The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

The Cell Ontology (CL) is designed to provide a standardized representation of cell types for data annotation. Currently, the CL employs multiple is_a relations, defining cell types in terms of histological, functional, and lineage properties, and the majority of definitions are written with sufficient generality to hold across multiple species. This approach limits the CL’s utility for cross-species data integration. To address this problem, we developed a method for the ontological representation of cells and applied this method to develop a (...) dendritic cell ontology (DC-CL). DC-CL subtypes are delineated on the basis of surface protein expression, systematically including both species-general and species-specific types and optimizing DC-CL for the analysis of flow cytometry data. This approach brings benefits in the form of increased accuracy, support for reasoning, and interoperability with other ontology resources. 104. Barry Smith, “Toward a Realistic Science of Environments”, Ecological Psychology, 2009, 21 (2), April-June, 121-130. Abstract: The perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson embraces a radically externalistic view of mind and action. We have, for Gibson, not a Cartesian mind or soul, with its interior theater of contents and the consequent problem of explaining how this mind or soul and its psychological environment can succeed in grasping physical objects external to itself. Rather, we have a perceiving, acting organism, whose perceptions and actions are always already tuned to the parts and moments, the things and surfaces, of its external environment. We describe how on this basis Gibson sought to develop a realist science of environments which will be ‘consistent with physics, mechanics, optics, acoustics, and chemistry’. (shrink)

Cognitivism in respect to the arts refers to a constellation of positions that share in common the idea that artworks often bear, in addition to aesthetic value, a significant kind of cognitive value. In this paper I concentrate on three things: (i) the challenge of understanding exactly what one must do if one wishes to defend a cognitivist view of the arts; (ii) common anti-cognitivist arguments; and (iii) promising recent attempts to defend cognitivism.

Higher-order theories of consciousness typically account for introspection in terms of one's higher-order thoughts being conscious, which would require a third-order thought — i.e.a thought about a thought about a mental state. In this work, we offer an alternative account of introspection that builds on the recent HigherOrder Representation of a Representation (HOROR) theory of phenomenal consciousness. According to HOROR theory, phenomenal consciousness consists in having the right kind of higher-order representation. We claim that this theory can be extended to (...) introspection by recognizing that there is a distinctive kind of consciousness — i.e. introspective consciousness — which can be accounted for as the theory does for phenomenal consciousness generally. We call this novel view: Higher-Order Representation Intentionally For Introspective Consciousness (HORIFIC). We argue that there are independent reasons for thinking that introspective consciousness can be either 'stimuli-induced' or 'self-triggered' and that one of the benefits of the view we develop is that it can embrace a pluralist approach. Our view also accounts for what specific mental state is represented by a particular higher-order representation, and for the way in which we are aware of changes, transitions, and boundaries between mental states in specific cases of introspective consciousness. (shrink)

A viable theory of literary humanism must do justice to the idea that literature offers cognitive rewards to the careful reader. There are, however, powerful arguments to the effect that literature is at best only capable of offering idle visions of a world already well known. In this essay I argue that there is a form of cognitive awareness left unmentioned in the traditional vocabulary of knowledge acquisition, a form of awareness literature is particularly capable of offering. Thus even if (...) it is the case that literature has nothing interesting to give us in the way of knowledge, the literary humanist can consistently maintain that literary experience is thoroughly cognitive. (shrink)

What is the relation between works of fiction and the acquisition of knowledge?

It is often assumed that literary meaning is essentially linguistic in nature and that literary interpretation is therefore a purely linguistic affair. This essay identifies a variety of literary meaning that cannot be reduced to linguistic meaning. Meaning of this sort is generated not by a communicative act so much as through a creative one: the construction of a fictional world. The way in which a fictional world can bear meaning turns out to be strikingly unlike the way a sentence (...) can, and this, I argue, has important implications for the theory of interpretation. (shrink)

The chapter presents Anselm’s incompatibilist account of human freedom within the context of his theodicy and presents two arguments against his account. Both arguments aim to show there is a genuine conflict between his account of freedom and the role of God’s grace in making agents just. The first argument, the problem of harmonization, highlights the conflict within the soteriological context where an agent changes from being unjust to being just. The second argument, the problem of just creation, highlights the (...) conflict within the context of the creation of agents prior to the presence of evil. Holding fixed his incompatibilist account and the necessity of divine grace, the upshot of both arguments is that Anselm must endorse a version of Pelagianism. (shrink)

