Experiencing a stimulus in one sensory modality is often associated with an experience in another sensory modality. For instance, seeing a lemon might produce a sensation of sourness. This might indicate some kind of cross-modal correspondence between vision and gustation. The aim of the current study was to provide explore whether such cross-modal correspondences influence cross-modal integration during perceptual learning. To that end, we conducted 2 experiments. Using a speeded classification task, Experiment 1 established a cross-modal correspondence between visual lightness (...) and the frequency of an auditory tone. Using a short-term priming procedure, Experiment 2 showed that manipulation of such cross-modal correspondences led to the creation of a crossmodal unit regardless of the nature of the correspondence (i.e., congruent, Experiment 2a or incongruent, Experiment 2b). However, a comparison of priming-effects sizes suggested that cross-modal correspondences modulate cross-modal integration during learning and thus leading to new learned units that have different stability over time. We discuss the implications of our results for the relation between cross-modal correspondence and perceptual learning in the context of a Bayesian explanation of cross-modal correspondences. (shrink)

Are automated vehicles really safer than manually driven vehicles? If so, how would we know? Answering this question has spurred a contentious debate. Unfortunately, several issues make answering this question difficult for the foreseeable future. First, how do we measure safety? Second, how can we keep track of automated vehicle safety? Finally, how do we determine what is or what is not an AV? Until these questions are addressed, it will continue to be difficult to determine whether or when AVs (...) might really be safer than manually driven vehicles. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is poised to eliminate millions of jobs, from finance to truck driving. But artisanal products are valued precisely because of their human origins, and thus have some inherent “immunity” from AI job loss. At the same time, artisanal labor, combined with technology, could potentially help to democratize the economy, allowing independent, small-scale businesses to flourish. Could AI, robotics and related automation technologies enhance the economic viability and environmental sustainability of these beloved crafting professions, perhaps even expanding their niche (...) to replace some job loss in other sectors? In this paper, we compare the problems created by the current mass production economy and potential solutions from an artisanal economy. In doing so, the paper details the possibilities of utilizing AI to support hybrid forms of human–machine production at the microscale; localized and sustainable value chains at the mesoscale; and networks of these localized and sustainable producers at the macroscale. In short, a wide range of automation technologies are potentially available for facilitating and empowering an artisanal economy. Ultimately, it is our hope that this paper will facilitate a discussion on a future vision for more “generative” economic forms in which labor value, ecological value and social value can circulate without extraction or alienation. (shrink)

The economy for artisanal products, such as Navajo rugs or Pashmina shawls are often threatened by mass-produced fakes. We propose the use of AI-based authentication as one part of a larger system that would replace extractive economies with generative circulation. In this case study we examine initial experiments towards the development of a cell phone-based authentication app for kente cloth in West Africa. We describe the context of weavers and cloth sales; an initial test of a machine learning algorithm for (...) distinguishing between real and fake kente, and an outline of the next stages of development. (shrink)

According to commitment accounts of assertion, asserting is committing oneself to something’s being the case, where such commitment is understood in terms of norms governing a social practice. I elaborate and compare two version of such accounts, liability accounts (associated with C.S. Peirce) and dialectical norm accounts (associated with Robert Brandom), concluding that the latter are more defensible. I argue that both versions of commitment account possess a potential advantage over rival normative accounts of assertion in that they needn’t (...) presuppose any notion of an assertion’s correctness. Additionally, I show how dialectical norm accounts can explain relations between assertion and truth. After setting forth objections that have been raised against commitment accounts, I argue that responses are available on behalf of dialectical norm accounts. Finally, I propose that a liberalized dialectical norm account can illuminate phenomena sometimes seen as supporting truth relativism. (shrink)

This paper contrasts two versions of a pragmatist critique of deflationism about truth. According to the critique, understanding the practice of factual discourse requires understanding a role played in that practice by speakers’ use of the concept of truth. Huw Price takes this role to lie in the expression of attitudes of approval and disapproval toward other speakers’ assertions. Proceeding from Robert Brandom’s analysis of assertion, I defend an alternative account of truth’s role in terms of the acknowledgement and (...) disacknowledgement of communicative authority. I explain why this account fails to yield Price’s key anti-deflationary conclusion, namely that engaging in factual discourse requires holding that false assertion are ipso facto normatively incorrect. (shrink)

