Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) have the potential to address racial health disparities by improving the conditions that constitute the social determinants of health. In order to live up to this potential, these partnerships must intentionally incorporate seven core racial justice principles into their design and implementation. Otherwise, they are likely to replicate the systemic barriers that lead to racialized health disparities.

Health systems are integrating medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) into clinical care and increasingly center “complex care” patients. These patients have intersecting medical and social needs and often face systemic inequities that exacerbate their chronic health conditions. This paper describes a role for MLPs in hospital quality initiatives; examines the ethics of MLPs assisting with guardianship and institutionalization of hospital patients including marginalized groups; and advocates for MLP interventions designed to address intersectional and ethical concerns.

We claim that scientists working with deep learning (DL) models exhibit a form of pragmatic understanding that is not reducible to or dependent on explanation. This pragmatic understanding comprises a set of learned methodological principles that underlie DL model design-choices and secure their reliability. We illustrate this action-oriented pragmatic understanding with a case study of AlphaFold2, highlighting the interplay between background knowledge of a problem and methodological choices involving techniques for constraining how a model learns from data. Building successful (...) models requires pragmatic understanding to apply modelling strategies that encourage the model to learn data patterns that will facilitate reliable generalisation. (shrink)

Although vast and complex, the universe is orderly in many ways, and conditions at its beginning were right for the eventual evolution of life on this planet. But with life there is death, and with sentient life there is great pain and suffering, often with no apparent justification or purpose. Taking these things together, is it reasonable to conclude that the universe was brought about by God? Moreover, does the magnitude of seemingly pointless suffering square with the idea that God (...) exists, or is it good reason to think there is no God? These questions come up for many people, not just religious believers, and are examined in this engaging and thought-provoking book. Starting out with no pre-disposition to theism, atheism, or agnosticism, God, Evil, and Design takes up these questions in order to see where an impartial investigation leads. To achieve impartiality, the reader is invited to simulate ignorance insofar as his or her own religious preference is concerned. With this approach, God, Evil, and Design provides both a fresh look at important and controversial issues in philosophy and an excellent introduction to the contemporary debates surrounding them. Lively and non-technical, this book will be accessible to anyone with an interest in these topics. (shrink)

Preface ix Introduction 1 1 Two Thousand Years of Design 9 2 Paley and Kant Fight Back 31 3 Sowing the Seeds of Evolution 51 4 A Plurality of Problems 69 5 Charles Darwin 89 6 A Subject Too Profound 107 7 Darwinian against Darwinian 129 8 The Century of Evolutionism 151 9 Adaptation in Action 171 10 Theory and Test 195 11 Formalism Redux 223 12 From Function to Design 249 13 Design as Metaphor 271 14 (...) Natural Theology Evolves 291 15 Turning Back the Clock 313 Sources and Suggested Reading 339 Illustration Credits 358 Acknowledgments 359 Index 361. (shrink)

The increasing complexity and ubiquity of autonomously operating artificially intelligent (AI) systems call for a robust theoretical reconceptualization of responsibility and control. The Meaningful Human Control (MHC) approach to the design and operation of AI systems provides such a framework. However, in its focus on accountability and minimizing harms, it neglects how we may flourish in interaction with such systems. In this chapter, I show how the MHC framework can be expanded to meet this challenge by drawing on the (...) ethics of carebots and embodied design. First, I examine how discussions about flourishing with carebots invite us to consider the extent to which we control our moral character Second, I argue that we can understand the cultivation of moral character in terms of embodied virtues arising from operating in particular ecologies. Third, I demonstrate how this analysis fruitfully informs the design of carebots as supporting reciprocity and empathy. (shrink)

