What is the relationship between inquiry and epistemology? Are epistemic norms the norms that guide us as inquirers—as agents in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding? Recently, there has been growing support for what I, following Friedman (Philosophical Review 129(4):501–536, 2020), will call the zetetic turn in epistemology, the view that all epistemic norms are norms of inquiry. This paper investigates the prospects of an inquiry-centered approach to epistemology and develops several motivations for resisting it. First, I argue that the (...) norms of inquiry are most plausibly seen as practical, not as distinctively epistemic. Second, I argue that a zetetically-grounded epistemology is unable to properly account for the rationality of belief. It fails to account for cases where intuitively irrational beliefs promote inquiry, or where intuitively rational beliefs are zetetically useless or counterproductive to inquiry. The main upshot is this: there must be a source of epistemic normativity that isn’t ultimately zetetic. (shrink)

Large Language Models (LLMs) could be a useful tool for lawyers. However, empirical research on their effectiveness in conducting legal tasks is scant. We study securities cases involving cryptocurrencies as one of numerous contexts where AI could support the legal process, studying GPT-3.5’s legal reasoning and ChatGPT’s legal drafting capabilities. We examine whether a) GPT-3.5 can accurately determine which laws are potentially being violated from a fact pattern, and b) whether there is a difference in juror decision-making based on complaints (...) written by a lawyer compared to ChatGPT. We feed fact patterns from real-life cases to GPT-3.5 and evaluate its ability to determine correct potential violations from the scenario and exclude spurious violations. Second, we had mock jurors assess complaints written by ChatGPT and lawyers. GPT-3.5’s legal reasoning skills proved weak, though we expect improvement in future models, particularly given the violations it suggested tended to be correct (it merely missed additional, correct violations). ChatGPT performed better at legal drafting, and jurors’ decisions were not statistically significantly associated with the author of the document upon which they based their decisions. Because GPT-3.5 cannot satisfactorily conduct legal reasoning tasks, it would be unlikely to be able to help lawyers in a meaningful way at this stage. However, ChatGPT’s drafting skills (though, perhaps, still inferior to lawyers) could assist lawyers in providing legal services. Our research is the first to systematically study an LLM’s legal drafting and reasoning capabilities in litigation, as well as in securities law and cryptocurrency-related misconduct. (shrink)

Much of the recent work on epistemology of inquiry defends two related theses. First, inquiry into a question rationally prohibits believing an answer to that question. Second, knowledge is the aim of inquiry. I develop a series of cases which indicate that inquiry is not as narrow as these views suggest. These cases can be accommodated if we take a broader approach and understand inquiry as aiming at epistemic improvement, described more generally. This approach captures a wider range of inquiring (...) phenomena because it accounts for forms of epistemic improvement that fall short of, or go beyond, coming to know the answer to a question. (shrink)

An argument that the major metaphysical theories of facts give us no good reason to accept facts in our catalog of the world. -/- In this book Arianna Betti argues that we have no good reason to accept facts in our catalog of the world, at least as they are described by the two major metaphysical theories of facts. She claims that neither of these theories is tenable—neither the theory according to which facts are special structured building blocks of (...) reality nor the theory according to which facts are whatever is named by certain expressions of the form “the fact that such and such.” There is reality, and there are entities in reality that we are able to name, but, Betti contends, among these entities there are no facts. -/- Drawing on metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and linguistics, Betti examines the main arguments in favor of and against facts of the two major sorts, which she distinguishes as compositional and propositional, giving special attention to methodological presuppositions. She criticizes compositional facts (facts as special structured building blocks of reality) and the central argument for them, Armstrong's truthmaker argument. She then criticizes propositional facts (facts as whatever is named in “the fact that” statements) and what she calls the argument from nominal reference, which draws on Quine's criterion of ontological commitment. Betti argues that metaphysicians should stop worrying about facts, and philosophers in general should stop arguing for or against entities on the basis of how we use language. (shrink)

