This volume will be an essential resource for anyone working in the central areas of philosophy, and the starting point for future research in this fascinating ...

We argue that artificial networks are explainable and offer a novel theory of interpretability. Two sets of conceptual questions are prominent in theoretical engagements with artificial neural networks, especially in the context of medical artificial intelligence: Are networks explainable, and if so, what does it mean to explain the output of a network? And what does it mean for a network to be interpretable? We argue that accounts of “explanation” tailored specifically to neural networks have ineffectively reinvented the wheel. In (...) response to, we show how four familiar accounts of explanation apply to neural networks as they would to any scientific phenomenon. We diagnose the confusion about explaining neural networks within the machine learning literature as an equivocation on “explainability,” “understandability” and “interpretability.” To remedy this, we distinguish between these notions, and answer by offering a theory and typology of interpretation in machine learning. Interpretation is something one does to an explanation with the aim of producing another, more understandable, explanation. As with explanation, there are various concepts and methods involved in interpretation: Total or Partial, Global or Local, and Approximative or Isomorphic. Our account of “interpretability” is consistent with uses in the machine learning literature, in keeping with the philosophy of explanation and understanding, and pays special attention to medical artificial intelligence systems. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has reflected a growing interest in issues about the value of knowledge and the values informing epistemic appraisal. Is knowledge more valuable that merely true belief or even justified true belief? Is truth the central value informing epistemic appraisal or do other values enter the picture? Epistemic Value is a collection of previously unpublished articles on such issues by leading philosophers in the field. It will stimulate discussion of the nature of knowledge and of directions that might be (...) taken by the theory of knowledge. The contributors are Jason Baehr, Michael Brady, Berit Brogaard, Michael DePaul, Pascal Engel, Catherine Elgin, Alvin Goldman, John Greco, Stephen Grimm, Ward Jones, Martin Kusch, Jonathan Kvanvig, Michael Lynch, Erik Olsson, Wayne Riggs and Matthew Weiner. (shrink)

What are experts? Are there only experts in a subjective sense or are there also experts in an objective sense? And how, if at all, may non-experts recognize experts in an objective sense? In this paper, I approach these important questions by discussing Alvin I. Goldman's thoughts about how to define objective epistemic authority and about how non-experts are able to identify experts. I argue that a multiple epistemic desiderata approach is superior to Goldman's purely veritistic approach.

The Covid‐19 crisis has accelerated a trend toward burnout in health care workers, making starkly clear that burnout is especially likely when providing health care is not only stressful and sad but emotionally alienating; in such situations, there is no mental space for clinicians to experience authentic clinical empathy. Engaged curiosity toward each patient is a source of meaning and connection for health care providers, and it protects against sympathetic distress and burnout. In a prolonged crisis like Covid‐19, clinicians provide (...) care out of a sense of duty, especially the duty of nonabandonment. We argue that when duty alone is relied on too heavily, with fear and frustration continually suppressed, the risk of burnout is dramatically increased. Even before Covid‐19, clinicians often worked under dehumanizing and unjust conditions, and rates of burnout were 50 percent for physicians and 33 percent for nurses. The Covid‐19 intensification of burnout can serve as a wake‐up call that the structure of health care needs to be improved if we are to prevent the loss of a whole generation of empathic clinicians. (shrink)

Hermann Weyl was one of the early contributors to the mathematics of general relativity. This article argues that in 1929, for the formulation of a general relativistic framework of the Dirac equation, he both abolished and preserved in modified form the conceptual perspective that he had developed earlier in his “analysis of the problem of space.” The ideas of infinitesimal congruence from the early 1920s were aufgehoben in the general relativistic framework for the Dirac equation. He preserved the central idea (...) of gauge as a “purely infinitesimal” aspect of symmetries in a group extension schema. With respect to methodology, however, Weyl gave up his earlier preferences for relatively a-priori arguments and tried to incorporate as much empiricism as he could. This signified a clearly expressed empirical turn for him. Moreover, in this step he emphasized that the mathematical objects used for the representation of matter structures stood at the center of the construction, rather than interaction fields which, in the early 1920s, he had considered as more or less derivable from geometrico-philosophical considerations. (shrink)

Using relations of solidarity in global contexts, this article explores some of the debates about what constitutes solidarity. Three primary forms of solidarity are discussed, with particular attention to the different nature of the solidaristic relations and their moral obligations.

