COVID-19 often manifests with different outcomes in different patients, highlighting the complexity of the host-pathogen interactions involved in manifestations of the disease at the molecular and cellular levels. In this paper, we propose a set of postulates and a framework for systematically understanding complex molecular host-pathogen interaction networks. Specifically, we first propose four host-pathogen interaction (HPI) postulates as the basis for understanding molecular and cellular host-pathogen interactions and their relations to disease outcomes. These four postulates cover the evolutionary dispositions involved (...) in HPIs, the dynamic nature of HPI outcomes, roles that HPI components may occupy leading to such outcomes, and HPI checkpoints that are critical for specific disease outcomes. Based on these postulates, an HPI Postulate and Ontology (HPIPO) framework is proposed to apply interoperable ontologies to systematically model and represent various granular details and knowledge within the scope of the HPI postulates, in a way that will support AI-ready data standardization, sharing, integration, and analysis. As a demonstration, the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework were applied to study COVID-19 with the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), leading to a novel approach to rational design of drug/vaccine cocktails aimed at interrupting processes occurring at critical host-coronavirus interaction checkpoints. Furthermore, the host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) relevant to COVID-19 were predicted and evaluated based on prior knowledge of curated PPIs and domain-domain interactions, and how such studies can be further explored with the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework is discussed. (shrink)

The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. Accordingly, we initiated the (...) development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology in early 2020. -/- As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. CIDO is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology and Viral Infectious Disease Ontology. CIDO has imported terms from over 30 OBO ontologies. For example, CIDO imports all SARS-CoV-2 protein terms from the Protein Ontology, COVID-19-related phenotype terms from the Human Phenotype Ontology, and over 100 COVID-19 terms for vaccines (both authorized and in clinical trial) from the Vaccine Ontology. CIDO systematically represents variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses and over 300 amino acid substitutions therein, along with over 300 diagnostic kits and methods. CIDO also describes hundreds of host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and the drugs that target proteins in these PPIs. CIDO has been used to model COVID-19 related phenomena in areas such as epidemiology. The scope of CIDO was evaluated by visual analysis supported by a summarization network method. CIDO has been used in various applications such as term standardization, inference, natural language processing (NLP) and clinical data integration. We have applied the amino acid variant knowledge present in CIDO to analyze differences between SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants. CIDO's integrative host-coronavirus PPIs and drug-target knowledge has also been used to support drug repurposing for COVID-19 treatment. -/- CIDO represents entities and relations in the domain of coronavirus diseases with a special focus on COVID-19. It supports shared knowledge representation, data and metadata standardization and integration, and has been used in a range of applications. (shrink)

Ontologies, as the term is used in informatics, are structured vocabularies comprised of human- and computer-interpretable terms and relations that represent entities and relationships. Within informatics fields, ontologies play an important role in knowledge and data standardization, representation, integra- tion, sharing and analysis. They have also become a foundation of artificial intelligence (AI) research. In what follows, we outline the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), which covers multiple areas in the domain of coronavirus diseases, including etiology, transmission, epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, (...) prevention, and treatment. We emphasize CIDO development relevant to COVID-19. (shrink)

Current COVID-19 pandemic and previous SARS/MERS outbreaks have caused a series of major crises to global public health. We must integrate the large and exponentially growing amount of heterogeneous coronavirus data to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechanisms, in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs. Ontologies have emerged to play an important role in standard knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. We have initiated the development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO). (...) As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is an open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. In this article, the general architecture and the design patterns of the CIDO are introduced, CIDO representation of coronaviruses, phenotypes, anti-coronavirus drugs and medical devices (e.g. ventilators) are illustrated, and an application of CIDO implemented to identify repurposable drug candidates for effective and safe COVID-19 treatment is presented. (shrink)

Đôi khi hình thái “chiến lợi phẩm” từ thiên nhiên chỉ rất đơn giản thế này thôi. Hai cán bộ nghiên cứu lượm được gì? Một chùm “hạt dẻ” không gai (hạt bên trong trông tuyệt đối giống hạt dẻ, cũng có vỏ cứng, nhưng không có lớp áo gai như lông nhím bao ngoài). Một cành cây sa nhân khá lớn, kích thước có lẽ trưởng thành, cực đại. Một chú ốc núi, đang bám vào lá sa nhân để (...) đánh chén bữa trưa. (shrink)

