This study investigated the applicability of a novel instrument to assess parent–child attunement in free play interactions, in dyads with an infant with and without visual impairments. We here report the findings on the reliability and applicability of the newly developed Attune & Stimulate Mother–Infant 56-items Instrument in two separate samples: one with infants with VI and one with typically sighted infants. In addition, we assessed the contribution of parental sensitivity to attunement in dyadic interactions. The A&S M-I is an (...) observational comprehensive instrument of behaviors that captures different body parts and their motility, and different senses. The appropriate responding of a parent to the child’s signal reflects the ability to attune in the dyad as well as parent’s ability to stimulate the child to become engaged in the contact or activity. Consistency assessments revealed good reliability for maternal and infant behaviors, acceptable internal consistency and good test–retest reliability. Furthermore, both samples scored significantly above chance level on attunement, suggesting that the instrument captures parent–infant behavioral coordination, and VI was not related to parent–infant attunement. Lastly, a relation between parental sensitivity and attunement was found only in the TS sample. Altogether, these findings provide promising initial evidence of the applicability of the A&S M-I instrument for assessing dyadic attunement across different populations and ages. Having assessed the applicability of this observational instrument, future work should corroborate these findings in larger samples. (shrink)

The core of the problem discussed in this paper is the following: the Church-Turing Thesis states that Turing Machines formally explicate the intuitive concept of computability. The description of Turing Machines requires description of the notation used for the input and for the output. Providing a general definition of notations acceptable in the process of computations causes problems. This is because a notation, or an encoding suitable for a computation, has to be computable. Yet, using the concept of computation, in (...) a definition of a notation, which will be further used in a definition of the concept of computation yields an obvious vicious circle. The circularity of this definition causes trouble in distinguishing on the theoretical level, what is an acceptable notation from what is not an acceptable notation, or as it is usually referred to in the literature, “deviant encodings”. Deviant encodings appear explicitly in discussions about what is an adequate or correct conceptual analysis of the concept of computation. In this paper, I focus on philosophical examples where the phenomenon appears implicitly, in a “disguised” version. In particular, I present its use in the analysis of the concept of natural number. I also point at additional phenomena related to deviant encodings: conceptual fixed points and apparent “computability” of uncomputable functions. In parallel, I develop the idea that Carnapian explications provide a much more adequate framework for understanding the concept of computation, than the classical philosophical analysis. (shrink)

I evaluate Schurz's proposed meta-inductive justification of induction, a refinement of Reichenbach's pragmatic justification that rests on results from the machine learning branch of prediction with expert advice. My conclusion is that the argument, suitably explicated, comes remarkably close to its grand aim: an actual justification of induction. This finding, however, is subject to two main qualifications, and still disregards one important challenge. The first qualification concerns the empirical success of induction. Even though, I argue, Schurz's argument does not need (...) to spell out what inductive method actually consists in, it does need to postulate that there is something like the inductive or scientific prediction strategy that has so far been significantly more successful than alternative approaches. The second qualification concerns the difference between having a justification for inductive method and for sticking with induction for now. Schurz's argument can only provide the latter. Finally, the remaining challenge concerns the pool of alternative strategies, and the relevant notion of a meta-inductivist's optimality that features in the analytic step of Schurz's argument. Building on the work done here, I will argue in a follow-up paper that the argument needs a stronger dynamic notion of a meta-inductivist's optimality. (shrink)

The no-free-lunch theorems promote a skeptical conclusion that all possible machine learning algorithms equally lack justification. But how could this leave room for a learning theory, that shows that some algorithms are better than others? Drawing parallels to the philosophy of induction, we point out that the no-free-lunch results presuppose a conception of learning algorithms as purely data-driven. On this conception, every algorithm must have an inherent inductive bias, that wants justification. We argue that many standard learning algorithms should rather (...) be understood as model-dependent: in each application they also require for input a model, representing a bias. Generic algorithms themselves, they can be given a model-relative justification. (shrink)

This article poses a challenge to Schurz’s proposed metainductive justification of induction. It is argued that Schurz’s argument requires a notion of optimality that can deal with an expanding pool of prediction strategies.

