A critique of Strawson's distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics.

The early modern period (roughly, 1600–1800 ce) in Europe brought tremendous changes in intellectual, political, and cultural life. It was a period in which philosophical debates were inevitably bound up with questions about the nature and sources of religious truth. A chronological examination of some of the period’s major thinkers highlights two issues that were central to the development of philosophy of religion in the period. The first concerns the relations between God, the soul, and the body; the other concerns (...) the relationship between human reason and divine revelation. (shrink)

This chapter proposed a novel design methodology called Value-Sensitive Design and its potential application to the field of artificial intelligence research and design. It discusses the imperatives in adopting a design philosophy that embeds values into the design of artificial agents at the early stages of AI development. Because of the high risk stakes in the unmitigated design of artificial agents, this chapter proposes that even though VSD may turn out to be a less-than-optimal design methodology, it currently provides a (...) framework that has the potential to embed stakeholder values and incorporate current design methods. The reader should begin to take away the importance of a proactive design approach to intelligent agents. (shrink)

Introduction to a volume on Hegel, asking why his thought continues to be relevant today.

In this paper, I consider the relationship between Inference to the Best Explanation and Bayesianism, both of which are well-known accounts of the nature of scientific inference. In Sect. 2, I give a brief overview of Bayesianism and IBE. In Sect. 3, I argue that IBE in its most prominently defended forms is difficult to reconcile with Bayesianism because not all of the items that feature on popular lists of “explanatory virtues”—by means of which IBE ranks competing explanations—have confirmational import. (...) Rather, some of the items that feature on these lists are “informational virtues”—properties that do not make a hypothesis \ more probable than some competitor \ given evidence E, but that, roughly-speaking, give that hypothesis greater informative content. In Sect. 4, I consider as a response to my argument a recent version of compatibilism which argues that IBE can provide further normative constraints on the objectively correct probability function. I argue that this response does not succeed, owing to the difficulty of defending with any generality such further normative constraints. Lastly, in Sect. 5, I propose that IBE should be regarded, not as a theory of scientific inference, but rather as a theory of when we ought to “accept” H, where the acceptability of H is fixed by the goals of science and concerns whether H is worthy of commitment as research program. In this way, IBE and Bayesianism, as I will show, can be made compatible, and thus the Bayesian and the proponent of IBE can be friends. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an analysis of the radical disagreement over the adequacy of string theory. The prominence of string theory despite its notorious lack of empirical support is sometimes explained as a troubling case of science gone awry, driven largely by sociological mechanisms such as groupthink (e.g. Smolin 2006). Others, such as Dawid (2013), explain the controversy by positing a methodological revolution of sorts, according to which string theorists have quietly turned to nonempirical methods of theory assessment given (...) the technological inability to directly test the theory. The appropriate response, according to Dawid, is to acknowledge this development and widen the canons of acceptable scientific methods. As I’ll argue, however, the current situation in fundamental physics does not require either of these responses. Rather, as I’ll suggest, much of the controversy stems from a failure to properly distinguish the “context of justification” from the “context of pursuit”. Both those who accuse string theorists of betraying the scientific method and those who advocate an enlarged conception of scientific methodology objectionably conflate epistemic justification with judgements of pursuit-worthiness. Once we get clear about this distinction and about the different norms governing the two contexts, the current situation in fundamental physics becomes much less puzzling. After defending this diagnosis of the controversy, I’ll show how the argument patterns that have been posited by Dawid as constituting an emergent methodological revolution in science are better off if reworked as arguments belonging to the context of pursuit. (shrink)

Some properties are causally relevant for a certain effect, others are not. In this paper we describe a problem for our understanding of this notion and then offer a solution in terms of the notion of a program explanation.

We develop a Bayesian framework for thinking about the way evidence about the here and now can bear on hypotheses about the qualitative character of the world as a whole, including hypotheses according to which the total population of the world is infinite. We show how this framework makes sense of the practice cosmologists have recently adopted in their reasoning about such hypotheses.

These essays draw on work in the history and philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and language, the development of concepts in children, conceptual..

In this paper the system IL for relative interpretability is studied.

