Biases in cognition are ubiquitous. Social psychologists suggested biases and stereotypes serve a multifarious set of cognitive goals, while at the same time stressing their potential harmfulness. Recently, biases and stereotypes became the purview of heated debates in the machine learning community too. Researchers and developers are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that some biases, like gender and race biases, are entrenched in the algorithms some AI applications rely upon. Here, taking into account several existing approaches that address the (...) problem of implicit biases and stereotypes, we propose that a strategy to cope with this phenomenon is to unmask those found in AI systems by understanding their cognitive dimension, rather than simply trying to correct algorithms. To this extent, we present a discussion bridging together findings from cognitive science and insights from machine learning that can be integrated in a state-of-the-art semantic network. Remarkably, this resource can be of assistance to scholars (e.g., cognitive and computer scientists) while at the same time contributing to refine AI regulations affecting social life. We show how only through a thorough understanding of the cognitive processes leading to biases, and through an interdisciplinary effort, we can make the best of AI technology. (shrink)

dolce, the first top-level (foundational) ontology to be axiomatized, has remained stable for twenty years and today is broadly used in a variety of domains. dolce is inspired by cognitive and linguistic considerations and aims to model a commonsense view of reality, like the one human beings exploit in everyday life in areas as diverse as socio-technical systems, manufacturing, financial transactions and cultural heritage. dolce clearly lists the ontological choices it is based upon, relies on philosophical principles, is richly formalized, (...) and is built according to well-established ontological methodologies, e.g. OntoClean. Because of these features, it has inspired most of the existing top-level ontologies and has been used to develop or improve standards and public domain resources (e.g. CIDOC CRM, DBpedia and WordNet). Being a foundational ontology, dolce is not directly concerned with domain knowledge. Its purpose is to provide the general categories and relations needed to give a coherent view of reality, to integrate domain knowledge, and to mediate across domains. In these 20 years dolce has shown that applied ontologies can be stable and that interoperability across reference and domain ontologies is a reality. This paper briefly introduces the ontology and shows how to use it on a few modeling cases. (shrink)

Computational machineries dedicated to the attribution of legal responsibility should be based on (or, make use of) a stack of definitions relating the notion of legal responsibility to a number of suitably chosen causal notions. This paper presents a general analysis of legal responsibility and of causation in fact based on Hart and Honoré’s work. Some physical aspects of causation in fact are then treated within the “lite” version of DOLCE foundational ontology written in OWL-DL, a standard description logic for (...) the Semantic Web. (shrink)

This position paper presents an introduction to the special issue of Applied Ontology on “Beautiful Ontologies”. It discusses the relevance of considering the notion of beauty when building and eva...

The research presented in this article is motivated by the increasing importance of complex human relations in linked data, either extracted from social networks, or found in existing databases. The FOAF vocabulary, targeted in our research, plays a central role in those data, and is a model for lightweight ontologies largely used in linked data, such as the DBpedia ontology and schema-org. We provide an overview of FOAF and other approaches for describing human relations, followed by a detailed analysis and (...) critique of the FOAF Relationship Vocabulary, the most important FOAF extension. We propose an explicit formal axiomatization of this vocabulary, and an ontological analysis concerning the properties used to describe human relationships. We analyze the distribution of human relations based on their epistemological status, and define an ontoepistemic meta-property as characteristic of some of these predicates. Our analysis is generalizable to semantic modeling of social networks. Additionally, the modeling patterns used in other relevant linked data vocabularies are analyzed for comparison. (shrink)

Clinical guidelines are special types of plans realized by collective agents. We provide an ontological theory of such plans that is designed to support the construction of a framework in which guideline-based information systems can be employed in the management of workflow in health care organizations. The framework we propose allows us to represent in formal terms how clinical guidelines are realized through the actions of are realized through the actions of individuals organized into teams. We provide various levels of (...) implementation representing different levels of conformity on the part of health care organizations. Implementations built in conformity with our framework are marked by two dimensions of flexibility that are designed to make them more likely to be accepted by health care professionals than standard guideline-based management systems. They do justice to the fact 1) that responsibilities within a health care organization are widely shared, and 2) that health care professionals may on different occasions be non-compliant with guidelines for a variety of well justified reasons. The advantage of the framework lies in its built-in flexibility, its sensitivity to clinical context, and its ability to use inference tools based on a robust ontology. One disadvantage lies in its complicated implementation. (shrink)

