This paper attempts to bring the work of Gilbert Simondon into conversation with contemporary discourse on climate change and the Anthropocene. Though his work pre-dates the coining of the term, Simondon, with his non-anthropomorphic view of technology, is in many ways a philosopher of the Anthropocene. In this paper I contrast Simondon’s philosophy to the popular idea that technology is something we can use to adapt to the practical problems of the Anthropocene. I will begin by looking briefly at the (...) narrative of adaptation in the Anthropocene. I will then discuss Simondon’s philosophy of individuation in order to understand why he rejects these narratives of adaptation. Next, I will look at his own ideas on the role that can be played by technology. Ultimately, I hope to describe why, for Simondon, a view of technology that centres on relation rather than on a particular view of the human subject is crucial to human life. The significance of a non-anthropomorphic approach to technology extends beyond the current ecological crisis to all manner of injustice, violence, and misunderstanding between human groups as well as the environment. (shrink)

A Physicalist Manifesto is a full treatment of the comprehensive physicalist view that, in some important sense, everything is physical. Andrew Melnyk argues that the view is best formulated by appeal to a carefully worked-out notion of realization, rather than supervenience; that, so formulated, physicalism must be importantly reductionist; that it need not repudiate causal and explanatory claims framed in non-physical language; and that it has the a posteriori epistemic status of a broad-scope scientific hypothesis. Two concluding chapters argue (...) in detail that contemporary science provides no significant empirical evidence against physicalism and some considerable evidence for it. Written in a brisk, candid and exceptionally clear style, this 2003 book should appeal to professionals and students in philosophy of mind, metaphysics and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Research on the cognitive consequences of bilingualism typically proceeds by labeling participants as “monolingual” or “bilingual” and comparing performance on some measures across these groups. It is well-known that this approach has led to inconsistent results. However, the approach assumes that there are clear criteria to designate individuals as monolingual or bilingual, and more fundamentally, to determine whether a communication system counts as a unique language. Both of these assumptions may not be correct. The problem is particularly acute when participants (...) are asked to classify themselves or simply report how many languages they speak. Participants' responses to these questions are shaped by their personal perceptions of the criteria for making these judgments. This study investigated the perceptions underlying judgments of bilingualism by asking 528 participants to judge the extent to which a description of a fictional linguistic system constitutes a unique language and the extent to which a description of a fictional individual's linguistic competence qualifies that person as bilingual. The results show a range of responses for both concepts, indicating substantial ambiguity for these terms. Moreover, participants were asked to self-classify as monolingual or bilingual, and these decisions were not related to more objective information regarding the degree of bilingual experience obtained from a detailed questionnaire. These results are consistent with the notion that bilingualism is not categorical and that specific language experiences are important in determining the criteria for being bilingual. The results impact interpretations of research investigating group differences on the cognitive effects of bilingualism. (shrink)

Alexandre Kojve (1902-1968) was Hegel's most famous interpreter, reading Hegel through the eyes of Marx and Heidegger simultaneously. The result was a wild if not hypnotic mlange of ideas. In this book, Drury reveals the nature of Kojve's Hegelianism and the extraordinary influence it has had on French postmodernists on the left (Raymond Queneau, Georges Bataille, and Michel Foucault) and American postmodernists on the right (Leo Strauss, Allan Bloom, and Francis Fukuyama). According to Drury, Kojve followed Hegel in (...) thinking that reason has triumphed in the course of history, but it is a cold, soulless, instrumental, and uninspired rationalism that has conquered and disenchanted the world. Drury maintains that Kojve's conception of modernity as the fateful triumph of this arid rationality is the cornerstone of postmodern thought. Kojve's picture of the world gives birth to a dark romanticism that manifests itself in a profound nostalgia for what reason has banished - myth, madness, disorder, spontaneity, instinct, passion, and virility. In Drury's view, these ideas romanticize the gratuitous violence and irrationalism that characterize the postmodern world. (shrink)

