Stephen May (2011) holds that language rights have been insufficiently recognized, or just rejected as problematic, in human rights theory and practice. Defending the “human rights approach to language rights”, he claims that language rights should be accorded the status of fundamental human rights, recognized as such by states and international organizations. This article argues that the notion of language rights is far from clear. According to May, one key reason for rejecting the claim that (...) class='Hi'>language rights should be considered as human rights is the widespread belief that language rights are collective rights. In order to address this kind of objection, the collective character attributed to language rights must be carefully assessed, distinguishing two different views of what a collective right is. (shrink)

Against ideas of dualism, logocentrism, anthropocentrism, animism, panpsychism, biocentrism, neurocentrism, foundationalism, computationalism, especially substantialism, reductionism and even physicalism, the author argues that life may be the only non-reductive concept, even the only ontological concept, with which we may explain our consciousness, intelligence and language. Life, as defined in this article, explains but not only human brains, and even not only biological organisms. Still, the mind, also as defined in this article, is the only one it explains. No mind (...) may exist if not be a life or lives, and no life may exist if not be a mind or a part of it. If it is the mind that needs to be explained, it must finally and fundamentally be explained as a life or lives. If the question is about the origin of the mind, a life or lives must be the ultimate answer. In other words, life is the only attribute of mind, and mind also the only attribute of life, and therefore, consciousness, intelligence and language must be the properties of all the living systems, including non-biological living systems. A model of mind is hypothesized based on the analysis of two kinds of lives and their relationship with matter and energy. It may be deduced from this model: 1. All the memories of a living brain are its intelligence. 2. Both consciousness and nonconscious are only meaningless languages used in the communication among lives in an awakened brain. 3. Life is the only meaning of all those memories and languages. Ontologically, life may even be the only meaning of all matter and energy. -/- (A version of this article was published by the Journal of NeuroPhilosophy on 26.10.2022). (shrink)

This paper is an attempt at exploring the possibility of reconciling the two interpretations of biolinguistics which have been recently projected by Koster(Biolinguistics 3(1):61–92, 2009). The two interpretations—trivial and nontrivial—can be roughly construed as non-internalist and internalist conceptions of biolinguistics respectively. The internalist approach boils down to a conception of language where language as a mental grammar in the form of I-language grows and functions like a biological organ. On the other hand, under such a construal consistent (...) with Koster’s (Biolinguistics 3(1):61-92, 2009), the non-internalist version does not necessarily have to be externalist in nature; rather it is a matter of mutual reinforcement of biology and culture under the rubric of a co-evolutionary dynamics. Here it will be argued that the apparent dichotomy between these two conceptions of biolinguistics can perhaps be resolved if we have a richer synthesis that accounts for both internalism and non-internalism. (shrink)

The recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) and their deployment in social settings prompt an important philosophical question: are LLMs social agents? This question finds its roots in the broader exploration of what engenders sociality. Since AI systems like chatbots, carebots, and sexbots are expanding the pre-theoretical boundaries of our social ontology, philosophers have two options. One is to deny LLMs membership in our social ontology on theoretical grounds by claiming something along the lines that only organic or (...) X-type creatures belong in our social world. Second, expand our ontological boundaries. I take the second route and claim LLMs implemented as social chatbots are social agents. Utilizing Brian Epstein's concepts of grounding and anchoring, alongside Dee Peyton's criteria for what makes a property social, I posit that the capacity for conversations is a social property. Further, within a framework where social agency is considered multi-dimensional, akin to agency, possessing a social property is sufficient for attaining social agency. Thus establishing chatbots as social agents. A helpful concept here is Levels of Abstraction (LoA). The LoA framework allows for extracting relevant and important information from the target domain (the social world). For example, the property of being a 'boy' and the capacity for conversation are social properties; hence, they are part of the social domain. LLMs have the capacity for conversations. So, if we focus on the conversational-LoA and not the gender-LoA, then LLMs occupy a dimension of sociality (i.e., conversational dimensions). (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroscience lead to a wider realm for philosophy to include the science of the Darwinian-evolved computational brain, our inner world producing organ, a non-recursive super- Turing machine combining 100B synapsing-neuron DNA-computers based on the genetic code. The whole system is a logos machine offering a world map for global context, essential for our intentional grasp of opportunities. We start from the observable contrast between the chaotic universe vs. our orderly inner world, the noumenal cosmos. So far, philosophy (...) has been rehearsing our thoughts, our human-internal world, a grand painting of the outer world, how we comprehend subjectively our experience, worked up by the logos machine, but now we seek a wider horizon, how humans understand the world thanks to Darwinian evolution to adapt in response to the metaphysical gap, the chasm between the human animal and its environment, shaping the organism so it can deal with its variable world. This new horizon embraces global context coded in neural structures that support the noumenal cosmos, our inner mental world, for us as denizens of the outer environment. Kant’s inner and outer senses are fundamental ingredients of scientific philosophy. Several sections devoted to Heidegger, his lizard debunked, but his version of the metaphysical gap & his doctrine of the logos praised. Rorty and others of the behaviorist school discussed also. (shrink)

Some students who possess the same cognitive skill set as their counterparts but who neither speak nor write English fluently have to contend with an unnecessary barrier to academic success. While an administrative top-down approach has been in progress for many years to address this issue, enhancement of student performance begins in the classroom. Thus, we argue that instructors ought to implement a more organic bottom-up approach. If it is possible for instructors to make class content available in other languages, (...) such as Spanish, without thereby compromising something of comparable pedagogical value, then they ought to do so. In fact, we provide here Anselm’s Ontological Argument rendered in Spanish to show how, when translated, it provides native Spanish speakers with greater accessibility to difficult material. Then, we consider the possible beneficial implications of doing so for university students. (shrink)

