What is the connection between modelling thought and modelling the brain? In a model (as understood here), we strip away from the modelled system some non-essential features and retain some essential ones. What are the essential features of thought that are to be re- tained in the model, and conversely, what are its inessential features, that may be stripped away in the model? According to a prevalent view in contemporary science and philoso- phy, thought is a computation, and therefore its (...) essential features are its computational features. A necessary part of the computational view of thought is the idea that the same computation can be realised by, or implemented in, physically heterogeneous systems, an idea known as “Multiple Realizability” of the computational features or properties by the physical ones. I will describe why the very idea of Multiple Realizability, especially in the case of mental computation, entails mind-body dualism, and explore some implications of this conclusion concerning the question of which are the essential features of thought to be retained in modeling it. (shrink)

Philosophers of physics have long debated whether the Past State of low entropy of our universe calls for explanation. What is meant by “calls for explanation”? In this article we analyze this notion, distinguishing between several possible meanings that may be attached to it. Taking the debate around the Past State as a case study, we show how our analysis of what “calling for explanation” might mean can contribute to clarifying the debate and perhaps to settling it, thus demonstrating the (...) fruitfulness of this analysis. Applying our analysis, we show that two main opponents in this debate, Huw Price and Craig Callender, are, for the most part, talking past each other rather than disagreeing, as they employ different notions of “calling for explanation”. We then proceed to show how answering the different questions that arise out of the different meanings of “calling for explanation” can result in clarifying the problems at hand and thus, hopefully, to solving them. (shrink)

Statistical mechanics is a strange theory. Its aims are debated, its methods are contested, its main claims have never been fully proven, and their very truth is challenged, yet at the same time, it enjoys huge empirical success and gives us the feeling that we understand important phenomena. What is this weird theory, exactly? Statistical mechanics is the name of the ongoing attempt to apply mechanics, together with some auxiliary hypotheses, to explain and predict certain phenomena, above all those described (...) by thermodynamics. This paper shows what parts of this objective can be achieved with mechanics by itself. It thus clarifies what roles remain for the auxiliary assumptions that are needed to achieve the rest of the desiderata. Those auxiliary hypotheses are described in another paper in this journal, Foundations of statistical mechanics: The auxiliary hypotheses. (shrink)

Flat Physicalism is a theory of through and through type reductive physicalism, understood in light of recent results in the conceptual foundations of physics. In Flat Physicalism, as in physics, so-called "high level" concepts and laws are nothing but partial descriptions of the complete states of affairs of the universe. "Flat physicalism" generalizes this idea, to form a reductive picture in which there is no room for levels, neither explanatory nor ontological. The paper explains how phenomena that seem to be (...) cases of multiple realization of special sciences kinds by physical kinds are fully explains in a reductive physicalist way. Finally, the paper exemplifies the fruitfulness of this reductive approach by showing how it can account even for a case of high-level anomaly in a deterministic universe (for example anomaly of the mental, should this turn our to be a fact about the world) - a result that may be called Anomalous Physicalism. (shrink)

According to the so-called Hempel’s Dilemma, the thesis of physicalism is either false or empty. Our intention in this paper is not to propose a solution to the Dilemma, but rather to argue as follows: to the extent that Hempel’s Dilemma applies to physicalism it equally applies to any theory that gives a deep-structure and changeable account of our experience or of high-level theories. In particular, we will show that it also applies to mind-body dualistic theories. The scope of Hempel’s (...) Dilemma turns out to be very wide: it is a special case of a general sceptical argument against changeable deep-structure theories in and outside science. (shrink)

The problem of multiple-computations discovered by Hilary Putnam presents a deep difficulty for functionalism (of all sorts, computational and causal). We describe in out- line why Putnam’s result, and likewise the more restricted result we call the Multiple- Computations Theorem, are in fact theorems of statistical mechanics. We show why the mere interaction of a computing system with its environment cannot single out a computation as the preferred one amongst the many computations implemented by the system. We explain why nonreductive (...) approaches to solving the multiple- computations problem, and in particular why computational externalism, are dualistic in the sense that they imply that nonphysical facts in the environment of a computing system single out the computation. We discuss certain attempts to dissolve Putnam’s unrestricted result by appealing to systems with certain kinds of input and output states as a special case of computational externalism, and show why this approach is not workable without collapsing to behaviorism. We conclude with some remarks about the nonphysical nature of mainstream approaches to both statistical mechanics and the quantum theory of measurement with respect to the singling out of partitions and observables. (shrink)

