Artykuł przedstawia implementację popularnego modelu przetwarzania informacji czasowej — modelu skalarnego postrzegania upływu czasu (ang. Scalar Timing Model, STM). Implementacja teoretycznego modelu wymaga jego ukonkretnienia i doprecyzowania, pozwala na symulację działania, analizę wyników dostarczanych przez działający model, a także jego weryfikację. Opisywana realizacja STM osadzona jest w środowisku sztucznych sieci neuronowych i potrafi odzwierciedlić jeden ze znanych efektów obserwowanych eksperymentalnie — tzw. błąd porządku czasowego. W pracy przedstawiono podstawy działania sieci neuronowej realizującej ideę STM; sieć ta stanowi pierwszy krok w (...) kierunku stworzenia interdyscyplinarnej koncepcji mechanizmu percepcji czasu u człowieka. Artykuł zawiera również krótką dyskusję na temat zalet, konsekwencji i ograniczeń związanych z tworzeniem działających implementacji modeli teoretycznych. (shrink)

Profesor Krzysztof A. Meissner proponuje obraz transcendencji wynikającej z poznawania świata przez fizykę, która oznacza świat uniwersalnych i niezmiennych praw przyrody. Czy tego rodzaju wypowiedzi są uprawnione na gruncie fizyki, czy też należy uznać je za określony pogląd filozoficzny? Czy istnienie praw przyrody wskazuje na istnienie jakieś transcendencji? Publikacja jest zapisem dyskusji wokół książki: Krzysztof A. Meissner, Fizyk w jaskini światów (rozmawia Jerzy Sosnowski), (Biblioteka Więzi, tom 389, Warszawa 2023), która to dyskusja odbyła się 25 marca 2023 w Instytucie (...) Filozofii UKSW w Warszawie w ramach spotkania Katedry Filozofii Przyrody. ------------------------- Zgłoszono: 08/09/2023. Zrecenzowano: 03/11/2023. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 15/11/2023. (shrink)

A compelling account of evil in which Adam Morton draws on fascinating examples as diverse as Augustine and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Exciting and thought-provoking, On Evil is essential reading for anyone interested in a topic that attracts and.

In certain startling neurological and psychiatric conditions, what is ordinarily most intimate and familiar to us—our own body—can feel alien. For instance, in cases of somatoparaphrenia subjects misattribute their body parts to others, while in cases of depersonalization subjects feel estranged from their bodies. These ownership disorders thus appear to consist in a loss of any feeling of bodily ownership, the felt sense we have of our bodies as our own. Against this interpretation of ownership disorders, I defend Sufficiency, the (...) thesis that every experience of bodily awareness suffices for a feeling of bodily ownership. Since Sufficiency conflicts with a face‐value interpretation of these ownership disorders, the burden is on me to explain away the apparent tension. To do so, I identify and correct what I believe to be the fundamental mistake in the extant literature on the feeling of bodily ownership, namely the tendency to treat the notion of a feeling of bodily ownership as a single psychological construct. Instead, I distinguish the feeling of minimal ownership, the first‐personal character of bodily awareness, from the feeling of affective ownership, the distinctive type of felt concern we have for our bodies. I motivate this distinction by raising the disownership puzzle, the fact that subjects suffering from ownership disorders display an ambiguous set of symptoms, arguing the distinction I draw between minimal and affective ownership is just what is required to resolve the puzzle. (shrink)

Andy Egan has recently presented a prominent objection to causal decision theory. However, in this paper, I argue that this objection fails if CDT’s proponent accepts the plausible view that decision-theoretic options are intentions. This result both provides a defence of CDT against a prominent objection and highlights the importance of resolving the nature of decision-theoretic options.

Working from Adorno’s notion of negative dialectics, this essay charts a dialectical course of resistance toward a horizon of universal freedom. Rather than propose relations between ideal types of resistance, it emphasizes the ineliminable historical dimensions of not only real-world resistance movements but also the philosophical and political theorizing that attempts to make sense of them. In doing so it brings out certain conceptual relations that emerge or recede as the context of resistance shifts. The first moment considers the dichotomy (...) between reform and revolution, the second moment delves into modes of reform, and the third looks to modes of revolution. Along the way the essay discusses the work of such varied figures and organizations as Rosa Luxemburg, John Rawls, Martin Luther King, Jr., Candice Delmas, Robin Celikates, Kimberlee Brownlee, Emma Goldman, Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground, and the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. In the end, the essay is written in the service of understanding the stakes and presuppositions of resistance, in theory and practice. (shrink)

