Nijhawan argues convincingly that predictive mechanisms are pervasive in the central nervous system (CNS). However, scientific understanding of visual prediction requires one to formulate empirically testable neurophysiological models. The author's suggestions in this direction are to be evaluated on the basis of more realistic experimental methodologies and more plausible assumptions on the hierarchical character of the human visual cortex.

The import of computational learning theories and techniques on the ethics of human-robot interaction is explored in the context of recent developments of personal robotics. An epistemological reflection enables one to isolate a variety of background hypotheses that are needed to achieve successful learning from experience in autonomous personal robots. The conjectural character of these background hypotheses brings out theoretical and practical limitations in our ability to predict and control the behaviour of learning robots in their interactions with humans. Responsibility (...) ascription problems, which concern damages caused by learning robot actions, are analyzed in the light of these epistemic limitations. Finally, a broad framework is outlined for ethically motivated scientific inquiries, which aim at improving our capability to understand, anticipate, and selectively cope with harmful errors by learning robots. (shrink)

'Ontology and Metaontology: A Contemporary Guide' is a clear and accessible survey of ontology, focussing on the most recent trends in the discipline. -/- Divided into parts, the first half characterizes metaontology: the discourse on the methodology of ontological inquiry, covering the main concepts, tools, and methods of the discipline, exploring the notions of being and existence, ontological commitment, paraphrase strategies, fictionalist strategies, and other metaontological questions. The second half considers a series of case studies, introducing and familiarizing the reader (...) with concrete examples of the latest research in the field. The basic sub-fields of ontology are covered here via an accessible and captivating exposition: events, properties, universals, abstract objects, possible worlds, material beings, mereology, fictional objects. -/- The guide's modular structure allows for a flexible approach to the subject, making it suitable for both undergraduates and postgraduates looking to better understand and apply the exciting developments and debates taking place in ontology today. (shrink)

In Diderot’s philosophy, the nature of the eighteenth-century, Isis veiled, is constituted of the same substance as the metaphor, the analogy and the hieroglyph. To show that, this article takes into consideration the naturalistic inquiry on Trembley’s Hydra. This animal, which is at the heart of the philosophical interest of the period, seems to shape itself starting from the mythological imagination, but at the same time it becomes the model that, for Diderot, defines the faculty of thinking and its features. (...) The reversibility between word and image, nature and culture, representation and the represented thing provides the observation point on a philosophy – Diderot’s philosophy – that develops itself along with the human physiology and imagination, its own faculty. (shrink)

Biological regulation is what allows an organism to handle the effects of a perturbation, modulating its own constitutive dynamics in response to particular changes in internal and external conditions. With the central focus of analysis on the case of minimal living systems, we argue that regulation consists in a specific form of second-order control, exerted over the core regime of production and maintenance of the components that actually put together the organism. The main argument is that regulation requires a distinctive (...) architecture of functional relationships, and specifically the action of a dedicated subsystem whose activity is dynamically decoupled from that of the constitutive regime. We distinguish between two major ways in which control mechanisms contribute to the maintenance of a biological organisation in response to internal and external perturbations: dynamic stability and regulation. Based on this distinction an explicit definition and a set of organisational requirements for regulation are provided, and thoroughly illustrated through the examples of bacterial chemotaxis and the lac-operon. The analysis enables us to mark out the differences between regulation and closely related concepts such as feedback, robustness and homeostasis. (shrink)

The organizational account of biological functions interprets functions as contributions of a trait to the maintenance of the organization that, in turn, maintains the trait. As has been recently argued, however, the account seems unable to provide a unified grounding for both intra- and cross-generation functions, since the latter do not contribute to the maintenance of the same organization which produces them. To face this ‘ontological problem’, a splitting account has been proposed, according to which the two kinds of functions (...) require distinct organizational definitions. In this article, we propose a solution for the ontological problem, by arguing that intra- and cross-generation functions can be said to contribute in the same way to the maintenance of the biological organization, characterized in terms of organizational self-maintenance. As a consequence, we suggest maintaining a unified organizational account of biological functions. (shrink)

