The underlying thesis of the research in ethical autonomy for lethal autonomous unmanned systems is that they will potentially be capable of performing more ethically on the battlefield than are human soldiers. In this article this hypothesis is supported by ongoing and foreseen technological advances and perhaps equally important by an assessment of the fundamental ability of human warfighters in today's battlespace. If this goal of better-than-human performance is achieved, even if still imperfect, it can result in a reduction in (...) noncombatant casualties and property damage consistent with adherence to the Laws of War as prescribed in international treaties and conventions, and is thus worth pursuing vigorously. (shrink)

This paper presents an algorithm for analyzing social situations within a robot. We contribute a method that allows the robot to use information about the situation to select interactive behaviors. This work is based on interdependence theory, a social psychological theory of interaction and interpersonal situation analysis. Experiments demonstrate the utility of the information provided by the situation analysis algorithm and of the value of this method for guiding robot interaction. We conclude that the situation analysis algorithm offers a viable, (...) principled, and general approach to explore interactive robotics problems. (shrink)

An under-examined aspect of human–robot interaction that warrants further exploration is whether robots should be permitted to influence a user’s behavior for that person’s own good. Yet an even more controversial practice could be on the horizon, which is allowing a robot to “nudge” a user’s behavior for the good of society. In this article, we examine the feasibility of creating companion robots that would seek to nurture a user’s empathy toward other human beings. As more and more computing devices (...) subtly and overtly influence human behavior, it is important to draw attention to whether it would be ethically appropriate for roboticists to pursue this type of design pathway. Our primary focus is on whether a companion robot could encourage humans to perform charitable acts; this design possibility illustrates the range of socially just actions that a robot could potentially elicit from a user and what the associated ethical concerns may be. (shrink)

Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's ethics as first philosophy explicates a human obligation and responsibility to and for the Other that is an unending and an imperfect commitment. In Levinas's Rhetorical Demand: The Unending Obligation of Communication Ethics, Ronald C. Arnett underscores the profundity of Levinas's insights for communication ethics. Arnett outlines communication ethics as a primordial call of responsibility central to Levinas's writing and mission. Arnett analyzes communication ethics through a Levinasian lens with examination of social artifacts ranging from the (...) Heidegger-Cassirer debate to Rupert Murdoch's News of the World story concerning illicit possession of information. Levinas's Rhetorical Demand offers an account of Levinas's project and the pragmatic implications of attending to a call of responsibility to and for the Other. This book yields a rich and nuanced understanding of Levinas's work, revealing the practical importance of his insights, and including a discussion of a constellation of related theorists and thinkers. (shrink)

This chapter attempts to show how ancient Greek Heraclitus' and Parmenides' radical rejection of some common “mortal beliefs” resulted from their different views of time. Granting that common mortals are likely to persist in their “dazed” “two‐headedness,” the issues morphed into challenges for science and philosophy. This chapter poses the question of whether mortals achieve an explanation for the human experience of time and passage, one that coheres with a more comprehensive image of reality. It also explores whether science can (...) settle on a tenseless, relational (Parmenidean) image or will something like Heraclitius' logos rule the collapse of wave functions, the evolution of quantum worlds. The chapter concludes with a glimpse at mortal cosmologies. (shrink)

From Optimism to Tenacious Hope: Communication Ethics and the Scottish Enlightenment works with the Scottish Enlightenment as the intellectual and performative background for the illustration of the differentiation between optimism and tenacious hope.

Journal of Chinese Philosophy, EarlyView.

The verb λάω is attested in two passages of early epic poetry, Homeric Hymn to Hermes 360, where the infant Hermes is hiding in a dark cave, and τ 229 ff., of a hound seizing a fawn on the brooch of Odysseus. Of the several meanings suggested by the ancient lexicographers for λάω, seeing, gazing, or crying, screeching would suit. These senses recur in their explanations of, with gripping or devouring as additional possibilities. The most extensive modern treatment of λάω (...) is by Leumann, who explains it as a present falsely formed from the perfect λ⋯ληkα, and originally intended to describe the cry of a bird of prey. The unfamiliarity of the form led to its being associated later on with the sharp-sightedness of such birds, as well as with the bark of a hound fastening on its quarry. (shrink)

