Advances in neuroscience implicate reentrant signaling as the predominant form of communication between brain areas. This principle was used in a series of masking experiments that defy explanation by feed-forward theories. The masking occurs when a brief display of target plus mask is continued with the mask alone. Two masking processes were found: an early process affected by physical factors such as adapting luminance and a later process affected by attentional factors such as set size. This later process is called (...) masking by object substitution, because it occurs whenever there is a mismatch between the reentrant visual representation and the ongoing lower level activity. Iterative reentrant processing was formalized in a computational model that provides an excellent fit to the data. The model provides a more comprehensive account of all forms of visual masking than do the long-held feed-forward views based on inhibitory contour interactions. (shrink)

Relative blindsight is said to occur when different levels of subjective awareness are obtained at equality of objective performance. Using metacontrast masking, Lau and Passingham reported relative blindsight in normal observers at the shorter of two stimulus-onset asynchronies between target and mask. Experiment 1 replicated the critical asymmetry in subjective awareness at equality of objective performance. We argue that this asymmetry cannot be regarded as evidence for relative blindsight because the observers’ responses were based on different attributes of the stimuli (...) at the two SOAs. With an invariant criterion content , there was no asymmetry in subjective awareness across the two SOAs even though objective performance was the same. Experiment 3 examined the effect of criterion level on estimates of relative blindsight. Collectively, the present results question whether metacontrast masking is a suitable paradigm for establishing relative blindsight. Implications for theories of consciousness are discussed. (shrink)

In his Bibliographia politica Naudé reviews in about one hundred pages authors and works that have dealt with politics, from the Antiquity to the first decades of the Seventeenth Century. In few enlightened pages on the ordinary and extraordinary administration of the State, Naudé elaborates his own idea of Reason of State, including the use of an extraordinary administration in the name of the public benefit. We can find a continuity between his Bibliographia politica and his Considérations politiques sur les (...) coups d’Estat. In both his political works Naudé gives to the category of wisdom, derived from Aristotle, a new practical and political value, which goes back to authors such as Machiavelli or Cardano, Lipsius or Charron. Naudé’s political wisdom uses dissimulation and any form of justice, also against common law, to act in extraordinary administration of the State or to carry out “coups d’État.”. (shrink)

Wittgenstein si presenta, nel panorama filosofico novecentesco, come uno dei filosofi più originali. Nella fase finale della sua vita, giunge a criticare la concezione tradizionale del rapporto tra mente e significato, per la quale a garanzia della relazione di significazione basterebbe l'accesso che ciascun individuo ha ai propri contenuti mentali, riscontrando quindi il fondamento del significato nell'interiorità soggettiva. Wittgenstein, invece, avanza una prospettiva che pone un "gioco linguistico" con delle regole ben precise come condizione di giudizio del significato di un'espressione (...) linguistica, regole che sono oggettive e condivise, non private, e che determinano precise funzioni del linguaggio e della conoscenza. Lo studio di Wittgenstein trova motivazione se consideriamo che, attraverso i secoli, la filosofia ha sviluppato un suo proprio linguaggio che si è costantemente reinventato e specializzato, a seconda dello sviluppo storico e degli eventi che lo hanno caratterizzato; periodicamente, quando in maniera velata, quando esplicita, essa ha cercato di imitare il linguaggio scientifico, con l'aspirazione di un maggiore rigore espositivo e concettuale. (shrink)

splorando con interesse il vasto mondo delle scienze filosofiche, l’autore del presente saggio si è proposto di indagare la cosiddetta teoria della sensazione . Tema trattato da molti pensatori, sin dall’antichità esso ha affascinato ed occupato la specula zione di tuttele branche della materia, riscuotendo particolare successo ai giorni nostri con leneuroscienze, il cui progresso sta permettendo di coniugare la riflessione filosofica con lescoperte scientifiche, aprendo nuovi scenari di approfondimento e ridefinizione concettuale.Senza la pretesa di una completa esaustività, la presente (...) trattazione mira a fornireuno sguardo critico e ragionato su come la sensazione sia stata oggetto di riflessione da partedi Aristotele, primo filosofo nel quale trovia mo riferimenti all’argomento da noi trattato, nelle cui opere sono presenti numerosi spunti di analisi ancora attuali.Trattandosi di un argomento molto ampio ed in costante aggiornamento, ci limiteremo a considerare della teoria delle sensazioni l’aspetto inerente alle passioni e lesensazioni aristoteliche. L’inquadramento filosofico verte su un’analisi il più possibile oggettiva, realista e nell’ottica di una comprensione sistemica degli oggetti presi in analisi, nel rispetto del primato della verità ragionata e scientifica rispetto alle opinioni e credenze. (shrink)

The article analyses libertine themes and authors of 17th century in articles, critical notes and reviews of three major Italian journals of the 20th century – Rivista di filosofia, Giornale critico della filosofia italiana and Rivista critica di storia della filosofia (since 1984 titled Rivista di storia della filosofia). The category of ‘libertinism’ refers to various disciplinary fields: philosophy, politics, literature, modern history or religious history. This ambiguity influences the analyses of libertinism in the Italian historic-philosophical debate. The last two (...) decades of the 20th century show a renewed interest of the three journals on libertine themes and on the relationship between libertinism and philosophy. Research on libertine thought focuses mainly on French libertinism (i.e. libertinage érudit) and on the philosophical clandestine literature: the journals discuss or review clandestine texts, as the Theophrastus redivivus (1659), whose critical edition was published in Italy in 1981–1982. (shrink)