In this article, I consider an important challenge to the popular theory of scientific inference commonly known as ‘inference to the best explanation’, one that has received scant attention.1 1 The problem is that there exists a wide array of rival models of explanation, thus leaving IBE objectionably indeterminate. First, I briefly introduce IBE. Then, I motivate the problem and offer three potential solutions, the most plausible of which is to adopt a kind of pluralism about the rival models of (...) explanation. However, I argue that how ranking explanations on this pluralistic account of IBE remains obscure and pluralism leads to contradictory results. In light of these objections, I attempt to dissolve the problem by showing why IBE does not require a ‘model’ of explanation and by giving an account of what explanation consists in within the context of IBE. (shrink)

Definition of the problem The umbrella term “explicability” refers to the reduction of opacity of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. These efforts are challenging for medical AI applications because higher accuracy often comes at the cost of increased opacity. This entails ethical tensions because physicians and patients desire to trace how results are produced without compromising the performance of AI systems. The centrality of explicability within the informed consent process for medical AI systems compels an ethical reflection on the trade-offs. Which (...) levels of explicability are needed to obtain informed consent when utilizing medical AI? Arguments We proceed in five steps: First, we map the terms commonly associated with explicability as described in the ethics and computer science literature, i.e., disclosure, intelligibility, interpretability, and explainability. Second, we conduct a conceptual analysis of the ethical requirements for explicability when it comes to informed consent. Third, we distinguish hurdles for explicability in terms of epistemic and explanatory opacity. Fourth, this then allows to conclude the level of explicability physicians must reach and what patients can expect. In a final step, we show how the identified levels of explicability can technically be met from the perspective of computer science. Throughout our work, we take diagnostic AI systems in radiology as an example. Conclusion We determined four levels of explicability that need to be distinguished for ethically defensible informed consent processes and showed how developers of medical AI can technically meet these requirements. (shrink)

In this article, I will provide a critical overview of the form of non-deductive reasoning commonly known as “Inference to the Best Explanation” (IBE). Roughly speaking, according to IBE, we ought to infer the hypothesis that provides the best explanation of our evidence. In section 2, I survey some contemporary formulations of IBE and highlight some of its putative applications. In section 3, I distinguish IBE from C.S. Peirce’s notion of abduction. After underlining some of the essential elements of IBE, (...) the rest of the entry is organized around an examination of various problems that IBE confronts, along with some extant attempts to address these problems. In section 4, I consider the question of when a fact requires an explanation, since presumably IBE applies only in cases where some explanation is called for. In section 5, I consider the difficult question of how we ought to understand IBE in light of the fact that among philosophers, there is significant disagreement about what constitutes an explanation. In section 6, I consider different strategies for justifying the truth-conduciveness of the explanatory virtues, e.g., simplicity, unification, scope, etc., criteria which play an indispensable role in any given application of IBE. In section 7, I survey some of the most recent literature on IBE, much of which consists of investigations of the status of IBE from the standpoint of the Bayesian philosophy of science. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically evaluate several related, provocative claims made by proponents of data-intensive science and “Big Data” which bear on scientific methodology, especially the claim that scientists will soon no longer have any use for familiar concepts like causation and explanation. After introducing the issue, in Section 2, I elaborate on the alleged changes to scientific method that feature prominently in discussions of Big Data. In Section 3, I argue that these methodological claims are in tension with a (...) prominent account of scientific method, often called “Inference to the Best Explanation”. Later on, in Section 3, I consider an argument against IBE that will be congenial to proponents of Big Data, namely, the argument due to Roche and Sober Analysis, 73:659–668, that “explanatoriness is evidentially irrelevant.” This argument is based on Bayesianism, one of the most prominent general accounts of theory-confirmation. In Section 4, I consider some extant responses to this argument, especially that of Climenhaga Philosophy of Science, 84:359–368,. In Section 5, I argue that Roche and Sober’s argument does not show that explanatory reasoning is dispensable. In Section 6, I argue that there is good reason to think explanatory reasoning will continue to prove indispensable in scientific practice. Drawing on Cicero’s oft-neglected De Divinatione, I formulate what I call the “Ciceronian Causal-nomological Requirement”, which states, roughly, that causal-nomological knowledge is essential for relying on correlations in predictive inference. I defend a version of the CCR by appealing to the challenge of “spurious correlations,” chance correlations which we should not rely upon for predictive inference. In Section 7, I offer some concluding remarks. (shrink)

