Humans routinely make inferences about both the contents and the workings of other minds based on observed actions. People consider what others want or know, but also how intelligent, rational, or attentive they might be. Here, we introduce a new methodology for quantitatively studying the mechanisms people use to attribute intelligence to others based on their behavior. We focus on two key judgments previously proposed in the literature: judgments based on observed outcomes (you're smart if you won the game) and (...) judgments based on evaluating the quality of an agent's planning that led to their outcomes (you're smart if you made the right choice, even if you didn't succeed). We present a novel task, the maze search task (MST), in which participants rate the intelligence of agents searching a maze for a hidden goal. We model outcome‐based attributions based on the observed utility of the agent upon achieving a goal, with higher utilities indicating higher intelligence, and model planning‐based attributions by measuring the proximity of the observed actions to an ideal planner, such that agents who produce closer approximations of optimal plans are seen as more intelligent. We examine human attributions of intelligence in three experiments that use MST and find that participants used both outcome and planning as indicators of intelligence. However, observing the outcome was not necessary, and participants still made planning‐based attributions of intelligence when the outcome was not observed. We also found that the weights individuals placed on plans and on outcome correlated with an individual's ability to engage in cognitive reflection. Our results suggest that people attribute intelligence based on plans given sufficient context and cognitive resources and rely on the outcome when computational resources or context are limited. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and science has always been complementary. Today, while science moves increasingly fast and philosophy shows some problems in catching up with it, it is not always possible to ignore such relationships, especially in some disciplines such as philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and neuroscience. However, the methodological procedures used to analyze these data are based on principles and assumptions that require a profound dialogue between philosophy and science. Following these ideas, this work aims to raise the (...) problems that a classical connectionist theory can cause and problematize them in a cognitive framework, considering both philosophy and cognitive sciences but also the disciplines that are near to them, such as AI, computer sciences, and linguistics. For this reason, we embarked on an analysis of both the computational and theoretical problems that connectionism currently has. The second aim of this work is to advocate for collaboration between neuroscience and philosophy of mind because the promotion of deeper multidisciplinarity seems necessary in order to solve connectionism’s problems. In fact, we believe that the problems that we detected can be solved by a thorough investigation at both a theoretical and an empirical level, and they do not represent an impasse but rather a starting point from which connectionism should learn and be updated while keeping its original and profoundly convincing core. (shrink)

In our everyday interaction with the environment, we often perceive objects and spaces as opportunities to feel, maintain, enhance, and change our affective states and processes. The concept of affective affordance was coined to accommodate this aspect of ordinary perception and the many ways in which we rely on the material environment to regulate our emo- tions. One natural way to think of affective affordances in emotion regulation is to interpret them as tools for regulating felt affective states. We argue (...) that this way of conceiving of affective affordances is too restrictive. By analyzing the role of expressive properties of objects and spaces in emotion regulation, we show that our environment does not need to elicit felt affective states to regulate our emotions. Thus, we revise the concept of affective affordance to accommodate these cases. This revised concept explains more with less. Hence, it should be preferred in wide-reaching philosophical projects that aim to explain human affectivity as a situated phenomenon. (shrink)

Harnecker, M. Política y clases sociales en Poulantzas (estudio crítico) -- Poulantzas, N. Sobre el concepto de política.

