Human adaptive behavior in sensorimotor control is aimed to increase the confidence in feedforward mechanisms when sensory afferents are uncertain. It is thought that these feedforward mechanisms rely on predictions from internal models. We investigate whether the brain uses an internal model of physical laws to help estimate body equilibrium when tactile inputs from the foot sole are depressed by carrying extra weight. As direct experimental evidence for such a model is limited, we used Judoka athletes thought to have built (...) up internal models of external loads as compared with Non-Athlete participants and Dancers. Using electroencephalography, we first tested the hypothesis that the influence of tactile inputs was amplified by descending cortical efferent signals. We compared the amplitude of P1N1 somatosensory cortical potential evoked by electrical stimulation of the foot sole in participants standing still with their eyes closed. We showed smaller P1N1 amplitudes in the Load compared to No Load conditions in both Non-Athletes and Dancers. This decrease neural response to tactile stimulation was associated with greater postural oscillations. By contrast in the Judoka’s group, the neural early response to tactile stimulation was unregulated in the Load condition. This suggests that the brain can selectively increase the functional gain of sensory inputs, during challenging equilibrium tasks when tactile inputs were mechanically depressed by wearing a weighted vest. In Judokas, the activation of regions such as the right posterior inferior parietal cortex as early as the P1N1 is likely the source of the neural responses being maintained similar in both Load and No Load conditions. An overweight internal model stored in the right PPC known to be involved in maintaining a coherent representation of one’s body in space can optimize predictive mechanisms in situations with high balance constraints. This hypothesis has been confirmed by showing that postural reaction evoked by a translation of the support surface on which participants were standing wearing extra-weight was improved in Judokas. (shrink)

This book presents the first accessible analysis of Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-politicus, situating the work in the context of Spinoza’s general philosophy and its 17th-century historical background. According to Spinoza it is impossible for a being to be infinitely perfect and to have a legislative will. This idea, demonstrated in the Ethics, is presupposed and further elaborated in the Tractatus Theologico-politicus. It implies not only that on the level of truth all revealed religion is false, but also that all authority is (...) of human origin and that all obedience is rooted in a political structure. The consequences for authority as it is used in a religious context are explored: the authority of Scripture, the authority of particular interpretations of Scripture, and the authority of the Church. Verbeek also explores the work of two other philosophers of the period - Hobbes and Descartes - to highlight certain peculiarities of Spinoza's position, and to show the contrasts between their theories. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION When Karl Popper published in' his definition of closer-to-the- truth this was an important intellectual event, but not a shocking one. ...

Theo C. Meyering, in “Mind Matters: Physicalism and the Autonomy of the Person,” takes yet a third approach to the issue of reduction. He states that “if (true, downward) mental causation implies nonreducibility [as Stoeger and Murphy argue] and physicalism implies the converse, it is hard to see how these two views could be compatible.” Meyering distinguishes three versions of reductionism: radical (industrial strength) physicalism; ideal (regular strength) physicalism, and mild or token physicalism. Radical physicalism asserts that all special (...) sciences are reducible to physics in the sense that their laws can be deduced via bridge laws from those of physics. Ideal physicalism asserts that while it is practically impossible to reduce the special sciences, such reduction would be possible were there an ideally complete physics" (Note: This distinction parallels Stoeger’s recognition that epistemological reducibility is relative to the meaning of “laws of nature). Token physicalism is ontologically reductionist: there are no events that are not “token-identical” with some physical event or other (Note: See above, sec. 3.3). However, there are no identities between higher-level and lower- level types of events; consequently some events described by the special sciences have no physical explanation at all. -/- All of these reductionist positions are to be contrasted with compositional (milder than mild) physicalism, which asserts that some higher-level events are not even token-identical with physical events because the higher-level event (say, a crash in the stock market) is constituted by innumerable physical particulars in all sorts of states and interactions. -/- Meyering then surveys some of the existing arguments for the nonreducibility of the special sciences. One of the most important is the argument from multiple realizability. The claim is that economics, for example, is not reducible to physics because economic concepts (for example, monetary exchange) are “wildly multiply realizable” (for example, using coins, strings of wampum, signing a check). Thus, there can be no bridge laws and no reduction. Such an argument, however, only cuts against radical physicalism, not the weaker (and a priori more plausible) ideal physicalism. -/- A stronger argument for the indispensability of special-science explanations is based on the role of functional explanations. For example, the functional description of aspirin as an analgesic is in some instances a more useful explanation of its causal role (relieving a headache) than is its description as the chemical level. -/- Meyering’s own contribution focuses neither on multiple realizability of supervenient properties nor on multiple “fillers” of functional roles, but on “multiple supervenience.” In particular, a single subvenient state of affairs (for example, a cloud of free electrons permeating the metal of which a ladder is constructed) may realize a variety of supervenient dispositional properties (in this case, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, opacity). An explanation (say, of the cause of a deadly accident) requires reference to the dispositional property (electrical conductivity), not merely to the subvenient property. Meyering argues that it is this possibility of multiple supervenience, not multiple realizability, that gives arguments against reduction based on functional properties their real force. Downward causation, then, can be understood in terms of selective activation of one of several dispositional properties of a lower-level state, and thus can be assigned a stable place in our picture of how the world is organized without upsetting our conception of physics as constituting a closed and complete system of physical events. (shrink)

