Studies on so-called Change Blindness and Inattentional Blindness have been taken to establish the claim that conscious perception of a stimulus requires the attentional processing of that stimulus. One might contend, against this claim, that the evidence only shows attention to be necessary for the subject to have access to the contents of conscious perception and not for conscious perception itself. This “Methodological Argument” is gaining ground among philosophers who work on attention and consciousness, such as Christopher Mole. I find (...) that, without the supporting evidence of inaccessible consciousness, this argument collapses into an indefensible form of inductive parsimony. The Methodological Argument is thus shown to be unsuccessful when used against the claim that attention is required for conscious perception, though I suggest that it may be successful against the more ambitious claim that attention is necessary for all conscious experience. (shrink)

While the human papillomavirus vaccine is medically indicated to reduce the risk of genital warts and certain types of cancer, rates of HPV vaccination repeatedly fall short of public health goals. Individual-level factors contributing to low vaccination rates are well documented. However, system-level barriers, particularly the need for parental consent, have been less explored. To date, there is no legal or ethical consensus in the USA regarding whether adolescents might permissibly self-consent to the HPV vaccine. Consequently, there is considerable variability (...) in medical practice at the provider and state level. In this essay, we explore the ethical acceptability of vaccinating adolescents for HPV without parental consent. We argue that the same ethical considerations that justify permitting minors to consent to treatment for sexual and reproductive health care—namely, public health benefit and adolescents’ developing autonomy—similarly justify permitting minors to consent to HPV vaccination. Based on this analysis, we conclude that allowing adolescents to self-consent to the HPV vaccine is ethically justifiable and should be reflected in US state policies. (shrink)

Fine (J Philos Log 43:549–577, 2014) developed a truthmaker semantics for intuitionistic logic, which is also called exact semantics, since it is based on a relation of exact verification between states and formulas. A natural question arises as to what are the limits of Fine’s approach and whether an exact semantics of similar kind can be constructed for other important non-classical logics. In our paper, we will generalize Fine’s approach and develop an exact semantics for some substructural logics. In particular, (...) we will provide a truthmaker semantics for the Non-associative Lambek calculus and some of its extensions. This generalization will reveal some interesting connections between Fine’s recent work on truthmaker semantics and his early work on relevant logic. (shrink)

When do things change? When do things have some characteristics? I try to answer these questions by looking at different solutions Plato and Aristotle presented in their works. The famous analysis of change from the second half of Plato’s Parmenides claims that change happens outside of time, at an “instant”. On the contrary, Aristotle in the Physics explicitly argues that all change occurs only in time. However, both Plato and Aristotle also provide other analyses of change. How to deal with (...) this variety of explanations and tensions between them? In this paper, I argue that if we differentiate between several kinds of change, most of Plato’s and Aristotle’s analyses provide a thorough insight into the nature of change. For processes such as locomotion, change occurs exclusively within time. For changes where both the initial and final states occur only in time, such as a transition from motion to rest, change takes place in the ‘now’. However, for changes where both the initial and final states occur in both time and in the ‘now’ – for example, a qualitative change from being white to not being white – change does not occur in time nor in the ‘now’, but instead happens instantaneously. (shrink)

This article presents a general conception of aesthetic experience built on an analysis of the relationship between the narrative and the ambient dimensions of the aesthetic value of a natural environment, the forest. First of all, the two dimensions are presented with respect to the possibilities and problems raised by distinguishing between them. Next, the possibilities of their relationship are analysed and it is argued that they are strongly complementary. This complementarity becomes the core of the proposed conception of aesthetic (...) experience, which can explain the difference between the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic, and can also provide an answer to the question of the non-reductive differentiation between the aesthetic experience of nature and the experience of a work of art. The conclusion of the article is mainly concerned to eliminate one of the problems localized in presenting the ambient dimension (the ambience paradox), by means of Ricoeur’s conception of the relationship between time and narrative. (shrink)

Problém svobodné vůle je tradičně považován za ryze metafyzický, a tedy neempirický. Díky současnému rozvoji kognitivních věd však narůstá množství argumentů založených na empirických poznatcích. Tento článek podává stručný přehled několika takových poznatků. Na jedné straně jde o výzkumy zabývající se otázkou kauzální potence vědomí a uvědomění si příčin svých akcí. Nejslavnější, avšak patrně nikoli nejvýznamnější, jsou zde bezpochyby experimenty Benjamina Libeta. Na druhé straně jde o zkoumání samotného prožitku svobodné agence. Zda danou akci vnímám jako svoji vlastní, závisí pravděpodobně (...) na prediktivních i postdiktivních faktorech, o čemž svědčí situace, kdy podkladové kognitivní mechanismy selžou a vedou k omylům. Závěrem příspěvku je zamyšlení nad důsledky vědeckých poznatků pro různá pojetí svobodné vůle: libertariánské a kompatibilistické. Argumentuji ve prospěch smysluplnosti kompatibilistické koncepce svobodné vůle, proti které lze vést námitky spíše z pozice psychologie než neurověd. (shrink)

