Do people fall for online disinformation, or do they actively utilize it as a tool to accomplish their goals? Currently, the notion of the members of the public as victims of deception and manipulation prevails in the debate. It emphasizes the need to limit people’s exposure to falsehoods and bolster their deficient reasoning faculties. However, the observed epistemic irrationality can also stem from politically motivated reasoning incentivized by digital platforms. In this context, the readily available disinformation facilitates an arms race (...) in loyalty signaling via a public endorsement of fanciful partisan claims. Such a signaling arms race appears capable of derailing democratic decision-making perhaps more effectively than any known reasoning deficiency. Appreciating the role of an instrumentally rational cost-benefit calculus in triggering the disinformation crisis thus appears vital. Examining these themes, the paper contributes to the current debates in political epistemology and democratic theory. (shrink)

Democracy in its currently dominant liberal form has proven supportive of unprecedented human flourishing. However, it also appears increasingly plagued by political polarization, strained to cope with the digitalization of the political discourse, and threatened by authoritarian backlash. A growing sense of the anthropic risks—with runaway climate change as the leading example—thus often elicits concern regarding democracy’s capability of mitigating them. Apparently, lacking a sufficient degree of the citizens’ consensus on the priority issues of the day, it can find itself (...) unable to muster the resolve and resources necessary to alter its “business as usual” path even where disasters loom ever larger in its track. Against these concerns, I argue that democracy’s potential remains far from depleted. While political irrationality needs to be considered a major obstacle to successfully managing the anthropic risks, many existing reform proposals appear capable of reining it in. My main suggestion is to seek ways to facilitate a speedier and more effective exploration of the landscape of the possible democratic mechanisms of collective choice. A virtual platform to support such an exploration—which I call ‘democracy’s digital playground’—may allow us to find innovative ways of managing anthropic risks without compromising our commitment to democratic values. (shrink)

Krize spojená s příchodem pandemie koronaviru ukázala, že užitečné expertní vědění sice podle všeho existuje, ale ne každému, kdo se představí jako expert, bychom měli věřit. Slovy doktora House: „Všichni lžou.“ Lžou i odborníci. Kapitola se zaměřuje na situace, kdy odborník lže takříkajíc „s dobrým úmyslem,“ neboť se domnívá, že pravda by veřejnost vedla k chování, které není společensky žádoucí. V takovém případě se jedná o lhaní paternalistické, protože má ochránit veřejnost před ní samotnou. Ukážeme příklady, kdy k němu dochází, (...) a pokusíme se i odhadnout, jak dobře takový pokus o manipulaci veřejnosti funguje krátkodobě i dlouhodobě. Protože výsledky našeho rozboru nenaznačují, že by dobročinné lhaní odborníků bylo skutečně společensky prospěšné, pobavíme se také o tom, proč by se mu člověk v roli experta měl raději vyhnout. (shrink)

The article explores novel directions in the phenomenology of economics. It analyzes how the approaches of Till Düppe and Alfred Schütz, both inspired by Edmund Husserl, may shed light on the historical development of economics. I examine the substance and meaning of economics in the context of the forceful criticism of the whole discipline recently raised by Düppe. This examination uncovers important weaknesses and omissions inherent in Düppe’s argument against the economists’ scientific aspirations. The analysis of the social scientific endeavors (...) by Alfred Schütz who develops a phenomenologically informed ‘telescopic’ concept of an ideal type is then shown to be a more fruitful and methodologically rigorous way towards understanding the developments within economics. The Schützian view permits us to see how abstract economic models originate in the experience of the life-world and are continuous with it. Accordingly, the historical development of economic science may be viewed as consisting from two broadly defined phases, where at first the formalism is steadily increasing (the ‘zooming out’ phase) and later the discipline converges back to context-specific empirical examinations (the ‘zooming in’ phase). A case study concentrating on the economic theory of politics illustrates that both the drive towards abstraction that has culminated around 1950s and the more recent ‘zooming in’ is methodologically legitimate from the phenomenological point of view. I conclude that economics has never been completely severed from the paramount reality of the everyday life and for decades the interconnection has been growing stronger by the day. (shrink)

As our epistemic ambitions grow, the common and scientific endeavours are becoming increasingly dependent on Machine Learning (ML). The field rests on a single experimental paradigm, which consists of splitting the available data into a training and testing set and using the latter to measure how well the trained ML model generalises to unseen samples. If the model reaches acceptable accuracy, an a posteriori contract comes into effect between humans and the model, supposedly allowing its deployment to target environments. Yet (...) the latter part of the contract depends on human inductive predictions or generalisations, which infer a uniformity between the trained ML model and the targets. The paper asks how we justify the contract between human and machine learning. It is argued that the justification becomes a pressing issue when we use ML to reach ‘elsewheres’ in space and time or deploy ML models in non-benign environments. The paper argues that the only viable version of the contract can be based on optimality (instead of on reliability which cannot be justified without circularity) and aligns this position with Schurz’s optimality justification. It is shown that when dealing with inaccessible/unstable ground-truths (‘elsewheres’ and non-benign targets), the optimality justification undergoes a slight change, which should reflect critically on our epistemic ambitions. Therefore, the study of ML robustness should involve not only heuristics that lead to acceptable accuracies on testing sets. The justification of human inductive predictions or generalisations about the uniformity between ML models and targets should be included as well. Without it, the assumptions about inductive risk minimisation in ML are not addressed in full. (shrink)

