Large-scale language technologies are increasingly used in various forms of communication with humans across different contexts. One particular use case for these technologies is conversational agents, which output natural language text in response to prompts and queries. This mode of engagement raises a number of social and ethical questions. For example, what does it mean to align conversational agents with human norms or values? Which norms or values should they be aligned with? And how can this be accomplished? (...) In this paper, we propose a number of steps that help answer these questions. We start by developing a philosophical analysis of the building blocks of linguistic communication between conversational agents and human interlocutors. We then use this analysis to identify and formulate ideal norms of conversation that can govern successful linguistic communication between humans and conversational agents. Furthermore, we explore how these norms can be used to align conversational agents with human values across a range of different discursive domains. We conclude by discussing the practical implications of our proposal for the design of conversational agents that are aligned with these norms and values. (shrink)

The problem considered in this chapter emerges from the tension we find when looking at the design and architecture of chatbots on the one hand and their conversational aptitude on the other. In the way that LLM chatbots are designed and built, we have good reason to suppose they don't possess second-order capacities such as intention, belief or knowledge. Yet theories of conversation make great use of second-order capacities of speakers and their audiences to explain how aspects of interaction (...) succeed. As we can all bear witness to now though, at the point of use chatbots appear capable of performing language tasks at a level close to that of humans. This creates a tension when we consider something like, for example, the classic Gricean theory of implicature. On a broad summary of this type of account, to utter p and implicate q requires the reflexive occurrence of an audience supposing a speaker believes that q, and the speaker believing that their audience can determine they believe it when they utter p. So taken at face value, if a chatbot doesn’t have the capacity for belief, then either in their role as speaker or audience, they would not seem capable of either generating or comprehending implicatures. Yet on the surface it does seem that chatbots are capable of dealing with (some) implicatures, and as such it raises questions about how we should then correlate this with what we think occurs in cases of implicature with chatbots. (shrink)

How is human social intelligence engaged in the course of ordinary conversation? Standard models of conversation hold that language production and comprehension are guided by constant, rapid inferences about what other agents have in mind. However, the idea that mindreading is a pervasive feature of conversation is challenged by a large body of evidence suggesting that mental state attribution is slow and taxing, at least when it deals with propositional attitudes such as beliefs. Belief attributions involve contents that are decoupled (...) from our own primary representation of reality; handling these contents has come to be seen as the signature of full-blown human mindreading. However, mindreading in cooperative communication does not necessarily demand decoupling. We argue for a theoretical and empirical turn towards “factive” forms of mentalizing here. In factive mentalizing, we monitor what others do or do not know, without generating decoupled representations. We propose a model of the representational, cognitive, and interactive components of factive mentalizing, a model that aims to explain efficient real-time monitoring of epistemic states in conversation. After laying out this account, we articulate a more limited set of conversational functions for nonfactive forms of mentalizing, including contexts of meta-linguistic repair, deception, and argumentation. We conclude with suggestions for further research into the roles played by factive versus nonfactive forms of mentalizing in conversation. (shrink)

Michael McKenna’s Conversation and Responsibility is an ambitious and impressive statement of a new theory of moral responsibility. McKenna’s approach builds upon the strategy advanced in P.F. Strawson’s enormously influential “Freedom and Resentment” (which was published in 1962). The account advanced aims to provide Strawson’s theory with the sort of detail that is required to fill significant gaps and respond to a wide range of criticisms and objections that have been directed against it. ....Conversation and Responsibility belongs on the top (...) shelf of any set of readings devoted to the contemporary discussion of moral responsibility. All readers, whatever their philosophical orientation may be, will find it both challenging and rewarding. Whether in the end one endorses the conversational model or not, there can be no doubt that this is a contribution that significantly advances our overall understanding of these important and complex matters. (shrink)

What is the connection between modelling thought and modelling the brain? In a model (as understood here), we strip away from the modelled system some non-essential features and retain some essential ones. What are the essential features of thought that are to be re- tained in the model, and conversely, what are its inessential features, that may be stripped away in the model? According to a prevalent view in contemporary science and philoso- phy, thought is a computation, (...) and therefore its essential features are its computational features. A necessary part of the computational view of thought is the idea that the same computation can be realised by, or implemented in, physically heterogeneous systems, an idea known as “Multiple Realizability” of the computational features or properties by the physical ones. I will describe why the very idea of Multiple Realizability, especially in the case of mental computation, entails mind-body dualism, and explore some implications of this conclusion concerning the question of which are the essential features of thought to be retained in modeling it. (shrink)

Model-data symbiosis is the view that there is an interdependent and mutually beneficial relationship between data and models, whereby models are not only data-laden, but data are also model-laden or model filtered. In this paper I elaborate and defend the second, more controversial, component of the symbiosis view. In particular, I construct a preliminary taxonomy of the different ways in which theoretical and simulation models are used in the production of data sets. These include data conversion, data (...) correction, data interpolation, data scaling, data fusion, data assimilation, and synthetic data. Each is defined and briefly illustrated with an example from the geosciences. I argue that model-filtered data are typically more accurate and reliable than the so-called raw data, and hence beneficially serve the epistemic aims of science. By illuminating the methods by which raw data are turned into scientifically useful data sets, this taxonomy provides a foundation for developing a more adequate philosophy of data. (shrink)

