Muitos chamam a era em que atualmente vivemos como a Era da Informação. Isso porque vivemos em um mundo altamente conectado onde o fluxo de informação é constante. Uma das principais fontes de informação nos dias de hoje é a Internet, seja através de pesquisas no Google, seja através do testemunho de nossos amigos ou empresas em que confiamos, através das redes sociais. Este artigo visa realizar uma análise desde um ponto de vista da epistemologia social e de uma epistemologia (...) dos vícios para se responder uma pergunta que vem sendo feita em diversas pesquisas de psicologia experimental: O uso da Internet nos torna intelectualmente viciosos? A conclusão a que chego é a de que sim, em determinados contextos, o uso da Internet nos torna intelectualmente viciosos. Para chegar a esta conclusão, analiso um experimento realizado em uma pesquisa de psicologia experimental que afirma que a Internet nos torna intelectualmente arrogantes e uma resposta desde um ponto de vista da epistemologia que defende que este uso pode promover talvez mais virtudes. Em seguida considero a arquitetura da internet dentro de um contexto informacional específico para poder chegar à conclusão de que a internet, em determinados contextos, nos torna sim intelectualmente viciosos. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to propose that reflection is a performance that has epistemic value. This idea contains two parts: the first asserts that reflection has instrumental value. The second that reflective performance promotes an epistemic virtue that has final value. The first part is not controversial and most epistemologists would accept it. The second, however, asserts that there is a kind of epistemic good which can only be achieved through reflection. There is much controversy in this. (...) Reflection is understood here as a performance, an activity in which the person examines the evidence, content and reliability of their own beliefs. This performance may lead to different results, but if someone is capable of critically reflecting on their own beliefs in skeptical-dialectic contexts, whatever the results, this performance will produce positive epistemic states – contrary to people who, in the face of skeptical challenges, simply decide to remain intellectually immobile, maintaining a cowardly, arrogant or dogmatic position. The critical spirit with which someone discusses opinions in the context of dialectical disagreement, submitting them to the scrutiny of reason (that is, to the arguments for or against), is virtuous and has epistemic value. The consequence of this performance, the epistemic preference, has a final value, since deliberations based on free judgment have final value. (shrink)

Intellectualists about knowledge-how state that knowledgehow is a kind of propositional knowledge. Anti-intellectualists try to show that there are cases where the agent has knowledge-how without knowing-that. This paper focuses on recent anti-intellectualists’ arguments by Carter and Pritchard. I argue that Carter and Pritchard’s arguments are not well succeeded and that, if we apply virtue epistemology to this debate, we can conclude that knowledge-how shares the same epistemic properties as propositional knowledge. If this is correct, we can say that knowledge-how (...) is a kind of propositional knowledge and intellectualism is safe again. (shrink)

A gênese histórica da paróquia e seu desenvolvimento estrutural em relação à história da Igreja é a problemática central à qual este texto está subordinado. Por esta razão, o texto parte da etimologia do termo paróquia à compreensão de suas origens e matrizes dentro da concepção do cristianismo nascente e em suas raízes bíblicas, sem a pretensão de apresentar críticas e reformulações da estrutura paroquial. O respectivo trabalho toma como alicerce os decorrentes períodos e fatos históricos da Igreja para caracterizar (...) e contextualizar o desenvolvimento da paróquia que, desde os primórdios, está subordinada a estruturas de autoridades eclesiais. O seguinte texto vale-se de documentos importantes que contextualizam a visão, função e organização da paróquia como parte fundamentalmente integrante do corpo eclesial, bem como conceituam juridicamente esta comunidade de fé, célula da Igreja Particular. Após um apanhado geral da genealogia eclesiástica, com o desenvolvimento paroquial no seu interior, o presente trabalho atem-se a contextualizar a visão que a paróquia assumiu dentro da eclesiologia do XXI Concílio Ecumênico da Igreja Católica, o Concílio Vaticano II e do Código do Direito Canônico de 1983 em comparação com o Código Pio-beneditino. Com isso, o presente texto intui proporcionar fundamentos a futuros estudos e questionar a efemeridade. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss two recurring themes in Sosa’s work, reexamined in Judgment and Agency (SOSA, 2015) from a new angle, i.e. the place and importance of reflection in the cognitive economy of the epistemic agent, and epistemic value. Regarding the latter, Sosa suggests that knowing full well, which necessarily involves reflection, has value because it contributes to human flourishing. Although Sosa’s “new virtue epistemology” appears very promising in explaining different intuitions regarding epistemology and demonstrating that it is possible (...) to join reliabilist and responsibilist accounts of virtue epistemology, we believe that solving the value problem requires further clarification in order to truly explain the value of knowledge. (shrink)