The paper deals with von Mises’ metaphysics and argues that his methodological dualism concerns only his epistemology. The framework of Mises´s ontology is materialistic monism. Although Mises strongly criticizes materialism, his critique does not concern metaphysical ontological materialism as long as it does not try to eliminate the specific method of the social sciences. In this sense Mises’ metaphysics is fully naturalistic – it does not include any “spiritual” agents and postulates a world consisting exclusively of elementary physical particles. The (...) study illustrates this point on Mises’ determinism and his rejection of the free will as well as on his Darwinian account of the evolution of human mind. The specific method of the social sciences which makes use of the category of finality serves merely as an efficient heuristics and is based on a pragmatic view of science. It allows us to describe the irreducible complexity of social phenomena that cannot (at least not yet) be grasped by the physicalist vocabulary alone. Thus the argument of complexity is seen as a cornerstone of Misesian methodological dualism. (shrink)

Large language models (LLMs) represent the currently most relevant incarnation of artificial intelligence with respect to the future fate of democratic governance. Considering their potential, this paper seeks to answer a pressing question: Could LLMs outperform humans as expert advisors to democratic assemblies? While bearing the promise of enhanced expertise availability and accessibility, they also present challenges of hallucinations, misalignment, or value imposition. Weighing LLMs’ benefits and drawbacks compared to their human counterparts, I argue for their careful integration to augment (...) democracy’s ability to address complex policy issues. The paper posits that time-tested democratic procedures like deliberation and aggregation by voting provide safeguards effective against both human and machine advisor imperfections. Additional protective measures include custom LLM training for the advisory role, boosting representatives’ competencies in query formulation, or implementation of adversarial proceedings in which LLM advisors could debate each other and provide dissenting opinions. These could further mitigate the risks that LLMs present in advisory roles and empower human decision-makers toward increased autonomy and quality of their collective choices. My conceptual exploration offers a roadmap for the co-evolution of AI and democratic institutions, setting the stage for an empirical research agenda to finetune the implementation specifics. (shrink)

According to Peter Harrison's book The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science modern science came into existence as a result of the emphasis of Protestants on the literal sense of the Scripture, their refusal of the earlier symbolic or allegorical interpretation, and their efforts at fixing the meaning of the biblical text in which each passage was to be ascribed a single and unique meaning. This article tries to summarize the most significant critiques of Harrison's hypothesis and to (...) acknowledge their legitimacy. However, the alternative explanation of the emergence of modern science as a result of disputes over the biblical interpretation and the subsequent discovery of the ambiguous character of the ordinary verbal language is not fully satisfactory either. (shrink)

Studie poukazuje na tři základní slabiny současného českého diskurzu o kolapsech komplexních společností, jehož předním mluvčím se stal egyptolog Miroslav Bárta. Zaprvé nedošlo k vyrovnání s absencí vědeckého konsenzu ohledně determinantů historického vývoje a teorii, která by poskytla jednotící rámec pro zařazení a interpretaci konkrétních prediktorů kolapsu, byla věnována jen minimální pozornost. Zadruhé nebyla podána jasná odpověď na otázku, která společenská struktura je při studiu kolapsu vlastně předmětem zkoumání, přestože se volné přechody mezi rovinami kultur, států a civilizací nejeví z (...) analytického hlediska možné. Zatřetí se řada navržených prediktorů kolapsu ukazuje už při zběžném ohledání jako zásadně problematická. Studie dochází k závěru, že současný stav poznání problematiky kolapsů komplexních společností neospravedlňuje vyslovování žádných vědecky podložených predikcí, které by mohly být zdrojem pragmatické legitimizace pro společenské a humanitní vědy. (shrink)