Statistical mechanics is often taken to be the paradigm of a successful inter-theoretic reduction, which explains the high-level phenomena (primarily those described by thermodynamics) by using the fundamental theories of physics together with some auxiliary hypotheses. In my view, the scope of statistical mechanics is wider since it is the type-identity physicalist account of all the special sciences. But in this chapter, I focus on the more traditional and less controversial domain of this theory, namely, that of explaining the thermodynamic (...) phenomena.What are the fundamental theories that are taken to explain the thermodynamic phenomena? The lively research into the foundations of classical statistical mechanics suggests that using classical mechanics to explain the thermodynamic phenomena is fruitful. Strictly speaking, in contemporary physics, classical mechanics is considered to be false. Since classical mechanics preserves certain explanatory and predictive aspects of the true fundamental theories, it can be successfully applied in certain cases. In other circumstances, classical mechanics has to be replaced by quantum mechanics. In this chapter I ask the following two questions: I) How does quantum statistical mechanics differ from classical statistical mechanics? How are the well-known differences between the two fundamental theories reflected in the statistical mechanical account of high-level phenomena? II) How does quantum statistical mechanics differ from quantum mechanics simpliciter? To make our main points I need to only consider non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Most of the ideas described and addressed in this chapter hold irrespective of the choice of a (so-called) interpretation of quantum mechanics, and so I will mention interpretations only when the differences between them are important to the matter discussed. (shrink)

This article explores the relation between belief-like imaginings and the establishment of imaginary worlds (often called fictional worlds). After outlining the various assumptions my argument is premised on, I argue that belief-like imaginings, in themselves, do not render their content true in the imaginary world to which they pertain. I show that this claim applies not only to imaginative projects in which we are instructed or intend to imagine certain propositions, but also to spontaneous imaginative projects. After arguing that, like (...) guided imaginative projects, spontaneous projects involve specific imaginary truths, I conclude that imaginative projects, whether spontaneous or deliberate, comprise not only imaginings, but also mental acts of determining such truths. (shrink)

Some philosophers consider that some of their colleagues deny that consciousness exists. We shall call the latter ‘deniers’, adopting a term that was initially meant pejoratively. What do the deniers deny? In order to answer this question, we shall examine arguments, both of some deniers and of their critics, and present denialism as a systematic highly non-trivial position that has had some interesting achievements. We will show that the denialist project concerns the epistemology of the mind and specifically of consciousness: (...) what can be known about it, and how it can be known. The main argument of denialism is that first-person reports about the mental realm are not always the best source of information about that realm, and are certainly not reliable. This leads the deniers to realize that the reference and meaning of mental terms as used in standard philosophical literature are vague and call for clarification, and that what many take to be empirical data in the study of the mind are actually heavily laden with theory. Denialism thus makes scientific and philosophical research clearer and more fruitful. (shrink)

Maxwell’s Demon is a thought experiment devised by J. C. Maxwell in 1867 in order to show that the Second Law of thermodynamics is not universal, since it has a counter-example. Since the Second Law is taken by many to provide an arrow of time, the threat to its universality threatens the account of temporal directionality as well. Various attempts to “exorcise” the Demon, by proving that it is impossible for one reason or another, have been made throughout the years, (...) but none of them were successful. We have shown (in a number of publications) by a general state-space argument that Maxwell’s Demon is compatible with classical mechanics, and that the most recent solutions, based on Landauer’s thesis, are not general. In this paper we demonstrate that Maxwell’s Demon is also compatible with quantum mechanics. We do so by analyzing a particular (but highly idealized) experimental setup and proving that it violates the Second Law. Our discussion is in the framework of standard quantum mechanics; we give two separate arguments in the framework of quantum mechanics with and without the projection postulate. We address in our analysis the connection between measurement and erasure interactions and we show how these notions are applicable in the microscopic quantum mechanical structure. We discuss what might be the quantum mechanical counterpart of the classical notion of “macrostates”, thus explaining why our Quantum Demon setup works not only at the micro level but also at the macro level, properly understood. One implication of our analysis is that the Second Law cannot provide a universal lawlike basis for an account of the arrow of time; this account has to be sought elsewhere. (shrink)

This paper describes a version of type identity physicalism, which we call Flat Physicalism, and shows how it meets several objections often raised against identity theories. This identity theory is informed by recent results in the conceptual foundations of physics, and in particular clar- ifies the notion of ‘physical kinds’ in light of a conceptual analysis of the paradigmatic case of reducing thermody- namics to statistical mechanics. We show how Flat Physi- calism is compatible with the appearance of multiple realisation (...) in the special sciences, and how and in what sense the special sciences laws are autonomous from the laws of physics, despite the full reductive picture of Flat Physicalism. We compare our view with a recent proposal by William Bechtel that accounts for the appearance of levels in mechanistic explanations. (shrink)

