This book offers new insights into the nature of human rational capacities by engaging inferentialism with empirical research in the cognitive sciences. Inferentialism advocates that humans' unique kind of intelligence is discursive and rooted in competencies to make, assess and justify claims. This approach provides a rich source of valuable insights into the nature of our rational capacities, but it is underdeveloped in important respects. For example, little attempt has been made to assess inferentialism considering relevant scientific research on human (...) communication, cognition or reasoning. By engaging philosophical and scientific approaches in a productive dialogue, this book shows how we can better understand human rational capacities by comparing their respective strengths and weaknesses. In this vein, the author critically revisits and constructively develops central themes from the work of Robert Brandom and other language rationalists: the nature of the assertoric practice and its connection to reasoned discourse, the linguistic constitution of the shared space of reasons, the social nature and function of reasoning, the intersubjective roots of social-normative practices and the nature of objective thought. Practices of Reason will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and philosophy of logic. (shrink)

Over the last decade, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber have elaborated an influential naturalistic account of human reasoning. Their distinctive hypothesis is that its adaptive rationale – and primary function – is to produce and assess reasons in interpersonal justification and argumentation. In this paper I argue, first, that their characterisation of reasoning as based on metarepresentations threatens to oversophisticate reasoning and faces the problem of vicious regress. Second, I argue that they owe us a coherent account of the cognitive (...) role of reasons in reasoning. (shrink)

This study provides a critical appraisal of Duncan Pritchard’s argument to the effect that ability to preserve certain eminently plausible transmission and/or closure principles for knowledge serves as a powerful adequacy test on alternative accounts of so-called Wittgensteinian certainties or hinge commitments. I argue that Pritchard fails to establish this claim—the transmission test does not favour his favourite conception over alternative conceptions premised on the idea that hinge commitments are not supportable via evidential-cognitive routes.

Cieľom štúdie je vysvetliť motiváciu a podstatu filozofických koncepcií, podľa ktorých je tvrdenie normatívny fenomén. Začnem tým, že zmapujem kľúčové myšlienky k problematike tvrdenia, a lokalizujem typické normatívne prístupy. Potom rozoberiem, čo vlastne znamená povedať, že tvrdenie je normatívnym fenoménom špecifického druhu, a predložím špekulatívno-hypotetickú rekonštrukciu genézy tvrdiacej jazykovej hry - presnejšie, jej protoformy - ktorá by mala vyzdvihnúť jej charakteristické sociálno-normatívne aspekty. Na tomto základe postavím kritické porovnanie dvoch reprezentatívnych normatívnych prístupov k tvrdeniu: pragmatického inferencializmu Roberta Brandoma a Knowledge (...) Account of Assertion Timothyho Williamsona. Budem argumentovať, že Brandomov prístup adekvátnejšie vystihuje sociálnu povahu tvrdenia, esenciálnu pre túto rečovú hru. (shrink)

Táto kritická štúdia sa zameriava na problematiku spolupráce a pravidiel, diskutovanú Jaroslavom Peregrinom v knihe Človek a pravidla. Okrem extenzívneho exkurzu do osnovy Peregrinových hlavných myšlienok a argumentov budú systematicky analyzované niektoré kľúčové otázky patriace do tejto interdisciplinárnej teoretickej oblasti, pričom sa kriticky posúdia niektoré prvky Peregrinovho špecifického prístupu. Konkrétne, budem argumentovať, že Peregrinom preferovaná koncepcia pravidla - ako propozičného poznania, že niečo by malo nejako byť - nemôže dobre slúžiť jeho zámerom, ak chce udržať jeho evolučný prístup k pravidlám.

This edited volume examines the relationship between collective intentionality and inferential theories of meaning. The book consists of three main sections. The first part contains essays demonstrating how researchers working on inferentialism and collective intentionality can learn from one another. The essays in the second part examine the dimensions along which philosophical and empirical research on human reasoning and collective intentionality can benefit from more cross-pollination. The final part consists of essays that offer a closer examination of themes from inferentialism (...) and collective intentionality that arise in the work of Wilfrid Sellars. Groups, Norms, and Practices provides a template for continuing an interdisciplinary program in philosophy and the sciences that aims to deepen our understanding of human rationality, language use, and sociality. (shrink)

Inferentialism is a philosophical approach premised on the claim that an item of language acquires meaning in virtue of being embedded in an intricate set of social practices normatively governed by inferential rules. Inferentialism found its paradigmatic formulation in Robert Brandom's landmark book Making it Explicit, and over the last two decades it has established itself as one of the leading research programs in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of logic. While Brandom's version of inferentialism has received wide (...) attention in the philosophical literature, thinkers friendly to inferentialism have proposed and developed new lines of inquiry that merit wider recognition and critical appraisal. From Rules to Meaning brings together new essays that systematically develop, compare, assess and critically react to some of the most pertinent recent trends in inferentialism. The book's four thematic sections seek to apply inferentialism to a number of core issues, including the nature of meaning and content, reconstructing semantics, rule-oriented models and explanations of social practices and inferentialism's historical influence and dialogue with other philosophical traditions. With contributions from a number of distinguished philosophers--including Robert Brandom and Jaroslav Peregrin--this volume is a major contribution to the philosophical literature on the foundations of logic and language. (shrink)