Appeals to “being on the right side of history” or accusations of being on the wrong side of history are increasingly common on social media, in the media proper, and in the rhetoric of politics. One might well wonder, though, what the value is of invoking history in this manner. Is declaring who is on what side of history merely dramatic shorthand for one's being right and one's opponents wrong? Or is there something more to it than that? In this (...) paper, I argue that an appeal to being on the right side of history is best construed as an invocation of higher-order evidence. I do not deny that there are purely rhetorical, non-evidential uses of the right and wrong side of history, but the phrase can be construed in a more substantive manner. I use work on virtual epistemic elections to model these appeals to history. Zeroing in on the kind of higher-order evidence invoked helps us clarify the criterion for better or worse, more or less convincing appeals to it. (shrink)

In ‘What's Wrong with Speciesism?’, Shelly Kagan sketches an account on which both actually being a person and possibly being a person are relevant to one's moral status, labelling this view ‘modal personism’ and supporting its conclusions with appeals to intuitions about a range of marginal cases. I tender a pessimistic response to Kagan's concern about motivating modal personism: that is, of being able to ‘go beyond the mere appeal to brute intuition, eventually offering an account of why modal personhood (...) should matter in the ways we may intuitively think that it does.’. (shrink)

The value of solidarity, which is exemplified in noble groups like the Civil Rights Movement along with more mundane teams, families and marriages, is distinctive in part because people are in solidarity over, for or with regard to something, such as common sympathies, interests, values, etc. I use this special feature of solidarity to resolve a longstanding puzzle about enacted social moral rules, which is, aren’t these things just heuristics, rules of thumb or means of coordination that we ‘fetishize’ or (...) ‘worship’ if we stubbornly insist on sticking to them when we can do more good by breaking them? I argue that when we are in a certain kind of solidarity with others, united by social moral rules that we have established among ourselves, the rules we have developed and maintain are a constitutive part of our solidary relationships with one another; and it is part of being in this sort of solidarity with our comrades that we are presumptively required to follow the social moral rules that join us together. Those in the Polish Revolution, for example, were bound by informally enforced rules about publicity, free speech and the use of violence, so following their own rules became a way of standing in a valuable sort of solidarity with one another. I explain why we can have non-instrumental reasons to follow the social moral rules that exist in our own society, improve our rules and even sometimes to break the otherwise good rules that help to unite us. (shrink)

I draw on my experiences of passing as non-disabled to explain how a disabled person can hide his disability, why he might do so, and what costs and risks he and others might face along the way. Passing as non-disabled can bring greater social acceptance and inclusion in joint-projects, an enhanced sense of belonging, pride and of self-worth, and an easier time forming and maintaining personal relationships. Yet hiding one’s disability can also undermine some of these same values when doing (...) so, for example, prevents someone from living up to normal social expectations or from sharing important aspects of himself with others. Hiding a disability can also interfere with a person’s self-respect, self-acceptance, integrity, and self-development. Although the chapter does not take a stand on whether hiding a disability is, overall, prudent, wise or morally justified, it draws out some lessons about disability from why someone might want to hide it. (shrink)

This article employs postcolonial perspectives to examine the possibilities and limitations of drawing on Pan-African ideas to establish practices and meanings for global citizenship education at an elite secondary school in Ghana. In this examination, the authors explore the ways in which the school’s interventions to reinforce sameness/unity produce different understandings of global citizenship between students from different social class backgrounds. The article addresses how the school attempts to dissociate students from their native cultures for the purpose of teaching them (...) the ways of knowing and doing necessary to live and work/study in the West. The authors illustrate the ways in which the lessons students are being taught about what it means to be a global citizen reinscribe hegemonic discourse through Pan-African rhetoric. The article concludes by calling for alternative forms of global citizenship education that emphasize critical consciousness. (shrink)

Science and technology have been integral issues of development cooperation for more than sixty years. Contrary to early efforts’ transfer of established technologies from the West to developing countries, contemporary technology aspirations increasingly articulate and practice the Global South as a live laboratory for technological experimentation. This approach is especially furthered by a group of private foundations and philanthrocapitalists whose endeavors in developing countries are, like their companies, shaped by logics of the individual, the market, and of societal progress through (...) technological innovation and experimentation. This article draws upon critical intellectual thought about the political and social ramifications of technology to reflect on the renascent role of technology in development cooperation. It traces the discourses and practices of philanthrocapitalist organizations, in particular the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to understand how their experimentalist technology aspirations influence human life and relations in the Global South. This article argues that this newfound focus on technology in development cooperation may challenge the essence of democracy, reduce participation, and have undesirable consequences for populations in the Global South. (shrink)

