In past and modern psychophysics there are several unresolved methodological and philosophical problems of human and animal perception, including the outstanding question of the relational basis of whole psychophysics. Here the main issue is discussed: if, and to what extent, there are viable bridges between the traditional “gestalt” oriented approaches and the modern perceptual-cognitive perspectives in psychophysics. Thereby the key concept of psychological “frame of reference” is presented by pointing to Hermann Ebbinghaus' geometric-optical illusions, on the one hand, and (...) Max Wertheimer's treatment of the traditional transposition phenomenon, on the other hand. A much-needed theoretical reorientation of future research may help to overcome the philosophical narrowness of present-day human and comparative psychophysics. (shrink)

Im Rahmen dieses Beitrags beleuchten wir, wie Hans Hahn die Einflüsse Russells und Wittgensteins adaptiert, um seine individuelle Variante von Logizismus zu entwickeln. Von Bedeutung ist in diesem Zusammenhang Hahns unterschätzte Vorreiterrolle in der Entwicklung des logischen Toleranzprinzips und des logischen Pluralismus, also der Loslösung von der Vorstellung einer einzigen „korrekten“ Logik. Die detaillierten Arbeiten Uebels (2007, 2009) zur Entwicklung des logischen Pluralismus im Wiener Kreis verdienen zumindest zwei punktuelle Ergänzungen: Erstens untermauern die in diesem Kontext bisher unberücksichtigten Protokolle (...) des Wiener Kreises sowie Vorlesungsmitschriften Hermann Brochs die von Uebel im Gegensatz zu Goldfarb (1996) beschriebene Distanzierung Hahns von Wittgenstein. Zweitens relativieren Hahns und Mengers Arbeiten zu Occams Rasiermesser Uebels Einschätzung, Mengers Beitrag zum Toleranzprinzip sei „wenig philosophisch“. (shrink)

Discoverers of “market failures” as well as advocates of the general efficiency of a “true, unhampered market” sometimes seem to disregard the fundamental fact that there is no such thing as a “market as such.” What we call a market is always a system of social interaction characterized by a specific institutional framework, that is, by a set of rules defining certain restrictions on the behavior of the market participants, whether these rules are informal, enforced by private sanctions, or formal, (...) enforced by a particular agency, the “protective state,” in J. M. Buchanan's terminology. (shrink)

Sociological theories of space have so far not provided an in-depth analysis of online spaces. The paper addresses this issue by means of Löw’s relational theory of space. As this theory mainly focuses on material spaces, it is necessary to embrace the phenomenological perspective in order to apply it to the virtual realm. More recent phenomenological research has highlighted the ongoing mediatization or virtualization of the life-world. These theories, and presence research more generally, are useful for examining the layers of (...) virtual presence. This paper focuses on two emblematic types of spaces: multiplayer online role-playing games and Skype video chats. The first represents an online version of a Schutzian finite province of meaning, while Skyping is an example of how the paramount reality of everyday life expands into the virtual realm. Albeit differently, actors in both cases constitute hybrid, virtual-material spaces with various forms and degrees of virtual presence. User experiences in these spaces are in line with contemporary sociological diagnoses indicating the vanishing experience of living in space and the general tendency of late modernity to question previous social forms of modernity. (shrink)

Auch die subtilsten geistigen Kompetenzen haben eine organische Basis. Mag es auch zunächst überraschen, so besteht daher doch eine entscheidende Verbindung zwischen Gedächtnis und Körper. Es geht also darum, Gedächtnis und Erinnerung nicht als bloßes Wissen misszuverstehen. Vor allem als soziale Tatsache bedarf Erinnerung stets wiederholter Beschwörungen, um nicht zu verschwinden. Spricht man vom individuellen Gedächtnis und der persönlichen Erinnerung, denkt man im Allgemeinen an bewusste Prozesse, dabei ist es häufig viel eher so, dass bestimmte Lernerfahrungen gar nicht mehr bewusst, (...) sondern gleichsam zum weitestgehend unbewussten Moment geistiger und vor allem auch körperlicher Prägungen geworden sind. Diese Verbindung zwischen Körper und Gedächtnis faltet der vorliegende Band systematisch aus. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In this analysis of one of the most difficult and neglected topics in Hegelian studies, Songsuk Susan Hahn tackles the status of contradiction in Hegel's ...