The Preface Paradox is often discussed for its implications for rational belief. Much less discussed is a variant of the Preface Paradox for knowledge. In this paper, I argue that the most plausible closure-friendly resolution to the Preface Paradox for Knowledge is to say that in any given context, we do not know much. I call this view “Socraticism”. I argue that Socraticism is the most plausible view on two accounts—(1) this view is compatible with the claim that most of (...) our knowledge ascriptions are true, and (2) provided that (1) is true, the costs of accepting Socraticism are much less than the costs of accepting any other resolution to the Paradox. I argue for (1) in Section 2 by developing a question-sensitive contextualist model for knowledge that shows how Socraticism is compatible with the claim that most of our knowledge ascriptions are true. I also argue how this contextualist model can achieve this result where other contextualist models fail. I then consider other closure-friendly solutions to the paradox in Section 3 and show how accepting those solutions forces us to give up a number of plausible epistemic principles. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Cicero’s oft-neglected De Divinatione, a dialogue investigating the legitimacy of the practice of divination. First, I offer a novel analysis of the main arguments for divination given by Quintus, highlighting the fact that he employs two logically distinct argument forms. Next, I turn to the first of the main arguments against divination given by Marcus. Here I show, with the help of modern probabilistic tools, that Marcus’ skeptical response is far from the decisive, proto-naturalistic assault (...) on superstition that it is sometimes portrayed to be. Then, I offer an extended analysis of the second of the main arguments against divination given by Marcus. Inspired by Marcus’ second main argument, I formulate, explicate, and defend a substantive principle of scientific methodology that I call the “Ciceronian Causal-Nomological Requirement” (CCR). Roughly, this principle states that causal knowledge is essential for relying on correlations in predictive inference. Although I go on to argue that Marcus’ application of the CCR in his debate with Quintus is dialectically inadequate, I conclude that De Divinatione deserves its place in Cicero’s philosophical corpus, and that ultimately, its significance for the history and philosophy of science ought to be recognized. (shrink)

What would it take to design a real place online where real learning would happen?

In this paper, I describe some strategies for teaching an introductory philosophy of science course to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students, with reference to my own experience teaching a philosophy of science course in the Fall of 2020. The most important strategy that I advocate is what I call the “Second Philosophy” approach, according to which instructors ought to emphasize that the problems that concern philosophers of science are not manufactured and imposed by philosophers from the outside, but (...) rather are ones that arise internally, during the practice of science itself. To justify this approach, I appeal to considerations from both educational research and the epistemology of testimony. In addition, I defend some distinctive learning goals that philosophy of science instructors ought to adopt when teaching STEM students, which include rectifying empirically well-documented shortcomings in students’ conceptions of the “scientific method” and the “nature of science.” Although my primary focus will be on teaching philosophy of science to STEM students, much of what I propose can be applied to non-philosophy majors generally. Ultimately, as I argue, a successful philosophy of science course for non-philosophy majors must be one that advances a student’s science education. The strategies that I describe and defend here are aimed at precisely that end. (shrink)

Intuitions about intentional action have turned out to be sensitive to normative factors: most people say that an indifferent agent brings about an effect of her action intentionally when it is harmful, but unintentionally when it is beneficial. Joshua Knobe explains this asymmetry, which is known as ‘the Knobe effect’, in terms of the moral valence of the effect, arguing that this explanation generalizes to other asymmetries concerning notions as diverse as deciding and being free. I present an alternative explanation (...) of the Knobe effect in terms of normative reasons. This explanation generalizes to other folk psychological notions such as deciding, but not to such notions as being free. I go on to argue, against Knobe, that offering a unified explanation of all the asymmetries he discusses is in fact undesirable. (shrink)

How Heidegger criticizes and "locates" science, and some problems with what he is trying to do.

Many morally significant outcomes can be brought about only if several individuals contribute to them. However, individual contributions to collective outcomes often fail to have morally significant effects on their own. Some have concluded from this that it is permissible to do nothing. What I call ‘the problem of insignificant hands’ is the challenge of determining whether and when people are obligated to contribute. For this to be the case, I argue, the prospect of helping to bring about the outcome (...) has to be good enough. Furthermore, the individual must be in a position to increase the probability of its being brought about to an appropriate extent. Finally, I argue that when too few are willing to contribute, people may have a duty to increase their number. Thus, someone can be obligated to contribute or to get others to contribute. This prospect account is consistent with Kantianism, contractualism and rule consequentialism but inconsistent with act consequentialism. (shrink)

Kolb discusses postmodern architectural styles and theories within the context of philosophical ideas about modernism and postmodernism. He focuses on what it means to dwell in a world and within a history and to act from or against a tradition.