Endocrinologists apply the idea of feedback loops to explain how hormones regulate certain bodily functions such as glucose metabolism. In particular, feedback loops focus on the maintenance of the plasma concentrations of glucose within a narrow range. Here, we put forward a different, organicist perspective on the endocrine regulation of glycaemia, by relying on the pivotal concept of closure of constraints. From this perspective, biological systems are understood as organized ones, which means that they are constituted of a set of (...) mutually dependent functional structures acting as constraints, whose maintenance depends on their reciprocal interactions. Closure refers specifically to the mutual dependence among functional constraints in an organism. We show that, when compared to feedback loops, organizational closure can generate much richer descriptions of the processes and constraints at play in the metabolism and regulation of glycaemia, by making explicit the different hierarchical orders involved. We expect that the proposed theoretical framework will open the way to the construction of original mathematical models, which would provide a better understanding of endocrine regulation from an organicist perspective. (shrink)

The finding that intuitions about the reference of proper names vary cross-culturally was one of the early milestones in experimental philosophy. Many follow-up studies investigated the scope and magnitude of such cross-cultural effects, but our paper provides the first systematic meta-analysis of studies replicating. In the light of our results, we assess the existence and significance of cross-cultural effects for intuitions about the reference of proper names.

We characterize Hegel’s stance on biological purposiveness as consisting in a twofold move, which conceives organisms as intrinsically purposive natural systems and focuses on their behavioral and cognitive abilities. We submit that a Hegelian stance is at play in enactivism, the branch of the contemporary theory of biological autonomy devoted to the study of cognition and the mind. What is at stake in the Hegelian stance is the elaboration of a naturalized, although non-reductive, understanding of natural purposiveness.

Is it ethical to deceive the individuals who participate in psychological experiments for methodological reasons? We argue against an absolute ban on the use of deception in psychological research. The potential benefits of many psychological experiments involving deception consist in allowing individuals and society to gain morally significant self-knowledge that they could not otherwise gain. Research participants gain individual self-knowledge which can help them improve their autonomous decision-making. The community gains collective self-knowledge that, once shared, can play a role in (...) shaping education, informing policies and in general creating a more efficient and just society. (shrink)

This is an introductory paper to a series of results linking generic absoluteness results for second and third order number theory to the model theoretic notion of model companionship. Specifically we develop here a general framework linking Woodin’s generic absoluteness results for second order number theory and the theory of universally Baire sets to model companionship and show that (with the required care in details) a $$\Pi _2$$ -property formalized in an appropriate language for second order number theory is forcible (...) from some $$T\supseteq \mathsf {ZFC}+$$ large cardinals if and only if it is consistent with the universal fragment of T if and only if it is realized in the model companion of T. In particular we show that the first order theory of $$H_{\omega _1}$$ is the model companion of the first order theory of the universe of sets assuming the existence of class many Woodin cardinals, and working in a signature with predicates for $$\Delta _0$$ -properties and for all universally Baire sets of reals. We will extend these results also to the theory of $$H_{\aleph _2}$$ in a follow up of this paper. (shrink)

COVID19 pandemic has clarified that public health policies are central for the future of human societies from several perspectives. As a matter of fact, they are based on certain premises that are practical-political (e.g., ensuring the health of citizens), moral (e.g., health is a value), or epistemological (e.g., certain ideas concerning expertise and shared knowledge). Indeed, effective policies require first and foremost not only to be based on reliable data and models (i.e., so-called evidence-based policy) but also to ensure that (...) these policies are democratically accepted, shared (e.g., considering both cognitive and social dimensions), and hopefully formed after a deliberative process involving experts from various fields alongside citizens. (shrink)

