Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s historical analysis of Buddhist philosophy not only fails as a sound interpretation of that tradition, it also well-exemplifies the Western practice of Orientalism as elucidated by Edward Said. I attempt to demonstrate this in three major parts: the nature of Orientalism as a concept and practice, the Orientalist analytical process that Hegel employs in judging Buddhism as well as religions in general, and how Hegel’s understanding does not work against a more charitably interpreted Buddhist defense. Moreover, (...) I argue that the Orientalist erroneousness of Hegel’s reading deeply complicates his hierarchical philosophy of world history. (shrink)

Scientific research is almost always conducted by communities of scientists of varying size and complexity. Such communities are effective, in part, because they divide their cognitive labor: not every scientist works on the same project. Philip Kitcher and Michael Strevens have pioneered efforts to understand this division of cognitive labor by proposing models of how scientists make decisions about which project to work on. For such models to be useful, they must be simple enough for us to understand their dynamics, (...) but faithful enough to reality that we can use them to analyze real scientific communities. To satisfy the first requirement, we must employ idealizations to simplify the model. The second requirement demands that these idealizations not be so extreme that we lose the ability to describe real-world phenomena. This paper investigates the status of the assumptions that Kitcher and Strevens make in their models, by first inquiring whether they are reasonable representations of reality, and then by checking the models' robustness against weakenings of these assumptions. To do this, we first argue against the reality of the assumptions, and then develop a series of agent-based simulations to systematically test their effects on model outcomes. We find that the models are not robust against weakenings of these idealizations. In fact we find that under certain conditions, this can lead to the model predicting outcomes that are qualitatively opposite of the original model outcomes. (shrink)

Active inference offers a unified theory of perception, learning, and decision-making at computational and neural levels of description. In this article, we address the worry that active inference may be in tension with the belief–desire–intention model within folk psychology because it does not include terms for desires at the mathematical level of description. To resolve this concern, we first provide a brief review of the historical progression from predictive coding to active inference, enabling us to distinguish between active inference formulations (...) of motor control and active inference formulations of decision processes. We then show that, despite a superficial tension when viewed at the mathematical level of description, the active inference formalism contains terms that are readily identifiable as encoding both the objects of desire and the strength of desire at the psychological level of description. We demonstrate this with simple simulations of an active inference agent motivated to leave a dark room for different reasons. Despite their consistency, we further show how active inference may increase the granularity of folk-psychological descriptions by highlighting distinctions between drives to seek information versus reward—and how it may also offer more precise, quantitative folk-psychological predictions. Finally, we consider how the implicitly conative components of active inference may have partial analogues in other systems describable by the broader free energy principle to which it conforms. (shrink)

That a standard of medical care must outline services that benefit the patient is relatively uncontroversial. However, one must determine how the practices outlined in a medical standard of care should benefit the patient. I will argue that practices outlined in a standard of medical care must not detract from the patient’s well-functioning and that clinicians can refuse to provide services that do. This paper, therefore, will advance the following two claims: (1) a standard of medical care must not cause (...) dysfunction, and (2) if a physician is medically rational to not provide some service which fails to meet the above condition (i.e. fails to be a standard of medical care), then she may refuse to do so. I then apply my thesis to the prescription of puberty blockers to children with gender dysphoria. (shrink)

The impact of our desires and preferences upon our ordinary, everyday beliefs is well-documented [Gilovich, T. . How we know what isn’t so: The fallibility of human reason in everyday life. New York: The Free Press.]. The influence of such motivational factors on delusions, which are instances of pathological misbelief, has tended however to be neglected by certain prevailing models of delusion formation and maintenance. This paper explores a distinction between two general classes of theoretical explanation for delusions; the motivational (...) and the deficit. Motivational approaches view delusions as extreme instances of self-deception; as defensive attempts to relieve pain and distress. Deficit approaches, in contrast, view delusions as the consequence of defects in the normal functioning of belief mechanisms, underpinned by neuroanatomical or neurophysiological abnormalities. It is argued that although there are good reasons to be sceptical of motivational theories , recent experiments confirm that motives are important causal forces where delusions are concerned. It is therefore concluded that the most comprehensive account of delusions will involve a theoretical unification of both motivational and deficit approaches. (shrink)

