Concurrent analysis (CA) is a process of synthesizing conceptually equivalent data for the purpose of producing a coherent and predictive model in social science. The process of CA is detailed. In short, CA uses Thagard's concept of coherence as a method of explicating links between mental representations. The product is a wide analysis of all pertinent data. This paper provides a philosophical justification for the need and function of CA. The paper is divided into three sections. The first section reviews (...) some problems with the metasynthetic literature. The purpose of this is that CA can be initially understood as a branch of this type of synthesis. The second section links Risjord's post‐paradigmatic position to Rorty's version of pragmatism in order to show the importance of the concept of coherence to these views. The reason for linking these issues is that CA is grounded in rejection of ontological priority. Instead it prioritises a pragmatic conception of coherence. The final section details the mechanics of CA. Concurrent analysis is presented as the most coherent method of synthesizing certain types of narrative evidence if pragmatism is prioritized over ontology. Examples are given from published studies using CA to illustrate the detail of the analysis and the practical value of the product. The examples show that CA appears useful under certain circumstances. These circumstances will be specified, and strengths and weaknesses of the method will be discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Rembrandt BookProfessor Emeritus John Adkins RichardsonThe Rembrandt Book by Gary Schwartz. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2006, 384 pp. $40.95, cloth.This truly is the Rembrandt book. Substantial in every way, it is physically imposing, magnificently printed on heavy, glossy stock and profusely illustrated with splendid color reproductions of all the master’s major works and many sketches and preparatory drawings, as well as etchings and dry-point engravings. (...) Gary Schwartz, who studied art history at New York University and Johns Hopkins University, is now living in the Netherlands. The merits of his book are enormous. Not only is it filled with magnificent reproductions, there are tables and graphs detailing such things as the number of Rembrandt paintings in catalogues from 1836 to 1992; analyses of the artist’s borrowings and adaptations in five-year periods; key dates in the life of the man; Rembrandt’s relation to the forms of sale for paintings in the Dutch seventeenth century; and so on. There is even a computer rendering of the famous depiction of Captain Banning Cocq’s Company of Guards at the Gates of Amsterdam (popularly called The Night Watch), specifying the weapons shown and identifying all present, either by name and title or by a description, such as “girl in gold and blue,” “pikeman,” “musketeer,” etc.A sampling of the chapter headings and subcategories suggests just how comprehensive is Schwartz’s treatment: 1. Introduction, 2. A Dutch Artist’s Life, 3. Family, Loved Ones, Households, 4. Craft, 5. Earning and Spending, 6. Patrons, 7. Landscape, 8. Humankind, 9. Man and God. Just the specifics of the last chapter are remarkably capacious: Holy Family; Christ’s Ministry; Passion, Death and Afterlife; Divine Intervention; Holy People; Moral Examples from the Old Testament; The Man of God, Simeon; Afterlife; and Rembrandt as a Christian Rhetorician of the Brush. It’s hard to imagine a better reference for the lay reader than The Rembrandt Book.The book is also full of interesting contrasts of opinion as well as some surprising remarks. As for one of the latter, Schwartz writes that Rembrandt’s “portraits are said to be more ‘psychological’ than those of his contemporaries. What this might mean I frankly do not understand” (213). He goes on to note that the field of psychology did not exist in Rembrandt’s time. However, from long before its invention people spoke of Rembrandt’s ability to reveal the soul of the sitter. Indeed, the reason I was not surprised, although somewhat distressed, when the Rembrandt Research Project—a group of connoisseurs set up in 1969 with the explicit charge of authenticating all works ascribed to the master—announced in 1985 that The Man with a Golden Helmet in Berlin was not by the master at all, was that I had all along been troubled by this face that lacked the quality of animation in repose so [End Page 115] characteristic of Rembrandt portraits. Schwartz thinks the artist would have to have relied upon the ancient theory of the humors to do “characterological descriptions” of his sitters, and that in portraiture, “such characterizations would quickly resemble caricatures.” And, indeed, they do, but in profoundly subtle ways, much as someone like the popular illustrator Norman Rockwell employed tiny caricature-like distortions to project a kind of homely Americanism. I’m not comparing Rockwell to Rembrandt but choosing a realistic illustrator in whose work the trick is more apparent. Caricature can be as broad as it is in Jacques Callot, William Hogarth, or Honoré Daumier and yet be a feature of true art. Or so it seems to me, admittedly, a sometimes cartoonist as well as painter and engraver.Schwartz’s completeness of coverage leads him to include, in addition to superb drawings and prints, some that are so careless and hasty as to make one doubt their authenticity. One of the works of marginal quality is an etching of Six’s Bridge, which is said to have been created outdoors, hastily, on the site. This is a hotly debated issue. Rembrandt is known to have carried “varnished”—that is, grounded—copper etching plates, so there wouldn’t seem much reason to... (shrink)