This paper makes a novel linkage between the multiple-computations theorem in philosophy of mind and Landauer’s principle in physics. The multiple-computations theorem implies that certain physical systems implement simultaneously more than one computation. Landauer’s principle implies that the physical implementation of “logically irreversible” functions is accompanied by minimal entropy increase. We show that the multiple-computations theorem is incompatible with, or at least challenges, the universal validity of Landauer’s principle. To this end we provide accounts of both ideas in terms of (...) low-level fundamental concepts in statistical mechanics, thus providing a deeper understanding of these ideas than their standard formulations given in the high-level terms of thermodynamics and cognitive science. Since Landauer’s principle is pivotal in the attempts to derive the universal validity of the second law of thermodynamics in statistical mechanics, our result entails that the multiple-computations theorem has crucial implications with respect to the second law. Finally, our analysis contributes to the understanding of notions, such as “logical irreversibility,” “entropy increase,” “implementing a computation,” in terms of fundamental physics, and to resolving open questions in the literature of both fields, such as: what could it possibly mean that a certain physical process implements a certain computation. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between 3 meanings of reversal, all of which are mathematically equivalent in classical mechanics: velocity reversal, retrodiction, and time reversal. It then concludes that in order to have well defined velocities a primitive arrow of time must be included in every time slice. The paper briefly mentions that this arrow cannot come from the Second Law of thermodynamics, but this point is developed in more details elsewhere.

Can the second law of thermodynamics explain our mental experience of the direction of time? According to an influential approach, the past hypothesis of universal low entropy also explains how the psychological arrow comes about. We argue that although this approach has many attractive features, it cannot explain the psychological arrow after all. In particular, we show that the past hypothesis is neither necessary nor sufficient to explain the psychological arrow on the basis of current physics. We propose two necessary (...) conditions on the workings of the brain that any account of the psychological arrow of time must satisfy. And we propose a new reductive physical account of the psychological arrow of time compatible with time-symmetric physics, according to which these two conditions are also sufficient. Our proposal has some radical implications, for example, that the psychological arrow of time is fundamental, whereas the temporal direction of entropy increase in the second law of thermodynamics and the past hypothesis is derived from it, rather than the other way around. 1Introduction2A Physical Account of the Psychological Arrow of Time3Necessary Conditions for the Psychological Arrow of Time4The Psychological Arrow of Time via the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Past Hypothesis5Why the Past Hypothesis Is Insufficient for the Psychological Arrow of Time5.1Stage 1, Version 1: From the past hypothesis to the psychological arrow via typicality5.2Stage 1, Version 2: From the past hypothesis to the psychological arrow via dynamical or causal considerations5.3Stage 2: From entropy gradient in the brain to the psychological arrow of time6Why the Past Hypothesis Is Unnecessary for the Psychological Arrow of Time7A New Reductive Account of the Psychological Arrow of Time. (shrink)

Mara Beller's book Quantum Dialogue: The Making of a Revolution is a book in history and historiography, which invites a philosophical reading. The book offers a new and quite radical approach in the philosophy of science, which Beller calls dialogism, and it demonstrates the application of this approach by studying cases in the history of physics. This paper reconstructs of some of the book's theses, in a way which emphasises its philosophical insights, and goes on to shows how philosophically far (...) dialogism can take us. The example on which the paper focuses is the demarcation between science and non-science. (shrink)

This paper puts forward an account of imaginative immersion. Elaborating on Kendall Walton’s thesis that imagining aims at the fictional truth, it first argues that imaginings are inherently rule- or norm-governed: they are ‘regulated’ by that which is presented as fictionally true. It then shows that an imaginer can follow the rule or norm mandating her to imagine the propositions presented as fictional truths either by acquiring explicit beliefs about how the rule (norm) is to be followed, or directly, without (...) acquiring such beliefs. It proceeds to argue that to the extent that an imaginer follows this rule (norm) without holding such beliefs, she is more immersed in her imaginings. The general idea is that immersion in an activity is a matter of following rules or norms that apply to that activity without explicitly thinking about how to follow them, that is, without ‘doxastic mediation.’ Lastly, the paper shows that this thesis can explain various features associated with imaginative immersion, such as the sort of attentiveness it involves, the emotional response it generates, and its relation to spoilers. (shrink)

McQueen and Vaidman argue that the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics provides local causal explanations of the outcomes of experiments in our experience that is due to the total effect of all the worlds together. We show that although the explanation is local in one world, it requires a causal influence that travels across different worlds. We further argue that in the MWI the local nature of our experience is not derivable from the Hilbert space structure, but has (...) to be added to it as an independent postulate. This is due to what we call the factorisation-symmetry and basis-symmetry of Hilbert space. (shrink)

This paper explores the sense in which correctness applies to belief-like imaginings. It begins by establishing that when we imagine, we ‘direct’ our imaginings at a certain imaginary world, taking the propositions we imagine to be assessed for truth in that world. It then examines the relation between belief-like imagining and positing truths in an imaginary world. Rejecting the claim that correctness, in the literal sense, is applicable to imaginings, it shows that the imaginer takes on, vis-à-vis the imaginary world, (...) the first-person perspective of a believer. Imaginings, it concludes, ‘mimic’ beliefs with respect to the property of being correct or incorrect by virtue of having true or false content. (shrink)

Quilty-Dunn et al.'s wide-ranging defense of the Language of Thought Hypothesis (LoTH) argues that vision traffics in abstract, structured representational formats. We agree: Vision, like language, is compositional – just as words compose into phrases, many visual representations contain discrete constituents that combine in systematic ways. Here, we amass evidence extending this proposal, and explore its implications for how vision interfaces with the rest of the mind.