The paper proposes a novel solution to the problem of scope posed by natural language indefinites that captures both the difference in scopal freedom between indefinites and bona fide quantifiers and the syntactic sensitivity that the scope of indefinites does nevertheless exhibit. Following the main insight of choice functional approaches, we connect the special scopal properties of indefinites to the fact that their semantics can be stated in terms of choosing a suitable witness. This is in contrast to bona fide (...) quantifiers, the semantics of which crucially involves relations between sets of entities. We provide empirical arguments that this insight should not be captured by adding choice/Skolem functions to classical first-order logic, but in a semantics that follows Independence-Friendly Logic, in which scopal relations involving existentials are part of the recursive definition of truth and satisfaction. These scopal relations are resolved automatically as part of the interpretation of existentials. Additional support for this approach is provided by dependent indefinites, a cross-linguistically common class of special indefinites that can be straightforwardly analyzed in our semantic framework. (shrink)

John McDowell's conception of perceptual knowledge commits him to the claim that if I perceive that P then I am in a position to know that I perceive that P. In the first part of this essay, I present some reasons to be suspicious of this claim - reasons which derive from a general argument against 'luminosity' - and suggest that McDowell can reject this claim, while holding on to almost all of the rest of his conception of perceptual knowledge, (...) by supplementing his existing disjunctive conception of experience with a new disjunctive conception of perceiving. In the second part of the essay, I present some reasons for thinking that one's justification, in cases of perceptual knowledge, consists not in the fact that one perceives that P but in the fact that one perceives such-and-such. I end by suggesting that the disjunctive conception of perceiving should be understood as a disjunctive conception of perceiving such-and-such. (shrink)

In the chapter on Observing Reason in the Phenomenology, as well as in §368 of the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel deals with the life sciences of his time. There, he labels the methodology of its representatives, namely zoology and comparative anatomy, as external teleology. In this paper I want to show that by doing so he is actually discussing a general kind of functionalism. Thereby, I want to highlight a line of thought in Hegel's texts which represents a productive reading (...) of external teleology contrary to a destructive reading on which scholars have mainly focussed. (shrink)

Jennifer Hornsby's account of human action frees us from the temptation to think of the person who acts as 'doing' the events that are her actions, and thereby removes much of the allure of 'agent causation'. But her account is spoiled by the claim that physical actions are 'tryings' that cause bodily movements. It would be better to think of physical actions and bodily movements as identical; but Hornsby refuses to do this, seemingly because she thinks that to do so (...) would be to endorse the so-called 'standard causal story'. But Hornsby misses a possibility here, for we can insist on this identity claim without endorsing the standard story if we embrace an account which parallels the disjunctive account in the philosophy of perception. This will leave us with a picture of physical action that saves the insights of Hornsby's account without succumbing to its distortions. (shrink)

