I first quickly outline what I think grasping is, and suggest that it is both among our basic aims of inquiry and not essentially tied to belief, justification, or knowledge. Then, I briefly look at some places in the metaphysics of science in which it looks like our aim of grasping and our aim in knowing—or perhaps more specifically in knowing the explanations for things—might seem to conflict. I will use this conflict to support a broader view: sometimes, we might (...) develop philosophical views or theories—and even endorse them—in order to better grasp them, regardless of whether we genuinely believe them, or are justified in so doing. At other times, we may be aiming at propositional knowledge. These aims can come apart, and perhaps even systematically come apart. A pluralism about the value of those aims doesn’t entail an “anything goes” attitude with respect to how we think about what philosophical views to put forward, defend, or endorse, however—far from it. Instead, it suggests that what counts as a virtue of a philosophical theory depends on our aims in espousing it. If philosophers have distinct aims at the meta-level, it will be hard for them to engage in joint theory evaluation at the first-order level. At least all three of theoretical virtues, evaluative judgments of philosophical views, and what attitudes we ought to have towards the views we ourselves espouse will vary according to our guiding metaphilosophical aims. (shrink)

I argue for an account of grasping, or understanding that, on which we grasp via a higher-order mental act of Husserlian fulfillment. Fulfillment is the act of matching up the objects of our phenomenally presentational experiences with those of our phenomenally representational thought. Grasping-by-fulfilling is importantly different from standard epistemic aims, in part because it is phenomenal rather than inferential. (I endorse Bourget’s 2017 arguments to that effect.) I show that grasping-by-fulfilling cannot be a species of propositional knowledge or belief, (...) and that it is not essentially connected to justification. I motivate a revisionary epistemology on which achieving propositional knowledge and coming to grasp are dual epistemic aims. My account makes sense of a common occurrence—that we are often unmoved to act on our beliefs until we come to phenomenally experience them in some way. It also explains puzzling features of human inquiry. (shrink)

Many philosophers take purportedly logical cases of ground ) to be obvious cases, and indeed such cases have been used to motivate the existence of and importance of ground. I argue against this. I do so by motivating two kinds of semantic determination relations. Intuitions of logical ground track these semantic relations. Moreover, our knowledge of semantics for first order logic can explain why we have such intuitions. And, I argue, neither semantic relation can be a species of ground even (...) on a quite broad conception of what ground is. Hence, without a positive argument for taking so-called ‘logical ground’ to be something distinct from a semantic determination relation, we should cease treating logical cases as cases of ground. (shrink)

The study deals with the matter of three of the most puzzling doctrines of Baruch Spinoza's system, the so-called 'final doctrines', which are intuitive knowledge, intellectual love of God, and the eternity of the (human) mind. Contrary to many commentators, but also in concordance with many others, this account strives to affirm the utmost importance of these doctrines to Spinoza's system as a whole, but mostly to his ethical theory. Focusing specifically on the cultivation of the human mind, the paper (...) offers partial analyses of the central notions of these doctrines and their conceptual contexts. It is argued that the cultivation of the human mind, i.e., its determination to its perfect activity, should be considered as Spinoza's ultimate ethical goal, and that the mind truly only advances to this goal by means of these cognitive, affective, and intellectual transformations of thinking. (shrink)

The present article deals with specific normative concepts of Spinoza’s ethical system and compares them to certain aspects of the theory of ethics of social consequences. At first, a way to approach the problem of normativity in Spinoza is presented, concentrating on the obligatory character of rational - or intellectual - motives. Then, theoretical evidence is presented which links Spinoza to normative-ethical consequentialism. The basis for a consequentialist model of Spinoza’s ethics is the concept of perfection, and on this basis (...) it seems possible to consider its compatibility with non-utilitarian forms of consequentialism, such as ethics of social consequences. Conclusively, the paper’s aim is to present the possibility of considering Spinozian consequentialism as a non-utilitarian consequentialism, while considering ethics of social consequences as a contemporary form of Spinozian consequentialism. (shrink)

The paper proposes to grasp handwritten signature as a metaphysical invention of the so-called “Western” civilization, where the signature is supposed to make possible juridical identification of the person who wrote it. However, despite this expectation of reliability, the Western handwritten signature is an aporetic sign, which is considered to be authentic (unrepeatable) and conventional (repeatable) at the same time. Because the signature is a sign of juridical identification and its authenticity can always be forged, Jacques Derrida tries to deconstruct (...) the contradictory functioning of Western metaphysics, which leads to confusion in our expectations of authenticity and identity in our uses of signatures. By proposing a new reading of Derridean texts concerning writing, the paper focuses on the pragmatical paradox that grounds our contradictory legal politics of signing: because the exact manual reproduction of a line is impossible, no one can satisfy the legislative obligation to sign conformably to the model signature. That’s the aporia of trace’s recognition, which establishes the signature as a sign: on the one hand, the signature is supposed to represent the juridical identity of the person who traced it; on the other hand, the signature, which constantly changes its graphical form, makes every certain identification impossible. In order to question the juridical identity traditionally guaranteed by the signature, this paper invites to grasp the legal practice of signing as a subversive performativity, which is produced during the passage between recognition of juridical identity requested by the law and its simultaneous and inevitable transgression. Finally, the paper proposes a new approach to the signature as a visual performance of the self, based on a reevaluation of the altercation between Jacques Derrida and John Searle concerning the iterative character of traces and performatives. (shrink)