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected President, and the conservative revolution emerged. Who provoked this revolution? Author Shadia Drury provides a fascinating answer to the question, as she looks at the work of Leo Strauss, a German Jewish emigre and scholar, who was one of the most influential individuals in the conservative movement. Among his disciples are Chief Justice Clarence Thomas and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States for his first term and the conservative revolution that was slowly developing in the United States finally emerged in full-throated roar. Who provoked the conservative revolution? Shadia Drury provides a fascinating answer to the question as she looks at the work of Leo Strauss, a seemingly reclusive German Jewish emigré and scholar, who was one of the most influential individuals in the conservative movement, a man widely seen as (...) the godfather of the Republican party’s failed “Contract With America.” Among his students were individuals such as Alan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind. Strauss influenced the work of Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb and William Kristol, as well as Chief Justice Clarence Thomas and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Drury delves deeply into Strauss’s work at the University of Chicago where he taught his students that, if they truly loved America, they must save her from her fateful enchantment with liberalism. Leo Strauss and the American Right is a fascinating piece of work that anyone interested in understanding our current political situation will want to read. (shrink)

As pressures on the service economy from globalisation increase, new techniques may be appropriate for designing service systems. This paper examines the tradition of service quality and argues that its unique characteristics, such as the joint production of offerings by operators and customers, could benefit from the techniques of human factors. The interaction between human factors and quality is reviewed and four issues are extracted that should be directly applicable to service encounters. These are interface design, the understanding of error (...) causation, a design for operator well-being and human/automation function allocation. A framework is proposed for considering technology explicitly in the design of service systems. (shrink)

Critical comments on David Papineau's idea that people find physicalism about phenomenal consciousness unbelievable because they commit what he calls the 'antipathetic fallacy'.

Derk Pereboom has recently elaborated a formulation of non-reductive physicalism in which supervenience does not play the central role and realization plays no role at all; he calls his formulation “robust non-reductive physicalism”. This paper argues that for several reasons robust non-reductive physicalism is inadequate as a formulation of physicalism: it can only rule out fundamental laws of physical-to-mental emergence by stipulating that there are no such laws; it fails to entail the supervenience of the mental on the physical; it (...) appeals to two relations that are physicalistically unacceptable; and it rules out certain epistemically possible ways that the world might turn out to be according to current physics. This paper further argues that the difficulties faced by Pereboom’s robust non-reductive physicalism can all be avoided if physicalism is instead formulated by appeal to a carefully-defined relation of realization. (shrink)

This paper argues in unprecedented empirical and philosophical detail that, given only what science has discovered about pain, we should prefer the materialist hypothesis that pains are purely material over the dualist hypothesis that they are immaterial. The empirical findings cited provide strong evidence for the thesis of empirical supervenience: that to every sort of introspectible change over time in pains, or variation among pains at a time, there corresponds in fact a certain sort of simultaneous neural change over time, (...) or variation at a time. The empirical supervenience of pain on the neural is shown in turn to favor the hypothesis that pains are, in a sense that is made precise, purely material. (shrink)

The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization plunged the United States into a devastating public health crisis. While we have some evidence of the deep harms that ab...

A critical study of Rea's book, focusing on his case for three theses: that naturalism must be viewed as a ‘research programme’; that naturalism ‘cannot be adopted on the basis of evidence’; and that naturalists cannot be justified in accepting realism about material objects.

Twenty years ago, Richard Boyd suggested that physicalism could be formulated by appeal to a notion of realization, with no appeal to the identity of the non-physical with the physical. In (Melnyk 2003), I developed this suggestion at length, on the basis of one particular account of realization. I now ask what happens if you try to formulate physicalism on the basis of other accounts of realization, accounts due to LePore and Loewer and to Shoemaker. Having explored two new (...) formulations of physicalism, I conclude that my 2003 formulation remains the most promising. (shrink)