The concept of hermeneutic science is outlined by Habermas as a reflection within the ordinary language, addressed to the dialogic dimension of intersubjective recognition and connected to the juridical guarantee. The guarantee function fulfilled by the discursive agreement towards every real dialogue is obvious: it indicates the main reference point for the regulation and coordination of social action, tracing a line of demarcation between being and having to be, facts and norms. Speech, communicative agreement and legal guarantee are mutually qualified (...) terms where the public discussion of institutional issues makes it possible to define the normative validity as non-assimilatory generality, placed beyond any populistic yearning, tracing a line of demarcation between law and power. The idea of deliberative democracy expresses the relationship and distinction between the universalism of rights and the factuality of the norm issuing, between the idea of good and the idea of right, in order to support democratic decision-making legitimacy. Combining the reasons of the markets with those of civil solidarity, through independent forms of regulation both from the obsolete state sovereignties and from the traditional international perspectives, represents a primary challenge of the Habermasian theory where the critical role of the rational public sphere appears fundamental. (shrink)

Since it is now broadly acknowledged that ethics should receive early consideration in discourse on emerging technologies, ethical debates tend to flourish even while new fields of technology are still in their infancy. Such debates often liberally mix existing applications with technologies in the pipeline and far-reaching visions. This paper analyses the problems associated with this use of ethics as “preparatory” research, taking discourse on human enhancement in general and on pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement in particular as an example. The paper (...) will outline and discuss the gap between the scientific and technological state of the art and the ethical debates, pointing out epistemic problems in this context. Furthermore, it will discuss the future role of genuine ethical reflection in discourse on human enhancement, arguing also that such discourse needs to include a technology assessment—in the broad sense of the term—which encompasses, inter alia, anthropological perspectives and aspects of social theory. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that the Middle Platonists’ appeal to the Timaeus was grounded in a complex and effective philosophical reasoning: the Middle Platonists conceived of Plato’s text as a web of passages which Plato himself had carefully established. Only a few of them were granted a qualified priority, namely, those offering a complete and comprehensive philosophical account of the key elements which the Platonists regarded as fundamental. This will allow us to show that the Middle Platonists’ preference for (...) the Timaeus does not depend on the fact that it is systematic. Rather it is systematic insofar as it proves capable of giving context to passages from other dialogues and provides them with an account that is philosophically sound. (shrink)

Various philosophers have recently defended norms of inquiry which forbid inquiry into questions which lack true answers. I argue that these norms are overly restrictive, and that they fail to capture an important relationship between inquiry and our position as non-ideal epistemic agents. I defend a more flexible and forgiving norm: Epistemic Improvement. According to this norm, inquiry into a question is permissible only if it’s not rational for one to be sure that by inquiring one won’t improve epistemically upon (...) the question. This norm illuminates the significant role that inquiry plays in our lives, given our epistemic nonideality, and it also motivates a robust understanding of the value of inquiry, as encompassing epistemic improvements which go beyond figuring out the answers to questions. (shrink)

Cultural code-switching concerns how we adjust our overall behaviours, manners of speaking, and appearance in response to a perceived change in our social environment. We defend the need to investigate cultural code-switching capacities in artificial intelligence systems. We explore a series of ethical and epistemic issues that arise when bringing cultural code-switching to bear on artificial intelligence. Building upon Dotson’s (2014) analysis of testimonial smothering, we discuss how emerging technologies in AI can give rise to epistemic oppression, and specifically, a (...) form of self-silencing that we call “cultural smothering.” By leaving the sociodynamic features of cultural code-switching unaddressed, AI systems risk negatively impacting already-marginalised social groups by widening opportunity gaps and further entrenching social inequalities. (shrink)