This study clarifies the need for a renewed account of the body in physiotherapy to fill sizable gaps between physiotherapeutical theory and practice. Physiotherapists are trained to approach bodily functioning from an objectivist perspective; however, their therapeutic interactions with patients are not limited to the provision of natural-scientific explanations. Physiotherapists’ practice corresponds well to theorisation of the body as the bearer of original bodily intentionality, as outlined by Merleau-Ponty and elaborated upon by enactivists. We clarify how physiotherapeutical practice corroborates Merleau-Ponty’s (...) critical arguments against objectivist interpretations of the body; particularly, his analyses demonstrate that norms of optimal corporeal functioning are highly individual and variable in time and thus do not directly depend on generic physiological structures. In practice, objectively measurable physical deviations rarely correspond to specific subjective difficulties and, similarly, patients’ reflective insights into their own motor deficiencies do not necessarily produce meaningful motor improvements. Physiotherapeutical procedures can be understood neither as mechanical manipulations of patients’ machine-like bodies by experts nor as a process of such manipulation by way of instructing patients’ explicit conscious awareness. Rather, physiotherapeutical practice and theory can benefit from the philosophical interpretation of motor disorders as modifications of bodily intentionality. Consequently, motor performances addressed in physiotherapy are interpreted as relational features of a living organism coupled with its environment, and motor disorders are approached as failures to optimally manage the motor requirements of a given situation owing to a relative loss of the capacity to structure one’s relation with their environment through motor action. Building on this, we argue that the process of physiotherapy is most effective when understood as a bodily interaction to guide patients towards discovering better ways of grasping a situation as meaningful through bodily postures and movements. (shrink)

Faik Kurtulmuş’s exploration of the epistemic basic structure (EBS) invites us to think about the generation, dissemination, and absorption of knowledge in a society, emphasizing the role of institutions in determining epistemic outcomes. Moreover, Kurtulmuş—in joint work with Gürol Irzık—offers a normative take on the EBS from the viewpoint of the theory of justice and does not shy away from drawing specific policy recommendations. Thus, a powerful, innovative concept is used to extend an influential theory and draw out its practical (...) implications. What more is there to wish for? A project of such ambition inevitably faces serious challenges. I address the issue of the alignment between the ideal and non-ideal elements of Kurtulmuş’s theory with an eye toward the practicalities of social reform. My central claim is that the philosophers striving to promote distributive epistemic justice need to think carefully about whom they intend to address with their proposals and how to persuade such addressees. I also maintain that emphasis on a holistic approach to social reform represents a major hindrance to its pragmatic success. (shrink)

The study analyzes Mises‘s approach to the question of apriorism in a broader methodological context. It shows that it is not inevitable to advocate the aprioristic character of economics (resp. science of human action), as Mises does, to maintain the subjectivist-individualist methodology and the effort to adequately grasp the general laws of human action from its perspective. The present redefinition of apriorism is developed on the basis of thoughts of Barry Smith and Alfred Schutz. It suggests abandoning the apodictic character (...) of apriori (which is untenable) and move closer to a broadly defined empiricism. The methodological insights developed in the paper are finally used to contribute to the debate between the behavioral economists and the proponents of rational choice theory. (shrink)

Objectivity, as one of the key attributes of science, has become an indispensable part of its ethos and a central theme of the philosophy of science. As such, it has been a subject of philosophical reflection by a number of authors. In our project – in which both philosophers of science and scientists participate – we examine the concept of objectivity in the natural sciences with the tools of experimental philosophy. We aim to identify specific operational dimensions of objectivity, those (...) with which current scientist actually work, thus making them accessible for further theoretical analysis and research. In this text, we present results from the first, qualitative phase of our research based on in-depth interviews and focus groups with scientists working in the Czech Republic. Further, we confront this empirical data with theoretical notions of objectivity. We also present other findings from the research and formulate hypotheses for the research’s subsequent phases. (shrink)

[In Czech] This article aims to explain how Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological account of embodiment contributes to the theory and practice of physiotherapy. The mechanistic conception of the body, to which physiotherapy usually refers, assumes a universal model of its functioning and interprets its relationship to the environment causally. In fact, however, it does not allow a satisfactory explanation of the efficiency of the therapeutic methods used in practice. In contrast, Merleau-Ponty’s concept of motor intentionality points to the fact that the body (...) “understands” the practical meaning of a situation. Bodily understanding is then manifested in particular by the ability to adequately differentiate, adapt or vary motor and postural responses to environmental challenges. This change in the conception of embodiment also has important implications for understanding the therapist-patient relationship and the intervention itself. Physiotherapists should draw more on the fact that they are themselves a body and, on this basis, guide the patient’s bodily intentionality towards a more developed understanding of the practical meaning of situations. (shrink)

Recenze: Peter HARRISON - Ronald L. NUMBERS - Michael H. SHANK Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science. Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press 2011, 416 s.

Recenze: William J. DEVLIN - Alisa BOKULICH, Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions - 50 Years On. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science. Boston: Springer 2015, 199 s.

Recenze: Zdeněk VAŠÍČEK, Jak se dělají filosofie. Praha: Triáda 2012, 240 s.

