In “Evictionism and Libertarianism,” published in this journal, Walter Block defends the view that, although the fetus is a human being with all the rights to its body, it may nonetheless be evicted from the woman’s body as a trespasser, provided the pregnancy is unwanted. We argue that this view is untenable: the statement that the unwanted fetus is a trespasser does not follow from the premises that the fetus uninvitedly resides in the woman’s body and that the woman is (...) a full self-owner. For this statement to follow, one more statement would have to be true; namely, the woman would have to hold her self-ownership rights specifically against the fetus, and for this to be the case, the fetus would have to have a correlative duty to the woman to abstain from interfering with her body. This statement, however, is false. (shrink)

Adams famously suggested that the acceptability of any indicative conditional whose antecedent and consequent are both factive sentences amounts to the subjective conditional probability of the consequent given the antecedent. The received view has it that this thesis offers an adequate partial explication of Ramsey’s test, which characterizes graded acceptability for conditionals in terms of hypothetical updates on the antecedent. Some results in van Fraassen may raise hope that this explicatory approach to Ramsey’s test is extendible to left-nested conditionals, that (...) is, conditionals whose antecedent is itself conditional in form. We argue that this interpretation of van Fraassen’s results is to be rejected. Specifically, we provide an argument from material inadequacy against a generalization of Adams’ thesis for left-nested conditionals. (shrink)

Studies show that involuntary displacement often creates various threats for the community and individuals. To reduce these risks, Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, Health Impact Assessment, and Social Assessment are recommended. Whereas assessments focus mostly on the community level and studies describe cases of large population displacements, there is a lack of empirical evidence about how individuals cope with involuntary displacement and what factors contribute or hinder their successful adaptation in the target location. This study uses semi-structured interviews with 21 (...) people about their experience of resettlement due to a mine collapse in Bytom, Poland, that led to involuntary displacement of 560 people. Data was analyzed according to the constructivist grounded theory principles. Results show that this case illustrates a mixture of post-disaster and development-induced displacement. Various factors and resources that affected coping strategies were analyzed, including: material and legal status, health and age, communication skills, and relocation experience. Our findings suggest that, when circumstances allow, an individual resources assessment should also be conducted to counteract impoverishment and further marginalization of the disprivileged and vulnerable individuals. (shrink)

This text departs from a contradictory claim in deaf studies and sound studies: both disciplines describe a hierarchical regime of the sensible – visuocentrism and audiocentrism – which they try to counter with conceptualisations as “acoustemology” or “deaf gain.” However, as we argue, they both thereby erect what they claim to overcome: a sensual regime that privileges one sense over another and a restricted conception of subjectivity deriving from it. First, we draw a philosophical line in the critique of sensual (...) regimes. Then we propose a figure for the transcendence of the separation of the sensible: in re-reading of the myth of Odysseus and the sirens, we engage various examples from literature, art, and acoustics to describe sirens as a mythological and technical archetype of the transcendence of the sensual regime, as well as reified subjectivity. The question, then, is not how to escape the sirens, but how they can be approached. It is necessary, we argue, for sound studies to develop a critical self-consciousness of its own restricted concepts in order to move from sonic thinking towards a sirenic thinking. (shrink)

Throughout the history of mankind, energy security has been always seen as a means of protection from disruptions of essential energy systems. The idea of protection from disorders emerged from the process of securing political and military control over energy resources to set up policies and measures on managing risks that affect all elements of energy systems. The various systems placed in a place to achieve energy security are the driving force towards the energy innovations or emerging trends in the (...) energy sector. Our paper discusses energy security status and innovations in the energy sector in European Union (EU). We analyze the recent up-to-date developments of the energy policy and exploitation of energy sources, as well as scrutinize the channels of energy streaming to the EU countries and the risks associated with this energy import. Moreover, we argue that the shift to the low-carbon production of energy and the massive deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) might become the key issue in ensuring the energy security and independency of the EU from its external energy supplies. Both RES, distributed energy resources (DER) and “green energy” that will be based on the energy efficiency and the shift to the alternative energy supply might change the energy security status quo for the EU. (shrink)

