Scientists imagine for epistemic reasons, and these imaginings can be better or worse. But what does it mean for an imagining to be epistemically better or worse? There are at least three metaepistemological frameworks that present different answers to this question: epistemological consequentialism, deontic epistemology, and virtue epistemology. This paper presents empirical evidence that scientists adopt each of these different epistemic frameworks with respect to imagination, but argues that the way they do this is best explained if scientists are fundamentally (...) epistemic consequentialists about imagination. (shrink)

Mechanism is undoubtedly a causal concept, in the sense that ordinary definitions and philosophical analyses explicate the concept in terms of other causal concepts such as production and interaction. Given this fact, many philosophers have supposed that analyses of the concept of mechanism, while they might appeal to philosophical theories about the nature of causation, could do little to inform such theories. On the other hand, methods of causal inference and explanation appeal to mechanisms. Discovering a mechanism is the gold (...) standard for establishing and explaining causal connections. This fact suggests that it might be possible to provide an analysis of causation that appeals to mechanisms. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to make a case for the singularist view from the perspective of a mechanical theory of causation, and to explain what, from this perspective, causal generalizations mean, and what role they play within the mechanical theory.

"The pursuit of science by professional scientists every day bears less and less resemblance to the perception of science by the general public. It is not the rule-based, methodical system for accumulating facts that dominates the public view. Rather it is the idiosyncratic, often bumbling search for understanding in mostly uncharted places. It is full of wrong turns, cul-de-sacs, mistaken identities, false findings, errors of fact and judgment-and the occasional remarkable success. The widespread but distorted view of science as infallible (...) originates in an education system that teaches nothing but facts using very large, very frightening textbooks, and is spread by media that report on discoveries but almost never on process. It is further reinforced by politicians who pay for it and want to use it to determine policy and therefore want it right and, worst of all, sometimes by scientists who learn early on that talking too much about failures and not enough about successes can harm their careers. Failure, then, is a book that seeks to make science more appealing by exposing its faults. In this sequel to Ignorance, Stuart Firestein shows us that scientific enterprise is riddled with failures, and that this is not only necessary but good. Failure reveals how science got its start, when humans began to use a process-trial and error-as a kind of recipe that includes a hefty dose of failure. It gives the non-scientifically trained public an insider's view of how science is actually done, with the aim of making it accessible, comprehensible, and entertaining."--Publisher description. (shrink)

There is no strong reason to believe that human-level intelligence represents an upper limit of the capacity of artificial intelligence, should it be realized. This poses serious safety issues, since a superintelligent system would have great power to direct the future according to its possibly flawed motivation system. Solving this issue in general has proven to be considerably harder than expected. This paper looks at one particular approach, Oracle AI. An Oracle AI is an AI that does not act in (...) the world except by answering questions. Even this narrow approach presents considerable challenges. In this paper, we analyse and critique various methods of controlling the AI. In general an Oracle AI might be safer than unrestricted AI, but still remains potentially dangerous. (shrink)

Interest in spirituality in the workplace and in leaders’ spirituality has grown in the last two decades, paralleled by the emergence of spiritual leadership theories and research. Despite evidence that spirituality is important to many leaders, the literature fails to adequately address the intersections of spiritual, leader, and moral development. A whole person and integrated approach to these three types of development seems beneficial to individual leaders, businesses, and society. In this article we first review spiritual, moral, and leader development (...) literature. Then, drawing on the theory of being-centered leadership, we present a framework which addresses the parallel and intertwined nature of spiritual, leader, and moral development. Our proposed framework includes markers of the three types of development and is inclusive of multiple spiritual development traditions. Four practices and processes of spiritual development are also explored and related to leader and moral development processes. Implications for theory, research, and practice are presented. (shrink)

Metaphors are found all throughout science: in published papers, working hypotheses, policy documents, lecture slides, grant proposals, and press releases. They serve different functions, but perhaps most striking is the way they enable understanding, of a theory, phenomenon, or idea. In this paper, we leverage recent advances on the nature of metaphor and the nature of understanding to explore how they accomplish this feat. We attempt to shift the focus away from the epistemic value of the content of metaphors, to (...) the epistemic value of the metaphor’s consequences. Many famous scientific metaphors are epistemically good, not primarily because of what they say about the world, but because of how they cause us to think. Specifically, metaphors increase understanding either by improving our sets of representations, or by making it easier for us to encode and process data about complex subjects by changing how we are disposed to conceptualize those subjects. This view hints towards new positions concerning testimonial understanding, factivity, abilities, discovery via metaphor, and the relation between metaphors and models. (shrink)

