The abstract basis of modern computation is the formal description of a finite state machine, the Universal Turing Machine, based on manipulation of integers and logic symbols. In this contribution to the discourse on the computer-brain analogy, we discuss the extent to which analog computing, as performed by the mammalian brain, is like and unlike the digital computing of Universal Turing Machines. We begin with ordinary reality being a permanent dialog between continuous and discontinuous worlds. So it is with computing, (...) which can be analog or digital, and is often mixed. The theory behind computers is essentially digital, but efficient simulations of phenomena can be performed by analog devices; indeed, any physical calculation requires implementation in the physical world and is therefore analog to some extent, despite being based on abstract logic and arithmetic. The mammalian brain, comprised of neuronal networks, functions as an analog device and has given rise to artificial neural networks that are implemented as digital algorithms but function as analog models would. Analog constructs compute with the implementation of a variety of feedback and feedforward loops. In contrast, digital algorithms allow the implementation of recursive processes that enable them to generate unparalleled emergent properties. We briefly illustrate how the cortical organization of neurons can integrate signals and make predictions analogically. While we conclude that brains are not digital computers, we speculate on the recent implementation of human writing in the brain as a possible digital path that slowly evolves the brain into a genuine (slow) Turing machine. (shrink)

The effort to identify the neural substrate of episodic recall, though ambitious, lacks experimental support. By considering the data on c-fos activation by novel and familiar stimuli in recognition studies, we illustrate how inadequate experimental designs permit alternative interpretations. We stress that interpretation of c-fos expression changes should be supported by adequate recognition tests.

The discovery-justification distinction stands as a pivotal issue within 20th-century philosophy of science. It subtly underpins many foundational topics and concepts pertinent to our comprehension of knowledge. Thomas Kuhn's contributions are indispensable in this regard, with his critiques playing a pivotal role in shaping both his initial model of scientific progress and its subsequent revisions. Kuhn addressed this dichotomy head-on in the first of his Thalheimer Lectures, presented in 1984. In this paper, we revisit Pablo Melogno's (2019) examination of Kuhn's (...) engagement with this theme. Concurring with Melogno, our analysis extends his interpretation by exploring Larry Laudan's objections to certain research programs focused on a logic of discovery. We further scrutinize specific assumptions about discovery heuristics that have been misinterpreted within Laudan's methodological framework, particularly the one stemming from Herbert Simon's pioneering work. By synthesizing these perspectives, we aim to set up a preliminary framework for a more refined understanding of how history and philosophy of science inform the epistemic practices of agents operating with bounded rationality. (shrink)

(2013). Legal idioms: a framework for evidential reasoning. Argument & Computation: Vol. 4, Formal Models of Reasoning in Cognitive Psychology, pp. 46-63. doi: 10.1080/19462166.2012.682656.

This article will examine the role the first four ecumenical councils played in the controversial enterprises of John Jewel (1522-71) as well as two later early modern English theologians, Richard Hooker (1553-1600) and George Carleton (1559-1628). In three different polemical contexts, each divine portrays the councils as representing definitive catholic consensus not only for doctrine, but also ecclesiastical order and governance. For all three of these theologians, the manner in which the first four ecumenical councils were summoned and conducted, as (...) well as their enactments touching the Church’s life provided patristic norms for its rightful administration. Jewel, Hooker, and Carleton each argued that the English Protestant national Church as defined by the Elizabethan Settlement exemplified a faithful recovery of patristic conciliar ecclesiastical government as an essential component in England’s overall endeavor to return to the true Church Catholic. Jewel employed these councils in order to impeach the Council of Trent’s (1545-63) status as a general council, and to justify the transfer of the authority of general councils to national and regional synods under the direction of godly princes. Hooker proposes the recovery of general councils as a means of achieving Catholic consensus within a Christendom divided along national and confessional lines while at the same time employing the pronouncements of the first four general councils to uphold the authoritative patristic and catholic warrant for institutions and practices retained by the Elizabethan Church. Finally, amid the controversy surrounding the Oath of Allegiance during the reign of James VI/1 (r. 1603-25), George Carleton devoted his extensive examination of these councils to refute papal claims to coercive authority with which to depose monarchs as an extension of excommunication. In so doing, Carleton relocates this ‘coactive jurisdiction’ in the ecclesiastical authority divinely invested in the monarch, making the ruler the source of conciliar authority, and arguably of catholic consensus itself. (shrink)