Identification of the second of two targets (T1, T2, inserted in a stream of distractors) is impaired when presented within 500 ms after the first (attentional blink, AB). Barring a T1-T2 task-switch, it is thought that T2 must be backward-masked to obtain an AB (Giesbrecht & Di Lollo, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 1454- 1466, 1998). We tested the hypothesis that Giesbrecht & Di Lollo's findings were vitiated by ceiling constraints arising from either response scale (experiment (...) 1) or data limitations (experiment 2). In experiment 1, digitdistractors were replaced with pseudoletters to increase task difficulty, bringing performance below ceiling. An AB occurred without backward masking of T2. In experiment 2, a ceiling-free procedure estimated the number of noise dots needed for 80% T2 identification. An AB was revealed: fewer noise dots were required during the AB period than outside it. Both outcomes confirm that an AB can be obtained without either masking of T2 or task switching. (shrink)

Dominus Vobiscum is undoubtedly one of Peter Damian’s most original works, and has experienced a renewed interest thanks to the re-emergence of the ecclesiology of communion around Vatican II, but in-depth studies of the work as a whole are missing and its sources seem quite limited. In this analysis of the text and its argumentative structure, the conceptual development is built on the dialectic of contrasts, starting from the binomial of “solitudo pluralis” and “multitudo singularis”, typical of the hermit. The (...) theme is unfolded in its pneumatological, Christological and ecclesiological aspects. A formal analysis seems to demonstrate that the theses presented by Peter Damian are mainly the result of the power of rhetoric, which he undoubtedly mastered. (shrink)

This is the short version, in French translation by Anne Querrien, of the originally jointly authored paper: Müller, Vincent C., ‘Autonomous killer robots are probably good news’, in Ezio Di Nucci and Filippo Santoni de Sio, Drones and responsibility: Legal, philosophical and socio-technical perspectives on the use of remotely controlled weapons. - - - L’article qui suit présente un nouveau système d’armes fondé sur des robots qui risque d’être prochainement utilisé. À la différence des drones qui sont manoeuvrés à (...) distance mais comportent une part importante de discernement humain, il s’agit de machines programmées pour défendre, attaquer, ou tuer de manière autonome. Les auteurs, philosophes, préfèrent prévenir de leur prochaine diffusion et obtenir des Nations Unies leur régulation. Une campagne internationale propose plutôt leur interdiction. (shrink)

Questa pubblicazione intende fornire uno sguardo sulla situazione dell’Europa, intesa come continente fatto di diverse entità politiche, etniche e culturali, in relazione alla geopolitica mondiale che sta cambiando la propria impostazione, diventando sempre più multipolare. L’approccio offerto dalla geosofia, affiancata alla noologia, permette di comprendere con quale fondamento etnosociologico ed identitario i diversi popoli possano prendere parte alla nuova configurazione del mondo multipolare, superando l’ideologia globalista e riconquistando il valore delle proprie identità.

Il presente saggio breve si prefigge di affrontare con sguardo sociologico il binomio solidità/liquidità. Partendo dalle origini del dilemma epistemologico, inquadrato entro la postmodernità come contesto storico-sociale, viene data una definizione criticata di solidità così come di liquidità, per giungere infine al tentativo di andare oltre al perenne confronto fra questi due differenti paradigmi.