We live in a world of crowds and corporations, artworks and artifacts, legislatures and languages, money and markets. These are all social objects — they are made, at least in part, by people and by communities. But what exactly are these things? How are they made, and what is the role of people in making them? In The Ant Trap, Brian Epstein rewrites our understanding of the nature of the social world and the foundations of the social sciences. Epstein (...) explains and challenges the three prevailing traditions about how the social world is made. One tradition takes the social world to be built out of people, much as traffic is built out of cars. A second tradition also takes people to be the building blocks of the social world, but focuses on thoughts and attitudes we have toward one another. And a third tradition takes the social world to be a collective projection onto the physical world. Epstein shows that these share critical flaws. Most fundamentally, all three traditions overestimate the role of people in building the social world: they are overly anthropocentric. Epstein starts from scratch, bringing the resources of contemporary metaphysics to bear. In the place of traditional theories, he introduces a model based on a new distinction between the grounds and the anchors of social facts. Epstein illustrates the model with a study of the nature of law, and shows how to interpret the prevailing traditions about the social world. Then he turns to social groups, and to what it means for a group to take an action or have an intention. Contrary to the overwhelming consensus, these often depend on more than the actions and intentions of group members. (shrink)

Since the transparency approach to introspection need not posit a dedicated mechanism specialized for detecting one’s own mental states, its economy is often viewed as a major advantage by both proponents and opponents. But sometimes economy comes at the cost of relying on controversial views of the natures of mental states. Perceptual experience is a case in point. For example, Alex Byrne’s account relies on the view that experience constitutively involves belief, and Matthew Boyle’s account relies on the view that (...) experience constitutively involves a form of implicit consciousness of experience. In this paper, I develop a transparency account of our access to our experiences that retains the benefit of economy while avoiding the cost of relying on controversial views of the nature of experience. I start by discussing Byrne’s and Boyle’s accounts. I focus on the problems that lead them to hold the controversial views they do, and raise some challenges to their solutions. I then develop my own account. I argue that when you attend to an object, your experience gives you justification to believe that you see the object (under some descriptions). I close by highlighting some advantages of my account. I argue that it (1) can solve the problems facing Byrne and Boyle without relying on controversial views of the nature of experience; (2) respects the idea that there is something special about our access to our minds; and (3) can be generalized to other cases of introspection. (shrink)

Physical laws are strikingly simple, although there is no a priori reason they must be so. I propose that nomic realists of all types (Humeans and non-Humeans) should accept that simplicity is a fundamental epistemic guide for discovering and evaluating candidate physical laws. This principle of simplicity clarifies and addresses several problems of nomic realism and simplicity. A consequence is that the oft-cited epistemic advantage of Humeanism over non-Humeanism disappears, undercutting an influential epistemological argument for Humeanism. Moreover, simplicity is shown (...) to be more tightly connected to lawhood than to mere truth. (shrink)

Mystical religious experiences typically purport to engage with the transcendent and often claim to involve encounters with spiritual entities or a detachment from the material world. Daoism diverges from this paradigm. This paper examines Daoist mystical experiences of bodily transformations and explores their epistemological implications. Specifically, we defend the justificatory power of Daoist somatic experiences against the disanalogy objection. The disanalogy objection posits that mystical experiences, in contrast to sense perceptions, are not socially verifiable and thereby lack prima facie epistemic (...) value. We argue that some Daoist mystical bodily states, being essentially spatiotemporal, are exempt from this challenge. This leads to a broader understanding of mysticism and offers a partial resolution to the disanalogy objection. (shrink)

In his essay “Things Do Not Move,” Sengzhao (374?−414 CE), a prominent Chinese Buddhist philosopher, argues for the thesis that the myriad things do not move in time. This view is counter-intuitive and seems to run counter to the Mahayana Buddhist doctrine of emptiness. In this book chapter, I assess Sengzhao’s arguments for his thesis, elucidate his stance on the change/nonchange of things, and discuss related problems. I argue that although Sengzhao is keen on showing the plausibility of the thesis, (...) he actually views the myriad things as both changing and unchanging and upholds the nonduality of motion and rest. In fact, the nonmoving thesis follows from the discernment that things change from moment to moment without there being any enduring stuff in the process. Among philosophical works that confer a higher ontological status on nonchange over change, Sengzhao’s essay is unique and well worth pondering. (shrink)

We provide a new interpretation of Zeno’s Paradox of Measure that begins by giving a substantive account, drawn from Aristotle’s text, of the fact that points lack magnitude. The main elements of this account are (1) the Axiom of Archimedes which states that there are no infinitesimal magnitudes, and (2) the principle that all assignments of magnitude, or lack thereof, must be grounded in the magnitude of line segments, the primary objects to which the notion of linear magnitude applies. Armed (...) with this account, we are ineluctably driven to introduce a highly constructive notion of (outer) measure based exclusively on the total magnitude of potentially infinite collections of line segments. The Paradox of Measure then consists in the proof that every finite or potentially infinite collection of points lacks magnitude with respect to this notion of measure. We observe that the Paradox of Measure, thus understood, troubled analysts into the 1880’s, despite their knowledge that the linear continuum is uncountable. The Paradox was ultimately resolved by Borel in his thesis of 1893, as a corollary to his celebrated result that every countable open cover of a closed line segment has a finite sub-cover, a result he later called the “First Fundamental Theorem of Measure Theory.” This achievement of Borel has not been sufficiently appreciated. We conclude with a metamathematical analysis of the resolution of the paradox made possible by recent results in reverse mathematics. (shrink)

