The paper gives a new light on the controversy between Popper and Carnap on the interpretation of probability and its use to solve the problem of induction. In his later work on probability and inductive logic, Carnap came nearer to the bayesian positions stressing an important shift from his ear..

L'idée d'associer probabilité et induction n'est pas propre au xxe siècle, mais elle a reçu un développement systématique lorsque les philosophes néo-positivistes s'en sont emparés. Dès les années 1940, le philosophe Rudolf Carnap s'est proposé de relever le «défi humien» en fondant une théorie de la confirmation par la construction d'une logique probabiliste dite «inductive». Ce projet avait été esquissé à Cambridge dans les années 1920 par l'économiste John M. Keynes. Examiner le programme de Carnap dans sa totalité, le situer (...) dans son contexte historique, suivre son évolution et les influences qu'il a eues, tels sont les buts de cet article. The idea of associating probability and induction is not a theme suitable for the xxth century but it has received a systematic development when the neo-positivist philosophers seized it. Beginning with the 1940's, the philosopher Rudolph Carnap proposed to affront the «Humian challenge» by founding a theory of confirmation through the construction of a probabilistic logic called «inductive». This project had been outlined in Cambridge during the 1920's by the economist John M. Keynes. To examine Carnap's program in its totality, to situate it in its historical context, to follow its evolution and the influences it has had, these are the aims of this article. (shrink)

Samir Okasha offers a critical study of agential thinking in biology, where evolved organisms are seen as agents pursuing a goal. He examines the justification for transposing concepts from rational humans to the biological world, and considers whether agential thinking is mere anthropomorphism or plays a more intellectual role in the science.

Covering some of science's most divisive topics, such as philosophical issues in genetics and evolution, the philosophy of biology also encompasses more traditional philosophical questions, such as free will, essentialism, and nature vs nurture. Here, Samir Okasha outlines the core issues with which contemporary philosophy of biology is engaged.

This is a conversation that took place at Dr. Vladimir Safatle’s São Paulo home on 16 February, 2019, during Dr. Samir Gandesha’s time as a Visiting Professor at the Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas -FFLCH-USP. It addresses the South American roots of the authoritarian Neoliberalism that has now become a truly global phenomenon.

Does natural selection act primarily on individual organisms, on groups, on genes, or on whole species? The question of levels of selection - on which biologists and philosophers have long disagreed - is central to evolutionary theory and to the philosophy of biology. Samir Okasha's comprehensive analysis gives a clear account of the philosophical issues at stake in the current debate.

We propose a new relevance sensitive model for representing and revising belief structures, which relies on a notion of partial language splitting and tolerates some amount of inconsistency while retaining classical logic. The model preserves an agent's ability to answer queries in a coherent way using Belnap's four-valued logic. Axioms analogous to the AGM axioms hold for this new model. The distinction between implicit and explicit beliefs is represented and psychologically plausible, computationally tractable procedures for query answering and belief..

We consider the question: under what circumstances can the concept of adaptation be applied to groups, rather than individuals? Gardner and Grafen (2009, J. Evol. Biol.22: 659–671) develop a novel approach to this question, building on Grafen's ‘formal Darwinism’ project, which defines adaptation in terms of links between evolutionary dynamics and optimization. They conclude that only clonal groups, and to a lesser extent groups in which reproductive competition is repressed, can be considered as adaptive units. We re-examine the conditions under (...) which the selection–optimization links hold at the group level. We focus on an important distinction between two ways of understanding the links, which have different implications regarding group adaptationism. We show how the formal Darwinism approach can be reconciled with G.C. Williams’ famous analysis of group adaptation, and we consider the relationships between group adaptation, the Price equation approach to multi-level selection, and the alternative approach based on contextual analysis. (shrink)

Today, anxiety is usually thought of as a pathology, the most diagnosed and medicated of all psychological disorders. But anxiety isn't always or only a medical condition. Indeed, many philosophers argue that anxiety is a normal, even essential, part of being human, and that coming to terms with this fact is potentially transformative, allowing us to live more meaningful lives by giving us a richer understanding of ourselves. In Anxiety, Samir Chopra explores valuable insights about anxiety offered by ancient (...) and modern philosophies-Buddhism, existentialism, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. Blending memoir and philosophy, he also tells how serious anxiety has affected his own life-and how philosophy has helped him cope with it. Chopra shows that many philosophers-including the Buddha, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger-view anxiety as an inevitable human response to existence: to be is to be anxious. Drawing on Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse, Chopra examines how poverty and other material conditions can make anxiety worse, but he emphasizes that not even the rich can escape it. Nor can the medicated. Inseparable from the human condition, anxiety is indispensable for grasping it. Philosophy may not be able to cure anxiety but, by leading us to greater self-knowledge and self-acceptance, it may be able to make us less anxious about being anxious. Personal, poignant, and hopeful, Anxiety is a book for anyone who is curious about rethinking anxiety and learning why it might be a source not only of suffering but of insight. (shrink)

Such obvious truth must be made even more obvious, and this is exactly what Samir Selmanovic is doing for all of us and for the future of humanity.