Huw Price holds that a recognizable version of expressivism about normative and modal language can be “globalized” so as to apply to all areas of discourse. He focuses on globalizing the anti-representationalism of expressivist theories. By contrast, this paper’s topic is the seldom-discussed way Price seeks to globalize the expressivist view that “non-descriptive” discourse exhibits subjectivity. I argue that Price’s own argument against the possibility of a purely objective domain conflicts with his anti-representationalism and is self-undermining. I then defend a (...) different strategy for arguing that a kind of subjectivity can emerge even in domains traditional expressivists have regarded as purely objective. I do so by using an account of assertoric practice to offer a new solution to a puzzle concerning how to describe contingent histories in the use of natural kind terms. (shrink)

The revisionary approach to semantic paradox is commonly thought to have a somewhat uncomfortable corollary, viz. that, on pain of triviality, we cannot affirm that all valid arguments preserve truth (Beall2007, Beall2009, Field2008, Field2009). We show that the standard arguments for this conclusion all break down once (i) the structural rule of contraction is restricted and (ii) how the premises can be aggregated---so that they can be said to jointly entail a given conclusion---is appropriately understood. In addition, we briefly rehearse (...) some reasons for restricting structural contraction. (shrink)

First series: exposition -- Second series: media -- Third series: publication -- Fourth series: controversy -- Fifth series: institutions -- Sixth series: archaeology -- Sites of the Conte.

Surveys Western literature and thought to reveal the evolution of the ideals of sincerity and authenticity.

Chacun d'entre nous fait partie du monde, certes. Mais, au-delà de son évidence, quelle est la signification d'une telle formule? Comment faisons-nous partie du monde? Comment sommes-nous reliés à tout ce qui n'est pas nous : les autres, le reste de la nature, le cosmos? Lionel Naccache répond à cette énigme intemporelle à partir d'une approche mathématique fondée sur la distinction entre ensembles discrets et ensembles continus : alors qu'un élément, qui fait partie d'un ensemble discret, reste séparé des (...) autres éléments par des frontières tranchées, ces frontières disparaissent dans un ensemble continu. La question devient alors : sommes-nous reliés au reste du monde par des liens continus ou par des liens discrets? Muni de cette boussole, Lionel Naccache nous propose une odyssée passionnante et pleine de gai savoir éclectique qui nous entraîne de la psychologie de la subjectivité vers les sciences du cerveau et de la conscience, les origines et l'évolution des idées mathématiques et la philosophie politique. Au bout du voyage, Lionel Naccache formule une nouvelle éthique pour le XXIe siècle"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In this classic work, L.D. Barnett delves into the ancient Indian science of Brahma-knowledge. Drawing from sources that predate the Vedas, Barnett presents a detailed study of the cosmology and spirituality of the Brahma tradition, exploring the nature of the universe, the workings of the human mind, and the path to enlightenment. This insightful and beautifully written book is a must-read for anyone interested in the spiritual traditions of India. 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 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. 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)