Since the 1970s, the origin of cancer is being explored from the point of view of the Somatic Mutation Theory (SMT), focusing on genetic mutations and clonal expansion of somatic cells. As cancer research expanded in several directions, the dominant focus on cells remained steady, but the classes of genes and the kinds of extra-genetic factors that were shown to have causal relevance in the onset of cancer multiplied. The wild heterogeneity of cancer-related mutations and phenotypes, along with the increasing (...) complication of models, led to an oscillation between the hectic search of 'the' few key factors that cause cancer and the discouragement in face of a seeming 'endless complexity'. To tame this complexity, cancer research started to avail itself of the tools that were being developed by Systems Biology. At the same time, anti-reductionist voices began claiming that cancer research was stuck in a sterile research paradigm. This alternative discourse even gave birth to an alternative theory: the Tissue Organization Field Theory (TOFT). A deeper philosophical analysis shows the serious limits of both reductionist and anti-reductionist positions and of their polarization. This book demonstrates that a radical philosophical reflection is necessary to drive cancer research out of its impasses. At the very least, this will be a reflection on the assumptions of different kinds of cancer research, on the implications of what cancer research has been discovering over 40 years and more, on a view of scientific practice that is most able to make sense of the cognitive and social conflicts that are seen in the scientific community (and in its results), and, finally, on the nature of living entities with which we entertain this fascinating epistemological dance that we call scientific research. The proposed Dynamic and Relational View of carcinogenesis is a starting point in all these directions. (shrink)

This chapter describes the concept of enactive memory, which is quite new but increasingly discussed in contemporary philosophy of memory. Although the enactive approach has been used to investigate several memory sys- tems, e.g., procedural memory, episodic mem- ory, and autobiographical memory, this chapter focuses only on the enactive approach to epi- sodic memory because most of the current debate on enactive memory is about this mem- ory system. Section “Introduction” specifies what type of enactive memory is discussed in this (...) chapter. Section “The Concept of Enactive Memory” introduces the concept of enactive memory, clarifies its central theoretical com- mitments and goals, and describes how enactivists have explained episodic remember- ing. Section “The Philosophical Context of Enactive Memory” provides a brief contextu- alization of the enactive approach to memory with respect to approaches and theories with which, for one reason or another, it shares some theoretical insights, like the embodied, the extended, and the distributed approach, and the simulation theory. Section “Forgetting as a Challenge for Enactive Memory” explains why forgetting poses an important explanatory challenge to the enactive approach to memory and describes one philosophical proposal that has been developed to address this challenge. Section “Summary” provides a summary of the chapter, mentions some ongoing projects on enactive memory, and identifies some topics that advocates of the enactive approach to memory may want to investigate in the future. (shrink)

[1] Introduzione, lessico -- [2] Index locorum, lista di frequenza, distribuzione dei lemmi.

This book presents a novel interpretation of Aristotle's account of how shame instils virtue, and defends its philosophical import. Shame is shown to provide motivational continuity between the actions of the learners and the virtuous dispositions that they will eventually acquire.

This book supports a version of the trope-bundle view of individual substances matching also with a coherent account of change, individuation and individual essences. In particular, it is argued that qualitative individuation and qualitative individual essences can be tackled within the frames of a trope account. The adoption of a trope BT together with the individuation of tropes via the bearer substance might create the feeling of circularity since tropes and substances seem mutually to individuate each other. The novel solution (...) to the problem developed here consists in showing that the individuation of concrete individual substances is independent, in crucial respects, from the fact that they are construed as bundles of tropes. Apart from metaphysician colleagues, the book is recommended for advanced students in analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

¿Qué tenemos en común y qué nos separa de los animales? ¿Somos un animal más? Las humanidades clásicas, basadas en el excepcionalismo humano, han dado paso a las posthumanidades, que incluyen los estudios animales, así como otras perspectivas que desafían la noción tradicional del sujeto humano, como los estudios de género, poscoloniales y decoloniales, la ecocrítica o la teoría queer. Pensarnos en nuestra relación con los animales tiene consecuencias filosóficas en ámbitos como la ciencia, los afectos, el trabajo y el (...) desarrollo de políticas concretas de salud y de alimentación; todas ellas, zonas de contacto entre humanos y animales. Sobre estos encuentros, aunque nunca reparemos en ello, edificamos nuestro mundo. Este ensayo imprescindible aglutina parte de los conocimientos desarrollados hasta ahora por quienes se han acercado a la relación humano-animal, y los vincula con la historia, los movimientos políticos y sociales, las nuevas concepciones del género, de la ciencia y del conocimiento. Los argumentos, contradicciones, contextos e incluso tabúes que acoge este debate interdisciplinar ayudan a imaginar y a matizar unos presupuestos éticos posibles sobre los que replantear nuestra relación con los animales y, en último término, con nosotros mismos. [Resumen del editor]. (shrink)

