Machine learning (ML) trains itself by discovering patterns of correlations that can be applied to new inputs. That is a very powerful form of generalization, but it is also very different from the sort of generalization that the west has valorized as the highest form of truth, such as universal laws in some of the sciences, or ethical principles and frameworks in moral reasoning. Machine learning’s generalizations synthesize the general and the particular in a new way, creating a multidimensional model (...) that often retains more of the complex differentiating patterns it has uncovered in the training process than the human mind can grasp. Particulars speak louder in these models than they do in traditional generalizing frameworks. This creates an odd analogy with recent movements in moral philosophy, particularly the feminist ethics of care which rejects the application of general moral frameworks in favor of caring responses to the particular needs and interests of those affected by a moral decision. This paper suggests that our current wide-spread and justified worries about ML’s inexplicability—primarily arising from its reliance on staggeringly complex patterns of particulars—may be preparing our culture more broadly for a valorizing of particulars as at least as determinative as generalizations, and that this might help further advance the importance of particulars in ideas such as those put forward by the ethics of care. (shrink)

We are not today close to producing a computer that could convince us that it is intelligent. Some philosophers have argued that we are not even appreciably closer to this goal than we were ten years ago. But why should artificial intelligence even be considered possible? In this paper I shall argue that the temptation to believe in the possibility of AI stems from a misunderstanding about the nature of ideas; further, this misunderstanding can be traced back at least to (...) Plato’s presentation of the metaphor of the cave. A phenomenological view of the nature of ideas removes the temptation to believe in the possibility of AI as presently considered. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

According to John Howie, who compiled these first six annual Wayne Leys Memorial Lectures, “These essays invite the reader to discover the relevance of clearly stated, balanced, and reasonable ethical principles to controversial issues of our time.” Although the essays are indeed clearly stated, balanced, and reasonable, it is unlikely the book’s purchasers will be discovering for the first time that philosophy has something to say about social issues. But an anthology such as this will be bought and appreciated by (...) scholars interested in reading some fairly recent work by six major contemporary American figures in the field of philosophical ethics. (shrink)

For forty years, Harvey Mansfield has been worth reading. Whether plumbing the depths of MachiavelliOs Discourses or explaining what was at stake in Bill ClintonOs impeachment, MansfieldOs work in political philosophy and political science has set the standard. In Educating the Prince, twenty-one of his students, themselves distinguished scholars, try to live up to that standard. Their essays offer penetrating analyses of Machiavellianism, liberalism, and America., all of them informed by MansfieldOs own work. The volume also includes a bibliography of (...) MansfieldOs writings. (shrink)

Life stinks. Mel Brooks knew it, David Benatar knows it,1 and so do I. Even when life does not stink so badly, there’s always the chance that it will begin to do so. Nonexistence, on the other hand, is odor free. Whereas being brought into existence can be harmful, or at least bad, nonexistence cannot be harmful or bad. Even if life is not clearly bad, it is at the very least extremely risky. David Benatar argues, somewhat notoriously, (...) that since it is better never to exist, one is harmed by being brought into existence and, therefore, procreation is likely always wrong and certainly always morally problematic. (shrink)

In formulating procreative principles, it makes sense to begin by thinking about whose interests ought to matter to us. Obviously, we care about those who exist. Less obviously, but still uncontroversially, we care about those who will exist. Ought we to care about those who might possibly, but will not actually, exist? Recently, unusual positions have been taken regarding merely possible people and the non-identity problem. David Velleman argues that what might have happened to you – an existent person (...) – often doesn't merit moral consideration since the alternative person one would have been had what might have happened actually happened is a merely possible person about whom one has no reason to care. He argues that his way of thinking can eliminate the non-identity problem. Caspar Hare argues that merely possible people have interests and are morally relevant. He argues that we can solve the non-identity problem by rejecting the view that merely possible people are morally irrelevant. Both Hare and Velleman argue that focusing on one's de dicto rather than on one's de re children can help us avoid the non-identity problem. I analyze the role that merely possible, nonexistent hypothetical entities ought to play in our moral reasoning, especially with regard to procreation. I refute both Velleman's and Hare's views and demonstrate the difficulties we encounter when we try to apply their views to common non-identity cases. I conclude with the common-sense view regarding who matters, morally: only those who do, did, or will exist. (shrink)