Claudia Blöser has recently proposed that Kant’s duty to be forgiving is grounded on the need to be relieved from the burden of our moral guilt, a need we have in virtue of our morally fallible nature, irrespectively of whether we have repented. I argue that Blöser's proposal does not fit well with certain central aspects of Kant’s views on moral guilt. For Kant, moral guilt is a complex phenomenon, that has both an intellectual and an affective aspect. I argue (...) that it is not even possible for us to fully overcome our intellectual guilt, and to the extent that it is possible to ameliorate our felt guilt, this is largely a matter of self-forgiveness. However, self-forgiveness is only appropriate when there is repentance for the wrongful action and rejection of its underlying immoral maxim by the wrongdoer as part of a project of moral transformation. I offer an alternative account of the human need for forgiveness, an account that makes forgiveness conditional on repentance. (shrink)

Douven (in press) observes that Schurz's meta-inductive justification of induction cannot explain the great empirical success of induction, and offers an explanation based on computer simulations of the social and evolutionary development of our inductive practices. In this paper, I argue that Douven's account does not address the explanatory question that Schurz's argument leaves open, and that the assumption of the environment's induction-friendliness that is inherent to Douven's simulations is not justified by Schurz's argument.

In this thesis I investigate the theoretical possibility of a universal method of prediction. A prediction method is universal if it is always able to learn from data: if it is always able to extrapolate given data about past observations to maximally successful predictions about future observations. The context of this investigation is the broader philosophical question into the possibility of a formal specification of inductive or scientific reasoning, a question that also relates to modern-day speculation about a fully automatized (...) data-driven science. I investigate, in particular, a proposed definition of a universal prediction method that goes back to Solomonoff and Levin. This definition marks the birth of the theory of Kolmogorov complexity, and has a direct line to the information-theoretic approach in modern machine learning. Solomonoff's work was inspired by Carnap's program of inductive logic, and the more precise definition due to Levin can be seen as an explicit attempt to escape the diagonal argument that Putnam famously launched against the feasibility of Carnap's program. The Solomonoff-Levin definition essentially aims at a mixture of all possible prediction algorithms. An alternative interpretation is that the definition formalizes the idea that learning from data is equivalent to compressing data. In this guise, the definition is often presented as an implementation and even as a justification of Occam's razor, the principle that we should look for simple explanations. The conclusions of my investigation are negative. I show that the Solomonoff-Levin definition fails to unite two necessary conditions to count as a universal prediction method, as turns out be entailed by Putnam's original argument after all; and I argue that this indeed shows that no definition can. Moreover, I show that the suggested justification of Occam's razor does not work, and I argue that the relevant notion of simplicity as compressibility is already problematic itself. (shrink)

The author investigates how to produce realistic and workable ethical codes or regulations in this rapidly developing field to address the immediate and realistic longer-term issues facing us. She spells out the key ethical debates concisely, exposing all sides of the arguments, and addresses how codes of ethics or other regulations might feasibly be developed, looking for pitfalls and opportunities, drawing on lessons learned in other fields, and explaining key points of professional ethics. The book provides a useful resource for (...) those aiming to address the ethical challenges of AI research in meaningful and practical ways. (shrink)

Putnam construed the aim of Carnap’s program of inductive logic as the specification of a “universal learning machine,” and presented a diagonal proof against the very possibility of such a thing. Yet the ideas of Solomonoff and Levin lead to a mathematical foundation of precisely those aspects of Carnap’s program that Putnam took issue with, and in particular, resurrect the notion of a universal mechanical rule for induction. In this paper, I take up the question whether the Solomonoff–Levin proposal is (...) successful in this respect. I expose the general strategy to evade Putnam’s argument, leading to a broader discussion of the outer limits of mechanized induction. I argue that this strategy ultimately still succumbs to diagonalization, reinforcing Putnam’s impossibility claim. (shrink)

Algorithmic information theory gives an idealized notion of compressibility that is often presented as an objective measure of simplicity. It is suggested at times that Solomonoff prediction, or algorithmic information theory in a predictive setting, can deliver an argument to justify Occam’s razor. This article explicates the relevant argument and, by converting it into a Bayesian framework, reveals why it has no such justificatory force. The supposed simplicity concept is better perceived as a specific inductive assumption, the assumption of effectiveness. (...) It is this assumption that is the characterizing element of Solomonoff prediction and wherein its philosophical interest lies. (shrink)

