The Ontology Summit 2012 explored the current and potential uses of ontology, its methods and paradigms, in big systems and big data: How ontology can be used to design, develop, and operate such systems. The systems addressed were not just software systems, although software systems are typically core and necessary components, but more complex systems that include multiple kinds and levels of human and community interaction with physical-software systems, systems of systems, and the socio-technical environments for those systems which can (...) include cultural, legal, and economic components. The focus themes used for this exploration were Big Systems Engineering, Big Data Challenge, Large Scale Domain Applications, and cross-cutting aspects Ontology Quality, and Federation and Integration of Systems. The Ontology Summit 2012 consisted of over three months of intensive virtual collaborative elaboration of these issues in presentations, panels, and group email. The culmination of these activities was a face-to-face Symposium at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, USA, 12–13 April 2012. The primary product of this Ontology Summit is the communiqué reported here. But there are other products, some continuing as collaborative, more specifically focused analysis and modeling efforts aligned with various open standards activities. Behind all of these particular products, of course, is the real overriding purpose of the Ontology Summit 2012, which was: the joint collaboration of three distinct communities, the ontology, systems engineering and big systems stakeholder communities, who came together to address common problems, create common understanding and propose common solutions. (shrink)

Each annual Ontology Summit initiative makes a statement appropriate to each Summit’s theme as part of our general advocacy designed to bring ontology science and engineering into the mainstream. The theme this year is "Towards an Open Ontology Repository". This communiqué represents the joint position of those who were engaged in the year's summit discourse on an Open Ontology Repository (OOR) and of those who endorse below. In this discussion, we have agreed that an "ontology repository is a facility where (...) ontologies and related information artifacts can be stored, retrieved and managed." -/- We believe in the promise of semantic technologies based on logic, databases and the Semantic Web, a Web of exposed data and of interpretations of that data (i.e., of semantics), using common standards. Such technologies enable distinguishable, computable, reusable, and sharable meaning of Web and other artifacts, including data, documents, and services. We also believe that making that vision a reality requires additional supporting resources and these resources should be open, extensible, and provide common services over the ontologies. (shrink)

A recent article in Anthropology of Consciousness entitled ‘Imaginal research for unlearning mastery: Divination with Tarot as a decolonizing methodology’ argues that the Western Tarot may be a useful tool to facilitate decolonization despite (or perhaps in spite) of the colonial and imperial imprints of the accumulating class. This response points out the Tarot is in fact a tool developed by the accumulating class, designed specifically to facilitate the imposition of elite master narratives. This letter calls into question the appropriateness (...) and effectiveness of using the Tarot as a tool for decolonization. (shrink)

The first collective monograph on one of Plato’s most intriguing dialogues with interest for readers of ancient philosophy as well as those who study modern theories of language.

Disagreement holds the key: the possibility of agreeing or disagreeing with a state of mind makes that state of mind act logically like accepting a claim. Charles Stevenson was quite right to begin his presentation of emotivism with disagreement.—Allan Gibbard.

Upper ontologies have traditionally arisen from the approach in which concepts that are common across a set of domains can be axiomatized at a general level. The rationale is that reuse across domains is to be supported through specialization of the general concepts from an upper ontology. Similarly, semantic integration between ontologies is to be achieved through the general concepts they specialize. The TUpper Ontology follows an alternative approach to the conventional upper ontology paradigm. Rather than think of an upper (...) ontology as a monolithic axiomatization centred on a taxonomy, the sideways approach considers an upper ontology to be a modular ontology composed of generic ontologies that cover concepts including those related to time, process, and space. TUpper is therefore composed of a set of generic ontologies, and each generic ontology axiomatizes a particular set of generic concepts. The TUpper Ontology is designed as a top-level ontology that contains modules from the ontologies within existing international standards. (shrink)

The Process Specification Language (PSL) has been designed to facilitate correct and complete exchange of process information among manufacturing systems, such as scheduling, process modeling, process planning, production planning, simulation, project management, work flow, and business process reengineering. We given an overview of the theories with the PSL ontology, discuss some of the design principles for the ontology, and finish with examples of process specifications that are based on the ontology.

