Although the enactive approach has been very successful in explaining many basic social interactions in terms of embodied practices, there is still much work to be done when it comes to higher forms of social cognition. In this article, we discuss and evaluate two recent proposals by Shaun Gallagher and Daniel Hutto that try to bridge this ‘cognitive gap’ by appealing to the notion of narrative practice. Although we are enthusiastic about these proposals, we argue that (i) it is difficult (...) to see them as continuous with the enactivist notion of direct coupling, and (ii) the failure to account for folk psychological action interpretation suggests that the enactive approach should adopt a broader notion of coupling. (shrink)

Cloud computing is rapidly gaining traction in business. It offers businesses online services on demand (such as Gmail, iCloud and Salesforce) and allows them to cut costs on hardware and IT support. This is the first paper in business ethics dealing with this new technology. It analyzes the informational duties of hosting companies that own and operate cloud computing datacenters (e.g., Amazon). It considers the cloud services providers leasing ‘space in the cloud’ from hosting companies (e.g, Dropbox, Salesforce). And it (...) examines the business and private ‘clouders’ using these services. The first part of the paper argues that hosting companies, services providers and clouders have mutual informational (epistemic) obligations to provide and seek information about relevant issues such as consumer privacy, reliability of services, data mining and data ownership. The concept of interlucency is developed as an epistemic virtue governing ethically effective communication. The second part considers potential forms of government restrictions on or proscriptions against the development and use of cloud computing technology. Referring to the concept of technology neutrality, it argues that interference with hosting companies and cloud services providers is hardly ever necessary or justified. It is argued, too, however, that businesses using cloud services (banks, law firms, hospitals etc. storing client data in the cloud, e.g.) will have to follow rather more stringent regulations. (shrink)

This chapter argues for deregulation of the credit-rating market. Credit-rating agencies are supposed to contribute to the informational needs of investors trading bonds. They provide ratings of debt issued by corporations and governments, as well as of structured debt instruments (e.g. mortgage-backed securities). As many academics, regulators, and commentators have pointed out, the ratings of structured instruments turned out to be highly inaccurate, and, as a result, they have argued for tighter regulation of the industry. This chapter shows, however, that (...) the role of credit-rating agencies in achieving justice in finance is not as great as these commentators believe. It therefore argues instead for deregulation. Since the 1930s, lawgivers have unjustifiably elevated the rating agencies into official, legally binding sources of information concerning credit risk, thereby unjustifiably causing many institutional investors to outsource their epistemic responsibilities, that is, their responsibility to investigate credit risk themselves. (shrink)

In this chapter, one considers finance at its very foundations, namely, at the place where assumptions are being made about the ways to measure the two key ingredients of finance: risk and return. It is well known that returns for a large class of assets display a number of stylized facts that cannot be squared with the traditional views of 1960s financial economics (normality and continuity assumptions, i.e. Brownian representation of market dynamics). Despite the empirical counterevidence, normality and continuity assumptions (...) were part and parcel of financial theory and practice, embedded in all financial practices and beliefs. Our aim is to build on this puzzle for extracting some clues revealing the use of one research strategy in academic community, model tinkering defined as a particular research habit. We choose to focus on one specific moment of the scientific controversies in academic finance: the ‘leptokurtic crisis’ opened by Mandelbrot in 1962. The profoundness of the crisis came from the angle of the Mandelbrot’s attack: not only he emphasized an empirical inadequacy of the Brownian representation, but also he argued for an inadequate grounding of this representation. We give some insights in this crisis and display the model tinkering strategies of the financial academic community in the 1970s and the 1980s. (shrink)

