Xenophobia is one of the key drivers of marginalisation, discrimination, and conflict, yet many prominent machine learning fairness frameworks fail to comprehensively measure or mitigate the resulting xenophobic harms. Here we aim to bridge this conceptual gap and help facilitate safe and ethical design of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. We ground our analysis of the impact of xenophobia by first identifying distinct types of xenophobic harms, and then applying this framework across a number of prominent AI application domains, reviewing the (...) potential interplay between AI and xenophobia on social media and recommendation systems, healthcare, immigration, employment, as well as biases in large pre-trained models. These help inform our recommendations towards an inclusive, xenophilic design of future AI systems. (shrink)

The contemporary global crisis can be explored in different perspectives. This text focuses on constitutionalism. It asks whether constitutionalism still matters. Responding to this question requires revisiting the basic analytical and normative concepts that shape individual autonomy, polity, law and democracy in the context of globalization. Part I of the article introduces the question of the crisis of constitutionalism. It briefly explores the dispute between proponents of state and post-state constitutionalism, and proceeds with an analysis of societal constitutionalism. The critical (...) reading of this theory prepares the ground for a positive normative argument. Part II of the article argues for the return to the moral core of constitutionalism. It defends the claim that justice at the global stage requires establishing a minimum common denominator that would be composed of universalizable substantive principles. The institutional question follows. Its focus should be on the authoritative identification, protection and advancement of the core values of constitutionalism in the social and legal-political realms of the world society. (shrink)

This book offers a readable introduction to the main aspects of thought experimenting in philosophy and science. It presents the main options in understanding thought experiments, from empiricism to Platonism, and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. However, it also provides some original perspectives on the topic. Firstly, it provides a new definition and analysis of thought experimenting that brings it closer to laboratory experimenting. Secondly, it develops the author’s earlier theory of “mental modelling”, proposed some decades ago by him, and (...) some other researchers in the field as the crucial procedure in thought experimenting. The mental modelling approach links work with thought experimenting to cognitive science and to research on mental simulation which is a hot topic in present-day research. Thirdly, it proposes a principled way to respond to criticism of thought experimenting by “experimental philosophers” as they have been dominating the present-day debates. The response suggests a possible ameliorative, self-help project for thought experimenting. Finally, the book provides a way to systematize the history of important thought experiments in science and philosophy and thus connects, in an original way, the systematic investigation of experimenting to the historical work of famous thought experiments. It is of interest to scholars interested in history of ideas and philosophy of science. (shrink)

The sexual abuse of women and girls, such as sexual harassment, battery, varieties of rape, prostitution, and pornography, is statistically pervasive in late modern society. Yet this fact does not register adequate ethical concern. I explore this gap in moral perception. I argue that sexual abuse is conceptually supported by an ontology of women that considers a lack of bodily integrity as natural and by a sex-specific idea of freedom that considers sexual violations as liberating. This conceptual framework is pernicious (...) because it supports abuse and interferes with our moral perception of harm, encouraging us to see harms as normal and as positive. I argue that Heidegger’s idea of philosophy and the resources of his epistemological and ontological project in Being and Time can help show the pernicious function of this conceptual framework and thus help us better understand this abuse. (shrink)

Sake i ostali inkongruentni protivdelovi su dovoljni da odbacimo relacionizam, ili je bar tako mislio Kant, jos od nekih svojih prekritickih spisa. Argumenti sa inkongruentnim protivdelovima su elegantni i efektni, i privukli su prilicno veliku paznju kod odredjenog broja autora, koji su argumente kritikovali na razne nacine, ili ih branili. Rasprave su se pritom odaljile od originalnog Kantovog argumenta, i od duha tog vremena, i primila obelezja moderne filozofije i geometrije. U ovom tekstu bi trebalo da pokazem da Kant, kao (...) i oni koji su ga kasnije branili, nisu postigli svoj cilj - nije dat konkluzivan argument protiv relacionizma. (shrink)