We assess the state of thinking about gender identities in computer vision through an analysis of how research papers in gender and facial recognition are designed, what claims they make about trans and non-binary people, what values they espouse, and what they describe as ongoing challenges for the field. In our corpus of 50 research papers, the seven papers that consider trans and non-binary identities use questionable assumptions about medicalization as a measure of transness, about gender transition as a linear (...) and bounded process, and about the concept of gender deception. Otherwise, non-normative gender identities are absent and their consideration is in fact hindered by prevailing research values, particularly deeply embedded ones such as performance and accuracy. We point out how the use of shared datasets calcifies binary conceptions of gender. In the way that the field of computer vision conceives of ongoing challenges for its research, it does not yet face questions that trans and non-binary user experiences pose and often falls back on biologically essentialist notions of sex classification. We make two recommendations: that computer vision researchers undertake interdisciplinary work with researchers who study gender as a socio-cultural phenomenon, and that journal editors and conference organizers do the same in peer review and conference acceptance processes. (shrink)

The goal of this study is to build the contours of the hypothesis, which defines the essence of language as a part of the human physiology, describes the language as the receptor activity based on common biological principles and functions of senses. The study tries to identify the physiological borders of the organ and the causes, which led to the organ development in the general evolution of human. -/- Исследование обозначает контуры гипотезы, определяющей сущность языка как части физиологии (...) человека, характеризуя языковую активность в качестве рецепторной на основании идентичности устройства, принципов и биологического предназначения органов чувств. Предполагаются физиологические границы органа и причины развития этого органа в ходе общей эволюции человека. (shrink)

We propose an ontological theory that is powerful enough to describe both complex spatio-temporal processes and the enduring entities that participate therein. For this purpose we introduce the notion a directly depicting ontology. Directly depicting ontologies are based on relatively simple languages and fall into two major categories: ontologies of type SPAN and ontologies of type SNAP. These represent two complementary perspectives on reality and employ distinct though compatible systems of categories. A SNAP (snapshot) ontology comprehends enduring entities such as (...) organisms, geographic features, or qualities as they exist at some given moment of time. A SPAN ontology comprehends perduring entities such as processes and their parts and aggregates as they unfold themselves through some temporal interval. We give an axiomatic account of the theory of directly depicting ontologies and of the core parts of the metaontological fragment within which they are embedded. (shrink)

Intermediate phenomena of reality present particular characteristics of systemic self-organization, multilevel interrelations, recursivity, emergence of new «objects» with properties different from those of the elements that form them, and evolutionary dynamics, that probably need the formulation of new theoretical concepts and different paradigm principles. The sciences or perspectives of complexity, or the «complex» thinking, try to respond adequately to this complexity of reality. This approach adopts a multidimensional, integrated and dynamic view of reality: the world is made up of overlapping (...) levels of different elements which produce new properties or new organizations at higher levels. If we conceive what we call languages as simple and decontextualized objects, we can understand some of the more mechanical aspects but we will ignore their conditions of existence, functionality, maintenance, variation, change and extinction. (shrink)

In her landmark book, Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories (Millikan1984),1 Ruth Garrett Millikan utilizes the idea of a biological function to solve philosophical problems associated with the phenomena of language, thought, and meaning. Language and thought are activities of biological organisms, according to Millikan, and we should treat them as such when trying to answer related philosophical questions. Of special interest is Millikan’s treatment of intentionality. Here Millikan employs the notion of a biological function to (...) explain what it is for one thing in nature, a bee dance (43), for example, to be about another, in this case, the location of a nectar source. My concern in this paper is to understand whether Millikan’s account of intentionality adequately explains how humans achieve reference, in language or thought, to individuals and groups in their environment. In bringing her theory of intentional content to bear on human activities, Millikan focuses largely on natural language. Thus, in what follows, I begin by laying out the biology-based principles that underlie Millikan’s theory of content, then proceed with an explanation of how the theory is to apply to natural language. As it appears, Millikan’s account of how content is determined for natural language terms and sentences rests on the determinacy of intentional content at the psychological level. This leads me to take a careful look at what Millikan says about the content of mental representations, in hopes of finding a sufficient basis there for the application of Millikan’s theory of content to natural language. Ultimately, I conclude that Millikan’s theory faces a problem of vacuity. If we approach the theory as a theory of intentional content, intended to explain the nature of reference, the theory is lacking in an extremely important respect: Millikan explains how it could be one of the biological functions of a mental or natural language term to refer, without telling us precisely what in the natural order constitutes the reference relation.. (shrink)

This is an excellent review of gene/environment interactions on behavior and, in spite of being a bit dated, is an easy and worthwhile read. They start with twin studies which show the overwhelming impact of genetics on behavior. They note the increasingly well known studies of Judith Harris which extend and summarize the facts that shared home environment has almost no effect on behavior and that adopted children grow up to be as different from their stepbrothers and sisters as people (...) chosen at random. One basic point that they (and nearly all who discuss behavioral genetics) fail to note is that the hundreds (thousands depending on your viewpoint) of human behavioral universals, including all the basics of our personalities, are 100% determined by our genes, with no variation in normals. Everyone sees a tree as a tree and not a stone, seeks and eats food, gets angry and jealous etc. So, what they are mostly talking about here is how much environment (culture) can affect the degree to which various traits are shown, rather than their appearance. Finally, they discuss eugenics in the usual politically correct fashion, failing to note that we and all organisms are the products of nature’s eugenics and that attempts to defeat natural selection with medicine, agriculture, and civilization as a whole, are disastrous for any society that persists. As much as 50% of all conceptions, or some 100 million/year, end in early spontaneous abortion, nearly all without the mother being aware. This natural culling of defective genes drives evolution, keeps us relatively genetically sound and makes society possible. However, it is now clear that overpopulation will destroy the world before dysgenics has a chance. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX . (shrink)

