Abstract. In this article we developed scientific and applied foundations of commercialization of the nature-resource potential of anthropogenic objects, on the example of exhausted mines. It is determined that the category of “anthropogenic object” can be considered in a narrow-applied sense, as specific anthropogenic objects to ensure the target needs, and in a broad theoretical sense, meaning everything that is created and changed by human influence, that is the objects of both artificial and natural origin. It was determined that problems (...) of commercialization of the natural-resource potential of anthropogenic objects are most often considered by researchers for specific objects, without having complex methodological coverage from the point of view of combining environmental, technical, economic and managerial components. When studying the substantiation of the scientific base, the authors confirmed the feasibility of the commercialization of natural-resource potential of anthropogenic objects on the example of a number of theoretical scientific studies in reclamation, reconstruction, recreation, remediation, restoration of biological productivity and economic value of land disturbed by economic activity. The considered examples of exhausted mines in the 21st century in the USA, Canada, Germany, Romania, and Poland indicate a wide range of opportunities for their commercialization. The study of the potential for commercialization of exhausted mines in the post-Soviet countries testified to the underused reserves for the commercialization of their nature-resource potential and their high potential for further development. The authors proposed the identification of anthropogenic objects on the basic livelihood spheres of society. There were identified the main system (natural, biological, technical, economic, social, managerial) and structural (subjects, trends, threats, risks, problems, challenges) factors of diagnosing the state of an anthropogenic object. A set of measures has been developed for commercialization of an anthropogenic object in functional and production activities, product policy, financial and investment spheres, pricing and sales policies, promotion, management and determination of property rights. Recommendations were provided on optimizing the management decision-making process based on a set of positivistic development principles, methods, and management functions. The study allows international organizations, state and local authorities, territorial communities, owners and potential investors to see new opportunities and make mutually beneficial decisions on the rational use of the nature-resource potential of anthropogenic objects. (shrink)

When evidence-based policymaking is so often mired in disagreement and controversy, how can we know if the process is meeting its stated goals? We develop a novel mathematical model to study disagreements about adequate knowledge utilization, like those regarding wild horse culling, shark drumlines and facemask policies during pandemics. We find that, when stakeholders disagree, it is frequently impossible to tell whether any party is at fault. We demonstrate the need for a distinctive kind of transparency in evidence-based policymaking, which (...) we call transparency of reasoning. Such transparency is critical to the success of the evidence-based policy movement, as without it, we will be unable to tell whether in any instance a policy was in fact based on evidence. (shrink)

The no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are arguably the main considerations for and against scientific realism. Recently these arguments have been accused of embodying a familiar, seductive fallacy. In each case, we are tricked by a base rate fallacy, one much-discussed in the psychological literature. In this paper we consider this accusation and use it as an explanation for why the two most prominent `wholesale' arguments in the literature seem irresolvable. Framed probabilistically, we can see very clearly why realists (...) and anti-realists have been talking past one another. We then formulate a dilemma for advocates of either argument, answer potential objections to our criticism, discuss what remains (if anything) of these two major arguments, and then speculate about a future philosophy of science freed from these two arguments. In so doing, we connect the point about base rates to the wholesale/retail distinction; we believe it hints at an answer of how to distinguish profitable from unprofitable realism debates. In short, we offer a probabilistic analysis of the feeling of ennui afflicting contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

When we ask what natural kinds are, there are two different things we might have in mind. The first, which I’ll call the taxonomy question, is what distinguishes a category which is a natural kind from an arbitrary class. The second, which I’ll call the ontology question, is what manner of stuff there is that realizes the category. Many philosophers have systematically conflated the two questions. The confusion is exhibited both by essentialists and by philosophers who pose their accounts in (...) terms of similarity. It also leads to misreading philosophers who do make the distinction. Distinguishing the questions allows for a more subtle understanding of both natural kinds and their underlying metaphysics. (shrink)

The Homeostatic Property Cluster (HPC) account of natural kinds has become popular since it was proposed by Richard Boyd in the late 1980s. Although it is often taken as a defining natural kinds as such, it is easy enough to see that something's being a natural kind is neither necessary nor sufficient for its being an HPC. This paper argues that it is better not to understand HPCs as defining what it is to be a natural kind but instead as (...) providing the ontological realization of (some) natural kinds. (shrink)

There are two senses of ‘what scientists know’: An individual sense (the separate opinions of individual scientists) and a collective sense (the state of the discipline). The latter is what matters for policy and planning, but it is not something that can be directly observed or reported. A function can be defined to map individual judgments onto an aggregate judgment. I argue that such a function cannot effectively capture community opinion, especially in cases that matter to us.