Institutions can be strong or weak. But what does this mean? Equilibrium theories equate institutions with behavioural regularities. In contrast, rule theories explicate them in terms of a standard that people are supposed to meet. I propose that, when an institution is weak, a discrepancy exists between the regularity and the standard or rule. To capture this discrepancy, I present a hybrid theory, the Rules-and-Equilibria Theory. According to this theory, institutions are rule-governed behavioural regularities. The Rules-and-Equilibria Theory provides the basis (...) for two measures of institutional strength. First, institutions that pertain to coordination games solve problems of information. Their strength is primarily a matter of the expected degree of compliance. Second, institutions that concern mixed-motive games solve problems of motivation. Their strength can be measured in terms of the weight people attribute to its rule. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the ways in which epistemic anxiety promotes well-being, specifically by examining the positive contributions that feelings of epistemic anxiety make toward intellectually virtuous inquiry. While the prospects for connecting the concept of epistemic anxiety to the two most prominent accounts of intellectual virtue, i.e., “virtue-reliabilism” and “virtue-responsibilism”, are promising, I primarily focus on whether the capacity for epistemic anxiety counts as an intellectual virtue in the reliabilist sense. As I argue, there is a close yet (...) unexplored connection between feelings of epistemic anxiety and the form of inference commonly known as “Inference to the Best Explanation” (IBE). Specifically, I argue that both the recognition that some fact requires an explanation—a necessary first step in applying IBE—and the subsequent motivation to employ IBE are typically facilitated by feelings of epistemic anxiety. So, provided IBE is truth-conducive the capacity for epistemic anxiety should count as an intellectual virtue in the reliabilist sense. After outlining my main argument, I address the challenge that the capacity for epistemic anxiety has the potential to be misleading. To respond to this challenge, I discuss how our recognition that a fact requires an explanation must in part be a species of practical knowledge, rather than theoretical knowledge. For the agent to skillfully distinguish between facts that require an explanation and facts that do not, she must develop the virtuous disposition to feel the appropriate amount of epistemic anxiety. Despite the many negative aspects associated with anxiety, as I conclude, being disposed to feel the appropriate amount of epistemic anxiety is ultimately good for us. (shrink)

want to question this idea of a pure presuppositionless self-developing sequence of logical categories. This is part of a larger investigation of the inherence of Hegel's thought in historical language. Concerning the necessary self-development of thought, I have three objections to propose. The first concerns the difficulty of recognizing a uniquely correct sequence of categories, when the various versions all express positive insights. The second concerns the very idea of a unified sequence. The third concerns the goal of pure self-development.

Argues that Sellars' theories can be seen as an elaborate argument for scientific realism as an almost-transcendental condition for the meaningfulness of language.

A discussion of whether Habermas as a representative modernist and Lyotard as a representative postmodern echo the ancient dispute between Plato and the Sophists. My conclusion is that they do not quite do so. Each is more complex and ancient dichotomy should be revised.

Plato is mistaken on both sides of his distinction between Socrates and the Sophists. He imagines the Sophists to have a formless power that cannot be resisted. This exaltation of the power of persuasion needs to be seen as motivating excessive fears in various modern debates. Pragmatic approaches can lessen our fear.

"The first of the particular arts . . . is architecture." (A 13.116/1.83)1 For Hegel, architecture stands at several beginnings. It is the art closest to raw nature. It is the beginning art in a progressive spiritualization that will culminate in poetry and music. The drive for art is spirit's drive to become fully itself by encountering itself; art makes spirit's essential reality present as an outer sensible work of its own powers.2 (A 13.453/1.351) If Hegel's narrative of the arts (...) creates a hierarchy, architecture stands lowest, yet it nonetheless plays a unique and necessary role in spirit's development. In this essay I first describe Hegel's views on the nature of architecture and its three stages (symbolic, classical, romantic). Then I indicate some problems with Hegel's narrative. Finally I raise the question whether Hegel's theories might be adapted to our present architectural situation. (shrink)

A study timeshowing that the relation of time and timeless in greek philosophers was more nuanced and complex than is commonly thought.

In the popular press and the halls of politics, controversies over evolution are increasingly strident these days. Hegel is relevant in this connection, even though he rejected the theories of evolution he knew about, because he wanted rational understanding but without claims to intelligent design. He is reported to have said that nature has no history, but a closer examination will show that his ideaqs are more nuanced and that there is more room for darwinian ideas than one might expect, (...) though not enough to allow the full Darwinian contingency of form. (shrink)

Hegel, Heidegger, Postmodernity reconsidered after 20 years.

Juhani Yli-Vakkuri and John Hawthorne have recently presented a thought experiment—Mirror Man—designed to refute internalist theories of belief and content. We distinguish five ways in which the case can be interpreted and argue that on none does it refute internalism.

