Electronic technologies, from the internet to virtual reality and advanced robotics, are transforming the world we live in, and especially our methods of learning, far more radically than any factors since the invention of the printing press. The process is at its beginnings; it is largely unavoidable; it also presents an opportunity for learning and research. We academics ought to meet this educational and civilizational challenge and make it our own. Otherwise, the process may be appropriated by bureaucratic and narrow (...) business interests, largely to the detriment of academic learning. We have a chance to enjoy shared knowledge as never before, which I call opening the doors to the true Library of Alexandria.Structural changes are necessitated by this new paradigm. Those incorporate three aspects: First, integration of the web into our lives; second, the use of such integration in research and education, which highly increases the opportunities but is unforgiving of excessive individualism and other inefficiencies; third the philosophically broad perspective of non-reductive naturalism facilitated by this global integration. (shrink)

In this paper I present my thesis stated numerous times at APA and NACAP meetings, that the current shortage of online programs in philosophy presents adanger to the profession. I also show how this danger could be averted. I give a snapshot of what teaching philosophy online, and doing it well, looks like. I am a very partial spectator in this debate since the example I am referring to is the program at UIS which I designed and, with my colleagues, (...) led to successful implementation. Finally, I draw a broad brush picture of what an inter-campus, international online program in philosophy may look like (as well as some implications for online learning in Poland). (shrink)

In this paper I present my thesis stated numerous times at APA and NACAP meetings, that the current shortage of online programs in philosophy presents adanger to the profession. I also show how this danger could be averted. I give a snapshot of what teaching philosophy online, and doing it well, looks like. I am a very partial spectator in this debate since the example I am referring to is the program at UIS which I designed and, with my colleagues, (...) led to successful implementation. Finally, I draw a broad brush picture of what an inter-campus, international online program in philosophy may look like (as well as some implications for online learning in Poland). (shrink)

Electronic technologies, from the internet to virtual reality and advanced robotics, are transforming the world we live in, and especially our methods of learning, far more radically than any factors since the invention of the printing press. The process is at its beginnings; it is largely unavoidable; it also presents an opportunity for learning and research. We academics ought to meet this educational and civilizational challenge and make it our own. Otherwise, the process may be appropriated by bureaucratic and narrow (...) business interests, largely to the detriment of academic learning. We have a chance to enjoy shared knowledge as never before, which I call opening the doors to the true Library of Alexandria.Structural changes are necessitated by this new paradigm. Those incorporate three aspects: First, integration of the web into our lives; second, the use of such integration in research and education, which highly increases the opportunities but is unforgiving of excessive individualism and other inefficiencies; third the philosophically broad perspective of non-reductive naturalism facilitated by this global integration. (shrink)

Creature consciousness provides a physicalist account of the first-person awareness. I argue that non-reductive consciousness is not about phenomenal qualia ; it is about the stream of awareness that makes any objects of perception epistemically available and ontologically present. This kind of consciousness is central, internally to one’s awareness. Externally, the feel about one’s significant other’s that “there is someone home” is quite important too. This is not substance dualism since creature consciousness and functional consciousness are both at different generality (...) levels of physicalism. Surprisingly, pre-Hegel philosophy of pure subject is more fitting with the current engineering approach than analytical phenomenalism. The complementary view of subject- and object-related perspectives, may come from Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre; but here it is placed, securely within the physicalist paradigm. It is essential to the Engineering Thesis in Machine Consciousness, which helps us understand under what general conditions a machine would be first-person conscious, but when it is merely functionally conscious. (shrink)

Creature consciousness provides a physicalist account of the first-person awareness. I argue that non-reductive consciousness is not about phenomenal qualia ; it is about the stream of awareness that makes any objects of perception epistemically available and ontologically present. This kind of consciousness is central, internally to one’s awareness. Externally, the feel about one’s significant other’s that “there is someone home” is quite important too. This is not substance dualism since creature consciousness and functional consciousness are both at different generality (...) levels of physicalism. Surprisingly, pre-Hegel philosophy of pure subject is more fitting with the current engineering approach than analytical phenomenalism. The complementary view of subject- and object-related perspectives, may come from Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre; but here it is placed, securely within the physicalist paradigm. It is essential to the Engineering Thesis in Machine Consciousness, which helps us understand under what general conditions a machine would be first-person conscious, but when it is merely functionally conscious. (shrink)

Electronic technologies, from the internet to virtual reality and advanced robotics, are transforming the world we live in, and especially our methods of learning, far more radically than any factors since the invention of the printing press. The process is at its beginnings; it is largely unavoidable; it also presents an opportunity for learning and research. We academics ought to meet this educational and civilizational challenge and make it our own. Otherwise, the process may be appropriated by bureaucratic and narrow (...) business interests, largely to the detriment of academic learning. We have a chance to enjoy shared knowledge as never before, which I call opening the doors to the true Library of Alexandria.Structural changes are necessitated by this new paradigm. Those incorporate three aspects: First, integration of the web into our lives; second, the use of such integration in research and education, which highly increases the opportunities but is unforgiving of excessive individualism and other inefficiencies; third the philosophically broad perspective of non-reductive naturalism facilitated by this global integration. (shrink)

The so-called Common Sense Morality (C) is any moral theory that allows, or requires, an agent to accept special, non-instrumental reasons to give advantage to certain other persons, usually the agent’s friends or kin, over the interests of others. Opponents charge C with violating the requirement of impartiality defined as independence on positional characteristics of moral agents and moral patients. Advocates of C claim that C is impartial, but only in a positional manner in which every moral agent would acquire (...) the same relational characteristics if that agent was in a certain relationship to the given moral patient. The opponents of C reply that a theory that allows for positional characteristics is self-defeating; it violates the requirement of prescriptivity due to its inability to provide moral recommendations what should happen all things considered. Advocates of C retort that a moral theory should be prescriptive by telling every agent what to do, not what should the joint outcome of those activities be. In this paper I analyze the last two moves of this debate: the objection that C is self-defeating and the reply that there is a plausible moral theory (C) that accommodates positional characteristics of special moral reasons. I argue that the last move wins. In the process I sketch out a theory able to accommodate agent-relative moral reason. (shrink)