La pandemia del COVID-19 ha cambiado las formas de morir, gestionar y ritualizar las muertes. Este trabajo problematiza el dilema ético de dignificar la muerte, dando espacio a la singularidad en los ritos fúnebres, desde la perspectiva kantiana; versus su tecnificación que, desde el utilitarismo, homogeniza estos rituales para proteger las vidas. La pregunta es si, efectivamente, la protección sanitaria de la vida mediante la protocolización de los rituales fúnebres puede ser puesta en valor, en un momento tan determinante como (...) la muerte. Como conclusión, se considera la importancia de que estas medidas integren la diversidad cultural del país en la forma de afrontar las muertes. En este trabajo se expone, analiza y reflexiona sobre el dilema ético de la muerte digna, a partir de su simbolización expresada en los ritos fúnebres, desde un punto de vista kantiano; versus su afrontamiento pragmático que, desde el utilitarismo, produce una tecnificación de la muerte, que homogeniza y limita su expresión ritual para proteger las vidas de los sobrevivientes. La pregunta que se desprende de este problema ético-político es si, efectivamente, la protección sanitaria de la vida impuesta por la protocolización que restringe y homogeniza la realización de rituales fúnebres es algo que pueda ser puesto en valor, en un momento tan determinante como la muerte de un ser querido. A partir del análisis realizado y considerando la necesidad de tomar las medidas necesarias para evitar los contagios, se concluye la importancia de que estas medidas consideren fórmulas compensatorias que permitan a los deudos y a la sociedad, procesar las pérdidas humanas producto de la pandemia. (shrink)

In Political Solidarity, I argue that political solidarity is a relation between humans against an injustice that is human in origin. I further argue that political solidarity requires a decision-making model that acknowledges differences in social and epistemological privilege while also seeking to understand the situation of oppression or injustice and acknowledging “multiple, overlapping, and at times contradictory knowledge claims.” However, because of unequal commitments to solidaristic aims and because of a variety of methods for enacting solidaristic commitments, I argue (...) that political solidarity is not necessarily democratic in its decision-making.In this paper I ask whether these arguments stand up .. (shrink)

We explored the neural mechanisms allowing humans to report the subjective onset times of conscious events. Magnetoencephalographic recordings of neural oscillations were obtained while human subjects introspected the timing of sensory, intentional, and motor events during a forced choice task. Brain activity was reconstructed with high spatio-temporal resolution. Event-time introspection was associated with specific neural activity at the time of subjective event onset which was spatially distinct from activity induced by the event itself. Different brain regions were selectively recruited for (...) introspection of different event types, e.g., the bilateral angular gyrus for introspection of intention. Our results suggest that event-time introspection engages specific neural networks to assess the contents of consciousness. Subjective event times should therefore be interpreted as the result of complex interactions between introspection and experience networks, rather than as direct reproduction of the individual’s conscious state or as a mere post hoc interpretation. (shrink)

I argue that the right to solidarity may be understood as the negative right not to be hindered by social vulnerabilities in the exercise of citizen rights. I define social vulnerabilities as those vulnerabilities that result from structures of society. As a negative right, the right to solidarity shifts attention away from what is necessary for basic flourishing, and toward what is social structures that hinder full participation in other civic or political obligations and rights.

This article examines the particular moral obligations of solidarity focusing on the solidary commitment against injustice or oppression. I argue that political solidarity entails three relationships—to other participants in action, to a cause or goal, and to those outside the unity of political solidarity. These relationships inform certain obligations. Activism is one of those obligations and I argue that violent activism is incompatible with the other relations and duties of solidarity. Activists may find themselves confronted with a difficult choice between (...) respecting the relationships of political solidarity or employing physical violence in resistant self-defense against oppressive practices. -/- . (shrink)

_ Thinking and Being _, by KimhiIrad. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. xx + 166.

This paper advances a version of physicalism which reconciles the “a priori entailment thesis” (APET) with the analytic independence of our phenomenal and physical vocabularies. The APET is the claim that, if physicalism is true, the complete truths of physics imply every other truth a priori. If so, “cosmic hermeneutics” is possible: a demon having only complete knowledge of physics could deduce every truth about the world. Analytic independence is a popular physicalist explanation for the apparent “epistemic gaps” between phenomenal (...) and physical truths. The two are generally seen as incompatible, since the demon’s deductions seem to presuppose analytic connections between physical and phenomenal terms. I begin by arguing, in support of the APET, that implications from the complete truths of physics to phenomenal truths cannot be a posteriori. Such implications are (according to the physicalist) necessarily true. But they cannot be Kripke-style a posteriori necessities, since (according to the physicalist) the complete truths of physics fix any relevant a posteriori facts about the reference of terms. I then show how the physicalist can turn the tables: the demon can exploit the physical fixing of reference to bridge the gap between the vocabularies, by deducing when phenomenal and physical terms co-refer. This opens the way for a “type-C” physicalism, which accepts in-principle deducibility while still appealing to analytic independence to explain why we (who are not demons) find it impossible to see phenomenal-physical connections a priori. (shrink)