This collection focuses on how troubled times impact upon the law, the body politic, and the complex interrelationship among them. It centres on how they engage in a dialogue with the imagination and literature, thus triggering an emergent (but thus far underdeveloped) field concerning the 'legal imagination'. Legal change necessitates a close examination of the historical, cultural, social, and economic variables that promote and affect such change. This requires us to attend to the variety of non-legal variables that percolate throughout (...) the legal system. The collection probes 'the transatlantic constitution' and focuses attention on imagination in a common law context that seems to foster imagination as a cultural capability. The book is divided into four parts. The first part begins with a set of insights into the historical development of legal education in England and concludes with a reflection on the historical transition of England from an absolute monarchy to a republic. The second part of the volume examines the role that imagination plays in the functioning of the courts. The third part focuses on patterns of thought in legal scholarship and detects how legal imagination contributes to the process of producing new legal categories and terminology. The fourth part focuses on patterns of thought in legal scholarship, and looks to the impact of the imagination on legal thinking in the future. (shrink)

Decidability of monadic first-order classical logic was established by Löwenheim in 1915. The proof made use of a semantic argument and a purely syntactic proof has never been provided. In the present paper we introduce a syntactic proof of decidability of monadic first-order logic in innex normal form which exploits G3-style sequent calculi. In particular, we introduce a cut- and contraction-free calculus having a (complexity-optimal) terminating proof-search procedure. We also show that this logic can be faithfully embedded in the modal (...) logic T. (shrink)

Fichte’s Doctrine of Science of 1811 offers a sound model for explaining the conditions of semantics in its connection with the idea of freedom. Following Wolfram Hogrebe’s suggestion that the principle of contradiction works as an archaeological semantic postulate, i.e., is the implicit condition for any sentence to be meaningful, we argue that in Fichte’s definition of the phenomenon we find such a semantic postulate at a higher genetic level than the principle of contradiction indicated by Hogrebe. Moreover, the Doctrine (...) of Science of 1811 offers an analysis of the steps through which this phenomenon displays itself – i.e. Vermögen, als, Soll – which can be understood as the conditions for establishing a meaningful sentence.Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre 1811 kann uns einen soliden Modell zur Erklärung der Entstheung von Semantik anbieten. Mein Beitrag fangt mit der Darstellung Wolfram Hogrebes Hypothese an, dass der Satz vom Widerspruch als archäologisches Bedeutungspostulat fungiert, d.h. als implizite Bedingung der Möglichkeit jeglicher bedeutenden Äußerung. Ausgehend dieser Idee Hogrebes, hier schlage ich vor, dass man im Fichtes Begriffe der Erscheinung ein genetisch höheres archäologisches Bedeutungspostulat als der Satz vom Widerspruch finden kann. Daraufhin bietet die Wissenschaftslehre 1811 einen Einsicht in alle Schritte, wodurch die Erscheinung sich entfaltet – Vermögen, Durch, Als, Soll – die wir als die entsprechende Bedingungen für die Herstellung eines bedeutungsvollen Satzes verstehen können. (shrink)

Dieser Band ist in vier Teile gegliedert, die dem theoretischen, praktischen und politischen Gedanken des Philosophen gewidmet sind. Diesen folgen im vierten Teil Beiträge, die Fichtes philosophische Ansätze in den Dialog mit gegenwärtigen Autoren und Fragen der Philosophie bringen.

