The possibility of artificial intelligence is usually discussed by philosophers as a problem about artificial thought: can an artificial system think? The production of intelligence in an artificial system would, however, give rise to an intelligent artificial being: an artificial thinker. As such, there is another, less explored way of discussing the possibility of artificial intelligence: can there be an artificial thinker? This is the problem of artificial thinkers (Olson 2018). In this essay, I discuss this problem. To do so, (...) first, I present the problem of artificial thinkers and discuss how best to interpret it (section §1). Then, I discuss the three main views on the metaphysical nature of artificial thinkers: the hardware view, according to which artificial thinkers are intelligent artificial systems; the software view, according to which artificial thinkers are types or copies of programs for artificial intelligence; and finally, the CPU perspective, according to which artificial thinkers are intelligent spatial parts of artificial systems (section §2). All of these views have problems regarding their conception of the persistence conditions of artificial thinkers. Even so, I conclude, artificial thinkers are best conceived as functional artificial systems. (shrink)

Parfois déconsidérée, au cours du XXe siècle, parce que pensée comme la simple écume de processus historiques et sociaux plus profonds, la notion d'événement semble avoir, depuis, bénéficié d'un évident retour en grâce au sein des sciences humaines et sociales - en histoire et en philosophie au premier chef, mais aussi en sociologie, en anthropologie, en linguistique ou en psychanalyse. La référence à l'événement, très utilisée aujourd'hui, donne cependant lieu à des investissements multiples, suppose différentes manières d'articuler le temps et (...) l'histoire, met en jeu des conceptions non équivalentes de la subjectivité, et sous-tend des compréhensions de la rationalité très diverses. Mobilisant tour à tour les analyses de Fernand Braudel et de Reinhart Koselleck, de Jacques Rancière et de Michel Foucault, d'Henri Bergson et de Gilles Deleuze, de Walter Benjamin et d'Hannah Arendt, de Sigmund Freud et de Claude Lévi-Strauss, les essais qui composent ce volume explorent la cartographie complexe et variée des questionnements que la notion contribue à faire émerger et à nourrir."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

L’étude scientifique du comportement animal s’est en partie développée en réaction à des excès « anthropomorphiques», où l’observateur projetait chez l’animal une forme de psychologie populaire. En conséquence, le langage théorique des représentations mentales a été largement proscrit de l’éthologie pendant une bonne partie du xxe siècle. Même si la méthodologie du behaviorisme – centrée sur l’observation et la mesure du comportement – constitue toujours la règle, l’avènement de la révolution cognitive, les études de terrain de longue durée sur des (...) populations animales dans leurs conditions naturelles, ainsi qu’un intérêt accru pour la cognition physique et sociale, ont replacé le cadre théorique des représentations mentales au premier plan. L’intérêt porté aux représentations mentales vient en partie de la capacité qu’ont certaines espèces à catégoriser, réaliser des inférences ou prendre des décisions flexibles qui vont au-delà du simple flux perceptif. Enfin, l’étude du rôle causal des modèles mentaux chez les animaux a été largement enrichie par des considérations écologiques et évolutives sur l’espèce animale en question. (shrink)

Se plantea la cuestión de los lazos entre la teoría ética y las ciencias empíricas del comportamiento. En particular a modo de estudios de caso se pasa revista a la relevancia de ciertos descubrimientos sobre el comportamiento en la formulación de teorías sobre la virtud, el carácter o la voluntad. Desde ahí se pretende esbozar un procedimiento general de cambio progresivo y parcial de términos teóricos, descriptivos y normativos, de la teoría ética por nuevos términos apoyados en el aumento de (...) nuestro conocimiento. (shrink)

Anhand des phänomenologischen Begriffs der Auffassung soll die Beziehung von Freudscher Psychoanalyse und Husserlscher Phänomenologie näher bestimmt werden. Dabei wird von einer methodologischen Fragestellung ausgegangen, die sich allerdings notwendig auch zu einer inhaltlich bestimmten Perspektive weiten muss. Die These ist, dass die Phänomenologie sich in der Auseinandersetzung mit dem grundverschiedenen Ansatz der Psychoanalyse selbst genauer verstehen lernt, und zwar vor allem in ihrem Anspruch auf Wissenschaftlichkeit, in ihrer Forderung nach anschaulicher Ausweisung von philosophischer Wahrheit und in der Problematisierung des Subjektbegriffs.