Aim. Disclosure of the theoretical and spiritual-practical potential of the philosophy of management in training specialists in the field of public management and administration. Methodology. In the research process there were used such methods as: analysis, synthesis, systemic, comparative, structural-functional and dialectical. The application of the synergistic approach to study management made it possible to consider the latter as a complex and open system. Results. The authors have proved that today the philosophy of management is a theoretical and methodological basis (...) for modern managers’ training. The emphasis is also put on the fact that the philosophy of management is different from the theory of management, since traditional management tries to implement the training program for a single manager, who should independently manage large teams and organizations. The authors are convinced that this statement is utopian nowadays. That is why the philosophy of management should appear as the methodological basis in the new paradigm of training managers of any level. Scientific novelty. For the first time in the scientific discourse, the attempt has been made to establish the status of the philosophy of management as one of the basic and obligatory disciplines in specialists’ training for public and state administration and management. It is proved that the management of any systems becomes effective due to the interaction of three levels, namely: ideological, scientific-methodological and praxeological. The necessity of preparing managers as team members that adequately respond to current social challenges is identified as the main task of modern managerial education. The Practical Value. The research results should set the benchmarks for improving and creating a new system of modern managers’ training, where the manager is not considered as a single leader, but as a member of the team in which everyone is capital. (shrink)

The present paper formulates the principled anarcho-capitalist case against the state and investigates the possible minarchist replies thereto. It identifies three and only three logically available ways of undermining the anarcho-capitalist case and argues that none of them works for minarchism due to the premises from which this theory starts. The sketch of the analysis presented in the paper suggests that minarchist research program falls short of theoretical soundness or even of logical validity.

The past three decades of policy process studies have seen the emergence of a clear intellectual lineage with regard to complexity. Implicitly or explicitly, scholars have employed complexity theory to examine the intricate dynamics of collective action in political contexts. However, the methodological counterparts to complexity theory, such as computational methods, are rarely used and, even if they are, they are often detached from established policy process theory. Building on a critical review of the application of complexity theory to policy (...) process studies, we present and implement a baseline model of policy processes using the logic of coevolving networks. Our model suggests that an actor’s influence depends on their environment and on exogenous events facilitating dialogue and consensus-building. Our results validate previous opinion dynamics models and generate novel patterns. Our discussion provides ground for further research and outlines the path for the field to achieve a computational turn. (shrink)

In this short paper, we investigate the problems with the employment of the notion of freedom and voluntariness in libertarianism. We pretend to demonstrate that these two, as conceived of by libertarians, figure in as the main issue when it comes to justifying its major institutions, say: bequeathing, gifts, transactions (or what they label as “voluntary transfer”). The difficulty here boils down to the fact that a purely rights-based idea of freedom and voluntariness, the pretentions of Nozick notwithstanding, cannot do (...) alone, since it is the consideration whether we do something (e.g. bequeath, donate etc.) voluntarily (or freely) (in a non-moralized sense) that could account for the rights redistribution. Therefore, it seems that – at least sometimes – the notion of voluntariness (or freedom) is prior to the notion of rights. (shrink)

As cognitive enhancement research advances, important ethical questions regarding individual autonomy and freedom are raised. Advocates of cognitive enhancement frequently adopt a procedural approach to autonomy, arguing that enhancers improve an individual’s reasoning capabilities, which are quintessential to being an autonomous agent. On the other hand, critics adopt a more nuanced approach by considering matters of authenticity and self-identity, which go beyond the mere assessment of one’s reasoning capacities. Both positions, nevertheless, require further philosophical scrutiny. In this paper, we investigate (...) the ethics of cognitive enhancement through the lenses of political and philosophical arguments about autonomy and freedom. In so doing, we contend that a substantive, relational account of individual autonomy offers a more holistic understanding of the ethical concerns of cognitive enhancement. (shrink)

