I develop a distinction between two types of psychological hedonism. Inferential hedonism (or “I-hedonism”) holds that each person only has ultimate desires regarding his or her own hedonic states (pleasure and pain). Reinforcement hedonism (or “R–hedonism”) holds that each person's ultimate desires, whatever their contents are, are differentially reinforced in that person’s cognitive system only by virtue of their association with hedonic states. I’ll argue that accepting R-hedonism and rejecting I-hedonism provides a conciliatory position on the traditional altruism debate, and (...) that it coheres well with the neuroscientist Anthony Dickinson’s theory about the evolutionary function of hedonic states, the “hedonic interface theory.” Finally, I’ll defend R-hedonism from potential objections. (shrink)

Most epistemologists hold that knowledge entails belief. However, proponents of this claim rarely offer a positive argument in support of it. Rather, they tend to treat the view as obvious and assert that there are no convincing counterexamples. We find this strategy to be problematic. We do not find the standard view obvious, and moreover, we think there are cases in which it is intuitively plausible that a subject knows some proposition P without—or at least without determinately—believing that P. Accordingly, (...) we present five plausible examples of knowledge without (determinate) belief, and we present empirical evidence suggesting that our intuitions about these scenarios are not atypical. (shrink)

During much of the past century, it was widely believed that phonemes--the human speech sounds that constitute words--have no inherent semantic meaning, and that the relationship between a combination of phonemes (a word) and its referent is simply arbitrary. Although recent work has challenged this picture by revealing psychological associations between certain phonemes and particular semantic contents, the precise mechanisms underlying these associations have not been fully elucidated. Here we provide novel evidence that certain phonemes have an inherent, non-arbitrary emotional (...) quality. Moreover, we show that the perceived emotional valence of certain phoneme combinations depends on a specific acoustic feature--namely, the dynamic shift within the phonemes' first two frequency components. These data suggest a phoneme-relevant acoustic property influencing the communication of emotion in humans, and provide further evidence against previously held assumptions regarding the structure of human language. This finding has potential applications for a variety of social, educational, clinical, and marketing contexts. (shrink)

Statements about the behavior of biochemical entities (e.g., about the interaction between two proteins) abound in the literature on molecular biology and are increasingly becoming the targets of information extraction and text mining techniques. We show that an accurate analysis of the semantics of such statements reveals a number of ambiguities that have to be taken into account in the practice of biomedical ontology engineering: Such statements can not only be understood as event reporting statements, but also as ascriptions of (...) dispositions or tendencies that may or may not refer to collectives of interacting molecules or even to collectives of interaction events. (shrink)

Statements about the behavior of biological entities, e.g. about the interaction between two proteins, abound in the literature on molecular biology and are increasingly becoming the targets of information extraction and text mining techniques. We show that an accurate analysis of the semantics of such statements reveals a number of ambiguities that is necessary to take into account in the practice of biomedical ontology engineering. Several concurring formalizations are proposed. Emphasis is laid on the discussion of biological dispositions.