This paper introduces the term "Hempel's Dilemma" to refer to the following challenge to any formulation of physicalism that appeals to the content of physics: if physical properties are those mentioned as such in current physics, then physicalism is probably false; but if they are those mentioned as such in a completed physics, then, since we have no idea what completed physics will look like, the resulting formulation of physicalism will lack content that is determinable by us now. It shows (...) how the first horn of Hempel's Dilemma can be avoided. The key is an account of what is required for the acceptance of physicalism according to which to accept physicalism does not require assigning to physicalism a high probability, merely a higher probability than is assigned to any of its relevant rivals. This account of acceptance is shown to satisfy all the intuitive demands of the scientific realist, so that to be a physicalist is simply to be a scientific realist regarding physicalism. (shrink)

Biodiverse ecosystems play a key role in maintaining life on earth. In response to rapid declines in biodiversity throughout the world, the UN Biodiversity Summit 2020 brought together world leaders to discuss potential solutions. We draw on cognitive linguistics, critical discourse analysis and ecolinguistics in analysing the summit contributions. All speakers blended vocabulary from the fields of BUSINESS and NATURE; in doing so, they were able to advocate solving biodiversity loss by implementing approaches commonly found in business. In addition, three (...) main ‘moves’ were employed in these speeches: the state of nature was lamented, the interdependent relationship between humans and nature was mentioned and a call to action was given. It is argued that relying on the BUSINESS–NATURE blend for solutions to environmental problems serves to maintain the status quo and may obscure pathways to transformational change. Linguistic strategies for more effective environmental communication are suggested. (shrink)

Changing values may give rise to intergenerational conflicts, like in the ongoing climate change and energy transition debate. This essay focuses on the interpretative question of how this value change can best be understood. To elucidate the interpretation of value change, two philosophical perspectives on value are introduced: Berlin’s value pluralism and Dworkin’s interpretivism. While both authors do not explicitly discuss value change, I argue that their perspectives can be used for interpreting value change in the case of climate change (...) and the energy transition. I claim that Berlin’s pluralistic account of value would understand the value change as an intergenerational conflict and therefore provide a too narrow and static ground for understanding ongoing value change. Instead, by exploring Dworkin’s standpoint in moral epistemology, this essay distills a more encompassing perspective on how values may relate, converge, overlap, and change, fulfilling their functions in the course of climate change and energy transition. This perspective is further detailed by taking inspiration from Shue’s work on the interpretation of equity in the climate change debate. I argue that the resulting perspective allows us to see value change as a gradual process rather than as a clash between generations and their values. (shrink)

Grounding is all the rage in analytical metaphysics. But here I give three reasons for not appealing to a primitive relation of grounding in formulating physicalism. (1) It probably can't do the key job it would need to do. (2) We don't need it, since we already have realization. (3) It is probably not even consistent with physicalism.

In earlier work, I proposed and defended a formulation of physicalism that was distinctive in appealing to a carefully-defined relation of physical realization. Various philosophers (Robert Francescotti, Daniel Stoljar, Carl Gillett, and Susan Schneider) have since presented challenges to this formulation. In the present paper, I aim to show that these challenges can be overcome.

Обсуждается широкий круг проблем взаимоотношения сознания и материи. Особое внимание уделено анализу структуры и свойств сознания в рамках информационной эволюции. А также – анализу роли специфических (невычислительных) свойств сознания в процедуре классических и квантовых измерений. В частности, подробно обсуждается вопрос о «клонировании» сознания (возможности копирования его свойств его на новый материальный носитель). Мы надеемся, что сформулированный нами обобщенный принцип дополнительности откроет новые пути для исследования проблем сознания в рамках фундаментальной физической картины мира.

Though there is much else in Levine's book that is also worthy of discussion, this critical study focuses exclusively on his central positive thesis that phenomenal consciousness exhibits two features that “both resist explanatory reduction to the physical: subjectivity and qualitative character” (p. 175).

Can physicalism (or materialism) be non-reductive? I provide an opinionated survey of the debate on this question. I suggest that attempts to formulate non-reductive physicalism by appeal to claims of event identity, supervenience, or realization have produced doctrines that fail either to be physicalist or to be non-reductive. Then I treat in more detail a recent attempt to formulate non-reductive physicalism by Derk Pereboom, but argue that it fares no better.

