According to widely accepted views in metasemantics, the outputs of chatbots and other artificial text generators should be meaningless. They aren’t produced with communicative intentions and the systems producing them are not following linguistic conventions. Nevertheless, chatbots have assumed roles in customer service and healthcare, they are spreading information and disinformation and, in some cases, it may be more rational to trust the outputs of bots than those of our fellow human beings. To account for the epistemic role of chatbots (...) in our society, we need to reconcile these observations. This paper argues that our engagement with chatbots should be understood as a form of prop-oriented make-believe; the outputs of chatbots are literally meaningless but fictionally meaningful. With the make-believe approach, we can understand how chatbots can provide us with knowledge of the world through quasi-testimony while preserving our metasemantic theories. This account also helps to connect the study of chatbots with the epistemology of scientific instruments. (shrink)

This paper describes a theory that explains both the creativity and the efficiency of people's conceptual combination. In the constraint theory, conceptual combination is controlled by three constraints of diagnosticity, plausibility, and informativeness. The constraints derive from the pragmatics of communication as applied to compound phrases. The creativity of combination arises because the constraints can be satisfied in many different ways. The constraint theory yields an algorithmic model of the efficiency of combination. The C3 model admits the full creativity of (...) combination and yet efficiently settles on the best interpretation for a given phrase. The constraint theory explains many empirical regularities in conceptual combination, and makes various empirically verified predictions. In computer simulations of compound phrase interpretation, the C3 model has produced results in general agreement with people's responses to the same phrases. (shrink)

For billions of people, the internet has become a second home. It is where we meet friends and strangers, where we organise and learn, debate, deceive, and do business. In some respects, it is like the town square it was once claimed to be, while in others, it provides a strange new mode of interaction whose influence on us we are yet to understand. This collection of papers aims to give a short indication of some of the exciting philosophical work (...) being carried out at the moment that addresses the novel aspects of online communication. The topics range from the expressive functions of emoji to the oppressive powers of search engines. (shrink)

We describe a computational model of two central aspects of people's probabilistic reasoning: descriptive probability estimation and inferential probability judgment. This model assumes that people's reasoning follows standard frequentist probability theory, but it is subject to random noise. This random noise has a regressive effect in descriptive probability estimation, moving probability estimates away from normative probabilities and toward the center of the probability scale. This random noise has an anti-regressive effect in inferential judgement, however. These regressive and anti-regressive effects explain (...) various reliable and systematic biases seen in people's descriptive probability estimation and inferential probability judgment. This model predicts that these contrary effects will tend to cancel out in tasks that involve both descriptive estimation and inferential judgement, leading to unbiased responses in those tasks. We test this model by applying it to one such task, described by Gallistel et al. ). Participants' median responses in this task were unbiased, agreeing with normative probability theory over the full range of responses. Our model captures the pattern of unbiased responses in this task, while simultaneously explaining systematic biases away from normatively correct probabilities seen in other tasks. (shrink)

The traditional Turing test appeals to an interrogator's judgement to determine whether or not their interlocutor is an intelligent agent. This paper argues that this kind of asymmetric experimental set-up is inappropriate for tracking a property such as intelligence because intelligence is grounded in part by symmetric relations of recognition between agents. In place, it proposes a reciprocal test which takes into account the judgments of both interrogators and competitors to determine if an agent is intelligent. This form of social (...) interaction better tracks both the evolution of natural intelligence and how the concept of intelligence is actually used within our society. This new test is defended against the criticisms that a proof of intelligence requires a demonstration of self-consciousness and that semantic externalism entails that a non-embodied Turing test is inadequate. (shrink)

