Predictability is a prerequisite for effective human control of artificial intelligence (AI). The inability to predict malfunctioning of AI, for example, impedes timely human intervention. In this paper, we empirically investigate how AI’s predictability compares to the predictability of humans in a real-effort task. We show that humans are worse at predicting AI performance than at predicting human performance. Importantly, participants are not aware of the differences in relative predictability of AI and overestimate their prediction skills. These results raise doubts (...) about the human ability to effectively exercise control of AI — at least in certain contexts. (shrink)

While artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly applied for decision- making processes, ethical decisions pose challenges for AI applica- tions. Given that humans cannot always agree on the right thing to do, how would ethical decision-making by AI systems be perceived and how would responsibility be ascribed in human-AI collabora- tion? In this study, we investigate how the expert type (human vs. AI) and level of expert autonomy (adviser vs. decider) influence trust, perceived responsibility, and reliance. We find that partici- pants (...) consider humans to be more morally trustworthy but less capable than their AI equivalent. This shows in participants’ re- liance on AI: AI recommendations and decisions are accepted more often than the human expert’s. However, AI team experts are per- ceived to be less responsible than humans, while programmers and sellers of AI systems are deemed partially responsible instead. (shrink)

The second part of the interview with Dr.Sci.Proleiev, Doctor of Philosophy, devoted to the understanding of the phenomenon of "philosophy in the USSR" (first part: Proleyev, S., Zborovska, X., Mironenko, R., Kostenko, O., & Shulha, M. (2018). Philosophy as a School of Life at the Time of Totalitarianism. Part I. Thinking in the Space of Soviet Myths.

The purpose of the article is to explore and generalize a theoretical and methodical basis for the harmonization of financial and tax accounting of corporate income. The financial and tax accounting are characterized, as well as the necessity to harmonize them. The role of income as an economic category and practical index used in the financial analysis is shown. Three concepts of income as an increase in enterprise's net assets are analyzed. It was determined that a differentiation of concepts is (...) associated with the process of development of the joint-stock form of management. To determine income the methods are presented from the perspective of capital maintenance and from the perspective of its maximization. To obtain the reliable and comparable financial information the paper considers the approaches to accounting the revenues and expenditures on the basis of using relevant principles. The impact of rules of establishing and recognizing revenues and expenditures on the value is assessed that is an essential condition for the harmonization of financial and tax accounting of corporate income. The use of theoretical and methodical approaches to providing the harmonization of financial and tax accounting of corporate income will improve the transparency and publicity of corporate activities. This in turn will make corporations more attractive for potential investors and their activities on securities market more effective. (shrink)

Зрушення в осмисленні сучасної культури багато у чому залежать від вихідних методологічних передумов, що лежать в основі дослідницьких програм. Такого роду передумови, своєю чергою, залежать, з одного боку, від філософських основ, а з іншого – від фактичного матеріалу, яким в даному випадку виступає опис конкретних проявів культури, таких як мистецтво, релігія, сама наука та ін. Особливості сучасної культури пов’язані зі змінами, які почали відбуватися з другої половини XX століття і для яких характерні таки риси, як смисловий плюралізм, децентрація, невизначеність, фрагментарність, (...) мінливість та ін. Подібні зміни потребують розробки нових дослідницьких стратегій. Одну з таких програм запропонував Ф. Джеймісон у праці «Постмодернізм, або логіка пізнього капіталізму». З методологічної точки зору, найбільш цікавими у даному підході є опис та аналіз «культуровиробництва». Головною особливістю останнього є зрощування економічного потенціалу з результатами культурного розвитку, внаслідок якого культурне середовище і ринок стають одним і тим самим середовищем. У статті проаналізовано погляди Ф. Джеймісона в контексті осмислення сучасної культури. (shrink)