Die gegenwärtig unter dem Titel ›Realismus‹ geführten Debatten in der Philosophie befinden sich nach allgemeiner Ansicht in einem Zustand größter Verwirrung, so daß es nützlich erscheint, ein wenig Ordnung in die theoretischen Optionen zu bringen bevor man für die eine oder andere Auffassung Partei ergreift. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird dafür argumentiert, daß sich ein systematisch zusammenhängendes Zentrum dieser Debatten mit Hilfe des Begriffes der Referenz ordnen läßt. Nach der Analyse einiger klassischer Positionen soll ein Rahmen erstellt werden, innerhalb dessen (...) die Positionen eingeordnet und die zentralen Probleme fruchtbar diskutiert werden können. Zu diesem Zwecke ist es erforderlich, für die Einordnung der Positionen theoretische Kriterien zu benennen, die sich an den Problemen orientieren von denen hier argumentiert wird, das sie zentral seien. Sehr knapp ausgedrückt wird hier die Auffassung vertreten, Realismus sei als metaphysische These aufzufassen, welche eine von menschlichen epistemischen und semantischen Möglichkeiten unabhängige Existenz behauptet; in den gegenwärtigen Debatten typischerweise die Existenz einer Art von Dingen, nicht die eines individuellen Gegenstandes. Diese metaphysische These wird jedoch in der gegenwärtigen Debatte mit semantischen Argumenten untermauert, bzw. angegriffen und jene semantischen Argumente wiederum verwenden epistemische Erwägungen – die Frage betreffend, was man wissen kann und was nicht. Der Beginn der gegenwärtigen Realismusdebatten mit der soeben skizzierten zentralen Stellung semantischer Argumente ist, der hier vertretenen Auffassung zufolge, die Kritik am traditionellen Fregeschen Referenzbegriff durch Kripke und den frühen Putnam um 1970 (Kap. 2). Aus dieser neu zu bewertenden Kritik und der von den Autoren daraus entwickelten externalistischen realistischen Semantik für Artausdrücke läßt sich das erste Kriterium für eine Position in einer Realismusdebatte ableiten und klären (Kap. 3): Hält man die fragliche Art für eine natürliche Art und meint also, sie habe ihren ›Zusammenhalt‹ von Natur aus? Wenn ja, dann ist die fragliche Position eine realistische (das Kriterium ist dank des engen Zusammenhangs von Realismus und Externalismus sowohl hinreichend als auch notwendig). Hält man die Art nicht für eine natürliche Art, ist man Antirealist. Damit geht jeweils not- wendig eine bestimmte Semantik für den auf die Art referierenden Ausdruck einher. Es zeigt sich zugleich, daß es zwei Varianten des Realismus zu unterscheiden gilt, die hier als klassischer bzw. als moderater Realismus bezeichnet werden. Im folgenden (Kap. 4.1) wird argumentiert, daß der Begriff der Wahrheit nicht eigentlich der zentrale Punkt in den in Frage stehenden Realismusdebatten sein sollte, wie vielfach behauptet wurde, sondern seine Brisanz vielmehr aus zugrundeliegenden semantischen Fragen gewinnt die also in der weiteren Aufdeckung der Kriterien die zentrale Rolle spielen müssen. In der Analyse der Kritik an der in Kap. 3 entwickelten Position des ›klassischen Realismus‹ läßt sich ein zweites unterscheidendes Kriterium für Positionen in Realismusdebatten entwickeln: begriffliche Relativität. Nach der Ablehnung von Putnams Auffassungen zu diesem Thema, werden zwei Varianten vorgeschlagen, starke und schwache begriffliche Relativität (Kap. 4.2). Die Anwendung dieses Merkmals zwingt, so wird argumentiert, in einigen Fällen zu einer Kombination einer realistischen Auffassung von Arten als natürliche mit begrifflicher Relativität. Diese mittlere Position zwischen klassischem Realismus und Antirealismus wird als »moderater Realismus« bezeichnet. Der im ersten Kriterium verwendete Begriff der natürlichen Art, und damit die Optionen in den Debatten, wird schließlich mittels einer Dis- kussion des Phänomens der Vagheit noch weiter verdeutlicht (Kap. 4.3). Ab- schließend werden die drei Optionen zusammenfassend dargestellt und ein Versuch unternommen, ihre Fruchtbarkeit für diverse Realismusdebatten anzudeuten. (shrink)

Recensione a C. Greppi, "Un uomo di poche parole. Storia di Lorenzo, che salvò Primo" (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2023).

Synthetic biology (SynBio) covers two main areas: application engineering, exemplified by metabolic engi- neering, and the design of life from artificial building blocks. As the general public is often reluctant to embrace synthetic approaches, preferring nature to artifice, its immediate future will depend very much on the public’s reaction to the unmet needs created by the pervasive demands of sustainability. On the other hand, this reluctance should not have a negative impact on research that will now take into account the (...) existence of the multiple transitions that cells face over time. The ages of life—birth, development, maturation, senescence and death—reflect specific key transitions and have, until now, rarely been taken into account in SynBio designs. This results in a mismatch between novelty and the very long evolutionary time that led to the existing chassis [remember that this is the common term used to describe the cellular framework as seen by synthetic biologists (de Lorenzo & Danchin, 2008)]. It also implies that, in general, transitions between growth stages will be taken into account with the appro- priate embodiment of highly specific processes. This is particularly important when adapting new models to their host, whether natural or artificial. Adaptation fol- lows two stages, short-term accommodation of new entities and long-term assimilation into the cell as a whole. This requires discrimination between classes of entities. We suggest that proteins playing the essential role of Maxwell’ demons, here named Maxwell’s dis- criminators (MxDs) to refer to their original function, will permit the assimilation and accommodation of artificial constructs. As a consequence, we can foresee that class discrimination, beyond mere recognition, will be implemented in SynBio 2.0, leading to an authentic par- adigm shift (Kuhn, 1996), based on conceptions that embody information as a genuine currency of reality. (shrink)

Philosophers have debated at length the epistemological status of scientific thought experiments. I contend that the literature on this topic still lacks a common conceptual framework, a lacuna that produces radical disagreement among the participants in this debate. To remedy this problem, I suggest focusing on the distinction between the internal and the external validity of an experiment, which is also crucial for thought experiments. I then develop an account of both kinds of validity in the context of thought experiments. (...) I show that we can naturally conceptualise internal validity in terms of games of make-believe. Then, I argue that external validity is best defined as accurate representation of a target system. Finally, I turn back to the current debate on thought experiments and show that my diarchic account provides a general framework that can be shared by the competing philosophical views, as well as a fruitful guide for their reconciliation. (shrink)