Scholarly hypertexts involve argument and explicit selfquestioning, and can be distinguished from both informational and literary hypertexts. After making these distinctions the essay presents general principles about attention, some suggestions for self-representational multi-level structures that would enhance scholarly inquiry, and a wish list of software capabilities to support such structures. The essay concludes with a discussion of possible conflicts between scholarly inquiry and hypertext.

A discussion of "postmodern" architecture in the sense in which the term was used in the late 1980s, namely, the introduction of historical substantive content and reference into architecture, disrupting the supposedly ahistorical purity of modernist architecture. Argues that postmodern use of history is really another version of the modern distance from history.

In the introduction to his Philosophy of Nature, Hegel speaks of metaphysics as “the entire range of the universal determinations of thought, as it were the diamond net into which everything is brought and thereby first made intelligible. Every educated consciousness has its metaphysics, an instinctive way of thinking”. Both Wittgenstein and Hegel see our many languages and forms of life as constituted by different diamond nets of categories/grammars. I argue that both Wittgenstein and Hegel take a non-reductive attitude toward (...) this plurality of local ontologies, but that they disagree about what that plurality implies for history and philosophy. Their disagreements come in part from their differing choice of examples, influenced by atomism and holism. Even more, their disagreements stem from divergent notions about the structure and mode of being of those diamond nets. During the discussion, I distinguish three uses of the word “ontology”, and I ask each thinker about what might improve the other’s philosophical project. (shrink)

Discussions of place and whom need to take more account of the multiplicity of centers in the modern city/suburban environment.

A discussion of the problem of creating unified places in a pluralistic multicultural society.

A discussion of how diggers stance with regard to contemporary analytic and Continental philosophy, with special emphasis on Heidegger's later works. The essay argues that Heidegger has now become attacks that people can interpret in many ways, and so is entered into dialogues which go against his own self-image of what he was about.

A discussion of the logical role of particular concepts in Robert Pippin's reading Hegel as a theorist of modernity, with special reference to the question whether modernity can be surpassed or left behind.

Studying Plato's "unwritten doctrines" in the light of his discussion of limit and unlimited in his dialogue Philebus. The essay raises also the question whether there is too much "atomism" in the usual presentation of Plato's Forms as individual absolute entities, rather than as themselves derived from a more fundamental limit/unlimited ontology.

When I was first studying Hegel I encountered quite divergent readings of his views on religion. The teacher who first presented Hegel to me was a Jesuit, Quentin Lauer at Fordham University, who read Hegel as a Christian theologian providing a better metaphysical system for understanding the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation. When I studied at Yale, Kenley Dove read Hegel as the first thoroughly atheistic philosopher, who presented the conditions of thought without reference to any foundational absolute being. (...) Meanwhile, also at Yale, John Findlay read us a deeply Neo-Platonic Hegel who taught about absolute forms held in a cosmic mind. In giving my own reading I want to talk about the ways Hegel redefines both metaphysics and religion. I would like to approach these issues by way of the medieval controversy over double truth, which was a previous conflict between religion and science. (shrink)

What can it mean to criticize when you are inside the work itself? In a immersive electronic or digital environment critic is not distanced on a platform based on firm principles. Yet criticism self-awareness and commentary remain possible. This essay examines various techniques for dealing with immersive environments critically.

The relation between nature and spirit in Hegel is not as simple as slogans such as "nature has no history" or a simple interior/exterior dichotonmy would suggest.

Biomarker-based predictive tests for subjectively asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are utilized in research today. Novel applications of artificial intelligence (AI) promise to predict the onset of AD several years in advance without determining biomarker thresholds. Until now, little attention has been paid to the new ethical challenges that AI brings to the early diagnosis in asymptomatic individuals, beyond contributing to research purposes, when we still lack adequate treatment. The aim of this paper is to explore the ethical arguments put forward (...) for AI aided AD prediction in subjectively asymptomatic individuals and their ethical implications. The ethical assessment is based on a systematic literature search. Thematic analysis was conducted inductively of 18 included publications. The ethical framework includes the principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. Reasons for offering predictive tests to asymptomatic individuals are the right to know, a positive balance of the risk-benefit assessment, and the opportunity for future planning. Reasons against are the lack of disease modifying treatment, the accuracy and explicability of AI aided prediction, the right not to know, and threats to social rights. We conclude that there are serious ethical concerns in offering early diagnosis to asymptomatic individuals and the issues raised by the application of AI add to the already known issues. Nevertheless, pre-symptomatic testing should only be offered on request to avoid inflicted harm. We recommend developing training for physicians in communicating AI aided prediction. (shrink)