Сучасний стан досліджень культури, незважаючи на різноманітність різних підходів і методів їх здійснення, характеризується пріоритетом комунікативної складової як методологічного базису, на якому може бути створена методологія, адекватна нинішньому рівню культури. Однак спроби побудови такої методології не завершились успіхом і не було накопичено необхідного феноменологічного знання з конкретних галузей культури, з одного боку, а з іншого, – не вистачало розробок з методології досліджень у гуманітарних науках. Найбільш розвиненими з цього погляду виявилися науки, які утворилися на стику лінгвістики і філософії. Це – (...) філософія гуманітарних знань, герменевтика і сама лінгвістика. Аналіз методологічного потенціалу даних наук дає не тільки розуміння ролі комунікативної складової в дослідженні культури, але й можливість сформулювати конкретні вимоги до методолога, роль якого вже не обмежується методологічної рефлексією, а полягає в практичному залученні в формування самої комунікативної складової культурного середовища. Зрештою методолог стає «креатологом», наслідком чого є формування нових вимог до його діяльності, деякі з яких запропоновано в даній статті. (shrink)

У статті робиться спроба теоретичного аналізу специфіки механізму формування традицій як емоційно забарвленої уяви про об’єкт, яка може виникати спонтанно або цілеспрямовано під впливом засобів інформації, реклами чи пропаганди, формуючи своєрідний міф з певною системою координат. Аналізується традиція, як певний зв’язок між старим і новим змістом, котрий створює вигляд безперервності існування соціуму. Традиція розглядається як сучасний погляд на минуле. Виходячи з цього процес відтворення традицій – це не відновлення історичної правди, а процес міфотворення образу минулого сьогодні, націленого в майбутнє, де (...) для міфу минулого на перший план виходить майбутнє. Традиція тільки відштовхується від минулого і формує свою віртуальну історію. Процес формування нового бачення історичного процесу розглядається як процес міфотворення традицій, який відбувається весь час, постійно задовольняючи мінливі інтереси суспільства. Розкривається механізм формування іміджу як соціокультурної матриці певної події або об’єкту, де на перший план виходять соціокультурні конотації з використанням процесу міфотворення традицій. (shrink)

Предметом статті є аналіз елементів вірувань і релігійних уявлень сучасного канібалізму. На прикладі останнніх публікацій і досліджень, виконаних в галузі антропології та приматології, розглядається релігієзнавчий аспект указаного феномену. Наводяться також схеми класифікації канібалізму на базі наявних систем, розроблених сучасною антропологією і психологією.

The article examines the reasons why L. Shestov interpreted Pascal's philosophy as a philosophy of tragedy, as well as those topics of Pascal's philosophy that attracted Shestov's main attention. The author analyzes the themes of death, faith, reason and suffering in Pascal and Shestov works, and comes to the conclusion that these two thinkers oppose scientism and humanism, the importance of the individual and his destiny. The author also proves that Shestov positively evaluated the role of the heart in Pascal's (...) philosophy and Pascal's attempts to destroy the peace of non-believers by expressing the contradiction between the gifts of faith and the impossibility of their rational justification. Shestov’s"Faith as the second dimension of thinking" is similar to Pascal's understanding of "heart" and "faith". Shestov, like Pascal, competes with "history", which is a manifestation of regularities. (shrink)

The existence of deep moral disagreement is used in support of views ranging from moral relativism to the impossibility of moral expertise. This is done despite the fact that it is not at all clear whether deep moral disagreements actually occur, as the usually given examples are never of real life situations, but of some generalized debates on controversial issues. The paper will try to remedy this, as any strength of arguments appealing to deep moral disagreement is partly depended on (...) the fact the disagreement exists. This will be done by showing that some real life conflicts that are intractable, i.e. notoriously difficult to resolve, share some important features with deep moral disagreement. The article also deals with the objection that the mere conceptual possibility renders illustrations of actually happening deep moral disagreements unnecessary. The problem with such objection is that it depends on theoretical assumptions (i.e. denial of moral realism) that are not uncontroversial. Instead, the article claims we need not only suppose deep moral disagreements exist because they actually occur when some intractable conflicts occur. Thus, in so far as to the deep moral disagreement’s existence, the arguments appealing to it are safe. But as intractable conflicts can be resolved, by seeing deep moral disagreements as constitutive part of them, we might have to consider whether deep moral disagreements are resolvable too. A brief suggestion of how that might look like is given in the end of the paper. (shrink)

In article consider the problem of primary link of production's structure and explains the distinctions between enterprises and form, enterprises and corporation. It is very importance for working management model of modern enterprises.

