A fundamental fact about human minds is that they are never truly alone: all minds are steeped in situated interaction. That social interaction matters is recognized by any experimentalist who seeks to exclude its influence by studying individuals in isolation. On this view, interaction complicates cognition. Here, we explore the more radical stance that interaction co-constitutes cognition: that we benefit from looking beyond single minds toward cognition as a process involving interacting minds. All around the cognitive sciences, there are approaches (...) that put interaction center stage. Their diverse and pluralistic origins may obscure the fact that collectively, they harbor insights and methods that can respecify foundational assumptions and fuel novel interdisciplinary work. What might the cognitive sciences gain from stronger interactional foundations? This represents, we believe, one of the key questions for the future. Writing as a transdisciplinary collective assembled from across the classic cognitive science hexagon and beyond, we highlight the opportunity for a figure-ground reversal that puts interaction at the heart of cognition. The interactive stance is a way of seeing that deserves to be a key part of the conceptual toolkit of cognitive scientists. (shrink)

A number of attempts have been made to conceptualise legal reasoning along falsificationist lines. This paper criticises a recent one by Bernhard Schlink. After familiarising the reader with falsificationism, I argue that falsificationism is premised on an epistemological asymmetry between singular observation statements and universal hypotheses, and that absent such an asymmetry in the context of statutory interpretation, framing jurisprudence in falsificationist terms is unwarranted and misleading. To get off the ground, legal falsificationism would need to combine with some kind (...) of broadly intuitionist moral cognitivism, but even then, it would still misrepresent what is going on in legal reasoning. The arguments in this paper apply mutatis mutandis to all falsificationist theories of legal and ethical reasoning. I point to some by Albert, Canaris and Larenz. (shrink)

E. Fr. A. Baur repräsentiert einen durch die Berliner Erwedtung, die Befreiungskriege und die in Schleiermacher, Fries und Fichte idealistisch gebrochene Aufklärung geprägten Frömmigkeitstypus. Schönheit, gefühlsmäßiges Erleben, Selbstreflexion und die Geschichtlidikeit der Gotteserfahrung sind der Bezugsrahmen für die religiöse Erfahrung, inhaltlich bestimmt durch die in der kirchenmusikalisdien Reformbewegung relgiös-ästhetisdie Stimmung von politischem Aufbruch, Patriotismus, christozentrischer Kirdilichkeit und mittelbarer Abhängigkeit vom Universum. In der erwecklidivermittlungstheologischen Predigt soll die Gemeinde in diesen Erfahrungen weitergeführt werden. Der Freiheitsgedanke und der Patriotismus werden von A. (...) Baur in der Turnbewegung Jahns lebendig gehalten. Differenzen zwischen A. Baur und Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy sind in mehrfacher Hinsicht zu verzeichnen gewesen. In der Häuslichkeit und der Freizeitgestaltung wird die städtische Bildungskultur fortgeführt, und die frauliche Existenz ist in besonderer Weise Spiegel religiöser Erfahrung. Innerhalb des kirchenrechtlich-institutionellen Spielraums gelingt eine Ausweitung der sozialen Fürsorge, und durch die zwedigebundene freie Vereinstätigkeit werden die aufkommenden Bedürfnisse kirdilich integriert und sollen analog zum Gustav-Adolph-Verein die Kultur christlich durchdringen. Die Christologie vermittelt die Kategorien für die als bedeutsam erlebten Personen. Die Teilhabe an ihrer vermittelnden und er-lösenden Tätigkeit ermöglicht die Fortsetzung der von Jesus Christus gewollten geistigen Erhebung, die in der Verklärung der Personen vorgestellt wird. Die Industrie stellt das durch sie ausgedrückte Lebensgefühl grundsätzlich in Frage. (shrink)