Resonances of Samuel David Luzzatto's characterization of Italian Jewry can be heard in the personal memoirs of Arnaldo Momigliano. Pagan, Jewish, and Christian -these were the three civilizations which dominated Momigliano's life work. Between 1930 and 1934 Momigliano wrote four major works on representative areas of the triple civilizations: one on the Maccabean tradition; two articles on Josephus' defense of Judaism, the Contra Apionem; a presentation of his conception of first century Pharisaic Judaism; and Alien Wisdom, in which he (...) explored the Hellenistic discovery of Jews, Celts, Romans, and Iranians, and Rome's meeting of these cultures. Momigliano's discussions of the ways that Judaism both absorbed GrecoRoman culture and reacted to it should be taken into account when examining the central texts of rabbinic literature, for the Rabbis themselves were conscious that they belonged to the triple civilizations. Through an analysis of the Midrash, it is shown that Momigliano helps us to appreciate some of the characteristics which emunah holds in common with pistis or fides. An example of the way Jews reacted to the imposition of Roman rule is given in their reaction to the imperial cult. (shrink)

The author presents a history of the attempts to find the final "theory of everything," gives a forceful argument that one can never be found, and a warning that the compromises necessary to produce a final theory may well undermine the rules of doing good science. At the heart of the story is the rise of the particle physicists and their attempts to reach far out into the cosmos for a unifying theory. Unable to subject their findings and theories to (...) experimental scrutiny, they have moved into a world governed entirely by mathematical and highly speculative theories, none of which can be empirically verified. "Does physics then become a branch of aesthetics?" Lindley asks. For an opposing viewpoint, see Stephen Weinberg's Dreams of a Final Theory. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

The generator of electromagnetic gauge transformations in the Dirac equation has a unique geometric interpretation and a unique extension to the generators of the gauge group SU(2) × U(1) for the Weinberg-Salam theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions. It follows that internal symmetries of the weak interactions can be interpreted as space-time symmetries of spinor fields in the Dirac algebra. The possibilities for interpreting strong interaction symmetries in a similar way are highly restricted.

Experimental philosophy is a popular approach to addressing philosophical questions. Though not without controversy, this approach has impacted epistemology (Weinberg, Nichols, and...

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] Boonin’s The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People and Rivka Weinberg’s The Risk of a Lifetime: How, When and Why Procreation May Be Permissible are both important books for those interested in procreative ethics. Each argues for surprising and controversial conclusions: Boonin argues that we should solve the non-identity problem by accepting its apparently unacceptable conclusion (...) that actions cannot be wrong due to their effects on future people whose lives are worth living and who would not exist were the actions not performed; Weinberg argues that there is no non-identity problem, that future children have no interest in existing, but significant interest in avoiding harm and that procreation is, therefore, a much more morally risky business than we tend to think. Even if... (shrink)

In this paper I argue that when thinking about justice, political philosophers should pay more attention to social norms, not just the usual subjects of basic principles, rights, laws, and policies. I identify two widely-endorsed ideas about political philosophy that interfere with recognizing the importance of social norms—ideas I dub ‘compulsoriness’ and ‘institutionalism’—and argue for their rejection. I do this largely by focusing on questions about who can and should be an agent of justice. I argue that careful reflection on (...) these questions supports a kind of pluralism that reveals the importance of social norms, three types of which I discuss. (shrink)

In this paper we propose to argue for two claims. The first is that a sizeable group of epistemological projects – a group which includes much of what has been done in epistemology in the analytic tradition – would be seriously undermined if one or more of a cluster of empirical hypotheses about epistemic intuitions turns out to be true. The basis for this claim will be set out in Section 2. The second claim is that, while the jury is (...) still out, there is now a substantial body of evidence suggesting that some of those empirical hypotheses are true. Much of this evidence derives from an ongoing series of experimental studies of epistemic intuitions that we have been conducting. A preliminary report on these studies will be presented in Section 3. In light of these studies, we think it is incumbent on those who pursue the epistemological projects in question to either explain why the truth of the hypotheses does not undermine their projects, or to say why, in light of the evidence we will present, they nonetheless assume that the hypotheses are false. In Section 4, which is devoted to Objections and Replies, we’ll consider some of the ways in which defenders of the projects we are criticizing might reply to our challenge. Our goal, in all of this, is not to offer a conclusive argument demonstrating that the epistemological projects we will be criticizing are untenable. Rather, our aim is to shift the burden of argument. (shrink)

The larger philosophical world has on the whole turned from a mix of averted gaze and outright antipathy toward x‐phi, to a mix of grudging acceptance and enthusiastic embrace. This chapter explains that the experimental philosophy is relevant, and that it is dangerous, and explains some ways that people can do more to remain both. Experimental philosophy's semi‐official sigil of the burning armchair has advertised its dangerousness for the past decade and a half as well. The chapter explains that it (...) is a threat that is every bit as potently present in positive program x‐phi as it is in negative program work. To explore the idea that experimental philosophy's positive contributions will still be primarily negative in nature, the chapter interrogates the passage from Timothy Williamson. It focuses on the wheat‐from‐chaff project of separating signal from noise in the evidence produced by intuitions and the like. (shrink)