У статті розглядаються особливості взаємозв’язку екзистенціалізму, феноменології, герменевтики та християнської думки в поглядах Мерольда Вестфаля. Аналізується проблема сприйняття американським феноменологом Бога, звільненого від ланцюгів онто-теологічного розуміння, перейнята і переосмислена ним із праць Мартіна Гайдеґґера. Досліджується специфіка тлумачення та застосування М. Вестфалем ідей Аврелія Августина, Іммануїла Канта, Сьорена К’єркеґора, Фрідріха Ніцше, використана для «аргументації постмодерністської віри» та інтерпретації «постмодерністської самості». Простежується еволюція поглядів М. Вестфаля від екзистенціальної феноменології релігії до «радикальної герменевтики», побудованої на «герменевтиці скінченності» та «герменевтиці підозри», які уможливлюють «позитивний (...) постмодернізм» та модернізацію християнства, віднаходження справжньої віри. (shrink)

У статті проаналізовані основні соціально-економічні та політичні чинники, що формували передумови та визначали напрями, тенденції та особливості процесу трансформації соціально-економічної структури населення України в перехідний до ринку період. Розглянуто процес майнового розшарування, його наслідки та утворення нової соціально-економічної структури українського суспільства.

У статті розглянуті основні соціально-економічні, правові та інші передумови та фактори, що обумовили історичні особливості формування та розвитку фондового ринку в Україні в 1991-2005 роках. Виокремлені етапи становлення ринку цінних паперів і характерні особливості кожного з них. З історичної точки зору проаналізовані основні тенденції, напрями, особливості та проблеми розвитку фондового ринку України. Розглянуті основні проблеми державного регулювання фондового ринку й формування його нормативно-правової бази в перехідний період.

The article explores major milestones in reforming higher education in Ukraine, applying the methodology of case studies. It analyzes political and social conditions that influenced the process of reform. The author pays particular attention to the concept of university autonomy, its development and implementation in Ukraine, considering legal and institutional efforts. The impact and experience of some leading institutions like Kyiv-Mohyla Academy is discussed. The author concludes that the task of ensuring comprehensive university autonomy is of a political nature. This (...) is the only reliable instrument for raising of quality of Ukrainian higher education. (shrink)

У статті розглядаються антропологічні аспекти японського вчення «шляху воїна» (бусідо). Обґрунтовується правомірність історико-філософського підходу до вивчення бусідо як філософської антропології, у центрі якої – тип людини-воїна (homo militans). Проаналізовано основні екзистенціали бусідо – смерть, свободу, служіння.

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact form (...) of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

In the article the problem of the system of urban management in emergency and crisis situations were considered. Composition and functions of the municipal government have been characterized. It was disclosed the concept of "emergency" and "crisis". Typology of crisis and emergency situations include: natural disasters, manmade disasters, sanitary-epidemiological, socio-political and economic crises. Crises have been classified: the reasons of occurrence, in the sphere of manifestation, on the possibilities of forecasting and duration. Typical measures to manage the liquidation of emergency (...) situations in the city have been identified. Principles and steps of the City of crisis management are presented. Analysis was performed operational management experience life support in an emergency situation caused by the fighting. Was justified by the implementation of additional features for managing urban emergency response and overcome the consequences of the social, economic and environmental crisis. Perform additional functions involves restoration of vital facilities of the city, which are damaged by the fighting. Additional features of urban governance provide fault detection of communal, social, engineering, road infrastructure. Function provides an assessment permanently damaged facilities. Function ensures the development of the investment project for restoration of urban infrastructure. Analysis functions provide resource support the restoration project. Functions provide monitoring restoration projects of urban infrastructure. (shrink)