我首先从哲学家(心理学家)路德维希·维特根斯坦的一些著名评论开始,因为平克与大多数人(由于我们进化的先天心理学的默认设置)分享了对心灵功能的某些偏见,以及因为维特根斯坦提供了独特而深刻的见解,了解语言 、思想和现实(他认为或多或少是共性)在其他地方所没有的。本卷只提到维特根斯坦,这是最不幸的,因为他是最聪明和原始的语言分析家。 在最后一章中,他用柏拉图洞穴的著名比喻,完美地概括了这本书,概述了头脑(语言、思想、故意心理)——盲目自私的产物,只是通过自动利他主义来缓和。携带我们基因副本的亲戚(包容性健身)——自动工作,但试图以 乐观的结局结束,给我们希望,我们仍然可以利用其巨大的能力进行合作,使世界成为一个体面的生活场所。 平克当然知道,但很少说,我们的心理被遗漏了比包括更多。在人类自然的窗口,被排除在外或给予最少的关注是数学和几何,音乐和声音,图像,事件和因果关系,本体论(类的东西或我们所知道的),大多数认识论(我们如 何知道),处置(相信,思考,判断,打算等)和行动,神经递质和内生,精神状态(如,萨托里和启蒙,大脑刺激和记录,脑损伤和行为的故意心理学的其余部分缺陷和障碍,游戏和运动,决策理论(包括博弈论和行为经济学 ),动物行为(很少语言,但10亿年的共同遗传学)。许多关于有意心理学领域的书籍已经写好了。本书中的数据是描述,而不是说明为什么我们的大脑这样做或它是如何做到的解释。我们怎么知道用各种方式使用句子(即, 知道它们的所有含义)？这是进化心理学,在更基本的水平运作——维特根斯坦最活跃的水平。人们对使用词语的背景关注甚少——这是维特根斯坦开创的舞台。 然而,这是一部经典作品,这些警告仍然值得一读。 那些希望从现代两个系统的观点来看为人类行为建立一个全面的最新框架的人,可以查阅我的书《路德维希的哲学、心理学、Min d和语言的逻辑结构》维特根斯坦和约翰·西尔的《第二部》(2019年)。那些对我更多的作品感兴趣的人可能会看到《会说话的猴子——一个末日星球上的哲学、心理学、科学、宗教和政治——文章和评论2006-20 19年第3次(2019年)和自杀乌托邦幻想21篇世纪4日 (2019) .

霍夫施塔特牧师从原教旨主义自然主义教会的最新讲道。像他更出名(或臭名昭著的无情的哲学错误)的工作戈德尔,埃舍尔,巴赫,它有一个肤浅的合理性,但如果人们明白,这是猖獗的科学主义,混合真正的科学问题与哲学 问题(即,只有真正的问题是我们应该玩什么语言游戏),然后几乎所有的兴趣消失。我提供了一个基于进化心理学和维特根斯坦工作的分析框架(自从我最近的著作中更新)。 那些希望从现代两个系统的观点来看为人类行为建立一个全面的最新框架的人,可以查阅我的书《路德维希的哲学、心理学、心神 (Mind) 和语言的逻辑结构》维特根斯坦和约翰·西尔的《第二部》(2019年)。那些对我更多的作品感兴趣的人可能会看到《会说话的猴子——一个末日星球上的哲学、心理学、科学、宗教和政治——文章和评论2006-201 9年第3次(2019年)和自杀乌托邦幻想21篇世纪4日 (2019).