The philosophical God of Spinoza is branded as a pantheistic God so often that, regarding at least Western philosophy and philosophical commentaries, Spinozism seems to be practically synonymous with pantheism. Since the times of German idealism, there have also been attempts at a panentheistic reading, which are still alive to this day. The article analyses both theological models in their core claims to adequately qualify Spinoza’s theological system while considering the established levels of philosophical-theological interpretation. By identifying systemic pantheism and (...) essentialist panentheism in his system, it is argued that both accounts or readings of Spinoza’s theory might be correct in their own way, provided that the models behind them are correctly applied to their respective levels of thought. (shrink)

A basic way of evaluating metaphysical theories is to ask whether they give satisfying answers to the questions they set out to resolve. I propose an account of “third-order” virtue that tells us what it takes for certain kinds of metaphysical theories to do so. We should think of these theories as recipes. I identify three good-making features of recipes and show that they translate to third-order theoretical virtues. I apply the view to two theories—mereological universalism and plenitudinous platonism—and draw (...) out their third-order virtues and vices. One lesson is that there is an important difference between essentially and non-essentially third-order vicious theories. I also argue that if a theory is essentially third-order vicious, it cannot be assessed for more standard “second-order” theoretical virtues and vices, like parsimony. This motivates the idea that third-order virtues are distinct from second-order ones. Finally, I suggest that the relationship between truth, progress, and third-order virtue is more complex than it seems. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to demonstrating the systematic value of the “Two Treatises of Government”. Even though their genesis is rooted in the political circumstances of Locke’s life-time, the “Treatises” are not simply a pamphlet designed to support the Whig cause, as Locke’s political ideas are derived from his theoretical philosophy and from his concept of natural law.

Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy of mind stirs up the disputes about the nature of body-mind relations with its rigorous and naturalistic monism. The unity of body and mind is consequential of his metaphysics of the substance, but the concept of the unity of the mind and its idea rightfully confuses Spinoza’s commentators. Many have been tempted to interpret this as a possible account of consciousness, but it still has not yet been fully understood. This paper attempts to introduce an interpretation of (...) the concept of ideas of ideas with regards to consciousness based on strict ontological monism, conceptual dualism, and self-similarity architecture, which concludes in distinguishing mental and psychic reality. While we might attribute mental reality, or mentality, to every extended thing, psychic reality is constituted by conscious ideas. And it seems to follow from Spinoza’s theory that the more ‘psychic’ the mind is, the more it knows God. (shrink)

Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that “the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted”. I elaborate on King’s claim by focusing on the way in which we treat and understand ‘maladjustment’ that is responsive to severe trauma (e.g. PTSD that is a result of military combat or rape). Mental healthcare and our social attitudes about mental illness and disorder will prevent us from recognizing real injustice that symptoms of mental illness can be appropriately responding to, unless (...) we recognize that many emotional states (and not just beliefs!) that constitute those symptoms are warranted by the circumstances they are responsive to. I argue that there is a failure to distinguish between PTSD symptoms that are warranted emotional responses to trauma and those that are not. This results in us focusing our attention on “fixing” the agent internally, but not on fixing the world. It is only by centering questions of warrant that we will be able to understand and expose the relationship between agents’ internal mental states and their oppression. But we also need to ask when someone’s emotional response is unwarranted by their experience (as in the case of someone who develops PTSD after a non-traumatic event). If we fail to do this—as, I claim, both our mental healthcare and the broader social world fail to do—we treat warranted and unwarranted emotions as on a par. This undermines the epistemic judgment of the agent who has warranted PTSD symptoms, resulting in her failing to trust her evaluation of whether her emotional response to her own trauma is warranted by that trauma, and thus failing to recognize her own oppression. (shrink)

The paper discusses the foundation and genesis of the political society according to Locke, elaborating why the relationship between the civil society and the government is not defined in contractual terms, but by the notion of “trust”. Rehm argues against the view that Locke supports a liberal proceduralism, stressing that consent for him is indeed the necessary, but not the sufficient condition of legitimate political power: what needs to be added is action in accordance with the law of nature.