This paper summarizes the problematic aspects of a globalized neoliberal culture in education. Linking to the particular studies of this monothematic volume it discusses the consequences of the globalization of a testing culture in schools, the issues of developing civic literacy in the context of current education practice and the issues of forming a historic consciousness in present schools relating to the existing social discourse. Language teaching, currently dominated by the concept of language literacy or the concept of language education (...) resulting from English language teaching seems to be significant. This paper reveals various ways in which the educational section is being contaminated by neoliberal transformations to point out their culturally devastating consequences in a critical way. The goal of this paper is to articulate the mechanism by which neoliberalism is infiltrating education in the form of discursive and physical “colonizing”. (shrink)

[Subjective probability and realistic possible worlds].

The paper deals with neo-Kantianism and the value theory in Hungarian philosophy on the threshold of the 20th century. It shows how neo-Kantianism contributed to the Hungarian philosophy’s being professionalized as well as the transformations of neo-Kantianism in the works of its leading representatives. It also offers a detailed analysis of the value theory of K Böhm, who created the first original Hungarian philosophical system.

Recent interest in the external validity of prediction models has produced many methods for finding predictive distributions that are invariant to dataset shifts and can be used for prediction in new, unseen environments. However, these methods consider different types of shifts and have been developed under disparate frameworks, making it difficult to theoretically analyze how solutions differ with respect to stability and accuracy. Taking a causal graphical view, we use a flexible graphical representation to express various types of dataset shifts. (...) Given a known graph of the data generating process, we show that all invariant distributions correspond to a causal hierarchy of graphical operators, which disable the edges in the graph that are responsible for the shifts. The hierarchy provides a common theoretical underpinning for understanding when and how stability to shifts can be achieved, and in what ways stable distributions can differ. We use it to establish conditions for minimax optimal performance across environments, and derive new algorithms that find optimal stable distributions. By using this new perspective, we empirically demonstrate that that there is a tradeoff between minimax and average performance. (shrink)

The aim of my paper is to reformulate the Husserlian problem of phenomena from a more pragmatic perspective, inspired by Jan Patočka. Instead of searching for a correlation between transcendent being and its subjective modes of givenness, the pragmatically oriented phenomenology should ask: How does the appearance of things unfold through our different modes of engaging with the world? In order to answer such a question, I propose to interpret the three movements of human existence differentiated by Patočka as three (...) forms of praxis and to demonstrate that each of them is deploying its own way of making things intelligible. In the end, Patočka’s account of existence in terms of movement provides a much more fruitful grounds than Heidegger’s fundamental ontology for incorporating the basic tenets of pragmatism, such as a shift to practices, an anti-intellectualist account of sense-making, and the fundamental dependency of the subject upon the public space of shared concerns. (shrink)

The paper discusses the unique approach to the problem of evil employed by the Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion and ethics that is primarily represented by D. Z. Phillips. Unlike traditional solutions to the problem, Phillips’ solution consists in questioning its meaningfulness—he attacks the very ideas of God’s omnipotence, of His perfect goodness and of the need to ‘calculate’ God’s goodness against the evil within the world. A possible weakness of Phillips’ approach is his unreflected use of what he calls ‘our (...) religious language’, against which he measures the meaningfulness of theodical conceptions. He apparently underestimates both the heterogeneity of the ‘ours’ and how philosophical ideas pervade and inform the actual practice. On the other hand, Phillips rightly identifies the fact that some theodical conceptions, if understood as general doctrines, commit the sin of insensitivity and do not pay appropriate respect to human suffering. The reason is that they neglect the seriousness and importance of the difference between issuing the theodical accounts in the first person and in the third person. He may, however, thereby accuse theodicies of failing in a task that theodicists never intended to undertake. Possible problems are also involved in Phillips’ use of the Holocaust as the central discussion example. (shrink)

Tento článek se zabývá problematikou (organizované) nespolupráce a černého pasažérismu; jeho cílem je ukázat „spolupráci“ a „nespolupráci“ jako relativní pojmy odpovídající různým úrovním popisu. Závěrem naznačuje, že fenomén organizovaného obcházení pravidel může představovat problém pro naturalistické varianty teorie společenské smlouvy.