Recently, there is increased attention to the integration of moral values into the conception, design, and development of emerging IT. The most reviewed approach for this purpose in ethics and technology so far is Value-Sensitive Design (VSD). This article considers VSD as the prime candidate for implementing normative considerations into design. Its methodology is considered from a conceptual, analytical, normative perspective. The focus here is on the suitability of VSD for integrating moral values into the design (...) of technologies in a way that joins in with an analytical perspective on ethics of technology. Despite its promising character, it turns out that VSD falls short in several respects: (1) VSD does not have a clear methodology for identifying stakeholders, (2) the integration of empirical methods with conceptual research within the methodology of VSD is obscure, (3) VSD runs the risk of committing the naturalistic fallacy when using empirical knowledge for implementing values in design, (4) the concept of values, as well as their realization, is left undetermined and (5) VSD lacks a complimentary or explicit ethical theory for dealing with value trade-offs. For the normative evaluation of a technology, I claim that an explicit and justified ethical starting point or principle is required. Moreover, explicit attention should be given to the value aims and assumptions of a particular design. The criteria of adequacy for such an approach or methodology follow from the evaluation of VSD as the prime candidate for implementing moral values in design. (shrink)

The prevalence of optimality models in the literature of evolutionary biology is testimony to their popularity and importance. Evolutionary biologist R. C. Lewontin, whose criticisms of optimality models are considered here, reflects that "optimality arguments have become extremely popular in the last fifteen years, and at present represent the dominant mode of thought." Although optimality models have received little attention in the philosophical literature, these models are very interesting from a philosophical point of view. As will be argued, optimality models (...) are central to evolutionary thought, yet they are not readily accomodated by the traditional view of scientific theories. According to the traditional view, we would expect optimality models to employ general, empirical laws of nature, but they do not. Fortunately, the semantic view of scientific theories, a recent alternative to the traditional view, more readily accomodates optimality models. As we would expect on the semantic view, optimality models can be construed as specifications of ideal systems. These specifications may be used to describe empirical systems--that is, the specifications may have empirical instances. But the specifications are not empirical claims, much less general, empirical laws. Although philosophers have yet to discuss the general features and uses of optimality models, these topics have stimulated much recent discussion among evolutionary biologists. Their discussions raise a number of precautions concerning the proper use of optimality models. Moreover, many of their caveats can be interpreted as general reminders that 1) optimality models specify ideal systems whose empirical instantiations may be quite restricted, and that 2) optimality models should not be construed as general, empirical laws. As G. F. Oster and E. O. Wilson caution, "the prudent course is to regard optimality models as provisional guides to further empirical research and not necessarily as the key to deeper laws of nature." It seems, then, that the semantic view of theories is more sensitive to the nature and limitations of optimality models than is the more traditional view of theories. (shrink)

The paper explores the promise of ethical codes as a means to control unethical behavior in business. After a review of arguments for ethical codes from outside the business system, the paper outlines the arguments for codes from inside the business system at the level of the industry, firm and individual executive.The paper then discusses the problems of code design — the dilemma between specific practices and general precepts — and offers a model for a thoroughgoing code. This is (...) followed by a discussion of the problems of promulgation and code enforcement. (shrink)

Although we all learn differently, we all need to be able to engage certain fundamental reasoning skills if we are to manoeuvre successfully through life—however we define success. Peirce's philosophy provides us with a framework for helping students (and ourselves) develop and hone the ability for making deliberate and well‐considered choices. For, embedded within Peirce's complete body of work is a design for thinking that provides a sturdy foundation for the development of three important learning capabilities. These capabilities are (...) 1) the ability to identify, compare, and contrast qualities, 2) the ability to perform analyses, and 3) the ability to interpret the meaning of signs. Although these capabilities may seem like the sort of skills that only older and academically inclined students can master, even young children and the intellectually challenged can learn to use them as well. Once teachers learn to develop their own intellectual potential by expanding these capabilities within themselves, they will be able to begin bringing about the development of these capabilities in their students. Once identified, developed, and applied to the mastery of educational skills and subject matter, these three fundamental learning capabilities (qualification, analysis, and interpretation), can form the foundation of a common‐sense approach to educational reform. Peirce asserts that good reasoning must be informed by ethical considerations, which in turn has been informed by the highest of aesthetic impulses. From this, we can extrapolate the importance that an educational model based upon Peirce's philosophy must place upon aesthetic and ethical considerations, as well as logical ones. Once fully understood, the philosophy of education embedded within Peirce's epistemology can revolutionize educational practices at all levels of learning. (shrink)

