Phronesis, or practical wisdom, is a capacity the possession of which enables one to make good practical judgments and thus fulfill the distinctive function of human beings. Nir Eisikovits and Dan Feldman convincingly argue that this capacity may be undermined by statistical machine-learning-based AI. The critic questions: why should we worry that AI undermines phronesis? Why can’t we epistemically defer to AI, especially when it is superintelligent? Eisikovits and Feldman acknowledge such objection but do not consider it seriously. In this (...) paper, we argue that there is a way to reconcile Eisikovits and Feldman with their critic by adopting the principle of epistemic heed, according to which we should exercise our rational capacity as much as possible while heeding a superintelligence’s output whenever possible. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly adopted to make decisions in domains such as business, education, health care, and criminal justice. However, such algorithmic decision systems can have prevalent biases against marginalized social groups and undermine social justice. Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) is a recent development aiming to make an AI system’s decision processes less opaque and to expose its problematic biases. This paper argues against technical XAI, according to which the detection and interpretation of algorithmic bias can be handled (...) more or less independently by technical experts who specialize in XAI methods. Drawing on resources from feminist epistemology, we show why technical XAI is mistaken. Specifically, we demonstrate that the proper detection of algorithmic bias requires relevant interpretive resources, which can only be made available, in practice, by actively involving a diverse group of stakeholders. Finally, we suggest how feminist theories can help shape integrated XAI: an inclusive social-epistemic process that facilitates the amelioration of algorithmic bias. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 3, Page 606-622, May 2022.

How can we acquire understanding? Linda Zagzebski has long claimed that understanding is acquired through, or arises from, mastering a particular practical technê. In this paper, I explicate Zagzebski’s claim and argue that the claim is problematic. Based on a critical examination of Zagzebski’s claim, I propose, in conclusion and in brief, a new claim regarding the acquisition of understanding.

According to Dreyfusian anti-intellectualism, know-how or expertise cannot be explained in terms of know-that and its cognates but only in terms of intuition. Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus do not exclude know-that and its cognates in explaining skilled action. However, they think that know-that and its cognates (such as calculative deliberation and perspectival deliberation) only operate either below or above the level of expertise. In agreement with some critics of Dreyfus and Dreyfus, in this paper, I argue that know-that and (...) its cognates are constitutive of rather than external to know-how and expertise. However, unlike those critics, who argue for this point only from a phenomenological point of view, my argument adopts a (telic) normative point of view. (shrink)

This paper argues that participation in an intimate relationship can generate additional or stronger reasons for one to act paternalistically toward the intimate. Moreover, participation in such a relationship can also weaken or cancel some of the presumptive reasons of respect one would otherwise have not to interfere. The paper also reflects, more generally, on the nature of intimate relationships, the normative significance of paternalism, and the normative differences between paternalism in larger-scale institutional contexts and paternalism in closer, interpersonal ones. (...) -/- . (shrink)

Philosophical interest in state power has tended to focus on the state’s coercive powers rather than its expressive powers. I consider an underexplored aspect of the state’s expressive capacity: its capacity to use symbols (such as monuments, memorials, and street names) to promote political ends. In particular, I argue that the liberal state’s deployment of symbols to promote its members’ commitment to liberal ideals is in need of special justification. This is because the state’s exercise of its capacity to use (...) symbols may be in tension with respecting individual autonomy, particularly in cases in which the symbols exert influence without engaging citizens’ rational capacities. But despite the fact that the state’s deployment of symbols may circumvent citizens’ rational capacities, I argue that it may nonetheless be permissible when surrounded by certain liberal institutions and brought about via democratic procedures. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have begun to uncover the role played by verbal conduct in generating oppressive social structures. I examine the oppressive illocutionary uses, and perlocutionary effects, of expressives: speech acts that are not truth-apt, merely expressing attitudes, such as desires, preferences, and emotions. Focusing on expressions of disgust in conversation, I argue for two claims: that expressions of disgust can activate in the local, conversational context the oppressive power of the underlying structures of oppression; that conversational expressions of (...) disgust can, via the pragmatic process of presupposition accommodation, contribute to morally problematic cases of disgust contagion. (shrink)