Petrus Nigri (Schwarz) se narodil západočeské Kadani (něm. Kaaden) kolem roku 1435 a spolu se svými třemi bratry vstoupil v Německu do dominikánského řádu. Během svého studia prošel velkou část Evropy (Německo, Itálii, Španělsko, Čechy a Maďarsko) a nakonec se stal rektorem generálního studia v Budíně (1481). Obecně je znám spíše jako význačný středověký hebraista. Do dějin filosofie se zapsal zvláště jako autor Clipeus thomsitarum (před r. 1474), což je filosofický komentář na Porfýriův Úvod (Isagoge) a na aristotelovské Kategorie, formou (...) otázek. Třebaže Nigriho práce není originální, představuje v zaalpských zemích významnou recepci pojetí pomyslného jsoucna (Clipeus, část I, ot. 3-4) tak, jak ho koncipoval Hervaeus Natalis († 1323) ve svém traktátu De secundis intentionisbus. -/- Petrus Nigri (Peter Schwarz, born in Kadaň/Kaaden before 1435, died in Buda 1483), is author of Clipeus thomistarum (printed 1481), a philosophical commentary on Porphyry's Introduction (Isagoge), and on Aristotle's Categories in the form of questions. While Nigri's discussion of the concept of being of reason (Clipeus thomistarum, part I, qq. 3-4) is not original, his work is important for contributing to this concept’s reception, and with it the teaching of Hervaeus Natalis (died 1323) in his treatise De secundis intentionibus, in the transalpine countries. Being of reason (ens rationis) is conceived as not a categorial being, nor is it an intellectual operation, nor is it caused, but is only identifiable by the human intellect. Nigri's being of reason has no subjective existence, but only an objective character, which differs both from categorial being and from mere nothingness. (shrink)

[What is the Human Being? Peter Auriol and the Role of Cognitive Psychology in the Medieval Definition of the Human Being: ] This paper explores how medieval philosophers used cognitive psychology in defining what the human being is, paying special attention to the Franciscan thinker Peter Auriol (c. 1280 – 1322). First, I examine the motivations of Auriol’s claim that the property of being alive is bound to the property of being cognitive (i. e. being capable of cognition). Then, the (...) foundations of medieval faculty psychology and Auriol’s conception of cognition are introduced. I also argue that the emphasis which Auriol puts on the activity of soul’s faculties leads him to the conclusion (unusual in his days) that the distinction among these faculties is established from the first person perspective. Finally, Auriol’s cognitive definition of the human being is introduced – human beings are human beings precisely because their cognitive experience differs from the way the cognition works in animals on the one hand and in God on the other hand. Whereas animals have only sensory soul’s faculties, humans have the intellect in addition and, therefore, they are capable of universal cognition. Moreover, since humans have not only intellect but also the inner senses (particularly, the phantasy), the universals appear to the human intellect only as blended with the individual that the universal was abstracted from, and the human intellect is not capable of paying attention to no more than just one object at the same moment. Since God and angels have only intellect, these distinctively human features are absent from their cognitive experience. (shrink)

The paper proposes a synthesis between human scientists and artificial representation learning models as a way of augmenting epistemic warrants of realist theories against various anti-realist attempts. Towards this end, the paper fleshes out unconceived alternatives not as a critique of scientific realism but rather a reinforcement, as it rejects the retrospective interpretations of scientific progress, which brought about the problem of alternatives in the first place. By utilising adversarial machine learning, the synthesis explores possibility spaces of available evidence for (...) unconceived alternatives providing modal knowledge of what is possible therein. As a result, the epistemic warrant of synthesised realist theories should emerge bolstered as the underdetermination by available evidence gets reduced. While shifting the realist commitment away from theoretical artefacts towards modalities of the possibility spaces, the synthesis comes out as a kind of perspectival modelling. (shrink)

[Sensation, Causality, and Attention: Roger Bacon and Peter Olivi] This paper investigates what conditions are to be met for sensory perception to occur. It introduces two diff erent theories of perception that were held by two medieval Franciscan thinkers — namely, Roger Bacon (1214/1220–1292) and Peter Olivi (ca. 1248–1298). Bacon analyses especially the causal relation between the object and the sensory organ in his doctrine of the multiplication of species. In his view, a necessary condition of perception is the reception (...) of the species in a fully disposed sensory organ. On the contrary, Olivi stresses the active role of the sensory power. A necessary condition of sensation is the aspectus — i.e. the focus of our power’s attention on the object. Furthermore, the paper investigates whether and how each of the two thinkers can deal with the arguments proposed by his opponent — namely whether Bacon’s theory is able to explain attention and what the causal role of the object in Olivi’s theory is. (shrink)

Centre and Periphery in the Historiography of Philosophy: Peter Olivi and Medieval Psychology The paper inquiries into the (historiographical) question what does it mean to be a “marginal thinker” in the context of the medieval philosophy. The question is investigated on the example of Franciscan philosopher and theologian Peter Olivi (1248/49–1298) and his philosophical psychology. First, a preliminary option is introduced: for a thinker, being “marginal” depends on his relation to who is considered to be canonical. Since the most famous (...) thinker of the Middle Ages is Thomas Aquinas (at least according to the traditional canon of medieval philosophy), Olivi’s positions in psychology are compared with these of Aquinas. It is revealed that Olivi’s psychology is very different from the Aquinas’ one. (E.g. Olivi stresses the activity of perception, proprioceptual nature of the sense of touch, and direct access of the intellect to its own acts.) Moreover, Olivi is very critical towards the Aristotelian philosophy as is done by some thinkers of his time. Nevertheless, it does not follow that Olivi is a marginal thinker only because of his dissimilarity from the more Aristotelian-minded ones. It is argued that “centre” and “periphery” in the history of medieval philosophy depends not on the canon (which is rather a historians’ construct and instrument), but rather on the tradition. Hence, although Olivi can be considered as a marginal thinker if we take into the account the Aristotelian tradition of medieval philosophy, he is definitely a central and important thinker, if considered as a member of the Augustinian tradition. (shrink)

