Certain characteristics make machine learning a powerful tool for processing large amounts of data, and also particularly unsuitable for explanatory purposes. There are worries that its increasing use in science may sideline the explanatory goals of research. We analyze the key characteristics of ML that might have implications for the future directions in scientific research: epistemic opacity and the ‘theory-agnostic’ modeling. These characteristics are further analyzed in a comparison of ML with the traditional statistical methods, in order to demonstrate what (...) it is specifically that makes ML methodology substantially unsuitable for reaching explanations. The analysis is given broader philosophical context by connecting it with the views on the role of prediction and explanation in science, their relationship, and the value of explanation. We proceed to show, first, that ML disrupts the relationship between prediction and explanation commonly understood as a functional relationship. Then we show that the value of explanation is not exhausted in purely predictive functions, but rather has a ubiquitously recognized value for both science and everyday life. We then invoke two hypothetical scenarios with different degrees of automatization of science, which help test our intuitions on the role of explanation in science. The main question we address is whether ML will reorient or otherwise impact our standard explanatory practice. We conclude with a prognosis that ML would diversify science into purely predictively oriented research based on ML-like techniques and, on the other hand, remaining faithful to anthropocentric research focused on the search for explanation. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the consequences of Mamou’s recent solution to the so-called problem of reindividuation. The problem is first proposed by John Broome as an argument against the Humean view of rationality and subjective decision theory. Essentially, Broome argues that the reindividuation of outcomes must be constrained in some way if the axioms of rationality are not to be vacuous, but the constraints on individuation cannot be consistent with the Humean view of rationality. Mamou offers an elegant Humean (...) solution to this problem. We do not need such rules for reindividuation since the subjective decision theory operates under the assumption of maximal relevance of description, and only under that assumption do the axioms tell anything. Thus the problem of reindividuation dissolves in a quite natural and simple way. However, I argue that if we connect this solution to the topic of justification for the requirements of rationality, problems arise. I examine the influence of the solution on the common argument for the axioms of decision theory, the so-called money-pump arguments. These arguments are a staple in the justification of the axioms of subjective decision theory. I argue that they are in collision with Mamou’s solution. This collision brings us to the dilemma: either accept Broome’s conclusions or lose the money-pump arguments as an effective tool for justification of the axioms. I conclude that neither of the options is really good for the defenders of the Humean view of rationality. (shrink)

Sake i ostali inkongruentni protivdelovi su dovoljni da odbacimo relacionizam, ili je bar tako mislio Kant, jos od nekih svojih prekritickih spisa. Argumenti sa inkongruentnim protivdelovima su elegantni i efektni, i privukli su prilicno veliku paznju kod odredjenog broja autora, koji su argumente kritikovali na razne nacine, ili ih branili. Rasprave su se pritom odaljile od originalnog Kantovog argumenta, i od duha tog vremena, i primila obelezja moderne filozofije i geometrije. U ovom tekstu bi trebalo da pokazem da Kant, kao (...) i oni koji su ga kasnije branili, nisu postigli svoj cilj - nije dat konkluzivan argument protiv relacionizma. (shrink)

This book offers a readable introduction to the main aspects of thought experimenting in philosophy and science. It presents the main options in understanding thought experiments, from empiricism to Platonism, and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. However, it also provides some original perspectives on the topic. Firstly, it provides a new definition and analysis of thought experimenting that brings it closer to laboratory experimenting. Secondly, it develops the author’s earlier theory of “mental modelling”, proposed some decades ago by him, and (...) some other researchers in the field as the crucial procedure in thought experimenting. The mental modelling approach links work with thought experimenting to cognitive science and to research on mental simulation which is a hot topic in present-day research. Thirdly, it proposes a principled way to respond to criticism of thought experimenting by “experimental philosophers” as they have been dominating the present-day debates. The response suggests a possible ameliorative, self-help project for thought experimenting. Finally, the book provides a way to systematize the history of important thought experiments in science and philosophy and thus connects, in an original way, the systematic investigation of experimenting to the historical work of famous thought experiments. It is of interest to scholars interested in history of ideas and philosophy of science. (shrink)

