The main proposal of this paper is that boundary objects and the trading zones in which they occur are the analogue of pheromone trails in the foraging of a termite colony. The colony can be construed as a _stigmergic_ system where the traces of the actions of individual termites coordinate their further actions without the existence of any central control or planning structures. The coordinated systems approach proposed by this paper lends support to the idea that such a system is (...) minimally cognitive in the sense that it is responsible for goal-directed behaviour. Boundary objects and trading zones in scientific practice play a similar functional role to pheromone traces because they are responsible for the same kind of coordination. This approach therefore provides a cognitive account of the social notions of boundary object and trading zone without making representationalist or computationalist assumptions. Moreover, it is scale-invariant—the same analytical technique can be applied at multiple scales simultaneously. It therefore provides a framework for an understanding of the complementarity of cognitive and social approaches to scientific investigation and points to areas for further ethnographic research. (shrink)

The notion of a physiological individuals has been developed and applied in the philosophy of biology to understand symbiosis, an understanding of which is key to theorising about the major transition in evolution from multi-organismality to multi-cellularity. The paper begins by asking what such symbiotic individuals can help to reveal about a possible transition in the evolution of cognition. Such a transition marks the movement from cooperating individual biological cognizers to a functionally integrated cognizing unit. Somewhere along the way, did (...) such cognizing units simultaneously have cognizers as parts? Expanding upon the multiscale integration view of the Free Energy Principle, this paper develops an account of reciprocal integration, demonstrating how some coupled biological cognizing systems, when certain constraints are met, can result in a cognizing unit that is in ways greater than the sum of its cognizing parts. Symbiosis between V. Fischeri bacteria and the bobtail squid is used to provide an illustration this account. A novel manner of conceptualizing biological cognizers as gradient is then suggested. Lastly it is argued that the reason why the notion of ontologically nested cognizers may be unintuitive stems from the fact that our folk-psychology notion of what a cognizer is has been deeply influenced by our folk-biological manner of understanding biological individuals as units of reproduction. (shrink)

A discussion of the intersections between Aristotle's works: Ethics and Metaphysics. It debates the ways in which - and even the extent to which - the two texts illuminate one another, examine Aristotle's methods and intellectualism and analyse issues of matter, form, potency and art.

Under the assumption that anticipatory models are required for anticipatory behavior, an important question arises about the different manners in which organisms acquire anticipatory models. This article aims to articulate four different non-exhaustive ways that anticipatory models might possibly be acquired over both phylogenetic and ontogenetic timescales and explore the relationships among them. To articulate these different model-acquisition mechanisms, four schematics will be introduced, each of which represents a particular acquisition structure that can be used for the purposes of comparison, (...) analysis, and hypothesis formulation. By bringing to the fore the differences and similarities between each of the four ways that anticipatory models are acquired, a more complete picture of both anticipatory behavior and its pervasive role in biological self-maintenance can be offered. In doing so, this article helps not only to shed light on how anticipatory behavior might arise in the wide range of organisms that it has been observed in but also to throw into relief the subtle and often still overlooked causal interplay between ontogenetic and phylogenetic plasticity. (shrink)

Study of space and time with special reference to the philosophy of languages.

Study on the view of Aurobindo Ghose on philosophy of education.

