At the heart of Drazen Prelec’s chapter is the distinction between outcome utility and diagnostic utility. There is a particular distinction in the literature on causal networks (Pearl 2000), namely the distinction between observing and intervening, that maps onto Prelec’s distinction between diagnostic and outcome utility. I will explore the connection between both frameworks.

Prikaz analize mogucnosti dijaloga, kao preduvjeta drustvenog i religijskog pluralizma, na temelju filozofije simbolickih formi Ernsta Cassirera, tema je ovog clanka. Sredisnji dio clanka obuhvaca prikaz osnovnih elemenata filozofije simbolickih formi, potom prikaz odnosa svijesti, simbolickih formi i slobode, zatim opcih postavki Cassirerove analize mita, te njegov opis tehnika modernih politickih mitova. Prikaz ovih elemenata Cassirerove filozofije ima za cilj pokazati aktualnost njegove misli s obzirom na problematiku dijaloga i pluralizma, te ukazati na primjenjivost njegove misli glede analize prisutnosti mitske (...) svijesti u modernim drustvima, pa tako i u drustvima na podrucju bivse Jugoslavije. U zakljucku se nastoji sabrati bogatstvo Cassirerovih analiza i to sazeto primijeniti na analizu situacije na naznacenim podrucjima te ukazati na pravce trazenja mogucih rjesenja. (shrink)

Data gathered by investigators are used to test the validity of a specific scientific hypothesis. When the hypothesis relates to the biology of a disease or its treatment, then data sets may contain specific and identifiable medical information. Since the information in a clinical data set was gathered to test a specific hypothesis and there is usually a sponsor interested in the outcome, the issue of who owns the data is a critical one. In my opinion, data from both publicly (...) and privately funded research should be made available, in a format that protects confidentiality and intellectual property rights, to interested and responsible parties within a reasonable period of time after publication. (shrink)

The author explores and criticises two arguments from ambiguity: S. Pinker’s argument from ambiguity in support of the ‘Language of Thought’ hypothesis, and the argument from ambiguity proposed by K. P. Parsons against Davidsonian ‘semantics of truth-conditions’. Leaning primarily on G. Harman and D. Davidson he aims to demonstrate that the Pinker/Parsons arguments share a common strategy, on the one hand, and imply and/or suggest, as he claims, an implausible view of ambiguity, on the other. Discussing Pinker’s argument he further (...) attempts to elucidate the ways in which the modifications of public and inter-subjectively accessible aspects of the use of language reflect the differences in interpretations of an ambiguity. His exploration of the argument against ‘semantics of truth-conditions’ then aims to explain, contra Parsons, the sense in which talk about the truth conditions for ambiguity does not implicate a threat to Davidson’s perspective on the theory of meaning. Finally, the author argues for the view of ambiguity as a kind of ignorance/undecidability that, as he contends, represents both more realistic and more plausible theoretical option than the one on which both Pinker and Parsons found their arguments and which also comes out in Aristotle, K. Bach and W. Lycan. (shrink)

Autor razmatra i kritizira dva argumenta iz višesmislice: S. Pinkerov argument iz višesmislice za hipotezu takozvanoga ‘jezika misli’ i argument iz višesmislice protiv davidsonovske ‘semantike istinosnih uvjeta’ što ga je predložila K. P. Parsons. Oslanjajući se uglavnom na G. Harmana i D. Davidsona, on nastoji pokazati da Pinker/Parsons argumenti dijele jednu zajedničku strategiju i također impliciraju i/ilisugeriraju jedan, po njegovu sudu neprihvatljiv, pojam višesmislice. Raspravljajući o Pinkerovu argumentu, on nastoji objasniti na koji su način razlike u tumačenju višesmislice reflektirane u (...) promjenama javnih i svima dostupnih aspekata uporabe jezika. U diskusiji pak o argumentu protiv ‘semantike istinosnih uvjeta’ on, contra Parsons,nastoji objasniti u kojem je smislu moguće govoriti o istinosnim uvjetima za višesmislice, a da to ne znači prijetnju Davidsonovom pristupu teoriji značenja. Autor, na koncu, brani teoriju višesmislice kao jednoga vida neznanja/neodlučivosti i tvrdi da ta teorija predstavlja i plauzibilniju i realističniju teorijsku opciju od one nakojoj su Pinker i Parsons temeljili svoje argumente, a koju nalazimo i kod Aristotela , K. Bacha ili W. Lycana.The author explores and criticises two arguments from ambiguity: S.Pinker’s argument from ambiguity in support of the ‘Language of Thought’ hypothesis, and the argument from ambiguity proposed by K. P. Parsons against Davidsonian ‘semantics of truth-conditions’. Leaning primarily on G. Harman and D. Davidson he aims to demonstrate that the Pinker/Parsons arguments share a common strategy, on the one hand, and imply and/or suggest, as he claims, an implausible view of ambiguity, on the other. Discussing Pinker’s argument he further attempts to elucidate the ways in which the modifications of public and inter-subjectively accessible aspectsof the use of language reflect the differences in interpretations of an ambiguity. His exploration of the argument against ‘semantics of truth-conditions’ then aims to explain, contra Parsons, the sense in which talk about the truth conditions for ambiguity does not implicate a threat to Davidson’s perspective on the theory of meaning. Finally, the author argues for the view of ambiguity as a kind of ignorance/undecidability that, as he contends, represents both more realistic and more plausible theoretical option than the one on which both Pinker and Parsons found their arguments and which also comes out in Aristotle , K. Bach and W. Lycan. (shrink)