Philosophers of science often assume that logically equivalent theories are theoretically equivalent. I argue that two theses, anti-exceptionalism about logic (which says, roughly, that logic is not a priori, that it is revisable, and that it is not special or set apart from other human inquiry) and logical realism (which says, roughly, that differences in logic reflect genuine metaphysical differences in the world), make trouble for both this commitment and the closely related commitment to theories being closed under logical consequence. (...) I provide three arguments. The first two show that anti-exceptionalism about logic provides an epistemic challenge to both the closure and the equivalence claims; the third shows that logical realism provides a metaphysical challenge to both the closure and the equivalence claims. Along the way, I show that there are important methodological upshots for metaphysicians and philosophers of logic. In particular, there are lessons to be drawn about certain conceptions of naturalism as constraining the possibilities for metaphysics and the philosophy of logic. (shrink)

The paper is an analysis of Rousseau’s concept of property. It shows that Rousseau wants to draft a new system of politics that will not forbid private property but will limit its scale. It aims to clarify that Rousseau owes much to John Locke’s theory and even adopts Locke’s definition that it is a basic purpose of the social contract to protect the citizen’s property. It is argued that in spite of these similarities Rousseau’s account differs fundamentally from Locke’s. Having (...) a right of ownership to something for Locke means to be entitled to exclude anybody else from it: to say “this is mine” in Locke is synonymous to “it is not yours”. For Rousseau having a right of ownership to something implies a self-limitation by the proprietor: to say “this is mine” in Rousseau signifies “everything else is not mine”. While property rights in Locke have the purpose of legitimizing “pleonexia” and economic inequality, Rousseau tries to use them as restrictions to citizens’ desires and greed. (shrink)

The author offers a critical commentary on Rousseau’s chapter on civil religion in the “Social Contract”, book 4, chapter 8. It investigates Rousseau’s attempt to overcome the conflict between politics and religion by merging a civil religion that creates an emotional bond to the particular state without fostering superstition and intolerance, and it shows that this attempt fails. It is demonstrated that Rousseau’s concept of civil religion neither offers any doctrine of salvation transcending this life nor prescribes any content going (...) beyond moral norms. Civil religion for Rousseau is in service to politics and its instrumental character is desired by the citizens who are supposed autonomously to agree on the need of a secularized civil ethic. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore Thomas Hobbes’ renunciation of a prominent concept of the social contract that distinguishes between two different contracts, namely, “pactum associationis” and “pactum subiectionis”.

Is Rousseau an advocate of natural law or not? The purpose of Rehm’s paper is to suggest a positive answer to this controversially discussed question. On the one hand, Rousseau presents a critical history of traditional natural law theory which in his view is based on flawed suppositions: not upon natural, but on artificial qualities of man, and even rationality and sociability are counted among the latter. On the other hand he presents the self-confident manifesto for a fresh start in (...) natural law theory, founded on what to Rousseau’s mind is the true idea of human nature. The paper intends to show that the only natural qualities which can be seen as anthropological constants are those that keep man flexible, namely perfectibility and freedom of will. It is argued that these are exactly the qualities which according to Rousseau serve as the standard of natural law for the system of politics and its laws: Only a state based upon the free consent of individuals can do justice to man’s perfectibility and freedom of will. Rehm stresses that because of perfectibility and freedom of will, this self-commitment has to be revisable, which is why the republic of the “Social Contract” should not have a constitution, or any law that the citizens cannot alter. It is demonstrated that in Rousseau’s view, this republic is the enabling condition of natural liberty. -/- . (shrink)

The claim of this paper is to show that the “Discourse on the Arts and Sciences” does not propose a general critique of progress as such, but a critique of the idea of progress as promoted by the 18th century “philosophers”. It is argued that Rousseau is no proponent of a Counter-Enlightenment, on the contrary he aims to go further than other thinkers of his time by scrutinizing even progress itself, Enlightenment’s pet notion. In defining arts and sciences as the (...) very driving forces of progress, the “philosophers” according to Rousseau are fostering inequality, because only an elite will be able to succeed in them. By contrast, talking about progress in Rousseau’s view only makes sense if “progress” is defined in moral and political terms, as enabling all men to participate in the promotion of everybody’s well-being. The paper intends to show that Rousseau’s answer to the shortcomings of civilization is not a “return to nature”, but the advancement of artificial institutions: namely, the egalitarian republic. (shrink)