This paper provides a sustained investigation into ancient teichopolitics – the politics of constructing walls – and the question of whether the best city should be surrounded by walls. Plato’s Laws adopts the Spartan view that walls have a negative effect on national character and argues that they should be ‘left lying asleep and undisturbed in the ground’. Aristotle’s Politics puts forward a series of objections to Plato and adopts the more pragmatic view that walls are necessary. Although both philosophers (...) debate the status of walls and foreigners within the best city, they fail to draw the thoroughly modern connection between teichopolitics and immigration. (shrink)

The role of responsibility in our common-sense morality of self-defense is complex. According to common-sense morality, one can sometimes use substantial, even deadly, force against people who are only minimally responsible for posing a threat to us. The role of responsibility in self-defense is thus limited. However, responsibility is still sometimes relevant. It sometime affects how much force you can use against a threatener: less if they are less responsible and more if they are more responsible. Is there a well-motivated (...) theory that can explain both why the role of responsibility is limited and why it is sometimes relevant? It is hard to see what theory could unify these disparate elements of our common-sense morality, and if one cannot be found then we may simply have to revise some of our pre-theoretic beliefs. But it would be an important advantage of a theory if it could justify those beliefs. I will argue that there is a theory of this kind: surprisingly, the familiar rights theory of self-defense, defended by Judith Thomson, can do so if it is suitably supplemented. Along the way I will survey some alternative theories of self-defense and show why they are not up to the task. (shrink)

If D commits a wrong against V, D typically incurs a corrective duty to V. But how should we respond if V has false beliefs about whether she is harmed by D’s wrong? There are two types of cases we must consider: those in which V is not harmed but she mistakenly believes that she is those in which V is harmed but she mistakenly believes that she is not. I canvass three views: The Objective View, The Subjective View and (...) The Mixed View. The Objective View holds that V’s claim depends on the correct account of harm, rather than her false beliefs, and so D has a duty to offer damages to V in but not in in order to compensate her. The Subjective View holds that, for broadly anti-perfectionist reasons, V’s claim depends on her sincere beliefs, even if they are mistaken, and so D has a duty to compensate V in but not in. The Mixed View holds that we should defer to her beliefs in but not in, so D has a duty to compensate her in both cases. In this article, I argue that we should accept The Mixed View. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light significant failures and fragilities in our food, health, and market systems. Concomitantly, it has emphasized the urgent need for a critical re-evaluation of many of the policies and practices that have created the conditions in which viral pathogens can spread. However, there are many factors that are complicating this process; among others, the uncertain, rapidly evolving, and often poorly reported science surrounding the virus’ origins has contributed to a politically charged and often rancorous (...) public debate, which is concerning insofar as the proliferation of divisive discourse may hinder efforts to address complex and collective concerns in a mutually cooperative manner. In developing ethical and effective responses to the disproportionate risks associated with certain food production and consumption practices, we argue that the focus should be on mitigating such risks wherever they arise, instead of seeking to ascribe blame to specific countries or cultures. To this end, this article is an effort to inject some nuance into contemporary conversations about COVID-19 and its broader implications, particularly when it comes to trade in wildlife, public health, and food systems reform. If COVID-19 is to represent a turning point towards building a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient world for both humans and nonhuman animals alike, the kind of fractioning that is currently being exacerbated by the use of loaded terms such as “wet market” must be eschewed in favour of a greater recognition of our fundamental interconnectedness. (shrink)

There are brains in vats (BIVs) in the actual world. These “cerebral organoids” are roughly comparable to the brains of three-month-old foetuses, and conscious cerebral organoids seem only a matter of time. Philosophical interest in conscious cerebral organoids has thus far been limited to bioethics, and the purpose of this paper is to discuss cerebral organoids in an epistemological context. In doing so, I will argue that it is now clear that there are close possible worlds in which we are (...) BIVs. Not only does this solidify our intuitive judgement that we cannot know that we are not BIVs, but it poses a fundamental problem for both the neo-Moorean (i.e. safety-based) antisceptical strategy, which purports to allow us to know that we aren’t BIVs, and the safety condition on knowledge itself. Accordingly, this case is especially instructive in illustrating just how epistemologically relevant empirical developments can be. (shrink)

In this article, I outline my position regarding the use of deception in psychology experiments, based on my experience as a confederate. I describe an experiment I participated in and the problems resulting from the study: subjects' differing responses to the deception; angry reactions of some subjects to the experiment; and the general discomfort of both subjects and confederates, in particular, who had their doubts concerning the external validity of the study and the ethics involved in running it. issues of (...) informed consent and debriefing are also addressed; it is argued that the success of deception depends on the subject being misinformed as to the experiment's true nature and that debriefing itself sometimes angers subjects. I encourage a decrease in the use of deception and the reexamination of a system that attempts to balance the pain of experimental participants with anticipated benefit to scientific knowledge. (shrink)