En affirmant que "tout philosophe a deux philosophies : la sienne et celle de Spinoza", Bergson exprime avant tout que le philosophe se doit de rompre avec une pensée dogmatique qui n'a plus lieu d'être et que Spinoza incarne tout particulièrement. Le spinozisme manifeste la pente de l'intelligence lorsqu'elle suit sa logique propre sans être rectifiée par le recours à l'expérience. Or, c'est cette démarche systématique que la philosophie doit désormais abandonner. Bergson est néanmoins hanté par la pensée de Spinoza (...) et le rapport qu'il entretient avec lui, en particulier dans ses cours au Collège de France, met en évidence un lien bien plus complexe et subtil qu'un simple rapport d'opposition. Contre la tendance à la clôture et à la systématicité, Bergson va alors privilégier chez Spinoza la tendance à l'ouverture et au mysticisme. En mettant en lumière cet aspect, cet ouvrage montre la sympathie intellectuelle qui réunit ces penseurs autour des notions de joie et de liberté. C'est pourquoi la figure du Christ va constituer un modèle non seulement éthique mais ontologique. Le terme de mysticisme, chez ces deux auteurs, ne désigne ni le refus de l'expérience ni celui des sciences positives mais renvoie à un rationalisme élargi jusqu'à l'amour du réel."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This book presents an approach to spirituality based on direct personal experience of the sacred. Using the language and insights of depth psychology, Corbett outlines the intimate relationship between spiritual experience and the psychology of the individual, unveiling the seamless continuity between the personal and transpersonal dimensions of the psyche. His discussion runs the gamut of spiritual concerns, from the problem of evil to the riddle of pain and suffering. Drawing upon his psychotherapeutic practice as well as on the experiences (...) of characters from our religious heritage, Corbett explores the various portals through which the sacred presents itself to us: dreams, visions, nature, the body, relationships, psychopathology, and creative work. Referring extensively to Jung's writings on religion, but also to contemporary psychoanalytic theory, Corbett gives form to the new spirituality that is emerging alongside the world's great religious traditions. For those seeking alternative forms of spirituality beyond the Judeo-Christian tradition, this volume will be a useful guide on the journey. (shrink)

Tout a commencé comme une enquête classique, avec l'espoir de déterminer ce que le nom " contemporain " dit de notre rapport au temps, à l'histoire, à l'espace. Mais très vite des myriades de données, parfois contradictoires, se sont imposées. Un véritable brouhaha. On aurait pu les ignorer, faire comme si elles n'existaient pas, et tenter de construire une fiction unitaire qui aurait prétendu dire la totalité de notre identité historique. C'eut été se méprendre sur la dynamique profonde que traduit (...) le nom contemporain. Elle se déploie ainsi : la représentation moderne du monde est débordée de toutes parts par une multiplicité qu'elle ne peut plus contenir, et qui la fait apparaître pour ce qu'elle est : un imaginaire, une illusion ; imaginaire de la distinction, de la séparation, alors que le contemporain propose, lui, un imaginaire marqué par l'indistinction, la déhiérarchisation, la globalisation. Toutes les histoires documentées dans cet essai retrouvent ce mouvement. Ainsi des espaces publics de l'art qui voient la fin du dispositifinstitution musée d'art moderne au profit des centres d'art contemporain et évoquent par là une manière différente d'habiter le monde. Ainsi du très grand nombre qui ne se laisse plus discipliner dans les concepts politiques hérités de la modernité. D'autres émergent (multitude, publics), prenant mieux en compte la double poussée de la massification et de la différenciation. Ainsi de la production du savoir qui se décentre et s'horizontalise. Ainsi du temps vécu comme une concordance de temporalités à l'ère hypermédiatique. Ainsi de l'imaginaire littéraire, emblématique de la modernité et lié au support-livre, qui intègre un plus vaste régime de publication. Ainsi de la pensée du monde qui est désormais une pensée des mondes. En six stations qui sont autant de mots-clés du contemporain (exposition, médias, controverses, publication, institutionnalisation, archéologie), cet essai s'attache à décrire les transformations actuelles des formes culturelles et des visions de l'histoire. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:‘Race’ has long searched for a stable, suitable idea, with no consensus on a master meaning in sight. What I call deflationary pluralism about the existence of race recognizes that various meanings may be true as far as they go but avoids murky disputes over whether there are races in some sense. Once we have rejected the notion that racial essences yield innate cognitive differences, there is little point to arguing over the race idea. In its place, I propose the (...) idea of socioancestry, which jettisons racial thinking yet recognizes the social dynamics of color. For example, Black Americans, many of whom have traceable non-African ancestry, constitute an Africa-identified, socioancestrally black subgroup. ‘Race’ talk is not needed to sustain legitimate color-conscious approaches to social identity and social justice. Long-standing fixation on the race idea has obscured the simple truth that visible continental ancestry is the root of the social reality of color consciousness. (shrink)