Philosophie stellt den Bezug zur Weisheit bereits in ihrem Namen (philo-sophia) her. So selbstverständlich dies ist, so spannungsgeladen ist deren Verhältnis. Denn Philosophie und Weisheit sind Korrespondenz- und Reibungsbegriffe gleichermaßen. Es mag daher auf den ersten Blick verwundern oder eben nicht, dass sich seit der Neuzeit der bis dahin konstitutive Zusammenhang von Philosophie und Weisheit zunehmend auflöst bis dahin, dass es die Philosophie seit dem 19. Jahrhundert weit von sich weist, mit Weisheit überhaupt in einen Zusammenhang gebracht zu werden (1.) (...) Unter den Bedingungen der Moderne ist es daher schwierig, über historische Aussagen hinaus Auskunft über das zu geben, was mit Weisheit aus Sicht der Philosophie gemeint ist und wie sie philosophisch zu verstehen ist. -/- Dieser misslichen Situation ist nur dadurch zu entgehen, dass man versucht, die innere Logik dieses Auflösungsprozesses zu rekonstruieren, um die Möglichkeiten einer heutigen Rede von Weisheit auszuloten. Bei diesem philosophiegeschichtlichen Rekonstruktionsversuch zeigt sich, dass Weisheit und Vernunft eine Symbiose eingegangen sind. Zum Wesen der Vernunft gehört es, kohärente Ordnungen zu erkennen und ggf. Ordnungen allererst zu stiften, wobei von Ordnung immer dann gesprochen werden kann, wenn Differentes zu einer Einheit verbunden ist. In der Geschichte der Philosophie wird Weisheit, Vernunft und Geordnetheit von drei Vernunftinstanzen ausgesagt: von Gott (als absoluter Weisheit), von der Welt (als objektiv gewordener Weisheit oder kosmischer Weisheit) und vom Menschen (als subjektiv-endlicher Weisheit). Weisheit wird diesen Instanzen deshalb zugeschrieben, weil sie – wenngleich in je unterschiedlicher Weise – über Vernunft verfügen, die wir immer dort vermuten, wo wir begründet eine Ordnung im Sinne einer Einheit von Differentem unterstellen können. Weisheit ist mithin eine Syntheseleistung. Und Aufgabe des Weisen ist es, Ordnung zu stiften (2.). -/- Der Auflösungsprozess von Philosophie und Weisheit erweist sich auf diesem Hintergrund nicht als zufälliger Betriebsunfall der Philosophiegeschichte, sondern folgt einer Logik, die sich aus den wandelnden Inbeziehungsetzungen der drei Vernunft- und Weisheitsinstanzen ergibt. In der Antike kommt dem Kosmos als Weisheitsinstanz der Primat zu; im Mittelalter der absoluten Weisheit Gottes und in der Neuzeit dem endlichen Vernunftsubjekt. Sein sich zunehmend steigernder Anspruch auf Freiheit jedoch, der sich als philosophiegeschichtlich-neuzeitlicher Reflex auf einen „Betriebsunfall“ des Spätmittelalters, die Übersteigerung des Theorems der Allmacht Gottes, lesen lässt, verträgt sich schlussendlich nicht einmal mehr mit der Bindung an irgendein Weisheitsideal (3.). Soll Weisheit in diesem „Kommerzium der Freiheit“ (Hermann Krings) als Orientierungsgröße noch eine Chance haben, dann muss sie als Kompetenz bestimmt werden, das unter Freiheitsbedingungen fast Unmögliche zu leisten, nämlich Ordnung und Ordnungen aus Freiheit zu stiften: „Sapientis est ordinare!“. (shrink)

Problems in normative ethics paradigmatically concern what it is obligatory or permissible for an individual to do. Yet sometimes, each of us ought to do something individually in virtue of what we ought to do together. Unfortunately, traversing these two different levels at which a moral obligation can arise – individual and collective – is fraught with difficulties that easily lure us into conclusions muddying our understanding of collective obligations. This paper seeks to clearly lay out a systematic problem central (...) to the relation between collective and individual duties in view of alleviating some such confusion and facilitating more concerted attempts at resolving it: Collective duties require individuals to act in order for the collective duty to be fulfilled. Yet typically, a collective duty does not entail any one set of individual duties that would prescribe such contributory actions: The work we need to do in order to fulfil a duty can be allocated differently to the individuals collectively bearing it. Much like in matters of distributive justice, then, deriving individual duties from a collective one requires us to employ a distributive scheme, which raises separate normative concerns that have rarely taken centre stage in the debate so far. (shrink)

Landgrebe and Smith provide an argument for the impossibility of Artificial General Intelligence based on the limits of simulating complex systems. However, their argument presupposes a very contemporary vision of artificial intelligence as a model trained on data to produce an algorithm executable in a modern digital computing system. The present contribution explores what it means to be artificial. Current artificial intelligence approaches on modern computing systems are not the only conceivable way in which artificial intelligence technology might be created. (...) If there are conceivable routes by which an artificial intelligence might be developed that are not constrained in the same way as the current generation of artificial neural networks, then these might be plausible routes towards the engineered generation of artificial general intelligence that are not precluded by the Landgrebe and Smith argument against the possibility of artificial general intelligence. (shrink)

