This paper presents the main topics, arguments, and positions in the philosophy of AI at present (excluding ethics). Apart from the basic concepts of intelligence and computation, the main topics of ar-tificial cognition are perception, action, meaning, rational choice, free will, consciousness, and normativity. Through a better understanding of these topics, the philosophy of AI contributes to our understand-ing of the nature, prospects, and value of AI. Furthermore, these topics can be understood more deeply through the discussion of AI; so (...) we suggest that “AI Philosophy” provides a new method for philosophy. (shrink)

Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must establish how relativistic spacetime emerges from their non-spatiotemporal structures. We argue that in order to secure this emergence, it is sufficient to establish that only those features of relativistic spacetimes functionally relevant in producing empirical evidence must be recovered. In order to complete this task, an account must be given of (...) how the more fundamental structures instantiate these functional roles. We illustrate the general idea in the context of causal set theory and loop quantum gravity, two prominent approaches to quantum gravity. (shrink)

Holism maintains that a phenomenon is more than the sum of its parts. Yet analysis--a mental process crucial to comprehension--involves dismantling the whole to grasp it piecemeal and relationally. Wading through such quandaries, Vincent Descombes guides readers to a deepened appreciation of the entity that enables understanding: the human mind.

ABSTRACT In recent years, debates on same-sex marriage and the recognition of transwomen as women have been raging. These debates often seem to revolve around the meaning of, respectively, the word ‘marriage’ and ‘woman’. That such debates should take place might be puzzling. It seems that if debates on gay and transgender rights revolve around the meaning of these words, then those in favor of same-sex marriage and of the recognition of transwomen as women have no room left to maneuver. (...) However, prima facie, the pro – and anti-, in both cases, have genuine disagreements over the meaning of these words: though the analyses of revisionary theorists are revisionary, they are analyses. Sally Haslanger and other philosophers in her wake have appealed to an anti-descriptivist externalist view of meaning to provide the conceptual foundations of this practice of revisionary theorizing: revisionary analyses bring to light what, unbeknownst to us, these words mean. In this paper, I argue that a descriptivist externalist view should be preferred instead. My argument rests on the thesis that what is contested in these debates is the meaning of the words ‘marriage’ and ‘women’ as used in the law. (shrink)

This article examines the domestic use of drones by law enforcement to gather information. Although the use of drones for surveillance will undoubtedly provide law enforcement agencies with new means of gathering intelligence, these unmanned aircrafts bring with them a host of legal and epistemic complications. Part I considers the Fourth Amendment and the different legal standards of proof that might apply to law enforcement drone use. Part II explores philosopher Wittgenstein’s notion of actional certainty as a means to interpret (...) citizens' expectations of privacy with regard to their patterns of movement over time. Part III discusses how the theory of actional certainty can apply to the epistemic challenge of determining what is a “reasonable” expectation of privacy under the law. This Part also investigates the Mosaic Theory as a possible reading of the Fourth Amendment. (shrink)

Ceux qui sont nés, comme l'auteur de ce livre, dans les dernières années du siècle précédent, qui ont eu leurs vingt ans au front, avaient encore grandi non seulement sans autos ni avions, ni radios, mais même, s'ils n'étaient pas riches, sans l'électricité chez eux. Lorsqu'ils sont tombés, à peine sortis de l'enfance, dans la machinerie de l'autre guerre, ils n'avaient eu pour formation que les humanités classiques, la morale de Kant, le symbolisme et les marches à pied. Depuis, en (...) une quarantaine d'années, à un rythme presque infernal, ils ont dû avaler, venant d'ailleurs un peu pêle-mêle, la révolution russe, les guerres civiles en Europe, la psychanalyse, la dialectique hégélienne, le marxisme, la phénoménologie, l'existentialisme, le national-socialisme, l'invasion de la France, la dislocation des empires coloniaux, la physique nucléaire, les bombes atomiques, le retournement contre l'Europe occidentale des idées et des connaissances qu'elle avait produites et qu'elle continuait à produire, la fin de son hégémonie. C'était peut-être beaucoup. C'était peut-être trop? Le résultat en a peut-être été la rupture définitive avec le passé? C'est ce que se demande Brice Parain. Il a eu souvent le sentiment qu'il risquait de se perdre, que courir les routes, se déplacer en avion, téléphoner un peu partout, savoir qu'il existe des camps de concentration en Europe, regarder de la peinture dite abstraite, faire tout dépendre de l'avenir, ne pouvait rien avoir de commun avec la vie qu'il avait menée au temps des gendarmes à cheval et des lampes à pétrole. Ce sentiment lui a fait peur. Il a voulu y réfléchir. L'Occident s'était peut-être trompé, à un moment ou à un autre? La liberté, telle qu'il l'a définie, a engendré la solitude et la solitude engendre le suicide. L'Occident a peut-être sacrifié la vie à ses ambitions? Faudra-t-il qu'il rapprenne à vivre pour éviter de périr? Brice Parain ne se résout pas à s'en tenir à la dialectique comme méthode de raisonnement pour comprendre l'histoire et la vie. Il croit que la dialectique est pareille à une ligne tortueuse qui a pourtant un axe. La connaissance de cet axe rétablirait une logique, qui permettrait de refaire une morale. Ajoutons qu'il sait le russe, s'étant mis à l'apprendre très vite après son retour de la Grande Guerre, en 1920. Depuis, sa réflexion s'est largement alimentée à la confrontation entre l'Occident et la Russie, qui lui était toujours présente. On n'aura pas de peine à en suivre les démarches. Elles nous sont exposées à travers le récit des simples événements d'une enfance et d'une adolescence aussi passionnées de sentiments que de pensée. (shrink)