Die 38 im Jahre 1811 vorgetragen Vorlesungen über die Wissenschaftslehre sind eine vollkommene und besonders gut artikulierte Darstellung Fichtes Systems in der Zeit seiner Tätigkeit an der neu gegründeten Universität zu Berlin. Der Öffentlichkeit sind sie erst 1999 bekannt geworden, als sie in der_J. G. Fichte Gesamtausgabe_ der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften aufgenommen wurden, denn bis dahin wurden sie von den jeweiligen Editoren des Fichte-Nachlasses nie erwähnt. Fichte nimmt in dieser Darstellung seines Systems gegen beide Formen des Nihilismus Stellung - (...) den theoretischen sowie den mit diesem zusammenhängenden praktischen. Um seine systematische Position formulieren und vertreten zu können, setzt er sich vor allem mit Spinoza und Kant nochmals auseinander. Spinoza stellt nämlich nach Fichte die Grundfrage der Philosophie, wie neben dem Sein auch ein Dasein denkbar sein kann, während Kant ihm im Begriff der Erscheinung den Weg zu ihrer Lösung aufzeigt. Aber zwei weitere Probleme ergeben sich für Fichte aus der kritischen Philosophie Kants: wie kann man das Bewußtsein beschreiben, wenn man sich nicht aus seinem Zirkel bewegen kann, und wie kann man die in dieser Beschreibung faktisch entdeckte Ursprünglichkeit der Synthesis rechtfertigen? Für Fichte hatte der Begründer der Transzendentalphilosophie die grundlegende synthetische Tätigkeit des Bewußtseins nur noch als ein Faktum des Bewußtseins angenommen. Der Beweis ihrer Möglichkeit ist nach Fichte letztlich nur zu führen, indem man sie auf eine Erscheinungsform der Freiheit als Inbegriff Gottes zurückführt. Diesen Beweisgang versteht nun Fichte als Vervollständigung des transzendentalphilosophischen Programms und zugleich als Mittel, um aus dem Wissen in die Weisheit überzugehen. (shrink)

The essays collected in this volume try to assess the reflection on the mind starting from the genius of Leonardo da Vinci up to the new frontiers of science and technology. Imagining the "future of the mind" also means asking about the features and limits of human nature, the mind-body relationship, the relationship between natural and artificial intelligence and the impact of technology on our relationship with the world.

BACKGROUND: There is a need for interdisciplinary research to better understand how pedagogical approaches in primary physical education (PE) can support the linked development of physical, cognitive and affective aspects of physical literacy and physical activity behaviours in young children. The Skill Acquisition Methods fostering Physical Literacy in Early-Physical Education (SAMPLE-PE) study aims to examine the efficacy of two different pedagogies for PE, underpinned by theories of motor learning, to foster physical literacy, especially for children living in disadvantaged areas. METHODS: (...) SAMPLE-PE will be evaluated through a cluster-randomised controlled trial targeting 5-6 year old children from schools located in areas of high deprivation in Merseyside, North-West England. Schools will be randomly allocated to one of three conditions: Linear Pedagogy, Nonlinear Pedagogy or Control. Nonlinear and Linear Pedagogy intervention primary schools will receive a PE curriculum delivered by trained coaches over 15 weeks, while control schools will follow their usual practice. Data will be collected at baseline (T0), immediately post-intervention (T1) and six months after the intervention has finished (T2). Children’s movement competence is the primary outcome in this trial. Secondary outcomes include physical activity, perceived competence, motivation, executive functions, and self-regulation. An extensive process evaluation will also examine implementation factors such as intervention context, reach, dose, fidelity and acceptability. DISCUSSION: The SAMPLE-PE project will enable better understanding surrounding how to operationalise physical literacy through enrichment of PE practices in early PE. The study will provide robust scientific evidence regarding the efficacy of underpinning PE pedagogy with theories of motor learning to promote the development of physical literacy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold: first, I provide a cluster of theories of truth in classical logic that is (internally) consistent with global reflection principles: the theories of positive truth (and falsity). After that, I analyse the _epistemic value_ of such theories. I do so employing the framework of cognitive projects introduced by Wright (Proc Aristot Soc 78:167–245, 2004), and employed—in the context of theories of truth—by Fischer et al. (Noûs 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12292 ). In particular, I will argue (...) that theories of positive truth are _trustworthy_, analogously to the theories of full disquotational truth. Moreover, I argue that, for a given cognitive project, _if_ the acceptance of trustworthy theories is taken to be an _epistemic norm_ of cognitive project, then one has good reasons to accept theories of positive truth over other rival theories of truth in classical logic. On the other hand, the latter theories are deemed epistemically unacceptable. (shrink)

Moral madness is a symptom of the moral violence experienced by teachers who are expected to exercise responsibility for their students and their work, but whose moral voice is misrecognized as self-interest and whose moral agency is suppressed. I conduct a feminist ethical analysis of the figure of Cassandra to examine the ways in which teachers may be driven to moral madness.

