Quelles sont les capacités et valeurs qui peuvent animer des académiques en ces temps de changement où nous vivons?? À cette question, généralement non explicite dans leurs travaux, ont répondu quinze chercheuses et chercheurs de différentes spécialités. En revisitant leurs thèmes de recherche ou leur parcours sous cet angle, il se dessine une constellation où semblent émerger trois pôles?: critique, imagination, interdépendance.00Avec les contributions de : 00Philippe Baret, Tom Bauler, Philippe Bourdeau, Isabelle Ferreras, François Gemenne, Marie-Françoise Godart, Marine Lugen, Delphine (...) Misonne, Muriel Moser, François Ost, Benoît Timmermans, Christian Vandermotten, Didier Viviers et Arnaud Zacharie. (shrink)

***Angaben zur beteiligten Person Zenke: Christian Timo Zenke, Dr. phil. Dipl.-Kult., Erziehungs- und Kulturwissenschaftler, Akademischer Rat an der Fakultät für Erziehungswissenschaft der Universität Bielefeld.

While there has been much discussion of whether AI systems could function as moral agents or acquire sentience, there has been relatively little discussion of whether AI systems could have free will. In this article, I sketch a framework for thinking about this question. I argue that, to determine whether an AI system has free will, we should not look for some mysterious property, expect its underlying algorithms to be indeterministic, or ask whether the system is unpredictable. Rather, we should (...) simply ask whether it is explanatorily indispensable to view the system as an intentional agent, with the capacity for choice between alternative possibilities and control over the resulting actions. If the answer is “yes”, then the system counts as having free will in a pragmatic and diagnostically useful sense. (shrink)

More often than not, recently popular structuralist interpretations of physical theories leave the central concept of a structure insufficiently precisified. The incipient causal sets approach to quantum gravity offers a paradigmatic case of a physical theory predestined to be interpreted in structuralist terms. It is shown how employing structuralism lends itself to a natural interpretation of the physical meaning of causal set theory. Conversely, the conceptually exceptionally clear case of causal sets is used as a foil to illustrate how a (...) mathematically informed rigorous conceptualization of structure serves to identify structures in physical theories. Furthermore, a number of technical issues infesting structuralist interpretations of physical theories such as difficulties with grounding the identity of the places of highly symmetrical physical structures in their relational profile and what may resolve these difficulties can be vividly illustrated with causal sets. (shrink)

This paper argues that decision theory presupposes free will. Although decision theorists seldom acknowledge this, the way decision theory represents, explains, or rationalizes choice behaviour acquires its intended interpretation only under the assumption that decision-makers are agents capable of making free choices between alternative possibilities. Without that assumption, both normative and descriptive decision theory, including the revealed-preference paradigm, would have to be reinterpreted in implausible ways. The hypothesis that decision-makers have free will is therefore explanatorily indispensable for decision theory. If (...) we regard explanatory indispensability as an indicator of reality in science, decision theorists should embrace the idea of free will. (shrink)

This article studies the communication between pure minds (angels, demons, and separated souls) on occasionalist grounds, or in terms of (as I shall call it) inter-mental occasionalism. Inter-mental occasionalism has been overlooked by historians and perhaps taken for a purely logical possibility. To close this lacuna, this article presents three case studies of inter-mental occasionalism: (1) Géraud de Cordemoy (1626–1684), (2) Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), and (3) the early Christian Wolff (1679–1754). Overall, this article shows that occasionalism has been a (...) popular account of mental causation just as much as physical causation. (shrink)

Most approaches to quantum gravity suggest that relativistic spacetime is not fundamental, but instead emerges from some non-spatiotemporal structure. This paper investigates the implications of this suggestion for the possibility of time travel in the sense of the existence of closed timelike curves in some relativistic spacetimes. In short, will quantum gravity reverse or strengthen general relativity’s verdict that time travel is possible?