Seeking a Mnemonic Turn: Interior Reflections in Gadamer's Post-Platonic Thought This paper reflects on trajectories and pathways for philosophical hermeneutics, now, after the death of its founder, Hans-Georg Gadamer in 2002. More specifically, it challenges the notion that Gadamer's thought is simply tied to the linguistic turn of the 20th century. Instead, it considers the possibility that Gadamer's thinking makes for an implicit declaration of its own kind, calling for a mnemonic turn in modern philosophy and present day hermeneutics. Some (...) reference will be made to both rationalist and empiricist models of inquiry insofar as Gadamer attempts to take philosophy beyond, for example, the Ur-grammar of Chomsky's linguistic theories, and into a world of post-Platonic memory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Spiritual Experience and Psychopathology”Andrew Sims (bio)In examining this interesting paper, we need first of all to understand what the authors are doing. They are not taking the conceptual vehicles of “spiritual experience” (SE) and “psychotic phenomena” (PP) for a gentle outing, but exposing both of them to the hardest road test they can devise. From 1,000 accounts of “spiritual experiences” that were already so dramatic that (...) those involved were prepared to describe them, the authors selected three which most successfully blurred the boundaries between SE and PP. So we are not exploring whether these concepts have general practical validity, but whether their mutual frontiers are discrete or overlapping. The authors’ task is legitimate, but it needs to be recognized for what it is.Unusual spiritual experiences are interpreted by the authors as psychotic symptoms, and the definitions of the Present State Examination (PSE) descriptions are cited to justify this. However, we have known for a long time that using instruments for purposes for which they were not designed can produce unexpected results; it is rather like washing socks in a dishwasher and being surprised that it does little good to the socks. The PSE was devised for categorizing and quantifying existing psychiatric disorders in epidemiological studies. The further one gets from this, its true purpose, the less satisfactory it becomes as an instrument. A better way of evaluating symptomatology in an individual case is a skilled and painstaking interview by a well-trained descriptive psychopathologist. One can only conclude from the authors’ use of the PSE in distinguishing SE from PP, that the instrument itself is not capable of doing this, which is not really very surprising. One can form no views on the concepts of SE and PP themselves, except that in some circumstances they may be difficult to tell apart.It would be easy to dispute whether Simon’s beliefs were delusions. Believers from many religious backgrounds “know” that God gives them thoughts or ideas, and it requires detailed psychopathological examination, and not the application of a questionnaire, to distinguish this from the much more concrete experience as described in PSE of “inserted thoughts.”Rating scales, be they assessments of the quality of teaching in primary schools or quantification of established psychotic symptoms, are necessarily only a pale reflection and an over-simplification of the skilled work that professionals undertake. To imply that because a score could be given on the PSE to an otherwise healthy woman who describes the frequent experience of hearing God’s voice, denies the validity of her experience, but also affronts the professional skills of a trained psychopathologist. When psychiatrists, or even [End Page 79] untrained research workers, use the PSE they are presumably doing so as part of an epidemiological research study, and the validity of their individual result is evened out by results from a number of other subjects. If a psychiatrist is trying to decide whether Sara had “true” hallucinations, he or she will carry out a psychopathological interview in which the criteria for establishing true hallucinations are much more sophisticated than is possible in a questionnaire, and the interview will be individualized. Sara’s significant statement, “but God doesn’t take your free will away,” immediately distinguishes her diagnosis from schizophrenia. It was good that Sara’s priest did not need detailed knowledge of psychopathology to come to a common-sense evaluation of her experience.It was with some feelings of disappointment that I realized that when the authors use the word “psychotic” they merely mean that a tick could be placed in an appropriate box for the PSE. If one were to carry out an investigation of serum electrolytes on a fit athlete on completion of a marathon, one would get bizarre and probably abnormal results. For a quantified investigation to be meaningful, one must always take account of the context.When I read these three cases as a psychopathologist, I find no convincing psychotic phenomena, and the three human beings were undoubtedly not psychotic at the time of expression of their religious experiences. The word psychosis is not helpful in psychopathology: if one looks more specifically in these cases for the phenomena... (shrink)

With his writings on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, ideology, and religion, Paul Ricoeur has single-handedly redefined and revitalized the hermeneutic tradition. From Text to Action is an essential companion to the now classic The Conflict of Interpretations. Here, Ricoeur continues and extends his project of constructing a general theory of interpretation, positioning his work in relation to its own philosophical background: Hegel, Husserl, Gadamer, and Weber. He also responds to contemporary figures like K.O. Apel and Jürgen Habermas, connecting his own theorization (...) of ideology to their version of ideology critique. (shrink)

Texte d'une conférence prononcée à la Faculté de théologie de l'Université de Lausanne en 1985, dans lequel le philosophe reprend la question du mal, du défi qu'il représente, dans une perspective augustinienne.