Psychoanalysis, particularly as articulated by figures like Freud and Lacan, highlights the inherent division within the human subject—a schism between the conscious and unconscious mind. It could be said that this suggests that such an internal division becomes amplified in the context of generative art, where technology and algorithms are used to generate artistic expressions that are meant to emerge from the depths of the unconscious. Here, we encounter the tension between the conscious artist and the generative process itself, which (...) may yield unexpected, even uncontrollable results. -/- This paper, therefore, seeks to address this division within the modern subject and its relationship to technology, wherein the division within the living body is revealed through the presence of prosthetic elements, which mirrors the division brought about by the incorporation of language as a signifier. I argue that the amplification of this internal schism does not necessarily lead to a more fractured subject. Instead, generative art, bolstered by advancements in AI and machine learning, offers a unique opportunity for individuals to externalize and explore their minds in novel ways. -/- By examining contemporary works such as Hal Foster’s Prosthetic Gods, which stands as a pivotal exploration of the convergence between modernist art and psychoanalytic theory and Isabel Millar’s Psychoanalysis of Artificial Intelligence, this paper elucidates the profound implications of Freud’s vision of modern -/- subjectivity as Prothesengott (Prosthetic God) and address the questions concerning this technological imbrication of the human mind and body through the Lacanian framework. Although for Freud, Man does not become a real God, rather, the potential to transcend one’s limitations ascribes us to God-like qualities by seeking to generate new forms of life that go beyond merely reproducing nature — a transcention of the natural. Millar emphasizes that Freud observes that this is evidenced by the fact that these additional organs remain distinct from the organism and can never assimilate into it. One continually falls short of realizing the fantasy he envisions, opting instead to use his supplementary artificial organs to endlessly revolve around the objects of the drive. -/- This evolving relationship that the drive has with its technological objects, resounds in Lacan’s conception of “lathouse” which allows extimate objects to convert interiority (unconscious) into exteriority (conscious) and exteriority into interiority. The thesis of this paper seeks to employ this underutilized concept to understand the nature of human subjectivity and its bodily and structural relationship to generative art. Therefore, this paper emphasizes what really happens when we enter into this relationship with the lathouse, whereby this artificial object has effects in the "real of jouissance", where these Lathouses create a network, namely the Alethosphere. My goal is to argue that generative art as a technological development, can be seen as an extension to the development of the drive. Conclusively, I make the claim for generative art's potential to externalize the human creative drive by emphasizing the interplay between randomness and structure, and how it offers a means to surpass our inherent limitations by presenting an avenue for self-expression that transcends traditional modes of art. (shrink)

I show that there are good arguments and evidence to boot that support the language as an instrument of thought hypothesis. The underlying mechanisms of language, comprising of expressions structured hierarchically and recursively, provide a perspective (in the form of a conceptual structure) on the world, for it is only via language that certain perspectives are avail- able to us and to our thought processes. These mechanisms provide us with a uniquely human way of thinking and talking (...) about the world that is different to the sort of thinking we share with other animals. If the primary function of language were communication then one would expect that the underlying mechanisms of language will be structured in a way that favours successful communication. I show that not only is this not the case, but that the underlying mechanisms of language are in fact structured in a way to maximise computational efficiency, even if it means causing communicative problems. Moreover, I discuss evidence from comparative, neuropatho- logical, developmental, and neuroscientific evidence that supports the claim that language is an instrument of thought. (shrink)

Traditionally, analytic philosophy has been affiliated with a formalist conception of inference which understands reasoning as a process that exploits syntactic properties of natural language according to a set of formal rules that are insensitive to conceptual content. This chapter discusses an alternative approach that takes semantic properties as the underlying forces driving rational inference. Building on Wilfird Sellars’ notion of material inference and analytic tools from cognitive linguistics, I will show how parts of the inferential structure of natural (...) language can be explained in terms of semantic relations between extra-logical concepts. In the end, I will outline a strategy for explicating some of these inference-types using Peter Gärdenfors’ theory of conceptual spaces. (shrink)

The standard view of classical cognitive science stated that cognition consists in the manipulation of language-like structures according to formal rules. Since cognition is ‘linguistic’ in itself, according to this view language is just a complex communication system and does not influence cognitive processes in any substantial way. This view has been criticized from several perspectives and a new framework (Embodied Cognition) has emerged that considers cognitive processes as non-symbolic and heavily dependent on the dynamical interactions between the (...) cognitive system and its environment. But notwithstanding the successes of the embodied cognitive science in explaining low-level cognitive behaviors, it is still not clear whether and how it can scale up for explaining high-level cognition. In this paper we argue that this can be done by considering the role of language as a cognitive tool: i.e. how language transforms basic cognitive functions in the high-level functions that are characteristic of human cognition. In order to do that, we review some computational models that substantiate this view with respect to categorization and memory. Since these models are based on a very rudimentary form of non-syntactic ‘language’ we argue that the use of language as a cognitive tool might have been an early discovery in hominid evolution, and might have played a substantial role in the evolution of language itself. (shrink)

There are several linguistic phenomena that, when examined closely, give evidence that people speak through characters, much like authors of literary works do, in everyday discourse. However, most approaches in linguistics and in the philosophy of language leave little theoretical room for the appearance of characters in discourse. In particular, there is no linguistic criterion found to date, which can mark precisely what stretch of discourse within an utterance belongs to a character, and to which character. And yet, without (...) at least tentatively marking the division of labor between the different characters in an utterance, it is absolutely impossible to arrive at an acceptable interpretation of it. As an alternative, I propose to take character use seriously, as an essential feature of discourse in general, a feature speakers and listeners actively seek out in utterances. I offer a simple typology of actions in discourse that draws on this understanding, and demonstrate its usefulness for the analysis of a conversation transcript. (shrink)

A growing body of evidence suggests that cognition is embodied and grounded. Abstract concepts, though, remain a significant theoretical chal- lenge. A number of researchers have proposed that language makes an important contribution to our capacity to acquire and employ concepts, particularly abstract ones. In this essay, I critically examine this suggestion and ultimately defend a version of it. I argue that a successful account of how language augments cognition should emphasize its symbolic properties and incorporate a view (...) of embodiment that recognizes the flexible, multi- modal and task-related nature of action, emotion and perception systems. On this view, language is an ontogenetically disruptive cognitive technology that expands our conceptual reach. (shrink)

