El presente libro constituye una interesante propuesta para enfrentar el estudio del pasado de una manera distinta a la historiografía tradicional, a la cual se la ha criticado muchas veces por su escritura compleja y por la escasa empatía que las investigaciones generan con el lector que no es especialista en este tipo de conocimientos. Es por esto que, y al igual que lo realizado en XIX Historias del siglo diecinueve chileno, los autores del texto presentan una serie de artículos (...) en los que.. (shrink)

Intuitively, collective nouns are pseudo-singular: a collection of things (a pair of people, a flock of birds, etc.) just is the things that make ‘it’ up. But certain facts about natural language seem to count against this view. In short, distributive predicates and numerals interact with collective nouns in ways that they seemingly shouldn’t if those nouns are pseudo-singular. We call this set of issues ‘the distribution problem’. To solve it, we propose a modification to cover-based semantics. On this semantics, (...) the interpretation of distributive predicates and numerals depends on a cover, where the choice of cover is strongly semantically constrained by the noun with which they interact. (shrink)

Ce volume collectif montre que l'herméneutique fictionnalisée permet de réfléchir sur les procédures de l'interprétation, de penser les limites de la fiction et de prendre en charge des discours que les disciplines savantes ne sont pas toujours en situation de produire.

What are the pillars on which the success of modern science rest? Although philosophers have much discussed what is behind science’s success, this paper argues that much of the discussion is misdirected. The extant literature rightly regards the semantic and inferential tools of formal logic and probability theory as pillars of scientific rationality, in the sense that they reveal the justificatory structure of important aspects of scientific practice. As key elements of our rational reconstruction toolbox, they make a fundamental contribution (...) to our understanding of the success of science.At the same time, any science, however exact, is dominated by approximation, error, and uncertainty, a fact that makes one wonder how science can be so successful. This paper articulates and illustrates general themes—e.g., that truth-preserving arguments often fail to preserve approximate truth—that highlight the need for additional semantic resources. Thus, our proposal is that persistent failures to unravel the reasons behind the success of science in the face of pervasive error and uncertainty should be attributed to an insufficiently rich way of rationally reconstructing scientific and mathematical knowledge. What is missing? This paper claims that there is a third formal method of reasoning that constitutes a distinct pillar on which rests the success of science, namely, perturbation theory. The paper outlines how the representational and inferential tools of perturbation theory differ from those of logic and probability theory, and how they enable us to understand the apparently elusive aspects of the success of science.However, compared to its peers, perturbative reasoning has not received the attention it deserves. As the paper explains, this partly results from the circumstances in which perturbation theory is taught, and partly from the fact that perturbation theory first appears to be a vaguely related collection of methods offering no systematic semantic insight. In an attempt to show that this first impression is wrong, this paper presents its contribution to the semantic dimension of scientific representation and inference in terms of what I call “semantic layering.”. (shrink)

In the historical context of a crisis in biological psychiatry, psychedelic drugs paired with psychotherapy are globally re-emerging in research clinics as a potential transdiagnostic therapy for treating mood disorders, addictions, and other forms of psychological distress. The treatments are poised to soon shift from clinical trials to widespread service delivery in places like Australia, North America, and Europe, which has prompted ethical questions by social scientists and bioethicists. Taking a broader view, we argue that the ethics of psychedelic therapy (...) concerns not simply how psychotherapies are different when paired with psychedelic drugs, but how psychedelic therapies shape and are shaped by different values, norms, and metaphysical commitments. Drawing from the published literature and interviews with seven psychedelic therapists working in clinical trials in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and Australia, this article opens the black box of the treatments to consider the values and informal debates currently animating the therapies. Considering questions of patient autonomy, mechanisms of therapeutic action, and which therapies are best suited to pair with psychedelic substances, we examine the ethics of psychedelic therapy as an emergent form of life. To bring this form of life out in fuller relief, we conclude by comparing and contrasting it with ayahuasca use in Amazonian shamanism. (shrink)