Weaving together state-of-the-art research, theory, and clinical insights, this book provides a new understanding of the unconscious and its centrality in human functioning. The authors review heuristics, implicit memory, implicit learning, attribution theory, implicit motivation, automaticity, affective versus cognitive salience, embodied cognition, and clinical theories of unconscious functioning. They integrate this work with cognitive neuroscience views of the mind to create an empirically supported model of the unconscious. Arguing that widely used psychotherapies--including both psychodynamic and cognitive approaches--have not kept pace (...) with current science, the book identifies promising directions for clinical practice. Subject areas/Key words: unconscious processes, human consciousness, psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic theory, implicit learning, implicit memory, implicit motivation, automaticity, cognition, subconscious, psychodynamic psychotherapy, mind, computational neuroscience, empirical research Audience: Clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and other mental health practitioners, as well as researchers and students of clinical and personality psychology and psychopathology. (shrink)

Grapples with the problems of identifying homosexual content in a work of art, showing how artists often used sexual codes to communicate to their subculture. The major part of the book is a discussion of Demuth's and Hartley's lives and works.

This paper investigates connections between procreative ethics and the ethics of suicide and euthanasia. While there are good reasons for distinguishing between lives worth starting and lives worth continuing, I argue that those reasons provide no reason for denying that there is a relationship between procreative and end of life ethics. Regarding euthanasia/assisted suicide, we might think it too demanding to ask parents to help euthanize their terminally ill, suffering child, but had the parents not procreated, thereby exposing their child (...) to life's risks, their child wouldn't need euthanizing. If you need help killing yourself, shouldn't your parents, who got you into life in the first place – without your consent – help you out of it? Yet knowing that your parents would help you kill yourself may increase your desire to die. A conundrum. Regarding suicide, the fact that we are forced into life should bolster the right to suicide, even for reasons that others might find wanting. The ways in which we are brought into life have moral implications for the ways in which we are entitled to get out of it. (shrink)

Although radical forms of relativism are perhaps beyond the epistemological pale, I argue here that a more moderate form may be plausible, and articulate the conditions under which moderate epistemic relativism could well serve our epistemic goals. In particular, as a result of our limitations as human cognizers, we find ourselves needing to investigate the dappled and difficult world by means of competing communities of highly specialized researchers. We would do well, I argue, to admit of the existence of unresolvable (...) disputes between such communities, but only so long as there is a sufficient amount of fruitful exchange between them as well. I close with some speculation about when it is or is not legitimate to make an “appeal to discipline”: responding to another’s argument by saying something like, “we should do it this way, because we are philosophers (/linguists/psychologists/…), and that’s just what we do”. (shrink)

What are the philosophical views of professional philosophers, and how do these views change over time? The 2020 PhilPapers Survey surveyed around 2000 philosophers on 100 philosophical questions. The results provide a snapshot of the state of some central debates in philosophy, reveal correlations and demographic effects involving philosophers' views, and reveal some changes in philosophers' views over the last decade.

A leading political theorist’s groundbreaking defense of ideal conceptions of justice in political philosophy Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question (...) whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? Utopophobia argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. David Estlund does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does he assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. Estlund engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, he counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, Utopophobia stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy. (shrink)

David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is the definitive statement of the greatest philosopher in the English language. His arguments in support of reasoning from experience, and against the "sophistry and illusion"of religiously inspired philosophical fantasies, caused controversy in the eighteenth century and are strikingly relevant today, when faith and science continue to clash. The Enquiry considers the origin and processes of human thought, reaching the stark conclusion that we can have no ultimate understanding of the physical world, or (...) indeed our own minds. In either sphere we must depend on instinctive learning from experience, recognizing our animal nature and the limits of reason. Hume's calm and open-minded skepticism thus aims to provide a new basis for science, liberating us from the "superstition" of false metaphysics and religion. His Enquiry remains one of the best introductions to the study of philosophy, and his edition places it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

The zetetic turn in epistemology raises three questions about epistemic and zetetic norms. First, there is the relationship question: what is the relationship between epistemic and zetetic norms? Are some epistemic norms zetetic norms, or are epistemic and zetetic norms distinct? Second, there is the tension question: are traditional epistemic norms in tension with plausible zetetic norms? Third, there is the reaction question: how should theorists react to a tension between epistemic and zetetic norms? Drawing on an analogy to practical (...) philosophy, I develop a focal point view to resolve these motivating questions. On the focal point view, traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms answer different types of normative questions. There is nevertheless a familiar type of evaluative tension between traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms, but this tension is an unavoidable feature of the normative landscape and not a sign that traditional epistemic norms need revision. But if traditional epistemic norms are not zetetic norms, then in what sense is zetetic epistemology a project for epistemologists? I conclude by articulating a sense in which some nontraditional epistemic norms are zetetic norms, and in which zetetic epistemology is an important part of the study of theoretical rationality. (shrink)

By means of an example, shows the possibility of beliefs that are separately rational whilst together inconsistent.