Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 1 Seiten: 86-102.

This third paper locates the synthetic neurorobotics research reviewed in the second paper in terms of themes introduced in the first paper. It begins with biological non-reductionism as understood by Searle. It emphasizes the role of synthetic neurorobotics studies in accessing the dynamic structure essential to consciousness with a focus on system criticality and self, develops a distinction between simulated and formal consciousness based on this emphasis, reviews Tani and colleagues' work in light of this distinction, and ends by (...) forecasting the increasing importance of synthetic neurorobotics studies for cognitive science and philosophy of mind going forward, finally in regards to most- and myth-consciousness. (shrink)

It is no accident that white privilege designed to be both be invisible and weightless to white people. Alison Bailey’s “On White Privilege and Anesthesia: Why Does Peggy McIntosh’s Knapsack Feel Weightless?” extends a weighty invitation white readers to complete the unpacking task McIntosh (1988) began when she compared white privilege to an “invisible and weightless knapsack.” McIntosh focuses primarily making white privilege visible to white people. Bailey’s project continues the conversation by extending a ‘weighty invitation’ to white readers to (...) explore why the metaphorical knapsack, despite the weight of its contents, feels weightless. Here’s the short answer. The knapsack only feels weightless because white people have become anesthetized us to our own brokenness. We are more comfortable considering what white privilege does for us than what it does to us. People of color feel the weight of whiteness every day. The weighty invitation invites white readers to become sensitive to our own insensitivity. To do this Bailey (1) explores white resistance to unpacking the weight; (2) people of color’s testimonies to the daily impact of the weight on their bodies; and (3) how the anesthesia of white privilege distorts our humanity. The article concludes with a McIntosh style list of that the anesthesia of privilege distorts white people’s humanity. (shrink)

This article uses phenomenology to examine the way whiteness appears. It begins by discussing the phenomenologies of race done by Linda Martin Alcoff and Sara Ahmed, focusing on their accounts of how race develops and the role that proximity and visibility play in the production of racial categories. It then offers critiques of Ahmed and Alcoff for naturalizing part of the process by which race develops, arguing that a better account of race can be given if we avoid seeing (...) race as a function of proximity or visibility. A stronger account of whiteness can be given if we draw from the work of Merleau-Ponty, in particular his claims that there is always a directionality to perception and that we complete the world in our perceptions of it. A phenomenology that is motivated by these considerations will be able to explain how whiteness is able to appear in so many ways as it is constantly being completed differently in different contexts. The article ends by describing some of these contexts, such as how whiteness is often occluded but can also manifest the qualities of malignancy and autoimmunity. (shrink)

Recent philosophical secondary literature on white ignorance – a concept most famously developed by the late philosopher Charles W. Mills – suggests that white ignorance is, one way or another, a non-structural phenomenon. I analyse two such readings, the agential view and the cognitivist view. I argue that they misinterpret Mills’ work by (among other things) committing a kind of structural erasure, and one which implies that Mills’ account cannot capture, for example, cases where white ignorance (and white racial domination) (...) involves historical erasure, especially when perpetrated by sociopolitical institutions. This is particularly salient in cases such as the recent movement against anti-racist education, now widely conflated with critical race theory, in the United States and United Kingdom, which I offer as a brief case study. (shrink)

Racism in the USA not only takes place in law, economics, politics, mass media and new media, education, literature, and popular culture but also occurs in philosophy. An abundance of Latino philosophers, African-American philosophers, and Native American philosophers are excluded from the American philosophy canon. To discover whether racism happens in the field of American philosophy, the writer surveys 15 American philosophy books written between the 1940s and the 2020s by various American writers, the whites and the non-whites. The writer (...) carries out an ‗index-study‘: scanning philosopher names in the index of each book, identifying and scrutinizing the names, listing and categorizing them into race categories, counting them, comparing the number of non-white philosophers and white philosophers mentioned in each book, putting them in a table, and interpreting why there is a disparity between the number of non-white and white philosophers included in the books. The survey result shows that racism happens in American philosophy; the writers of the 15 American philosophy books exclude an abundance of non-white philosophers. There is a critical need to write a new, post-national American philosophy book that does justice to non-white philosophers in the near future so that racism diminishes. (shrink)

We, the proponents of the Philosophy of Ethical Empirical Rationalism, have reviewed Heather Cox Richardson’s Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America and find it a case study in how modern academic work has become far too entangled with media-driven narratives, ultimately sacrificing rigor in favor of ideological amplification. While Richardson’s historical analysis provides some value, it is clear that her failure to apply empirical methods to contemporary issues, coupled with her recent appearance on a popular media platform, reveals (...) a troubling trend in academic scholarship today. (shrink)

