Constitutivism explains norms in terms of their being constitutive of agency, actions, or certain propositional attitudes. However, the shmagency objection says that if we can be shmagents – like agents, minus the norm-explaining features of agency – we can avoid the norms, so the explanation fails. This paper extends this objection, arguing that constitutivists about practical norms suffer from it despite their recent attempts to solve it. The standard response to the objection is that it is self-defeating for agents to (...) become shmagents. I agree, but the response ignores the possibility of shmagents who consider whether to be agents while already standing outside agency. Another response says that we ought to be agents because agency is, in some sense, normatively valuable, and if so, we can explain norms in terms of this valuable form of agency. But then the norms that our constitutions are supposed to explain are underdetermined because it is unclear how much we ought to care about this value. I conclude that the shmagency objection has yet to be answered. (shrink)

This book analyses the impact computerization has had on contemporary science and explains the origins, technical nature and epistemological consequences of the current decisive interplay between technology and science: an intertwining of formalism, computation, data acquisition, data and visualization and how these factors have led to the spread of simulation models since the 1950s. -/- Using historical, comparative and interpretative case studies from a range of disciplines, with a particular emphasis on the case of plant studies, the author shows how (...) and why computers, data treatment devices and programming languages have occasioned a gradual but irresistible and massive shift from mathematical models to computer simulations. -/- . (shrink)

In recent discussions of the Humean Theory of Motivation (HTM), several authors – not to mention other philosophers around the proverbial water cooler – have appealed to the simplicity of the theory to defend it. But the argument from simplicity has rarely been explicated or received much critical attention – until now. I begin by reconstructing the argument and then argue that it suffers from a number of problems. Most importantly, first, I argue that HTM is unlikely to be simpler (...) than even close competing theories, and second, it is unlikely that a plausible version of the theory will be very simple. Moreover, I argue that a convincing case for HTM is likely to have to show that it is more virtuous than defenders have done so far. (shrink)

Argues that reasons internalism, suitably understood, explains categorical reasons for us to cooperate with each other. The norms we then cooperate to satisfy can lie at the heart of legal systems, yielding unexpected implications in the philosophy of law.

Realists about group agency, according to whom corporate agents may have mental states and perform actions over and above those of their individual members, think that individual agents may switch between participating in individual and corporate agency. My aim is, however, to argue that the inescapability of individual agency spells out a difficulty for this kind of switching – and, therefore, for realism about corporate agency. To do so, I develop Korsgaard's notion of plight inescapability. On my take, it suggests (...) that individual agents are continuously faced with fully exercising their own individual agency (absent external limits at the time of its exercise). But then individual agents may not switch to acting as members of corporate agents, in the sense of taking on irreducible mental states that differ from their own. As it nevertheless is possible to participate fully in the action of a corporate entity, this incompatibility between individual and corporate mental states suggests a challenge for group agent realism. (shrink)

This dissertation is a study of appetite in Plato’s Timaeus, Republic and Phaedrus. In recent research is it often suggested that Plato considers appetite (i) to pertain to the essential needs of the body, (ii) to relate to a distinct set of objects, e.g. food or drink, and (iii) to cause behaviour aiming at sensory pleasure. Exploring how the notion of appetite, directly and indirectly, connects with Plato’s other purposes in these dialogues, this dissertation sets out to evaluate these ideas. (...) By asking, and answering, three philosophically and interpretatively crucial questions, individually linked to the arguments of the dialogues, this thesis aims to show (i) that the relationship between appetite and the body is not a matter of survival, and that appetite is better understood in terms of excess; (ii) that appetite is multiform and cannot be defined in terms of a distinct set of objects; and (iii) that appetite, in Plato, can also pertain to non-sensory objects, such as articulated discourse. -/- Chapter one asks what the universe can teach us about embodied life. It argues that Plato, in the Timaeus, works with an important link between the universe and the soul, and that the account of disorder, irrationality and multiformity identifying a pre-cosmic condition of the universe provides a key to understanding the excessive behaviour and condition of a soul dominated by appetite. -/- Chapter two asks why the philosophers of the Republic’s Kallipolis return to the cave, and suggests that Plato’s notion of the noble lie provides a reasonable account of this. By exploring the Republic’s ideas of education, poetry and tradition, it argues that appetite – a multiform and appearance oriented source of motivation – is an essential part of this account. -/- Chapter three asks why Socrates characterizes the speeches of the Phaedrus as deceptive games. It proposes that this question should be understood in the light of two distinctions: one between playful and serious discourse and one between simple and multiform. It argues that the speeches of the Phaedrus are multiform games, and suggests that appetite is the primary source of motivation of the soul addressed, personified by Phaedrus. -/- . (shrink)