Psychoanalysis has traditionally had difficulty in accounting for the existence of evil. Freud saw it as a direct expression of unconscious forces, whereas more recent theorists have examined the links between early traumatic experiences and later ‘evil’ behaviour. _Humanizing Evil: Psychoanalytic, Philosophical and Clinical Perspectives _explores the controversies surrounding definitions of evil, and examines its various forms, from the destructive forces contained within the normal mind to the most horrific expressions observed in contemporary life. Ronald Naso and _Jon Mills_ (...) bring together an international group of experts to explore how more subtle factors can play a part, such as conformity pressures, or the morally destabilizing effects of anonymity, and show how analysts can understand and work with such factors in clinical practice._ _Each chapter is unified by the view that evil is intrinsically linked to human freedom, regardless of the gap experienced by perpetrators between their intentions and consequences. While some forms of evil follow seamlessly from psychopathology, others call this relationship into question. Rape, murder, serial killing, and psychopathy show very clear links to psychopathology and character whereas the horrors of war, religious fundamentalism, and political extremism resist such reductionism. Humanizing _Evil_ is unique in the diversity of perspectives it brings to bear on the problem of evil. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers, and Jungians. Because it is an integrative depth-psychological effort, it will interest general readers as well as scholars from a variety of disciplines including the humanities, philosophy, religion, mental health, criminal justice, political science, sociology, and interdisciplinary studies. Ronald Naso, Ph.D., ABPP is psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist in independent practice in Stamford, CT. The author of numerous papers on psychoanalytic topics, he is an associate editor of _Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies_, and contributing editor of _Division/Review _and _Journal of Psychology and Clinical Psychiatry_. His book, _Hypocrisy Unmasked: Dissociation, Shame, and the Ethics of Inauthenticity_, was published by Aronson in 2010. Jon Mills, Psy.D., Ph.D., ABPP is a philosopher, psychoanalyst, and clinical psychologist. He is Professor of Psychology & Psychoanalysis at Adler Graduate Professional School, Toronto. A 2006, 2011, and 2013 Gradiva Award winner, he is Editor of two book series in psychoanalysis, on the Editorial Board for _Psychoanalytic Psychology_, and is the author and/or editor of thirteen books including his most recent works, _Underworlds: Philosophies of the Unconscious from Psychoanalysis to Metaphysics_, and _Conundrums: A Critique of Contemporary Psychoanalysis_, which won the Goethe Award for best book in 2013. (shrink)

The startle reflex provides a revealing model for examining the ways in which evolved neurophysiology shapes personal experience and patterns of recurrent social interaction. In the most diverse cultural contexts, in societies widely separated by time and space, the inescapable physiology of the reflex both shapes the experience of startle and biases the social usages to which the reflex is put. This book describes ways in which the startle reflex is experienced, culturally elaborated, and socially used in a wide variety (...) of times and places. It offers explanations both for the patterned commonalities found across cultural settings and for the differences engendered by diverse social environments. Boo! will intrigue readers in fields such as psychological anthropology, medical anthropology, general cultural anthropology, social psychology, cross-cultural psychiatry, evolutionary psychology, and human ethology. (shrink)

Some recent physiological data indicate that the “subjective timing” of experiences can be “automatically referred backwards in time” to represent a sequence of events even though the earlier portions of associated neurophysiological activity are themselves insufficient to elicit the experience of any sensation. The challenge, then, is to explain how subjects can experience what they do in the reported ways when, if one looked just at certain neurophysiological activity, it would seem that perhaps subjects should report their sensations differently. The (...) phenomenon has seemed sufficiently remarkable to the neurobiologist John Eccles to count as evidence for mind-body dualism. This dualistic interpretation has resulted in a spirited attack by P. S. Churchland on both the physiological research and the dualistic interpretation. Her attack resulted in an equally spirited defense of the research by the primary investigator, B. Libet, where he reaffirmed his more guarded interpretation that “the temporal discrepancy creates relative difficulties for identity theory, but that these are not insurmountable”. In turn, Churchland has defended her criticism of Libet's research so that, for her, Libet's hypothesis remains “infirm and unconfirmed”. (shrink)

In this landmark volume of contemporary communication theory, Ronald C. Arnett applies the metaphor of dialogic confession—which enables historical moments to be addressed from a confessed standpoint and through a communicative lens—to the works of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who pointed to an era of postmodern difference with his notion of "a world come of age." Arnett’s interpretations of Bonhoeffer’s life and scholarship in contention with Nazi dominance offer implications for a dialogic confession that engages the complexity of postmodern (...) narrative contention. Rooted in classical theory, the field of communication ethics is abstract and arguably outmoded. In _Dialogic Confession: Bonhoeffer’s Rhetoric of Responsibility, _Arnett locates cross-cultural and comparative anchors that not only bring legitimacy and relevance to the field but also develop a conceptual framework that will advance and inspire future scholarship. (shrink)

