Formal epistemology is a growing field of philosophical research. It is also evolving, with the subject matter of formal epistemology papers changing considerably over the past two decades. To quantify the ways in which formal epistemology is changing, I generate a stochastic block topic model of the abstracts of papers classified by PhilPapers.org as pertaining to formal epistemology. This model identifies fourteen salient topics of formal epistemology abstracts at a first level of abstraction, and four topics at a second level (...) of abstraction. I then study diachronic trends in the degree to which formal epistemology abstracts written in a given year are likely to contain words associated with a particular topic, beginning in 2000 and continuing to 2020. My findings suggest that there has been a marked decline in the likelihood of a given formal epistemology abstract being about logical approaches to belief revision. On the other hand, over the past two decades, the salience of probabilistic techniques in formal epistemology has increased, as has the salience of work at the intersection of formal epistemology and some areas of philosophy of science. (shrink)

Empirical research has recently emerged as a key method for understanding the nature of causation, and our concept of causation. One thread of research aims to test intuitions about the nature of causation in a variety of classic cases. These experiments have principally been used to try to resolve certain debates within analytic philosophy, most notably that between proponents of transference and dependence views of causation. The other major thread of empirical research on our concept of causation has investigated the (...) role that normative considerations play in causal judgments. These experimental results suggest that philosophical accounts of our concept of causation should take a broader view of what might be relevant. For both lines of research, we describe some of the significant experiments and outline key philosophical morals that have been drawn, all while pointing out various limitations. We conclude by considering other kinds of empirical research that should be philosophically interesting for those studying the nature of causation and our concept of causation. In particular, we point towards the need for philosophical research about causal perception, causal reasoning, and causal learning, as well as ways in which this research could play a role in prescriptive metaphysics. (shrink)

A survey of the outstanding developments in Soviet philosophical logic shows that the formal and dialectical logicians have resolved most of the issues that divided them in the early 1950s. In orientation they are both converging on the avant-garde of English-speaking logicians who regard formalization as irrelevant for solving the essential problems of philosophical logic. Soviet dialecticians consider their logic to be a rapprochement with epistemology that will result in a logic that is concerned with the content and genetic development (...) of concepts. Such a logic will provide a methodology of science that can encompass the creative growth of science, in contrast to the positivists' fixation on the 'logic of the finished research report'. (shrink)

We call beliefs reasonable or unreasonable, justified or unjustified. What does this imply about belief? Does this imply that we are responsible for our beliefs and that we should be blamed for our unreasonable convictions? Or does it imply that we are in control of our beliefs and that what we believe is up to us? Reason Without Freedom argues that the major problems of epistemology have their roots in concerns about our control over and responsibility for belief. David (...) Owens focuses on the arguments of Descartes, Locke and Hume - the founders of epistemology - and presents a critical discussion of the current trends in contemporary epistemology. He proposes that the problems we confront today - scepticism, the analysis of knowlege, and debates on epistemic justification - can be tackled only once we have understood the moral psychology of belief. This can be resolved when we realise that our responsibility for beliefs is profoundly different from our rationality and agency, and that memory and testimony can preserve justified belief without preserving the evidence which might be used to justify it. Reason Without Freedom should be of value to those interested in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind and action, ethics, and the history of 17th and 18th century. (shrink)

This text examines recent illiberal trends in traditionally liberal institutions. Specifically, it critiques radical “anti-racism” approaches based on critical race theory (CRT) and the ideas of academics such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. It also focuses on Unitarian Universalism, a historically liberal church whose national leadership has adopted an extreme version of critical race theory. -/- Racial and other inequities are problems in all societies and all of human history, and there are no simple, easy or objectively correct (...) solutions. While critical race theory (CRT) offers important insights on racism and racial disparities, I believe in liberalism, freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas, things that extreme CRT adherents, Kendi and DiAngelo oppose. -/- Freedom of speech and expression and the free exchange of ideas support diversity, multiculturalism and marginalized groups. Illiberalism, dogmatism and authoritarianism are oppressive of all groups, minority and majority, and should be rejected wherever they appear. (shrink)