Aristotle's account of female nature has received mostly negative treatment, emphasising what he says females cannot do. Building on recent research, this book comprehensively revises such readings, setting out the complex and positive role played by the female in Aristotle's thought with a particular focus on the longest surviving treatise on reproduction in the ancient corpus, the Generation of Animals. It provides new interpretations of the nature of Aristotle's sexism, his theory of male and female interaction in generation, and his (...) account of inherited features. It also discusses a range of more general issues which can and should be re-examined in light of Aristotle's account of female animals: his methodology, hylomorphism, teleology and psychology. Aristotle on Female Animals will be valuable to all those interested in Aristotle's philosophy and the history of gender. (shrink)

Antonio Gramsci is one of the major social and political theorists of the 20th century whose work has had an enormous influence on several fields, including educational theory and practice. Gramsci and Education demonstrates the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's thought for contemporary educational debates. The essays are written by scholars located in different parts of the world, a number of whom are well known internationally for their contributions to Gramscian scholarship and/or educational research. The collection deals with a broad range (...) of topics, including schooling, adult education in general, popular education, workers' education, cultural studies, critical pedagogy, multicultural education, and the role of intellectuals in contemporary society. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate among a group of non-profit organizations: a) the effect of ethical leadership on volunteers’ satisfaction, affective organizational commitment and intention to stay in the same organization; b) the role played by job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between ethical leadership and volunteers’ intentions to stay in the same organization, as well as between ethical leadership and affective commitment. An anonymous questionnaire was individually administered to 198 Italian volunteers of different non-profit (...) organizations. The questionnaire contained the Ethical Leadership Scale, the Volunteers Satisfaction Index, the Affective organization Scale, as well as questions regarding the participants’ age, sex, type of work, level of education, length of their volunteer works, intention to volunteer in the following months in the same organization. The construct as well the effects of EL on volunteers is approached in light of the Social Exchange Theory and the Social Learning Theory. Structural equation models were used to test hypothesized relationships. The results confirm the role of mediation of volunteer satisfaction in the relationships between the variables studied. In particular, ethical leadership was found to be positively associated both with volunteers’ intention of staying and with their affective commitment. In the first case this relationship is fully explained by the mediation of the volunteers’ satisfaction, while the latter is explained by both direct and indirect factors. To the authors’ knowledge, this the first attempt to understand the role played by ethical leadership on volunteers’ behavior and, more in general, in the management of non-profit organizations. Findings are relevant both for practitioners and managers of non-profit organization, since they suggest the relevance of the perception of ethical leadership by volunteers, as well as for scholars, since they further deepen the knowledge on EL and its effects on the followers. Limits of the study: the questionnaire was administered only among a group of non-statistical sample of volunteers. Furthermore, the study reached only volunteers from Italian non-profit organization. (shrink)

This paper provides a description of the role of the clinical ethicist as it is generally experienced in Canada. It examines the activities of Canadian ethicists working in healthcare institutions and the way in which their work incorporates more than ethics case consultation. The Canadian Bioethics Society established a “Taskforce on Working Conditions for Bioethics” (hereafter referred to as the Taskforce), to make recommendations on a number of issues affecting ethicists and to develop a model role description. This essay carefully (...) assesses this model role description. (shrink)

La figura de la bruxa, desde su origen histórico como depositaria de saberes y prácticas tradicionales hasta su revitalización en el movimiento neorrural contemporáneo, representa un enclave de gran significación cultural y un ejemplo paradigmático de la feminidad. Este artículo analiza la tríada cíclica y transformativa tierra-vida-muerte como punto interseccional en el que se sitúa la bruxa en la ruralidad. A través de entrevistas con mujeres (neor)rurales que se identifican con esta figura, desvelamos su importante labor social y el legado (...) que deja en las comunidades campesinas como agente de cambio político, ecologista y feminista. La bruxa renace, pues, como una identidad rebelde y reivindicativa, desafiante del discurso hegemónico y luchadora por la diversidad y la simbiosis con la naturaleza. Este estudio propone (re)consideraciones que invitan a no estigmatizar los márgenes ni a sus habitantes, a deconstruir los discursos normativos y a redefinir los marcos de sentido y significado en los que clasificamos el conocimiento y a sus sujetos. En definitiva, la bruxa y su contexto rural se erigen como símbolos de diversidad, pluralidad y (trans)diferencia, fundamentales en la búsqueda de una sociedad más inclusiva y justa. (shrink)