The contemporary discussion of modesty has focused on whether or not modest people are accurate about their own good qualities. This essay argues that this way of framing the debate is unhelpful and offers examples to show that neither ignorance nor accuracy about the good qualities related to oneself is necessary for modesty. It then offers an attention-based account, claiming that what is necessary for modesty is to direct one’s attention in certain ways. By analyzing modesty in this way, we (...) can best explain the distinct features of modesty, keep much of what is intuitive in contemporary accounts, and better understand why modesty is a virtue at all. (shrink)

A growing literature argues that animals can act for moral reasons without being responsible. I argue that the literature often fails to maintain a clear distinction between moral behavior and moral agency, and I formulate a dilemma: either animals are less moral or they are more responsible than the literature suggests. If animals can respond to moral reasons, they are responsible according to an influential view of moral responsibility—Quality of Will. But if they are responsible, as some argue, costly implications (...) must be acknowledged. If, however, they should not be considered responsible, then we may have to reassess the meaning of animal morality. I discuss ways to eschew responsibility or to tailor it to animals and argue that each requires a revised conception of animal morality. (shrink)

Henrich and Boyd (2002) were the first to propose a formal model of the role of attraction in cultural evolution. They came to the surprising conclusion that, when both attraction and selection are at work, final outcomes are determined by selection alone. This result is based on a deterministic view of cultural attraction, different from the probabilistic view introduced in Sperber (1996). We defend this probabilistic view, show how to model it, and argue that, when both attraction and selection are (...) at work, both affect final outcomes. (shrink)

How might a human communication system be bootstrapped in the absence of conventional language? We argue that motivated signs play an important role (i.e., signs that are linked to meaning by structural resemblance or by natural association). An experimental study is then reported in which participants try to communicate a range of pre-specified items to a partner using repeated non-linguistic vocalization, repeated gesture, or repeated non-linguistic vocalization plus gesture (but without using their existing language system). Gesture proved more effective (measured (...) by communication success) and more efficient (measured by the time taken to communicate) than non-linguistic vocalization across a range of item categories (emotion, object, and action). Combining gesture and vocalization did not improve performance beyond gesture alone. We experimentally demonstrate that gesture is a more effective means of bootstrapping a human communication system. We argue that gesture outperforms non-linguistic vocalization because it lends itself more naturally to the production of motivated signs. (shrink)

(in press, under contract with MIT Press, accepted on June 30th, 2006). Attention, Information and Epistemic Perception. In Terzis, G. & Arp, R. (Eds) Information and the Living Systems: Essays in the Philosophy of Biology. The MIT Press. (14,000 words).

Many of us, even on our happiest days, struggle to quiet the constant buzz of anxiety in the background of our minds. All kinds of worries--worries about losing people and things, worries about how we seem to others--keep us from peace of mind. Distracted or misled by our preoccupations, misconceptions, and, most of all, our obsession with ourselves, we don't see the world clearly--we don't see the world as it really is. In our search for happiness and the good life, (...) this is the main problem. But luckily there is a solution, and on the path to understanding it, we can make use of the rich and varied teachings that have developed over centuries of Buddhist thought. With clarity and compassion, Nicolas Bommarito explores the central elements of centuries of Buddhist philosophy and practice, explaining how they can improve your life and teach you to live without fear. Mining important texts and lessons for practical guidance, he provides a friendly guide to the very practical goals that underpin Buddhist philosophy. After laying out the basic ideas, Bommarito walks readers through a wide range of techniques and practices we can adopt to mend ingrained habits. Rare for its exploration of both the philosophy that motivates Buddhism and its practical applications, this is a compassionate guide to leading a good life that anyone can follow. (shrink)