Aristotle ’s claim that we become virtuous by doing virtuous actions raises a familiar problem: How can we perform virtuous actions unless we are already virtuous? I reject deflationary accounts of the answer given in _Nicomachean Ethics_ 2.4 and argue instead that proper habituation involves doing virtuous actions with the right motive, i.e. for the sake of the noble, even though learners do not yet have virtuous dispositions. My interpretation confers continuity to habituation and explains in a non-mysterious way how (...) we become virtuous by doing virtuous actions in the right way. (shrink)

This article explores the possibilities offered by Collins’ model of interaction rituals to an understanding of the emotional dynamics of art auctions. It argues that whilst it explains how the art object becomes the focus of attention, and thus the repository of solidarity and emotional energy, it also obliterates some of the institutional aspects of the auction market that can influence such outcomes. It discusses the need to include an examination of the specific practices of auction houses operating in an (...) international market in their capacity to target specific audiences for their sales. (shrink)

The specific role of empeiria in Aristotle’s ethics has received much less attention than its role in his epistemology, despite the fact that Aristotle explicitly stresses the importance of empeiria as a requirement for the receptivity to ethical arguments and as a source for the formation of phronêsis.1 Thus, while empeiria is an integral part of all explanations that scholars give of the Aristotelian account of the acquisition of technê and epistêmê, it is usually not prominent in explanations of the (...) acquisition of phronêsis.2 The abundant mentions of empeiria in Aristotle’s ethical treatises are often eclipsed in the secondary literature... (shrink)

In what ways and how far does virtue shield someone against suffering evils? In other words, how do non-moral evils affect the lives of virtuous people and to what extent can someone endure evils while staying happy? The central purpose of this chapter is to answer these questions by exploring what Aristotle has to say about the effects of evils in human well-being in general and his treatment of extreme misfortunes.

In March 2016, DeepMind's computer programme AlphaGo surprised the world by defeating the world‐champion Go player, Lee Sedol. AlphaGo exhibits a novel, surprising and valuable style of play and has been recognised as “creative” by the artificial intelligence (AI) and Go communities. This article examines whether AlphaGo engages in creative problem solving according to the standards of comparative psychology. I argue that AlphaGo displays one important aspect of creative problem solving (namely mental scenario building in the form of Monte Carlo (...) tree search), while lacking another (domain generality). This analysis has consequences for how we think about creativity in humans and AI. (shrink)

This volume explores the role and status of phenomena such as feelings, values, willing, and action in the domain of perception and (social) cognition, as well as the way in which they are related. In its exploration, the book takes Husserl's lifelong project Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins (1909-1930) as its point of departure, and investigates these phenomena with Husserl but also beyond Husserl. Divided into two parts, the volume brings together essays that address the topics from different phenomenological, philosophical, (...) and psychological perspectives. They discuss Husserl's position in dialogue with historical and recent philosophical and psychological debates and develop phenomenological accounts and descriptions with the help of Geiger, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Plessner, Sartre, Scheler, Schopenhauer, and Reinach. (shrink)

A complete, illustrated survey of Etienne-Jules Marey's work that investigates the far reaching effects of her inventions on stream-of-consciousness literature, psychoanalysis, Bergsonian philosophy, and the art of cubists and futurists.

This book provides the first extensive assessment of Hadot’s and Foucault’s interpretations of ancient philosophy. It brings together specialists in ancient thought, as well as Hadot and Foucault scholars, both to explore famous criticisms and clarify Hadot’s and Foucault’s accounts.