This article responds to William Scheuerman’s analysis of Edward Snowden as someone whose acts fit within John Rawls’ account of civil disobedience understood as a public, non-violent, conscientious breach of law performed with overall fidelity to law and a willingness to accept punishment. It rejects the narrow Rawlsian notion in favour of a broader notion of civil disobedience understood as a constrained, conscientious and communicative breach of law that demonstrates opposition to law or policy and a desire for (...) lasting change. The article shows that, according to Rawls’ unduly narrow conception, Edward Snowden is not a civil disobedient. But, according to the more plausible, broader conception, he is. It then identifies some advantages of the broader conception in contemporary analyses of new forms of disobedience, including globalized disobedience and digital disobedience. (shrink)

Research in engineering ethics has assessed the ethical reasoning of students in mostly the US. However, it is not clear that ethical judgments are primarily the result of ethical reasoning, or that conclusions based on US samples would be true of global populations. China now graduates and employs more STEM (science technology engineering and mathematics) majors than any other country in the world, but the moral cognition and ethics education of Chinese engineers remains understudied. To address this gap, a study (...) was conducted examining the relations between ethical reasoning, moral intuitions, and ethics education among engineering students in China. Engineering students at a university in Shanghai, China completed measures of ethical reasoning and moral intuitions before and after a course on global engineering ethics. Among engineering students in China, (1) ethical reasoning is positively related to an emphasis on care and fairness and (2) global ethics education results in significantly higher levels of ethical reasoning, as well as a greater concern with fairness and loyalty. Whereas the relation between ethical reasoning and moral intuitions among engineering students in China is similar to that of students in the US, ethics education affects engineering students in China differently from their US counterparts. (shrink)

In this highly original work, Teed Rockwell rejects both dualism and the mind-brain identity theory. He proposes instead that mental phenomena emerge not merely from brain activity but from an interacting nexus of brain, body, and world. The mind can be seen not as an organ within the body, but as a "behavioral field" that fluctuates within this brain-body-world nexus. If we reject the dominant form of the mind-brain identity theory -- which Rockwell calls "Cartesian materialism" -- and (...) accept this new alternative, then many philosophical and scientific problems can be solved. Other philosophers have flirted with these ideas, including Dewey, Heidegger, Putnam, Millikan, and Dennett. But Rockwell goes further than these tentative speculations and offers a detailed alternative to the dominant philosophical view, applying pragmatist insights to contemporary scientific and philosophical problems. Rockwell shows that neuroscience no longer supports the mind-brain identity theory because the brain cannot be isolated from the rest of the nervous system; moreover, there is evidence that the mind is hormonal as well as neural. These data, and Rockwell's reanalysis of the concept of causality, show why the borders of mental embodiment cannot be neatly drawn at the skull, or even at the skin. Rockwell then demonstrates how his proposed view of the mind can resolve paradoxes engendered by the mind-brain identity theory in such fields as neuroscience, artificial intelligence, epistemology, and philosophy of language. Finally, he argues that understanding the mind as a "behavioral field" supports the new cognitive science paradigm of dynamic systems theory. (shrink)

Portrays the life and literary development of the Spanish writer and philosopher in relation to the history of European philosophy at the turn of the century.