This thesis concerns the measurement of freedom, and its value. Specifically, I am concerned with three overarching questions. First, can we measure the extent of an individual’s freedom? It had better be that we can, otherwise much ordinary and intuitive talk that we would like to vindicate – say, about free persons being freer than slaves – will turn out to be false or meaningless. Second, in what ways is freedom valuable, and how is this value measured? It matters, for (...) example, whether freedom is valuable only insofar as it enables us to pursue specific ends we happen to value for independent reasons, or whether it is also valuable in itself. In the latter case, but not the former, more freedom will always be better. Likewise, it’s important to get clarity on what ends, exactly, freedom is especially instrumentally valuable in promoting, since this goes to how much we should care about it. And finally, the liberal political tradition asserts that there is a special sphere of personal choices within which individuals should be free to do as they please, for reasons over and above the value of freedom itself. Now, can we measure the extent to which states and individuals respect individual liberties, and can we weigh the importance of respecting liberty against competing values like social welfare? To answer these questions, I follow the axiomatic tradition of social choice theory, and I develop several novel measures of freedom – including the first measure of freedom ever proposed that is sensitive to how modally robustly our options are available – a novel approach to measuring the diversity of an opportunity set, and I develop an account of the value of freedom according to which an important part of why freedom matters is that it enables us to improve our preferences through learning, and I construct ways of measuring the value of freedom along this dimension of value. Finally, in later chapters, I provide a representation result for a measure of illiberalism, i.e. of the degree to which states fail to respect the rights of their citizens, and I extend this result to provide a characterization of moral theories that express concern for respecting the rights of others. The final chapter closes by discussing how this concern may be weighed against concerns for social welfare. (shrink)

La noción de carne, perteneciente a la última etapa del pensamiento de Merleau-Ponty, ocupa un lugar determinante en las investigaciones especializadas sobre el autor. Sin embargo, en escasas publicaciones se destaca la inmensa influencia de esta última en el pensamiento actual, especialmente en las corrientes posthumanistas y materialistas de la contemporaneidad filosófica. Nos proponemos, en las páginas que siguen, analizar dicha categoría desde el punto de vista de una filosofía de la relación, interpretándola desde la figura de la medialidad o (...) emparentándola a una noción de medio. Para esto, en la primera parte, se dilucidará la noción merleau-pontiana de medio en _Fenomenología de la percepción_ y la postulación de la experiencia como punto de partida. En la segunda, se explicitarán las múltiples dimensiones en las cuales se despliega la noción de carne en la filosofía tardía del autor. Una vez abordados los aspectos epistemológico, fenomenológico y ontológico de la ontología de la carne se analizará su potencial filosófico proyectando los tratamientos a la problemática de la naturaleza, cuestión que consideramos de vital importancia para las reflexiones filosóficas actuales. (shrink)

L’étude des fortifications du monde grec a considérablement progressé ces dernières décennies, comme le prouve la croissance du nombre de publications de différents statuts et l’augmentation considérable du nombre de sites fouillés. L’École française d’Athènes n’est pas restée à l’écart de ce phénomène et les dernières années ont vu paraître des publications d’une grande qualité appelées à faire référence, alors que d’autres sont sur le point de paraître. L’étude des fortifications dites de T...

Bien que leurs chemins se soient croisés régulièrement, les métiers d’aide au couple et à la famille ont des structurations professionnelles différentes. Le conseil conjugal et familial, la médiation familiale ou encore la thérapie conjugale et familiale, qui n’entrent pas nécessairement en contact avec les individus, les couples et les familles de la même manière, sont soumis à des tensions externes et internes révélatrices des rapports contemporains entre institutions et familles. Dans le présent article exploratoire, l’auteur, sociologue, propose de dessiner (...) les frontières interprofessionnelles de ces métiers, pouvant être envisagés comme des supports thérapeutiques ou d’autonomisation, mais aussi comme composant de manière hétéroclite, voire contradictoire, une police des familles, faisant office d’entrepreneurs d’un nouvel ordre normatif familial, entre collaboration et douce imposition. (shrink)

En el presente escrito se ofrece un compendio de notas críticas en torno a las dificultades con las que se topa actualmente un investigador de temas relacionados con la Edad Media, se exponen los argumentos más comunes y las respuestas que destacados medievalistas han ensayado. El cometido de este trabajo es, en primer lugar, poner de manifiesto el prejuicio que persiste en torno al Medioevo. Luego, el de brindar un cuerpo bibliográfico que ayude a quienes deban justificar todavía hoy las (...) motivaciones de su elección. En tercer lugar, de constituirse en un instrumento de trabajo que vendrá enriquecido y actualizado sucesivamente, por nosotros mismos o por aquellos que se interesen en él. Finalmente, bajo el concepto de “_medioevofobia_”, hemos intentado asuntar las tristes experiencias tenidas y que asumimos continuaremos teniendo algún tiempo más. (shrink)

