Purpose: The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to determine whether Facebook use affects biological response to stress and to characterize participants’ use of Facebook during a stressful event. Methods: College students completed a modified Trier Social Stress Test including video recording. Participants were randomly assigned to the Facebook group or control group (no preparatory materials). Pulse and salivary cortisol were measured and compared using t tests. Trained coders assessed videos for 13 common Facebook actions and categorized them as purposeful (...) (tool based) or nonpurposeful (distraction); pulse was compared between groups using Fisher’s exact test. Results: Of 41 participants, 14 (36%) were male and 36 (88%) were Caucasian, mean age was 19.6 ± 1.4 years; 19 participants were randomized to the Facebook group. Comparing Time 1 and Time 3, there were no significant differences in cortisol or pulse change between the Facebook group and the control group. However, males in the control group had a mean pulse reduction of −3.5 ± 0.2 bpm between baseline and Time 3; males in the Facebook group had a mean pulse increase of 10 ± 8.6 bmp (p =.01). Overall, 58.8% of videos were categorized as primarily tool based. Participants who primarily demonstrated distracted use of Facebook had higher than average pulse rates at Time 3 (mean 85.1 vs. 73.6 bpm, p =.03). Discussion: Male Facebook users and participants who demonstrated distracted Facebook use showed increased biologic signs of stress during a stressful event. Some college students may find Facebook use detrimental to performance in stressful situations, but this may vary by gender and type of use. (shrink)

In this paper, we delve into the significant impact of recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the future landscape of work. We discuss the looming possibility of mass unemployment triggered by AI and the societal repercussions of this transition. Despite the challenges this shift presents, we argue that it also unveils opportunities to mitigate social inequalities, combat global poverty, and empower individuals to follow their passions. Amidst this discussion, we also touch upon the existential question of the purpose of (...) human life in a world where machines predominantly perform work. Additionally, we explore the contentious issue of the moral status and rights of AI entities, contemplating the scenario where machines evolve to become sapient and sentient. The paper concludes with a call to action, emphasizing the necessity to acknowledge these potential outcomes and proactively seek solutions, as part of an inevitable journey through the evolution of human society shared with intelligent machines. (shrink)

We propose four policies of ethical design of human-grade Artificial Intelligence. Two of our policies are precautionary. Given substantial uncertainty both about ethical theory and about the conditions under which AI would have conscious experiences, we should be cautious in our handling of cases where different moral theories or different theories of consciousness would produce very different ethical recommendations. Two of our policies concern respect and freedom. If we design AI that deserves moral consideration equivalent to that of human beings, (...) that AI should be designed with self-respect and with the freedom to explore values other than those we might impose. We are especially concerned about the temptation to create human-grade AI pre-installed with the desire to cheerfully sacrifice itself for its creators’ benefit. (shrink)

This paper uses neo-Fregean-style abstraction principles to develop the integers from the natural numbers (assuming Hume’s principle), the rational numbers from the integers, and the real numbers from the rationals. The first two are first-order abstractions that treat pairs of numbers: (DIF) INT(a,b)=INT(c,d) ≡ (a+d)=(b+c). (QUOT) Q(m,n)=Q(p,q) ≡ (n=0 & q=0) ∨ (n≠0 & q≠0 & m⋅q=n⋅p). The development of the real numbers is an adaption of the Dedekind program involving “cuts” of rational numbers. Let P be a property (of (...) rational numbers) and r a rational number. Say that r is an upper bound of P, written P≤r, if for any rational number s, if Ps then either s<r or s=r. In other words, P≤r if r is greater than or equal to any rational number that P applies to. Consider the Cut Abstraction Principle: (CP) ∀P∀Q(C(P)=C(Q) ≡ ∀r(P≤r ≡ Q≤r)). In other words, the cut of P is identical to the cut of Q if and only if P and Q share all of their upper bounds. The axioms of second-order real analysis can be derived from (CP), just as the axioms of second-order Peano arithmetic can be derived from Hume’s principle. The paper raises some of the philosophical issues connected with the neo-Fregean program, using the above abstraction principles as case studies. (shrink)

This book is a clear and concise history of the soul in western philosophy, from Plato to cutting-edge contemporary work in philosophy of mind. Packed with arguments for and against a range of different, historically significant philosophies of the soul Addresses the essential issues, including mind-body interaction, the causal closure of the physical world, and the philosophical implications of the brain sciences for the soul's existence Includes coverage of theories from key figures, such as Plato, Aquinas, Locke, Hume, and Descartes (...) Unique in combining the history of ideas and the development of a powerful case for a non-reductionist, non-materialist account of the soul. (shrink)

Meaning, Understanding, and Practice is a selection of the most notable essays of an eminent contemporary philosopher on a set of central topics in analytic philosophy. Barry Stroud offers penetrating studies of meaning, understanding, necessity, and the intentionality of thought, with particular reference to the thought of Wittgenstein.