Tennis champion Maria Sharapova has a habit of grunting when she plays on the court. Assume that she also has a habit of hitting the ball in a certain way in a certain situation. The habit of on-court grunting might be bad, but can the habit of hitting the ball in a certain way in a certain situation be classified as intelligent? The fundamental questions here are as follows: What is habit? What is the relation between habit and skill? Is (...) there such a thing as intelligent habit? In this paper I expound the nature of habit by developing and defending a Rylean conception of habit, according to which an acquired disposition is a habit if and only if the manifestation of the disposition is repeated, automatic, and uniform. One implication of this conception is that there is no such thing as intelligent habit. A practical application in athletic expertise is that sport coaches can help athletes go beyond repeated, automatic, and uniform dispositions in sport. (shrink)

Based on key passages in The Analects, I develop a Confucian account of agency: more precisely, an account of the relation between agent and deed (action). The Confucian view is contrasted with "standard" causal accounts of action (e.g., Davidson, Searle), which hold that what makes an event an action is that it is intended. According to the Confucian account, the defining mark of action is not the causal involvement of a (prior) intention, but instead the expressive relation between agent and (...) action. What's distinctive about an action is that it is expressive of who the agent is; the action expresses one's character or self. For the Confucians, what one really intends (the content of one's intention) is not a prior state to the action, but is rather determined or settled by the action as it is completed. I then explore the implications of the Confucian account for our understanding of three moral-psychological phenomena: weakness of will, self-deception, and moral regret. (shrink)

I develop an account of the nature and value of being supportive in interpersonal relationships. In particular, I argue that the virtue of being supportive, construed as a modally demanding value, facilitates the autonomy of one's intimate and promotes a sense of unity in one's relationship. Moreover, the practice of being supportive plays an important role with regard to the familiar need to reconcile the normative demands of one's own projects with one's responsibilities to intimates.

Sự xuật hiện của các công cụ AI tạo sinh trên nền tảng các mô hình ngôn ngữ lớn (LLMs) đã đem đến một công cụ mới cho con người, đặc biệt là trong các ngành sư phạm, báo chí, nhưng chúng cũng đem đến nhiều vấn đề Trong bài viết này, nhóm tác giả sẽ chỉ ra những những bất cập mới xuất hiện hoặc những vấn đề đã tồn tại nhưng có nguy cơ được đẩy lên cao hơn (...) do sự áp dụng của AI tạo sinh vào trong thực tế, tập trung vào hai nhóm vấn đề: công bằng xã hội và phổ cập tri thức khoa học và công tác truyền thông chính sách. Cụ thể, chúng tôi cho rằng các công cụ AI tạo sinh gặp khó khăn trong việc tiếp cận đến những nguồn kiến thức thuộc các văn hóa thiểu số, hoặc các ngôn ngữ nhỏ, có thể gây khó khăn trong việc tuyên truyền kiến thức khoa học, thực hiện chính sách. Tất cả những khó khăn này sẽ tạo ra những vấn đề tại Việt Nam và cần được giải quyết bằng việc phát triển một bộ giá trị, đạo đức và quy tắc ứng xử khi tương tác và sử dụng AI. (shrink)

Cover Date: July 2006.Source Info: 115(3), 317-354. Language: English. Journal Announcement: 41-2. Subject: ACTION; CAUSATION; METAPHYSICS; REPRESENTATION; TELEOLOGY. Subject Person: SPINOZA, BENEDICT DE (BARUCH). Update Code: 20130315.

In this paper, I propose a virtue-theoretic approach to semantics, according to which the study of linguistic competence in particular, and the study of meaning and language in general, should focus on a speaker's interpretative virtues, such as charity and interpretability, rather than the speaker's knowledge of rules. The first part of the paper proffers an argument for shifting to virtue semantics, and the second part outlines the nature of such virtue semantics.

This paper examines the role of respect (specifically, the interest in having the respect of other people) in enabling blame to be effective: i.e., to achieve the desired effect of changing the blamed’s attitude and behavior. It develops an account of blame’s operations in three different cases: standard, intermediate, and proleptic. It ends by raising the worry that effective blame toward the morally distant approximates manipulation and coercion, leaving a moral residue.