The paper presents the outlines of an ontology of plans and guidelines, which is then used as the basis for a framework for implementing guideline-based systems for the management of workflow in health care organizations. The framework has a number of special features, above all in that it enables us to represent in formal terms assignments of work-items both to individuals and to teams and to tailor guideline to specific contexts of application in health care organizations. It is designed also (...) to enable implementations to do justice to the fact that the processes carried out in health care organizations may deviate in different ways from the norms set forth in corresponding guideline definitions. This means that implementations built in conformity with the framework will be marked by a type of flexibility that might make them more likely to be accepted by healthcare professionals than are standard guideline-based management systems. (shrink)

The paper presents the outlines of an ontology of plans and guidelines, which is then used as the basis for a framework for implementing guideline-based systems for the management of workflow in health care organizations. The framework has a number of special features, above all in that it enables us to represent in formal terms assignments of work-items both to individuals and to teams and to tailor guideline to specific contexts of application in health care organizations. It is designed also (...) to enable implementations to do justice to the fact that the processes carried out in health care organizations may deviate in different ways from the norms set forth in corresponding guideline definitions. This means that implementations built in conformity with the framework will be marked by a type of flexibility that might make them more likely to be accepted by healthcare professionals than are standard guideline-based management systems. (shrink)

Gathers the pre-Sand Country Almanac writings of Aldo Leopold, showing that he was not born an ecologist, but evolved over time through experimentation and thought.

Recent research shows that in reasoning tasks, subjects usually produce an initial intuitive answer, accompanied by a metacognitive experience, which has been called feeling of rightness. This paper is aimed at exploring the complimentary experience of feeling of error, that is, the spontaneous, subtle sensation of cognitive uneasiness arising from conflict detection during thinking. We investigate FOE in two studies with the “bat-and-ball” reasoning task, in its standard and isomorphic control versions. Study 1 is a generation study, in which participants (...) are asked to generate their own response. Study 2 is an evaluation study, in which participants are asked to choose between two conflicting answers. In each study, the FOE is measured by the FOE questionnaire. Results show that the FOE is significantly present in the standard B&B task when participants give a wrong answer, that our questionnaire can measure it, and furthermore, that it is diagnostic of genuine error. (shrink)

English summary: Aldo Giorgio Gargani innovates in his use of Wittgensteinian concepts to argue that the formation of scientific and philosophical knowledge is not a linear progression, but a collection of instruments or conceptual and behavioral models, decisional procedures that are born of the different forms of human life as extensions of their anthropological contexts. Through this book Gargani demonstrates how Wittgensteins thinking can be used a truly efficient toolbox. French description: Aldo Giorgio Gargani (1933-2009) fait dans ce (...) livre un usage novateur des concepts wittgensteiniens pour soutenir que la formation du savoir scientifique et philosophique n'est pas une progression lineaire, cumulative et definitive de techniques cognitives: le savoir est plutot un recueil d'instruments, d'habitus conceptuels, de modeles comportementaux, de conduites operationnelles et de procedures decisionnelles qui naissent des formes de vie des hommes, en tant qu'extensions de leurs contextes anthropologiques. Si l'expression savoir sans fondements est maintenant tres repandue dans les sciences humaines, c'est Gargani qui a magistralement elabore toutes les consequences de cette idee, et son livre est l'analyse la plus riche de ces rituels epistemologiques qui decoulent de notre agir humain, lui-meme depourvu de fondements. A travers ce livre on voit comment la pensee de Wittgenstein peut etre utilisee comme une boite a outils veritablement efficace. (shrink)