The inclusion of engineering standards in US science education standards is potentially important because of how limited engineering education for K-12 learners is, despite the ubiquity of engineering in students’ lives. However, the majority of learners experience science education throughout their compulsory schooling. If improved engineering literacy is to be achieved, then its inclusion in science curricula is perhaps the most efficient means. One significant challenge that arises, however, is in the framing of engineering relative to science by both teachers (...) and curriculum. Science and engineering are both distinct and interdependent. The nature of the contributions of science and engineering to one another has been an area of some examination in philosophy of technology and engineering, but little framing of this relationship has been conducted with K-12 science and engineering education contexts in mind. Nature of science is a critical layer of scientific understanding that has been used to explicitly support literacy in K-16 science classrooms for decades. However, engineering cannot be authentically and appropriately supported by NOS framing. There is an immediate need for discourse on the nature of engineering knowledge but not in isolation of NOS. Given the increasing inclusion of engineering in science classrooms, relationships between NOS and NOEK are in need of explication and argument. Our purpose is to promote a discussion about NOS, engineering, and the relationship between them without misrepresenting engineering as a subdomain of science or as an oversimplification of itself. (shrink)

In this article, I describe a novel position on the semantics of artificial intelligence. I present a problem for the current artificial neural networks used in machine learning, specifically with relation to natural language tasks. I then propose that from a metasemantic level, meaning in machines can best be interpreted as radically contextualist. Finally, I consider what this might mean for human‐level semantic competence from a comparative perspective.

In this essay, I discuss the philosophical significance of three features of the Phaedrus’s dramatic scenery: the myth of Boreas, the two trees Socrates singles out upon arriving at the grove, and the grove itself. I argue that attention to these three features of the dramatic scenery helps us better understand the Phaedrus’s account of erōs.

In the philosophical debate about the desirability of immortality it is argued that immortality could never be desirable, since it requires us to either take on a life where none of our projects or interests stimulate us anymore, or else to loosen our connections to our past selves and no longer survive. I argue that both concerns can be met by considering the role that partial forgetting of past experiences would play in the immortal life. One who loses some non‐essential (...) memories of their past stands to be able to enjoy experiences that have grown tiresome with age. My contribution is to clarify how partial forgetting of only the non‐essential memories allays concerns about our potentially loosened connections to our earlier states. I then consider an objection to my account, that since the standards governing collective memory might be more demanding than those governing individual memory, immortal people might sacrifice aspects of their collective lives to render their own immortal lives enjoyable. (shrink)

Robert Sparrow argues that several initially plausible arguments in favor of the deployment of autonomous weapons systems (AWS) in warfare fail, and that their deployment faces a serious moral objection: deploying AWS fails to express the respect for the casualties of war that morality requires. We critically discuss Sparrow’s argument from respect and respond on behalf of some objections he considers. Sparrow’s argument against AWS relies on the claim that they are distinct from accepted weapons of war in that they (...) either fail to transmit an attitude of respect or they transmit an attitude of disrespect. We argue that this distinction between AWS and widely accepted weapons is illusory, and so cannot ground a moral difference between AWS and existing methods of waging war. We also suggest that, if deploying conventional soldiers in some situation would be permissible, and if we could expect deploying AWS to cause fewer civilian casualties, then it would be consistent with an intuitive understanding of respect to deploy AWS in this situation. (shrink)

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, concern that there could be a shortage of ventilators raised the possibility of rationing care. Denying patients life-saving care captures our moral imagination, prompting the demand for a defensible framework of ethical principles for determining who will live and who will die. Behind the moral dilemma posed by the shortage of a particular medical good lies a broad moral geography encompassing important and often unarticulated societal values, as well as assumptions about (...) the nature and purpose of health care and the consequences of long-standing choices about health care as a social good. This article explores what COVID-19 has exposed concerning values and choices around health care in the United States. Employing the lens of Catholic Social Thought, it argues for an approach to rationing that is grounded in respect for human dignity, committed to distributing social goods in light of the common good, and self-conscious about the construction of vulnerability to illness and death. (shrink)

Explores Russell's activities as a polemicist, agitator, educator, and popularizer and discusses the evolution of his moral philosophy and its application, including his final battle against American intervention in Vietnam.