We paraphrase Descartes’ famous dictum in the area of AI ethics where the “I doubt and therefore I am” is suggested as a necessary aspect of morality. Therefore AI, which cannot doubt itself, cannot possess moral agency. Of course, this is not the end of the story. We explore various aspects of the human mind that substantially differ from AI, which includes the sensory grounding of our knowing, the act of understanding, and the significance of being able to doubt ourselves. (...) The foundation of our argument is the discipline of ethics, one of the oldest and largest knowledge projects of human history, yet, we seem only to be beginning to get a grasp of it. After a couple of thousand years of studying the ethics of humans, we (humans) arrived at a point where moral psychology suggests that our moral decisions are intuitive, and all the models from ethics become relevant only when we explain ourselves. This recognition has a major impact on what and how we can do regarding AI ethics. We do not offer a solution, we explore some ideas and leave the problem open, but we hope somewhat better understood than before our study. (shrink)

Dr. Viktor Dörfler combines his background in developing and implementing AI with scholarly research on knowledge and cultivating talent to address misconceptions about AI. The Element explains what AI can and cannot do, carefully delineating facts from beliefs or wishful thinking. Filled with examples, this practical Element is thought-provoking. The purpose is to help CEOs figure out how to make the best use of AI, suggesting how to extract AI’s greatest value through appropriate task allocation between human experts and (...) AI. The author challenges the attribution of characteristics like understanding, thinking, and creativity to AI, supporting his argument with the ideas of the finest AI philosophers. He also discusses in depth one of the most sensitive AI-related topics: ethics. The readers are encouraged to make up their own minds about AI and draw their own conclusions rather than accepting opinions from people with vested interests or an agenda. (shrink)

I present a systematic interpretation of the foundational purpose of constructions in ancient Greek geometry. I argue that Greek geometers were committed to an operationalist foundational program, according to which all of mathematics—including its entire ontology and epistemology—is based entirely on concrete physical constructions. On this reading, key foundational aspects of Greek geometry are analogous to core tenets of 20th-century operationalist/positivist/constructivist/intuitionist philosophy of science and mathematics. Operationalism provides coherent answers to a range of traditional philosophical problems regarding classical mathematics, such (...) as the epistemic warrant and generality of diagrammatic reasoning, superposition, and the relation between constructivism and proof by contradiction. Alleged logical flaws in Euclid can be interpreted as sound operationalist reasoning. Operationalism also provides a compelling philosophical motivation for the otherwise inexplicable Greek obsession with cube duplication, angle trisection, and circle quadrature. Operationalism makes coherent sense of numerous specific choices made in this tradition, and suggests new interpretations of several solutions to these problems. In particular, I argue that: Archytas’s cube duplication was originally a single-motion machine; Diocles’s cissoid was originally traced by a linkage device; Greek conic section theory was thoroughly constructive, based on the conic compass; in a few cases, string-based constructions of conic sections were used instead; pointwise constructions of curves were rejected in foundational contexts by Greek mathematicians, with good reason. Operationalism enables us to view the classical geometrical tradition as a more unified and philosophically aware enterprise than has hitherto been recognised. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

There is a prima facie conflict between the semantical theory of direct reference and an intuitively plausible view often called 'individualism'. Direct reference theory is the view that certain expressions pick out their referent directly, without any intervening semantical mechanism. In order to describe the meaning of a sentence which contain such an expression, we have to mention the referent itself. Individualism is a view that mental states are individuated without reference to the subject's environment, either social or physical, and (...) therefore without mentioning an external object of reference. ;I argue that there is no conflict because it is a mistake to carry over the results of a semantical theory into a theory of mental content. My argument ultimately relies on a certain understanding of the difficult notions of mental content and linguistic meaning, gained in part by a close analysis of the historical context in which the theory of reference emerged out of the parallel work in the theory of intentionality. Fundamentally, the elucidation of these concepts is the principal aim of the dissertation, rather than the dismantling of an apparent conflict between two currently accepted views. ;There are two ways in which the conflict may be thought to arise. One argument relies on the identification of linguistic meaning with mental content. Against this I argue that we cannot hold both direct reference and the thesis, crucial to the argument, that linguistic meaning is identical to the thought-content of a competent. The short argument for conflict, therefore, fails. ;The second argument for the conflict is less direct. There are some thoughts, called De Re, which are said to constitute a direct connection between thinker and object. It is often thought that such thoughts are the ones attributed correctly using directly referential expressions. But what we attribute in such cases are just mental states whose attribution essentially involves the extra-mental objects of thought themselves, pace individualism. I argue that this argument depends on a conception of De Re, inherited from W. V. O. Quine, which mistakenly collapses issues of mental content with those of thought-attribution. (shrink)

