After having defined the KARO logic for specifying intelligent agents in earlier work we now turn to the question how to realise agents specified in the KARO framework. To this end we look at agent programming languages that we have defined, and investigate how programs in these languages can be linked to the KARO logic.

The purpose of this article is to respond to Thomas Uebel’s criticisms of my comments regarding the current revisionism of Carnap’s work and its relations to Kuhn. I begin by pointing out some misunderstandings in the interpretation of my article. I then discuss some aspects related to Carnap’s view of the history of science. First, I emphasize that it was not due to a supposed affinity between Kuhn’s conceptions and those of logical positivists that Kuhn was invited to write the (...) monograph on the history of science for the Encyclopedia. Three other authors had been invited first, including George Sarton whose conception was entirely different from Kuhn’s. In addition, I try to show that Carnap attributes little importance to the history of science. He seldom refers to it and, when he does, he clearly defends a Whig or an ‘old’ historiography of science, to which Kuhn opposes his “new historiography of science”. It is argued that this raises serious difficulties for those, like Uebel, who hold the view that Carnap includes the historical or the social within the rational. (shrink)

Odor and color are strongly associated. Numerous studies demonstrate consistent odor‐color associations, as well as effects of color on odor perception and language. Yet, we know little about how these associations arise. Here, we test whether language is a possible mediator of odor‐color associations, specifically whether odor‐color associations are mediated by implicit odor naming. In two experiments, we used an interference paradigm to prevent the verbalization of odors during an odor‐color matching task. If participants generate color associations subsequent to labeling (...) an odor, interfering with verbalization during the task should affect the ability to make color associations. In Experiment 1, contrary to our hypothesis, verbal interference did not affect odor‐color matches. However, since performance accuracy on the verbal interference task was high, it is possible our task did not sufficiently disrupt verbal processing. In Experiment 2, we, therefore, used an active verbal interference task, and still found no difference across interference conditions. Odor naming accuracy, odor familiarity, and odor pleasantness, however, did predict odor‐color matches. This suggests that although color associations are related to semantic factors, they are not generated by recruiting odor labels in the moment. Overall, our results do not provide evidence that language plays an online role in odor‐color associations, instead, they are consistent with the claim that language may have shaped associations during development. (shrink)

The past 50 years have seen an accumulation of evidence suggesting that associative learning depends on high-level cognitive processes that give rise to propositional knowledge. Yet, many learning theorists maintain a belief in a learning mechanism in which links between mental representations are formed automatically. We characterize and highlight the differences between the propositional and link approaches, and review the relevant empirical evidence. We conclude that learning is the consequence of propositional reasoning processes that cooperate with the unconscious processes involved (...) in memory retrieval and perception. We argue that this new conceptual framework allows many of the important recent advances in associative learning research to be retained, but recast in a model that provides a firmer foundation for both immediate application and future research. (shrink)

Cette contribution témoigne de l’importance de la réception de la phénoménologie de langue française en Amérique Latine. En revisitant la thèse de la duplicité de l’apparaître – apparaître de la vie comme affect et comme force, apparaître du monde comme sens et distance –, Roberto J. Walton s’attache au concept fondamental de la phénoménologie de la vie, en mettant en avant des modalités dans lesquelles l’auto-affection opère sans hétéro-affection d’une manière avérée. Il précise d’emblée que cette auto-affection sans hétéro-affection est (...) définie par deux aspects : un premier « aspect de base » – ou rapport de fondation – en vertu duquel l’auto-affection est la condition de possibilité de toute intentionnalité ou ek-stase ; et un deuxième aspect « d’intensification ou d’excédence » qui renvoie à la phénoménologie de l’événement, en ceci que l’auto-affection y apparaît dans une sorte de plus-value, c’est-à-dire dans la condition de l’acte comme accroissement créateur. (shrink)