How should we explore the relationship between race and educational opportunity? One approach to the Black-White achievement gap explores how race and class cause disparities in access and opportunity. In this paper, I consider how education contributes to the creation of race. Considering examples of classroom micropolitics, I argue that breakdowns of trust and trustworthiness between teachers and students can cause substantial disadvantages and, in the contemporary United States, this happens along racial lines. Some of the disadvantages are academic: high (...) achievement is more difficult when one faces mistrust, ego depletion, effort pessimism, and insult. And within a knowledge economy, exclusion from knowledge work makes one vulnerable to injustice. But the problem goes deeper than achievement, for schools are contexts in which we develop self-understandings and identities that situate us as members of society. If students of color are systematically denied full participation in trusting conversations that create shared knowledge—especially, knowledge that holds power within the dominant culture—they are unjustly deprived resources to form flourishing selves that are suited to the positions of power and authority. The argument suggests that knowledge is not best understood simply as a commodity to be distributed, and opportunity is not just a matter of access. Moreover, even if access is granted, those who are motivated and talented can fail: they drain their willpower by coping with insults, or reasonably lose optimism about their efficacy. Over time, motivation may shift away from achievement, and under the circumstances this can be a rational response. The barriers to achievement are many, but true opportunity is impossible without trust and trustworthiness. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo apresentar as principais abordagens em que a psicologia social clássica norte-americana teorizou sobre o preconceito racial, o racismo e o antirracismo e, a partir delas, trazer os estudos críticos da branquitude como possibilidades para superar os limites identificados nessa corrente, que ora apresenta um indivíduo fora da estrutura, ora a estrutura sem indivíduos. Para isto, neste artigo definimos três abordagens propostas pela psicologia social norte-americana: teste de associação implícita (Greenwald & Banaji 2013); teoria do contato (...) intergrupal e racismo aversivo (Pettigrew 1997, Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986); e emoções específicas (Leach et al., 2002). A partir daí mostramos como os estudos críticos da branquitude se apresentam como uma síntese entre essas duas posições opostas, que oscilam entre o indivíduo e a estrutura. Nesta perspectiva, a estrutura se manifesta na própria experiência subjetiva do indivíduo, que se torna capaz de identificá-la em seu próprio campo experiencial. (shrink)

Like lynching and other mass hysterias, xenophobia exemplifies a contagious, collective wave of energy and hedonic quality that can point toward a troubling unpredictability at the core of political and social systems. While earlier studies of mass hysteria and popular discourse assume that cooler heads (aka rational individuals with their logic) could and should regain control over those emotions that are deemed irrational, and that boundaries are assumed healthy only when intact, affect studies pose individuals as nodes of (...) biosocial networks larger than themselves. Thus rather than suggesting that the individual can only prevent societal harm by gaining command and patrolling the borders of an autonomous self, we embrace the notion that affects can exert a positive and transformative force on a social reality that is resistant to top-down policy intervention and any straightforward moral or logical plea. (shrink)

Exploring online criticisms of the ‘take the knee’ protest during ‘Euro 2020’, this article examines how alt- and far-right conspiracies were both constructed and communicated via the social media platform, Twitter. By providing a novel exploration of alt-right conspiracies during an international football tournament, a qualitative thematic analysis of 1,388 original tweets relating to Euro 2020 was undertaken. The findings reveal how, in criticisms levelled at both ‘wokeism’ and the Black Lives Matter movement, antiwhite criticisms of the ‘take the knee’ (...) protest were embroiled in alt-right conspiracies that exposed an assumed Cultural Marxist, ‘woke agenda’ in the tournament’s organization and mainstream media coverage. In conclusion, it is argued that conspiratorial discourses, associated with the alt-right, provided a framework through which the protest could be understood. This emphasises how the significance of conspiracy functions to promote the wider dissemination of alt-right ideology across popular cultural contexts, such as sport. (shrink)

Intersectionality has utilized various feminist theories that continue subculture of violence thinking about Black men and boys. While intersectional feminists often claim that intersectionality leads to a clearer social analysis of power and hierarchies throughout society and within groups, the categories and claims of intersectionality fail to distinguish themselves from previously racist theories that sought to explain race, class, and gender, based on subcultural values. This article is the first to interrogate the theories used to construct the gendered categories and (...) the assumptions behind Black male positionality under intersectional analyses. Contrary to its promises for more liberated Black identities, intersectionality merely replicates the pseudo-science of racist criminology and presents decades old theories as cutting-edge gender analyses. In short, while intersectionality has allowed Black women to create nuanced experiences and epistemological accounts of Black womanhood, the very same theory has confined Black male experience to the perpetration of violence and defined Black manhood as lesser—merely the exemplification of white masculinity’s pathological excess. (shrink)

Abstract: Herders and farmers conflicts in Nigeria have enjoyed a lot of construal and different connotations. The confrontations mostly started as farmers and herder’s conflict, then the attacks of suspected Fulani herders, then rustlers and bandits and a lot of others. The mode of attacks and nature of the clashes varies in different times and different places. The conflicts have further opened ways to menace such as the spread of Fulani bandit, the rise of cattle rustlers and other criminalities such (...) as the activities of societal miscreants, and conflict entrepreneurs. All the attacks and confrontations often have negative bearings on people lives, properties, businesses, houses, food and agricultural produces. This study attempted to examine herders and farmers conflicts in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State and how it has affected societal progression. The study generated data from array of both published and unpublished materials such as text books, journal papers, newspapers, magazines, white paper of reports of panel of investigation and commission of inquiry, internet materials, seminar and conference papers and a lot of others. The main instrument used to generate data was interview. In interpreting our data, the relationship between herders and farmers conflicts and development was established at both theoretical and empirical level. Empirically, we used a qualitative and historical method that was critical and analytical in providing descriptive and historical details. This was further complemented by descriptive analysis. It was established that the activities of groups such as the Bigol, bandit and some youth of the Berom who often indulged in cattle rustling is at the heart to the incessant attacks that are witnessing in the Local Government Area . The acts have enjoyed a lot of interpolation and have been eroded and broaden by different vices in the society. It was also found out that the attacks have negative impact on lives and properties, farm products, livestock, food production, business and a lot of others. Conclusion was drawn that the herders and farmers confrontation in Barkin Ladi is a migraine to socio-economic development. Recommendations such as control of borders, good governance, improve policing, religious tolerance and a lot of others were proffered. (shrink)

What is analytical philosophy of education (APE)? And what has been its place in the history of the subject over the last fifty years? In a recent essay in Ethics and Education (Vol 2, No 2 October 2007) on ‘Rival conceptions of the philosophy of education’, Paul Standish described a number of features of APE. Relying on both historical and philosophical argument, the present paper critically assesses these eight points, as well as another five points delineating APE in the Introduction (...) to The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education. (shrink)

As part of a review symposium on DARWIN'S ARGUMENT BY ANALOGY: FROM ARTIFICIAL TO NATURAL SELECTION (2021), the journal METASCIENCE invited Roger White, Jon Hodge and me to submit a response to the thoughtful commentaries on our book by Andrea Sullivan-Clarke, David Depew and Andrew Inkpen.

