The application of AI in medicine (AIM) is producing health practices more reliable, accurate and efficient than traditional medicine (TM) by assisting partly / totally the medical decision-making, such as the use of deep learning in diagnostic imagery, designing treatment plans or preliminary diagnosis. Yet, most of these AI systems are pure “black-boxes”: the practitioner understands the inputs and outputs of the system but cannot have access to what happens “inside” it and cannot offer an explanation, creating an opaque process (...) that culminates in a “trust gap” in two levels: (a) between patients and the medical experts; (b) between the medical expert and the medical process itself. This creates a “black-box medicine” since the practitioner ought to rely (epistemically) on these AI systems that are more accurate, fast and efficient than any expert or group of human experts but are not transparent (epistemically) and do not offer any kind of explanation. In this paper, we want to introduce some preliminary remarks about the pros and cons of three possible solutions to deal with the “trust gap” in AIM. (shrink)

This new book proposes a way out of the crisis by letting go of the idea that psychology needs ‘new’ foundations or a new identity, whether biological, discursive, or cognitive. The psychological is not narrowly confined to any one aspect of human experience; it is quite literally ‘everywhere’. Drawing on a range of influential thinkers including Michel Serres, Michel Foucault, AN Whitehead, and Gilles Deleuze, the book proposes a strong process-oriented approach to the psychological, which studies ‘events’ or ‘occasions.’.

Folk and philosophers alike argue whether particular emotions are rational. However, these debates presuppose that emotions are eligible for rationality. Drawing on examples of how we manage our own emotions through strategies such as taking medication, I argue that the general permissibility of such management demonstrates that emotions are ineligible for rationality. It follows that emotions are never irrational or rational. Because neither perception nor emotion is eligible for rationality, this reveals a significant epistemic continuity between them, lending support to (...) perceptual views of emotion. (shrink)

The French philosopher and theologian Nicolas Malebranche was one of the most important thinkers of the early modern period. A bold and unorthodox thinker, he tried to synthesize the new philosophy of Descartes with religious Platonism. This is the first collection of essays to address Malebranche's thought comprehensively and systematically. There are chapters devoted to Malebranche's metaphysics, his doctrine of the soul, his epistemology, the celebrated debate with Arnauld, his philosophical method, his occasionalism and theory of causality, his philosophical theology, (...) his account of freedom, his moral philosophy, and his intellectual legacy. (shrink)

Very close analysis of Baruch Spinoza's wording in describing individuals rather than things. Individuals, but not collections such as a political state or club, each have their own specific conatus, or essence. Collectivities, like nations or institutions, fail to meet this necessary condition of individuation.

Individualism embraces a wide diversity of meanings and is widely used by those who criticise and by those who praise Western societies and their culture, by historians and literary scholars in search of the emergence of 'the individual', by anthropologists claiming that there are different, culturally shaped conceptions of the individual or 'person', by philosophers debating what form social science explanations should take and by political theorists defending liberal principles. In this classic text, Steven Lukes discusses what 'individualism' has (...) meant in various national traditions and across different provinces of thought, analysing it into its component unit-ideas and doctrines. He further argues that it now plays a malign ideological role, for it has come to evoke a socially-constructed body of ideas whose illusory unity is deployed to suggest that redistributive policies are neither feasible nor desirable and to deny that there are institutional alternatives to the market. (shrink)

Abstract. The Western conception of the individual as a rational, self-directing agent is a mythology that organizes and distorts religion, science, economics, and politics. It produces an abstracted and atomized form of engagement that is fatal to collective self-governance. And it turns democracy into the enemy of equality. Considering the meaning of democracy and autonomy from a perspective that takes the subject as truly social would refocus our attention on the constitutive contexts and practices necessary for the production of citizens (...) who are capable of meaningful self-governance. Under modern conditions, it is in the development of sexual autonomy that we learn how to take initiative with respect to our well-being and do so in concert with others. Where the view of rational agency as the defining characteristic of humanity yields a deracinated view of autonomy, a more realistic, humanistic view that we are, necessarily, social beings yields a view of freedom and self-governance as social phenomena that require empathy, negotiation, compromise, cooperation, and mutual recognition and respect. (shrink)