In his Apology of the Church of England as well as many of his other works, John Jewel defended the orthodoxy of the Elizabethan Church on the basis of the following criteria: Scripture, the first four general councils, the writings of the Church Fathers, and the example of the primitive church.1 By emphasizing these authorities, the bishop of Salisbury also sought to impeach the Roman Church’s claim to orthodoxy by arguing that doctrines and practices which developed subsequently to the early (...) church as defined by these criteria contradict them, thereby nullifying its charge of heresy against Protestants while simultaneously indicting the papacy itself as heretical. A question that emerges from studying Jewel’s prodigious polemical works concerns the source of this means of determining orthodoxy. Answering this question requires a close analysis of the apologist’s use of sources. This article will attempt to answer this question by arguing that this criteria for defining orthodoxy derived mainly from canon law tradition that is confirmed specifically by Gratian’s Decretum. This thesis maintains that Jewel’s criteria constituted a form of the ius antiqua with which he attacked the ius novum that provided the authoritative basis for papal supremacy, and in so doing, sought to vindicate the Elizabethan Church’s place in ancient catholic tradition. (shrink)

Gabriel Marcel is a neosocratic philosopher, a permanent questioner in search for truth. His thought, which is not existentialist in a strict sense, is addressed to the other men and tries to arouse their hope and their ability to heart to heart dialogue.

We explore the notion that culture influences people’s values, and their subsequent ideologies and ethical behaviors. We present the idea that culture itself changes with time, and explore the influence of culture and generational markers on consumer ethics by examining differences in these ethical dimensions between Australians, Indonesians, and Indonesian Migrants in Australia, as well as differences between Generation X versus Generations Y and Z. The present study addresses the need to investigate the role that culture plays in consumer ethics, (...) and the interaction between culture and generational attitudes in determining consumer ethics. Results established a distinct multiculturality in our three cultural samples, including a generational cohort differences. This suggests that culture and generational markers influence ethical beliefs, ideologies, and consumer ethics. It further indicates that Indonesian Migrants have acculturated to Australian society both in terms of their values and consumer behaviors, illustrating a crossvergence effect; scores indicate that these Migrants have the highest cultural intelligence among our samples. Implications of the findings for consumer ethics theory and practice are considered and future directions identified. (shrink)

Recently, commentators close to and within the UK government have claimed that patient choice can increase equity in the context of the National Health Service. This article critically examines the basis for this claim through analysis of recent speeches and publications authored by secretaries of state for health and their policy advisers. It is concluded that this claim has not developed prospectively from an analysis of the causes of healthcare inequity, or even with a consistent normative definition of equity. The (...) limited justification that is “framed in causal explanations” of inequity has suffered from an apparent disregard of the available evidence. (shrink)

This paper argues that many ethical issues in neuroeducational research cannot be appropriately addressed using the principles and guidance available in one of these areas alone, or by applying these in simple combination. Instead, interdisciplinary and public dialogue will be required to develop appropriate normative principles. In developing this argument, it examines neuroscientific and educational perspectives within three broad categories of ethical issue arising at the interface of cognitive neuroscience and education: issues regarding the carrying out of interdisciplinary research, the (...) scrutiny and communication of findings and concepts, and the application of research and associated issues of policy likely to arise in the future. To help highlight the need for interdisciplinary and public discussion, we also report the opinions of a group of educators (comprising trainee teachers, teachers and head teachers) on the neuroeducational ethics of cognitive enhancing drugs, infant screening, genetic profiling and animal research. (shrink)