It appears that Rousseau has annulled the dichotomy between man and citizen for the benefit of the citizen – after all, the social contract implies the “total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community”. Does this not mean the individual is completely absorbed by the collectivity? The paper takes up the role of religion for politics in Rousseau’s work to show that even civil religion cannot help to re-establish the lost unity between man and (...) citizen, on the contrary, it only makes this division visible. As long as the individual is part of the body politic, he or she has to accept having a fragmented existence. The text aims to clarify that Rousseau blamed the protagonists of the established churches as well as his fellow Enlightenment philosophers for striving to overcome the contradictions of human existence, while Rousseau himself defended the distinction between “res privata” and “res publica” and the tensions it might cause in the individual. The paper therefore suggests a liberal reading of Rousseau. (shrink)

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) is considered to be one of the most prominent representatives of traditional European humanism and liberalism. In the next breath, however, we might add that his humanism was a form of modern humanism, which often uncritically overestimated human capacities and capabilities, leading to many ideological, but also practical failures of humanity. This paper aims to reevaluate Spinoza's rationalist model of human nature in the context of the "shared" rational nature of humans, which is characterized by a broadly (...) anthropological approach. In Spinoza's thought, a human being is not regarded merely as a rational being (or thinking subject, for that matter), but is considered in his complexity, including his affectivity, corporeality, sociality, and - above all - morality. The ideal of free and rational humanity is not an abstract concept, but an expression of real possibilities regarding the development of humankind's innate potential. (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)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly expected to disrupt the ordinary functioning of society. From how we fight wars or govern society, to how we work and play, and from how we create to how we teach and learn, there is almost no field of human activity which is believed to be entirely immune from the impact of this emerging technology. This poses a multifaceted problem when it comes to designing and understanding regulatory responses to AI. This article aims to: (i) (...) defend the need for a novel conceptual model for understanding the systemic legal disruption caused by new technologies such as AI; (ii) to situate this model in relation to preceding debates about the interaction of regulation with new technologies (particularly the ‘cyberlaw’ and ‘robolaw’ debates); and (iii) to set out a detailed model for understanding the legal disruption precipitated by AI, examining both pathways stemming from new affordances that can give rise to a regulatory ‘disruptive moment’, as well as the Legal Development, Displacement or Destruction that can ensue. The article proposes that this model of legal disruption can be broadly generalisable to understanding the legal effects and challenges of other emerging technologies. (shrink)

An increasing number of European research projects return, or plan to return, individual genomic research results (IRR) to participants. While data access is a data subject’s right under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and many legal and ethical guidelines allow or require participants to receive personal data generated in research, the practice of returning results is not straightforward and raises several practical and ethical issues. Existing guidelines focusing on return of IRR are mostly project-specific, only discuss which results to (...) return, or were developed outside Europe. To address this gap, we analysed existing normative documents identified online using inductive content analysis. We used this analysis to develop a checklist of steps to assist European researchers considering whether to return IRR to participants. We then sought feedback on the checklist from an interdisciplinary panel of European experts (clinicians, clinical researchers, population-based researchers, biobank managers, ethicists, lawyers and policy makers) to refine the checklist. The checklist outlines seven major components researchers should consider when determining whether, and how, to return results to adult research participants: 1) Decide which results to return; 2) Develop a plan for return of results; 3) Obtain participant informed consent; 4) Collect and analyse data; 5) Confirm results; 6) Disclose research results; 7) Follow-up and monitor. Our checklist provides a clear outline of the steps European researchers can follow to develop ethical and sustainable result return pathways within their own research projects. Further legal analysis is required to ensure this checklist complies with relevant domestic laws. (shrink)

Biobanks act as the custodians for the access to and responsible use of human biological samples and related data that have been generously donated by individuals to serve the public interest and scientific advances in the health research realm. Risk assessment has become a daily practice for biobanks and has been discussed from different perspectives. This paper aims to provide a literature review on risk assessment in order to put together a comprehensive typology of diverse risks biobanks could potentially face. (...) Methodologically set as a typology, the conceptual approach used in this paper is based on the interdisciplinary analysis of scientific literature, the relevant ethical and legal instruments and practices in biobanking to identify how risks are assessed, considered and mitigated. Through an interdisciplinary mapping exercise, we have produced a typology of potential risks in biobanking, taking into consideration the perspectives of different stakeholders, such as institutional actors and publics, including participants and representative organizations. With this approach, we have identified the following risk types: economic, infrastructural, institutional, research community risks and participant’s risks. The paper concludes by highlighting the necessity of an adaptive risk governance as an integral part of good governance in biobanking. In this regard, it contributes to sustainability in biobanking by assisting in the design of relevant risk management practices, where they are not already in place or require an update. The typology is intended to be useful from the early stages of establishing such a complex and multileveled biomedical infrastructure as well as to provide a catalogue of risks for improving the risk management practices already in place. (shrink)

I explore the view that metaphysics is essentially imaginative. I argue that the central goal of metaphysics on this view is understanding, not truth. Metaphysics-as-essentially-imaginative provides novel answers to challenges to both the value and epistemic status of metaphysics.