In a 1993 paper, I argued that empirical treatments of the epistemologyused by scientists in experimental work are too abstract in practice tocounter relativist efforts to explain the outcome of scientificcontroversies by reference to sociological forces. This was because, atthe rarefied level at which the methodology of scientists is treated byphilosophers, multiple mutually inconsistent instantiations of theprinciples described by philosophers are employed by contestingscientists. These multiple construals change within a scientificcommunity over short time frames, and these different versions ofscientific methodology (...) can determine the outcome of a controversy. Iillustrated with a comparatively detailed analysis of the methodologyused by biologists debating the existence of an entity called thebacterial mesosome between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s. This 1993piece has drawn several critiques in the philosophical literature. Inthis present piece I respond to these critiques and argue that they failto address the core argument of the original paper, and I reflectfurther on the methodologies of philosophers of science pursuingempirical or `naturalistic' epistemology. (shrink)

To become more broadly applicable, positions on AI ethics require perspectives from non-Western regions and cultures such as China and Japan. In this paper, we propose that the addition of the concept of harmony to the discussion on ethical AI would be highly beneficial due to its centrality in East Asian cultures and its applicability to the challenge of designing AI for social good. We first present a synopsis of different definitions of harmony in multiple contexts, such as music and (...) society, which reveals that the concept is, at its core, about well-balanced relationships and appropriate actions which give rise to order, balance, and aesthetically pleasing phenomena. The mediator for these well-balanced relationships isTaktwhich is an ability to act thoughtfully and sensibly according to the specific situation and to put things into proportion and order. We propose that the central challenge of building harmonizing AI is to make intelligent systems tactful and also to design and use them tactfully. For an AI system to become tactful, it needs to be able to have an advanced sensitivity to the specific contexts which it is in and their social and ethical implications and have the capability of approximately inferring the emotional and cognitive states of people with whom it is interacting. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence and robots may progressively take a more and more prominent place in our daily environment. Interestingly, in the study of how humans perceive these artificial entities, science has mainly taken an anthropocentric perspective (i.e., how distant from humans are these agents). Considering people’s fears and expectations from robots and artificial intelligence, they tend to be simultaneously afraid and allured to them, much as they would be to the conceptualisations related to the divine entities (e.g., gods). In two experiments, (...) we investigated the proximity of representation between artificial entities (i.e., artificial intelligence and robots), divine entities and natural entities (i.e., humans and other animals) at both an explicit (Study 1) and an implicit level (Study 2). In the first study, participants evaluated these entities explicitly on positive and negative attitudes. Hierarchical clustering analysis showed that participants’ representation of artificial intelligence, robots and divine entities were similar, while the representation of humans tended to be associated with that of animals. In the second study, participants carried out a word/non-word decision task including religious semantic-related words and neutral words after the presentation of a masked prime referring to divine entities, artificial entities and natural entities (or a control prime). Results showed that after divine and artificial entity primes, participants were faster to identify religious words as words compared to neutral words arguing for a semantic activation. We conclude that people make sense of the new entities by relying on already familiar entities and in the case of artificial intelligence and robots, people appear to draw parallels to divine entities. (shrink)

This book features 20 essays that explore how Latin medieval philosophers and theologians from Anselm to Buridan conceived of habitus, as well as detailed studies of the use of the concept by Augustine and of the reception of the medieval doctrines of habitus in Suàrez and Descartes. Habitus are defined as stable dispositions to act or think in a certain way. This definition was passed down to the medieval thinkers from Aristotle and, to a lesser extent, Augustine, and played a (...) key role in many of the philosophical and theological developments of the time. Written by leading experts in medieval and modern philosophy, the book offers a historical overview that examines the topic in light of recent advances in medieval cognitive psychology and medieval moral theory. Coverage includes such topics as the metaphysics of the soul, the definition of virtue and vice, and the epistemology of self-knowledge. The book also contains an introduction that is the first attempt at a comprehensive survey of the nature and function of habitus in medieval thought. The material will appeal to a wide audience of historians of philosophy and contemporary philosophers. It is relevant as much to the historian of ancient philosophy who wants to track the historical reception of Aristotelian ideas as it is to historians of modern philosophy who would like to study the progressive disappearance of the term “habitus” in the early modern period and the concepts that were substituted for it. In addition, the volume will also be of interest to contemporary philosophers open to historical perspectives in order to renew current trends in cognitive psychology, virtue epistemology, and virtue ethics. (shrink)

