A startling amount of intelligent activity can be controlled without reasoning or thought. By tuning the perceptual system to task relevant properties a creature can cope with relatively sophisticated environments without concepts. There is a limit, however, to how far a creature without concepts can go. Rod Brooks, like many ecologically oriented scientists, argues that the vast majority of intelligent behaviour is concept-free. To evaluate this position I consider what special benefits accrue to concept-using creatures. Concepts are either necessary for (...) certain types of perception, learning, and control, or they make those processes computationally simpler. Once a creature has concepts its capacities are vastly multiplied. (shrink)

Machine learning algorithms may radically improve our ability to diagnose and treat disease. For moral, legal, and scientific reasons, it is essential that doctors and patients be able to understand and explain the predictions of these models. Scalable, customisable, and ethical solutions can be achieved by working together with relevant stakeholders, including patients, data scientists, and policy makers.

The paper considers contemporary models of presumption in terms of their ability to contribute to a working theory of presumption for argumentation. Beginning with the Whatelian model, we consider its contemporary developments and alternatives, as proposed by Sidgwick, Kauffeld, Cronkhite, Rescher, Walton, Freeman, Ullmann-Margalit, and Hansen. Based on these accounts, we present a picture of presumptions characterized by their nature, function, foundation and force. On our account, presumption is a modal status that is attached to a claim and has the (...) effect of shifting, in a dialogue, a burden of proof set at a local level. Presumptions can be analysed and evaluated inferentially as components of rule-based structures. Presumptions are defeasible, and the force of a presumption is a function of its normative foundation. This picture seeks to provide a framework to guide the development of specific theories of presumption. (shrink)

This article addresses ontological negotiations in the Global South through three case studies of community-based research in Brazil and Ghana. We argue that ontological perspectives of Indigenous and other subjugated communities require an ontological pluralism that recognizes the plurality of both representational tools and ways of being in the world. Locating these two readings of ontological pluralism in the politics of the Global South, the article highlights a wider dynamic from ontological paternalism to ontological diversity to ontological decolonization. We conclude (...) by arguing that this dynamic provides important lessons for reorienting agendas in social ontology through Southern Ontologies. (shrink)

Using the perspective of situated cognition we studied how people interact with a physical map to help them navigate through an unfamiliar environment. The study used a mixture of cognitive ethnography and traditional experimental methods. We found that the difference between high and low performing navigators showed up in the speed they completed their task and also in the way they use maps. High performers plan routes using a survey method whereas low performers use a route strategy. We suggest that (...) when people are given a task that does not match their cognitive style they try to transform the task to better suit their cognitive abilities and cognitive style. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary research challenges the divide between Indigenous and academic knowledge by bringing together epistemic resources of heterogeneous stakeholders. The aim of this article is to explore causal explanations in a traditional fishing community in Brazil that provide resources for transdisciplinary collaboration, without neglecting differences between Indigenous and academic experts. Semi-structured interviews were carried out in a fishing village in the North shore of Bahia and our findings show that community members often rely on causal explanations for local ecological phenomena with (...) different degrees of complexity. While these results demonstrate the ecological expertise of local community members, we also argue that recognition of local expertise needs to reflect on differences between epistemic communities by developing a culturally sensitive model of transdisciplinary knowledge negotiation. (shrink)

In recent decades, the use of electrochemistry has increased exponentially. Electrochemistry has demonstrated their effectiveness in the cleaning of manufactured effluents and the decomposition of complex hydrological compounds for water treatment. Looking at the efficiency of the technology in the decomposition of organic matter, one wonders if it is not capable of doing more than just the de-pollution and treatment of water. Of course, there are other uses of electrochemistry, but in the literature, it is understood that it is used (...) more for water treatment and de-pollution. This work is a review of the literature to identify the major works in electrochemical decomposition of organic matter to see to what extent this technology can be used for methane production (cooking gas) using pasty organic matter. The list of works appearing in this review is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient to give a clear idea of the technology, its progress and, above all, the challenges it faces. This review opens the way to other applications of electrochemical decomposition to meet today's energy challenges. (shrink)