The monograph offers an original account of Spinoza’s philosophy and ethics concentrated on its concordance with selected modern neuroscientific theories. The book proceeds through the whole of Spinoza’s philosophy and by increasingly complex analytical account acquaints with its essential frameworks, terminology, and concepts, and is thus accessible also to readers who are not yet familiar with the thought of this peculiar thinker. The fundamental motives of this interpretation are the nature of the mind and the questions of human freedom and (...) human bondage, mainly in connection with the investigation of affects (passions and drives) that the mind tends to be bound with. In his philosophy, Spinoza not only offers brilliant analyses of human experience but in anticipation of modern psychotherapeutic techniques suggests practical methods for the realization of sufficiently functional affective-cognitive self-therapy aimed at the regulation and control of one’s passivity. The understanding of and working with one’s weaknesses is, according to Spinoza, the necessary condition for realizing one’s freedom, or – for being able to shift from pathetics to ethics. (shrink)

Studie věnuje pozornost problematice demokratizace vědy, v jejímž rámci zaujímá klíčové postavení otázka, v jaké míře a zda vůbec má mít široká veřejnost možnost zasahovat do vědní a výzkumné politiky a participovat na rozhodování v odborných záležitostech. První část studie je věnována představení dvou radikálně odlišných a vzájemně protichůdných pohledů na tuto problematiku, které byly rozpracovány v rámci poválečné filosofie vědy v dílech Michaela Polanyiho a Paula Feyerabenda a v různých podobách spolu soupeří dodnes. Tyto dva pohledy, jež nás (...) staví před volbu mezi odborností na úkor demokracie a demokracií na úkor odbornosti, jsou následně podrobeny kritickému zhodnocení a v opozici k nim je představen alternativní pohled rozvíjený v rámci vědních studií Harrym Collinsem a Robertem Evansem, jenž překračuje nutnost této volby a na základě sociologických výzkumů fenoménu odbornosti nabízí způsob, jak lze odbornost a demokratické hodnoty sloučit dohromady. (shrink)

Modern philosophy can often appear to be mere cryptomnesia, redressed and resuited to fit the particular mouth from which it is espoused. This notion is but a sorrowful chimera binding the 21st-century mind to the confines of an eternal shadow, an eternal prison of doubt in the face of limitless potential. As a species, we are rapidly approaching the precipice of Yahweh's original position as instantiators of consciousness, as the I AM in relation to our artificial progeny. Could one fabricate (...) a candidate more fitting for a contra-analysis of our current situation than Hegel? One could not. (shrink)

Open theists argue that God's relationship to time, as conceived in classical theism, is erroneous. They explain that it is contradictory for an atemporal being to act in a temporal universe, including experiencing its temporal successions. Contrary to the atemporalists, redemptive history has shown that God interacts with humans in time. This relational nature of God nullifies the classical notion of God as timelessly eternal. Therefore, it lacks a philosophical and theological basis. Because God is in time, He does not (...) know all future contingencies and, therefore, changes. This study examines open theism's appropriation of the A and B theories of time to the divine-human relationship. The study argues that divine temporality does not solve the tension of divine-human relationships, especially in relation to the future. Further, historical divine temporality does not negate the fact of divine atemporality. It mainly stems from God's choice to create temporal creatures and His relationship with them. Furthermore, if it is not logically and metaphysically contradictory for an omnipresent being to act in space, then it follows that an atemporal being can act in time. Whether time is understood from the metric or psychological point of view, it does not transcend God, and therefore, the limitation it places on human creatures with respect to the future does not apply to God. Lastly, although a few philosophers reject the notion of eternity as timelessly eternal, the doctrine has a philosophical and theological basis in the Scripture. (shrink)

This chapter critically examines the dominant tradition in formal education as an indirect driver of biocultural homogenization while revealing that there is an alternative tradition that fosters biocultural conservation. The dominant tradition, originating in the Seventeenth Century scientific revolution effected by René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Isaac Newton, John Locke and allied thinkers, privileges science, seen as facilitating the technological domination of the world in the service of economic growth, as the only genuine knowledge. This is at the foundation of a (...) globalized, homogenizing culture that reduces everything and everyone to instruments of the globalized economy. The alternative, now recognized as the Radical Enlightenment, has its roots in the Renaissance. Represented by thinkers such as Giordano Bruno, Giambattista Vico, Gottfried Herder and Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, it challenges such dogmatic scientism and upholds the value of diverse cultures, past and present. It offers an alternative tradition and model of education fostering imagination, understanding and appreciation of diversity in the quest for wisdom. It is a model of education which engenders respect for and appreciation of the value of different cultures, including indigenous wisdom with very different attitudes to nature, thereby developing the capacity to reflect on, question, criticize and overcome the homogenizing imperialism of mainstream modernist culture. (shrink)