The article analyzes the effectiveness of quantum theories of mental experience in relation to two ontological problems - the problem of the existence of consciousness in the material world and the problem of the interaction of consciousness and body. A critical analysis of the quantum theories of consciousness by Penrose-Hameroff, M. Tegmark, G. Stapp, M. Fischer and M.B. Mensky shows that they fail to fully explain how complex physical systems generate mental experience without violating the principle of causal closure of (...) the physical world and the principle of epistemological completeness of physics. Quantum mechanics provides specific processes that are the physical basis of the psyche, but do not explain the phenomenal aspect of subjective reality. Nevertheless, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle gives an understanding of how the interaction of consciousness and body within the scientific picture of the world can be carried out without violating the law of energy conservation. It is shown that the quantum theories of consciousness currently being developed have a predominantly panprotopsychic character, which faces a problem due to the fact that the protomental property of physical systems must be expressed quantitatively and correspond to the value included in the physical equations. As a result, it is concluded that in order to develop quantum theories of consciousness more effectively, it is necessary to give an emergent character, not jumping from the quantum level to the psychic, but explaining the mechanism of the emergence of systemic properties during the sequential transition between different ontological regions of existence, including physical, chemical, biological, neurophysiological and psychic. (shrink)

This paper highlights some connections between work on truth approximation and work in social epistemology, in particular work on peer disagreement. In some of the literature on truth approximation, questions have been addressed concerning the efficiency of research strategies for approximating the truth. So far, social aspects of research strategies have not received any attention in this context. Recent findings in the field of opinion dynamics suggest that this is a mistake. How scientists exchange and take into account information about (...) each others’ beliefs may greatly influence the accuracy and speed with which the scientific community as a whole approximates the truth. On the other hand, social epistemologists concerned with peer disagreement have so far neglected the question of how practices of responding to disagreements with peers fare with respect to the goal of approximating the truth. Again, work on opinion dynamics shows that this may be a mistake, and that how we ought to respond to disagreements with our peers may depend on the specific purposes of our investigations. (shrink)

A defense of the rationality of adductive inference from the criticisms of Bayesian theorists.

While some argue that the only way to make a place for Philosophy for Children in today's strict, standardised classroom is to measure its efficacy in promoting reasoning, we believe that this must be avoided in order to safeguard what is truly unique in P4C dialogue. When P4C acquiesces to the very same quantitative measures that define the rest of learning, then the philosophical dimension drops out and P4C becomes yet another progressive curriculum and pedagogy for enhancing argumentation skills that (...) can easily be appropriated by any content area. What we want to offer in this article is a reevaluation of P4C that remains faithful to a radical kernel that we find when we do philosophy with children and young adults. To theorise the potential for P4C, we draw heavily on Agamben's work, and in particular his reflections on speech and infancy. We propose that the redemption of P4C necessitates a shift from a community of inquiry to a community of infancy. Such a community is not a community that operates according to predefined rules or standardised assessment protocols but rather is an inoperative community that is defined by letting ends idle. On our account, a community of infancy is an example of dialogic studious play that is neither ritual nor just play, thus avoiding the extreme polarities of the ritualised classrooms of high-stakes testing and the ‘ludic’ postmodern classroom of free play. What is at stake here is to preserve the last vestige of freedom within the school. (shrink)

In my paper I will argue for the thesis that spiritual exercises are an essential part of every philosophical life. My arguments are partly historical, partly conceptual in their nature. First, I show that philosophy at each stage of its history was accompanied by spiritual exercises. Next, I provide a definition of spiritual exercises as genuinely philosophical activity. Then I show that the philosophical life cannot be complete if it does not include spiritual exercises.

We perform a mixed-method frame semantics-based analysis on a dataset of more than 49,000 sentences collected from 5846 news articles that mention AI. The dataset covers the twelve-month period centred around the launch of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT and is collected from the most visited open-access English-language news publishers. Our findings indicate that during the six months succeeding the launch, media attention rose tenfold—from already historically high levels. During this period, discourse has become increasingly centred around experts and political leaders, and (...) AI has become more closely associated with dangers and risks. A deeper review of the data also suggests a qualitative shift in the types of threat AI is thought to represent, as well as the anthropomorphic qualities ascribed to it. (shrink)

Tradução do texto originalmente intitulado "Dissertation sur la politique des Romains dans la religion", de Charles-Louis de Secondat, barão de La Brède e de Montesquieu. Trata-se de trabalho apresentado no dia 18 de junho de 1716 à Academie Royale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Bordeaux e somente publicado após a sua morte.