A growing conceptual and empirical literature is advancing the idea that language extends our cognitive skills. One of the most influential positions holds that language – qua material symbols – facilitates individual thought processes by virtue of its material properties (Clark, 2006a). Extending upon this model, we argue that language enhances our cognitive capabilities in a much more radical way: the skilful engagement of public material symbols facilitates evolutionarily unprecedented modes of collective perception, action and reasoning (interpersonal (...) synergies) creating dialogically extended minds. We relate our approach to other ideas about collective minds ( Gallagher, 2011, Theiner et al., 2010 and Tollefsen, 2006) and review a number of empirical studies to identify the mechanisms enabling the constitution of interpersonal cognitive systems. (shrink)

While we typically think of culture as defined by geography or ethnicity (e.g., American culture, Mayan culture), the term also applies to the practices and expectations of smaller groups of people. Though embedded in the larger culture surrounding them, such subcultures have their own sets of rules like those that scientists do. Philosophy of science has as its main object of studio the scientific activity. A way in which we have tried to explain these scientific practices is from the actual (...) ontological commitments that scientists do through their scientific theories. Certainly, we know scientific theories through some specific scientific language, which is, in its turn, a subset of the natural language developed by a particular culture. This study is conducted to explore and evaluate some of the most important epistemological consequences of these ontological commitments, specially the so-called ‘truth-commitment’ and its relation with a linguistic-cultural framework. There is an interesting debate between advocates and opponents of scientific realistic view of the natural world. Some lines of scientific realism argumentation assure that: (i) Mature scientific theories are approximately true. (ii) There are entities and organisms in the world that correspond with the ontology presupposed by the best scientific theories within a specific domain of scientific research and (iii) The new acceptable scientific theories should explain why past theories were successful predecessors (Colyvan 2008, Cocchiarella 2007 & Laudan 1981). Contrary, anti- realist positions ensure against the realist’s true - claim that is a semantic commitment - that the purpose of scientific theories to found the truth it is simple an unattainable goal, especially if the kind of truth they are looking for is a corresponding relation between scientific theories and the ontology of the world. Anti-realist positions held that this relation could be circular and unknowable. I do believe that there is a deep confusion between the way in which we accede to the knowledge of the constitutive structures, entities and organisms of the world (which is an epistemological matter) and the way these structures, entities and organisms are (which is an ontological matter). It seems that there is a bridge between the epistemological and ontological aspect in need for conceptual clarification. I do propose that the type of link between the two extremes have to be linguistic in nature. (shrink)

As the quality movement in health care now enters its fourth decade, the language of quality is ubiquitous. Practitioners, organizations, and government agencies alike vociferously testify their commitments to quality and accept numerous forms of governance aimed at improving quality of care. Remarkably, the powerful phrase ‘‘quality of care’’ is rarely defined in the health care literature. Instead it operates as an accepted and assumed goal worth pursuing. The status of evidence-based medicine, for instance, hinges on its ability to (...) improve quality of care, and efforts are made by both proponents and detractors to unpack the contents and outcomes of evidence-based practice while the contents of ‘‘quality of care’’ are presumed to be understood. Because the goals of medicine are far from obvious, this paper investigates the neglected term, ‘‘quality of care,’’ in an effort to understand what it is that health care practices are so uncritically assumed to be striving for. Finding lack of consensus on the terminology in the quality literature, I propose that the term operates rhetorically by way of persuasive appeal (and lack of descriptive meaning). Unsatisfied that ‘‘quality of care’’ operates as a mere buzzword in morally contentious debates over resource allocation and duties of care, I implore health care communities to go beyond mere commitments to quality and, instead, to focus attention on the difficult task of specifying what counts as quality care within an economically constrained health care system. (shrink)

A belief in a firm correspondence between objects, ideas, and their representation in language pervaded the works of Anne Robert Jacques Turgot

(1727–1781) in 1750. This conviction is particularly manifest in Turgot’s sharp critique of Berkeley’s philosophical system and his remarks on Maupertuis’s reconstruction of the origin of language. During the 1750s Turgot’s epistemological views underwent a change, apparent in two of his contributions to the Encyclopédie: the entries Existence and Étymologie (1756). These articles included a reassessment of Berkeleyan (...) immaterialism, facing an ultimate crisis of definition and representation. A similar development may be traced in contemporary works by Condillac and Diderot. Turgot’s Encyclopédie entries also envisaged a new science, an archeology of the human mind aided by the examination of linguistic development and change. This entailed the scientific verification of conjectures in any historical account of ideas, turning etymological

and psychological inquiries into what Turgot termed ‘experimental metaphysics’. (shrink)

A cosmological principle, because it was the first to be created, Exu presents itself as the creative protomatter, whose expansive and unfinished character makes possible the appearanceof all other creations. He is the animating principle of existence and in everything there isExu. The crossroads is its space-time and this fact would explain why “black culture is acrossroads culture”. But, incarnated in Afro-diasporic practices in the Atlantic bands, Exunot only vigorously maintains his multifaceted power, showing that colonial redemption didnot obtain the (...) expected result, but also shows that its everyday meanings in the African BlackDiaspora here in the Americas they are the result of battles, negotiations, authoritarianism,power regimes, violence, transgressions, silencing and alliances experienced in the colonialdynamic, as Luiz Rufno reminds us in his book Pedagogia das Encruzilhadas (2019). (shrink)

This article engages the analogy of Palestine/Israel to apartheid South Africa, and probes the political imaginary that contours this discussion while explicating the circumstances of its emergence. Accordingly, it contends that apartheid is not merely a system of institutionalized separation; rather, it organizes the facts and reality of separation(s) within a frame and against a background unity that effectively allows it to be perceived as such. To that end, the article explores four key factors that created background unity in apartheid (...) South Africa: labor relations; political theology; role of language; and geo-political unit(y), and scrutinizes their political and experiential ramifications in Palestine/Israel. (shrink)

This paper provides a commentary on Truth and Method III.1.