I argue that anger helps us possess reasons to intervene against others. This is because fitting anger disposes us to intervene against others in light of reasons to do so. I propose that anger is a presentation of reasons that seems to rationalize such interventions, in much the same way that perceptual experience is a presentation of reasons that seems to rationalize our judgements about our environment. In this way, anger can help us possess reasons that make specific actions rational (...) to perform. Moreover, the significance of anger to practical rationality informs how we should regulate anger, especially the anger of others. Along these lines, I argue that it is wrong to prevent anger to the extent that this prevents someone's possession of reasons to intervene, and it is right to provoke anger to the extent that this enables someone's possession of reasons to intervene. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the impact on structuralism of the quantum treatment of objects in terms of symmetry groups and, in particular, on the question as to how we might eliminate, or better, reconceptualise such objects in structural terms. With regard to the former, both Cassirer and Eddington not only explicitly and famously tied their structuralism to the development of group theory but also drew on the quantum treatment in order to further their structuralist aims and here I (...) sketch the relevant history with an eye on what lessons might be drawn. With regard to the latter, Ladyman has explicitly cited Castellani's work on the group-theoretical constitution of quantum objects and I indicate both how such an approach needs to be understood if it is to mesh with Ladyman's 'ontic' form of structural realism and how it might accommodate permutation symmetry through a consideration of Huggett's recent account. (shrink)

This paper explores Wittgenstein’s early work as it relates to emerging philosophical problems in ecological modeling. Here I use his thought to structure a logical framework from which to discuss ecological simulation models in a way that captures how these dynamic representations describe a world from which we can draw logical inferences about real-world ecological processes. I argue that Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus provides a way of reading problems that arise in using simulation as a way to make inferences about the (...) world. Conversely, ecological simulation provides an illustration of a Tractarian system, because the digital world it creates completely describes and is defined by the programing language. This reading is a novel, but productive, way that notes that the language used in modeling requires a hermeneutical approach to make inferences about modeling/real-world relationships. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce’s second trichotomy, which introduces the concepts of iconicity, indexicality, and symbolicity, is probably the only piece of his semiotic that is familiar to visual artists and designers. Although the concepts have found their way into the academy, their utility in the field has been reduced for a couple of reasons. First, as with all of Peirce’s philosophy, his second trichotomy is a concept that is subtle, fluid, and difficult to fully grasp in a sound bite. Second, there (...) has simply been no bridge concept that would form a working connection between that philosophy in its logical guise and the studio practice in the visual arts. The purpose of this article is to remedy that situation by investigating the subtle ways the second trichotomy functions within the visual sphere, and to then suggest a model that can serve to bridge the divide between pure theory and practice. The article makes four main points: first, using examples from visual identity and the graphic arts, it demonstrates how the modes of icon, index, and symbol tend to be blended; second, examples from fine art are used to illustrate how the concept of abstraction, as used in the art world, can only be partially accounted for within the second trichotomy, but can be modeled by supplying a syntactical supplement; third, it expands on and elaborates a previously sketched model, the visual gamut, which makes it possible to classify visual entities according to their position within a map of semantic and syntactic space; finally, it concludes by suggesting ways this enhanced version of the visual gamut model might be used in the analysis of, or creation of, art and design, presenting suggestions for further study. (shrink)

An eliminativist view of objects in physics has recently been defended in the context of “ ‘ontic structural realism.” This chapter explores the extent to which a similar eliminativism can be articulated and defended in the philosophy of biology. Obviously the motivations are very different, but a range of issues can be identified that pull us away from an object-oriented stance. Various metaphysical resources can then be deployed to help assuage concerns regarding such a move, and the chapter considers two (...) in particular: a version of truthmaker theory and a form of monism. The development of such resources in the biological context offers a number of interesting avenues of exploration, particularly if we take biological lineages to provide the appropriate grounding in each case. (shrink)