This paper argues that although moral intuitions are insufficient for making judgments on new technological innovations, they maintain great utility for informing responsible innovation. To do this, this paper employs the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodology as an illustrative example of how stakeholder values can be better distilled to inform responsible innovation. Further, it is argued that moral intuitions are necessary for determining stakeholder values required for the design of responsible technologies. This argument is supported by the claim (...) that the moral intuitions of stakeholders allow designers to conceptualize stakeholder values and incorporate them into the early phases of design. It is concluded that design-for-values (DFV) frameworks like the VSD methodology can remain potent if developers adopt heuristic tools to diminish the influence of cognitive biases thus strengthening the reliability of moral intuitions. (shrink)

Background Design thinking is a tool for generating and exploring ideas from multiple stakeholders. We used DT principles to introduce students to the ethical implications of organ transplantation. Students applied DT principles to propose solutions to maximise social justice in liver transplant allocation. Methods A 150 min interactive workshop was integrated into the longitudinal ethics curriculum. Following a group didactic on challenges of organ donation in the USA supplemented by patient stories, teams of students considered alternative solutions to optimise (...) fairness of organ distribution and ethical implications of changing the current model. Facilitators led students through DT steps of empathy, defining the team’s point of view, ideating on potential solutions, prototyping a specific idea and testing the idea through oral presentation, with questions and answers by peers and faculty. The curriculum was evaluated with presurveys and postsurveys including quantitative and open-ended items. Results 100 first year medical students participated. Before the session, 75.3% of students had no practical experience with DT. Following participation, students reported an increased understanding of the current liver transplant allocation system and an increased appreciation of shortcomings of the current organ allocation system. After the session, 73.8% of students felt that DT could be used to approach complex health system problems. Discussion Students participating in a DT workshop displayed improved knowledge and attitudes toward organ transplantation and DT. In this pilot study, DT showed promise as a student-led approach emphasising collaboration and creativity in ethics curricula in medical education. (shrink)

During the past decade, the “script” concept, indicating how technologies prescribe human actions, has acquired a central place in STS. Until now, the concept has mainly functioned in descriptive settings. This article will deploy it in a normative setting. When technologies coshape human actions, they give material answers to the ethical question of how to act. This implies that engineers are doing “ethics by other means”: they materialize morality. The article will explore the implications of this insight for engineering ethics. (...) It first augments the script concept by developing the notion of technological mediation. After this, it investigates how the concept of mediation could be made fruitful for design ethics. It discusses how the ambition to design behaviorinfluencing technologies raises moral questions itself and elaborates two methods for anticipating technological mediation in the design process: performing mediation analyses and using an augmented version of constructive technology assessment. (shrink)

The Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) has declared that to achieve accredited status, “engineering programs must demonstrate that their graduates have an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.” Many engineering professors struggle to integrate this required ethics instruction in technical classes and projects because of the lack of a formalized ethics-in-design approach. However, one methodology developed in human-computer interaction research, the Value-Sensitive Design approach, can serve as an engineering education tool which bridges the gap between (...) class='Hi'>design and ethics for many engineering disciplines. The three major components of Value-Sensitive Design, conceptual, technical, and empirical, exemplified through a case study which focuses on the development of a command and control supervisory interface for a military cruise missile. (shrink)

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive substance from the Amazon rainforest regions of Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil. Although its use originated among indigenous tribes in the Amazon basin, it has become increasingly popularized in Western society through the transnational markets of spirituality and religiosity driven by globalization, Postmodernity, and new forms of religious practice. In this paper, we will overview the arrival of ayahuasca in Uruguay by way of four different groups. We will then focus on one of these groups, a (...) holistic alternative therapies center, influenced by Peruvian shamanic traditions in the design of its ceremonies. Last we will introduce a “distributed cognition” model to explain ayahuasca rituals as a system of activity. (shrink)