John Jewel, regarded as the principal apologist and theologian for the Elizabethan Church, was also esteemed as one of England’s most important authority on the subject of usury, and therefore was cited frequently by opponents of usury towards the end of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century. One of the most sustained interpretations of Jewel as a theologian on the subject of usury was by Christoph Jelinger, who observed that the late bishop of Sarum employed the same theological (...) method in opposing usury as he did in defending the doctrines and practices of the Church of England against its Catholic opponents, that is, by appealing to the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, Church Councils, and the example of the primitive church. This article seeks to confirm the opinion of Jelinger, and in doing so show that Jewel’s opposition to usury stemmed primarily from the conviction that it was both a vice and heresy that eroded the unifying attribute of Christian society which was love. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The author of a Christian Letter cited a passage from John Jewel’s A Reply to Harding’s Answer in which the first major apologist of the Elizabethan Settlement spoke of the role of faith and the sacraments in union with Christ. Andrew Willet, the likely author of this work, quoted it against Richard Hooker in order to show how the latter contravened the sacramental theology of the national Church as interpreted by Jewel as one of the foremost expositors of its (...) doctrine. Jewel, however, in his Reply to Harding’s Answer, enumerates four means of the Christian’s union with Christ: the Incarnation, faith, baptism, and the Eucharist-a fact overlooked in A Christian Letter by its author in his endeavor to impeach Hooker’s orthodoxy. Proceeding from the observation that both Jewel and Hooker believed that the locus of Christian salvation is union with Christ, this essay compares the two divines’ respective views of this union by examining the manner in which they understand the role of each of these means forming and maintaining this union. On the basis of this comparison, the essay argues that A Christian Letter misrepresented Jewel’s position and that Hooker’s view of union with Christ was essentially the same as the late bishop of Salisbury’s, notwithstanding some differences in detail and emphases. The article concludes with the opinion that Hooker represents continuity of a particular soteriological emphasis in the Elizabethan Church that can possibly be traced back to Jewel as a representative of the Reformed tradition stressing this doctrine. (shrink)

Experiences of absence are common in everyday life, but have received little philosophical attention until recently, when two positions regarding the nature of such experiences surfaced in the literature. According to the Perceptual View, experiences of absence are perceptual in nature. This is denied by the Surprise-Based View, according to which experiences of absence belong together with cases of surprise. In this paper, I show that there is a kind of experience of absence—which I call frustrating absences—that has been overlooked (...) by the Perceptual View and by the Surprise Based-View and that cannot be adequately explained by them. I offer an alternative account to deal with frustrating absences, one according to which experiencing frustrating absences is a matter of subjects having desires for something to be present frustrated by the world. Finally, I argue that there may well be different kinds of experiences of absence. (shrink)

This book presents a comprehensive and detailed exploration of the relationship between the thought of G.W.F. Hegel and that of John McDowell, the latter of whom is widely considered to be one of the most influential living analytic philosophers. It serves as a point of entry in McDowell’s and Hegel’s philosophy, and a substantial contribution to ongoing debates on perceptual experience and perceptual justification, naturalism, human freedom and action. The chapters gathered in this volume, as well as McDowell’s responses, make (...) it clear that McDowell’s work paves the way for an original reading of Hegel’s texts. His conceptual framework allows for new interpretive possibilities in Hegel’s philosophy which, until now, have remained largely unexplored. Moreover, these interpretations shed light on various aspects of continuity and discontinuity between the philosophies of these two authors, thus defining more clearly their positions on specific issues. In addition, they allow us to see Hegel’s thought as containing a number of conceptual tools that might be useful for advancing McDowell’s own philosophy and contemporary philosophy in general. (shrink)

Este livro aborda algumas mudanças ocorridas recentemente na sociedade ocidental, resultantes de importantes inovações biomédicas e sociojurídicas, e os problemas bioético-religiosos delas decorrentes. Todas essas questões possuem implicações para a reprodução humana e social e afetam categorias analíticas consagradas, como as de casamento, família, filhos, paternidade/maternidade, entre outras. Os textos aqui reunidos dão a idéia das transformações sociais, políticas, demográficas e conceituais que estão em curso nessa primeira década do século XXI.

Lifestyle refers to a set of personal and group behaviours related to normative and semantic aspects of social life. Any coherent set of behavioural patterns derived from religious teachings that exist in life can be considered a religious lifestyle. Considering that the dominant religion in Jordan is Islam, the present study focused on the Islamic lifestyle. In addition, given that the correct relationship between couples has been compared to life-giving blood in marriage, and since the quality of marital role plays (...) a determining role, the existence of communication skills in any of the couples can generate satisfaction and compatibility, whereas lack of awareness of these skills could cause misunderstandings and tension. Therefore, the current study aims to study the role of the Islamic lifestyle in communication skills of 250 Muslim couples of Jordan (Amman, Zarqa and Irbid) in 2022. Data were collected using questionnaires during four months, and the validity and reliability was confirmed. In addition, data analysis was performed in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) using mean tests and structural equation modelling. According to the results, Islamic lifestyle had a positive, significant effect on the improvement of communication skills in Muslim couples in Jordan (P-value: 0.76; T-value: 7.92). Therefore, it is recommended that more attention should be paid to this issue by families, researchers and cultural authorities in the country.Contribution: Our findings revealed that Islamic lifestyle improved communication skills in Muslim couples, which demands special attention. By adhering to the Islamic lifestyle, couples can influence each other’s knowledge, emotions, education and growth, and try to have a realistic understanding of each other’s desires, needs, living environment and perceptions that each has in life issues. Furthermore, they can organise their role in the common life in appropriate ways to prevent problems and solve them in the event of problems. (shrink)

