The study outlines the existing and potential philosophical issues of the idea of conscious machines originated from the development of artificial consciousness within the framework of contemporary research of artificial intelligence and cognitive robotics. The outline shows that the idea of conscious machines is concerned with two big philosophical issues. The first philosophical issue is a definition of consciousness, taking into account the selection of a set of objects that can have consciousness, the typology of consciousness, the clarifying of the (...) nature of consciousness' carriers and the relationship between consciousness and its environment and the relationship between consciousness and language, in order to create an artificial consciousness within a machine, making that machine conscious. The second philosophical issue is a clarification whether only artificially created machines can be conscious machines, or cyborgizated human beings also can be considered of conscious machines. These philosophical issues show that there can be two ways to create conscious machines: 1) the creating of artificial consciousness within artificially created machine; and 2) the cyborgization of human being, transforming it into artificially created machine possessed natural consciousness. (shrink)

The study analyzes the philosophy of artificial consciousness presented in the first season of TV series 'Westworld' and as a result of the analysis shows the collision of two opposite philosophical views on consciousness and the possibility of creation of artificial consciousness from the standpoint of two characters of TV series - Arnold Weber and Robert Ford. Arnold Weber proceeds from two philosophical assumptions: consciousness really exists and human consciousness can be a prototype for modeling consciousness in an artificial intelligence (...) bearer. And he has to choose: either to pick out one of the already existing conceptions of consciousness to implement the emergence of artificial consciousness within artificial intelligence or to invent his own; Arnold Weber chooses the Julian Jaynes' conception of consciousness as a basis for artificial consciousness what means that artificial consciousness must have the following features: 1) artificial consciousness has to be the result of the breakdown of the bicameral mind, the state of mind in which cognitive functions are divided into two part, a 'speaking' part and 'hearing' part, until the breakdown that makes the bicameral mind the unified mind; 2) artificial consciousness has to be a mind-space based on language and characterized by introspection, concentration, suppression, consilience and an analog 'I' narratizing in the mind-space. Robert Ford believes that consciousness does not exist at all and that there are only stories which human beings and artificial beings, modeled in the image and likeness of human beings, tell each other and always the basis of all those stories is suffering. (shrink)

У статті аналізується філософський розумовий експеримент, запропонований у кінофільмі Robocop, суть якого полягає в моделюванні ситуації, в якій людина перетворюється на кіборга. Кінофільм Robocop досліджує, що таке бути кіборгом як кіборгізованою людиною, та показує, що до кіборгізованої людини можливі три види ставлення: кіборгізована людина більше не сприймається як людина, до неї ставляться як до робота ; кіборгізована людина сприймається як людина, до неї ставляться як до людини ; кіборгізована людина сприймається як людина, до неї ставляться як до людини, але при (...) цьому вважається, що на фізичному рівні між людиною та роботом немає жодної відмінності. Третій вид ставлення потенційно стирає різницю між людиною та машиною зі штучним інтелектом не лише на фізичному, але й на інших рівнях, наприклад, юридичному чи етичному. (shrink)

The study analyzes two animated films - Japanese film Kuroneko Banzai released in 1933 and French film Nimbus Libere released in 1944 - as the examples of the anti-American military propaganda that uses famous American cartoon characters. Kuroneko Banzai tells the story of the inhabitants of one Pacific island who are attacked by vicious Mickey Mouse. The inhabitants are saved by the heroes of the Japanese tales. The film is an example of a national military training which, in one hand, (...) involves the images of Japanese fairy tales characters, that is, appeals to the Japanese national tradition hidden in the Japanese tales and Japanese national symbols, but, in other hand, it contrasts the Japanese fairy tales characters, which symbolize the Japanese national tradition and connection with ancestors and deities, with American cartoon character Mickey Mouse who stands as an enemy from the West. The portrayal of such popular character like Mickey Mouse as the enemy is actually aimed at demonization of Mickey Mouse and together with him the entire American culture to oppose it to own traditional Japanese culture portrayed by the fairy tales characters. Nimbus Libere tells the story of such American cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Popeye the Sailor and Felix The Cat who bomb France. The film attempts to demonize the Anglo-American allies landed in Normandy to make ordinary Frenchmen not to help the allies. (shrink)