In a series of early essays, beginning with "Must We Mean What We Say?", Stanley Cavell offers a sustained response to the argument that ordinary language philosophy is nothing more than amateur linguistics, carried out from the armchair -- so that philosophers' claims about "what we say", and what we mean when we say it, are necessarily in need of proper empirical support. The present paper provides a close reading of Cavell and a defense of his argument that, since (...) a philosopher's descriptions of our use of words are supposed to be an expression of *self*-knowledge, they do not require, and indeed cannot possibly find, any empirical justification. This does not guarantee that these descriptions are immune to error, nor does it mean they describe a different range of facts from the ones that are the subject-matter of linguistics and lexicography. Nor, finally, does it follow from this argument that observation of the facts of ordinary usage, as revealed e.g. in linguistic corpora, is of no use to the philosopher of ordinary language. I close with a brief discussion of what the shared nature of linguistic communication shows about how to understand the "we" in "what we say". (shrink)

In this article, I explore the consequences of two commonsensical premises in semantics and epistemology: (1) natural language is a complex system rooted in the communal life of human beings within a given environment; and (2) linguistic knowledge is essentially dependent on natural language. These premises lead me to emphasize the process-socio-environmental character of linguistic meaning and knowledge, from which I proceed to analyse a number of long-standing philosophical problems, attempting to throw new light upon them on these (...) grounds. In particular, I criticize the use of expressions such as ‘absolute truth’, ‘absolute existence’ and ‘the thing in itself’, arguing that they lead to what I call ‘the ultralinguistic paradox’ (a fatal antinomy). In the same way, I review a number of mainstream topics in philosophical semantics, epistemology and metaphysics, reformulating them in terms much more naturalistic – and less mysterious – than usual. (shrink)

Event concepts are unstructured atomic concepts that apply to event types. A paradigm example of such an event type would be that of diaper changing, and so a putative example of an atomic event concept would be DADDY'S-CHANGING-MY-DIAPER.1 I will defend two claims about such concepts. First, the conceptual claim that it is in principle possible to possess a concept such as DADDY'S-CHANGING-MY-DIAPER without possessing the concept DIAPER. Second, the empirical claim that we actually possess such concepts and that they (...) play an important role in our cognitive lives. The argument for the empirical claim has the form of an inference to the best explanation and is aimed at those who are already willing to attribute concepts and beliefs to infants and nonhuman animals. Many animals and prelinguistic infants seem capable of re-identifying event-types in the world, and they seem to store information about things happening at particular times and places. My account offers a plausible model of how such organisms are able to do this without attributing linguistically structured mental states to them. And although language allows adults to form linguistically structured mental representations of the world, there is no good reason to think that such structured representations necessarily replace the unstructured ones. There is also no good reason for a philosopher who is willing to explain the behavior of an organism by appealing to atomic concepts of individuals or kinds to not use a similar form of explanation when explaining the organism's capacity to recognize events. -/- We can form empirical concepts of individuals, kinds, properties, event-types, and states of affairs, among other things, and I assume that such concepts function like what François Recanati calls ‘mental files’ or what Ruth Millikan calls ‘substance concepts’ (Recanati 2012; Millikan 1999, 2000, 2017). To possess such a concept one must have a reliable capacity to re-identify the object in question, but this capacity of re-identification does not fix the reference of the concept. Such concepts allow us to collect and utilize useful information about things that we re-encounter in our environment. We can distinguish between a perception-action system and a perception-belief system, and I will argue that empirical concepts, including atomic event concepts, can play a role in both systems. The perception-action system involves the application of concepts in the service of (often skilled) action. We can think of the concept as a mental file containing motor-plans that can be activated once the individual recognizes that they are in a certain situation. In this way, recognizing something (whether an object or an event) as a token of a type, plays a role in guiding immediate action. The perception-belief system, in contrast, allows for the formation of beliefs that can play a role in deliberation and planning and in the formation of expectations. I distinguish between two particular types of belief which I call where-beliefs and when-beliefs, and I argue that we can model the formation of such perceptual beliefs in nonlinguistic animals and human infants in terms of the formation of a link between an empirical concept and a position on a cognitive map. According to the account offered, seemingly complex beliefs, such as a baby's belief that Daddy changed her diaper in the kitchen earlier, will not be linguistically structured. If we think that prelinguistic infants possess such concepts and are able to form such beliefs, it is likely that adults do too. The ability to form such beliefs does not require the capacity for public language, and we can model them in nonlinguistic terms; thus, we have no good reason to think of such beliefs as propositional attitudes. Of course, we can use sentences to refer to such beliefs, and thus it is possible to think of such beliefs as somehow relations to propositions. But it is not clear to me what is gained by this as we have a perfectly good way to think about the structure of such beliefs that does not involve any appeal to language. (shrink)

One of the main motivations for having a compositional semantics is the account of the productivity of natural languages. Formal languages are often part of the account of productivity, i.e., of how beings with finite capaci- ties are able to produce and understand a potentially infinite number of sen- tences, by offering a model of this process. This account of productivity con- sists in the generation of proofs in a formal system, that is taken to represent the way speakers grasp (...) the meaning of an indefinite number of sentences. The informational basis is restricted to what is represented in the lexicon. This constraint is considered as a requirement for the account of productivity, or at least of an important feature of productivity, namely, that we can grasp auto- matically the meaning of a huge number of complex expressions, far beyond what can be memorized. However, empirical results in psycholinguistics, and especially particular patterns of ERP, show that the brain integrates informa- tion of different sources very fast, without any felt effort on the part of the speaker. This shows that formal procedures do not explain productivity. How- ever, formal models are still useful in the account of how we get at the seman- tic value of a complex expression, once we have the meanings of its parts, even if there is no formal explanation of how we get at those meanings. A practice-oriented view of modeling gives an adequate interpretation of this re- sult: formal compositional semantics may be a useful model for some ex- planatory purposes concerning natural languages, without being a good model for dealing with other explananda. (shrink)

Freedom is first apprehended as the pursuit of an activity which implies the choice to defend a thesis among other possible ones. This translation of the problem of freedom in an articulate language presupposes a complex nervous system and sensory apparatuses which we take for granted. In this study, I try to explore the undergrounds of the problem of freedom along with the suggestion that the notion of coding could enable one to bridge nature and the mind. When (...) class='Hi'>organisms invent, are they doing it in a spontaneous manner, inscribing in their hereditary and mnemonic instructions a stochastic contrivance of random accidents, or are they attempting to select among a limited number of schemes endowed with some optimality of functioning? If we consider them as submitted to physical forces, it is to the extent that we make them part of a strategy to extend the "laws" of a nature understood to respond passively. I suggest in this study that the epistemological understanding must regionalize itself and admit a hierarchy of dispositions in relation to the phenomenon of selection. I end by suggesting the pursuit of affirmation instead of negation, as this alone contains the requirement of integration to the knowing subject as well as the form in its act of understanding, without giving it a spontaneist position. (shrink)