Realism about quantum theory naturally leads to realism about the quantum state of the universe. It leaves open whether it is a pure state represented by a wave function, or an impure one represented by a density matrix. I characterize and elaborate on Density Matrix Realism, the thesis that the universal quantum state is objective but can be impure. To clarify the thesis, I compare it with Wave Function Realism, explain the conditions under which they are empirically equivalent, consider two (...) generalizations of Density Matrix Realism, and answer some frequently asked questions. I end by highlighting an implication for scientific realism. (shrink)

In his insightful and challenging paper, Jonathan Schaffer argues against a distinction I make in The Ant Trap (Epstein 2015) and related articles. I argue that in addition to the widely discussed “grounding” relation, there is a different kind of metaphysical determination I name “anchoring.” Grounding and anchoring are distinct, and both need to be a part of full explanations of how facts are metaphysically determined. Schaffer argues instead that anchoring is a species of grounding. The crux of his argument (...) comes in the last sections of his paper, in his discussion of “exportation,” the relations strategy, and the definitions strategy. I am inclined to agree that Schaffer’s interesting strategies offer the best choices for the philosopher who wants to insist that anchoring is a species of grounding. But both, I will argue, are fatally flawed. I do not take the separation of anchors from grounds lightly, but find the evidence in its favor overwhelming. And once the distinction is made, I find anchoring to be a powerful practical tool in metaphysics. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 99, Issue 3, Page 768-781, November 2019. (shrink)

Especially over the past twenty years, a number of analytic philosophers have embraced the idea that the world itself is vague or indeterminate in one or more respects. The issue then arises as to whether it can be the case that the world itself is indeterminate in all respects. Using as a basis Chinese Madhyamaka Buddhist thought, I offer two reasons for the coherence and intelligibility of the thesis that all concrete things are themselves indeterminate with respect to the ways (...) they are. The first reason draws on a notion reminiscent of the picture of reality as an amorphous lump, while the second reason makes use of the relativity of conceptual perspectives and determinations. Assuming that the world is the mere totality of all concrete things, I show that there is a genuine metaphysical possibility of the world’s being indeterminate in all respects. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRational agents have consistent beliefs. Bayesianism is a theory of consistency for partial belief states. Rational agents also respond appropriately to experience. Dogmatism is a theory of how to respond appropriately to experience. Hence, Dogmatism and Bayesianism are theories of two very different aspects of rationality. It's surprising, then, that in recent years it has become common to claim that Dogmatism and Bayesianism are jointly inconsistent: how can two independently consistent theories with distinct subject matter be jointly inconsistent? In this (...) essay I argue that Bayesianism and Dogmatism are inconsistent only with the addition of a specific hypothesis about how the appropriate responses to perceptual experience are to be incorporated into the formal models of the Bayesian. That hypothesis isn't essential either to Bayesianism or to Dogmatism, and so Bayesianism and Dogmatism are jointly consistent. That leaves the matter of how experiences and credences are related, a... (shrink)

A number of analytical philosophers have recently endorsed the view that the world itself is indeterminate in some respect. Intriguingly, ideas similar to the view are expressed by thinkers from Chinese Madhyamaka Buddhism, which may shed light on the current discussion of worldly indeterminacy. Using as a basis Chinese Madhyamaka thought, together with Jessica Wilson’s account of indeterminacy, I develop an ontological conception of indeterminacy, termed ontic indeterminacy, which centres on two complementary ideas—conclusive indeterminability and provisional determinability. I show that (...) OI is well-equipped to tackle several issues of worldly indeterminacy. My overarching aim is to present a viable and sustainable perspective on the subject of indeterminacy to enrich analytical philosophers’ insights into the intricate nature of reality. (shrink)

Gila Sher interviewed by Chen Bo: -/- I. Academic Background and Earlier Research: 1. Sher’s early years. 2. Intellectual influence: Kant, Quine, and Tarski. 3. Origin and main Ideas of The Bounds of Logic. 4. Branching quantifiers and IF logic. 5. Preparation for the next step. -/- II. Foundational Holism and a Post-Quinean Model of Knowledge: 1. General characterization of foundational holism. 2. Circularity, infinite regress, and philosophical arguments. 3. Comparing foundational holism and foundherentism. 4. A post-Quinean model of (...) knowledge. 5. Intellect and figuring out. 6. Comparing foundational holism with Quine’s holism. 7. Evaluation of Quine’s Philosophy -/- III. Substantive Theory of Truth and Relevant Issues: 1. Outline of Sher’s substantive theory of truth. 2. Criticism of deflationism and treatment of the Liar. 3. Comparing Sher’s substantive theory of truth with Tarski’s theory of truth. -/- IV. A New Philosophy of Logic and Comparison with Other Theories: 1. Foundational account of logic. 2. Standard of logicality, set theory and logic. 3. Psychologism, Hanna’s and Maddy’s conceptions of logic. 4. Quine’s theses about the revisability of logic. -/- V. Epilogue. (shrink)