Biologists and philosophers of biology typically regard essentialism about speciesas incompatible with modern Darwinian theory. Analytic metaphysicians such asKripke, Putnam and Wiggins, on the other hand, believe that their essentialist thesesare applicable to biological kinds. I explore this tension. I show that standard anti-essentialist considerations only show that species do not have intrinsic essential properties. I argue that while Putnam and Kripke do make assumptions that contradict received biological opinion, their model of natural kinds, suitably modified, is partially applicable to (...) biological species. However, Wiggins'' thesis that organisms belong essentially to their species is untenable, given modern species concepts. I suggest that Putnam''s, Kripke''s and Wiggins'' errors stem from adopting an account of the point of scientific classification which implies that relationally-defined kinds are likely to be of little value, an account which is inapplicable to biology. (shrink)

What is science? Is there a real difference between science and myth? Is science objective? Can science explain everything? This Very Short Introduction provides a concise overview of the main themes of contemporary philosophy of science. Beginning with a short history of science to set the scene, Samir Okasha goes on to investigate the nature of scientific reasoning, scientific explanation, revolutions in science, and theories such as realism and anti-realism. He also looks at philosophical issues in particular sciences, including (...) the problem of classification in biology, and the nature of space and time in physics. The final chapter touches on the conflicts between science and religion, and explores whether science is ultimately a good thing. (shrink)

The whole of Marx's project confronts the narrow concerns of political philosophy by embedding it in social philosophy and a certain understanding of the aesthetic. From those of aesthetic production to the "poetry of the future" (as Marx writes in the Eighteenth Brumaire), from the radical modernism of bourgeois development to the very idea of association (which defined one of the main lines of tradition in the history of aesthetics), steady references to Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe, and the idea that (...) bourgeois politics is nothing but a theatrical stage: the aesthetic has a prominent place in the constellation of Marx's thought. This book offers an original and challenging study of both Marx in the aesthetic, and the aesthetic in Marx. It differs from previous discussions of Marxist aesthetic theory as it understands the works of Marx themselves as contributions to thinking the aesthetic. This is an engagement with Marx's aesthetic that takes into account Marx's broader sense of the aesthetic, as identified by Eagleton and Buck-Morss - as a question of sense perception and the body. (shrink)

This volume explores from multiple perspectives the subtle and interesting relationship between the theory of rational choice and Darwinian evolution. In rational choice theory, agents are assumed to make choices that maximize their utility; in evolution, natural selection 'chooses' between phenotypes according to the criterion of fitness maximization. So there is a parallel between utility in rational choice theory and fitness in Darwinian theory. This conceptual link between fitness and utility is mirrored by the interesting parallels between formal models of (...) evolution and rational choice. The essays in this volume, by leading philosophers, economists, biologists and psychologists, explore the connection between evolution and rational choice in a number of different contexts, including choice under uncertainty, strategic decision making and pro-social behaviour. They will be of interest to students and researchers in philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, economics and psychology. (shrink)

Today, anxiety is usually thought of as a pathology, the most diagnosed and medicated of all psychological disorders. But anxiety isn't always or only a medical condition. Indeed, many philosophers argue that anxiety is a normal, even essential, part of being human, and that coming to terms with this fact is potentially transformative, allowing us to live more meaningful lives by giving us a richer understanding of ourselves. In Anxiety, Samir Chopra explores valuable insights about anxiety offered by ancient (...) and modern philosophies-Buddhism, existentialism, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. Blending memoir and philosophy, he also tells how serious anxiety has affected his own life-and how philosophy has helped him cope with it. Chopra shows that many philosophers-including the Buddha, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger-view anxiety as an inevitable human response to existence: to be is to be anxious. Drawing on Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse, Chopra examines how poverty and other material conditions can make anxiety worse, but he emphasizes that not even the rich can escape it. Nor can the medicated. Inseparable from the human condition, anxiety is indispensable for grasping it. Philosophy may not be able to cure anxiety but, by leading us to greater self-knowledge and self-acceptance, it may be able to make us less anxious about being anxious. Personal, poignant, and hopeful, Anxiety is a book for anyone who is curious about rethinking anxiety and learning why it might be a source not only of suffering but of insight. (shrink)