In the context of Multiple criteria decision analysis, we present the necessary and sufficient conditions allowing to represent an ordinal preferential information provided by the decision maker by a Choquet integral w.r.t a 2-additive capacity. We provide also a characterization of this type of preferential information by a belief function which can be viewed as a capacity. These characterizations are based on three axioms, namely strict cycle-free preferences and some monotonicity conditions called MOPI and 2-MOPI.

Ce livre est composé de trois textes ayant pour sujet commun la dialectique : 1°) un essai sur Pascal, contenant une analyse de ses méthodes de raisonnement en mathématique. Pascal est le premier, dans l'ère moderne, qui ait opposé la dialectique à l'ancienne logique, qu'on appelait alors la scolastique ; 2°) un court traité dont l'objet est le développement d'une critique formelle de la dialectique, c'est-à-dire d'une critique portant sur le mode de raisonnement qu'on appelle de ce nom, quel que (...) soit le contenu des propositions qui le composent ; 3°) enfin une pièce de théâtre, dont l'auteur justifie l'introduction dans le volume en disant qu'elle n'est pas une illustration des thèses sur la dialectique exposées dans les essais, mais le récit d'un moment même de la dialectique, et sans doute le plus important, celui où la dialectique, se sentant enfermée dans sa propre incertitude, s'avoue impuissante à assurer la conduite de la vie. L'ensemble est un examen sévère de la dialectique comme méthode de pensée, et un effort pour proposer à la place un mode de communication plus sûr, plus simple également, donc plus universel. Pourquoi donc la dialectique ne devrait-elle pas, elle aussi, selon sa propre loi, céder la place à une autre solution, qui s'opposerait à elle comme elle s'est opposée à l'ancienne logique? (shrink)

While it is often said that robotics should aspire to reproducible and measurable results that allow benchmarking, I argue that a focus on benchmarking can be a hindrance for progress in robotics. The reason is what I call the ‘measure-target confusion’, the confusion between a measure of progress and the target of progress. Progress on a benchmark (the measure) is not identical to scientific or technological progress (the target). In the past, several academic disciplines have been led into pursuing only (...) reproducible and measurable ‘scientific’ results – robotics should be careful to follow that line because results that can be benchmarked must be specific and context-dependent, but robotics targets whole complex systems for a broad variety of contexts. While it is extremely valuable to improve benchmarks to reduce the distance be- tween measure and target, the general problem to measure progress towards more intelligent machines (the target) will not be solved by benchmarks alone; we need a balanced approach with sophisticated benchmarks, plus real-life testing, plus qualitative judgment. (shrink)

There is, in some quarters, concern about high–level machine intelligence and superintelligent AI coming up in a few decades, bringing with it significant risks for humanity. In other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science fiction. We wanted to clarify what the distribution of opinions actually is, what probability the best experts currently assign to high–level machine intelligence coming up within a particular time–frame, which risks they see with that development, and how fast they see these developing. We thus (...) designed a brief questionnaire and distributed it to four groups of experts in 2012/2013. The median estimate of respondents was for a one in two chance that high-level machine intelligence will be developed around 2040-2050, rising to a nine in ten chance by 2075. Experts expect that systems will move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. They estimate the chance is about one in three that this development turns out to be ‘bad’ or ‘extremely bad’ for humanity. (shrink)