The integration of standardized biomedical terminologies into a single, unified knowledge representation system has formed a key area of applied informatics research in recent years. The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is the most advanced and most prominent effort in this direction, bringing together within its Metathesaurus a large number of distinct source-terminologies. The UMLS Semantic Network, which is designed to support the integration of these source-terminologies, has proved to be a highly successful combination of formal coherence and broad scope. (...) We argue here, however, that its organization manifests certain structural problems, and we describe revisions which we believe are needed if the network is to be maximally successful in realizing its goals of supporting terminology integration. (shrink)

According to the Thomistic tradition, the Principle of Totality (TPoT) articulates a secondary principle of natural law which guides the exercise of human ownership or dominium over creation. In its general signification, TPoT is a principle of distributive justice determining the right ordering of wholes to their parts. In the medical field it is traditionally understood as entailing an absolute prohibition of bodily mutilation as irrational and immoral, and an imperfect obligation to use the parts of one’s body for the (...) perfection of the bodily whole. TPoT is thus a key element of the system of principles within which an individual exercises her right to life: it helps specify the nature, scope and limits of those actions by which an agent permissibly acts in order to preserve her life. While the Thomistic tradition and the Catholic Church have drawn clear conclusions from the principle regarding, e.g., direct sterilization and non-therapeutic experimentation on human subjects, less attention has been given to the implications of TPoT for non-therapeutic procedures that may positively impact biological functioning or supra-biological goals–that is, for human “enhancement.” We will explore the degree to which TPoT non-univocally guides our use of both artifacts and bodies. We will argue that a careful analysis of these distinct kinds of totalities suggests that the application of TPoT to artifacts and bodies is strongly isomorphic, which is what tempts advocates of the Principle of Autonomy to invalidly infer the absolute dominium of the individual over her body. The inference is invalid because this isomorphism also includes a principle of intrinsic value whose function is to resist the instrumentalization of both artifacts and bodies in some contexts; we are not even related to artifacts as advocates of absolute autonomy believe we are, let alone to our bodies. Rather, the limits of human dominium are determined by the nature and finalities, inherent or acquired, of the objects in question, and it will be argued that articulating these limits raises important, understudied, and fascinating questions about the permissibility of various kinds of human enhancement. (shrink)

Where humans can manipulate and integrate the information they receive in subtle and ever changing ways from context to context, computers need structured and context-free background information of a sort which ontologies can help to provide. A domain ontology captures the stable, highly general and commonly accepted core knowledge for an application domain. The domain at issue here is that of the life sciences, in particular molecular biology and bioinformatics. Contemporary life science research includes components drawn from physics, chemistry, mathematics, (...) medicine and many other areas, and all of these dimensions, as well as fundamental philosophical issues, must be taken into account in the construction of a domain ontology. Here we describe the basic features of domain ontologies in the life sciences and show how they can be used. (shrink)

The pivotal role of the relation part-of in the description of living organisms is widely acknowledged. Organisms are open systems, which means that in contradistinction to mechanical artifacts they are characterized by a continuous flow and exchange of matter. A closer analysis of the spatial relations in biological organisms reveals that the decision as to whether a given particular is part-of a second particular or whether it is only contained-in the second particular is often controversial. We here propose a rule-based (...) approach which allows us to decide on the basis of well-defined criteria which of the two relations holds between two anatomical objects, given that one spatially includes the other. We discuss the advantages and limitations of this approach, using concrete examples from human anatomy. (shrink)

The desideratum of semantic interoperability has been intensively discussed in medical informatics circles in recent years. Originally, experts assumed that this issue could be sufficiently addressed by insisting simply on the application of shared clinical terminologies or clinical information models. However, the use of the term ‘ontology’ has been steadily increasing more recently. We discuss criteria for distinguishing clinical ontologies from clinical terminologies and information models. Then, we briefly present the role clinical ontologies play in two multicentric research projects. Finally, (...) we discuss the interactions between these different kinds of knowledge representation artifacts and the stakeholders involved in developing interoperational real-world clinical applications. We provide ontology engineering examples from two EU-funded projects. (shrink)