Does the universe embody beautiful ideas? Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this "beautiful question." With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek's groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. In fact, every major advance in his career came from this intuition: to assume that the universe embodies (...) beautiful forms, forms whose hallmarks are symmetry--harmony, balance, proportion--and economy. There are other meanings of "beauty," but this is the deep logic of the universe--and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. As he reveals here, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras, the ancient Greek who was the first to argue that "all things are number," to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentieth-century physics. Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. Yes: the world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls.--From publisher description. (shrink)

The value sensitive design (VSD) approach to designing transformative technologies for human values is taken as the object of study in this chapter. VSD has traditionally been conceptualized as another type of technology or instrumentally as a tool. The various parts of VSD’s principled approach would then aim to discern the various policy requirements that any given technological artifact under consideration would implicate. Yet, little to no consideration has been given to how laws, regulations, policies and social norms engage (...) within VSD practices. Similarly, how the interactive nature of the VSD approach can, in turn, influence those directives. This is exacerbated when we consider machine ethics policy that have global consequences outside their development spheres. What constructs and models will position AI designers to engage in policy concerns? How can the design of AI policy be integrated with technical design? How might VSD be used to develop AI policy? How might law, regulations, social norms, and other kinds of policy regarding AI systems be engaged within value sensitive design? This chapter takes the VSD as its starting point and aims to determine how laws, regulations and policies come to influence how value trade-offs can be managed within VSD practices. It shows that the iterative and interactional nature of VSD both permits and encourages existing policies to be integrated both early on and throughout the design process. The chapter concludes with some potential future research programs. (shrink)

L’activité créatrice du design industriel est l’héritière directe du concept grec du τέχνη, et de la notion romaine d’ ars. Au contraire des Beaux-Arts, le design n’a jamais complètement renoncé à sa dimension fonctionnelle, et sa créativité s’est déployée au service des objets qui nous entourent. Victor Papaneck a lancé en 1971, dans son libre Design for the Real World, un appel à l’attention des designers en leur rappelant leur responsabilité sociale et en exigeant d’eux une attitude (...) respectueuse envers l’environnement. Cependant, aujourd’hui les choses ont beaucoup changé, tant à un niveau conceptuel que technologique. Pour cela il est nécessaire d’analyser, à partir des produits concrets des designers au xxi e siècle, la nouvelle orientation de l’ecodesign et d’approfondir les lignes d’action du design actuel qui maintiennent un engagement éthique avec la société : inclusive design/universal design et design pour la nécessité/ Design Takes of Risk. (shrink)

The research discussed in this paper centers around the convergence of extended reality (XR) platforms, computational design, digital fabrication, and critical urban study practices. Its aim is to cultivate interdisciplinary and multiscalar approaches within these domains. The research endeavor represents a collaborative effort between two primary disciplines: critical urban studies, which prioritize socio-environmental justice, and integrated digital design to production, which emphasize the realization of volumetric or voxel-based structural systems. Moreover, the exploration encompasses augmented reality to assess its (...) utilization in both the assembly process of the structures and the integration of phygital (physical and digital) data with the physical environment. Within the context of these research scopes, this paper introduces FabriCity-XR as an interactive phygital installation. In addition to presenting an overview of the integrated research driven and performative design to production methodologies, the project showcases the practical implementation of web-based augmented reality trails, eliminating the requirement for external applications for interaction. This approach allows users to seamlessly navigate and engage with phygital content overlaid on physical objects using their personal smart devices. The result is a captivating and immersive user experience that effectively merges the physical and digital realms. (shrink)

Robin Barrow; The Concept of Curriculum Design, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 73–80, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467.