Fueled by ever-growing amounts of (digital) data and advances in artificial intelligence, decision-making in contemporary societies is increasingly delegated to automated processes. Drawing from social science theories and from the emerging body of research about algorithmic appreciation and algorithmic perceptions, the current study explores the extent to which personal characteristics can be linked to perceptions of automated decision-making by AI, and the boundary conditions of these perceptions, namely the extent to which such perceptions differ across media, (public) health, and judicial (...) contexts. Data from a scenario-based survey experiment with a national sample (N = 958) show that people are by and large concerned about risks and have mixed opinions about fairness and usefulness of automated decision-making at a societal level, with general attitudes influenced by individual characteristics. Interestingly, decisions taken automatically by AI were often evaluated on par or even better than human experts for specific decisions. Theoretical and societal implications about these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This monograph presents new ideas in nomic truth approximation. It features original and revised papers from a philosopher of science who has studied the concept for more than 35 years. Over the course of time, the author's initial ideas evolved. He discovered a way to generalize his first theory of nomic truth approximation, viz. by dropping an unnecessarily strong assumption. In particular, he first believed to have to assume that theories were maximally specific in the sense that they did not (...) only exclude certain conceptual possibilities, but also that all non-excluded possibilities were in fact claimed to be nomically possible. Now, he argues that the exclusion claim alone, or for that matter the inclusion claim alone, is sufficient to motivate the formal definition of being closer to the nomic truth. The papers collected here detail this generalized view of nomic truthlikeness or verisimilitude. Besides this, the book presents, in adapted form, the relation with several other topics, such as, domain revision, aesthetic progress, abduction, inference to the best explanation, pragmatic aspects, probabilistic methods, belief revision and epistemological positions, notably constructive realism. Overall, the volume presents profound insight into nomic truth approximation. This idea seeks to determine how one theory can be closer to, or more similar to, the truth about what is nomically, e.g. physically, chemically, biologically, possible than another theory. As a result, it represents the ultimate goal of theory oriented empirical science. Theo Kuipers is the author of Studies in Inductive Probability and Rational Expectation, From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism and Structures in Science. He is the volume-editor of the Handbook on General Philosophy of Science. In 2005 there appeared two volumes of Essays in Debate with Theo Kuipers, entitled Confirmation, Empirical Progress, and Truth Approximation and Cognitive Structures in Scientific Inquiry. (shrink)

3 in philosophy, and therefore in metaphilosophy, cannot be based on rules that avoid spending time on pseudo-problems. Of course, this implies that, if one succeeds in demonstrating convincingly the pseudo-character of a problem by giving its 'solution', the time spent on it need not be seen as wasted. We conclude this section with a brief statement of the criteria for concept explication as they have been formulated in several places by Carnap, Hempel and Stegmiiller. Hempel's account is still very (...) adequate for a detailed introduction. The process of explication starts with the identification of one or more vague and, perhaps, ambiguous concepts, the so-called explicanda. Next, one tries to disentangle the ambiguities. This, however, need not be possible at once. Ultimately the explicanda are to be replaced by certain counterparts, the so-called explicata, which have to conform to four requirements. They have to be as precise as possible and as simple as possible. In addition, they have to be useful in the sense that they give rise to the formulation of theories and the solution of problems. The three requirements of preciseness, simplicity and usefulness. have of course to be pursued in all concept formation. (shrink)