This encyclopaedia entry studies the philosophy of Johann Christooh Sturm (1635 - 1704). Sturm was a philosopher, physicist, mathematician, and theologian. He corresponded with Leibniz and influenced Christian Wolff. This entry analyses Sturm's scientific method and his natural philosophy grounded in mechanism, occasionalism, and final causes. It shows Sturm's important role in seventeenth-century philosophy.

This is the first book to focus on occasionalism in early modern German philosophy. It demonstrates that occasionalism provided a strong foundation for the thought of four important yet underexamined German philosophers: Erhard Weigel, Johann Christoph Sturm, Christian Wolff, and Gottfried Ploucquet. Occasionalism is most often associated with Cartesian early modern Christian philosophers, the most famous of whom is perhaps Nicolas Malebranche. Early modern German occasionalism has received very little scholarly attention, leaving us with an incomplete picture of (...) the German causation debate from Leibniz to Kant. This book combines a chronological investigation of four influential and historically connected cases of occasionalism in early modern Germany with a reconstruction of arguments to address specific problems in metaphysics, natural philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy of psychology. Providing a sufficient ground for nature and human beings' mental and physical existence is a pressing issue for Weigel, Sturm, Wolff, and Ploucquet. In examining the thought of these four understudied German philosophers, this book helps us rethink the relation between metaphysics of nature and science of nature and better understand the development of early modern debates about causation. Occasionalism and the Debate about Causation in Early Modern Germany is an important resource for scholars and advanced students working on the history of early modern philosophy and the history of metaphysics and causation. (shrink)

I point out a sign mistake in the GHZ variant of Bell's theorem, invalidating the GHZ's claim that the premisses of the EPR argument are inconsistent for systems of more than two particles in entangled quantum states.

"Es gilt zu erahnen, wie die globale Vernetzung digitaler Informationen das Soziale selbst, namlich das gesamte gesellschaftliche Arrangement der Menschheit, tiefgreifend verandert." Epochale Umbruche sind in der Geschichte der Menschheit nicht neu. Scheinbar eigenstandige Entwicklungen verstarken sich gegenseitig und schaffen eine unubersichtliche Zeit des Ubergangs, die trotzdem in eine eindeutige Richtung weist. Damit verandert sich nicht nur die Soziale Arbeit. Es verandern sich auch ihre Rahmenbedingungen sowie der normative Horizont, vor dem sie stattfindet. Als Praktiker mit 25-jahriger Erfahrung in der (...) Fuhrung sozialer Unternehmen schildert der Autor die wesentlichen Aspekte dieser Entwicklung in einer allgemeinverstandlichen Weise, welche der Vielzahl an Professionen, die im Sektor der Sozialen Arbeit vertreten sind, Rechnung tragt. In der ethischen Reflexion kommt er dabei zu mitunter uberraschenden Empfehlungen. (shrink)

Peut-on croire à la réalité propre de l'être humain comme à celle d'une "chose" dont l'observation contiendrait tout ce qui est nécessaire à sa connaissance? Non, car cette illusion piège la pensée et la dépouille de son pouvoir agissant et créateur, que soutiendraient des méthodes philosophiques comme l'architectonique de Kant et psychanalytiques comme la topologie de Lacan.

A journey surveying the land of space, time and motion Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-4 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9575-8 Authors Christian Wüthrich, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0119, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