Існуюча в рамках традиційного діяльнісного підходу тенденція до зведення всіх відносин людини зі світом до діяльністі при одночасному постулюванні єдності свідомості і діяльності. Свідомість постає тільки як функція відображення і в знач мірі повністю втрачає творчу, породжуючу силу. Споглядання можна визначити як нецільове, неупереджене, безустановочне осягнення дійсності, осягнення нечуттєвих значень, ідей, цінностей та іншого, що має загальне та особистісне значення. В значній мірі описане нами споглядання за своєю сутністю є близьким до Гусерлівського «епохе» як у відмові від усіх попередніх знань (...) і передбачень про світ і про себе. Різниця полягає в тому, що Гусерль визначає «епохе» як метод філософського пізнання. Ми ж визначаємо споглядання як засіб особистісного пізнання світу, гармонізації життя людини і суспільства. Таким чином, активне освоєння-породження ситуації свідомістю розгортається в наступній логіці: споглядання і (або) діяльність-переживання - почуття потреби - проблематизація (постановка питання про виконання дій) - побудова образу ситуації - виділення в образі предметної мети - оцінка доцільності - прийняття рішення - побудова плану дії - перетворення ситуації - досягнення предмета-мети і знову споглядання. Сьогодні стало очевидним, що змісти свідомості в результаті споглядання не менш важливі, ніж адаптивна свідомість, яка заснована на діяльності, а здивування є механізм поєднання двох видів свідомості, здивування - це точка опори для руху до нового. (shrink)

У статті розглядаються антропологічні аспекти японського вчення «шляху воїна» (бусідо). Обґрунтовується правомірність історико-філософського підходу до вивчення бусідо як філософської антропології, у центрі якої – тип людини-воїна (homo militans). Проаналізовано основні екзистенціали бусідо – смерть, свобода, служіння.

Book review: Christian Conte, Walking Through Anger: A New Design for Confronting Conflict in an Emotionally Charged World. Sounds True, 2019, 232 p.

Book review:Noam Chomsky – Marv Waterstone, Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance. Haymarket Books, 2021, 400 p.

The analysis of UCEPS results obtained during a sociological survey gives grounds to claim that religiosity and the Church are different things for Ukrainian society. First, faith in God does not meet the level of trust in the Church. If 57.8% of our fellow citizens believed themselves to be believers, only 33.7% fully trusted the Church, with less than half being 48%; of the non-believers, only 7.8%. This situation testified to the alienation of society and even believers from the Church (...) itself. (shrink)

Islam in the Ukrainian territory has more than a thousand years of history. The first Muslims who systematically lived or roamed the lands of present-day Ukraine were the steppes. Thus, the burial of the ancestors of modern Ossetian-Apans according to the Muslim rite in the eastern Ukrainian archeologists date from the VII-VIII centuries. Initial knowledge of Islam was also learned from the neighboring Bulgaria. The first written mention of the permanent stay of Muslims in Ukraine dates back to the XI (...) century, when the princes of Kiev had a cavalry of Muslim Pechenegs. Having established itself in Crimea in the XIII century, the Tatar ulus for Khan Uzbekistan officially recognized Islam as the state religion. During the entry of Kievan Rus into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, many Muslim Tatars were brought from Crimea under martial law by order of Prince Vytautas. (shrink)

Over the past decade and a half, not only significant quantitative changes have occurred in the religious environment of Ukraine due to the expansion of the institutional network of religious associations, but also significant qualitative progress in the structure and activities of churches and religious organizations. In particular, the role of religious organizations in the state-making process is becoming more evident every year. Consequently, almost no realm of social existence remains virtually outside the influence of the Church. Religious congregations have (...) been particularly intense lately, demonstrating their intentions to implant themselves in a secular educational process and in the educational sphere of Ukraine as a whole. (shrink)

The problems of the functioning of religion in the countries of the European Union are extremely complex and ambiguous. The EU is primarily political and economic. It is in these areas that active intra-integration processes are observed: introduction of a single currency, single payment system, actual “blurring” of borders between member states, development of the Constitutional Treaty, orientation towards the creation of a common market, a common transport network, harmonization of educational systems, etc.

It is well known that the European cultural space has been developing under the slogan of secularization over the last five centuries. It is social secularization that has become one of the main forces that has shaped the modern image of Europe. Secularization has affirmed the secular spirit inherent in modern man. Therefore, we Europeans now live in a secularized society. This is manifested in the fact that the appeal of citizens to God, the scale of appeals to religious interpretation (...) in finding out different aspects of reality, the participation of religious institutions in solving life's problems of society and personality are significantly reduced. The language of religion and its concepts are increasingly distant from everyday experience. There is less and less mutual space between the life of the modern world and church preaching. According to P. Berger, "the current situation does not contribute to the truth of the authority of religion.". (shrink)