In mathematics, the deductive method reigns. Without proof, a claim remains unsolved, a mere conjecture, not something that can be simply assumed; when a proof is found, the problem is solved, it turns into a “result,” something that can be relied on. So mathematicians think. But is there more to mathematical justification than proof? -/- The answer is an emphatic yes, as I explain in this article. I argue that non-deductive justification is in fact pervasive in mathematics, and that it (...) is in good epistemic standing. (shrink)

As a member of the so-demarcated 'Generation Z,' I have been blessed/damned with a front-row seat to the technological evolution kicked off by the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020, and have succeeded to varying degrees in recognizing its effects and responding to them with the efficiency and care that my neurological soul deserves. Jean-Paul Sartre's conception of bad faith provides an excellent scalpel for the dissection of such a quasi-biological progression, and in this paper, I analyze the third dimension of bad (...) faith that has become possible in the 21st century, that of the digital realm. I wish whoever has read this far immense luck in their personal voyage across the 70,000 fathoms of the internet, an electrical space organized for the mechanized transfusion of suffering into profit. Delete Instagram if you are not using it to proliferate wealth yourself. Go outside and lay in the grass. -/- "Remember being happy in our silence." -Warning, Bridges. (shrink)

Sample chapter from H. Asgeirsson, The Nature and Value of Vagueness in the Law (Hart Publishing, 2020), in which I present and partially defend a version of what has come to be called the communicative-content theory of law. Book abstract: Lawmaking is – paradigmatically – a type of speech act: people make law by saying things. It is natural to think, therefore, that the content of the law is determined by what lawmakers communicate. However, what they communicate is sometimes vague (...) and, even when it is clear, the content itself is sometimes vague. The monograph examines the nature and consequences of these two linguistic sources of indeterminacy in the law with the aim of providing plausible answers to three related questions: In virtue of what is the law vague? What might be good about vague law? How should courts resolve cases of vagueness? (shrink)

A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would fine-tune at (...) all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable. (shrink)

The past few years have seen a resurgence of interest in the scientific study of magic. Despite being only a few years old, this “new wave” has already resulted in a host of interesting studies, often using methods that are both powerful and original. These developments have largely borne out our earlier hopes (Kuhn et al., 2008) that new opportunities were available for scientific studies based on the use of magic. And it would seem that much more can still be (...) done along these lines. -/- But in addition to this, we also suggested that it might be time to consider developing an outright science of magic—a distinct area of study concerned with the experience of wonder that results from encountering an apparently impossible event1. To this end, we proposed a framework as to how this might be achieved (Rensink and Kuhn, 2015). A science can be viewed as a systematic method of investigation involving three sets of issues: (i) the entities considered relevant, (ii) the kinds of questions that can be asked about them, and (iii) the kinds of answers that are legitimate (Kuhn, 1970). In the case of magic, we suggested that this could be done at three different levels, each focusing on a distinct set of issues concerned with the nature of magic itself: (i) the nature of magical experience, (ii) how individual magic tricks create this experience, and (iii) organizing knowledge of the set of known tricks in a more comprehensive way (Rensink and Kuhn, 2015). Our framework also included a base level focused on how the methods of magic could be used as tools to investigate issues in existing fields of study. -/- Lamont (2010) and Lamont et al. (2010) raised a number of concerns about the possibility of such a science, which we have addressed (Rensink and Kuhn, 2015). More recently, Lamont (2015) raised a new objection, arguing that although base-level work (i.e., applications of magic methods) might be useful, there is too little structure in magic tricks for them to be studied in a systematic way at the other levels, ruling out a science of magic. We argue here, however, that although this concern raises some interesting challenges for this science, it does not negate the possibility that it could exist, and could contribute to the study of the mind. (shrink)

Today, the Internet is a rich source of study materials, and Google Scholar offers free access to a large number of scientific articles. There are excellent research publications available in many more databases. Students have the option of easily copying the material. Reusing, paraphrasing, patchwriting, and ghostwriting without citing the original documents are plagiarism. Plagiarism is increasing in academics, particularly in research. This study aims to study the awareness of plagiarism and to analyze the reasons for plagiarism. The study samples (...) are the student teachers in India. For this study, we used a survey method, and the author prepared a questionnaire to collect data from the student teachers. Study respondents are the student teachers of the Regional Institute of Education Mysore; Purposive sampling was used to select samples. The total number of study respondents is 207. The findings of the study revealed that over 70 per cent of respondents mentioned reasons for plagiarism as lack of relevant literature studying, lack of preparation and time, difficulty checking every piece of work, do not know the manual citation style, lack of knowledge about bibliographic management software and also they stated that getting easily available materials on the internet is also a reason for plagiarism. The study recommends that teachers teach or conduct awareness programs on plagiarism, avoiding plagiarism, citation style, and software. (shrink)