There is an interesting logical/semantic issue with some mathematical languages and theories. In the language of (pure) complex analysis, the two square roots of i’ manage to pick out a unique object? This is perhaps the most prominent example of the phenomenon, but there are some others. The issue is related to matters concerning the use of definite descriptions and singular pronouns, such as donkey anaphora and the problem of indistinguishable participants. Taking a cue from some work in linguistics and (...) the philosophy of language, I suggest that i functions like a parameter in natural deduction systems. This may require some rethinking of the role of singular terms, at least in mathematical languages. (shrink)

A paper in this journal by Fraser MacBride, ‘Can Ante Rem Structuralism Solve the Access Problem?’, raises important issues concerning the epistemological goals and burdens of contemporary philosophy of mathematics, and perhaps philosophy of science and other disciplines as well. I use a response to MacBride's paper as a framework for developing a broadly holistic framework for these issues, and I attempt to steer a middle course between reductive foundationalism and extreme naturalistic quietism. For this purpose the notion of entitlement (...) is invoked along the way, suitably modified for the present anti-foundationalist setting. (shrink)

A team of two brothers enters a baking contest. Their cake wins the first-place prize of £500. Will they demand £500 each? Of course not. Winners must split the prize. We often ignore this when we claim credit for team accomplishments. We take more credit than we deserve. I apply this idea to baking competitions and academic production but it applies equally to other arenas with teams of varying sizes.Export citation.

The is an old question over whether there is a substantial disagreement between advocates of different logics, as they simply attach different meanings to the crucial logical terminology. The purpose of this article is to revisit this old question in light a pluralism/relativism that regards the various logics as equally legitimate, in their own contexts. We thereby address the vexed notion of translation, as it occurs between mathematical theories. We articulate and defend a thesis that the notion of “same meaning” (...) is itself context-sensitive, depending on the purposes of a given conversation. (shrink)

The harm principle, understood as the normative requirement that conduct should be criminalized only if it is harmful, has difficulty in dealing with those core cases of criminal wrongdoing that can occur without causing any direct harm. Advocates of the harm principle typically find it implausible to hold that these core cases should not be crimes and so usually seek out some indirect harm that can justify criminalizing the seemingly harmless conduct. But this strategy justifies criminalization of a wide range (...) of conduct on the basis of the fear, worry, and anxiety it generates among those who are not the direct victims of the conduct, and thereby undermines the limiting role of the harm principle by permitting the very move it was meant to prevent: the criminalization of harmless conduct on the ground of others’ feelings about it. The best way to avoid this dilemma is to recognize that people have rights, operating independently of the harm principle, to be treated in certain ways just because they are persons. The existence of such rights provides a ground for both criminalizing conduct and limiting the scope of criminalization because these rights point both to conduct that people must be permitted to engage in and conduct that might well be criminalized. A complete account of criminal law will therefore require the harm principle to work together with an independent account of rights. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Locke Butler Reid Hume Kant.

While William Hasker and I for the most part broadly agree in our opposition to much of the contemporary philosophical community concerning issues in the philosophy of mind that he discusses in his book, there are nevertheless seemingly some domestic disputes between him and me about certain matters concerning the nature of events involving the self. In this paper, I will focus on two of these disagreements. The first disagreement concerns Hasker’s treatment of what is widely known today as the (...) argument from reason and whether the events involved in our reasoning are essentially causal or teleological in nature. The second disagreement is about Hasker’s account of libertarian freedom, and whether agent causation is required to explain our free choices. (shrink)

As of 2019, ten jurisdictions in the United States—Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Maine—have authorized physicians to...