A familiar argument goes as follows: natural languages have infinitely many sentences, finite representation of infinite sets requires recursion; therefore any adequate account of linguistic competence will require some kind of recursive device. The first part of this paper argues that this argument is not convincing. The second part argues that it was not the original reason recursive devices were introduced into generative linguistics. The real basis for the use of recursive devices stems from a deeper philosophical concern; a grammar (...) that functions merely as a metalanguage would not be explanatorily adequate as it would merely push the problem of explaining linguistic competence back to another level. The paper traces this concern from Zellig Harris and Chomsky’s early work in generative linguistics and presents some implications. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper is concerned with the ontological status of linguistic types. According to a widely held view, linguistic types are abstract objects that are instantiated or represented by tokens. The same types might be tokened by both speech, signing and text. This view has implications for how we consider what it is to know a language since knowledge of language is typically taken to be knowledge of linguistic types. We argue below that linguistic types are not abstract objects but (...) action-types and that these action-types are individuated by the capacities that they manifest. The picture that results from this view is that to know a language is to have the capacities required to perform these action-types. (shrink)

Leech et al. make two proposals: that relational priming is central to analogy, and that relations between objects are best represented as transformations of those objects. Although their account of analogy as relational priming is a useful contribution to our understanding of analogical development, in this commentary I show that relations in general cannot be represented by transformations.

This article outlines the following concepts: beauty in a philosophical sense: why we respect persons, creation, the environment, even animals that externally present as ugly, noting their magnificent structure, their survival apparatus; why we are asked to look for integrity beyond the external and seek and value internal beauty in others and in the creation, leading to the theological question: what role does beauty play that so delights us in beautiful persons, beautiful creatures, and objects in forming our moral life?

Through a series of conversations, Fintan McCutcheon and Joanna Haynes explore McCutcheon's reflections on school leadership in the contexts of the Educate Together movement (in the Republic of Ireland) and, specifically, in his aspiration to build an optimally democratic school in Balbriggan. Much of the academic and professional literature on school leadership depicts the role of school leaders as expressing a strong vision for the school, with charismatic communication and strategic skills, and putting explicit emphasis on high educational standards. (...) On the ground, the school leader is required to maintain executive governance standards, is accountable to a range of hierarchies and audiences and is in a custodian role to traditions of school culture and human resource relationships. Taken together, these academic, professional and contractual obligations can corral the school leader into practice of limited scope, obstructed by protocol, risk-averse and curtailed in creativity and, in relation to developing a democratic school, lacking in the necessary room for innovation. The conversation focuses on the rough ground of incident and messiness, identified through critical moments of school life when the aspirations to be democratic, to lead democratically, to teach democracy and to create a sustaining democratic school culture are lived-out. Through this dialogue, the conversants observe a practice of school leadership grounded in practical reason. The dialogue touches on and threads congruence between the on-the-ground risk-taking, rule-breaking, action orientation, nuanced dialogue, passionate engagement and deep reflection that characterise day-to-day school leadership practice. It concludes with ideas concerning the dynamics of forms of democracy that can prevail. (shrink)

Cancer treatment decisions should be based on all available evidence. But this evidence is complex and varied: it includes not only the patient’s symptoms and expert knowledge of the relevant causal processes, but also clinical databases relating to past patients, databases of observations made at the molecular level, and evidence encapsulated in scientific papers and medical informatics systems. Objective Bayesian nets offer a principled path to knowledge integration, and we show in this chapter how they can be applied to integrate (...) various kinds of evidence in the cancer domain. This is important from the systems biology perspective, which needs to integrate data that concern different levels of analysis, and is also important from the point of view of medical informatics. (shrink)

Beitrage von Ludwig Nagl, Richard Heinrich, Arthur C. Danto, Barry Stroud, Peter F. Strawson, Herbert Hrachovec, Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Hubert L. Dreyfus und Stuar E. Dreyfus, Kurt R. Fischer und Franz M. Wimmer.