The relationship between the neurobiology of speech and music has been investigated for more than a century. There remains no widespread agreement regarding how (or to what extent) music perception utilizes the neural circuitry that is engaged in speech processing, particularly at the cortical level. Prominent models such as Patel’s Shared Syntactic Integration Resource Hypothesis (SSIRH) and Koelsch’s neurocognitive model of music perception suggest a high degree of overlap, particularly in the frontal lobe, but also perhaps more distinct representations in (...) the temporal lobe with hemispheric asymmetries. The present meta-analysis study used activation likelihood estimate analyses to identify the brain regions consistently activated for music as compared to speech across the functional neuroimaging (fMRI and PET) literature. Eighty music and 91 speech neuroimaging studies of healthy adult control subjects were analyzed. Peak activations reported in the music and speech studies were divided into four paradigm categories: passive listening, discrimination tasks, error/anomaly detection tasks and memory-related tasks. We then compared activation likelihood estimates within each category for music versus speech, and each music condition with passive listening. We found that listening to music and to speech preferentially activate distinct temporo-parietal bilateral cortical networks. We also found music and speech to have shared resources in the left pars opercularis but speech-specific resources in the left pars triangularis. The extent to which music recruited speech-activated frontal resources was modulated by task. While there are certainly limitations to meta-analysis techniques particularly regarding sensitivity, this work suggests that the extent of shared resources between speech and music may be task-dependent and highlights the need to consider how task effects may be affecting conclusions regarding the neurobiology of speech and music. (shrink)

A puzzle arises when combining two individually plausible, yet jointly incompatible, norms of inquiry. On the one hand, it seems that one shouldn’t inquire into a question while believing an answer to that question. But, on the other hand, it seems rational to inquire into a question while believing its answer, if one is seeking confirmation. Millson (2021), who has recently identified this puzzle, suggests a possible solution, though he notes that it comes with significant costs. I offer an alternative (...) solution, which doesn’t involve these costs. The best way to resolve the puzzle is to reject the prohibition on inquiring into a question while believing an answer to it. Resolving the puzzle in this way makes salient two fruitful areas in the epistemology of inquiry which merit further investigation. The first concerns the nature of the inquiring attitudes and the second concerns the aim(s) of inquiry. (shrink)

Nurses die by suicide at a higher rate than the general population. Previous studies have observed mental health problems, including substance use, as a prominent antecedent before death. The purpose of this study was to explore the characteristics of nurses who died by suicide documented in the death investigation narratives from the National Violent Death Reporting System from 2003 to 2017 using thematic analysis and natural language processing. One thousand three hundred and fifty‐eight subjects met these inclusion criteria. Narratives from (...) 601 subjects were thematically analyzed and 2544 individual narratives were analyzed using natural language processing. The analyses revealed five themes: “mental health treatment,” “poor general health and chronic pain,” “substance use,” “worsening mental health after bereavement,” and “repeating a family member's suicide.” Mental health/substance use, chronic illness, and chronic pain were seen to coexist in a complex, interdependent manner that appeared to be entangled in the nurses' narratives before death. These findings echo the need for reducing the stigmatization of mental health problems in nursing and removing barriers to help‐seeking behaviors as early preventative interventions. Future research is needed to determine if a comprehensive healthcare integration approach to address these entangled problems would reduce suicide vulnerability in nurses and improve their quality of life. (shrink)

Given the growing number of remote and hybrid working arrangements, this research investigates the process and outcomes of proactivity during remote work. We approach proactivity during remote working as a resource-building process and integrate self-leadership and job crafting literature. We propose that employees’ self-leadership allows them to regulate their resources optimally, enabling resource availability that can be used to arrange remote working demands and resources proactively. We collected three-wave data from remote workers and tested our hypotheses using multilevel analyses. Results (...) differed by level of analysis. Specifically, at the between level, comparing behaviors between participants, social expansion mediated the relationship between self-goal setting and task significance. In contrast, at the within level, social expansion mediated the relationship between self-goal setting and work engagement. Overall, these findings suggest that self-leadership allows higher availability of resources enabling the proactive initiation of social interactions, which, at the within level enhance work engagement, and at the between level improve task significance during remote work. We discuss these findings considering the implications for interventions to foster more positive remote-work experiences. (shrink)