The relationship between topological explanation and mechanistic explanation is unclear. Most philosophers agree that at least some topological explanations are mechanistic explanations. The crucial question is how to make sense of this claim. Zednik (Philos Psychol 32(1):23–51, 2019) argues that topological explanations are mechanistic if they (i) describe mechanism sketches that (ii) pick out organizational properties of mechanisms. While we agree with Zednik’s conclusion, we critically discuss Zednik’s account and show that it fails as a general account of how and (...) when topological explanations are mechanistic. First, if topological explanations were just mechanism sketches, this implies that they could be enriched by replacing topological terms with mechanistic detail. This, however, conflicts how topological explanations are used in scientific practice. Second, Zednik’s account fails to show how topological properties can be organizational properties of mechanisms that have a place in mechanistic explanation. The core issue is that Zednik’s account ignores that topological properties often are _global_ properties while mechanistic explanantia refer to _local_ properties. We demonstrate how these problems can be solved by a recent account of mechanistic completeness (Craver and Kaplan in Br J Philos Sci 71(1):287–319, 2020; Kohár and Krickel in Calzavarini and Viola (eds) Neural mechanisms—new challenges in the philosophy of neuroscience, Springer, New York, 2021) and use a multilayer network model of Alzheimer’s Disease to illustrate this. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the conceptual problems arising when using network analysis in person- centered care (PCC) in psychiatry. Personalized network models are potentially helpful tools for PCC, but we argue that using them in psychiatric practice raises boundary problems, i.e., problems in demarcating what should and should not be included in the model, which may limit their ability to provide clinically-relevant knowledge. Models can have explanatory and representational boundaries, among others. We argue that we can make more explicit (...) what kind of questions personalized network models can address in PCC, given their representational and explanatory boundaries, using perspectival reasoning. (shrink)

Internodons are a formalization of Hennig's concept of species. We present an alternative construction of internodons imposing a tree structure on the genealogical network. We prove that the segments (trivial unary trees) from this tree structure are precisely the internodons. We obtain the following spin-offs. First, the generated tree turns out to be an organismal tree of life. Second, this organismal tree is homeomorphic to the phylogenetic Hennigian species tree of life, implying the discovery of a multi-level tree of life: (...) this phylogenetic tree can be obtained by zooming out from the organismal tree, or conversely, the organismal tree of life can be generated by expanding the phylogenetic nodes into unary trees. Finally, the definition of the organismal tree allows an efficient algorithmic transformation of a given genealogical network into its corresponding phylogenetic species tree of life. The latter will be presented in a separate paper. (shrink)

A review of Boudewijn de Bruin's book, "Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis - Why incompetence is worse than greed".

This paper discusses methodological similarities between Collingwood's approach to causation and contemporary manipulability-based views. Firstly, I argue that on both approaches there is a preoccupation with the origin of causal concepts which further connects to the aim of establishing the priority of a certain concept/sense of causation as more fundamental. The significant difference lies in Collingwood's focus on the logical and historical priority (Collingwood's sense I) while in more recent theories the focus has been on psychology (i.e., on different philosophical (...) concepts of causation tested in psychological setting-- Woodward, Waskan, Gijsbers & de Bruin). Secondly, I argue that on both Collingwood's views and contemporary approaches (especially Menzies & Price, Price, but also Woodward) there is an important connection between causation and the agent's perspective. This can be subsumed under what Collingwood identifies as the main presupposition underlying causal thought: the relation between the agent's perceived situation and the agent's desired situation/ goal. More broadly, the recent views on causation under discussion share Collingwood's aim of elucidating the problem of causation through investigating causal knowledge and thus can be integrated with his wider project of addressing metaphysical issues through the means of epistemology. (shrink)

Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is an established method for integrating values into technical design. It has been applied to different technologies and, more recently, to artificial intelligence (AI). We argue that AI poses a number of challenges specific to VSD that require a somewhat modified VSD approach. Machine learning (ML), in particular, poses two challenges. First, humans may not understand how an AI system learns certain things. This requires paying attention to values such as transparency, explicability, and accountability. Second, ML (...) may lead to AI systems adapting in ways that ‘disembody’ the values embedded in them. To address this, we propose a threefold modified VSD approach: 1) integrating a known set of VSD principles (AI4SG) as design norms from which more specific design requirements can be derived; 2) distinguishing between values that are promoted and respected by the design to ensure outcomes that not only do no harm but also contribute to good; and 3) extending the VSD process to encompass the whole life cycle of an AI technology in order to monitor unintended value consequences and redesign as needed. We illustrate our VSD for AI approach with an example use case of a SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing app. (shrink)

This manuscript presents an English translation of the work titled “Begründung Einer Strengen Implikation” by the German logician and mathematician Wilhelm Ackermann (1896-1962), first published in June 1956.