A critical survey of recent work in epistemology on higher-order evidence. It discusses the nature of higher-order evidence, some puzzles it raises, responses to those puzzles, and problems facing them. It concludes by indicating connections between debates concerning higher-order evidence in epistemology and parallel debates in ethics and aesthetics.

There has been much debate over whether to accept the claim that meaning is normative. One obstacle to making progress in that debate is that it is not always clear what the claim amounts to. In this paper, I try to resolve a dispute between those who advance the claim concerning how it should be understood. More specifically, I critically examine two competing conceptions of the normativity of meaning, rejecting one and defending the other. Though the paper aims to settle (...) a dispute among proponents of the claim that meaning is normative, it should be of interest to those who challenge it. After all, before one takes aim, one’s target needs to be in clear view. (shrink)

What is a normative reason for acting? In this paper, I introduce and defend a novel answer to this question. The starting-point is the view that reasons are right-makers. By exploring difficulties facing it, I arrive at an alternative, according to which reasons are evidence of respects in which it is right to perform an act, for example, that it keeps a promise. This is similar to the proposal that reasons for a person to act are evidence that she ought (...) to do so; however, as I explain, it differs from that proposal in two significant ways. As a result, I argue, the evidence-based account of reasons I advance shares the advantages of its predecessor while avoiding many of the difficulties facing it. (shrink)

This brief essay describes what critical legal scholars said – or perhaps more accurately – would have said – about the concept of the rule of law. Describing critical legal studies as a project in American legal thought rather than analytical jurisprudence, it argues that “the rule of law” is an ideological project, and can come in various versions – liberal, social democratic, and more. It addresses Morton Horwitz’s critique of E.P. Thompson’s assertion that the rule of (...) law is an unqualified human good, and situates the CLS critique of the rule of law within more general discussion of the rule of law by Hayek and Fuller. It concludes by applying ideology-critique to the rule of law, arguing that in whatever form it takes the rule of law contributes to a culture of justification, which may indeed be an unqualified human good. (shrink)

Recently in this journal, Jessica Morley and colleagues (AI & SOC 2023 38:411–423) review AI ethics and education, suggesting that a cultural shift is necessary in order to prepare students for their responsibilities in developing technology infrastructure that should shape ways of life for many generations. Current AI ethics guidelines are abstract and difficult to implement as practical moral concerns proliferate. They call for improvements in ethics course design, focusing on real-world cases and perspective-taking tools to immerse students in challenging (...) situations with relatable personal, social and environmental implications. The present paper considers the ACTWith model of moral cognition for use in such training contexts. Morley and colleagues' paper and contemporary literature are reviewed. Whistleblowing as a source for relatable case studies is discussed, and the purpose of ethics education considered. The ACTWith model is introduced, and correlations with contemporaries noted. The ACTWith model has been successfully employed in a broad range of technology ethics courses in the Netherlands and South Korea. Illustrations are offered. Correlations with contemporary efforts are drawn in the context of software engineering. Summary discussion considers strengths and limitations of the ACTWith program. Overall, the paper emphasizes training high-level moral reasoning through guided inquiry education informing lifetime professional practice, and indicates an outstanding need for teachers able to do the job. (shrink)

Richard Peters argued for a general education based largely on the study of truth-seeking subjects for its own sake. His arguments have long been acknowledged as problematic. There are also difficulties with Paul Hirst's arguments for a liberal education, which in part overlap with Peters'. Where justification fails, can historical explanation illuminate? Peters was influenced by the prevailing idea that a secondary education should be based on traditional, largely knowledge-orientated subjects, pursued for intrinsic as well as practical ends. Does history (...) reveal good reasons for this view? The view itself has roots going back to the 16th century and the educational tradition of radical Protestantism. Religious arguments to do with restoring the image of an omniscient God in man made good sense, within their own terms, of an encyclopaedic approach to education. As these faded in prominence after 1800, old curricular patterns persisted in the drive for ‘middle-class schools’, and new, less plausible justifications grew in salience. These were based first on faculty psychology and later on the psychology of individual differences. The essay relates the views of Peters and Hirst to these historical arguments, asking how far their writings show traces of the religious argument mentioned, and how their views on education and the development of mind relate to the psychological arguments. (shrink)

Chalmers’ meta-problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining “problem reports”; i.e. reports to the effect that phenomenal consciousness has the various features that give rise to the hard problem. Chalmers (Journal of Consciousness Studies 25: 6–61, 2018, 8) suggests that solving the meta-problem will likely “shed significant light on the hard problem.” Against this, I argue that work on the meta-problem will likely fail to make the hard problem any easier. For each of the main stances on the (...) hard problem can provide an account of problem reports, and we have no way of deciding which of these accounts gives the correct explanation of an individual’s problem reports without presupposing a stance on the hard problem. We thus cannot determine which of the available solutions to the meta-problem is correct without having already solved the hard problem. (shrink)