The magnitude of the global food waste problem is staggering, yet it receives little mainstream attention. We waste nearly half of all food produced—more than one billion tons annually—yet nearly one billion global citizens are hungry. Our values are out of balance; we need to properly value our food. Urgent change is needed, beginning with heightened awareness and a sense of responsibility to people and planet. Feeding nine billion people by 2050 is a tremendous challenge, but also a tremendous opportunity (...) to develop new levels of innovation and collaboration to eradicate hunger, improve the environment for future generations, and create a more unified, secure world. A new, durable, multifaceted approach to reducing food waste is needed in the form of a global network. This global network should be anchored by a sense of shared responsibility among consumers, businesses, governments, and global institutions to optimize resources in the quest to provide for nine billion people by 2050. (shrink)

By examining existing definitions and data sets, this article explores the current state of efforts intended to measure corporate reputation. Both definitions and data are found to be lacking, and it is argued that many deficiencies in definition and data can be attributed to the fact that theory development related to corporate reputation has been insufficient.

Criminal law is a system for societal ordering, as much as it is for protection against interpersonal harm and wrongs. Whilst such laws can engage rights to privacy and freedoms of expression and movement, international human rights rarely feature in criminal theory. Using Duff’s public wrongs theory, a normative argument is made for recognition of international human rights within the national civil order, as well as through a proposed supra-national human rights polity. This is tested through identification of human rights (...) criminalization principles from public ordering cases in the European Court of Human Rights. International human rights offers a formal route to recognition of liberal principles, as well as adding possible new boundary conditions within criminal theory. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper is a study of the role of language in scientific activity. It recommends that language be viewed as a community's means of patterning its affairs. Language represents where the boundaries of the community are and who is entitled to speak within it, and it displays the structures of authority in the community. Moreover, language precipitates the community's view of what the world is like, such that linguistic usages can be taken as referring to that world. Thus, language (...) connects on the one side to a community's practical life, and, on the other, to the reality on which it “reports.”The example treated is Robert Boyle's view of the language proper for experimental practice, and his arguments against the value and legitimacy of mathematical representations within the experimental community. Boyle argued that the use of mathematics was inappropriate because (i) it would restrict the number of potential participants; (ii) it would give rise to unwarranted expectations of the certainty and accuracy to be expected of real physical inquiries; (iii) it would suggest views of natural law and God's relations with the natural world which were incorrect and possibly dangerous; and because (iv) the world upon which the experimentalist operated was not such as was represented by mathematical idealizations. I try to establish that decision about the appropriate language for the experimental community was a moral choice. (shrink)

The issue of just savings between generations presents an important,and for the most part unappreciated, problem for Rawls's theory ofdistributive justice. This paper argues that the just savingsprinciple, as Rawls formulates it in his recent work, standsin tension with the difference principle. When thought through,the just savings principle – and more precisely the foundationon which it rests – give us reason to reject the differenceprinciple in favor of a less egalitarian principle ofdistributive justice.

Non-propositional experiences can help justify beliefs, contrary to recent claims made by Donald Davidson and Laurence Bonjour. It is argued that a perceptual belief is justified if there are no undermining beliefs and it was arrived at in response to an experience through an adequate exercise of properly learned recognitional skills.