The problem of underdetermination is thought to hold important lessons for philosophy of science. Yet, as Kyle Stanford has recently argued, typical treatments of it offer only restatements of familiar philosophical problems. Following suggestions in Duhem and Sklar, Stanford calls for a New Induction from the history of science. It will provide proof, he thinks, of “the kind of underdetermination that the history of science reveals to be a distinctive and genuine threat to even our best scientific theories” (Stanford 2001, (...) p. S12). This paper examines Stanford’s New Induction and argues that it – like the other forms of underdetermination that he criticizes – merely recapitulates familiar philosophical conundra. (shrink)

The Argument from Inductive Risk (AIR) is taken to show that values are inevitably involved in making judgements or forming beliefs. After reviewing this conclusion, I pose cases which are prima facie counterexamples: the unreflective application of conventions, use of black-boxed instruments, reliance on opaque algorithms, and unskilled observation reports. These cases are counterexamples to the AIR posed in ethical terms as a matter of personal values. Nevertheless, it need not be understood in those terms. The values which load a (...) theory choice may be those of institutions or past actors. This means that the challenge of responsibly handling inductive risk is not merely an ethical issue, but is also social, political, and historical. (shrink)

According to the standard narrative, natural kind is a technical notion that was introduced by John Stuart Mill in the 1840s and the recent craze for natural kinds, launched by Putnam and Kripke, is a continuation of that tradition. I argue that the standard narrative is mistaken. The Millian tradition of kinds was not particularly influential in the 20th-century, and the Putnam-Kripke revolution did not clearly engage with even the remnants that were left of it. The presently active tradition of (...) natural kinds is less than half a century old. Recognizing this might help us better appreciate both Mill and natural kinds. (shrink)

The underdetermination of theory by evidence is supposed to be a reason to rethink science. It is not. Many authors claim that underdetermination has momentous consequences for the status of scientific claims, but such claims are hidden in an umbra of obscurity and a penumbra of equivocation. So many various phenomena pass for `underdetermination' that it's tempting to think that it is no unified phenomenon at all, so I begin by providing a framework within which all these worries can be (...) seen as species of one genus: A claim of underdetermination involves (at least implicitly) a set of rival theories, a standard of responsible judgment, and a scope of circumstances in which responsible choice between the rivals is impossible. Within this framework, I show that one variety of underdetermination motivated modern scepticism and thus is a familiar problem at the heart of epistemology. I survey arguments that infer from underdetermination to some reëvaluation of science: top-down arguments infer a priori from the ubiquity of underdetermination to some conclusion about science; bottom-up arguments infer from specific instances of underdetermination, to the claim that underdetermination is widespread, and then to some conclusion about science. The top-down arguments either fail to deliver underdetermination of any great significance or (as with modern scepticism) deliver some well-worn epistemic concern. The bottom-up arguments must rely on cases. I consider several promising cases and find them to either be so specialized that they cannot underwrite conclusions about science in general or not be underdetermined at all. Neither top-down nor bottom-up arguments can motivate any deep reconsideration of science. (shrink)

According to many philosophers, psychological explanation canlegitimately be given in terms of belief and desire, but not in termsof knowledge. To explain why someone does what they do (so the common wisdom holds) you can appeal to what they think or what they want, but not what they know. Timothy Williamson has recently argued against this view. Knowledge, Williamson insists, plays an essential role in ordinary psychological explanation.Williamson's argument works on two fronts.First, he argues against the claim that, unlike knowledge, (...) belief is``composite'' (representable as a conjunction of a narrow and a broadcondition). Belief's failure to be composite, Williamson thinks, undermines the usual motivations for psychological explanation in terms of belief rather than knowledge.Unfortunately, we claim, the motivations Williamson argues against donot depend on the claim that belief is composite, so what he saysleaves the case for a psychology of belief unscathed.Second, Williamson argues that knowledge can sometimes provide abetter explanation of action than belief can.We argue that, in the cases considered, explanations that cite beliefs(but not knowledge) are no less successful than explanations that citeknowledge. Thus, we conclude that Williamson's arguments fail both coming andgoing: they fail to undermine a psychology of belief, and they fail tomotivate a psychology of knowledge. (shrink)

Some philosophers understand natural kinds to be the categories which are constraints on enquiry. In order to elaborate the metaphysics appropriate to such an account, I consider the complicated history of scurvy, citrus, and vitamin C. It may be tempting to understand these categories in a shallow way (as mere property clusters) or in a deep way (as fundamental properties). Neither approach is adequate, and the case instead calls for middle-range ontology: starting from categories which we identify in the world (...) and elaborating their structure, but not pretending to jump ahead to a complete story about fundamental being. (shrink)

It is now commonly held that values play a role in scientific judgment, but many arguments for that conclusion are limited. First, many arguments do not show that values are, strictly speaking, indispensable. The role of values could in principle be filled by a random or arbitrary decision. Second, many arguments concern scientific theories and concepts which have obvious practical consequences, thus suggesting or at least leaving open the possibility that abstruse sciences without such a connection could be value-free. Third, (...) many arguments concern the role values play in inferring from evidence, thus taking evidence as given. This paper argues that these limitations do not hold in general. There are values involved in every scientific judgment. They cannot even conceivably be replaced by a coin toss, they arise as much for exotic as for practical sciences, and they are at issue as much for observation as for explicit inference. (shrink)