Cet article reconstruit la réception d’un paradoxe zénonien formulé « à partir de la dichotomie » dans la Physique et dans la Métaphysique d’Aristote. Dans la Physique, Aristote remarque que ce paradoxe a conduit certains philosophes à poser l’existence de grandeurs indivisibles ( Physique I, 3) et découvre le présupposé erroné qui produit l’absurdité (VIII, 8). Après avoir montré que ce groupe de philosophes inclut Platon, l’article démontre que, dans la Métaphysique, Aristote invoque explicitement le raisonnement à la base du (...) paradoxe dans le cadre de sa critique de la conception platonicienne et pythagoricienne de l’unité comme substance ( Métaphysique III, 4). Plus précisément, Aristote retourne contre Platon un « axiome de Zénon » qu’il extrait du paradoxe « à partir de la dichotomie ». (shrink)

A reply to Carsten Held's Analysis paper arguing for the unworkability of the traditional scientific realist inference from the success of scientific theories to their (probable) truth.

The free-energy principle states that all systems that minimize their free energy resist a tendency to physical disintegration. Originally proposed to account for perception, learning, and action, the free-energy principle has been applied to the evolution, development, morphology, anatomy and function of the brain, and has been called a postulate, an unfalsifiable principle, a natural law, and an imperative. While it might afford a theoretical foundation for understanding the relationship between environment, life, and mind, its epistemic status is unclear. Also (...) unclear is how the free-energy principle relates to prominent theoretical approaches to life science phenomena, such as organicism and mechanism. This paper clarifies both issues, and identifies limits and prospects for the free-energy principle as a first principle in the life sciences. (shrink)

Courtesy of its free energy formulation, the hierarchical predictive processing theory of the brain (PTB) is often claimed to be a grand unifying theory. To test this claim, we examine a central case: activity of mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic (DA) systems. After reviewing the three most prominent hypotheses of DA activity—the anhedonia, incentive salience, and reward prediction error hypotheses—we conclude that the evidence currently vindicates explanatory pluralism. This vindication implies that the grand unifying claims of advocates of PTB are unwarranted. More generally, (...) we suggest that the form of scientific progress in the cognitive sciences is unlikely to be a single overarching grand unifying theory. (shrink)

This article aims to systematically deconstruct four distinct narratives derived from the case of Caster Semenya v. IAAF (Court of Arbitration for Sport).

The present paper discusses different approaches to metaphysics and defends a specific, non-deflationary approach that nevertheless qualifies as scientifically-grounded and, consequently, as acceptable from the naturalistic viewpoint. By critically assessing some recent work on science and metaphysics, we argue that such a sophisticated form of naturalism, which preserves the autonomy of metaphysics as an a priori enterprise yet pays due attention to the indications coming from our best science, is not only workable but recommended.