This paper attempts a reconstruction of reason’s contribution to empirical truth in connection with Kant’s definition of truth as the agreement of cognition with its object. I argue that Kant’s treatment of truth in the Transcendental Analytic gets completed in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic with an often neglected but compelling argument (what I shall call the Variety Argument). This argument postulates such a variety in the appearances as to undermine any attempt at formulating empirical truths. Crucially, I argue (...) that this variety does not depict an extreme-case scenario, but our own epistemic situation without reason. Reason completes Kant’s theory of truth by allowing the understanding (i.) to form empirical concepts and (ii.) approximate to empirical truth. (shrink)

Scientific models typically contain idealizations, or assumptions that are known not to be true. Philosophers have long questioned the nature of idealizations: Are they heuristic tools that will be abandoned? Or rather fictional representations of reality? And how can we reconcile them with realism about knowledge of nature? Immanuel Kant developed an account of scientific investigation that can inspire a new approach to the contemporary debate. Kant argued that scientific investigation is possible only if guided by ideal assumptions—what he calls (...) “regulative ideas”. These ideas are not true of objects of nature, and yet they are not heuristic tools or fictional represen- tations. They are necessary rules governing the construction and assessment of scientific explanations. In this paper, I suggest that some idealizations can be interpreted as having necessary regulative value and as being compatible with scientific realism. I first analyze the puzzle of the nature of idealization and present the main approaches to this topic in the literature. Second, I reconsider the puzzle vis-a-vis a restricted, Kantian definition of idealization and a novel characterization of the relation between idealization and truth. Finally, I discuss in detail an example of idealization (the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium) along the suggested Kantian lines. (shrink)

Despite recent essentialist approaches to Kant’s laws of nature, it is unclear whether Kant’s critical philosophy is compatible with core tenets of essentialism. In this paper, I first reconstruct Kant’s position by identifying the key metaphysical and epistemological features of his notion of ‘nature’ or ‘essence’. Two theses about natures can be found in the literature, namely that they are noumenal in character (_noumenal thesis_) and that they guide scientific investigation as regulative ideas of reason (_regulative thesis_). I argue that (...) Kant’s notion of nature does not entail the noumenal thesis and, based on his model of causal explanation, I propose a novel, _phenomenal thesis_, that allows for a better understanding of the function of natures as regulative ideas. In the last part of the paper, I show that Kant’s ‘essentialism’ is a genuine form of essentialism committed to _de re_ modality, although it differs in several respects from major contemporary essentialist accounts. I conclude by suggesting that Kant’s essentialism (if appropriately updated) can be relevant to the contemporary debate, which has so far been dominated by Humean and Aristotelian proposals. (shrink)

Why is there something rather than nothing? About this storied question we challenge the commonly accepted main assumption: the existence of something. Starting from Nothing only, we explain how our perceived reality emerges as an illusory self-referential interpretation of Nothing and build a framework to give precise definitions to fundamental concepts such as existence, reality, nothingness and somethingness. We then explore the consequences of this framework and we discover an explanation for the existence of laws of physics in our illusory (...) reality. By aiming to describe reality starting with Nothing, we provide the first instance of an assumption-less theory. (shrink)

If the world in which we are intentionally involved is threatened by climate change, this raises the question about our place on Earth. In this article, we argue that the ecological crisis we face today draws our attention to the Earth as ontic-ontological condition of our being-in-the-world. Because the Earth is often reflected upon in relation to human existence, living systems or material entities in the philosophical tradition, we argue for an ontological concept of the materiality of the Earth as (...) un-correlated being in this article. We develop five principles of the materiality of the Earth: the conativity, non-identity, responsiveness, performativity and eventuality of the Earth. We will argue that it is this notion of Earth that matters to us in the age of global warming. (shrink)

Kit Fine’s logic of essence and his reduction of modality crucially rely on a principle called the ‘monotonicity of essence’. This principle says that for all pluralities, xx and yy, if some xx belong to some yy, then if it is essential to xx that p, it is also essential to yy that p. I argue that on the constitutive notion of essence, this principle is false. In particular, I show that this principle is false because it says that some (...) propositions are essential to yy even though those propositions are only about some of its members. I then consider modifications to the principle appealing to consequential essence and argue that such a modification is inconsistent with a central. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are digital technologies that will have significant impact on the development of humanity in the near future. They have raised fundamental questions about what we should do with these systems, what the systems themselves should do, what risks they involve, and how we can control these. - After the Introduction to the field (§1), the main themes (§2) of this article are: Ethical issues that arise with AI systems as objects, i.e., tools made and used (...) by humans. This includes issues of privacy (§2.1) and manipulation (§2.2), opacity (§2.3) and bias (§2.4), human-robot interaction (§2.5), employment (§2.6), and the effects of autonomy (§2.7). Then AI systems as subjects, i.e., ethics for the AI systems themselves in machine ethics (§2.8) and artificial moral agency (§2.9). Finally, the problem of a possible future AI superintelligence leading to a “singularity” (§2.10). We close with a remark on the vision of AI (§3). - For each section within these themes, we provide a general explanation of the ethical issues, outline existing positions and arguments, then analyse how these play out with current technologies and finally, what policy consequences may be drawn. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing conceptual debate on responsible innovation, and provides innovation practices and processes that can help to implement responsible innovation in the business context. Based on a systematic literature review of 72 empirical scholarly articles, it was possible to identify, analyse and synthesise empirical findings reported in studies on social, sustainable and responsible innovation practices in the business context. The synthesis of the included articles resulted in a refined framework for responsible innovation in the (...) business context. This framework includes an overview of innovation practices and processes that can enhance the dimensions of responsible innovation: anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, deliberation, responsiveness and knowledge management. Additionally, knowledge gaps are identified and a research agenda for responsible innovation is proposed. This review can therefore serve as a next step in the theoretical and practical development of responsible innovation in general, and in the business context in particular. (shrink)