This paper offers a general characterization of underdetermination and gives a prima facie case for the underdetermination of the topology of the universe. A survey of several philosophical approaches to the problem fails to resolve the issue: the case involves the possibility of massive reduplication, but Strawson on massive reduplication provides no help here; it is not obvious that any of the rival theories are to be preferred on grounds of simplicity; and the usual talk of empirically equivalent theories misses (...) the point entirely. (If the choice is underdetermined, then the theories are not empirically equivalent!) Yet the thought experiment is analogous to a live scientific possibility, and actual astronomy faces underdetermination of this kind. This paper concludes by suggesting how the matter can be resolved, either by localizing the underdetermination or by defeating it entirely. Introduction A brief preliminary Around the universe in 80 days Some attempts at resolving the problem 4.1 Indexicality 4.2 Simplicity 4.3 Empirical equivalence 4.4 Is this just a philosophers' fantasy? Move along... ...nothing to see here 6.1 Rules of repetition 6.2 Some possible replies Conclusion. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher develops the Galilean Strategy to defend realism against its many opponents. I explore the structure of the Galilean Strategy and consider it specifically as an instrument against constructive empiricism. Kitcher claims that the Galilean Strategy underwrites an inference from success to truth. We should resist that conclusion, I argue, but the Galilean Strategy should lead us by other routes to believe in many things about which the empiricist would rather remain agnostic. 1 Target: empiricism 2 The Galilean Strategy (...) 3 Strengthening the argument 4 Success and truth 5 Conclusion. (shrink)

If two theory formulations are merely different expressions of the same theory, then any problem of choosing between them cannot be due to the underdetermination of theories by data. So one might suspect that we need to be able to tell distinct theories from mere alternate formulations before we can say anything substantive about underdetermination, that we need to solve the problem of identical rivals before addressing the problem of underdetermination. Here I consider two possible solutions: Quine proposes that we (...) call two theories identical if they are equivalent under a reconstrual of predicates, but this would mishandle important cases. Another proposal is to defer to the particular judgements of actual scientists. Consideration of an historical episodethe alleged equivalence of wave and matrix mechanicsshows that this second proposal also fails. Nevertheless, I suggest, the original suspicion is wrong; there are ways to enquire into underdetermination without having solved the problem of identical rivals. (shrink)

It seems obvious that a community of one thousand scientists working together to make discoveries and solve puzzles should arrange itself differently than would one thousand scientist-hermits working independently. Because of limited time, resources, and attention, an independent scientist can explore only some of the possible approaches to a problem. Working alone, each hermit would explore the most promising approaches. They would needlessly duplicate the work of others and would be unlikely to develop approaches which look unpromising but really have (...) tremendous potential. Contrariwise, a large community can more rigorously explore the space of possible approaches. Most scientists should work on the most promising approaches, but a smaller number can be committed to approaches that initially look less promising. Exploratory work can reveal if one of those initially unpromising approaches has unrealized potential, and more scientists can adopt it once its potential becomes more apparent. (shrink)

William James’ argument against William Clifford in The Will to Believe is often understood in terms of doxastic efficacy, the power of belief to influence an outcome. Although that is one strand of James’ argument, there is another which is driven by ampliative risk. The second strand of James’ argument, when applied to scientific cases, is tantamount to what is now called the Argument from Inductive Risk. Either strand of James’ argument is sufficient to rebut Clifford's strong evidentialism and show (...) that it is sometimes permissible to believe in the absence of compelling evidence. However, the two considerations have different scope and force. Doxastic efficacy applies in only some cases but allows any values to play a role in determining belief; risk applies in all cases but only allows particular conditional values to play a role. (shrink)

A critical note on Christopher Bartel and Jack M. C. Kwong, ‘Pluralism, Eliminativism, and the Definition of Art’, Estetika 58 (2021): 100–113. Art pluralism is the view that there is no single, correct account of what art is. Instead, art is understood through a plurality of art concepts and with considerations that are different for particular arts. Although avowed pluralists have retained the word ‘art’ in their discussions, it is natural to ask whether the considerations that motivate pluralism should lead (...) us to abandon art talk altogether; that is, should pluralism lead to eliminativism? This paper addresses arguments both for and against this move. We ultimately argue that pluralism allows one to retain the word ‘art’, if one wants it, but only in a loose, conversational sense. The upshot of pluralism is that talk of art in general cannot be asked to do theoretical and philosophical work. (shrink)

Peter Baumann offers the tantalizing suggestion that Thomas Reid is almost, but not quite, a pragmatist. He motivates this claim by posing a dilemma for common sense philosophy: Will it be dogmatism or scepticism? Baumann claims that Reid points to but does not embrace a pragmatist third way between these unsavory options. If we understand `pragmatism' differently than Baumann does, however, we need not be so equivocal in attributing it to Reid. Reid makes what we could call an argument from (...) practical commitment, and this is plausibly an instance of what William James calls the pragmatic method. (shrink)

There are two ways that we might respond to the underdetermination of theory by data. One response, which we can call the agnostic response, is to suspend judgment: "Where scientific standards cannot guide us, we should believe nothing". Another response, which we can call the fideist response, is to believe whatever we would like to believe: "If science cannot speak to the question, then we may believe anything without science ever contradicting us". C.S. Peirce recognized these options and suggested evading (...) the dilemma. It is a Logical Maxim, he suggests, that there could be no genuine underdetermination. This is no longer a viable option in the wake of developments in modern physics, so we must face the dilemma head on. The agnostic and fideist responses to underdetermination represent fundamentally different epistemic viewpoints. Nevertheless, the choice between them is not an unresolvable struggle between incommensurable worldviews. There are legitimate considerations tugging in each direction. Given the balance of these considerations, there should be a modest presumption of agnosticism. This may conflict with Peirce's Logical Maxim, but it preserves all that we can preserve of the Peircean motivation. (shrink)