The main title and subtitle of this well-researched, lucidly written, and engaging book reflect the author's double-sided approach. On the one hand, David Edmonds uses individual life stories as a route of access to key philosophical, political, and sociocultural issues and trends in the first half of the twentieth century. On the other hand, in chronicling the broader history of the origins, aims, and legacy of the Vienna Circle, he shows how individual lives were caught up in—and shaped by—the (...) group's collective endeavor to "marry an old empiricism with the new logic", pioneered by thinkers such as Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, and Ludwig... (shrink)

Organisms are self-producing and self-maintaining, or autopoietic systems. Therefore, the course of evolution and adaptation of an organism is strongly determined by its own internal properties, whatever role external selection may play. The internal properties may either act as constraints that preclude certain changes or they open new pathways: the organism canalizes its own evolution. As an example the evolution of feeding mechanisms in salamanders, especially in the lungless salamanders of the family Plethodontidae, is discussed. In this family a large (...) variety of different feeding mechanisms is found. The authors reconstruct this evolutionary process as a series of bifurcation points of either constraints or opportunities forming a sequence of preconditions for the formation of a high-speed projectile tongue characteristic of tropical salamanders. Furthermore, it is shown how parallel evolution of seemingly unrelated domains within an organism such as respiratory physiology, life history biology and pattern of ontogeny has rather direct relevance to the feeding biology, thus demonstrating that organisms always evolve as wholes. (shrink)

Some Aspects of Market Socialism: A Dialogue with David Schweickart.

Recent trends in psychiatry involve a transition from categorical to dimensional frameworks, in which the boundary between health and pathology is understood as a difference in degree rather than as a difference in kind. A major tenet of dimensional approaches is that no qualitative distinction can be made between health and pathology. As a consequence, these approaches tend to characterize such a threshold as pragmatic or conventional in nature. However, dimensional approaches to psychopathology raise several epistemological and ontological issues. First, (...) we review major sources of evidence usually recruited in support of the dimensional trend (focusing on clinical observation and biological data), and we show that these are connected to different conceptualizations of how dimensional traits extend across health and pathology. Second, we criticize two unquestioned assumptions that stand at the core of the dimensional trend: a) that there is continuity from health to pathology at the symptomatic level; b) that such continuity reflects an underlying continuity in the genetic liability for pathological conditions. Third, we argue against the idea of a conventional threshold by showing that such a view implies a linear relationship between the genotype and the phenotype. Fourth, drawing on epigenetics and developmental biology, we offer a characterization of mental disorders as stable and dynamic constellations of multi-level variables that differ qualitatively from ‘healthy states’. We conclude by showing that our account has several theoretical advantages over both categorical and dimensional approaches. Notably, it provides crucial insights into psychological development over time and individual differences, with major implications in terms of intervention and clinical decision-making. (shrink)

Does history have to be only about the past? “History” refers to both a subject matter and a thought process. That thought process involves raising questions, marshalling evidence, discerning patterns in the evidence, writing narratives, and critiquing the narratives written by others. Whatever subject matter they study, all historians employ the thought process of historical thinking. What if historians were to extend the process of historical thinking into the subject matter domain of the future? Historians would breach one of our (...) profession’s most rigid disciplinary barriers. Very few historians venture predictions about the future, and those who do are viewed with skepticism by the profession at large. On methodological grounds, most historians reject as either impractical, quixotic, hubristic, or dangerous any effort to examine the past as a way to make predictions about the future. However, where at one time thinking about the future did mean making a scientifically-based prediction, futurists today are just as likely to think in terms of scenarios. Where a prediction is a definitive statement about what will be, scenarios are heuristic narratives that explore alternative plausibilities of what might be. Scenario writers, like historians, understand that surprise, contingency, and deviations from the trend line are the rule, not the exception; among scenario writers, context matters. The thought process of the scenario method shares many features with historical thinking. With only minimal intellectual adjustment, then, most professionally trained historians possess the necessary skills to write methodologically rigorous “histories of the future.”. (shrink)