Metaphysical rationalism, the doctrine which affirms the Principle of Sufficient Reason (the PSR), is out of favor today. The best argument against it is that it appears to lead to necessitarianism, the claim that all truths are necessarily true. Whatever the intuitive appeal of the PSR, the intuitive appeal of the claim that things could have been otherwise is greater. This problem did not go unnoticed by the great metaphysical rationalists Spinoza and Leibniz. Spinoza’s response was to embrace necessitarianism. Leibniz’s (...) response was to argue that, despite appearances, rationalism does not lead to necessitarianism. This paper examines the debate between these two rationalists and concludes that Leibniz has persuasive grounds for his opinion. This has significant implications both for the plausibility of the PSR and for our understanding of modality. (shrink)

What is the role of faith in the familiar practice of supporting intimates in their personal projects? Is there anything distinctly valuable about such faith-based support? I argue that the virtue of being supportive, a characteristic of the good friend or lover, involves a distinctive kind of faith: faith in another persons’ chosen self-expressive pursuit. Support based on such faith enables the supported party to enjoy a more meaningful and autonomous exercise of agency in self-expressive arenas, and engenders a sense (...) of relational unity or solidarity, deepening the normative and emotional bonds of the relationship. (shrink)

The truth table method, natural deduction, and the truth tree method, the three validity proving methods standardly taught in an introductory logic course, are too clumsy for the battlefield of real-life. The “short truth table” test is handy at times, but it stumbles at many other times. In this paper, we set up a general method that can beat all the methods mentioned above in a contest of speed. Furthermore, the procedure can be step-by-step paraphrased in a natural language, so (...) that, unlike the other methods, a real-life logical problem can be analyzed and explained in a real-life language too. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold: First, to generalize Quine's epistemology, to show that what Quine refutes for traditional epistemology is not only Cartesian foundationalism and Carnapian reductionism, but also any epistemological program if it takes atomic verificationist semantics or supernaturalism, which are rooted in the linguistic/factual distinction of individual sentences, as its underlying system. Thus, we will see that the range of naturalization in the Quinean sense is not as narrow as his critics think. Second, to normalize Quine's (...) epistemology, to explain in what sense Quinean naturalized epistemology is normative. The reason I maintain that critics miss the point of Quinean naturalized epistemology is that they do not appreciate the close connection between Quine's naturalistic approach and his holistic approach to epistemology. To show this I shall reconstruct Quine's argument for naturalizing epistemology within his systematic philosophy, and focus specifically on his holism and its applications, on which Quine relies both in arguing against traditional epistemology, and in supporting his theses of underdetermination of physical theory and indeterminacy of translation. This is the key to understanding the scope and the normativity of Quine's epistemology. In the conclusion I will point out what the genuine problems are for Quinean naturalized epistemology. (shrink)

: Perhaps the central problem which preoccupies Spinoza as a moral philosopher is the conflict between reason and passion. He belongs to a long tradition that sees the key to happiness and virtue as mastery and control by reason over the passions. This mastery, however, is hard won, as the passions often overwhelm its power and subvert its rule. When reason succumbs to passion, we act against our better judgment. Such action is often termed 'akratic'. Many commentators have complained that (...) the psychological principles that Spinoza appeals to in his account of akrasia are mere ad hoc modifications to his philosophical psychology. I show, on the contrary, that these principles follow from some of the most important and interesting aspects of Spinoza's philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Regulative virtue epistemology argues that intellectual virtues can adjust and guide one’s epistemic actions as well as improve on the quality of the epistemic actions. For regulative virtue epistemologists, intellectual virtues can be cultivated to a higher degree; when the quality of intellectual virtue is better, the resulting quality of epistemic action is better. The intellectual virtues that regulative epistemologists talk about are character virtues (such as intellectual courage and open-mindedness) rather than faculty virtues (such as sight and hearing), since (...) they don’t think that faculty virtues could be cultivated. This article refers to Xunzi’s philosophy, explaining how a regulative faculty-based virtue epistemology is possible. If this explanation works, on the one hand, a new branch of contemporary virtue epistemology is shown, and, on the other hand, a clear theoretical framework of Xunzi’s epistemology is constructed. (shrink)