Procedural justifications of democracy emphasize inclusiveness and respect and by doing so come into conflict with instrumental justifications that depend on voters’ competence. This conflict raises questions about jury theorems and makes their standing in democratic theory contested. We show that a type of no-regret learning called meta-induction can help to satisfy the competence assumption without excluding voters or diverse opinion leaders on an a priori basis. Meta-induction assigns weights to opinion leaders based on their past predictive performance to determine (...) the level of their inclusion in recommendations for voters. The weighting minimizes the difference between the performance of meta-induction and the best opinion leader in hindsight. The difference represents the regret of meta-induction whose minimization ensures that the recommendations are optimal in supporting voters’ competence. Meta-induction has optimal truth-tracking properties that support voters’ competence even if it is targeted by mis/disinformation and should be considered a tool for supporting democracy in hyper-plurality. (shrink)

The environmental costs and energy constraints have become emerging issues for the future development of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). So far, the discussion on environmental impacts of ML/AI lacks a perspective reaching beyond quantitative measurements of the energy-related research costs. Building on the foundations laid down by Schwartz et al., 2019 in the GreenAI initiative, our argument considers two interlinked phenomena, the gratuitous generalisation capability and the future where ML/AI performs the majority of quantifiable inductive inferences. The (...) gratuitous generalisation capability refers to a discrepancy between the cognitive demands of a task to be accomplished and the performance (accuracy) of a used ML/AI model. If the latter exceeds the former because the model was optimised to achieve the best possible accuracy, it becomes inefficient and its operation harmful to the environment. The future dominated by the non-anthropic induction describes a use of ML/AI so all-pervasive that most of the inductive inferences become furnished by ML/AI generalisations. The paper argues that the present debate deserves an expansion connecting the environmental costs of research and ineffective ML/AI uses (the issue of gratuitous generalisation capability) with the (near) future marked by the all-pervasive Human-Artificial Intelligence Nexus. (shrink)

We ask how to use machine learning to expand observability, which presently depends on human learning that informs conceivability. The issue is engaged by considering the question of correspondence between conceived observability counterfactuals and observable, yet so far unobserved or unconceived, states of affairs. A possible answer lies in importing out of reference frame content which could provide means for conceiving further observability counterfactuals. They allow us to define high-fidelity observability, increasing the level of correspondence in question. To achieve high-fidelity (...) observability, we propose to use generative machine learning models as the providers of the out of reference frame content. From an applied point of view, such a role of generative machine learning models shows an emerging dimension of human-machine cooperation. (shrink)

I examine mystical experience through the history of European religious thought, its modern state, and different spiritual practices of the Patristic epoch. The survey gives some definitions: mystical experience is situated in the field of spirituality along with practices of its acquisition -- ascetics; and the fruits of it -- theology and doctrine. The second part of the article is devoted to a wide field of Christian texts as a representative example of the same experience of the crystallization of mystical (...) experience in ancient tradition, providing a few general types. Reading of religious texts is related very closely with the spiritual condition of the reader and supposes that he/she changes radically in the process of reading, being involved in some existential-hermeneutic circle. (shrink)

Whatever its grammatical status, the verb “to discern” has an implicit transitive element. That is to say, we always discern about something or between two options. What is the right course of action in this situation and in these circumstances? In our paper, we want to look at responses to this question from the perspective of the theology of liberation. As the name implies, this is first and foremost a theology, a way of seeking to understand and articulate the faith (...) of the believing Christian community. But it is also necessarily political, because it seeks to contribute to the liberation of those who are not free – the poor, the oppressed, those to whom injustice is done, both negatively, by decrying the presence of unfreedom and positively by working for social transformation. It is thus a public theology, a manifestation of the ongoing power of religion to inform and motivate its adherents to engage in attempts to transform the world not only in terms of a post mortem future but here and now. (shrink)

Studie ukazuje kontrast mezi ekonomickým přístupem jdoucím ve šlépějích Garyho Beckera a přístupem behaviorální ekonomie. Důraz je kladen na metodologické srovnání obou alternativ a vyhodnocení potenciálu, který má behaviorální ekonomie pro uskutečnění paradigmatické změny na půdě ekonomického myšlení. Ukazuji, že behaviorální ekonomii se dosud nepodařilo nabídnout teoretickou alternativu homo economicus. Také její potenciál pro dlouhodobé překonání teorie racionální volby v oblasti predikčního úspěchu, který je pro ekonomy standardním kritériem vyhodnocování teorií, může být omezený.