你可以在第135或326页快速获得这本书的摘要。如果你对进化心理学没有跟上速度,你应该先阅读标题中这个术语的最近许多文本之一。其中最好的是《进化心理学手册》第二部,由Buss出版。直到大约15年前,对 行为的解释还不是对心理过程的真正解释,而是对人们做了什么和说什么的模糊和基本上无用的描述,而对原因却一无所知。我们可以说,人们聚集纪念一个事件,赞美上帝,接受他(或她或他们)的祝福,等等。,但这一切都 没有描述相关的心理过程,因此,我们可以说,他们是解释的方式,它解释了为什么一个苹果下降到地面,如果我们说它,因为我们释放它,而且它很重,没有机制,也没有解释或预测能力。这本书继续阐明人类行为的遗传基础 ,学术界、宗教界、政界和公众几乎普遍忽视和否认(见平克的优秀书《空白斯莱特》)。他的陈述(p3)认为,问宗教是否遗传是没有意义的,因为任何行为因基因和环境而发生变异的百分比都可以被研究,就像所有其他行 为一样(见Pinker)。标题应该是"初步尝试解释原始宗教的某些方面",因为他根本不对待更高的意识(例如,萨托里,启蒙等),这是迄今为止最有趣的现象,也是唯一的21世纪对聪明、受过 教育的人个人感兴趣的宗教的一部分。读整本书,你永远不会猜到这样的事情存在。同样,对于毒品和宗教的巨大领域。它缺乏一个理性的框架,没有提及思想观的双重体系,这种观念现在如此富有成效。因为我建议我最近的一 些论文。然而,这本书有很多的兴趣,尽管日期仍然值得一读。 那些希望从现代两个系统的观点来看为人类行为建立一个全面的最新框架的人,可以查阅我的书《路德维希的哲学、心理学、Mind 和语言的逻辑结构》维特根斯坦和约翰·西尔的《第二部》(2019年)。那些对我更多的作品感兴趣的人可能会看到《会说话的猴子——一个末日星球上的哲学、心理学、科学、宗教和政治——文章和评论2006-201 9年第3次(2019年)和自杀乌托邦幻想21篇世纪4日(2019年)。 .

在详细评论社会世界(MSW)之前,我将首先就哲学(描述性心理学)及其与当代心理学研究的关系提出一些评论,如西尔(S)和维特根斯坦(W),因为我觉得这是把西尔或任何评论者的行为,在正确的视角最好的方式。 这将是很大的帮助,看到我对PNC,TLP,PI,OC,TARW和其他书籍的评论,这两个天才的描述心理学。 S没有提到W在TLP中作为机制的先见之明的思想陈述,以及他在后来的工作中对它的破坏。自W以来,S已经成为这些机械行为观的主要解构者,以及最重要的描述性心理学家(哲学家),但没有意识到W如何完全期待他, 也没有意识到,总的来说,做别人(但看到许多论文和普劳福和科普兰在W,图灵和AI的书)。S 的工作比 W 的工作要容易得多,尽管有一些行话,但如果你从正确的方向接近它,它几乎非常明显。有关更多详细信息,请参阅我对 W S 和其他书籍的评论。 总体而言,MSW很好地总结了在维特根斯坦的半个世纪的工作带来的许多实质性进展,但在我看来,W仍然是无与伦比的基本心理学,一旦你掌握了他在说什么(见我的评论)。理想情况下,它们应该一起阅读:Searle 对S2/S3操作的明确连贯的散文和概括,用W对S1/S2操作的敏锐例子,以及他辉煌的格言来说明。如果我年轻得多,我会写一本书。 那些希望从现代两个系统的观点来看为人类行为建立一个全面的最新框架的人,可以查阅我的书《路德维希的哲学、心理学、Min d和语言的逻辑结构》维特根斯坦和约翰·西尔的《第二部》(2019年)。那些对我更多的作品感兴趣的人可能会看到《会说话的猴子——一个末日星球上的哲学、心理学、科学、宗教和政治——文章和评论2006-20 19年第3次(2019年)和自杀乌托邦幻想21篇世纪4日 (2019).