This essay is about a special kind of transformative choice that plays a key role in debates about permissivism, the view that some bodies of evidence permit more than one rational response. A prominent objection to this view contends that its defender cannot vindicate our aversion to arbitrarily switching between belief states in the absence of any new evidence. A prominent response to that objection tries to provide the desired vindication by appealing to the idea that arbitrary switching would involve (...) a special kind of transformative choice: the choice to change one’s epistemic standards, i.e., one’s commitments regarding the relative importance of achieving true belief and avoiding false belief. My first aims here are to argue that this response is unsuccessful and propose an alternative. My secondary aim is to consider how this discussion might bear on more general debates about transformative choice. (shrink)

Very often, when a belief or a method of reasoning strikes us as morally wrong, it also seems to wrong someone in particular. For instance, if an acquaintance j.

In this article, the author describes sweeping changes in the gender system and offers explanations for why change has been uneven. Because the devaluation of activities done by women has changed little, women have had strong incentive to enter male jobs, but men have had little incentive to take on female activities or jobs. The gender egalitarianism that gained traction was the notion that women should have access to upward mobility and to all areas of schooling and jobs. But persistent (...) gender essentialism means that most people follow gender-typical paths except when upward mobility is impossible otherwise. Middle-class women entered managerial and professional jobs more than working-class women integrated blue-collar jobs because the latter were able to move up while choosing a “female” occupation; many mothers of middle-class women were already in the highest-status female occupations. The author also notes a number of gender-egalitarian trends that have stalled. (shrink)

The current pandemic could give several ape species the final push into extinction. Besides the direct harm the virus may cause to species that are very susceptible to human respiratory pathogens, the pandemic has also brought an economic crisis with lockdowns and absence from usual workplaces, resulting in increased poaching and habitat encroachment. The countries where the remaining apes live cannot shoulder alone the cost of conservation. Other countries with more resources have also contributed to ape extinction and are also (...) implicated in the current pandemic. Moreover, international cooperation is essential for the conservation efforts needed to avoid depriving other hominids of their habitats, their cultures, and their future. (shrink)

Individual decisions about how to exercise the legal right to procreative liberty may generate either positive or negative externalities. From within a resource egalitarian perspective, such as that of Ronald Dworkin, it can be argued that procreative justice is asymmetric in the following respect. Justice need not require that parents be subsidised if they produce a public good, yet its ideal achievement may require their activities be taxed if they threaten to produce a public bad.

This Element provides an account of Aristotle on women which combines what is found in his scientific biology with his practical philosophy. Scholars have often debated how these two fields are related. The current study shows that according to Aristotelian biology, women are set up for intelligence and tend to be milder-tempered than men. Thus, women are not curtailed either intellectually or morally by their biology. The biological basis for the rule of men over women is women's lack of spiritedness. (...) Aristotle's Politics must be read with its audience in mind; there is a need to convince men of the importance of avoiding insurrection both in the city and the household. While their spiritedness gives men the upper hand, they are encouraged to listen to the views of free women in order to achieve the best life for all. (shrink)