Research on religion can advance understanding of social cognition by building connections to sociology, a field in which much cognitively oriented work has been done. Among the schools of sociological thought that address religious cognition are: structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, conflict theory, phenomenology, and, most recently, exchange theory. The gulf between sociology and cognitive science is an unfortunate historical accident.

Scientific models are used to predict and understand the target phenomena in the reality. The kind of epistemic relationship between the model and the reality is always regarded by most of the philosophers as a representational one. I argue that, complementary to this representational role, some of the scientific models have a constructive role to play in altering and reconstructing the reality in a physical way. I hold that the idealized model assumptions and elements bestow the constructive force of a (...) model on the reality. By recognizing the physical constructive force of some scientific models, the merit of these models could be judged by how successful they are in the reality construction, rather than by the traditional criterion of model-world representation. (shrink)

A huge bestseller in Europe, Frederic Lenoir’s Happiness is an exciting journey that examines how history’s greatest philosophers and religious figures have answered life’s most fundamental question: What is happiness and how do I achieve it? From the ancient Greeks on—from Aristotle, Plato, and Chuang Tzu to the Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad; from Voltaire, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer to Kant, Freud, and even modern neuroscientists—Lenoir considers the idea that true and lasting happiness is indeed possible. In clear language, Lenoir concisely surveys (...) what the greatest thinkers of all time have had to say on the subject, and, with charming prose, raises provocative questions: · Do we have a duty to be happy? · Is there a connection between individual and collective happiness? · Is happiness contagious? · Is there a difference between pleasure and happiness? · Can unhappiness and happiness coexist? · Does our happiness depend on our luck? Understanding how civilization’s best minds have answered those questions, Lenoir suggests, not only makes for a fascinating reading experience, but also provides a way for us to see us how happiness, that most elusive of feelings, is attainable in our own lives. (shrink)

Tolerance cannot not be concerned with the law, once it takes up in its concept the relationship between truth and justice. And there are several reasons for this. To begin with, the word right enters into many definitions of tolerance: the right to difference, to liberty, to those fundamental public freedoms that constitute human rights. Moreover, law, as opposed to morality, is the public instance where obligation is coupled with legitimate coercion. Finally, juridical institutions offer an excellent vantage point from (...) which to observe the transformations of the idea of tolerance and scan the history of the struggles carried out in its name. (shrink)