Qu’est-ce que l’expérience artistique nous apprend de l’art? C’est la question à l’horizon de cette étude dont le but est de jeter les bases pour repenser la spécificité de cette expérience dans le contexte actuel. En effet, l’offre artistique contemporaine a bouleversé le rôle du spectateur, sa relation avec l’œuvre ainsi que l’idée d’art tout court. Qu’est-ce qu’une œuvre d’art aujourd’hui? Faut-il parler encore de spectateur? Peut-on concevoir l’expérience de l’art au-delà du conflit entre l’ancien idéal de contemplation et les (...) exigences performatives actuelles? Avec deux nouveaux outils conceptuels, cet article propose de frayer un chemin parmi quelques-uns des préjugés de la tradition philosophique afin de formuler les premières hypothèses pour repenser la théorie de l’art. (shrink)

The new scientific acquisitions are numerous and even more are their future promises. The debate on bio-technologies involves the fundamental rights of the individual and the advancements in research must merge with the supremacy of the human being on the interests both of the ‘science’ and of society at large. In the attempt to combine ‘democracy’ with techno-scientific issues, Law has turned from pure technical rules (meant to reflect, without any critique, some knowledge) into a tool meant to fill cognitive (...) gaps and its role is showing to be not only crucial, but also innovative for legal professionals themselves. (shrink)

Miguel de Cervantes, no último capítulo de sua obra O engenhoso fidalgo Dom Quixote de La Mancha, retrata o falecimento de seu protagonista, decorrente de uma profunda tristeza. O cavaleiro, depois de vencido, sente-se obrigado a retornar ao seu povoado e a renunciar à cavalaria andante, o que lhe causa a transformação de sua realidade e de seu estado mental - da loucura à cordura -, além do seu direcionamento à morte. Assim como faz Cervantes no início do século XVII, (...) Espinosa, ao final do mesmo século, também parece estabelecer analogias entre as ideias de transformação e morte, ao apontar, em sua Ética, a relação entre a natureza do ser e sua proporção de movimento e repouso, responsável pelas inconstâncias humanas. A partir de tais considerações, este trabalho pretende aproximar o último capítulo da obra Dom Quixote à proposição 39 da Quarta Parte da Ética espinosana, de forma a ressaltar as devidas semelhanças entre o conceito de morte como transformação, retratado tanto pelo escritor espanhol quanto pelo filósofo holandês, uma vez que a morte, para ambos, demonstra estar vinculada à mesma ideia. (shrink)

What are the most useful lenses to wear and from which positioning is most effective to speak today, in order to answer the need for a paradigm shift within the critical thinking concerning the culture of Capitalism? An increasing number of authors support an interdisciplinary approach carried out, not only in academic environments, by political ecology and ecofeminism, connecting the critique of capitalism with that of patriarchy, and re-establishing a relationship between theory and praxis, in which the latter produces knowledge (...) through embodied experience. The following article agrees with this hypothesis, but its aim is not so much to delineate the contours of what feminist political ecology is and what new conceptual categories it introduces, but to understand instead what is the dialectical necessity that produces this approach and what it distances itself from. To do so, I will use the process of resignifying the category of vulnerability in the contemporary feminist debate in the poststructuralist approach, as an antithetical example to the feminist political ecology lens and posture. The aim is to begin paving an autonomous path for this critical matter, beginning by delineating the antagonism toward poststructural feminism as one of the conflicts which produces it. (shrink)