This paper intends to examine the development of conflictual interactions, how they might be resolved, and the socio-cultural norms involved, by adopting an analytical framework in an online gaming context. The current paper was inspired by Kádár and Haugh’s framework as it enables me to investigate both the macro and micro aspects of (im)politeness. The study’s aim is to further examine how impoliteness, language aggression and conflict are realised in two online gaming platforms, namely Fortnite and PUBG Mobile. Thus, I (...) will explore discursively how these phenomena are subjective in a Tunisian Arabic setting and discuss how participants reach their subjective perception of conflict in ways that do not always correspond to the supposed intentions of the ostensible offender. The results indicate that conflict is subjective as it is evaluated in different ways by different gamers and could be a result of a conflictual intention. The findings also reveal that conflict may also be created/ escalated as a result of a non-conflictual intention. Thus, this paper contributes to understanding of conflict, how impoliteness can lead to conflict and the various aspects of impoliteness/the perception of impoliteness. (shrink)

Kuhn’s famous thesis that there is ‘no unique algorithm’ for choosing between rival scientific theories is analysed using the machinery of social choice theory. It is shown that the problem of theory choice as posed by Kuhn is formally identical to a standard social choice problem. This suggests that analogues of well-known results from the social choice literature, such as Arrow’s impossibility theorem, may apply to theory choice. If an analogue of Arrow’s theorem does hold for theory choice this would (...) refute Kuhn’s thesis, but it would also pose a threat to the rationality of science, a threat that is if anything more worrying than that posed by Kuhn. Various possible ‘escape routes’ from Arrow’s impossibility result are examined, in particular Amartya Sen’s idea of ‘enriching the informational basis’. It is shown that Sen’s idea can be applied to the problem of theory choice in science. This in turn sheds light on two well-known approaches to inductive inference in philosophy of science: Bayesianism and statistical model selection. (shrink)

Waldenfels’ phenomenological understanding of modernity is based on the understanding of “the foreign” as an essential definition of modernity. “The foreign” here is the characteristic of thinking explicated in cultural and social relationships, which should therefore be interpreted precisely in its phenomenal reality. Culture and politics in this context are more then a mere names for a collection of meanings and justifications of action. They become the expression of a meaningful context from which one can read-off the relation to “the (...) foreign” as the reference point for understanding the very meaning of modernity, its inner differentiation, the streams that determine it and the characteristics that are established in the individual determinants that denote its history. “The foreign” as a whole is grounded in corporality as the reality of its existence. Waldenfels maintains that modernity, taken as a whole, is understood in its orientation towards the foreign, in its relationship with the foreign that, eventually, results in the entire modernity being oriented towards the foreign. Modernity as such did not go astray, but it became oriented towards the foreign, it decided itself to accept some sort of “the foreign” as its identity, in which the philosophical discourse is established for its defence. The relationship towards corporality, postulated in this sense in modern theory, is a consequence of the relationship towards “the foreign”. That is why the problem of transformation of philosophy is not found in the new understanding of the mind, but in the discourse of new rationality, of phenomenological thinking of the particularity oriented towards the critique of the encompassing metaphysics of subjectivity and towards all sorts of rational assumptions bout the reality. Waldenfels’ interpretation of the modernity follows from the integrative insight into continuity of the thinking that determines it, and it is expressed by his summarisation of the crucial problems that determine its paths. It is in this sense that the phenomenological discourse is established, signifying the starting point of philosophical thinking at the turn of the century. (shrink)

Dept of Business Administration Dept of Computer and Knowledge Systems Group University of Patras Information Science School of Computer Science 265 00 Patras, Greece Brooklyn College of the and Engineering [email protected] City University of New York University of New South Wales Brooklyn, NY 11210, USA Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia [email protected] [email protected]..

Nosso trabalho procura descrever a escola cinica atraves de seu fundador; Antistenes de Atenas (444-355) , analisando o comportamento do homem cinico e suas contradiçõess, sua busca pela virtude e pelo agir correto. Mostramos o caminho que o homem cinico deve percorrer para chegar a seu objetivo : a autarquia. Ao mesmo tempo, revelamos seu repúdio a toda cultura estabelecida e a sua relaçáo com o corpo e o prazer. O cínico deve distanciarse da cidade, das atividades mundanas e da (...) politica. (shrink)

Contrairement à l’ironie polémique et insidieuse des Sophistes, celle de Socrate est plutôt interrogeante, désirante et ex-centrique, toujours en quête de connaissance vraie. Le fameux «je sais que je ne sais rien» devient chez lui un outil de défigement de la pensée prisonnière des «systèmes compacts», mais, aussi le meilleur remède contre les pseudo-vérités religieuses et idéologiques.

Discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection, and thus the founder of modern evolutionary biology, Charles Darwin is responsible for one of the most fundamental and far‐reaching contributions to the modern scientific world view. Born in 1809 in Shrewsbury into a wealthy Victorian family, Darwin was educated at the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge. Though his formal education was of little interest to him ‐ “my time was wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned” (1969, p. (...) 58) ‐ Cambridge did provide the opportunity to pursue his childhood interest in natural history. Upon graduating in 1831, Darwin joined a charting expedition around South America on board HMS Beagle, which was to last for five years. During this time, he made lengthy expeditions inland, studying the flora, fauna, and geology of South America and the Pacific Islands, and accumulating a massive biological and geological collection. These years were critical for Darwin's intellectual development, as he admitted, sowing the seeds of his doubt in the fixity of individual species. Darwin was impressed by a large number of facts that could not be explained on the assumption of the fixity of species, including the close structural similarities between extinct and living species revealed by the fossil record. Most important of all were the tortoises and finches of the Galapagos Islands: each island was inhabited by very similar, yet distinct varieties ‐ clear evidence for Darwin of common ancestry shaped by adaptation to local conditions. The creatures of the Galapagos, Darwin wrote, bring us close “to that great fact ‐ that mystery of mysteries ‐ the first appearance of new beings on this earth” (1839, p. 466). (shrink)

Several authors have recently suggested that classic psychedelics might be safe and effective agents of moral enhancement. This raises the question: can we learn anything interesting about the nature of moral experience from a close examination of transformative psychedelic experiences? The interdisciplinary enterprise of philosophical psychopathology attempts to learn about the structure and function of the “ordinary” mind by studying the radically altered mind. By analogy, in this chapter we argue that we can gain knowledge about the everyday moral life (...) by studying extraordinary experiences of altered moral cognition and experience. We focus on a specific class of cases: experiences of forgiveness induced by psychedelics. We argue that close attention to such experiences reveals the importance of thought/emotion coherence and dissonance in the moral life and vindicates some heterodox ideas about moral phenomenology and psychology. (shrink)

Software is much more than sequences of instructions for a computing machine: it can be an enabler (or disabler) of political imperatives and policies. Hence, it is subject to the same assessment in a normative dimension as other political and social phenomena. The core distinction between free software and its proprietary counterpart is that free software makes available to its user the knowledge and innovation contributed by the creator(s) of the software, in the form of the created source code. From (...) an ethical perspective, one of the most pressing questions raised by this form of collaboration is the question of the rights, and the restrictions on them, that are passed on to users and collaborators by the creators of programs. That is, what freedoms do software users deserve, and how can they best be protected? In this study we analyze free software licensing schemes in order to determine which most effectively protects such freedoms. We conclude that so-called copyleft licensing schemes are the morally superior alternative. (shrink)

This thesis proposes and presents two new models for belief representation and belief revision. The first model is the B-structures model which relies on a notion of partial language splitting and tolerates some amount of inconsistency while retaining classical logic. The model preserves an agent's ability to answer queries in a coherent way using Belnap's four-valued logic. Axioms analogous to the AGM axioms hold for this new model. The distinction between implicit and explicit beliefs is represented and psychologically plausible, computationally (...) tractable procedures for query answering and belief base revision are obtained. ;The second model presents a method for relevance sensitive non-monotonic inference from belief sequences which incorporates insights pertaining to prioritized inference and relevance sensitive, inconsistency tolerant belief revision. Our model uses a finite, logically open sequence of propositional formulas as a representation for beliefs and defines a notion of inference from maxiconsistent subsets of formulas guided by two orderings: a temporal sequencing and an ordering based on relevance relations between the conclusion and formulas in the sequence. The relevance relations are ternary as opposed to standard binary axiomatizations. The inference operation thus defined easily handles iterated revision by maintaining a revision history, blocks the derivation of inconsistent answers from a possibly inconsistent sequence and maintains the distinction between explicit and implicit beliefs. In doing so, it provides a finitely representable formalism and a plausible model of reasoning for automated agents. (shrink)

We present a model for first-order belief revision that is characterized by an underlying relevance-like relation and a background proof system. The model is extremely general in order to allow for a wide variety in these characterizing parameters. It allows some weakenings of beliefs which were initially implicit to become explicit and survive the revision process. The effects of revision are localized to the part of the theory that is influenced by the the new information. Iterated revision in this model (...) is handled trivially since the revision operator is constructive by definition. The usage of deductively limited proof systems permits an inconsistency tolerant model. The notion of a part of a theory capable of being influenced by new information (designed to accomodate the specific character of first-order languages) is shown to satisfy some intuitive and desirable properties. We show that for particular parametrizations, standard revision schemes can be embedded into our paradigm. (shrink)

in Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2007.