In 2012, a major traffic safety organization tasked the MIT AgeLab with developing a data-driven system for rating the effectiveness of new technologies intended to improve safety. Such a system was envisioned as having the potential to educate and guide consumers towards more confident and strategic purchasing decisions, ideally encouraging adoption of technologies with demonstrated safety benefit. In addition, an evaluation of the status and extent of existing data was seen as a way of identifying research gaps in the state (...) of knowledge about safety systems. The focus was on technologies as a class, not on a rating review of individual vehicle model implementations. As conceptualized, the system aimed to complement traditional NCAP style ratings as well as to provide consumers with transparent information on early stage and often improving safety technologies. Development of the rating system and identification of data was undertaken in consultation with a range of academic, industrial, consumer, NGO, and governmental experts as well as with representatives of many of the major automotive manufacturers and suppliers. -/- A key observation that emerged was that data on objectively demonstrable real-world benefits were generally sparse and often lower than expectations based on theoretical considerations, simulation studies, or pre-production evaluations. A number of experts and industry representatives expressed some surprise at both the divergence between theoretical and observed benefits and the relative scarcity of data upon which to make objective assessments, while others were quite aware of these issues and the need for the development of objective data under real-world operating conditions. A number of factors that might be relevant to understanding why such differences between expected and observed benefits exist were identified. One outcome of this effort was the founding of the Advanced Vehicle Technology (AVT) consortium to collect and examine objective data under naturalistic driving conditions of how drivers interact with, engage or don’t engage, various production safety and driver assistance systems. This ongoing effort is contributing to insights concerning actual benefits and reasons for benefit gaps. -/- Drawing from our initial work, as well as newer sources of data, we argue that the evaluation and rating of safety and driver assistance technologies for informing the consumer and the public at large should consider both theoretical potential and existing demonstrated benefit of specific technologies. This position is increasingly relevant as the effectiveness of many newer technologies have the potential to actually improve over the lifecycle of a vehicle through software updates. The emphasis on ratings based on observed benefit for actual drivers under real-world conditions is proposed to be complementary, rather than competing with, ratings focused largely on controlled test track evaluations of engineered capability. In addition, a case is made for providing ratings that assesses benefit relative to overall crash, injury, and fatality rates – and in relation to the specific scenario / crash event type that a given technology is intended to address. This approach should aid consumers in considering the extent to which a specific technology is or is not relevant to their particular driving needs. (shrink)

Works of fiction are alleged to differ from works of nonfiction in instructing their audience to imagine their content. Indeed, works of fiction have been defined in terms of this feature: they are works that mandate us to imagine their content. This paper examines this definition of works of fiction, focusing on the nature of the activity that ensues in response to reading or watching fiction. Investigating how imaginings function in other contexts, I show, first, that they presuppose a cognitive (...) infrastructure encompassing at least one additional kind of mental state, whose role is to determine, to some degree, truth in an imaginary world. I then discuss the implications for the definition of fiction, showing that the definition should be refined to accommodate the structure that imagining presupposes: a work counts as fiction just in case it mandates us, not only to imagine, but to engage in a more complex mental activity, an activity that in addition to imagining, involves positing a backdrop for our imaginings. (shrink)

A commonly-discussed feature of perceptual experience is that it has ‘assertoric’ or ‘phenomenal’ force. We will start by discussing various descriptions of the assertoricity of perceptual experience. We will then adopt a minimal characterization of assertoricity: a perceptual experience has assertoric force just in case it inclines the perceiver to believe its content. Adducing cases that show that visual experience is not always assertoric, we will argue that what renders these visual experiences non-assertoric is that they are penetrated by belief-like (...) imaginings. Lastly, we will explain why it is that when belief-like imaginings—as opposed to beliefs (and other cognitive states)—penetrate visual experience, they render visual experiences non-assertoric. (shrink)

When a piece of fruit is in a bowl, and the bowl is on a table, we appreciate not only the individual objects and their features, but also the relations containment and support, which abstract away from the particular objects involved. Independent representation of roles (e.g., containers vs. supporters) and “fillers” of those roles (e.g., bowls vs. cups, tables vs. chairs) is a core principle of language and higherlevel reasoning. But does such role-filler independence also arise in automatic visual processing? (...) Here, we show that it does, by exploring a surprising error that such independence can produce. In four experiments, participants saw a stream of images containing different objects arranged in forcedynamic relations — e.g., a phone contained in a basket, a marker resting on a garbage can, or a knife sitting in a cup. Participants had to respond to a single target image (e.g., a phone in a basket) within a stream of distractors presented under time constraints. Surprisingly, even though participants completed this task quickly and accurately, they false-alarmed more often to images matching the target’s relational category than to those that did not — even when those images involved completely different objects. In other words, participants searching for a phone in a basket were more likely to mistakenly respond to a knife in a cup than to a marker on a garbage can. Follow-up experiments ruled out strategic responses and also controlled for various confounding image features. We suggest that visual processing represents relations abstractly, in ways that separate roles from fillers. (shrink)