Can animals be agents? Do they want to be free? Can they have meaningful lives? If so, should we change the way we treat them? This paper offers an account of animal agency and of two continuums: between human and nonhuman agency, and between wildness and captivity. It describes how a wide range of human activities impede on animals’ freedom and argues that, in doing so, we deprive a wide range of animals of opportunities to exercise their agency in ways (...) that can give meaning to their lives. (shrink)

Interest in the computational aspects of modeling has been steadily growing in philosophy of science. This paper aims to advance the discussion by articulating the way in which modeling and computational errors are related and by explaining the significance of error management strategies for the rational reconstruction of scientific practice. To this end, we first characterize the role and nature of modeling error in relation to a recipe for model construction known as Euler’s recipe. We then describe a general model (...) that allows us to assess the quality of numerical solutions in terms of measures of computational errors that are completely interpretable in terms of modeling error. Finally, we emphasize that this type of error analysis involves forms of perturbation analysis that go beyond the basic model-theoretical and statistical/probabilistic tools typically used to characterize the scientific method; this demands that we revise and complement our reconstructive toolbox in a way that can affect our normative image of science. (shrink)

We present a new proof of soundness/completeness of tableaux with respect to dialogical games in Classical First-Order Logic. As far as we know it is the first thorough result for dialogical games where finiteness of plays is guaranteed by means of what we call repetition ranks.

This paper explores the role of iconicity in spoken language and other human communication systems. First, we concentrate on graphical and gestural communication and show how semantically motivated iconic signs play an important role in creating such communication systems from scratch. We then consider how iconic signs tend to become simplified and symbolic as the communication system matures and argue that this process is driven by repeated interactive use of the signs. We then consider evidence for iconicity at the level (...) of the system in graphical communication and finally draw comparisons between iconicity in graphical and gestural communication systems and in spoken language. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a heterogeneous phenomenon, even when considering one particular sub-type. The purpose of this study was to design a reliable and valid questionnaire for grapheme-colour synaesthesia that captures this heterogeneity. By the means of a large sample of 628 synaesthetes and a factor analysis, we created the Coloured Letters and Numbers questionnaire with 16 items loading on 4 different factors . These factors were externally validated with tests which are widely used in the field of synaesthesia research. The questionnaire (...) showed good test–retest reliability and construct validity . Our findings are discussed in the light of current theories and new ideas in synaesthesia research. More generally, the questionnaire is a useful tool which can be widely used in synaesthesia research to reveal the influence of individual differences on various performance measures and will be useful in generating new hypotheses. (shrink)

Since the Industrial Revolution, human societies have experienced high and sustained rates of economic growth. Recent explanations of this sudden and massive change in economic history have held that modern growth results from an acceleration of innovation. But it is unclear why the rate of innovation drastically accelerated in England in the eighteenth century. An important factor might be the alteration of individual preferences with regard to innovation resulting from the unprecedented living standards of the English during that period, for (...) two reasons. First, recent developments in economic history challenge the standard Malthusian view according to which living standards were stagnant until the Industrial Revolution. Pre-industrial England enjoyed a level of affluence that was unprecedented in history. Second, behavioral sciences have demonstrated that the human brain is designed to respond adaptively to variations in resources in the local environment. In particular, Life History Theory, a branch of evolutionary biology, suggests that a more favorable environment should trigger the expression of future-oriented preferences. In this paper, I argue that some of these psychological traits – a lower level of time discounting, a higher level of optimism, decreased materialistic orientation, and a higher level of trust in others – are likely to increase the rate of innovation. I review the evidence regarding the impact of affluence on preferences in contemporary as well as past populations, and conclude that the impact of affluence on neurocognitive systems may partly explain the modern acceleration of technological innovations and the associated economic growth. (shrink)