Unlike natural agents, artificial agents are, to varying extent, designed according to sets of principles or assumptions. We argue that the designers philosophical position on truth, belief and knowledge has far reaching implications for the design and performance of the resulting agents. Of the many sources of design information and background we believe philosophical theories are under-rated as valuable influences on the design process. To explore this idea we have implemented some computer-based agents with their control algorithms (...) inspired by two strongly contrasting philosophical positions. A series of experiments on these agents shows that, despite having common tasks and goals, the behaviour of the agents is markedly different and this can be attributed to their individual approaches to belief and knowledge. We discuss these findings and their support for the view that epistemological theories have a particular relevance for artificial agent design. (shrink)

Peano was one of the driving forces behind the development of the current mathematical formalism. In this paper, we study his particular approach to notational design and present some original features of his notations. To explain the motivations underlying Peano's approach, we first present his view of logic as a method of analysis and his desire for a rigorous and concise symbolism to represent mathematical ideas. On the basis of both his practice and his explicit reflections on notations, we (...) discuss the principles that guided Peano's introduction of new symbols, the choice of characters, and the layout of formulas. Finally, we take a closer look, from a systematic and historical perspective, at one of Peano's most striking innovations, his use of dots for the grouping of subformulas. (shrink)

What is it for an animal to be female, or male? An emerging consensus among philosophers of biology is that sex is grounded in some manner or another on anisogamy, that is, the ability to produce either large gametes (egg) or small gametes (sperm), though the exact nature of this grounding remains contentious. Here we argue for a new conception of this relation. In our view, one’s sex doesn’t depend on the kind of gamete one is capable of making, but (...) on the kind of gamete one is designed to make, where design is understood in terms of an evolutionary or ontogenetic selection process. Specifically, we argue that what it is to be, say, male, is to have a part or process that has the (proximal or distal) biological function of producing sperm. We outline and defend our view, and sketch some implications for scientific and social problems related to sex. (shrink)

Ruth Millikan and Alvin Plantinga claim, roughly, that knowledge is true belief produced by processes in circumstances for which they are designed to yield truth. Neither offers the account as a conceptual analysis of knowledge. Instead, for Plantinga it represents the core concept of knowledge characterizing central cases, and for Millikan an empirically warranted theoretical definition of knowledge as a natural phenomenon. Counterexamples are then dismissed as appropriately called "knowledge" only in some analogically extended sense. I argue instead that a (...) definition of knowledge is better thought of, like an account of justice, as an explication, or a decision about what normative constraints to adopt. It reflects trade-offs in intuitive judgements and pragmatic concerns. and perhaps background theories, for the sake of some overall coherence. However the contentious scientific and historical claims that underwritetheir views gives us reason not to accept the design account's norms for knowledge. Further, the controversial character of these claims gives us reason not to rest an interpersonally acceptable account of knowledge on them. (shrink)

Ruth Millikan and Alvin Plantinga claim, roughly, that knowledge is true belief produced by processes in circumstances for which they are (successfully) designed to yield truth. Neither offers the account as a conceptual analysis of knowledge. Instead, for Plantinga it represents the core concept of knowledge characterizing central cases, and for Millikan an empirically warranted theoretical definition of knowledge as a natural phenomenon. Counterexamples are then dismissed as appropriately called "knowledge" only in some analogically extended sense. I argue instead that (...) a definition of knowledge is better thought of, like an account of justice, as an explication, or a decision about what normative constraints to adopt. It reflects trade-offs in intuitive judgements and pragmatic concerns. and perhaps background theories, for the sake of some overall coherence. However the contentious scientific and historical claims that underwritetheir views gives us reason not to accept the design account's norms for knowledge. Further, the controversial character of these claims gives us reason not to rest an interpersonally acceptable account of knowledge on them. (shrink)

This paper aims at contributing to a research agenda in engineering ethics by exploring the ethical aspects of engineering design processes. A number of ethically relevant topics with respect to design processes are identified. These topics could be a subject for further research in the field of engineering ethics. In addition, it is argued that the way design processes are now organised and should be organised from a normative point of view is an important topic for research.