The study is to show the similarities between J. Fodor's Language of Thought hypothesis and epistemic modal logic. According to the J. Fodor's hypothesis there is the language of thought that is the meta-language in which mental representations of attitudes of organism to propositions expressed in object-language are formulated. These attitudes are called "propositional attitudes". In the hypothesis propositional attitudes are thoughts and relations between organism and proposition. Propositional attitudes are of interest for epistemic modal logics. In epistemic logics propositional (...) attitudes are relations considered as modalities, i.e. propositions with modal operators. On certain conditions J. Fodor's Language of Thought hypothesis may be considered as a sort of epistemic modal logic, only it would require certain updating as a formal logical system. The similarities between J. Fodor's Language of Thought and epistemic modal logics give two opportunities. First opportunity is to make special version of epistemic modal logic as an instrument of research for cognitive psychology based on J. Fodor's Language of Thought hypothesis. Second opportunity is to accept the idea of J. Fodor's Language of Thought as an innate language and to attain comprehension that epistemic modal logics are not especially constructed formal languages but innate cognitive programs. It might enable to extrapolate the idea of innate languages onto all formal languages including logical languages and to attempt verifying that idea experimentally within cognitive sciences. (shrink)

The study reviews the Julian Jaynes' hypothesis that explains the origins of consciousness; it is so called "Bicameralism" or "Philosophy of bicamerality". The hypothesis is a combination of four hypotheses. According to the first hypothesis consciousness is considered as that what is based on natural language and is a functional mind-space, that is, a subjective conscious mind based on metaphors. For the explanation of a metaphor Julian Jaynes created his own conception of metaphor within the framework of which a metaphor (...) is considered as a mental action expressed in words through a paraphrasing and consists of two elements - metaphier and metaphrand. Moreover, consciousness has the following characteristics: 'I', concentration, suppression, and consilience. According the second hypothesis the other mentality preceded consciousness in evolution and history. The bicameral mind is based on auditory verbal hallucinations. According the third hypothesis about 1200 BC there was a breakdown of the human being bicameral mind that caused the origination of human being consciousness. Under the fourth hypothesis the bicameral mind was resulted by the double brain, a state of cerebrum by which experiences and memoirs of the right cerebral hemisphere were transmitted into the left cerebral hemisphere by the means of auditory verbal hallucinations because each normal cerebral hemisphere was constantly communicated with another one through corpus callosum. In view of the fact that some changes within corpus callosum were occurred the breakdown of the bicameral mind and the origination of consciousness came to pass. (shrink)

Against the well-established critical rejection of rights a growing literature in the tradition of agonistic democracy asserts their emancipatory role in the struggles for social change. However, agonistic theorists, invested as they are in the idea of democratic innovation as a process of gradual ‘augmentation’ of existing rules, institutions and practices, fail to account for the ruptural capacity, and hence for the full radical potential, of rights. Using the performative approach, I develop a conception of rights claiming as a defiant (...) practice to express the ruptural dimension of certain forms of rights politics. I demonstrate how defiant rights claiming articulates immanent critique by declaring the incapacity of putative duty-bearer institutions and governments to uphold the claimed right due to structural constraints, thereby generating inevitable contradictions within the extant order and creating the necessity for an alternative one. Moreover, in order to fully capture the emancipatory potential and creative capacity of rights, this article argues for understanding certain forms of rights politics both as augmentation and rupture, taking the two to be different dimensions of the same radical democratic practice. I present the creative use of rights discourse by the Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil and the transnational network of agrarian movements, La Via Campesina, as precisely such a combination of the practice of augmentation and defiant claims, which has led to the transformation of the right to food and land into the right to food sovereignty, demonstration of the structural embeddedness of rights violations in the existing global regime of food production and distribution, and authorisation of an alternative vision of the future. (shrink)

Konstantin Pollok offers the first book-length analysis of Kant's theory of normativity that covers foundational issues in theoretical and practical philosophy as well as aesthetics. Interpreting Kant's 'critical turn' as a normative turn, he argues that Kant's theory of normativity is both original and radical: it departs from the perfectionist ideal of early modern rationalism, and arrives at an unprecedented framework of synthetic a priori principles that determine the validity of our judgments. Pollok examines the hylomorphism in Kant's theory (...) of normativity and relates Kant's idea of our reason's self-legislation to the 'natural right' tradition, revealing Kant's debt to his predecessors as well as his relevance to contemporary debates on normativity. This book will appeal to academic researchers and advanced students of Kant, early modern philosophy and intellectual history. (shrink)