The Philosophical Association of the Visayas and Mindanao (PHAVISMINDA), founded in 1979, is one of the oldest philosophical organizations in the country that continued to exist until the present time. This interview article focused on this organization as something distinct from the other major national philosophical organizations of the country, such as the Philosophical Association of the Philippines, the Philosophy Circle of the Philippines, and the Philippine National Philosophical Research Society. Using the method of oral history, this paper tried to (...) document and assess: 1) how PHAVISMINDA differentiated itself from the other major Philippine national philosophical organizations; 2) PHAVISMINDA’s general stand on the development of Filipino philosophy, the contextualization of philosophy to the realities of the Visayas and Mindanao, and the use of Cebuano language in philosophizing; 3) the trends of the research projects of its leading writers/thinkers; 4) its exemplary presidents and their lasting imprints on the organization; and 5) the general direction where the organization is heading. The respondents of this interview article are: 1) Dr. Amosa Velez, of the University of San Carlos, founding member of the organization, practically the first president, and three-time president; 2) Dr. Jane Gallamaso, of Xavier University, and the tenth president of the organization; and 3) Dr. Ruby Suazo, of the University of San Carlos, and the twelfth and current president of the organization. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of what organisms are and therefore what kinds of biological entities qualify as organisms. For some time now, the concept of organismality has been eclipsed by the notion of individuality. Biological individuals are those systems that are units of selection. I develop a conception of organismality that does not rely on evolutionary considerations, but instead draws on development and ecology. On this account, organismality and individuality can come apart. Organisms, in my view, (...) are as Godfrey-Smith puts it “essentially persisters.” I argue that persistence is underpinned by differentiation, integration, development, and the constitutive embeddedness of organisms in their worlds. I examine two marginal cases, the Portuguese Man O’ War and the honey bee colony, and show that both count as organisms in light of my analysis. Next, I examine the case of holobionts, hosts plus their microsymbionts, and argue that they can be counted as organisms even though they may not be biological individuals. Finally, I consider the question of whether other, less tightly integrated biological systems might also be treated as organisms. (shrink)

The scope of the paper is to present the concept of the radical dyad of the “non-human,” in an attempt to think radical humanity in terms of Marxian materialism, which is the product of approaching Marx’s writings on “the real” and “the physical” by way of François Laruelle’s non-philosophical method. Unlike posthumanism, inspired by critical theory and the method of poststructuralism, the theory of the non-human, as a radical dyad of technology in the generic sense of the word (ranging from (...) the techné of speaking a natural language to AI technology) and the organic understood as physicality, does away with anthropocentrism. Moreover, it does away with any anthropomorphology of thought, that is, it does away with any theorizing or philosophy that is centered on the notion of (human) subjectivity or, to borrow a Laruellian term, any “posture of thought” that is molded according to the structure of subjectivity centered thinking. (shrink)

Established in the northernmost part of the country in 2003, the Philosophical Association of Northern Luzon, Incorporated (PANL) is one of the regional philosophical organizations in the country. This interview article aims to produce the first published historical account of this organization as it marked its 18th year of existence and in connection with the development of Filipino philosophy. Thus, this interview article focused on the history of PANL as it differentiates itself from the national philosophical organizations, such as the (...) Philosophical Association of the Philippines, the Philosophy Circle of the Philippines, and the Philippine National Philosophical Research Society. Using the method of oral history, this interview article specifically documented and assessed: 1) the circumstances behind the foundation of PANL; 2) how PANL differentiated itself from the other major Philippine national philosophical organizations; 3) PANL's general stand on the development of Filipino philosophy, the contextualization of philosophy to the realities of northern Luzon, and the use of Ilocano language in philosophizing; 4) the trends of the research projects of its leading writers/thinkers; 5) the lasting imprints of its presidents on the organization; and 6) the general direction where the organization is heading to. The respondents of this interview article were: 1) Dr. Fernando Martin Serrano, the founding president of the organization; 2) Dr. Jeffrey Centeno, a founding member of the organization and the one who drafted its constitution and by-laws; and 3) Dr. Danilo Alterado, the current president of the same organization. (shrink)

The model of language can relatively concretely reveal the mechanism of the epistemology, which is extended by the ontology that takes “person” as the unit. It unveils an intuitable dimension to represent the epistemolog’s paradigm and limitations. Deriving from the inherent relation between epistemology and ontology, the retrospection of the epistemology’s ontological origin can be actualized by locating or grasping the epistemological first person’s ontological essence. Hence, the illusional and frail essence of the ontology behind this epistemology would be (...) uncovered. “Person” is not a stable unit in the ontological world, since the application of this unit stimulates the development of the operating style of the epistemology which relies on the supplement of paradox. After this study that intends to get the epistemological and ontological truth of the current using nominative, the new era of one or more unknown but solid epistemology and its ontology will be gradually recognized. Furthermore, the circumstance of past and current philosophical study is going to be changed. (shrink)

Between the end of the nineteenth century and the first twenty years of the twentieth century, stimulated by the impetuous development of logical studies and taking inspiration from Leibniz's idea of a characteristica universalis, the three founding fathers of the analytic tradition in philosophy, i.e., Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein, started to talk of a logically perfect language, as opposed to natural languages, all feeling that the latter were inadequate to their (different) philosophical purposes. In the second half of the (...) twentieth century, however, the very idea of a logically perfect language ceased for various reasons to seem attractive to analytic philosophers. Thus, it might appear that this idea could be classified together with the many other bizarre ideas that from time to time surface in the history of philosophy-an idea that perhaps had a beneficial impact on the development of twentieth century logic, but which can now be put to rest. In this brief note, I contend that this conclusion may be too hasty. Indeed, if a well-known empirical hypothesis advanced in 1975 by Jerry Fodor turns out to be true, then there is a logically perfect language, after all. More precisely, I argue that, if it exists, Fodor's language of thought possesses the main characteristics a logically perfect language is required to have. (shrink)