In this article, I reflect on the nature of innovation to lay the groundwork for a philosophy of innovation. First, I contrast the contemporary techno-economic paradigm of innovation with the work of Joseph Schumpeter. It becomes clear that Schumpeter’s work provides good reasons to question the techno-economic paradigm of innovation. Second, I contrast ‘innovation’ with ‘technology’ and identify five differences between the two concepts. Third, I reflect on the process-outcome dimension and the ontic-ontological dimension of innovation to develop four characteristics (...) of the phenomenon of innovation. These four characteristics move beyond the techno-economic paradigm of innovation and highlight, first, the importance of its process dimension understood as ontogenesis, second, the outcome of innovation, and third, the importance of the ontological dimension of innovation, which is considered adjacent to its fourth characteristic, i.e., the ontic level of the outcome of innovation. After drawing conclusions, a research agenda for future research is provided. (shrink)

Spontaneous collapse theories of quantum mechanics turn the usual Schrödinger equation into a stochastic dynamical law. In particular, in this paper, I will focus on the GRW theory. Two philosophical issues that can be raised about GRW concern (i) the ontology of the theory, in particular the nature of the wave function and its role within the theory, and (ii) the interpretation of the objective probabilities involved in the dynamics of the theory. During the last years, it has been claimed (...) that we can take advantage of dispositional properties in order to develop an ontology for GRW theory, and also in order to ground the objective probabilities which are postulated by it. However, in this paper, I will argue that the dispositional interpretations which have been discussed in the literature so far are either flawed or – at best – incomplete. If we want to endorse a dispositional interpretation of GRW theory we thus need an extended account that specifies the precise nature of those properties and which makes also clear how they can correctly ground all the probabilities postulated by the theory. Thus, after having introduced several different kinds of probabilistic dispositions, I will try to fill the gap in the literature by proposing a novel and complete dispositional account of GRW, based on what I call spontaneous weighted multi-track propensities. I claim that such an account can satisfy both of our desiderata. (shrink)

What can we know? We know many things about the world around us: whether it is raining outside, the result of last night’s game, or how vaccines work. But we also want to know more. For example, we may want to know the ultimate origin of the universe, whether God exists, or whether there are such things as souls. Philosophers have long asked this type of questions — questions that concern a kind of knowledge that goes beyond our experience. A (...) wide range of answers (often contradicting each other) have been endlessly debated. Dissatisfied with this state of inquiry, Kant proposes a revolution in philosophy, which does not consist in devising new answers to these questions, but rather in analyzing our own capacity for knowledge. Such an analysis aims to shed light on the limits of our cognitive faculties and to reveal their true potential. In this article, we will see how Kant’s philosophy offers a revolutionary approach to our deep thirst for knowledge. (shrink)

A central question that arises when interpreting the U.S. Constitution is which theory of interpretation is the best? In his recent book, “How to Interpret the Constitution,” Cass Sunstein reviews various theories of constitutional interpretation currently in vogue and then offers what he believes would be the best approach going forward. In this Article, I want to take up a more basic question presupposed by the very idea of a theory of interpretation. That is, whether it is even possible to (...) arrive at more than a provisional understanding of what would be the best interpretation in any given area of study, including constitutional law. That said, I do believe some of the interpretations suggested by Cass Sunstein and elsewhere by myself and others to be more persuasive than most others, even if only partially so. For, as Sunstein himself points out, no theory seems perfect to figure out the Constitution’s meaning in every possible world in which we could imagine it to exist. So, we best just focus on our own world or what we take to matter in our world. In keeping with this idea, I plan to begin by looking first at how we might interpret the world around us based on our past experiences by considering a somewhat imaginative recent experience of my own. Next, I consider some recent studies in the neurosciences and a previous but highly influential article by the philosopher Donald Davidson concerning conceptual schemes and whether we could ever hope to make any sense of a scheme radically different from our own. Here it should be pointed out that I will use the word “scheme” when referring to a very broad system of thought for which there may not be much outside, versus when I use the word “framework,” as referencing something far narrower than a whole system of thought, even if what is referenced might purport to be a significant part of a still larger system. My goal is to eventually adopt John Rawls’ public reason method to separate out non-workable systems of thought as might be part of a particular religious or philosophical tradition that cannot be easily tied to any other system of thought easily imagined within a pluralistic society. I plan to do this by relating how Rawls’ public reason might allow for the creation of a moral interpretation of the Constitution adopting the moral theory of Alan Gewirth. The latter I adopt because its grounding does not presuppose any prior moral or religious framework. I then apply that interpretative method to five cases Sunstein believes are fixed points in our current constitutional understanding. In short, I plan to isolate out an area of human rights where even very different understandings of the world might be able to meet, while acknowledging that there will still be other areas that simply evade any common connection. I hope what I offer here to be of help for a theory of constitutional interpretation that focuses on morality, without having to compete with various religious frameworks going forward. (shrink)