The Snowden revelations about National Security Agency surveillance, starting in 2013, along with the ambiguous complicity of internet companies and the international controversies that followed provide a perfect segue into contemporary conundrums of surveillance and Big Data. Attention has shifted from late C20th information technologies and networks to a C21st focus on data, currently crystallized in “Big Data.” Big Data intensifies certain surveillance trends associated with information technology and networks, and is thus implicated in fresh but fluid configurations. This is (...) considered in three main ways: One, the capacities of Big Data intensify surveillance by expanding interconnected datasets and analytical tools. Existing dynamics of influence, risk-management, and control increase their speed and scope through new techniques, especially predictive analytics. Two, while Big Data appears to be about size, qualitative change in surveillance practices is also perceptible, accenting consequences. Important trends persist – the control motif, faith in technology, public-private synergies, and user-involvement – but the future-orientation increasingly severs surveillance from history and memory and the quest for pattern-discovery is used to justify unprecedented access to data. Three, the ethical turn becomes more urgent as a mode of critique. Modernity's predilection for certain definitions of privacy betrays the subjects of surveillance who, so far from conforming to the abstract, disembodied image of both computing and legal practices, are engaged and embodied users-in-relation whose activities both fuel and foreclose surveillance. (shrink)

This article focuses on the occasional individuals of many species that live longer than is usual for their populations – here called longevity outliers. They appear to be exceptions to the usual patterns of mortality rates that increase with age. There is no model of survivorship that accommodates all of these individuals. They are less vulnerable to the usual causes of death than most in their populations. There are hints of genetically based mechanisms in the form of life‐prolonging genes in (...) invertebrates and genetic resistance to fatal diseases in higher organisms. The reasons why longevity outliers ultimately die are not known. Based on well‐established trends, I predict that there will be many more humans reaching very old ages in the next century. (shrink)

In addition to the distinction between species as a category and speciesas a taxon, the word species is ambiguous in a very different butequally important way, namely the temporal distinction between horizontal andvertical species. Although often found in the relevant literature, thisdistinction has thus far remained vague and undefined. In this paper the use ofthe distinction is explored, an attempt is made to clarify and define it, andthen the relation between the two dimensions and the implications of thatrelation are examined. (...) Using Darwin's analogy of language evolution forspeciesevolution, and by appealing to a major change in the conception of languagebetween 19th- and 20th-century linguistics, it is argued that the horizontaldimension has priority (pragmatic, epistemological, logical, and ontological)over the vertical dimension. This has immense ramifications for the modernspecies problem. Fundamentally, it favors horizontal species concepts oververtical ones. In so doing it places species realism on a much more securefoundation and largely undercuts species pluralism. In addition it raises aserious problem for the increasingly popular family of phylogenetic speciesconcepts, which generally suffer from a dimensionality confusion. However,thereis a recent trend within this family that attempts to restore the priority ofthe horizontal dimension. It is concluded that this trend should be affirmedandthat the species-as-individuals view should be abandoned. (shrink)

Introduction : changing forms of global order. Towards a multipolar world ; The paradox of our times ; Economic liberalism and international market integration ; Security ; The impact of the global financial crisis ; Shared problems and collective threats ; A cosmopolitan approach ; Democratic public law and sovereignty ; Summary of the book ahead -- Cosmopolitanism : ideas, realities and deficits. Globalization ; The global governance complex ; Globalization and democracy : five disjunctures ; Cosmopolitanism : ideas and (...) trajectories ; Cosmopolitan realities ; Addressing the institutional deficit : reframing the market -- Principles of cosmopolitan order. Cosmopolitan principles ; Thick or thin cosmopolitanism? ; Cosmopolitan justifications ; From cosmopolitan principles to cosmopolitan law -- Cosmopolitan law and institutional requirements. The idea of cosmopolitan law ; Institutional requirements ; In sum ; Political openings -- Violence, law and justice in a global age. Reframing human activity : international law, rights and responsibilities ; 9/11, war and justice ; Islam, the Kantian heritage and double standards ; Concluding reflections -- Reframing global governance : apocalypse soon or reform!. The paradox of our times ; Why be concerned with global challenges? ; Deep drivers and governance challenges ; Global governance : contemporary surface trends ; Problems and dilemmas of global problem-solving ; Strengthening global governance ; Global governance and the democratic question ; Multilevel citizenship, multilayered democracy -- Parallel worlds : the governance of global risks in finance, security and the environment. Global governance and the paradox of our times ; The global governance of finance ; The global governance of security ; The global governance of the environment ; Conclusion : crisis, politicization and reform -- Democracy, climate change and global governance. Democracy I : the democratic nation-state and climate change ; Democracy II : global governance and climate change ; The policy debate : squaring the circle? ; The political elements of a democratic global deal ; Democracy and the policy menu ahead. (shrink)