El término nuestroamericano —utilizado por Horacio Cerutti— tiene sus fundamentos en el concepto "Nuestra América". Este hilo conductor de pensamiento tiene como hecho ineludible el hacerse cargo de la realidad en que se vive y del lugar en donde se está, hecho expresado en un permanente interés en la identidad cultural y nacional, como también por una lectura crítica y explicativa del desarrollo de las ideas. En el caso de Chile, a nuestro juicio, la memoria filosófica nuestroamericana ha tendido a (...) ser borrada, olvidada, siendo obnubilada por un fuerte eurocentrismo, lo que ha dado como resultado un escaso número de filósofos preocupados por "lo latinoamericano". Así, este trabajo indaga sobre los orígenes de la vertiente latinoamericanista en la filosofía chilena en la segunda mitad del siglo XX. A modo de conclusión, proponemos que no es sino hasta los años ochenta cuando, desde el Círculo de Filosofía de la Academia de Humanismo Cristiano, se genera un punto de inflexión con la tradición filosófica chilena, dando origen de forma más nítida a la vertiente nuestroamericana que, antes de esto, solo habría tenido pequeñas huellas dispersas. (shrink)

Measurement is a process aimed at acquiring and codifying information about properties of empirical entities. In this paper we provide an interpretation of such a process comparing it with what is nowadays considered the standard measurement theory, i.e., representational theory of measurement. It is maintained here that this theory has its own merits but it is incomplete and too abstract, its main weakness being the scant attention reserved to the empirical side of measurement, i.e., to measurement systems and to the (...) ways in which the interactions of such systems with the entities under measurement provide a structure to an empirical domain. In particular it is claimed that (1) it is on the ground of the interaction with a measurement system that a partition can be induced on the domain of entities under measurement and that relations among such entities can be established, and that (2) it is the usage of measurement systems that guarantees a degree of objectivity and intersubjectivity to measurement results. As modeled in this paper, measurement systems link the abstract theory of measuring, as developed in representational terms, and the practice of measuring, as coded in standard documents such as the International Vocabulary of Metrology. (shrink)

This article demonstrates the value of French philosophy of science for medical practice through an exposition of Michel Serres’s philosophy of the body. It explores how Serres’s examination of the similarity between scientific models and works of art can provide insight into different conceptions of the human body. What makes Serres’s method of unique is that it does not see art and literature as subordinate to the natural sciences: they are both involved in mapping the communication lines of the body. (...) Since early modernity, we can roughly speak of three successive communication models of the body: mechanical, thermodynamic and informational. This article finally discusses the relationship between those different conceptions and explains how they help to articulate different aspects of the body, health, and medical ethics. (shrink)

In modern studies it has been largely denied that the so-called “secret doctrine” (which would be more correct to call “private teaching”) of the Theaetetus can be traced back to Protagoras. However, reasons why this doctrine can not be his own, have never been explained. At the same time, an appropriate justification of the hypothesis that it would be considered a pure Platonic creation has never been offered, nor was explained why it would be attributed to followers of Protagoras, but (...) not to Protagoras himself. This article examines the Platonic text in an analytical way, shows how Plato repeatedly attributes to the sophist of Abdera the content of this doctrine, and, based on fragments of Protagoras and other doctrines related to him by ancient sources, it is evident that nothing in Protagorean concepts comes into conflict with Theaetetus so-called “secret doctrine”, and how actually is completely coherent with it. (shrink)