John P. Burgess is the John N. Woodhull Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Logic and Methodology program at the University of California at Berkeley under the supervision of Jack H. Silver with a thesis on descriptive set theory. He is a very distinguished and influential philosopher of mathematics. He has written several books: A Subject with No Object (with G. Rosen, Oxford University Press, 1997), Computability and Logic (with G. Boolos and R. Jeffrey, (...) 5th ed., Cambridge University Press, 2007), Fixing Frege (Princeton University Press, 2005), Mathematics, Models, and Modality (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Philosophical Logic (Princeton University Press, 2009), Truth (with A. G. Burgess, Princeton University Press, 2011), Saul Kripke: Puzzles & Mysteries (Polity Press, 2012), Rigor & Structure (Oxford University Press, 2015), and Set Theory (Cambridge Elements, Forthcoming). In this interview, Professor Burgess talks about how his interests in mathematics and philosophy developed and relate to each other. He then answers questions about specific themes of his philosophical work, with a focus on issues pertaining to philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Two goals - improving replicability and accountability of Machine Learning research respectively, have accrued much attention from the AI ethics and the Machine Learning community. Despite sharing the measures of improving transparency, the two goals are discussed in different registers - replicability registers with scientific reasoning whereas accountability registers with ethical reasoning. Given the existing challenge of the Responsibility Gap - holding Machine Learning scientists accountable for Machine Learning harms due to them being far from sites of application, this paper (...) posits that reconceptualizing replicability can help bridge the gap. Through a shift from model performance replicability to claim replicability, Machine Learning scientists can be held accountable for producing non-replicable claims that are prone to eliciting harm due to misuse and misinterpretation. In this paper, I make the following contributions. First, I define and distinguish two forms of replicability for ML research that can aid constructive conversations around replicability. Second, I formulate an argument for claim-replicability's advantage over model performance replicability in justifying assigning accountability to Machine Learning scientists for producing non-replicable claims and show how it enacts a sense of responsibility that is actionable. In addition, I characterize the implementation of claim replicability as more of a social project than a technical one by discussing its competing epistemological principles, practical implications on Circulating Reference, Interpretative Labor, and research communication. (shrink)

Many philosophers have argued that large language models (LLMs) subvert the traditional undergraduate philosophy paper. For the enthusiastic, LLMs merely subvert the traditional idea that students ought to write philosophy papers “entirely on their own.” For the more pessimistic, LLMs merely facilitate plagiarism. We believe that these controversies neglect a more basic crisis. We argue that, because one can, with minimal philosophical effort, use LLMs to produce outputs that at least “look like” good papers, many students will complete paper assignments (...) in a way that fails to develop their philosophical abilities. We argue that this problem exists even if students can produce better papers with AI and even if instructors can detect AI-generated content with decent reliability. But LLMs also create a pedagogical opportunity. We propose that instructors shift the emphasis of their assignments from philosophy papers to “LLM dialogues”: philosophical conversations between the student and an LLM. We describe our experience with using these types of assignments over the past several semesters. We argue that, far from undermining quality philosophical instruction, LLMs allow us to teach philosophy more effectively than was possible before. (shrink)

The recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) and their deployment in social settings prompt an important philosophical question: are LLMs social agents? This question finds its roots in the broader exploration of what engenders sociality. Since AI systems like chatbots, carebots, and sexbots are expanding the pre-theoretical boundaries of our social ontology, philosophers have two options. One is to deny LLMs membership in our social ontology on theoretical grounds by claiming something along the lines that only organic or X-type (...) creatures belong in our social world. Second, expand our ontological boundaries. I take the second route and claim LLMs implemented as social chatbots are social agents. Utilizing Brian Epstein's concepts of grounding and anchoring, alongside Dee Peyton's criteria for what makes a property social, I posit that the capacity for conversations is a social property. Further, within a framework where social agency is considered multi-dimensional, akin to agency, possessing a social property is sufficient for attaining social agency. Thus establishing chatbots as social agents. A helpful concept here is Levels of Abstraction (LoA). The LoA framework allows for extracting relevant and important information from the target domain (the social world). For example, the property of being a 'boy' and the capacity for conversation are social properties; hence, they are part of the social domain. LLMs have the capacity for conversations. So, if we focus on the conversational-LoA and not the gender-LoA, then LLMs occupy a dimension of sociality (i.e., conversational dimensions). (shrink)

Human civilization is very clearly reaching a point of critical mass when it comes to technology and how it transforms culture and the economics that is therefore driven forward. The conversation around the practical aspects of generative artificial intelligence (Chat GPT, Q Star, Bard, Claude, Genesis, Firefly, and others) and their ethical implications is massively trending. The political conversations around it are slow to catch up but will soon take over once the general public feels their impact, which is likely (...) to happen in the next two to three years. -/- What is not being spoken of is the need for new economic models that can integrate the enormous and continuous shifts in trade that will occur, as we continue to implement more efficient manufacturing and logistics. Things like 3D printing in hub regions, the automation of transportation, augmented and virtual reality, and new creativity-based industries will all disrupt capital markets as well as social systems due to what we could call "meta-scarcity", which is to say, "the scarcity of scarcity"; In effect, we will lack the scarcity to maintain predictive power over the future. This is because when technology is capable of optimizing for creativity, people come up with new demands, and when new demands are supplied as quickly as they arise, no one is capable of knowing what kind of trends the market will take, yet it is necessary to try as public discussion could beneficially shape the economic landscape. (shrink)

The development of conversational artificial intelligence (AI) has brought about new opportunities for improving the learning experience in education. ChatGPT, a large language model trained on a vast corpus of text, has the potential to revolutionize education by enhancing learning through personalized and interactive conversations. This paper explores the benefits of integrating ChatGPT in education in Thailand. The research strategy employed in this study was qualitative, utilizing in-depth interviews with eight key informants who were selected using purposive sampling. (...) The collected data was analyzed using content analysis and the software NVivo. The study's results indicated that ChatGPT can provide personalized learning experiences by adapting to individual student needs and preferences. Its ability to understand natural language and context can also facilitate more meaningful interactions between students and the system. Additionally, ChatGPT can assist with administrative tasks such as grading and feedback, allowing educators to focus on more personalized and meaningful interactions with students. Furthermore, ChatGPT can serve as a valuable tool for remote learning, providing students with the ability to access educational resources and support outside of traditional classroom settings. The paper also discusses potential ethical considerations in utilizing AI in education, such as data privacy and bias. Overall, this paper argues that the integration of ChatGPT in education has the potential to enhance the learning experience for students by providing personalized, interactive, and efficient support. (shrink)