Since the early 20th century underdetermination has been one of the most contentious problems in the philosophy of science. In this article I relate the underdetermination problem to models in biology and defend two main lines of argument: First, the use of models in this discipline lends strong support to the underdetermination thesis. Second, models and theories in biology are not determined strictly by the logic of representation of the studied phenomena, but also by other constraints such as research traditions, (...) backgrounds of the scientists, aims of the research and available technology. Convincing evidence for the existence of underdetermination in biology, where models abound, comes both from the fact that for a natural phenomenon we can create a number of candidate models but also from the fact that we do not have a universal rule that would adjudicate among them. This all makes a strong case for the general validity of underdetermination thesis. (shrink)

Technology offers unique sets of opportunities, from human flourishing to civilization survival, but also challenges, from partial misuse to global apocalypse. Yet technology is shaped by the social environment in which it is developed and used, prompting questions about its desirable governance format. In this context, we look at governance challenges of large technical systems, specifically the peaceful use of high-power lasers in space, in order to propose a conceptual framework for legitimate global governance. Specifically, we adopt a context-based approach (...) to legitimacy to address the trade-offs between effectiveness (output legitimacy) and inclusivity (input legitimacy) in the governance of large technical systems. We show that distinguishing two basic phases of space laser policy which call for different legitimacy criteria helps balance out the trade-offs without sacrificing either effectiveness or inclusivity. Finally, we construe LTSs’ governance as a tool for creating globally networked spaces which may enable coordinated global democratic governance. (shrink)

What Ivan Illich regarded in his Medical Nemesis as the ‘expropriation of health’ takes place on the surfaces and in the spaces of the screens all around us, including our cell phones but also the patient monitors and (increasingly) the iPads that intervene between nurse and patient. To explore what Illich called the ‘age of the show’, this essay uses film examples, like Creed and the controversial documentary Vaxxed, and the television series Nurse Jackie. Rocky’s cancer in his last film (...) (submitting to chemo to ‘fight’ cancer) highlights what Illich along with Petr Skrabanek called the ‘expropriation of death’. In contrast to what Illich denotes as ‘Umsonstigkeit’ – i.e., a free gift, given undeservedly, i.e., gratuitously – medical science tends to be tempted by what Illich terms scientistic ‘black magic’, taking over (expropriating) the life and the death of the patient in increasingly technological ways, a point underscored in the concluding section on the commercial prospects of xenotransplants using factory farm or mass-produced (and already for some time) human-pig mosaics or chimeras. (shrink)

Review: Ippoliti, Emiliano, Sterpetti, Fabio, Nickles Thomas : Models and Inferences in Science.

This chapter introduces a research-based conceptual framework for the study of the inner psychosocial reality of business enterprises. It is called the Inner Organizational Ecosystem Approach (IOEA). This model is systemic in nature, and it defines the basic features of small and medium-size enterprises, such as elements, structures, borders, social actors, organizational climate, processes and resources. Further, it also covers the dynamics of psychosocial reality, processes, emergent qualities and the higher-order subsystems of the overall organizational ecosystem, including the global business (...) environment, which is understood as a macro-system where all the individual organizational ecosystems co-exist. In the applied part of the chapter, cognitive changes emerging within systemic leadership training are defined. Participation in systemic training causes changes in the cognitive processing of reality, more specifically improvements in layer-based framing, relativistic contextual orientation, temporality drift and meaning generation. All of these changes are components of the systemic mind, which is a concept newly proposed and defined by the present study. The systemic mind is a living matrix that is extremely open to acquiring new skills and new patterns of thinking, analyzing and meaning generation. It is processual and it can be considered as an ongoing process of continuous absorption of new cognitive patterns. Both the Inner Organizational Ecosystem Approach and the concept of the systemic mind provide a new theoretical background for empirical investigation in the fields of systemic and systems psychology, complexity psychology, organizational psychology, economic anthropology and the social anthropology of work. (shrink)

Define teleology as the view that requirements hold in virtue of facts about value or goodness. Teleological views are quite popular, and in fact some philosophers (e.g. Dreier, Smith) argue that all (plausible) moral theories can be understood teleologically. I argue, however, that certain well-known cases show that the teleologist must at minimum assume that there are certain facts that an agent ought to know, and that this means that requirements can't, in general, hold in virtue of facts about value (...) or goodness. I then show that even if we grant those 'ought's teleology still runs into problems. A positive justification of teleology looks like it will require an argument of this form: O(X); if X, then O(Y); therefore O(Y). But this form of argument isn't in general valid. I conclude by offering two positive suggestions for those attracted to a teleological outlook. (shrink)