J. N. (Jitendra Nath) Mohanty (1928–2023). -/- Professor J. N. Mohanty has characterized his life and philosophy as being both “inside” and “outside” East and West, i.e., inside and outside traditions of India and those of the West, living in both India and United States: geographically, culturally, and philosophically; while also traveling the world: Melbourne to Moscow. Most of his academic time was spent teaching at the University of Oklahoma, The New School Graduate Faculty, and finally Temple University. Yet his (...) preeminent work in Husserlian phenomenology developed alongside his eminent work in Indian philosophy: describing his interests as “a fusion of disparate horizons.” -/- J. N. Mohanty was born September 26, 1928, in Cuttack (Odisha, East India). After graduating from high school, he went on to study both Indian and Western philosophy in Calcutta, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. There he read Whitehead and Kant’s First Critique; although he wanted to include mathematics in his curriculum, he was led instead to include Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. On the shelves of his teacher, Ras Vihar Das, he came upon a copy of the English translation (Ideas I, 1931) of Edmund Husserl’s classic Ideen I (1913), which presented Husserl’s ground-breaking conception of phenomenology. In 1952–1954 he left India for the first time, reaching Göttingen to study mathematics and philosophy, which earned him a doctorate in mathematics and “philosophy of mathematical sciences” (in his own words). In Göttingen, Mohanty found the powerful mathematical world that Husserl himself had earlier interacted with, where several Husserl students had formed the Göttingen school of phenomenology. During these years Mohanty studied primarily mathematics, alongside Kant and also Vedic Sanskrit. From his friend Günter Patzig, interpreter of Aristotle and Frege, Mohanty was drawn to Frege in relation to mathematical logic. He attended lectures of Heidegger, intrigued by his ontological thinking. Yet, despite the Husserlian legacy, Mohanty was completely self-taught in his studies of Husserl (as he has reported). With a doctorate in mathematics, and ideas from Kant and Frege in his philosophical background, Mohanty set about crafting his own conception of philosophy grounded in phenomenology, drawing on Husserl’s extensive work, critically sifting through Husserl’s texts and their emerging concepts of intentionality, meaning, subject, intersubjectivity, and world. In between he wrote his first book-length study: on phenomenological insights in Nicolai Hartmann and A. N. Whitehead (1958). -/- Over many decades Mohanty formulated and argued, in analytical detail, for a conception of phenomenology and its place in philosophy, later presented in a clear and concise book titled Transcendental Phenomenology: An Analytic Account (1989). Over these very decades the same scholar explored classical and recent Indian philosophy, thinking through kindred ideas of consciousness, self, and knowledge drawn from the Indian philosophical contexts. While writing on Nyāya theory of truth, he also pondered whether the world and finite individual are illusory or real, and whether Marx, Arendt, Gandhi (whom he heard speak in Calcutta), or Vinoba Bhave (with whom he marched across India for the land-grant movement) could best navigate post-Independent India’s social and svarāj or self-rule reforms. The two Mohantys, thinking through a vision of self and world, turned out to be “non-different” or “non-dual” as they each practiced critical phenomenology from both inside and outside the respective philosophical and cultural traditions. Numerous students, fellows, and colleagues or collaborators have benefited immensely from this infusion and unified approach to diversity in philosophical thought. In the 2000s, moving into retirement, Mohanty wrote two long books devoted to his understanding of Husserl and phenomenology and the calling of philosophy itself. This two-volume study shows Mohanty himself thinking through Husserl, critically, in The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl: A Historical Introduction (2008), and Edmund Husserl’s Freiburg Years: 1916–1938. As Mohanty worked on Husserl, he carefully indicated where he agreed and where he rejected or changed ideas, all part of his practice in phenomenology of “description and interpretation.” It was the same pattern he used in addressing the thought of Husserl vis-à-vis Kant or Frege or even Quine. -/- As Mohanty developed his understanding of phenomenology over the years, he wrote books on theory of meaning and the concept of intentionality, developing a model of ideal meaning and its foundation in intentionality, drawing on Husserl’s results. He followed these with the book Husserl and Frege (1982), linking the thought of those foundational figures for the “continental” and “analytic” traditions, respectively, in twentieth-century Western philosophy. Over his long career Mohanty addressed both traditions in his clear and accessible writing style. While developing his views on phenomenology, Mohanty regularly looked to “Husserl and his others,” evaluating views in Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, and then Derrida and others in the wake of Husserl. With his background in Kant, Mohanty also looked toward Heidegger and Hegel in relation to Husserl’s later work in the Crisis (1935–38). Similarly, he looked to contemporary analytic philosophers, adjudicating his own, oft-wise Husserlian views in relation to Frege, Nagel, and others. Amid his active scholarly career, Mohanty co-founded the journal Husserl Studies, and was editorial advisor to Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, Philosophy East & West, Journal of Indian Philosophy, Sophia, among others. -/- Yet all this while Mohanty was also thinking and writing about Indian philosophy and its relation to phenomenology. In his own retrospective, Indian philosophy is “the permanent background” of his Husserlian thinking, while Kant is the recurrent Western background of his Husserlian phenomenology. Mohanty’s form of “transcendental phenomenology” evolved, in his own perspective, against the background of his studies of Navya-Nyāya on logic and Vedānta on consciousness, in Indian philosophy, and against the background of Kant’s First Critique on the transcendental, in Western philosophy. Accordingly, Mohanty’s study of logical form and of the intentionality of consciousness seeks a fusion of East and West in the conception of transcendental phenomenology. (Cf. Mohanty’s apt response to critics in The Empirical and the Transcendental (2000).) Even in the context of North American Husserl scholarship, Mohanty has exercised an earnest fusion of East and West. For the so-called East Coast and West Coast interpretations of Husserl’s crucial notion of noema both find a sympathetic spirit in J. N. Mohanty’s careful and nuanced interpretation of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology. With Mohanty the two faces of the noema are the logical (Fregean) and the phenomenal (Kantian), and these views of intentional structure join in consciousness—in a way resonant with Indian thought. -/- - David Woodruff Smith (UC Irvine) and Purushottama Bilimoria (SFSU, San Francisco; University of Melbourne) -/- For photo of Prof Mohanty visit APA online memorial_minutes2023 Courtesy of APA Memorial Minutes (& Proceedings) 2023 . (shrink)

We take up the challenge of developing an international network with capacity to survey the world's scientists on an ongoing basis, providing rich datasets regarding the opinions of scientists and scientific sub-communities, both at a time and also over time. The novel methodology employed sees local coordinators, at each institution in the network, sending survey invitation emails internally to scientists at their home institution. The emails link to a ‘10 second survey’, where the participant is presented with a single statement (...) to consider, and a standard five point Likert scale. In June 2023, a group of 30 philosophers and social scientists invited 20,085 scientists across 30 institutions in 12 countries to participate, gathering 6,807 responses to the statement 'Science has put it beyond reasonable doubt that COVID-19 is caused by a virus'. The study demonstrates that it is possible to establish a global network to quickly ascertain scientific opinion on a large international scale, with high response rate, low opt-out rate, and in a way that allows for significant (perhaps indefinite) repeatability. Measuring scientific opinion in this new way would be a valuable complement to currently available approaches, potentially informing policy decisions and public understanding across diverse fields. (shrink)

Heterogeneous treatment effects represent a major issue for medicine as they undermine reliable inference and clinical decision-making. To overcome the issue, the current vision of precision and personalized medicine acknowledges the need to control individual variability in response to treatment. In this paper, we argue that gene-treatment-environment interactions (G × T × E) undermine inferences about individual treatment effects from the results of both genomics-based methodologies—such as genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and genome-wide interaction studies (GWIS)—and randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Then, (...) we argue that N-of-1 trials can be a solution to overcome difficulties in handling individual variability in treatment response. Although this type of trial has been suggested as a promising strategy to assess individual treatment effects, it nonetheless has limitations that limit its use in everyday clinical practice. We analyze the existing variability within the designs of N-of-1 trials in terms of a continuum where each design prioritizes epistemic and pragmatic considerations. We then support wider use of the designs located at the pragmatic end of the explanatory-pragmatic continuum. (shrink)