Le modèle démocratique est fondé, entre autres, sur l'individu et une forme spécifique du pouvoir d'État. Cette conception est loin d'être partagée par toute la planète où dans la plupart des cas, le groupe a priorité sur l'individu et, pour ce qui est du pouvoir, l'exclusivité, l'occulte, l'arbitraire, etc. l'emportent sur la pluralité et le droit. Il s'agit donc, dans cet ouvrage, de questionner les représentations du monde, les valeurs, les institutions et les pratiques sociales qui sont à l'origine du (...) modèle politique occidental et les confronter avec d'autres représentations, d'autres valeurs, d'autres modes d'organisation sociale et politique. C'est un questionnement de l'intérieur qui cherche le sens caché des actions collectives et de leurs motivations. Ce type d'interrogation est frappé d'interdit de nos jours. Le discours universaliste dominant et les politiques qui lui sont associées nient la présence des différences culturelles de fond. L'argument massue évoqué pour étayer cet interdit est l'exploitation politique de cette problématique par les courants réactionnaires et xénophobes en Occident ou les dictateurs dans les autres contrées du monde. C'est dire l'assujettissement de la recherche et de la politique à des raisonnements qui devraient leur être étrangers, surtout à la première. Car les différences, avec leurs cohortes de défis scientifiques et politiques sont bel et bien là. Leur occultation conduit les chercheurs et les politiques à des situations souvent intenables. Le clivage entre discours privé et discours public est en soi malsain. En définitive, cette occultation les empêche de poser les questions de fond et d'y faire face. (shrink)

The present paper discusses the statute of Socrates’ image in The birth of tragedy. From the hypothesis that it is unsatisfactory to treat Socrates only as Nietzsche’s antipode, as supported by a large number of interpreters, I develop the thesis according to which Socrates is a kind of magnifying glass, by means of which the philosopher analyses the beginning and the modern unfolding of western culture. Besides, and mainly, I demonstrate that the richness of antagonisms deliberately used by Nietzsche to (...) analyze Socrates’ images indicates the one of his first conceptions of the philosophical creation itself. (shrink)

Authored by an interdisciplinary team of experts, including historians, classicists, philosophers and theologians, this original collection of essays offers the first authoritative analysis of the multifaceted reception of Greek ethics in late antiquity and Byzantium, opening up a hitherto under-explored topic in the history of Greek philosophy. The essays discuss the sophisticated ways in which moral themes and controversies from antiquity were reinvigorated and transformed by later authors to align with their philosophical and religious outlook in each period. Topics examined (...) range from ethics and politics in Neoplatonism and ethos in the context of rhetorical theory and performance to textual exegesis on Aristotelian ethics. The volume will appeal to scholars and students in philosophy, classics, patristic theology, and those working on the history of education and the development of Greek ethics. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge's Global Resources Dividend relies on a flat tax on the use of natural resources to fund the eradication of world poverty. Hillel Steiner's Global Fund taxes the full rental value of owned natural resources and distributes the proceeds equally. The paper compares the Dividend and the Fund and defends the Global Share, a novel proposal that taxes either use or ownership, does so (when possible) progressively, and distributes the revenue according to a prioritarian rather than a sufficientarian or (...) egalitarian principle. (shrink)

In this paper, I present two presumed alternative definitions of metavalidity for metainferences: Local and Global. I defend the latter, first, by arguing that it is not too weak with respect to metainference-cases, and that local metavalidity is in fact too strong with respect to types. Second, I show that although regarding metainference-schemas Local metavalidity is always stable, Global metavalidity is also stable when the language satisfies reasonable expressibility criteria.

I argue that T.M. Scanlon's contractualist account of morality has difficulty accommodating our intuitions about the moral relevance of the number of people affected by an action. I first consider the "Complaint Model" of reasonable rejection, which restricts the grounds for an individual's rejection of a principle to its effects upon herself. I argue that it can accommodate our intuitions about numbers only if we assume that, whenever we do not know who will be affected, each individual may appeal only (...) to the _expected effects on her. This assumption, I suggest, leads to counterintuitive results in cases where, although we do not know who will be affected, we do know that _someone will be. I then consider two proposals to supplement the complaint model with a direct appeal to aggregation. I argue that both are open to serious objections. (shrink)

Recent application of theories of embodied or grounded cognition to the recognition and interpretation of facial expression of emotion has led to an explosion of research in psychology and the neurosciences. However, despite the accelerating number of reported findings, it remains unclear how the many component processes of emotion and their neural mechanisms actually support embodied simulation. Equally unclear is what triggers the use of embodied simulation versus perceptual or conceptual strategies in determining meaning. The present article integrates behavioral research (...) from social psychology with recent research in neurosciences in order to provide coherence to the extant and future research on this topic. The roles of several of the brain's reward systems, and the amygdala, somatosensory cortices, and motor centers are examined. These are then linked to behavioral and brain research on facial mimicry and eye gaze. Articulation of the mediators and moderators of facial mimicry and gaze are particularly useful in guiding interpretation of relevant findings from neurosciences. Finally, a model of the processing of the smile, the most complex of the facial expressions, is presented as a means to illustrate how to advance the application of theories of embodied cognition in the study of facial expression of emotion. (shrink)