Albert Lautman (1908-1944) was a French philosopher of mathematics whose work played a crucial role in the history of contemporary French philosophy. His ideas have had an enormous influence on key contemporary thinkers including Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou, for whom he is a major touchstone in the development of their own engagements with mathematics. Mathematics, Ideas and the Physical Real presents the first English translation of Lautman's published works between 1933 and his death in 1944. Rather than being (...) preoccupied with the relation of mathematics to logic or with the problems of foundation, which have dominated philosophical reflection on mathematics, Lautman undertakes to develop an understanding of the broader structure of mathematics and its evolution. The two powerful ideas that are constants throughout his work, and which have dominated subsequent developments in mathematics, are the concept of mathematical structure and the idea of the essential unity underlying the apparent multiplicity of mathematical disciplines. This collection of his major writings offers readers a much-needed insight into his influence on the development of mathematics and philosophy. (shrink)

The past twenty-five years have seen a major renewal of interest in the topic of a priori knowledge. In the sixteen essays collected here, which span this entire period, philosopher Albert Casullo documents the complex set of issues motivating the renewed interest, identifies the central epistemological questions, and provides the leading ideas of a unified response to them.

This paper discusses the pluralist theory of reparations for historical injustice offered by Daniel Butt (Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 24(5):1161–75, 2021). Butt attempts to vindicate purely past-regarding corrective duties in response to Alasia Nuti’s historical-structural model of reparations. I agree with Butt that reparative justice requires both past-regarding and future-looking structural duties. And I agree with him that Nuti’s model leaves out purely past-regarding duties. I argue, however, that Butt does not offer a genuinely pluralist account. I present minimal (...) necessary conditions for past-regarding (corrective) justice and demonstrate that the past-regarding duties Butt advocates do not meet these conditions. The past-regarding duties Butt offers collapse into the kinds of distributive (structural) duties from which he attempts to separate them. Yet, I suggest these shortcomings are instructive and sketch a path forward for a genuinely pluralist account of reparations. A genuinely pluralist account must follow this path in order to vindicate the intuitions that motivate both past-regarding duties and the structural injustice model. (shrink)

The notion of “individuality” in Plotinus is one of the most discussed. Throughout the Enneads, the problem of the individual subject arises from the complexity in understanding the relation between man and soul. To the intelligible man, also known as the inner or first man, a second man is added, so that “we have come to be the pair of them” 14.28-30). This question has been extensively addressed from different angles that lead either to a purely structuralist solution, or to (...) its criticism and the search for a more stable definition of subjective identity. The thesis that we will defend in this article, and that will indicate our position in the debate, tries to give a new perspective of the issue alluding to the sphere of life and its forms. The continuity between the different men will be determined by the continuity between their different forms of life, a primary issue to which the problem of individuality and the different modes of consciousness are subject. (shrink)

From one of the world's most important and enduring minds, Albert Einstein's ideas, thoughts, and philosophies on the world and its people. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Less Erroneous Pictures. Whalers’ Knowledge in Nineteenth‐Century Natural History, Oceanography, and Literature. This paper uses the iconoclasm of Herman Melville's Moby‐Dick as a point of departure to examine the problem of representing whales pictorially. Focussing on the use of images in cetological works and whaling logbooks, the paper investigates how the whalers’ knowledge, which served the hunting, killing, and economic exploitation of whales, came to be inscribed in the antithetical work of natural historians who were increasingly interested in living organisms. (...) This paper argues that Melville's juxtaposition of whalers’ and naturalists’ knowledge runs parallel with a dichotomy, along which natural histories, travelogues, and thematic maps of oceanography constitute the whale as an object of knowledge. It concludes by suggesting that, at the same time, this dichotomy is repeatedly undermined for the sake of the whale's representation. (shrink)

Bringing expert knowledge to bear in an open and deliberative way to help solve pressing social problems is a major concern today, when technocratic and bureaucratic decision making often occurs with little or no input from the general public. Albert Dzur proposes an approach he calls “democratic professionalism” to build bridges between specialists in domains like law, medicine, and journalism and the lay public in such a way as to enable and enhance broader public engagement with and deliberation about (...) major social issues. Sparking a critical and constructive dialogue among social theories of the professions, professional ethics, and political theories of deliberative democracy, Dzur reveals interests, motivations, strengths, and vulnerabilities in conventional professional roles that provide guideposts for this new approach. He then applies it in examining three practical arenas in which experiments in collaboration and power-sharing between professionals and citizens have been undertaken: public journalism, restorative justice, and the bioethics movement. Finally, he draws lessons from these cases to refine this innovative theory and identify the kinds of challenges practitioners face in being both democratic and professional. (shrink)