The role of artificial intelligence in the Turing test is to imitate human beings to such an extent that people will not realize it is a machine. With the rise of deep learning (a subcategory of AI), the situation is changing rapidly as the new systems do not focus on imitating human intelligence but emphasize thorough solutions to specific issues. The main difference between predefined AI and deep learning (DL) is that these systems are self-learning and have verifiable results. Firstly, (...) we need to analyse the application of the Turing test in the Loebner Prize because, there, the primary emphasis is on aspects of human intelligence – learning, reasoning and understanding. Secondly, in the Turing test, only general intelligence is considered, and this can be questionable. If DL does not possess this form of intelligence, by this reasoning, we should consider it unintelligent. However, is such understanding correct? The third and last aspect questions whether the Turing test is beneficial for an AI designed for specific tasks because the results do not bring any new data and conclusions. (shrink)

lnek je zamen na vybran implikace mezi sociologickou hermeneutikou (pstup) a analzou metafor (analytick koncept). Konkrtn je een vztah lingvistickho kontextu textu (jako empirickho korpusu) a vyplvajcch (skrytch) implikac, kter jsou odhaliteln dky kontextu metaforickho vznamu. Uren vztah me pomoci k zpesnn role sociologick hermeneutiky v socilnch vdch, konkrtn k monosti volby v kvalitativnch metodch skrze kritickou metodologii. Vstupem lnku je konstatovn siln vazby mezi tvorbou kontextulnch metafor a postavenm polysmickho slova ve vt, kter dky tomu tvo zkladnm referenn objekt (...) empirickho korpusu pro samotnou analzu. (shrink)

The article discusses Iris Murdoch’s philosophical relationship to Buddhism. First, we argue that Murdoch was not, and did not identify herself as, a Buddhist. Then we suggest caution regarding Murdoch’s interpretations of Buddhism. On the one hand, she applies the limited viewpoint of her era. On the other hand, her approach is motivated by insights tracing affinities between Buddhism and Husserl’s and Sartre’s analyses of consciousness, as well as Platonic ideas of unselfing and self-purification. Murdoch’s reflections on Buddhism serve primarily (...) a complex argument about the role of religion in our moral lives, as these reflect the rapidly changing Western cultural environment. She envisages the possibility for Christianity to learn from Buddhism and move closer towards demythologisation and a radical, loving commitment to the others here and now. While Murdoch’s observations may not be accurate as a ‘diagnosis of our times’, they serve as a valuable opening for reflecting on our lives in the suggested terms. They are also inspiring in their optimism that there is the possibility to learn from others (other cultures, other religions) for the better. The ‘muddled’ nature of our reality does not thwart this possibility of learning; it only makes its particular steps unpredictable. (shrink)

Many legal theorists and linguists have addressed the notion of legal language from different perspectives. Despite that, the definitions of legal language vary. Almost all of the approaches conclude that legal language entails several types of communication. Nevertheless, not all of these categories are sufficiently researched. Some types of legal communication seem to be neglected. This lack of interest might be rooted in the uncertainty of whether these texts or utterances even fall under the scope of the concept of legal (...) language. In order to avoid this superficiality in subsequent research, it is first necessary to come to a clear determination of which communicative acts can be considered a part of legal language and which cannot. Accordingly, in this search for the definition of legal language, we should not neglect the fact that language is executed in concrete communicative acts, and the only means to grasp the language is through communication. The aim of this article is therefore to clearly delineate the boundaries of this concept. Based on analysis of how the given term is currently defined, I draw out the common features and trace the characteristics in which they differ. Taking into account these findings, I propose a novel comprehensive demarcation of legal language. This concept argues that the ‘legal’ nature of language should be determined by the context and function of the particular statement or exchange, in connection with the role of participants in the communication. This means that a particular act may be considered a part of legal language not in accordance with a certain form or lexicon used, but mainly by extralinguistic circumstances in the context of which it is being performed. (shrink)

By the Galvin–Mycielski–Solovay theorem, a subset X of the line has Borel’s strong measure zero if and only if $M+X\neq \mathbb {R}$ for each meager set M.A set $X\subseteq \mathbb {R}$ is meager-additive if $M+X$ is meager for each meager set M. Recently a theorem on meager-additive sets that perfectly parallels the Galvin–Mycielski–Solovay theorem was proven: A set $X\subseteq \mathbb {R}$ is meager-additive if and only if it has sharp measure zero, a notion akin to strong measure zero.We investigate the (...) validity of this result in Polish groups. We prove, e.g., that a set in a locally compact Polish group admitting an invariant metric is meager-additive if and only if it has sharp measure zero. We derive some consequences and calculate some cardinal invariants. (shrink)

Surrogacy has long been discussed in reproductive medicine. In the Czech Republic, surrogacy is not legally regulated. Because of this legal vacuum, there are no official procedures or organizations that openly deal with surrogacy. Potential surrogate mothers and applicants do not have many options for obtaining or sharing information. The only source is the Internet. Online forums are a popular tool for gaining information and contacts regarding surrogacy. The goal of this research was to use qualitative research methods to survey (...) the most searched and discussed topics on Czech online discussion forum websites. We used discussions that we found on www.emimino.cz between 2009 and 2019. This article analyses the comments of the Internet forum discussants/participants, their involvement, knowledge of surrogacy, the information sought and their opinions. In particular, the participants discussed where to find a surrogate mother or how to become one. This article attempts to outline the discussions ordinary people have about surrogacy outside official expert forums. (shrink)