• Aggregates of previously isolated cells of Hydra are capable, under suitable solvant conditions, of regeneration forming complete animals. In a first stage, ecto- and endodermal cells sort out, producing the bilayered hollow structure characteristic of Hydra tissue; thereafter, heads are formed (even if the original cell preparation contained no head cells), eventually leading to the separation of normal animals with head, body column and foot. Hydra appears to be the highest type of organism that allows for regeneration of the (...) entire structure from random cell aggregates. The system is particularly useful for studying cell interactions, tissue polarity, pattern formation, and cell differentiation. (shrink)

Do psychological traits predict philosophical views? We administered the PhilPapers Survey, created by David Bourget and David Chalmers, which consists of 30 views on central philosophical topics (e.g., epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language) to a sample of professional philosophers (N = 314). We extended the PhilPapers survey to measure a number of psychological traits, such as personality, numeracy, well-being, lifestyle, and life experiences. We also included non-technical ‘translations’ of these views for eventual use (...) in other populations. We found limited to no support for the notion that personality or demographics predict philosophical views. We did, however, find that some psychological traits were predictive of philosophical views, even after strict correction for multiple comparisons. Findings include: higher interest in numeracy predicted physicalism, naturalism, and consequentialism; lower levels of well-being and higher levels of mental illness predicted hard determinism; using substances such as psychedelics and marijuana predicted non-realist and subjectivist views of morality and aesthetics; having had a transformative or self-transcendent experience predicted theism and idealism. We discuss whether or not these empirical results have philosophical implications, while noting that 68% of our sample of professional philosophers indicated that such findings would indeed have philosophical value. (shrink)

Cet essai va aborder la question d'éthique normative de savoir où doit s'arrêter notre considération morale. On peut en effet se demander si nous n'avons pas des obligations morales en dehors de celles que nous avons à l'égard des représentants de l'espèce humaine que nous côtoyons. Est-il possible d'envisager des obligations à l'égard des animaux ou des générations futures? C'est une question qui fait débat dans la philosophie morale depuis l'antiquité – pour les animaux du moins – mais qui a (...) connu un regain d'intérêt depuis une quarantaine d'années, principalement dans la philosophie anglo-saxonne, et qui a parfois été appelée problème du périmètre. Nous allons nous intéresser plus particulièrement au statut moral des animaux : quelle considération morale leur doit-on? Doivent-ils être inclus dans le périmètre ou rester au-delà? (shrink)

We present data and argument to show that in Tetris - a real-time interactive video game - certain cognitive and perceptual problems are more quickly, easily, and reliably solved by performing actions in the world rather than by performing computational actions in the head alone. We have found that some translations and rotations are best understood as using the world to improve cognition. These actions are not used to implement a plan, or to implement a reaction; they are used to (...) change the world in order to simplify the problem-solving task. Thus, we distinguish pragmatic actions ñ actions performed to bring one physically closer to a goal - from epistemic actions - actions performed to uncover information that is hidden or hard to compute mentally. To illustrate the need for epistemic actions, we first develop a standard information-processing model of Tetris-cognition, and show that it cannot explain performance data from human players of the game - even when we relax the assumption of fully sequential processing. Standard models disregard many actions taken by players because they appear unmotivated or superfluous. However, we describe many such actions that are actually taken by players that are far from superfluous, and that play valuable roles in improving human performance. We argue that traditional accounts are limited because they regard action as having a single function: to change the world. By recognizing a second function of action - an epistemic function - we can explain many of the actions that a traditional model cannot. Although, our argument is supported by numerous examples specifically from Tetris, we outline how the one category of epistemic action can be incorporated into theories of action more generally. (shrink)

A given causal system can be represented in a variety of ways. How do agents determine which variables to include in their causal representations, and at what level of granularity? Using techniques from Bayesian networks, information theory, and decision theory, we develop a formal theory according to which causal representations reflect a trade-off between compression and informativeness, where the optimal trade-off depends on the decision-theoretic value of information for a given agent in a given context. This theory predicts that, all (...) else being equal, agents prefer causal models that are as compressed as possible. When compression is associated with information loss, however, all else is not equal, and our theory predicts that agents will favor compressed models only when the information they sacrifice is not informative with respect to the agent’s anticipated decisions. We then show, across six studies reported here (N=2,364) and one study reported in the supplemental materials (N=182), that participants’ preferences over causal models are in keeping with the predictions of our theory. Our theory offers a unification of different dimensions of causal evaluation identified within the philosophy of science (proportionality and stability), and contributes to a more general picture of human cognition according to which the capacity to create compressed (causal) representations plays a central role. (shrink)

Tradução para o português de "Uma espécie de história de minha vida" (A kind of history of my life), ou Carta a um médico (A Letter to a Physician), uma carta escrita por Hume (1711-1776), endereçada em março ou abril de 1734 a um médico não identificado (segundo Norton provavelmente John Arbuthnot ou George Cheyne), na qual Hume pede alguns conselhos para continuar com o seu trabalho filosófico. O título atual é extraído do primeiro parágrafo.A carta foi escrita em 1734, (...) um pouco antes de Hume viajar para Bristol, onde, “forçado a fazer uma rápida incursão em uma vida mais ativa”, conforme relata em sua autobiografia Minha vida, buscou empregar-se no comércio. A importância dessa carta reside no seu caráter autobiográfico e nos comentários que Hume faz sobre seu projeto filosófico. A carta foi publicada originalmente em Life and correspondence of David Hume, John Hill Burton(Ed.), Edinburgh 1846, v. 1, p. 30-39; ela foi reproduzida em The Letters of David Hume. Grey, J. Y. T. (ed.) Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932, 2v; v.1, n.3, p. 12-18, e pode ser encontrada também em The Cambridge companion to Hume, David Fate Norton, Jacqueline Taylor (ed.) 2 ed. Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 515-522. Para essa tradução consultamos o texto original conforme apresentado nas duas últimas edições aqui mencionadas. (shrink)