这是既惊人的,适合这个巨大的,行话满载(这本书真的需要一个词汇表!),大量的学术工作已成为畅销书在世界上的教育。一个人必须专心学习行话,然后翻阅551页的文本和238页的笔记。M,我们一次又一次地被告 知,这只是一个即将发生的事情的轮廓! 虽然他严厉批评了三个运动的过激行为,但从非常自由的精神观点来看,这是一种解构的、新时代神秘主义和后现代对宗教、哲学和行为科学的解释,没有最坏的德顿,下午和不结盟运动的行话,狂热的平均主义和反科学的反知 识主义。 他详细分析了哲学、心理学、社会学和宗教的各种世界观,揭露了哲学、心理学、社会学和宗教等不同世界观的致命减少缺陷,但如今他分析的大部分来源几乎毫无关系。 他们使用的术语和概念,已经过时的,当他研究和写作20年前。人们不得不浏览无数页的行话——关于哈贝马斯、康德、爱默生、荣格et.al。去珍珠 你得到一个了不起的样本,糟糕的写作,混乱和过时的想法和过时的行话。 如果一个人有一个良好的当前教育,读这本书(和大多数关于人类行为的写作)是双重痛苦的。 痛苦,因为它是如此的折磨和困惑,然后再次当你意识到它是多么简单与现代心理学和哲学。术语和想法是可怕的混乱和过时的(但在威尔伯自己的分析比在他的来源更不然)。 这本书和它的大部分来源是可能的心理文本,虽然大多数作者没有意识到这一点。它是关于人类行为和推理的,关于我们为什么以我们的方式思考和行动,以及将来我们如何改变。但是(就像直到最近所有的这类讨论一样),没 有一个解释是真正的解释,因此它们不能洞察人类的行为。没有人讨论所涉及的心理机制。这就像描述汽车是如何工作的by讨论方向盘和金属和油漆没有任何了解的发动机,燃料或传动系。事实上,像大多数老人们的行为解释 一样,这里引用的文字和威尔伯的文法通常更有趣,因为他们接受(和忽略!)作为解释,以及推理的种类,而不是实际内容。 如果一个人对哲学、认知和进化心理学有一套,大部分都是古老的。像几乎每个人都一样(学者和公众一样。g g.,看看我对丹奈特的自由进化和其他书籍的评论,他不明白宗教和伦理的基本知识——事实上所有的人类行为,都是被编程到我们的基因中。当他写许多书时,一场了解自己的革命正在发生,它经过他。 那些希望从现代两个系统的观点来看为人类行为建立一个全面的最新框架的人,可以查阅我的书《路德维希的哲学、心理学、Min d和语言的逻辑结构》维特根斯坦和约翰·西尔的《第二部》(2019年)。那些对我更多的作品感兴趣的人可能会看到《会说话的猴子——一个末日星球上的哲学、心理学、科学、宗教和政治——文章和评论2006-20 19年第3次(2019年)和自杀乌托邦幻想21篇世纪4日 (2019).

Philosophers of literature do not take much of an interest in autobiography.1 In one sense this is not surprising. As a certain prejudice has it, autobiography is, along with biography, the preferred reading of people who do not really like to read. The very words can conjure up images of what one finds on bookshelves in Florida retirement communities and in underfunded public libraries, books with titles like Under the Rainbow: The Real Liza Minnelli or Me: Stories of My Life (...) (Katharine Hepburn).2 Hardly rousing material, at least from the philosophical point of view. But on a moment’s reflection, it becomes clear that the initial prejudice is unfounded. Never mind the fact that there are obviously .. (shrink)

I employ William Carlos Williams' poem, "The Red Wheelbarrow" to provide a non-technical introduction to Heidegger's Being and Time. (Note: This Philpapers entry provides access to the full article.).

Thought experiments involving The Matrix, brains-in-vats, or Cartesian demons have traditionally thought to describe skeptical possibilities. Chalmers has denied this, claiming that the simulations involved are real enough to at least sometimes defeat the skeptic. Through an examination of the meaning of kind terms in natural language I argue that, though the Chalmers view may be otherwise attractive, it is not an antidote to skepticism.

There is little question as to whether there is good boring art, though its existence raises a number of questions for both the philosophy of art and the philosophy of emotions. How can boredom ever be a desideratum of art? How can our standing commitments concerning the nature of aesthetic experience and artistic value accommodate the existence of boring art? How can being bored constitute an appropriate mode of engagement with a work of art as a work of art? More (...) broadly, how can there be works of art whose very success requires the experience of boredom? Our goal in this paper is threefold. After offering a brief survey of kinds of boring art, we: i) derive a set of questions that we argue constitutes the philosophical problem of boring art; ii) elaborate an empirically informed theory of boredom that furnishes the philosophical problem with a deeper sense of the affect at the heart of the phenomenon; and iii) conclude by offering and defending a solution to the problem that explains why and how artworks might wish to make the experience of boredom key to their aesthetic and artistic success. (shrink)