According to the most common interpretation of the simulation argument, we are very likely to live in an ancestor simulation. It is interesting to ask if some families of simulations are more likely than others inside the space of all simulations. We argue that a natural probability measure is given by computational complexity: easier simulations are more likely to be run. Remarkably this allows us to extract experimental predictions from the fact that we live in a simulation. For instance we (...) show that it is very likely that humanity will not achieve interstellar travel and that humanity will not meet other intelligent species in the universe, in turn explaining the Fermi's Paradox. On the opposite side, experimental falsification of any of these predictions would constitute evidence against our reality being a simulation. (shrink)

Some authors have recently suggested that it is time to consider rights for robots. These suggestions are based on the claim that the question of robot rights should not depend on a standard set of conditions for ‘moral status’; but instead, the question is to be framed in a new way, by rejecting the is/ought distinction, making a relational turn, or assuming a methodological behaviourism. We try to clarify these suggestions and to show their highly problematic consequences. While we find (...) the suggestions ultimately unmotivated, the discussion shows that our epistemic condition with respect to the moral status of others does raise problems, and that the human tendency to empathise with things that do not have moral status should be taken seriously—we suggest that it produces a “derived moral status”. Finally, it turns out that there is typically no individual in real AI that could even be said to be the bearer of moral status. Overall, there is no reason to think that robot rights are an issue now. (shrink)

One of the pressing issues in philosophy of technology is the role of human creativity in human-technology relations. We first observe that a techno-centric orientation of philosophy of technology leaves open the role and contribution of human creativity in technological evolution, while an anthropocentric orientation leaves open the role of the technical milieu in technological evolution. Subsequently, we develop a concept of creation as deviation and responsiveness in response to affordances in the environment, inspired by the affordance theory by James (...) Gibson. With this concept of creation as deviative responsiveness, we articulate the human contribution to human-technology creation, namely, our intentional deviation of the inhibiting forces of the currently dominant niche or meaningful world of human-technology relations, in order to become responsive to new affordances in human-technology creation that constitute a new niche or world of human-technology relations. (shrink)

There are various forms of teleological thinking central to debates in the early modern and modern periods, debates in which David Hume (1711–1776) is a key figure. In the first section, we shall introduce three levels at which teleological considerations have been incorporated into philosophical accounts of man and nature, and sketch Hume’s criticisms of these approaches. In the second section, we turn to Hume’s non-teleological ‘science of man’. In the third section, we show how Hume has an account of (...) human flourishing that is not dependent on teleology. In the fourth section, we shall speculate as to the relation between Hume’s account of human nature and contemporary evolutionary accounts of morality and reasoning. (shrink)

In this paper, we embark on the complicated discussion about the nature of vice in Virtue Ethics through a twofold approach: first, by taking seriously the claim that virtues (and certain flavours of vices) are genuinely dispositional features possessed by agents, and secondly, by employing a pluralistic attitude borrowed from Battaly’s pluralism (2008). Through these lenses, we identify three varieties of viciousness: incontinence, indifference, and malevolence. The upshot is that the notion of vice is not as categorically homogeneous as that (...) of virtue: some states of viciousness consist in interference of present virtuous dispositions, or mimicking of absent vicious ones, whereas others can be considered genuine dispositions themselves. Furthermore, this set-up can provide an interesting, albeit highly idealized story as to how, through the interference in one’s environment, one gets acquainted with vice in various degrees. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-à-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-a-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. (shrink)

In this article, we philosophically reflect on the nature of corporate governance. We raise the question whether control is still a feasible ideal of corporate governance and reflect on the implications of the epistemic insufficiency of economic institutions with regard to grand challenges like of global warming for our conceptualization of corporate governance. We first introduce the concept of corporate governance from the perspective of economics and politics. We then trace the genealogy of the concept of governance based on a (...) selective reading of Giorgio Agamben’s work, who has pointed at two interdependent paradigms of governance in the Christian tradition, and apply his categories in the context of corporate governance. We finally engage in a critical reflection on the concept of corporate governance and develop four characteristics of corporate governance that can guide future conceptual as well as empirical research in the field of corporate social responsibility of economic institutions. (shrink)

We present an elementary system of axioms for the geometry of Minkowski spacetime. It strikes a balance between a simple and streamlined set of axioms and the attempt to give a direct formalization in first-order logic of the standard account of Minkowski spacetime in Maudlin and Malament. It is intended for future use in the formalization of physical theories in Minkowski spacetime. The choice of primitives is in the spirit of Tarski : a predicate of betwenness and a four place (...) predicate to compare the square of the relativistic intervals. Minkowski spacetime is described as a four dimensional ‘vector space’ that can be decomposed everywhere into a spacelike hyperplane—which obeys the Euclidean axioms in Tarski and Givant, 175–214 1999)—and an orthogonal timelike line. The length of other ‘vectors’ are calculated according to Pythagoras’ theorem. We conclude with a Representation Theorem relating models \ of our system \ that satisfy second order continuity to the mathematical structure \, called ‘Minkowski spacetime’ in physics textbooks. (shrink)