Abstract: One approach to alignment with human values in AI and robotics is to engineer artiTicial systems isomorphic with human beings. The idea is that robots so designed may autonomously align with human values through similar developmental processes, to realize project ideal conditions through iterative interaction with social and object environments just as humans do, such as are expressed in narratives and life stories. One persistent problem with human value orientation is that different human beings champion different values as ideal, (...) meaning that the values to which an AI should be aligned are ambiguous. Prior work considered human development of purpose and source of meaning in life in terms of project ideal conditions, in effect establishing lifelong value orientations according to which intermediate situations are evaluated. The present work compares views on motivating values from St. Augustine and from popular cognitive science. These accounts are described as divergent error theories which present to their proponents as mutually exclusive yet accurate accounts of personal experience due to differential development of variable innate potentials. SpeciTically, the hypothesis proposed is that differential development of spindle neural projections establishes enduring connections between prior established relatively immediate routine processes entrained during childhood and prioritized in popular cognitive science, and later developing higher-level social and self-processes entrained during adolescence and emphasized in Augustine's account, with these projections hard-wiring lifelong motivating value orientations more or less inaccessible to modiTication through material interaction. Robot experiments informed by this study may evaluate variable value orientation by design, with for example autonomous robots developing motivating associations with temporally distal project ideal conditions through love for humanity, as described by Augustine, and others pursuing adaptive Tit to passing norms consistent with popular contemporary accounts. (shrink)

Because anticipated and retrospective regret play important roles in practical deliberation and motivation, better understanding them can illuminate the contours of human agency. However, the possibility of self-ignorance and the fact that we change over time can make regret—especially anticipatory regret—not only a poor predictor of where the agent will be in the future but also an unreliable indicator of where the agent stands. Granting these, this paper examines the way in which prospective and, particularly, retrospective regret can nevertheless yield (...) important insight into the sorts of creatures we are, both generally and individually. The experience of retrospective regret can show a person she values something in a way she did not know or that she is (or was) a different person than she had thought, insights which can factor into forward-looking, or prospective, deliberation. Such instances of revelatory regret reveal something to the agent about herself as agent. I examine two cases of agential self-ignorance. In the first, the experience of regret reveals what the agent values, not only to others but even to the agent himself. In the second, the agent anticipates experiencing regret for an action but does not experience the regret, suggesting that the agent did not value the rejected alternative in the way she thought. Anticipatory regret is forward-looking and can play an important role in practical deliberation. But insofar as anticipatory regret flows from one’s imperfect judgment and prospection about oneself, retrospective regret can be an important corrective in helping the agent understand her own standpoint. (shrink)

Direct neurological and especially imaging-driven investigations into the structures essential to naturally occurring cognitive systems in their development and operation have motivated broadening interest in the potential for artificial consciousness modeled on these systems. This first paper in a series of three begins with a brief review of Boltuc’s (2009) “brain-based” thesis on the prospect of artificial consciousness, focusing on his formulation of h-consciousness. We then explore some of the implications of brain research on the structure of consciousness, finding limitations (...) in biological approaches to the study of consciousness. Looking past these limitations, we introduce research in artificial consciousness designed to test for the emergence of consciousness, a phenomenon beyond the purview of the study of existing biological systems. (shrink)

Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences has had a huge influence on school education. But its credentials lack justification, as the first section of this paper shows via a detailed philosophical analysis of how the intelligences are identified. If we want to make sense of the theory, we need to turn from a philosophical to a historical perspective. This is provided in the second section, which explores how the theory came to take shape in the course of Gardner's intellectual development. (...) The third section looks at changes in the theory since its inception in 1983 and at problems with its applications to education. The paper concludes with a response to Gardner's critical comments on the argument to this point. (shrink)

Abstract. Recent developments, both in the cognitive sciences and in world events, bring special emphasis to the study of morality. The cognitive sci- ences, spanning neurology, psychology, and computational intelligence, offer substantial advances in understanding the origins and purposes of morality. Meanwhile, world events urge the timely synthesis of these insights with tra- ditional accounts that can be easily assimilated and practically employed to augment moral judgment, both to solve current problems and to direct future action. The object of the (...) following paper is to present such a synthesis in the form of a model of moral cognition, the ACTWith model of conscience. The purpose of the model is twofold. One, the ACTWith model is intended to shed light on personal moral dispositions, and to provide a tool for actual human moral agents in the refinement of their moral lives. As such, it re- lies on the power of personal introspection, bolstered by the careful study of moral exemplars available to all persons in all cultures in the form of literary or religious figures, if not in the form of contemporary peers and especially leadership. Two, the ACTWith model is intended as a minimum architec- ture for fully functional artificial morality. As such, it is essentially amodal, implementation non-specific and is developed in the form of an information processing control system. There are given as few hard points in this sys- tem as necessary for moral function, and these are themselves taken from review of actual human cognitive processes, thereby intentionally capturing as closely as possible what is expected of moral action and reaction by hu- man beings. Only in satisfying these untutored intuitions should an artificial agent ever be properly regarded as moral, at least in the general population of existing moral agents. Thus, the ACTWith model is intended as a guide both for individual moral development and for the development of artificial moral agents as future technology permits. (shrink)