This paper argues against the view, proposed in Langland-Hassan (2020), that attitudinal imaginings are reducible to basic folk-psychological attitudes such as judgments, beliefs, desires, decisions, or combinations thereof. The proposed reduction fails because attitudinal imaginings, though similar to basic attitudes in certain respects, function differently than basic attitudes. I demonstrate this by exploring two types of cases: spontaneous imaginings, and imaginings that arise in response to fiction, showing that in these cases, imaginings cannot be identified with basic attitudes. I conclude (...) that imagining is a distinct attitude: it enables us to freely conjure up scenarios without being bound by the restrictions that govern basic folk-psychological attitudes. (shrink)

Suppose you’re imagining that it’s raining hard. You then proceed to imagine, as part of the same imaginative project, that you believe that it isn’t raining. Such an imaginative project is possible if the two imaginings arise in succession. But what about simultaneously imagining that it’s raining and that you believe that it isn’t raining? I will argue that, under certain conditions, such an imagining is impossible. After discussing these conditions, I will suggest an explanation of this impossibility. Elaborating on (...) the view outlined in Walton (1990), I will argue that the impossibility follows from the fact that imaginings ‘mimic’ beliefs in aiming at the fictionally true, just as beliefs aim at the true. (shrink)

Spoilers provide advance knowledge of crucial facts about how a work of fiction unfolds or ends. This is often the reason given for our dislike of spoilers. I begin by showing that on generally-accepted philosophical accounts of fiction and imagination, the phenomenon of spoilers is puzzling, and the lay explanation of our dislike of spoilers is inadequate. To resolve the puzzle, I first argue that imaginings are inherently constrained, or norm-governed. In imagining, we take on a (fictional) doxastic role: our (...) aim is to imagine that which a work of fiction presents as true at each stage of its unfolding. Then, distinguishing between two ways in which we can follow norms or rules, I show that although spoilers do not completely thwart our experience of fiction, they can significantly diminish the degree to which we are engrossed in fiction, hence we dislike them. (shrink)

The case of blurry vision has been cited by many as a counterexample to representationalism in the theory of perception. Specifically, it is claimed that the phenomenon of blurry vision is incompatible with the supervenience thesis which is at the root of representationalism. Michael Tye, a leading representationalist, has responded to such objections by giving an account of blurry vision in a way that, allegedly, renders it compatible with representationalism. In this paper I argue that Tye’s account of blurry vision, (...) though blocking one line of objection, cannot save representationalism. I then assimilate cases of blurry vision as well as similar cases to the more general category of indeterminate experiences. (shrink)

This chapter explores a noteworthy, as-yet-unanalysed normative aspect of imagining. It begins by examining cases where imaginings are deemed erroneous, showing that imaginings can “go wrong” not only by failing to represent that which the imaginer intends to imagine, or is asked to imagine by an external source (e.g. a work of fiction), but also when imaginings arise unbidden. That unintended, non-deliberate imaginings can be erroneous shows that there must be a norm or commitment that is inherent to imagining, a (...) norm or commitment that, if violated, renders imaginings erroneous. Invoking Kendall Walton’s thesis about the normativity of imagining, I adduce a first-pass account of this normative aspect; the account pivots on the idea that imagining aims at, or is committed to representing, that which is fictionally true. After showing that this account is inadequate, I revise Walton’s thesis, arguing that in imagining, we are not committed to representing the fictional truth. Rather, taking on a quasi-doxastic role vis-à-vis the fictional world, we are committed to representing that which is (merely) presented as fictionally true. I proceed to explain the error in question in terms of this thesis, showing that when the quasi-doxastic role we take on in our capacity as imaginers is not carried out properly, our imaginings are rendered erroneous. (shrink)

Judgments of visual resemblance (‘A looks like B’), unlike other judgments of resemblance, are often induced directly by visual experience. What is the nature of this experience? We argue that the visual experience that prompts a subject looking at A to judge that A looks like B is a visual experience of B. After elucidating this thesis, we defend it, using the ‘phenomenal contrast’ method. Comparing our account to competing accounts, we show that the phenomenal contrast between a visual experience (...) that induces the judgment that A looks like B, and a visual experience that does not induce this judgment, is best explained by the fact that the former visually represents B, whereas the latter does not. (shrink)

