Interpretation in science has gained little attention in the past because philosophers of science believed that interpretation belongs to the context of discovery or must be associated with meaning. But scientists often speak about interpretation when they report their findings. Elsewhere I have argue in favour of a pragmatic-rhetorical theory of explanation, and it is in light of this theory that I suggest we can understand interpretation in the natural sciences.

Non-invasive brain stimulation promises innovative experimental possibilities for psychology and neurosci- ence as well as new therapeutic and palliative measures in medicine. Because of its good risk–benefit ratio, non-invasiveness and reversibility as well as its low effort and cost it has good chances of becoming a wide- spread tool in science, medicine and even in lay use. While most issues in medical and research ethics such as informed consent, safety, and potential for misuse can be handled with manageable effort, the (...) real promise of brain stimulation does raise one prominent moral worry: it may lay the foundation of reliable, precise and stable manipulations of the mind. This article addresses this worry and concludes that it is not the possibility of manipulation, but the shift in our understanding of our mind which stands in need of careful consideration. (shrink)

The essays both represent a variety of epistemological approaches, including those of the humanities, social studies, natural science, sociology, psychology, and engineering sciences and reflect a diversity of philosophical traditions such ...

In recent years the idea that perceptual content is tensed in the sense that we can perceive objects as present or as past has come under attack. In this paper the notion of tensed content is to the contrary defended. The paper argues that assuming that something like an intentionalistic theory of perception is correct, it is very reasonable to suppose that perceptual content is tensed, and that a denial of this notion requires a denial of some intuitively very plausible (...) principles. The paper discusses some common objections against the notion of tensed content and concludes that none of them succeeds in showing that perceptual content cannot be tensed. (shrink)

L’inquiétude de la totalité de la vie, qui s’éveille chez certains esprits, les amène à créer des représentations canoniques, types de vie stylisée et unifiée. Les philosophes sont des créateurs de « canons » de vie philosophique ; mais on peut se demander s’il est possible de dresser un tableau idéal du philosophe qui pourrait lui servir en même temps de norme et de critère. Non, car la vie philosophique est un mouvement, un « acte imparfait » dont la fin (...) nous échappe ; nous la poursuivons par des voies profondément personnelles ; c’est pourquoi on ne saurait « canoniser » un philosophe. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is the perception of properties. It is argued that the perception of properties allows for a distinction between the sense of the identity and the sense of the qualitative nature of a property. So, for example, we might perceive a property as being identical over time even though it is presented as more and more determinate. Thus, you might see an object first as red and then as crimson red. In this case, the property is (...) perceived as identical over time, even though the sense of the qualitative nature (the redness, the crimson redness) of the property is changing. The distinction between the sense of identity and the sense of quality is explicated in terms of perceiving a particular property, a trope, and perceiving it as an instance of a universal. It is subsequently argued that the perceived tropes cannot constitute the phenomenal character of the perceptual experience. (shrink)

In recent years, it has become clear that Proclus has an elaborate metaphysics, not only of the higher realm, but also of the natural world. This chapter first delimits its topic by explaining what physics or philosophy of nature is in Proclus’ view: the hypothetical study of all causes, but especially the transcendent causes of the natural world. After briefly addressing the question whether the world is eternal, the author moves on to presenting these causes in due order: first the (...) many demiurges and other productive causes, the different products of the different demiurgies, the plurality of paradigmatic causes, nature as the proximate cause of bodies, and finally the ontology of bodies, as hylomorphic entities, analysable into immanent forms and different levels of substrate or matter. (shrink)

This paper presents the ethical nihilism that looms in the condition of sex in the posthuman. It takes over from the backdrop of Hauskeller’s description of the singularity as having a “glorious sex life.” While such a condition is heavily leaning towards hedonistic ethics, the paper critiques that it merely masks nihilistic ethics. The pleasurable picture of ‘happy rapists’ and ‘masturbatory sex’ in posthumanity with sexual affluence faces a disturbing nothingness that caters to the extreme possibility of being sexless. Following (...) from Žižek’s exposition of Houellebecq’s novel The Elementary Particles, which runs counter to Houellebecq’s later novel The Possibility of an Island, the posthuman poses paradoxes that point to a nihilistic ethical domain. Later, the paper presents two paradoxes: First, the paradox of hedonism or happiness, and second, the paradox of wealth or nothingness. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 58 Heft: 4 Seiten: 453-472.