Das Ziel dieses Textes ist, die Aufmerksamkeit auf einige Voraussetzungen, die als wichtig für besseres Verständnis des Denkens scheinen, das zusätzlich als „kritisches“ bezeichnet wird, zu richten. Zuerst wird einleitend konstatiert, dass die Rede vom „kritischen“ Denken im Kontext der Ausbildung aufgetreten ist, und es wird daran erinnert, dass „Kritisches“ ein wesentlicher Bestandteil des Denkens überhaupt ist. Deshalb werden verschiedene Vernunfttypen vorgestellt, aus denen sich verschiedene Rationalitäts- und Denktypen entwickeln. Dabei wird an zeitgenössische Kritik an der Absolutierung der westlichen dihairetischen (...) Rationalität erinnert, wonach es gezeigt wird, wie sich aus der Einheit der Vernunft die Pluralität von Rationalitäten entwickelt hat. Im folgenden Abschnitt wird die ursprüngliche Vernunft als Einheit von Logos und Mythos dargestellt, fortgesetzt von der Thematisierung dessen, was aus der Perspektive der dihairetischen Rationalität nicht als der Vernunft Zugehöriges anerkannt wird – das Andere der Vernunft. Darauf folgt die Darstellung der Anerkennungsmöglichkeit der Rationalität des Anderen der Vernunft, welche sich in der Metapher und der analogischen Rationalität zeigt. Nächstes Kapitel diskutiert einige Folgemanifestierungen der dihairetischen Rationalität und mit diesen Folgen verbundene Schwierigkeiten in Bezug auf Voraussetzungen der Fähigkeitsentwicklung des kritischen Denkens. Zum Schluss werden einige Bedingungen für kritisches Denken dargestellt. (shrink)

Autor kritički propituje uvjete i mogućnosti dijaloga između prirodnih znanosti i teologije stvaranja na primjeru dogmatičara Alexandrea Ganoczya. Ganoczy se služi responzorijskom metodom: razvija teologiju stvaranja »od dolje«, konstituirajući zajedničke »platforme« dijaloga gradeći na principu komplementarnosti uz pomoć analogije, te otkrivajući sličnost u načinu izražavanja prirodnih znanosti i teologije . Kao posebna tematska područja teološke refleksije rezultata prirodnih znanosti obrađuju se: samoorganizacija materije i creatio continua; prostorno vremenski kontinuum i vječnost; mozak, duh i Duh Božji; kreativnost i stvaranje te pitanje (...) zla i grijeh.The author analyzes critically the conditions and possibilities of dialogue between natural sciences and theology of creation of the dogmatist Alexandre Ganoczy. Ganoczy uses responsorial method: he develops theology of creation “from below”, constituting common “platforms” of dialogue and building on the principle of complementarity using analogy and discovering similarities in the manner of expression of both natural sciences and theology .The following areas of theological reflection on the results of natural sciences are subject to analysis: selforganization of matter and creatio continua; space-time continuum and eternity; brain, spirit and the Spirit of God; creativity and creation and the question of evil and sin.However, although Ganoczy manages to show that common platforms are much more then modest conclusion that science and theology are not contradictory, in certain topics the dialogue seems to be too associative and the discourse superficial, so that the whole project gains partly essayistic significance. (shrink)

Natural kind terms don’t have descriptive meanings, Devitt claims. The paper argues that this claim is tantamount to denying the existence of natural kind concepts, in the usual sense of “concept”, since concepts are predicate meanings. The denial is counterintuitive, and has bad epistemological consequences, since natural kind concepts are among the building blocks of our understanding of the world. The paper ends with a positive proposal, featuring a bold claim: if the standard Kripke-Putnam, line on semantics of natural kind (...) terms is correct, and if there are natural kind concepts, then propositions analyzing these concepts are not apriori knowable. Analyticity does not entail apriority. (shrink)

Wiggins’ third book on substance Sameness and Substance Renewed is renewing his second one, Samenes and Substance, from 1980. The renewal is substantial, and is summarized by author himself in the Preface: completely new chapters are added, like the one on vagueness and identity; some important ones are completely rewritten, and fertile ideas from Putnam and Kripke are incorporated into the argument, bringing it in line with mainstream views on meaning and reference. The book deserves to be reviewed as a (...) new work, so I shall refrain here from looking back to its already famous ancestor. (shrink)