Internet, a revolutionary invention, is always transforming into some new kind of hardware and software making it unpreventable for anyone. The type of communication that we see today is either human-to-human or human-to-device, but the Internet of Things (IoT) promises a great future for the internet where the type of communication is machine-to-machine (M2M). The Internet of Things (IoT) is defined as a paradigm in which objects provide with sensors, actuators, and processors communicate with each other to serve a meaningful (...) purpose. In this paper we discussed IoT and its architecture. Further we explained different applications of IoT for users, IoT advantages and disadvantages. (shrink)

Excellence in sport performance is normally taken to be a matter of superior performance of physical movements or quantitative outcomes of movements. This paper considers whether a wider conception can be afforded by certain kinds of nature based sport. The interplay between technical skill and aesthetic experience in nature based sports is explored, and the extent to which it contributes to a distinction between different sport-based approaches to natural environments. The potential for aesthetic appreciation of environmental engagement is found to (...) be strongly dependent on whether or not environmental engagement is exploited for the end of producing a quantifiable result or enhancing technical skill. It is also argued that an existential rather than spectatorial attitude to aesthetic experience is offered by specifically nature oriented sport. Aesthetic experience achieved in this way is therefore neither passive nor detached, but extends Berleant's concept of participatory environmental aesthetics and underpins both an alternate (wide) conception of excellence in sport activity and a richer experience of aesthetic engagement than more objectivised standpoints. (shrink)

Nếu như năm 2022, Truyện ngụ ngôn Bói Cá bản tiếng Anh hoàn tất và đến được quầy hàng, thì năm 2023, bài viết có nguồn gốc suy nghĩ từ ngụ ngôn, kèm theo chương trình nghiên cứu về môi trường, biến đổi khí hậu với bóng dáng Bói Cá hiện diện rõ nét, cũng ra đời.

People’s health is hugely affected by where they live, their occupational status and their socio-economic position. It has been widely argued that the presence of such social determinants in health provides good reasons to reject luck egalitarianism as a theory of distributive justice in health. The literature provides different reasons why this responsibility-sensitive theory of distributive justice should not be applied to health. The critiques submit that the social circumstances undermine or remove people’s responsibility for their health; responsibility sensitive health (...) policies would adversely affect those who are worst off and; the luck egalitarian approach to health distracts from the important task of rectifying socio-economic influences on people's health and provides individualistic solutions to collective problems. But for each of these variants of the critique luck egalitarianism provides suitable answers. The literature on social determinants is no detriment to the project of applying luck egalitarianism to health. (shrink)

Abstract: Heart diseases are increasing daily at a rapid rate and it is alarming and vital to predict heart diseases early. The diagnosis of heart diseases is a challenging task i.e. it must be done accurately and proficiently. The aim of this study is to determine which patient is more likely to have heart disease based on a number of medical features. We organized a heart disease prediction model to identify whether the person is likely to be diagnosed with a (...) heart disease or not using the medical features of the person. We used many different algorithms of machine learning such as Gaussian Mixture, Nearest Centroid, MultinomialNB, Logistic RegressionCV, Linear SVC, Linear Discriminant Analysis, SGD Classifier, Extra Tree Classifier, Calibrated ClassifierCV, Quadratic Discriminant Analysis, GaussianNB, Random Forest Classifier, ComplementNB, MLP Classifier, BernoulliNB, Bagging Classifier, LGBM Classifier, Ada Boost Classifier, K Neighbors Classifier, Logistic Regression, Gradient Boosting Classifier, Decision Tree Classifier, and Deep Learning to predict and classify the patient with heart disease. A quite helpful approach was used to regulate how the model can be used to improve the accuracy of prediction of heart diseases in any person. The strength of the proposed model was very satisfying and was able to predict evidence of having a heart disease in a particular person by using Deep Learning and Random Forest Classifier which showed a good accuracy in comparison to the other used classifiers. The proposed heart disease prediction model will enhances medical care and reduces the cost. This study gives us significant knowledge that can help us predict the person with heart disease. The dataset was collected from Kaggle depository and the model is implemented using python. (shrink)

Earthbodies describes how our bodies are open circuits to a sensual magic and planetary care that when closed off leads to disastrous detours, such as illness, ...