Risk propagation encompasses a plethora of techniques for analyzing how risk “spreads” in a given system. Albeit commonly used in technical literature, the very notion of risk propagation turns out to be a conceptually imprecise and overloaded one. This might also explain the multitude of modeling solutions that have been proposed in the lit- erature. Having a clear understanding of what exactly risk is, how it be quantified, and in what sense it can be propagated is fundamental for devising high-quality (...) risk assessment and decision-making solutions. In this paper, we exploit a previous well-established work about the nature of risk and related notions with the goal of providing a proper interpre- tation of the different notions of risk propagation, as well as revealing and harmonizing the alternative semantics for the links used in common risk propagation graphs. Finally, we discuss how these results can be leveraged in practice to model risk propagation scenarios. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of the research reported here is to improve comprehension of the socially-negotiated identity of concepts in the domain of knowledge organization. Because knowledge organization as a domain has as its focus the order of concepts, both from a theoretical perspective and from an applied perspective, it is important to understand how the domain itself understands the meaning of a concept. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides an empirical demonstration of how the domain itself understands the meaning of (...) a concept. The paper employs content analysis to demonstrate the ways in which concepts are portrayed in KO concept maps as signs, and they are subjected to evaluative semiotic analysis as a way to understand their meaning. The frame was the entire population of formal proceedings in knowledge organization – all proceedings of the International Society for Knowledge Organization’s international conferences (1990-2010) and those of the annual classification workshops of the Special Interest Group for Classification Research of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (SIG/CR). Findings – A total of 344 concept maps were analyzed. There was no discernible chronological pattern. Most concept maps were created by authors who were professors from the USA, Germany, France, or Canada. Roughly half were judged to contain semiotic content. Peirceian semiotics predominated, and tended to convey greater granularity and complexity in conceptual terminology. Nodes could be identified as anchors of conceptual clusters in the domain; the arcs were identifiable as verbal relationship indicators. Saussurian concept maps were more applied than theoretical; Peirceian concept maps had more theoretical content. Originality/value – The paper demonstrates important empirical evidence about the coherence of the domain of knowledge organization. Core values are conveyed across time through the concept maps in this population of conference papers. (shrink)

Throughout Peirce’s writing, we witness his developing vision of a machine that scientists will eventually be able to create. Nadin (2010) raised the question:Why do computer scientists continue to ignore Peirce’s sign theory? A review of the literature on Peirce’s theory and the semiotics machine reveals that many authors discussed the machine;however, they donot differentiate between a physical computer machine and its software. This paper discusses the problematic issues involved in converting Peirce’s theory into a programming language, machine and software (...) application. We demonstrate this challenge by introducing Peirce’s sign theory as a software application that runs under an open-source R environment. (shrink)

Background. Tahfidz learning is a learning that can change the behavior of santriwan and santriwati and develop a potential that they have such as improving the reading of the Qur'an, increasing the memorization of the Qur'an. The tahfidz house is a place where students learn, foster and develop and apply the values contained in the Qur'an in everyday life such as at home, in the community and at school. Purpose. This tahfidz activity begins with prayer, then murojaah, memorizing the recitation (...) of the Qur'an. Method. Data was obtained by giving teacher performance scales, teacher digital literacy, and online learning implementation scales. Results. The results of this tahfidz activity research begin with prayer, then murojaah, memorizing the recitation of the Qur'an. After memorizing the Qur'an, each student deposits his memorization one by one to the ustadz or ustadzah. After that the students and ustadz or ustadzah continue by playing the verse connection game in order to increase the enthusiasm of the students in memorizing so that they are not easily bored and bored, because in learning there are a lot of complaints and laziness when learning, let alone learning to memorize the Qur'an there are a lot of outside distractions. Conclusion. After the students take part in tahfiz learning, there are Islamic morals that can be applied, namely keistiqomahan, patience which is contrary to the previous morals of the students. (shrink)

Providing equitable food security for a growing population while minimizing environmental impacts and enhancing resilience to climate shocks is an ongoing challenge. Here, we quantify the resource intensity, environmental impacts and nutritional output of a small (0.075 ha) low-input subsistence Mediterranean agroecological farm in a developed nation that is based on intercropping and annual crop rotation. The farm provides one individual, the proprietor, with nutritional self-sufficiency (adequate intake of an array of macro- and micro-nutrients) with limited labor, no synthetic fertilizers (...) or herbicides, and zero waste, effectively closing a full farm-table-farm cycle. We find that the agroecological farm outperforms conventional farming as practiced in the same country in terms of both lower environmental burdens, across all examined environmental metrics (63% lower on average) per kg produce, and higher nutritional score (66% higher on average). Per equal farmland, the environmental lopsidedness was even higher (79% lower than conventional farming on average), with nearly the same nutritional score (3% lower on average). Moreover, when considering total land area, which includes farmland and supporting non-agricultural lands, as well as postgate impacts and food losses, the advantage of the agroecological system over conventional farming is even more pronounced. Situated within a Mediterranean region that is undergoing rapid climate change, this food system is a unique case study of nutrition- and environment-oriented food production system. While its deployment potential is limited by lack of supportive policies, it nonetheless represents one of the most starkly bold alternatives to current food systems. (shrink)

