The American justice system, from police departments to the courts, is increasingly turning to information technology for help identifying potential offenders, determining where, geographically, to allocate enforcement resources, assessing flight risk and the potential for recidivism amongst arrestees, and making other judgments about when, where, and how to manage crime. In particular, there is a focus on machine learning and other data analytics tools, which promise to accurately predict where crime will occur and who will perpetrate it. Activists and academics (...) have begun to raise critical questions about the use of these tools in policing contexts. In this chapter, I review the emerging critical literature on predictive policing and contribute to it by raising ethical questions about the use of predictive analytics tools to identify potential offenders. Drawing from work on the ethics of profiling, I argue that the much-lauded move from reactive to preemptive policing can mean wrongfully generalizing about individuals, making harmful assumptions about them, instrumentalizing them, and failing to respect them as full ethical persons. I suggest that these problems stem both from the nature of predictive policing tools and from the sociotechnical contexts in which they are implemented... (shrink)

"Understanding Scientific Progress constitutes a potentially enormous and revolutionary advancement in philosophy of science. It deserves to be read and studied by everyone with any interest in or connection with physics or the theory of science. Maxwell cites the work of Hume, Kant, J.S. Mill, Ludwig Bolzmann, Pierre Duhem, Einstein, Henri Poincaré, C.S. Peirce, Whitehead, Russell, Carnap, A.J. Ayer, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Nelson Goodman, Bas van Fraassen, and numerous others. He lauds Popper for advancing beyond (...) verificationism and Hume’s problem of induction, but faults both Kuhn and Popper for being unable to show that and how their work could lead nearer to the truth." —Dr. LLOYD EBY teaches philosophy at The George Washington University and The Catholic University of America, in Washington, DC "Maxwell's aim-oriented empiricism is in my opinion a very significant contribution to the philosophy of science. I hope that it will be widely discussed and debated." – ALAN SOKAL, Professor of Physics, New York University "Maxwell takes up the philosophical challenge of how natural science makes progress and provides a superb treatment of the problem in terms of the contrast between traditional conceptions and his own scientifically-informed theory—aim-oriented empiricism. This clear and rigorously-argued work deserves the attention of scientists and philosophers alike, especially those who believe that it is the accumulation of knowledge and technology that answers the question."—LEEMON McHENRY, California State University, Northridge "Maxwell has distilled the finest essence of the scientific enterprise. Science is about making the world a better place. Sometimes science loses its way. The future depends on scientists doing the right things for the right reasons. Maxwell's Aim-Oriented Empiricism is a map to put science back on the right track."—TIMOTHY McGETTIGAN, Professor of Sociology, Colorado State University - Pueblo "Maxwell has a great deal to offer with these important ideas, and deserves to be much more widely recognised than he is. Readers with a background in philosophy of science will appreciate the rigour and thoroughness of his argument, while more general readers will find his aim-oriented rationality a promising way forward in terms of a future sustainable and wise social order."—David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer, 2017/2 "This is a book about the very core problems of the philosophy of science. The idea of replacing Standard Empiricism with Aim-Oriented Empiricism is understood by Maxwell as the key to the solution of these central problems. Maxwell handles his main tool masterfully, producing a fascinating and important reading to his colleagues in the field. However, Nicholas Maxwell is much more than just a philosopher of science. In the closing part of the book he lets the reader know about his deep concern and possible solutions of the biggest problems humanity is facing."—Professor PEETER MŰŰREPP, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia “For many years, Maxwell has been arguing that fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, especially the problem of induction, cannot be solved granted standard empiricism (SE), a doctrine which, he thinks, most scientists and philosophers of science take for granted. A key tenet of SE is that no permanent thesis about the world can be accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independent of evidence. For a number of reasons, Maxwell argues, we need to adopt a rather different conception of science which he calls aim-oriented empiricism (AOE). This holds that we need to construe physics as accepting, as a part of theoretical scientific knowledge, a hierarchy of metaphysical theses about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, which become increasingly insubstantial as we go up the hierarchy. In his book “Understanding Scientific Progress: Aim-Oriented Empiricism”, Maxwell gives a concise and excellent illustration of this view and the arguments supporting it… Maxwell’s book is a potentially important contribution to our understanding of scientific progress and philosophy of science more generally. Maybe it is the time for scientists and philosophers to acknowledge that science has to make metaphysical assumptions concerning the knowability and comprehensibility of the universe. Fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, which cannot be solved granted SE, may be solved granted AOE.” Professor SHAN GAO, Shanxi University, China . (shrink)