Since Aristotle there are two main approaches in the explanation of begging the question (petitio): a dialectical mistake (an improper move in an argumentative dialogue) and an epistemic mistake. According to the latter begging the question is committed when the premises of an argument cannot be known independently of knowing the conclusion of the argument. Dialectical approaches use the notion of a commitment (acceptance, standpoint) and rules of dialogue as their basis. I propose a hybrid model, inspired by Jackson: (...) the rationale for introducing commitments and rules is epistemic. (shrink)

Cellular, or mobile phones are great: they allow people to communicate over long distances whenever and wherever they are, and instantaneously at that when the one called is wearing one too. Having said that, though, it must immediately be added that they, also, have a complex disadvantage, and it is one we are hard pushed to understand. In fact, due to its complexity people simply tend to neglect it, even though everyone in his right mind has had experience with it. (...) Now Walter Benjamin defined aura as “a distance however close it may be”.1) This has standardly been interpreted as a characterisation of an experience of presence, also by Benjamin. This aura supposedly suffered from the rise of photography. Aura can, also, be understood as inertia, the absence of something present. And whether aura is gone or widespread I gladly leave to more speculative-minded thinkers. I submit that we experience a person’s “aura”—her distance however close she may be—when perception tells us the person is present yet our mind realises that she isn’t. I am referring here to the observation had of another person engaged in a cell phone conversation. The inertia of the cell phone caller consists in her incapacity to address those who observe her. I think there is an immoral streak to her selfappointed moral autonomy. In a previous edition of this Dutch-Russian exchange on inertia I argued that our trafficking with facial expressions forms the model with which we’d best understand the workings of art—facial expression is the anthropological foundation of art. My discussion, today, of the cell phone conversation is meant to add to that previous suggestion. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article offers the first step in an ongoing project of revisiting the foundations of latinidad and lo latinoamericano by focusing on the exclusions enacted by the history of these concepts and the cultural and political identity that comes with them. In conversation with Susana Nuccetelli and Omar Rivera, the author focuses on two emblematic authors in the history of Latin American philosophy (Simón Bolívar and José de Vasconcelos) that are usually read as offering a novel, liberatory conception of (...) the Latin American reality/identity, categorically different from European and Anglo-American conceptions. This common reading of some of the foundational texts on Latin American identity, however, conceals not only the active, textual removal of Blackness in the construction of this identity, but also the literal subtraction of Black bodies, lives, and histories from the Latin American nations and communities. Both of these elements are an explicit part of the philosophical programs of Bolívar and Vasconcelos. The article shows how the thought and political practice of these two authors, celebrated in different ways as foundational of what we understand as Latin America today, exemplify the exclusionary historical demarcation of latinidad. (shrink)

El presente trabajo surge como una reflexión a partir de la lectura del reciente libro de Francesca Poggi, "Il modello conversazionale. Sulla differenza tra comprensione ordinaria e interpretazione giuridica", en el cual la autora se propone esclarecer algunos aspectos de la comunicación ordinaria y de la interpretación jurídica, poniendo en evidencia sus similitudes y diferencias. En §2, plantearé el interrogante de si una concepción de norma jurídica como la de los imperativos independientes de Karl Olivecrona, basada en un imperativismo no (...) voluntarista, podría ser de utilidad para una posición acerca de la interpretación jurídica que prescinde de la intención del legislador, estableciendo una separación tajante entre la autoridad legislativa y el texto que resulta aprobado. En §3, plantearé el interrogante de si no sería más provechoso realizar ulteriores diferenciaciones entre los contextos jurídicos en los cuales Poggi analiza la aplicación y aplicabilidad de la teoría de Grice. Intentaré mostrar cómo esas diferenciaciones se vuelven necesarias, especialmente para evaluar la posibilidad de que sí existan contextos cooperativos en el ámbito jurídico y situaciones donde podrían coexistir contemporáneamente contextos cooperativos y no cooperativos. Finalmente, en §4 ofreceré una breve conclusión. (shrink)

According to Steven Pinker and his associates the cooperative model of human communication fails, because evolutionary biology teaches us that most social relationships, including talk-exchange, involve combinations of cooperation and conflict. In particular, the phenomenon of the strategic speaker who uses indirect speech in order to be able to deny what he meant by a speech act (deniability of conversational implicatures) challenges the model. In reply I point out that interlocutors can aim at understanding each other (cooperation), (...) while being in conflict. Furthermore, Pinker’s strategic speaker relies on the Cooperative Principle when conveying a conversational implicature, and so non-cooperative behaviour (denial) only emerges as a response to a negative reaction from the audience. It is also doubtful in the cases Pinker presents whether a denial will successfully cancel the conversational implicature –change the audience’s interpretation of speaker’s meaning. I also argue that a strategic speaker might choose indirect speech due to the ignorability of conversational implicatures, in which case the strategic speaker can be highly cooperative. (shrink)

The advent of conversational agents with increasingly human-like behaviour throws old philosophical questions into new light. Does it, or could it, ever make sense to speak of AI agents built out of generative language models in terms of consciousness, given that they are ‘mere’ simulacra of human behaviour, and that what they do can be seen as ‘merely’ role play? Drawing on the later writings of Wittgenstein, this paper attempts to tackle this question while avoiding the pitfalls of dualistic (...) thinking. (shrink)