The literature on the history of electricity production have studied the evolution of electricity in both developed and developing countries and its impact on their economies. Some have laid foundations upon which other works are carried out. A close examination of historiography and multidisciplinary research on electricity production in Ghana shows that more efforts are required to improve the electric power landscape in Ghana. From the colonial era, the increasing demand for electricity has been the biggest challenge plaguing the energy (...) sector. Respective governments have made significant strides in ensuring reliable and universal access to electricity throughout Ghana, yet such efforts have been accompanied by different levels of challenges. The study uses a qualitative and exploratory research approach to trace the activities that helped, in many other ways to the creation of a sustainable electric power provision to household and industry in Ghana, particularly in two of Ghana’s cities; Accra and Kumasi, within the period 1900 to the1960s. The work focused mainly on archival sources in its quest to arrive at how indigenous Ghanaians provided power for industrial activities and for household purposes. Results from the study show that local and cottage industries relied predominantly on wood, fuel, and biomass for their operations even before the introduction of the more sophisticated means of power generation. Also, the study revealed that in finding solutions to the challenges of electricity production, policymakers have focused more on current issues with little or no effort to trace the historical foundation of electricity production. This notwithstanding, the little efforts that have been made examined the history of energy production, with a limited focus on the immediate post-independence era. (shrink)

Women have always been central concerning the provision of healthcare. The transitions into the modern world have been very slow for women because of how societies classify women. Starting from lay care, women provided healthcare for their family and sometimes to the members of the community in which they lived. With no formal education, women served as midwives and served in other specialised fields in medicine. They usually treated their fellow women because they saw ‘women’s medicine’ as women’s business. They (...) were discriminated against by the opposite sex and by the church, which regarded it as a taboo to allow women to practice medicine. This study points to a Ghanaian context on how the charismas of women have made them excel in their efforts to provide healthcare for their people. The study also focused on the role of indigenous practitioners who are mostly found in the rural areas and modern practitioners who are mostly found in the peri-urban, urban areas and larger cities in Ghana. (shrink)

Philosophers ask just whose expression, if anyone’s, we hear in lyric poetry. Walton provides a novel possibility: it’s the reader who “uses” the poem (just as a speech giver uses a speech) who makes the language expressive. But worries arise once we consider poems in particular social or political settings, those which require a strong self-other distinction, or those with expressions that should not be disassociated from the subjects whose experience they draw from. One way to meet this challenge is (...) to consider the poem expressive of a plural subject, which frees us from looking for a particular individual whose voice we hear in the work, whether she be fictional or actual. Some lyrics give voice to a group whose experience is attended to in the work. This may be done through a posited fictional speaker, but the ontology of the speaker is shown to be less important. Attending to a group whose concerns are voiced allows us to explain how poems can manage to address our-worldly concerns even when lacking actual persons whose expressions we encounter in the poems. (shrink)

Kant argues in the Critique of Judgment (CJ) that there are two distinct modes of the sublime. This essay will concentrate on the mathematical mode. It is helpful to begin an examination of the mathematical sublime by elucidating the difference between logical estimation and aesthetic estimation; it is aesthetic estimation under strain, so Kant argues, that instigates the moment of the sublime. Logical estimation forms the cognitive basis of scientific calculations. He argues that scientific enquiry only requires an understanding of (...) the logical relationship of numbers and so does not require an aesthetic experience of those numbers. (shrink)

What we value, like, endorse, want, and prefer changes over the course of our lives. Richard Pettigrew presents a theory of rational decision making for agents who recognise that their values will change over time and whose decisions will affect those future times.

Purpose: This thematic literature review explores the critical role of competent writing skills in law enforcement, examining its impact on career progression, agency reputation, and legal proceedings. The purpose is to synthesize existing literature to identify research gaps and suggest directions for future studies. Methods: Google Scholar, ERIC, and the Jerry Falwell Library searches were conducted to capture a broad range of studies involving police report writing, its impact on officers, law enforcement agencies, and the criminal justice system, and writing (...) improvement strategies. Although not required for this review, the work followed PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Results: The initial search yielded numerous qualitative and quantitative studies. This review categorizes the findings into themes of the importance of writing proficiency, the influence of organizational culture, training and education, and technological integration, highlighting the variability and scope of the existing literature. Conclusions: The review shows the need for well-structured research to substantiate the factors contributing to effective law enforcement report writing. It recommends areas for in-depth exploration in future systematic reviews or primary studies, especially longitudinal studies on the effects of targeted training programs, organizational culture shifts, and technological integration on writing proficiency. Application in Law Enforcement: For trainers and instructors, integrating comprehensive report writing programs into training for law enforcement officers can enhance professional skills and accountability. Effective report writing improves documentation accuracy, supports legal proceedings, and enhances career progression. Incorporating targeted report writing training can holistically enhance the performance and professionalism of law enforcement officers. (shrink)