A number of traditional philosophers and religious thinkers advocated an ineffability thesis to the effect that the ultimate reality cannot be expressed as it truly is by human concepts and words. However, if X is ineffable, the question arises as to how words can be used to gesture toward it. We can't even say that X is unsayable, because in doing so, we would have made it sayable. In this article, I examine the solution offered by the fifth-century Indian grammarian-philosopher (...) Bhartrhari and develop it into a linguistic strategy based on the imposition-cum-negation method. The purpose is to show how we can non-contradictorily say, or rather indicate, the unsayable. (shrink)

This correlational study investigated the relationship between preservice teachers’ math self-concept, self-efficacy, and attitude with their math achievement. Participants were chosen using stratified random sampling from BEEd and BSEd mathematics majors (n = 117). From the findings, preservice teachers had moderate to high math self-concept, self-efficacy, and attitude. These variables were statistically correlated with each other and with math achievement. The inclusion of training programs for developing the preservice teachers’ math self-concept, self-efficacy, and attitude, as well as designing curricula that (...) engage and encourage them to do mathematics and problem-solving, must be considered among teacher education institutions. (shrink)

For Bhartrhari, a fifth-century Indian grammarian-philosopher, all conscious beings—beasts, birds and humans—are capable of what he called pratibha, a flash of indescribable intuitive understanding such that one knows what the present object “means” and what to do with it. Such an understanding, if correct, amounts to a mode of knowing that may best be termed knowing-what, to distinguish it from both knowing-that and knowing-how. This paper attempts to expound Bhartrhari’s conception of pratibha in relation to the notions of meaning, understanding, (...) and knowing. First, I touch briefly on Bhartrhari’s views of consciousness and language, and examine at some length his indescribability thesis concerning the intuitive meaning of a sentence. Then, I delineate the general features of pratibha as intuitive understanding and discuss its probable range in relation to expert intuition and sense perception. Thereafter, I relate pratibha to the notion of knowing-what and show why these two notions are to be differentiated from knowing-that and knowing-how. The paper concludes with some remarks on the contemporary relevance of Bhartrhari’s conception of pratibha. (shrink)

Although Chan, or Zen, Buddhism traditionally claimed itself as a special transmission outside doctrinal teachings that eschews the written word, it has long been praised for its improvisational, atypical, intriguing, and intricate use of words. Prominent Chan masters are characteristically skillful in employing paradoxical and aporetic phrases, figurative and poetic expressions, negations, questions, repetitions, and so forth, to express their thoughts, indicate their awakened states of mind, cut off the interlocutor’s habitual dualistic thinking, or evoke in him or her an (...) experience of awakening. This fact, among others, has led some contemporary scholars to claim that the Chan experience of awakening does not... (shrink)

Theorists who advocate worldly (metaphysical or ontological) indeterminacy—the idea that the world itself is indeterminate in one or more respects—should address how we understand the signifying nature and function of language in light of worldly indeterminacy. I first attend to Sengzhao and Jizang, two leading thinkers in Chinese Sanlun Buddhism, to reconstruct a Chinese Madhyamaka notion of ontic indeterminacy. Then, I draw on the thinkers’ views to propose a provisional (non-definitive) understanding of the nature and use of language. Under this (...) understanding, an expression signifying a thing is provisional in that the expression connotes no determinate feature of the thing. (shrink)

Mahayana Buddhist philosophers’ attitude toward language is notoriously negative. The transcendental reality is often said to be ineffable. One’s obsession to apprehend the truth through words is an intellectual disease to be cured Attachment to verbal and conceptual proliferation enslaves oneself in the afflictive circle of life and death. Nevertheless, no Buddhist can afford to overlook the significance of language in preaching Buddhist dharmas as well as in day-to-day transactions. The point is not that of keeping silence. Rather, one should (...) understand and use language in such a way that one alludes to the unsayable reality and somehow escapes the bewitchment of language. Perhaps with this realization in mind, Mahayana Buddhist metaphysicians had fostered the penchant for using, at the sentential level, denials, negations and paradoxes to couch their views. In a similar vein but mainly at the word level, Dignaga (ca. 480-540 CE) the Yogacara epistemologist’ offered us a theory of language known as apoha doctrine in his landmark work Pramiinasamuccaya (henceforth PS). It is the purpose of this article to construe the doctrine. (shrink)