The main goal of this essay is to provide an in-depth analysis of the trajectory of the Colourful Revolution in North Macedonia as a social movement. From a more general perspective, the paper engages with the growing interest in the literature that explores the correlation between social movements and democratisation processes, especially in societies that fall into the category of hybrid regimes. The Colourful Revolution is a good example of a protest movement that has created effective regime change. It presented (...) a complex social movement encompassing many fragmented social and political groups gathered around the idea of a common adversary. Additionally, the Colourful Revolution has one particularity: it is a social movement that has undergone a full developmental circle - formation through utilization of political opportunity frameworks, a period of activity and success and dissolution. Drawing on literature of the political process, opportunity frameworks and cycles of social movements, the paper argues that social movements such as the Colourful Revolution are not just temporary and unstable structures but are also highly dependent on the existence of a common target of the social activism in question. The removal from power of political actors that have been the reason for mobilisation of a complex and diverse network of social and political activism resulted in an absence of an adhesive factor holding together all the parts of this complex system. The absence initiated gradual discord and dissolution of different factions within the social movement and reveals its true nature - temporary, ideologically diverse, conflictual, and even undemocratic in some respects. (shrink)

Psychological egoism is the doctrine that all of our actions are ultimately motivated by self-interest, even including seemingly altruistic actions. Although this view is commonly referred to as \vacuous" or \trivially true" because of its immunity to counterexamples, I argue that there are possible observations that can refute this thesis. I describe the experiments, identify the results that could in principle falsify the strongest possible version of psychological egoism and formulate a probabilistic argument against this view. Ultimately, I conclude that (...) a \trivially true" formulation of psychological egoism is an empirical theory that is in all likelihood false. (shrink)

The skeptical puzzle consists of three allegedly incompatible claims: S knows that O, S doesn’t know that ~U, and the claim that knowledge is closed under the known entailment. I consider several famous instances of the puzzle and conclude that in all of those cases the presupposition that O entails ~U is false. I also consider two possible ways for trying to make it true and argue that both strategies ultimate fail. I conclude that this result at least completely discredits (...) any solution that denies the principle of epistemic closure. At most, denying that O entails ~U can itself be seen as a novel solution to the puzzle, preferred to any other solution: it accommodates both non-skeptical and skeptical intuitions but does not require us to give up the principle of closure, embrace contextualism or subject-sensitive invariantism, or deny any commonly accepted principle of epistemology or logic. (shrink)

Kant?s legal and political philosophy is essential for understanding and advancing international order. The article aims to posit arguments that confront the claims that Kant was just war theorist. Since that is the most opposed part of Kant?s political philosophy, mostly due to the misleading interpretation of his argumentation, the author presents Kant?s standpoint on the matters of just war and international order and discusses potential ambiguities between Kant?s and his critics? theories. Furthermore, the consequences of opponents? arguments considering states (...) of states, world republic and cosmopolitan democracy in contemporary political philosophy are debated. Finally, the possibility of consent between the three model solutions which are arising from the contemporary international order theory and Kant?s position are compared and analysed. (shrink)

Xenophobia is one of the key drivers of marginalisation, discrimination, and conflict, yet many prominent machine learning fairness frameworks fail to comprehensively measure or mitigate the resulting xenophobic harms. Here we aim to bridge this conceptual gap and help facilitate safe and ethical design of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. We ground our analysis of the impact of xenophobia by first identifying distinct types of xenophobic harms, and then applying this framework across a number of prominent AI application domains, reviewing the (...) potential interplay between AI and xenophobia on social media and recommendation systems, healthcare, immigration, employment, as well as biases in large pre-trained models. These help inform our recommendations towards an inclusive, xenophilic design of future AI systems. (shrink)

Explaining intuitions in terms of “facts of our natural history” is compatible with rationally trusting them. This compatibilist view is defended in the present paper, focusing upon nomic and essentialist modal intuitions. The opposite, incompatibilist view alleges the following: If basic modal intuitions are due to our cognitive make‐up or “imaginative habits” then the epistemologists are left with a mere non‐rational feeling of compulsion on the side of the thinker. Intuitions then cannot inform us about modal reality. In contrast, the (...) paper argues that there are several independent sources of justification which make the feeling of compulsion rational: the prima‐facie and a priori ones come from the obviousness of our basic modal intuitions and our not being able to imagine things otherwise, others, a posteriori, from the epistemic success of these intuitions. Further, the general scheme of evolutionary learning is reliable, reliability is preserved in the resulting individual's cognitive make‐up, and we can come to know this a posteriori. The a posteriori appeal to evolution thus plays a subsidiary role in justification, filling the remaining gap and removing the residual doubt. Explaining modal intuitions is compatible with moderate realism about modality itself. (shrink)

Nenad Miščević; IX*—Computationalism and the Kripke-Wittgenstein Paradox, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 96, Issue 1, 1 June 1996, Pages 215–23.