_Clinical Interaction and the Analysis of Meaning_ evinces a therapeutic vitality all too rare in works of theory. Rather than fleeing from the insights of other disciplines, Dorpat and Miller discover in recent research confirmation of the possibilities of psychoanalytic treatment. In Section I, "Critique of Classical Theory," Dorpat proposes a radical revision of the notion of primary process consonant with contemporary cognitive science. Such a revised conception not only enlarges our understanding of the analytic process; it also provides analysis (...) with a conceptual language that can articulate meaningful connections with a growing body of empirical research about the development and nature of human cognition. In Section II, "Interactional Theory," Miller reverses the direction of inquiry. He begins with the literature on cognitive development and functioning, and proceeds to mine it for concepts relevant to the clinical process. He shows how a revised understanding of the operation of cognition and affect can impart new meaning to basic clinical concepts such as resistance, transference, and level of psychopathology. In Section III, "Applications and Exemplifications," Dorpat concludes this exemplary collaboration by exploring select topics from the standpoint of his and Miller's new psychoanalytic theory. At the heart of the authors' endeavor it "meaning analysis," a concept that integrates an up-to-date model of human information processing with the traditional goals of psychoanalysis. The patient approaches the clinical encounter, they argue, with cognitive-affective schemas that are the accumulatice product of his life experience to date; the manifold meanings ascribed to the clinical interaction must be understood as the product of these schemas rather than as distortions deriving from unconscious, drive-related fantasies. The therapist's goal is to make the patient's meaning-making conscious and thus available for introspection. (shrink)

David Theo Goldberg engages Achille Mbembe in a wide-ranging conversation on the key lines of analysis of Mbembe’s book, The Critique of Black Reason. The discussion ranges across a broad swath of key themes: the constitutive feature of racisms in the making of modernity and modern capitalism as conceived through the global black experience; the African and French archives in constituting, resisting, and refashioning ‘black reason’ and its multiple registers; the centrality of slavery to this constitution and resistance; thinghood (...) and humanity; liberalism as the basis for racial pessimism. The discussion closes with Mbembe’s plea for a shared being and an exchange about repair and reparation. (shrink)

The Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy has gained prominence as an agricultural R&D agenda of the European Union. Specific research policies are justified as necessary to create a KBBE for societal progress. Playing the role of a master narrative, the KBBE attracts rival visions; each favours a different diagnosis of unsustainable agriculture and its remedies in agro-food innovation. Each vision links a technoscientific paradigm with a quality paradigm: the dominant life sciences vision combines converging technologies with decomposability, while a marginal one combines agro-ecology (...) with integral product integrity. From these divergent visions, rival stakeholder networks contend for influence over research policies and priorities, especially within the Framework Programme 7 on Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology, which has aimed to promote a Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy. Although the FAFB programme has favoured a life sciences vision, agro-ecological approaches have gained a presence, thus overcoming their general lock-out from agricultural research agendas. In their own way, each rival paradigm emphasises the need for collective systems to gather information for linking producers with users, as a rationale for the public sector to fund distinctive research priorities. (shrink)