Despite its apparent complexity, our world seems to be governed by simple laws of physics. This volume provides a philosophical introduction to such laws. I explain how they are connected to some of the central issues in philosophy, such as ontology, possibility, explanation, induction, counterfactuals, time, determinism, and fundamentality. I suggest that laws are fundamental facts that govern the world by constraining its physical possibilities. I examine three hallmarks of laws-simplicity, exactness, and objectivity-and discuss whether and how they may be (...) associated with laws of physics. (shrink)

In 1688 the Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux sent a letter to the philosopher John Locke. In it, he asked him a question: could someone who was born blind, and able to distinguish a globe and a cube by touch, be able to immediately distinguish and name these shapes by sight if given the ability to see? -/- The philosophical puzzle offered in Molyneux’s letter fascinated not only Locke, but major thinkers such as Leibniz, Berkeley, Diderot, Reid, and numerous (...) others including psychologists and cognitive scientists today. Does such a question represent a philosophical puzzle or a problem that can be solved by experimental tests? Can vision be fully restored after blindness? What is the relation between vision and touch? Are the senses linked through learning or bound at birth? -/- Molyneux’s Question and the History of Philosophy is a major collection of essays that explore the long-standing issues Molyneux’s problem presents to philosophy of mind, perception and the senses. In addition, the volume considers the question from an interdisciplinary angle, examines the pre-history of the question, and aspects of it that have been ignored, such as perspectives from religion and disability. -/- As such, Molyneux’s Question and the History of Philosophy presents a set of philosophically rich, empirically informed, and scientifically rigorous original investigations into this famous puzzle. It will be of great interest to students and researchers in philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences including neuroscience, neurobiology and ophthalmology, as well as those studying the mind, perception and the senses. (shrink)

A number of contemporary philosophers think that the unqualified statement “X is unspeakable” faces the danger of self-referential absurdity: if this statement is true, it must simultaneously be false, given that X is speakable by the predicate word “unspeakable.” This predicament is in this chapter formulated as an argument that I term the “ineffability paradox.” After examining the Buddhist semantic theory of apoha (exclusion) and an apoha solution to the issue, I resort to a few Chinese Buddhist and Hindu philosophical (...) materials to rationally reconstruct a strategy for resolving the paradox. By introducing the mode of expression termed “indication,” together with the relevant notions of superimposition and of gesturing beyond the horizon, I show that expressing the ineffable does not necessarily involve irresoluble contradiction. It is also suggested that philosophers may need to acknowledge the relevance of the notion of ineffability for contemporary philosophizing. (shrink)

According to moral intuitionism, at least some moral seeming states are justification-conferring. The primary defense of this view currently comes from advocates of the standard account, who take the justification-conferring power of a moral seeming to be determined by its phenomenological credentials alone. However, the standard account is vulnerable to a problem. In brief, the standard account implies that moral knowledge is seriously undermined by those commonplace moral disagreements in which both agents have equally good phenomenological credentials supporting their disputed (...) moral beliefs. However, it is implausible to think that commonplace disagreement seriously undermines moral knowledge, and thus it is implausible to think that the standard account of moral intuitionism is true. (shrink)

Background: Recent literature on addiction and judgments about the characteristics of agents has focused on the implications of adopting a ‘brain disease’ versus ‘moral weakness’ model of addiction. Typically, such judgments have to do with what capacities an agent has (e.g., the ability to abstain from substance use). Much less work, however, has been conducted on the relationship between addiction and judgments about an agent’s identity, including whether or to what extent an individual is seen as the same person after (...) becoming addicted. Methods: We conducted a series of vignette-based experiments (total N = 3,620) to assess lay attitudes concerning addiction and identity persistence, systematically manipulating key characteristics of agents and their drug of addiction. Conclusions: In Study 1, we found that US participants judged an agent who became addicted to drugs as being closer to ‘a completely different person’ than ‘completely the same person’ as the agent who existed prior to the addiction. In Studies 2-6, we investigated the intuitive basis for this result, finding that lay judgments of altered identity as a consequence of drug use and addiction are driven primarily by perceived negative changes in the moral character of drug users, who are seen as having deviated from their good true selves. (shrink)