After a brief introduction and orientation (section I), this dialogue between Levinasian and Beckerian thought is approached along the lines of two major themes concerning consciousness which emerge in very different contexts and registers in their work (sections II and III), and one tantalizing question that is raised with great force by the dialogue (section IV). The two themes revolve around the subtle dialectical interplay that runs throughout the thought of both Levinas and Becker – the switching between internality and (...) externality, non-rational and rational; otherness and sameness; life and death – an interplay that is summed up in the dialectic between non-reflexive and reflexive consciousness. The Beckerian and Levinasian notions of the non-reflexive consciousness (section II) relate to their respective and in many ways convergent claims about a non-rational primal human state characterized by global vulnerability, awe and guilt, especially before the face of the other. Their analyses of reflexive consciousness (section III) relate to their interpretations of the problematic ideal of the free, self-constituting and self-mastering individual, and the impetus located therein towards the repression of what is Other to the self. Finally (section IV), the question is raised as to whether (and to what extent), following Levinas, sources of compelling ethical value might be legitimately understood as emerging out of Becker’s conception of primordial human vulnerability. (shrink)

Many philosophers have been attracted to the idea that meaning is, in some way or other, determined by use—chief among them, perhaps, Michael Dummett. But John McDowell has argued that Dummett, and anyone else who would seek to draw serious philosophical conclusions from this claim, must face a dilemma: Either the use of a sentence is characterized in terms of what it can be used to say, in which case profound philosophical consequences can hardly follow, or it will be impossible (...) to make out the sense in which the use of language is a rational activity. The paper evaluates McDowell's arguments and, in so doing, attempts to offer an initial sketch of how the notion of use might be so understood that the claim that use determines meaning is a substantive one. (I do not take any stand here on whether one should accept that claim.). (shrink)

This study focuses on the foundations of Slovak critical environmentalism laid by work of Juraj Kučírek, who is also the author of the first ever monograph focused on the philosophical reflection of the causes and possible consequences of the global environmental crisis in Slovakia. Kučírek pointed out the need to combine reflection on subsequent solution of the global environmental crisis with the problems of social inequality and oppression. This unconventional approach in the context of the Slovak public and academic discourse (...) of the 1990s he termed as environmental anthropocentrism. Thus, he had a critical approach to biocentric concepts, which gained a dominant position in the Slovak environmental discourse. His work was followed by Ivan Dubnička, who extended Kučírek´s position to include cultural, political, and religious aspects of the causes of environmental devastation. His research was focused on the relationships of sociobiological and sociocultural determinants that shape human behaviour as a result of biological and cultural evolution. Based on evolutionism and anthropocentrism, he developed the concept of environmental pragmatism. Concepts of both are characterized by the critique of biocentric egalitarianism principle and the emphasis on democratic and human rights aspects of environmental devastation, as well as social and political causes of these phenomena. (shrink)

Physics has been slowly and reluctantly beginning to address the role and fundamental basis of the ‘observer’ which has until now also been considered metaphysical and beyond the mandate empirical rigor. It is suggested that the fundamental premise of the currently dominant view of ‘Cognitive Theory’ - “Mind Equals Brain” is erroneous; and the associated belief that the ‘Planck scale, ‘the so-called basement level of reality’, as an appropriate arena from which to model psycho-physical bridging is also in error. In (...) this paper we delineate a simple, inexpensive experimental design to ‘crack the so-called cosmic egg’ thereby opening the door to largescale extra dimensions (LSXD) tantamount to the regime of the unified field and thus awareness. The methodology surmounts the quantum uncertainty principle in a manner violating Quantum Electrodynamics, (QED), a cornerstone of modern theoretical physics, by spectrographic analysis of newly theorized Tight-Bound State (TBS) Bohr orbits in ‘continuous-state’ transition frequencies of atomic hydrogen. If one wonders why QED violation in the spectra of atomic hydrogen relates to solving the mind-body (observer) problem; consider this a 1st wrench in a forthcoming tool box of Unified Field Mechanics, UF that will soon enough in retrospect cause the current tools of Classical and Quantum Mechanics to appear as stone axes. Max Planck is credited as the founder of quantum mechanics with his 1900 quantum hypothesis that energy is radiated and absorbed discretely by the formulation, E = hv. Empirically implementing this next paradigm shift utilizing parameters of the long sought associated ‘new physics’ of the 3rd regime (classical-quantum- unified) allows access to LSXD of space; thus pragmatically opening the domain of mental action for the 1st time in history. This rendering constitutes a massive paradigm shift to Unified Field Theory creating a challenge for both the writer and the reader! (shrink)