The Health Level 7 Reference Information Model (HL7 RIM) is lauded by its authors as ‘the foundation of healthcare interoperability’. Yet even after some 10 years of development work, the RIM is still subject to a variety of logical and ontological flaws which have placed severe obstacles in the way of those who are called upon to develop implementations. We offer evidence that these obstacles are insurmountable and that the time has come to abandon an unworkable paradigm.

Academic excellence and intelligence are commonly lauded as commendable attributes synonymous with success. However, a disconcerting trend has surfaced within educational institutions, challenging the prevailing narrative of scholastic accomplishment—smart shaming. This research delves into the increasing concern of smart shaming within educational settings, particularly at Immaculate Conception College of Balayan, Inc., questioning the predominant emphasis on academic excellence and intelligence. A qualitative case study design, along with judgmental sampling, was employed to examine fifteen (15) student leaders who had experienced smart (...) shaming on campus. Thematic analysis revealed that sarcastic remarks including "edi wow," "Okay ikaw na matalino," "bidabida," and "sipsip" were a prevalent manifestation of smart shaming, adversely affecting emotional well-being, academic and leadership prowess, mental health, and self-perception. Coping mechanisms, predominantly centered around ignoring and focusing on goals, were identified. The findings underscore the imperative for educators to remain vigilant regarding instances of smart shaming in classrooms, promoting open communication to ensure student well-being. Additionally, guidance counselors play a pivotal role in aiding students in effectively navigating the repercussions of smart shaming. This study advocates for proactive programs and interventions to address and alleviate the deleterious effects of smart shaming on students. (shrink)

Caregiving robots are often lauded for their potential to assist with geriatric care. While seniors can be wise and mature, possessing valuable life experience, they can also present a variety of ethical challenges, from prevalence of racism and sexism, to troubled relationships, histories of abusive behavior, and aggression, mood swings and impulsive behavior associated with cognitive decline. I draw on Confucian ethics, especially the concept of filial piety, to address these issues. Confucian scholars have developed a rich set of theoretical (...) resources for dealing with beloved but imperfect elders, and navigating the challenges of supporting seniors whose ethical commitments are unreliable. These resources provide a way to reconcile two important but conflicting desiderata: to value and care for seniors, but also to clear-mindedly deal with their moral shortcomings. In particular, they articulate a duty to remonstrate with our elders when they err. Confucian filial piety can helpfully inform robot design and use in geriatric care. They can be used to strengthen and protect emotional connections in important relationships, but should not be used to reinforce patient preferences when doing so damages relationships or their ability to act morally. Rather than conceive of patient wellbeing as in tension with moral behavior, and care as a burden for caregivers, not a source of value and meaning, Confucian accounts of filial piety help identify both new areas of concern and new potential in the development of caregiving technologies, ones which see these goods as complementary. (shrink)

First, the thorny problem of locating the Midwest is treated. Second, the ancient Stoics’ understanding of nature is proposed as a fertile field of ecological wisdom. The significance of nature in Stoicism is explained. Stoic philosophers (big-S Stoics) are distinguished from stoical non-philosophers (small-s stoics). Nature’s lessons for living a good Stoic life are drawn. Are such lessons too theoretical to provide practical guidance? This worry is addressed by examining the examples of Cincinnatus and Cato the Elder—ancient Romans lauded for (...) their virtues who worked the land. They exhibited the virtues of civic responsibility, justice, self-sufficiency, parsimony, perseverance, equanimity, modesty, and respect for limits—an agrarian virtue dear to Wendell Berry. Agrarianism views rural society as superior to urban society and the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker. Reflection on the virtues of stoical Roman agrarians suggests that features of Roman Stoic agrarianism resonate with a contemporary instantiation of Stoicism in the Midwest. The main thesis is that Midwest Stoic agrarianism (MSA), guided by an array of earthy virtues, promotes agricultural practices that harmonize with nature and support living in agreement with nature, while rejecting agricultural practices contrary to nature and propelled by vice. MSA endorses, e.g., locally sourced, sustainably grown crops instead of CAFOs. MSA tackles the ecological and sociopolitical pressures confronting Midwest farmers in the Anthropocene and can fortify environmental virtue ethics beyond this region. (shrink)