The purpose of this article is to examine aspects of the development of the concept and theory of computability through the theory of recursive functions. Following a brief introduction, Section 2 is devoted to the presuppositions of computability. It focuses on certain concepts, beliefs and theorems necessary for a general property of computability to be formulated and developed into a mathematical theory. The following two sections concern situations in which the presuppositions were realized and the theory of computability was developed. (...) It is suggested in Section 3 that a central item was the problem of generalizing Gödel's incompleteness theorem. It is shown that this involved both the characterization of recursiveness and the attempt to clarify and formulate the notion of an effective process as it relates to the syntax of deductive systems. Section 4 concerns the decision problems which grew from the Hilbert program. Section 5 is devoted to the development of an informal' technique in the theory of computability often called ?argument by Church's thesis? (shrink)

If we have libertarian free will, then it is plausible to believe that the occurrences of certain physical events have irreducible and ineliminable mental explanations. According to a strong version of naturalism, everything in the physical world is in principle explicable in nonmental terms. Therefore, the truth of naturalism implies that libertarian choices cannot explain the occurrences of any physical events. In this paper, I example a methodological argument for the truth of naturalism and conclude that the argument fails. I (...) then consider additional concerns raised against the reality of libertarian freedom. First, I examine the claim that if a physical event E is not causally determined to occur by another physical event, then there is no way to account for the difference between E’s occurring randomly and E’s being causally determined to occur by a mental event. Second, I consider the assertion that the affirmation of libertarianism is a mind-of-the-gaps version of the God-of-the-gaps objection to a divine explanation of a physical event. Third, I take up the question of whether the inability of libertarians to pinpoint precisely where the initial physical effects of libertarian choices occur is a good reason for rejecting libertarianism. Fourth, I examine the claim that belief in the existence of the soul or immaterial mind is the result of an explanatory hypothesis to account for how libertarian free choices can causally produce physical effects. Fifth, I look at the traditional objection to substance dualism from the impossibility of causal interaction between a soul and its body. (shrink)

Andy believes that p because his tarot cards indicate that p. Betty believes that ∼p because her crystal ball reveals that ∼p. If Andy and Betty know that they disagree, and disagree because they engage in different practices, is Andy's belief that p rational? The answer depends in part on whether Andy has good reasons to think that reading tarot cards is reliable about the topic while reading crystal balls is not. If a person has good reasons to believe that (...) practice P1 is reliable while a competing practice P2 is not, then it is not irrational to form beliefs by engaging in P1. What if a person does not have good reasons to think that one practice is reliable about a topic while competing practices are not, though? In such cases, would Andy's awareness of the existence of competing practices, on its own, be enough to render his belief that p irrational? (shrink)

Since virtually every mathematical theory can be interpreted in set theory, the latter is a foundation for mathematics. Whether set theory, as opposed to any of its rivals, is the right foundation for mathematics depends on what a foundation is for. One purpose is philosophical, to provide the metaphysical basis for mathematics. Another is epistemic, to provide the basis of all mathematical knowledge. Another is to serve mathematics, by lending insight into the various fields. Another is to provide an arena (...) for exploring relations and interactions between mathematical fields, their relative strengths, etc. Given the different goals, there is little point to determining a single foundation for all of mathematics. (shrink)

In the _True Intellectual System_, Cudworth attacks types of atheist position—atomic atheism, hylozoic atheism, etc. He generally uses ancient examples to illustrate those types, but also criticizes some of his contemporaries. We can identify direct criticisms of contemporaries by finding quotations, paraphrases, and accounts of their views in the text. My primary question in this paper is, 'how much of the _True Intellectual System_ is directly about or aimed at Spinoza?' My ultimate answer, contrary to some prominent voices in the (...) existing literature, is 'not very much at all'. (shrink)

Inclusive fitness theory provides a compelling explanation for the evolution of altruism among kin. However, a completely satisfactory account of non-kin altruism is still lacking. The present study compared the level of altruism found among siblings with that found among friends and mates and sought to reconcile the findings with an evolutionary explanation for human altruism. Participants (163 males and 156 females) completed a questionnaire about help given to a sibling, friend, or mate. Overall, participants gave friends and mates as (...) much or more help than they gave siblings. However, as the cost of help increased, siblings received a progressively larger share of the help, whereas friends and mates received a progressively smaller share, despite the fact that participants were closer emotionally to friends and mates than they were to siblings. These findings help to explain the relative standing of friends and mates as recipients of altruistic aid. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The late Richard Titmuss made a persuasive case against allowing the sale of human blood in his book, The Gift Relationship. His arguments have been developed further by Peter Singer in recent articles. While the issues of quantity and quality of blood under market and non‐market systems have received much attention, the moral and political aspects of the Titmuss‐Singer case have gone relatively unexamined. First, I question their claim that a donation‐only system promotes greater freedom, which rests on a (...) confusion of liberty and opportunity. Next, I consider reasons for doubting their view that altruism is fostered significantly more under the non‐market approach. Finally, I survey recent developments in the quantity‐quality debate and possible implications of the blood controversy for national health care. (shrink)