Examining undergraduate education from the point of view of a philosopher of communication, Ronald C. Arnett takes a positive view of higher education during a time when education is being assailed as seldom before. Arnett responds to this criticism with convincing support of the academy reinforced by his personal experiences as well as those of others scholars and teachers. Arnett's book is an invitation to converse about higher education as well as a reminder of the potential for dialogue between (...) teacher and student, dialogue that the author defines as a "willingness to enter conversation about ideas," to maintain relationships through differences, and to ask value questions. Arnett see education as more than the dispensing of information. He emphasizes the importance of character development as well as the the development of relationships between students and teachers. Arnett stresses the importance of honesty and integrity in students, teachers, and administrators, and he insists that education should focus more on the good of the entire school than on the individual. Arnett does not offer this book as _the_ truth about education nor as a "how to teach" manual. Rather, he regards it as an attempt to understand education from a communication perspective and as a reminder of the positive and constructive aspects of teaching. The book is based on Arnett's belief that educators who care about ideas and people not only improve education but also benefit the community. (shrink)

In Object and Property, Arda Denkel tries to base metaphysics on perceivable objects—or, rather, to articulate an ontology saying what such particular objects really are. Basically, the world consists of Aristotelian substances, but, for Denkel, substances turn out to be bundles, or “compresences,” of properties, and properties themselves are asserted to be particulars. In the end, everything and everything’s “analytic constituents” are particular: objects are bundles of property occurrences having some necessary unity; pieces of matter are bundles of property occurrences (...) which lack the unity of objects; and, finally, properties are particulars. Denkel’s aim, at least in part, is to avoid any temptation to posit either “mysterious” prime matter or universals. (shrink)

Historians should not use their own up-to-date methodologies to judge the rationality or correctness of the research strategies of scientists in history. For the history of science is, in part, the history of the rational growth of methodology and the historian's own up-to-date methodology is, in part, a product of the scientific revolutions of the past. Historians who use their own methodologies to judge the rationality of past research strategies are being too wise after the event. I show, using the (...) case of Charles Darwin, how we can judge the rationality and correctness of research strategies and revolutions without being too wise after the event. I do this by rejecting the idea that methodologies double as rationality theories and by drawing instead on Popper's competing view of rationality as critical debate. (shrink)

Renowned in the disciplines of political theory and philosophy, Hannah Arendt’s searing critiques of modernity continue to resonate in other fields of thought decades after she wrote them. In _Communication Ethics in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt’s Rhetoric of Warning and Hope_, author Ronald C. Arnett offers a groundbreaking examination of fifteen of Arendt’s major scholarly works, considering the German writer’s contributions to the areas of rhetoric and communication ethics for the first time. Arnett focuses on Arendt’s use of the (...) phrase “dark times” to describe the mistakes of modernity, defined by Arendt as the post-Enlightenment social conditions, discourses, and processes ruled by principles of efficiency, progress, and individual autonomy. These principles, Arendt argues, have led humanity down a path of folly, banality, and hubris. Throughout his interpretive evaluation, Arnett illuminates the implications of Arendt’s persistent metaphor of “dark times” and engages the question, How might communication ethics counter the tenets of dark times and their consequences? A compelling study of Hannah Arendt’s most noteworthy works and their connections to the fields of rhetoric and communication ethics, _Communication Ethics in Dark Times_ provides an illuminating introduction for students and scholars of communication ethics and rhetoric, and a tool with which experts may discover new insights, connections, and applications to these fields. _Top Book Award_ for Philosophy of Communication Ethics by Communication Ethics Division of the National Communication Association, 2013. (shrink)

This article employs Umberto Eco’s 2004 novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana as an exemplar of the hypertextuality of Eco’s semiotic theory. Eco’s project illustrates existential semiotics, providing a corrective to Euro Tarasti. For Tarasti signs reveal possibilities for transcendence in the lived world with ‘omnipresent’ meaning in an enunciative dialogue between signs and a semiotic subject. Tarasti’s existential signs are communicative alerts that illuminate a semiotic subject’s journey of transcendence, creating meaning via infusion of signs with signification. This (...) article forgoes Tarasti’s insistence on transcendence. The vitality of existential semiotic signs is displayed through Eco’s hypertextual approach to semiotics manifested in The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Eco’s insights model an existential semiotic, correcting Tarasti’s pragmatically flawed but theoretically significant undertaking. Our rationale for explicating the scope of Tarasti’s work exemplifies an existential disconnect between information accumulation and signification. We present Tarasti’s project due to its fundamental signification for understanding the importance and vitality for existential semiotics. Existential semiotics illuminates the signifying function of communication in the presence of the ineffable. (shrink)

Philosophy of Communication Ethics is a unique and timely volume that creatively examines communication ethics, philosophy of communication, and the 'Other.'.