According to one of the most powerful paradigms explaining the meaning of the concept of natural number, natural numbers get a large part of their conceptual content from core cognitive abilities. Carey’s bootstrapping provides a model of the role of core cognition in the creation of mature mathematical concepts. In this paper, I conduct conceptual analyses of various theories within this paradigm, concluding that the theories based on the ability to subitize (i.e., to assess anexactquantity of the elements in a (...) collection without counting them), or on the ability to approximate quantities (i.e., to assess anapproximatequantity of the elements in a collection without counting them), or both, fail to provide a conceptual basis for bootstrapping the concept of an exact natural number. In particular, I argue that none of the existing theories explains one of the key characteristics of the natural number structure: the equidistances between successive elements of the natural numbers progression. I suggest that this regularity could be based on another innate cognitive ability, namely sensitivity to the regularity of rhythm. In the final section, I propose a new position within the core cognition paradigm, inspired by structuralist positions in philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Wenmackers and Romeijn (2016) formalize ideas going back to Shimony (1970) and Putnam (1963) into an open-minded Bayesian inductive logic, that can dynamically incorporate statistical hypotheses proposed in the course of the learning process. In this paper, we show that Wenmackers and Romeijn’s proposal does not preserve the classical Bayesian consistency guarantee of merger with the true hypothesis. We diagnose the problem, and offer a forward-looking open-minded Bayesians that does preserve a version of this guarantee.

Although G. A. Cohen's work on Marx was flawed by a lack of gender-awareness, his work on Rawls owes much of its success to feminist inspiration. Cohen appeals effectively to feminism to rebut the basic structure objection to his egalitarian ethos, and could now appeal to feminism in response to Andrew Williams's publicity objection to this ethos. The article argues that Williams's objection is insufficient to rebut Cohen's ethos, inapplicable to variants of this ethos, and in conflict with plausible gender-egalitarian (...) ethoses. The article also advocates an understanding of basic structuralism and publicity consistent with feminism, and argues that Rawlsians need not reject plausible domestic egalitarian ethoses on either publicity or liberty grounds. To Michèle, G. A. Cohen's Harriet Taylor. (shrink)

Testimony is a source of knowledge. A speaker asserts what a hearer may therefore come to know. Assertion has widely been treated as the exclusive or at least the paradigmatic vehicle for testimony. I argue that we testify not only by asserting something, but also by taking something for granted within some other utterance. In philosophy of language, this is called semantic presupposition. The very reasons leading theorists of testimony have for thinking that assertion can be testimony are equally reasons (...) for thinking semantic presupposition can be testimony. (shrink)

En el artículo realizaré un estudio de algunos pasajes de Troyanas de Eurípides, en busca de posibles sentidos de justicia en el texto. En primer lugar, analizaré el pacto realizado entre Poseidón y Atenea en la primera parte del prólogo ; a continuación, me concentraré en la paradójica intervención de Casandra, antes de ser embarcada como esclava de Agamenón ; para terminar, resaltaré algunos puntos del agón entre Hécuba y Helena, que tiene como juez a Menelao. Considero que en estos (...) pasajes hay alguna alusión a débiles concepciones de justicia, aunque llegaré a conclusiones pesimistas al respecto. (shrink)

We study computable PAC (CPAC) learning as introduced by Agarwal et al. (2020). First, we consider the main open question of finding characterizations of proper and improper CPAC learning. We give a characterization of a closely related notion of strong CPAC learning, and provide a negative answer to the COLT open problem posed by Agarwal et al. (2021) whether all decidably representable VC classes are improperly CPAC learnable. Second, we consider undecidability of (computable) PAC learnability. We give a simple general (...) argument to exhibit such ndecidability, and initiate a study of the arithmetical complexity of learnability. We briefly discuss the relation to the undecidability result of Ben-David et al. (2019), that motivated the work of Agarwal et al. (shrink)