Drawing from the literatures on the ethics of nudging and moral bioenhancement, I elaborate several pairs of cases in which one intervention is classified as an environmental behavioral intervention (EBI) and the other as a neurochemical behavioral intervention (NBI) in order to morally compare them. The intuition held by most is that NBIs are by far the more morally troubling kind of influence. However, if this intuition cannot be vindicated, we should at least entertain the _Similarity Thesis_, according to which (...) EBIs and NBIs share relevant moral features to the extent that moral conclusions about one are implied about the other in the described pairs of cases. I test this thesis by putting forward a number of possible moral grounds for setting EBIs and NBIs apart, including three of the most promising ones – physical invasiveness, disclosure and avoidance, and inevitability. I conclude that although these promising grounds might not bear the full burden of vindicating the intuition against _Similarity_ by themselves, clustering them together can establish discernible moral separation. (shrink)

The geometrical algebra hypothesis was once the received interpretation of Greek mathematics. In recent decades, however, it has become anathema to many. I give a critical review of all arguments against it and offer a consistent rebuttal case against the modern consensus. Consequently, I find that the geometrical algebra interpretation should be reinstated as a viable historical hypothesis.

Any account of “what is special about the human brain” (Passingham 2008) must specify the neural basis of our unique ability to produce speech and delineate how these remarkable motor capabilities could have emerged in our hominin ancestors. Clinical data suggest that the basal ganglia provide a platform for the integration of primate-general mechanisms of acoustic communication with the faculty of articulate speech in humans. Furthermore, neurobiological and paleoanthropological data point at a two-stage model of the phylogenetic evolution of this (...) crucial prerequisite of spoken language: (i) monosynaptic refinement of the projections of motor cortex to the brainstem nuclei that steer laryngeal muscles, presumably, as part of a “phylogenetic trend” associated with increasing brain size during hominin evolution; (ii) subsequent vocal-laryngeal elaboration of cortico-basal ganglia circuitries, driven by human-specificFOXP2mutations.;>This concept implies vocal continuity of spoken language evolution at the motor level, elucidating the deep entrenchment of articulate speech into a “nonverbal matrix” (Ingold 1994), which is not accounted for by gestural-origin theories. Moreover, it provides a solution to the question for the adaptive value of the “first word” (Bickerton 2009) since even the earliest and most simple verbal utterances must have increased the versatility of vocal displays afforded by the preceding elaboration of monosynaptic corticobulbar tracts, giving rise to enhanced social cooperation and prestige. At the ontogenetic level, the proposed model assumes age-dependent interactions between the basal ganglia and their cortical targets, similar to vocal learning in some songbirds. In this view, the emergence of articulate speech builds on the “renaissance” of an ancient organizational principle and, hence, may represent an example of “evolutionary tinkering” (Jacob 1977). (shrink)

The exacerbation of ethnic [natsional'nye] conflicts in the USSR is ruinous not only for our country. Polemics on the ethnic question are being waged at all levels and with all means, but what they lack most is a sober analysis of explosive problems. Even persons who in every other respect are distinguished by tolerance and common sense make an unworthy show of themselves on this sensitive question.

