the theological presuppositions of what has been called "the crisis of the West". The study presents certain philosophical ideas that have had repercussions on the proposals of some representative theologians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It seeks to demonstrate that these ideas have produced some changes in the conception of God, in the conception of personal and social dimensions and in the organization of the world. These have favored, at different levels, what has been called the crisis of the West. -/- Key words: God, Christianism, being, Theology, Methaphisics, crisis, agnosticism, relativism, secularism. -/- En las últimas décadas se ha hablado mucho de que el mundo occidental se encuentra en crisis. Crisis de pensamiento, crisis de valores, crisis moral, crisis en los ámbitos científicos, artísticos, humanos, ambientales, etc. Sin embargo, es necesario aclarar que, para comprender Occidente y su crisis, es imprescindible considerar el papel del cristianismo como elemento fundamental de la cultura occidental. No podemos dejar de lado que, si el cristianismo tiene un peso en el desarrollo de Occidente, también debe tener un peso en sus logros y en sus decadencias y fracasos. En efecto, así como no podemos entender el mundo árabe si no conocemos el Islam, o Asia si no conocemos el budismo, tampoco podemos comprender Occidente si no conocemos el cristianismo. Esa es la razón por la que pensamos que cualquier análisis serio de la cultura de Occidente, ha de considerar el cristianismo como elemento clave para su comprensión. Pero hay que ser conscientes de que el cristianismo abarca muchos ámbitos especulativos y prácticos que, en una investigación de esta naturaleza, son imposibles de abarcar. Por lo mismo, el presente estudio se limita a mostrar de manera muy panorámica sólo algunos de los elementos teológicos de la crisis de Occidente que muchas veces son pasados por alto en distintos ámbitos, considerando que la Teología cristiana está conformada por una fuerte base filosófica. Como corolario de este estudio se deduce una solución que deviene de los mismos factores que han sido causas de la crisis. Se ha realizado una selección de algunos autores que he considerado como representativos de movimientos de pensamiento que han dado lugar a ciertos cambios importantes, y presentarlos demostrando el papel que ha tenido la modificación de la Teología cristiana en la crisis de Occidente. (shrink)

I will present the rationale followed for the conceptualization and the following development the Dual PECCS system that relies on the cognitively grounded heterogeneous proxytypes representational hypothesis [Lieto 2014]. Such hypothesis allows integrating exemplars and prototype theories of categorization as well as theory-theory [Lieto 2019] and has provided useful insights in the context of cognitive modelling for what concerns the typicality effects in categorization [Lieto, 2021]. As argued in [Lieto et al., 2018b] a pivotal role in this respect is played (...) by the use of the conceptual spaces framework and by its integration with a symbolic knowledge representation layer. (shrink)

In his famous 1982 paper, Allen Newell [22, 23] introduced the notion of knowledge level to indicate a level of analysis, and prediction, of the rational behavior of a cognitive arti cial agent. This analysis concerns the investigation about the availability of the agent knowledge, in order to pursue its own goals, and is based on the so-called Rationality Principle (an assumption according to which "an agent will use the knowledge it has of its environment to achieve its goals" [22, (...) p. 17]. By using the Newell's own words: "To treat a system at the knowledge level is to treat it as having some knowledge, some goals, and believing it will do whatever is within its power to attain its goals, in so far as its knowledge indicates" [22, p. 13]. In the last decades, the importance of the knowledge level has been historically and system- atically downsized by the research area in cognitive architectures (CAs), whose interests have been mainly focused on the analysis and the development of mechanisms and the processes governing human and (arti cial) cognition. The knowledge level in CAs, however, represents a crucial level of analysis for the development of such arti cial general systems and therefore deserves greater research attention [17]. In the following, we will discuss areas of broad agree- ment and outline the main problematic aspects that should be faced within a Common Model of Cognition [12]. Such aspects, departing from an analysis at the knowledge level, also clearly impact both lower (e.g. representational) and higher (e.g. social) levels. (shrink)

Inventing novel knowledge to solve problems is a crucial, creative, mechanism employed by humans, to extend their range of action. In this paper, we present TCL (typicality-based compositional logic): a probabilistic, non monotonic extension of standard Description Logics of typicality, and will show how this framework is able to endow artificial systems of a human-like, commonsense based, concept composition procedure that allows its employment in a number of applications (ranging from computational creativity to goal-based reasoning to recommender systems and affective (...) computing). -/- The framework relies on 3 main ingredients: a non monotonic extension of standard Description Logics (allowing to reason on exceptions to inheritance in standard knowledge bases) a probabilistic extension coming from the field of logic programming (the DISPONTE semantics) a cognitive heuristics known ad HEAD-Modifier determining preference rules for the inheritance mechanisms of the novel concepts to be generated via commonsense rules. -/- We report the obtained results and the lessons learned of this research path in the context of model-based AI applications. -/- . (shrink)

We defend, from a contractarian perspective, that the fair price of an insurance policy is the amount that the contracting parties agree when they are both equally uncertain about the insured event. Drawing on the approach developed by R. Sugden in _The Community of Advantage_, we answer two standard objections raised against contractarianism in the actuarial sciences: (1) people are not wise enough to assess their actuarial risks; (2) they are not rational enough to decide which insurance policy suits them (...) better. We show under which circumstances people can make fair actuarial agreements, without presupposing any objective risk or rationality benchmarks. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that computer simulations can provide valuable insights into the performance of voting methods on different collective decision problems. This could improve institutional design, even when there is no general theoretical result to support the optimality of a voting method. To support our claim, we first describe a decision problem that has not received much theoretical attention in the literature. We outline different voting methods to address that collective decision problem. Under certain criteria of assessment akin (...) to extensions of the Condorcet Jury Theorem, we run simulations for the methods using MATLAB, in order to compare their performance under various conditions. We consider and respond to concerns about the use of simulations in the assessment of voting procedures for policymaking. (shrink)

Background Neuroimaging and lesion studies suggested that the dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices mediate visual metacognitive awareness. The causal evidence provided by non-invasive brain stimulation, however, is inconsistent. -/- Objective/hypothesis Here we revisit a major figure discrimination experiment adding a new Kanizsa figure task trying to resolve whether bilateral continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) over these regions affects perceptual metacognition. Specifically, we tested whether subjective visibility ratings and/or metacognitive efficiency are lower when cTBS is applied to these two (...) regions in comparison to an active control region. -/- Methods A within-subjects design including three sessions spaced by one-week intervals was implemented. In each session, every participant was administered bilateral cTBS to either prefrontal, control or parietal cortices. Two concurrent tasks were performed, a real and an illusory figure task, stabilising objective performance with use of an adaptive staircase procedure. -/- Results When performing the replicated task, cTBS was found insufficient to disrupt neither visibility ratings nor metacognitive efficiency. However, with use of Kanizsa style illusory figures, cTBS over the dorsolateral prefrontal, but not over the posterior parietal cortex, was observed to significantly diminish metacognitive efficiency. -/- Conclusion(s) Real and illusory figure tasks demonstrated different cTBS effects. A possible explanation is the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in the creation of expectations, which is necessary for efficient metacognition. Failure to replicate previous findings for the real figure task, however, cannot be said to support, conclusively, the notion that these brain regions have a causal role in metacognitive awareness. This inconsistent finding may result from certain limitations of our study, thereby suggesting the need for yet further investigation. (shrink)