Toldot adam 3 -- Bet ha-midot -- Sheʼelot u-teshuvot.

Was Maimonides a radical philosopher who subtly argued for a naturalist world and who saw the obligation to keep the Torah's commandments as a social and moral obligation - or was he a conservative Jewish believer who only tried to formulate philosophical arguments in favour of a revealed religion? This question has been central to the interpretation of Maimonides from the 12th century until modern times. In the four chapters of this book, Shalom Sadik argues for a radical philosophical (...) interpretation of Maimonides. (shrink)

The transformers that drive chatbots and other AI systems constitute large language models (LLMs). These are currently the focus of a lively discussion in both the scientific literature and the popular media. This discussion ranges from hyperbolic claims that attribute general intelligence and sentience to LLMs, to the skeptical view that these devices are no more than “stochastic parrots”. I present an overview of some of the weak arguments that have been presented against LLMs, and I consider several of the (...) more compelling criticisms of these devices. The former significantly underestimate the capacity of transformers to achieve subtle inductive inferences required for high levels of performance on complex, cognitively significant tasks. In some instances, these arguments misconstrue the nature of deep learning. The latter criticisms identify significant limitations in the way in which transformers learn and represent patterns in data. They also point out important differences between the procedures through which deep neural networks and humans acquire knowledge of natural language. It is necessary to look carefully at both sets of arguments in order to achieve a balanced assessment of the potential and the limitations of LLMs. (shrink)

The application of deep learning methods to problems in natural language processing has generated significant progress across a wide range of natural language processing tasks. For some of these applications, deep learning models now approach or surpass human performance. While the success of this approach has transformed the engineering methods of machine learning in artificial intelligence, the significance of these achievements for the modelling of human learning and representation remains unclear. Deep Learning and Linguistic Representation looks at the application of (...) a variety of deep learning systems to several cognitively interesting NLP tasks. It also considers the extent to which this work illuminates our understanding of the way in which humans acquire and represent linguistic knowledge. Key Features: combines an introduction to deep learning in AI and NLP with current research on Deep Neural Networks in computational linguistics. is self-contained and suitable for teaching in computer science, AI, and cognitive science courses; it does not assume extensive technical training in these areas. provides a compact guide to work on state of the art systems that are producing a revolution across a range of difficult natural language tasks. (shrink)

Readership: One of the most thorough examinations of mental representation and meaning holism available, this book should be read by everyone interested in the...

Sortally incorrect sentences have traditionally been referred to as "category mistakes" (Ryle ()) or "type crossings" (Drange ()). Sortal incorrectness is a ...

Morton Arnsdorf, the book review editor of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, was tragically killed in an automobile accident on June 9, 2010. Mort grew up in Chicago, went to college at Harvard, and then to medical school at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. In college, Mort majored in History of Science, and he retained strong interests in history throughout his medical career. Mort did a residency in medicine at the University of Chicago, went back to Columbia (...) for fellowship training, and then joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1973. During his tenure in Chicago, he became Professor of Medicine and served both as Chief of the Section of Cardiology and as .. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze the opinion of a Jewish Averroist Rabbi Josef Ibn Caspi on the relation between prophetical and philosophical truth. In the beginning of the article, we will see that in some of his writings, R. Caspi claims the prophet’s knowledge to be superior to that of the philosopher. However, in the second part of the article, we will analyze his commentary on Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed. In this commentary R. Caspi also mentions (...) the opposite opinion: that the knowledge of the prophet is only his knowledge as a philosopher and that even true prophets’ can have a few false prophecies just as good philosophers may have a few wrong opinions. He thus equates the knowledge of a prophet to that of a philosopher. In the conclusion of the article we try to determine how one can distinguish between the texts that explain the true opinion of R. Caspi and the text that our author wrote only for political and pedagogical reasons. (shrink)

Gesture-first theories of language origins often raise two unsubstantiated arguments against vocal origins. First, they argue that great ape vocal behavior is highly constrained, limited to a fixed, species-typical repertoire of reflexive calls. Second, they argue that vocalizations lack any significant potential to ground meaning through iconicity, or resemblance between form and meaning. This paper reviews the considerable evidence that debunks these two “myths”. Accumulating evidence shows that the great apes exercise voluntary control over their vocal behavior, including their breathing (...) apparatus, larynx, and supralaryngeal articulators. They are also able to learn new vocal behaviors, and even show some rudimentary ability for vocal imitation. In addition, an abundance of research demonstrates that the vocal modality affords rich potential for iconicity. People can understand iconicity in sound symbolism, and they can produce iconic vocalizations to communicate a diverse range of meanings. Thus, two of the primary arguments against vocal origins theories are not tenable. As an alternative, the paper concludes that the origins of language – going as far back as our last common ancestor with great apes – are rooted in iconicity in both gesture and vocalization. (shrink)

On the Fregean view of NP's, quantified NP's are represented as operator-variable structures while proper names are constants appearing in argument position. The Generalized Quantifier approach characterizes quantified NP's and names as elements of a unified syntactic category and semantic type. According to the Logicality Thesis, the distinction between quantified NP's, which undergo an operation of quantifier raising to yield operator-variable structures at Logical Form and non-quantified NP's, which appear in situ at LF, corresponds to a difference in logicality status. (...) The former are logical expressions while the latter are not. Using van Benthem's [2, 3] criterion for logicality, I extend the concept of logicality to GQ's. I argue that NP's modified by exception phrases constitute a class of quantified NP's which are heterogeneous with respect to logicality. However, all exception phrase NP's exhibit the syntactic and semantic properties which motivate May to treat quantified NP's as operators at LF. I present a semantic analysis of exception phrases as modifiers of GQ's, and I indicate how this account captures the central semantic properties of exception phrase NP's. I explore the consequences of the logically heterogeneous character of exception phrase NP's for proof theoretic accounts of quantifiers in natural language. The proposed analysis of exception phrase NP's provides support for the GQ approach to the syntax and semantics of NP's. (shrink)