Trata-se de uma pesquisa de natureza bibliográfica, com abordagem quanti-qualitativa, de caráter descritivo-exploratório que objetiva analisar a produção do conhecimento do Curso de Educação Física da Universidade do Estado do Pará em Altamira, no período de 2011-2018. Os achados apontam uma evolução do modo de produzir conhecimento, pois constatou-se uma redução dos vazios analíticos presentes nas pesquisas analisadas. Conclui que há um aumento no rigor cientifico presente nas produções devido uma maior utilização de técnicas, metodologias e teorias consistentes para a (...) verificação da realidade pesquisada e para a elaboração das respostas (R) dos problemas (P) investigados. (shrink)

Entrevista com Luiz Felipe de Alencastro.

Replicability is widely taken to ground the epistemic authority of science. However, in recent years, important published findings in the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences have failed to replicate, suggesting that these fields are facing a “replicability crisis.” For philosophers, the crisis should not be taken as bad news but as an opportunity to do work on several fronts, including conceptual analysis, history and philosophy of science, research ethics, and social epistemology. This article introduces philosophers to these discussions. First, I (...) discuss precedents and evidence for the crisis. Second, I discuss methodological, statistical, and social-structural factors that have contributed to the crisis. Third, I focus on the philosophical issues raised by the crisis. Finally, I discuss proposed solutions and highlight the gaps that philosophers could focus on. (shrink)

The reward system of science is the priority rule. The first scientist making a new discovery is rewarded with prestige, while second runners get little or nothing. Michael Strevens, following Philip Kitcher, defends this reward system, arguing that it incentivizes an efficient division of cognitive labor. I argue that this assessment depends on strong implicit assumptions about the replicability of findings. I question these assumptions on the basis of metascientific evidence and argue that the priority rule systematically discourages replication. My (...) analysis leads us to qualify Kitcher and Strevens’s contention that a priority-based reward system is normatively desirable for science. (shrink)

This book provides an up to date, high-level exchange on God in a uniquely productive style. Readers witness a contemporary version of a classic debate, as two professional philosophers seek to learn from each other while making their cases for their distinct positions. In their dialogue, Joshua Rasmussen and Felipe Leon examine classical and cutting-edge arguments for and against a theistic explanation of general features of reality. The book also provides original lines of thought based on the authors’ own (...) contributions to the field, and offers a productive and innovative inquiry into on one of the biggest questions people ask: what is the ultimate explanation of things? (shrink)

Advocates of the self-corrective thesis argue that scientific method will refute false theories and find closer approximations to the truth in the long run. I discuss a contemporary interpretation of this thesis in terms of frequentist statistics in the context of the behavioral sciences. First, I identify experimental replications and systematic aggregation of evidence (meta-analysis) as the self-corrective mechanism. Then, I present a computer simulation study of scientific communities that implement this mechanism to argue that frequentist statistics may converge upon (...) a correct estimate or not depending on the social structure of the community that uses it. Based on this study, I argue that methodological explanations of the “replicability crisis” in psychology are limited and propose an alternative explanation in terms of biases. Finally, I conclude suggesting that scientific self-correction should be understood as an interaction effect between inference methods and social structures. (shrink)

The experimental interventions that provide evidence of causal relations are notably similar to those that provide evidence of constitutive relevance relations. In the first two sections, I show that this similarity creates a tension: there is an inconsistent triad between Woodward’s popular interventionist theory of causation, Craver’s mutual manipulability account of constitutive relevance in mechanisms, and a variety of arguments for the incoherence of inter-level causation. I argue for an interpretation of the views in which the tension is merely apparent. (...) I propose to explain inter-level relations without inter-level causation by appealing to the notion of fat-handed interventions, and an argument against inter-level causation which dissolves the problem. (shrink)