INTRODUZIONE 2 1. POVERA E NUDA VAI, FILOSOFIA… 19 1.1 TRA SCIAMANI E CALCOLATORI 20 1.2 AUTOCASTRAZIONI E DINTORNI 25 1.2.1 Debes, ergo potes 26 1.2.1.1 Scienze della natura e scienze dello spirito 27 1.2.1.2 Orizzonti di responsabilità 32 1.2.1.3 Ritrovare la saggezza 36 1.2.2 Potes, ergo debes 37 1.2.2.1 Disintegrando la frammentazione 40 1.2.2.2 Disarticolando lo smembramento 51 1.2.2.3 Oltrepassando l’autosuperamento 58 1.3 IL (MIO) PUNTO DI VISTA 62 2. GLOBALIZZAZIONE E UNIVERSALISMO 70 2.1 PENSARE LA GLOBALIZZAZIONE 73 2.1.1 (...) Una civiltà universale? 73 2.1.1.1 Quale cultura? 74 2.1.1.2 Singolare e plurale 78 2.1.2 Scontro delle civiltà? 85 2.2 CERCANDO UN’ETICA GLOBALE 89 2.2.1 Il minimalismo morale 92 2.2.1.1 Un confronto con il liberalismo neo-contrattualista 96 2.2.1.2 La quercia, la ghianda e la foresta 100 2.2.2 L’etica mondiale 102 2.3 RIFLESSIONI CRITICHE 107 3. RELATIVISMO 112 3.1 LE RAGIONI DEL RELATIVISMO 114 3.1.1 Ragioni della politica 116 3.1.1.1 Multiculturalismo e neutralità etica 116 3.1.1.2 Antifondazionalismo e democrazia 121 3.1.2 Ragioni dell’antropologia 125 3.1.3 Ragioni dell’ermeneutica 130 3.1.4 Ragioni dell’epistemologia 135 3.1.5 Ragioni dell’etica 143 3.1.5.1 Nel regno della necessità 145 3.1.5.2 In regime di cieca obbedienza 146 3.1.5.3 Il piacere e l’interesse 151 3.1.5.4 Intuizioni, emozioni, prescrizioni 153 3.1.5.5 Accordo, consenso e permesso 159 3.1.5.6 Etica della ragione 166 3.2 LA RAGIONE PRATICA 170 3.2.1 Oltre l’ansia cartesiana 171 3.2.2 Autenticità e ragionamento 176 3.2.3 Ragioni della diversità e ragioni del riconoscimento 181 4. FIGURE DI RAZIONALITÀ PRATICA 185 4.1 UTILITARISMO 186 4.1.1 Cosa è «migliore»? 187 4.1.1.1 Piacere, felicità, bene 188 4.1.1.2 L’atto e la regola 191 4.1.2 Conta solo il risultato? 194 4.2 CONTESTUALISMO 197 4.2.1 Recupero della phrónesis 198 4.2.2 Recupero della prâxis 204 4.2.3 Recupero dell’éthos 208 4.3 ETICA DEL DISCORSO 217 4.3.1 Dalle pretese di validità del discorso al principio di un’etica universale 218 4.3.2 Universalità e formalismo 224 4.3.3 Limiti dell’etica del discorso 226 4.4 ETICA DELLA RELAZIONE 231 4.4.1 Relazione versus rappresentazione 232 4.4.2 L’umanità dell’altro uomo 236 4.5 UN BILANCIO 241 ALCUNE PROSPETTIVE. POSTILLA 245 . (shrink)

Leopold first discusses the conservation of natural resources in the southwestern United States in economic tenns, stressing, in particular, erosion and aridity. He then concludes his analysis with a discussion of the moral issues involved, developing his general position within the context of P. D. Ouspenky’s early philosophy of organism.

This is a title on the foundations of defeasible logic, which explores the formal properties of everyday reasoning patterns whereby people jump to conclusions, reserving the right to retract them in the light of further information. Although technical in nature the book contains sections that outline basic issues by means of intuitive and simple examples. This book is primarily targeted at philosophers interested in the foundations of defeasible logic, logicians, and specialists in artificial intelligence and theoretical computer science.