We argue that there is a conflict among classical theism's commitments to divine simplicity, divine creative freedom, and omniscience. We start by defining key terms for the debate related to classical theism. Then we articulate a new argument, the Aloneness Argument, aiming to establish a conflict among these attributes. In broad outline, the argument proceeds as follows. Under classical theism, it's possible that God exists without anything apart from Him. Any knowledge God has in such a world would be wholly (...) intrinsic. But there are contingent truths in every world, including the world in which God exists alone. So, it's possible that God contingently has wholly intrinsic knowledge. But whatever is contingent and wholly intrinsic is an accident. So, God possibly has an accident. This is incompatible with classical theism. Finally, we consider and rebut several objections. (shrink)

In a work entitled On the Generation of Animals, Aristotle remarks that “intellect (nous) alone enters from outside (thurathen)”. Interpretations of this passage as dualistic dominate the history of ideas and allow for a joining together of Platonic and Aristotelian doctrine on the soul. This, however, pulls against the well-known Aristotelian position that soul and body are intertwined and interdependent. The most influential interpretations thereby misrepresent Aristotle’s view on soul and lack any real engagement with his embryology. This paper seeks (...) to extract the account of intellect (nous) in Aristotelian embryology from this interpretative background and place it within the context of his mature biological thought. A clear account of the actual import of this statement in its relevant context is given before explaining how it has been misunderstood by various interpretative traditions. The paper finishes by touching on how early commentary by Christian writers, freed as it was from the imperative to synthesise Greek philosophy, differed from those that came after. While realising that Aristotle’s position would not aid them in their explanations of the soul’s survival after death, their engagement with Aristotle’s science allowed for other aspects of theology concerning the fittingness of soul to body. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant's moral thesis is that reason alone must identify moral laws. Examining various interpretations of his ethics, this essay shows that the thesis fails. G. W. F. Hegel criticizes Kant's Formula of Universal Law as an empty formalism. Although Christine Korsgaard's Logical and Practical Contradiction Interpretations, Barbara Herman's contradiction in conception and contradiction in will tests, and Kenneth Westphal's paired use of Kant's universalization test all refute what Allen Wood calls a stronger form of the formalism charge, they are (...) not free from a weaker form of it. Some philosophers try to avoid both forms of the formalism charge in the following ways: First, some underline the roles of Kant's other formulas. Second, some interpret the Formula of Universal Law teleologically. Third, some claim that a maxim must be something all those potentially affected by it can rationally accept. Fourth, Robert Louden introduces the empirical to evaluate a maxim. All those attempts introduce heteronomy into Kant's ethics. Besides, on the third response, from the fact that all those potentially affected accept a maxim, it does not follow that it is morally right. It is impossible to avoid the formalism charge without making his ethics heteronomous. Thus, Kant's ethics is either empty or heteronomous. Either way it fails to identify moral laws by reason alone. (shrink)

There is a growing body of scholarship on the ethics of autonomous vehicles. Yet the ethical discourse has mostly been focusing on the behavior of the vehicle in accident scenarios. This paper offers a different ethical prism: the implications of the autonomous vehicle for human well-being. As such, it contributes to the growing discourse on the wider societal and moral implications of the autonomous vehicle. The paper is premised on the neo-Aristotelian approach which holds that as human beings, our well-being (...) depends on developing and exercising our innate human capacities: to know, understand, love, be sociable, imagine, create and use our bodies and use our willpower. To develop and exercise these capacities, our environments need to provide a range of opportunities which will trigger the development and exercise of the capacities. The main argument advanced in the paper is that one plausible future of the autonomous vehicle—a future of single-rider autonomous vehicles—may effectively reduce the opportunities to develop and exercise our capacities to know, be sociable and use our willpower. It will therefore be bad for human well-being, and this provides us with a moral reason to resist this plausible future and search for alternative ones. (shrink)

In this paper I present an account of musical arousal that takes into account key demands of formalist philosophers such as Peter Kivy and Nick Zangwill. Formalists prioritise our understanding and appreciation of the music itself. As a result, they demand that any feelings we have in response to music must be directed at the music alone, without being distracted by non-musical associations. To accommodate these requirements I appeal to a mechanism of contagion which I synthesize with the expectation-based arousal (...) mechanism proposed by Leonard Meyer. This account connects musical expressivity and arousal in a way that formalists have rejected, but I argue that it provides the best explanation of our observations of listener responses while also focusing on the music itself. (shrink)

This article seeks to provide a response to the Aloneness Argument Against Classical Theism proposed by Joseph C. Schmid and Ryan T. Mullins. This response focuses on showing the unsoundness of the argument once the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity is reformulated within the essentialist aspectival framework provided by the Aspectival Account. Formulating a response to this argument will thus also serve the further purpose of providing an extension of the Aspectival Account and a needed revision of the Doctrine of Divine (...) Simplicity, which can aid others in their quest to further clarify the nature of this doctrine. (shrink)