Saint Gregory understood the mind of man as the most essentially human element of the human composit. It is that spiritual, intelligible element of human nature which is brought into being in the image of God. The image of God in man refers to human nature, but the image of God in whom man is created refers to the Person of the divine Logos. The mind is way in that expresses freedom of human nature. Free will of man or freedom (...) (as possession of self) belongs to human nature, to man’s character as a being created in the image of God. In last analysis the mind according to Saint Gregory constitutes way of manifestation human freedom. The mind as image of God in man has not worth its self. The most important role of mind is knowledge of God. Man is made to exist from the very beginning as a creature in the image of God, so that the fundamental principle of his being is completed only in communion with God. For Gregory this in turn revels man’s nature and destiny to be in loving communion with the Holy Trinity through the ecstatic, transcending movement of the self into the personal, divine life of God. It is the knowledge of God in loving communion with him, God becoming man without ceasing to be God, so that man can become God without ceasing to be man. It is very significant that according to Saint Gregory the Theologian knowledge of God and communion or participation in God are bound together. More than that, knowledge of God and communion with God are explicitly considered as identical. (shrink)

On the twentieth anniversary of the death of one of the most important contemporary political and social philosophers, John B. Rawls (1921–2002), in this paper the authors deal with his understanding of the relationship between civil disobedience and freedom within the framework of a liberal constitutional democracy based on the rule of law. The fundamental starting point of Rawls’s theory, and thus of this work, is that civil disobedience expresses disobedience to the law within the limits of fidelity to the (...) law, although it is at the outer edge thereof. If the freedom of thought expressing disobedience to unjust laws is one of the fundamental freedoms, then civil disobedience can be understood not only as a corrective to liberal constitutional democracy but also as a realistic attempt to “save” it. This is an important topic of contemporary political philosophy, considering the increasingly widespread discourse about the crisis of liberalism in general today, and the impact of that crisis on the institutions of liberal constitutional democracy, among which the state stands out, but in fact law and the legal system as a whole. (shrink)

Von Hippel & Trivers (VH&T) propose that self-deception has evolved to facilitate the deception of others. However, they ignore the subjective moral costs of deception and the crucial issue of credibility in self-deceptive speech. A self-signaling interpretation can account for the ritualistic quality of some self-deceptive affirmations and for the often-noted gap between what self-deceivers say and what they truly believe.

In this philosophical exploration, we investigate the concept of robotic moral environment interaction. The common view understands moral interaction to occur between agents endowed with ethical and interactive capacities. However, recent developments in moral philosophy argue that moral interaction also occurs in relation to the environment. Here conditions and situations of the environment contribute to human moral cognition and the formation of our moral experiences. Based on this philosophical position, we imagine robots interacting as moral environments—a novel conceptualization of human–robot (...) moral interaction with an inherent capacity for moral augmentation. To explicate this idea, we first define moral environments as moral systems providing moral affordances. We then intuit and explicate two constitutive conditions of moral environments: the environment’s moral ambiance and its moral atmosphere and compare them with real-life cases of moral environments—the moral landmarks. Based on these explications, we construct several explanatory cases to illustrate robots interacting as moral environments. Lastly, we set to evaluate the ethical challenges and wider social ramifications of using moral environment robots in the public space. (shrink)

“Give me a body then”: this is the formula of philosophical reversal. The body is no longer the obstacle that separates thought from itself, that which it has to overcome to reach thinking. It is o...

The life-cycle theory of saving behavior (Modigliani, 1988) suggests that humans strive towards an equal intertemporal distribution of wealth. However, behavioral life-cycle theory (Shefrin & Thaler, 1988) proposes that people use self-control heuristics to postpone wealth until later in life. According to this theory, people use a system of cognitive budgeting known as mental accounting. In the present study it was found that mental accounts were used differently depending on if the income change was positive or negative. This was shown (...) both in a representative nationwide sample of households and in a student sample. Respondents were more willing to cut down on their propensity to consume when faced with an income decrease than to raise it when the income increased. Furthermore, contrary to the predictions of behavioral life-cycle theory, it was found that the respondents adjusted their propensity to consume the most when the income increases or decreases took place immediately. Hence, it is suggested that theories of intertemporal choice (e.g., Loewenstein, 1988; Loewenstein & Prelec, 1992) provide a better account of the data than does the behavioral lifecycle theory. (shrink)

Mental accounting is a concept associated with the work of Richard Thaler. According to Thaler, people think of value in relative rather than absolute terms. They derive pleasure not just from an object’s value, but also the quality of the deal – its transaction utility (Thaler, 1985). In addition, humans often fail to fully consider opportunity costs (tradeoffs) and are susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy. Why are people willing to spend more when they pay with a credit card than (...) cash (Prelec & Simester, 2001)? Why would more individuals spend $10 on a theater ticket if they had just lost a $10 bill than if they had to replace a lost ticket worth $10 (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984)? Why are people more likely to spend a small inheritance and invest a large one (Thaler, 1985)? According to the theory of mental accounting, people treat money differently, depending on factors such as the money’s origin and intended use, rather than thinking of it in terms of the “bottom line” as in formal accounting (Thaler, 1999). An important term underlying the theory is fungibility, the fact that all money is interchangable and has no labels. In mental accounting, people treat assets as less fungible than they really are. Even seasoned investors are susceptible to this bias when they view recent gains as disposable “house money” (Thaler & Johnson, 1990) that can be used in high-risk investments. In doing so, they make decisions on each mental account separately, losing out the big picture of the portfolio. (See also partitioning and pain of paying for ideas related to mental accounting.) . (shrink)

Despite what many critics see as an inability to deliver much in the way of therapeutic value (Hunter and Drazen 2019), genetics remains a bottomless source of fascination, trepidation, and reflect...