This book analyzes the main problems of Friedrich Nietzsche's critical philosophy, such as the theory of being, the theory of knowledge and the theory of values. It also addresses his positive program which is based on a number of fundamental conceptions, namely the will to power, the Übermensch, bestowing virtue and the notion of the eternal recurrence. The «death of God» must, in Nietzsche's opinion, lead to a revolution in human consciousness which requires the creation of a new frame of (...) reference for values. To realize this aim, Nietzsche invokes the will which has the normative power to create values and even to overcome time. The author sets his focus on the «tragic gay science» that has never been fully elucidated and still affords new perspectives for interpretation. (shrink)

The book analyses moral and legal problems of assisted reproduction providing a pluralistic approach which combines principles of procreative beneficence, procreative nonmaleficence, reproductive autonomy and rationality with the meaning and nature of the parent-child relationship as the main criterion of moral assessment.

In this paper we introduce two issues relevantly related to the cognitive phenomenology debate, which, to our minds, have not been yet properly addressed: the relation between access and phenomenal consciousness in cognition and the relation between conscious thought and inner speech. In the first case, we ask for an explanation of how we have access to thought contents, and in the second case, an explanation of why is inner speech so pervasive in our conscious thinking. We discuss the prospects (...) of explanation for both sides of the debate and argue that cognitive phenomenology defenders are in an overall advantageous position. We also propose an account of inner speech that differs from other influential explanations in some interesting respects. (shrink)

We discuss two-layered logics formalising reasoning with paraconsistent probabilities that combine the Łukasiewicz [0, 1]-valued logic with Baaz ▵\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\triangle $$\end{document} operator and the Belnap–Dunn logic. The first logic (introduced in [7]) formalises a ‘two-valued’ approach where each event ϕ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\phi $$\end{document} has independent positive and negative measures that stand for, respectively, the likelihoods of ϕ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\phi (...) $$\end{document} and ¬ϕ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\lnot \phi $$\end{document}. The second logic that we introduce here corresponds to ‘four-valued’ probabilities. There, ϕ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\phi $$\end{document} is equipped with four measures standing for pure belief, pure disbelief, conflict and uncertainty of an agent in ϕ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\phi $$\end{document}.We construct faithful embeddings of and into one another and axiomatise using a Hilbert-style calculus. We also establish the decidability of both logics and provide complexity evaluations for them using an expansion of the constraint tableaux calculus for. (shrink)

This essay discusses the possibility, relevance, and pertinence of a reactivation of philosophy as a way of life today on the basis of Pierre Hadot’s account and recent scholarly approaches to the topic. In the wake of John Sellars, it regards philosophy as a way of life as a metaphilosophical option that can still be applied today. The essay starts by addressing John Cooper’s criticism of philosophy as a way of life in the contemporary philosophical landscape and shows that, against (...) the background of the model defined by Hadot, Cooper’s objections do not apply. It then illustrates the clear expression of the model in contemporary philosophy through the particular case of Nietzsche. It concludes by outlining some of the considerations that, in the wake of Hadot, Sellars, Michael Chase, and others, might persuade researchers, teachers, and academics to embrace philosophy as a way of life in their work and lives. (shrink)

In this essay, I aim to examine Hölderlin’s theory of composition according to the thesis on the compatibility of poetic and philosophical practices. I interpret Hölderlin’s poetological fragments as a response to the epistolary exchange he had held with his master Schiller a few years earlier, concerning the dialectic between philosophy and poetry, enthusiasm and sobriety. I argue that Hölderlin’s fragments prompt us to consider poetry and philosophy as poiesis-based practices. Identifying creativity as their common destination allows one to postulate (...) the interaction between the two disciplines. I finally argue that aesthetics could be the place for this interaction. Hölderlin outlines a productive, namely aesthetic, theory of creation, in which boundaries between philosophy and poetry seem to interact rather than exclude. (shrink)