This paper argues against both conceptual and linguistic analysis as sources of a priori knowledge. Whether such knowledge is possible turns on the nature of concepts. The paper's chief contention is that none of the main views about what concepts are can underwrite the possibility of such knowledge.

An ontological approach as a tool for managing the processes of constructing mathematical models based on interval data and further use of these models for solving applied problems is proposed in this article. Mathematical models built using interval data analysis are quite effective in many applications, as they have “guaranteed” predictive properties, which are determined by the accuracy of experimental data. However, the application of mathematical modeling methods is complicated by the lack of software tools for the implementation of procedures (...) for constructing this type of mathematical models, creating an ontological model that operates by the categories of the subject area of mathematical modeling, regardless of the modeling object proposed in this article. This approach has made it possible to generate tools for mathematical modeling of various objects based on the interval data analysis for any software development environment selected by the user. The technology of creating the software on the basis of the developed ontological superstructure for mathematical modeling using the interval data for different objects, as well as various forms of user interface implementation, is presented in this article. A number of schemes, which illustrate the technology of using the ontological approach of mathematical modeling based on interval data, are presented, and the features of its interpretation when solving environmental monitoring problems are described. (shrink)

I argue that a certain version of physicalism, which is viewed by both its admirers and its detractors as non-reductionist, in fact entails two claims which, though not reductionist in the currently most popular sense of 'reductionist', conform to the spirit of reductionism sufficiently closely to compromise its claim to be a comprehensively non-reductionist version of physicalism. Putatively non-reductionist versions of physicalism in general, I suggest, are likely to be non-reductionist only in some senses, but not in others, and hence (...) to disappoint those who wish to be physicalists but still to remain soft and cuddly non-reductionists. (shrink)

This is a critical, but sympathetic, examination of the manifesto for naturalized metaphysics that forms the first chapter of James Ladyman and Don Ross's 2006 book, Every Thing Must Go, but it has wider implications than this description suggests.

Supervenience physicalism holds that all facts, of whatever type, globally supervene upon the physical facts, even though neither type-type nor token-token nonphysical-physical identities hold. I argue that, invoked like this, supervenience is metaphysically mysterious, needing explanation. I reject two explanations (Lewis and Forrest). I argue that the best explanation of the appearance of supervenience is an error-theoretic, projectivist one: there are no nonphysical properties, but we erroneously project such onto the physical world in a systematic way, yielding the appearance of (...) supervenience. (shrink)

Robert Pargetter has argued that we know other minds through an inference to the best explanation. My aim is to show, by criticising Pargetter's account, that this approach to the problem of other minds cannot, as it stands, deliver the goods; it might be part of the right response to the problem, but it cannot be the whole story. More precisely, I will claim that Pargetter does not successfully reconstruct how ordinary people in everyday life come reasonably to believe in (...) other minds, given only the gross behavioural evidence actually available to them. I will suggest, contrary to both Pargetter in particular and this approach in general, that reference to one's own case does, after all, play an indispensable evidential role in the justification of belief in other minds, something which obviously marks an important disanalogy between the case of other minds and that of such theoretical entities as electrons. (shrink)

The primary objective was to review pediatric ethics consultations at a large academic health center over a nine year period, assessing demographics, ethical issues, and consultant intervention. The secondary objective was to describe the evolution of PECs at our institution. This was a retrospective review of Consultation Summary Sheets compiled for PECs at our Academic Health Center between January 2008 and April 2017. There were 165 PECs reviewed during the study period. Most consult requests came from the inpatient setting, with (...) the Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care Units being the highest utilizers. Consultation utilization increased over the study period. The most common patient age was less than one year. Physicians were most likely to request consultation. Patient Best Interest, Withholding/Withdrawing of Life Sustaining Therapy, and Provider Moral Distress were ethical issues most commonly identified by the consultants. Making recommendations was the most common consultant intervention. The ethics consultation process evolved over time from informal provider discussions, to a hospital infant care review committee, to a pediatric only consultation service, to a combined adult/pediatric consultation service, with variable levels of salary support for consultants. Ethics consultation requests are growing at our institution. Similarities in identified ethical issues exist between our findings and existing literature, however meaningful comparisons remains elusive secondary to variability in approaches to investigation and reporting. A combined paid/volunteer/trainee ethics consultation service model appears sustainable and real time ethics consultation is feasible using this approach. (shrink)