It is often thought that desire-based versions of reasons internalism, according to which our practical reasons depend on what we desire, are committed to denying that we have any categorical reasons. I shall argue, however, that such theories are committed to a universal desire which gives rise to an unexpected categorical reason – a reason to know our surroundings. I will arrive at this conclusion by using Fichte’s argument for thinking that security from unpredictable and powerful forces of nature is (...) constitutive of agency. Fichte thinks this is the case because we ought to aim at knowledge of our surroundings, and such environments uniquely facilitate it. I show that his argument fails, but the point that we ought to aim at – or desire – such knowledge is fundamentally sound. This aim can then be leveraged to generate a categorical reason when embedded in an account of agency typically embraced by internalists. (shrink)

How should we understand the relation between corporate agency, corporate moral agency and corporate moral patienthood? For some time, corporations have been treated as increasingly ontologically and morally sophisticated in the literature. To explore the limits of this treatment, I start off by redeveloping and defending a reductio that historically has been aimed at accounts of corporate agency which entail that corporations count as moral patients. More specifically, I argue that standard agents are due a certain type of moral concern, (...) but corporate agents are not due that type of concern, so they are not agents of, at least, the standard type. Diagnosis: because corporations plausibly lack qualia, they are ‘zombie agents’ that mimic real agents. This explains why they are neither standard agents nor standard moral patients: they are not standard agents because they lack mental states, and because they lack experiences, they are, at best, morally notable rather than morally respectable. However, I then argue that we nevertheless have instrumental reasons to include them in our moral responsibility practices, both because that is what notability involves and bluffingly, and both when it comes to treating them as moral agents and as moral patients. Hence, we may treat corporations as part of our moral responsibility practices to a limited extent anyway. (shrink)

A debate has recently appeared regarding whether non-naturalism is better than other metaethical views at explaining moral progress. I shall take the occasion of this debate to present a novel debunking dilemma for moral non-naturalists, extending Sharon Street's Darwinian one. I will argue that moral progress indicates that our moral attitudes tend to reflect contingent sociocultural and psychological factors. For non-naturalists, there is then either a relation between these factors and the moral facts, non-naturalistically construed, or there is not. If (...) there is no relation, the contingent factors are unlikely to lead to moral knowledge. If there is a relation, they must be likely to lead to non-naturalist-style moral knowledge, but no theoretically virtuous explanation of moral progress is likely to accommodate non-naturalist commitments. It follows that non-naturalist moral realism cannot explain our moral knowledge. I call this a contingentist challenge to non-naturalism. (shrink)

I argue against group agent realism, or the view that groups have irreducible mental states. If group agents have irreducible mental states, as realists assume, then the best group agent realist explanation of corporate agents features only basic mental states with at most one motivational function each. But the best group agent realist explanation of corporate agents does not feature only basic mental states with at most one motivational function each. So corporate agents lack irreducible mental states. How so? I (...) defend the conditional with an argument from disagreement. On cognitivist approaches to desire, desires function to both motivate and represent the world. Yet such desires are subject to a significant amount of disagreement. Reflection on the folk-psychological properties of desire and belief suggest that this disagreement is better explained by a non-cognitivist approach to desire where they do not have both functions. I then defend the claim that realists are committed to at least some cognitivist motivational states. Using the example of fire brigades, I argue that the best realist explanation of group agents involves mental states with both representational and motivational functions. By modus tollens, corporations then lack irreducible mental states, period. (shrink)

Since the 1990’s, social sciences are living their computational turn. This paper aims to clarify the epistemological meaning of this turn. To do this, we have to discriminate between different epistemic functions of computation among the diverse uses of computers for modeling and simulating in the social sciences. Because of the introduction of a new – and often more user-friendly – way of formalizing and computing, the question of realism of formalisms and of proof value of computational treatments reemerges. Facing (...) the spreading of computational simulations in all disciplines, some enthusiastic observers are claiming that we are entering a new era of unity for social sciences. Finally, the article shows that the conceptual and epistemological distinctions presented in the first sections lead to a more mitigated position: the transdisciplinary computational turn is a great one, but it is of a methodological nature. (shrink)

I defend the assumption that an expression like “for Anna,” as it occurs in a sentence like “Whale meat is tasty for Anna,” is a sentential operator, against two related, albeit opposite worries. The first is that in some cases the putative operator might not be selective enough. The second is that in other cases it might on the contrary be too selective. I argue that these worries have no tendency to cast doubt on the assumption of sententiality for the (...) relevant expressions. (shrink)

The credibility of digital computer simulations has always been a problem. Today, through the debate on verification and validation, it has become a key issue. I will review the existing theses on that question. I will show that, due to the role of epistemological beliefs in science, no general agreement can be found on this matter. Hence, the complexity of the construction of sciences must be acknowledged. I illustrate these claims with a recent historical example. Finally I temperate this diversity (...) by insisting on recent trends in environmental sciences and in industrial sciences. (shrink)