Trong 30 năm qua, đặc biệt là những năm gần đây, Việt Nam đã tận dụng thời cơ, thuận lợi, vượt qua nhiều khó khăn; thách thức, thực hiện phát triển bền vững đất nước và đã đạt được những thành tựu to lớn, có ý nghĩa lịch sử. Đất nước đã ra khỏi tình trạng kém phát triển, kinh tế tăng trưởng khá nhanh, đời sống vật chất và tinh thần của người dân được cải thiện. Vị thế của (...) Việt Nam trên trường quốc tế được nâng cao, tạo ra những tiền đề quan trọng để phát triển nhanh, bền vững, nâng cao chất lượng cuộc sống của nhân dân. Tuy nhiên, trong giai đoạn hiện nay, phát triển bền vững Việt Nam đang đứng trước nhiều khó khăn, thách thức lớn có tính chất toàn cầu (khủng hoảng tài chính, năng lượng, vấn đề an ninh lương thực, biến đổi khí hậu,...) cũng như những khó khăn, thách thức chủ quan khác của đất nước (thành tựu đạt được chưa tương xứng với tiềm năng; chất lượng, năng suất, hiệu quả, sức cạnh tranh của nền kinh tế còn thấp; tăng trưởng kinh tế còn dựa nhiều vào các yếu tố phát triển theo chiều rộng, chậm chuyển sang phát triển theo chiều sâu; việc khai thác và sử dụng tài nguyên chưa thật hợp lý và tiết kiệm; các cân đối kinh tế vĩ mô chưa thật vững chắc, bội chi ngân sách, thâm hụt cán cân thương mại còn lớn, lạm phát còn cao; môi trường sinh thái ở nhiều nơi bị ô nhiễm nặng,...). Nhằm cung cấp thêm tài liệu nghiên cứu về vấn đề nêu trên, Nhà xuất bản Chính trị quốc gia - Sự thật xuất bản cuốn sách Bằng chứng cuộc sống - Suy ngẫm về phát triển bền vững Việt Nam của đồng tác giả Bạch Ngọc Chiến và Vương Quân Hoàng. -/- Ngoài phần mở đầu, phụ lục kỹ thuật, tài liệu tham khảo, cuốn sách gồm 5 chương chính: -/- Chương 1. Mạch nguồn; Chương 2. Con người, xã hội và nhà nước; Chương 3. Sức vóc kinh tế; Chương 4. Trí lực quốc dân; Chương 5. Tiến hóa. -/- Với tư duy và phương pháp tiếp cận khoa học, các tác giả dẫn dắt bạn đọc đi từ các quan sát về lịch sử hình thành dân tộc, sự phát triển và hoàn thiện của con người, xã hội, nhà nước trong tiến trình lịch sử đến sự phát triển kinh tế của đất nước ta. Mục tiêu cuối cùng mà các tác giả muốn đề cập là phương pháp và năng lực tổ chức, thiết kế và thực thi những kế hoạch phát triển phù hợp trong điều kiện hạn chế về nguồn lực và đối mặt với những thay đổi của cục diện trong nước và quốc tế. Nội dung cuốn sách cũng giúp làm sáng tỏ nhiều câu hỏi, gợi mở cách nhìn nhận về tương lai phát triển của đất nước. Cuốn sách thể hiện quá trình nghiên cứu công phu, nghiêm túc, nhiều nhận xét có giá trị tham khảo tốt; tuy nhiên có những ý kiến, nhận xét cần tiếp tục được thảo luận. Xin giới thiệu cuốn sách với bạn đọc và mong nhận được ý kiến đóng góp để nội dung cuốn sách được hoàn thiện hơn trong những lần xuất bản sau. -/- Tháng 11 năm 2015 NHÀ XUẤT BẢN CHÍNH TRỊ QUỐC GIA - SỰ THẬT. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that presentism -- the view that the way things are is the way things presently are -- is not undermined by the objection from being-supervenience. This objection claims, roughly, that presentism has trouble accounting for the truth-value of past-tense claims. Our demonstration amounts to the articulation and defence of a novel version of presentism. This is brute past presentism, according to which the truth-value of past-tense claims is determined by the past understood as a fundamental (...) aspect of reality different from things and how things are. (shrink)

In this chapter, we introduce the notion of “moral neuroenhancement,” offering a novel definition as well as spelling out three conditions under which we expect that such neuroenhancement would be most likely to be permissible (or even desirable). Furthermore, we draw a distinction between first-order moral capacities, which we suggest are less promising targets for neurointervention, and second-order moral capacities, which we suggest are more promising. We conclude by discussing concerns that moral neuroenhancement might restrict freedom or otherwise “misfire,” and (...) argue that these concerns are not as damning as they may seem at first. (shrink)

Intuitively, Gettier cases are instances of justified true beliefs that are not cases of knowledge. Should we therefore conclude that knowledge is not justified true belief? Only if we have reason to trust intuition here. But intuitions are unreliable in a wide range of cases. And it can be argued that the Gettier intuitions have a greater resemblance to unreliable intuitions than to reliable intuitions. Whats distinctive about the faulty intuitions, I argue, is that respecting them would mean abandoning a (...) simple, systematic and largely successful theory in favour of a complicated, disjunctive and idiosyncratic theory. So maybe respecting the Gettier intuitions was the wrong reaction, we should instead have been explaining why we are all so easily misled by these kinds of cases. (shrink)