There is, in some quarters, concern about high–level machine intelligence and superintelligent AI coming up in a few decades, bringing with it significant risks for humanity. In other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science fiction. We wanted to clarify what the distribution of opinions actually is, what probability the best experts currently assign to high–level machine intelligence coming up within a particular time–frame, which risks they see with that development, and how fast they see these developing. We thus (...) designed a brief questionnaire and distributed it to four groups of experts in 2012/2013. The median estimate of respondents was for a one in two chance that high-level machine intelligence will be developed around 2040-2050, rising to a nine in ten chance by 2075. Experts expect that systems will move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. They estimate the chance is about one in three that this development turns out to be ‘bad’ or ‘extremely bad’ for humanity. (shrink)

I consider a problem for functional reductionism, based on the following tension. Say that b is functionally reduced to a. On the one hand, a and b turn out to be identical, and identity is a symmetric relation. On the other hand, functional reductionism implies that a and b are asymmetrically related: if b is functionally reduced to a, then a is not functionally reduced to b. Thus, we ask: how can a and b be asymmetrically related if they are (...) the same thing? I propose a solution to this tension, by distinguishing between ontological levels and levels of description. (shrink)

Can an identity be the proper subject of an explanation? A popular stance, albeit not one often argued for, gives a negative answer to this question. Building from a contentious passage from Jaegwon Kim in this direction, we reconstruct an argument to the conclusion that identities, to the extent in which they are necessary, cannot be explained. The notion of contrastive explanation, characterized as difference-seeking, will be crucial for this argument; however, we will eventually find the argument to be unsatisfactory. (...) On the contrary, the discussion provides enough resource to sketch a very simple framework for a non-causal contrastive explanation of identities. Many instances will be provided, with different varieties of explanans, ultimately suggesting that certain entailment or biconditional principles involving identities (first and foremost, so-called two-level identity criteria) may indeed be taken to have an inherent explanatory value. (shrink)

The contribution of the body to cognition and control in natural and artificial agents is increasingly described as “off-loading computation from the brain to the body”, where the body is said to perform “morphological computation”. Our investigation of four characteristic cases of morphological computation in animals and robots shows that the ‘off-loading’ perspective is misleading. Actually, the contribution of body morphology to cognition and control is rarely computational, in any useful sense of the word. We thus distinguish (1) morphology that (...) facilitates control, (2) morphology that facilitates perception and the rare cases of (3) morphological computation proper, such as ‘reservoir computing.’ where the body is actually used for computation. This result contributes to the understanding of the relation between embodiment and computation: The question for robot design and cognitive science is not whether computation is offloaded to the body, but to what extent the body facilitates cognition and control – how it contributes to the overall ‘orchestration’ of intelligent behaviour. (shrink)

This open access monograph offers a detailed study and a systematic defense of a key intuition we typically have, as human beings, with respect to the nature of time: the intuition that the future is open, whereas the past is fixed. For example, whereas it seems unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first world war. -/- The book contributes, in particular, three major and original insights. First, it provides a coherent, (...) non-metaphorical, and metaphysically illuminating elucidation of the intuition. Second, it determines which model of the temporal structure of the world is most appropriate to accommodate the intuition, and settles on a specific version of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT). Third, it puts forward a naturalistic foundation for GBT, by exploiting recent results of our best physics (viz. General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Gravity). Three main challenges are addressed: the dismissal of temporal asymmetries as non-fundamental phenomena only (e.g., thermodynamic or causal phenomena), the epistemic objection against GBT, and the apparent tension between GBT and relativistic physics. It is argued that the asymmetry between the open future and the fixed past must be grounded in the temporal structure of the world, and that this is neither precluded by our epistemic device, nor by the latest approaches to Quantum Gravity (​e.g., the Causal Set Theory). -/- Aiming at reconciling time as we find it in ordinary experience and time as physics describes it, this ​innovative book ​will raise the interest of both academic researchers and ​graduate students working on the philosophy of time. More generally, it ​presents contents of interest for all metaphysicians and non-dogmatic philosophers of physics. (shrink)

The standard argument to the conclusion that artificial intelligence (AI) constitutes an existential risk for the human species uses two premises: (1) AI may reach superintelligent levels, at which point we humans lose control (the ‘singularity claim’); (2) Any level of intelligence can go along with any goal (the ‘orthogonality thesis’). We find that the singularity claim requires a notion of ‘general intelligence’, while the orthogonality thesis requires a notion of ‘instrumental intelligence’. If this interpretation is correct, they cannot be (...) joined as premises and the argument for the existential risk of AI turns out invalid. If the interpretation is incorrect and both premises use the same notion of intelligence, then at least one of the premises is false and the orthogonality thesis remains itself orthogonal to the argument to existential risk from AI. In either case, the standard argument for existential risk from AI is not sound.—Having said that, there remains a risk of instrumental AI to cause very significant damage if designed or used badly, though this is not due to superintelligence or a singularity. (shrink)