The first dictionary dedicated to the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard. Drawing on a multidisciplinary team of experts, the 168 entries in The Lyotard Dictionary explain all of his main concepts, contextualising these within his work as a whole and relating him to his contemporaries. * 118 entries cover all of Lyotard's concepts and concerns, from 'Addressee' and 'Aesthetics', through 'I don't know what' and 'Is it happening?' to 'Unpresentable' and 'Writing' * A further 50 'linking' entries contextualise Lyotard within the (...) wider intellectual currents of his time, from concepts such as Nazism and Memory to thinkers from Aristotle to Jean BaudrillardJean-Francois Lyotard's postmodern thought is massively influential across a host of academic disciplines, from philosophy and the social sciences through to literary, media, and cultural studies. (shrink)

Events are things like explosions, floods, weddings or births. Both in common-sense and scientific usage, events are spatially and temporally bounded doings or happenings that involve activity and change. Philosophical theories of events have not, generally speaking, honored this feature of events. Probably the most widely discussed account, due to Jaegwon Kim, holds that events are exemplifications of properties at times. But properties are things like temperature, shape, color, solidity or fragility; they are not doings or happenings, but havings. In (...) this paper I defend an account which takes seriously the distinction between doings and havings, which I call the object-activity theory of events. I argue that an event is not an object or objects exemplifying a property or relation, but instead an object or objects engaged in an activity or interaction. (shrink)

Choice architecture describes the environment in which choices are presented to decision-makers. In recent years, public and private actors have looked at choice architecture with great interest as they seek to influence human behaviour. These actors are typically called choice architects. Increasingly, however, this role of architecting choice is not performed by a human choice architect, but an algorithm or artificial intelligence, powered by a stream of Big Data and infused with an objective it has been programmed to maximise. We (...) call this entity the autonomous choice architect. In this paper, we present an account of why artificial intelligence can fulfil the role of a choice architect and why this creates problems of transparency, responsibility and accountability for nudges. We argue that choice architects, be them autonomous computational systems or human-beings, at a most basic level select, from a range of designs, the design which is most likely to maximise a pre-determined objective. We then proceed to argue that, given the growing demand for targeted, personalised choice architecture and for faster, dynamic reconfigurations of choice architecture, as well as the ever-expanding pool of data from which feedback can be drawn, the role of the human choice architect is increasingly obscured behind algorithmic, artificially intelligent systems. We provide a discussion of the implications of autonomous choice architects, focusing on the importance of the humans who programme these systems, ultimately arguing that despite technological advances, the responsibility of choice architecture and influence remains firmly one human beings must bear. (shrink)

Anti-behaviorist arguments against the validity of the Turing Test as a sufficient condition for attributing intelligence are based on a memorizing machine, which has recorded within it responses to every possible Turing Test interaction of up to a fixed length. The mere possibility of such a machine is claimed to be enough to invalidate the Turing Test. I consider the nomological possibility of memorizing machines, and how long a Turing Test they can pass. I replicate my previous analysis of this (...) critical Turing Test length based on the age of the universe, show how considerations of communication time shorten that estimate and allow eliminating the sole remaining contingent assumption, and argue that the bound is so short that it is incompatible with the very notion of the Turing Test. I conclude that the memorizing machine objection to the Turing Test as a sufficient condition for attributing intelligence is invalid. (shrink)

Two factors, medical science's growing control over the timing of death and the increasingly desperate need for organs, have led to a reopening of the debate about the definition of death and have forced a consideration of aspects of the determination of death that had never been addressed before. Without the pressing need for organs, the definition of death would have remained on the back shelf, the conversation of a few interested philosophers or theologians. This article examines some new questions (...) raised by medical technology and the frantic search for new, morally acceptable sources of human organs over the past thirty years. This examination concludes that death itself is a social construct and that, in a pluralistic society such as ours, a conclusive definition of death or determination of the moment of death is out of the reach of both medical science and philosophy. (shrink)

In its sustained and in-depth encounter between Foucault and questions of space, place and geography, this book aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Foucault's engagement with geographical concerns and geography's engagement with Foucault and to open up a new range of themes and questions for the continuation of that engagement.