Job motivation remains an area of concern among researchers due to the rising issues of poor or lack of motivation among workers. This refers to one’s personal will or drives to perform a task at work. Meanwhile, job satisfaction refers to an employee’s sense of fulfillment with his or her work experience. Therefore, the current study utilized the descriptive- correlational research design to investigate the impact of job motivation on the job satisfaction of accountants. To gather essential data and achieve (...) the objectives of the study, Multidimensional Work Motivational Scale (MWMS) and Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) were administered to the target respondents. The collected data were then analyzed using a Multiple Regression Analysis; findings revealed that job motivation has a significant impact on the job satisfaction of accountants. Additionally, the results of this study were carefully evaluated and discussed, and recommendations were made to benefit the stakeholders of the study and contribute to the existing body of knowledge. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore how the cosmic soul works and how it accomplishes its providential and demiurgic tasks in Chrysippus’ system. Drawing on (i) the analogy Chrysippus establishes between the individuum and the cosmos and (ii) biological and medical theories of respiration, digestion, and pulse, I will show that the movements of Chrysippus’ cosmic soul reproduce the processes of digestion, pulse, and respiration at a cosmic level. My claim is that Chrysippus, in addition to adopting Praxagoras’ (...) notion that inhaled air nourishes pneuma—well established in the scholarship—appropriated Aristotle’s complex mechanism of respiration and digestion based on the teleological role of cold air, crucial for preserving vital heat. So understood, Chrysippus’ application of biological notions to cosmology allows him to endow the active principle with effective causation throughout the cosmos. (shrink)

The article investigates the influence that the theological debates on divine grace have exercised on the evolution of Dante’s reflection on the relationship between nobility of the soul and natural predisposition, from the Vita nuova to the Commedia. If in his youthful work, commenting the sonnet Negli occhi porta la mia donna amore, Dante had attributed to Beatrice the ability to «induce Love in potentiality where he is not» (Vn. 12, 6) - an ability that Augustine’s doctrine of grace had (...) reserved to God -, in Le dolci rime d’amor and, above all, in the IV book of the Convivio, Dante affirms, with Guinizelli, the essential correlation between a «gentle heart» and love, that is to say the necessity of a natural predisposition for the purpose of possessing nobility, i. e. the divine «grace» (Cv. IV XX 7). Finally, in the Commedia, the poet returns to freeing God’s gift from any preventive natural disposition, as demonstrated not only by the repeated references to the twins Jacob and Esau, destined to opposite fates by virtue of the «grace» with which God «at his own pleasure endows each creature differently» (Pd. XXXII, vv. 65-6), but also by the XXX canto of Purgatorio, where Dante no longer appears uncertain whether to attribute his genius to a «good star» or to «a better thing» (If. XXVI, vv. 21-24), but clearly affirms its dependence on the «largess of celestial graces» (v. 112). (shrink)

Predictive genetic testing for susceptibility to psychiatric conditions is likely to become part of standard practice. Because the onset of most psychiatric diseases is in late adolescence or early adulthood, testing minors could lead to early identification that may prevent or delay the development of these disorders. However, due to their complex aetiology, psychiatric genetic testing does not provide the immediate medical benefits that current guidelines require for testing minors. While several authors have argued non-medical benefits may play a crucial (...) role in favour of predictive testing for other conditions, little research has explored such a role in psychiatric disorders. This paper outlines the potential non-medical benefits and harms of psychiatric genetic testing in minors in order to consider whether the non-medical benefits could ever make such testing appropriate. Five non-medical themes arise in the literature: psychological impacts, autonomy/self-determination, implications of the biomedical approach, use of financial and intellectual resources, and discrimination. Non-medical benefits were prominent in all of them, suggesting that psychiatric genetic testing in minors may be appropriate in some circumstances. Further research needs to empirically assess these potential non-medical benefits, incorporate minors in the debate, and include normative reflection to evaluate the very purposes and motivations of psychiatric genetic testing in minors. (shrink)

The notion of exploratory modeling constitutes a powerful heuristic tool for historical-epistemological analysis and especially for studying concept formation. I will show this by means of a case study from the history of particle physics: the formation of the concept of “strangeness” in the early 1950s at the interface of theory and experiment. Strangeness emerged from a broad space of possibilities opened up by exploratory modeling by authors working in communication and competition, and constructing both new questions and new answers. (...) A systematic focus on exploratory modeling also helps compensate a bias towards the “right” developments still often present in historical investigations of theoretical work. (shrink)

Lee and Schwarz suggest that separation is the grounded procedure underlying cleansing effects in different psychological domains. Here, we interpret L&S's account from a hierarchical view of cognition that considers the influence of physical properties and sensorimotor constraints on mental representations. This approach allows theoretical integration and generalization of L&S's account to the domain of formal quantitative reasoning.