This paper develops a new argument from consciousness to theism: the argument from psychophysical harmony. Roughly, psychophysical harmony consists in the fact that phenomenal states are correlated with physical states and with one another in strikingly fortunate ways. For example, phenomenal states are correlated with behavior and functioning that is justified or rationalized by those very phenomenal states, and phenomenal states are correlated with verbal reports and judgments that are made true by those very phenomenal states. We argue that psychophysical (...) harmony is strong evidence for theism (or, at least, strong evidence against atheism in its standard naturalistic form). (shrink)

I defend normative externalism from the objection that it cannot account for the wrongfulness of moral recklessness. The defence is fairly simple—there is no wrong of moral recklessness. There is an intuitive argument by analogy that there should be a wrong of moral recklessness, and the bulk of the paper consists of a response to this analogy. A central part of my response is that if people were motivated to avoid moral recklessness, they would have to have an unpleasant sort (...) of motivation, what Michael Smith calls “moral fetishism”. (shrink)

I consider the problem of how to derive what an agent believes from their credence function and utility function. I argue the best solution of this problem is pragmatic, i.e. it is sensitive to the kinds of choices actually facing the agent. I further argue that this explains why our notion of justified belief appears to be pragmatic, as is argued e.g. by Fantl and McGrath. The notion of epistemic justification is not really a pragmatic notion, but it is being (...) applied to a pragmatically defined concept, i.e. belief. (shrink)

One's inaccuracy for a proposition is defined as the squared difference between the truth value (1 or 0) of the proposition and the credence (or subjective probability, or degree of belief) assigned to the proposition. One should have the epistemic goal of minimizing the expected inaccuracies of one's credences. We show that the method of minimizing expected inaccuracy can be used to solve certain probability problems involving information loss and self-locating beliefs (where a self-locating belief of a temporal part of (...) an individual is a belief about where or when that temporal part is located). We analyze the Sleeping Beauty problem, the duplication version of the Sleeping Beauty problem, and various related problems. (shrink)

In his Principles of Philosophy, Descartes says, Finally, it is so manifest that we possess a free will, capable of giving or withholding its assent, that this truth must be reckoned among the first and most common notions which are born with us.

Infallibilism leads to skepticism, and fallibilism is plagued by the threshold problem. Within this narrative, the pragmatic turn in epistemology has been marketed as a way for fallibilists to address the threshold problem. In contrast, pragmatic versions of infallibilism have been left unexplored. However, I propose that going pragmatic offers the infallibilist a way to address its main problem, the skeptical problem. Pragmatic infallibilism, however, is committed to a shifty view of epistemic certainty, where the strength of a subject’s epistemic (...) state can vary depending upon the practical context. Pragmatic views of epistemic strength are quite radical so the argumentative goal of my discussion is to argue for its plausibility, thereby arguing for the plausibility of pragmatic infallibilism. To do so, I discuss the role that the framing of decision problems and the construction of our deliberative attitudes have in our theories of rational choice. And I explore a way in which these necessary components of a normative theory of rationality can be used to motivate pragmatic views of evidential support. Finally, since the plausibility of our pragmatic account will depend upon the plausibility of a constructive account of rational choice, I conclude by comparing the adequacy of the constructive account with orthodox Bayesian and knowledge-based accounts. (shrink)

Recently four different papers have suggested that the supervaluational solution to the Problem of the Many is flawed. Stephen Schiffer (1998, 2000a, 2000b) has argued that the theory cannot account for reports of speech involving vague singular terms. Vann McGee and Brian McLaughlin (2000) say that theory cannot, yet, account for vague singular beliefs. Neil McKinnon (2002) has argued that we cannot provide a plausible theory of when precisifications are acceptable, which the supervaluational theory needs. And Roy Sorensen (2000) (...) argues that supervaluationism is inconsistent with a directly referential theory of names. McGee and McLaughlin see the problem they raise as a cause for further research, but the other authors all take the problems they raise to provide sufficient reasons to jettison supervaluationism. I will argue that none of these problems provide such a reason, though the arguments are valuable critiques. In many cases, we must make some adjustments to the supervaluational theory to meet the posed challenges. The goal of this paper is to make those adjustments, and meet the challenges. (shrink)