If the laws of nature are as the Humean believes, it is an unexplained cosmic coincidence that the actual Humean mosaic is as extremely regular as it is. This is a strong and well-known objection to the Humean account of laws. Yet, as reasonable as this objection may seem, it is nowadays sometimes dismissed. The reason: its unjustified implicit assignment of equiprobability to each possible Humean mosaic; that is, its assumption of the principle of indifference, which has been attacked on (...) many grounds ever since it was first proposed. In place of equiprobability, recent formal models represent the doxastic state of total ignorance as suspension of judgment. In this paper I revisit the cosmic coincidence objection to Humean laws by assessing which doxastic state we should endorse. By focusing on specific features of our scenario I conclude that suspending judgment results in an unnecessarily weak doxastic state. First, I point out that recent literature in epistemology has provided independent justifications of the principle of indifference. Second, given that the argument is framed within a Humean metaphysics, it turns out that we are warranted to appeal to these justifications and assign a uniform and additive credence distribution among Humean mosaics. This leads us to conclude that, contrary to widespread opinion, we should not dismiss the cosmic coincidence objection to the Humean account of laws. (shrink)

The Choquet expected utility model deals with nonadditive probabilities (or capacities). Their dependence on the information the decision-maker has about the possibility of the events is taken into account. Two kinds of information are examined: interval information (for instance, the percentage of white balls in an urn is between 60% and 100%) and comparative information (for instance, the information that there are more white balls than black ones). Some implications are shown with regard to the core of the capacity and (...) to two additive measures which can be derived from capacities: the Shapley value and the nucleolus. Interval information bounds prove to be satisfied by all probabilities in the core, but they are not necessarily satisfied by the nucleolus (when the core is empty) and the Shapley value. We must introduce the constrained nucleolus in order for these bounds to be satisfied, while the Shapley value does not seem to be adjustable. On the contrary, comparative information inequalities prove to be not necessarily satisfied by all probabilities in the core and we must introduce the constrained core in order for these inequalities be satisfied. However, both the nucleolus and the Shapley value satisfy the comparative information inequalities, and the Shapley value does it more strictly than the nucleolus. (shrink)

The IKt-algebras were introduced in the paper An algebraic axiomatization of the Ewald’s intuitionistic tense logic by the first and third author. In this paper, our main interest is to investigate the principal and Boolean congruences on IKt-algebras. In order to do this we take into account a topological duality for these algebras obtained in Figallo et al. :673–701, 2017). Furthermore, we characterize Boolean and principal IKt-congruences and we show that Boolean IKt-congruence are principal IKt-congruences. Also, bearing in mind the (...) above results, we obtain that Boolean IKt-congruences are commutative, regular and uniform. Finally, we characterize the principal IKt-congruences in the case that the IKt-algebra is linear and complete whose prime filters are complete and also the case that it is linear and finite. This allowed us to establish that the intersection of two principal IKt-congruences on these algebras is a principal one and also to determine necessary and sufficient conditions so that a principal IKt-congruence is a Boolean one on theses algebras. (shrink)

This article reconstructs the work of John Moles, eminent classicist with a wide range of interests, as a historian of ancient philosophy. The article focuses on Moles’ studies of Dio Chrysostom, Cynicism, and Aristotle’s Poetics. In particular, the article presents Moles’ ever original interpretations, based on an exceptional knowledge of the ancient sources and modern scholarship. The article highlights the fundamental characteristics of Moles’ approach to the history of ancient philosophy, which is grounded in a firm historical basis and in (...) detailed, acute, and always rigorously demonstrative analyses of texts. Moles’ contribution to the history of ancient philosophy is marked by strong ethical motivations and a commitment to trace in classical texts not just mere data, but rather values and ideas to be preserved and reflected upon. (shrink)

Anhand historischer und quellenkritischer Untersuchungen analysiert das Buch entscheidende Momente des Verhältnisses von Kunst und Wissenschaft in Nietzsches Werk. Zum Leitmotiv der vorgeschlagenen Interpretation wird die Idee einer "Tragödie der Erkenntnis" als Vervollständigung der ästhetischen Tragödie. Aldo Venturelli beleuchtet damit auch Aspekte von Nietzsches besonderer Stellung im philosophischen Diskurs der Moderne.