In _Religion and Nothingness_ the leading representative of the Kyoto School of Philosophy lays the foundation of thought for a world in the making, for a world united beyond the differences of East and West. Keiji Nishitani notes the irreversible trend of Western civilization to nihilism, and singles out the conquest of nihilism as _the_ task for contemporary philosophy. Nihility, or relative nothingness, can only be overcome by being radicalized to Emptiness, or absolute nothingness. Taking absolute nothingness as the (...) fundamental notion in rational explanations of the Eastern experience of human life, Professor Nishitani examines the relevance of this notion for contemporary life, and in particular for Western philosophical theories and religious believes. Everywhere his basic intention remains the same: to direct our modern predicament to a resolution through this insight. The challenge that the thought of Keiji Nishitani presents to the West, as a modern version of an Eastern speculative tradition that is every bit as old and as variegated as our own, is one that brings into unity the principle of reality and the principle of salvation. In the process, one traditional Western idea after another comes under scrutiny: the dichotomy of faith and reason, of being and substance, the personal and transcendent notions of God, the exaggerated role given to the knowing ego, and even the Judeo-Christian view of history itself. _Religion and Nothingness_ represents the major work of one of Japan's most powerful and committed philosophical minds. (shrink)

For a stable visual world, the colours of objects should appear the same under different lights. This property of colour constancy has been assumed to be fundamental to vision, and many experimental attempts have been made to quantify it. I contend here, however, that the usual methods of measurement are either too coarse or concentrate not on colour constancy itself, but on other, complementary aspects of scene perception. Whether colour constancy exists other than in nominal terms remains unclear.

Friedrich Nietzsche was Less Well-Read in the history of philosophy than were many of his peers in the pantheon, whether Hegel before him or Heidegger after, but he was not for that reason any less hesitant to pronounce judgment on the worth of the other great philosophers: Plato was “boring”; Descartes was “superficial”; Hobbes, Hume, and Locke signify “a debasement and lowering of the concept of ‘philosophy’ for more than a century”; Kant was an “idiot” and a “catastrophic spider,” etc.1 (...) Against this overarching trend of negativity, his uncharacteristically positive response to one thinker, a thinker who initially appears to us as quite different from him, is all the more surprising. In the summer of .. (shrink)