Propomos uma tipologia dos artefatos de representação para as áreas de saúde e ciências biológicas, e a associação dessa tipologia com diferentes tipos de ontologia formal e lógica, chegando a conclusões quanto aos pontos fortes e limitações da ontologia de diferentes tipos de recursos lógicos, enquanto mantemos o foco na lógica descritiva. Consideramos quatro tipos de representação de área: (i) representação léxico-semântica, (ii) representação de tipos de entidades, (iii) representação de conhecimento prévio, e (iv) representação de indivíduos. Defendemos uma clara (...) distinção entre os quatro tipos de representação, de forma a oferecer uma base mais racional para o uso das ontologias e artefatos relacionados no avanço da integração de dados e interoperabilidade de sistemas de raciocínio associados. Destacamos que apenas uma pequena porção de fatos cientificamente relevantes em áreas como a biomedicina pode ser adequadamente representada por ontologias formais, quando estas últimas são concebidas como representações de tipos de entidades. Particularmente, a tentativa de codificar conhecimento padrão ou probabilístico pela utilização de ontologias assim concebidas é fadada à produção de modelos não intencionais e errôneos. (shrink)

This essay articulates and defends Aristotle’s argument in Politics 7.4 that there is a rational limit to the size of the political community. Aristotle argues that size can negatively affect the ability of an organized being to attain its proper end. After examining the metaphysical grounds for this principle in both natural beings and artifacts, we defend Aristotle’s extension of the principle to the polis. He argues that the state is in the relevant sense an organism, one whose primary end (...) is to make good reasons available to individuals and promote them as choiceworthy. The size of a polis can affect its ability to perform this function, since growth promotes anonymity among citizens, which in turn frustrates the familiarity between citizens required for the exercise of distributive and restorative justice as well as political prudence. This paper suggests several ways in which Aristotle’s argument, if sound, is important for contemporary issues in moral psychology, Ralwsian political philosophy, and big data analytics. (shrink)

The rapidly increasing wealth of genomic data has driven the development of tools to assist in the task of representing and processing information about genes, their products and their functions. One of the most important of these tools is the Gene Ontology (GO), which is being developed in tandem with work on a variety of bioinformatics databases. An examination of the structure of GO, however, reveals a number of problems, which we believe can be resolved by taking account of certain (...) organizing principles drawn from philosophical ontology. We shall explore the results of applying such principles to GO with a view to improving GO’s consistency and coherence and thus its future applicability in the automated processing of biological data. (shrink)

Wie könnte ein Suchalgorithmus für wissenschaftliche Quellen aussehen? Wie findet man nicht erwähnte Begriffe? Wie erschließen sich implizite Kontroversen? Die Grundlagen für das Lexikon der Argumente.

The Basics for the Philosophy Dictionary of Arguments - How to find non-mentioned concepts.

This book is a translation of W.V. Quine's Kant Lectures, given as a series at Stanford University in 1980. It provide a short and useful summary of Quine's philosophy. There are four lectures altogether: I. Prolegomena: Mind and its Place in Nature; II. Endolegomena: From Ostension to Quantification; III. Endolegomena loipa: The forked animal; and IV. Epilegomena: What's It all About? The Kant Lectures have been published to date only in Italian and German translation. The present book is filled out (...) with the translator's critical Introduction, "The esoteric Quine?" a bibliography based on Quine's sources, and an Index for the volume. (shrink)

Things and Their Place in Theories Our talk of external things, our very notion of things, is just a conceptual apparatus that helps us to foresee and ...