Can arguments and their properties influence the development of issue polarisation in debates among artificial agents? This paper presents an agent-based model of debates with logical constraints based on the theory of dialectical structures. Simulations on this model reveal that the exchange of arguments can drive polarisation even without social influence, and that the usage of different argumentation strategies can influence the obtained levels of polarisation.

Albert Musschenga | : The central question of this article is, Are animals morally responsible for what they do? Answering this question requires a careful, step-by-step argument. In sections 1 and 2, I explain what morality is, and that having a morality means following moral rules or norms. In sections 3 and 4, I argue that some animals show not just regularities in their social behaviour, but can be rightly said to follow social norms. But are the norms they (...) follow also moral norms? In section 5, I contend, referring to the work of Shaun Nichols, that the basic moral competences or capacities are already present in nonhuman primates. Following moral rules or norms is more than just acting in accordance to these norms; it requires being motivated by moral rules. I explain, in section 6, referring to Mark Rowlands, that being capable of moral motivation does not require agency; being a moral subject is sufficient. Contrary to moral agents, moral subjects are not responsible for their behaviour. Stating that there are important similarities between animal moral behaviour and human, unconscious, automatic, habitual behaviour, I examine in section 7 whether humans are responsible for their habitual moral behaviour, and if they are, what then the grounds are for denying that moral animals are responsible for their behaviour. The answer is that humans are responsible for their habitual behaviour if they have the capacity for deliberate intervention. Although animals are capable of intervention in their habitual behaviour, they are not capable of deliberate intervention. | : La question centrale dans cet article est celle de savoir si les animaux sont moralement responsables de ce qu’ils font. Répondre à cette question nécessite une argumentation minutieuse et progressive. Dans les sections 1 et 2, j’explique ce qu’est la moralité, et qu’être doté de moralité signifie de se conformer à des règles ou à des normes morales. Dans les sections 3 et 4, je pose que certains animaux ne se contentent pas de montrer des régularités dans leur comportement social, mais qu’ils suivent aussi véritablement des normes sociales. Toutefois, les normes qu’ils suivent sont-elles morales? Dans la section 5, je prétends, en me référant aux travaux de Shaun Nichols, que les compétences ou capacités morales de base sont déjà présentes chez les primates non humains. Respecter des règles ou des normes morales est bien plus que d’agir conformément à ces normes; cela requiert d’être motivé par des règles morales. Dans la section 6, me référant à Mark Rowlands, j’explique que d’être capable de motivation morale ne nécessite pas d’être un agent moral; le fait d’être un sujet moral suffit. Contrairement aux agents moraux, les sujets moraux ne sont pas responsables de leur comportement. Affirmant qu’il y a de grandes similitudes entre le comportement moral d’un animal et le comportement inconscient, automatique et habituel d’un humain, je me penche, dans la section 7, sur la question de savoir si les humains sont responsables de leur comportement moral habituel, et si tel est le cas, sur quelle base on peut alors nier le fait que les animaux sont eux aussi responsables de leur comportement. La réponse à cette question est que les humains sont responsables de leur comportement habituel s’ils disposent d’une capacité d’intervention réfléchie, délibérée. Bien que les animaux soient capables d’intervenir dans leurs comportements habituels, ils ne peuvent le faire de manière réfléchie, délibérée. (shrink)