Comparative Political Philosophy: Studies Under the Upas Tree examines four major traditions of political philosophy and discusses similarities in their key ideas and assumptions. An intellectually daring enterprise, this fascinating volume focuses on key texts from Chinese, Indian, Western and Islamic political philosophy.

Temporal consciousness is philosophically problematic because it appears to have features that cannot be analyzed in a way compatible with the fundamental view of time as a one-dimensional order of events. For example, it seems to be a manifest fact of experience that within a strictly present state of consciousness one can be immediately aware of a succession of events, yet the standard view of time denies that successive events can co-exist, so how can they be given together in a (...) present perceptual state? Such puzzles have occasionally led philosophers to reject scientific or mathematical theories of time. Some time ago C. D. Broad developed a largely unappreciated theory of temporal cognition to cope with these puzzles. In this paper the evolution of Broad’s theory is traced, and it is defended from the misinterpretations of later critics. Finally, it is suggested that a modification of Broad’s theory, which frees it from the trappings of sense-data epistemology, shows it to be compatible with sane current naturalistic approaches to experience that also would need to account for temporal experience within the framework of scientific time. (shrink)

The verb λάω is attested in two passages of early epic poetry, Homeric Hymn to Hermes 360, where the infant Hermes is hiding in a dark cave, and τ 229 ff., of a hound seizing a fawn on the brooch of Odysseus. Of the several meanings suggested by the ancient lexicographers for λάω, seeing, gazing, or crying, screeching would suit . These senses recur in their explanations of , with gripping or devouring as additional possibilities. The most extensive modern treatment (...) of λάω is by Leumann, who explains it as a present falsely formed from the perfect λληkα , and originally intended to describe the cry of a bird of prey. The unfamiliarity of the form led to its being associated later on with the sharp-sightedness of such birds, as well as with the bark of a hound fastening on its quarry. (shrink)

Analyzed F. Galton's data on the sensory, psychomotor, and physical attributes of 1,639 females and 4,849 males. The reliability of the measures, developmental trends in mean scores, correlations of the measures with age, correlations among measures, occupational differences in scores, and sibling correlations are described. Developmental trends during later childhood, adolescence, and early maturity are compared to those described in contemporary developmental psychological literature.

While offering a public welcome of communicative participation, a communicative dark side of the moderate Enlightenment project emerged. Moderate Enlightenmentrsquo;s corollary companion to wresting power from a limited few is the staggering sense of confidence in the universal ground of assurance that is ldquo;bad faithrdquo; mdash;we fib to ourselves that we can stand above history and affect the future. Absolute conviction of universal access to truth propels through methodological confidence, undergirding the era of ldquo;the rationalrdquo; pursuit of truth, transporting the (...) individual into an ethereal delusionmdash;that one can stand above the historical moment of engagement and cast judgment. This essay calls into question the common assumption that communication begins with the individual. We offer a critique of this assumption in accordance with radical enlightenment scholarship, calling forth a return to Otherness that renders the construct of individual secondary to that which is met.br /. (shrink)

Important revisions and additions to the contemporary objectives of acceptance rules result from construing a theory of warranted inductive inference to presuppose an account of adequate scientific explanations. We conceive the objects of acceptance rules to be the best of competing scientific explanations. Our primary interest is to show how to construct an analysis of competing explanations. Hence our specific investigation concerns the interrelations between the criteria of adequacy for scientific explanations and the definitions of the modes of competition between (...) explanations. (shrink)

A recent version of the causal theory of time makes crucial use of a concept of the genidentity of events when it attempts to define temporal betweenness in terms of empirical, physical properties. By presenting and discussing an apparent counter-example it is argued that the role of genidentity in an empirical theory of time is problematic. In particular, it may be that the temporal behavior of objects is used to decide which events are genidentical, and, if so, the definition of (...) temporal betweenness is circular. On the other hand, though there are strategies for avoiding the charge of circularity, in certain hypothetical situations the definition may yield inconsistent temporal orders. Then, the definition would have to be supplemented by a choice of temporal orders, and this choice may introduce an element of conventionality into the causal theory of time. (shrink)

This paper discusses a series of important methodological issues in developing targeted health-related quality of life measures in studies of the effects of medical interventions. Such measures cannot be developed unless the evaluator understands the life domains that medical interventions affect. Qualitative discovery methods are needed to obtain this understanding. Once domains are targeted for measurement, careful and systematic laboratory pilot work should be used to select initial scale items. Psychometric evaluation of response patterns in subsequent field tests is needed (...) to assess the measures. Less concern should be directed to internal consistency reliability of scales in the psychometric evaluation and more to the ability of short scales to reproduce total scale variance and to provide precise measurement within the range of the outcome where effects are expected. The paper closes with a discussion of modern methods of item response scaling that can be used to address these issues. (shrink)