This paper briefly reviews the theories that seek to explain the phenomenon of corporate charitable donations and then provides a review of the empirical issues that have arisen in previous studies in this area. The findings of an analysis of charitable donations data from the entire U.K. FTSE index for the years 1985–2000 are then reported. These findings include the observation of a time-related increase in charitable donations, which is compared with an earlier study to give a 24 year history (...) of charitable donations in the U.K. The findings note little responsiveness of the monetary value of charitable donations to the economic performance of firms. An international comparison over time against U.S. trends is also reported and shows how U.S. corporations have traditionally been more generous than U.K. firms, but that the trend in the U.S. is downwards. Membership of a U.K.-based "tithing" club (the PerCent Club) is shown to be associated with higher profit performance against non-members. Members' charitable contributions against profit are shown to be higher than the FTSE mean although short of the 0.5% target figure in "cash" terms. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of these findings in relation to the theoretical positions advanced for corporate philanthropy. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs generally lack the marketing capabilities necessary to bring their new product to market. To engage the resources required to do this, they must somehow place a value on the enterprise. However, all of the methods of valuation currently available are based on the use of historical or current revenues, and therefore are not applicable to an entrepreneurial enterprise with a first-time product. In Valuing an Entrepreneurial Enterprise, Audretsch and Link present a valuation method uniquely tailored to emerging technology-based ventures (...) that have no revenue history to lean on. Unlike many traditional methods, theirs does not take into account the track record of companies and products similar to that being valuated. Instead, it draws on economic theory to formulate a solution to the problem. The book develops conceptual ground, including trends in entrepreneurship, models of innovation, and the economics of standards and entrepreneurship policy. The authors review the traditional valuation methods and illustrate them numerically with case studies to show how the traditional approach produces an incorrect valuation. The core of the book presents the new methodology and demonstrates how it avoids the pitfalls of past approaches. The authors also show how public policy on technology and infrastructure changes valuations of start-up firms in areas such as stem-cell products and renewable fuels projects. Valuing an Entrepreneurial Enterprise will serve as a valuable resource for advanced students, economists, financial planners, and valuators interested in new valuation methods and the theory behind them, as well as those interested in entrepreneurship. (shrink)

One important trend in political philosophy is to hold that non-human animals don't directly place demands of justice on us. Another important trend is to give considerations of justice normative priority in our general normative theorising about social/political institutions. This situation is problematic, given the actual ethical standing of non-human animals. Either we need a theory of justice that gives facts about non-human animals a non-derivative explanatory role in the determination of facts about what justice involves, or else (...) we should be wary of the default normative priority that considerations of justice have in much of contemporary political philosophy. This discussion brings out important general methodological points tied to the role of concept and word choice in normative theorising about our social/political institutions. These methodological points, I argue, matter for a range of discussions in contemporary political philosophy, including those about global justice. (shrink)

Abstract.The United Kingdom Department of Health initiative on “The Expert Patient” (2001) reflects recent trends in political philosophy, ethics and health services research. The overall objective of the initiative is to encourage patients, particularly those suffering from chronic conditions to become more actively involved in decisions concerning their treatment. In doing so there would be (perhaps) an expectation of better patient compliance and (arguably) a resultant improvement in quality of life. Despite these anticipated beneficial influences on health outcomes, there may (...) be a danger that such initiatives are being carried along by the general swell of enthusiasm for recognising and facilitating the claims of disadvantaged or discriminated against groups. What more attractive than that patients should be “liberated” from what might be seen as the oppression of medical paternalism? To a great extent the potential for success of the Expert Patient venture turns on:(a) whether and to what extent a patient can be considered truly to be an expert and (b) full acceptance by the medical and heath care professions of allowing patients a more equitable and positive role.Whilst clearly the patient is an expert in the hermeneutic sense – it is they and they alone who experience their illness – there is nevertheless a risk of confusing experience with expertise. Experience limited to an individual does not of itself give rise to the generalisations that underlie reliable clinical treatment. Neither do the vast majority of patients possess the physiological and pharmacological knowledge to fully appreciate the biological nature of their illness nor the basis, risks or limitations of therapeutic measures. Might the notion of “The Expert Patient” as informed co-decision maker become a well-meaning but rather vacuous aspiration similar to that of informed consent? Even worse, could patient “empowerment” have a deleterious effect? The paper reviews some of the major issues and concludes that the expert patient initiative could have benefits for both patients and health professionals if operated on the basis of concordance: an informed collaborative alliance that optimises the potential benefits of medical care. (shrink)

The centre of world Christianity has shifted to the southern hemisphere largely due to the growth of the Evangelical/pentecostal/charismatic churches in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Christian unity is understood more in terms of spiritual unity in Christ than as organizational unity. The Lausanne Congress held in 2010 is a good example of this. Christian unity is to be recognized and celebrated. The primary mission of the Church is to fulfill the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus. As far as (...) Christian unity is concerned, the Global Christian Forum provides the best platform, where all traditions and global church organizations can comfortably come together based on the simplest yet the most essential confession of Christian faith. (shrink)