Building on Crane’s intentionalism, the paper proposes a variant of response-dependentist view of colors. To be of a color C is to have a disposition to cause in normal observers a response, namely, intentional phenomenal C-experience. The view is dubbed “response-intentionalism”. It follows from the following considerations, with the red of a tomato surface taken as an example of color C. Full phenomenal red is being visaged as being on the surface of the tomato. Science tells us that full phenomenal (...) red is not on the surface of the tomato. Equally, full phenomenal red is not a property of subjective state but its intentional object. Response-intentionalism follows by considerations of charity, i.e. minimizing and rationalizing the error of the cognizer, and of inference to the best explanation: being red in scientific sense is being such as to cause the response visaging phenomenal red in normal observers under normal circumstances. (shrink)

In Equal Recognition, Alan Patten argues that in a proper relationship between normative political theory and democratic politics, we must make a clear distinction between two questions related to cultural rights: (a) authority (who should decide?) and (b) the substance of deliberation. The question he wants to explore, however, is not the authority question but the substantive question. The aim of this article is to show that an account of equal recognition cannot bracket out the democratic element. It argues, first, (...) that Equal Recognition does not live up to its initial promise, as it contains a number of reflections and recommendations (on language rights, on secession, on the rights of migrants’ cultures) that either explicitly or implicitly include the democratic element. Second, it points at other important areas of political decision-making – such as electoral system design, districting, referendums, quotas – in which it is quite clear that in order to extend equal recognition to minority cultures, we are obliged to take decisions related to the design of democratic institutions. (shrink)

Merely conceptual knowledge, not based on specific sensitivity to the referential domain, is not seriously a priori. It is argued here that it is either weakly and superficially a priori, or downright a posteriori. This is done starting from the fact that many of our definitions (or concepts) are recognizably empirically established, and pointing out that recognizably empirical grounding yields superficial apriority. Further, some (first-order) concept analyzing propositions are empirically false about their referents and thus empirically refutable. Therefore, our empirical (...) definitions (or concepts) are fallible and empirically revisable: they can turn out to be incorrect about the intended satisfiers of the concept defined, and their concept analyzing propositions to be false. Now, empirical revisability is incompatible with strong apriority (and entails at best a weak apriority or aposteriority). The result is quite shocking: analyticity does not entail apriority. (shrink)

The evolution of belt conveyors, as an important type of continuous conveying machinery, is examined here in a historical perspective. For this purpose, the selected period is from the ancient time, i.e. occurrence of conveying equipment, and up to the end of the nineteenth century. The basic postulation of a modern machine, including conveyors, is often interlinked to that of its ancestor, which may be simple and primitive. Ancient machines and principles of their work were the basis for later improvements (...) which also brought the inventions in engineering. For instance, Archimedes lifted water to high altitude with a screw, which was regarded as the ancestor of today’s screw conveyor and essentially his design has not changed since then. Bucket elevators also have their predecessors dating back to ancient times. In the concrete case of belt conveyors, a first trace can be found in the beginning of the seventeenth century, even classified as primitive example. During the Industrial Revolutions, various machines, such conveyors, appeared. The first modern-like belt conveyors are dedicated to the late eighteenth century due to the invention of Oliver Evans in USA and to the nineteenth century, by Lyster in England, Lopatine in Russia and Thomas Robins in USA. The technical solutions developed by the end of the nineteenth century were forerunners of the today’s belt conveyors, while the key operational principles have not changed. (shrink)

Democracy is in serious difficulties. Three features of the crisis stand out. First is the dominant culture of disillusionment in democracy, which transpires as the mistrust in constitutionalist institutions and values. Second, political authority, both at domestic and international levels, is largely substituted by the rule of non-transparent and unpredictable social powers. Third, democratic states are deprived of much of their capacity to govern, but they retain a non-negligible capacity to coerce.The article is structured as follows. Section I introduces Karl (...) Polanyi’s concept of embeddedness and juxtaposes it to the theoretical defense of market disembeddedness advanced by the classical political economy. It then points to the challenge that the complexity of the contemporary society poses to the idea of embeddedness and identifies the need for further analytical clarification of the idea. Section II tries to explain why the idea of embeddedness is intuitively suspect. One reason is found in the domi... (shrink)