Objective: There are benefits and risks of giving patients more granular control of their personal health information in electronic health record (EHR) systems. When designing EHR systems and policies, informaticists and system developers must balance these benefits and risks. Ethical considerations should be an explicit part of this balancing. Our objective was to develop a structured ethics framework to accomplish this. -/- Methods: We reviewed existing literature on the ethical and policy issues, developed an ethics framework called a “Points to (...) Consider” (P2C) document, and convened a national expert panel to review and critique the P2C. -/- Results: We developed the P2C to aid informaticists designing an advanced query tool for an electronic health record (EHR) system in Indianapolis. The P2C consists of six questions (“Points”) that frame important ethical issues, apply accepted principles of bioethics and Fair Information Practices, comment on how questions might be answered, and address implications for patient care. -/- Discussion: The P2C is intended to clarify whatis at stake when designers try to accommodate potentially competing ethical commitments and logistical realities. The P2C was developed to guide informaticists who were designing a query tool in an existing EHR that would permit patient granular control. While consideration of ethical issues is coming to the forefront of medical informatics design and development practices, more reflection is needed to facilitate optimal collaboration between designers and ethicists. This report contributes to that discussion. (shrink)

An inquiry on the training needs in Mathematics was conducted to Laura Vicuña Center - Palawan (LVC-P) learners. Specifically, this aimed to determine their level of performance in numbers, measurement, geometry, algebra, and statistics, identify the difficulties they encountered in solving word problems and enumerate topics where they needed coaching. -/- To identify specific training needs, the study employed a descriptive research design where 36 participants were sampled purposively. The data were gathered through a problem set test and focus group (...) discussion. Findings revealed that LVC-P learners had an unsatisfactory performance in numbers, measurement, and statistics while alarmingly poor in geometry and algebra. They also faced difficulties in remembering, understanding, applying, and analyzing mathematical concepts when solving problems. Further, the learners were able to name certain topics subjected to tutorials. -/- The above facts and observations suggest that learners of LVC-P have urgent training needs in Mathematics. It is recommended that the Western Philippines University - College of Education RDE Unit continue its research, development, and extension services to LVC-P. More importantly, the results of this inquiry regarding the training needs of the learners will serve as bases for conducting an extension project and development program for LVC-P. Series of tutorial sessions is deemed necessary to address the needs and difficulties of the learners. (shrink)

Background theories in science are used both to prove and to disprove that theory choice is underdetermined by data. The alleged proof appeals to the fact that experiments to decide between theories typically require auxiliary assumptions from other theories. If this generates a kind of underdetermination, it shows that standards of scientific inference are fallible and must be appropriately contextualized. The alleged disproof appeals to the possibility of suitable background theories to show that no theory choice can be timelessly or (...) noncontextually underdetermined: Foreground theories might be distinguished against different backgrounds. Philosophers have often replied to such a disproof by focussing their attention not on theories but on Total Sciences. If empirically equivalent Total Sciences were at stake, then there would be no background against which they could be differentiated. I offer several reasons to think that Total Science is a philosophers' fiction. No respectable underdetermination can be based on it. (shrink)

The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is a consortium that comprises leading informaticians, biologists, clinicians, and ontologists, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap, to develop innovative technology and methods that allow scientists to record, manage, and disseminate biomedical information and knowledge in machine-processable form. The goals of the Center are (1) to help unify the divergent and isolated efforts in ontology development by promoting high quality open-source, standards-based tools to create, manage, and use ontologies, (2) to create (...) new software tools so that scientists can use ontologies to annotate and analyze biomedical data, (3) to provide a national resource for the ongoing evaluation, integration, and evolution of biomedical ontologies and associated tools and theories in the context of driving biomedical projects (DBPs), and (4) to disseminate the tools and resources of the Center and to identify, evaluate, and communicate best practices of ontology development to the biomedical community. Through the research activities within the Center, collaborations with the DBPs, and interactions with the biomedical community, our goal is to help scientists to work more effectively in the e-science paradigm, enhancing experiment design, experiment execution, data analysis, information synthesis, hypothesis generation and testing, and understand human disease. (shrink)

Part of a book symposium on Anjan Chakravartty's Scientific ontology: integrating naturalized metaphysics and voluntarist epistemology (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Christy Mag Uidhir has recently argued (a) that there is no in principle aesthetic difference between a live performance and a recording of that performance, and (b) that the proper aesthetic object is a type which is instantiated by the performance and potentially repeatable when recordings are played back. This paper considers several objections to (a) and finds them lacking. I then consider improvised music, a subject that Mag Uidhir explicitly brackets in his discussion. Improvisation reveals problems with (b), because (...) the performance-event and the performance-type are distinct but equally proper aesthetic objects. (shrink)