Inspiriert von den Vordenkern des amerikanischen Pragmatismus - William James, John Dewey und Richard Rorty - entwickelt Mike Sandbothe ein normativ nachhaltiges Konzept von Medien und Philosophie. Anhand exemplarischer Fallstudien zeigt er auf, wie sich dies in den Kultur- und Medienwissenschaften, den Bildungs- und Sozialwissenschaften sowie in der Psychologie nutzen lässt. Seine pragmatische Medienphilosophie kann dazu beitragen, die Betriebssysteme unserer Bildungsanstalten mit Hilfe von achtsamkeits- und körperbasierten sowie spirituellen Praktiken gesundheitsförderlich zu transformieren.

New York Times best-selling author offers a groundbreaking approach to activate the subconscious brain to set yourself free from your past and create a terrific future. Can you remember a time in your life when you felt absolutely confident, happy, and free? Imagine what your life would be like if you could live in that space... In this book, Dr. Mike Dow shares a groundbreaking, life-changing program he created: Subconscious Visualization Technique (SVT). Now, if you think the subconscious brain (...) is some woo-woo pseudoscience, prepare to have your mind blown. The cutting-edge research, protocol, and audio tracks Mike offers will help you speak directly to your subconscious brain and tap into your greatest strengths, gifts, and resources. His program, the first of its kind, starts with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), then incorporates various types of subconscious tools: mindfulness, guided visualization, audio-visual entrainment, and bilateral stimulation of the brain and body. Your subconscious can change the way you digest food, help you access memories and repressed feelings, boost your immune system, and activate mindbody healing so that you don't have to constantly treat your symptoms. Some examples of syndromes that SVT can treat include chronic pain, fibromyalgia, leaky gut, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), migraines, anxiety disorders, and more! SVT helps you access the best parts of yourself and move into your true self. In short, your subconscious brain can change your life!" -- ONIX annotation. (shrink)

In attending to surfaces, as they wrap, layer and grow within sentient bodies, material formations and cosmological sates, this volume presents a series of ten anthropological studies stretching across five continents and in observation of earthly practices of making, knowing, living and dying. Through theoretically reflecting on time spent with Aymara and Mapuche Andean cultures, the Malagasy people of Madagascar, craftspeople and designers across Europe and Oceania, amongst the architectures of Australia and South Korea, and within the folds of books, (...) screens, landscape and the sea, the anthropologists in this volume communicate diverse ways of considering, working with and knowing surfaces. Together, these writings advance a knowledge of the world which resists any definitive settlement of existential categories and rather seeks to know the world in its emergence and transformation, as entities grow, cohere, shift, dissolve, decay and rebirth through the contact and exchange of surfaces, persisting with varying time, power and effect. The book principally invites readers from anthropology, the creative arts and environmental studies, but also across the wider humanities and social sciences as well as those in neighbouring scientific fields of archeology, biology, geography, geoscience, material science, neurology and psychology interested in the intersections of mind, body, materials and world. (shrink)

In show business lore, a “trouper” perseveres without complaint no matter how arduous or dangerous the circumstances. In the camaraderie-driven, show-must-go-on world of entertainment, the appellat...

Mike Murray's excellent new book attacks the narrow high stakes accountability and marketized vision which has distorted our education system and offers a radical optimistic vision of how we can emerge from the current impasse.

Understanding "miracles" -- The matrix -- Knowing what you really want -- Getting into the details -- Taking action -- Expedited delivery -- The time of your life.

Are people rational? This question was central to Greek thought and has been at the heart of psychology and philosophy for millennia. This book provides a radical and controversial reappraisal of conventional wisdom in the psychology of reasoning, proposing that the Western conception of the mind as a logical system is flawed at the very outset. It argues that cognition should be understood in terms of probability theory, the calculus of uncertain reasoning, rather than in terms of logic, the calculus (...) of certain reasoning. (shrink)

In response to calls for greater interdisciplinary involvement from the social sciences and humanities in the development, governance, and study of artificial intelligence systems, this paper presents one sociologist’s view on the problem of algorithmic bias and the reproduction of societal bias. Discussions of bias in AI cover much of the same conceptual terrain that sociologists studying inequality have long understood using more specific terms and theories. Concerns over reproducing societal bias should be informed by an understanding of the ways (...) that inequality is continually reproduced in society—processes that AI systems are either complicit in, or can be designed to disrupt and counter. The contrast presented here is between conservative and radical approaches to AI, with conservatism referring to dominant tendencies that reproduce and strengthen the status quo, while radical approaches work to disrupt systemic forms of inequality. The limitations of a conservative approach to racial bias are discussed through the specific example of biased criminal risk assessments and Indigenous overrepresentation in Canada’s criminal justice system. This illustrates the dangers of treating racial bias as a generalizable problem and equality as a generalizable solution, emphasizing the importance of considering inequality in context. Societal issues can no longer be out of scope for AI and machine learning, given the impact of these systems on human lives. This requires engagement with a growing body of critical AI scholarship that goes beyond biased data to analyze structured ways of perpetuating inequality, opening up the possibility for interdisciplinary engagement and radical alternatives. (shrink)