Table of Contents Foreword .................................................................................................... ......................................... xiv Preface .................................................................................................... .............................................. xv Acknowledgment .................................................................................................... .......................... xxiii Section 1 On the Cusp: Critical Appraisals of a Growing Dependency on Intelligent Machines Chapter 1 Algorithms versus Hive Minds and the Fate of Democracy ................................................................... 1 Rick Searle, IEET, USA Chapter 2 We Can Make Anything: Should We? .................................................................................................. 15 Chris Bateman, University of Bolton, UK Chapter 3 Grounding Machine Ethics within the Natural System ........................................................................ 30 Jared Gassen, JMG Advising, USA Nak Young Seong, Independent Scholar, (...) South Korea Section 2 From the Outside In: Intelligent Machine Technologies as a Window on Human Morality both as Evolved and as Evident in Internet Discourse, Today Chapter 4 The Emergence of Arti cial Autonomy: A View from the Foothills of a Challenging Climb ............. 51 Fernando da Costa Cardoso, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Luís Moniz Pereira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Chapter 5 Semantic Analysis of Bloggers Experiences as a Knowledge Source of Average Human Morality .... 73 Rafal Rzepka, Hokkaido University, Japan Kenji Araki, Hokkaido University, Japan Section 3 From the Inside Out: The Ethics of Human Enhancement from Moral Perception to Competition in the Workplace Chapter 6 Machine Ethics Interfaces: An Ethics of Perception of Nanocognition ............................................... 97 Melanie Swan, Kingston University, UK Chapter 7 Ethical Concerns in Human Enhancement: Advantages in Corporate/Organizational Settings ......... 124 Ben Tran, Alliant International University, USA Section 4 From Far to Near and Near to Far: The Ethics of Distancing Technologies in Education and Warfare Chapter 8 Responsibility and War Machines: Toward a Forward-Looking and Functional Account ................. 152 Jai Galliott, Macquarie University, Australia Chapter 9 Ethical Responsibilities of Preserving Academicians in an Age of Mechanized Learning: Balancing the Demands of Educating at Capacity and Preserving Human Interactivity ................... 166 James E. Willis III, Indiana University, USA Viktoria Alane Strunk, Independent Scholar, USA Section 5 Wrapping Things Up, then Unwrapping Them Again: Integral Visions of Morality in a Technological World, Over Evolutionary Time, with Revolutionary Means, and with Open Questions about the Final Purpose of It All Chapter 10 Bridging Two Realms of Machine Ethics ........................................................................................... 197 Luís Moniz Pereira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Ari Saptawijaya, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal & Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia Chapter 11 Robots in Warfare and the Occultation of the Existential Nature of Violence ................................... 225 Rick Searle, IEET, USA Chapter 12 Self-Referential Complex Systems and Aristotle’s Four Causes ........................................................ 239 Aleksandar Malecic, University of Nis, Serbia Related References .................................................................................................... ........................ 261 Compilation of References .................................................................................................... ........... 292 About the Contributors .................................................................................................... ................ 325 Index .................................................................................................... ............................................... 329 . (shrink)

Were governments justified in imposing lockdowns to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic? We argue that a convincing answer to this question is to date wanting, by critically analyzing the factual basis of a recent paper, “How Government Leaders Violated Their Epistemic Duties During the SARS-CoV-2 Crisis” (Winsberg et al. 2020). In their paper, Winsberg et al. argue that government leaders did not, at the beginning of the pandemic, meet the epistemic requirements necessitated to impose lockdowns. We focus on (...) Winsberg et al.’s contentions that knowledge about COVID-19 resultant projections were inadequate; that epidemiologists were biased in their estimates of relevant figures; that there was insufficient evidence supporting the efficacy of lockdowns; and that lockdowns cause more harm than good. We argue that none of these claims are sufficiently supported by evidence, thus impairing their case against lockdowns, and leaving open the question of whether lockdowns were justified. (shrink)

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need (1). Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oral antiviral Paxlovid (2) -/- Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and (...) Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend to disadvantage individuals with barriers in access to care (3). There is mounting evidence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in access to medications for COVID-19 (4, 5). -/- One potential method to promote equitable allocation is to use a weighted lottery, which is an allocation strategy that gives all eligible patients a chance to receive the scarce treatment while also allowing the assignment of higher or lower chances according to other ethical considerations (6). We sought to assess the feasibility of implementing a weighted lottery to allocate scarce COVID-19 medications in a large U.S. health system and to determine whether the weighted lottery promotes equitable allocation. (shrink)

Models not only represent but may also influence their targets in important ways. While models’ abilities to influence outcomes has been studied in the context of economic models, often under the label ‘performativity’, we argue that this phenomenon also pertains to epidemiological models, such as those used for forecasting the trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic. After identifying three ways in which a model by the Covid-19 Response Team at Imperial College London may have influenced scientific advice, policy, and individual responses, (...) we consider the implications of epidemiological models’ performative capacities. We argue, first, that performativity may impair models’ ability to successfully predict the course of an epidemic; but second, that it may provide an additional sense in which these models can be successful, namely by changing the course of an epidemic. (shrink)

In this paper, we claim that, if you justifiably believe that you ought to perform some act, it follows that you ought to perform that act. In the first half, we argue for this claim by reflection on what makes for correct reasoning from beliefs about what you ought to do. In the second half, we consider a number of objections to this argument and its conclusion. In doing so, we arrive at another argument for the view that justified beliefs (...) about what you ought to do must be true, based in part on the idea that the epistemic and practical domains are uniform, in a sense we spell out. We conclude by sketching possible implications of our discussion for the debates over what is wrong with akrasia and pragmatic encroachment on justified belief and knowledge. (shrink)

The replicability and importance of the correlation between cognitive style and religious belief have been debated. Moreover, the literature has not examined distinct psychological accounts of this relationship. We tested the replicability of the correlation (N = 5284; students and broader samples of Canadians, Americans, and Indians); while testing three accounts of how cognitive style comes to be related to belief in God, karma, witchcraft, and to the belief that religion is necessary for morality. The first, the dual process model, (...) posits that analytical thinking is recruited in overriding intuitions related to supernatural beliefs. The second, the expressive rationality model, posits that analytical thinking is recruited in supporting already-held beliefs in an identity-protective manner. And the third, the counter-normativity rationality model, posits that analytical thinking is recruited to question beliefs supported by prevailing cultural norms. In Study 2, we tested the replicability of our results in a re-analysis of published data. The association between analytic thinking style and beliefs was replicated. We conclude that whereas the counter-normativity rationality model was contradicted by the data, both the dual process and expressive rationality models received varying degrees of empirical support, but neither model fully accounted for all the patterns in the data. (shrink)