Nottelman (2016) and Peels (2023) identify several categories of ignorance: factive, objectual, and practical, with erotetic ignorance —understood as the lack of knowledge of answers to questions—viewed as reducible to factive ignorance. This paper argues that erotetic ignorance is not in fact reducible to factive ignorance. More precisely, erotetic knowledge does not solely involve a relationship between a subject and a true proposition or set of propositions; instead, it involves a relationship between a subject, a true proposition or set of (...) propositions and epistemic goals of inquiry. (shrink)

Burge famously argued that one can have thoughts involving a concept C even if one’s understanding of C is incomplete. Even though this view has been extremely influential, it has also been taken by critics as less than clear. The aim of this paper is to show that the cases imagined by Burge as being ones in which incomplete understanding of concepts is involved can be made clearer given an account of direct concept ascriptions—such as “Peter has the concept of (...) arthritis”—according to which these ascriptions are to be analysed in terms of ascriptions of the knowledge of what something is. The upshot is that the cases imagined by Burge can be explained is terms of the idea of subjects knowing in part what something is. (shrink)

We argue that the pivotal role assigned by Northoff to the principle of top-down modulation in catatonia might successfully be applied to other symptoms of schizophrenia, for example, hallucinations. Second, we propose that Northoff's account would benefit from a more comprehensive analysis of the cognitive level of explanation. Finally, contrary to Northoff, we hypothesize that “top-down modulation” might play as important a role as “horizontal modulation” in affective-behavioral alterations.

"La nouvelle nous est parvenue que pas une étymologie de Heidegger, pas même Léthé et Aléthès, n'était exacte. Mais le problème est-il bien posé?Tout critère scientifique d'étymologie n'a-t-il pas d'avance été répudié, au profit d'une pure et simple Poésie? On croit bon de dire qu'il n'y a là que des jeux de mots. Ne serait-il pas contradictoire d'attendre une quelconque correction linguistique d'un projet qui se propose explicitement de dépasser l'étant scientifique et technique vers l'étant poétique? Il ne s'agit pas (...) d'étymologie à proprement parler, mais d'opérer des agglutinations dans l'autre-langue, pour obtenir des surgissements dans la langue". (Gilles Deleuze Critique et clinique, 1993, p. 122 à 124). Ces lignes de Deleuze expriment parfaitement et par avance l'objection que l'on pourrait opposer à notre ouvrage. Cependant, et tout en conservant à Deleuze un respect entier pour sa belle oeuvre, nous ne pensons pas que des "agglutinations" dans la langue suffisent à faire passer dans un registre poétique. Le détail de notre démonstration philosophique et philologique a voulu montrer que Heidegger, en faisant comme s'il "entendait" la pensée grecque de l'origine, est entré dans une région que ne peuvent plus atteindre ni philosophie, ni philologie, ni même poésie, parce qu'elle se retire dans l'invérifiable. (shrink)

The taxonomy of scientific problems constructed by Laudan is not exhaustive of all types of scientific work. For one thing, it does not take into account projects which produce an increase of theoretical virtue in a theory that does not suffer from conceptual problems. It is argued that any work which alters the amount of theoretical virtue possessed by a theory constitutes a scientific advance. A new taxonomy is proposed which distinguishes scientific contributions on the basis of which theoretical virtue (...) is altered, whether the alteration produces an increase or a decrease in virtue, and whether the alteration is due to a logical invention, a logical discovery, or an empirical discovery. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Pages de début Préface Sigles utilisés Tableau synchronique Politique et religion des employeurs de Leibniz A - La philosophie politique L'architectonique archaïque : le rapport puissance > sagesse L'inversion du rapport structural : sagesse > puissance L'empire (...) de la sagesse sur les perfections finies et infinies B - La politique philosophique La socialité Souveraineté et majesté Les trois formes du gouvernement de la République Entre paix et guerre Les facteurs matériels de la paix Les facteurs culturelsde la paix Futurition Utopie et optimum Bibliographie Pages de fin. (shrink)