This paper examines the paradoxical transparency involved in training machine-learning models. Existing literature typically critiques the opacity of machine-learning models such as neural networks or collaborative filtering, a type of critique that parallels the black-box critique in technology studies. Accordingly, people in power may leverage the models’ opacity to justify a biased result without subjecting the technical operations to public scrutiny, in what Dan McQuillan metaphorically depicts as an “algorithmic state of exception”. This paper attempts to differentiate the black-box abstraction (...) that wraps around complex computational systems from the opacity of machine-learning models. It contends that the degree of asymmetry in knowledge is greater in the former than the latter. In the case of software systems, software codes are difficult to understand as only software experts with sufficient domain knowledge are equipped to formulate a sound critique. In contrast, the meanings of trained parameters in a machine-learning model are obscure even to the data scientists who configure and train the model. Hence, the asymmetry of knowledge lies only in how data examples are collected, the choice and configuration of machine-learning models, and the specification of features in model design. Under the trend of algorithmic decision-making proliferating with machine-learning heuristics, the paper contends that the more symmetric distribution of knowledge in machine learning could lead to a more transparent production process if proper policies are in place. (shrink)

This paper conducts a philosophical inquiry into past empirical research that reveals emotional coupling and category confusion between the human and the social robot. It examines whether emotional coupling and category confusion would increase or diminish the reification of human emotion and the human milieu by examining whether they fulfill the ideal of openness in technology. The important theories of openness, from the respective proposals of open industrial machines by Gérard-Joseph Christian and Karl Marx, to Umberto Eco’s critique of open (...) art and Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of open technology, are in agreement that openness is the condition for realizing the potentiality for transcending the existing aesthetic, technical, or social structure, and that the realization of potentiality would diminish the reification of the human milieu. The therapeutic effect of emotional coupling with social robots seems to fulfill this ideal of open technology, whereas category confusion seems to increase rather than diminish reification. If people confuse the robot with the human, they risk losing sight of the unpredictability of other human beings that is essential to human development. This paper concludes that it is possible to avoid category confusion by building social robots without giving them a human-like appearance. (shrink)

Albert and De Ruiter provide an introduction to the Conversation Analytic approach to ‘repair’: the ways in which people detect and deal with troubles in speaking, hearing and understanding in conversation. They explain the basic turn‐taking structures involved, provide examples, explain recent developments in the field and highlight some important points of contact and contrast with work in the Cognitive Sciences.

L'absurde, le suicide, etc. Premier essai philosophique (1942) de l'auteur. Indispensable (ou presque) à tout apprenti philosophe.

Contra el “Yo soy” de la Modernidad, explicitado y hasta ejecutado como “Yo soy uno de tantos”, Heidegger realza con Kierkegaard el instante ejemplar de la “repetición”. Es ella la que llama a Heidegger desde Aristóteles, “repetido” desde las nociones de pólis y philía, con centro cordial en el eû zên. Ello implica una mutación de la idea religiosa de “culpa” en el rasgo existentivo de la “deuda” de estar-siendo-sidos: cada uno de nosotros somos deudores de la existencia del otro, (...) en cuanto héteros, en el mundo compartido; tal la mutación concomitante de la procura sustitutoria por aquella que, brotando de antemano, va hacia el poder-ser del otro. Ésta sería la “ética” originaria de Heidegger, si dejamos resonar en ella el êthos en que se forja comunidad. (shrink)

This book proposes a holistic transdisciplinary approach to sustainability as a subject of social sciences. At the same time, this approach shows new ways, as perspectives of philosophy, political science, law, economics, sociology, cultural studies and others are here no longer regarded separately. Instead, integrated perspectives on the key issues are carved out: Perspectives on conditions of transformation to sustainability, on key instruments and the normative questions. This allows for a concise answer to urgent and controversial questions such as the (...) following: Is the EU an environmental pioneer? Is it possible to achieve sustainability by purely technical means? If not: will that mean to end of the growth society? How to deal with the follow-up problems? How will societal change be successful? Are political power and capitalism the main barriers to sustainability? What is the role of emotions and conceptions of normality in the transformation process? To which degree are rebound and shifting effects the reason why sustainability politics fail? How much climate protection can be claimed ethically and legally e.g. on grounds of human rights? And what is freedom? Despite all rhetoric, the weak transition in energy, climate, agriculture and conservation serves as key example in this book. It is shown how the Paris Agreement is weak with regard to details and at the same time overrules the growth society by means of a radical 1,5-1,8 degrees temperature limit. It is shown how emissions trading must – and can – be reformed radically. It is shown why CSR, education, cooperation and happiness research are overrated. And we will see what an integrated politics on climate, biodiversity, nitrogen and soil might look like. (shrink)