According to Steven Pinker and his associates the cooperative model of human communication fails, because evolutionary biology teaches us that most social relationships, including talk-exchange, involve combinations of cooperation and conflict. In particular, the phenomenon of the strategic speaker who uses indirect speech in order to be able to deny what he meant by a speech act (deniability of conversational implicatures) challenges the model. In reply I point out that interlocutors can aim at understanding each other (cooperation), (...) while being in conflict. Furthermore, Pinker’s strategic speaker relies on the Cooperative Principle when conveying a conversational implicature, and so non-cooperative behaviour (denial) only emerges as a response to a negative reaction from the audience. It is also doubtful in the cases Pinker presents whether a denial will successfully cancel the conversational implicature –change the audience’s interpretation of speaker’s meaning. I also argue that a strategic speaker might choose indirect speech due to the ignorability of conversational implicatures, in which case the strategic speaker can be highly cooperative. (shrink)

Models of collective deliberation often assume that the chief aim of a deliberative exchange is the sharing of information. In this paper, we argue that an equally important role of deliberation is to draw participants’ attention to pertinent questions, which can aid the assembly and processing of distributed information by drawing deliberators’ attention to new issues. The assumption of logical omniscience renders classical models of agents’ informational states unsuitable for modelling this role of deliberation. Building on recent insights from psychology, (...) linguistics and philosophy about the role of questions in speech and thought, we propose a different model in which beliefs are treated as answers directed at specific questions. Here, questions are formally represented as partitions of the space of possibilities and individuals’ information states as sets of questions and corresponding partial answers to them. The state of conversation is then characterised by individuals’ information together with the questions under discussion, which can be steered by various deliberative inputs. Using this model, deliberation is then shown to shape collective decisions in ways that classical models cannot capture, allowing for novel explanations of how group consensus is achieved. (shrink)

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

This study posits ecological communion as the integration of facilitative learning through community engagements leading to an ecological conversion. Employing the interpretive phenomenological method, it examined how educational institutions in the CICM Philippine Schools’ Network (CICM-PSN) integrate the ecological principles of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si in terms of religious instruction, community engagement, and campus ministry program. Through a semi-structured interview with the participants, the study revealed three themes that illustrate the CICM educational institutions' efforts in bringing the Laudato Si’ teachings (...) to the level of practice and reflection. First, pedagogical integration denotes the challenge of integrating integral ecology in instruction. Second, community engagement shows the effort of the academic community to practice ecological principles through extension programs. Third, ecological conversion aims to internalize the ecological values taught through instruction and practiced through community service. Taken as a unified whole, the three themes mentioned form the Transformative Interpretative Pedagogical Model to consolidate the framework for the CICM-Philippine Schools Network. Furthermore, this model may guide the concrete articulation and application of ecological communion in their religious instruction, community extension and social action programs, and campus ministry activities. (shrink)

Kant’s conception of remorse has not received focused discussion in the literature. I argue that he thinks we ought to experience remorse for both retributivist and consequentialist reasons. This account casts helpful light on his ideas of conversion and the descent into the hell of self-cognition. But while he prescribes a heartbreakingly painful experience of remorse, he acknowledges that excess remorse can threaten rational agency through distraction and suicide, and this raises questions about whether actual human beings ought to cultivate (...) their consciences in such a way as to experience remorse on his model. (shrink)

What is Understanding? This is the first of a series of Chats with OpenAI’s ChatGPT (Chat). The main goal is to obtain Chat’s response to a series of questions about the concept of ’understand- ing’. The approach is a conversational approach where the author (labeled as user) asks (prompts) Chat, obtains a response, and then uses the response to formulate followup questions. David Deutsch’s assertion of the primality of the process / capability of understanding is used as the starting (...) point. Understanding is posited as a major step in the Big Picture description of emergence in the Universe. Understanding follows the emergence of Brains and Minds, culminating in Power Over the Universe. My evaluation suggests that Chat does indeed offer utility, but also has limitations manifested by overly general responses that do not focus tightly on the questions asked. Chat does yield some gems that could be easily missed. The approach used here includes creating Metaprompts, wherein Chat is asked to create more efficient prompts based on initial promptsThis approach appears to hold significant promise, and will likely be of benefit to those exploring various facets of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Large Language Models (LLMs) and designers of Advanced General Intelligence (AGI). Other findings include the need for creating new metrics and ways of discussing intelligence, and various adjacent areas and subprocesses associated with intelligence. Discussions of future directions is also included. (shrink)

We discuss two models of virtue cultivation that are present throughout the Republic: the self-mastery model and the harmony model. Schultz (2013) discusses them at length in her recent book, Plato’s Socrates as Narrator: A Philosophical Muse. We bring this Socratic distinction into conversation with two modes of intentional regulation strategies articulated by James J. Gross. These strategies are expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal. We argue that that the Socratic distinction helps us see the value in cognitive reappraisal (...) and that the contemporary neurological research supports the wide range of attitudes toward the value of emotional experience that mirror those found in the Republic. (shrink)

With regard to recent historical developments, the Social Model has been of enormous emancipatory significance, chiefly as a counter-agent against rigid definitions of dis-/ability and the traditional role (marked by misfortune) imposed on disabled people. Based on underdetermined notions of “social construction”, this model presently threatens to unduly narrow reflections on the existential conditions of disabled agents, and to obscure crucial questions facing just social orders of the future. These notions imply an overemphasis on linguistic/mental and cultural acts (...) in the shaping of life courses, whereas physical, practical and existential pre-conditions of life come to be disregarded as purportedly freely available, (natural) features. Conversely, this argumentation sketch – a contribution to DisKo18 – works towards a reconceptualisation of disability rooted in external realism, assuming partially autonomous agents. The paper asks: What is the place of disabled people in the world, given that the elementary conditions and problems of life are not primarily of human origin, but arise out of a complex interaction with elements of external reality? What space remains to them in view of extant impairment-related restrictions? Based on a critique of constructionist tenets, possibilities for a just social order are discussed, considering (a) disabilities vs. (b) external, pre-social factors that limit the range of possible social solutions, with special regard to available resources. This approach is exemplified by placing disability in contexts of ecological sustainability. (Paper in German, short version). (shrink)