Critical diversity studies (CDS) can be found within “traditional,” or “established,” university disciplines, such as philosophy, as well as in relatively newer departments of the university, such as African studies departments, women’s and gender studies departments, and disability studies departments. In this article, therefore, I explain why philosophy of disability, an emerging subfield in the discipline of philosophy, should be recognized as an emerging area of CDS also. My discussion in the article situates philosophy of (...) disability in CDS by both distinguishing this new subfield’s claims about disability from the arguments about disability that mainstream philosophers make and identifying the assumptions about social construction and antiessentialism that philosophy of disability shares with other areas of CDS. The discussion is designed to show that a (feminist) philosophy of disability that draws upon the work of Michel Foucault will transform how philosophers understand the situation of disabled people. By drawing upon Foucault, that is, I offer philosophers of disability and other practitioners of CDS a new understanding of disability as an apparatus of power relations. -/- . (shrink)

This paper challenges the Critical Legal Studies (CLS) claims of legal indeterminacy. It shall use a legal formalist logic and language as its main assertion, further maintaining that the CLS claims is only grounded in ambiguity and confusion. CLS is a legal theory that challenges and overturns accepted norms and standards in legal theory and practice. They maintained that law in the historical and contemporary society has an alleged impartiality, and it is used as a tool of privilege (...) and power – law is politics. Consequently, CLS maintained that these results to indeterminacy of law. Legal indeterminacy can be summed up as contrary to the common understanding that legal materials, statutes and case law, do not really answer legal disputes. Legal principles and doctrines, as CLS scholars claim, are said to be indeterminate, for it is riddle with gaps, conflicts, and anomalies that are widely present even in simple cases. Legal indeterminacy also rises because of the underlying political power – law is politics – that implicates law as merely a tool for oppression. This thesis shows that CLS assertions with legal indeterminacy is only grounded on ambiguity. On one hand, using the main concept of legal formalist logic and language grounded with sub-arguments: inherent generality of legal language, reasoned elaboration, and neutral principles, it refutes the CLS claims of legal indeterminacy. On the other, the paper maintains that their main reason of legal indeterminacy, ‘law is politics’, is merely a statement of fact that currently happens in society is sentimental and weak through counterexamples. (shrink)

The recently rising field of Critical Data Studies is still facing fundamental questions. Among these is the enigma of digital subjectivation. Who are the subjects of Big Data? A field where this question is particularly pressing is finance. Since the 1990s traders have been steadily integrated into computerized data assemblages, which calls for an ontology that eliminates the distinction between human sovereign subjects and non-human instrumental objects. The latter subjectivize traders in pre-conscious ways, because human consciousness runs too (...) slow to follow the volatility of the market. In response to this conundrum Social Studies of Finance has drawn on Actor-Network Theory to interpret financial markets as technically constructed networks of human and non-human actors. I argue that in order to develop an explicitly critical data study it might be advantageous to refer to Maurizio Lazzarato’s theory of machinic subjugation instead. Although both accounts describe financial digital subjectivation similarly, Lazzarato has the advantage of coupling his description to a clear critique of and resistance to finance. (shrink)

Sport continues to be one of the primary means through which notions of Englishness and Britishness are constructed, contested, and resisted. The legacy of the role of sport in the colonial project of the British Empire, combined with more recent connections between sport and far right fascist/nationalist politics, has made the association between Britishness, Englishness, and ethnic identity(ies) particularly intriguing. In this paper, these intersections are explored through British media coverage of the Canadian‐born, British tennis player, Greg Rusedski. This coverage (...) is examined through the lens of ‘performativity,’ as articulated by Judith Butler. Through a critical application of Butler's ideas, the ways in which the media seek to recognise and normalise certain identities, while problematising and excluding others, can be more fully appreciated. Thus, it was within newspaper framings of Rusedski that hegemonic notions of White Englishness could be performed, maintained, and embedded. (shrink)

My research into Virtual Reality technology and its central property of immersion has indicated that immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) electronic systems is a significant key to the understanding of contemporary culture as well as considerable aspects of previous culture as detected in the histories of philosophy and the visual arts. The fundamental change in aesthetic perception engendered by immersion, a perception which is connected to the ideal of total-immersion in virtual space, identifies certain shifts in ontology which are relevant (...) to a better understanding of the human being. This understanding was achieved through a broad inquiry into the histories of Virtual Reality, philosophy, and the visual arts and has lead to the formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness indicative of immersive culture. The primary subject of this discourse is immersion then: an experience which will be identified within the dissertation as the indispensable characteristic of Virtual Reality. The understanding of immersion arrived at here will be used to fashion a synchronous theory of art particularly informed by encounters and concepts of immersion into virtuality. To sufficiently address this subject in a scholarly fashion, I have researched, found and accumulated aesthetic and philosophic examples of immersive tendencies, as found within the histories of art and philosophy, which subsequently contributed towards the articulation of what I have come to call immersive consciousness. As a result of formulating such an immersive consciousness, a good deal of the basis for the questioning of the Western ontological tradition has been found in the Western tradition itself when we look with new eyes and ask new uncertain questions. Moreover, this immersive consciousness will be used to propose some abstract questions encircling today's electronic-based culture. Through the structuring of the argument within the thesis - and overtly within the conclusion - I have articulated a non-teleological creative strategy which provides the basis for an unconstraining integration of noologies (ways of semblancing the thinking process). This strategy provides a means of exemplifying - and for honoring - various methods of thinking. This structuring strategy is consistent with the 'hacker ethic' as defined by Steven Levy, as a demand that access to computers - and anything which might teach us something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. To follow this strategy, this dissertation has set out to understand how topical conceptions of virtual immersion connect to pre-existing systems of thought as revealed in art as they have extended out of antecedent ontological self-understandings, historical human self-understandings which have evidenced themselves in the elaboration of technological objectives. To do this I have forged a certain rhizomatic paternity/maternity for Virtual Reality within this dissertation by joining choice immersive examples of simulacra technology into mental connections with the relevant examples culled from the histories of art, architecture, information-technology, sex, myth, space, consciousness and philosophy. (shrink)