In their own way, inferentialists and interactionists both trace the roots of reflective reasoning to practices and skills for making, assessing, and responding to public performances in communicative practices of giving and asking for reasons. Inferentialists have developed the idea mostly on conceptual grounds. Interactionists ask, in a more empirical spirit, why and how such practices and skills might have evolved. Thus they promise complementary “anthropological” insights of foremost interest to inferentialists. But interactionist theories advance a number of controversial claims (...) that deserve careful scrutiny. In this essay I focus on one such claim: namely that confirmation bias can be plausibly explained as a design feature that promotes postulated functions of interactive reasoning. And I argue that each of three extant proposals fails to make the claim good. (shrink)

Akým druhom činnosti filozofia je, aký má zmysel, aké otázky si má klásť, a akým spôsobom ich má uchopiť? Mojím cieľom v článku nie je priamo odpovedať na tieto otázky, na ktoré nie je žiadna jednoduchá odpoveď. Chcem skôr kriticky preskúmať stále populárne poňatie filozofie: filozofia ako skúmanie usilujúce o pravdu či poznanie pravdy. O výroky v tomto duchu nie je vo filozofickej tradícii núdza. Otázka znie: hovoria nám tieto metafory niečo podstatné o filozofii?

This paper is a polemic response to the essay “The Semantics of Proper Names and Identity Theory of Predication” by L. Novák (SN 1–2/2004). In the first part of the article, the so-called descriptive theories of proper names and Kripke’s challenge to these views are briefly presented. It is pointed out that Novák’s exposition rests upon certain presuppositions in the theories of meaning and mind, which are controversial and which – without further argument – can hardly cast doubt on the (...) so-called New Theory of Reference. Furthermore, it is argued that Novák’s “minimal sense” of a proper name is too minimalistic and cannot be of service to the original idea of descripitivism. In the second part of the paper, an attempt is made to show that Novák’s extensional-intensional identity theory of predication is not based on identity, insofar as it is characterised by the axioms of the theory of identity. (shrink)

The last three decades have seen a renaissance in Anglo-American philosophy of efforts to think of human reasoning as constitutively social and, indeed, discursive. This approach does not see reaso...

In economics there are several complex learning themes and tasks connected with them difficult for deeper understanding of the learning subject. These are the reasons originating serious learning problems for students in the form of Virtual Environment because deeper understanding requires high level mathematical skills. Actually the most important feature for discerning this part of economics is the set of qualitative shapes emerging in discrete dynamic systems when they are undergoing iterations and/or experimentation with parameters and initial coordinates of variables. (...) Among such shapes there are: - trajectories in evolving time; - trajectories in R2 of two variables; - cobweb portraits; - one control parameter bifurcation with first and/or with second variables; - two control parameters bifurcation in R2 ; - cycles; - basin of attraction of two variables; - one Lyapunov’s exponent against some of control parameters; - Lyapunov’s exponents with two control parameters in R2; - absorbing area with possibility to create critical curves and/or attractors. The hope is that products of computational intelligence may help them solve such problems. Naturally, the meant complex economic problems and tasks have discrete, qualitative and nonlinear nature resulting in increased level of difficulties. So with the term used in the head of this paper one has to understand narrowly: “qualitative nonlinear computational economics”. For better understanding the very nature of the problem we are using as appropriate example actual simulation of the model of new ICT products monopolies in virtual laboratory built in the routines setting dominantly in the software iDMC. (shrink)

The invention of symbolic algebra in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fundamentally changed the way we do mathematics. If we want to understand this change and appreciate its importance, we must analyze it on two levels. One concerns the compositional function of algebraic symbols as tools for representing complexity; the other concerns the referential function of algebraic symbols, which enables their use as tools for describing objects (such as polynomials), properties (such as irreducibility), relations (such as divisibility), and operations (such (...) as factorization). The reconstruction of both the compositional function and the referential function of algebraic symbols requires the use of different analytic tools and the taking of different temporal perspectives. In this chapter, we offer both: a reconstruction of the compositional function of algebraic symbols, and a reconstruction of their referential function. (shrink)