Aron’s writings are lauded for their contributions to liberal political theory, international relations, and sociology. I argue that his early thought also offers phenomenological considerations for a relativist view of historical meaning, whose important role in the text’s argument has been suppressed by received interpretations. Drawing a direct link between introspective, intersubjective, and historical understanding, Aron argues that the “objectification” of intentions necessarily transforms their meaning. This impedes an objective account of historical subjects’ lived experience. Some of the Introduction’s appraisals (...) of historical understanding rely on Aron’s phenomenological observations, and indicate that the intentionality of historical understanding circumscribes claims to historical objectivity. These results highlight the broader implications of largely overlooked phenomenological commitments in Aron’s thought, offer a fresh interpretation of the Introduction, and suggest that the standard account of Aron’s relation to the phenomenological movement should be reconsidered. (shrink)

In this paper I trace the manner in which Herder’s philosophy of language grounds his approach to hermeneutical issues regarding history, interpretation, and translation. Herder’s approach to the question of language has been repeatedly lauded for its important influence on the later work done by Schleiermacher, Dilthey, and Gadamer, but in this discussion I am going to put him more directly in conversation with Wilhelm von Humboldt. Although recent critics have derided Humboldt’s theory as both derivative and wrong, I will (...) argue that we should instead recognize that Humboldt’s philosophy of language represents a significant development of Herder’s thesis. This development is accomplished by way of Humboldt’s application of Kant’s mature theory of reason to a program for comparative linguistics. In Humboldt’s hands, this amounts to a new strain of philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

Perhaps the most familiar understanding of “naturalism” derives from Quine, understanding it as a continuity of empirical theories of the world as described through the scientific method. So, it might be surprising that one of the most important naturalistic moral realists, Philippa Foot, rejects standard evolutionary biology in her justly lauded _Natural Goodness_. One of her main reasons for this is the true claim that humans can flourish (eudaimonia) without reproducing, which she claims cannot be squared with evolutionary theory and (...) biology more generally. The present argument concludes that Foot was wrong to reject evolutionary theory as the empirical foundation of naturalized eudaimonist moral realism. This is based on contemporary discussion of _biological function_ and _evolutionary fitness_, from which a definition of “eudaimonia” is constructed. This gives eudaimonist moral realism an empirically respectable foundation. (shrink)

The American philosopher John Dewey is probably best known for his contributions to educational philosophy, though his writings on logic, metaphysics, epistemology and value theory are for the most part equally impressive. Before and after his death in 1952, he was lauded as “America’s philosopher” and a “public intellectual for the twentieth century.” During the early 1920s, to call Dewey an internationalist would be to state the obvious. He had travelled to Japan, Russia, Mexico, Turkey and China. Of all these (...) places, he stayed in China the longest—two years and two months (May 1919 to July 1921)—and wrote the most about his experiences there. Unfortunately, too much of the extent literature speaks to how Dewey influenced China. In this brief paper the author focuses on the question of how China changed Dewey. Before attempting this project it helps to explicate how Dewey conceived experience—to paint a picture of his so-called “metaphysics of experience”—in order to then appreciate how he conceived his own China experience. (shrink)