An operational approach to quantum mechanics has been developed in the past decades in our group in Brussels. A similar approach is taken in this work, making use of the extra operational depth offered by this approach, to show that the construction of spacetime is specific to each observer. What is usually referred to as the block universe then emerges by noting that parts of the past and future are also contained in the present, but without the limitations that a (...) four-dimensional block universe usually implies, of a reality in which change would be impossible. In our operational approach, reality remains dynamic, with free choice playing a central role in its conceptualization. We also show that, when operationally analyzed, the theory implies that objects move not only in space, but also and especially in time, and more generally in spacetime, with their rest mass being a measure of their kinetic time energy. We therefore claim that Einstein’s relativity revolution has not been fully realized, since most physicists are not ready to accept these consequences of the theory although the formula’s showing them, when operationally analyzed, are in every relativity textbook. In particular, when relativistic motion is revisited as a genuine four-dimensional motion, it becomes possible to reinterpret the parameter c associated with the coordinate speed of light, which becomes the magnitude of the four-velocity of all material entities. We observe that this four-dimensional motion in Minkowski space can also be better understood if placed in the broader perspective of quantum mechanics, provided that non-locality is interpreted as non-spatiality, thus indicating the existence of an underlying non-spatial reality, the nature of which could be conceptual, consistent with the conceptuality interpretation of quantum mechanics. This hypothesis is reinforced by noting that when observers, or experiencers, as they will be referred to in this article, are described by acknowledging their cognitive nature of entities moving in a semantic space, Minkowski metric emerges in a natural way. (shrink)

Members of the field of philosophy have, just as other people, political convictions or, as psychologists call them, ideologies. How are different ideologies distributed and perceived in the field? Using the familiar distinction between the political left and right, we surveyed an international sample of 794 subjects in philosophy. We found that survey participants clearly leaned left (75%), while right-leaning individuals (14%) and moderates (11%) were underrepresented. Moreover, and strikingly, across the political spectrum, from very left-leaning individuals and moderates to (...) very right-leaning individuals, participants reported experiencing ideological hostility in the field, occasionally even from those from their own side of the political spectrum. Finally, while about half of the subjects believed that discrimination against left- or right-leaning individuals in the field is not justified, a significant minority displayed an explicit willingness to discriminate against colleagues with the opposite ideology. Our findings are both surprising and important, because a commitment to tolerance and equality is widespread in philosophy, and there is reason to think that ideological similarity, hostility, and discrimination undermine reliable belief formation in many areas of the discipline. (shrink)

This chapter proposed a novel design methodology called Value-Sensitive Design and its potential application to the field of artificial intelligence research and design. It discusses the imperatives in adopting a design philosophy that embeds values into the design of artificial agents at the early stages of AI development. Because of the high risk stakes in the unmitigated design of artificial agents, this chapter proposes that even though VSD may turn out to be a less-than-optimal design methodology, it currently provides a (...) framework that has the potential to embed stakeholder values and incorporate current design methods. The reader should begin to take away the importance of a proactive design approach to intelligent agents. (shrink)

Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) are robotic weapons systems, primarily of value to the military, that could engage in offensive or defensive actions without human intervention. This paper assesses and engages the current arguments for and against the use of LAWs through the lens of achieving more ethical warfare. Specific interest is given particularly to ethical LAWs, which are artificially intelligent weapons systems that make decisions within the bounds of their ethics-based code. To ensure that a wide, but not exhaustive, survey (...) of the implications of employing such ethical devices to replace humans in warfare is taken into account, this paper will engage on matters related to current scholarship on the rejection or acceptance of LAWs—including contemporary technological shortcomings of LAWs to differentiate between targets and the behavioral and psychological volatility of humans—and current and proposed regulatory infrastructures for developing and using such devices. After careful consideration of these factors, this paper will conclude that only ethical LAWs should be used to replace human involvement in war, and, by extension of their consistent abilities, should remove humans from war until a more formidable discovery is made in conducting ethical warfare. (shrink)

The recent publications reported in 2022 reveal the possibility of obtaining mouse embryos without the need for egg or sperm. These ‘artificial embryos’ can recapitulate some stages of development ex utero – from neurulation to organogenesis – without implantation. Synthetic mouse embryos might serve as a valuable model to gain further insights into early developmental stages. Indeed, it is expected for these models to be replicated by employing human cells. This promising research raises ethical issues and expands the horizon of (...) ethics in regard to the development of the human embryo. From this point of view, we state some of the new open venues for bioethical research. (shrink)