Anton, thirty-two,his profile indicates that he lives with his parents.He's Orthodox, though he never went to church,has a university degree, studied English.He worked as a tattoo artist and had his own style,if you can say that of a tattoo artist.Many locals felthis skillful hands and sharp needle.When it all began, he talked a lotabout politics and history, started attending the demonstrations,picked quarrels with his friends.Friends felt insulted, clients started disappearing.They were afraid, didn't understand, left the city.You feel a person best (...) when you touch him with a needle.A needle stings, a needle sutures. Under its warmmetal you sense the complaisant canvas of women'sskin and the light rigid tarpaulinof men's skin. You penetrate someone'smembrane, you let velvetdrops of blood out of the body, you pierce and pierce and pierceangels’ wings onto the obedient surface of the world.You, tattoo artist, pierce and pierce tattoos, for we are calledto fill this world with sense, fill itwith colors. You, tattoo artist, you pierce thiscover onto our souls and diseases—what we live for and what we die for.Someone told me he was shot at a roadblock,in the morning, he was armed, it happened very quickly—no one really knows what happened.He's buried in a mass grave—they're all buried this way.His personal belongings were returned to his parents.No one has even made any changes to his profile.The time will come when some assholewill write heroic poems about this.The time will come when some assholewill say it's impossible to write about it at all. (shrink)

Decisions in security contexts, including armed conflict, law enforcement, and disaster relief, often need to be taken under circumstances of limited information, stress, and time pressure. Since AI systems are capable of providing a certain amount of relief in such contexts, such systems will become increasingly important, be it as decision-support or decision-making systems. However, given that human life may be at stake in such situations, moral responsibility for such decisions should remain with humans. Hence the idea of “meaningful human (...) control” of intelligent systems. In this opinion paper, we outline generic configurations of control of AI and we present an alternative to human control of AI, namely the inverse idea of having AI control humans, and we discuss the normative consequences of this alternative. (shrink)

We suggest that the inclusion of anxiety, as one relevant mood factor, could enhance the implementation of the integrative memory model in research and the clinic. The role of anxiety in Alzheimer's disease neuroanatomy, symptomology, and progression is used as an example. Customization of the integrative memory model can establish strong foundations for pathology-specific models of memory deficits, enhancing the development of precision medicine applications.

Many of our attitudes are non-culpable: there was nothing that we should have done to avoid holding them. I argue that we can still be blameworthy for non-culpable attitudes: they can impair our relationships in ways that make our full practice of apology and forgiveness intelligible. My argument poses a new challenge to indirect voluntarists, who attempt to reduce all responsibility for attitudes to responsibility for prior actions and omissions. Rationalists, who instead explain attitudinal responsibility by appeal to reasons-responsiveness, can (...) make sense of blameworthiness for non-culpable attitudes. In response, voluntarists could propose a revision of our actual practices. This would lead us into a quite different debate. (shrink)

Deceptive implicatures are a subtle communicative device for leading someone into a false belief. However, it is widely accepted that deceiving by means of deceptive implicature does not amount to lying. In this paper, we put this claim to the empirical test and present evidence that the traditional definition of lying might be too narrow to capture the folk concept of lying. Four hundred participants were presented with fourteen vignettes containing utterances that communicate conversational implicatures which the speaker believes to (...) be false. We further collected several potential proxy measures of lying, to get a better understanding of when a deceptive implicature is considered a case of lying. The results indicate that most implicatures (ten out of fourteen) were evaluated as lies and that lie ratings were closely tracked by the degree to which speakers were considered to have committed themselves to the truth of the content conveyed by their deceptive implicatures. (shrink)

One of the main vocations of scientific communication is to find points of fruitful theoretical debate - those features of ideas, argumentation, established ideas that can become the source of new intellectual pursuits and conceptual assets. Acceptance of differences of positions, giving impulse to view too commonplace - that served as an impulse for raising the question of the normativity of philosophical discourse.