Plato’s Protagoras contains, among other things, three short but puzzling remarks on the media of philosophy. First, at 328e5–329b1, Plato makes Socrates worry that long speeches, just like books, are deceptive, because they operate in a discursive mode void of questions and answers. Second, at 347c3–348a2, Socrates argues that discussion of poetry is a presumptuous affair, because, the poems’ message, just like the message of any written text, cannot be properly examined if the author is not present. Third, at 360e6–361d6, (...) it becomes clear that even if the conversation between Socrates and Protagoras was conducted by means of short questions and answers, this spoken mode of discourse is problematic too, because it ended up distracting the inquiry from its proper course. As this paper 2 sets out to argue, Plato does not only make Socrates articulate these worries to exhibit the hazards of discursive commodifi cation. In line with Socrates’ warning to the young Hippocrates of the dangers of sophistic rhetoric, and the sophists’ practice of trading in teachings, they are also meant to problematize the thin line between philosophical and sophistical practice. By examining these worries in the light of how the three relevant modes of discourse are exemplifi ed in the dialogue, this paper aims to isolate and clarify the reasons behind them in terms of deceit, presumptuousness and distraction; and to argue that these reasons cast doubts on the common assumption that the dialogue’s primary aim is to show how sophistical rhetoric must succumb to Socratic dialectic. (shrink)

Against the background of a conventionalist theory, and staged as a defense of a naturalistic notion of names and naming, the critique of language developed in Plato’s Cratylus does not only propose that human language, in contrast to the language of the gods, is bound to the realm of myth and lie. The dialogue also concludes by offering a set of reasons to think that knowledge of reality is not within the reach of our words. Interpretations of the dialogue’s long (...) etymological sections often neglect this critique and tend to end up with an overly optimistic assessment of the theory of language on offer. In the light of one of the dialogue’s central etymological accounts, Socrates’ etymology of the name Hermes, this paper discusses two recent and influential versions of such a view: David Sedley’s theory of onomatopoetic encapsulation and Franco Trivigno’s qualified referentialism. It argues that the complex relation between language and reality expressed in the Cratylus cannot be exhaustively captured by either of these theories because Plato considers all names to be semantically underdetermined until they are put to use. It suggests that Plato rather works with a functionalistic notion of names and naming, and that the dialogue’s account of natural and correct naming is to be understood in these terms. (shrink)

At 252e1 to 253c9 in Plato’s Sophist, the Eleatic Visitor explains why philosophy is a science. Like the art of grammar, philosophical knowledge corresponds to a generic structure of discrete kinds and is acquired by systematic analysis of how these kinds intermingle. In the literature, the Visitor’s science is either understood as an expression of a mature and authentic platonic metaphysics, or as a sophisticated illusion staged to illustrate the seductive lure of sophistic deception. By showing how the Visitor’s account (...) of the science of philosophy is just as comprehensive, phantasmatic and self-concealing as the art of sophistry identified at the dialogue’s outset, this paper argues in favor of the latter view. (shrink)

This paper proposes an extensionalist analysis of computer simulations (CSs). It puts the emphasis not on languages nor on models, but on symbols, on their extensions, and on their various ways of referring. It shows that chains of reference of symbols in CSs are multiple and of different kinds. As they are distinct and diverse, these chains enable different kinds of remoteness of reference and different kinds of validation for CSs. Although some methodological papers have already underlined the role of (...) these various relationships of reference in CSs and of cross-validations, this diversity is still overlooked in the epistemological literature on CSs. As a consequence, a particular outcome of this analytical view is an ability to classify existing epistemological theses on CSs according to what their authors choose to select and put at the forefront: either the extensions of symbols, or the symbol-types, or the symbol-tokens, or the internal denotational hierarchies of the CS or the reference of these hierarchies to external denotational hierarchies. Through the adoption of this extensionalist view, it also becomes possible to explain more precisely the reasons why some complete reduction of CSs to classical epistemic paradigms such as “experiment” or “theoretical argument” remains doubtful. On this last point, in particular, this paper is in agreement with what many epistemologists already have acknowledged. (shrink)

Guided by the bold ambition to reexamine the nature of philosophy, questions about the foundations and origins of Plato’s dialogues have in recent years gained a new and important momentum. In the wake of the seminal work of Andrea Nightingale and especially her book Genres in Dialogue from 1995, Plato’s texts have come to be reconsidered in terms of their compositional and intergeneric fabric. Supplementing important research on the argumentative structures of the dialogues, it has been argued that Plato’s philosophizing (...) cannot be properly assessed without considering its intellectual debts. By detailed examinations of the practical, generic and textual origins of the dialogues, it has been shown how Plato’s chosen form of philosophical inquiry is deeply influenced by traditional forms of poetry, rhetoric, sophistry, and even medicine... (shrink)