This article intends to unpack how art education motivates students for a creative educational practice in immersive learning, following the author’s research using books to explore The Book Experience as a Place of Epistemological Reflection in Art Education. Questions as to how book making can be understood as a tool for teaching and learning, as a mediator and as a collaborative piece of producing knowledge, were raised during the process of making collective books, along with reflection on author’s articles. Feedbacks (...) reveal a firm evidence of learning through studio practice based pedagogies as spaces of learning. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship between emotional sharing and the extended mind thesis. We argue that shared emotions are socially extended emotions that involve a specific type of constitutive integration between the participating individuals’ emotional experiences. We start by distinguishing two claims, the Environmentally Extended Emotion Thesis and the Socially Extended Emotion Thesis. We then critically discuss some recent influential proposals about the nature of shared emotions. Finally, in Sect. 3, we motivate two conditions that an account of shared emotions (...) ought to accommodate: Reciprocal Other-awareness and Integration. Consideration of and discussion of relational accounts of joint attention lead us to the proposal that a construal of socially extended emotions in terms of a constitutive integration of the participating individuals’ experiences is more promising than proposals that simply appeal to various forms of social situatedness, embeddedness, or scaffolding. (shrink)

The enduring replication crisis in many scientific disciplines casts doubt on the ability of science to estimate effect sizes accurately, and in a wider sense, to self-correct its findings and to produce reliable knowledge. We investigate the merits of a particular countermeasure—replacing null hypothesis significance testing with Bayesian inference—in the context of the meta-analytic aggregation of effect sizes. In particular, we elaborate on the advantages of this Bayesian reform proposal under conditions of publication bias and other methodological imperfections that are (...) typical of experimental research in the behavioral sciences. Moving to Bayesian statistics would not solve the replication crisis single-handedly. However, the move would eliminate important sources of effect size overestimation for the conditions we study. (shrink)

. Scientists, for the most part, want to get it right. However, the social structures that govern their work undermine that aim, and this leads to nonreplicable findings in many fields. Because the social structure of science is a decentralized system, it is difficult to intervene. In this article, I discuss how we might do so, focusing on self-corrective-labor schemes. First, I argue that we need to implement a scheme that makes replication work outcome independent, systematic, and sustainable. Second, I (...) use these three criteria to evaluate extant proposals, which place the responsibility for replication on original researchers, consumers of their research, students, or many labs. Third, on the basis of a philosophical analysis of the reward system of science and the benefits of the division of cognitive labor, I propose a scheme that satisfies the criteria better: the professional scheme. This scheme has two main components. First, the scientific community is organized into two groups: discovery researchers, who produce new findings, and confirmation researchers, whose primary function is to do confirmation work. Second, a distinct reward system is established for confirmation researchers so that their career advancement is separated from whether they obtain positive experimental results. (shrink)

La siempre fascínate escritura rulfiana continúa dialogando con el mundo. El así conocido “escritor de las letras mexicanas”, nos sigue ofreciendo un mar de posibilidades de acercamiento a otras áreas humanísticas entre las cuáles incluimos a la filosofía. Coincidentes en la época y en la geografía mexicana, Juan Rulfo y María Zambrano se encontraron en 1939. Exponentes ejemplares y creadores de nuevos caminos en la escritura literaria y filosófica, los exponemos como paralelos a través de dos piezas claves de sus (...) obras: Pedro Páramo y Los sueños y el tiempo. La antropología zambraniana viene propuesta como uno de estos senderos creativos y creadores de la búsqueda del propio ser y del sentido mismo del existir. Dicho pronunciamiento antropológico lo exponemos como perspectiva de lectura del viaje no sólo de Juan preciado, ansioso buscador de su padre, sino de todos los lectores de Rulfo que hemos tejido con sus letras —extractoras de sueños y productoras de anhelos— la frágil cuerda que sostiene la aventura del descubrir nuestro lugar en el oscuro pozo del mundo. Realismo mágico y Razón poética en armonía propositiva que revela el origen de ambos proveniente de la misma semilla del ser. Rulfo y Zambrano nos enseñan que hay encuentros más profundos y reales que aquellos sólo históricos. (shrink)

The enduring replication crisis in many scientific disciplines casts doubt on the ability of science to estimate effect sizes accurately, and in a wider sense, to self-correct its findings and to produce reliable knowledge. We investigate the merits of a particular countermeasure—replacing null hypothesis significance testing with Bayesian inference—in the context of the meta-analytic aggregation of effect sizes. In particular, we elaborate on the advantages of this Bayesian reform proposal under conditions of publication bias and other methodological imperfections that are (...) typical of experimental research in the behavioral sciences. Moving to Bayesian statistics would not solve the replication crisis single-handedly. However, the move would eliminate important sources of effect size overestimation for the conditions we study. (shrink)

Felipe Portales es un ensayista profundo y documentado. En su libro anterior, La democracia tutelada, denunció valientemente la tutela militar y reaccionaria de la llamada “Democracia de la Transición”, que ha sido posible por la conversión de los líderes antidictatoriales al modelo neoliberal imperante y la timidez de los gobiernos de la Concertación, respecto a las presiones de un ejército profundamente antidemocrático, dirigido por uno de los más corruptos dictadores de América Latina. En ..