The nature and consequences of readers’ affective engagement with literature has, in recent years, captured the attention of experimental psychologists and philosophers alike. Psychological studies have focused principally on the causal mechanisms explaining our affective interactions with fictions, prescinding from questions concerning their rational justifiability. Transportation Theory, for instance, has sought to map out the mechanisms the reader tracks the narrative experientially, mirroring its descriptions through first-personal perceptual imaginings, affective and motor responses and even evaluative beliefs. Analytical philosophers, by contrast, (...) have largely focussed on the problems fiction poses for traditional theories of rationality (as in the ‘Paradox of Fiction), challenging fiction’s wider epistemic value. The result has been a theoretical impasse in which the power of fiction to affectively ‘transport’ a reader is at once often lauded (by psychologists) as a privileged route to interpersonal understanding, and condemned (by philosophers) as an abdication of the authority of reason. This chapter surveys some of the central claims on both sides, tracing the source of the debate to competing conceptions of rationality. (shrink)

Communities of nuclear workers have evolved in distinctive contexts. During the Manhattan Project the UK, USA and Canada collectively developed the first reactors, isotope separation plants and atomic bombs and, in the process, nurtured distinct cadres of specialist workers. Their later workplaces were often inherited from wartime facilities, or built anew at isolated locations. For a decade, nuclear specialists were segregated and cossetted to gestate practical expertise. At Oak Ridge Tennessee, for example, the informal ‘Clinch College of Nuclear Knowledge’ aimed (...) to industrialise the use of radioactive materials. ‘We were like children in a toy factory’, said its Director: ‘everyone could play the game of designing new nuclear power piles’. His counterpart at Chalk River, Ontario headed a project ‘completely Canadian in every respect’, while the head of the British project chose the remote Dounreay site in northern Scotland because of design uncertainties in the experimental breeder reactor. With the decline of secrecy during the mid-1950s, the hidden specialists lauded as ‘atomic scientists’ gradually became visible as new breeds of engineers, technologists and technicians responsible for nuclear reactors and power plants. Mutated by their different political contexts, occupational categories, labour affiliations, professional representations and popular depictions, their activities were disputed by distinct audiences. This chapter examines the changing identities of nuclear specialists and the significance of their secure sites. Shaped successively by Cold War secrecy, commercial competition and terrorist threats, nuclear energy remained out of site for wider publics and most nuclear specialists alike. The distinctive episodes reveal the changing working experiences of technical workers in late-twentieth and early twenty-first century environments. (shrink)

"The Mind is not a Vessel to be Filled but a Fire to be Kindled", and "Education is Not the Filling of Pail But the Lighting of a Fire", and ... Something About a Horse ... You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it smile? Because of the long face and all? (No, that can’t be it). Anyway, borrowing a bit from Plutarch and Yeats (maybe, there is no agreement on whether he said that about pails (...) and fires), and some idiom from 12th Century Old English about horses walking on water, I assume, we can glean the following gem: learning requires active participation by learners. It is almost embarrassing to have to write that, but here we are with education today, mostly unloading facts into unlit receptacles. This doesn’t work, and not just because the metaphor is mixed. Genuine learning requires focus, which requires motivation, which is cultivated by interest, which needs curiosity, which is not something teachable through the typical educational curricula. I can, as Aristotle tells us, teach students the basics of some ethical theory, but I cannot make them virtuous. Ah-ha! I can lead a horse to water, but I can’t make it abide by the categorical imperative (No, that’s not quite right. Although it’s true--most horses are utilitarians). One way that seems to work in piquing student interest in learning philosophy is to use humor as you make the case that a philosophical attitude is very similar to a humorous attitude. Both rely heavily on questioning our collective presuppositions, both cultivate rational skepticism, and both are never content with accepting traditions and values that are mindlessly received. I’ve got it now: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it an iconoclast! (still not it). Friedrich Nietzsche published a book in 1889 titled Twilight of the Idols: Or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. This was during his most frenetic and fecund period, just before the syphilis set in rendering him somewhat less than his lauded Ubermensch. The “Idols” for Nietzsche were “false gods” or the ubiquitous errors that philosophy should expose. He is likely borrowing (without citation!) from sir Francis Bacon, whose “idols” are fetishes which can divert us from the pursuit of truth. Learning is hard, but it doesn’t have to be gloomy, hence, I advocate for a different sort of hammer to act as a “tuning-fork” sounding out the hollow and dangerous idols handed down to us that have passed for sagacity. (shrink)