Coronavirus disease 2019 can lead to respiratory failure. Some patients require extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support. During the current pandemic, health care resources in some cities have been overwhelmed, and doctors have faced complex decisions about resource allocation. We present a case in which a pediatric hospital caring for both children and adults seeks to establish guidelines for the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation if there are not enough resources to treat every patient. Experts in critical care, end-of-life care, bioethics, (...) and health policy discuss if age should guide rationing decisions. (shrink)

This article intervenes in recent formalist and ecocritical debates, drawing on the philosophy of Charles Darwin and Édouard Glissant to develop an ecopoetic theory of relational form. Gathering perspectives from ecocriticism and new materialism, literary criticism and comparative literature, the history and philosophy of science, postcolonial theory, critical race theory, and Black studies, it reads form as an interdisciplinary object that is part of the world, rather than an imposed feature of human language or perception. In this way, (...) it produces a relational theory of form that is not hylomorphic or defined through the relation between form and content but, rather, is defined by the relation between a content and extant and, so, an interaction of relation and repetition. Drawing on the history of ecological science, it further explores how forms combine, how they amplify and interfere with each other, and how they support relations of harm and care. Finally, it uses this ecopoetic theory of form to read the histories of racial violence and migration in Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” (1867) and Helen Oyeyemi’s White Is for Witching (2009). (shrink)

Arguably the biggest challenge in analyzing English tense is to account for the double access interpretation, which arises when a present tensed verb is embedded under a past attitude—e.g., "John said that Mary is pregnant". Present-under-past does not always result in a felicitous utterance, however—cf. "John believed that Mary is pregnant". While such oddity has been noted, the contrast has never been explained. In fact, English grammars and manuals generally prohibit present-under-past. Work on double access, on the other hand, has (...) either disregarded the oddity (e.g., Abusch 1997: 39) or treated it as a reflex of a particular dialect (e.g., Kratzer 1998: 14). The goal of the paper is to argue—based on a corpus study—that a present-under-past sentence is grammatical, but modulated by two, interacting pragmatic phenomena: cessation and parentheticality. (shrink)

"We wish this volume to be a sure companion to the study of free will, broadly construed to include action theory, moral and legal responsibility, and cohort studies feathering off into adjacent fields in the liberal arts and sciences. In addition to general coverage of the discipline, this volume attempts a more challenging and complementary accompaniment to many familiar narratives about free will. In order to map out some directions such accompaniment will take, in this introduction we anchor the (...) thirty contributions to this volume in some common history from which they arise, and attempt to indicate where future work in free will and moral responsibility will–and has already begun to–depart from that history." -Excerpt from Introduction. ... ... To read full introduction, (1) download attached file or (2) follow wiley_dot_com link below, click "Read An Excerpt", then click :Excerpt 3:(pdf)". (shrink)

This study offers a comprehensive summary and critical discussion of Alice Crary’s Beyond Moral Judgment. While generally sympathetic to her goal of defending the sort of expansive vision of the moral previously championed by Cora Diamond and Iris Murdoch, concerns are raised regarding the potential for her account to provide a satisfactory treatment of both “wide” objectivity and moral disagreement. Drawing on the work of Jonathan Lear and Jonathan Dancy, I suggest possible routes by which her position could be (...) expanded and possibly strengthened. (shrink)

This work addresses the critical discussion featured in the contemporary literature about two well-known paradoxes belonging to different philosophical traditions, namely Frege’s puzzling claim that “the concept horse is not a concept” and Gongsun Long’s “white horse is not horse”. We first present the source of Frege’s paradox and its different interpretations, which span from plain rejection to critical analysis, to conclude with a more general view of the role of philosophy as a fight against the misunderstandings that (...) come from the different uses of language (a point later developed by the “second” Wittgenstein). We then provide an overview of the ongoing discussions related to the Bai Ma Lun paradox, and we show that its major interpretations include—as in the case of Frege’s paradox—dismissive accounts that regard it as either useless or wrong, as well as attempts to interpret and repair the argument. Resting on our reading of Frege’s paradox as an example of the inescapability of language misunderstandings, we advance a similar line of interpretation for the paradox in the Bai Ma Lun: both the paradoxes, we suggest, can be regarded as different manifestations of similar concerns about language, and specifically about the difficulty of referring to concepts via language. (shrink)

This philosophical investigation interrogates the relationship between G.W.F. Hegel’s concept of the master-slave dialectic in The Phenomenology of Spirit and the critique and reformulation of it by Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks. As a means of contextualization and expansion of Hegel’s original textual account, I consider Susan Buck-Morss’ seminal defense through grounding the dialectic in Hegel’s possible historical knowledge of the Haitian Revolution. I maintain that despite a compelling picture, Buck-Morss’ insights are unable to fully vindicate Hegel from (...) the rebukes of Fanon, and as a result, Hegel’s phenomenology necessitates a concrete analysis of the actual conscious experiences of the racialized and colonized subject in order to realize its aims. In pursuit of this critical methodology, I develop the upshot and positive movement of Fanon’s critique through what I describe as a “phenomenology of flesh” in conversation with Maurice Merleau Ponty’s The Visible and the Invisible. (shrink)