Reflexões sobre Professoralidade, Profissionalização, Profissionalidade, Profissionalismo e sua relação com o Desenvolvimento Profissional Docente Resumo: Várias são as categorias teóricas que guardam relação com o tema desenvolvimento profissional docente. Professoralidade, profissionalização, profissionalismo são algumas delas, mas geralmente não aparecem conjuntamente nem em relação do DPD. Por isto, este trabalho visa a analisar estes conceitos em relação ao DPD. A investigação foi desenvolvida a partir de metodologia baseada na pesquisa bibliográfica. Os argumentos evidenciaram que o DPD, na atualidade, perpassa questões da (...) professoralidade, da profissionalização, da profissionalidade e do profissionalismo, mesmo que em intensidades diferentes. Profissionalidade e professoralidade são aqueles que mais dizem respeito a uma estreita vinculação com o desenvolvimento profissional docente por se relacionarem de forma imbricada sem que se possa separar um do outro, ao passo que no profissionalismo e na profissionalização não existe uma relação de complementariedade ou espontânea, mas sem dúvida ambos os lados da relação podem se beneficiar um do outro.Palavras-chave: Desenvolvimento Profissional Docente, Professoralidade, Profissionalização, Profissionalidade, Profissionalismo. Reflections on professorality, professionalization, professionality, professionalism and its relationship with the teacher professional development: There are several theoretical categories that are related to the theme of teacher professional development. Professionality, professionalism, professorship, professionalization are some of them, but generally do not appear together in relation to the TPD. For this reason, this work aims to analyze these concepts in relation to the TPD. The investigation was developed based on a bibliographic research methodology. The arguments showed that the TPD, at present, runs through issues of teaching, professionalism, professionalism and professionalization, even if at different intensities. Professorship and professionality are those that most relate to a close link with the professional development of teachers because they relate in an interconnected way without being able to separate from each other, whereas in professionalism and professionalization there is no complementary or spontaneous relationship, but no doubt both sides of the relationship can benefit from each other.Keywords: Teacher Professional Development, Professorship, Professionalization, Professionality, Professionalism. Reflexiones sobre Profesoralidad, profesionalización, profesionalidad, profesionalismo y su relación con el desarrollo profesional de los docentes. Resumen: Existen varias categorías teóricas relacionadas con el tema del desarrollo profesional docente. Profesoralidad, profesionalización, profesionalidad, profesionalismo son algunos de ellos, pero generalmente no aparecen juntos o en relación con el DPD. Por esta razón, este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar estos conceptos en relación con el DPD. La investigación se desarrolló en base a una metodología basada en la investigación bibliográfica. Los argumentos mostraron que el DPD, en la actualidad, atraviesa problemas de enseñanza, profesionalización, profesionalismo y profesionalismo, incluso a diferentes intensidades. La profesionalidad y la enseñanza son las que más se relacionan con un vínculo cercano con el desarrollo profesional de los docentes porque se relacionan de manera interconectada sin poder separarse entre sí, mientras que en el profesionalismo y la profesionalización no existe una relación complementaria o espontánea. Pero sin duda ambos lados de la relación pueden beneficiarse el uno del otro.Palabras clave: Desarrollo profesional docente, profesoralidad, profesionalización, profesionalidad, profesionalismo. Data de registro: 04/02/2020Data de aceite: 28/08/2020. (shrink)

This collection highlights the new trend away from rationalism and toward empiricism in the epistemology of modality. Accordingly, the book represents a wide range of positions on the empirical sources of modal knowledge. Readers will find an introduction that surveys the field and provides a brief overview of the work, which progresses from empirically-sensitive rationalist accounts to fully empiricist accounts of modal knowledge. Early chapters focus on challenges to rationalist theories, essence-based approaches to modal knowledge, and the prospects for naturalizing (...) modal epistemology. The middle chapters present positive accounts that reject rationalism, but which stop short of advocating exclusive appeal to empirical sources of modal knowledge. The final chapters mark a transition toward exclusive reliance on empirical sources of modal knowledge. They explore ways of making similarity-based, analogical, inductive, and abductive arguments for modal claims based on empirical information. Modal epistemology is coming into its own as a field, and this book has the potential to anchor a new research agenda. (shrink)