It has been over two decades since Miranda Fricker labeled epistemic injustice, in which an agent is wronged in their capacity as a knower. The philosophical literature has proliferated with variants and related concepts. By considering cases in popular music, we argue that it is worth distinguishing a parallel phenomenon of art-interpretive injustice, in which an agent is wronged in their creative capacity as a possible artist. In section 1, we consider the prosecutorial use of rap lyrics in court as (...) a central case of this injustice. In section 2, we distinguish art-interpretive injustice from other categories already discussed in recent literature. In section 3, we discuss the relationship between genre discourse and identity prejudice. The case for recognizing the category of art-interpretive injustice is that it allows one to recognize a class of harms as being importantly related in ways that one would otherwise overlook. (shrink)

This study is intended to provide in-depth insights into how design thinking and creativity issues are understood and possibly evolve in the course of design discussions in a company context. For that purpose, we use the seminar transcripts of the Design Thinking Research Symposium 12 (DTRS12) dataset “Tech-centred Design Thinking: Perspectives from a Rising Asia,” which are primarily concerned with how Korean companies implement design thinking and what role designers currently play. We employed a novel method of information processing based (...) on constructed dynamic semantic networks to investigate the seminar discussions according to company representatives and company size. We compared the quantitative dynamics in two seminars: the first involved managerial representatives of four companies, and the second involved specialized designers and management of a design center of single company. On the basis of dynamic semantic networks, we quantified the changes in four semantic measures—abstraction, polysemy, information content, and pairwise word similarity—in chronologically reconstructed individual design-thinking processes. Statistical analyses show that design thinking in the seminar with four companies, exhibits significant differences in the dynamics of abstraction, polysemy, and information content, compared to the seminar with the design center of single company. Both the decrease in polysemy and abstraction and the increase in information content in the individual design-thinking processes in the seminar with four companies indicate that design managers are focused on more concrete design issues, with more information and less ambiguous content to the final design product. By contrast, specialized designers manifest more abstract thinking and appear to exhibit a slightly higher level of divergence in their design processes. The results suggest that design thinking and creativity issues are articulated differently depending on designer roles and the company size. (shrink)

Some philosophers think that there is a gap between is and ought which necessarily makes normative enquiry a different kind of thing than empirical science. This position gains support from our ability to explicate our inferential practices in a way that makes it impermissible to move from descriptive premises to a normative conclusion. But we can also explicate them in a way that allows such moves. So there is no categorical answer as to whether there is or is not a (...) gap. The question of an is-ought gap is a practical and strategic matter rather than a logical one, and it may properly be answered in different ways for different questions or at different times. (shrink)

Typical discussions of virtual reality (VR) fixate on technology for providing sensory stimulation of a certain kind. They thus fail to understand reality as the place wherein we live and work, misunderstanding it instead as merely a sort of presentation. The first half of the paper examines popular conceptions of VR. The most common conception is a shallow one according to which VR is a matter of simulating appearances. Yet there is, even in popular depictions, a second, more subtle conception (...) according to which VR is a matter of facilitating new kinds of interaction. The latter half of the paper turns to questions about the contemporary technology of Internet chatrooms. The fact that chatrooms can be used in certain ways suggests something about the prospects for VR. The penultimate section asks whether chatrooms may legitimately be thought of as places. (In a sense, they may.) The final section asks whether cybersex may legitimately be thought of as sex. (Again, yes.) Chatroom technology thus provides an argument for the second conception of VR over its much ballyhooed rival. (shrink)

This article synthesizes the results of several interviews with argumentation scholars from across the American continents to address three questions regarding the connections in argumentation studies between North and South/Central America: “What motivated the study of argumentation in the Americas?” “What commonalities, if any, exist in argumentation studies across the Americas?” and “What should the future of argumentation studies in the Americas look like?” Using these interviews in combination with existing textual sources, the article also provides motivated suggestions for directions (...) for the future of the community in the field. (shrink)

The Bare Theory was offered by David Albert as a way of standing by the completeness of quantum mechanics in the face of the measurement problem. This paper surveys objections to the Bare Theory that recur in the literature: what will here be called the oddity objection, the coherence objection, and the context-of-the-universe objection. Critics usually take the Bare Theory to have unacceptably bizarre consequences, but to be free from internal contradiction. Bizarre consequences need not be decisive against the Bare (...) Theory, but a further objection—dubbed here the calibration objection—has been underestimated. This paper argues that the Bare Theory is not only odd but also inconsistent. We can imagine a successor to the Bare Theory—the Stripped Theory—which avoids the objections and fulfills the original promise of the Bare Theory, but at the cost of amplifying the bizarre consequences. The Stripped Theory is either a stunning development in our understanding of the world or a reductio disproving the completeness of quantum mechanics. The Bare Theory The usual objections The calibration objection Beyond the Bare Theory. (shrink)