According to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, big data reality means, “The days of having a different image for your co-workers and for others are coming to an end, which is good because having multiple identities represents a lack of integrity.” Two sets of questions follow. One centers on technology and asks how big data mechanisms collapse our various selves (work-self, family-self, romantic-self) into one personality. The second question set shifts from technology to ethics by asking whether we want the kind of (...) integrity that Zuckerberg lauds, and that big data technology enables. The negative response is explored by sketching three ethical conceptions of selfhood that recommend personal identity be understood as dis-integrating. The success of the strategies partially depends upon an undermining use of big data platforms. (shrink)

The Guggenheim’s spring retrospective of the seminal Swedish painter, Hilma Af Klint, has, naturally, evoked a multitude of art critics and visual culture scholars who laud her radical abstraction which, at the beginning of the 20th century, preceded Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian. Yet, where much attention has been given to the symbology and motifs riddling Klint’s work – bold, private, untethered and nonrepresentational as they are – there has been a modicum of nuanced thought on how, exactly, esotericism and theology (...) fomented Klint’s pedagogical projects. Jillian Steinhauer, for instance, has underscored Klint’s naturalistic watercolors; featuring flowers and lifelike drawings of women; Summer Landscape (1888) suggests Klint’s technical aptitude for rendering light. Jadranka Ryle, in a clever article titled “Reinventing the Yggdrasil,” invokes Klint’s motif of the Yggdrasil, or the holy tree of Norse mythology, as a political axle for Nordic romanticism. Ryle makes the claim that by redirecting the Yggdrasil towards androgynous abstraction, Klint’s engagement with Norse mythology subverts the nationalist and patriarchal romanticism that previously characterized the nineteenth century’s use of the Yggdrasil. Others have adroitly uncovered biographical fragments from Klint’s life, detailing how she and four friends formed De Fem (“the Five”), an exclusively female coven that met weekly, praying, meditating, and holding seances to commune with spiritual guides. Rather than poise the Swedish maverick within the cannon of abstraction qua a political praxis, feminist subject-being, or historiography – projects that have been exhaustively overwrought, to the point of rendering Klint’s work both mute and reductively technical– I would like to take this time to closely examine simply one of Klint’s paintings and foreground it as an axiomatic modernist injunction between metaphysics and epistemology. (shrink)

Beauvoir maintains a unified "compromise theory" of aesthetics throughout her ethics, feminism, and fiction that portrays the conundrum that every artist faces -- an impasse that sets action against inaction, politics against culture. Beauvoir's theory of art in The Mandarins, aided by an analysis of women's oppression in The Second Sex, advocates art that keeps past events alive in the present and in so doing, changes even the tragic into the life affirming. Beauvoir lauds artists who, even in the face (...) of self-doubt, continue to engage in artistic endeavors in order to maintain an ethical relationship to the rest of humanity. (shrink)

This study outlines a new proposal on the creation of Islamic Anthropology on the basis of "perennialist epistemology", to use Aslan's term (2005:55). A previous proposal of this kind had been put forward by Akbar S. Ahmed in his Toward Islamic Anthropology: Definition, Dogma and Directions (1986). While Ahmed's proposed Islamic Anthropology aims at assessing and arguing with Western anthropologists over their misconceptions about Islamic societies they observe, then preparing and replying to their study in a scholarly manner by "creating (...) their own alternative scholarship" (1986:55), this author's recommended Islamic Anthropology aims at finding philosophia perennis or sophia perennis or religio perennis or "essential commonality" (Beinorius 2005:237) or "transcendent unity" (Aymard & Laude 2004:38) between Islamic, other religious and ethnic cultural manifestations, or rather, in Indonesian context, between Islamic, other religious and adat cultural manifestations. The building of Islamic Anthropology of perennialist bend in Indonesia is imperative since in the aftermath of national economic crisis and dethronement of Pres. Soeharto, Anthropology academia in Indonesia relishes the freedom of no longer having to serve the regime socio-political agenda. Post-Soeharto era of decentralization, liberalization, emancipation, and democratization provides favourable opportunity for Anthropology to set its own purely academic goals (Ramstedt 2005 :215). This new situation also enables anthropologists from diverse epistemological traditions to contribute directly to establishment of new kinds of Anthropology based on their specific epistemologies. To clarify what is meant by his perennialism-based Islamic Anthropology, the author herein elaborates the perennialist epistemology on which he bases his suggested Islamic Anthropology, explains the perennialist ontology on which the epistemology is based, delineates how to build an Islamic Anthropology based on the perennialist epistemology, and lastly exemplifies application of the perennialist method in Islamic Anthropology he proposes. (shrink)