Social constructionists maintain that we invent the properties of the world rather than discover them. Is reality constructed by our own activity? Do we collectively invent the world rather than discover it? André Kukla presents a comprehensive discussion of the philosophical issues that arise out of this debate, analysing the various strengths and weaknesses of a range of constructivist arguments and arguing that current philosophical objections to constructivism are inconclusive. However, Kukla offers and develops new objections to constructivism, distinguishing between (...) the social causes of scientific beliefs and the view that all ascertainable facts are constructed. (shrink)

In this challenging study, André Gallois proposes and defends a thesis about the character of our knowledge of our own intentional states. Taking up issues at the centre of attention in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and epistemology, he examines accounts of self-knowledge by such philosophers as Donald Davidson, Tyler Burge and Crispin Wright, and advances his own view that, without relying on observation, we are able justifiably to attribute to ourselves propositional attitudes, such as belief, that we consciously hold. (...) His study will be of wide interest to philosophers concerned with questions about self-knowledge. (shrink)

This paper reviews the origin of inertia according to Mach's principle and Weber's law of gravitation. The resulting theory is based on simultaneous nonlocal gravitational interactions between particles in the solar system and others in the remote universe beyond the Milky Way galaxy. It explains the precession of the perihelion of Mercury. A most important implication of the Mach-Weber theory of the force of inertia is the necessity for a large amount of uniformly distributed matter in the galactic universe. This (...) matter could be the source of the cosmic background radiation. Nonlocal inertia forces are compatible with a static universe and also with an expanding universe but the latter would demand slow changes in the mass of particles and the gravitational constant. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In this essay I characterize arguments by analogy, which have an impor- tant role both in philosophical and everyday reasoning. Arguments by analogy are dif- ferent from ordinary inductive or deductive arguments and have their own distinct features. I try to characterize the structure and function of these arguments. It is further discussed that some arguments, which are not explicit arguments by analogy, nevertheless should be interpreted as such and not as inductive or deductive arguments. The result is that (...) a presumed outcome of a philosophical dispute will have to be reconsidered. (shrink)

Proponents of the duty to vote (DTV) argue that in normal circumstances, citizens have the moral duty to vote in political elections. Discussions about DTV analyze _what_ the duty is, _who_ has this duty, _when_ they have it, and _why_ they have it. Missing are answers to the Specification Question: to _which_ elections does DTV apply? A dilemma arises for some supporters of DTV—in this paper, I focus on Julia Maskivker’s work—because either answer is problematic. First, I argue that it (...) is implausible that DTV applies to _all_ elections because this makes the duty too costly for the voter. Second, I argue that there are no good reasons why under normal circumstances DTV applies only to _some_ elections. I consider objections but conclude that the dilemma is successful and therefore the case for DTV is incomplete. (shrink)

McCall's argument has two stages. In the first, the hypothesis that someone has both perfect memory and perfect foreknowledge is shown to generate an infinite regress, and this is taken to establish the absurdity of that hypothesis; in the second, this absurdity is made the basis of a proof that time is asymmetrical.

The survival of some masterpieces of literature across the ages is still an unexplained mystery. Deeply rooted in their time, they reflect the preoccupations of a given historical period and have an impact, by means of their testimony, on future generations. They bring into play images, drives and phantoms which have remained unchanged from prehistoric time to our day. The perfection of their form has remained unequaled; their examples incite us to meditation and creativity.

The prominent role of women in the Spartan and Persian Speech in Plato's dialogue Alcibiades Major has not been sufficiently appreciated. We remedy this by (1) laying out the context in which the speech is presented; (2) explaining what precisely the women of the speech say about Alcibiades' challenge to their men; (3) surveying and critiquing what commentators have said about the role women play in the speech; and (4) advancing a reading of the speech that unifies the sentiments attributed (...) to each woman as expressed by Socrates. (shrink)