. Este artículo se propone discutir las dificultades que pertenecen al ejercicio de pensarnos en cuanto corporales. Guía de estas reflexiones son los índices heideggerianos sobre la corporalidad humana realizados en Zollikoner Seminare. Dichos seminarios advierten que la actual experiencia de nuestro cuerpo, pese a poder ser estimada como inmediata, se halla mediada por nuestros propios supuestos epocales y se enraiza ya en el pensar ontológico de Occidente. Así, este artículo intentará examinar las aporías filosóficas de tal mediación histórico-epocal, exponiendo (...) la reflexión heideggeriana del cuerpo desde el claro del ser como una respuesta a la idea tradicional de subjetividad fundada en la noción de “mera presencia”. (shrink)

This work presents a post-positivist research framework for explaining any surprising or anomalous fact in the evolutionary path of a complex, dynamic, and contingent social process. Firstly, it elaborates on the reconciliation betweenthe ontological and epistemological assumptions of Critical Realism with the principles of American Pragmatism. Next, the research method is presented: theoretical propositions about a social structure are translated into a set of grammar rules that acknowledge patterns of sequences of events, either involving individual action or interaction between actors (...) within a real social system. The result is a discrete mathematical model for a concrete category of social process based on these rules. Finally, data-grounded refinement of the theory is possible through comparison between cases belonging to the same category, but differing in some contingent pattern of sequences of event outcomes. Consequently, their grammars differ in some pairs of context-sensitive rules that explain this surprising fact, and the derivation of this alternative historical trajectory of event outcomes becomes an extension to the early category of social process. In this sense, the proposed framework suggests a hierarchy of classes of grammars for middle-range explanations based on the ontological assumption of the generative nature of social reality. (shrink)

The philosophy of perception has been mostly focused on vision, to the detriment of other modalities like audition or olfaction. In this paper I focus on olfaction and olfactory experience, and raise the following questions: is olfaction a perceptual-representational modality? If so, what does it represent? My goal in the paper is, firstly, to provide an affirmative answer to the first question, and secondly, to argue that olfaction represents odors in the form of olfactory objects, to which olfactory qualities are (...) attributed. In order to do this I develop an empirically adequate notion of olfactory object that is sensitive to the peculiarities of olfaction, and defend it against various objections. (shrink)

This article proposes three reflexive movements. The first one offers an introduction to Fees Must Fall, pointing to some aspects that allow us to understand it as a social movement and some of its basic features. The second movement is a theoretical one, constructing the notion of emancipatory politics. It is based on the distinctions suggested by Jacques Rancière between ‘police and politics’ and by Michael Neocosmos between ‘excessive and expressive’ politics. It will also present the Freirean notion of ‘conscientisation (...) and dialogicity’, emphasising the learning experience from the political praxis within emancipatory social movements. The third movement offers, as conclusion, an apocalyptic politics as suggested by Žižek, envisioned through the lens of Christian eschatology, as a critical approach to social movements towards the radical transformation of society. (shrink)