In identifying intrinsic molecular chance and extrinsic adaptive pressures as the only causally relevant factors in the process of evolution, the theoretical perspective of the Modern Synthesis had a major impact on the perceived tenability of an ontology of dispositional properties. However, since the late 1970s, an increasing number of evolutionary biologists have challenged the descriptive and explanatory adequacy of this “chance alone, extrinsic only” understanding of evolutionary change. Because morphological studies of homology, convergence, and teratology have revealed a space (...) of possible forms and phylogenetic trajectories that is considerably more restricted than expected, evo-devo has focused on the causal contribution of intrinsic developmental processes to the course of evolution. Evo-devo’s investigation into the developmental structure of the modality of morphology – including both the possibility and impossibility of organismal form – has led to the utilisation of a number of dispositional concepts that emphasise the tendency of the evolutionary process to change along certain routes. In this sense, and in contrast to the perspective of the Modern Synthesis, evo-devo can be described as a “science of dispositions.” This chapter discusses the recent philosophical literature on dispositional properties in evo-devo, exploring debates about both the metaphysical and epistemological aspects of the central dispositional concepts utilised in contemporary evo-devo and addressing the epistemological question of how dispositional properties challenge existing explanatory models in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

An estimated 700,000 people in the United States have "long COVID," that is, symptoms of COVID-19 persisting beyond three weeks. COVID-19 and its long-term sequelae are strongly influenced by social determinants such as poverty and by structural inequalities such as racism and discrimination. Primary care providers are in a unique position to provide and coordinate care for vulnerable patients with long COVID. Policy measures should include strengthening primary care, optimizing data quality, and addressing the multiple nested domains of inequity.

In this paper, we defend that demonstratives are expressions of joint attention. Though this idea is not exactly new in the philosophical or linguistic literature, we argue here that their proponents have not yet shown how to incorporate these observations into more traditional theories of demonstratives. Our purpose is then to attempt to fill this gap. We argue that coordinated attentional activities are better integrated into a full account of demonstratives as meta-pragmatic information. Our claim is twofold. First, we claim (...) that pragmatically presupposing salience is a fundamental aspect of using demonstratives. Secondly, we hold that the pragmatics of demonstrating can only be properly understood in relation to meta-pragmatic conditions that have to do with joint attention. We use tests of truth-value gap as evidence for our claim. Our proposal provides us with a complete view of what speakers do and presuppose when engaging in acts of demonstrative reference through language. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to assess biological naturalism in light of the adaptationist debate. Searle is famous for explicity pursuing a biological foundation for his theory of consciousness. However, evolutionary biology receives little attention in his work, which results in crucial theoretical confusions over adaptationism. In this paper, we will propose two theses concerning Searle's approach to consciousness in the context of the adaptationist debate. First, Searle's attack on adaptationism only applies to its naive version, failing to touch (...) any of the more sophisticated versions of adaptationism, especially the empirical one. Second, despite his attack, in the end Searle embraces empirical adaptationism about consciousness. Howsoever, Searle's empirical foundation for his thesis that the evolutionary advantage of consciousness lies in a greater power of discrimination faces a serious problem of generalization regarding non-human animals. (shrink)

This letter addresses the editorial decision to publish the article, “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (Cofnas, 2020). Our letter points out several critical problems with Cofnas's article, which we believe should have either disqualified the manuscript upon submission or been addressed during the review process and resulted in substantial revisions.

Metaphysical underdetermination arises when we are not able to decide, through purely theoretical criteria, between competing interpretations of scientific theories with different metaphysical commitments. This is the case in which non-relativistic quantum mechanics (QM) finds itself in. Among several available interpretations, there is the one that states that the interaction with the conscious mind of a human observer causes a change in the dynamics of quantum objects undergoing from indefinite to definite states. In this paper, we argue that there seems (...) to be also a metaphysical underdetermination concerning London and Bauer’s theory of measurement between two methods of phenomenological reduction: the eidetic and the transcendental approaches. Recently, Steven French argued that both methods can be combined in order to interpret London and Bauer’s formalism. However, in this paper we argue that the eidetic one is the only viable phenomenological way to interpret this particular theory of measurement in QM based on the formalism presented by London and Bauer, hence breaking this phenomenological underdetermination. (shrink)