Assimilé à la French Theory, Jean Baudrillard a été aussi célèbre, ou presque, sur les campus américains que Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari ou Lacan. Mais il est loin d'avoir aujourd'hui leur diffusion mondiale. Il a même presque totalement disparu des écrans radars. Officiellement sociologue, aucun sociologue ne le cite, aucun étudiant de sociologie ne le lit. Il faut dire qu'il a tout fait pour brouiller les pistes, en se refusant à tout simulacre de réalisme pour mieux tenter de prendre la (...) réalité de vitesse, jusqu'à annoncer son évanescence dans l'hyper-réalité du virtuel. Sa pensée, fulgurante, attirait étrangement, mais on pouvait croire que cette séduction fatale tenait à un goût tout pataphysicien des paradoxes. Or, force est de se demander s'il n'avait pas au bout du compte vu plus juste et mieux anticipé que tous ses contemporains ce qu'est désormais devenu notre monde. Ce volume, qui réunit sociologues, philosophes, économistes, théoriciens de l'esthétique et des médias, permet de prendre la mesure de son œuvre inclassable. Avec des contributions de : Gérard Briche, Alain Caillé, Jean-Paul Curnier Françoise Gaillard de Serge Latouche, Chin Min, Katharina Niemeye, Nicolas Poirier, Anne de Rugy, Clara Schmelck, François Séguret, Jean-Louis Violeau. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, decisions to withhold or withdraw life-supporting measures commonly precede death in the neonatal intensive care unit without major ethical controversy. However, caregivers often feel much greater turmoil with regard to stopping medical hydration and nutrition than they do when considering discontinuation of mechanical ventilation or circulatory support. Nevertheless, forgoing medical fluids and food represents a morally acceptable option as part of a carefully developed palliative care plan considering the infant’s prognosis and the burdens of continued treatment. (...) Decisions to stop any form of life support should focus on the clinical circumstances, not the means used to sustain life. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper examines consequences of the computer revolution in mathematics. By comparing its repercussions with those of conceptual developments that unfolded in the nineteenth century, I argue that the key epistemological lesson to draw from the two transformative periods is that effective and successful mathematical practices in science result from integrating the computational and conceptual styles of mathematics, and not that one of the two styles of mathematical reasoning is superior. Finally, I show that the methodology deployed by applied (...) mathematicians in modern scientific computing is a paradigmatic instance of this key lesson. (shrink)

Human cognition and behavior are dominated by symbol use. This paper examines the social learning strategies that give rise to symbolic communication. Experiment 1 contrasts an individual-level account, based on observational learning and cognitive bias, with an inter-individual account, based on social coordinative learning. Participants played a referential communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of recurring meanings to a partner by drawing, but without using their conventional language. Individual-level learning, via observation and cognitive bias, was sufficient (...) to produce signs that became increasingly effective, efficient, and shared over games. However, breaking a referential precedent eliminated these benefits. The most effective, most efficient, and most shared signs arose when participants could directly interact with their partner, indicating that social coordinative learning is important to the creation of shared symbols. Experiment 2 investigated the contribution of two distinct aspects of social interaction: behavior alignment and concurrent partner feedback. Each played a complementary role in the creation of shared symbols: Behavior alignment primarily drove communication effectiveness, and partner feedback primarily drove the efficiency of the evolved signs. In conclusion, inter-individual social coordinative learning is important to the evolution of effective, efficient, and shared symbols. (shrink)

This article offers a justification for accommodating claims of conscience. The standard justification points to the pain that acting against one’s conscience entails. But that defense cannot make sense of the state’s refusal to accommodate individuals where the law interferes with their deeply meaningful but nonmoral projects. An alternative justification, we argue, arises once one recognizes the connection between conscience and moral address: One’s lived moral convictions determine when and with what force one can hold others to account. Acting against (...) one’s convictions can undermine one’s standing to blame others who act in similar ways. When the state compels someone to act against conscience, it renders her complicit in conduct she takes to be wrong and thereby impairs her ability to condemn similar conduct in the future, in a manner akin to the hypocrite. The reason the state should not compel people to act against conscience, then, is that doing so would undercut their moral standing. (shrink)