It is usually agreed that the Revelation Thesis about experience – the idea that the knowledge we gain by having an experience somehow “reveals” the essence, or nature, of this experience – only requires that we know the essence of the experience, not that we know, of this essence, that it is the essence of the experience. I contest this agreement. In the light of what I call the “Essentiality of Essence Principle”– the principle that whatever is in the essence (...) of something is also essentially so – I argue that the Revelation Thesis does require that we know, of the essence of an experience, that it is the essence of the experience, and draw some conclusions about the plausibility of that thesis. (shrink)

Now that complex Agent-Based Models and computer simulations spread over economics and social sciences - as in most sciences of complex systems -, epistemological puzzles (re)emerge. We introduce new epistemological tools so as to show to what precise extent each author is right when he focuses on some empirical, instrumental or conceptual significance of his model or simulation. By distinguishing between models and simulations, between types of models, between types of computer simulations and between types of empiricity, section 2 gives (...) conceptual tools to explain the rationale of the diverse epistemological positions presented in section 1. Finally, we claim that a careful attention to the real multiplicity of denotational powers of symbols at stake and then to the implicit routes of references operated by models and computer simulations is necessary to determine, in each case, the proper epistemic status and credibility of a given model and/or simulation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the epistemological justification of a proposal initially made by the biomathematician Robert Rosen in 1958. In this theoretical proposal, Rosen suggests using the mathematical concept of “category” and the correlative concept of “natural equivalence” in mathematical modeling applied to living beings. Our questions are the following: According to Rosen, to what extent does the mathematical notion of category give access to more “natural” formalisms in the modeling of living beings? Is (...) the so -called “naturalness” of some kinds of equivalences (which the mathematical notion of category makes it possible to generalize and to put at the forefront) analogous to the naturalness of living systems? Rosen appears to answer “yes” and to ground this transfer of the concept of “natural equivalence” in biology on such an analogy. But this hypothesis, although fertile, remains debatable. Finally, this paper makes a brief account of the later evolution of Rosen’s arguments about this topic. In particular, it sheds light on the new role played by the notion of “category” in his more recent objections to the computational models that have pervaded almost every domain of biology since the 1990s. (shrink)

Architecture often relies on mathematical models, if only to anticipate the physical behavior of structures. Accordingly, mathematical modeling serves to find an optimal form given certain constraints, constraints themselves translated into a language which must be homogeneous to that of the model in order for resolution to be possible. Traditional modeling tied to design and architecture thus appears linked to a topdown vision of creation, of the modernist, voluntarist and uniformly normative type, because usually (mono)functionalist. One available instrument of calculation/representation/prescription (...) orders this conception of architecture: indeed the search for an optimal solution through mathematical calculation of a model itself mathematical, thus homogeneous and simple, is only possible when one or two functions or functional constraints are formulated, never more, and this, on a global level, therefore starting from a unique and homogenizing viewpoint. It is essential to grasp that, even applied to material and its properties or towards a particular esthetic or functional dimension, this viewpoint is thus abstractive and generalizing: disregarding singularity of context, insertion and relationship to the environment or local, social behavior. It leaves aside functional specificity and heterogeneousness – re-contextualized each time – of functions that the object or edifice are required to fulfill and optimize under diverse constraints, in their different parts. The computational turning point today’s digital design and computational architecture embody modifies these instrumental, original prescriptions, rendering them more flexible. Perhaps in light of this turnabout we should retrospectively interpret 20th century calls for modernism, functionalism and even biomorphism as being just as many ex post rationalizations in respect to techniques of strongly prescriptive modeling since our only instrument is a monolithic language, and so being, incites a top-down conception, (naturally weakly reactive to contexts), including forms whose overall appearance resembles in fine a living form. In order to liberate oneself from this and despite everything, emerge as its initiators, one has constructed from ideology and philosophy (of object, habitat, the urban) ex post, even while it is the instrument of modeling and conception that largely determines, normalizes and dictates ex ante, the possibilities and limitations of the creation of forms and living experiments4 in a given time. (shrink)