The eminent historian and philosopher of biology, Michael Ruse, has written several books that explore the relationship of evolutionary theory to its larger scientific and cultural setting. Among the questions he has investigated are: Is evolution progressive? What is its epistemological status? Most recently, in "Darwin and Design: Does Evolution have a Purpose?," Ruse has provided a history of the concept of teleology in biological thinking, especially in evolutionary theorizing. In his book, he moves quickly from Plato and Aristotle (...) to Kant and such British thinkers as Paley and Whewell. His main focus, though, is on Darwin's theory and its subsequent fate. Ruse rests his history on some shaky historical and philosophic assumptions, particularly the unexamined notion that evolutionary theory is an abstract entity that is unproblematically realized in different historical periods. He also assumes that Darwin conceived nature as if it were a Manchester spinning loom -- a clanking, dispassionate machine. A more subtle analysis, which Ruse eschews, might discover that Darwin's conception of nature owed a strong debt to German Romanticism and that he contrived to infuse nature with moral and aesthetic values, not to suck them from nature. Ruse proves he is a thinker to contend with, and this essay is quite contentious. (shrink)

Community acceptance still remains a challenge for wind energy projects. The most popular explanation for local opposition, the Not in My Backyard effect, has received fierce criticism in the past decade. Critics argue that opposition is not merely a matter of selfishness or ignorance, but that moral, ecological and aesthetic values play an important role. In order to better take such values into account, a more bottom-up, participatory decision process is usually proposed. Research on this topic focusses on either stakeholder (...) motivations/attitudes, or their behavior during project implementation. This paper proposes a third research focus, namely the ‘objects’ which elicit certain behavioral responses and attitudes—the wind turbine and parks. More concretely, this paper explores Value Sensitive Design as way to arrive at wind turbines and parks that better embed or reflect key values. After a critical discussion of the notion of acceptance versus acceptability and support, the paper discusses existing literature on ecology and aesthetics in relation to wind turbine/park design, which could serve as ‘building blocks’ of a more integral VSD approach of the topic. It also discusses the challenge of demarcating wind park projects as VSD projects. A further challenge is that VSD has been applied mainly at the level of technical artifacts, whereas wind parks can best be conceptualized as socio-technical system. This new application would therefore expand the current practice of VSD, and may as a consequence also lead to interesting new insights for the VSD community. The paper concludes that such an outcome-oriented approach of wind turbines and park is worth exploring further, as a supplement to rather than a replacement of the process-oriented approach that is promoted by the current literature on community acceptance of wind parks. (shrink)

In the broadest sense, natural theology is the effort to gain knowledge of God from non-revealed sources – that is, from sources other than scripture and religious experience – but there is also a much narrower sense of natural theology: the construction of arguments for the existence of God from empirical evidence. This narrower sense is most strongly associated with the argument for God's existence from the appearance that the natural world has been constructed for a purpose. This argument is (...) referred to as ‘the Design Argument’. This chapter addresses a generic theological question confounding the Design Argument. Why would God design or create anything at all, much less a world like this one? Let us call this question ‘Why design?’. It is shown that answering WD entangles proponents of the Design Argument in age-old debates about divine freedom, divine moral perfection, and divine rationality. Despite the pretensions of some of its proponents, the Design Argument is not and never has been ‘strictly scientific’. (shrink)

Regulation by design (RBD) is a growing research field that explores, develops, and criticises the regulative function of design. In this article, we provide a qualitative thematic synthesis of the existing literature. The aim is to explore and analyse RBD’s core features, practices, limitations, and related governance implications. To fulfil this aim, we examine the extant literature on RBD in the context of digital technologies. We start by identifying and structuring the core features of RBD, namely the goals, (...) regulators, regulatees, methods, and technologies. Building on that structure, we distinguish among three types of RBD practices: compliance by design, value creation by design, and optimisation by design. We then explore the challenges and limitations of RBD practices, which stem from risks associated with compliance by design, contextual limitations, or methodological uncertainty. Finally, we examine the governance implications of RBD and outline possible future directions of the research field and its practices. (shrink)