How is metaphysics related to the empirical sciences? Should metaphysics in general be guided by the sources, methods and results of the sciences? And what about the special case of the metaphysics of the social world: should it likewise be guided by the sources, methods and results of the social sciences? In her paper “Social Science as a Guide to Social Metaphysics?”, K. Hawley raises the question: If we are sympathetic to the project of naturalising metaphysics, how should we approach (...) the metaphysics of the social world? She proceeds by discussing three approaches to social metaphysics: inference to the best explanation from current social science, descriptive conceptual analysis, and normative, especially ‘ameliorative’ projects. At the end of her discussion, she reaches a rather pessimistic conclusion, especially as regards the IBE approach: “a number of phenomena indicate that the prospects for securely basing social metaphysics via inference to the best explanation from social science are currently faint. […] We need to look elsewhere if we are to develop a metaphysics of the social world.” In my comments on her paper, I try to re-animate the program of an inductive metaphysics by defending the idea that the method of inference to the best explanation should be the central method of justification for metaphysics in general and for social metaphysics in particular. (shrink)

Inferences from clinical research results to estimates of therapeutic effectiveness suffer due to various biases. I argue that predictions of medical effectiveness are prone to failure because current medical research overlooks the impacts of a particularly detrimental set of biases: meta-biases. Meta-biases are linked to higher-level characteristics of medical research and their effects are only observed when comparing sets of studies that share certain meta-level properties. I offer a model for correcting research results based on meta-research evidence, the bias dynamics (...) model, which employs regularly updated empirical bias coefficients to attenuate estimates of therapeutic effectiveness. (shrink)

This article examines the particular moral obligations of solidarity focusing on the solidary commitment against injustice or oppression. I argue that political solidarity entails three relationships—to other participants in action, to a cause or goal, and to those outside the unity of political solidarity. These relationships inform certain obligations. Activism is one of those obligations and I argue that violent activism is incompatible with the other relations and duties of solidarity. Activists may find themselves confronted with a difficult choice between (...) respecting the relationships of political solidarity or employing physical violence in resistant self-defense against oppressive practices. -/- . (shrink)

The significance of Max Black’s indistinguishable spheres for the nature of particles in quantum mechanics is discussed, focusing in particular on the use of the idea of weak indiscernibility. It is argued that there can be four such Black spheres but that five are impossible. It follows from this that Black’s example cannot serve as a model for indistinguishability in physics. But Black’s discussion of his spheres gave rise to the idea of weak discernibility and it is argued that such (...) predicates are unsatisfiable in the way intended. The underlying problem with weak discernibility spreads out to also undermine the whole notion that indistinguishability rests on a notion of the permutation invariance of particles. A better foundation is indicated. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a re-interpretation of qualitative and quantitative modeling from a representationalist perspective. In this view, both approaches attempt to construct abstract representations of empirical relational structures. Whereas quantitative research uses variable-based models that abstract from individual cases, qualitative research favors case-based models that abstract from individual characteristics. Variable-based models are usually stated in the form of quantified sentences. This syntactic structure implies that sentences about individual cases are derived using deductive reasoning. In contrast, case-based models are (...) usually stated using context-dependent existential sentences. This syntactic structure implies that sentences about other cases are justifiable by inductive reasoning. We apply this representationalist perspective to the problems of generalization and replication. Using the analytical framework of modal logic, we argue that the modes of reasoning are often not only applied to the context that has been studied empirically, but also on a between-contexts level. Consequently, quantitative researchers mostly adhere to a top-down strategy of generalization, whereas qualitative researchers usually follow a bottom-up strategy of generalization. Depending on which strategy is employed, the role of replication attempts is very different. In deductive reasoning, replication attempts serve as empirical tests of the underlying theory. Therefore, failed replications imply a faulty theory. From an inductive perspective, however, replication attempts serve to explore the scope of the theory. Consequently, failed replications do not question the theory per se, but help to shape its boundary conditions. We conclude that quantitative research may benefit from a bottom-up generalization strategy as it is employed in most qualitative research programs. Inductive reasoning forces us to think about the boundary conditions of our theories and provides a framework for generalization beyond statistical testing. In this perspective, failed replications are just as informative as successful replications, because they help to explore the scope of our theories. (shrink)