In recent years, theorists have debated how we introduce new social objects and kinds into the world. Searle, for instance, proposes that they are introduced by collective acceptance of a constitutive rule; Millikan and Elder that they are the products of reproduction processes; Thomasson that they result from creator intentions and subsequent intentional reproduction; and so on. In this chapter, I argue against the idea that there is a single generic method or set of requirements for doing so. Instead, there (...) is a variety of what I call “anchoring schemas,” or methods by which new social kinds are generated. Not only are social kinds a diverse lot, but the metaphysical explanation for their being the kinds they are is diverse as well. I explain the idea of anchoring and present examples of social kinds that are similar to one another but that are anchored in different ways. I also respond to Millikan’s argument that there is only one kind of “glue” that is “sticky enough” for holding together kinds. I argue that no anchoring schema will work in all environments. It is a contingent matter which schemas are successful for anchoring new social kinds, and an anchoring schema need only be “sticky enough” for practical purposes in a given environment. (shrink)

For Jizang (549−623), a prominent philosophical exponent of Chinese Madhyamaka, all things are empty of determinate form or nature. Given anything X, no linguistic item can truly and conclusively be applied to X in the sense of positing a determinate form or nature therein. This philosophy of ontic indeterminacy is connected closely with his notion of the Way (dao), which seems to indicate a kind of ineffable principle of reality. However, Jizang also equates the Way with nonacquisition as a conscious (...) state of freedom from any attachment and definite understanding whatsoever. The issue then becomes pressing as to how we are to understand Jizang's notion of the Way. Does it indicate some metaphysical principle or reality? Is it actually a skilful expedient to lead one to the consummate state of complete spiritual freedom? How is this issue related to Jizang's conception of ontic indeterminacy? In this book chapter, I examine Jizang's key writings in an attempt to clarify his ontological position. (shrink)

Chinese Chan or Zen Buddhism is renowned for its improvisational, atypical, and perplexing use of words. In particular, the tradition’s encounter dialogues, which took place between Chan masters and their interlocutors, abound in puzzling, astonishing, and paradoxical ways of speaking. In this chapter, we are concerned with Chan’s use of paradoxical language. In philosophical parlance, a linguistic paradox comprises the confluence of opposite or incongruent concepts in a way that runs counter to our common sense and ordinary rational thinking. One (...) naturally wonders about Chan masters’ rationales for their use of paradox. There are also concerns about whether the use violates the logical principle of noncontradiction to the effect that nothing can be both P and not-P all over in the same way at the same time. Chan became a viable Chinese Buddhist tradition during the Tang dynasty (618−907) and continued to develop for several centuries. The tradition had produced a huge literature; consequently, our investigation of its use of paradox cannot but be limited and selective. In the second section, I first sketch key ideas of Chan that are pertinent to our investigation and then examine the use of paradox in the sermons associated with certain Tang masters of the southern Chan. In the third section, I analyze the presence of paradoxical language in post-Tang encounter dialogues. The fourth section concludes. (shrink)

It is often seen as a truism that social objects and facts are the product of human intentions. I argue that the role of intentions in social ontology is commonly overestimated. I introduce a distinction that is implicit in much discussion of social ontology, but is often overlooked: between a social entity’s “grounds” and its “anchors.” For both, I argue that intentions, either individual or collective, are less essential than many theorists have assumed. Instead, I propose a more worldly – (...) and less intellectualist – approach to social ontology. (shrink)

In this article, I first introduce an Indian Madhyamaka Buddhist critique of causality and discuss critically a contemporary Humean interpretation of the critique. After presenting a Chinese Madhyamaka interpretation, I resort to an ontological conception of indeterminacy, termed ontic indeterminacy, which draws on Chinese Madhyamaka thought together with Jessica Wilson’s account of metaphysical indeterminacy, to show that the conception is well equipped to unravel two puzzling issues that arise from the critique. I suggest that a world that consists of things (...) that are indeterminate with respect to certain ways they are is sufficient for it to embody causal phenomena. (shrink)

How do people think about the mental states of robots? Experimental philosophers have developed various models aiming to specify the factors that drive people's attributions of mental states to robots. Here we report on a new experiment involving robots, the results of which tell against competing models. We advocate a view on which attributions of mental states to robots are driven by the same dual-process architecture that subserves attributions of mental states more generally. In support of this view, we leverage (...) recent psychological research on human-robot interaction that involve ecologically-valid stimuli such as Roombas and humanoid robots. (shrink)

According to Zhiyi 智顗 (538–597), the founder of the Chinese Buddhist Tiantai school 天臺宗, “one object is all objects;” hence, all objects are profoundly interconnected. In this paper, I critically examine Zhiyi’s metaphysics of objects as presented in the historical Tiantai texts and subsequently develop a contemporary and accessible thesis of interconnectedness by integrating Zhiyi’s views with resources from contemporary analytic philosophy, particularly relative identity. By drawing on Zhiyi’s insights and incorporating contemporary philosophical ideas, I also illustrate how historical Chinese (...) Buddhism and contemporary analytic metaphysics can be mutually informing. (shrink)

Dogmatism is sometimes thought to be incompatible with Bayesian models of rational learning. I show that the best model for updating imprecise credences is compatible with dogmatism.