The need for the axiological determinants of cognition of law to be theoretically justified as a constituent of legal progress that includes the humanization of law makes the problem under the study relevant. The purpose of this article is to distinguish the value determinants of cognition of law. The main methodological approaches used in the study are axiological and anthropological approaches, which allow us to consider law as a valuable constituent of human life, inextricably linked with the human personality. The (...) article reveals that the modern understanding of the term “law” is characterized by axiological and anthropological approaches to its cognition; founds out that the human legal value has an integral-synthesizing character to all other values and, as a result, is embodied in the absolute legal value and inherent worth; establishes that the human dimension of law has become the result and, at the same time, the source of value-legal human understanding, which indicates the value of law and its axiological characteristics. (shrink)

In several recent papers and a monograph, Andreas Stokke argues that questions can be misleading, but that they cannot be lies. The aim of this paper is to show that ordinary speakers disagree. We show that ordinary speakers judge certain kinds of insincere questions to be lies, namely questions carrying a believed-false presupposition the speaker intends to convey. These judgements are robust and remain so when the participants are given the possibility of classifying the utterances as misleading or as deceiving. (...) The judgements contrast with judgements participants give about cases of misleading or deceptive behaviour, and they pattern with judgements participants make about declarative lies. Finally, the possibility of lying with non-declaratives is not confined to questions: ordinary speakers also judge utterances of imperative, exclamative and optative sentences carrying believed-false presuppositions to be lies. (shrink)

What are the main features that influence our attribution of moral responsibility? It is widely accepted that there are various factors which strongly influence our moral judgments, such as the agent’s intentions, the consequences of the action, the causal involvement of the agent, and the agent’s freedom and ability to do otherwise. In this paper, we argue that this picture is incomplete: We argue that social roles are an additional key factor that is radically underestimated in the extant literature. We (...) will present an experiment to support this claim. (shrink)

The problem of formation and recognition of the Ukrainian Local Orthodox Church has not been considered by clerics of the Churches or believers only as ecclesiastics since its actualization in Ukraine at the beginning of the twentieth century. The objectivity of such an assessment of the question of propriety is borne out by the experience of becoming autocephalous of other local Orthodox Churches - none of them being able to choose their autocephaly only through the implementation of a particular church (...) program. The reason for this state of affairs is the fact that the procedure for obtaining administrative independence of a particular church unit is not written out in Orthodox canons. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. However, little has been written about how best to conceive of concepts for the purposes of conceptual engineering. In this paper, I aim to fill this foundational gap, proceeding in three main steps: First, I propose a methodological framework for evaluating the conduciveness of a given concept of concept for conceptual engineering. Then, I develop a typology that contrasts two competing concepts of concept that can be used in conceptual (...) engineering — namely, the philosophical and psychological ones. Finally, I evaluate these two concepts of concept using the proposed methodological framework and I show that, when it comes to making conceptual engineering an actionable method, the psychological concept of concept outclasses its philosophical counterpart on all counts. This provides a baseline from which the concept of concept can be further improved for the purposes of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Although collegial relationships are among the most prevalent types of interpersonal relationships in our lives, they have not been the subject of much philosophical study. In this paper, we take the first step in the process of developing an ethics of collegiality by establishing what qualifies two people as colleagues and then by determining what it is that gives value to collegial relationships. We argue that A and B are colleagues if both exhibit sameness regarding at least two of the (...) following three features: the same work content or domain of activity; the same institutional affiliation or common purpose; and/or the same status or level of responsibility. Moreover, we describe how the potential value of collegial relationships is grounded in the relationship goods that two colleagues have reason to generate qua colleagues, namely, collegial solidarity and collegial recognition. Two interesting conclusions that can be drawn from our analysis are that one has to be proficient at one’s work if one is to be considered a good colleague and that we are also more likely to be better colleagues if we regard the work we do as valuable. Finally, we draw special attention to the working conditions that are conducive to the generation of good collegial relationships and suggest some policies to promote them. (shrink)

Perceptual representations have distal content: they represent external objects and their properties, not light waves or retinal images. This basic fact presents a fundamental problem for ‘input-oriented’ theories of perceptual content. As I show in the first part of this paper, this even holds for what is arguably the most sophisticated input-oriented theory to date, namely Karen Neander's informational teleosemantics. In the second part of the paper, I develop a new version of informational teleosemantics, drawing partly on empirical psychology, and (...) partly on philosophical considerations. I shall argue that this version has all the virtues of Neander's original theory, but also the further crucial advantage of being able to account for the distality of perceptual content. (shrink)