Open visiting policy in intensive care units is considered a favorable visiting regime that may benefit patients and their family members as well as medical staff. The article examines the conditions and causes of OVP-making process in Ukraine and presents the ethical analysis of its implications with respect to the key stakeholders: ICU patients, family members, and medical staff. The OVP, established by the Ministry of Health in June, 2016, changes current approaches to the recognition of the role of families (...) in critically ill patients’ care dramatically; it does, however, have serious shortcomings. The analysis of risks and benefits showed that OVP does not adequately cater to the needs of all the key players—family members, patients, and medical staff. Moreover, there is no clear mechanism to control OVP implementation via feedback from all the key players. These issues give rise to a concern that the implementation of OVP will die on the vine. In order to prevent this, a range of measures is required: the optimization of the ICU facilities and internal procedures, supervision of OVP implementation by policy-makers, training of medical staff, and providing family members with educational programs. Considering current shortcomings, it is crucially important to develop clear and consistent internal guidelines in hospitals that will guarantee the introduction of open ICU visiting and quality of critical care provisions. (shrink)

It is undeniable that inductive reasoning has brought us much good. At least since Hume, however, philosophers have wondered how to justify our reliance on induction. In important recent work, Schurz points out that philosophers have been wrongly assuming that justifying induction is tantamount to showing induction to be reliable. According to him, to justify our reliance on induction, it is enough to show that induction is optimal. His optimality approach consists of two steps: an analytic argument for meta-induction (that (...) is, induction over inductive methods) and an application of meta-induction to empirical findings concerning the predictive accuracy of our actual inductive practices as compared to various non-inductive methods. The present article agrees with Schurz’s general conclusion but also argues that it leaves an important aspect of our inductive practices unaccounted for, to wit, that these practices have so far been highly successful; to satisfy the optimality requirement, induction only needs to be as successful as random guessing. To explain the success of induction, I turn to insights from social epistemology, also highlighted in Schurz’s work, and make these formally explicit in a framework that combines the Hegselmann–Krause model for opinion dynamics and Carnap’s system of λ rules. Within this framework, I use a standard evolutionary algorithm to show how communities of interacting agents may, through variation and selection, come to consist of highly successful inductive reasoners. (shrink)

The conceptual spaces approach has recently emerged as a novel account of concepts. Its guiding idea is that concepts can be represented geometrically, by means of metrical spaces. While it is generally recognized that many of our concepts are vague, the question of how to model vagueness in the conceptual spaces approach has not been addressed so far, even though the answer is far from straightforward. The present paper aims to fill this lacuna.

Conditionals are sentences of the form 'If A, then B', and they play a central role in scientific, logical, and everyday reasoning. They have been in the philosophical limelight for centuries, and more recently, they have been receiving attention from psychologists, linguists, and computer scientists. In spite of this, many key questions concerning conditionals remain unanswered. While most of the work on conditionals has addressed semantical questions - questions about the truth conditions of conditionals - this book focuses on the (...) main epistemological questions that conditionals give rise to, such as: what are the probabilities of conditionals? When is a conditional acceptable or assertable? What do we learn when we receive new conditional information? In answering these questions, this book combines the formal tools of logic and probability theory with the experimental approach of cognitive psychology. It will be of interest to students and researchers in logic, epistemology, and psychology of reasoning. (shrink)

To save antirealism from Fitch's Paradox, Tennant has proposed to restrict the scope of the antirealist principle that all truths are knowable to truths that can be consistently assumed to be known. Although the proposal solves the paradox, it has been accused of doing so in an ad hoc manner. This paper argues that, first, for all Tennant has shown, the accusation is just; second, a restriction of the antirealist principle apparently weaker than Tennat's yields a non-ad hoc solution to (...) Fitch's Paradox; and third, the alternative is only apparently weaker than, and even provably equivalent to, Tennant's. It is thereby shown that the latter is not ad hoc after all. (shrink)