Die forensische Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie steht in einem komplexen Spannungsfeld medizinischer, rechtlicher und sozialer Anforderungen. Die ethischen Herausforderungen, die sich daraus für den stationären Maßnahmenvollzug ergeben, sind bisher kaum untersucht, spezifische Hilfestellungen für Behandelnde fehlen. Diese Studie hat zum Ziel, ethische Themenfelder und Probleme in diesem Bereich zu identifizieren und ein Instrument zur Früherkennung und -intervention ethischer Probleme im Klinikalltag zu entwickeln. Methode: Eine systematische Literaturrecherche sowie eine Beobachtungstudie in der Jugendforensik der Universitären Psychiatrischen Kliniken Basel werden durchgeführt. Die Beobachtungsdaten (...) werden mittels qualitativer Inhaltsanalyse ausgewertet. Das Instrument wird auf der Basis der Resultate nach einer neuen Methode entwickelt. In der Literaturrecherche wurden 14 valide Publikationen identifiziert, die hauptsächlich ethische Probleme der Gerichtspsychiatrie thematisieren wie professionelle Rollenkonflikte, ethische Probleme der Diagnostik und Begutachtung oder der Umgang mit vertraulichen Informationen. Empirische oder empirisch-normative Studien fehlen. In der Beobachtungsstudie wurden 24 ethische Themen und spezifische Probleme identifiziert, besonders häufig sind ethische Fragen zu Moralkompetenzen der Jugendlichen, zur Behandlungsqualität, zum Umgang mit Regeln und Sanktionen und zur Freiheits- und Privatsphäre. Das Instrument zur Früherkennung und -intervention ethischer Probleme enthält die vier Kernelemente Risikofaktoren, Indikatoren, Interventionsplanung und Entscheidungsfindung. Der Maßnahmenvollzug der forensischen Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie offenbart ein breites Spektrum ethischer Themen mit spezifischen ethischen Problemen, welche in der Literatur bisher nur unzureichend untersucht sind. Das hier entwickelte Instrument FIEP unterstützt Behandelnde dabei, ethische Probleme frühzeitig zu erkennen und effizient zu bearbeiten. (shrink)

Background and aim Child and adolescent forensic psychiatry is fraught with complex medical, legal, and social tensions. The ethical challenges this entails for inhospital treatment have hardly been investigated, and specific support for health care professionals is lacking. This study identifies ethical issues and problems in this area and develops a tool for early detection and intervention of ethical problems in clinical practice. Methods A systematic literature search and an observational study in adolescent forensics at the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel (...) are conducted. The observation data are evaluated using a qualitative content analysis. The instrument is developed based on the results using a new method. Results In the literature search, 14 valid publications were identified that mainly address ethical conflicts in legal psychiatry, such as professional role conflicts, ethical problems in diagnostics and assessment, or confidentiality issues. Empirical or empirical–normative studies are missing. In the observational study, 24 ethical issues and specific conflicts were identified. Ethical questions about moral competencies of the adolescents, the quality of treatment, the handling of rules and sanctions, and freedom and privacy are particularly common. The Instrument for Early Detection and Intervention of Ethical Problems (FIEP) contains the four core elements risk factors, indicators, intervention planning and decision-making. Conclusions Inhospital treatment in forensic child and adolescent psychiatry reveals a broad spectrum of ethical issues with specific ethical problems, which are hardly investigated in literature so far. The FIEP instrument developed here supports health care practitioners in recognizing ethical problems at an early stage and addressing them efficiently. (shrink)