Eric Barnes’ The Paradox of Predictivism is concerned primarily with two facts: predictivism (the fact that novel predictions play an important part in scientificconfirmation) and pluralism (the fact that scientific development is not just a matter of isolated individuals judging the truth, but at least partly a matter of trusting legitimate experts). In the middle part of the book, he peers through these two lenses at the tired realist scarecrow of the no-miracles argument. He attempts to reanimate this weatherworn realist (...) argument, contra suggestions by people like me that it should be abandoned. In this paper, I want to get clear on Barnes’ contribution to the debate. He focuses on what he calls the miraculous endorsement argument, which explains not the success of a specific theory but instead the history of successes for an entire research program. The history of successes is explained by reliable and improving methods, which are the flipside of approximately true background theories. Yet, as Barnes notes, the whole story must begin with methods that are at least minimally reliable. Barnes demands that the realist explain the origin of the minimally reliable take-off point, and he suggests a way that the realist might do so. I contend that his explanation still relies on contingent developments and so fails to completely explain the development of take-off theories. However, this line of argument digs into familiar details of the no-miracles argument and overlooks what’s new in Barnes’ approach. By calling attention to pluralism, he reminds us that we need an account of scientific expertise. This is important, I suggest, because expertise is not indefinite. We do not trust specific experts for everything, but only for things within the bounds of their expertise. Drawing these boundaries relies on our own background theories and is only likely to be reliable if our background theories are approximately true. I argue, then, that pluralism gives us reason to be realists (about some things). (shrink)

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated drastic changes to undergraduate medical training at the University of Botswana (UB). To save the academic year when campus was locked down, the Department of Medical Education conducted a needs assessment to determine the readiness for emergency remote teaching (ERT) of the Faculty of Medicine, UB. Objectives. To report on the findings of needs assessment surveys to assess learner and teaching staff preparedness for fair and just ERT, as defined by philosopher John Rawls. Methods. Needs (...) assessment surveys were conducted using Office 365 Forms distributed via WhatsApp, targeting medical students and teaching staff during the 5 undergraduate years. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results. Ninety-two percent (266/289) of students and 73.5% (62/84) of teaching staff responded. Surveys revealed a high penetration of smartphones among students, but poor internet accessibility and affordability in homes. Some teaching staff also reported internet and device insufficiencies. Only WhatsApp was accessible to students and teaching staff. Conclusions. For equitable access to ERT in the future, the surveys revealed infrastructural improvement needs, including wider, stronger, affordable WiFi coverage within Botswana and enhanced digital infrastructures in educational institutions, with increased support for students. (shrink)

Sol LeWitt is probably most famous for wall drawings. They are an extension of work he had done in sculpture and on paper, in which a simple rule specifies permutations and variations of elements. With wall drawings, the rule is given for marks to be made on a wall. We should distinguish these algorithmic works from impossible-to-implement instruction works and works realized by following preparatory sketches. Taking the core feature of a wall drawing to be that it is algorithmic, some (...) of LeWitt's later works are wall drawings in name only. (shrink)

The INBIOSA project brings together a group of experts across many disciplines who believe that science requires a revolutionary transformative step in order to address many of the vexing challenges presented by the world. It is INBIOSA’s purpose to enable the focused collaboration of an interdisciplinary community of original thinkers. This paper sets out the case for support for this effort. The focus of the transformative research program proposal is biology-centric. We admit that biology to date has been more fact-oriented (...) and less theoretical than physics. However, the key leverageable idea is that careful extension of the science of living systems can be more effectively applied to some of our most vexing modern problems than the prevailing scheme, derived from abstractions in physics. While these have some universal application and demonstrate computational advantages, they are not theoretically mandated for the living. A new set of mathematical abstractions derived from biology can now be similarly extended. This is made possible by leveraging new formal tools to understand abstraction and enable computability. [The latter has a much expanded meaning in our context from the one known and used in computer science and biology today, that is "by rote algorithmic means", since it is not known if a living system is computable in this sense (Mossio et al., 2009).] Two major challenges constitute the effort. The first challenge is to design an original general system of abstractions within the biological domain. The initial issue is descriptive leading to the explanatory. There has not yet been a serious formal examination of the abstractions of the biological domain. What is used today is an amalgam; much is inherited from physics (via the bridging abstractions of chemistry) and there are many new abstractions from advances in mathematics (incentivized by the need for more capable computational analyses). Interspersed are abstractions, concepts and underlying assumptions “native” to biology and distinct from the mechanical language of physics and computation as we know them. A pressing agenda should be to single out the most concrete and at the same time the most fundamental process-units in biology and to recruit them into the descriptive domain. Therefore, the first challenge is to build a coherent formal system of abstractions and operations that is truly native to living systems. Nothing will be thrown away, but many common methods will be philosophically recast, just as in physics relativity subsumed and reinterpreted Newtonian mechanics. -/- This step is required because we need a comprehensible, formal system to apply in many domains. Emphasis should be placed on the distinction between multi-perspective analysis and synthesis and on what could be the basic terms or tools needed. The second challenge is relatively simple: the actual application of this set of biology-centric ways and means to cross-disciplinary problems. In its early stages, this will seem to be a “new science”. This White Paper sets out the case of continuing support of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for transformative research in biology and information processing centered on paradigm changes in the epistemological, ontological, mathematical and computational bases of the science of living systems. Today, curiously, living systems cannot be said to be anything more than dissipative structures organized internally by genetic information. There is not anything substantially different from abiotic systems other than the empirical nature of their robustness. We believe that there are other new and unique properties and patterns comprehensible at this bio-logical level. The report lays out a fundamental set of approaches to articulate these properties and patterns, and is composed as follows. -/- Sections 1 through 4 (preamble, introduction, motivation and major biomathematical problems) are incipient. Section 5 describes the issues affecting Integral Biomathics and Section 6 -- the aspects of the Grand Challenge we face with this project. Section 7 contemplates the effort to formalize a General Theory of Living Systems (GTLS) from what we have today. The goal is to have a formal system, equivalent to that which exists in the physics community. Here we define how to perceive the role of time in biology. Section 8 describes the initial efforts to apply this general theory of living systems in many domains, with special emphasis on crossdisciplinary problems and multiple domains spanning both “hard” and “soft” sciences. The expected result is a coherent collection of integrated mathematical techniques. Section 9 discusses the first two test cases, project proposals, of our approach. They are designed to demonstrate the ability of our approach to address “wicked problems” which span across physics, chemistry, biology, societies and societal dynamics. The solutions require integrated measurable results at multiple levels known as “grand challenges” to existing methods. Finally, Section 10 adheres to an appeal for action, advocating the necessity for further long-term support of the INBIOSA program. -/- The report is concluded with preliminary non-exclusive list of challenging research themes to address, as well as required administrative actions. The efforts described in the ten sections of this White Paper will proceed concurrently. Collectively, they describe a program that can be managed and measured as it progresses. (shrink)