This volume presents new research on the use of experimental methodologies in moral and social philosophy. The contributions reflect the growing plurality of methodologies and strategies for implementing experimental work on morality to new domains, problems, and topics. Philosophers are exploring the ways in which empirical approaches can transform our idea of the good, our understanding of the social nature of norms and morality, as well as our methods of fulfilling ethical goals. The chapters in this volume extend experimental work (...) on morality to previously underexplored areas. The contributions in Part 1 explore the methods and foundations of experimental work in areas such as folk moral judgments, metaethical beliefs, moral explanations, and reflective equilibrium. Part 2 focuses on issues in normative ethics, legal, and political philosophy such as virtue ethics, utilitarianism, theories of justice, and criminal responsibility. Finally, the chapters in Part 3 tackle various applied ethical issues including feminist X-Phi, animal welfare, experimental bioethics, and self-driving cars. Experiments in Moral and Political Philosophy will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in ethics, applied ethics, experimental philosophy, social and political philosophy, and philosophy of law. (shrink)

Die Fragestellungen der Metaphysik, so scheint es, sind nicht mehr zeitgemäß. Der Begriff erinnert an abgehobene Systeme ohne jeden Realitätssinn. Dabei gibt es kein Denken ohne Metaphysik. Unter Bezugnahme auf die Traditionen der Phänomenologie und der französischen Philosophie versteht Robert Hugo Ziegler Endlichkeit als eine positive Auszeichnung, während der Begriff der Zeitlichkeit die erste Dimension von Sein beschreibt. Sein grundlegender Beitrag zur Reflexion über Mensch und Welt zeigt, wie sich die Philosophie selbstbewusst einer Erneuerung der Metaphysik stellen kann.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

El presente libro es el resultado de un esfuerzo por desarrollar algunas ideas acerca de la manera como se debe estructurar un conocimiento útil para la definición de políticas. Por ello no se le puede considerar, en sentido estricto, como un libro teórico, aunque tampoco como un manual, en la acepción tradicional del término, es decir, como un instructivo que, de respetarse, permitirá alcanzar un objetivo predeterminado. Es éste un texto que busca estimular una forma específica de pensar la realidad, (...) forma que debe contribuir al enriquecimiento de las bases que hacen posible definir las alternativas de acción. Se destina a quienes estudian el proceso del desarrollo para poder influir sobre su contenido y direccionalidad, aunque sin dejar de lado los problemas relativos a la construcción de aquel conocimiento que debe servir de apoyo a una acción organizada. (shrink)

The peculiar situation of epistemology has often been remarked upon, meaning that sort of epistemology which issued from English empiricism and whose father is taken to be John Locke. Epistemology in the general sense has existed as long as there has been scientific philosophy, and in truth it has always formed the basis and core of all scientific philosophizing.

An ancient Greek proverb declares: ‘beautiful things are difficult’. One obvious difficulty arises from their almost limitless variety: sights, sounds, people, natural phenomena, man-made objects and abstract ideas may all bebeautiful, but what do these things have in common? It is not just beauty's breadth of application, then, that makes it difficult, but the way in which its meaning varies depending on context. The beauty of a child may mean something quite different from the beauty of an old and wizened (...) face, let alone the beauty of a supermodel. In common parlance,beautifulmay be used as a general term of approbation alongside others likelovelyorfine, while in academic discourse, the wordbeautyhas a life of its own: since the emergence of aesthetics as an independent discipline in the mid eighteenth century, beauty has been constantly theorized and responded to in different ways that have laden the term with its own peculiar historical baggage. And although some of these philosophical reflections on beauty may have trickled into the common cultural consciousness, in general they seem a far cry from beauty's most ubiquitous incarnation in modern Western society, in the cosmetics industry; to put it another way, if you go into a beauty salon in search of a Kantian ideal of disinterested contemplation, I suspect you will be disappointed. (shrink)

Esse artigo se propõe a examinar o sentido da história da filosofia política na teoria de Leo Strauss. Pretendo sugerir que, apesar da sua crítica ao historicismo, Strauss apresenta uma teoria da interpretação dos textos filosóficos consistente.

En el presente trabajo pretendo mostrar que el pensamiento de Carl Schmitt tiene un carácter marcadamente filosófico. Más precisamente: que en la base de él se halla una teoría de la comprensión. Esa teoría de la comprensión tiene la particularidad de que se desarrolla a partir de una teoría de la comprensión jurídica, pero se extiende, en su obra, a la comprensión en general.

(1997). Introduction: “Poohness”; or, of Universals, paradigms, and literature. The European Legacy: Vol. 2, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas, pp. 199-205.