U ovom eseju autor ispituje jedan od mogucih puteva u postfilozofiju koja ne postoji.

U ovom eseju autor ispituje jedan od mogucih puteva u postfilozofiju koja ne postoji.

Building on Crane’s intentionalism, the paper proposes a variant of response-dependentist view of colors. To be of a color C is to have a disposition to cause in normal observers a response, namely, intentional phenomenal C-experience. The view is dubbed “response-intentionalism”. It follows from the following considerations, with the red of a tomato surface taken as an example of color C. Full phenomenal red is being visaged (intentionally experienced) as being on the surface of the tomato. Science tells us that (...) full phenomenal red is not on the surface of the tomato. Equally, full phenomenal red is not a property of subjective state but its intentional object. Response-intentionalism follows by considerations of charity, i.e. minimizing and rationalizing the error of the cognizer, and of inference to the best explanation: being red in scientific sense is being such as to cause the response (intentionally) visaging phenomenal red in normal observers under normal circumstances. (shrink)

Many authors have argued that we should make a clear conceptual distinction between mononational and multinational states. Yet the number of empirical examples they refer to is rather limited. France or Germany are usually seen as mononational, whereas Belgium, Canada, Spain and the UK are considered multinational. How should we classify other cases? Here we can distinguish between (at least) two approaches in the literature: statistical (i.e., whether significant national minorities live within a larger state and, especially, whether they claim (...) self-government) and subjective (i.e., when citizens feel allegiance to sub-state national identities). Neither of them, however, helps us to resolve the problem. Is Italy multinational (because it contains a German-speaking minority)? Is Germany really mononational (in spite of the official recognition of the Danes and the Sorbs in some Länder)? On the other hand, is Switzerland the “most multinational country” (Kymlicka)? Let us assume that there is no definite answer to this dilemma and that it is all a matter of degree. There are probably few (if any) clearly mononational states and few (if any) clearly multinational states. Should we abandon this distinction in favour of other concepts like “plurinationalism” (Keating), “nations-within-nations” (Miller), “postnational state” (Abizadeh, Habermas), or “post-sovereign state” (MacCormick)? The article discusses these issues and, in conclusion, addresses the problem of stability and shared identity “plural” societies. (shrink)

The paper joins Horwich’s criticism of stipulationist accounts of a priori knowledge, and raises some problems for his own account of the a priori. It first questions the assumed separability of scientific investigation and non-scieentific assertoric practices in regard to norms of adequacy. It also questioned Horwich’s Restriction Assumption according to which only the former are answerable to the standards of empirical adequacy and overall simplicity (which threaten apriority in the case of science). Finally, it criticises his argument that inability (...) to think otherwise might guarantee apriority, pointing to science-driven reflective revisability of possibly innate beliefs. (shrink)

Virtually all epistemologists agree that truth is a necessary condition for knowledge. Assuming that our three-dimensional world is nested within a higher-dimensional space, I use multidimensional geometry to present a type of case which undermines this fundamental principle of epistemology. I further argue that we would be unlikely to revise our epistemic practices in light of new discoveries even if our world turned out to be substantially different and many of our beliefs turned out to be false.

The evolution of belt conveyors, as an important type of continuous conveying machinery, is examined here in a historical perspective. For this purpose, the selected period is from the ancient time, i.e. occurrence of conveying equipment, and up to the end of the nineteenth century. The basic postulation of a modern machine, including conveyors, is often interlinked to that of its ancestor, which may be simple and primitive. Ancient machines and principles of their work were the basis for later improvements (...) which also brought the inventions in engineering. For instance, Archimedes lifted water to high altitude with a screw, which was regarded as the ancestor of today’s screw conveyor and essentially his design has not changed since then. Bucket elevators also have their predecessors dating back to ancient times. In the concrete case of belt conveyors, a first trace can be found in the beginning of the seventeenth century, even classified as primitive example. During the Industrial Revolutions, various machines, such conveyors, appeared. The first modern-like belt conveyors are dedicated to the late eighteenth century due to the invention of Oliver Evans in USA and to the nineteenth century, by Lyster in England, Lopatine in Russia and Thomas Robins in USA. The technical solutions developed by the end of the nineteenth century were forerunners of the today’s belt conveyors, while the key operational principles have not changed. (shrink)