Livro-texto de introdução à lógica, com (mais do que) pitadas de filosofia da lógica, produzido como uma versão revista e ampliada do livro Forallx: Calgary. Trata-se da versão de 13 de outubro de 2022. Comentários, críticas, correções e sugestões são muito bem-vindos.

This study explores the employee retention strategies implemented by administrators in educational institutions, focusing on Immaculate Conception College of Balayan, Inc. The qualitative case study involved 10 participants, including administrators and employees selected based on stable tenure and appropriate qualifications. Through face- to-face interviews, key determinants influencing retention, such as teacher satisfaction, job contentment, professional growth, and loyalty, were identified. Recognition and incentives emerged as the primary retention strategy, significantly influencing employee satisfaction and fostering a sense of belonging. The study (...) concludes that these strategies are effective, contributing to the retention of skilled professionals. Recommendations emphasize the importance of recognizing and providing incentives as core strategies for administrators in educational settings, recognizing their role in creating a positive work environment and promoting sustained employee commitment. The findings at ICCBI underscore the observed effectiveness of these strategies. (shrink)

Clark and Chalmers (1998) defend the hypothesis of an ‘Extended Mind’, maintaining that beliefs and other paradigmatic mental states can be implemented outside the central nervous system or body. Aspects of the problem of ‘language acquisition’ are considered in the light of the extended mind hypothesis. Rather than ‘language’ as typically understood, the object of study is something called ‘utterance-activity’, a term of art intended to refer to the full range of kinetic and prosodic features of the on-line behaviour of (...) interacting humans. It is argued that utterance activity is plausibly regarded as jointly controlled by the embodied activity of interacting people, and that it contributes to the control of their behaviour. By means of specific examples it is suggested that this complex joint control facilitates easier learning of at least some features of language. This in turn suggests a striking form of the extended mind, in which infants’ cognitive powers are augmented by those of the people with whom they interact. (shrink)

Human beings are social animals, not solitary ones. Morality is an instinct we have because it helps us socialize, live together harmoniously. This paper reviews how the evolution of morality and other mental functions associated with our survival and sociality gave rise to cultural behavior among the small groups of humans during the Palaeolithic period when the tribe was personified as a supernatural identity and guardian, a totem, an ancestor and ultimately a god. Loyalty to the tribe required loyalty to (...) the tribal god representing the tribe. Preservation of the tribe meant mistrust of other tribes and their gods. The merging of small groups rendered obsolete the tribal, locally cultural conception of religion, but it persisted as monotheism in the imperial stage of society from about 2000 BC, becoming the world religions. Today’s empires are global, and a belief system modelled on local tribes in competition is naïve divisive. Out-group hatred is more of a threat than any in-group moral benefits, and they too are disappearing with the failure to preserve small group coherence, and justice and fairness in capitalist society. The moral failure of imperial religion on the urban and global scale is the “Death of God”. Humans now cannot afford the moral laziness of constantly appealing to a supernatural totem in an otherwise do-nothing religion. Imperial religion was and still is a tool of the political right, used to manipulate us. Yet Christ offered an ethical scheme that is essentially a practical morality of mutual lovingkindness which does not require a supernatural God. It is Secular Christianity, a world view any scientist and atheist could adopt without compromise, and most Christians should. (shrink)

Susan Schneider (2019) has proposed two new tests for consciousness in AI (artificial intelligence) systems, the AI Consciousness Test and the Chip Test. On their face, the two tests seem to have the virtue of proving satisfactory to a wide range of consciousness theorists holding divergent theoretical positions, rather than narrowly relying on the truth of any particular theory of consciousness. Unfortunately, both tests are undermined in having an ‘audience problem’: Those theorists with the kind of architectural worries that motivate (...) the need for such tests should, on similar grounds, doubt that the tests establish the existence of genuine consciousness in the AI in question. Nonetheless, the proposed tests constitute progress, as they could find use by some theorists holding fitting views about consciousness and perhaps in conjunction with other tests for AI consciousness. (shrink)

Upshot: In our target article we claimed that, at least since Weber and Varela, enactivism has incorporated a theoretical commitment to one important aspect of Jonas’s philosophical biology, namely its anthropomorphism, which is at odds with the methodological commitments of modern science. In this general reply we want to clarify what we mean by anthropomorphism, and explain why we think it is incompatible with science. We do this by spelling out what we call the “Jonasian inference,” i.e., the idea that (...) we are entitled, based on our first-person experience of teleology, to take the appearance of teleology in other living beings at face value. (shrink)

In A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to ground intergenerational justice by "virtual representation" through a thickening of the veil of ignorance. Contractors don't know to what generation they belong. This approach is flawed and will not result in the just savings principle Rawls hopes to justify. The project of grounding intergenerational duties on a social contractarian foundation is misconceived. Non-overlapping generations do not stand in relation to one another that is central to the contractarian approach.