This paper applies a virtue epistemology approach to using the Internet, as to improve our information-seeking behaviours. Virtue epistemology focusses on the cognitive character of agents and is less concerned with the nature of truth and epistemic justification as compared to traditional analytic epistemology. Due to this focus on cognitive character and agency, it is a fruitful but underexplored approach to using the Internet in an epistemically desirable way. Thus, the central question in this paper is: How to use the (...) Internet in an epistemically virtuous way? Using the work of Jason Baehr, it starts by outlining nine intellectual or epistemic virtues: curiosity, intellectual autonomy, intellectual humility, attentiveness, intellectual carefulness, intellectual thoroughness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual tenacity. It then explores how we should deploy these virtues and avoid the corresponding vices when interacting with the Internet, particularly search engines. Whilst an epistemically virtuous use of the Internet will not guarantee that one will acquire true beliefs, understanding or even knowledge, it will strongly improve one’s information-seeking behaviours. The paper ends with arguing that teaching and assessing online intellectual virtues should be part of school and university curricula, perhaps embedded in critical thinking courses, or even better, as individual units. (shrink)

Effective altruism sounds so innocuous—who could possibly be opposed to doing good more effectively? Yet it has inspired significant backlash in recent years. This paper addresses some common misconceptions and argues that the core “beneficentric” ideas of effective altruism are both excellent and widely neglected. Reasonable people may disagree on details of implementation, but all should share the basic goals or values underlying effective altruism.

Is it reasonable to believe in a God of love in the face of life's many evils? In this essay I consider how the biblical book of Job raises and responds to this question.

The complementary properties and functions of cognitive artifacts and other external resources are integrated into the human cognitive system to varying degrees. The goal of this paper is to develop some of the tools to conceptualize this complementary integration between agents and artifacts. It does so by proposing a multidimensional framework, including the dimensions of information flow, reliability, durability, trust, procedural transparency, informational transparency, individualization, and transformation. The proposed dimensions are all matters of degree and jointly they constitute a multidimensional (...) space in which situated cognitive systems can be located and have certain dimensional configurations. These dimensions provide a new perspective on the conditions for cognitive extension. They are, however, not meant to provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, but to provide a toolbox for investigating the degree and nature of the integration of agent and artifact into “new systemic wholes”. The higher a situated system scores on the proposed dimensions, the more functional integration occurs, and the more tightly coupled the system is. (shrink)

A personal reflection on the meaning of worship and the 'worthiness' of God.

In this article, I outline various ways in which artifacts are interwoven with autobiographical memory systems and conceptualize what this implies for the self. I first sketch the narrative approach to the self, arguing that who we are as persons is essentially our life story, which, in turn, determines our present beliefs and desires, but also directs our future goals and actions. I then argue that our autobiographical memory is partly anchored in our embodied interactions with an ecology of artifacts (...) in our environment. Lifelogs, photos, videos, journals, diaries, souvenirs, jewelry, books, works of art, and many other meaningful objects trigger and sometimes constitute emotionally laden autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memory is thus distributed across embodied agents and various environmental structures. To defend this claim, I draw on and integrate distributed cognition theory and empirical research in human-technology interaction. Based on this, I conclude that the self is neither defined by psychological states realized by the brain nor by biological states realized by the organism, but should be seen as a distributed and relational construct. (shrink)

In Mind and World, John McDowell argues against the view that perceptual representation is non-conceptual. The central worry is that this view cannot offer any reasonable account of how perception bears rationally upon belief. I argue that this worry, though sensible, can be met, if we are clear that perceptual representation is, though non-conceptual, still in some sense 'assertoric': Perception, like belief, represents things as being thus and so.