"G. E. M. Anscombe is one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Known primarily for influencing research in action theory and moral philosophy, her work also has relevance in the study of metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and politics. The Anscombian Mind provides a comprehensive survey of Anscombe's thought, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its enduring significance in contemporary debates. Divided into three clear parts, 24 chapters (...) by an international team of contributors address the following themes: ancient philosophy metaphysics mind and language Wittgenstein action and ethics politics religion and faith. Also included is Anscombe's 1948 Mary Somerville Fellowship Report, making this fascinating document easily available to readers for the first time. The Anscombian Mind is an indispensable resource for anyone studying and researching Anscombe herself, action theory, ethics, moral philosophy, Wittgenstein, and twentieth-century philosophy"--. (shrink)

This volume addresses the recent concern over the state of education in the U.S. today by tracing the history of educational theory from its classical roots to the reforms recommended by early and later liberals.

:Recent neuroimaging research on disorders of consciousness provides direct evidence of covert consciousness otherwise not detected clinically in a subset of severely brain-injured patients. These findings have motivated strategic development of binary communication paradigms, from which researchers interpret voluntary modulations in brain activity to glean information about patients’ residual cognitive functions and emotions. The discovery of such responsiveness raises ethical and legal issues concerning the exercise of autonomy and capacity for decisionmaking on matters such as healthcare, involvement in research, and (...) end of life. These advances have generated demands for access to the technology against a complex background of continued scientific advancement, questions about just allocation of healthcare resources, and unresolved legal issues. Interviews with professionals whose work is relevant to patients with disorders of consciousness reveal priorities concerning further basic research, legal and policy issues, and clinical considerations. (shrink)

Anscombe raises a difficulty for the very idea of quotation. Davidson seeks to dissolve this difficulty. But the difficulty is real. And its lesson is that, in quotation, language takes itself as its topic in a non-objectifying manner. The idea of a non-objectifying manner of being a topic is crucial, not merely for understanding quotation, but for understanding the distinctive form of sensory consciousness in which language is perceived.

A lengthy debate in the philosophy of the cognitive sciences has turned on whether the phenomenon known as ‘systematicity’ of language and thought shows that connectionist explanatory aspirations are misguided. We investigate the issue of just which phenomenon ‘systematicity’ is supposed to be. The much-rehearsed examples always suggest that being systematic has something to do with ways in which some parts of expressions in natural languages (and, more conjecturally, some parts of thoughts) can be substituted for others without altering well-formedness. (...) We show that under one construal this yields a grossly weak claim that is not just compatible with a narrow version of associationist psychology but essentially coincides with a formalization of its descriptive power. Under another construal we get a claim (apparently unintended) that requires natural languages to fall within the context-free class, a claim that most linguists regard as too strong. Looking more closely at this proposed reconstruction of systematicity leads us to endorse, with further illustrations, the suggestion of Johnson (2004) that systematicity as a matter of substitutability of co-categorial constituents for one another does not appearto hold of natural languages at all. The appeal of the ill-delineated notion of systematicity may lie in the fact that within certain subclasses of lexical items mutual intersubstitutability does seem to hold, and theexplanation for that lies in a limitation on human memory: we simply cannot learn separate privileges of syntactic distribution for all of the huge number of words and phrases that we know. (shrink)