Voilà un livre comme on pouvait l’espérer. Centré sur la Covid-19 et sur sa diffusion, il s’installe au cœur de questions brûlantes, encore urgentes pour tout un chacun, mais il garde aussi la tête froide, prend du recul, informe, enseigne et questionne, qui plus est de façon pédagogique. Davantage : au-delà du bilan critique, il propose des perspectives inédites, voire quelques suggestions solides. Il nous donne à réfléchir sur des chemins moins balisés. À le lire, on comprendra, par l’exemple, pourquoi (...) un modèle ne peut assurer simultanément toutes les fonctions de connaissance qu’on en peut attendre (décrire, prédire, expliquer, etc.). On comprendra pourquoi il faut souvent des modèles simples mais aussi, dans certains cas, des modèles nécessairement plus compliqués. On comprendra également pourquoi il faut cultiver une pluralité de modèles, toujours dans la collégialité, souvent dans l’interdisciplinarité : non seulement pour que ces modèles prennent en compte plusieurs aspects, mais aussi pour que leurs diverses fonctions puissent entrer en dialogue, et enfin pour qu’ils s’épaulent, convergent ou se rectifient, en particulier là où l’on attend d’eux qu’ils mettent au jour des propriétés structurelles robustes, les seules offrant en retour une prise à l’action et à la décision légitimes. On comprendra enfin que la disponibilité de données à la fois pertinentes et stabilisées est un point d’achoppement majeur, dans les circonstances, tant il est discutable de paramétrer un modèle de diffusion de la Covid-19 avec les paramètres de la grippe simplement parce qu’ils sont mieux connus. (shrink)

A recent evolution of computer simulations has led to the emergence of complex computer simulations. In particular, the need to formalize composite objects (those objects that are composed of other objects) has led to what the author suggests calling pluriformalizations, i.e. formalizations that are based on distinct sub-models which are expressed in a variety of heterogeneous symbolic languages. With the help of four case-studies, he shows that such pluriformalizations enable to formalize distinctly but simultaneously either different aspects or different parts (...) or different scales of the same object or system. From an epistemological standpoint, he suggests that this kind of computer-aided complex formalization of composite objects renew the traditional relations between computer simulations, theoretical models and operational models. (shrink)

Cet article ne se veut pas un commentaire suivi de la réflexion de Wittgenstein sur les règles. Ce ne sera pas non plus un commentaire de l’interprétation que Kripke fait du « suivi de la règle » chez Wittgenstein. Il ne sera pas davantage une application des thèses de Wittgenstein ni une tentative d’application directe d’une interprétation de ces thèses à l’épistémologie de la simulation du vivant ; ce qui serait, en soi, d’ailleurs contestable. Ce travail vise seulement à approfondir (...) la réflexion sur le statut cognitif de la simulation informatique du vivant. À ce titre, qui est donc essentiellement épistémologique et ciblé, il se veut une suggestion d’interprétation conceptuelle de certaines formes de simulation informatique du vivant, suggestion elle-même adossée à une prolongation de certaines distinctions déjà effectuées par Wittgenstein et ses commentateurs au sujet des règles et de leur suivi. L’objectif est de chercher à voir si, par ce moyen, la simulation informatique du vivant, par contraste avec les pratiques plus traditionnelles de modélisation, ne pourrait pas être plus précisément expliquée et légitimée, dans ses apports épistémologiques, comme dans ses limites aussi. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that standard, indexical contextualism about "knows" is unable to account for the factivity of this epistemic expression.

The essays collected in this volume are all concerned with the connection between fiction and truth. This question is of utmost importance to metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophical logic and epistemology, raising in each of these areas and at their intersections a large number of issues related to creation, existence, reference, identity, modality, belief, assertion, imagination, pretense, etc. All these topics and many more are addressed in this collection, which brings together original essays written from various points of view by (...) philosophers of diverse trends. These essays constitute major contributions to the current debates that the connection between truth and fiction continually enlivens, and give a sense of the directions in which research on this question is heading. Contributors: Fred Adams, Frederick Kroon, Robert Howell, Brendan Murday, Terence Parsons, Graham Priest, Erich Rast, Manuel Rebuschi, Marion Renauld, R.M. Sainsbury, Grant Tavinor, Alberto Voltolini. (shrink)

Review of Ryan Muldoon's book Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World: Beyond Tolerance (in Swedish).

In the context of pluralization, sophistication, and combination of formal models, it is becoming difficult to propose uniform – or even comparable – model comparison practices. This paper outlines a broad and classificatory comparative epistemology of models. The aim of this epistemology is to propose applicable, and if necessary rectifiable, conceptual tools that can be useful to modellers as well as to historians and epistemologists. The notion of model characteristic vector – incorporating concepts of function, nature, principle and use of (...) the model – is introduced for this end. This proposal has been developed to serve a better-equipped writing of a comparative and interdisciplinary history of models and simulations. (shrink)

O autor analisa os postulados do finalismo e retira suas consequências para a delimitação do conceito de dolo. Dentre essas consequências, defende que o reconhecimento do dolo eventual na estrutura finalista do delito acontece de forma incoerente, devido, sobretudo, aos postulados que fizeram do finalismo uma das teorias mais aceitas pela doutrina, a saber: o respeito às estruturas lógico-objetiva e a inclusão do dolo no tipo subjetivo.