Hayek’s philosophical psychology as set out in his The Sensory Order (1952) has, for the most part, been neglected. Despite being lauded by computer scientist grandee Frank Rosenblatt and by Nobel prize-winning biologist Gerald Edelman, cognitive scientists -- with a few exceptions -- have yet to discover Hayek’s philosophical psychology. On the other hand, social theorists, Hayek’s traditional disciplinary constituency, have only recently begun to take note and examine the importance of psychology in the complete Hayek corpus. This volume brings (...) together for the first time state-of-the-art contributions from neuroscientists and philosophers of mind as well as economists and social theorists, all critically engaging in many aspects of Hayek’s philosophical psychology. (shrink)

Neil Gorsuch lauds judges who purport to “apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be . . . .” It’s hard to see how such a form of Originalism withstands scrutiny. -/- First, using “reasonable reader” understandings rather than speaker meaning turns language and law on their heads. Audiences effectively become (...) the speakers in ordinary speech (since reader or audience meaning prevails), and audiences (and thus the ruled) effectively become the rulers when interpreting law (since audiences’ meaning prevails). -/- Second, since laws look forward to govern conduct, how can best legal practices keep such a backward focus? -/- Third, words (however understood by others at the time “originally” uttered) may or may not (depending on speaker and not reader meaning) signify concepts whose meanings embrace change over time. For example, the word “planet” used by a speaker before the discovery of Uranus and Neptune may or may not include further planets depending upon what the speaker meant by “planet.” (The same applies to the inclusion or exclusion of Pluto had the speaker used the word “planet” after the discovery of Pluto but before its exclusion by current science.) Unlike the “reasonable” reader of Gorsuch’s Originalism as phrased above, speakers run the gamut from reasonable to unreasonable, from informed to uninformed, and from thoughtful to thoughtless. -/- Fourth, to the extent a judge is principally “constrained” by a text or texts (as he may determine), by dictionaries that he chooses, and by “history” as the judge understands it, isn’t judicial activism encouraged rather than restrained? Talk of a “reasonable” reader masks the fact that there can be multiple “reasonable” conclusions of what a reasonable or unreasonable speaker meant. Is a judge not therefore left to pick definitions and applications of terms that accord with the judge’s understandings of history, understandings that may well be colored by the judge’s politics and judicial philosophy? This applies to principles as well as labels for things. Principles are also subject to multiple frames, and their terms are subject to multiple definitions therefore raising the very same questions just raised above. -/- Finally, such Originalism doesn’t merely fail with legal texts. It also fails when applied to other texts (including sacred texts such as the Ten Commandments) and when used to interpret art (such as “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” often attributed to Bruegel and which inspired such great ekphrasis as Auden’s “Musée Des Beaux Arts”). These further failures underscore the dysfunction of Originalism in Gorsuch's form noted above. -/- Keywords: Originalism, Neil Gorsuch, Text, Textualism, Scalia, Interpretation, Pragmatics, Speaker Meaning, Art, Painting, Bruegel, Auden, Ekphrasis, Icarus, Bible, Ten Commandments, Herod, Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln. (shrink)

This review examines Burke's phenomenological analysis of normative femininity, examining how femininity is implicated in both historical and present racial violence. It lauds Burke's analysis of the temporality of gendered experience—in the Beauvoirean tradition of feminist phenomenology—but it criticizes Burke for coming up short in the critical aspect of their project. It closes with some methodological reflections about doing effect critical phenomenology.