In our present early Twenty-First Century epoch, in bold contradistinction with the 1989-91 end of the Cold War and subsequent reassurances of the 90s, that ‘The End of History’ had arrived, the past decade has seen the rise of populism and authoritarian would-be leaders worldwide. Similarly, both nationalism and outright fascism have once again become credible threats, whilst ‘the left’ has largely failed to respond or offer feasible answers to multiplying social problems. This belated and misfiring reaction to capitalism in (...) crisis, simply the year: 2008 will give all that is needed to explain what is being referred to. What has occupied the energies of substantial sections of populations angry at elites seemingly operating as usual and the same limited and fatally flawed system continuing as before. Those individuals and institutions who helped it teeter on the brink of terminal failure, were able to profit from this whilst populations suffered as states socialized debt making society pay with austerity measures. This left a power vacuum to which any adequate response was noticeably lacking. From 2016, and the date bookends the year in which populism and authoritarian leaders ‘first appeared’, the wave of similar populist reaction has continued globally. Part of this has been the contention over what constitutes ‘the truth’ and facts themselves and misinformation, disinformation and ‘fake news’ continue to persist as serious problems. The bigger issue it might be argued is the implication that these methods can be used to attain power, either political or in any other sphere: a secondary and no less alarming problem also covered by this essay. Explicating a materialist analysis of what exactly the problem and threats populism and authoritarianism embody, and ‘where they came from’, the essay is most heavily influenced by the dissident and unorthodox Marxism of the Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research). This paper takes as its subject the weapons of Marx and the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory to critically analyze the concept of Ideology Critique, and how Marx and Marxism remain the ‘bad conscience of philosophy’. It also applies takes as its subject the concept of ideology critique to the unnerving predominance of right-wing and authoritarian narratives, still very much vying for political power in 2024. (shrink)

"Mathématicien et philosophe, Jean Cavaillès (1903-1944) a compris en toute clarté que la philosophie n'est ni maîtresse ni servante des mathématiques et des sciences, mais qu'elle peut être leur amie. Elle n'a pas à s'arroger la fonction magistrale de vérifier à leur place la solidité de leurs fondements ni à contrôler ou exploiter leurs résultats pour la plus grande gloire de Dieu ou de la Cause. Elle n'a pas non plus à s'asservir aux mathématiques ou aux sciences comme sources uniques (...) de vérité, justice ou justesse. Une philosophie amie des sciences entretient avec elles un dialogue à bénéfice mutuel : elle s'instruit auprès d'elles et peut, en retour, procurer aux mathématiciens et scientifiques une conscience plus claire de leur propre pratique, s'ouvrant avec eux à l'histoire de cette pratique. Observer la pensée scientifique, dans son travail, ses difficultés et ses succès, et l'aider à s'observer elle-même : tâche aussi libératrice que difficile qui vise l'impérissable idéal aristotélicien de la pensée de la pensée. Voilà la haute et rayonnante ambition de Cavaillès. C'est cet héritage que les cinq auteurs de ce livre ont voulu transmettre et commencer à faire fructifier. Et il fallait pour cela : libérer Cavaillès des interprétations unilatérales, souvent enjeux de pouvoir universitaire, telle celle qui en fait le héraut d'une "science sans cogito" ; retrouver la pluralité de ses inspirations philosophiques. Refusant aussi bien filiation que rupture définitive, il a une lecture critique-productive de Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Brunschvicg... Spinoza, explicitement évoqué par lui à propos de son engagement dans la Résistance, est une de ses références possibles quand il traite de l'auto-développement des mathématiques ; respecter la diversité de ses centres d'intérêt mathématiques. Il s'intéresse, on le sait, à l'axiomatisation et à la formalisation de la théorie des ensembles, mais tout autant ou plus à son surgissement chez Dedekind et Cantor, à la construction des ensembles finis à partir des ensembles infinis, à l'hypothèse du continu, etc. mettre ses catégories emblématiques (paradigme et thématisation) à l'épreuve d'autres moments essentiels de l'histoire des mathématiques que celui de l'essor de la théorie des ensembles ; pratiquer un dialogue amical entre mathématiciens et philosophes dans des études d'"épistémographie" entrelaçant histoire fine et philosophie. Aux lecteurs de juger si l'héritage est entre de bonnes mains."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Teil 1: Entwicklungsgeschichtliche und -- Systematische Aspekte.

O pensamento político-constitucional do Marquês de Caravelas -- Extratos de discursos parlamentares do Marquês de Caravelas.