Functionalism is the view that being x is to play the role of x. This paper defends a functionalist account of three-dimensional entities in the context of Wave Function Realism (WFR), that can explain in detail how we can recover three-dimensional entities out of the wavefunction. In particular, the essay advocates for a novel version of WFR in terms of a functional reductionist approach in the style of David Lewis. This account entails reduction of the upper entities to the bottom (...) ones, when the latter behave appropriately. As applied to WFR, it shows how the wavefunction can turn out to be identical to three-dimensional objects, provided certain conditions. The first major goal of the paper is thus to put forward an improved and more rigorous version of WFR, which dissolves several extant issues about the theory, and can serve as a starting point for future literature on the topic. Moreover, the second major goal of the article is to take WFR as a case study to demonstrate the pros of functional reductionism, especially in the form defended here, thereby helping to bring this view back in the philosophy of science debate. The positive upshots of this paper suggest a possible application of functional reductionism also to other contexts. (shrink)

Over the past few years, individual competencies for sustainability have received a lot of attention in the educational, sustainability and business administration literature. In this article, we explore the meaning of two rather new and unfamiliar moral competencies in the field of corporate sustainability: normative competence and action competence. Because sustainability can be seen as a highly complex or ‘wicked’ problem, it is unclear what ‘normativity’ in the normative competence and ‘responsible action’ in the action competence actually mean. In this (...) article, we raise the question how both these moral competencies have to be understood and how they are related to each other. We argue for a virtue ethics perspective on both moral competencies, because this perspective is able to take the wickedness of sustainability into account. It turns out that virtue ethics enables us to conceptualize normative competence and action competence as two aspects of one virtuous competence for sustainability. (shrink)

Traditionally, discussions of moral participation – and in particular moral agency – have focused on fully formed human actors. There has been some interest in the development of morality in humans, as well as interest in cultural differences when it comes to moral practices, commitments, and actions. However, until relatively recently, there has been little focus on the possibility that nonhuman animals have any role to play in morality, save being the objects of moral concern. Moreover, when nonhuman cases are (...) considered as evidence of moral agency or subjecthood, there has been an anthropocentric tendency to focus on those behaviors that inform our attributions of moral agency to humans. For example, some argue that the ability to evaluate the principles upon which a moral norm is grounded is required for full moral agency. Certainly, if a moral agent must understand what makes an action right or wrong, then most nonhuman animals would not qualify (and perhaps some humans too). However, if we are to understand the evolution of moral psychology and moral practice, we need to turn our attention to the foundations of full moral agency. We must first pay attention to the more broadly normative practices of other animals. Here, we begin that project by considering evidence that great apes and cetaceans participate in normative practices. (shrink)

While it is often said that robotics should aspire to reproducible and measurable results that allow benchmarking, I argue that a focus on benchmarking can be a hindrance for progress in robotics. The reason is what I call the ‘measure-target confusion’, the confusion between a measure of progress and the target of progress. Progress on a benchmark (the measure) is not identical to scientific or technological progress (the target). In the past, several academic disciplines have been led into pursuing only (...) reproducible and measurable ‘scientific’ results – robotics should be careful to follow that line because results that can be benchmarked must be specific and context-dependent, but robotics targets whole complex systems for a broad variety of contexts. While it is extremely valuable to improve benchmarks to reduce the distance be- tween measure and target, the general problem to measure progress towards more intelligent machines (the target) will not be solved by benchmarks alone; we need a balanced approach with sophisticated benchmarks, plus real-life testing, plus qualitative judgment. (shrink)

Various authors debate the question of whether neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility. However, a plethora of different techniques and technologies, each with their own abilities and drawbacks, lurks beneath the label “neuroscience”; and in criminal law responsibility is not a single, unitary and generic concept, but it is rather a syndrome of at least six different concepts. Consequently, there are at least six different responsibility questions that the criminal law asks—at least one for each responsibility concept—and, I will suggest, (...) a multitude of ways in which the techniques and technologies that comprise neuroscience might help us to address those diverse questions. In a way, on my account neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility in many ways, but I hesitate to state my position like this because doing so obscures two points which I would rather highlight: one, neither neuroscience nor criminal responsibility are as unified as that; and two, the criminal law asks many different responsibility questions and not just one generic question. (shrink)

The starting point of this article is the undeniable experience of conscious willing despite its rejection by scientific research. The article starts a phenomenology of willing at the level of the phenomenon of willing itself, without assuming its embeddedness in a faculty of the soul, consciousness and so forth. After the introduction, a brief history of the philosophy of willing is provided, from which the paradoxical conclusion is drawn that, according to phenomenologists like Heidegger and his followers, the dominance of (...) the will is the main characteristic of the current age, whereas scientists deny the existence of a conscious will at all. Then, four structural moments of the phenomenon of willing are explored in contrast to traditional characterizations in order to rehabilitate and appreciate the phenomenon of willing in contemporary philosophy: the interconnectedness of the one who wills and that which is willed, the transcendence and demand character of that which is willed, the self-involvement of the one who wills and the ampliative nature of the act of willing. To this end, not only sources from the phenomenological tradition but also the affordance theory of the ecological psychologist James Gibson are critically discussed. (shrink)