_ Source: _Volume 7, Issue 4, pp 258 - 271 This contribution to the symposium on Annalisa Coliva’s _Extended Rationality_ is largely sympathetic with the moderate view of the structure of epistemic warrant which is defended in the book. However, it takes issue with some aspects of Coliva’s Wittgenstein-inspired ‘hinge epistemology’, focussing especially on her conception of propositional warrant, her treatment of epistemic closure, her antirealist conception of truth, and the significance of her answer to so-called Humean scepticism.

The advent of Generative AI, particularly through Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and its successors, marks a paradigm shift in the AI landscape. Advanced LLMs exhibit multimodality, handling diverse data formats, thereby broadening their application scope. However, the complexity and emergent autonomy of these models introduce challenges in predictability and legal compliance. This paper analyses the legal and regulatory implications of Generative AI and LLMs in the European Union context, focusing on liability, privacy, intellectual property, and cybersecurity. It examines (...) the adequacy of the existing and proposed EU legislation, including the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA), in addressing the challenges posed by Generative AI in general and LLMs in particular. The paper identifies potential gaps and shortcomings in the EU legislative framework and proposes recommendations to ensure the safe and compliant deployment of generative models. (shrink)

Apparently, aiming to comply with the norm ‘Believe that P if and only if the proposition that P is true’ can hardly differ from aiming to comply with the norm ‘Believe that P if and only if the proposition that P is epistemically justified’. So one may be tempted to agree with Richard Rorty that the distinction between truth and justification is pragmatically useless because it cannot make any difference ‘when the question is about what I should believe now’. I (...) resist this conclusion by arguing that the distinction between truth and justification is pragmatically useful even if the two properties are indeed normatively coincident. The argument I offer turns on the claim that truth plays an explanatory role that justification is inherently incapable of playing. However, my contention is not just that the distinction between truth and justification is pragmatically useful because truth is a bona fide explanatory notion. It is that the distinction between truth and justification is pragmatically useful because the realization that the former plays an explanatory role that the latter is inherently incapable of playing gives access to reasons which would otherwise escape our attention. If truth is a bona fide explanatory notion, the distinction between truth and justification is pragmatically useful because it is precisely when the question is about what I should believe now that attending to such a distinction will often make a difference – and it will make a difference even if the two properties are in fact normatively coincident. (shrink)

Humor and cruelty can be the best of friends. Many cruel domains have facilitated hilarity of all kinds, whether experienced directly or vicariously, stretching from the torture chamber to the living room—or wherever else a screen is to be found. Conversely, many jests have provided the vehicle with which to dispense cruelty, whether callously or gleefully, in myriad settings, from public events to intimate family dinners. Combining the sources and resources of the humanities and social sciences, this book investigates the (...) mutually supportive liaisons of humor and cruelty. We unearth the brutal, aggressive, and/or sadomasochistic roots of mockery and self-mockery, sarcasm and satire, whilst addressing contemporary debates in humor studies focusing on the thorny ethics and existential challenges arising from the acceptance of the much-appreciated yet seldom innocent channel for human interaction called "humor.". (shrink)

There is a widespread opinion that the realist idea that whether a proposition is true or false typically depends on how things are independently of ourselves is bound to turn truth, in Davidson's words, into “something to which humans can never legitimately aspire”. This opinion accounts for the ongoing popularity of “epistemic” theories of truth, that is, of those theories that explain what it is for a proposition (or statement, or sentence, or what have you) to be true or false (...) in terms of some epistemic notion, such as provability, justifiability, verifiability, rational acceptability, warranted assertibility, and so forth, in some suitably characterized epistemic situation. My aim in this paper is to show that the widespread opinion is erroneous and that the (legitimate) epistemological preoccupation with the accessibility of truth does not warrant the rejection of the realist intuition that truth is, at least for certain types of propositions, radically nonepistemic. (shrink)

Several psychosocial models have been proposed to explain the etiology of eating disorders and obesity separately despite research suggesting they should be conceptualized within a shared theoretical framework. The objective of the current study was to test an integrated comprehensive model consisting of a host of common risk and protective factors expected to explain both eating and weight disorders simultaneously in a large school-based sample of adolescents. Data were collected from 3,043 youth from 41 schools in the Ottawa region, Canada. (...) Working with interested school staff, validated self-report scales in the form of a questionnaire booklet were administered to participating students to assess several understood risk and protective factors common to both eating disorders and obesity. Anthropometric measurements of weight and height were taken at the end of the questionnaire administration period by trained research staff. Structural equation modeling with cross-validation was used to test the hypothesized model. Findings demonstrated that dysregulated eating was associated with both eating disorder and weight status with diet culture and emotion dysregulation directly associated with some of these disordered eating patterns. It equally pointed to how lifestyle made up of high sedentary behaviors, low vigorous exercise and varied eating patterns contributed to both emotion dysregulation and poor body image which subsequently affected eating issues and weight status simultaneously, signaling the complex interplay of psychosocial factors that underlie these concerns. This study provides evidence for an integrated psychosocial model consisting of socio-environmental, psychological, and behavioral factors may best explain the complex interplay of risk and protective factors influencing eating disorders and obesity. It equally highlights understanding the direct and indirect effects of some of the most salient risk factors involved in eating and weight-related concerns, including the strong effects of diet culture and stressors such as weight-based teasing, providing interventionalists evidence of important risk factors to consider targeting in eating disorder and weight-based prevention efforts. (shrink)