For various historical, political as well as economic reasons, the English language is favoured as the universal language of science over other languages including French and German (Tardy, 2004). This naturally entails that students who are conversant in English have an advantage over those who are not in the acquisition of scientific knowledge. In relation to this, research on the misunderstanding of scientific terms in different languages shows that students who are speakers of non-western languages in particular face difficulties in (...) conceptualising scientific concepts. There is evidence to suggest that these students’ pre-existing knowledge about scientific terms and the polysemous nature of such terms are factors that influence their conceptualisation of the terms. This finding is the motivation behind the present cognitive linguistic study of the term temperature and its equivalent in Arabic, the compound دَرَجَةُ الحَرَارَة (darajatu al-ḥarara). Using a cognitive framework, namely Lakoff’s Idealised Cognitive Models (ICMs), the study analyses the conceptual similarities as well as differences between the terms. The study also analyses the English term heat as the second free morpheme of the compound دَرَجَةُ الحَرَارَة is الحَرَارَة which is the Arabic rendering of heat. The meanings and different uses of the terms are examined to analyse the ICMs that are evoked in each language. The results of the analysis reveal that the ICMs of English and Arabic terms under study overlap, and interestingly, also differ. (shrink)

We generalize intuitionistic tense logics to the multi-modal case by placing grammar logics on an intuitionistic footing. We provide axiomatizations for a class of base intuitionistic grammar logics as well as provide axiomatizations for extensions with combinations of seriality axioms and what we call "intuitionistic path axioms". We show that each axiomatization is sound and complete with completeness being shown via a typical canonical model construction.

Wormhole is a popular tool for interstellar travel in science fiction. It connects two different space-time points directly although such an astrophysical object is not yet observed, but in 2015, researchers in Spain created a tiny magnetic wormhole for the first time ever. They used it to connect two regions of space so that a magnetic field could travel 'invisibly' between them. This article presents a model of making a wormhole of light on the principle of conversion of energy (...) so that light going from one end could come out of another end; hence it can be called a wormhole of light. Materials including solar cell, amplified speaker, one way walkie talkie, alligator clips, light emitting diode, transistors and clapping switch have been used. The method of conversion of energy is used and light is transferred into sound first and then back into light. The preparation of such wormhole of light is split into two parts. One end includes a circuit that would accept light through a box and the other end would provide light coming from another box. In order to utilize a wormhole of light to two locales of room the goal was to make light travel between them. Sound made from light would travel the distance between the two boxes. For this purpose a one way walkie-talkie will provide the connection between the two boxes and thus as a whole it would work as a wormhole of light. (shrink)

Igal Kvart A Coding Conception in Action-Directed-Pragmatics -/- I present formal Pragmatics for a domain in Pragmatics that I call Action-Directed Pragmatics, which focuses on the Pragmatic riddle of how implicit contents are conveyed and understood, by adopting a coding model, in which the speaker and addressee simulate each other iteratively in a deliberative context (an ‘action-pregnant’ one). The implicit content, conveyed by a speaker and decoded by her addressee, in such cases, consists in the specified steered-to action, plus (...) modulations on the action-polarity (pro or con) and the degree of the so-called Steering Thrust that accompanies such assertions and is conveyed by verbal locutions, intonation, and/or bodily and facial gestures. There are two main tasks to model (in a given setup and conversational context): First, how is the speaker, with a steered-to action in mind (and Steering Thrust), to select an assertion so as to (say) optimize the successful transmission and decoding of its implicit pragmatic content by her and her addressee? Second, how does the addressee, given an assertion by the speaker, decipher the implicit pragmatic content conveyed via it? Both will invoke pertinent information they have about each other and the setup/context in order to best encode and best decode the implicit pragmatic content. (This coding mechanism proposed here is not offered for the ubiquitous ‘frozen’, ‘trivial’ or ‘routinized’ pragmatic messages.) A prelude to this formal Pragmatics is a general formal Pragmatic account of Assertibility in contexts that are multi-normative (which is the common case). I focus here only on Epistemic/Semantic and Instrumental Norms. A linear representation of degrees of Overall Assertibility (i.e., taking into account various operative norms) will be an n-dimensional qualitative vector space with a function that computes them given different degrees of sub-normative Assertibility on each axis. (shrink)

Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT were trained on human conversation, but in the future they will also train us. As chatbots speak from our smartphones and customer service helplines, they will become a part of everyday life and a growing share of all the conversations we ever have. It’s hard to doubt this will have some effect on us. Here I explore a specific concern about the impact of artificial conversation on our capacity to deliberate and hold ourselves accountable (...) to reason – that is, to be autonomous, in Kant’s sense of the term. I develop ideas from psychologist Jean Piaget to show how chatbots are autonomy traps: their deference to our commands tempts us into venting authoritarian whims, ultimately weakening our own self-control. I argue that the Kantian tradition, including Piaget and sociologist Emile Durkheim, offers powerful conceptual resources for resisting this slide. But it will require us to do something that may seem bizarre: we will need to treat mindless chatbots as if they are autonomous persons too. (shrink)