Consider the following two (hypothetical) generic causal claims: “Living in a neighborhood with many families with children increases purchases of bicycles” and “living in an affluent neighborhood with many families with children increases purchases of bicycles.” These claims not only differ in what they suggest about how bicycle ownership is distributed across different neighborhoods (i.e., “the data”), but also have the potential to communicate something about the speakers’ values: namely, the prominence they accord to affluence in representing and making decisions (...) about the social world. Here, we examine the relationship between the level of granularity with which a cause is described in a generic causal claim (e.g., neighborhood vs. affluent neighborhood) and the value of the information contained in the causal model that generates that claim. We argue that listeners who know any two of the following can make reliable inferences about the third: 1) the level of granularity at which a speaker makes a generic causal claim, 2) the speaker’s values, and 3) the data available to the speaker. We present results of four experiments (N=1,323) in the domain of social categories that provide evidence in keeping with these predictions. (shrink)

In finite probability theory, events are subsets S⊆U of the outcome set. Subsets can be represented by 1-dimensional column vectors. By extending the representation of events to two dimensional matrices, we can introduce "superposition events." Probabilities are introduced for classical events, superposition events, and their mixtures by using density matrices. Then probabilities for experiments or `measurements' of all these events can be determined in a manner exactly like in quantum mechanics (QM) using density matrices. Moreover the transformation of the density (...) matrices induced by the experiments or `measurements' is the Lüders mixture operation as in QM. And finally by moving the machinery into the n-dimensional vector space over ℤ₂, different basis sets become different outcome sets. That `non-commutative' extension of finite probability theory yields the pedagogical model of quantum mechanics over ℤ₂ that can model many characteristic non-classical results of QM. (shrink)

Do young children have a teleological conception of the essence of natural kinds? We tested this by examining how the preservation or alteration of an animal’s purpose affected children’s persistence judgments (N = 40, ages 4 - 12, Mean Age = 7.04, 61% female). We found that even when surface-level features of an animal (e.g., a bee) were preserved, if the entity’s purpose changed (e.g., the bee now spins webs), children were more likely to categorize the entity as a member (...) of a different natural kind (e.g., a spider) and these effects were similar in magnitude to altering the surface-features of a natural kind. Our results suggest that we might view teleological properties as partially constitutive of the essence of natural kinds. (shrink)

On chercherait en vain dans l’œuvre de Platon des développements explicites sur le silence. Mais le génie littéraire de Platon lui fait une place, et la mise en scène des dialogues, comme les interactions des personnages, mettent en jeu différentes figures du silence par lesquelles se dévoilent d’autres aspects des réflexions socratico-platoniciennes sur le langage. Les silences du philosophe s’opposent, en effet, à ceux de ses interlocuteurs, autant que la pratique philosophique du dialogue aux discours sophistiques. Car le silence véritable (...) n’est pas que l’absence de voix, ni même simplement l’attente d’une parole à venir, mais, en dernière analyse, un retour à la source du logos : la pensée et l’être même. (shrink)

The lattice operations of join and meet were defined for set partitions in the nineteenth century, but no new logical operations on partitions were defined and studied during the twentieth century. Yet there is a simple and natural graph-theoretic method presented here to define any n-ary Boolean operation on partitions. An equivalent closure-theoretic method is also defined. In closing, the question is addressed of why it took so long for all Boolean operations to be defined for partitions.

Logic has sometimes been seen as an alternative to metaphysics and to speculation. In this paper it is argued that a different story should be told when it comes to temporal logic and tense-logic in particular. A. N. Prior’s first formulation of tense logic was mainly established in order to qualify the discussion of certain metaphysical and conceptual problems. Although temporal logic has now been developed in various abstract and rather technical ways, it may still serve as a great help (...) for anyone who wants to clarify the discussion of important existential questions like the nature of time, determinism, future contingency or freedom of choice. (shrink)

This chapter sheds light on a response to experimental philosophy that has not yet received enough attention: the reflection defense. According to proponents of this defense, judgments about philosophical cases are relevant only when they are the product of careful, nuanced, and conceptually rigorous reflection. The chapter argues that the reflection defense is misguided: Five studies (N>1800) are presented, showing that people make the same judgments when they are primed to engage in careful reflection as they do in the conditions (...) standardly used by experimental philosophers. (shrink)

An annotated anthology of translations of traditional Chinese commentaries on the Daoist Classics Zhuangzi. (In Czech) -/- Kniha předkládá výbor a komentovaný překlad čtyř tradičních komentářů k vybraným pasážím významného díla klasického taoismu z období Válčících států (ca 4.-3. stol. př. n. l.). Komentáře pocházejí ze čtyř různých období čínských dějin od raného středověku až po poslední dynastii císařské Číny. Cílem práce je představit komentáře jako texty, které zasluhují bližší pozornost jednak proto, že nechávají nahlédnout do různorodých dějinných kontextů, jednak (...) proto, že jde o svébytné a filosoficky originální interpretace jednoho z nejvýznačnějších textů čínského myšlení. Komentáře nesou neklamnou pečeť historických období, ve kterých vznikly, zároveň se však vztahují k témuž textu, jsou součástí jedné interpretační tradice a v jistém smyslu se svou různorodostí doplňují. Publikace je určena jak sinologům či studentům sinologie, tak i filosofům či zájemcům o čínské myšlení bez znalosti klasické čínštiny. (shrink)

The question of whether lies by those who govern are acceptable receives a clear focus and an ideal case in the Republic. Against C. D. C. Reeve, and T. C. Brickhouse and N. D Smith, I argue that the Republic’s apparent recommendation of administrative lies is incoherent. While lies may be a necessary part of the City’s administration, the process and practice of lying undermines that nature which is necessary for any suitable ruler – rendering the ideal impossible. I argue (...) that this analysis, while concerned with an ideal case, also applies to the political realist’s regrettable-but-necessary defence of such practices. (shrink)