The potential of memory modification techniques (MMTs) has raised concerns and sparked a debate in neuroethics, particularly in the context of identity and authenticity. This paper addresses the question whether and how MMTs influence authenticity. I proceed by drawing two distinctions within the received views on authenticity. From this, I conclude that an analysis of MMTs based on a dual-basis, process view of authenticity is warranted, which implies that the influence of MMTs on authenticity crucially depends on the specifics of (...) how memory modification would eventually work. Therefore, I continue with a systematic analysis of possible properties of MMTs in which I distinguish between the dimensions of memories and the kinds of experiences that can be modified as well as the properties of the process of memory modification. The impact of MMTs on authenticity is analyzed regarding the possible properties of MMTs and based on a narrative approach to authenticity which fulfills the requirements of a dual-basis, process view of authenticity. Lastly, I explore the potential of MMTs to shift the balance between self-discovery and self-creation within authenticity and thereby alter the concept itself as well as the value of authenticity. (shrink)

Teleosemantic theories of representation are often criticized as being “too liberal”, i.e. as categorizing states as representations which are not representational at all. Recently, a powerful version of this objection has been put forth by Tyler Burge. Focusing on perception, Burge defends the claim that all teleosemantic theories apply too broadly, thereby missing what is distinctive about representation. Contra Burge, I will argue in this paper that there is a teleosemantic account of perceptual states that does not fall prey to (...) this problem, and that we can arrive at this account by combining some of Burge’s insights with a producer-oriented version of teleosemantics. The resulting theory turns out to be attractive and perfectly coherent. By contrast, the coherence of Burge’s own anti-teleosemantic approach becomes quite doubtful under closer examination—or so I will argue. (shrink)

This paper suggests a way to elaborate the ethical implications of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) as decided at COP 19 from the perspective of justice. It advocates three pro-posals. First, in order to fully understand the responsibilities and liabilities implied in the WIM, adaptation needs to be distinguished from loss and damage (L&D) on the basis of the different goals which should be attributed to adaptation and to L&D approaches. Second, the primary concern of the WIM should be compensatory (...) justice. In case of climate L&D, three aspects of compensatory justice should be kept separate: corrective liability, remedial responsibility, and with regard to the resources available, fair remedy. Third, it is crucial to distinguish between recov-erable damage and irrecoverable or at least not fully recoverable loss. This distinction is crucial because it informs the principles of fair remedy and because damage and loss may differ in their relevance for the stability and functioning of a human system. (shrink)

Psychedelics are experiencing a renaissance in mental healthcare. In recent years, more and more early phase trials on psychedelic-assisted therapy have been conducted, with promising results overall. However, ethical analyses of this rediscovered form of treatment remain rare. The present paper contributes to the ethical inquiry of psychedelic-assisted therapy by analysing the ethical implications of its therapeutic mechanisms proposed by the relaxed beliefs under psychedelics (REBUS) hypothesis. In short, the REBUS hypothesis states that psychedelics make rigid beliefs revisable by increasing (...) the influence of bottom-up input. Put differently, patients become highly suggestible and sensitive to context during a psychedelic session, amplifying therapeutic influence and effects. Due to that, patients are more vulnerable in psychedelic-assisted therapy than in other therapeutic interventions; they lose control during a psychedelic session and become dependent on the therapeutic setting (including the therapist). This enhanced vulnerability is ethically relevant and has been exploited by some therapists in the past. Therefore, patients in current research settings and starting mainstream medical settings need to be well informed about psychedelics’ mechanisms and their implications to give valid informed consent to treatment. Furthermore, other security measures are warranted to protect patients from the vulnerability coming with psychedelic-assisted therapy. (shrink)

This paper elaborates a new solution to the lottery paradox, according to which the paradox arises only when we lump together two distinct states of being confident that p under one general label of ‘belief that p’. The two-state conjecture is defended on the basis of some recent work on gradable adjectives. The conjecture is supported by independent considerations from the impossibility of constructing the lottery paradox both for risk-tolerating states such as being afraid, hoping or hypothesizing, and for risk-averse, (...) certainty-like states. The new proposal is compared to views within the increasingly popular debate opposing dualists to reductionists with respect to the relation between belief and degrees of belief. (shrink)