Limits of the Conversation about Forms. Types of Knowledge and Necessity of Forms in Plato's "Parmenides". - Forms (ideas) are among the things that Plato is serious about. But about these things he says in his "Seventh Letter": "There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject." (341c, transl. J. Harward). Plato's statement suggests the question, why one does not and never can do justice to the Platonic forms by means of a written text about (...) the forms. Another big question of Plato research is whether the conversations documented in the Platonic dialogues are also affected by this verdict. This paper aims to provide, as far as possible, newly substantiated answers to these two questions. To this end, the systematic limits of the discussion about forms, which are particularly evident in Plato's dialogue "Parmenides", are examined in eight steps: First, two types of knowledge are presented that play an important systematic role in Plato's philosophy with regard to the limits of conversation: knowledge-how (practical knowledge) and knowledge-that (propositional knowledge) (I). Then the Socratic model of these two types of knowledge is interpreted, which is drafted in the tenth book of the "Republic". This model uses the example of bridle, bridlemaker and rider to explain the primacy of practical knowledge and the limits of propositional knowledge (II). Subsequently, it will be shown how the dialogues "Republic" and "Parmenides" are connected with each other in content and form (III). The gradation of the two types of knowledge, which is indicated by the motifs of the bridle and the horse on the image level of the "Parmenides", proves to be the structure that systematically underlies the structure of the entire dialogue (IV). It also makes clear why the conversation about the forms in the first part of the "Parmenides" has to fail (V). The assumption that the two parts of the "Parmenides" express two different types of knowledge in dealing with forms is supported by the results of a logical analysis of the last defence of the acceptance of forms (135b-c). This analysis shows why, for reasons of principle, it is impossible to speak adequately about forms (VI). Forms have the function of being presuppositions of 'talking about something'. Thus forms are always presupposed in conversation when one talks about them, and thus elude appropriate discussion in conversation (VII). That this is not only a methodical insight of the Platonic Parmenides, but can also be attributed to Plato himself, is demonstrated by the concluding reinterpretation of the central sentence of the critique of writing in Plato's "Seventh Letter". It will become apparent that, contrary to the now widespread view of the representatives of the Tübingen school, philosophical and also good philological reasons speak for the fact that Plato related his criticism only to the communicability of forms through treatises, i.e. tract-like writings (VIII). (shrink)

The Lockean Thesis says that you must believe p iff you’re sufficiently confident of it. On some versions, the 'must' asserts a metaphysical connection; on others, it asserts a normative one. On some versions, 'sufficiently confident' refers to a fixed threshold of credence; on others, it varies with proposition and context. Claim: the Lockean Thesis follows from epistemic utility theory—the view that rational requirements are constrained by the norm to promote accuracy. Different versions of this theory generate different versions of (...) Lockeanism; moreover, a plausible version of epistemic utility theory meshes with natural language considerations, yielding a new Lockean picture that helps to model and explain the role of beliefs in inquiry and conversation. Your beliefs are your best guesses in response to the epistemic priorities of your context. Upshot: we have a new approach to the epistemology and semantics of belief. And it has teeth. It implies that the role of beliefs is fundamentally different than many have thought, and in fact supports a metaphysical reduction of belief to credence. (shrink)

This paper corrects a mistake I saw students make but I have yet to see in print. The mistake is thinking that logically equivalent propositions have the same counterexamples—always. Of course, it is often the case that logically equivalent propositions have the same counterexamples: “every number that is prime is odd” has the same counterexamples as “every number that is not odd is not prime”. The set of numbers satisfying “prime but not odd” is the same as the set of (...) numbers satisfying “not odd but not not-prime”. The mistake is thinking that every two logically-equivalent false universal propositions have the same counterexamples. Only false universal propositions have counterexamples. A counterexample for “every two logically-equivalent false universal propositions have the same counterexamples” is two logically-equivalent false universal propositions not having the same counterexamples. The following counterexample arose naturally in my sophomore deductive logic course in a discussion of inner and outer converses. “Every even number precedes every odd number” is counterexemplified only by even numbers, whereas its equivalent “Every odd number is preceded by every even number” is counterexemplified only by odd numbers. Please let me know if you see this mistake in print. Also let me know if you have seen these points discussed before. I learned them in my own course: talk about learning by teaching! (shrink)

In the latter half of the twentieth century, philosophers of science have argued (implicitly and explicitly) that epistemically rational individuals might compose epistemically irrational groups and that, conversely, epistemically rational groups might be composed of epistemically irrational individuals. We call the conjunction of these two claims the Independence Thesis, as they together imply that methodological prescriptions for scientific communities and those for individual scientists might be logically independent of one another. We develop a formal model of scientific inquiry, define (...) four criteria for individual and group epistemic rationality, and then prove that the four definitions diverge, in the sense that individuals will be judged rational when groups are not and vice versa. We conclude by explaining implications of the inconsistency thesis for (i) descriptive history and sociology of science and (ii) normative prescriptions for scientific communities. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 or Gemini, which are now incorporated in a wide range of products and services in everyday life. Importantly, it considers some of their hidden human costs. First, is the question of who is left behind by the further infusion of LLMs in society. Second, is the issue of social inequalities between lingua franca and those which are not. Third, LLMs will help disseminate scientific concepts, but their meanings' (...) dissemination is at risk. Fourth, is the issue of information security and how nations and individuals might adapt. Fifth, is the issue of the environmental cost of LLMs for future generations. At the dawn of the conversational AI era, it would be wise to ponder what inequalities and empowerments will be co-created with LLMs. (shrink)

In this paper, a capacitor microphone system is presented to improve the conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy using a nonlinear auto regressive moving average-L2 (NARMA-L2) and model predictive control (MPC) controllers for the analysis of the open loop and closed loop system. The open loop system response shows that the output voltage signal need to be improved. The comparison of the closed loop system with the proposed controllers have been analyzed and a promising result have been obtained (...) using Matlab/Simulink. (shrink)