The lexicon of religion has been widely used in the context of the social and cultural transformations associated with the ‘digital revolution’, whether in metaphoric or in realistic terms. The study of digital magic/magic in digital times, the other side of the coin of the Sacred 2.0, is still in its infancy. Yet, references to magic are made frequently in reflections about the rapid development of the digitalisation of society and culture, and they deserve more in-depth study. This paper tackles (...) the issue of magic in and of new technologies, including artificial intelligence devices. After a broad outline of the presence of magic in the digital ecosystem, this paper will focus on the lexical surface and semantic references to ‘magical thinking’, explore the underlying reasons for such references and unveil the regimes of existence for magic. Finally, the paper questions the role of language in the construction of a ‘digital magic’ and the transformations of the semantic category of magic as seen through the prism of a cultural revolution, that of the digitalisation of societies. (shrink)

Building on recent work, I present sequent systems for the non-classical logics LP, K3, and FDE with two main virtues. First, derivations closely resemble those in standard Gentzen-style systems. Second, the systems can be obtained by reformulating a classical system using nonstandard sequent structure and simply removing certain structural rules (relatives of exchange and contraction). I clarify two senses in which these logics count as “substructural.”.

Development of the shapes of living organisms and their parts is a field of science in which there are no generally accepted theoretical principles. What form these principles are likely to take, when they emerge, is a subject in which there is a wide gulf of disagreement between physical scientists and experimental biologists. This book contains both an extensive philosophical commentary on this dichotomy in views and an exposition of the type of theory most favoured by physical scientists. In this (...) theory living form is a manifestation of the dynamics of chemical change and physical transport or other physics of spatial communication. The reaction-diffusion theory, as initiated by Turing in 1952 and since elaborated by Prigogine and by Gierer and Meinhardt among others, is discussed in detail at a level that requires a good knowledge of a first course in calculus, but no more than that. The great growth of molecular biology has tended to overshadow the increase in our understanding of the nature of these kinetic processes. This book seeks to reawaken interest in dynamics in the hope that a better balance between the importance of things and the importance of actions may emerge in the biology of the 21st century. (shrink)

Robert B. Brandom is one of the most original philosophers of our day, whose book Making It Explicit covered and extended a vast range of topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language--the very core of analytic philosophy. This new work provides an approachable introduction to the complex system that Making It Explicit mapped out. A tour of the earlier book's large ideas and relevant details, Articulating Reasons offers an easy entry into two of the main themes of Brandom's (...) work: the idea that the semantic content of a sentence is determined by the norms governing inferences to and from it, and the idea that the distinctive function of logical vocabulary is to let us make our tacit inferential commitments explicit. Brandom's work, making the move from representationalism to inferentialism, constitutes a near-Copernican shift in the philosophy of language--and the most important single development in the field in recent decades. Articulating Reasons puts this accomplishment within reach of nonphilosophers who want to understand the state of the foundations of semantics. Table of Contents: Introduction 1. Semantic Inferentialism and Logical Expressivism 2. Action, Norms, and Practical Reasoning 3. Insights and Blindspots of Reliabilism 4. What Are Singular Terms, and Why Are There Any? 5. A Social Route from Reasoning to Representing 6. Objectivity and the Normative Fine Structure of Rationality Notes Index Displaying a sovereign command of the intricate discussion in the analytic philosophy of language, Brandom manages successfully to carry out a program within the philosophy of language that has already been sketched by others, without losing sight of the vision inspiring the enterprise in the important details of his investigation ' Using the tools of a complex theory of language, Brandom succeeds in describing convincingly the practices in which the reason and autonomy of subjects capable of speech and action are expressed. --J'rgen Habermas. (shrink)

Deflationists about truth seek to undermine debates about the nature of truth by arguing that the truth predicate is merely a device that allows us to express a certain kind of generality. I argue that a parallel approach is available in the case of logical consequence. Just as deflationism about truth offers an alternative to accounts of truth's nature in terms of correspondence or justification, deflationism about consequence promises an alternative to model-theoretic or proof-theoretic accounts of consequence's nature. I then (...) argue, against considerations put forward by Field and Beall, that Curry's paradox no more rules out deflationism about consequence than the liar paradox rules out deflationism about truth. (shrink)