Writers on organisational change often refer to the cosmology of Heraclitus in their work. Some use these references to support arguments for the constancy and universality of organisational change and the consignment to history of organisational continuity and stability. These writers misunderstand the scope of what Heraclitus said. Other writers focus exclusively on the idea that originated with Heraclitus that the universe is composed of processes and not of things. This idea, which has been particularly associated with Heraclitus’s thought from (...) the time of Plato, does indeed provide a rich source of insights into organisational analysis, not least the current trends towards giving proper attention to processual studies of organisational change. Yet there is some uncertainty as to whether Heraclitus actually said that the universe was composed exclusively of processes rather than things, and even if that was what he thought, he intended his ideas on flux to be understood not in isolation but in the context of other aspects of his cosmology. Writers on organisational change seldom make reference to this wider context. Heraclitus was a rational but also a religious thinker. A central element in his thought was the notion of divine Justice, which to a Greek of his era meant the order of the universe. Remote as his Olympian theology may seem today, it sets a crucial and entirely rational context for understanding his ideas about flux. It means that ideas about continuity and stability were quite as important in Heraclitus’s cosmology as his more commonly quoted ideas about change. This paper sets out an overview of Heraclitus’s philosophy, insofar as it appears to have potential relevance to organisational analysis, and discusses how far it supports or contradicts the ideas that organisational change scholars have drawn from it. (shrink)

Descartes’ Rules for the direction of the mind presents us with a theory of knowledge in which imagination, considered as an “aid” for the intellect, plays a key role. This function of schematization, which strongly resembles key features of Proclus’ philosophy of mathematics, is in full accordance with Descartes’ mathematical practice in later works such as La Géométrie from 1637. Although due to its reliance on a form of geometric intuition, it may sound obsolete, I would like to show that (...) this has strong echoes in contemporary philosophy of mathematics, in particular in the trend of the so called “philosophy of mathematical practice”. Indeed Ken Manders’ study on the Euclidean practice, along with Reviel Netz’s historical studies on ancient Greek Geometry, indicate that mathematical imagination can play a central role in mathematical knowledge as bearing specific forms of inference. Moreover, this role can be formalized into sound logical systems. One question of general epistemology is thus to understand this mysterious role of the imagination in reasoning and to assess its relevance for other mathematical practices. Drawing from Edwin Hutchins’ study of “material anchors” in human reasoning, I would like to show that Descartes’ epistemology of mathematics may prove to be a helpful resource in the analysis of mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

This introduction to a special issue of Topoi introduces and summarises the relationship between three main varieties of 'enactivist' theorising about the mind: 'autopoietic', 'sensorimotor', and 'radical' enactivism. It includes a brief discussion of the philosophical and cognitive scientific precursors to enactivist theories, and the relationship of enactivism to other trends in embodied cognitive science and philosophy of mind.

Traditional explanations of multistable visual phenomena (e.g. ambiguous figures, perceptual rivalry) suggest that the basis for spontaneous reversals in perception lies in antagonistic connectivity within the visual system. In this review, we suggest an alternative, albeit speculative, explanation for visual multistability – that spontaneous alternations reflect responses to active, programmed events initiated by brain areas that integrate sensory and non-sensory information to coordinate a diversity of behaviors. Much evidence suggests that perceptual reversals are themselves more closely related to the expression (...) of a behavior than to passive sensory responses: (1) they are initiated spontaneously, often voluntarily, and are influenced by subjective variables such as attention and mood; (2) the alternation process is greatly facilitated with practice and compromised by lesions in non-visual cortical areas; (3) the alternation process has temporal dynamics similar to those of spontaneously initiated behaviors; (4) functional imaging reveals that brain areas associated with a variety of cognitive behaviors are specifically activated when vision becomes unstable. In this scheme, reorganizations of activity throughout the visual cortex, concurrent with perceptual reversals, are initiated by higher, largely non-sensory brain centers. Such direct intervention in the processing of the sensory input by brain structures associated with planning and motor programming might serve an important role in perceptual organization, particularly in aspects related to selective attention. (shrink)