With the increasing degrees A.I.s and machines are applied across different social contexts, the need for implementing ethics in A.I.s is pressing. In this paper, we argue for a pluralist hybrid model for the implementation of moral A.I.s. We first survey current approaches to moral A.I.s and their inherent limitations. Then we propose the pluralist hybrid approach and show how these limitations of moral A.I.s can be partly alleviated by the pluralist hybrid approach. The core ethical decision-making capacity of an (...) A.I. based on the pluralist hybrid approach consists of two systems. The first is a deterministic algorithm system that incorporates different moral rules for making explicit moral decisions. The second is a machine learning system that calculates the value of the variables required by the application of moral principles. The pluralist hybrid system is better than the existing proposals as (i) it better addresses the moral disagreement problem of the top-down approach by including different moral principles, while (ii) it reduces the opacity of ethical decision-making compared with a bottom-up system by implementing explicit moral principles for moral decision making. (shrink)

Slavery in Ancient Greece, Absolutist Monarchy in pre-modern Europe, and the European conquest of the New World strike us, from our contemporary perspective, as injustices on a massive scale. But given the impact of these large-scale historical activities on the particular course taken by Western history, they almost undeniably played an important role in the evolution of modern liberalism. Bernard Williams suggests a startling claim—that liberal universalists cannot condemn past injustices, because those injustices were necessary conditions of the development of (...) the modern liberalism that they affirm. This paper examines this possible objection to liberal universalists who greatly value their liberal way of life, paying particular attention to the lamentable necessities thesis: the claim that modern liberalism would not have come into existence but for the occurrence of past injustices. It motivates the lamentable necessities thesis, and argues that those who accept it, and greatly value modern liberalism, are precluded from regretting all-things-considered certain past injustices. Finally, it makes the case that liberal universalists who greatly value modern liberalism may condemn past injustices necessary to its emergence, even if they are unable to regret them in the relevant sense. (shrink)

This paper examines Bernard Williams’ challenge to liberal universalists (liberals “who assume their morality is universally applicable to everyone”) to provide a theory of error: “a story about the subject matter of political morality and about past people’s situation which explains why those people got it wrong about the subject matter.” It develops a theory of error that appeals to socio-historical conditions of the past to explain their role in making (1) liberal values and reasons epistemically inaccessible, and (2) motivations (...) to live up to them unavailable. (shrink)

This article reviews and develops an epistemological tradition in philosophy of science, called convergentism, which holds that inference methods should be assessed in terms of their abilities to converge to the truth. This tradition is compared with three competing ones: (1) explanationism, which holds that theory choice should be guided by a theory's overall balance of explanatory virtues, such as simplicity and fit with data; (2) instrumentalism, according to which scientific inference should be driven by the goal of obtaining useful (...) models, rather than true theories; (3) Bayesianism, which features a shift of focus from all-or-nothing beliefs to degrees of belief. (shrink)

What is the nature and structure of phronesis or practical wisdom? According to the view widely held by philosophers and psychologists, a person S is wise if and only if S knows how to live well. Given this view of practical wisdom, the guiding question is this: What exactly is “knowing how to live well”? It seems that no one has a clear idea of how to answer this simple but fundamental question. This paper explores knowing how to live well (...) (or “life know-how”) by showing how its nature and structure can be understood through contemporary epistemology of knowledge-how. I will achieve this by doing the following. In Section I, I highlight the two as-yet unanswered “integration questions” about life know-how. In Section II, I explain why the epistemology of knowledge-how has good potential to address the integration questions. In Sections III and IV, I construct two positions—intellectualism and anti-intellectualism—for the epistemology of life know-how and show how they address the two integration questions. In Section V, I show how the epistemology of life know-how established in the previous sections can be used in the philosophy of wisdom and the psychology of wisdom. (shrink)

This paper examines the nature of friendship and the nature of exploitation, and the intersection of the two phenomena. It argues that because vulnerability is an essential aspect of friendship, the possibility of exploitation is ineliminable in friendship. Considers how we might, nonetheless, reduce our exposure to unfair treatment in friendships.