The selected effects or ‘etiological’ theory of Proper function is a naturalistic and realist account of biological teleology. It is used to analyse normativity in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of medicine and elsewhere. The theory has been developed with a simple and intuitive view of natural selection. Traits are selected because of their positive effects on the fitness of the organisms that have them. These ‘selected effects’ are the Proper functions of the traits. Proponents argue (...) that this analysis of biological teleology has the unique advantage that the selected effect function of a trait is also a causal explanation of the trait: the trait exists because it performs this function. We show, however, that selected effect functions as currently defined explain the existence of traits only under highly restrictive assumptions about evolutionary dynamics. In many common scenarios in which traits evolve by natural selection, selected effect functions do not explain those traits. This is because definitions of selected effect function extract from any evolutionary scenario only the information that would be explanatorily relevant in the simple evolutionary scenario implicit in those definitions. When applied to more complex scenarios selected effect functions omit the key information that is explanatorily relevant in those scenarios. The assumptions required for selected effect functions to be explanatory are particularly unlikely to hold in the domain that its proponents care most about - the evolution of representation. A more adequate selected effects theory of Proper functions may be possible, but will require much greater attention to the structure of actual evolutionary explanations. (shrink)

Cognitive Robotics can be defined as the study of cognitive phenomena by their modeling in physical artifacts such as robots. This is a very lively and fascinating field which has already given fundamental contributions to our understanding of natural cognition. Nonetheless, robotics has to date addressed mainly very basic, low­level cognitive phenomena like sensory­motor coordination, perception, and navigation, and it is not clear how the current approach might scale up to explain high­level human cognition. In this paper we argue that (...) a promising way to do that is to merge current ideas and methods of 'embodied cognition' with the Russian tradition of theoretical psychology which views language not only as a communication system but also as a cognitive tool, that is by developing a Vygotskyan Cognitive Robotics. We substantiate this idea by discussing several domains in which language can improve basic cognitive abilities and permit the development of high­level cognition: learning, categorization, abstraction, memory, voluntary control, and mental life. (shrink)

The goal of this programmatic paper is to highlight a close connection between the core problem in the philosophy of medicine, i.e. the concept of health, and the core problem of the philosophy of mind, i.e. the concept of consciousness. I show when we look at these phenomena together, taking the evolutionary perspective of modern state-based behavioural and life-history theory used as the teleonomic tool to Darwinize the agent- and subject-side of organisms, we will be in a better position (...) to make sense of them both as natural phenomena. (shrink)

This essay discusses three authors from the early seventeenth century (Galileo, Descartes, and Van Helmont) and the reasons that guided their decisions to write occasionally in their respective vernacular languages even though Latin remained the accepted language for learned communication. From their writings we can see that their choices were social, political, and always of high importance. The choice of language of these multilingual authors conveyed a message that was sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit. Their usage of both Latin (...) and vernacular proved, on the one hand, their place in the international learned community and, on the other hand, their interest and investment in changing the educational system. (shrink)

In his Encomium of Helen and On Not Being, Gorgias of Leontinoi discusses the nature and function of speech more extensively than any other surviving author before Plato. His discussions are not only surprising in the way they characterize the power of logos and its effects on a listener but also in how the two descriptions of speech seem to contradict one another. In the Helen, Gorgias claims that logos is a very powerful entity, capable of affecting a listener in (...) whatever way it wants. In On Not-Being, he makes the very different (but no less exaggerated) claim that logos is a non-entity, incapable of referring to anything other than itself. In this essay I show how these apparently contradictory accounts might be brought into harmony with one another.2 In the first part I address some of the interpretive difficulties with the text of Gorgias’s On Not Being (henceforth ONB) and the role that irony plays in the work. In particular I argue (as others have before) that Gorgias’s remarks about the impotency of speech are not meant to be taken seriously. Instead, they are aimed more squarely at raising questions about how exactly speech is thought to function and, more specifically, how linguistic reference works—i.e., how words somehow correspond to things, on one level, and to our ideas about things, on another. In the second and third parts of this paper, I illustrate how Gorgias’s concern with linguistic reference in ONB goes on to inform his notion of logos in the Encomium of Helen. I point specifically to evidence found in an important and often overlooked exit clause at the close of ONB regarding the difference between words and things. There, Gorgias insists that if words manifest meaning at all, they must appeal to their own sort of sense organ. In the Helen, he draws on the concepts of soul (psychē) and opinion (doxa) in order to construct this alternative, psychagogic account in which utterances are actually apprehended in ways akin to sense perception. Whether or not one is convinced by Gorgias’s alternative account of how speech works, the description he gives of logos does notionally circumvent the problem of linguistic reference and, in doing so, pushes one to think beyond the potentially constrictive framework of nomen et nominatum. I argue that, when read in this way, these two early discussions of logos represent a unified progression of serious thought about how speech works. (shrink)

Genes are often described by biologists using metaphors derived from computa- tional science: they are thought of as carriers of information, as being the equivalent of ‘‘blueprints’’ for the construction of organisms. Likewise, cells are often characterized as ‘‘factories’’ and organisms themselves become analogous to machines. Accordingly, when the human genome project was initially announced, the promise was that we would soon know how a human being is made, just as we know how to make airplanes and buildings. (...) Impor- tantly, modern proponents of Intelligent Design, the latest version of creationism, have exploited biologists’ use of the language of information and blueprints to make their spurious case, based on pseudoscientific concepts such as ‘‘irreducible complexity’’ and on flawed analogies between living cells and mechanical factories. However, the living organ- ism = machine analogy was criticized already by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In line with Hume’s criticism, over the past several years a more nuanced and accurate understanding of what genes are and how they operate has emerged, ironically in part from the work of computational scientists who take biology, and in particular developmental biology, more seriously than some biologists seem to do. In this article we connect Hume’s original criticism of the living organism = machine analogy with the modern ID movement, and illustrate how the use of misleading and outdated metaphors in science can play into the hands of pseudoscientists. Thus, we argue that dropping the blueprint and similar metaphors will improve both the science of biology and its understanding by the general public. (shrink)