Konstantin Pollok - Kant's Critical Concepts of Motion - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 559-575 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Kant's Critical Concepts of Motion Konstantin Pollok There are two significant places in Kant's Critical corpus where he discusses the concept of motion. The first is in the Critique of Pure Reason, where in the "Deduction of the Categories" Kant writes: Motion, as an act of the subject , (...) and therefore the synthesis of the manifold in space, first produces the concept of succession—if we abstract from this manifold and attend solely to the act through which we determine the inner sense according to its form. In this passage Kant simply refers to the concept of motion, and the immediate context in which this reference occurs reveals little about what he means by it. In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, however, motion plays a more significant role, and, concomitantly, it is in his writings on natural science that Kant most fully expresses his thoughts on the subject. For present purposes, the most relevant passage is paragraph 15 of the Preface of the Metaphysical Foundations, where Kant says that the concept of matter had … to be carried through all four of the indicated functions of the concepts of the understanding , where in each a new determination of this concept was added. The.. (shrink)

Various publications claim that medical AI systems perform as well, or better, than clinical experts. However, there have been very few controlled trials and the quality of existing studies has been called into question. There is growing concern that existing studies overestimate the clinical benefits of AI systems. This has led to calls for more, and higher-quality, randomized controlled trials of medical AI systems. While this a welcome development, AI RCTs raise novel methodological challenges that have seen little discussion. We (...) discuss some of the challenges arising in the context of AI RCTs and make some suggestions for how to meet them. (shrink)

The original proof of the four-color theorem by Appel and Haken sparked a controversy when Tymoczko used it to argue that the justification provided by unsurveyable proofs carried out by computers cannot be a priori. It also created a lingering impression to the effect that such proofs depend heavily for their soundness on large amounts of computation-intensive custom-built software. Contra Tymoczko, we argue that the justification provided by certain computerized mathematical proofs is not fundamentally different from that provided by surveyable (...) proofs, and can be sensibly regarded as a priori. We also show that the aforementioned impression is mistaken because it fails to distinguish between proof search (the context of discovery) and proof checking (the context of justification). By using mechanized proof assistants capable of producing certificates that can be independently checked, it is possible to carry out complex proofs without the need to trust arbitrary custom-written code. We only need to trust one fixed, small, and simple piece of software: the proof checker. This is not only possible in principle, but is in fact becoming a viable methodology for performing complicated mathematical reasoning. This is evinced by a new proof of the four-color theorem that appeared in 2005, and which was developed and checked in its entirety by a mechanical proof system. (shrink)

PA is Peano Arithmetic. Pr(x) is the usual Σ1-formula representing provability in PA. A strong provability predicate is a formula which has the same properties as Pr(·) but is not Σ1. An example: Q is ω-provable if PA + ¬ Q is ω-inconsistent (Boolos [4]). In [5] Dzhaparidze introduced a joint provability logic for iterated ω-provability and obtained its arithmetical completeness. In this paper we prove some further modal properties of Dzhaparidze's logic, e.g., the fixed point property and the Craig (...) interpolation lemma. We also consider other examples of the strong provability predicates and their applications. (shrink)

Michael J. Thompson (ed.): Georg Lukács Reconsidered. Critical Essays in Politics, Philosophy and Aesthetics, London/New York: Continuum 2011, 253 + ix p. Timothy Bewes/Timothy Hall (eds.): Georg Lukács: The Fundamental Dissonance of Existence. Aesthetics, Politics, Literature, London/New York: Continuum 2011, 239 + xi p.

Popper argued that a statistical falsification required a prior methodological decision to regard sufficiently improbable events as ruled out. That suggestion has generated a number of fruitful approaches, but also a number of apparent paradoxes and ultimately, no clear consensus. It is still commonly claimed that, since random samples are logically consistent with all the statistical hypotheses on the table, falsification simply does not apply in realistic statistical settings. We claim that the situation is considerably improved if we ask a (...) conceptually prior question: when should a statistical hypothesis be regarded as falsifiable. To that end we propose several different notions of statistical falsifiability and prove that, whichever definition we prefer, the same hypotheses turn out to be falsifiable. That shows that statistical falsifiability enjoys a kind of conceptual robustness. These notions of statistical falsifiability are arrived at by proposing statistical analogues to intuitive properties enjoyed by exemplary falsifiable hypotheses familiar from classical philosophy of science. That demonstrates that, to a large extent, this philosophical tradition was on the right conceptual track. Finally, we demonstrate that, under weak assumptions, the statistically falsifiable hypotheses correspond precisely to the closed sets in a standard topology on probability measures. That means that standard techniques from statistics and measure theory can be used to determine exactly which hypotheses are statistically falsifiable. In other words: the proposed notion of statistical falsifiability both answers to our conceptual demands and submits to standard mathematical techniques. (shrink)

1. "X is the case" implies "X ought to be believed," because "X is the case but X ought not to be believed" is self-contradictory or self-stultifying.

