Judges in multiple US states, such as New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, and Florida, receive a prediction of defendants’ recidivism risk, generated by the COMPAS algorithm. If judges act on these predictions, they implicitly delegate normative decisions to proprietary software, even beyond the previously documented race and age biases. Using the ProPublica dataset, we demonstrate that COMPAS predictions favor jailing over release. COMPAS is biased against defendants. We show that this bias can largely be removed. Our proposed correction increases overall (...) accuracy, and attenuates anti-black and anti-young bias. However, it also slightly increases the risk that defendants are released who commit a new crime before tried. We argue that this normative decision should not be buried in the code. The tradeoff between the interests of innocent defendants and of future victims should not only be made transparent. The algorithm should be changed such that the legislator and the courts do make this choice. (shrink)

Historians of biology have argued that much of the dynamics of experimental disciplines such as genetics or molecular biology can be understood from studying experimental systems and model organisms alone . Such accounts contrast sharply with more traditional philosophies of science which viewed scientific research essentially as a process of inventing and testing theories. I present a case from the history of biochemistry which can be viewed from both the experimental systems perspective and from the methodology of theory testing. I (...) argue that not only are the two perspectives fully compatible, but they are both necessary for a complete account of the research process. (shrink)

Griffiths et al. have proposed a quantitative measure of causal specificity and used it to assess various attempts to single out genetic causes as being causally more specific than other cellular mechanisms, for example, alternative splicing. Focusing in particular on developmental processes, they have identified a number of important challenges for this project. In this discussion note, I would like to show how these challenges can be met.

I examine the adequacy of the causal graph-structural equations approach to causation for modeling biological mechanisms. I focus in particular on mechanisms with complex dynamics such as the PER biological clock mechanism in Drosophila. I show that a quantitative model of this mechanism that uses coupled differential equations – the well-known Goldbeter model – cannot be adequately represented in the standard causal graph framework, even though this framework does permit causal cycles. The reason is that the model contains dynamical information (...) about the mechanism that concerns causal properties but that does not correspond to variables that could be subject to independent interventions. Thus, a representation of the mechanisms as a causal structural model necessarily suppresses causally relevant information. (shrink)

Foucault’s theory of power and subjectification challenges common concepts of freedom in social philosophy and expands them through the concept of ‘freedom as critique’: Freedom can be defined as the capability to critically reflect upon one’s own subjectification, and the conditions of possibility for this critical capacity lie in political and social institutions. The article develops this concept through a critical discussion of the standard response by Foucault interpreters to the standard objection that Foucault’s thinking obscures freedom. The standard response (...) interprets Foucault’s later works, especially The Subject and Power, as a solution to the problem of freedom. It is mistaken, because it conflates different concepts of freedom that are present in Foucault’s work. By differentiating these concepts, this article proposes a new institutionalist approach to solve the problem of freedom that breaks with the partly anarchist underpinnings of Foucault scholarship: As freedom as critique is not given, but itself a result of subjectification, it entails a demand for ‘modal robustness’ and must therefore be institutionalized. This approach helps to draw out the consequences of Foucault’s thinking on freedom for postfoundationalist democratic theory and the general social-philosophical discussion about freedom. (shrink)

I defend the view that single experiments can provide a sufficient reason for preferring one among a group of hypotheses against the widely held belief that “crucial experiments” are impossible. My argument is based on the examination of a historical case from molecular biology, namely the Meselson-Stahl experiment. “The most beautiful experiment in biology”, as it is known, provided the first experimental evidence for the operation of a semi-conservative mechanism of DNA replication, as predicted by Watson and Crick in 1953. (...) I use a mechanistic account of explanation to show that this case is best construed as an inference to the best explanation (IBE). Furthermore, I show how such an account can deal with Duhem's well-known arguments against crucial experiments as well as Van Fraassen's “bad lot” argument against IBE. (shrink)

Kant stresses the regulative status of teleological attributions, but sometimes he seems to treat teleology as a constitutive condition for biology. To clarify this issue, the concept of natural purpose and its role for biology are examined. I suggest that the concept serves an identificatory function: it singles out objects as natural purposes, whereby the special science of biology is constituted. This relative constitutivity of teleology is explicated by means of a distinction of levels: on the object level of biological (...) science, teleology is taken as constitutive, though it is merely regulative on the philosophical meta level. This distinction also concerns the place of Aristotelian teleology in Kant: on the object level, the Aristotelian view is accepted, whereas on the meta level, as agnostic stance is taken concerning teleology. (edited). (shrink)

It is routinely observed in NLP that sentences seem to “evoke” situations (where I use this term comprehensively to cover events, episodes, eventualities, processes, etc.). Much like discourse entities evoked by explicit noun phrases, these evoked situations can be referred to anaphorically, as for instance in (1) and (3) below, and can be modified in various ways, for instance by supplying their duration and location, as in (2) and (4).