Seit 2014 erscheinen die Bände der renommierten Wiener Reihe bei De Gruyter. Das äußere Layout der Bände wurde modernisiert, inhaltlich und personell jedoch ist das Profil der seit mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten erscheinenden Buchreihe von Kontinuität geprägt. Die Bände sind jeweils einer aktuellen philosophischen Fragestellung gewidmet. Eine internationale Autorenschaft und die Veröffentlichung fremdsprachiger Beiträge sind Elemente des Programms. Die Reihe will dazu beitragen, dogmatische Abgrenzungen zwischen philosophischen Schulen und Traditionen abzubauen.

Untersucht wird die Konstellation von ‚öffentlicher Vernunft' und ‚Hintergrundkultur‘ in zeitgenössischen Theorien des liberalen Verfassungsstaats. Gegenüber der These, dass zwischen den ‚umfassenden Doktrinen‘ moralischen und religiösen Zuschnitts unauflösliche Differenzen bestehen, wird – im Rückgriff auf Kant und Hegel – geltend gemacht, dass es auch in genuin moralischen Fragen einen verbindlichen öffentlichen Vernunftgebrauch geben kann und soll, und dass Religion sich nicht als das ‚intransparente Andere der Vernunft‘ darstellt, sondern einer denkenden Aneignung zugänglich ist.

Nagle, Cormac M The advent of the social sciences, psychology and sociology, and their development over the past eighty years or so have made us much more aware of the integrated nature of the human person. Today we are less likely to speak about souls and bodies as separate entities or to be dualistic in our thinking. Nevertheless, the influence of the Stoics in their teaching on natural law and its ethical implications, based on what is natural physically, and (...) later the attempt by Descartes to extend his mechanical approach to science to include human beings (he explicitly describes the body as a machine in his work, Description of the Human Body, (La description du corps humain) is an unfinished treatise, (1647) still seem to infect our thinking in the area of moral teaching and practice. (shrink)

Nagle, Cormac The goal of this essay is to seek a better understanding of the freedom of the children of God that Jesus Christ lived, taught and bequeathed to the world. To pursue this we consider briefly the meaning of independence as distinct from childish dependence and libertarianism. The essay goes on to present an overview of the teaching of the New Testament on law and freedom. Since there have been different understandings of the nature of authority in the (...) church and especially the practical exercise of authority, we examine its history and tradition. This helps us to avoid being impaled exclusively on one or other approach, whether legalist or relativist or one burdened by a particular culture or historical circumstance. (shrink)

Nagle, Cormac Life, health and income insurance are very important in peoples' lives. For this reason, insurance companies should not use genetic testing to restrict access to these goods.

Nagle, Cormac The supporters of euthanasia regularly air through the media their arguments for the right to have the freedom to take one's life. The emphasis on personal freedom despite present laws struck me as I read Phillip Nitschke's description of his homemade suicide pill and self-injecting apparatus. The goal, in this situation, is to give people the freedom to end their own life with the assistance of others. I want to look at the end of life period from (...) the other quite factual perspective, namely, that since we are not free not to die, what freedoms do we retain in these circumstances? (shrink)

Nagle, Cormac M Global warming has made us much more aware of the need to respect the physical laws of nature and make responsible decisions. This article examines the nature and role of the concept of natural law in guiding us to choose morally and wisely in face of the responsibilities and especially the conflicting values encountered in daily living.

The method of linguistic palaeontology has a controversial status within archaeology. According to its defenders, it promises the ability to see into the social and material cultures of prehistoric societies and uncover facts about peoples beyond the reach of archaeology. Its critics see it as essentially flawed and unscientific. Using a particular case-study, the Indo-European homeland problem, this paper attempts to discern the kinds of inference which proponents of linguistic palaeontology make and whether they can be warranted. I conclude that, (...) while the case for linguistic palaeontology has often been overstated, so has the case against it. (shrink)