The human self model suggests that the construct of self involves functions such as agency, body-centered spatial perspectivity, and long-term unity. Vogeley, Kurthen, Falkai, and Maieret (1999) suggest that agency is subserved by the prefrontal cortex and other association areas of the cortex, spatial perspectivity by the prefrontal cortex and the parietal lobes, and long-term unity by the prefrontal cortex and the temporal lobes and that all of these functions are impaired in schizophrenia. Exploring the connections between the prefrontal cortex (...) and the construct of self, the present article extends the application of the self model to autism. It suggests that in contrast to schizophrenia, agency and spatial perspectivity are probably preserved in autism, but that, similarly to schizophrenia, long-term unity is probably impaired. This hypothesis is compatible with a model of neuropsychological dysfunction in autism in a neural network including parts of the prefrontal cortex, the temporal lobes, and the cerebellum. (shrink)

But what are functions? Here, 15 leading scholars of philosophy of psychology and philosophy of biology present new essays on functions.

A number of unique problems plague human research protection efforts at United States State and Territorial Departments of Health. The first problem is related to the number of Institutional Review Boards operated by and Federalwide Assurances held by DOHs. The lack of these two essential regulatory human research protection program mechanisms points to a possible inadequacy of infrastructure at DOHs for protecting human subjects. The second and third problems are related to the use and interpretation of research protection laws and (...) regulations at DOHs. Parsing public health activities into research or practice can be vexing and likely produces variability in how individual DOHs make the determination between research and practice and the outcomes of such decisions for the same or similar projects. A related problem is that DOH or Institutional Review Board officials might misclassify public health practice activities as research, which can have costly, adverse consequences. (shrink)

The causes and the outbreak of the Corinthian war, as well as the events immediately preceding it, have often been discussed by modern historians. Since the Corinthian war is the first attempt at achieving a new settlement in Greece after the Peloponnesian war and since it brought about new political alliances and the revival of old imperial rivalries, it is not only an episode in the continual warfare among the Greek states, but may also be regarded as a key to (...) the understanding of a part, at least, of the pattern of Greek history in the fourth century B.C. (shrink)

It has been widely assumed that Heschel's writings are poetic inspirations devoid of philosophical analysis and unresponsive to the evil of the Holocaust. Who Is Man? contains a detailed phenomenological analyis of man and being which is directed at the main work of Martin Heidegger found primarily in Being and Time and Letter on Humanism. When the analysis of Who Is Man? is unapacked in the light of these associations it is clear that Heschel rejected poetry and metaphor as a (...) means of theological elucidation, that he offered a profound examination of the Holocaust and that the major thrust of his thinking eschews Heidegerrian deconstruction and the postmodernism that ensued in its phenomenological wake. Who Is Man? contains direct and indirect criticisms of Heidegger's notions of 'Dasein', 'thrownness', 'facticity' and 'submission' to name a few essential Heideggerian concepts. In using his ontological connective method in opposition to Heidegger's 'ontological difference', Heschel makes the argument that the biblical notion of Adam as a being open to transcendence stands in oppostion to the philosophical tradition from Parmenides to Heidegger and is the only basis for a redemptive view of humanity. (shrink)

As with other aspects of post-Minoan Crete studies there has been a tendency to accept a pan-Cretan economic model. A Dorian aristocracy, served by pre-Dorian serfs and their descendants, depended upon the produce of their private kleroi for membership in an andreion and citizen status. The elite preserved their political, social, and economic position by discouraging the development of a market economy on Crete in favor of a subsistence economy based upon agriculture, animal husbandry, and hunting. Discouraged were production of (...) coinage, elite display, and manufacture for export . Specialist craftsmen and other kinds of wage earners were either foreigners or members of a dependent population. (shrink)

It is shown that the Born Rule probabilities, i.e. the squares of the moduli of the coefficients in a pure state superposition, refer to mutually exclusive events consequent on measurement. It is also shown that the eigenstates in a pure state superposition are not mutually exclusive events. If the Born Rule is to be retained as the fundamental interpretative postulate of quantum mechanics then it follows, firstly, that the probabilities necessarily refer not to the eigenstates but to the eigenvalues to (...) which the eigenstates belong and, secondly, that the eigenvalues are necessarily mutually exclusive events. This means that to ask why a measurement of an observable on a system in a pure state superposition of eigenstates yields a single state rather than all the states in the superposition is to ill-pose the quantum measurement problem. The events the Born Rule probabilities properly refer to are not states but values. And it also means that the correctly-posed measurement problem, why does a measurement of an observable in a pure state superposition of the eigenstates of the observable yield a single eigenvalue rather than all the eigenvalues implicit in the superposition, admits of the answer: the values, being mutually exclusive events, constitute a statistical mixture of values, and as such, a measurement will yield just one of them. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 25, Issue 2, pp 196 - 208 The aim of the article is to analyze the concepts of natural law, political law, and divine law in the thought of Rabbi Josef Albo. The article concludes that according to R. Albo, the true divine law has something natural. Humans can understand by themselves that natural law is not developed enough to assure their needs. They can comprehend as well that only divine law can be a good political law, (...) and thus they draw the natural conclusion that they need divine revelation and divine law. (shrink)