Svätopluk Štúr is a strong critic of strands of German thought that emphasize the will to power as an organizing principle of human society. Štúr is particularly critical of Nietzsche’s vitalism, which Štúr believes culminated in national socialism and the destruction of the Second World War. This paper describes and examines Štúr’s criticism of a number of German thinkers and focuses especially on Štúr’s criticism of Nietzsche. Štúr criticizes Nietzsche’s emphasis on life over knowledge. Štúr offers a different philosophy of (...) life grounded in the dignity of human beings and the social consequences of ideas and actions. This paper concludes by examining what Štúr means by dignity in terms of a moral agent and as opposed to Nietzsche’s emphasis on vitalism. (shrink)

For years, phenomenological psychiatry has proposed that distortions of the temporal structure of consciousness contribute to the abnormal experiences described before schizophrenia emerges, and may relate to basic disturbances in consciousness of the self. However, considering that temporality refers mainly to an implicit aspect of our relationship with the world, disturbances in the temporal structure of consciousness remain difficult to access. Nonetheless, previous studies have shown a correlation between self disorders and the automatic ability to expect an event in time, (...) suggesting timing is a key issue for the psychopathology of schizophrenia. Timing disorders may represent a target for cognitive remediation, but this requires that disorders can be demonstrated at an individual level. Since cognitive impairments in patients with schizophrenia are discrete, and there is no standardized timing exploration, we focused on timing impairments suggested to be related to self disorders. We present the case report of AF, a 22 year old man suffering from schizophrenia, with no antipsychotic intake. Although AF shows few positive and negative symptoms and has a normal neurocognitive assessment, he shows a high level of disturbance of Minimal Self Disorders (SDs) (assessed with the EASE scale). Moreover, AF has a rare ability to describe his self and time difficulties. An objective assessment of timing ability (variable foreperiod task) confirmed that AF had temporal impairments similar to those previously described in patients, i.e., a preserved ability to distinguish time intervals, but a difficulty to benefit from the passage of time to expect a visual stimulus. He presents additional difficulties in benefitting from temporal cues and adapting to changes in time delays. The impairments were ample enough to yield significant effects with analyses at the individual level. Although causal relationships between subjective and objective impairments cannot be established, the results show that exploring timing deficits at the individual level is possible in patients with schizophrenia. Besides, the results are consistent with hypotheses relating minimal self disorders (SDs) to timing difficulties. They suggest that both subjective and objective timing investigations should be developed further so that their use at an individual level can be generalized in clinical practice. (shrink)

Technologies of democracy are instruments based on material apparatus, social practices and expert knowledge that organize the participation of various publics in the definition and treatment of public problems. Using three examples related to the engagement of publics in nanotechnology in France (a citizen conference, a series of public meetings, and an industrial design process), the paper argues that Science and Technology Studies provide useful tools and methods for the analysis of technologies of democracy. Operations of experiments and public demonstrations (...) can be described, as well as controversies about technologies of democracy giving rise to counter-experiments and counter-demonstrations. The political value of the analysis of public engagement lies in the description of processes of stabilization of democratic orders and in the display of potential alternative political arrangements. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Gualtiero Piccinini and Carl Craver have argued that psychology is not distinct from neuroscience. Many have argued that Piccinini and Craver’s argument is unsuccessful. However, none of these authors have questioned the appropriateness of Piccinini and Craver’s argument for their key premise—that functional analyses are mechanism sketches. My first and main goal in this paper is to show that Piccinini and Craver offer normative considerations in support of what is a descriptive premise and to provide some (...) guidelines on how to argue for this premise. My second goal is to show that the distinctness question should be of great significance for philosophy of cognitive science. (shrink)

Les Espagnols et le sexe est une contribution à l’histoire de la sexualité dans l’Espagne du xixe et du premier tiers du xxe siècle : le projet de Jean-Louis Guereña constitue un apport important à la compréhension de la construction du sujet libéral espagnol, puisqu’on lui reconnaît ici des pratiques intimes, ou privées, au moment où s’affermit la notion d’« ordre public ». La question principale qui se pose à la lecture de l’ouvrage tient précisément à ce qu’il est postulé (...) que la sexualité... (shrink)

Criminal law as public law -- Criminal law as public law -- Criminal law as public law -- Mass incarceration and the theory of punishment -- Reasons to criminalize -- Formalism and pragmatism in criminal procedure -- Responsibility without resentment.