Theo Verbeek provides the first book-length examination of the initial reception of Descartes’s written works. Drawing on his research of primary materials written in Dutch and Latin and found in libraries all over Europe, even including the Soviet Union, Theo Verbeek opens a period of Descartes’s life and of the development of Cartesian philosophy that has been virtually closed since Descartes’s death. Verbeek’s aim is to provide as complete a picture as possible of the discussions that accompanied the (...) introduction of Descartes’s philosophy into Dutch universities, especially those in Utrecht and Leiden, and to analyze some of the major problems that philosophy raised in the eyes of Aristotelian philosophers and orthodox theologians. The period covered extends from 1637, the year in which Descartes published his _Discours de la Méthode, _until his death in 1650. Verbeek demonstrates how Cartesian philosophy moved successfully into the schools and universities of Holland and how this resulted in a real evolution of Descartes’s thought beyond the somewhat dogmatic position of Descartes himself. Verbeek further argues that this progression was an essential step in the universal propagation of Cartesian philosophy throughout Europe during the second half of the seventeenth century. As he details the disputes between Cartesians and anti-Cartesians in Holland, Verbeek shows how the questions raised were related on the one hand to religious conflicts between the Remonstrants and the Orthodox Calvinists and on the other hand to political conflicts between more liberal factions fighting for the union of church and state to enhance religious control of society in general. Contending that Descartes and Cartesian philosophy were central to the development of the modern Dutch state, Verbeek illuminates the role they played in Dutch political, religious, and intellectual life. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that Hintikka's game theoreticalsemantics for Independence Friendly logic does not formalize theintuitions about independent choices; it rather is aformalization of imperfect information. Furthermore it is shownthat the logic has several remarkable properties (e.g.,renaming of bound variables is not allowed). An alternativesemantics is proposed which formalizes intuitions aboutindependence.

Open peer commentary on the article “Towards a Dialogue Among Constructivist Research Programs” by Gastón Becerra & José Antonio Castorina. Upshot: Gastón Becerra and José Antonio Castorina compare a selection of constructivist epistemologies aiming at a general definition of constructivist epistemology. While I can agree on many aspects of their critical analysis, I want to underline some concerns but also argue for enhanced methodological perspectives.

I discuss in a systematic order the most important epistemological positions in the instrumentalism-realism debate, viz., instrumentalism, constructive empiricism, referential realism, and theory realism. My conclusions are as follows. There are good reasons for the instrumentalist to become a constructive empiricist. In turn, the constructive empiricist is forced to become a referential realist in order to give deeper explanations of success differences. Consequently, there are further good reasons for the referential realist to become a theory realist.

While the special volumes of the series of Handbooks of the Philosophy of Science address topics relative to a specific discipline, this general volume deals ...

We examine an article of Paul Ricoeur on autonomy and vulnerability. Ricoeur presents the two notions in the field of justice as intricately woven into each other. He analyzes their interdependence on three levels of human agency. Ricoeur’s exposition has a focus on judicial judgment. After presenting Ricoeur’s argument and an analysis of his main points, the author argues that Ricoeur’s reflection lines up with some essential intentions of care ethics. Ricoeur’s contribution to care ethics is given in a delicate (...) balance of autonomy and its vulnerability. (shrink)

Introduction and Overview Content Type Journal Article Category Introduction Pages 151-163 DOI 10.1007/s10670-011-9288-9 Authors Theo Kuipers, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Gerhard Schurz, Department of Philosophy, University of Duesseldorf, Universitaetsstrasse 1, Geb. 23.21, 40225 Duesseldorf, Germany Journal Erkenntnis Online ISSN 1572-8420 Print ISSN 0165-0106 Journal Volume Volume 75 Journal Issue Volume 75, Number 2.

Peptidylprolyl‐isomerases (PPIases) comprise of the protein families of FK506 binding proteins (FKBPs), cyclophilins, and parvulins. Their common feature is their ability to expedite the transition of peptidylprolyl bonds between the cis and the trans conformation. Thus, it seemed highly plausible that PPIase enzymatic activity is crucial for protein folding. However, this has been difficult to prove over the decades since their discovery. In parallel, more and more studies have discovered scaffolding functions of PPIases. This essay discusses the hypothesis that PPIase (...) enzymatic activity might be the consequence of binding to peptidylprolyl protein motifs. The main focus of this paper is the large immunophilins FKBP51 and FKBP52, but other PPIases such as cyclophilin A and Pin1 are also described. From the hypothesis, it follows that the PPIase activity of these proteins might be less relevant, if at all, than the organization of protein complexes through versatile protein binding. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/A33la0dx5LE. (shrink)

This collection of 21 essays explores the creative interaction among the cognitive neurosciences, philosophy, and theology. It is the result of an international research conference co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory, Rome, and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley.