ion is one of the important processes in scientific modeling. It has always been implied that abstraction is an agent-centric activity that involves the cognitive processes of scientists in model building. I contend that there is an autonomous aspect of abstraction in many modeling activities. I argue that the autonomous process of abstraction is continuous with the agent-centric abstraction but capable of evolving independently from the modeler’s abstraction activity.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Clinical CommentarySim Kang, Associate ProfessorRegarding the question of whether to disclose the incidental finding or not to the 72-year-old subject, one needs to consider several issues pertaining to the elderly subject, investigator team, informed consent process, illness under examination and wider societal and cultural context. First, in terms of the subject, would keeping the incidental finding secret in the context of the informed consent be respectful of the wishes (...) of the subject? One needs to bear in mind that consent was taken with the understanding that assessments will not be further shared with the subject as the assessments were done in the research study to generate new data and were not part of clinical evaluation or treatment. In one sense, autonomy of the subject in agreeing and consenting to the study investigations must be respected and the subject is comfortable that no results of the extensive assessments (blood tests and brain scans which are performed at baseline and annually for three years prospectively) will be proffered in the course of the project. At a more personal level, it may also be that the subject prefers not to know of any incidental findings even if present, which in some cases may be related to cultural notions of abnormal findings and ill health.Second, from the standpoint of the research team, would awareness of the space-occupying lesion but not informing the subject constitute a breach of ethical principles of beneficence and non maleficence? When the subject is enrolled in a research study, it is understood that the balance between research risks and benefits should have been evaluated in favour of the latter. Although more needs to be clarified to determine the clinical significance of the lesion, there is a possibility that the lesion may be malignant which would pose [End Page 289] further challenges. If the lesion is detected early, there may be a likelihood of early intervention, including surgical or non-surgical options. If the lesion of undetermined stage at present is not treated expediently and expeditiously, is there a possibility of it progressing to a stage when delayed treatment may be less effective? In this aspect, the welfare of the subject needs to be kept in mind. Even if nondisclosure is opted, is it just to allow the subject to continue in the longitudinal study if the small intracerebral lesion turns out to be malignant or that treatment may be rendered less effective over time?Third, with regard to the informed consent procedure, does the patient fully appreciate the details and implications of the study including not sharing laboratory or neuroimaging evaluations? For the process of informed consent to be meaningful, there are three elements that need to be present, namely adequate and appropriate disclosure of details about the study, demonstration of understanding of the information presented, as well as voluntariness in participation. Pertaining to adequate disclosure, was there appropriate disclosure and discussion of some of the key aspects of the study, including prospective nature lasting three years, repeated measurements and no sharing of details of assessments? The subject needs to have an appreciation of the impact of the information beyond intellectual comprehension. Was he or she cognisant of the number of visits over the entire course of the study as well as the amount of time involved for each visit? What was the response of the subject when it was made known that additional information obtained from the study evaluations will not be revealed or disclosed?Factors that may influence the understanding in this case include older age with possible easier fatigability and shorter attention span, severity of illness with related level of cognitive impairment, educational level, and familiarity with research procedures, all of which are unclear in this case at this point. With respect to voluntariness, was there any undue coercion or influence that may compromise the respect for autonomy of the research subject? It is noteworthy that the team has painstakingly committed to retake the consent before each follow up (thrice over three years) and that the subject can withdraw from the participation in the study at any point in time. Were there factors that may affect the willingness of the subject... (shrink)

Pictorial representations such as diagrams and figures are widely used in scientific literature for explanatory and descriptive purposes. The intuitive nature of pictorial representations coupled with texts foster a better understanding of the objects of study. Biological mechanisms and processes can be clearly illustrated and grasped in pictures. I argue that pictorial representations describe biological phenomena by telling stories. I elaborate on the role of narrative structures of pictures in the frontier research using a case study in immunology. I articulate (...) that pictures with an inherent narrative structure are crucial in biological sciences. (shrink)

Study of the declension (vibhakti) in Bhāṭṭarahasya of Khaṇḍadeva, 1575-1665, work on Mimamsa philosophy.

Intelligence in current AI research is measured according to designer-assigned tasks that lack any relevance for an agent itself. As such, tasks and their evaluation reveal a lot more about our intelligence than the possible intelligence of agents that we design and evaluate. As a possible first step in remedying this, this article introduces the notion of “self-concern,” a property of a complex system that describes its tendency to bring about states that are compatible with its continued self-maintenance. Self-concern, as (...) argued, is the foundation of the kind of basic intelligence found across all biological systems, because it reflects any such system's existential task of continued viability. This article aims to cautiously progress a few steps closer to a better understanding of some necessary organisational conditions that are central to self-concern in biological systems. By emulating these conditions in embodied AI, perhaps something like genuine self-concern can be implemented in machines, bringing AI one step closer to its original goal of emulating human-like intelligence. (shrink)