RESUMENLa filosofía del último Schelling debiera entenderse más bien como una hermenéutica de la libertad, cuyos soportes metódicos serían la dialéctica y la narración. La primera, al contrario de la hegeliana, se escendiría en un desequilibrio que pasa a tensión por contraposición de los extremos y que es al fin superada por un tercer término que se yergue libremente sobre los dos pasos anteriores: una dialéctica, pues, discontinua por superación, no por asunción. A su vez, y en una recuperación suo (...) modo de la filosofía kantiana de la historia, la narración corresponde a una dinámica de la historia, igualmente discontinua (sin posibilidad de ser predeterminada en su curso) y escandida por eventos, en un proceso de retroducción del sentido y de producción de narratividad: ya no «ciencia» (en el alto sentido del hegelianismo) sino un trabajoso quehacer libre de los hombres libres. Si se quiere: la búsqueda de una todavía impensable compenetración de filosofía y religión.PALABRAS CLAVESCRISTIANISMO EXOTÉRICO Y ESOTÉRICO, RELIGIÓN FILOSÓFICA, REVELACIÓN (OFFENBARUNG: ACCIÓN DE DEJAR EN FRANQUÍA LO IMPREPENSABLE), HERMENÉUTICA DE LA LIBERTAD, DIALÉCTICA DE LAHISTORIA, ÉXTASIS DE LA RAZÓN, QUERER (WOLLEN)ABSTRACTThe later philosophy of Schelling should be rather understood as a hermeneutics of freedom, with dialectics and narration as its methodological basis. Unlike Hegelian, Schellingian dialectics splits into an imbalance, that leads to a tension in which the extremes are opposed. This tension is ultimately overcome by a third term, that raises in its freedom over the other two: a case of discontinuous dialectics, in the sense of overcoming, not of sublating. On the other hand, in a recovery /suo modo/ of Kantian philosophy of history, narration would be a dynamics of history, also discontinuous (non-predeterminable in its course) internally scanned by events, in a process of retroduction of meaning and of production of normativity: not a «science» (in the high Hegelian sense) anymore, but a laborious free task performed by free men. In other words: a search of a still unthinkable compenetration of philosophy and religion.KEYWORDSEXOTERIC CHRISTIANITY AND ESOTERIC, PHILOSOPHICAL RELIGION,REVELATION (OFFENBARUNG), FREEDOM HERMENEUTICS, DIALECTICSOF HISTORY, ECSTASY OF REASON, WANT ( WOLLEN ). (shrink)

Formulating a metaphysical definition of human play faces three main difficulties. First, for many years the very possibility, or need, for such a definition has been questioned. Second, very often...