This volume offers a collective study of the work of P. F. Strawson (1919-2006) and an exploration of its relevance for current philosophical debates. It is the first book since Strawson's death to cover the full range of his philosophy, with chapters by world-leading experts about his lasting contributions to the philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, and philosophical methodology. It aims to achieve a balance between exegesis of Strawson, critical engagement, and consideration of the reception and continuing value (...) of his work. It explores the intellectual relations between Strawson and some of his predecessors and contemporaries and it will be an indispensable source for scholars and students of twentieth-century philosophy and its influence in the twenty-first. With contributions by Anne Bezuidenhout, Ian Rumfitt, Paul Snowdon, Quassim Cassam, Michelle Montague, Hans-Johann Glock, Anil Gomes, Lilian Alweiss, Giuseppina D'Oro, A.P. Martinich, Paul Russell, Lucy Allais, and Victoria McGeer. (shrink)

My aim is to defend a peculiar epistemic version of the particularity thesis, which results from a sui generis combination of what I call the ‘singular relational view’ and what I call the ‘relativistic content view.’ Particulars are not represented as part of putative singular content. Instead, we are perceptually acquainted with them in the relevant sense that experience puts us in direct perceptual contact with them. And the content of experience is best modeled as a propositional function, that is, (...) the content of a complex predicate that is true or false only relative to some circumstances of evaluation. (shrink)

Tyler Burge is famous for defending primitivist naturalism about mental representations, according to which mental representations are primitive natural states. Primitivist naturalism contrasts with semantic reductionism, according to which mental representations are reducible to more fundamental natural states. Burge developed the most compelling and influential attack on semantic reductionism from a primitivist naturalist point of view. My goal in this paper is to defend semantic reduc- tionism from Burge’s attack. I assess and refute his objection to the motivations for semantic (...) reductionism and his objection to the semantic reductionist theory that he takes to be the most promising one, namely, teleosemantics. I argue that in spite of the ingenuity of Burge’s objections, they fail to show that there is no motivation for taking representational states as reducible to more fundamental natural states or that the core thesis of teleosemantics is flawed. (shrink)

Standard arguments for Bayesian conditionalizing rely on assumptions that many epistemologists have criticized as being too strong: (i) that conditionalizers must be logically infallible, which rules out the possibility of rational logical learning, and (ii) that what is learned with certainty must be true (factivity). In this paper, we give a new factivity-free argument for the superconditionalization norm in a personal possibility framework that allows agents to learn empirical and logical falsehoods. We then discuss how the resulting framework should be (...) interpreted. Does it still model norms of rationality, or something else, or nothing useful at all? We discuss five ways of interpreting our results, three that embrace them and two that reject them. We find one of each kind wanting, and leave readers to choose among the remaining three. (shrink)

In this essay we will argue for the following theses: 1- know-how is not a form of practical knowledge devoid of propositional sense; 2- the relationship between each perception and the body itself is metaphysically contingent (organisms and bodies can vary, as can even the spaces they occupy in the same experience vary), 3- it is up to the brain to configure or to shape a physical body (Körper) into a living body (Leib) and not the other way around; 4- (...) phenomenal externalism of enactivist nature, even in its mild form, is empirically implausible: the correlation between the conscious character of sensory experience with spatiotemporal neuronal patterns is much more systematic and regular than with anything outside the brain. But in its radical form is entirely implausible and contra-intuitive: phenomenal duplicates are not necessarily duplicates of agency; in short, 5-we are our own brain that has a body, avatars, and artifacts, properly configured, and molded by the brain, and not a body that has a brain among other essential organs. (shrink)

The central question of this paper is: what has Kant’s Refutation of Idealism argument proven, if anything? What is the real scandal of philosophy and universal human reason? I argue that Kant’s Refutation argument can only be considered sound if we assume that his target is what I call ‘metaphysical external-world skepticism.’ What is in question is not the ‘existence’ of outside things but their very ‘nature,’ that is, the claim that the thing outside us, which appears to us as (...) a persistent body in space, exists in itself _as a substantia noumenon_. Assuming the indirect-realist view that we only immediately know ideas and that their putative objects are known by inference, the metaphysical external-world skeptic doubts that the nature of things outside oneself is mind-independent. (shrink)

I argue that my non-dual epistemic-phenomenalist view is the one that best harmonises my interpretation of the Fourth Paralogism with the widely shared reading of the Refutation of Idealism that I sketched and defended above. The bottom line of my view is a clear distinction between the metaphysical and epistemological sides of Kantian idealism. Again, according to my non-dual-epistemic-phenomenalism, the mundus sensibilis and mundus intelligibilis are epistemologically distinct ways of considering the metaphysically identical outside world. Appearances are nothing but the (...) way the things in themselves appear or exist inside our sensible minds as mere representations. In this sense, I reject both the two-world view, the two-aspect view, and Allais’s deflationary anti- phenomenalist reading. (shrink)