I introduce definition by genus and specific difference, afterwards using it to show that Karl Jaspers rejected the classic criteria for pathologically falsified judgment: ‘Absolute conviction,’ ‘incorrigibility,’ and ‘impossibility of content.’ Next I draw attention to the primary experience of delusion. Famously, Jaspers reckoned that that experience was “ununderstandable”—usually taken to imply something negative about one’s ability to empathize with the delusion holder. All the same, I propose that it was actually our static mode of understanding that he felt was (...) defeated by the aforementioned experience, not our genetic one. (shrink)

I consider the most serious problem for the traditional account of divine creation in theistic actualism. According to van Inwagen's modal collapse argument, ultimate explanation entails that gratitude to God for one's existence is totally inappropriate. Ultimately, the actual world, and everything in it, is self-explanatory, and not a consequence of divine creation. I argue that van Inwagen's argument is unsound. It is consistent with an ultimate explanation for the world that the actual world is contingently necessary. If God actualizes (...) the world as a matter of contingent necessity, then gratitude to God for one's existence is perfectly appropriate. It is true that we exist as a matter of necessity, but that necessary existence is just a contingent fact. There are possible worlds in which we fail to exist altogether. (shrink)

Disinterring Kant -- Kant's first critique and the problem of reification -- The aesthetic, the beautiful and praxis -- The aesthetic and class interests -- The sublime in Kant's philosophical architecture -- Labour, the aesthetic, and nature -- On Marxism and metaphor -- In the laboratory of Kant's aesthetic.

This chapter summarizes much of the recent work in experimental philosophy. It begins with some background, introducing the philosophical dispute between descriptivists and causal‐historical accounts of reference that has served as the primary focus of experimental work. The chapter also reviews some reasons to think that understanding reference may have very general philosophical implications. It introduces preliminary experimental work on reference by Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich, which suggested the existence of cultural diversity in judgments about (...) the reference of proper names in a classic case. The chapter explains a range of responses to this work; responses that themselves advance and clarify the central issues at stake. The chapter briefly considers the related empirical research, some of it recent, some of it decades old, into the reference of kind terms rather than proper names. Finally, the chapter summarizes by considering the payoffs of this literature. (shrink)

Despite its long period of dominance, the details of associationism as developed by the British Empiricists in the 18th and 19th centuries are often ignored or forgotten today. Perhaps as a result, modern understandings of Empiricist associationism are often oversimplified. In fact, there is no single core view that can be viewed as definitional, or even weaker, as characteristic, of the tradition. The actual views of associationists in this tradition are much more diverse than any such view would allow, even (...) on fundamental aspects of the concept of association. This paper presents some of the most striking theoretical diversity and most significant discussions within the Empiricist associationist tradition. Recognizing this diversity, Empiricist associationism is best viewed as a project with shared questions and methods rather than a shared substantive theory of mind. This discussion can inform our understanding of the historical tradition, and also inform our current use of association and associationism. The concept of association is more flexible than it is often treated, and even its basic nature and function remain up for debate. (shrink)

Speculates on what the dead would say to the living if they could commuicate.

How can a critical analysis of entrepreneurial intention inform an appreciation of ethics in social enterprise business models? In answering this question, we consider the ethical commitments that inform entrepreneurial action and the hybrid organisations that emerge out of these commitments and actions. Ethical theory can be a useful way to reorient the field of social enterprise so that it is more critical of bureaucratic and market-driven enterprises connected to neoliberal doctrine. Social enterprise hybrid business models are therefore reframed as (...) outcomes of both ethical and entrepreneurial intentions. We challenge the dominant conceptualisation of social enterprise as a hybrid blend of mission and market by reframing hybridity in terms of the moral choice of economic system and social value orientation. We deconstruct the political foundations of charitable trading activities, co-operative and mutual enterprises and socially responsible businesses by examining the rationalities and ethical commitments that underpin them. Whilst conceptual modelling of social enterprise is not new, this paper contributes to knowledge by developing a theory of social enterprise ethics based on the moral/political choices that are made by entrepreneurs when choosing between systems of economic exchange and social value orientation, then expressing it through a legal form. (shrink)