Western societies today are coming unmoored in the face of an earth-shaking ethical and cultural paradigm shift. At its core is the question of what it means to be human and how we are meant to live. The old answers are no longer accepted; a dizzying array of options are offered in their stead. Underpinning this smorgasbord of lifestyles is a thicket of unquestioned assumptions, such as the separation of gender from biological sex, which not so long ago would have (...) been universally rejected as radical notions. In the spring of 2019, a group of Orthodox Christian scholars drawn from a wide variety of academic disciplines met together to offer responses to the moral crisis our generation faces, elaborating upon its various forms and facilitating a fuller understanding of some of its theological and philosophical foundations. In doing so they offer support to all those who question the claims that are so forcefully insisted upon today--a clarity that will aid them in standing up and resisting trends that have already shown to be the cause of great suffering and unhappiness. (shrink)

In the second edition of this highly successful text, postmodernity is seen as the social condition of the twenty-first century, in which some of the most familiar features of the modern world are not only called into question, but actually undermined by novel trends. The key carriers of the postmodern--new technologies and consumerism--emerged in thoroughly modern contexts, but so profoundly affect everyday social life that modernity itself is changing shape. Postmodernity is a way of describing a new society-in-the-making without supposing (...) that modernity has been entirely left behind. While some dub these changes as "high" or "late" modern, this book argues that "postmodernity" best captures today's transformations or modernity. (shrink)

Originally published in 1961. Russian Marxist philosophy of science originated among men and women who gave their whole lives to rebellion against established authority. The original tension within Marxist philosophy between positivism and metaphysics was repressed but not resolved in this first phase of Soviet Marxism. In this volume the author correlates the development of ideas with trends in the Cultural Revolution and against this background it is possible to understand why debates over general philosophy gave way to conflicts over (...) specific sciences in the aftermath of the first Five Year Plan and why there was a genuine crisis in Soviet biology. (shrink)

This article analyzes the concept of “grand challenges” as part of a shift in how scientists and policymakers frame and communicate their respective agendas. The history of the grand challenges discourse helps to understand how identity work in science and science policy has been transformed in recent decades. Furthermore, the question is raised whether this discourse is only an indicator, or also a factor in this transformation. Building on conceptual history and historical semantics, the two parts of the article reconstruct (...) two discursive shifts. First, the observation that in scientific communication references to “problems” are increasingly substituted by references to “challenges” indicates a broader cultural trend of how attitudes towards what is problematic have shifted in the last decades. Second, as the grand challenges discourse is rooted in the sphere of sports and competition, it introduces a specific new set of societal values and practices into the spheres of science and technology. The article concludes that this process can be characterized as the sportification of science, which contributes to self-mobilization and, ultimately, to self-optimization of the participating scientists, engineers, and policymakers. (shrink)

Traditional debates about scientific realism tend to focus on issues concerning scientific representation and de-emphasize issues concerning scientific intervention. Questions about the relation between theories and the world, the nature of scientific inference, and the structure of scientific explanations have occupied a central place in the realism debate, while questions about experimentation and technology have not. Ian Hacking's experimental realism attempts to reverse this trend by shifting the defense of realism away from representation to intervention. Experimental realism, according to (...) Hacking, does not require us to believe that our theories are true, nor does its defense depend on inference to the best explanation. For Hacking, the strongest proof for realism is that we can manipulate objects: 'So far as I'm concerned, if you can spray them, then they are real'. (shrink)

When considering social phenomena, we can bring into focus either the way society works or the way society does not work. In the first case, emphasis is put on the functioning of society; in the second, on its dysfunctionality. In the first case, we adopt an operational approach; in the second, a clinical approach. In this article, ‘critical theory’ is described as a theory adopting a clinical approach to social and political history. On the basis of such a definition, one (...) can list several paradigms of critical theory — among them, the Marxian, the Nietzschean, the Freudian. They name three different styles or trends of critical theory, which in turn display three different understandings of truth and history as well as three different stances towards ontology. (shrink)