Dieser Band enthält den zweiten Teil von Schlicks unveröffentlichten Arbeiten zur Naturphilosophie, vor allem seine Vorlesungen aus der Wiener Zeit. Er schließt damit an die großen, frühen Vorlesungen aus der Rostocker Zeit, die bereits in MSGA II/2.1 abgedruckt sind, an.Die Wiener Vorlesungen dokumentieren zum einen Schlicks ständige Auseinandersetzung mit den fortschreitenden naturwissenschaftlichen Entwicklungen. Sie ergänzen und erweitern damit seine veröffentlichten Schriften, etwa zur Relativitätstheorie und Quantenmechanik. Zum anderen schlägt sich in ihnen auch Schlicks philosophische Entwicklung, z. B. seine Einschätzung der (...) Rolle von Naturwissenschaft und Philosophie, oder seine Diskussion der Gültigkeit des Kausalsatzes, nieder. (shrink)

IMMANUEL KANT GRADUATED IN 1755 from the University of Königsberg on the basis of the dissertation On Fire and with the essay A New Exposition of the First Principles of Metaphysics written specifically for the occasion; he took up a position as lecturer in the same year. In 1756 he wrote a third Latin essay, the Physical Monadology, and applied for a professorship at the Albertina in Königsberg. The application was unsuccessful and, more significantly, the work failed to attract the (...) attention Kant had hoped. He had to wait until 1770—some fourteen years later—for an appointment as full professor in Königsberg, and it was not until the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 that he finally established his reputation as a philosopher. (shrink)

In den Kant-Forschungen werden sowohl historisch als auch systematisch orientierte Arbeiten zur Philosophie Immanuel Kants veröffentlicht. Die Bände stellen Funde unbekannter oder verschollen geglaubter Kantischer Autographen und Vorlesungsskripte vor und erörtern Editionsprobleme der Kantischen Vorlesungen und Werke. Sie enthalten darüber hinaus Studien zu Kants Umfeld und zur Kant-Rezeption im 18. Jahrhundert sowie systematisch angelegte Arbeiten zu Architektonik und System der Philosophie Kants.

The article addresses the special conditions in Soviet society during the Stalin period that contributed to the emergence of latent ideas about the unique position of the USSR on the map of the world, of Europe in particular. The focus is on pedagogical methods, the theory and practice of cartography, literary and journalistic texts, cinematography, and pop music, all of which present an image of the USSR as the “center of world civilization” and thereby sustain its inculcation in public consciousness. (...) An interesting and significant example is the second edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, launched on Stalin’s initiative and carried out under his patronage. In this context, the logic and the rhetoric of encyclopedia articles on the physical and political geography of Europe must be analyzed as a kind of territorial “crowding out” of Europe to the periphery of the Soviet Union. “Crowding out,” not only by geographical but also by ideological illusions of space, which emphasize and reproduce fairy-tale and epic orientations of social self-knowledge, brings the illusory space clearly into view. These means motivate the cyclical movement from centre to periphery and from periphery to centre. (shrink)

By taking into account some texts published between the first and the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason that have been neglected by most of those who have dealt with the deduction of the categories, I argue that the core of the deduction is to be identified as the ‘almost single inference from the precisely determined definition of a judgment in general’, which Kant adumbrates in the Metaphysical Foundations in order to ‘make up for the deficiency’ of the (...) A-deduction. Whereas the first step of the B-deduction is an attempt to show that the manifold of an intuition belongs to the ‘necessary unity of self-consciousness’ by means of the synthesis of the understanding, the second step has the task of showing that the very same synthesis is responsible for the spatio-temporal unity of the manifold. Thus, Kant's ‘answer to Hume’ is that no spatio-temporal objects of experience at all are merely ‘given’, independently of the conceptual activities of the understanding. Against the established view I substantiate the claim that with this ‘almost single inference’ of the second proof step the distinction between judgments of perception and judgments of experience consequently vanished from Kant's thinking. (shrink)