Ludwig Feuerbach's work is often too easily dovetailed with the works of Hegel and Marx and therefore read teleologically as an intermediary step between the two “major” figures. By re-interpreting Feuerbach more as a system critic than as a system builder, this article attempts to elucidate his relationships to the other two. It will also point up the gendered articulation of his critiques of religion and philosophy. The article will show how Feuerbach's use of gender, though remaining fixed within a (...) predictably hierarchical binary, is more than simply symptomatic of its context and offers significant resources for critical re-readings of nineteenth-century German philosophy. (shrink)

Scholars have extensively debated the family’s place within liberalism, generally, and specific attention and critique has been given to the family in Rawls’ work. What has received less focus are the requirements of parents in a Rawlsian polity and, further, what those requirements might imply for the one case where states explicitly regulate the process of becoming parents: adoption. This paper seeks to discover what might be required of parents, adoptive or otherwise, in a Rawlsian social contract state. Second, it (...) considers adoptive parent selection in light of these requirements as well as Rawls’ arguments regarding merit and fair equality of opportunity. Finally, it considers what such a merit-based selection of adoptive parents implies for the disputed rights of same-sex couples to adopt children. Further, because the question of merit in this case will hinge upon what it means to be a “fit parent,” it also draws upon relevant empirical social science studies regarding gay and lesbian parents. The paper, then, evaluates both the theoretical and empirical validity of generalized claims that same-sex couples are less fit to be parents than are heterosexual couples. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the features of a hybrid expressivist view that has the resources to straightforwardly address issues about logical embedding and the connection between moral judgment and motivation. Following Mark Schroeder’s work in assessing the merits of current hybrid views and proposals made by Dan Boisvert, Michael Ridge, and David Copp, it briefly reviews why the hybrid expressivist may be optimistic about “having it both ways.” However, it argues that the current set of assumptions that lead to optimism also (...) lead to a kind of entangling problem. This arises from assumptions about the generalized structure of the mental states associated with moral thought and language. In response it proposes that agents can possess generalized noncognitive attitudes toward types rather than propositions involving universals. The chapter suggests that this modified hybrid expressivism can explain the connection between morality and motivation without being committed to the strongest forms of internalism. (shrink)

A sociological revision of Aron Gurwitsch provides a helpful layered theory of conscious experience as a four-domain structure: _the theme_, _the thematic field_, _the halo_, and _the social horizon_. The social horizon—the totality of the social world that is unknown, vaguely known, taken for granted, or ignored by the subject despite objectively influencing the thoughts and actions of the subject—, helps conceptualize how everyday human–computer interaction (HCI) can obscure social structures. Two examples illustrate the usefulness of this framework: (1) illuminating (...) new forms of social control known as “surveillance capitalism” that influence the other domains of consciousness despite being invisible to the subject and (2) explaining how computer use tends to “hide” the ecological impacts of digital-technological systems from the attention of subjects. A sociological four-domain theory of consciousness supplements ethnomethodological HCI research by preserving the field’s long-standing focus on micro-level interactions and user experience while simultaneously drawing attention to a “commonsense ignorance of social structure”—in this case, the invisibility of the social structures behind personal computer use. Social structure can be reproduced even when actors are unaware of engaging in its reproduction. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 1-2, Page 202-218, June 2022.

The susceptible-transmissible-removed (STR) model is a deterministic compartment model, based on the susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) prototype. The STR replaces 2 SIR assumptions. SIR assumes that the emigration rate (due to death or recovery) is directly proportional to the infected compartment’s size. The STR replaces this assumption with the biologically appropriate assumption that the emigration rate is the same as the immigration rate one infected period ago. This results in a unique delay differential equation epidemic model with the delay equal to the (...) infected period. Hamer’s mass action law for epidemiology is modified to resemble its chemistry precursor—the law of mass action. Constructing the model for an isolated population that exists on a surface bounded by the extent of the population’s movements permits compartment density to replace compartment size. The STR reduces to a SIR model in a timescale that negates the delay—the transmissible timescale. This establishes that the SIR model applies to an isolated population in the disease’s transmissible timescale. Cyclical social interactions will define a rhythmic timescale. It is demonstrated that the geometric mean maps transmissible timescale properties to their rhythmic timescale equivalents. This mapping defines the hybrid incidence (HI). The model validation demonstrates that the HI-STR can be constructed directly from the disease’s transmission dynamics. The basic reproduction number (R0\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal{R}}_0$$\end{document}) is an epidemic impact property. The HI-STR model predicts that R0∝ρnB\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal{R}}_0 \propto \root \mathfrak{B} \of {\rho_n}$$\end{document} where ρn\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\rho_n$$\end{document} is the population density, and B\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathfrak{B}}$$\end{document} is the ratio of time increments in the transmissible- and rhythmic timescales. The model is validated by experimentally verifying the relationship. R0\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal{R}}_0$$\end{document}’s dependence on ρn\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\rho_n$$\end{document} is demonstrated for droplet-spread SARS in Asian cities, aerosol-spread measles in Europe and non-airborne Ebola in Africa. (shrink)