Theodicy: God or evil?: Irenaeus -- Augustine -- Thomas Aquinas -- John Hick -- Alvin Plantinga -- God and evil: Friedrich Nietzsche -- Richard Dawkins -- Divine hiddenness -- Rudolf Otto -- The Kabbalah -- Karl Barth -- Karl Rahner -- Empirical science -- A cultural, historical and literary survey: Does the devil exist? A persistent belief -- Stepping stones to Europe -- Demonology in medieval literary culture -- The Reformation: Two magisterial reformers: Martin Luther -- John Calvin -- De-sacralisation (...) -- The Catholic reform: Three outstanding reformers and conflict with the devil: Saint Ignatius Loyola -- Saint Teresa of Avila -- Saint John of the Cross -- The devil in the era of modernity: Poetry and literature in a new age -- Twentieth-century chronicles of evil -- Exorcism: A historical and theological analysis: Exorcism: The historical context -- Towards a theological assessment of exorcism -- Appendix: Towards a psychological analysis of possession and exorcism. (shrink)

Generative linguistics is widely claimed to produce theories at the level of computation in the sense outlined by David Marr. Marr even used generative grammar as an example of a computational level theory. At this level, a theory specifi es a function for mapping one kind of information into another. How this function is computed is then specified at the algorithmic level before an account of how this is algorithm is realised by some physical system is presented at the implementation (...) level. This paper will argue that generative linguistics does not fit anywhere within this framework. We will then look at several ways researchers have attempted to modify either the framework of generative theory to reconcile the two approaches. Finally, it presents and discusses an alternative position, anti-realism about generative grammar. While this position has attracted some recent support, it also runs into some of the problems that earlier modifications faced. (shrink)

Volume 12, Issue 1, January 2012, Page 56-60.

As recent social research demonstrates, the life world is increasingly impacted by a corrosion of social bonds and aggressive habits expressed, for instance, in hate speech in the social media. Significantly, such phenomena have not been prevented from evolving within the framework of constitutional liberal states. In search of an appropriate mode of challenging the current social pathologies, we should examine Kant’s claim that, alongside the “juridico-civil (political) state”, an “ethico-civil state”, uniting human beings “under laws of virtue alone”, needs (...) to be established and cultivated. Kant’s claim is discussed in comparison with “postmetaphysical” conceptions of morality, as maintained by Rawls and Habermas. These prove deficient owing to their contract-based approach. Important in the examination of the key idea of the “state of virtue” is Kant’s thesis that such a state “cannot be realized (by human organization) except in the form of a church”. In view of the fact that, today, in many parts of the world significant segments of the population adhere to agnostic or atheistic convictions, the focus is placed on Kant’s specific conception of “church” that is clearly distinct from “historical” creeds and religious practices, and on the way in which he addresses non-believers, since he insists on the intrinsic relation between morality and the “purely moral religion”. Based on these reflections, the relevance of Kant’s argument that it is “a duty of the entire human race” to establish a community in which people mutually support one another in the cultivation of moral sensitivity is scrutinised. (shrink)

Are computers on the way to acquiring “superintelligence”? Can human deliberation and decision-making be fully simulated by the mechanical execution of AI programmes? On close examination these expectations turn out not to be well-founded, since algorithms do, ultimately, have “heteronomous” characteristics. So-called AI-“autonomy” is a sensor-directed performance automatism, which — compared with the potential for ethical judgment in human “practical reason” — proves to be limited in significant ways. This is shown in some detail with reference to the idea of (...) a “digital humanism”, which was introduced by Julian Nida-Rümelin and Nathalie Weidenfeld, who argue that algorithms are useful “tools”, but emphasise — thus rejecting excessive “post-humanist” ideas about AI — that there exists a crucial difference between human action and its AI-simulation. While Nida-Rümelin/Weidenfeld´s “digital humanism” is, on the one hand, inspired by Kant’s conception of human autonomous self-determination, the concept of “structural rationality” that they advocate is, on the other hand, quite problematic. “Digital humanism”, however, can be improved as I argue — with reference to Barbara Herman’s analysis of “moral judgment” and to Allen Wood’s reflections on “human dignity”. (shrink)