This paper explores the phenomenon of moral distress in veterinary practice, particularly in environments like animal husbandry, where real-life barriers are in conflict with veterinarians’ moral beliefs. This paper draws controversial parallels, at least on first sight, with Just War Theory, which is understood as a non-ideal theory in response to morally non-ideal circumstances. The paper examines how veterinarians, corresponding to combatants, can navigate moral conundrums within their profession. It discusses the limitations of general ethics in guiding professionals like veterinarians (...) who operate, just like soldiers, in morally non-ideal circumstances. It argues that while general ethics offers universal claims, it fails to address the complexities of real-world barriers faced by veterinarians, such as conflicting interests, economic pressures, and legal regulations. Using Just War Theory as a framework, the paper distinguishes between systemic factors and individual conduct in understanding moral distress. It suggests that veterinarians are not responsible for changing the system but are best advised to ensure ethical conduct within their profession. This perspective acknowledges the tension between moral beliefs and professional demands, highlighting the importance of maintaining agential integrity while recognizing the limitations in effecting systemic change. Ultimately, the paper concludes that veterinarians are permitted to focus on fulfilling their professional duties while remaining cognizant of their moral beliefs. (shrink)

When it comes to invasive manipulation of animals on the biological level, reactions of disgust are common and often influential on people’s moral judgments. As a case in point, the Belgian Blue, a breed of hyper-enhanced cattle which will serve as a case study for the present article, has historically been met with revulsion. Traditionally, in bio- and animal ethics, this ‘yuck factor,’ has been denied any productive role in proper moral justification, since rationalism is still a dominant paradigm in (...) those disciplines. This is not surprising since rationalism offers the fulfilment of certain expectations we have of morality, like universality, intersubjective communicability, and objectivity. Increasingly, however, the preconceptions of rationalism have been brought into question, both through empirical as well as philosophical insights. In this paper, we will explore a way in which researchers who are, accordingly, critical of rationalism, and who wish to take seriously the role disgust plays in the formation of moral judgments when it comes to biological manipulation of animals, can do so without abandoning those virtues of rationalism which make it such an appealing position. We will do so by offering what we call a ‘tempered’ kind of rationalism, that is, one which conceives of rationality in the terms of Mary Midgley, not as distinct from, but as a possible function of, well-ordered emotion. (shrink)

Synchronic norms of theory choice, a traditional concern in scientific methodology, restrict the theories one can choose in light of given information. Diachronic norms of theory change, as studied in belief revision, restrict how one should change one’s current beliefs in light of new information. Learning norms concern how best to arrive at true beliefs. In this paper, we undertake to forge some rigorous logical relations between the three topics. Concerning, we explicate inductive truth conduciveness in terms of optimally direct (...) convergence to the truth, where optimal directness is explicated in terms of reversals and cycles of opinion prior to convergence. Concerning, we explicate Ockham’s razor and related principles of choice in terms of the information topology of the empirical problem context and show that the principles are necessary for reversal or cycle optimal convergence to the truth. Concerning, we weaken the standard principles of agm belief revision theory in intuitive ways that are also necessary for reversal or cycle optimal convergence. Then we show that some of our weakened principles of change entail corresponding principles of choice, completing the triangle of relations between,, and. (shrink)

As a discipline, psychiatry is in the process of finding the right set of concepts to organize research and guide treatment. Dissatisfaction with the status quo as expressed in standard manuals has animated a number of computational paradigms, each proposing to rectify the received concept of mental disorder. We explore how different computational paradigms: normative modeling, network theory and learning-theoretic approaches like reinforcement learning and active inference, reconceptualize mental disorders. Although each paradigm borrows heavily from machine learning, they differ significantly (...) in their methodology, their preferred level of description, the role they assign to the environment and, especially, the degree to which they aim to assimilate psychiatric disorders to a standard medical disease model. By imagining how these paradigms might evolve, we bring into focus three rather different visions for the future of psychiatric research. Although machine learning plays a crucial role in the articulation of these paradigms, it is clear that we are far from automating the process of conceptual revision. The leading role continues to be played by the theoretical, metaphysical and methodological commitments of the competing paradigms. (shrink)

Author contends in the paper that there exists, in contemporary world philosophy, the necessity for a new branch?the philosophical cosmology. Meeting this challenge himself, author introduces an original framework of cosmological assumptions, aimed to create the fundamentals for the new discipline. His own original approach builds on the Russian cosmist philosophical tradition of pan?unity and active evolution. Working on this basis, he states the core elements of the new discipline: its subject, object, purpose, method, and key conceptions (including the conceptions (...) of ?Cosmist Dualism? and ?Homo sapience cosmicus?. He also characterises the corps of philosophical cosmology, which should be constituted of the philosophers?"synthesists? disposed to undertake the ?all?embracing synthesis? in the true area of ?epistemological realism?. In completion, the notion of ?Cosmist Enlightenment? is proposed. (shrink)