Interest in the topic of wisdom-focused education has so far not resulted in empirically validated programs for teaching wisdom. To start filling this void, we explore the emerging empirical evidence concerning the fundamental elements required for understanding how one can foster wisdom, with a particular focus on wise reasoning. We define wise reasoning through a combination of intellectual humility, recognition of world in flux/change, open-mindedness to diverse viewpoints, and search for compromise/integration of diverse perspectives. In this article, we review evidence (...) concerning how wise reasoning can be facilitated through experiences, teaching materials, environments and cognitive strategies. We also focus on educators, reviewing emerging evidence on how the process of explaining and guiding others impacts one’s wisdom. We conclude by discussing the development of wisdom-focused education, proposing that greater attention to the situational demands and the variability in wisdom-related characteristics across social contexts should play a critical role in its development. (shrink)

This paper relates to a formal statement of the mechanisms that are thought minimally necessary to underpin consciousness. This is expressed in the form of axioms. We deem this to be useful if there is ever to be clarity in answering questions about whether this or the other organism is or is not conscious. As usual, axioms are ways of making formal statements of intuitive beliefs and looking, again formally, at the consequences of such beliefs. The use of this style (...) of exposition does not entail a claim to provide a mathematically rigorous formal deductive system. Conventional mathematical notation is used to achieve clarity, although this is elaborated with natural language in an attempt to reduce terseness. In our view, making the approach axiomatic is synonymous with building clear usable tests for consciousness and is therefore a central feature of the paper. The extended scope of this approach is to lay down some essential properties that should be considered when designing machines that could be said to be conscious. In the broader discussion about the nature of consciousness and its neurological mechanisms, it may seem to some that axiomatisation is premature and continues to beg many questions. However, the approach is meant to be open- ended so that others can build further axiomatic clarifications that address the very large number of questions which, in the search for a formal basis for consciousness, still remain to be answered. Of course, in discussions about consciousness many will also argue that the subject is not one that may ever be formally addressed by means of axioms. The view taken in this paper is 'let's try to do it and see how far it gets'. (shrink)

‘Solidarity’ is one of the key concepts of the late Richard Rorty’s philosophy. Arguing that justification of knowledge is a matter of its acceptance by the community, Rorty reduces social relations to the discursive ones. Thereby he faces a number of theoretical difficulties. Rorty’s willingness to substitute the idea of objectivity for that of solidarity is at odds with his socio-ethnocentrism. Antirepresentationalist attitude is not shared by the overwhelming majority of Rorty’s ‘cultural peers’, not to mention professional philosophers, but he (...) strongly holds to antirepresentationalism, considering it to be sufficiently justified, not caring about what others think and whether such a strategy is politically relevant or desirable from a pragmatic point of view. Consequently, he endorses the picture of warrant as independent of communal opinion. Western ethnocentrism, Rorty argues, is of a special kind: it is the ethnocentrism of a “we-community” which is dedicated to enlarging itself and creating more and more variegated, inclusive and heterogeneous society. It’s a worldview of a liberal “ironist” and cosmopolitan who is always aware of the contingency of her language and moral self, and who “has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses”. But to say, with Rorty, “We are lucky that our ethnocentrism is based on distrust of itself,” amounts to recognize the truth of anti-ethnocentrism. One who believes in cultural and social progress towards “a global, cosmopolitan, democratic, egalitarian, classless, casteless society” is de facto anti-ethnocentrist. Even if he denies it verbally. (shrink)

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics assumes the existence of the classical deterministic Newtonian world. We argue that in fact the Newton determinism in classical world does not hold and in the classical mechanics there is fundamental and irreducible randomness. The classical Newtonian trajectory does not have a direct physical meaning since arbitrary real numbers are not observable. There are classical uncertainty relations: Δq>0 and Δp>0, i.e. the uncertainty (errors of observation) in the determination of coordinate and momentum is always (...) positive (non zero).A “functional” formulation of classical mechanics was suggested. The fundamental equation of the microscopic dynamics in the functional approach is not the Newton equation but the Liouville equation for the distribution function of the single particle. Solutions of the Liouville equation have the property of delocalization which accounts for irreversibility. The Newton equation in this approach appears as an approximate equation describing the dynamics of the average values of the position and momenta for not too long time intervals. Corrections to the Newton trajectories are computed. An interpretation of quantum mechanics is attempted in which both classical and quantum mechanics contain fundamental randomness. Instead of an ensemble of events one introduces an ensemble of observers. (shrink)