Large sets of elements interacting locally and producing specific architectures reliably form a category that transcends the usual dividing line between biological and engineered systems. We propose to call them morphogenetically architected complex systems (MACS). While taking the emergence of properties seriously, the notion of MACS enables at the same time the design (or “meta-design”) of operational means that allow controlling and even, paradoxically, programming this emergence. To demonstrate our claim, we first show that among all the self-organized systems studied (...) in the field of Artificial Life, the specificity of MACS essentially lies in the close relation between their emergent properties and functional properties. Second, we argue that to be a MACS a system does not need to display more than weak emergent properties. Third, since the notion of weak emergence is based on the possibility of simulation, whether computational or mechanistic via machines, we see MACS as good candidates to help design artificial self-architected systems (such as robotic swarms) but also harness and redesign living ones (such as synthetic bacterial films). (shrink)

This chapter elaborates and develops the thesis originally put forward by Mary Morgan (2005) that some mathematical models may surprise us, but that none of them can completely confound us, i.e. let us unable to produce an ex post theoretical understanding of the outcome of the model calculations. This chapter intends to object and demonstrate that what is certainly true of classical mathematical models is however not true of pluri-formalized simulations with multiple axiomatic bases. This chapter thus proposes to show (...) that - and why - some of these computational simulations that are now booming in the sciences not only surprise us but also confound us. To do so, it shows too that it is needed to elaborate and articulate with some new precision the concept of weak emergence initially due, for its part, to Mark A. Bedau (1997). (shrink)

I will discuss the relationship between physicalism and classical Big Bang Cosmology, and argue that the physicalist must hold to the notion that the Universe came into being out of literal nonbeing with no cause, if this person is to hold to classical Big Bang Cosmology. If my argument is sound, then it entails that a physicalist must do this in order to be consistent with Big Bang cosmology, or either give up physicalism. Theism, on the other hand, does not (...) require that it is possible that being can arise from nonbeing. One may then argue that theism is to be prefered over physicalism, since it is arguably simpler in its assumptions on this question. This may therefore be of interest to Natural (a)Theology. (shrink)

A recent evolution of computer simulations has led to the emergence of complex computer simulations. In particular, the need to formalize composite objects (those objects that are composed of other objects) has led to what the author suggests to call pluriformalizations, i.e. formalizations that are based on distinct sub-models which are expressed in a variety of heterogeneous symbolic languages. With the help of four case-studies, he shows that such pluriformalizations enable to formalize distinctly but simultaneously either different aspects or different (...) parts or different scales of the same object or system. From an epistemological standpoint, he suggests that this kind of computer-aided complex formalization of composite objects renew the traditional relations between computer simulations, theoretical models and operational models. (shrink)

Par un procédé d'objections/réponses, nous passons d'abord en revue certains des arguments en faveur ou en défaveur du caractère empirique de la simulation informatique. A l'issue de ce chemin clarificateur, nous proposons des arguments en faveur du caractère concret des objets simulés en science, ce qui légitime le fait que l'on parle à leur sujet d'une expérience, plus spécifiquement d'une expérience concrète du second genre.

Dans un nombre croissant de domaines scientifiques - sciences de la nature, sciences humaines aussi bien que sciences des artefacts -, la simulation ne joue plus le rôle de succédané temporaire d'une théorie encore en gésine parce que non encore élaborée ; c'est-à-dire qu'elle ne joue plus systématiquement le rôle d'un modèle provisoire ou d'un schéma servant à condenser les mesures. C'est qu'elle n'a pas la nature d'un signe graphique, linguistique ou mathématique. Elle joue au contraire de plus en plus (...) le rôle d'une réplication détaillée du réel : elle est une intuition reconstruite avec justesse mais sans abstraction rationnelle et généralisante, donc sans transfiguration iconique. Une des limites de l'épistémologie dialectique de Bachelard tient à ce qu'elle ne donne pas les concepts pour penser assez distinctement ces pratiques contemporaines de simulation. C'est pourquoi l'A. propose de concevoir l'idée que la science contemporaine se développe non plus selon la seule dialectique matérialisme / rationalisme, mais selon la triade rationalisme/computationalisme/matérialisme. (shrink)

According to David Lewis’s contextualist analysis of knowledge, there can be contexts in which a subject counts as knowing a proposition just because every possibility that this proposition might be false is irrelevant in those contexts. In this paper I argue that, in some cases at least, Lewis’ analysis results in granting people non-evidentially based knowledge of ordinary contingent truths which, intuitively, cannot be known but on the basis of appropriate evidence.