This paper presents a critical analysis of dual-class share structures (DCSS) within an ethical and logical framework for ownership and control. Moreover, it contends that the existence of DCSS constitutes a de facto infringement on the ownership rights of shareholders. By adopting a conceptual approach rooted in symbolic logic, the paper demonstrates that DCSS falls short of the ethical precept of “one share, one vote” and is therefore an unjust and inefficient equity arrangement. The paper contributes to the existing literature (...) on DCSS by focusing on the ethical and logical basis of such share structures. (shrink)

Humans think and communicate in very flexible and schematic ways, and a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the Amazon and associated information system ontologies should reflect this flexibility and the adaptive nature of human cognition in order to achieve semantic interoperability. In this paper I offer a conceptual investigation of SDI and explore the nature of cultural schemas as expressions of indigenous ontologies and the challenges of semantic interoperability across cultures. Cultural schemas are, in essence, our ontologies, but they are (...) markedly different than classical formal ontologies. They shape our ontological commitments to what exists in the world as well as the ways in which we approach and engage the world. And while they help structure our understanding of the world in which we are embedded, they are associative and flexible. They help to focus our attention to particular details of our experiences and give them salience, yet they cannot be simply reduced to a series of extracted features. They allow us to make meaning of the contextualized, cultural experience in which we are always immersed. An SDI is a shared social-technological-informational structure that, if it is to be useful and successful for sustainability in the Amazon, must incorporate and use indigenous cultural schemas. Indigenous communities must have the ability to contribute to the collection of geospatial data and their contributions recognized as legitimate forms of knowledge. In order for the SDI to work, it must recognize the larger cultural landscape to which cultural schemas can connect to the ready-to-hand elements of salient cultural experiences. (shrink)

Ontologies are being used by information scientists in order to facilitate the sharing of meaningful information. However, computational ontologies are problematic in that they often decontextualize information. The semantic content of information is dependent upon the context in which it exists and the experience through which it emerges. For true semantic interoperability to occur among diverse information systems, within or across domains, information must remain contextualized. In order to bring more context to computational ontologies, we introduce culture as an essential (...) concept for information science. Culture helps to focus our attention on and make meaning of relevant extrapersonal structures and their qualities and dimensions that comprise the context and background of the world. In our approach, culture is integral to the study of semantics and, consequently, the study of ontologies and information technologies. The meaning we make of entities and phenomena in the world is always shaped by our cultural experience. If we understand culture as the emergent interplay of intrapersonal cognitive structures and extrapersonal structures of the world, then the notion of cognitive and cultural schemas becomes essential to understanding ontology and the ways in which we might achieve authentic semantic interoperability among diverse information systems. We explore the nature of ontologies and reconceptualize them as cultural schemas. Our proposal is an alternative to the historical path from philosophical ontology to computational ontologies as one that adheres primarily to the notion of ontology as a categorization and classification system. The obvious implication for ontology as categorization is that there is a single objective world that exists and that it can be described as entirely separate from the person observing it. We draw upon Heidegger’s examination of ontology to ground ontology in a phenomenological perspective, enabling it to remain flexible and adaptable and to accommodate context. (shrink)

Upon what philosophical foundation are semantic network graphs based? Does this foundation allow for the legitimization of other semantic networks and ontological diversity? How can we design our computational and informational systems to accommodate this ontological diversity and the variety of semantic networks? Are semantic networks segmentations of larger semantic landscapes? This paper explores semantic networks from a Heideggerian existentialist and phenomenological perspective. The analysis presented uses cultural schema theory to bridge the syntactic and lexical elements to the semantic and (...) conceptual dimensions of semantic network graphs and offers reasons why the viability of such graphs as they are currently constructed are insufficient for creating semantic interoperability for our informationtechnologies. Reconceptualizing semantic networks as cultural landscapes offers us. (shrink)

Ormerod and Chronicle reported that optimal solutions to traveling salesperson problems were judged to be aesthetically more pleasing than poorer solutions and that solutions with more convex hull nodes were rated as better figures. To test these conclusions, solution regularity and the number of potential intersections were held constant, whereas solution optimality, the number of internal nodes, and the number of nearest neighbors in each solution were varied factorially. The results did not support the view that the convex hull is (...) an important determinant of figural attractiveness. Also, in contrast to the findings of Ormerod and Chronicle, there were consistent individual differences. Participants appeared to be divided as to whether the most attractive figure enclosed a given area within a perimeter of minimum or maximum length. It is concluded that future research in this area cannot afford to focus exclusively on group performance measures. (shrink)