In recent years, artificial intelligence has been deployed by online platforms to prevent the upload of allegedly illegal content or to remove unwarranted expressions. These systems are trained to spot objectionable content and to remove it, block it, or filter it out before it is even uploaded. Artificial intelligence filters offer a robust approach to content moderation which is shaping the public sphere. This dramatic shift in norm setting and law enforcement is potentially game-changing for democracy. Artificial intelligence filters carry (...) censorial power, which could bypass traditional checks and balances secured by law. Their opaque and dynamic nature creates barriers to oversight, and conceals critical value choices and tradeoffs. Currently, we lack adequate tools to hold them accountable. This paper seeks to address this gap by introducing an adversarial procedure— – Contesting Algorithms. It proposes to deliberately introduce friction into the dominant removal systems governed by artificial intelligence. Algorithmic content moderation often seeks to optimize a single goal, such as removing copyright-infringing materials or blocking hate speech, while other values in the public interest, such as fair use or free speech, are often neglected. Contesting algorithms introduce an adversarial design which reflects conflicting values, and thereby may offer a check on dominant removal systems. Facilitating an adversarial intervention may promote democratic principles by keeping society in the loop. An adversarial public artificial intelligence system could enhance dynamic transparency, facilitate an alternative public articulation of social values using machine learning systems, and restore societal power to deliberate and determine social tradeoffs. (shrink)

Gombrich and the Problem of Relativity of Vision The essay argues that Ernst Gombrich's views are relevant to the critical examination of the notion of the relativity and historicity of vision which has been widely accepted as one of the central axioms shared by visual studies, art history and film studies.

In contemporary global knowledge based society there are scorching needs for new knowledge and unprecedented vision of future development. Author is focuses attention to new possibilities of fostering creative abilities and gaining new socio-economic knowledge by the assistance of ICT, Internet and mainly by using products and services of computational intelligence. His method used is prevailingly new knowledge creation by experimentation in virtual laboratories. In using conventional methods, he combines inductive and deductive methods as set up for developing mental models (...) from up to down and bottom to up. Because in socio-economic branches it is very difficult and even almost wholly impossible to do experiments in objective reality the experimentation by the assistance of computational intelligence is promising advance in gaining new socioeconomic knowledge in contemporary complex world. Using such new approaches, methods and tools is the main scientific aim of the author. He uses convictive demonstration of successful using these unprecedented possibilities in gaining deeper knowledge about complex evolutionary phenomena. The distinction of such knowledge is against conventional one is consisting in very deep understanding of complex socio-economic dynamics. Using meant knowledge acquisition approaches is promising in quality and in abiding knowledge and skill of single individuals but the extraordinary progress of creative knowledge based society fostered by using them in advanced webs is useful for whole society. (shrink)

There are several ontological and consequently also methodological mistakes in contemporary mainstream economics. Among them, the so-called ergodic axiom is play significant role. It is understandable that the real economy elaborated as formalized mental model looks like dynamic system on first sight. However, that is right only of dynamical systems in mathematical formalism. Economy that is in our understanding societal and/or collective economy is complex evolving organism. If we imagine such organism in the form of dynamical system that is as (...) clear mathematical formalism, we are losing their crucial authentic character. The significant irredeemable attribute of societal economy is lying in his complex evolving network process character created by large population of people with different decision-making and complex realizing among them. Going from these imaginations the two entities in a question that is dynamical system with their ergodicity and societal economic organism as complex evolving network are qualitative very different ones. That is the reason why we cannot accede with endeavours to draw on living economy straitjacket of ergodic axiom. To articulate that cause by other words ergodic dynamical systems are applicable for physical and partly for chemical entities and only scarcely are fit for living organisms. On the other hand however, as clear method the ergodic dynamical system have good applying for didactical approaches in economics where helping in better understanding some types of complexities in dynamics. The purpose of that essay is to discuss problems around usability of ergodic dynamical system theory and methods in economics in the age of advanced ICT knowledge based society. (shrink)

Globalization and a Normative Framework of Freedom The author considers the question of whether or even what normative structure of social order is able to encourage the advancement of the measure of positive liberty in the process of globalization. Related to this is the issue of the insufficiency of guarantees provided by orthodox liberalism for human self-determination. The author considers possible scenarios as to the way in which an elite cosmopolitan minority, profiting from globalization and feeling no responsibility for the (...) majority left to its own fate, would pursue its own interests. The ideas of Ralf Dahrendorf concerning the global rule of law in the name of freedom and the need for international law are referred to. Globalization is occurring just as Marx intuitively predicted: capitalism becomes the bearer of hidden immanent self-destructive mechanisms. In conclusion, the author's hypothesis is that the new era of law in the 21st century will ensure that certain civilization legal norms become natural or customary. (shrink)