The Philosophy of Modern Song: curious title, a curious book. If you bought it, as I did, because you are a devoted Dylan fan, hoping to find new Dylan songs inside, or at least new Dylan prose, you will be disappointed. In the photo of three musicians on the cover, none of them is Dylan. The one on the left is Little Richard. Who are the other two? Nowhere are we told their names, nor the names of the people in (...) any of the other photos, except for the sixty-six featured artists, though we will recognize many. The photo on the back cover might or might not be of the interior of Izzy Young's “Folklore Center,” reminiscent of Dylan's early days in Greenwich Village in the Sixties, when, together with my guitarist husband, I got to hear him perform after hours at the Gaslight and knew him well enough to say Hi when passing on the street.The basis for selecting the sixty-six songs anthologized and commented on is not immediately obvious. This is not a collection of Dylan's underappreciated favorites, though the taste represented is certainly eclectic and the choices are often surprising. The title does not help the reader who has not yet got her bearings... Philosophy? As if to justify his use of the word, Dylan eventually offers a lengthy comment on Albert Camus, but how relevant is that comment to these songs? And the word modern, too, means so many things—a sudden divergence from the past in the arts and literature; up-to-date and therefore good. These songs are not that kind of modern. If anything, the book looks backward, across the years of Dylan's long life to his musical awakening. Because we are almost the same age, I recognize the hodgepodge of styles and influences assembled here as belonging mostly to the early Fifties, when, like Bob, I was entering my teens by listening to, even dancing to, songs on the radio before I fell asleep at night. Enough about me! But no more apt basis for classifying these songs is suggested. They are not arranged alphabetically or chronologically.As for the anthologized songs, each one, once named, receives a commentary, and every commentary is called a chapter, and every chapter is divided into two parts, spelled out in letters as bold as a movie marquee. We are given the title of each song, the date of its release, and the name of the songwriter. The first part of each commentary consists of a paraphrase of “events” in the song, told almost exclusively in the second-person you rather than the more conventional I or the third-person he or she. Here is a passage from Dylan's paraphrase of “Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins: You get on well with most people, and you put up with a lot, and you hardly get caught off guard, but your shoes are something else. Minor things may annoy you, but you rise above them. Having your teeth kicked in, being pounded senseless, being dumped on and discredited, but you don't put any weight on that, none of it is as real to you as your shoes. They're priceless and beyond monetary worth.The paraphrase goes on for almost six pages, and to what end? The second half of each commentary, indicated by changes in the type, takes a few steps back to consider the sociological implications of the song in the context of its time. For instance, from the second half of the commentary on “Blue Suede Shoes”: “Shoes reveal character, station, and personality.” But Dylan does not use the opportunity to talk about his own character, station, personality. His associations with Carl Perkins and “Blue Suede Shoes” morph into an anecdote about a man called “Iron Felix, trusted consort to Lenin and Stalin.”A lengthy list of all required photo credits fills the two back pages but is printed in type so small it is almost illegible. If you want more information, and more importantly if you want to experience the songs discussed, your best bet is to search for the recordings on YouTube and to follow along, reading Dylan's commentary, one song at a time, while listening. Or, I hear rumors that we will need to purchase another book, the audio version of Philosophy of Modern Song, not yet released.Every song has its commentary, but nothing about this organization is stable, and as soon as the reader/listener thinks she has discovered a rationale for the order of the works selected, she is met with an exception. Basically, these seem to be songs about which Dylan has something anecdotal to say. More usefully, perhaps, they are organized around certain themes—those that have always preoccupied him: man's inhumanity to man, injustice, self-deception, the human situation. The anonymous author of the blurb on the jacket promises a master class in songwriting, but, if it exists at all, that lecture is exhausted in one or two observations, such as: “ ‘El Paso’ is built on five stanzas, each one two verses and a bridge and then returning to the next stanza.... ”It was almost fifty pages into the book that the sense of something missing overcame me. It was not only the words of the songs and the music that were missing; it was the author, the central intelligence that I love, the singer and songwriter whose name is credited on the cover but who never appears in the book, not even in a photograph. What I missed was Dylan. He had removed himself from his book's pages, except perhaps for a single instance: “You're an eighty-year old man, being wheeled around in a home for the elderly, and the nurses are getting on your nerves.... ”Has Bob Dylan grown weary of himself and all of his creations? The commentaries are not about Bob. In the whole book, the line quoted above may be the only exception. Does he refuse the “first person singular in the hopes of transcending ego”? Maybe; but we want to hear our master's voice. As for the philosophy of song? Besides the remarks on Camus, there is only one commentary in which Dylan explicitly states anything like a philosophy, and that is the one on “Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me,” written and performed by Joe Shaver. The song has a philosophical point of view: “Keep moving, it's better, let the train keep on rolling.”. (shrink)

The past twenty-five years have seen a major renewal of interest in the topic of a priori knowledge. In the sixteen essays collected here, which span this entire period, philosopher Albert Casullo documents the complex set of issues motivating the renewed interest, identifies the central epistemological questions, and provides the leading ideas of a unified response to them.