We are witnessing a return of the real which philosophy seems illequipped to handle. I argue (1) that this return of the real must be read as a rejection of those philosophical tendencies which were prevalent in the past decades and which I call philosophies of mediation: They supplanted all references to something real by the sole reference to those processes in which reality was supposed to be given or shaped (in interpretations, linguistic structures, historical or social conditions, media…). The (...) current urgency of the question of the real indicates that those philosophies have lost credibility. On the other hand (2), the contemporary attempts to resuscitate philosophical realism cannot be considered satisfactory either. It is curiously the real itself they fail to fully appreciate. All in all (3), the return of the real has to be interpreted as the effect of an event that has little to do with philosophy, namely the return of politics. (shrink)

How do philosophical discourse and poetic expression relate? The divergent modes of expression of ‘logical thinking’ and ‘thinking through the senses’, i.e. of philosophy and verbal art, are explored by means of philosophical texts and poems on seven topics, viz. the aesthetic experience, language, being, time, identity, knowledge and love. This examination leads the author to conclude that there are ‘family resemblances’ between philosophical discourse and poetic language, rather than clear-cut distinctions. Yet, the poetic expression is marked by its form, (...) its fictitious character and the symbolic treatment of language. The main contrasts between poetry and philosophy and between their respective idioms prove to be the use of the ‘logic of imagination’ versus the ‘logic of the intellect’; of inductive versus deductive thinking and of the presence of the first personal pronoun, the ‘lyrical I’, versus the anonymous third personal pronoun. (shrink)

La condena popular pesa sobre los abogados que, conscientes de la culpabilidad de su cliente, argumentan en favor de su inocencia, cuestionando la validez y la fuerza de la evidencia en su contra. El propósito de este trabajo es ofrecer una nueva réplica al argumento que sirve de base para esta condena. La refutación que es ofrecida en el trabajo está fundada en la concepción prospectiva de obligación.

Un aspecto poco estudiado del argumento de Michael Sandel en contra del carácter neutral de la justicia como equidad, es el modo en que funda sus conclusiones en el entendimiento que tiene de otros tres aspectos de la concepción rawlsiana de justicia: su carácter deontológico, el equilibrio reflexivo, y la posición original. Nuestro objetivo es mostrar que Sandel no ha cometido cuatro errores independientes, sino que poseer un entendimiento equivocado del carácter deontológico de la teoría lo ha llevado a caracterizar (...) mal en qué consiste el equilibrio reflexivo y esto -finalmente- lo ha conducido a una errónea interpretación de lo que se encuentra modelado en la posición original y -en última instancia- a sostener la falta de neutralidad de la concepción de justicia. Concentrarnos en este asunto nos permitirá apreciar cómo se articulan y complementan las distintas réplicas que Brian Barry, Samuel Freeman y el mismo John Rawls han dirigido contra Sandel. One aspect of Michael Sandel´s argument against the neutral character of justice as fairness on which little research has been done is the way in which he founds his conclusions on the basis of the understanding he has about three other aspects of the Rawlsian conception of justice: its deontological character, the reflective equilibrium and the original position. It is my aim to prove that Sandel has not made four independent mistakes but, on the contrary, to have a wrong understanding of the deontological character of the theory has driven him to a wrong characterization of what the reflective equilibrium consists of and this, in turn, has taken him to a wrong interpretation of what is modelled in the original position and, at large, to hold the idea that justice as fairness lacks neutrality. Focusing on this issue will allow us to appreciate how the different responses made by Brian Barry, Samuel Freeman and John Rawls himself against Sandel are articulated and complement one another. (shrink)

Die Entstehung der Kantischen Asthetik ist ein unveranderter, hochwertiger Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1890. Hansebooks ist Herausgeber von Literatur zu unterschiedlichen Themengebieten wie Forschung und Wissenschaft, Reisen und Expeditionen, Kochen und Ernahrung, Medizin und weiteren Genres. Der Schwerpunkt des Verlages liegt auf dem Erhalt historischer Literatur. Viele Werke historischer Schriftsteller und Wissenschaftler sind heute nur noch als Antiquitaten erhaltlich. Hansebooks verlegt diese Bucher neu und tragt damit zum Erhalt selten gewordener Literatur und historischem Wissen auch fur die Zukunft (...) bei. (shrink)

Accounts of moral reasoning have tended either to ignore the differences in what men count as good reasons for their moral judgments, or, in emphasizing these differences, to imply that anything whatsoever can count as a moral reason. This book shows that both of these positions rest on a mistaken assumption, and by rejecting this assumption brings out important features of moral discourse. Although moral disagreement is seen to be far more radical than empirical disagreement, a framework of agreement is (...) shown to be a precondition of moral discourse, and even of the possibility of individual moral decision. (shrink)