Ethics is crucial to engineering, although disagreement exists concerning the form engineering ethics education should take. In part, this results from disagreements about the goal of this education, which inhibit the development of and progress in cohesive research agendas and practices. In this regard, engineering ethics faces challenges like other professional ethics. To address these issues, this paper argues that the ultimate goal of engineering ethics education should be more long-term ethical behaviors, but that engineering ethics must more fully engage (...) with the fields of empirical moral and cultural psychology to do so. It begins by considering reasons for adopting ethical behaviors as the ultimate goal of ethics education, and moves on to discuss why ethical behaviors have not been adopted as the goal of ethics education. The paper ends by considering responses to these problems, why ethical behaviors should still be adopted as the ultimate goal of ethics education. (shrink)

The unity of mind and body need not imply accepting the unity of mind and brain, because the mind-brain identity is something that science has presupposed, not discovered. I cite evidence from modern neuroscience that cognitive activities are distributed throughout the human nervous system, which challenges the 'scientific' assumption (believed by Descartes, among others) that the brain is the seat of the soul, and the rest of the nerves are mere message cables to the brain. Dennett comes close to accepting (...) this point when he criticizes 'Cartesian materialism', and yet he still claims that Vie head is headquarters'. Accepting that the mind is the entire nervous system solves some philosophical problems, for Dennett and others. There is also some evidence that indicates that some cognitive activities may be hormonal rather than neural, which raises some challenging problems for the once obvious distinction between causing a mental state and embodying that state. (shrink)

Certain philosophers and scientists have noticed that there are data that do not seem to fit with the traditional view known as the Mind/Brain Identity theory. This has inspired a new theory about the mind known as the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition. Now there is a growing controversy over whether these data actually require extending the mind out beyond the brain. Such arguments, despite their empirical diversity, have an underlying form. They all are disputes over where to draw the line (...) between intrinsic and relational causal powers. The second-century Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna deals with similar issues when he argues for a middle way between the two positions that were known in his time by the terms eternalism and nihilism. Eternalism, like MBI, asserts that the mind is a permanent enduring substance. Nihilism argued that the mind had no intrinsic existence, and today some argue that HEC could lead us to a similar conclusion. Nagarjuna's argument for a middle way between these two extremes is similar to an argument that can be made for HEC. We can accept that neither the brain nor any other single physical item is identical to the mind without falling down the slippery slope that leads to "The mind does not really exist, and therefore we are one with everything." Nagarjuna was correct to say that the mind has conventional reality—that the mind exists even though there is no sharp border between the mind and the world. (shrink)

Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man is a key text from within the Critical Theory tradition in terms of its utility for assessing today’s new stage of automated production, its impact on social relations, and the prospects for the type of challenge to capitalism that includes within it a concept of an achievable postcapitalist society. The interpretation here seeks to uncover the socially relevant dialectical relationship of the Grundrisse and Capital, which is in contrast to Marcuse’s theory, which holds that Marx, in Capital, (...) had “repressed” his version of critical theory developed in the Grundrisse. (shrink)

I have assumed that consciousness exists, and that to redefine the problem as that of explaining how certain cognitive and behavioral functions are performed is unacceptable. . . .Like many people , I find this premise obvious, although I can no more "prove" it than I can prove that I am conscious. . . .there is no denying that such arguments - on either side - ultimately come down to a bedrock of intuition at some point.

To some degree, Fodor's claim that Cognitive science divides the mind into modules tells us more about the minds doing the studying than the mind being studied. The knowledge game is played by analyzing an object of study into parts, and then figuring out how those parts are related to each other. This is the method regardless of whether the object being studied is a mind or a solar system. If a module is just another name for a part, then (...) to say that the mind consists of modules is simply to say that it is comprehensible. Fodor comes close to acknowledging this in the following passage. (shrink)

In this analysis I use the first regional Central America ethics code to discuss the wider problems of corruption and media complicity with central governments in the region. Luis Moreno Ocampo of Transparency International has noted that to understand corruption factors one must first study formalized rules for the system. Following Moreno's suggestion, in this article I focus on the code and the actions it inspired to highlight the widespread corrupt media practices of the region. Although the code had an (...) immediate effect, that effect has waned and in some cases has been forgotten. (shrink)

This work explores the significance of two recurring themes in the thought of Gilles Deleuze: his critique of psychoanalysis and praise for Anglo-American literature. Tracing the overlooked influence of English writer D.H. Lawrence on Deleuze, Rockwell Clancy shows how these themes ultimately bear on two competing 'political anthropologies', conceptions of the political and the respective accounts of philosophical anthropology on which they are based. Contrary to the mainstream of both Deleuze studies and contemporary political thought, Clancy argues that the (...) major contemporary importance of Deleuze’s thought consists in the way he grounds his analyses of the political on accounts of philosophical anthropology, helping to make sense of the contemporary backlash against inclusive liberal values evident in forms of political conservatism and religious fundamentalism. (shrink)