I reconstruct Aristotle’s analytical procedure in Prior Analytics I.45 and its metalogical implications. Aristotle’s analysis unfolds three groups of syllogisms: symmetrically analysable, asymmetrically analysable, and non-analysable syllogisms. From the first and the third group could be extracted 27 combinations of the two mutually non-derivable deductive rules. Aristotle’s reduced deductive system in APr. I.7 with the two moods in the first figure (traditionally called Barbara and Celarent) follows this pattern. I demonstrate that the deductive system with Barbara and Celarent is just (...) one of 27 possible complete deductive systems with the two mutually non-derivable syllogistic rules. On top of that, given the fact that there are two combinations of mutually non-derivable conversion rules, I conclude that Prior Analytics hides in itself 54 complete deductive systems with a minimal number of mutually non-derivable rules. Finally, it is commented what might be the role of analysis; to what extent Aristotle could be aware of possibilities presented here; why he still prefers only one deductive system to many others with the same deductive power. (shrink)

According to what is now commonly referred to as “the Equation” in the literature on indicative conditionals, the probability of any indicative conditional equals the probability of its consequent of the conditional given the antecedent of the conditional. Philosophers widely agree in their assessment that the triviality arguments of Lewis and others have conclusively shown the Equation to be tenable only at the expense of the view that indicative conditionals express propositions. This study challenges the correctness of that assessment by (...) presenting data that cast doubt on an assumption underlying all triviality arguments. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that potentialism is uniquely able to articulate the value of educational practices that lack the kind of directionality commonly associated with educational activities. It does so by operating with radically different assumptions about the nature and value of education – assumptions that can be derived from the basic premise of progressive education that education needs to be rooted in experience. I follow here a line of thought that leads from Dewey’s notion of experience aimed at (...) new and better experiences, to Ivan Illich’s emphasis on the experience of the new, to Gert Biesta’s idea that education needs to allow students to bring something new into the world, to Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons’ emphasis on the experience of the possibility of the new. Finally, drawing from the work of Giorgio Agamben and Tyson E. Lewis, I show how a potentialist notion of experience operates with a different temporality, enabling us to think of the experience of the potentiality of the new as such as what accounts for the educational value of non-directional practices – not only in spite of, but because of their lack of directionality. (shrink)

Conceptual spaces have become an increasingly popular modeling tool in cognitive psychology. The core idea of the conceptual spaces approach is that concepts can be represented as regions in similarity spaces. While it is generally acknowledged that not every region in such a space represents a natural concept, it is still an open question what distinguishes those regions that represent natural concepts from those that do not. The central claim of this paper is that natural concepts are represented by the (...) cells of an optimally designed similarity space. (shrink)

This article opposes a view widely accepted in studies concerning the history of modal logic, according to which (i) the approach of C. I. Lewis towards constructing modern modal logic was purely syntactical (i.e. limited to the construction of axiomatic systems S1-S5 of propositional modal logic), and (ii) the notion of a possible world was incorporated into modern logic and philosophy mainly by authors such as Rudolf Carnap and Saul Kripke. The article presents Lewis' definition of a possible world, and (...) his formulation of the truth-conditions of statements containing strict implication as their main connective in terms of possible worlds. The main question of the article is whether it is possible to consider Lewis' work in this area as an early stage of the development of possible world semantics, and if so, in what sense? The article concludes by answering affirmatively, due to soundness and completeness proofs with respect to S5 using Lewis' semantics. (shrink)

Elizabeth Fricker has recently proposed a principle aimed at stating the necessary and sufficient conditions for testimonial justification. Her proposal entails that a hearer is justified in believing a speaker’s testimony only if she recognizes the speaker to be trustworthy, which, given Fricker’s internalist commitments, requires the hearer to have within her epistemic purview grounds which justify belief in the speaker’s trustworthiness. We argue that, as it stands, Fricker’s principle is too demanding, and we propose some amendments to it. We (...) further discuss the viability of her internalist approach to testimony.Keywords: Testimony; Justification; Internalism; Social epistemology; Elizabeth Fricker. (shrink)

Ifeel that Iam apartof, but separatefrom an 'out there' world. 2. Ifeel that my perception of the world mingles with feelings of past experience. 3. My experienceof the world is selective and purposeful. 4. I am thinking ahead allthe timeintrying ...