Just about every theorist holds that vague terms are context-sensitive to some extent. What counts as ?tall?, ?rich?, and ?bald? depends on the ambient comparison class, paradigm cases, and/or the like. To take a stock example, a given person might be tall with respect to European entrepreneurs and downright short with respect to professional basketball players. It is also generally agreed that vagueness remains even after comparison class, paradigm cases, etc. are fixed, and so this context sensitivity does not solve (...) the problems with vague terms. In this paper, I briefly sketch the main features of my broadly contextualist account of vagueness, that of the late Ruth Manor, and that of Agustín Rayo, showing how the three accounts relate to, and reinforce, each other, noting a seeming difference. A key item used to articulate my own view is David Lewis's notion of conversational score. This is used to track which borderline cases have been called in the course of a conversation. Manor alludes to Lewis's notion of accommodation, a key aspect of the kinematics of conversation, and Rayo invokes Stalnaker's notion of common ground. I'll show how the conversational score could be employed to develop and extend their views, showing how vague terms, as they construe them, are (or can be) deployed in conversation, consistent with both the underlying indeterminacy of the terms and normal communicative goals. To help develop all three views further, I invoke Craige Roberts's notion of Retrievability, a tool developed to show how definites, such as definite descriptions, singular pronouns, and proper names, are deployed in conversation, in a Lewis-style scorekeeping framework. This, I think, is exactly the right way to understand conversations in what Manor calls non-sorities situations and, to invoke my own view, in sorites situations as well. (shrink)

This book explores the future of critique in view of our planetary condition. How are we to intervene in contemporary constellations of finance capitalism, climate change and neoliberalism?

SummaryAccording to Dummett's understanding of Frege, the sense of a denoting expression is a procedure for determining its denotation. The purpose of this article is to pursue this suggestion and develop a semi‐formal interpretation of Fregean sense for the special case of a first‐order language of arithmetic. In particular, we define the sense of each arithmetic expression to be a hypothetical process to determine the denoted number or truth value. The sense‐process is “hypothetical” in that the senses of some expressions (...) cannot be completed in a finite number of steps. The motivation for this work is to explicate an intensional notion of effectiveness in terms of the senses of function names. It is proposed, in particular, that an expression is effective if and only if its sense can be completed in a finite number of steps. It is shown that a function is computable if and only if it has an effective name.RésuméSelon la lecture que Dummet donne de Frege, le sens ?on;une expression consiste en une procédure pour déterminer sa dénotation. Le but de cet article est de développer cette suggestion par une interprétation semi‐formelle du sens frégéen dans le cas particulier ?on;un langage de premier ordre en arithmétique. En particulier, nous définissons comme sens de toute expression mathématique un procédé hypothétique pour déterminer le nombre dénoté ou la valeur de vérité. Le procédé créateur de sens est hypothetique en ce sens que les sens de certaines expressions ne peuvent pas être donnés en un nombre fini de pas. Le but de cette étude est ?on;expliciter une notion intensionnelle ?on;effectuabilite en termes de sens des noms de fonction. II est en particulier propose qu'une expression soit dite effectuable si et seulement si son sens peut être épuisé en un nombre fini de pas. On montre qu'une fonction est calculable si et seulement si elle a un nom effectuable.ZusammenfassungDummets Auffassung von Frege gemäss besteht der Sinn eines denotierenden Ausdruckes in einem Verfahren, das dessen Denotation bestimmt. Es ist der Zweck der vorliegenden Arbeit, die‐sen Vorschlag weiterzufuUhren und eine halbformale Interpretation des Fregeschen Sinnes fiir den besonderen Fall der Sprache erster Stufe der Arithmetik zu entwickeln. Es wird im besonderen der Sinn eines jeden arithmetischen Ausdruckes als hypothetisches Verfahren zur Bestimmung der denotierten Zahl oder des Wahrheitswertes definiert. Die Sinngebung ist insofern hypothe‐tisch, als der Sinn gewisser Ausdrucke nicht in einer endlichen Zahl von Schritten gegeben wer‐den kann. Das Anliegen der Arbeit grundet in der Absicht, einen intensionalen Begriff der Effek‐tivitat aufgrund des Sinnes von Funktionsnamen zu erlautern. Es wird im besonderen festgelegt, dass ein Ausdruck dann und nur dann effektiv sei, wenn sein Sinn in einer endlichen Zahl von Schritten erreicht werden kann. Es wird gezeigt, dass eine Funktion genau dann berechenbar ist, wenn sie einen effektiven Namen hat. (shrink)

Damian Sutton Photography and Cinema from Birth to Death _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 5 no. 8, March 2001.

Open peer commentary on the article “A Cybernetic Computational Model for Learning and Skill Acquisition” by Bernard Scott & Abhinav Bansal. Upshot: The Computational Theory of Mind suffers from an inherent weakness owing to its difficulty in taking semantics and embodiment properly into account. It is suggested that these difficulties could be alleviated if it were recognized that the fact that the model presented here employs a computer as a tool, to highlight certain key features of its dynamics, does not (...) necessarily involve assuming that the underlying processes that are modelled are themselves strictly computational in nature. (shrink)