While virtually everyone recognizes the moral permissibility of whistleblowing under certain circumstances, most theorists offer relatively conservative accounts of when it is allowed, and are reluctant to offer a full recommendation of the practice as an important tool towards addressing ethical failures in the workplace. We think that accounts such as these tend to overestimate the importance of professional or personal obligations, and underestimate the moral obligation to shine light on severe professional malfeasance. Of course, a whistleblower, even an anonymous (...) one, often faces serious threats of retaliation and harm to their professional livelihoods and well-being. To address these challenges we argue in favor of a practice that we will call Preemptive Anonymous Whistleblowing (PAW). Such whistleblowing is preemptive in that a whistleblower provides information about malfeasance to a party in a position to do something about it without first raising the worry to one’s immediate superiors. At first blush, such preemption may seem unsettling, and PAW admittedly raises a number of worrisome issues. We defend PAW, however, as part of a larger argument that whistleblowing is morally required more often than is commonly thought. The availability of PAW as an option provides a method for allaying the concern that whistleblowing can be overly burdensome due to the risks of job and career. Insofar as that concern can be allayed, it is feasible for there to be substantial moral requirements to engage in whistleblowing in cases where severe harms can be prevented. With high enough stakes, there is a moral requirement for whistleblowing. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar as implicações críticas da imunização biopolítica da vida humana a partir das reflexões de Roberto Esposito, problematizando a seguinte questão: em tempos de pandemia viral e, consequentemente, de Estados emergenciais, de que maneira o paradigma imunitário atua sobre a vida humana? A hipótese que gostaríamos de desenvolver parte do relevo de que, em crises agudas, o paradigma imunitário é tensionado ao seu limite, convergindo para a produção de Estados de emergência segundo os quais (...) são responsáveis por introduzir políticas nefastas de produção tanto da vida quanto da morte. Para validar nossa hipótese e desenvolver o objetivo e a problemática da pesquisa, o presente texto se organiza em dois momentos: primeiramente, nosso intuito consiste em apresentar brevemente a reflexão de Esposito acerca do paradigma imunitário; em seguida, temos como fito analisar criticamente o estado de pandemia viral à luz do paradigma imunitário, buscando encontrar vestígios de como tal ferramenta conceitual nos permite desenvolver uma interpretação para o tempo presente. (shrink)

El artículo busca analizar dentro de la obra El extraño caso del Dr. Jekyll y Mr. Hyde (2015) de Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), el fenómeno del doppelgänger. Este fenómeno tomó gran predominancia en la literatura del siglo XIX como recurso literario que siguió estando presente en obras posteriores. Por lo que consideramos pertinente iniciar un diálogo ético sobre esta temática, repasando este relato que dio a conocer el fenómeno del doppelgänger al público lector. Así, describiremos primeramente qué es este último, (...) para luego hacerle un rastreo dentro de la obra de Stevenson, destacando sus elementos más relevantes. Finalmente se busca profundizar esta temática del doble relacionándolo con un debate ético que de allí se pueda formar, proponiendo esta misma obra literaria como medio que nos incita y mueve a replantearnos nuestro ser ético en sociedad y considerando aquellos elementos más detestables en nuestra humanidad, contenidos en el doppelgänger. Por último, extendemos este análisis utilizando los Pensamientos (1918) de Blaise Pascal, que nos pueden ayudar a adentrarnos en un área existencial sobre la condición humana y la moralidad. (shrink)

El concepto de desarrollo humano del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD) surge en 1990 como una crítica a la consideración de la economía como el fin último de los esfuerzos del desarrollo. En la visión del PNUD, la economía es considerada un fin relativo, es decir, un fin y un medio para el desarrollo humano. Al considerar, por su parte, el fin del desarrollo humano, este es identificado con el ensanchamiento de las opciones y libertades de (...) que gozan los individuos. En este sentido, este concepto de desarrollo humano hace alusión a una práctica política más que a un entendimiento ético-ontológico del ser humano, evitando referirse a desarrollo humano entendido como un desarrollo del ser humano. Este artículo explora los antecedentes del concepto del desarrollo humano del PNUD y los fines que consideran estos enfoques previos. Se observa que la consideración subjetivista del PNUD proviene de la teoría de Amartya Sen, quien queda sujeto a la crítica objetivista de Martha Nussbaum al no considera un fin objetivo para los asuntos humanos, crítica que puede de igual manera aplicarse al concepto de desarrollo humano del PNUD. (shrink)

This paper addresses two methodological paths in Artificial Intelligence: the paths of Babbage and anti-Cartesianism. While those researchers who have followed the latter have attempted to reverse the Cartesian dictum according to which machines cannot think in principle, Babbage’s path, which has been partially neglected, implies that the replacement of humans—and not the creation of minds—should provide the foundation of AI. In view of the examined paths, the claim that we support here is this: in line with Babbage, AI researchers (...) have recently concentrated upon the replacement of human labour, and thus upon the creation of Machine Learning systems. After presenting and analysing the paths, we characterise Machine Learning via its developments and an illustrative example. Then, we put forward an argument that shows that total replacement of human labour will not be feasible for practical and conceptual reasons despite the successful developments in recent AI systems. Our discussion finally leads to optimism and awareness: AI’s advances allow humans to dedicate themselves to higher level tasks, but these advances also require that we be vigilant about the responsibilities granted to ML-based systems. (shrink)