In this paper we propose a new semantics, based on the notion of a "contextual model", that makes it possible to express and compare — within a unique formal framework — different views on the roles of various notions of context in knowledge ascriptions. We use it to provide a logical analysis of such positions as skeptical and moderate invariantism, contextualism, and subject-sensitive invariantism. A dynamic formalism is also proposed that offers new insights into a classical skeptical puzzle.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the “Framework for M&S with Agents” (FMSA) proposed by Zeigler et al. [2000, 2009] in regard to the diverse epistemological aims of agent simulations in social sciences. We first show that there surely are great similitudes, hence that the aim to emulate a universal “automated modeler agent” opens new ways of interactions between these two domains of M&S with agents. E.g., it can be shown that the multi-level conception at the core of (...) the FMSA is similar in both contexts: notions of “levels of system specifi cation”, “behavior of models”, “simulator”and “endomorphic agents” can be partially translated in the terms linked to the “denotational hierarchy” (DH) recently introduced in a multi-level centered epistemology of M&S. Second, we suggest considering the question of “credibility” of agent M&S in social sciences when we do not try to emulate but only to simulate target systems. Whereas a stringent and standardized treatment of the heterogeneous internal relations (in the DH) between systems of formalisms is the key problem and the essential challenge in the scope of Agent M&S driven engineering, it is urgent too to address the problem of the external relations (and of the external validity, hence of the epistemic power and credibility) of such levels of formalisms in the specific domains of agent M&S in social sciences, especially when we intend to introduce the concepts of activity tracking. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers Stephen Kearns and Daniel Star argue that normative reasons to ϕ simply are evidence that one ought to ϕ, and suggest that “evidence” in this context is best understood in standard Bayesian terms. I contest this suggestion.

Review of Ingmar Persson's book From Morality to the End of Reason (in Swedish).

Le déficit d’explicabilité des techniques d’apprentissage machine (AM) pose des problèmes opérationnels, juridiques et éthiques. Un des principaux objectifs de notre projet est de fournir des explications éthiques des sorties générées par une application fondée sur de l’AM, considérée comme une boîte noire. La première étape de ce projet, présentée dans cet article, consiste à montrer que la validation de ces boîtes noires diffère épistémologiquement de celle mise en place dans le cadre d’une modélisation mathématique et causale d’un phénomène physique. (...) La différence majeure est qu’une méthode d’AM ne prétend pas représenter une causalité entre les paramètres d’entrées, qui peuvent être de plus de haute dimensionnalité, et ceux de sortie. Nous montrons dans cet article l’intérêt de mettre en œuvre les distinctions épistémologiques entre les différentes fonctions épistémiques d’un modèle, d’une part, et entre la fonction épistémique et l’usage d’un modèle, d’autre part. Enfin, la dernière partie de cet article présente nos travaux en cours sur l’évaluation d’une explication, qui peut être plus persuasive qu’informative, ce qui peut ainsi causer des problèmes d’ordre éthique. (shrink)

Intellectual historians have rarely attended to the genre of fighting manuals, but these provide a new window on long-debated questions such as the relationship between Scholasticism and Humanism. This article offers a close comparison of the first known fencing manual, the 14-th century Liber de Arte Dimicatoria (Leeds, Royal Armouries FECHT 1, previously and better known as MS I.33), and the corpus of fighting manuals which underwent a remarkable expansion during the 15th and 16th centuries. While the former clearly shows (...) its origins in a scholastic background, the latter is mainly viewed as reflecting its humanist context. To this historiographical division corresponds a linguistic one: MS I.33 is a Latin text, while the rest of the corpus is mainly written in German and Italian. However, exceptions arise, amongst which, Heinrich von Gunterrodt’s Sciomachia et Hoplomachia: sive de Veris Principiis Artis Dimicatoriae (1579), the first text which explicitly refers to I.33. This article will compare these two texts, in order to interrogate their common relation to Scholasticism, namely the traditional frame of the knowledge within the medieval and early modern universities. The intent is to show that (at least some) Renaissance fight books include references to Scholasticism and to provide a better qualification of the nature of such references. The general hypothesis is that a large part of the texts―and products of culture―of the Renaissance that have been read, until recently, exclusively in relation to a humanist intellectual background can valuably be interpreted in the context of a Scholasticism that is still vivid during the period in question. (shrink)