Die vorliegende Publikation dient als Grundlage für die interdisziplinäre Entwicklung einer Zertifizierung von Künstlicher Intelligenz. Angesichts der rasanten Entwicklung von Künstlicher Intelligenz mit disruptiven und nachhaltigen Folgen für Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und Alltagsleben verdeutlicht sie, dass sich die hieraus ergebenden Herausforderungen nur im interdisziplinären Dialog von Informatik, Rechtswissenschaften, Philosophie und Ethik bewältigen lassen. Als Ergebnis dieses interdisziplinären Austauschs definiert sie zudem sechs KI-spezifische Handlungsfelder für den vertrauensvollen Einsatz von Künstlicher Intelligenz: Sie umfassen Fairness, Transparenz, Autonomie und Kontrolle, Datenschutz sowie Sicherheit und (...) Verlässlichkeit und adressieren dabei ethische und rechtliche Anforderungen. Letztere werden mit dem Ziel der Operationalisierbarkeit weiter konkretisiert. (shrink)

In the world of philosophy of science, the dominant theory of confirmation is Bayesian. In the wider philosophical world, the idea of inference to the best explanation exerts a considerable influence. Here we place the two worlds in collision, using Bayesian confirmation theory to argue that explanatoriness is evidentially irrelevant.

Welche Theorien widersprechen einander? Welcher Autor ist welcher Theorie zuzuordnen? Wo gibt es stillschweigende Kontroversen und Übereinstimmungen? Wo verlaufen die wissenschaftlichen Lager? Die Grundlagen für das Lexikon der Argumente.

How a Semantic Search Algorithm for unedited sources may look. - The basics for the Philosophy Dictionary of Arguments.

Clade selection is unpopular with philosophers who otherwise accept multilevel selection theory. Clades cannot reproduce, and reproduction is widely thought necessary for evolution by natural selection, especially of complex adaptations. Using microbial evolutionary processes as heuristics, I argue contrariwise, that (1) clade growth (proliferation of contained species) substitutes for clade reproduction in the evolution of complex adaptation, (2) clade-level properties favoring persistence – species richness, dispersal, divergence, and possibly intraclade cooperation – are not collapsible into species-level traits, (3) such properties (...) can be maintained by selection on clades, and (4) clade selection extends the explanatory power of the theory of evolution. (shrink)

Ausgangspunkt ist die Frage, was Masse ist, wodurch sie insbesondere befähigt ist, Dauer zu konstituieren und deshalb - im Sinn des kinematischen Relativitätsprinzips - ebenso als bewegt wie als ruhend betrachtet werden kann. In einem Gedankenexperiment wird diese Frage, in Umkehrung der Perspektive, hier nicht von der Masse selbst, sondern von einer stehenden Lichtwelle her angegangen. In diesem Modell lassen sich masse-analoge Strukturen rekonstruieren, die in relativer Bewegung sein können. Die (empirisch bekannte) Unabhängigkeit der Lichtgeschwindigkeit vom Bezugssystem ist dabei nicht (...) vorausgesetzt. Doch kann gezeigt werden, dass die Lichtgeschwindigkeit Grenzgeschwindigkeit solcher relativer Bewegungen ist, dass dies für alle durch masse-analoge Strukturen konstituierte, relativ zueinander gleichförmig bewegten Bezugssysteme gilt und dass die Lichtgeschwindigkeit selbst in allen diesen Systemen gleich ist. Die Absolutheit der Lichtgeschwindigkeit und die Relativität der Massebewegungen erweisen sich so als zwar differente, aber intrinsisch zusammengehörende Momente des kinematischen Relativitätsprinzips: ein Beitrag zu einer Philosophie der Relativitätstheorie. - Die mathematischen Zusammenhänge werden im Anhang ausführlicher dargelegt. (shrink)

The desideratum of semantic interoperability has been intensively discussed in medical informatics circles in recent years. Originally, experts assumed that this issue could be sufficiently addressed by insisting simply on the application of shared clinical terminologies or clinical information models. However, the use of the term ‘ontology’ has been steadily increasing more recently. We discuss criteria for distinguishing clinical ontologies from clinical terminologies and information models. Then, we briefly present the role clinical ontologies play in two multicentric research projects. Finally, (...) we discuss the interactions between these different kinds of knowledge representation artifacts and the stakeholders involved in developing interoperational real-world clinical applications. We provide ontology engineering examples from two EU-funded projects. (shrink)