Rescorla (Erkenntnis, 2020) has recently pointed out that the standard arguments for Bayesian Conditionalization assume that whenever I become certain of something, it is true. Most people would reject this assumption. In response, Rescorla offers an improved Dutch Book argument for Bayesian Conditionalization that does not make this assumption. My purpose in this paper is two-fold. First, I want to illuminate Rescorla’s new argument by giving a very general Dutch Book argument that applies to many cases of updating beyond those (...) covered by Conditionalization, and then showing how Rescorla’s version follows as a special case of that. Second, I want to show how to generalise R. A. Briggs and Richard Pettigrew’s Accuracy Dominance argument to avoid the assumption that Rescorla has identified (Briggs and Pettigrew in Noûs, 2018). In both cases, these arguments proceed by first establishing a very general reflection principle. (shrink)

There is too much that we do not know about COVID-19. The longer we take to find it out, the more lives will be lost. In this paper, we will defend a principle of risk parity: if it is permissible to expose some members of society (e.g. health workers or the economically vulnerable) to a certain level of ex ante risk in order to minimize overall harm from the virus, then it is permissible to expose fully informed volunteers to a (...) comparable level of risk in the context of promising research into the virus. We apply this principle to three examples of risky research: skipping animal trials for promising treatments, human challenge trials to speed up vaccine development, and low-dose controlled infection or “variolation.” We conclude that if volunteers, fully informed about the risks, are willing to help fight the pandemic by aiding promising research, there are strong moral reasons to gratefully accept their help. To refuse it would implicitly subject others to still graver risks. (shrink)

To solve the hard problem of consciousness we first note that all cognitive systems of sufficient power must get into difficulty when trying to analyze consciousness concepts, because the mechanism that does the analysis will bottom out in such a way that the system declares these concepts to be both real and ineffable. Rather than use this observation to dismiss consciousness as an artifact, we propose a unifying interpretation that allows consciousness to be regarded as explicable at a meta level, (...) while at the same time being mysterious and inexplicable on its own terms. It is further suggested that science must concede that there are some aspects of the world that deserve to be called ‘real’, but which are beyond explanation. The main conclusion is that thinking machines of the future will, inevitably, have just the same subjective consciousness that we do. Some testable predictions can be derived from this theory. (shrink)

According to certain normative theories in epistemology, rationality requires us to be logically omniscient. Yet this prescription clashes with our ordinary judgments of rationality. How should we resolve this tension? In this paper, I focus particularly on the logical omniscience requirement in Bayesian epistemology. Building on a key insight by Hacking :311–325, 1967), I develop a version of Bayesianism that permits logical ignorance. This includes: an account of the synchronic norms that govern a logically ignorant individual at any given time; (...) an account of how we reduce our logical ignorance by learning logical facts and how we should update our credences in response to such evidence; and an account of when logical ignorance is irrational and when it isn’t. At the end, I explain why the requirement of logical omniscience remains true of ideal agents with no computational, processing, or storage limitations. (shrink)

The desirability of what actually occurs is often influenced by what could have been. Preferences based on such value dependencies between actual and counterfactual outcomes generate a class of problems for orthodox decision theory, the best-known perhaps being the so-called Allais Paradox. In this paper we solve these problems by extending Richard Jeffrey's decision theory to counterfactual prospects, using a multidimensional possible-world semantics for conditionals, and showing that preferences that are sensitive to counterfactual considerations can still be desirability maximising. (...) We end the paper by investigating the conditions necessary and sufficient for a desirability function to be an expected utility. It turns out that the additional conditions imply highly implausible epistemic principles. (shrink)

In this paper, we seek a reliabilist account of justified credence. Reliabilism about justified beliefs comes in two varieties: process reliabilism (Goldman, 1979, 2008) and indicator reliabilism (Alston, 1988, 2005). Existing accounts of reliabilism about justified credence comes in the same two varieties: Jeff Dunn (2015) proposes a version of process reliabilism, while Weng Hong Tang (2016) offers a version of indicator reliabilism. As we will see, both face the same objection. If they are right about what justification is, it (...) is mysterious why we care about justification, for neither of the accounts explains how justification is connected to anything of epistemic value. We will call this the Connection Problem. I begin by describing Dunn’s process reliabilism and Tang’s indicator reliabilism. I argue that, understood correctly, they are, in fact, extensionally equivalent. That is, Dunn and Tang reach the top of the same mountain, albeit by different routes. However, I argue that both face the Connection Problem. In response, I offer my own version of reliabilism, which is both process and indicator, and I argue that it solves that problem. Furthermore, I show that it is also extensionally equivalent to Dunn’s reliabilism and Tang’s. Thus, I reach the top of the same mountain as well. (shrink)