Abstract: The Pull Bayesian Significance Test (FBST) for precise hy- potheses is applied to a Multivariate Normal Structure (MNS) model. In the FBST we compute the evidence against the precise hypothesis. This evi- dence is the probability of the Highest Relative Surprise Set (HRSS) tangent to the sub-manifold (of the parameter space) that defines the null hypothesis. The MNS model we present appears when testing equivalence conditions for genetic expression measurements, using micro-array technology.

This article aims to identify the possibility of interpreting in Schiller's philosophical thought a unity, as opposed to the Kantian duality. For this we will resort to the "center of the thing" as identified by Schiller, which is in the third series of letters published in Die Horen, which formed, together with the first and second series, the Aesthetic Education of Man.

Touch seems to enjoy some epistemic advantage over the other senses when it comes to attest to the reality of external objects. The question is not whether only what appears in tactile experiences is real. It is that only whether appears in tactile experiences feels real to the subject. In this chapter we first clarify how exactly the rather vague idea of an epistemic advantage of touch over the other senses should be interpreted. We then defend a “muscular thesis”, to (...) the effect that only the experience of resistance to our motor efforts, as it arises in effortful touch, presents us with the independent existence of some causally empowered object. We finally consider whether this muscular thesis applies to the perception of our own body. (shrink)

Readings of Kant’s Critique as endorsing phenomenalism have occupied the spotlight in recent times: ontological phenomenalism, semantic phenomenalism, analytical phenomenalism, epistemological phenomenalism, and so on. Yet, they raise the same old coherence problem with the Critique : are they compatible with Kant’s Refutation of Idealism? Are they able to reconcile the Fourth Paralogism of the first edition with the Refutation of the second, since Kant repeatedly claimed that he never changed his mind in-between the two editions of his Critique? This (...) paper addresses the key question: was Kant a phenomenalist and, if he was, in which precise sense? I propose a metaphysical but not ontologically reductionist reading of Kant as a phenomenalist. I argue for the following claims. To be sure, for Kant appearance is mere representation. Yet, appearance is representation only insofar as we take “appearance” in the empirical sense, namely the way that the mind-independent existing noumenon appears in space and, crucially, when we take “representation” in the transcendental sense, namely the mind -dependent way that we can cognize the same mind-independent existing noumenon. How shall I argue in defense of my alternative reading? First, I argue that my reading is pretty much compatible with Kant’s Refutation. Second, I argue that my reading reconciles the causal with the intentional readings of the Refutation. Third, I argue that my reading makes the Fourth Paralogism of the first edition and the Refutation of Idealism of the second completely compatible. (shrink)

Benchmarking automated theorem proving (ATP) systems using standardized problem sets is a well-established method for measuring their performance. However, the availability of such libraries for non-classical logics is very limited. In this work we propose a library for benchmarking Girard's (propositional) intuitionistic linear logic. For a quick bootstrapping of the collection of problems, and for discussing the selection of relevant problems and understanding their meaning as linear logic theorems, we use translations of the collection of Kleene's intuitionistic theorems in the (...) traditional monograph "Introduction to Metamathematics". We analyze four different translations of intuitionistic logic into linear logic and compare their proofs using a linear logic based prover with focusing. In order to enhance the set of problems in our library, we apply the three provability-preserving translations to the propositional benchmarks in the ILTP Library. Finally, we generate a comprehensive set of reachability problems for Petri nets and encode such problems as linear logic sequents, thus enlarging our collection of problems. (shrink)