As an adherent to the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United States has made a commitment to social justice. As a part of this commitment, the U.S. maintains that the right to an education is both innate and compulsory. This paper addresses U.S. government’s failure to uphold its citizens’ educational rights, made clear by the inadequacy of the educational programs currently offered to juvenile offenders. Based on the findings of recent scholarly literature, this paper argues that both juvenile (...) and adult correctional institutions lack the resources necessary to provide proper educational instruction and adequately address the special educational needs of juvenile offenders. To help the U.S. maintain its commitment to social justice, alternatives to juvenile incarceration are proposed. (shrink)

Background Consent policies for post-mortem organ procurement (OP) vary throughout Europe, and yet no studies have empirically evaluated the ethical implications of contrasting consent models. To fill this gap, we introduce a novel indicator of governance quality based on the ideal of informed support, and examine national differences on this measure through a quantitative survey of OP policy informedness and preferences in seven European countries. -/- Methods Between 2017–2019, we conducted a convenience sample survey of students (n = 2006) in (...) Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Greece (GR), Slovenia (SI) and Spain (ES), asking participants about their donation preferences, as well as their beliefs and views about the policy in place. From these measures, we computed indices of informedness, policy support, and fulfilment of unexpressed preferences, which we compared across countries and consent systems. -/- Results Our study introduces a tool for analyzing policy governance in the context of OP. Wide variation in policy awareness was observed: Most respondents in DK, DE, AT and BE correctly identified the policy in place, while those in SI, GR and ES did not. Respondents in opt-out countries (AT, BE, ES and GR) tended to support the policy in place (with one exception, i.e., SI), whereas those in opt-in countries (DE and DK) overwhelmingly opposed it. These results reveal stark differences in governance quality across countries and consent policies: We found a preponderance of informed opposition in opt-in countries and a general tendency towards support–either informed or uninformed–in opt-out countries. We also found informed divergence in opt-in countries and a tendency for convergence–either informed or uninformed–among opt-out countries. -/- Conclusion Our study offers a novel tool for analyzing governance quality and illustrates, in the context of OP, how the strengths and weaknesses of different policy implementations can be estimated and compared using quantitative survey data. (shrink)

La vérité est le degré d’exactitude d’une représentation de la réalité. Nous postulons trois étapes cognitives : le psychon, produit par la perception ; le construit, produit par intellection; et l’acte de parole, produit par la communication. La vérité se trouve à la seconde étape; seuls les construits sont aléthiques. La vérité est une qualité qui vient en degrés. La certitude est le point d’aboutissement parfait et inaccessible de cette gradation ; il s’agit donc d’un concept idéal. Une thèse est (...) réputée vraie si son degré aléthique est acceptablement efficace, sinon la thèse est considérée comme fausse. En d’autres termes, nous jugeons vraie toute thèse n’ayant pas assez d’échecs pour qu’elle soit considérée fausse. (shrink)

People attribute purposes in both mundane and profound ways—such as when thinking about the purpose of a knife and the purpose of a life. In three studies (total N = 13,720 observations from N = 3,430 participants), we tested whether these seemingly very different forms of purpose attributions might actually involve the same cognitive processes. We examined the impacts of four factors on purpose attributions in six domains (artifacts, social institutions, animals, body parts, sacred objects, and human lives). Study 1 (...) manipulated what items in each domain were originally created for (original design) and how people currently use them (present practice). Study 2 manipulated whether items are good at achieving a goal (effectiveness) and whether the goal itself is good (morality). We found effects of each factor in every domain. However, whereas morality and effectiveness had remarkably similar effects across domains, the effects of original design and present practice differed substantially. Finally, Study 3 revealed that, within domains, the effects of original design and present practice depend on which entities design and use items. These results reveal striking similarities in purpose attributions across domains and suggest that certain entities are treated as authorities over the purposes of particular items. (shrink)

There’s a long but relatively neglected tradition of attempting to explain why many researchers working on the nature of phenomenal consciousness think that it’s hard to explain.1 David Chalmers argues that this “meta-problem of consciousness” merits more attention than it has received. He also argues against several existing explanations of why we find consciousness hard to explain. Like Chalmers, we agree that the meta-problem is worthy of more attention. Contra Chalmers, however, we argue that there’s an existing explanation that (...) is more promising than his objections suggest. We argue that researchers find phenomenal consciousness hard to explain because phenomenal concepts are complex demonstratives that encode the impossibility of explaining consciousness as one of their application conditions. (shrink)

Tom Stoppard’s 1966 play (and 1990 movie) /Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead/ is a metatext – as a text, it interprets, builds upon, and refers to another text, Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Similarly, David N. Reznick’s /The Origin then and now: An interpretative guide to the Origin of Species/ (Princeton UP, 2010) is also a metatext. In this review, I turn to the history of science to evaluate whether Reznick’s book shares three families of virtues with Stoppard’s play: (i) brevity and (...) precision, (ii) intrigue and appeal, and (iii) a genuine value-add to the original. (shrink)

This paper is an essay published under the title A Critical Praxis from the Americas: Thinking about the Zapatistas in Chiapas with Herbert Marcuse, Bolívar Echeverría, and Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, in Lamas, A. T .; Wolfson, T. & Funke, P. N. (Eds.). (2017). The Great Refusal: Herbert Marcuse and Contemporary Social Movements (pp. 329-342). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. The author kindly authorized the publication in Spanish version by Jhoan Sebastian David Giraldo and Cristian Leandro Sánchez Marín.