Two ways are considered of formulating a version of retentive physicalism, the view that in some important sense everything is physical, even though there do exist properties, e.g. higher-level scientific ones, which cannot be type-identified with physical properties. The first way makes use of disjunction, but is rejected on the grounds that the results yield claims that are either false or insufficiently materialist. The second way, realisation physicalism, appeals to the correlative notions of a functional property and its realisation, and (...) states, roughly, that any actual property whatsoever is either itself a physical property or else is, ultimately, realised by instances of physical properties. Realisation physicalism is distinctive since it makes no claims of identity whatsoever, and involves no appeal to the dubious concept of supervenience. After an attempt to formulate realisation physicalism more precisely, I explore a way in which, in principle, we could obtain evidence of its truth. (shrink)

Discussion of Searle's case against strong AI has usually focused upon his Chinese Room thought-experiment. In this paper, however, I expound and then try to refute what I call his abstract argument against strong AI, an argument which turns upon quite general considerations concerning programs, syntax, and semantics, and which seems not to depend on intuitions about the Chinese Room. I claim that this argument fails, since it assumes one particular account of what a program is. I suggest an alternative (...) account which, however, cannot play a role in a Searle-type argument, and argue that Searle gives no good reason for favoring his account, which allows the abstract argument to work, over the alternative, which doesn't. This response to Searle's abstract argument also, incidentally, enables the Robot Reply to the Chinese Room to defend itself against objections Searle makes to it. (shrink)

_Purpose._ To substantiate the definition of technics as the attributive characteristics of a human being and the necessity of its orientation towards human flourishing in the context of new anthropological models of the 21st century. _Theoretical basis._ Correlation between technics, technology and the human essence is examined. The role of technics is traced at different historical stages of human development. Negative and positive effects of digital technology development upon a contemporary human being is analysed in the light of new anthropological (...) models: homo technologicus, homo digitalis and homo eudaimonicus. The content of a new worldview-value paradigm of defining goals of technology is outlined. _Originality._ Transformation of the role of technics correlates with value and worldview shifts in person’s understanding of his/her purpose in both natural and social worlds. Nowadays, philosophical analysis of anthropological dimension of technics and technology opens a horizon for seeking effective solutions in the face of the contemporary challenges and anti-utopian threats by means of focusing on the fact that, indeed, technological development is subordinate to the humanist goal that is flourishing, wellbeing and comprehensive development of a human being. _Conclusions._ The essence of technology reveals not through its functional but anthropogenic definitions in a sense of a source of institutionalization and in a sense of a source of realization of a human way of self-identification and self-objectification of human subjectivity. Technics/technology is the attributive characteristics of human essence and being: a human being is as much human as much he/she is a creator of technics. The purpose of technics is not to master the nature and to transform the world; technics is, above all, a tool of human self-improvement and self-creation through broadening the horizon of human capacities. The analysis of new modern anthropological models shows that it is the orientation of technology/technology towards human flourishing that is, on the one hand, a response to the existential demands of modern man, and on the other hand, a way of preventing future threats related to technological development. (shrink)

We report the results of an exploratory study that examines the judgments of climate scientists, climate policy experts, astrophysicists, and non-experts (N = 3367) about the factors that contribute to the creation and persistence of disagreement within climate science and astrophysics and about how one should respond to expert disagreement. We found that, as compared to non-experts, climate experts believe that within climate science (i) there is less disagreement about climate change, (ii) methodological factors play less of a role in (...) generating disagreements, (iii) fewer personal or institutional biases influence climate research, and (iv) there is more agreement about which methods should be used to examine relevant phenomena we also observed that the uniquely American political context predicted experts’ judgments about some of these factors. We also found that, in regard to disagreements concerning cosmic ray physics, and commensurate with the greater inherent uncertainty and data lacunae in their field, astrophysicists working on cosmic rays were generally more willing to acknowledge expert disagreement, more open to the idea that a set of data can have multiple valid interpretations, and generally less quick to dismiss someone articulating a non-standard view as non-expert, than climate scientists were in regard to climate science. (shrink)

This paper presents an irreducibly inductive argument for physicalism based on the causal closure of the physical (for which it argues), and defends it against various detractors.