Introduction to Giambattista Vico: The Anglo-American perspective Marcel Danesi. Giambattista Vico (-) In, the Neapolitan rhetorician and philosopher, ...

UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations represent the most restrictive regulatory intervention European club football has ever seen. Put simply, it demands from clubs to operate on the basis of their own football-related incomes. While the policy has attracted considerable attention from the economic and social sciences, very few contributions systematically investigate it from a philosophical-ethical perspective. The present paper fills this research gap by posing questions on FFP in relation to fair play as a normative concept. We draw on sport (...) economic assessments concerning potential outcomes of FFP and argue that the policy should go beyond the mere pragmatic goal of promoting financial sustainability and truly aim for creating a level playing field, otherwise it should not be labeled ‘fair play’. (shrink)

My fundamental purpose (1937)--Metaphysical journal (1938-43)--Presence and immortality (1951)--The unfathomable, an unfinished play (March 1919).

L'apparition, après 338, d'un nouvel élément d'origine topographique dans la façon de distinguer les citoyens n'a pas eu pour but de distinguer deux catégories de citoyens qui n'ont jamais existé. — Édition, en appendice, d'une double dédicace d'époque impériale votée par des tribus.

The focus on negative attitudes toward other groups has led to a dichotomy between the prejudice reduction and the collective action approach. To solve the resulting problems identified by Dixon et al., we suggest analyzing the psychological processes underlying the construction of relationships between own and other groups.

In recent years there has been a renewal of interest in Meinong's work; but since the bulk of it is still encased in his quite forbidding German, most students are limited to the few available translations and to secondary sources. Unfortunately Meinong has been much maligned - only in a few instances with good reason - and has consequently been dealt with lightly. Meinong stood at a very important junction of European philosophical and scien tific thought. In all fields - (...) physics, chemistry, mathematics, psychology, philolo- revolutionary strides were being made. Philosophy, on the other hand, had run its post-Kantian course. New philosophical thinkers came from different disciplines. For example, Frege and later Russell were mathematicians, Boltzmann and Mach were physicists. Earlier Bolzano and then Brentano were originally theologians, and Meinong was a historian. 1 The sciences with their new insights and theories offered an enormous wealth of information which needed to be absorbed philosophically; but traditional philosophy could not deal with it. Physics presented a picture of reality which did not fit into the traditional schemes of empiricism or idealism. Ontological and epistemological questions became once again wide open issues. For example, atoms at first were still considered to be theoretical entities. (shrink)

This article examines the discursive uses of frequent response initiators by Republican and Democratic presidential candidates in the genre of televised US primary debates. Ten full transcripts of debates held between February and April 2016 are investigated from the perspectives of political discourse studies and conversation analysis. It is shown that the response initiators well, first of all, look, you know and let me speech act verb fulfill specific discursive functions in competitive media discourse. On the textual level, candidates exert (...) power and control by negotiating turn-taking processes and managing the information flow. On the interactional level, competitors use response initiators to frame themselves as likable and competent personas, to establish common ground with voters and to enhance negative perceptions of opponents. Conclusively, in the multilogue of election debates, response initiators significantly contribute to the construction of individual preferability. (shrink)

Platon ist nach Homer der antike Autor mit der reichhaltigsten Rezeption vom Altertum über das Mittelalter bis in die Neuzeit. Gleichwohl und gerade aus diesem Grund ist diese bisher allenfalls bruchstückhaft aufgearbeitet worden. Die Autoren versuchen, diesem alten Ziel geisteswissenschaftlicher Forschung auf neuen Wegen näherzukommen, indem sie eine informationswissenschaftliche Perspektive auf Platon und seine Rezeption anwenden. Dazu sind innovative Methoden der Paraphrasensuche entwickelt worden, um diese auch als Methode altertumswissenschaftlich und kulturwissenschaftlich interessierter Forschung zu etablieren.