Global Engineering Ethics introduces the fundamentals of ethics in a context specific to engineering without privileging any one national or cultural conception of ethics. Numerous case studies from around the world help the reader to see clearly the relevance of design, safety, and professionalism to engineers. Engineering increasingly takes place in global contexts, with industrial and research teams operating across national and cultural borders. This adds a layer of complexity to already challenging ethical issues. This book is essential reading for (...) anyone wanting to understand or communicate the ethics of engineering, including students, academics, and researchers, and is indispensable for those involved in international and cross-cultural environments. (shrink)

This article describes the development and teaching of a course on global engineering ethics in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. It outlines course objectives, methods, and contents, and instructor experience and plans for future development. This is done with the goal of helping educators to plan standalone courses and/or integrated modules on global engineering and technology ethics, which address challenges arising from the increasingly cross-cultural and international environments of contemporary technology and engineering practice. These efforts are motivated by the global (...) environments of engineering, as well as recent research in empirical moral psychology. Although this course was developed and taught in China, as a course on global engineering ethics taught to students from throughout the world, its approach could be beneficial elsewhere. (shrink)

Engineering is more cross-cultural and international than ever before, presenting challenges and opportunities in the way engineering ethics is conceived and delivered. To assist in providing more effective ethics education to increasingly diverse groups, this paper shares three related projects implemented at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute (China). These projects are united in their attempts to address challenges arising from the increasingly global nature of engineering. The first is a course on global engineering ethics, developed for (...) and attended by engineering students from diverse backgrounds. The second is a website hosting contents on global engineering ethics education and conducting research related to cross-cultural moral psychology. The third explores methods of assessing engineering ethics and moral development, using paradigms of ethical decision-making. Although these projects were developed in a Chinese-US collaboration with university students, these contexts could facilitate the adoption of similar programs elsewhere, with practicing engineers. (shrink)

Since cycling can contribute to sustainability, shared-bicycle schemes have been encouraged as a green technology. In Chinese cities, however, dockless app-based bicycle-sharing systems have become a blight, resulting in tremendous waste. Ironically, this stems from the success of DABS—their rapid development and adoption. As an “emergent” technology, DABS in China consist in the confluence of existing technologies and extra-technological factors, situations different from the sum of their parts, where negative consequences are more difficult to identify and address. Additionally, DABS in (...) China are a case of private, app-based technology providing a good traditionally regulated by municipal governments. For these reasons, it provides valuable lessons: The negative consequences associated with DABS in China result from a lack of policy formulation and implementation, failing to consider and address extra-technological dimensions. Private technology companies should not be left to ensure these goods, and municipalities must craft policies to ensure stakeholder interests. (shrink)

As is well known, ethics occupies a prominent role in Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy. However, considerable controversy exists surrounding the nature of this prominence. Two main lines of thought exist in the secondary scholarship, one that attempts to develop in Levinas’s philosophy something resembling a traditional theory of ethics and another that treats Levinas’s concern with ethics as substantially different from traditional ethical theories.1 In what follows I argue that the centrality of ethics to Levinas’s philosophy is for phenomenological purposes, describing (...) the nature of ethical relations and teasing out their implications, for the sake of criticizing and reformulating traditional understandings of. (shrink)

A review of Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Badiou and Deleuze Read Literature (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 224 pp.

A Publisher correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40889-020-00118-8.