In this book, the authors systematically define the new notion of linguistic graphs associated with a linguistic set of a linguistic variable. We can also define the notion of directed linguistic graphs and linguistic-weighted graphs. Chapter two discusses all types of linguistic graphs, linguistic dyads, linguistic triads, linguistic wheels, complete linguistic graphs, linguistic connected graphs, disconnected linguistic graphs, linguistic components of the graphs and so on. Further, we define the notion of linguistic subgraphs of a linguistic graph. However, like usual (...) graphs, we will not be able to arbitrarily connect any two linguistic words of a linguistic set associated with a linguistic variable. They can be related or adjacent depending on the linguistic variable associated with the linguistic set. This is an exceptional feature of a linguistic graph. (shrink)

This publication forms a basis for the interdisciplinary development of a certification system for artificial intelligence. In view of the rapid development of artificial intelligence with disruptive and lasting consequences for the economy, society, and everyday life, it highlights the resulting challenges that can be tackled only through interdisciplinary dialogue between IT, law, philosophy, and ethics. As a result of this interdisciplinary exchange, it also defines six AI-specific audit areas for trustworthy use of artificial intelligence. They comprise fairness, transparency, autonomy (...) and control, data protection as well as security and reliability while addressing ethical and legal requirements. The latter are further substantiated with the aim of operationalizability. (shrink)

As health systems around the world turn towards highly distributed, specialized and cooperative structures to increase quality and safety of care as well as efficiency and efficacy of delivery processes, there is a growing need for supporting communication and collaboration of all parties involved with advanced ICT solutions. The Electronic Health Record (EHR) provides the information platform which is maturing towards the eHealth core application. To meet the requirements for sustainable, semantically interoperable, and trustworthy EHR solutions, different standards and different (...) national strategies have been established. The workshop summarizes the requirements for such advanced EHR systems and their underlying architecture, presents different strategies and solutions advocated by corresponding protagonists, discusses pros and cons as well as harmonization and migration strategies for those approaches. It particularly highlights a turn towards ontology-driven architectures. (shrink)

In 1794, Michael Wenzel Voigt, a professor of rhetoric in present-day Czechia, published the first German translation of Aristotle’s De anima. Voigt’s translation was explicitly intended to rescue Aristotle's views on the soul, and the bold strategy he adopts towards this end is to assert a direct connection between Aristotle’s doctrines and Kant’s Critical philosophy. Thus, he contends that Aristotle’s books on the soul can be read as an “appendix” or even as a “propadeutic” to Kant’s Critical works. Despite Voigt’s (...) rather hamfisted attempt to establish this connection, the conjecture at the core of his project—that a number of key Kantian claims about the mind or soul have a largely overlooked Aristotelian provenance—turns out to be correct, or so I argue in this chapter. Even so, we will see that this connection is not direct but is instead mediated by the reception of Aristotle in the late 17th and early 18th century. Moreover, it is not limited to the views Aristotle expresses in his texts on the soul but extends beyond his psychological and even metaphysical works to include views expressed in his logical and ethical thought. (shrink)

As automating technologies are increasingly integrated into workplaces, one concern is that many of the human workers who remain will be relegated to more dull and less positively impactful work. This paper considers two rival theories of meaningful work that might be used to evaluate particular implementations of automation. The first is achievementism, which says that work that culminates in achievements to workers’ credit is especially meaningful; the other is the practice view, which says that work that takes the form (...) of an open-ended practice is especially meaningful. Of the two, the practice view is the better tool for assessing the future of meaningful work, because achievementism is explanatorily inadequate in two ways. Moreover, the practice view can explain why the most meaningful forms of work cannot be automated. A procedure can only be automated as long as the steps are defined, whereas, in such work, which steps to take is indefinitely open to redefinition. This reveals the real threat to meaningful work to be a political-economic one. The relevant ethical questions there have to do with how much creative control workers retain in crafting their own jobs, when those jobs involve meaningful work in collaboration with machines; and how to liberate workers from jobs that do not involve meaningful work, which should be left to machines anyway. (shrink)