Mathematical texts raise particular dilemmas for the translator. With its arm’s-length relation to verbal expression and long-standing “mathematics is written for mathematicians” ethos, mathematics lends itself awkwardly to textually centered analysis. Otherwise sound standards of historical scholarship can backfire when rigidly upheld in a mathematical context. Mathematically inclined historians have had more faith in a purported empathic sixth sense—and there is a case to be made that this is how mathematical authors have generally expected their works to be read—but it (...) is difficult to pin down exact evidentiary standards for this supposed instinct. This essay urges that both of these points of view, for all the tension between them, be kept in the historian’s toolbox. It illustrates these considerations with a case study from the Ptolemaic astronomical tradition on computing lunar model parameters from eclipse data. (shrink)

We present results from a single case study based on semi-structured interviews with a student (a boy in school year 3) diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and his school staff after participating in a short and small-scale intervention carried out in a socio-economically disadvantaged Swedish elementary school in 2019. The student participated in a seven week long intervention with a total of 12 philosophical dialogues (ranging from 45 to 60 minutes). Two facilitators, both with years of facilitation experience and teacher (...) degree and at least BA in philosophy, facilitated the majority of the dialogues and mainly followed a ”routine” procedure. The student was interviewed in direct connection to the end of the intervention about his experiences from the dialogues and his perceptions about whether and how the dialogues had influenced him. The student’s two teachers, who had participated in the dialogues as participants, were interviewed as a pair, also in direct connection to the end of the intervention, while the school principal was interviewed two years after the study. These staff interviews concerned the staff’s experiences of the influence of the dialogues on the students within the intervention as well as transfer effects to other contexts in school. The data from the study include detailed elaborations from a student perspective of different effects on the student’s communicative and cognitive development, which are in several respects supported also by staff reports. The results show that the student was able, interested, and willing to participate in philosophical dialogues, and our data point to several positive outcomes for the student in the communicative and cognitive domains. (shrink)

English summary: With his research on early Greek philosophy, Hermann Diels created the definitive works of his era, and his Fragments of the Presocratics remains the standard work on the topic. However, the scholar never published a panorama of his unmatched knowledge. For the first time, a transcript of the lecture in which Diels represented his vision of Hellenic thought is now available. The script from the 1897/98 winter semester documents the oratory and pedagogy of the great Hellenist and (...) was provided by one of his exceptional students, the Munich-based Egyptologist Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing. Diels proved himself as a clear-headed thinker discussing the historical course of early proverbial wisdom, the natural and political theory of Plato, and the conceptual precision of Aristotle. Central figures such as Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Democritus are concisely drawn and colored. Thus the text offers an absorbing picture of the origins of theoretical consciousness in Europe. German text. German description: Mit seinen Forschungen zur fruehgriechischen Philosophie hat Hermann Diels Epoche gemacht; seine aFragmente der Vorsokratiker sind weiterhin das Standardwerk zum Thema. Nie jedoch hat der Gelehrte ein Panorama seines unerreichten Wissens veroffentlicht. Erstmals wird nun eine Mitschrift jener Vorlesung zuganglich, in der Diels seine Sicht des hellenischen Denkens darstellte. Das Skript aus dem Wintersemester 1897/98 dokumentiert vorzueglich Sprachkraft und Padagogik des grossen Grazisten; es stammt von einem Ausnahme-Studenten, dem spateren Muenchner Agyptologen Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing.Im historischen Gang von frueher Spruchweisheit bis zur Natur- und Staatslehre Platons und der begrifflichen Prazisionsarbeit des Aristoteles hebt Diels besonders das Fortwirken grosser Denkmuster hervor. Zentrale Gestalten wie Anaximander, Heraklit, Parmenides oder Demokrit sind pragnant und farbig gezeichnet. So bietet der Text ueber seinen fachhistorischen Wert hinaus ein fesselndes Bild der Urspruenge theoretischen Bewusstseins in Europa. (shrink)

Das Gewissen spielt im Leben und Werk von John Henry Newman eine zentrale Rolle. Seine Lehre uber das Gewissen ist im allgemeinen bekannt und anerkannt. Ebenso charakteristisch ist fur ihn aber das Streben nach dem Licht der Wahrheit. Der Autor behandelt in dieser Studie das Verhaltnis von Gewissen und Wahrheit bei Newman: ein Thema, das in dieser Weise in der Newman-Forschung bisher nicht erortert worden ist; ein Thema, das im Kontext der heute um sich greifenden Subjektivierung und Autonomisierung des Gewissens (...) von grundlegender Bedeutung ist.". (shrink)