Sellars and Dewey each isolated and critiqued different aspects of the atomistic epistemology of the logical positivists: Dewey labeled his target "Sensationalistic Empiricism", and Sellars labeled his "the Myth of the Given." The main theme of this paper will be the similarity and differences in their responses to this kind of philosophy, and how both responses can be clarified and strengthened by considering recent discoveries in Cognitive Neuroscience. What we have recently learned about neural architecture accounts for a distinction between (...) knowledge and experience that is a recurrent theme in both Sellars and Dewey. Dewey, however, made a sharper break from the positivists by seeing all experience as shaped by skills and abilities which were designed to acheive certain goals and were colored by emotions. The connectionist architecture used in Cognitive Neuroscience supports this view, as does the psychological research of J.J. Gibson. Once we consider the ways in which connectionist cognitive abilities differ from linguistic ones, Sellars' distinction between thoughts and sensations, and Dewey's distinction between knowledge and experience, can both be plausibly accounted for. (shrink)

My claim that Skinner believed in psychological atoms is actually strengthened by Baars' remark that Skinner 's behaviorist atoms could take a variety of physical forms. Baars is correct that Pavlov, unlike Skinner, thought that psychological atoms were identical to certain physiological items. But Skinner, as a non-reductive atomist, thought he could permit his psychological atoms to have a variety of physical forms. He still believed that even though each S-R connection was not really physical, it could nevertheless be understood (...) as being independent of all other S-R connections,and without reference to the laws of physics. It doesn't really make sense to speak of something as being both ontologically determined by its function, and ontologically independent, but philosophical clarity was not Skinner 's strong point. (shrink)

Clark ends his appendix with a description of what he calls "dynamic computationalism", which he describes as an interesting hybrid between DST and GOFAI. My 'horseLISP" example could be described as an example of dynamic computationalism. It is clearly not as eliminativist as Van Gelder's computational governor example, for I am trying to come up with something like identities between computational entities and dynamic ones. Thus unlike other dynamicists, I am not doing what Clark calls "embracing a different vocabulary for (...) the understanding and analysis of brain events". I think we probably can keep much of the computational vocabulary, although the meanings of many of its terms will probably shift as much as the meaning of 'atom' has shifted since Dalton's time. The label of "dynamic computationalism" is perhaps as good a description of my position as any, but I think I would mean something slightly different by it than Clark would. (For the following, please insert the mantra "of course, this is an empirical question" (OCTEQ) every paragraph or so.). (shrink)

He describes his position as "neo-Carnapian", i.e. he is claiming that even if the question is meaningful, that doesn't mean it's worth looking into. He's probably right, in the sense that anyone can be right about a personal evaluative choice. And until I started questioning the belief that there is only one kind of physical process that could embody consciousness, I felt the same way myself. But the point about this thought experiment is that the current state of cognitive science (...) offers us two possible candidates for the embodiment of mind. And as Bickle points out, it seems like nothing we can imagine discovering in the future could settle this problem one way or the other. If this is true, this means that, strictly speaking, all this talk about being on the verge of a scientific understanding of consciousness is hype: No matter how close we get to solving the Chalmersian easy problems, we are getting nowhere nearer to solving the hard problem. If this is true, Cognitive Scientists ought to change their description of what they are doing, even if it cuts back on publicity and grant money. But I don't want to believe this, and I think the only way to avoid believing this is to discover the presuppositions that compel this belief, and see if we can change them. It's a dirty little job, but somebody has to do it, and philosophers seem less unqualified to attempt it than anyone else. Note, however, that I am not claiming we can use a thought experiment all by itself to find the answer, the way Searle claimed that the Chinese Room experiment supposedly proved that a computer couldn't be conscious. As RONALD LEMMEN points out, the fact that we can imagine something doesn't tell us anything about the world, only about our concepts of the world. Remember that the conclusion of my thought experiment was a question, not an answer. My only goal is to help clarify the question. (shrink)

I am grateful to Markate Daly for forcing me to clarify my concept of the relationship between experience and know-how. She may be correct in saying that "None of the passive endurings and sufferings, loves, enjoyments and imaginings of Dewey's conception can be characterized as a part of 'knowing how' as it is currently understood." But I think that there is a similarity between passive experience and active coping that distinguishes them both from the allegedly "objective" sense data that Dewey (...) was rejecting. Experiences of love and suffering don't simply present themselves to us as independent entities. They are richly interwoven with each other and with the world, in much the same way as the connections between muscles and perceptual affordances. I tried to explain why I saw both emotions and knowing-how affordances to be governed by the same principles in the section of the paper dealing with Gibson, but of course there is still a great deal more to be said. (shrink)