In this paper, I contest increasingly common "realist" interpretations of Hegel's theory of "the concept" (der Begriff), offering instead a "isomorphic" conception of the relation of concepts and the world. The isomorphism recommended, however, is metaphysically deflationary, for I show how Hegel's conception of conceptual form creates a conceptually internal standard for the adequacy of concepts. No "sideways-on" theory of the concept-world relationship is envisioned. This standard of conceptual adequacy is also "graduated" in that it allows for a lack of (...) fit between concept and world. The possibility for a "maximally isomorphic" fit between concept and world obtains through the teleological realization of concepts, which marks especially the "artificial" world of human culture (law, art, religion, etc.). Some of the most seemingly exaggerated claims Hegel makes about the concept, I contend, can be understood when we consider the significance Hegel ascribes to human making, which is provided for in his conceptual theory. But my framework provides an interpretive key for the way Hegel sees concepts imperfectly realized in the natural world as well. (shrink)

I begin with a distinction between narrow and broad defenses to the logical problem of evil. The former is simply an attempt to show that God and evil are not logically incompat-ible whereas the latter attempts the same, but only by appealing to beliefs one takes to be true in the actual world. I then argue that while recent accounts of original sin may be consistent with a broad defense, they are also logically incoherent. After considering potential replies, I conclude (...) by proposing an account of original sin that is both logically coherent and consistent with a broad defense. (shrink)

The Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA) is a map of the human body. Like maps of other sorts – including the map-like representations we find in familiar anatomical atlases – it is a representation of a certain portion of spatial reality as it exists at a certain (idealized) instant of time. But unlike other maps, the FMA comes in the form of a sophisticated ontology of its objectdomain, comprising some 1.5 million statements of anatomical relations among some 70,000 anatomical kinds. (...) It is further distinguished from other maps in that it represents not some specific portion of spatial reality (say: Leeds in 1996), but rather the generalized or idealized spatial reality associated with a generalized or idealized human being at some generalized or idealized instant of time. It will be our concern in what follows to outline the approach to ontology that is represented by the FMA and to argue that it can serve as the basis for a new type of anatomical information science. We also draw some implications for our understanding of spatial reasoning and spatial ontologies in general. (shrink)

This essay defends a reading of Hegel as a metametaphysical antirealist. Metametaphysical antirealism is a denial that metaphysics has as its subject matter answers to theoretical questions about the mind-independent world. Hence, on this view, metaphysical questions are not, in principle, knowledge transcendent. I hold that Hegel presents a version of metametaphysical antirealism in the Science of Logic because he pursues his project by suspending reference to all supposed objects of metaphysical theory as practiced before him. Hegel introduces reference in (...) his theory only by the self-reference of thought to itself in the Doctrine of the Concept. I motivate the relevance of Hegel’s approach to metaphysics by comparing it to Kit Fine’s (2017) concept of “naïve metaphysics.” I argue that Hegel’s theory results from a comprehensively naïve metaphysics. (shrink)

In a previous issue of this journal Michael Veber argued that God could not answer certain prayers because doing so would be immoral. In this article I attempt to demonstrate that Veber’s argument is simply the logical problem of evil applied to a possible world. Because of this, his argument is susceptible to a Plantinga-style defense.

The current study is a pilot trial to examine the effects of a nonelective, classroom-based, teacher-implemented, mindfulness meditation intervention on standard clinical measures of mental health and affect in middle school children. A total of 101 healthy sixth-grade students (55 boys, 46 girls) were randomized to either an Asian history course with daily mindfulness meditation practice (intervention group) or an African history course with a matched experiential activity (active control group). Self-reported measures included the Youth Self Report (YSR), a modified (...) Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Measure –Revised. Both groups decreased significantly on clinical syndrome subscales and affect but did not differ in the extent of their improvements. Meditators were significantly less likely to develop suicidal ideation or thoughts of self-harm than controls. These results suggest that mindfulness training may yield both unique and non-specific benefits that are shared by other novel activities. (shrink)