Le déficit d’explicabilité des techniques d’apprentissage machine (AM) pose des problèmes opérationnels, juridiques et éthiques. Un des principaux objectifs de notre projet est de fournir des explications éthiques des sorties générées par une application fondée sur de l’AM, considérée comme une boîte noire. La première étape de ce projet, présentée dans cet article, consiste à montrer que la validation de ces boîtes noires diffère épistémologiquement de celle mise en place dans le cadre d’une modélisation mathéma- tique et causale d’un phénomène (...) physique. La différence majeure est qu’une méthode d’AM ne prétend pas représenter une causalité entre les paramètres d’entrées et ceux de sortie. Après avoir proposé une clarification et une adaptation des notions d’inter- prétabilité et d’explicabilité telles qu’on les rencontre dans la littérature déjà abondante sur le sujet, nous montrons dans cet article l’intérêt de mettre en œuvre les distinctions épistémologiques entre les différentes fonctions épistémiques d’un modèle, d’une part, et entre la fonction épistémique et l’usage d’un modèle, d’autre part. Enfin, la dernière partie de cet article présente nos travaux en cours sur l’évaluation d’une explication, qui peut être plus persuasive qu’informative, ce qui peut ainsi causer des problèmes d’ordre éthique. (shrink)

Cognitive sciences as an interdisciplinary field, involving scientific disciplines (such as computer science, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, economics, etc.), philosophical disciplines (philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, analytic philosophy, etc.) and engineering (notably knowledge engineering), have a vast theoretical and practical content, some even conflicting. In this interdisciplinary context and on computational modeling, ontologies play a crucial role in communication between disciplines and also in a process of innovation of theories, models and experiments in cognitive sciences. We propose a model for (...) this process here. An ontological commitment is advocated as the framework of a scientific realism, which leads computational modeling to search for more realistic models, for a complex systems perspective of nature and cognition. In that way multiagent modeling of complex systems has been fulfilling an important role. (shrink)

Os autores estudam um caso de linchamento ocorrido na cidade de Guarujá. Formulam sua hipótese a partir da teoria mimética de René Girard, demonstrando, no caso concreto, a presença de sinais vitimários que tornam um indivíduo suscetível a ser tomado como bode expiatório de uma comunidade em crise. Problematizam sobre a questão da mentalidade persecutória, justiça comunitária e sistema judiciário.

Resumo: Objetivando compreender as ideologias que conformaram os regimes totalitários do século XX, o autor investiga a origem da ideia de progresso da história, especialmente para expor um tipo de racionalidade que está no cerne das ideologias progressistas, cujo elemento comum ´e a hipóstase do fim da história como um evento espiritual imanente ao processo histórico. Para tanto, observa na imanentização escatológica de Joaquim de Fiore uma das mais importantes manifestações da ideia de progresso na história, expondo sua influência nas (...) ideologias modernas. -/- Palavras-chave: Progresso em ideia de hist´oria. Ideologias progressistas. Gnosticismo em Joaquim de Fiore. (shrink)

Currently, the widely used notion of activity is increasingly present in computer science. However, because this notion is used in specific contexts, it becomes vague. Here, the notion of activity is scrutinized in various contexts and, accordingly, put in perspective. It is discussed through four scientific disciplines: computer science, biology, economics, and epistemology. The definition of activity usually used in simulation is extended to new qualitative and quantitative definitions. In computer science, biology and economics disciplines, the new simulation activity definition (...) is first applied critically. Then, activity is discussed generally. In epistemology, activity is discussed, in a prospective way, as a possible framework in models of human beliefs and knowledge. (shrink)

RESUMO: As novas tecnologias revolucionaram tanto as relações humanas quanto as formas de exploração. Com o uso massivo e a dependência das redes sociais, muitas pessoas descobriram fontes de ganhos fnanceiros a partir da exposição da imagem, seja da sua ou de outrem. Nesse cenário, a intimidade de centenas de crianças é exposta por seus pais ou responsáveis em troca de audiência, fama e recursos fnanceiros. Partindo dessa problemática, o presente artigo investiga os impactos do trabalho infantil mediante a exploração (...) da imagem e da intimidade da criança nas plataformas digitais. Por se tratar de uma nova modalidade de produção abundante de artistas mirins, suas consequências têm impactado a atual geração, sobretudo na saúde biopsicossocial. -/- PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Trabalho Infantil. Exposição Virtual. Exploração da Imagem. Redes Sociais. -/- ABSTRACT: New technologies have revolutionized both human relationships and forms of exploitation. With the massive use and dependence on social networks, many people have discovered sources of fnancial gain from the exposure of the image, whether theirs or someone else’s. In this scenario, the intimacy of hundreds of children is exposed by their parents or guardians in exchange for audience, fame and fnancial gain. Based on this problem, this article investigates the impacts of child labor through the exploitation of the image and intimacy of the child on digital platforms. As it is a new modality of abundant production of child artists, its consequences have impacted the current generation, especially in biopsychosocial health. -/- KEYWORDS: Child Labor. Virtual Exposure. Image Exploitation. Social networks. (shrink)

Destaca-se a importância da vítima no processo de perfilamento de criminosos, pois é com base na averiguação dos traços físicos e psicológicos deixados na pessoa que sofreu o delito que é possível traçar o perfil criminal do ofensor. Constata-se a estagnação do ensino do criminal profiling no Brasil.