The problem of non-acceptance of philosophy in Arab Culture is a complex one and it is worthy of study and analysis. This problem relates to the nature of the composition of Arab Culture on the one hand, and that of philosophy itself on the other. With reference to the composition of Arab culture, there are numerous contributory elements that inform Arab culture today; some of which are Arabic in and others of which are foreign and only came to the Arab (...) habitat lands since the arrival of the Islamic religion. Arab culture is derived from a rich history comprising a number of Arab states that produced a multi-faceted and resplendent civilization, extending from Mesopotamia to the Nile Delta and Saba and Hamer. All of these independent civilizations contributed to Arab culture. In addition, Islam has also made a significant contribution towards polishing and entering all cultures before and after it extended throughout the world. In Arabic culture a critical trend arose in opposition to philosophy, contradicting the pattern in former Arabic civilizations, it is based on political religion as a foundation from which to attack and destroy philosophy. The second factor linked to the unaccepted nature of philosophy in Arab culture originates from philosophy itself. As is known by philosophers, the originality and creativity of philosophy first manifested in Ancient Greece. Moreover, the Greeks differed from other nations in many respects. For instance; 1) Multiplicity of religions, law and social system. 2) Political system, they created the first pattern of democracy in the world, which became the most basic of all democratic systems. 3) Social structure consisting of Whites, Slaves and Barbarians. 4) Customs and traditions, they have different views regarding women, slavery, citizenship and freedom of though. 5) Also the Greek nation differs from other nations in the high number of philosophical scholars that emerged during its 1200 year era of civilization. This research will analyze both the nature of contemporary Arabic Culture and the tradition of Greek Philosophy to ascertain the factors informing the unacceptability of Greek Philosophy in Arabic Culture. (shrink)

The problem of unaccepted philosophy in Arab Culture is a complex problem and its deserve to study and analyze. This problem is returned to the nature of composing of Arab Culture from one hand, and to the philosophy itself on the other hand. On composing of Arab culture, there are a numerous of elements contribute to composing Arab culture, some of them are Arabic origin and others are foreign, and came to Arab habitat before and after of the Islamic realign. (...) By the way, the Arab Island is not alone which produce the Arab culture but there were Arab states produced a resplendent civilization such as civilization of Mesopotamia , Nile civilization and Saba & Hamer. All of these civilizations contributed to build Arab culture. In addition that, Islam religion have a great contribute on polishing and culturing all the cultures before and after his extended on the world. In Arabic culture there was a critical trend raised against the philosophy. It was modern trend compared with the history of Arab culture that returned to thousands of years BC. This critical trend used political religion to refusing philosophy. The second factor for unaccepted philosophy in Arab culture comes from philosophy itself. As known between philosophers that, the originality and creativity of philosophy came from its Greek background. Moreover, the Greeks differ from other nations in many aspects. For instance, 1) Multiplicity of religions, law and social system. 2) Political system, they create the first pattern of democracy in the world which become the basic of all democracies systems. 3) Social structure consists of White, Slaves and Barbarians. 4) Customs and traditions, they have different view to women, Slaves, citizenship and freedom of thinking. 5) Also Greek nation differs from other nations by the high number of philosophy scholars during the 1200 years of civilization age. This research will analysis two reason (Arabic Culture & Greek Philosophy) to conclude the factors behind the unaccepted of Greek Philosophy in Arabic Culture. (shrink)

The researcher believes that James Rachels’s defense of active euthanasia deserves a critical and normative analysis because of its dehumanizing consequences. The researcher demonstrates that Rachels’s position is conceptually, theoretically, practically, and normatively unjustifiable. The researcher supports his position by three steps.

This paper deals with the study of the nature of mind, its processes and its relations with the other filed known as logic, especially the contribution of most notable contemporary analytical philosophy Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein showed a critical relation between the mind and logic. He assumed that every mental process is logical. Mental field is field of space and time and logical field is a field of reasoning (inductive and deductive). It is only with the advancement in logic, we (...) are today in the era of scientific progress and technology. Logic played an important role in the cognitive part or we can say in the ‗philosophy of mind‘ that this branch is developed only because of three crucial theories i.e. rationalism, empiricism, and criticism. In this paper, it is argued that innate ideas or truth are equated with deduction and acquired truths are related with induction. This article also enhance the role of language in the makeup of the world of mind, although mind and the thought are the terms that are used by the philosophers synonymously but in this paper they are taken and interpreted differently. It shows the development in the analytical tradition subjected to the areas of mind and logic and their critical relation. (shrink)

The present essay is a critical study of Barwise and Perry’s book, emphasizing the logical and model-theoretical aspects of their work. I begin by presenting the authors’ criticism of the classical view of logic and semantics within the tradition of Frege, Russell and Tarski. In this connection, I discuss the so-called Frege argument (“the slingshot”). I try to show that the argument appears inconclusive, not only from a situation-theoretic perspective, but also from such alternative perspectives as orthodox Fregean semantics (...) or Russellian semantics. I then discuss the ontology of situation semantics and the way it is modeled within set theory. In particular, I compare the notion of an abstract situation with that of a possible world. The last two sections concern the model-theoretic aspects of the authors’ theory. In Section 7, I discuss how the “partial” perspective of situation semantics differs from that of classical model theory. Finally, in Section 8, different model-theoretic accounts of attitude reports within situation semantics are discussed, in particular the “relations to situations”-approach presented by the authors in Chapter 9 of S & A. The usual problems of “logical omniscience” that appear in standard Hintikka-style epistemic logic are avoided in situation semantics. I argue, however, that situation semantics is faced with analogous counter-intuitive results, unless the expressive power of the language under study is suitably restricted. (shrink)