The translational research community, in general, and the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) community, in particular, share the vision of repurposing EHRs for research that will improve the quality of clinical practice. Many members of these communities are also aware that electronic health records (EHRs) suffer limitations of data becoming poorly structured, biased, and unusable out of original context. This creates obstacles to the continuity of care, utility, quality improvement, and translational research. Analogous limitations to sharing objective data in (...) other areas of the natural sciences have been successfully overcome by developing and using common ontologies. This White Paper presents the authors’ rationale for the use of ontologies with computable semantics for the improvement of clinical data quality and EHR usability formulated for researchers with a stake in clinical and translational science and who are advocates for the use of information technology in medicine but at the same time are concerned by current major shortfalls. This White Paper outlines pitfalls, opportunities, and solutions and recommends increased investment in research and development of ontologies with computable semantics for a new generation of EHRs. (shrink)

This article provides a philosophical response to the need for truth-telling about colonial history, focussing on the Australian context. The response consists in inviting philosophers and the public to engage in social-justice practices specified by a model called Distributed Truth-Telling (DTT), which integrates the historiography of injustices affecting Indigenous peoples with insights from social philosophy and cultural evolution theory. By contrast to official and large-scale truth commissions, distributed truth-telling is a set of non-elitist practices that weave three components: first, multisite, (...) multiformat, and multiscale inquiries into injustices; second, remedial imaginings and reasoning about moral repair and reconciliated futures; and finally, emotions suitable for motivating agents to cooperatively plan and implement moral revolutions. Distributed truth-telling can entrench virtuous feedback loops that contribute to moral revolutions. However, vicious feedback loops associated with collective denial and biases can impair distributed truth- telling and thwart moral revolutions. (shrink)

Smarandache in 2019 has generalized the algebraic structures to NeutroAlgebraic structures and AntiAlgebraic structures. In this paper, authors, for the first time, define the NeutroAlgebra of neutrosophic triplets group under usual+ and x, built using {Zn, x}, n a composite number, 5 < n < oo, which are not partial algebras. As idempotents in Zn alone are neutrals that contribute to neutrosophic triplets groups, we analyze them and build NeutroAlgebra of idempotents under usual + and x, which are not partial (...) algebras. We prove in this paper the existence theorem for NeutroAlgebra of neutrosophic triplet groups. This proves the neutrals assocaited with neutrosophic triplet groups in { Zn, X} under product is a NeutroAlgebra of triplets. We also prove the non-existence theorem of NeutroAlgebra for neutrosophic triplets in case of Zn when n = 2p, 3p and 4p (for some primes p). Several open problems are proposed. Further, the NeutroAlgebras of extended neutrosophic triplet groups have been obtained. (shrink)

Description logics and other formal devices are frequently used as means for preventing or detecting mistakes in ontologies. Some of these devices are also capable of inferring the existence of inter-concept relationships that have not been explicitly entered into an ontology. A prerequisite, however, is that this information can be derived from those formal definitions of concepts and relationships which are included within the ontology. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm that is able to suggest relationships among existing (...) concepts in a formal ontology that are not derivable from such formal definitions. The algorithm exploits cross-lingual information that is implicitly present in the collection of terms used in various languages to denote the concepts and relationships at issue. By using a specific experimental design, we are able to quantify the impact of cross-lingual information in coping with underspecification in formal ontologies. (shrink)

In recent years, academics and educators have begun to use software mapping tools for a number of education-related purposes. Typically, the tools are used to help impart critical and analytical skills to students, to enable students to see relationships between concepts, and also as a method of assessment. The common feature of all these tools is the use of diagrammatic relationships of various kinds in preference to written or verbal descriptions. Pictures and structured diagrams are thought to be more comprehensible (...) than just words, and a clearer way to illustrate understanding of complex topics. Variants of these tools are available under different names: “concept mapping”, “mind mapping” and “argument mapping”. Sometimes these terms are used synonymously. However, as this paper will demonstrate, there are clear differences in each of these mapping tools. This paper offers an outline of the various types of tool available and their advantages and disadvantages. It argues that the choice of mapping tool largely depends on the purpose or aim for which the tool is used and that the tools may well be converging to offer educators as yet unrealised and potentially complementary functions. (shrink)

Some cognitive processes appear to have “phenomenal” properties that are directly revealed to the subject and not determined by physical properties. I suggest that the source of this appearance is the method by which our brain processes sensory information. The appearance is an illusion. Nonetheless, we are not mistaken when we judge that people sometimes fee lpain.