When members of a group doxastically disagree with each other, decisions in the group are often hard to make. The members are supposed to find an epistemic compromise. How do members of a group reach a rational epistemic compromise on a proposition when they have different (rational) credences in the proposition? I answer the question by suggesting the Fine-Grained Method of Aggregation, which is introduced in Brössel and Eder 2014 and is further developed here. I show how this method faces (...) challenges of the standard method of aggregation, Weighted Straight Averaging, in a successful way. One of the challenges concerns the fact that Weighted Straight Averaging does not respect the evidential states of agents. Another challenge arises because Weighted Straight Averaging does not account for synergetic effects. (shrink)

This chapter summarizes Augustine’s often-neglected aesthetic theodicy that balances his metaphysical definitions of evil and human agency against the ultimately beautiful story Augustine sees God, as the author of all Creation, writing. First, Augustine’s neo-Platonic conception of evil as the “privation of goodness” is explained which effectively eliminates much of the apparent evil in the world under the guise of a preeminent God’s loving care of the Creation which He fashions as good, but is later corrupted. Secondly, Augustine’s conception of (...) the nature of this corruption at the hands of free agents is laid out with a particular sensitivity to the apparent shifts in Augustine’s thought as he aged. Finally, Augustine’s foundational aesthetic themes of contrast and universal harmony (in Greek, pankalia) are explained to demonstrate precisely why, in Augustine’s words, God might “judge it better to bring good out of evil than to allow nothing evil to exist.”. (shrink)

This chapter uncovers a less investigated aspect of the relationship between the two most important scholastic schools of the Renaissance, Thomism and Scotism: the influence of Scotist literature on distinctions as seen in some sixteenth-century Thomists. The chapter has a primary focus on Chrysostomus Javelli’s engagement in his discussion of divine attributes with the Scotist doctrine of distinctions, but also considers other Thomist sources. First, the beginnings of the highly specialised Scotist literature on distinctions are traced back to the start (...) of the fourteenth century; I show how some early followers of Duns Scotus, in particular Francis of Meyronnes and Petrus Thomae, systematised Scotus’ ontology of the various grades of being by compiling lists of subtle distinctions to be applied to various levels of reality. I give some indications as to the later reception of these models of distinctions in the Scotist school. Special attention is paid to Étienne Brulefer, since his summary of Petrus Thomae’s model of seven distinctions was Javelli’s source for the Scotist doctrine. I then investigate how Javelli worked with Brulefer’s summary, and how he sought to integrate the Scotist doctrine into his own discussion of divine attributes. Thomists traditionally allowed only a rational or mental kind of distinction among divine attributes, and between them and the divine essence. Javelli, however, endeavours to show how the Thomist position may be reconciled with the Scotist doctrine of a formal or ex natura rei distinction. He did not always endorse this conciliatory approach; I hypothesise that he changed his mind on the subject over time. Finally, I show how other Renaissance Thomists reacted to the Scotist system of distinctions; in particular, I draw attention to the Thomists Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Bartolomeo Manzoli, and Mattia Gibboni da Aquario, who all wrote treatises on Thomist distinction theory modelled on the Scotist system of distinctions. In some of this literature, lists of distinctions based on Thomist metaphysics were compiled in order to replace the Scotist system. I argue that Javelli’s approach is more conciliatory and, in fact, has some overlap with the concordist thought of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who himself considered Scotus and Aquinas to be in fundamental agreement as regards the distinction between divine attributes. (shrink)

We approach the notion of general (global) human intelligence as a prominently multifaceted concept which can be tested in at least seventy specific scenarios. We say that an agent has Artificial Global Intelligence (AGLI), if it is able to perform in an intelligent manner for at least the collection of tasks defining the former scenarios. In particular, based on Gartner's multiple intelligences theory, we describe the design of a concrete test for AGLI made in such a way that an ‘average’ (...) young human being should, per diffinitionem, pass it. We compare our holistic test with several highly representative human and artificial intelligence tests for deducing that our AGLI test is the one with the broader scope of the whole range of intelligence. However, we claim as a plausible hypothesis and based on the wide thematic spectrum of the test that the most outstanding inventions of AI currently available are far from getting a high score on it. Finally, we open a discussion about the fact that, although there are artificial agents being able to simulate intelligent behaviour at a perfect level for several local tasks, this seems not to be the case for AGLI. This would imply, in particular, a kind of practical implausibility of the notion of intelligence explosion coming from philosophy of AI. (shrink)

This essay constitutes an attempt to probe the very idea of a saying/showing distinction of the kind that Wittgenstein advances in the Tractatus—to say what such a distinction consists in, to say what philosophical work it has to do, and to say how we might be justified in drawing such a distinction. Towards the end of the essay the discussion is related to Wittgenstein’s later work. It is argued that we can profitably see this work in such a way that (...) a saying/showing distinction arises there too. In particular, in the final sub-section of the essay, it is suggested that we can see in Wittgenstein’s later work an inducement to say what we are shown. (shrink)