This study was conducted to explore the effects of cloud-based m- learning on students’ motivation and creative performance in computer illustration course. Variables of motivation, creative behavior, creative process and creative product were conducted to understand the situations, differences, and the predictive power cloud-based m-learning had in creative performance. A nonequivalent pretest–posttest design was adopted, and 123 university students from Taipei City, Taiwan,were recruited as research participants in the study during 10-weeks experiment. They were asked to complete a motivation questionnaire. (...) Creative concept form and students’ illustraion work were also collected for statistics analysing. Through the descriptive statistics, one-way ANCOVA, and multiple linear regression analysis, the findings are as follows: (1)cloud-based m- learning had a positive effect on students’ motivation in computer illustration course; (2) cloud-based m-learning had a positive effect on creative performance in computer illustration course; (3) students with higher motivation performed better on creative performance, and(4) motivation could partially mediate cloud-based m-learning and creative performance. (shrink)

This paper argues that debates between the Confucians and Mohists in Classical China anticipate contemporary discussions in political philosophy. Specifically, their debates about our responsibilities to other people are akin to debates between Rawlsans, Cosmopolitans, and Utilitarians about the content of our political obligations to other people, and about the proper scope of application of norms of justice.

カワセミは今や老いていた。視力は衰え、聴力も鈍くなり、健康も悪化していた。若い頃、カワセミの釣りの技術ははるかに優れていた。科学文献によれば、彼は4回のダイビングのうち1回だけ魚を捕まえることに成功し ていた。今や年を重ねた彼の釣りの効率は半分になってしまった。.

This paper calls for a paradigm shift in studying academic dependency, towards the paradigm of brokered dependency. Using Chinese academia as an example, I demonstrate how the neocolonial condition of academic dependency is always mediated through blockage-brokerage mechanisms. The two most salient blockage-brokerage mechanisms of dependency in the Chinese context are linguistic barrier and authoritarian malepistemization, and the effects of the latter consist of three layers: institutional, informational and incorporational. On top of their domestic impacts, those mechanisms jointly exacerbate spectacularized (...) postcoloniality in anglophone-hegemonic global academic publishing. The paradigm of brokered dependency not only represents a more nuanced approach to the study of academic dependency, but also underscores the fact that the dismantling of the neocolonial condition cannot be conceived and pursued in isolation from comprehending and confronting the authoritarian condition, especially when the latter pertains under the disguise of anticolonialism. (shrink)

Critical reflections on Franklin Perkins' Doing What You Really Want: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mengzi. Raises some questions related to two main themes in the book: (1) Mengzi’s conception of human nature, and (2) Mengzi’s view of harmony and conflict in human life.

Tóm tắt -/- Emotional AI hay AI cảm xúc là một nhánh của AI có khả năng nhận biết, diễn giải, mô phỏng và phản ứng với cảm xúc con người Các ứng dụng của AI cảm xúc có thể giúp cho người làm báo cải thiện lối hành văn của mình dựa trên phản hồi của độc giả, đồng thời hỗ trợ tòa soạn thăm dò ý kiến của độc giả. Một trong những rủi ro lớn nhất của AI (...) cảm xúc là tiềm tàng ô nhiễm không gian thông tin. Các thông tin có thể được làm giả và xuyên tạc với mục đích thao túng cảm xúc người đọc. Nhà báo cần hiểu biết đúng đắn về công nghệ AI và mô hình cảm xúc, không lạm dụng AI cảm xúc để tác động cảm xúc của người đọc, sử dụng công nghệ một cách minh bạch và đạo đức, và bảo vệ dữ liệu của độc giả. (shrink)

In ‘What Makes Killing Wrong?’ Sinnott-Armstrong and Miller make the bold claim that killing in itself is not wrong, what is wrong is totally-disabling. In ‘After-Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?’ Giubilini and Minerva argue for allowing infanticide. Both papers challenge the stigma commonly associated with killing, and emphasize that killing is not wrong at some margins of life. In this paper, we first generalize the above claims to the thesis that there is nothing morally wrong with killing per (...) se, so long as it is instant and unannounced. Then, from the perspective of social evolution, we explain why people refrain from killing others, the general guideline being that it is unadvisable to kill someone with whom you associate a Second Person Perspective (SPP). Finally, drawing from a seminal paper of Press and Dyson on the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, we stress that an SPP without an SP (Second Person), or the other way around, can both lead to unwelcome results. (shrink)