John McDowell espouses a certain conception of the thinking subject: as an embodied, living, finite being, with a capacity for experience that can take in the world, and stand in relations of warrant to subjects' beliefs. McDowell presents this conception of the subject as requiring a related conception of the world: as not located outside the conceptual sphere. In this latter conception, idealism and common-sense realism are supposed to coincide. But I suggest that McDowell's conception of the subject scuppers this (...) intended coincidence. The upshot is a dilemma: McDowell can retain his conception of the subject, but lose the coincidence; or he can keep the coincidence, but abandon his conception of the subject. (shrink)

When someone thanks someone for something, or advises him against something, or refuses something from him, his action is directed not merely at but to the other. He addresses the other. But is it only actions that exemplify this mode of directedness? This essay argues that it is not.

In this paper, we study the parameters that come into play when assessing the truth conditions of say reports and contrast them with belief attributions. We argue that these conditions are sensitive in intricate ways to the connection between the interpretation of the complement of say and the properties of the reported speech act. There are three general areas this exercise is relevant to, besides the immediate issue of understanding the meaning of say: (i) the discussion shows the need to (...) go beyond the simplest view of propositional attitudes, which treats them as restricted quantifiers over worlds; (ii) the complex connections that must exist between the say report and its source speech act show that one has to be able to differentiate between various layers of meaning for the antecedent sentences; (iii) finally, this paper is a small step towards a typology of propositional attitudes that allows us to uncover the complex web of relationships that grammatical mood is sensitive to. (shrink)

In a recent article we argued that organizational ecology is not a Darwinian research program. John Lemos criticized our argumentation on various counts. Here we reply to some of Lemos’s criticisms.

Providing a compositional interpretation procedure for discourses in which descriptions of complex dependencies between interrelated objects are incrementally built is a key challenge for formal theories of natural language interpretation. This paper examines several quantificational phenomena and argues that to account for these phenomena, we need richly structured contexts of interpretation that are passed on between different parts of the same sentence and also across sentential boundaries. The main contribution of the paper is showing how we can add structure to (...) contexts in an incremental way, starting with the basic notion of context in classical first-order logic, i.e., interpretation contexts formalized as single total variable assignments. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page 75-77.

In this paper, we extend Michel Foucault’s final works on the ‘care of the self’ to an empirical examination of research practice in community-based research (CBR). We use Foucault’s ‘morality of behaviors’ to analyze interview data from a national sample of Canadian CBR practitioners working with communities affected by HIV. Despite claims in the literature that ethics review is overly burdensome for non-traditional forms of research, our findings suggest that many researchers using CBR have an ambivalent but ultimately productive relationship (...) with institutional research ethics review requirements. They understand and use prescribed codes, but adapt them in practice to account for the needs of participating community members, members of their research teams and the larger communities with whom they work. Complying with ethics protocols was seen as only the beginning, a minimum standard; our research suggests that the real ethical work happens in the field, where CBR practitioners encounter community members in diverse public roles and must forge ethical consensus across communities. CBR represents an ethical terrain in which practitioners challenge themselves to work differently, and as a result they care for themselves—and others—in ways that often resist the propensity for domination through public health research.‘…there are different ways to “conduct oneself” morally, different ways for the acting individual to operate, not just as an agent, but as an ethical subject of action.’ (Foucault, 1985: 26). (shrink)

This book focuses on major educational philosophies impacting Western education and makes sense of past and current trends placed in historical context. This third edition is updated with the swift changes taking place in education and looks at postmodernism as it has continued to develop during the past fifty years.