Edited proceedings of an interdisciplinary symposium on consciousness held at the University of Cambridge in January 1978. Includes a foreword by Freeman Dyson. Chapter authors: G. Vesey, R.L. Gregory, H.C. Longuet-Higgins, N.K. Humphrey, H.B. Barlow, D.M. MacKay, B.D. Josephson, M. Roth, V.S. Ramachandran, S. Padfield, and (editorial summary only) E. Noakes. A scanned pdf is available from this web site (philpapers.org), while alternative versions more suitable for copying text are available from https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/245189. -/- Page numbering convention for the pdf version (...) viewed in a pdf viewer is as follows: 'go to page n' accesses the pair of scanned pages 2n and 2n+1. Applicable licence: CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0. (shrink)

Que les récits utopiques et contre-utopiques sont-ils censés nous apprendre que nous ne sachions déjà – que l'état du monde pourrait être meilleur, ou pire, qu'il n'est ? Qu'ont-ils à nous dire de la sanction pénale, comme concept et comme pratique, et que celle-ci nous apprend-elle en retour des limites de l'utopie comme récit et comme discours ? En mettant l'accent sur les références explicites, dans 1984, à la suppression systématique de tout ce qui pourrait ressembler à une règle, et (...) en resituant le roman dans le contexte social et colonial de l'expérience orwellienne de l'injustice pénale, cet article montre que les lectures d'Orwell inspirées de Rorty, Foucault et Deleuze, et centrées sur les notions de pouvoir, de discipline et de contrôle, manquent en partie leur objet. Ni simple « satire », ni « prophétie », ni « expérience de pensée », 1984 exprime la grammaire profonde de notre conception libérale du droit pénal, comme le dirait Wittgenstein. S'il n'est jamais question pour Orwell de dénoncer l'utopie comme intrinsèquement dangereuse, 1984 révèle toutefois qu'il est impossible d'en saisir l'élément de perfection par le droit. En ce sens, la « dernière utopie » des droits humains (S. Moyn) n'en est pas une. --- What are we supposed to learn from utopian/dystopian fiction – beyond the obvious fact that the state of the world could be better, or worse ? What can these fables tell us about criminal penalty as a concept and as practice ? Conversely, what can punishment tell us of the limits of utopia as a tale and as discourse ? By stressing 1984's explicit references to the meticulous elimination of anything vaguely resembling a rule, while putting the novel in the perspective of Orwell's social and colonial experience of penal injustice, this paper shows that interpretations of Orwell inspired by the likes of Rorty, Foucault or Deleuze, which are grounded on power, discipline or control, somehow miss their target. No mere “satire” nor “prophecy”, nor even “thought experiment”, 1984 expresses the deep-seated grammar of our liberal conception of penal law, as Wittgenstein would put it. While Orwell aims in no way to dismiss utopia as intrinsically dangerous, 1984 however shows that the element of perfection it contains cannot be grasped by law. In this respect, the “Last Utopia” of human rights (S. Moyn) is certainly not one. (shrink)

Background: Current practice frequently fails to provide care consistent with the preferences of decisionally-incapacitated patients. It also imposes significant emotional burden on their surrogates. Algorithmic-based patient preference predictors (PPPs) have been proposed as a possible way to address these two concerns. While previous research found that patients strongly support the use of PPPs, the views of surrogates are unknown. The present study thus assessed the views of experienced surrogates regarding the possible use of PPPs as a means to help make (...) treatment decisions for decisionally-incapacitated patients. -/- Methods: This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to determine the views of experienced surrogates [n=26] who were identified from two academic medical centers and two community hospitals. The primary outcomes were respondents’ overall level of support for the idea of using PPPs and the themes related to their views on how a PPP should be used, if at all, in practice. -/- Results: Overall, 21 participants supported the idea of using PPPs. The remaining five indicated that they would not use a PPP because they made decisions based on the patient’s best interests, not based on substituted judgment. Major themes which emerged were that surrogates, not the patient’s preferences, should determine how treatment decisions are made, and concern that PPPs might be used to deny expensive care or be biased against minority groups. -/- Conclusions: Surrogates, like patients, strongly support the idea of using PPPs to help make treatment decisions for decisionally-incapacitated patients. These findings provide support for developing a PPP and assessing it in practice. At the same time, patients and surrogates disagree over whose preferences should determine how treatment decisions are made, including whether to use a PPP. These findings reveal a fundamental disagreement regarding the guiding principles for surrogate decision-making. Future research is needed to assess this disagreement and consider ways to address it. (shrink)

Gözlemlenenlerden gözlemlen(e)meyenlere diğer bir deyişle genel yasalara ulaşma imkânı veren çıkarım yöntemi olarak tümevarımsal ya da endüktif akıl yürütmenin rasyonel olarak temellendirilmesinin imkanına yönelik soruşturma tarih içerisinde tümevarım sorunu ya da endüksiyon problemi olarak tezahür etmiştir. Bu sorunun temel argümanı tarihsel okumalara baktığımızda İskoç ampirist filozof David Hume tarafından öne sürülmüştür. Hume, tümevarımsal çıkarımlar temelinde, gözlenmeyen meseleler hakkındaki inançlarımıza hangi gerekçelerle ulaştığımızı soruşturmaktadır. Hume soruşturmasının sonucunda gözlemlenenden gözlemlen(e)meyen durumlara ilişkin yapılan olgu meseleleri ile ilgili bütün tümevarımsal akıl yürütmelerin dolaylı (...) ya da dolaysız olarak nedensellik ilişkisine ve bu ilişkinin temelinde yer alan doğanın düzenliliği ilkesi ya da “gelecek her zaman geçmişe benzer” önermesine dayandığını ifade ederek bütün tümevarımsal akıl yürütmelerde ortak olan geleceğin her zaman geçmişe benzeyeceği ifadesinin rasyonel olarak temellendirilmesinin mümkün olmadığını belirtmektedir. Bu bağlamda, çalışmada tümevarımsal akıl yürütme sonucunda ulaşılan sonuca inanmanın hiçbir rasyonel temelinin olamayacağı yönündeki Hume’un görüşü argüman formunda yeniden yapılandırılarak ortaya konulacaktır. (shrink)