Translated by Aleksandar B. Nedeljkovi? Since the end of the conflict in the Balkans in 1995, there has been an uneasy peace between the rival factions. What were the causes of the tragic disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and what is likely to happen next? Nenad Kecmanovi?, who witnessed and actively participated in many of the key events in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, offers a perceptive, seasoned analysis of the many challenges that threaten political stability in this powder keg region (...) of Eastern Europe. Both a professor of political science and a former politician who served in many high-ranking posts, Kecmanovi? brings rich, first-hand knowledge—theoretical and practical—to his discussion of the many explanations proposed for the troubles in the former Yugoslavia. Among the issues he considers are the renewal of ancient tribal hatreds, the emergence of nationalism as the last stage of communism, how the interests of outside powers have complicated the situation, whether the conflict represents a clash of civilizations, the difficulties of building democracy on the basis of an authoritarian political culture, and the possibility that democracy in this region acts as a great solvent that dissolves former political unions. Looking to the future, he discusses the rapid and potentially explosive developments in Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where there is continuing unrest among ethnic minorities. In conclusion, he assesses the chances that the European Union will someday incorporate the individual states of the former Yugoslavia vs. the potential for another outbreak of war. This sobering, in-depth overview of the current tense situation in the Balkans is must reading for anyone with an interest in the future of Europe. (shrink)

Objects and events from the outside world are represented in our consciousness through the structure of time. Temporality and consciousness are closely related phenomena and in this paper, I intend to explore their relationship by referring to the philosophy of Edmund Husserl. I will try to provide an adequate contemporary interpretation of Husserl’s understanding of temporality and the relationship between the internal structure of time and consciousness through the conceptual framework of dynamic systems theory and enactivist theory of cognition.. In (...) order to succeed in my intention, I will rely on a unique ability of the subject: activity. (shrink)

Rad ukazuje na kljucne momente razvoja teorije aktera-mreze kroz nekoliko najznacajnih dela Bruna Latura. Uocavaju se promene pocetne pozicije autora u odnosu na dela kasnijeg datuma nastanka. Teorija aktera-mreze je prikazana kroz niz?neuralgicnih? tacaka koje se u njoj mogu uociti. Na samom kraju rada su razmatrana resenja koje teorija aktera-mreze nudi za odredjeni broj fundamentalnih problema sociologije, koje je definisao Latur.

Previous studies have addressed many different kinds of confessions in police investigations – real, false, coerced, fabricated – and highlighted both psychological and social mechanisms that underlie them. Here, we focus on inadvertent confessions and admissions, which occur when a suspect appears to be confessing without being fully aware of doing so, or when police officers believe they have a confession or admission of guilt when in fact this is not the case. The goal of the study is to explain (...) when, how and why these confessions and admissions occur as well as how they are dealt with in two different jurisdictions, the United States and the United Kingdom. We use a discourse analysis approach because inadvertent confessions and admissions of guilt are the product of miscommunication – they happen because the speaker’s meaning and the hearer’s meaning are misaligned. The data consist of 50 interviews from the United Kingdom and 50 interrogations from the United States with both English-speaking and non-English speaking suspects. Our results demonstrate that inadvertent confessions can occur in both locales due to reliance on inference, which is inevitable since inference is the backbone of any human communication, as well as due to additional factors such as linguistic, cultural and procedural issues. We found that these phenomena are more frequent and less well controlled for in the United States context due to no systematic checking of understanding, adversarial questioning techniques and an absence of legal representation, and lack of professional, high-quality interpreting. We discuss the implications of our findings for current efforts to improve access to justice, custodial procedures and language services, and we make recommendations for the implementation of our research in professional practice. (shrink)

“That a being should be born resembling in certain characters an ancestor removed by two or three, and in some cases by hundreds or even thousands of generations, is assuredly a wonderful fact. . . . If . . . we suppose . . . that many characters lie dormant in both parents during a long succession of generations, the foregoing facts are intelligible.” In October 2006, a group of fishermen working off the west coast of Japan, in the whaling (...) town of Taiji, found a bottlenose dolphin with an extra pair of flippers protruding at the back in the proximity of the tail. They might have guessed that it would become an immediate headline snatcher (Tabuchi 2006). What was less obvious at that moment was that their .. (shrink)