Macroeconomic dynamics and the at-risk-of-poverty population in Slovakia This paper deals with analysis and presentation of the core findings under the EU SILC 2009 project. Particularly we are oriented on study of the socially vulnerable groups of population identified according their income situation. As a sorting criterion for this purpose we use the standard methodology set by OECD and Eurostat. It means the 60% of the national median equivalized disposable income is applied for this criterion as the poverty threshold. The (...) national income variable is firstly calculated as a total income for each surveyed household and dived by the equivalized size of household. By this procedure the households of various structures are transformed onto generally accepted scale. The special attention of our study is oriented on the cluster of population living on income below the poverty threshold. For this population we calculate so called social deficit. Through this value we show the volume of financial means needed to upgrade the living standard of the population living bellow poverty threshold at least to the poverty threshold level.Special section of the paper is devoted to study of relation among the core macroeconomic indicators and level and size of the at-risk-of-poverty population during the period of last economic development, including both economic growth and economic recession. According our tentative findings we did not find the significant impact of economic growth on the status of socially vulnerable population. This finding however should be studied in broader context, with longer time series of relevant data and with broader set of explanatory variables. (shrink)

The prevalence of social production and the increase in User Generated Content destabilize some of the fundamental premises of our current copyright law. Copyright law is primarily designed to regulate the relationships of a single owner with other non-owners and is focused on the sovereignty of the author/owner. Social production, by contrast, requires us to articulate a matrix of relationships between the individual, the facilitating platform and the communities and crowds involved in social production. The transition from industrial production to (...) social production transforms the social relations associated with the production of content and therefore requires adjustment of the institutions that design such relations. This Article closely examines the social dimension of content production and analyzes the consequences for the governance of content in the social web. The Article proceeds as follows: Part I describes social production and analyzes the implications for the stakeholders involved. I focus on three key features of social production which affect why we create, how we create, and what assets are generated by the process of creation. Part II explains why social production might be incompatible with the current copyright regime. In particular, I argue that copyright law mainly defines rights against strangers and fails to provide a framework for managing the rights and interests within a gigantic group of collaborators. Furthermore, the exclusivity offered by copyright law may undermine social motivation and collaborative production. Finally, in Part III, I outline some of the challenges for legal policy. (shrink)

Copyright law in recent years has undergone a process of privatization. While weakening the enforceability of conventional legislation (copyright rules), cyberspace facilitates alternative types of regulation such as contracts and technical self-help measures. Regulation by the code is significantly different from traditional types of public ordering (copyright law) and private ordering (contracts). Norms that technically regulate the use of information are not merely self-made they are also self-enforced. Furthermore, the law was recruited to uphold the superiority of such technical self-help (...) measures. The recently adopted U.S. Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) 1998 prohibits the development and use of technologies designed to circumvent copyright management systems. The underlying assumption of this legislation is that in Cyberspace, the target of regulation should become the technologies that affect users'' behavior rather than the behaviors themselves. This paper critically examines this regulatory approach and highlights its shortcomings. (shrink)

This book argues that Descartes’ physics was a milestone on the road to modern mathematical physics. After Newton introduced a completely different approach to mathematical description of motion, Descartes’ physics became obsolete and even difficult to comprehend. This text follows the language of Descartes and the means of which motion can be described. It argues that Descartes achieved almost everything that later Newton was able to do—to describe the motion of interacting bodies- by different (i.e. algebraic) means. This volume completely (...) refutes the received view according to which Descartes’ physics was merely a kind of discursive natural philosophy. To make this interpretation more plausible the book follows Descartes’ ideas from his early work in mathematics, through his invention of the analytic method towards his mature physics. It shows that Descartes followed a similar heuristic pattern. The volume appeals to students and researchers; it invites the reader equippedwith minimal understanding of college mathematics to follow Descartes on his intellectual journey through the Scientific Revolution. The reader will gain a deeper understanding of the role of mathematical language in the creation of modern physics and a glimpse into the fascinating world of Descartes’ scientific thought. Several of Descartes’ philosophical ideas can be traced back to his scientific interests and thus the book elucidates the motivation behind some of Descartes’ key positions in the area of epistemology and method. In the penultimate chapter the book presents four arguments in favor of seeing Descartes as a physicist on par with Galileo and Newton. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyse relations between China and Russia over the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the context of deepening Sino-Russian relations and the general rise of Eurasia. China and Russia are pivotal non-Western Eurasian powers in political, economic and military terms and the key motors of Eurasian multi-faceted integration. Both countries pursue their own interests and present their own projects and initiatives. Nevertheless, over the last few years, Sino-Russian cooperation has become strategic and is (...) starting to pursue a new model of globalisation and international order. In the article, I refer to this approach as the “New Eurasian Paradigm” (NEP). I follow Axel Honneth’s Hegelian-based theory of threefold-level recognition Hrubec (2011, p. 267). which I extend and employ at the interstate level to interpret the behaviour of China and Russia and their integration projects in terms of a struggle for political recognition as full, equal members of the global community determining global processes. Both countries thus aim to reform the global order and boost the integration of Eurasia in order to achieve successful development. These common interests are the main reasons behind their mutual strategic collaboration. (shrink)