Using tools like argument diagrams and profiles of dialogue, this paper studies a number of examples of everyday conversational argumentation where determination of relevance and irrelevance can be assisted by means of adopting a new dialectical approach. According to the new dialectical theory, dialogue types are normative frameworks with specific goals and rules that can be applied to conversational argumentation. In this paper is shown how such dialectical models of reasonable argumentation can be applied to a determination of (...) whether an argument in a specific case is relevant are not in these examples. The approach is based on a linguistic account of dialogue and text from congruity theory, and on the notion of a dialectical shift. Such a shift occurs where an argument starts out as fitting into one type of dialogue, but then it only continues to makes sense as a coherent argument if it is taken to be a part of a different type of dialogue. (shrink)

Scientists, philosophers, and other researchers commonly assert their theories. This is surprising, as there are good reasons for skepticism about theories in cutting-edge research. I propose a new account of assertion in research contexts that vindicates these assertions. This account appeals to a distinct propositional attitude called endorsement, which is the rational attitude of committed advocacy researchers have to their theories. The account also appeals to a theory of conversational pragmatics known as the Question Under Discussion model, or (...) QUD. Hence, I call the theory the EQUD model. Motivating this account is a recognition that the speech act of assertion has two roles to play in research contexts. The first is the advocacy role, in which researchers assert a theory in order to advocate for it. The second is the evidential role, which is used to add to the common stock of information available to a field of inquiry. The EQUD model provides an account of warranted assertion for both these roles in research contexts. This success provides support for the theory of endorsement. It also provides support for information updating accounts of assertion. (shrink)

Recent scoreboard models of conversation, in addition to modeling update effects of assertions and questions, also make sense of how one may react to such discourse moves. An account of acceptance and rejection is captured by Farkas & Bruce (2010), while Bledin & Rawlins (2020) have recently made sense of how one may resist an assertion too. For rejection and resistance of assertions, truth comes out to be a crucial notion. Between X and Y, if Y doesn't believe p to (...) be true, then Y might resist or reject X's assertion of p. For questions however, truth cannot serve this purpose. A complete model of discourse would seek to offer explanation of resisting questions. Much like Bledin & Rawlins, one can non-exhaustively enumerate a class of resistance moves. In many ways, one can resist a request to make a particular question QUD. In this paper, we raise following question: which notion can serve to explain question uptake in discourse? In our paper, we show how the expected utility value (EUV) of questions can serve this role for questions. EUV is used by van Rooij (2003) to give an account of interpretation of questions; we think it can serve our intended purposes too. To demonstrate plausibility, we build a workable formalism. (shrink)

We investigate a basic probabilistic dynamic semantics for a fragment containing conditionals, probability operators, modals, and attitude verbs, with the aim of shedding light on the prospects for adding probabilistic structure to models of the conversational common ground.

Academics working on military ethics and serving military personnel rarely have opportunities to talk to each other in ways that can inform and illuminate their respective experiences and approaches to the ethics of war. The workshop from which this paper evolved was a rare opportunity to remedy this problem. Our conversations about First Lieutenant (1LT) Portis’s experiences in combat provided a unique chance to explore questions about the relationship between oversight, accountability, and the idea of moral risk in military operations. (...) In this paper, we outline a particular experience of 1LT Portis’s that formed the basis of our discussions, before elucidating the ethical issues this experience raised. In particular, we see 1LT Portis’s experience as, first, illustrative of the problem of moral risk – when military personnel are placed in situations of moral temptation. The problem of moral risk, we propose, is best understood through the framework of the military’s duty of care. Second, we see his experience as highlighting tensions within the dominant moralized warrior model of the military profession. What we call a toxic warrior identity — a distorted form of the moralized warrior identity — can negatively affect the attitudes of military personnel toward rules, policies, procedures, and accountability mechanisms, particularly in relation to non-combat related roles and duties and when leaders must choose between competing bureaucratic demands. We see 1LT Portis’s experience as illustrative of these tensions, yet his experiences also highlight important concerns about the impact of increasing bureaucratic demands on military functioning. In the conclusion, we address the need to balance concerns about toxic warrior identity with legitimate criticisms of overly demanding bureaucracy and suggest avenues for further research on this issue. (shrink)

In response to recent work on the aggregation of individual judgments on logically connected propositions into collective judgments, it is often asked whether judgment aggregation is a special case of Arrowian preference aggregation. We argue for the converse claim. After proving two impossibility theorems on judgment aggregation (using "systematicity" and "independence" conditions, respectively), we construct an embedding of preference aggregation into judgment aggregation and prove Arrow’s theorem (stated for strict preferences) as a corollary of our second result. Although we thereby (...) provide a new proof of Arrow’s theorem, our main aim is to identify the analogue of Arrow’s theorem in judgment aggregation, to clarify the relation between judgment and preference aggregation, and to illustrate the generality of the judgment aggregation model. JEL Classi…cation: D70, D71.. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the psychological mechanisms behind the construction of preference, especially the actual processes used by humans when they make decisions in their everyday lives or in business situations. The chapter uses cognitive psychological techniques to break down these processes and set them in their social context. When attributes are compatible with the response scale, they are assigned greater weight because they are most easily mapped onto the response. For instance, when subjects are asked to set a price (...) for a gamble this task is compatible with the information about the gamble payoff, which is also expressed in monetary values (e.g., dollars). Conversely, when the task requires a choice the payoff information is not easily mapped onto the response anymore and loses some of its salience. In fact, Slovic, Griffin, and Tversky (1990) could show that using non-monetary outcomes attenuates preference reversals when no compatibility between the pricing task and the outcome attribute was possible. An assumption of the compatibility effect is that response modes compatible with specific characteristics of the options (e.g., payoffs) draw attention to them. One of the main themes that has emerged from behavioral decision research during the past decades is the view that people's preferences are often constructed—not merely revealed—in the process of elicitation (see e.g. Slovic). This conception is derived in part from studies demonstrating that normatively equivalent methods of elicitation often give rise to systematically different responses. These "preference reversals" violate the principle of procedure invariance fundamental to theories of rational choice and raise difficult questions about the nature of human values. If different elicitation procedures produce different orderings of options, how can preferences be defined and in what sense do they exist? Describing and explaining such failures of invariance will require choice models of far greater complexity than the traditional models -/- . (shrink)