In 1939, scholars associated with the pro-Nazi Thüringian German Christian movement founded a research institute dedicated to the task of removing the legacy of Judaism from Christianity. The mission of the Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life was to render Christianity acceptable within the antisemitic and militarized climate of National Socialism. This task required purging Christian theology of Jewish influence, a feature evident in the Institute's version of the New Testament titled The Message (...) of God. This publication aimed to transform the religious experience of ordinary German believers and would eventually sell over 200,000 copies. This article examines material in this text as it relates to the Sermon on the Mount and concludes that, despite the apparent incongruity between Nazi ideology and New Testament ethics, the editors of the so-called ‘Nazi Bible’ believed their task to be guided by Christian ethical principles. (shrink)

Many non-Indigenous people assume that secularism—the belief that religion and politics are and should be different spheres of life—is foreign to Native American experience. This partly explains why the topic of Native conversions in early New England has always been so controversial, since conversion implies the differentiation of religion from politics. Be that as it may, history shows that Indigenous peoples are well acquainted with secularism and have been debating it within their communities for centuries. This essay demonstrates proof of (...) concept for a history of Indigenous secularism via a case study of Samson Occom, whose vision of Indigenous self-determination was informed by secularist ideas about sovereignty and conversion. It also offers a critique of scholarly romanticizations of Indigenous peoples' primordially “holistic” a-secularism. This romanticization is the product of a secular-colonial ideology which presupposes the otherness of Indigenous peoples when it comes to differentiating between religion and politics. (shrink)

This ground-breaking handbook provides multi-disciplinary insight into Chinese morality, cognition and emotion by collecting in one place a comprehensive collection of essays focused on Chinese morality by world-leading experts from more than a dozen different academic fields of study. Through fifteen substantive chapters, readers are offered a holistic look into the ways morality could be interpreted in China, and a broad range of theoretical perspectives, including ecological, anthropological and cultural neuroscience.

Abortion jurisprudence in the United States has been criticized by many for allowing the destruction of millions of lives. What many may not know is that the Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion in all fifty states was very similar to another Supreme Court decision, namely, Dred Scott v. Sanford. The parallels between these two cases are astounding, revealing how dehumanization, while a very old idea, is almost always achieved through the same means. A legal analysis of Roe v. Wade, (...) and subsequently Planned Parenthood v. Casey, shows that these cases are both morally and legally unjustified. Just like Dred Scott, Roe, by dehumanizing a specific group of individuals, is a case which does not belong in the American legal system. (shrink)

ABSTRACTInitial evaluations generalise to new contexts, whereas counter-attitudinal evaluations are context-specific. Counter-attitudinal information may not change evaluations in new contexts beca...

Anyone trying to give a brief account of liberalism is immediately faced with an embarrassing question: are we dealing with liberalism or with liberalisms? It is easy to list famous liberals; it is harder to say what they have in common. John Locke, Adam Smith, Montesquieu, Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, Lord Acton, T. H. Green, John Dewey and contemporaries such as Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls are certainly liberals – but they do not agree about the boundaries of toleration, (...) the legitimacy of the welfare state, and the virtues of democracy, to take three rather central political issues. They do not even agree on the nature of the liberty they think liberals ought to seek. (shrink)

Cultivating Virtue brings together philosophers, theologians, and psychologists to provide substantive formational insight and to chart the course for future investigation of character development. After a brief overview of the volume, I interact with a few of its central themes as represented in two essays: “Aristotle on Cultivating Virtue” by Daniel C. Russell, and “Cultivating Virtue: Two Problems for Virtue Ethics” by Christine Swanton.