What can the art of living after Foucault contribute to ethics in relation to the mediation of human existence by technology? To develop the relation between technical mediation and ethics, firstly the theme of technical mediation is elaborated in line with Foucault’s notion of ethical problematization. Every view of what technology does to us at the same time expresses an ethical concern about technology. The contemporary conception of technical mediation tends towards the acknowledgement of ongoing hybridization, not ultimately good or (...) bad but ambivalent, which means for us the challenge of taking care of ourselves as hybrid beings. Secondly, the work of Foucault provides elements for imagining this care for our hybrid selves, notably his notions of freedom as a practice and of the care of the self. A conclusions about technical mediation and ethics is that whereas the approaches of the delegation of morality to technology by Latour and mediated morality by Verbeek see technical mediation of behavior and moral outlook as an answer in ethics, this should rather be considered the problem that ethics is about. (shrink)

There is an influential, ongoing debate between traditionalists and experimentalists about how to carry out conceptual analysis by means of the method of possible cases. The debate concerns whose intuitions are evidentially relevant to philosophical theories, and which methods are most appropriate for collecting such evidence. The aim of this paper is not to take sides in this debate, but to question the monopoly that the method of possible cases has in contemporary discussions of philosophical methodology. Since early analytic philosophy (...) is replete with methods of conceptual analysis that make no essential use of intuitions, these discussions are inevitably myopic. In particular, it will be argued that Frege’s logical analysis of arithmetic, Hilbert’s axiomatic analysis of geometry, and Poincaré’s transcendental analysis of physics are non-psychologistic methods that yield profound philosophical conclusions. None of these methods are carried out from the philosopher’s armchair or the scientist’s laboratory; instead they properly belong to mathematics and physics. Thus, by ignoring these methods, both traditionalists and experimentalists have neglected the significant role that the exact sciences can play in conceptual analysis. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the field of metatheory with two goals. My first goal is to present a clear understanding of what metatheory “is” based on a collection of over twenty definitions of the term. My second goal is to present a preliminary investigation into how metatheory might be understood as a science. From that perspective, I present some strengths and weaknesses of our field and suggest steps to make metatheory more rigorous, more scientific, and so make more of (...) a contribution to the larger community of the social sciences. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Several elements of the philosophical pessimism of Arthur Schopenhauer are used to explicate the critique of consumerism advanced by the 2003 film Lost in Translation. The negativity of fulfillment and the suffering involved in desire as primed by consumerism, as well as the ideological function of the phenomena of celebrity, are examined in the process.

RésuméJe fais un survol de ma carrière de philosophe, qui comprend quarante-quatre ans d'enseignement à Halifax, mais qui commence à Londres avec une thèse sur l'auto-tromperie. Je décris l'utilisation des œuvres littéraires comme guides de l'analyse conceptuelle, puis je fais une escale à Vienne pour traduire On Last Things (Weininger, 2001). Une phrase de Wittgenstein forme la base de réflexions sur le concept d'un Jugement dernier. J'examine en détail ma communication de 2018 pour l'Association régionale des philosophes de l'Atlantique, intitulée (...) « One Last Thing », qui prend comme point de départ le roman The Sense of an Ending de Julian Barnes. Je termine avec quelques affirmations sur la relation de Wittgenstein à la religion. En annexe, je commente brièvement sur les autres communications qui composent ce numéro spécial. (shrink)

Whether human thinking can be formalized and whether machines can think in a human sense are questions that have been addressed by both Peirce and Searle. Peirce came to roughly the same conclusion as Searle, that the digital computer would not be able to perform human thinking or possess human understanding. However, his rationale and Searle's differ on several important points. Searle approaches the problem from the standpoint of traditional analytic philosophy, where the strict separation of syntax and semantics renders (...) understanding impossible for a purely syntactical device. Peirce disagreed with that analysis, but argued that the computer would only be able to achieve algorithmic thinking, which he considered the simplest type. Although their approaches were radically dissimilar, their conclusions were not. I will compare and analyze the arguments of both Peirce and Searle on this issue, and outline some implications of their conclusions for the field of Artificial Intelligence. (shrink)

I argue that Gold & Stoljar's “trivial neuron doctrine” is not in fact trivial. Many familiar positions in the philosophy of mind run afoul of it, and it is unclear that even those whom Gold & Stoljar identify as adherents of the trivial neuron doctrine can be comfortably described as such.