The article [Title], written by [AuthorNames], was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal on [date of OnlineFirst publication] without open access.

The production, manipulation and exploitation of future visions are increasingly important elements in practices of visioneering socio-technical processes of innovation and transformation. This becomes obvious in new and emerging science and technologies and large-scale transformations of established socio-technical systems. A variety of science and technology studies provide evidence on correlations between expectations and anticipatory practices with the dynamics of such processes of change. Technology assessment responded to the challenges posed by the influence of visions on the processes by elaborating methodologies (...) for a “vision assessment” as a contribution to what is now increasingly known as “hermeneutical TA”. But until now, the practical functions of visions in the processes have not been explained in a way that satisfies the empirical needs of TA’s vision assessment—that is to provide future-oriented knowledge based on the analysis of ongoing changes in the present without knowing the future outcomes. Our leading hypothesis is that we can only understand the practical roles of visions in current processes if we analyse them as socio-epistemic practices which simultaneously produce new knowledge and enable new social arrangements. We elaborate this by means of two cases: the visions of In Vitro meat and of the smart grid. Here, we interpret visioneering more in its collective dimension as a contingent and open-ended process, emerging from heterogeneous socio-epistemic practices. This paper aims at improving TA’s vision assessments and related STS research on visionary practices for real-time analysis and assessments. (shrink)

What is the epistemic significance of higher-order evidence? Recently, philosophers have defended zetetic approaches to higher-order evidence, which appeal to factors related to inquiry. According to such views, in response to higher order evidence, one should open inquiry and deliberate on the question further. While it can often be productive to inquire in response to higher-order evidence, whether one should inquire is settled on primarily practical—not purely epistemic—grounds. I defend various cases where one can rationally respond to higher-order evidence without (...) engaging in zetetic activity of any kind. Zetetic responses to higher-order evidence are thus bound to be incomplete. Reflection on these cases suggests a deeper lesson: epistemic norms never require us to engage in inquiry or to perform any action whatsoever. Zetetic proposals give rise to an overly demanding and implausible picture of normative epistemology, according to which epistemic norms are in the business of helping us to settle the answers to our questions. However, epistemic norms do not—and importantly should not—be expected to fulfill this role. (shrink)

No evidence of “new physics” was found so far by LHC experiments, and this situation has led some voices in the physics community to call for the abandonment of the “naturalness” criterion, while other scientists have felt the need to break a lance in its defense by claiming that, at least in some sense, it has already led to successes and therefore should not be dismissed too quickly, but rather only reflected or reshaped to fit new needs. In our paper (...) we will argue that present pro-or-contra naturalness debates miss the fundamental point that naturalness, despite contrary claims, is essentially a very hazily defined, in a sense even mythical notion which, in the course of more than four decades, has been steadily, and often not coherently, shaped by its interplay with different branches of model-building in high-energy physics and cosmology on the one side, and new incoming experimental results on the other. In our paper we will endeavor to clear up some of the physical and philosophical haze by taking a closer look back at (real or alleged) origin of naturalness in the 1970s and 1980s, with particular attention to the early work of Kenneth Wilson. In doing this, we aim to bring to light how naturalness belongs to a long tradition of present and past physical and philosophical criteria for effectively guiding theoretical reflection and experimental practice in fundamental research. (shrink)

Animals and TechnoscienceThe essays in the section “Animals in technoscientific developments” have been collected from the submissions to the 3rd European Conference of Critical Animal Studies that I organized in Karlsruhe on 28–30 November 2013. The aim of the conference was to stimulate critical scholars to engage on the multifaceted relationships between animals and technosciences, an under-researched topic.Technoscience has become an important concept in the current debate on the epistemic and normative changes taking place in how scientific and technological research (...) is currently being conducted. Although there are different modes of describing technoscience , generally speaking the term refers to a means of developing knowledge in which it is not possible to separate the scientific from the technological . In contrast to the “traditional mode o .. (shrink)