Innocence is a notion that can prove controversial. Claims of innocence typically support not imposing burdens on the innocent when their conduct is relevantly unobjectionable. This paper examines innocence in the context of violent conflict between states or groups. Many thinkers about the morality of such violence want to establish a principle that would protect innocent civilians. Yet the common view in just war theory does not affirm the moral innocence of civilians. Similarly, the common view that soldiers have an (...) equal right to kill does not affirm their equal moral culpability. (shrink)

Can we ever experimentally disentangle phenomenal consciousness from the cognitive accessibility inherent to conscious reports? In this commentary, we suggest that (1) Block's notion of phenomenal consciousness remains intractably entangled with the need to obtain subjective reports about it; and (2) many experimental paradigms suggest that the intuitive notion of a rich but non-reportable phenomenal world is, to a large extent illusory – in a sense that requires clarification.

Based on specific documentary evidence, historian Lionel Jensen reveals how 16th- and 17th-century Western missionaries used translations of the ancient RU ...

El método de la “libre investigación científica del derecho” propuesto por François Gény ha marcado toda una generación de juristas. Tratado con detenimiento a lo largo de su extensa y compleja obra, la libre investigación científica se presenta como un método completo destinado a orientar al jurista en la creación, interpretación y aplicación del derecho positivo. Por desventura, el clima ambiente en el que nació su obra y en el que tuvo que desenvolverse con posterioridad, dominado por la escuela de (...) la exégesis, no ha sabido extraer de la obra de Gény más que elementos dispares no haciendo justicia a su método. En la actualidad, el redescubrimiento de su método de la libre investigación científica permitirá combatir el anquilosamiento dogmático, evitar los excesos formalistas, y aportar elementos de interés para la investigación iusfilosófica de nuestro tiempo. El método de la “libre investigación científica del derecho” propuesto por François Gény ha marcado toda una generación de juristas. Tratado con detenimiento a lo largo de su extensa y compleja obra, la libre investigación científica se presenta como un método completo destinado a orientar al jurista en la creación, interpretación y aplicación del derecho positivo. Por desventura, el clima ambiente en el que nació su obra y en el que tuvo que desenvolverse con posterioridad, dominado por la escuela de la exégesis, no ha sabido extraer de la obra de Gény más que elementos dispares no haciendo justicia a su método. En la actualidad, el redescubrimiento de su método de la libre investigación científica permitirá combatir el anquilosamiento dogmático, evitar los excesos formalistas, y aportar elementos de interés para la investigación iusfilosófica de nuestro tiempo. (shrink)

Rejecting structural contraction has been proposed as a strategy for escaping semantic paradoxes. The challenge for its advocates has been to make intuitive sense of how contraction might fail. I offer a way of doing so, based on a “naive” interpretation of the relation between structure and logical vocabulary in a sequent proof system. The naive interpretation of structure motivates the most common way of blaming Curry-style paradoxes on illicit contraction. By contrast, the naive interpretation will not as easily motivate (...) one recent noncontractive approach to the Liar paradox. (shrink)

In a new retelling of the romantic rationalist adventure of ideas that is Hegel's classic The Phenomenology of Spirit, Robert Brandom argues that when our self-conscious recognitive attitudes take Hegel's radical form of magnanimity and trust, we can overcome a troubled modernity and enter a new age of spirit.

This paper revisits some foundational questions concerning the abstract representation of a discourse context. The context of a conversation is represented by a body of information that is presumed to be shared by the participants in the conversation – the information that the speaker presupposes a point at which a speech act is interpreted. This notion is designed to represent both the information on which context-dependent speech acts depend, and the situation that speech acts are designed to affect, and so (...) to be a representation of context that is appropriate for explaining the interaction of context and the contents expressed in them. After reviewing the motivating ideas and the outlines of the apparatus, the paper responds to a criticism of the framework, and considers the way it can help to clarify some phenomena concerning pronouns with indefinite antecedents. (shrink)