Was die Frage nach der Funktion der Sprache im Erkenntnisprozeß betrifft, haben wir zuerst die verschiedenen Theorien dargestellt. Nach einer Reihe alleinstehender Personen wie Derbolav, Bühler, Jost, Glinz behandeln wir die Strömungen der symbolischen Logik und der linguistic analysis. Die symbolische Logik will das Denken in einer logischen Modellsprache analysieren. Die linguistic Analysis betrachtet die gewöhnliche Umgangssprache als Trägerin des Denkens und will, daß alle Philosophen und Wissenschaftler sich in dieser gewöhnlichen Umgangssprache ausdrücken, die bei guter Analyse für jeden intelligenten (...) Menschen verständlich ist. Die Strömungen der Phänomenologie und des Existentialismus äußern die Erfahrung, daß der Mensch seine Existenz ganz in einer sprechenden Welt erfährt und daß sich seine Existenz in der Sprache vollzieht : die Sprache ist das Haus seines Daseins. Keine Sache kann in unserem Bewußtsein zur Existenz gelangen, wenn wir sie nicht zu Wort bringen können. Die Ethnolinguisten und Psycholinguisten sind zu dem Ergebnis gekommen, daß die Formen, in denen ein Mensch jeweils denkt, von den unerbittlichen und unentrinnbaren Strukturen der Wörter mit ihren Bedeutungen und den Strukturen der Wortkombinationen kontrolliert werden. Diese Strukturen sind die Strukturen der jeweiligen Muttersprache. Das Denken eines Menschen vollzieht sich in seiner Sprache. Die Strukturen der Sprache liefern die Modelle für das Denken, für die Analyse der Eindrücke. Unser ganzes Denken bewegt sich in einer denkerisch-sprachigen Welt. Jedes Denken muß sich in Sprachstrukturen kanalisieren lassen. Die Sprache ist das formgebende Organ des Denkens. Die Denkanalyse vollzieht sich in Sprache. In einem bestimmten Augenblick der Entwicklung des Kindes begegnen sich Sprache und Denken ; dann wird das Denken „sprachig” und das Sprechen „denkerisch”. Von nun an werden die meisten Reize der physischen Welt durch ein sprachiges zweites Reizsystem gefiltert ; die Reize werden „in Sprache übersetzt”. Dieser Sprachfilter ist auch in der Analyse nach der dynamischen Erfassung der Reize vorhanden. Diese Daten aus den Theorien der Linguistic Analysis, der Phänomenologie, des Existentialismus, der Ethnolinguistik und Psycholinguistik kann man in direkte Verbindung bringen mit der neoklassischien Theorie, die über ein Erfassen von Erkenntnis-Daten in einer Intuition spricht, die implizit die Möglichkeit zu einem Explizitieren und Analysieren enthält. Somit kommen wir zu folgendem Schema : Reize, sprachiger Empfangsapparat ↓ Erfassung der Reize, Konzeption, Sicht ↓ Denk-Sprachanalyse ↓ Die phonische Äußerung der Denk-Sprachanalyse. Zum Schluß geben wir noch ein Beispiel für eine Kons ta tierungs-Sicht, Ihre Denk-Sprachanalyse und die phonische Äußerung ihrer Denk-Sparchanalyse. (shrink)

When the COVID-19 surge hit New York City hospitals, the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College, and our affiliated ethics consultation services, faced waves of ethical issues sweeping forward with intensity and urgency. In this article, we describe our experience over an eight-week period (16 March through 10 May 2020), and describe three types of services: clinical ethics consultation (CEC); service practice communications/interventions (SPCI); and organizational ethics advisement (OEA). We tell this narrative through the prism of time, (...) describing the evolution of ethical issues and trends as the pandemic unfolded. We delineate three phases: anticipation and preparation, crisis management, and reflection and adjustment. The first phase focused predominantly on ways to address impending resource shortages and to plan for remote ethics consultation, and CECs focused on code status discussions with surrogates. The second phase was characterized by the dramatic convergence of a rapid increase in the number of critically ill patients, a growing scarcity of resources, and the reassignment/ redeployment of staff outside their specialty areas. The third phase was characterized by the recognition that while the worst of the crisis was waning, its medium- and long-term consequences continued to pose immense challenges. We note that there were times during the crisis that serving in the role of clinical ethics consultant created a sense of dis-ease as novel as the coronavirus itself. In retrospect we learned that our activities far exceeded the familiar terrain of clinical ethics consultation and extended into other spheres of organizational life in novel ways that were unanticipated before this pandemic. To that end, we defined and categorized a middle level of ethics consultation, which we have termed service practice communication intervention (SPCI). This is an underappreciated dimension of the work that ethics consult services are capable of in times of crisis. We believe that the pandemic has revealed the many enduring ways that ethics consultation services can more robustly contribute to the ethical life of their institutions moving forward. (shrink)