Mechanisms consist of component parts and processes organized in a specific way to produce changes that may give rise to one or more phenomena. I aim to examine the generative mechanism of generative material models in the production of new material models. A generative material model in biology is a living material model that is capable of generating new material models. I contend that generative mechanisms of a generative material model are not to be conflated with biological mechanisms: the former (...) is a mechanism manipulated and altered by the modeler while the latter is a naturally occurring mechanism. I examine the ways in which idealization may contribute to the generative mechanism in generating new model organisms. I articulate that the component parts and activities in a generative mechanism are to a large extent shaped by idealization in generative material modeling. Although biological mechanisms do have a role to play in the generation of model organisms, I propose that we shall view the generative mechanism as a hybrid of biological mechanisms and modeling activities. I shall argue that the notion of generative mechanisms as hybrid mechanisms is different from the extant conceptions of mechanisms in various aspects. (shrink)

In a broad brush, biological models are often constructed in two general types: as a concrete model; as an abstract model. A concrete model is a material model such as model organisms, while an abstract model is a mathematical or computational model consists of equations or algorithms. Though there are types of biological models that cannot be strictly categorized as either concrete or abstract, they are falling somewhere in between this spectrum. In view of the fact that biological phenomena are (...) sui generis and distinct from physical phenomena in many respects, using the concepts in standard modeling fails to account for the differences between biological sciences and physical sciences. Drawing from the resources of a credible-world account of models in economic modeling, I propose to reinterpret abstract models and concrete models in the light of the credible world account of models. (shrink)

On May 11th a round table discussion was held on the subject "The Interactions of Science and Art under the Conditions of the Revolution in Science and Technology ," organized by the editorial boards of the journals Voprosy filosofii and Voprosy literatury.

An inquiry into the rhetorical aspects of history may seem paradoxical, given that historical discourse is not typically included among those types which, since Aristotle, have been understood to be governed by rhetoric; these types being the deliberative council, the tribunal and the commemorative assembly. It was to these specific audiences that the three kinds of discourse—the deliberative, judiciary, and panegyric—were addressed. However, are the boundaries of the historian's audience sufficiently delineated in order to allow us to identify it as (...) a specific addressee? This first objection, which regards the very legitimacy of the subject of these remarks, can be met by noting a common trait that links history to the above-mentioned three types of discourse; that is, competition between opposed discourses requiring a choice. In each case the aim is to structure a debate that calls for a clear-cut decision. Yet a major problem of the discipline of history is that it allows both for widely varying descriptions of the same series of events, and sanctions the use of a variety of equally acceptable rules or preferences for interpreting a given slice of the past. (shrink)

Tolerance cannot not be concerned with the law, once it takes up in its concept the relationship between truth and justice. And there are several reasons for this. To begin with, the word right enters into many definitions of tolerance: the right to difference, to liberty, to those fundamental public freedoms that constitute human rights. Moreover, law, as opposed to morality, is the public instance where obligation is coupled with legitimate coercion. Finally, juridical institutions offer an excellent vantage point from (...) which to observe the transformations of the idea of tolerance and scan the history of the struggles carried out in its name. (shrink)

Tolerance has its arguments, both in morality and in law. It also has its sources, not only in the sense of the origins from which it springs, but also in the sense of that which actuates it and gives it life, that which encourages it and sanctions it - profoundly. Religions take part of these sources, but also take part of this reflexive aspect of ethics that puts into play the final legitimation, the ultimate justification of the norms of our (...) public and private actions. It is with respect to this recourse to the ultimate that religion and ethics intersect without becoming one. Yet it is also in this recourse to the ultimate that one and the other greatly face the danger of temptation. This is particularly the case with religion. It is indeed not enough to simply say that it is the political use of religion that is to blame, and not religion as such, in the long and unfinished history of religious intolerance. We must trace the source of the temptation of intolerance to the very heart of the certainty of religious faith. Any belief, as soon as it defines itself in relation - a relation of any kind, whether of distance or proximity, of alterity or fusion - to an absolute, must be on guard against its own penchant for intolerance. It is not enough, in an opposite sense of the preceding warning, to rely on the critical resources borrowed from sources outside of religion: it is at that same heart of certainty of all religious faith that we must seek the reason for the conviction that it is unjust to look to impose on adherents of other religions, on agnostics and atheists, the truth as it is admitted in good faith by the community of believers of one or another religious confession. (shrink)