The philosophy of science has lost its self-confidence. Structures in Science (2001) is an advanced textbook that explicates, updates and integrates the best insights of logical empiricism and its main critics. This "neo-classical approach" aims at providing heuristic patterns for research.The book introduces four ideal types of research programs (descriptive, explanatory, design and explicative) and reanimates the distinction between observational laws and proper theories without assuming a theory-free language. It explicates various patterns of explanation by subsumption and specification as well (...) as structures in reductive and other types of interlevel research. Its threefold analysis of theory evaluation leads to new characterizations of confirmation, empirical progress, and truth approximation. What emerges are partial analogies between progress in nomological research, presented in detail in From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism (2000) and progress in explicative and design research. Finally, special chapters are devoted to design research programs, computational philosophy of science, the structuralist approach to theories, and research ethics.The present synopsis of Structures in Science highlights the main topics, the final emphasis being on design research and research ethics. (shrink)

From the outset the Belgian press has been a political press. The catholic and liberal newspapers, however, have never been tightly linked to the corresponding political parties, whereas the socialist and communistnewspapers depend officially from their respective political party so that they can be considered as real party-papers.Of the 39 Belgian newspapers 20 can be defined as catholic, 7 as liberal, 7 as socialist and 1 as communist ; 4 newspapers call themselves «neutral», but on several political occasions they heve (...) nevertheless taken up position. Among these 39 newspapers only 19 can be considered as «independent» : of the 20 catholic newspapers 16 belang to 5 different newspaper chains ; 7 of the liberal dailies are owned by only 3 newspaper groups; 3 of the 7 socialist papers belang to the same chain and 3 of the so-called «neutral» dailies are published by only one group.From the circulation figures of the Flemish press it emerges that the catholic and liberal newspapers make some progress, while the socialist dailies are constantly regressing. The total circulation of the Frenchspeaking newspapers is slightly receding, but here again the socialist newspapers are the big losers. It should be noticed that only the circulation figures of the Flemish newspapers are officially ascertained, whereas the major part of the French-speaking newspapers do not allow such an official control.From this it is clear that in Belgium there exists a real disproportion between the number of readers of political opinionnewspapers and the voters for the corresponding political parties. For the moment the number of readers of catholic newspapers surpasses the amount of voters for the CVP-PSC-party in an considerable way. This also applies to the liberal press, where the amount of readers outnumbers the voters for the PW-PLP-party. On the other hand, the number of readers of socialist newspapers even does not amount to half of the numbers of voters for the BSP-PSB-party. (shrink)

Text extracted from opening pages of book: HINDU PHILOSOPHY TO MY TEACHER HINDU PHILOSOPHY By THEOS BERNARD, Pn. D. PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY New York COPYRIGHT, ...

There are two principles which bear the name Frege''sprinciple: the principle of compositionality, and the contextprinciple. The aim of this contribution is to investigate whether thisis justified: did Frege accept both principles at the same time, did hehold the one principle but not the other, or did he, at some moment,change his opinion? The conclusion is as follows. There is a developmentin Frege''s position. In the period of Grundlagen he followed to a strict form of contextuality. He repeatedcontextuality in later (...) writings, but became less strict. From 1914 on,pushed by the needs of research, he comes close to compositionality. Buthe could never make the final step toward compositionality forprincipled reasons, therefore he always would reject compositionality. (shrink)

The philosophy of science has lost its self-confidence, witness the lack of advanced textbooks in contrast to the abundance of elementary textbooks. Structures in Science is an advanced textbook that explicates, updates, accommodates, and integrates the best insights of logical-empiricism and its main critics. This `neo-classical approach' aims at providing heuristic patterns for research. The book introduces four ideal types of research programs and reanimates the distinction between observational laws and proper theories. It explicates various patterns of explanation by subsumption (...) and specification as well as structures in reductive and other types of interlevel research. Its analysis of theory evaluation leads to new characterizations of confirmation, empirical progress, and pseudoscience. Partial analogies between progress in nomological research and progress in explicative and design research emerge. Finally, special chapters are devoted to design research programs, computational philosophy of science, the structuralist approach to theories, and research ethics. (shrink)