This paper offers three contributions to the burgeoning movements of AI for Social Good (AI4SG) and AI and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First, we introduce the SDG-Intense Evaluation framework (SDGIE) that aims to situate variegated automated/AI models in a larger ecosystem of computational approaches to advance the SDGs. To foster knowledge collaboration for solving complex social and environmental problems encompassed by the SDGs, the SDGIE framework details a benchmark structure of data-algorithm-output to effectively standardize AI approaches to (...) the SDGs. Second, as a specific instantiation of the SDGIE framework, the SDG Impact Intensity Model (SDGIIM) is theoretically and operationally established. SDGIIM embeds expert decision-making and SDG keyword banks in textual data processing to determine overall SDG “impact intensity.” Ideally, SDGIIM can be applied to textual data sets from any sector or discipline: academia, business, government, non-profit, civil society, etc. Third, the SDGIIM instantiation is applied to the specific domain of academic journal rating systems as a case study. Traditionally, academic journals have been evaluated on loosely conceived and empirically shaky notions of ‘quality.’ Aligned with the trend of AI4SG and broader calls to action, ‘impact’ is rapidly becoming the primary normative consideration for assessing academic journals. We hypothesize and demonstrate that SDGIIM is capable of producing evaluations aligned with experts’ expectations of SDG impact intensity; the consistent analysis and rating of textual data sets that embody the SDGs with varying degrees of meaning and, ultimately, promote positive impact on the actual material conditions of the world. (shrink)

How can the development of ideas in a scientific field be studied over time? We apply unsupervised topic modeling to the ACL Anthology to analyze historical trends in the field of Computational Linguistics from 1978 to 2006. We induce topic clusters using Latent Dirichlet Allocation, and examine the strength of each topic over time. Our methods find trends in the field including the rise of probabilistic methods starting in 1988, a steady increase in applications, and a sharp decline of research (...) in semantics and understanding between 1978 and 2001, possibly rising again after 2001. We also introduce a model of the diversity of ideas, topic entropy, using it to show that COLING is a more diverse conference than ACL, but that both conferences as well as EMNLP are becoming broader over time. Finally, we apply Jensen-Shannon divergence of topic distributions to show that all three conferences are converging in the topics they cover. (shrink)

One of the interesting aspects of Dewey’s early educational thought is his apparent hostility toward children’s imaginative pursuits, yet the question of why this antipathy exists remains unanswered. As will become clear, Dewey’s hostility towards imaginative activities stemmed from a broad variety of concerns. In some of his earliest work, Dewey adopted a set of anti-Romantic criticisms and used these concerns to attack what one might call “runaway” imaginative and emotional tendencies. Then, in his early educational writings, these earlier concerns (...) were augmented by several other factors, including problematic trends in progressive education, new developments in psychology, and Dewey’s own educational aims. This analysis explores the roots of these criticisms, and explains how they culminate in the stance on the imagination that Dewey eventually outlined in the early educational writings. Notably, these findings have some important implications for certain prominent contemporary critics of progressivism. (shrink)

In recent years, the discipline of archaeology has witnessed its scientific base challenged by new interpretive approaches, new kinds of data and proposals for new levels of social relevance. The Reader in Archaeological Theory comprises a summary perspective on these different trends, problems and currents in recent archaeological method and theory, how they are related, and how they differ. Remarkable in its emphasis on North American research, many of the papers in this volume focus on ancient Mesoameria and the native (...) peoples of our continent. The breadth of scholarship covered in the Reader demonstrates how a variety of disciplines--from cognitive neuroscience to poststructural semiotics--have influenced some newer approaches to archaeological theory. (shrink)

The seventh annual Sloan Foundation Study of Online Learning revealed that one in four college students took at least one online course in the 2008 academic year—a 17 percent increase from just the previous year. This rapid growth seems to be fueled mainly by a perceived need by universities to be more convenient and accessible for students. This trend may be a source of excitement and opportunity for many other educators. At the same time, some educators may be concerned (...) that the kinds of technology that afford learning anytime and anywhere may not support the kind of focused, sustained effort required by meaningful learning. I am one of those educators. In this essay I offer a critique from an aesthetic .. (shrink)