In this article I ask how moral relativism applies to the analysis of responsibility for mass crime. The focus is on the critical reading of two influential relativist attempts to offer a theoretically consistent response to the challenges imposed by extreme criminal practices. First, I explore Gilbert Harman’s analytical effort to conceptualize the reach of moral discourse. According to Harman, mass crime creates a contextually specific relationship to which moral judgments do not apply any more. Second, I analyze the inability (...) thesis, which claims that the agents of mass crime are not able to distinguish between right and wrong. Richard Arneson, Michael Zimmerman and Geoffrey Scarre do not deny the moral wrongness of crime. However, having introduced the claim of authenticity as a specific feature of the inability thesis, they maintain that killers are not responsible. I argue that these positions do not hold. The relativist failure to properly conceptualize responsibility for mass crime follows from the mistaken view of moral autonomy, which then leads to the erroneous explanation of the establishment, authority and justification of moral judgments. (shrink)

The paper argues that the use of epistemic terms, prominently “… knows” and even “… knows a priori/a posteriori” is context-sensitive along several dimensions. Besides the best known dimension of quality of evidence (lower quality for less demanding context, and higher one for more demanding), there is a dimension of depth (shallow justification for superficial evaluation, and deeper justification for deeper probing evaluation contexts). This claim is illustrated by context-dependent ascription of apriority and aposteriority. The argument proposed here focuses upon (...) the status of propositions that are analytic in empirical concepts (like “Whales are animals”). It is a commonplace in epistemology that any analytic proposition (including e-analytic ones) is a priori. The paper claims that propositions analyzing empirical concepts are an interesting counterexample. It develops the following argument: Many such propositions have empirical counterparts that are expressed by the same form-of-words. (E.g., the form of words “Whales are mammals” can express both an e-analytic proposition and an empirical statement.) They normally derive from their empirical counterparts. Beliefs in such propositions, can be explicitly justified either a priori, by pointing out their conceptual, analytic status, or by reverting to their empirical counterparts. In contexts of very superficial evaluation, one may justify such an analytic belief in the first, conceptual way. In most contexts a belief in a proposition analyzing an empirical concept is being justified by appeal to its empirical counterparts. The empirical justification is normally taken as being ultimate. Empirical counterparts are derivationally deeper than the corresponding analytic propositions, and empirical justification is deeper than a priori one as well. Therefore, propositions analyzing empirical concepts are deeply a posteriori and superficially a priori. (shrink)

Cognitive relativists‐pragmatists (Stich, Churchland) claim that human cognitive strategies, lacking a common goal, are in addition divergent to the point of incommensurability. They appeal to the study of reasoning heuristics for evidence on cognitive diversity and incorrigibility. It is here argued that no such evidence is offered by the research, which, on the contrary (1) presents heuristics as uniform across great variations; (2) offers advice for correcting and improving human reasoning; and (3) very often postulates a uniformity of core logical (...) strategies, built into reasoning competence. Cognitive research thus supports a moderate rationalism rather than relativism‐pragmatism. (shrink)

A strong, strictly virtue- based , and at the same time truth-centered framework for virtue epistemology (VE) is proposed that bases VE upon a clearly motivating epistemic virtue, inquisitiveness or curiosity in a very wide sense, characterizes the purely executive capacities-virtues as a means for the truth-goal set by the former, and, finally, situates the remaining, partly motivating and partly executive virtues in relation to this central stock of virtues. Character-trait epistemic virtues are presented as hybrids, partly moral, partly purely (...) epistemic. In order to make the approach virtue- based , it is argued that the central virtue (inquisitiveness or curiosity) is responsible for the value of truth: truth is valuable to cognizers because they are inquisitive, and most other virtues are a means for satisfying inquisitiveness. On can usefully combine this virtue-based account of the motivation for acquiring knowledge with a Sosa-style analysis of the concept “knowledge”, which brings to the forefront virtues-capacities, in order to obtain a full-blooded, “strong” VE. (shrink)