Loneliness in medicine is a serious problem not just for patients, for whom illness is intrinsically isolating, but also for physicians in the contemporary condition of medicine. We explore this problem by investigating the ideal physician-patient relationship, whose analogy with friendship has held enduring normative appeal. Drawing from Talbot Brewer and Nir Ben-Moshe, we argue that this appeal lies in a dynamic form of companionship incompatible with static models of friendship-like physician-patient relationships: a mutual refinement of embodied virtue that draws (...) both persons together. The ideal physician-patient relationship has a dialectical character that fosters each member's improvement of phenomenologically recognizing and embodying moral virtues. A key component of this dynamic is a commitment to the common goal of the patient's health, realized through joint interactivities and conversations over time. The physician's presence to the patient's suffering—understood best as an alienating phenomenological condition for the patient—orients and discloses possibilities for virtuous caregiving by structuring the meanings of the goals, conversations, and joint narrative constitutive of their relationship. Presence to suffering, paradoxically, is perhaps an important prerequisite for this dynamic partnership. These activities dialectically build an interpretive horizon of understanding through which moral goods and character refinement—in and for the other—may become revealed for both persons in their shared being-in-the-world. This analysis of suffering, mood, and revealing of (possible) moral goods has implications for addressing the modern problem of loneliness for patients and physicians, who are increasingly inhibited from building flourishing relationships with each other. (shrink)

The insinuating speaker, when successful, achieves two goals: they introduce a contentious content into a conversation while simultaneously marking it as not being officially stated. This positioning allows the speaker to plausibly deny any intention behind the implied message when challenged. I argue that reconciling the communicative nature of insinuation and its off-record status within the Gricean framework of overt communication appears to present a significant conceptual puzzle. In this paper, I address this challenge by introducing the notion of Gricean (...) insinuation, which I define as communication that is both partially overt and partially covert. I start by exploring the nature and complexity of the insinuation puzzle mentioned earlier and reviewing two existing Gricean solutions to it. Then, I proceed to analyse three concepts relevant to the insinuation phenomenon: indirectness, cancellability, and plausible deniability. Following this, I introduce the concept of Gricean insinuation. In particular, I use the common ground framework to elucidate what I refer to as the ‘Fake One-Way Mirror Effect’, and apply the resulting model to explain some examples of insinuation as acts of off-record communication. In conclusion, I assess the model’s effectiveness and propose directions for future research. (shrink)

When a person commits a testimonial injustice, the unjust thing they do consists in their reaction to an assertion (theorists diverge on the details; paradigmatically the relevant unjust thing consists in prejudicially refraining from believing the assertion). Whatever reactions to questions are analogous to these reactions to assertions, those things are "interrogative injustices". I explore some models of those things and apply them to some non-ideal cases. One of the models appeals to mental states like curiosity and wonder, telling us (...) that interrogative injustice occurs when hearers prejudicially refrain from adopting those mental states. Other models appeal to common conversational goals – these goals including the answering of questions. On these models, interrogative injustice occurs when a person asks a question, and another person prejudicially blocks the answering of that question from joining the common goals. Or, if they don’t block said answering, perhaps they believe that it should be thus blocked. Or perhaps they merely resist the question, not fully blocking its answering from joining the common goals but instead pushing back against it in some other way. Or perhaps they merely believe that they should resist the question. I endorse a pluralism on which each of these things can be an interrogative injustice. (shrink)

What is common knowledge? According to the dominant iterative model, a group of people commonly knows that p if and only if they each individually know that p, and they furthermore each know that they each know that p, and so on to infinity. According to the integrative model proposed in this paper, a group commonly knows that p when its members are united in a state of mind of the type whose contents must be true. Epistemic integration (...) within a group is enabled by symmetrical signalling processes such as eye contact. In conversational dyads, symmetrical processing operates on pairs of signals produced by the two sides in a familiar format: speakers generate content for joint attention in main channel communication, and addressees evaluate that content in backchannel communication. Processes of reinforcement learning shape our pairwise signalling, driving the accumulation of common knowledge, both in response to extrinsic reward for coordinated action, and in response to the intrinsic reward of curiosity. Where the iterative model caps the epistemic performance of the group at the level of its weakest member, the integrative model of common knowledge shows how groups working together can outperform their strongest member working alone. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that hate speech expresses hate, and answer some objections to expressivist views. First, I briefly comment on some limitations of pragmatic accounts of harmful speech. I then present an expressive-normative view of derogatory discourse according to which it is expressive of an affective state by presupposing it. A linguistic act expressive of an affective state inherits the normativity that is constitutive of that state, as directed to its intentional object. If the act is successful, it (...) updates the conversational context with the normative appraisal conditions of the affective state presupposed. I argue that this model can be applied to hate speech. I rely on current research on the psychology of hate to identify the appraisal conditions, action tendencies, and motivational goals characteristic of hate. The account supplements other pragmatic accounts of hate speech. (shrink)

In this paper, we use concepts, structure and tools from argumentation theory to show how conversational implicatures are triggered by conflicts of presumptions. Presumptive implicatures are shown to be based on defeasible forms of inference used in conditions of lack of knowledge, including analogical reasoning, inference to the best explanation, practical reasoning, appeal to pity, and argument from cause. Such inferences are modelled as communicative strategies to knowledge gaps that shift the burden of providing the missing contrary evidence to (...) the other party in a dialogue. Through a series of illustrative examples, we show how such principles of inference are based on common knowledge about the ordinary course of events shared by participants in a structured dialogue setting in which they take turns putting forward and responding to speech acts. (shrink)