This open access monograph offers a detailed study and a systematic defense of a key intuition we typically have, as human beings, with respect to the nature of time: the intuition that the future is open, whereas the past is fixed. For example, whereas it seems unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first world war. -/- The book contributes, in particular, three major and original insights. First, it provides a coherent, (...) non-metaphorical, and metaphysically illuminating elucidation of the intuition. Second, it determines which model of the temporal structure of the world is most appropriate to accommodate the intuition, and settles on a specific version of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT). Third, it puts forward a naturalistic foundation for GBT, by exploiting recent results of our best physics (viz. General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Gravity). Three main challenges are addressed: the dismissal of temporal asymmetries as non-fundamental phenomena only (e.g., thermodynamic or causal phenomena), the epistemic objection against GBT, and the apparent tension between GBT and relativistic physics. It is argued that the asymmetry between the open future and the fixed past must be grounded in the temporal structure of the world, and that this is neither precluded by our epistemic device, nor by the latest approaches to Quantum Gravity (​e.g., the Causal Set Theory). -/- Aiming at reconciling time as we find it in ordinary experience and time as physics describes it, this ​innovative book ​will raise the interest of both academic researchers and ​graduate students working on the philosophy of time. More generally, it ​presents contents of interest for all metaphysicians and non-dogmatic philosophers of physics. (shrink)

In this paper, I first introduce one of the most prominent objections against the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT), the so-called ‘epistemic objection’, according to which GBT provides no way of knowing that our time is the objective present and, therefore, leads at best to absolute skepticism about our temporal location, at worst to the quasi-certainty that we are located in the objective past. Secondly, I express my dissatisfaction regarding the various traditional attempts to address this objection, especially Merricks (...) (2006), Forrest (2004) and Correia and Rosenkranz (2018). Thirdly, I show that the passage of time leads to an anti-essentialist picture of natural kinds. Finally, I develop my own solution to the epistemic objection, based on the continued existence of bare particulars. (shrink)

Similar to “parasitism” and “mutualism”, the concept of commensualism defines a kind of biological association, i.e. the neutral interaction between two different species. This paper shows that “commensualism” was initially defined by the Belgian zoologist and parasitologist Pierre-Joseph van Beneden (1809–1894) as referring to biological associations between organic individuals from different species. According to van Beneden, one individual derives biological advantages from this kind of association, whereas the other one remains neutral, i.e. does not receive any biological loss or gain. (...) Tracing the further history of the concept, the paper demonstrates that, while “commensalism” was initially created and used in zoology, it was taken up in other biological disciplines shortly afterward, such as botany and the emerging field of ecology. However, the experimental demonstration of the phenomenon of commensualism remained difficult. This, in turn, contributed to the nomadic existence of this concept in the life sciences of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Similar to “parasitism” and “mutualism”, the concept of commensualism defines a kind of biological association, i.e. the neutral interaction between two different species. This paper shows that “commensualism” was initially defined by the Belgian zoologist and parasitologist Pierre-Joseph van Beneden (1809–1894) as referring to biological associations between organic individuals from different species. According to van Beneden, one individual derives biological advantages from this kind of association, whereas the other one remains neutral, i.e. does not receive any biological loss or gain. (...) Tracing the further history of the concept, the paper demonstrates that, while “commensalism” was initially created and used in zoology, it was taken up in other biological disciplines shortly afterward, such as botany and the emerging field of ecology. However, the experimental demonstration of the phenomenon of commensualism remained difficult. This, in turn, contributed to the nomadic existence of this concept in the life sciences of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The philosophy of AI has seen some changes, in particular: 1) AI moves away from cognitive science, and 2) the long term risks of AI now appear to be a worthy concern. In this context, the classical central concerns – such as the relation of cognition and computation, embodiment, intelligence & rationality, and information – will regain urgency.

This chapter contains sections titled: Pluralistic Ignorance Modal Operator Epistemology Agents and Inquiry Methods Multimodal Systems Knowledge Transmissibility Knowledge Transmissibility and Public Announcement Knowledge Transmissibility and Pluralistic Ignorance References.

L’utilisation de l’intelligence artificielle dans le domaine de la santé pose la question des limites de celle-ci : jusqu’où devons-nous employer l’intelligence artificielle, la médecine pourrait-elle être déshumanisée et perdre son sens \textit{princeps}? Le philosophe Gilbert Simondon (1924-1989) propose durant la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle une philosophie de la technique. Il s’agit de repenser la technique, non pas comme aliénation, mais comme possibilité d’évolution, avec le développement de la technique. Cet article présente ainsi l’intelligence artificielle comme une technique que (...) l’humain doit s’approprier afin de limiter les risques de déshumanisation et d’optimisation du potentiel de l’intelligence artificielle. La pensée de Gilbert Simondon est alors un outil philosophique et éthique permettant d’intégrer l’intelligence artificielle dans le domaine de la médecine, en conservant tout son sens éthique. (shrink)