The paper addresses issues of predicates of taste, both gustatory and aesthetic in dialogue with Michael Glanzberg. The first part briefly discusses his view of anaphora in the determination of the semantics of such predicates, and attempts a friendly generalization of his strategy. The second part discusses his contextualism about statements of taste, of the form A is Φ, and then proposes a pluralist alternative. The literature normally confronts contextualism and relativism here, but the pluralist proposal introduces further options. First, (...) it distinguishes first-level and second-level, more theoretical, approaches. At the first level it introduces the naïve view option, the naive non-dogmatist experiencer who simply claims that A is Φ and that’s it. On meta-level such an experiencer is simply agnostic about further matters. Then, there is the first-level dogmatist stance, characteristic for people who do sincerely debate the issues, who naively believe they are objectively right. The third option is the tolerant, liberal one: “A is Φ; for me, I mean. How do you find it?” On the meta-level, dogmatic disagreement goes well with value-absolutism, entailing that one of the parties is simply wrong, and with relativism. If one is not dogmatist about taste predicates, one should accept that dogmatist is simply wrong; no faultlessness is present. The liberal stance goes well with contextualism. If one is liberal there is no deep disagreement. So, the idea of faultless disagreement is a myth. But the proposal notes that language is open to all possibilities, there is no single option that is obligatory for all speakers. (shrink)

The paper joins Horwich’s criticism of stipulationist accounts of a priori knowledge, and raises some problems for his own account of the a priori. It first questions the assumed separability of scientific investigation and non-scieentific assertoric practices in regard to norms of adequacy. It also questioned Horwich’s Restriction Assumption according to which only the former are answerable to the standards of empirical adequacy and overall simplicity (which threaten apriority in the case of science). Finally, it criticises his argument that inability (...) to think otherwise might guarantee apriority, pointing to science-driven reflective revisability of possibly innate beliefs. (shrink)

The first, critical part of the paper summarizes J. R. Brown’s Platonic view of thought experiments (TEs) and raises several questions. One of them concerns the initial, particular judgments in a TE. Since they seem to precede the general insight, Brown’s Platonic intuition, and not to derive from it, the question arises as to the nature of the initial particular judgment. The other question concerns the explanatory status of Brown’s epistemic Platonism. The second, constructive descriptive-explanatory part argues for an alternative, (...) i.e. the view of TE as reasoning in, or with help of, mental models which can accommodate all the relevant data within a non-aprioristic framework (or, at worst, within a minimally “aprioristic”, nativist one). The last part turns to issues of justification and argues that the mental model proposal can account for justification of intuitional judgments and can also support the view of properly functioning intuition as an epistemic virtue, all within a more naturalist framework than the one endorsed by Brown. (shrink)

The paper addresses two fundamental issues in epistemic axiology. It argues primarily that curiosity, in particular its intrinsic variety, is the foundational epistemic virtue since it is the value-bestowing epistemic virtue. A response-dependentist framework is proposed, according to which a cognitive state is epistemically valuable if a normally or ideally curious or inquisitive cognizer would be motivated to reach it. Curiosity is the foundational epistemic virtue, since it bestows epistemic value. It also motivates and organizes other epistemic virtues, so it (...) is foundational and central for epistemology. The second issue is the one of the fundamental bearer of epistemic value. I shall argue that truth is the primary goal, but that mere true belief is not the fundamental bearer. Rather, the bearer is a relatively minimalist kind of knowledge. Mere true belief cannot be rationally accepted in isolation from a supporting structure. However, any efficient supporting structure introduces further epistemic goods (justification, reliability, anti-luck guarantees), thus upgrading the original true belief. Mere true belief can be neither defended, nor rationally sustained through time, due to isolation. Mere true belief cannot be rationally sustained in the face of a slightest bit of contrary evidence (the Meno insight). Therefore, mere true belief is not rationally stable. Minimal knowledge is, and this accounts for the primary and secondary value problem, and for a relatively undemanding kind of tertiary value. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the consequences of Mamou’s recent solution to the so-called problem of reindividuation. The problem is first proposed by John Broome as an argument against the Humean view of rationality and subjective decision theory. Essentially, Broome argues that the reindividuation of outcomes must be constrained in some way if the axioms of rationality are not to be vacuous, but the constraints on individuation cannot be consistent with the Humean view of rationality. Mamou offers an elegant Humean (...) solution to this problem. We do not need such rules for reindividuation since the subjective decision theory operates under the assumption of maximal relevance of description, and only under that assumption do the axioms tell anything. Thus the problem of reindividuation dissolves in a quite natural and simple way. However, I argue that if we connect this solution to the topic of justification for the requirements of rationality, problems arise. I examine the influence of the solution on the common argument for the axioms of decision theory, the so-called money-pump arguments. These arguments are a staple in the justification of the axioms of subjective decision theory. I argue that they are in collision with Mamou’s solution. This collision brings us to the dilemma: either accept Broome’s conclusions or lose the money-pump arguments as an effective tool for justification of the axioms. I conclude that neither of the options is really good for the defenders of the Humean view of rationality. (shrink)