It is argued that the design of decisions is a process that in many ways is shaped by social factors such as identities, values, and influences. To be able to understand how these factors impact organizational decisions, the focus must be set on the management level. It is the management that shoulders the chief responsibility for designing collective actions, such as decisions. Our propositions indicate that the following measures must be taken in order to improve the quality of organizational (...) decisions: 1. The identity of the people, involved in organizational decision making, affects the quality of decisions and should be taken into account in the design of decisions. 2. The decision maker or designer of decisions should engage the members of an organization to create a shared vision. 3. Getting the members of an organization to express and share common values should improve the decision making process. 4. Being able to socially influence the members of an organization, or other stakeholders involved, as well as letting them participate in the process, should improve the quality of decisions. (shrink)

The progress and development of the new era has given commercial illustration a new vitality, expanding and enhancing its commercial value and cultural connotation.However, under the influence of traditional mechanistic philosophical thought, there is a tendency of utilitarianization, mechanization, absolutization and fragmentation in China's commercial illustration in general, resulting in various reform measures facing difficulties and resistance, especially not conducive to the healthy and comprehensive development of packaging design.Ecological philosophy, as a systematic, holistic, processual and connected idea, is now (...) being widely used to deal with the relationship between human beings and society.By analyzing the close relationship between commercial illustration, which is an important design graphic language for cultural and creative packaging design, and cultural and creative product packaging, this paper tries to propose how commercial illustration is applied in cultural and creative packaging design under the ecological philosophy perspective.It summarizes the role of commercial illustration in cultural creative packaging design, elaborates the research on the innovation strategy of commercial illustration in cultural creative packaging design under the ecological philosophy perspective, and demonstrates the charm of commercial illustration in cultural creative packaging design. (shrink)

It was proposed that the data from Monte Carlo statistical investigations be subjected to analysis of variance methods rather than the conventional techniques of tabling, graphing, and inspecting the data. Two examples in which analysis of variance methods were applied to published Monte Carlo studies were presented. It was suggested that balanced factorial designs should be used whenever possible in Monte Carlo studies so that analysis of variance methods would be directly applicable. Finally, three advantages of analysis of variance methods (...) over conventional techniques were described and analysis of variance methods were contrasted with a possible alternative analytical method, multiple regression analysis. (shrink)

he design-based approach is a methodology for investigating mechanisms capable of generating mental phenomena, whether introspectively or externally observed, and whether they occur in humans, other animals or robots. The study of designs satisfying requirements for autonomous agency can provide new deep theoretical insights at the information processing level of description of mental mechanisms. Designs for working systems (whether on paper or implemented on computers) can systematically explicate old explanatory concepts and generate new concepts that allow new and richer (...) interpretations of human phenomena. To illustrate this, some aspects of human grief are analysed in terms of a particular information processing architecture being explored in our research group. We do not claim that this architecture is part of the causal structure of the human mind; rather, it represents an early stage in the iterative search for a deeper and more general architecture, capable of explaining more phenomena. However even the current early design provides an interpretative ground for some familiar phenomena, including characteristic features of certain emotional episodes, particularly the phenomenon of perturbance (a partial or total loss of control of attention). The paper attempts to expound and illustrate the design-based approach to cognitive science and philosophy, to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of the approach in generating interpretative possibilities, and to provide first steps towards an information processing account of `perturbant', emotional episodes. (shrink)

Decolonial approaches to technical design are part of a broader category of design methodologies, which actualize unfulfilled sociotechnical potentialities. In this paper, I present some decolonial theory concepts and discuss three decolonial approaches to illuminate philosophical debates that: 1) Can find in them clear traces of a third set of elements that shape every design/technology, along with the well-analyzed technical-scientific and ethical-political ones. In dialogue with Walter Vincenti and some others, I call these elements structured procedures, imagery (...) lexicon, and aesthetical values, which constitute the central aspects of Eugene Ferguson’s art of engineering; 2) Identify, starting from some Gilbert Simondon’s and Andrew Feenberg’s ideas, any invention as triply situated ; 3) Can be taught by these decolonial approaches about some of the mainstream philosophy of technology’s colonial limitations, becoming thus able to widen it. (shrink)