The dead donor rule justifies current practice in organ procurement for transplantation and states that organ donors must be dead prior to donation. The majority of organ donors are diagnosed as having suffered brain death and hence are declared dead by neurological criteria. However, a significant amount of unrest in both the philosophical and the medical literature has surfaced since this practice began forty years ago. I argue that, first, declaring death by neurological criteria is both unreliable and unjustified but (...) further, the ethical principles which themselves justify the dead donor rule are better served by abandoning that rule and instead allowing individuals who have suffered severe and irreversible brain damage to become organ donors, even though they are not yet dead and even though the removal of their organs would be the proximal cause of death. (shrink)

This essay argues for the fruitfulness of Beck’s idea of cosmopolitanism for understanding the changing political, sociological and psychological attributes of climate change. This argument is illustrated through brief examinations of how climate change is contributing to the dissolution of three modern dualisms: nature-culture, present-future and global-local. Not only does the cosmopolitan perspective help to understand the ways in which science and society are mutually constructing the phenomenon of climate change, it also offers us a way of asking ‘what can (...) climate change do for us?’ rather than ‘what can we do for climate change?’ Sociologists are needed for answering this question. (shrink)

Part of understanding the meaning and power of algorithms means asking what new demands they might make of ethical frameworks, and how they might be held accountable to ethical standards. I develop a definition of networked information algorithms as assemblages of institutionally situated code, practices, and norms with the power to create, sustain, and signify relationships among people and data through minimally observable, semiautonomous action. Starting from Merrill’s prompt to see ethics as the study of “what we ought to do,” (...) I examine ethical dimensions of contemporary NIAs. Specifically, in an effort to sketch an empirically grounded, pragmatic ethics of algorithms, I trace an algorithmic assemblage’s power to convene constituents, suggest actions based on perceived similarity and probability, and govern the timing and timeframes of ethical action. (shrink)

This study explores the capability of academic staff assisted by the Turnitin Artificial Intelligence (AI) detection tool to identify the use of AI-generated content in university assessments. 22 different experimental submissions were produced using Open AI’s ChatGPT tool, with prompting techniques used to reduce the likelihood of AI detectors identifying AI-generated content. These submissions were marked by 15 academic staff members alongside genuine student submissions. Although the AI detection tool identified 91% of the experimental submissions as containing AI-generated content, only (...) 54.8% of the content was identified as AI-generated, underscoring the challenges of detecting AI content when advanced prompting techniques are used. When academic staff members marked the experimental submissions, only 54.5% were reported to the academic misconduct process, emphasising the need for greater awareness of how the results of AI detectors may be interpreted. Similar performance in grades was obtained between student submissions and AI-generated content (AI mean grade: 52.3, Student mean grade: 54.4), showing the capabilities of AI tools in producing human-like responses in real-life assessment situations. Recommendations include adjusting the overall strategies for assessing university students in light of the availability of new Generative AI tools. This may include reducing the overall reliance on assessments where AI tools may be used to mimic human writing, or by using AI-inclusive assessments. Comprehensive training must be provided for both academic staff and students so that academic integrity may be preserved. (shrink)

Setting aside some complexities, Koplin and Wilkinson1 argue: 1. Moral status is uncertain if there is a non-zero chance that an entity has, or would develop, full moral status. 2. If its moral status is uncertain, then moral caution is warranted towards that entity. 3. The moral status of both non-chimeric pigs and human-pig chimaeras is uncertain. Therefore, consistency demands that moral caution is warranted towards both non-chimeric pigs and human-pig chimaeras. 4. The commonly held view is that moral caution (...) is warranted towards human-pig chimaeras, but not non-chimeric pigs. Therefore, the commonly held view is inconsistent. This is a valid argument. The authors claim that the inconsistency they expose in conclusion 2 could be resolved in favour of either commonly held view, or by revising both to equivalency. However, it is clear from conclusion 1, and the paper more generally, that the authors are arguing for moral caution to be applied to the treatment of pigs of both types. I will focus on evaluating premises 1 and 2, and the generalisability of the argument in light of this. In doing so, I will attempt to show that the argument has implausible logical implications, and that the moral caution warranted towards human-pig chimaeras of uncertain moral status does not require confidence that they lack full moral status, as the authors claim. According to premise 1, if an entity might currently have moral …. (shrink)