Recent pragmatic accounts of slurs argue that the offensiveness of slurs is generated by a speaker's free choice to use a slur opposed to a more appropriate and semantically equivalent neutral counterpart. I argue that the theoretical role of neutral counterparts on such views is overstated. I consider two recent pragmatic analyses, Bolinger (Noûs, 51, 2017, 439) and Nunberg (New work on speech acts, Oxford University Press, 2018), which rely heavily upon the optionality of slurs, namely, that a speaker exercises (...) a deliberate lexical choice to use a slur when they could have easily used a neutral counterpart instead. Against such views, I argue that across a range of different offensive uses of slurs, a speaker's choice to use a slur opposed to a neutral counterpart plays little to no role in accounting for why the slur generates offence. Such cases cast serious doubt upon the explanatory depth of these pragmatic analyses, and raise more general concerns for views which draw upon the relationship between a slur and its neutral counterpart. The main upshot is this: theorists should exercise caution in assuming that neutral counterparts play any fundamental or systemic role in explaining why slurs are offensive. (shrink)

The History of Ideas is presently enjoying a certain renaissance after a long period of disrepute. Increasing quantities of digitally available historical texts and the availability of computational tools for the exploration of such masses of sources, it is suggested, can be of invaluable help to historians of ideas. The question is: how exactly? In this paper, we argue that a computational history of ideas is possible if the following two conditions are satisfied: (i) Sound Method . A computational history (...) of ideas must be built upon a sound theoretical foundation for its methodology, and the only such foundation is given by the use of models , i.e., fully explicit and revisable interpretive frameworks or networks of concepts developed by the historians of ideas themselves. (ii) Data Organisation. Interpretive models in our sense must be seen as topic-specific knowledge organisation systems (KOS) implementable (i.e. formalisable) as e.g. computer science ontologies. We thus require historians of ideas to provide explicitly structured semantic framing of domain knowledge before investigating texts computationally, and to constantly re-input findings from the interpretive point of view. In this way, a computational history of ideas maximally profits from computer methods while also keeping humanities experts in the loop. We elucidate our proposal with reference to a model of the notion of axiomatic science in 18th -19th century Europe. (shrink)

Much has been written about the need for trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI), but the underlying meaning of trust and trustworthiness can vary or be used in confusing ways. It is not always clear whether individuals are speaking of a technology’s trustworthiness, a developer’s trustworthiness, or simply of gaining the trust of users by any means. In sociotechnical circles, trustworthiness is often used as a proxy for ‘the good’, illustrating the moral heights to which technologies and developers ought to aspire, at (...) times with a multitude of diverse requirements; or at other times, no specification at all. In philosophical circles, there is doubt that the concept of trust should be applied at all to technologies rather than their human creators. Nevertheless, people continue to intuitively reason about trust in technologies in their everyday language. This qualitative study employed an empirical ethics methodology to address how developers and users define and construct requirements for trust throughout development and use, through a series of interviews. We found that different accounts of trust (rational, affective, credentialist, norms based, relational) served as the basis for individual granting of trust in technologies and operators. Ultimately, the most significant requirement for user trust and assessment of trustworthiness was the accountability of AI developers for the outputs of AI systems, hinging on the identification of accountable moral agents and perceived value alignment between the user and developer’s interests. (shrink)

How can we best reconstruct the origin of a notion, its development, and possible spread to multiple fields? We present a pilot study on the spread of the notion of conceptual scheme. Though the notion is philosophically important, its origin, development, and spread are unclear. Several purely qualitative and competing historical hypotheses have been offered, which rely on disconnected disciplinary traditions, and have never been tested all at once in a single comprehensive investigation fitting the scope of its subject matter. (...) As a step toward such an investigation, we trace the use of the bigram “conceptual scheme” in about 42,000 US journal articles in social sciences from 1888-1959 by using a novel method combining a quantitative procedure aided by basic computational techniques with qualitative elements informed by Betti and van den Berg (2014)’s ‘model approach to the history of ideas’. (shrink)