The phenomenon of ambivalence is an important one for any philosophy of action. Despite this importance, there is a lack of a fully satisfactory analysis of the phenomenon. Although many contemporary philosophers recognize the phenomenon, and address topics related to it, only Harry Frankfurt has given the phenomenon full treatment in the context of action theory - providing an analysis of how it relates to the structure and freedom of the will. In this paper, I develop objections to Frankfurt's account, (...) all revolving around the charge that his account contains a serious ambiguity between willing and identifying. With such objections in place, I then develop an analysis that avoids the difficulties and ambiguities that Frankfurt's analysis is prey to. I briefly distinguish ambivalence from other types of internal conflict. This paper aims to offer conceptual clarification on the phenomenon of ambivalence, which will then allow for discussions about the normative merits and demerits of ambivalence, the effects of ambivalence on autonomous action, and methods of resolution of ambivalence. (shrink)

Focused on evolutionary and continuous human development the global, the regulatory system should be formed in the conceptual (the constant research for the detection, identification and evaluation of global imperatives) and application (development and implementation of activities and coordination tools of influence to ensure the existence of human civilization in a secure politically, economically, socially and environmentally balanced world) planes. On the author's calculations of its formation in functionally complete, holistic view is expected by 2030 due to historically conditioned transformations (...) in the nature of social relations. (shrink)

Scientists have the ability to influence policy in important ways through how they present their results. Surprisingly, existing codes of scientific ethics have little to say about such choices. I propose that we can arrive at a set of ethical guidelines to govern scientists’ presentation of information to policymakers by looking to bioethics: roughly, just as a clinician should aim to promote informed decision-making by patients, a scientist should aim to promote informed decision-making by policymakers. Though this may sound like (...) a natural proposal, I show it offers guidance that conflicts with standard scientific practices. I conclude by considering one cost of the proposal: that it would prevent scientists from acting as advocates in a way that is currently common in certain fields. I accept that the proposal would restrict scientists’ political advocacy rights, but argue that the benefits of adopting it — promoting democratic governance — justify the restriction. (shrink)

Daoism and Environmental Philosophy explores ethics and the philosophy of nature in the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and related texts to elucidate their potential significance in our contemporary environmental crisis. This book traces early Daoist depictions of practices of embodied emptying and forgetting and communicative strategies of undoing the fixations of words, things, and the embodied self. These are aspects of an ethics of embracing plainness and simplicity, nourishing the asymmetrically differentiated yet shared elemental body of life of the myriad things, (...) and being responsively attuned in encountering and responding to things. These critical and transformative dimensions of early Daoism provide exemplary models and insights for cultivating a more expansive ecological ethos, environmental culture of nature, and progressive political ecology. This work will be of interest to students and scholars interested in philosophy, environmental ethics and philosophy, religious studies, and intellectual history. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging and authoritative volume, leading scholars engage with the philosophy and writings of Wilhelm Dilthey, a key figure in nineteenth-century thought. Their chapters cover his innovative philosophical strategies and explore how they can be understood in relation to their historical situation, as well as presenting incisive interpretations of Dilthey's arguments, including their development, their content, and their influence on later thought. A key focus is on how Dilthey's work remains relevant to current debates around art and literature, the (...) biographical and autobiographical self, knowledge, language, science, culture, history, society, and psychology and the embodied mind. The volume will be important for researchers in hermeneutics, aesthetics, practical philosophy, and the history of German philosophy, providing a valuable introduction to Dilthey's work as well as detailed critical analysis of its ongoing significance. (shrink)

Silence is a multifaceted concept which is not merely as an absence of sound but a presence with significant ontological, existential, and phenomenological implications. Through a thematic analysis, this paper deconstructs silence into various dimensions—its ontology, linguistic universality, and its function as cessation of speech, a form of listening, an act of kenosis, a form of ascesis, and a way of life. The study employs philosophical discourse and mathematical notation to delve into these aspects, demonstrating that while each perspective sheds (...) light on certain facets of silence, none can comprehensively encapsulate its essence. The research underscores the paradoxical nature of silence. It is both a universal phenomenon recognised across cultures and an intimate, personal experience that resists definitive categorisation. The paper concludes that the true nature of silence, particularly when considering the state of "being silent," remains indefinable and elusive, inviting deeper contemplation on its role in human experience. (shrink)

My paper addresses a topic--the implications of Rawls's justice as fairness for affirmative action--that has received remarkably little attention from Rawls's major interpreters. The only extended treatments of it that are in print are over a quarter-century old, and they bear scarcely any relationship to Rawls's own nonideal theorizing. Following Christine Korsgaard's lead, I work through the implications of Rawls's nonideal theory and show what it entails for affirmative action: viz. that under nonideal conditions, aggressive forms of formal equality of (...) opportunity (e.g., sensitivity training, outreach efforts, external monitoring and enforcement) and compensating support (e.g., special fellowship programs, childcare facilities, mentoring, co-op opportunities, etc.) can be justified, but that "hard" and even "soft" quotas are difficult to defend under any conditions. I conclude the paper by exploring the implications of these surprising results for contemporary liberalism more broadly and for constitutional law and public policy. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that our moral concern for future well-being should reduce over time due to important practical considerations about how humans interact with spacetime. After surveying several of these considerations (around equality, special duties, existential contingency, and overlapping moral concern) we develop a set of core principles that can both explain their moral significance and highlight why this is inherently bound up with our relationship with spacetime. These relate to the equitable distribution of (1) moral concern in (...) a universe that we can only causally affect in one temporal direction; (2) access to the benefits from using spacetime as a resource; and (3) the burdens of care given (1) and (2). We conclude by considering the practical implications of our argument and find that, while it is often assumed that a preference for present over future well-being weakens the case for existential risk mitigation, this likely is not the case. (shrink)