Tarihte herhalde çok az soru Tanrı’nın varlığı sorusu kadar sık sorulmuş, çok yanıtlanmış ve verilen birbirinden farklı onca yanıta rağmen kesin bir sonuca ulaştırılamayıp tartışılmaya devam etmiştir. Yine de geçmişe dönüp baktığımızda bu soruya verilen farklı yanıtların farklı uygarlıkların inşa edilmesine, bazılarının yıkılmasına, acımasız çatışmalara ve her şeye rağmen kucaklaşmalara da vesile olduğunu görüyoruz. Tanrı var mı? Varsa onu nasıl bilebiliriz? Tanrı yoksa her şey mubah mı? İnsan aklı ilahi olanı kavrayabilir mi? Tanrı’nın varlığı ahlaklı olmanın şartı mı? Evren akıllı (...) bir tasarımcının imzasını taşıyor mu? Bu kitapta felsefeci William David Beck, bu sorulara tarihte verilen yanıtları ve bu konudaki tartışmaları ele alarak meselenin genel ve tarihsel bir tablosunu bize sunuyor. Platon, Aristoteles, Marcus Aurelius gibi Eski Yunan ve Roma düşünürlerinden Anselmus, Thomas Aquinas, Augustinus ve Yahudi-Hıristiyan geleneğine, Doğu’nun bilgelerine, İbni Rüşd, Fârâbî ve Gazzâlî gibi İslam düşünürlerinden Alvin Plantinga, Graham Oppy, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Max Tegmark gibi Batılı modern ilahiyatçılara, bilim insanlarına ve Yeni Ateizm hareketine kadar uzanan bir çizgide “Tanrı var mı?” sorusuna verilen çeşitli yanıtları ve bu yanıtlara sunulan akılcı gerekçeleri ortaya koyarak soruya felsefece bir yanıt vermenin nasıl bir iş olduğunu da gösteriyor. (shrink)

One of the moral questions concerning autonomous vehicles (henceforth AVs) is the choice between types that differ in their built-in algorithms for dealing with rare situations of unavoidable lethal collision. It does not appear to be possible to avoid questions about how these algorithms should be designed. We present the results of our study of moral preferences (N = 2769) with respect to three types of AVs: (1) selfish, which protects the lives of passenger(s) over any number of bystanders; (2) (...) altruistic, which minimizes the number of casualties, even if this leads to death of passenger(s); and (3) conservative, which abstains from interfering in such situations. We differentiate between scenarios in which participants are to make their decisions privately or publicly, and for themselves or for their offspring. We aim to answer two research questions: (1) whether the public visibility of the choice of an AV type choice make this choice more altruistic and (2) which type of situation makes it more difficult to choose altruistically: when choosing for society as a whole, when choosing only for oneself, or when choosing only for one’s offspring. Our results show that respondents exhibit a preference for an altruistic strategy for AVs and that it is reinforced when signaled to others. The altruistic preference is strongest when applies to everybody else, weaker when it reflects a solely personal choice, and weakest when choosing for one’s own child. We conclude that a public choice is considerably more likely to pressure consumers into accepting a more socially beneficial solution. (shrink)

We investigate a recently devised polyhedral semantics for intermediate logics, in which formulas are interpreted in n-dimensional polyhedra. An intermediate logic is polyhedrally complete if it is complete with respect to some class of polyhedra. The first main result of this paper is a necessary and sufficient condition for the polyhedral completeness of a logic. This condition, which we call the Nerve Criterion, is expressed in terms of Alexandrov’s notion of the nerve of a poset. It affords a purely combinatorial (...) characterisation of polyhedrally complete logics. Using the Nerve Criterion we show, easily, that there are continuum many intermediate logics that are not polyhedrally complete but which have the finite model property. We also provide, at considerable combinatorial labour, a countably infinite class of logics axiomatised by the Jankov–Fine formulas of ‘starlike trees’ all of which are polyhedrally complete. The polyhedral completeness theorem for these ‘starlike logics’ is the second main result of this paper. (shrink)

It is not yet clear which response behavior requires self-regulatory effort in the moral dilemma task. Previous research has proposed that utilitarian responses require cognitive control, but subsequent studies have found inconsistencies with the empirical predictions of that hypothesis. In this paper we treat participants’ sensitivity to utilitarian gradients as a measure of performance. We confronted participants (N = 82) with a set of five dilemmas evoking a gradient of mean utilitarian responses in a 4-point scale and collected data on (...) heart rate variability and on utilitarian responses. We found positive correlations between tonic and phasic HRV and sensitivity to the utilitarian gradient in the high tonic group, but not in the low tonic group. Moreover, the low tonic group misplaced a scenario with a selfish incentive at the high end of the gradient. Results suggest that performance is represented by sensitivity correlated with HRV and accompanied with a reasonable placement of individual scenarios within the gradient. (shrink)

This study analyses behavioral psychological facilitators and barriers to using different carsharing business models. It identifies the most preferable carsharing business models for different trip purposes as well as the main motivators for using it. Users of carsharing services (N=1,121) in German cities completed a questionnaire distributed by five operators representing three different business models: freefloating (FF), round-trip station-based (RTSB), and peer-to-peer (P2P). All analyses are performed from a Bayesian perspective and further discussion of the statistical analyses is included. The (...) main results indicate that there are different preferences for carsharing business models depending on the trip purpose, with a trade-off between free-floating and round-trip station-based business models. The peer-to-peer business model stood out for short holiday trips. Age, educational level, and income affected the probability of selecting different carsharing operators. Users of FF and RTSB differ regarding driving habits and trust in the services. (shrink)

David Hume’un Doğal Din Üzerine Diyaloglar kitabı, başlığının da ima ettiği gibi, vahiy metinlerine başvurmadan Tanrı’nın varlığına ve niteliklerine ulaşılıp ulaşılamayacağını araştıran bir metindir. Metin boyunca, felsefe tarihinde de gördüğümüz, iki ana yaklaşımı temsil eden iki temel argüman sunulur. Bunlardan ilki, a priori yaklaşımı temsil eden kozmolojik argümandır. Diğeri ise, a posteriori yaklaşımı temsi eden zeki tasarım argümanıdır. Bu yazıda, Hume’un, diyalogdaki Philo karakteri üzerinden ortaya koyduğu, kozmolojik argümana yönelik eleştirileri ele alınıp, böyle bir argümanın neden Tanrı’nın varlığı ve (...) nitelikleri konusunda bizi bir sonuca ulaştırmayacağı ortaya konmuştur. (shrink)

David Lewis n’a pas développé de philosophie complète de la religion à proprement parler mais il s’est penché précisément sur différents thèmes religieux comme le rapport entre Dieu et le possible, l’argument ontologique ou la théodicée. Bien que dénuées de toute systématicité, les publications de Lewis sur le religieux défendent un athéisme très argumenté. L'article vise à montrer comment son athéisme s'articule à l'existence d'une pluralité de dieux.