Tolerance has its arguments, both in morality and in law. It also has its sources, not only in the sense of the origins from which it springs, but also in the sense of that which actuates it and gives it life, that which encourages it and sanctions it - profoundly. Religions take part of these sources, but also take part of this reflexive aspect of ethics that puts into play the final legitimation, the ultimate justification of the norms of our (...) public and private actions. It is with respect to this recourse to the ultimate that religion and ethics intersect without becoming one. Yet it is also in this recourse to the ultimate that one and the other greatly face the danger of temptation. This is particularly the case with religion. It is indeed not enough to simply say that it is the political use of religion that is to blame, and not religion as such, in the long and unfinished history of religious intolerance. We must trace the source of the temptation of intolerance to the very heart of the certainty of religious faith. Any belief, as soon as it defines itself in relation - a relation of any kind, whether of distance or proximity, of alterity or fusion - to an absolute, must be on guard against its own penchant for intolerance. It is not enough, in an opposite sense of the preceding warning, to rely on the critical resources borrowed from sources outside of religion: it is at that same heart of certainty of all religious faith that we must seek the reason for the conviction that it is unjust to look to impose on adherents of other religions, on agnostics and atheists, the truth as it is admitted in good faith by the community of believers of one or another religious confession. (shrink)

Tolerance has its arguments, both in morality and in law. It also has its sources, not only in the sense of the origins from which it springs, but also in the sense of that which actuates it and gives it life, that which encourages it and sanctions it - profoundly. Religions take part of these sources, but also take part of this reflexive aspect of ethics that puts into play the final legitimation, the ultimate justification of the norms of our (...) public and private actions. It is with respect to this recourse to the ultimate that religion and ethics intersect without becoming one. Yet it is also in this recourse to the ultimate that one and the other greatly face the danger of temptation. This is particularly the case with religion. It is indeed not enough to simply say that it is the political use of religion that is to blame, and not religion as such, in the long and unfinished history of religious intolerance. We must trace the source of the temptation of intolerance to the very heart of the certainty of religious faith. Any belief, as soon as it defines itself in relation - a relation of any kind, whether of distance or proximity, of alterity or fusion - to an absolute, must be on guard against its own penchant for intolerance. It is not enough, in an opposite sense of the preceding warning, to rely on the critical resources borrowed from sources outside of religion: it is at that same heart of certainty of all religious faith that we must seek the reason for the conviction that it is unjust to look to impose on adherents of other religions, on agnostics and atheists, the truth as it is admitted in good faith by the community of believers of one or another religious confession. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the nature of social relations when individual identity is conceived as both autonomous and socially constructed. Viewing identity as autonomous and socially constructed makes it necessary both to conceive individuals as socially related to others in the present and past, and to incorporate individuals into multiple systems of social relations. I argue that George Herbert Mead’s theory of social systems provides a basis for performing these tasks. By adding a concept of “contemporaneous consciousness” to Mead’s notion of (...) temporal systems, it is possible to view individuals as autonomous within a multiplicity of temporal systems. (shrink)

Originally published in Italian in 1976, this book describes the methods scientists use to investigate the physical world. It is ideal for students and teachers of science and the philosophy of science. It is both a high-level popularization and a critical appraisal of these methods, describing important advances in physics and analyzing the historical development, value, reliability and philosophical implications of the way physicists approach the problems confronting them. The introductory chapter on the meaning of physical theories and the mathematical (...) tools used to develop them is followed by a general discussion on the foundations of physics under four major headings: the physics of the reversible, the physics of the irreversible, microphysics, and cosmology. Throughout, the subject matter of physical theories is linked to discussion of the attendant philosophical and epistemological implications, such as the validity of the theories, inductive inference, causal explanation, probability, the role of observation and the reality of physical objects. (shrink)