As these opening quotes acknowledge, the Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) represents a core puzzle within the formal mathematics of game theory.3 Its rise in conspicuity is evident figure 2.1 above demonstrating a relatively steady rise in incidences of the phrase’s usage between 1960 to 1995, with a stable presence persisting into the twenty first century. This famous two-person “game,” with a stock narrative cast in terms of two prisoners who each independently must choose whether to remain silent or speak, each advancing (...) self-interest at the expense of the other and thereby achieving a mutually suboptimal outcome, mires any social interaction it is applied to into perplexity. The logic of this game proves the inverse of Adam Smith’s invisible hand: individuals acting on self interest will achieve a mutually suboptimal outcome. However, as this chapter illuminates, the assumptions underlying game theory drive this conclusion. (shrink)

Contemporary republicanism is characterized by three main ideas: free persons, who are not subject to the arbitrary power of others; free states, which try to protect their citizens from such power without exercising it themselves; and vigilant citizenship, as a means to limit states to their protective role. This book advances an economic model of such republicanism that is ideologically centre-left. It demands an exit-oriented state interventionism, one that would require an activist government to enhance competition and resource exit from (...) dominating relationships within markets of all types, be they marital, labour, or residential. The substantial intervention and redistribution necessitated by such an approach make it leftist, while its tendency to work with rather than against the grain of markets makes it centrist. It is, in short, a contribution to progressive republican political thought, but one that is less social-democratic than market-democratic in character. (shrink)

Incompatibilists often claim that we experience our agency as incompatible with determinism, while compatibilists challenge this claim. We report a series of experiments that focus on whether the experience of having an ability to do otherwise is taken to be at odds with determinism. We found that participants in our studies described their experience as incompatibilist whether the decision was (i) present-focused or retrospective, (ii) imagined or actual, (iii) morally salient or morally neutral. The only case in which participants did (...) not give incompatibilist judgments was when the question was explicitly about whether one’s ignorance of the future was compatible with determinism. This lends empirical support to claims made by incompatibilists about the experience of agency, while also showing that compatibilist accounts of ability are inadequate to the reported phenomenology. Our results also inform recent debates about the presuppositions of deliberation. (shrink)

Is capitalism inherently predatory? Must there be winners and losers? Is public interest outdated and free-riding rational? Is consumer choice the same as self-determination? Must bargainers abandon the no-harm principle? Prisoners of Reason recalls that classical liberal capitalism exalted the no-harm principle. Although imperfect and exclusionary, modern liberalism recognized individual human dignity alongside individuals' responsibility to respect others. Neoliberalism, by contrast, views life as ceaseless struggle. Agents vie for scarce resources in antagonistic competition in which every individual seeks dominance. This (...) political theory is codified in non-cooperative game theory; the neoliberal citizen and consumer is the strategic rational actor. Rational choice justifies ends irrespective of means. Money becomes the medium of all value. Solidarity and good will are invalidated. Relationships are conducted on a quid pro quo basis. However, agents can freely opt out of this cynical race to the bottom by embracing a more expansive range of coherent action. (shrink)

Although social scientists have identified diverse behavioral patterns among children from dissimilarly structured families, marketing scholars have progressed little in relating family structure to consumption-related decisions. In particular, the roles played by members of single-mother families—which may include live-in grandparents, mother’s unmarried partner, and step-father with or without step-sibling(s)—may affect children’s influence on consumption-related decisions. For example, to offset a parental authority dynamic introduced by a new stepfather, the work-related constraints imposed on a breadwinning mother, or the imposition of adult-level (...) household responsibilities on children, single-mother families may attend more to their children’s product preferences. -/- Without a profile that includes socio-economic, behavioral, and psychological aspects, efficient and socially responsible marketing to single-mother households is compromised. Relative to dual-parent families, single-mother families tend to have fewer resources and less buying power, children who consume more materialistic and compulsively, and children who more strongly influence decision making for both own-use and family-use products. Timely research would ensure that these and other tendencies now differentiate single-mother from dual-parent families in ways that marketers should address. Hence, our threefold goal is (1) to consolidate and highlight gaps in existing theory applied to studying children’s influence on consumption-related decision making in single-mother families, and (2) to propose a hybrid framework that merges two theories conducive to such research, and (3) to identify promising research propositions for future research. (shrink)