Disaster response requires the cooperation of multiple emergency responder organizations (EROs). However, after‐action reports relating to large‐scale disasters identity communication difficulties among EROs as a major hindrance to collaboration. On the one hand, the use of two‐radio communication, based on multiple orthogonal frequencies and uneven coverage, has been shown to degrade inter‐organization communication. On the other hand, because they reflect different areas of expertise, EROs use differing terminologies, which are difficult to reconcile. These issues lead to ambiguities, misunderstandings, and inefficient (...) exchange of data and information among those involved, which can impede the response process and slow decision making. We, therefore, hypothesize that promoting semantic interoperability across ERO information systems might improve information exchange among stakeholders and thereby allow a more coherent response to the disaster. We propose an ontology‐based messaging service on the basis of the Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) standards. The parties involved will continue to use the terminologies to which they are accustomed, but the system will resolve inconsistencies and thereby enhance mutual understanding among EROs by ensuring semantic translation of the exchanged information. The evaluation of the semantic translation demonstrated the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed service. (shrink)

According to the Computational/Representational Theory of Thought (CRTT ? Language of Thought Hypothesis, or LOTH), propositional attitudes, such as belief, desire, and the like, are triadic relations among subjects, propositions, and internal mental representations. These representations form a representational _system_ physically realized in the brain of sufficiently sophisticated cognitive organisms. Further, this system of representations has a combinatorial syntax and semantics, but the processes that operate on the representations are causally sensitive only to their syntax, not to their (...) semantics. On this approach, a first pass account of propositional attitudes is the following (cf. Field 1978: 37 and Fodor 1987: 17). (shrink)

I provide a critical survey of some of the major findings of Wittgenstein and Searle on the logical structure of intentionality (mind, language, behavior), taking as my starting point Wittgenstein’s fundamental discovery –that all truly ‘philosophical’ problems are the same—confusions about how to use language in a particular context, and so all solutions are the same—looking at how language can be used in the context at issue so that its truth conditions (Conditions of Satisfaction or COS) are (...) clear. The basic problem is that one can say anything but one cannot mean (state clear COS for) any arbitrary utterance and meaning is only possible in a very specific context. I begin with ‘On Certainty’ and continue the analysis of recent writings by and about them from the perspective of the two systems of thought, employing a new table of intentionality and dual systems nomenclature. (shrink)

Wikipedia is a goldmine of information; not just for its many readers, but also for the growing community of researchers who recognize it as a resource of exceptional scale and utility. It represents a vast investment of manual effort and judgment: a huge, constantly evolving tapestry of concepts and relations that is being applied to a host of tasks. This article provides a comprehensive description of this work. It focuses on research that extracts and makes use of the concepts, relations, (...) facts and descriptions found in Wikipedia, and organizes the work into four broad categories: applying Wikipedia to natural language processing; using it to facilitate information retrieval and information extraction; and as a resource for ontology building. The article addresses how Wikipedia is being used as is, how it is being improved and adapted, and how it is being combined with other structures to create entirely new resources. We identify the research groups and individuals involved, and how their work has developed in the last few years. We provide a comprehensive list of the open-source software they have produced. (shrink)

Background: Obstetrics and gynaecology are many and common, where a woman suffers from problems related to pregnancy or her reproductive organs. Any part of her body may be affected due to some symptoms that are completely related to the reproductive organs when she is in a critical period for her, whether in her menstrual cycle, pregnancy, or disease conditions. The bulk of cases of diseases related to women and childbirth are dealt with great care and special care, as all diseases (...) related to women are considered very sensitive diseases due to the presence of the disease in sensitive and not simple places. A gynaecologist is a specialist in all diseases and problems related to the female sexual organs. They perform regular preventive medical exams, such as cervical smear tests and breast exams. It also provides consultations for women of all ages about the problems of contraception, infertility and menopause. Objectives: The objective of this expert system is to help and facilitate women in diagnosing diseases related to their obstetrics and gynaecology, a simple expert system has been designed consisting of ten various common diseases that affect women whether During or without pregnancy, Methods: In this system, the system consists of a list of some common symptoms, the correct diagnosis adopted for these diseases, and how to treat diseases in the correct way with the help of a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr. Fathi Muhammad Al-Habibi, and these diseases are: uterine cancer, cervical cancer, Infertility, double uterus, ectopic pregnancy, endometrial cancer, female sexual dysfunction, endometriosis, faecal incontinence, female infertility, CLIPS Expert System language was used to design and implement the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed ten obstetrics and gynaecology diagnostic expert system was evaluated by medical students and they were satisfied with its performance. Conclusions: The proposed expert system is very useful for obstetricians and gynaecologists, patients with reproductive system problems, and recent graduates. (shrink)

(A chapter in the book edited by Ine Gevers, Robot Love: Can We Learn from Robots About Love?) Similarly to the method employed by Marx in his analysis of the capital and to de Saussure’s structuralist explanation of language, I suggest we conceive the categories in question as materially conditioned while resulting into full abstraction in the process of analysis. Thus, instead of theorising in terms of the anthropologically (and philosophically) conditioned phantasm of a “digital subjectivity” or a “cyborg (...) self,” let us radicalise and absolutise the concepts of the material and the ideal (or the mind understood in opposition to the material), arriving to physicality, regardless of whether organic or synthetic, and the automaton of signification as our main two categories of analysis. Therefore, let us also note that the category of “automaton” implies we are not dealing with a form of cognition but rather of language or signification. It is through operation with these categories that we shall postulate the sociopolitical and economic relevance of the cybernetic development for the post-human society and for the post-humanist self. The statement just made refers to a de facto political project, and it is impossible to arrive to results that would represent a fundamental change in relation to the humanist history of civilization/s without resorting to philosophical concepts. (shrink)