Das Ziel dieses Textes ist, die Aufmerksamkeit auf einige Voraussetzungen, die als wichtig für besseres Verständnis des Denkens scheinen, das zusätzlich als „kritisches“ bezeichnet wird, zu richten. Zuerst wird einleitend konstatiert, dass die Rede vom „kritischen“ Denken im Kontext der Ausbildung aufgetreten ist, und es wird daran erinnert, dass „Kritisches“ ein wesentlicher Bestandteil des Denkens überhaupt ist. Deshalb werden verschiedene Vernunfttypen vorgestellt, aus denen sich verschiedene Rationalitäts- und Denktypen entwickeln. Dabei wird an zeitgenössische Kritik an der Absolutierung der westlichen dihairetischen (...) Rationalität erinnert, wonach es gezeigt wird, wie sich aus der Einheit der Vernunft die Pluralität von Rationalitäten entwickelt hat. Im folgenden Abschnitt wird die ursprüngliche Vernunft als Einheit von Logos und Mythos dargestellt, fortgesetzt von der Thematisierung dessen, was aus der Perspektive der dihairetischen Rationalität nicht als der Vernunft Zugehöriges anerkannt wird – das Andere der Vernunft. Darauf folgt die Darstellung der Anerkennungsmöglichkeit der Rationalität des Anderen der Vernunft, welche sich in der Metapher und der analogischen Rationalität zeigt. Nächstes Kapitel diskutiert einige Folgemanifestierungen der dihairetischen Rationalität und mit diesen Folgen verbundene Schwierigkeiten in Bezug auf Voraussetzungen der Fähigkeitsentwicklung des kritischen Denkens. Zum Schluss werden einige Bedingungen für kritisches Denken dargestellt. (shrink)

Application of Einstein special theory of relativity in chemistry seems to be superfluous; energies are too low. The average velocity of electron in hydrogen atom is 1/135 c, making its actual mass only 26,6 ppm bigger than the rest mass. However, for heavier elements relativistic effects have to be taken into account and, more, many phenomena cannot be explained without ascribing new mass to electrons, in accordance with Einstein theory. In this paper such phenomena are described: color of metallic gold (...) and Bi and Pb compounds, contraction of Ln-X bond of lanthanide trihalides, voltage of lead-acid and Zn/HgO battery, and the shape of gold clusters. Besides, essentials of Einstein theory and quantum chemistry were problems concerning the validity of Lavoisier law. (shrink)

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In Equal Recognition, Alan Patten argues that in a proper relationship between normative political theory and democratic politics, we must make a clear distinction between two questions related to cultural rights: authority and the substance of deliberation. The question he wants to explore, however, is not the authority question but the substantive question. The aim of this article is to show that an account of equal recognition cannot bracket out (...) the democratic element. It argues, first, that Equal Recognition does not live up to its initial promise, as it contains a number of reflections and recommendations that either explicitly or implicitly include the democratic element. Second, it points at other important areas of political decision-making–such as electoral system design, districting, referendums, quotas–in which it is quite clear that in order to extend equal recognition to minority cultures, we are obliged to take decisions related to the design of democratic institutions. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 14 One common problem with anti-skepticism and skepticism alike is their failure to account for our sometimes conflicting epistemic intuitions. In order to address this problem and provide a new direction for solving the skeptical puzzle, I consider a modified version of the puzzle that is based on knowledge claims about appearances and does not result in a paradox. I conclude that combining the elements of both the original and modified puzzle can potentially guide us towards (...) solutions that can fully explain the conflict of epistemic intuitions. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 14 One common problem with anti-skepticism and skepticism alike is their failure to account for our sometimes conflicting epistemic intuitions. In order to address this problem and provide a new direction for solving the skeptical puzzle, I consider a modified version of the puzzle that is based on knowledge claims about appearances and does not result in a paradox. I conclude that combining the elements of both the original and modified puzzle can potentially guide us towards (...) solutions that can fully explain the conflict of epistemic intuitions. (shrink)

The sexual abuse of women and girls, such as sexual harassment, battery, varieties of rape, prostitution, and pornography, is statistically pervasive in late modern society. Yet this fact does not register adequate ethical concern. I explore this gap in moral perception. I argue that sexual abuse is conceptually supported by an ontology of women that considers a lack of bodily integrity as natural and by a sex-specific idea of freedom that considers sexual violations as liberating. This conceptual framework is pernicious (...) because it supports abuse and interferes with our moral perception of harm, encouraging us to see harms as normal and as positive. I argue that Heidegger’s idea of philosophy and the resources of his epistemological and ontological project in Being and Time can help show the pernicious function of this conceptual framework and thus help us better understand this abuse. (shrink)