How computer games can be designed to create ethically relevant experiences for players. Today's blockbuster video games—and their never-ending sequels, sagas, and reboots—provide plenty of excitement in high-resolution but for the most part fail to engage a player's moral imagination. In Beyond Choices, Miguel Sicart calls for a new generation of video and computer games that are ethically relevant by design. In the 1970s, mainstream films—including The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver—filled theaters but also treated their (...) audiences as thinking beings. Why can't mainstream video games have the same moral and aesthetic impact? Sicart argues that it is time for games to claim their place in the cultural landscape as vehicles for ethical reflection. Sicart looks at games in many manifestations: toys, analog games, computer and video games, interactive fictions, commercial entertainments, and independent releases. Drawing on philosophy, design theory, literary studies, aesthetics, and interviews with game developers, Sicart provides a systematic account of how games can be designed to challenge and enrich our moral lives. After discussing such topics as definition of ethical gameplay and the structure of the game as a designed object, Sicart offers a theory of the design of ethical game play. He also analyzes the ethical aspects of game play in a number of current games, including Spec Ops: The Line, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, Fallout New Vegas, and Anna Anthropy's Dys4Ia. Games are designed to evoke specific emotions; games that engage players ethically, Sicart argues, enable us to explore and express our values through play. (shrink)

This article takes stock of the project of ecological democracy, a project that has been central to debates in Environmental Values since the late 1990s. Whilst we can identify quite distinct articulations of eco-democratic thinking emerging out of the fields of green political theory, postcolonial/feminist political ecology and science studies/radical geography, it is argued that these discussions have reached something of an impasse of late following the rise of climate scepticism, authoritarian populisms and technocratic eco-modernisms. Resurgent eco-authoritarian impulses and the (...) hankering for a 'green leviathan', a climate Lenin or a 'dictatorship of the sustainment' to resolve our climate crisis make it more important than ever to affirm the need for just, rapid and democratic post-carbon transitions. The article goes on to outline how emerging discussions in radical design studies focused on redirective practice in conjunction with a revived eco-socialist focus on labour-focused political ecologies might open up different possibilities for a materialist re-grounding of ecodemocratic discussions. It is suggested that a political ecology of design embedded in public institutions, the workplace and civil society could possibleyreground a more substantive vision of ecological democracy but also allow us to think about the forms of creative labour that could drive the just transition. (shrink)

Deals with topics and insight into the design and architecture of next-generation computing systems that deal with human and social problems. Processor and Internet technologies form the subject matter and focal point, while information and knowledge on the Internet delivered by next-generation mobile networks form the technical core presented.

This paper attempts to establish a systems-semiotic framework explaining creativity in the design process, where the design process is considered to have as its basis the cognitive process. The design process is considered as the interaction between two or more cognitive systems resulting in a purposeful and ongoing transformation of their already complex representational structures and the production of newer ones, in order to fulfill an ill-defined goal. Creativity is considered as the result of an emergence of (...) organizational complexity in each cognitive system participating in the design process, while it is trying to purposefully incorporate new constraints in its meaning structures. The meanings generated in each system are identified as the contingent and anticipatory content of its representations, and where self-organization is the dominant process in which they are continuously involved. Furthermore, Peircean semiotic processes appear to provide the functionality needed by the emergent representational structures in order to complete the cycle of a creative design process. Creativity originates in the abductive stage of the semiotic process, the fallible nature of which is maintained in the proposed framework by the fact that the respective emergent representations can be misfits. The nodal points of the framework are identified and analyzed showing that a cognitive system needs the whole interactive anticipatory cycle in order to engage in a creative design process. (shrink)

In his keynote address at a recent Intelligent Design (ID) conference at Biola University, ID leader William Dembski began by quoting "a well-known ID sympathizer" whom he had asked to assess the current state of the ID movement. Dembski explained that he had asked because, "after some initial enthusiasm on his part three years ago, his interest seemed to have flagged" (Dembski 2002). The sympathizer replied that..