Written with a student audience in mind, this article surveys the issues raises by the attempt to formulate, argue for, and explore the implications of a comprehensively physicalist view of the world.

For most of the history of prejudice research, negativity has been treated as its emotional and cognitive signature, a conception that continues to dominate work on the topic. By this definition, prejudice occurs when we dislike or derogate members of other groups. Recent research, however, has highlighted the need for a more nuanced and “inclusive” (Eagly 2004) perspective on the role of intergroup emotions and beliefs in sustaining discrimination. On the one hand, several independent lines of research have shown that (...) unequal intergroup relations are often marked by attitudinal complexity, with positive responses such as affection and admiration mingling with negative responses such as contempt and resentment. Simple antipathy is the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, there is mounting evidence that nurturing bonds of affection between the advantaged and the disadvantaged sometimes entrenches rather than disrupts wider patterns of discrimination. Notably, prejudice reduction interventions may have ironic effects on the political attitudes of the historically disadvantaged, decreasing their perceptions of injustice and willingness to engage in collective action to transform social inequalities.These developments raise a number of important questions. Has the time come to challenge the assumption that negative evaluations are inevitably the cognitive and affective hallmarks of discrimination? Is the orthodox concept of prejudice in danger of side-tracking, if not obstructing, progress towards social justice in a fuller sense? What are the prospects for reconciling a prejudice reduction model of change, designed to get people to like one another more, with a collective action model of change, designed to ignite struggles to achieve intergroup equality? (shrink)

The relevance of the research of current problem is that the development of information and digital technologies contributes to digital development of the society, which is based on new wave of technological progress. The purpose of the research is to show how informative revolution of the XX1 century contributes formation of developmental concept of information-digital technologies in the conditions of the electronic era; to identify contradictory phenomena that contribute to the reduction of labor as a result of progressive robotics, which (...) is being introduced through digital technologies. The technologies that are used today to replace people are different; the need for human resources is reduced thanks to robots, automation and computerization, and other high-tech gadgets. Methodology. The methods of theoretical analysis - deduction and induction, historical and logical, comparative and system analysis, informational method, which contribute insight into the essence of the studied phenomenon as a complex phenomenon and dynamic process. Results : It has been proven that, thanks to various well-known developments in information digital technologies and robotics, many experts believe that society is at an early stage of the new industrial revolution. This type of revolution in the future can change the way people live and work, just as a steam engine did 200 years ago. Technological unemployment is one of the main reasons for introducing the concept of development of information and digital technologies in the conditions of the electronic era, which has contributed to increasing the overall unemployment rate in Western countries over the past 30 years. The development of information-computer technologies, as well as other types of automation and the Internet, played a significant role in shaping the concept of information-digital technologies. Conclusion. Digital society focuses on the development of human resources; therefore, in connection with the introduction of the concept of development of information and digital technologies, many workplaces with cheap labor can disappear. The world is turning into a digital society and the world is ruled by a figure, the world is controlled by intelligence, intelligence, algorithms and digitalization. The digital society consists of a set of algorithms that are controlled by information and computer technologies that penetrate digital management, which is based on intellectual and rational power, represented by intellectual and creative human resources. It is human resources that develop robotics, artificial intelligence, computerization, automation, robotics, which are based on the activity of algorithms. These varieties of digital society accelerate the potential for long-term productivity gains through intellectualization. Practical recommendations. Formation of the concept of development of information and digital technologies in the digital era will contribute to the development of information bases of the society, which is based on advanced technologies, small business development, which is based on networked intelligent platforms, which requires the creation of jobs in the Internet and the search for new types of employment. (shrink)