This paper considers a host of definitions and labels attached to the concept of smart cities to identify four dimensions that ground a review of ethical concerns emerging from the current debate. These are: (1) network infrastructure, with the corresponding concerns of control, surveillance, and data privacy and ownership; (2) post-political governance, embodied in the tensions between public and private decision-making and cities as post-political entities; (3) social inclusion, expressed in the aspects of citizen participation and inclusion, and inequality and (...) discrimination; and (4) sustainability, with a specific focus on the environment as an element to protect but also as a strategic element for the future. Given the persisting disagreements around the definition of a smart city, the article identifies in these four dimensions a more stable reference framework within which ethical concerns can be clustered and discussed. Identifying these dimensions makes possible a review of the ethical implications of smart cities that is transversal to their different types and resilient towards the unsettled debate over their definition. (shrink)

Marta Faustino and Gianfranco Ferraro present a collection of essays by esteemed academics on the ethical and political questions present in Michel Foucault's late work. As one of the most important and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century, the philosopher's last works are at the centre of much current academic research and debate. Comprising 15 essays written by specialists on Foucault's thought from 10 different countries, the perspectives offered by the contributors and the thinker himself can help us to (...) unravel modernity and give us the tools to understand and ethically and politically transform our present. (shrink)

The central idea behind this paper is that presuppositions of soft triggers arise from the way our attention structures the informational content of a sentence. Some aspects of the information conveyed are such that we pay attention to them by default, even in the absence of contextual information. On the other hand, contextual cues or conversational goals can divert attention to types of information that we would not pay attention to by default. Either way, whatever we do not pay attention (...) to, be it by default, or in context, is what ends up presupposed by soft triggers. This paper attempts to predict what information in the sentence is likely to end up being the main point (i.e. what we pay attention to) and what information is independent from this, and therefore likely presupposed. It is proposed that this can be calculated by making reference to event times. The notion of aboutness used to calculate independence is based on that of Demolombe and Fariñas del Cerro (In: Holdobler S (ed) Intellectics and computational logic: papers in honor of Wolfgang Bibel, 2000). (shrink)

ABSTRACTFinance may suffer from institutional deformations that subordinate its distinctive goods to the pursuit of external goods, but this should encourage attempts to reform the institutionalization of finance rather than to reject its potential for virtuous business activity. This article argues that finance should be regarded as a domain-relative practice. Alongside management, its moral status thereby varies with the purposes it serves. Hence, when practitioners working in finance facilitate projects that create common goods, it allows them to develop virtues. This (...) argument applies MacIntyre’s widely acknowledged account of the relationship between practices and the development of virtues while questioning some of his claims about finance. It also takes issue with extant accounts of particular financial functions that have failed to identify the distinctive goods of financial practice. (shrink)

According to Husserl’s phenomenology, the intentional horizon is a general structure of experience. However, its characterisation beyond perceptual experience has not been explored yet. This paper aims, first, to fill this gap by arguing that there is a viable notion of cognitive horizon that presents features that are analogous to features of the perceptual horizon. Secondly, it proposes to characterise a specific structure of the cognitive horizon—that which presents possibilities for action—as a cognitive affordance. Cognitive affordances present cognitive elements as (...) opportunities for mental action (i.e., a problem affording trying to solve it, a thought affording calculating, an idea affording reflection). Thirdly, it argues that postulating cognitive affordances helps to unfold a rational dimension of thinking by conceiving of them as motivating reasons for action, something that in turn provides an argument for the experienced character of cognitive affordances. (shrink)

There is currently a consensus among comparative psychologists that nonhuman animals are capable of some forms of mindreading. Several philosophers and psychologists have criticized this consensus, however, arguing that there is a “logical problem” with the experimental approach used to test for mindreading in nonhuman animals. I argue that the logical problem is no more than a version of the general skeptical problem known as the theoretician’s dilemma. As such, it is not a problem that comparative psychologists must solve before (...) providing evidence for mindreading. (shrink)

Focusing on cell dynamics, molecular medicine and robotics, contributors explore the interplay between biological, technological and theoretical ways of thinking. They argue that the direction of modern science means that these areas can no longer be explored independently but must be integrated if we are to better understand the world. The collection makes a strong contribution to current debates in the philosophy of science and the changing role of scientific practice.0.