Virtually all epistemologists agree that truth is a necessary condition for knowledge. Assuming that our three-dimensional world is nested within a higher-dimensional space, I use multidimensional geometry to present a type of case which undermines this fundamental principle of epistemology. I further argue that we would be unlikely to revise our epistemic practices in light of new discoveries even if our world turned out to be substantially different and many of our beliefs turned out to be false.

The paper investigates some mechanisms of thought-experimenting, and explores the role of perspective taking, in particular of mental simulation, in political thought-experiments, focusing for the most part on contractualist ones. It thus brings together two blossoming traditions: the study of perspective taking and methodology of thought-experiments. How do contractualist thought-experiments work? Our moderately inflationist mental modelling proposal is that they mobilize our imaginative capacity for perspective taking, most probably perspective taking through simulation. The framework suggests the answers to questions that (...) are often raised for other kinds of thought-experiments as well, concerning their source of data, heuristic superiority to deduction, experiential, qualitative character and ease in eliminating alternatives. In the case of contractualist political thought-experiments, the data come from perspective taking and the capacity to simulate. Mental simulation is way more accessible to subjects than abstract political reasoning from principles and facts. There is a new experience for the subject, the one of simulating. Simulation normally is quick and effortless; the simulator does not go through alternatives, but is constrained in an unconscious way. We distinguish two kinds of political thought-experiments and two manners of imagining political arrangements, building third-person mental models, and fi rst-person perspective taking. The two mechanisms, the fi rst of inductive model building, the second for simulation, and their combination(s), exhaust the range of cognitive mechanism underlying political thought-experimenting. (shrink)

The paper challenges the entrenched equation of conceptual with apriori. It develops the idea of at least dual justification of a single piece of belief, at a deep, ultimate level and at the surface, immediately accessible to the thinker. Apriori justification then also admits of different degrees of depth. A proposition is deeply apriori for a cognizer if its ultimate ground is apriori, otherwise it is only superficially apriori . In the case of empirically applicable concepts, some of their concept-analyzing (...) propositions are justified apriori only at the surface. Deeply, they are aposteriori, being originally straightforward empirical propositions. It is argued that there is no reason to suppose that they change their epistemic status once build into a concept. (shrink)

The paper defends causal explanationism concerning our modal intuitions and judgments, and, in particular, the following claims. If a causally explainable mirroring or “pre-established harmony” between our mind and modal reality obtains, we are justified in believing it does. We do not hold our modal beliefs compulsively and blindly but with full subjective and objective justification. Therefore, causal explanation of our modal beliefs does not undermine rational trust in them. Explanation and trust support each other. In contrast, anti-explanationists, claim that (...) causal explanation of intuitions and judgments undermines rational trust in them. They especially target causal explanation in terms of pre-established harmony between our mind, shaped by causal processes, and the underlying modal structure of reality. The paper argues against them. The argument builds upon the claim that the appeal to modal facts is indispensable for systematization and explanation of non-modal ones. Therefore, we should assume that modal facts exist and are not disjoint and isolated from actual facts. The modal structure of the universe intervenes in the non-modal reality. Causal processes indirectly carry information about deep modal structure. Any causal explanation of our intuitional modal beliefs should start from this indirect contact with and information about modal facts. Therefore, if our intuitional modal beliefs are true and causally explainable, they are true in virtue of the deep underlying modal structure. They are sensitive to modal reality and track it. We can come to know this fact, and thus strengthen our spontaneous trust in our modal intuitions. (shrink)