Although the idea that sexual violence is a “structural” problem is not new, the lack of specification as to what that entails blocks effective responses to it. This paper illustrates the concept of sexual violence as structural in the sense of containing a type of moral wrong called “structural wrong” and discusses its practical implications. First, I introduce a distinction between two types of moral wrongs—interactional wrongs and structural wrongs—and I argue that the moral problem of sexual violence includes both (...) types, each of which calls for a different set of moral responses. Second, drawing on Iris Marion Young’s social connection model of responsibility, I argue that recognizing the structural-wrong element of sexual violence does not reduce individual perpetrators’ responsibility for it. Instead, it implies that a broader group of agents are required to join collective actions to reform the social structure. I conclude by evaluating some preventive programs against sexual violence through the lens of structural wrongs and providing directions to advance them. (shrink)

There has long been an impression that reliabilism implies externalism and that frequentist statistics, due to its reliabilist nature, is inherently externalist. I argue, however, that frequentist statistics can plausibly be understood as a form of internalist reliabilism -- internalist in the conventional sense, yet reliabilist in certain unconventional and intriguing ways. Crucially, in developing the thesis that reliabilism does not imply externalism, my aim is not to stretch the meaning of ‘reliabilism’ merely to sever the implication. Instead, it is (...) to gain a deeper understanding of frequentist statistics, which stands as one of the most sustained attempts by scientists to develop an epistemology for their own use. (shrink)

Forgiveness is mostly seen as a virtuous human response to wrongful conduct. But what happens when there is no acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of the wrongdoer? Does the forgiveness of the unrepentant still count as forgiveness? The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, for instance, is a figure who highly promotes the value of forgiveness. His homeland has been occupied by China since 1950, yet he maintains that he forgives and feels no enmity towards the Chinese government. The Chinese authorities, for (...) their part, have never admitted to wrongful invasion of the ‘roof of the world’, hence there has been no acceptance of the Dalai Lama’s forgiveness. Can the Dalai Lama’s forgiving under these circumstances, however, still be seen as forgiveness? In the present contribution, I shed light on the Buddhist view on forgiveness in the hope of inspiring ideas that might contribute to the pursuit of peace. Firstly, I explore certain matters surrounding the general idea of forgiveness and subsequently introduce Buddhist perspectives. Secondly, I respond to the key question of this paper by highlighting the Dalai Lama’s views as a means to elaborate on the Buddhist stance. I conclude by comparing Buddhist points of view with some contemporary philosophical perspectives and illustrating some distinguishing features of the Buddhist notion of forgiveness. From the above, I endeavour to establish that the Buddhist take on forgiveness is ultimately unconditional. (shrink)

Evaluative studies of inductive inferences have been pursued extensively with mathematical rigor in many disciplines, such as statistics, econometrics, computer science, and formal epistemology. Attempts have been made in those disciplines to justify many different kinds of inductive inferences, to varying extents. But somehow those disciplines have said almost nothing to justify a most familiar kind of induction, an example of which is this: “We’ve seen this many ravens and they all are black, so all ravens are black.” This is (...) enumerative induction in itsfullstrength. For it does not settle with a weaker conclusion (such as “the ravens observed in the future will all be black”); nor does it proceed with any additional premise (such as the statistical IID assumption). The goal of this paper is to take some initial steps toward a justification for the full version of enumerative induction, against counterinduction, and against the skeptical policy. The idea is to explore various epistemic ideals, mathematically defined as different modes of convergence to the truth, and look for one that is weak enough to be achievable and strong enough to justify a norm that governs both the long run and the short run. So the proposal is learning-theoretic in essence, but a Bayesian version is developed as well. (shrink)

Manh-Tung Ho, Khanh-Linh Hoang, Minh-Hoang Nguyen, Manh-Toan Ho (2019). Chapter 8. The emerging business of science in Vietnam. In Quan-Hoang Vuong, Trung Tran (Eds.), The Vietnamese Social Sciences at a Fork in the Road (pp. 163–177). Warsaw, Poland: De Gruyter. DOI:10.2478/9783110686081-013. -/- Online ISBN: 9783110686081 © 2019 Sciendo / De Gruyter.