“İntihar Üzerine” (Ek 1) ve “Ruhun Ölümsüzlüğü Üzerine” (Ek 2) denemeleri, David Hume’un din bağlamında dogmatik inanışları, uslamlamaları en keskin bir biçimde eleştirdiği yazılarıdır. Görgül felsefesinin temel doğruları ve izlediği kuşkucu yöntem uyarınca ortaya koyduğu sonuçlar, bu denemelerin hem yayınlandıkları dönemde hem de sonrasında pek çok olumsuz eleştiriyle karşılaşmasına yol açmıştır. İnsanın doğasına ilişkin her türlü konuyu soruşturma niyetliliği ile yola çıkan Hume, dogmatik dinin ve uygulamalarının köklendiği inanışları ve uslamlamalarını da aynı niyetle irdelemiştir. Özellikle döneminde yaşanan toplumsal sorunların (...) bu dogmalara duyulan kuşkusuz inançlardan köklendiğini göstermeye çalıştığı bu iki denemenin, yine aynı dogmalara dayanarak eleştirilmesi, basımının engellenmesi ve metinlere müdahale edilmesi ise ironiktir. Bu çalışmada, Hume’un her iki denemedeki savlarının bir çözümlemesi değil, denemelerde ele alınan sorunun ne kadar gerçek olduğu, bu iki denemenin yayınlanma süreci örnek gösterilerek incelenecektir. (shrink)

I discuss the interpretation of the principle of utility as a factual statement, the relevance of Halévy's interetation of Bentham, and then Bentham's relationship with James Mill and David Ricardo.

L’ambition du présent article est de montrer la filiation entre le naturalisme d’Henry David Thoreau et ses positions antiesclavagistes. Je défends que cette filiation se fait voir par la façon dont l’éthique de Thoreau s’appuie sur une certaine conception de la nature et par la manière dont ses vues abolitionnistes découlent de cette éthique. Je fais valoir, plus précisément, que la fuite de Thoreau dans la nature n’est pas seulement, comme le prétend le politologue Malcom Ferdinand, un moyen comme (...) un autre qu’emploierait Thoreau pour protester contre l’esclavagisme. Il faut plutôt voir en l’idée que se fait Thoreau de la nature ce qui nourrit ses positions antiesclavagistes. L’éthique de Thoreau est une éthique de la vertu qui repose sur l’idée que l’être humain est un être de nature. L’accomplissement humain doit être pensé en rapport avec une certaine idée de nature – la nature sauvage – et l’esclavage condamné parce qu’il dénature l’homme. L’abolitionnisme de Thoreau n’est donc pas, comme le défend Ferdinand, la cause du naturalisme de Thoreau. C’est bien plutôt de son naturalisme que découlent ses vues abolitionnistes. (shrink)

In Open Minded: Searching for Truth about the Unconscious Mind, Ben R. Newell & David R. Shanks (henceforth, N&S) challenge the popular claim that much of human judgment and decision-making is explained by unconscious processes...

Je suis très habitué à des livres étranges et des gens spéciaux, mais Hawkins se distingue par son utilisation d’une technique simple pour tester la tension musculaire comme une clé de la «vérité» de tout type de déclaration que ce soit, c’est-à-dire pas seulement à savoir si la personne testée croit, mais si c’est vraiment vrai! Ce que l’on sait bien, c’est que les gens montreront des réponses physiologiques et psychologiques automatiques, inconscientes à peu près tout ce à quoi ils (...) sont exposés : images, sons, toucher, odeurs, idées, personnes. Donc, la lecture musculaire pour découvrir leurs vrais sentiments n’est pas radicale du tout, contrairement à l’utiliser comme un bâton dousing (plus de lecture musculaire) pour faire "science paranormale". Hawkins décrit l’utilisation de la tension décroissante dans les muscles d’un bras en réponse à l’augmentation de la charge cognitive provoquant ainsi le bras à baisser en réponse à la pression constante des doigts de quelqu’un. Il semble ignorer qu’il existe un vaste effort de recherche en psychologie sociale, longtemps établi et vaste, appelé par des expressions telles que la « cognition implicite », l'« automaticité », etc., et que son utilisation de la « kinésiologie » est une petite section. En plus du tonus musculaire (rarement utilisé), les psychologues sociaux mesurent l’EEG, la réponse cutanée galvanique et le plus souvent les réponses verbales aux mots, aux phrases, aux images ou à des situations qui varient parfois de quelques secondes à des mois après le stimulus. Beaucoup, tels que Bargh et Wegner, prennent les résultats pour signifier que nous sommes des automates qui apprennent et agissent en grande partie sans sensibilisation via S1 (système automatisé 1) et beaucoup d’autres tels que Kihlstrom et Shanks disent que ces études sont imparfaites et nous sommes des créatures de S2 (système délibératif 2). Bien que Hawkins ne semble pas avoir d’idée, comme dans d’autres domaines de la psychologie descriptive de la pensée de l’ordre supérieur, la situation concernant «l’automaticité» est toujours aussi chaotique qu’elle l’était quand Wittgenstein décrit les raisons de la stérilité et la stérilité de la psychologie dans les années 30. Néanmoins, ce livre est une lecture facile et certains thérapeutes et les enseignants spirituels peuvent le trouver utile. Ceux qui souhaitent un cadre complet à jour pour le comportement humain de la vue moderne de deux systeme peuvent consulter mon livre 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' 2nd ed (2019). Ceux qui s’intéressent à plus de mes écrits peuvent voir «Talking Monkeys --Philosophie, Psychologie, Science, Religion et Politique sur une planète condamnée --Articles et revues 2006-2019 3e ed (2019) et Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) et autres. (shrink)