It is of course essential to disclose passively accepted beliefs that inhabit and shape the roots and edges of American philosophy if the scope of our tradition is to continue to evolve to meet situations that seldom fit neatly into inherited categories. Our dialogue with Roger Fouts is an occasion for supplementing and correcting uncritical perpetuation of narrowly (vs. broadly) humanistic intellectual habits. His lecture is also an occasion for confronting complex issues of how best to comport ourselves toward other (...) species. With notable exceptions such as McKenna and Light’s Animal Pragmatism and the work of Paul Thompson, scholars working in the American grain have taken a back seat to utilitarian .. (shrink)

Contractarians aim to derive moral principles from the dictates of instrumental rationality alone. But it is well-known that contractarian moral theories struggle to identify normative principles that are both uniquely rational and morally compelling. Michael Moehler's recent book, *Minimal Morality* seeks to avoid these difficulties by developing a novel "two-level" social contract theory, which restricts the scope of contractarian morality to cases of deep and persistent moral disagreement. Yet Moehler remains ambitious, arguing that a restricted version of Kant's categorical imperative (...) is a uniquely rational principle of conflict resolution. We develop a formal model of Moehler's informal game-theoretic argument, which reconstructs a valid argument for Moehler's conclusion. This model, in turn, enables us to expose how a successful argument for Moehler's contractarian principle rests on assumptions that can only be justified by subtle yet significant departures from the standard conception of rationality. We thus extend our understanding of familiar contractarian difficulties by showing how they arise even if we restrict the scope of contractarian morality to a domain where its application seems both promising and necessary. We show that the problem lies not in contractarians' immodest ambitions but in the modest resources rationality can offer to satisfy them. (shrink)

Proponents of phenomenal intentionality share a commitment that, for at least some paradigmatically intentional states, phenomenal character constitutively determines narrow intentional content. If this is correct, then any two states with the same phenomenal character will have the same narrow intentional content. Using a twin-earth style case, I argue that two different people can be in intrinsically identical phenomenological states without sharing narrow intentional contents. After describing and defending the case, I conclude by considering a few objections that help to (...) further illustrate the problem. (shrink)

This article argues that the dominant “nonconventionalist” theories of promising cannot account for the moral impact of two basic commercial practices: the transfer of contractual rights and the discharge of contractual debt in bankruptcy. In particular, nonconventionalism’s insensitivity to certain features of social context precludes it from registering the moral significance of these social phenomena. As prelude, I demonstrate that Seana Shiffrin’s influential position concerning the divergence between promise and contract commits her to impugning these features of the modern economy. (...) Finally, I examine the importance of promising for friendship and why we resist the commodification of promissory rights in this domain. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between isolation and philosophical thinking by exploring Wittgenstein’s own experiences of isolation and how they intersect with key themes in his philosophical work. In particular, I explore the relationship between isolation, honesty, and one of the central problems posed in Wittgenstein’s later work: the problem of dogmatism. I conclude with some observations about how Wittgenstein’s experiences of isolation might be considered to be a ‘liberatory’ experience.

Most online platforms are becoming increasingly algorithmically personalized. The question is if these practices are simply satisfying users preferences or if something is lost in this process. This article focuses on how to reconcile the personalization with the importance of being able to share cultural objects - including fiction – with others. In analyzing two concrete personalization examples from the streaming giant Netflix, several tendencies are observed. One is to isolate users and sometimes entirely eliminate shared world aspects. Another tendency (...) is to blur the boundary between shared cultural objects and personalized content, which can be misleading and disorienting. A further tendency is for personalization algorithms to be optimized to deceptively prey on desires for content that mirrors one’s own lived experience. Some specific - often minority targeting -“clickbait” practices received public blowback. These practices show disregard both for honest labeling and for our desires to have access and representation in a shared world. The article concludes that personalization tendencies are moving towards increasingly isolating and disorienting interfaces, but that platforms could be redesigned to support better social world orientation. (shrink)

Relationship between solitude and social relation, when solitude is a kind of (social) relation, intuitive, imaginative, mentaly moved.

Research has shown that the construction of visual representations may have a positive effect on cognitive skills, including argumentation. In this paper we present a study on learning argumentation through computer-supported argument diagramming. We specifically focus on whether students, when provided with an argument-diagramming tool, create better diagrams, are more motivated, and learn more when working with other students or on their own. We use learning analytics to evaluate a variety of student activities: pre and post questionnaires to explore motivational (...) changes; the argument diagrams created by students to evaluate richness, complexity and completion; and pre and post knowledge tests to evaluate learning gains. (shrink)

All existing impossibility theorems on judgment aggregation require individual and collective judgment sets to be consistent and complete, arguably a demanding rationality requirement. They do not carry over to aggregation functions mapping profiles of consistent individual judgment sets to consistent collective ones. We prove that, whenever the agenda of propositions under consideration exhibits mild interconnections, any such aggregation function that is "neutral" between the acceptance and rejection of each proposition is dictatorial. We relate this theorem to the literature.