This paper discusses the possibility of an absolute vacuum - a space without any substance. The motivation of this study is the contrast between most philosophers, up to Descartes, who stated that a vacuum was impossible, and the 17th century change of outlook, when the possibility and effective existence of the vacuum was accepted after the experiments of Torricelli and Pascal. This article attempts to show that, contrary to the received opinion, the acceptance of an ether is preferable to the (...) acceptance of a vacuum for several reasons. First: it is impossible to provide an empirical proof of the non-existence of the ether; second, an absolute vacuum is unthinkable; third, the ether concept is useful for the understanding of physical phaenomena; and fourth, the hypothesis of an ether in apparently void spaces is useful for the future development of science. The paper also endeavours to show that no recent advance of science changed those conclusions and that no future development can change them. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a new solution to Mary’s puzzle in Jackson’s famous knowledge argument. We are told that imprisoned Mary knows all facts or truths about color and color vision. On her release, she learns something new according to B-type of materialism and according to property dualism. I argue that this cognitive improvement can only be accounted for in terms of what Schellenberg has recently called “capacitism,” namely the claim that that experience is constitutively a matter of (...) discriminating and singling out particulars by employing perceptual capacities. Of course, I am not claiming that knowing the phenomenal character is simply the possession of abilities, let alone that the phenomenal character is a sort of know-how. That is why my claim is not affiliated with Lewis and Nemirow's ability hypothesis position. I take for granted here a sort of property-representationalism, according to which the phenomenal character of experience supervenes on the cluster of properties that the respective experiences represent. On her release, Mary acquires those perceptual abilities on the basis of which she learns to discriminate all shades of color. And after applying her old physical concept RED to the shade of red, she comes to know what it is like to experience red (propositional knowledge). (shrink)

In this paper I take side on externalist incompatibilism. However, I intend to radicalize the position. First, based on my criticism of Burge's anaphoric proposal, I argue that there is no reasoning‐transparency: the reasoner is blind to the reasoning he is performing. Second, assuming a global form of content‐externalism, I argue that “in the head” are only logical and formal abilities. That is what I call “bite the bullet and swallow it too.”.

In this research, an agent-based model was developed to study the propagation of physical climate shocks through supply chain networks. By combining supply chain and financial models, the study examines the effects of climate shocks on firms’ production capacities and their subsequent impacts on firm default risk. A comprehensive mathematical framework is presented for the simulation of physical risks, their subsequent up- and downstream impacts along the supply chain, and the translation of physical impacts into an increased level of default (...) risk. The results highlight the importance of supply chains as a transmission channel for physical climate risks and emphasize the effectiveness of implementing adaptation measures. Practical examples demonstrate the model’s behavior under different hypothetical climate scenarios and identify the sectors most vulnerable to increases in the frequency and intensity of climate events. Overall, this study provides insights into the transmission dynamics of climate shocks and emphasizes the need for resilience against climate events in supply chain networks. (shrink)

This study delves into the feasibility of introducing a market in Barangay Tanagan, Calatagan, Batangas, with a primary focus on assessing its viability and potential impact on local economic development. Utilizing survey questionnaires and employing statistical analysis techniques, the research gathered data from a carefully selected sample of 366 residents out of the total population of 4,224. The study evaluates both the potential benefits and challenges associated with establishing the proposed market. Findings, subjected to thorough analysis through methods such as (...) frequency counts and weighted mean calculations, provide valuable insights into discernible patterns, emerging trends, and relevant correlations. This analytical approach contributes to a pragmatic perspective that informs and guides future studies in the field. The study reveals an interest among respondents in the establishment of public markets in their vicinity, recognizing its potential to bolster the barangay and attract diverse opportunities. The anticipated positive impact extends to fostering economic growth and enhancing local commerce in Barangay Tanagan. Consequently, based on these compelling findings, the researchers advocate for a proposal outlining the establishment of a public market in Barangay Tanagan as a means of addressing the identified needs and aspirations of the community. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the ecological approach to perception provides resources to overcome the causal argument against disjunctivism. According to the causal argument, since the brain states that proximally cause the perceptual experience and the corresponding hallucinatory one can be of the same type, there would be no good reason to reject that the perceptual experience and the corresponding hallucinatory experience have fundamentally the same nature. Disjunctivism concerning the nature of the experience would then be false. I identify (...) three assumptions that support the causal argument: the indistinguishability assumption, the linearity assumption, and the duplication assumption. According to the ecological approach to disjunctivism, these assumptions should be rejected, opening up room for a version of disjunctivism that I call 'Ecological Disjunctivism'. Perceptual episodes are extended over time and are supervenient to the organism-environment system. They can be distinguished from the 'corresponding' hallucinations because the former results from a controlled process of attunement to the environment, whereas hallucinations are passive and insensible to the exploratory activities of the perceptual system. Finally, ecological disjunctivism, since it is immune to the causal argument, is more advantageous than negative and positive disjunctivism. (shrink)

We prove that all extensions of Heyting Arithmetic with a logic that has the finite frame property possess the de Jongh property.