Fraser is one of the most important American philosophers and one of the leading figures of contemporary critical theory. From the 1980s to the present, Fraser has published on political philosophy and social theory, reflected upon feminism, justice, and capitalism, and has participated in public debates on current issues. The interview aims at retracing the main themes of her thought, underlining the persisting link which joins her understanding of political philosophy with social critique and public engagement. The interview also emphasizes (...) the developments of her thought, starting from her formation in the American New Left, the encounter with feminism and the neo-Marxist cultural critique of capitalism, and the discussion of Habermas’s thought. Also discussed is Fraser’s complex feministic theory and her post-Westphalian and three-dimensional model of global justice. Another crucial topic is the recent elaboration of an enlarged view of capitalism, based on a combination of Karl Marx and Karl Polanyi, aimed at highlighting its structural crisis tendencies: not only economic, but also ecological, political, and social. The recent debate on the crisis of liberal democracy, the emergence of populism, the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the Ukrainian war, become an opportunity to test how a renewed critical theory of society can develop a social diagnosis of the time, without abandoning the task of a reconstruction of the emancipatory potential present in the existing social reality. Finally, Fraser recalls her link with the Italian philosophical tradition, stressing in particular her debt to Antonio Gramsci. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 487 61oign6 de Locke, qui a fait entrer les math6matiques dans la logique, il est leur successeur attitr6. II a 6pous6 une doctrine pacifiste encore plus imp6rative que celle de Voltaire. N'a-t-il pas lui aussi cherch6 a cultiver son jardin pour en faire un paradis terrestre, et ce n'est certes pas sa faute ni celle de la raison humaine sice paradis s'estompe darts un avenir toujours plus (...) 61oign6 pour n'~tre en d6finitive qu'un mirage. P. Gay qui est ~t sa fa~on un bon disciple de Locke est un pragmatiste plus qu'un rationaliste. Le programme des philosophes n'Stait pas seulement raisonnable, il ~tait pratique. MSme si ceux-ci se sonl: paffois montr6s, ridicules pour avoir m~connu la grande part de l'irrationnel daus l'esprit humain, ils ont du moins le m~rite d'avoir fair appel au bon sens de la collectivit6, ce bon sens qui fondait route la m6thode de Descartes. Pour P. Gay, comme pour les hommes du xvm e sidle, le philosophe est avant tout le sage et le savant, l'homme de bien et le citoyen, tel qu'il est dit daus l'Encyclopddie. C'est le "militaire phflosophe" dont l'auteur est inconnu, le "philosophe ignorant" de Voltaire, le "philosophe sans le savoir" de Sedaine. Une nouvelle conception de l'homme se fait jour, celle d'un 8tre ~ la lois rationnel et sensible. Par derriere de nombreux avatars se retrouve une philosophic g6n~rale commune: celle de Locke et de Condillac, de Hume, d'Helv6tius et de Diderot, celle-l~t m6me qu'E. C.assirer a su mettre en lumi~re en insistant sur son c6t6 formel, et que le philosophe sovi6tique J. Luppol a quelque peu fauss6e par une interpr6tation marxiste et par trop dogrnatique de l'histoire. Elle s'exprime clairement dans le Discours pr~lirninaire de d'Alembert. Le sensationnalisme a promu l'id~e de la souverainet~ de l'esprit critique et par l~t m~me a r6pudi6 la toute-puissance de la Raison. La nouvelle m6thode pr6conis ~e permet une dialectique nouvelle, qui est pr~cis6ment celle de l'homme moderne. EUe entraine une conception diff6rente du monde et de l'homme, une interpretation nouvelle de leurs rapports. La psychologie est amen~e ~ faire ses premiers pas en tant que science; mais c'est une analyse impitoyable du moi profond en marge d'une exploration de la vie sociale et du monde ext~rieur qui a fray6 la voie ~t la modernitY, et nous a donn~ le sentiment de notre libertY. C'est ainsi qu'il convient de faire entrer le Rousseau des Confessions aussi bien que du Contrat social dans la grande famille d~sunie qui fait le sujet du livre de P. Gay. Pour nous, en nous pla~ant ~t un point de rue quelque peu different de celui de notre auteur, et tout en reconnaissant avec lui que le dix-huiti~me si~cle a port~ une atteinte mortelle ~ la m~taphysique, nous croyons pouvoir dire que le dix-huiti~me si~cle n'est pas tant le si~cle qui a reni~ Dieu, mais le si~cle qui s'en est fait une conception plus moderne en le repoussant darts un pass~ lointain et t~n~breux ou en le situant, non sans ivresse, darts un avenir tr~s incertain. R. NIKLAUS Exeter, England La Filosofia Politica di Schelling. By Claudio Cesa. (Bari, Laterza, 1969. Pp. 252. n.p.) Was Schelling an original political philosopher? This does not seem to be the opinion of the author of this very careful research, which is beyond any doubt the 488 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY most extensive study of this aspect of Schelling's thought, at least until 1806. However, even if Schelling was not, as it is frequently stated, indifferent to the problems and the vicissitudes of politics, his theoretical thinking on this subject never went beyond temporary systematizations, to be given up, or modified, after a while. The author shows how Schelling, especially in this fieM, was influenced either by his environment in general, or by some personalities he happened to contact: first... (shrink)