We connect learning algorithms and algorithms automating proof search in propositional proof systems: for every sufficiently strong, well-behaved propositional proof system [Formula: see text], we prove that the following statements are equivalent, (1) Provable learning. [Formula: see text] proves efficiently that p-size circuits are learnable by subexponential-size circuits over the uniform distribution with membership queries. (2) Provable automatability. [Formula: see text] proves efficiently that [Formula: see text] is automatable by non-uniform circuits on propositional formulas expressing p-size circuit lower bounds. Here, (...) [Formula: see text] is sufficiently strong and well-behaved if I.–III. hold: I. [Formula: see text] p-simulates Jeřábek’s system [Formula: see text] (which strengthens the Extended Frege system [Formula: see text] by a surjective weak pigeonhole principle); II. [Formula: see text] satisfies some basic properties of standard proof systems which p-simulate [Formula: see text]; III. [Formula: see text] proves efficiently for some Boolean function [Formula: see text] that [Formula: see text] is hard on average for circuits of subexponential size. For example, if III. holds for [Formula: see text], then Items 1 and 2 are equivalent for [Formula: see text]. We use the following modified notion of automatability in Item 2, the automating circuits output a [Formula: see text]-proof of a given formula (expressing a p-size circuit lower bound for a function [Formula: see text]) in non-uniform p-time in the length of a shortest [Formula: see text]-proof of a closely related but different formula (expressing an average-case subexponential-size circuit lower bound for the same function [Formula: see text]). If there is a function [Formula: see text] which is hard on average for circuits of size [Formula: see text], for each sufficiently big [Formula: see text], then there is an explicit propositional proof system [Formula: see text] satisfying properties I.-III., i.e. the equivalence of Items 1 and 2 holds for [Formula: see text]. (shrink)

Ancien etudiant de Brentano et de Zimmerman, Kazimierz Twardowski, apres son election a la chaire de philosophie a Lvov en 1895, crea autour de lui un cercle d'etudiants et de collaborateurs exceptionnel, connu aujourd'hui sous le nom d'Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. A mi-chemin entre Vienne et Cambridge, c'est a Lvov, et puis partiellement a Varsovie, que Jan Lukasiewicz, Stanislaw Lesniewski, Alfred Tarski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Tadeusz Kotarbinski et bien d'autres encore, repenserent dans un esprit d'analyse les questions fondamentales de la philosophie du (...) langage, de la logique, de la philosophie des sciences et des mathematiques. Plus qu'une simple traduction, ce livre est une version revisee de la monographie desormais classique que Jan Wolenski, connu pour ses travaux non seulement en histoire de la philosophie analytique, mais aussi en epistemologie et en theorie de la verite, a consacree a l'Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. (shrink)

Kann man Jonas als Technikphilosophen lesen? Obgleich Jonas’ Praktische Philosophie, insbesondere sein Spätwerk Das Prinzip Verantwortung und die sich anschließenden Schriften auf der Diagnose eines ›technologischen Zeitalters‹ und eines durch die Technikentwicklung induzierten Epochenbruchs der Menschheitsentwicklung basiert, bleibt sein Technikverständnis doch merkwürdig implizit. Eine systematisch entwickelte Technikphilosophie hat Jonas nicht vorgelegt.

Mathematical models are an important tool in the development ofsoftware technology, including programming languages and algorithms.During the last few years, a new class of such models has beendeveloped based on the notion of a mathematical game that isespecially well-suited to address the interactions between thecomponents of a system. This paper gives an introduction to thesegame-semantical models of programming languages, concentrating onmotivating the basic intuitions and putting them into context.

The sacred and the revolution Leszek Kołakowski and othersThe author examines the relationship between the sphere of the sacred and the phenomenon of the revolution. He points to the distinctiveness of Leszek Kołakowski’s position as compared to the views articulated by other representatives of the so-called Warsaw school of the history of ideas. He claims that Kołakowski’s philosophical programme, which takes into account the sacred and mythical dimension of the socio-political diagnoses, can help us to understand the Russian Revolution of (...) 1917 as well as other revolutionary movements and processes of the 20th century. He demonstrates that the sacred is an inherent aspect of the revolutionary mentality. Also, he argues that the ideologies which turned against religion in the name of the struggle with religious superstitions, in the end became quasi-religious. As a matter of fact, the revolutionary utopia may be perceived as a kind of crypto-religion involving such elements of the mythical thinking as a belief in the cognition of history, an assumption that the latter may be started anew, a belief in the possibility of the secular eschatology, etc. (shrink)

Masarykovy a Brentanovy snahy o překonání Humova skepticismu prostřednictvím počtu pravděpodobnosti lze chápat jako svého druhu "třetí cestu" mezi kantovským apriorismem a kapitulací před subtilními Humovými argumenty. U Masaryka je ono snažení součástí jeho projektu nové induktivní logiky, která (v návaznosti na Leibnize) by měla být logickým základem pro "umění vynalézat" (ars inveniendi). Masaryk akceptuje Humovu koncepci analytických soudů, ale zároveň inklinuje i ke koncepci Adolfa Ficka, v souladu s níž mají věty počtu pravděpodobnosti charakter syntetických soudů a priori; kromě (...) toho odkazuje pozoruhodným způsobem k Bernoulliho zákonu velkých čísel. Masarykovy úvahy vedou k závěru, že zákon velkých čísel zaručuje shodu mezi apriorními tvrzeními počtu pravděpodobnosti a empirickou skutečností, což podle Masaryka vyvrací "tresť" Humova skepticismu, spočívající v tvrzení, že rozum a zkušenost se vylučují. Vzhledem k tomu, že hlavním objektem Humovy kritiky byl pojem kauzality, je však nutno konstatovat, že Masarykovo snažení bylo neúspěšné, neboť žádná aplikace počtu pravděpodobnosti, jenž se zabývá náhodnými jevy, nemůže vést k založení kauzálního zákona (pokud tento zákon zahrnuje také tezi uniformity kauzální determinace). (shrink)