Mechanist philosophers have examined several strategies scientists use for discovering causal mechanisms in neuroscience. Findings about the anatomical organization of the brain play a central role in several such strategies. Little attention has been paid, however, to the use of network analysis and causal modeling techniques for mechanism discovery. In particular, mechanist philosophers have not explored whether and how these strategies incorporate information about the anatomical organization of the brain. This paper clarifies these issues in the light of the distinction (...) between structural, functional and effective connectivity. Specifically, we examine two quantitative strategies currently used for causal discovery from functional neuroimaging data: dynamic causal modeling and probabilistic graphical modeling. We show that dynamic causal modeling uses findings about the brain’s anatomical organization to improve the statistical estimation of parameters in an already specified causal model of the target brain mechanism. Probabilistic graphical modeling, in contrast, makes no appeal to the brain’s anatomical organization, but lays bare the conditions under which correlational data suffice to license reliable inferences about the causal organization of a target brain mechanism. The question of whether findings about the anatomical organization of the brain can and should constrain the inference of causal networks remains open, but we show how the tools supplied by graphical modeling methods help to address it. (shrink)

According to the received view of evolution, only genes are inherited. From this view it follows that only genetically-caused phenotypic variation is selectable and, thereby, that all selection is at bottom genetic selection. This paper argues that the received view is wrong. In many species, there are intergenerationally-stable phenotypic differences due to environmental differences. Natural selection can act on these nongenetically-caused phenotypic differences in the same way it acts on genetically-caused phenotypic differences. Some selection is at bottom nongenetic selection. The (...) argument against the received view involves a reformulation of the concepts of inheritance and heritability. Inherited factors are all those developmental factors responsible for parent–offspring similarity; some inherited factors are genetic and some are not. Heritable variation is intergenerationally-stable phenotypic variation; some such variation is genetically-caused and some is not. The received view and its critics The possibility of nongenetic selection (the lucky butterfly) The reality of nongenetic selection 3.1 Imprinting mechanisms 3.2 Other learning mechanisms 3.3 Other nongenetic mechanisms Genetic and nongenetic inheritance mechanisms Genetic and nongenetic inherited factors Genetic and nongenetic heritability Conclusions + Current address: Dr Matteo Mameli, Research Fellow, King's College, Cambridge, CB2 1ST, United Kingdom, matteo.mameli{at}kings.cam.ac.uk' + u + '@' + d + ''//-->. (shrink)

In this paper, we evaluate some proposals that can be advanced to clarify the ontological consequences of Relational Quantum Mechanics. We first focus on priority monism and ontic structural realism and argue that these views are not suitable for providing an ontological interpretation of the theory. Then, we discuss an alternative interpretation that we regard as more promising, based on so-called ‘metaphysical coherentism’, which we also connect to the idea of an event-based, or ‘flash’, ontology.

We present recent results on the model companions of set theory, placing them in the context of a current debate in the philosophy of mathematics. We start by describing the dependence of the notion of model companionship on the signature, and then we analyze this dependence in the specific case of set theory. We argue that the most natural model companions of set theory describe (as the signature in which we axiomatize set theory varies) theories of $H_{\kappa ^+}$, as $\kappa (...) $ ranges among the infinite cardinals. We also single out $2^{\aleph _0}=\aleph _2$ as the unique solution of the continuum problem which can (and does) belong to some model companion of set theory (enriched with large cardinal axioms). While doing so we bring to light that set theory enriched by large cardinal axioms in the range of supercompactness has as its model companion (with respect to its first order axiomatization in certain natural signatures) the theory of $H_{\aleph _2}$ as given by a strong form of Woodin’s axiom $(*)$ (which holds assuming $\mathsf {MM}^{++}$ ). Finally this model-theoretic approach to set-theoretic validities is explained and justified in terms of a form of maximality inspired by Hilbert’s axiom of completeness. (shrink)

Causal reductionism is the widespread assumption that there is no room for additional causes once we have accounted for all elementary mechanisms within a system. Due to its intuitive appeal, causal reductionism is prevalent in neuroscience: once all neurons have been caused to fire or not to fire, it seems that causally there is nothing left to be accounted for. Here, we argue that these reductionist intuitions are based on an implicit, unexamined notion of causation that conflates causation with prediction. (...) By means of a simple model organism, we demonstrate that causal reductionism cannot provide a complete and coherent account of ‘what caused what’. To that end, we outline an explicit, operational approach to analyzing causal structures. (shrink)