Neste artigo, busca-se articular a noção de juventude romântica como ideal de formação no pensamento do estudante Benjamin. Nos primeiros ensaios dedicados a temas pedagógicos, o filósofo propôs um novo modelo de educação apoiado no romantismo, partindo de uma crítica às instituições de sua época que cindiram a totalidade e a unidade da vida do jovem. Em seus escritos enquanto era estudante, Benjamin recupera, com sua crítica, a necessidade de olhar a arte, a literatura, a educação, em suma, toda a (...) cultura humana, como um conjunto reunido de vivências históricas. O romantismo, no pensamento de Benjamin, será, portanto, basilar às discussões pedagógicas. A juventude, vista como comunidade, tem o dever de ser criadora, de se transformar em uma convenção de gênios do tempo presente, em seus espaços de atuação, ou seja, nas instituições de formação. De modo geral, só é possível perceber e adquirir o saber específico de uma profissão se as instituições acadêmicas perceberem que devem visar à formação universal, pelo modelo de criação do gênio, pois a juventude é entendida como aquela que garante a produção de valores novos, opostos aos da experiência - sinônimo de rigidez dos conhecimentos - que não estabelecem vínculo com a vida. Para encontrar essa verdade da vida, é necessário um ato de coragem e de sentido para se estar, assim, diante de espíritos livres. A juventude, dessa forma, traduz-se como um conceito ou categoria humana dependente de um despertar da consciência de si mesma. Diante disso, conseguirá promover mudanças dentro do âmbito institucional-escolar e acadêmico, mas, ao mesmo tempo, esse despertar da consciência histórica do jovem definirá um modo específico de se lidar com a cultura humana. Portanto, neste artigo, sob à luz dos aspectos românticos, procurou-se mostrar a juventude como categoria humana, com faixa etária determinada, cercada de preocupações acerca da realidade escolar e acadêmica e, também, do ponto de vista universal, isto é, filosófico-pedagógico, como uma categoria do pensamento que significa a vanguarda, tudo aquilo que não está determinado e fixado, criando novos preceitos e formas de vida. Palavras-chave: Juventude. Gênio. Romanticismo. Formação. Walter Benjamin. (shrink)

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill took thirty years to complete and is acknowledged as the definitive edition of J.S. Mill and as one of the finest works editions ever completed. Mill's contributions to philosophy, economics, and history, and in the roles of scholar, politician and journalist can hardly be overstated and this edition remains the only reliable version of the full range of Mill's writings. Each volume contains extensive notes, a new introduction and an index. Many of (...) the volumes have been unavailable for some time, but the Works are now again available, both as a complete set and as individual volumes. (shrink)

In seiner 1861 zunächst in Frazer's Magazine publizierten und zu seinen Lebzeiten in weiteren vier Auflagen vorgelegten Schrift "Utilitarianism" verteidigt John Stuart Mill das Nützlichkeitsprinzip als das grundlegende Kriterium für die Beurteilung der Moralität aller Handlungen, sei es der freien Handlungen der Individuen, sei es der Einschränkungen dieser Freiheit durch von Gesellschaft und Staat vorgegebene Regeln.Dabei geht es ihm vor allem darum, den Utilitarismus vor dem Einwand zu retten, er gebe dem hedonistischen Eigennutz Vorrang vor der ethischen Maxime einer (...) gerechten Verteilung der Güter. So glaubt er, aus dem Prinzip des "größten Glücks der größten Zahl" ein Modell der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit ableiten zu können, das das Nützlichkeitsprinzip als das erste Prinzip der Moral erweist.Die hier in neuer deutscher Übersetzung vorgelegte Schrift gilt als das Hauptwerk der klassischen utilitaristischen Ethik. (shrink)

For about the last thirty years Newton scholars have carried on a discussion on the meaning of Newton’s second law and its place in the stucture of his physics. E. J. Dijksterhuis, Brian D. Ellis, R. G. A. Dolby, I. Bernard Cohen, and R. S. Westfall in their treatments of these matters all quote a passage that Newton added to the third edition of the Principia. This passage, beginning “Corpore cadente” (“when a body is falling”), was inserted into the Scholium (...) following the Laws. The present article is an analysis of the literature that treats this passage and its relation to the second law. The conclusion is that they are right who see a deep duality in Newton’s mind regarding this law. (shrink)

Moran, Stuart With the solemnity of the Ascension the Year A lectionary returns momentarily to the Gospel according to Matthew and, in fact, to the very end of that Gospel. We might note in the first place that Matthew makes no attempt to describe the mysterious reality that the tradition has come to call the Ascension.

L’Europe connaît une triple crise : bancaire, des dettes souveraines, et de l’investissement. Laisser les États-nations gérer ces crises ne peut que creuser les inégalités territoriales et aller vers la désagrégation de l’Europe. Celle-ci dispose pourtant d’institutions bancaires et financières qui lui permettent d’intervenir dans le respect des souverainetés nationales, tout en dessinant une voie de progrès européenne. L’article détaille la feuille de route proposée à ces institutions.

Regulatory processes governing healthcare research have been very controversial within the academic and health sectors. We assume that it is generally accepted that there need to be institutional structures and systems to ensure researchers pursue ethical research in healthcare and that the chosen site can feasibly support the project in question. Having said that the efficiency and proportionality of ethics and research governance processes have frequently been called into question. This paper will examine some of the attempts made by the (...) National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to streamline ethics approval as well as research and development processes. It will consider the extent to which the changes made by the NIHR have been successful, and then briefly consider the future direction of governance within healthcare research. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)