The first part of this paper surveys the visual technologies that have transformed the modern visual environment and argues for the relevance of their study to an understanding of modernity in general and to the field of religion and science in particular. The term cosmography is adopted for the visual and spatial manifestation of a worldview, and the importance of analyzing and advancing modern cosmography is asserted. In the second part, the focus shifts to one particular challenge presented by modern (...) cosmography: how to represent and find visual meaning in the new range of size scales that have been offered up by the modern scientific worldview. Six strategies for representing and finding meaning in this new expanded picture of the universe are explored. (shrink)

To develop more effective ethics education for cross-cultural and international engineering, a study was conducted to determine what Chinese engineering students have learned and think about ethics. Recent research shows traditional approaches to ethics education are potentially ineffective, but also points towards ways of improving ethical behaviors. China is the world’s most populous country, graduating and employing the highest number of STEM majors, although little empirical research exists about the ethical knowledge and perspectives of Chinese engineering students. When compared to (...) engineering students in the US, Chinese engineering students received less ethics education; the form of the education they did receive stressed virtue ethics or the development of moral character; conceive of ethics in contradistinction to the law, where ethics deals with matters of right and wrong not covered by legality. Based on these findings and research in moral psychology and behavioral ethics, recommendations are made for improving engineering ethics education both in China and abroad. (shrink)

Both Dennett and his critics believe that the invalidity of the famed Stalinist-Orwellian distinction is a consequence of his multiple drafts model of consciousness . This is not so obvious, however, once we recognize that the question ‘how do you get experience out of meat?’ actually fragments into at least three different questions. How do we get: a unified sense of self, awareness and mental phenomena? In the latter chapters of Consciousness Explained, Dennett shows how MDM has a radical and (...) profound way of interrelating awareness and self . But the Stalinist-Orwellian distinction can be dissolved by analysing the nature of mental phenomena, without making any reference to awareness or self or the MDM. This is because The Stalinist-Orwellian distinction rests on much the same category mistake which Ryle pointed out in his Concept of Mind. Once we recognize that a theory of awareness is trying to do something different from a theory of mental phenomena, we can see why Dennett and his critics frequently talked past each other, and how we can resolve these controversies by incorporating something like Rosenthal's theory of higher order thoughts into the MDM. This would require, however, that Dennett abandon his principle of first person operationalism, and recognize that it is possible for us to be mistaken about our own internal states. (shrink)

At least one of my professors told me that in order to write a good philosophy paper, one should always try to defend as little territory as possible. The danger of this advice is that although it may make one's points defensible, it may also make them not worth defending. In order to avoid both of these extremes, I am going to defend a relatively modest claim, which appears to be necessary but not sufficient for another more ambitious claim, which (...) itself is also necessary for another more ambitious claim, and so on for several layers. I will start with the most ambitious claim, and then work my way down until I come to the claim I believe I have some chance of defending. I will, however, continue to make references to the other layers, to help us remember why the more modest claims are worth thinking about. (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse noted early on in his writings on social theory the importance of both Hegel’s and Marx’s development of the dialectic of necessity and freedom to conceptualize the possibility of a postcapitalist society of freedom emerging from the actually existing capitalist societies. Marcuse was not only the first Marxist to analyze all of Hegel’s philosophic works, he also recognized the significance of and provided analyses of lasting importance of previously unpublished works of Marx, principally the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (...) of 1844 and the Grundrisse. We reexamine Marcuse’s work guided by the dialectical concepts of freedom and necessity, capitalist and postcapitalist society. (shrink)

What is the difference between civil and uncivil disobedience? How can illegal protest be compatible with a democratic regime based on the rule of law? Is Edward Snowden a civil disobedient? This book follows the philosophical debate around these and other issues, showing how the notion of civil disobedience has evolved from a form of passive resistance against injustice, to an active way to engage with the political life of the community. The author presents the major contributions in political (...) and legal philosophy, ranging from John Rawls' seminal account in 1971, to the recent views advanced by Kimberley Brownlee, David Lefkowitz and William Smith. In the last chapter, the author proposes a novel account of civil disobedience, able to meet some of the unresolved challenges. The author argues that, to make sense of civil disobedience, we should expand our conception of political obligation, so to include acts that, despite being illegal, may reveal the agent's civility. (shrink)

The hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) has been criticized as committing what is called the coupling?constitution fallacy, but it is the critic's use of this concept which is fallacious. It is true that there is no reason to deny that the line between the self and the world should be drawn at the skull and/or the skin. But the data used to support HEC reveal that there was never a good enough reason to draw the line there in the first (...) place. The burden of proof has fallen on the mind?brain identity theory, now that our intuitions/prejudices no longer support it. One of those ?intuitions? is the Aristotelian assumption that the world can be neatly divided into objects that possess intrinsic causal powers, and the causal relations that connect those objects. In modern science, however, the concept of intrinsic causal powers is only a temporary stopgap that makes it possible to begin research in a particular area. It therefore seems best to assume that the line between mind and world is both pragmatic and dynamic. Consequently, the mind might best described as a fluctuating field, rather than an object or structure. (shrink)

From North Korea's recent attacks on Sony to perpetual news reports of successful hackings and criminal theft, cyber conflict has emerged as a major topic of public concern. Yet even as attacks on military, civilian, and commercial targets have escalated, there is not yet a clear set of ethical guidelines that apply to cyber warfare. Indeed, like terrorism, cyber warfare is commonly believed to be a war without rules. Given the prevalence cyber warfare, developing a practical moral code for this (...) new form of conflict is more important than ever. In Ethics and Cyber Warfare, internationally-respected ethicist George Lucas delves into the confounding realm of cyber conflict. Comparing "state-sponsored hacktivism" to the transformative impact of "irregular warfare" in conventional armed conflict, Lucas offers a critique of legal approaches to governance, and outlines a new approach to ethics and "just war" reasoning. Lucas draws upon the political philosophies of Alasdair MacIntyre, John Rawls, and Jürgen Habermas to provide a framework for understanding these newly-emerging standards for cyber conflict, and ultimately presents a professional code of ethics for a new generation of "cyber warriors." Lucas concludes with a discussion of whether preemptive self-defense efforts - such as the massive government surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden - can ever be justified, addressing controversial topics such as privacy, anonymity, and public trust. Well-reasoned and timely, Ethics and Cyber Warfare is a must-read for anyone with an interest in philosophy, ethics, or cybercrime. (shrink)

In the seventh paragraph of the post, you say "This question [which machine, if any or both, is conscious/] seems to be in principle unfalsifiable, and yet genuinely meaningful." (I'm assuming that you mean that any answer to it is unfalsifiable.) My neo-Carnapian intuitions diagnoses the problem right at this point. Forget about attributions of meaningless and all that stuff. Replace it in your statement with more pragmatically-oriented evaluative notions: theoretically fruitless, arbitray without even being helpful for any theoretical, experimental, (...) or practical purpose, and so on. Any answer to the question will be those. Thus the question is not worth pursuing, especially since the thought experiment is science fiction right now. A much more useful way to spend one's time is addressing frutiful questions, like the ones involved in constructing your postulated robots, or investigating neural mechanisms, and so on. So acknowledge the connection between unfalsifiability/verifiability/confirmability and theoretical and practical worthlessness (rather than "meaningless"). Then get on with the theoretically and empirically worthwhile questions. Many of the latter are quiter abstract and "philosophical," anyway (about the scope and limits of various methodologies, existing theories, and so on). Aren't those enough to occupy even the most abstract theorist's attention? Why puzzle about questions whose answers can't be rationally justified? (shrink)

I should say, before beginning, that I am hearing what you say about Rorty now from the perspective on his work I have (for the time being, at least) as a result of having heard a working paper he presented to the scholars’ workshop of which I was a member at The Getty this winter, and then participating with him in a 4-hour discussion (and following small dinner gathering). I have also recently read his curious rather autobiographical essay, "Trotsky and (...) Wild Orchids," and that too has had some effect. So, I think I am speaking about my sense of where Rorty is now with his thinking, rather than primarily about the Rorty who is contained in the works you are discussing. You might say that whether I am at all right or quite wrong, I am speaking about what I understand to be a person’s evolving thinking, and you are speaking about a body of work bearing a name, Rorty. These are never, of course, quite the same, but engagement of the two is always at least interesting (perhaps particularly so to those of us interested more in philosophizing than in Philosophy, if I may put it that way). (shrink)