To aid neuroscientists in determining the ethical limits of their work and its applications, neuroethical problems need to be identified, catalogued, and analyzed from the standpoint of an ethical framework. Many hospitals have already established either autonomy or welfare-centered theories as their adopted ethical framework. Unfortunately, the choice of an ethical framework resists resolution: each of these two moral theories claims priority at the exclusion of the other, but for patients with neurological pathologies, concerns about the patient’s welfare are treated (...) as meaningless without consideration of the patient’s expressed wishes, and vice versa. Ethicists have long fought over whether suffering or autonomy should be our primary concern, but in neuroethics a resolution of this question is essential to determine the treatment of patients in medical and legal limbo. I propose a solution to this problem in the form of ethical dualism. This is a conservative measure in that it retains both sides of the debate: both happiness and autonomy have intrinsic value. However, this move is often met with resistance because of its more complex nature—it is more difficult to make a decision when there are two parallel sets of values that must be considered than when there is just one such set. The monist theories, though, do not provide enough explanatory power: namely, I will present two recently publicized cases where it is clear that neither ethical value on its own (neither welfare nor autonomy) can fully account for how a vegetative patient should be treated. From the neuroethical cases of Terri Schiavo and Lauren Richardson, I will argue that a dualist framework is superior to its monist predecessors, and I will describe the main features of such an account. (shrink)

This text presents an analysis of some aspects of the phenomenon of so-called incels. It focuses on the sexist and male supremacist ideology inherent to the incels’ narrative. It also follows a link between this ideology and the assumptions made by some commentators on the incels’ problem, who have been relying on a mixture of conservative views on society and reductionist naturalism. I present a critique of these background assumptions, relating to concepts that feature centrally in them. First, I criticise (...) the characterisation of a particular concept of ‘monogamy’ as natural and its possible construal as normative. Then I explore the rhetoric of sex as a ‘basic need’, pointing out the tendency to mistake what one wants for a ‘need’. I conclude by criticising the particular kind of idea of the science of human nature that underpin the reductionist accounts of sex-related violence. (shrink)

This paper discusses some difficulties in understanding the Turing test. It emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between conceptual and empirical perspectives and highlights the former as introducing more serious problems for the TT. Some objections against the Turingian framework stemming from the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy are exposed. The following serious problems are examined: 1) It considers a unique and exclusive criterion for thinking which amounts to their identification; 2) it misidentifies the relationship of speaking to thinking as that of a (...) criterion; 3) it neglects the “natural” course of the development in semantics. However, these considerations suggest only that it is problematic to label a successful chatbot as a “thinking entity” without further qualifications, but not necessarily and once and for all incorrect. Philosophy has only little to say about the technical possibility of creating such an effective program. (shrink)

In his post-war writings, Wittgenstein makes several comments on particularly “fitting” (treffende) words. However, the nature of this quality remains unclear and elusive. In this paper, I present some suggestions about what one might learn from Wittgenstein’s comments, though my purpose is not primarily exegetical, but rather simply to reflect upon what makes a word “fitting”. I discuss several options; first that it is the context what makes the word fitting, then that it is an “imponderable” quality it has. Eventually, (...) I opt for the explanation that the fittingness has (at least often) to do with the enthusiastic feeling the word can give rise to. The feeling should not be construed as a mental event of a private kind, though; rather, we can describe in these terms the dynamics of conversational situations that feature “fitting” words. (shrink)

At the time of his sudden death in 1977, the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka left a large philosophical legacy with no will and testament. For the last 43 years, the editors of his Collected Works have been reconstructing a unified and thematically articulated oeuvre from the more than 10,000 pages found in his drawers and boxes. It should in the end include not only the texts published during Patočka’s lifetime but also his many unpublished manuscripts, fragments, variations, drafts of unfinished (...) philosophical projects, notebooks and letters. After demonstrating in which sense the death of the author coincides in Patočka’s case with the birth of his oeuvre, the article aims to show that the unity of Patočka’s work is not something given, but rather something to be artificially reconstructed, in an always disputable fashion, since the internal coherence of its various thematic divisions is necessarily itself a matter of ongoing interpretation. (shrink)

Příspěvek se zabývá analýzou Jamesova pojetí náboženské zkušenosti představené v knize The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Text sleduje základní obsahovou strukturu Varieties, rekonstruuje Jamesův přístup ke zkoumání náboženské zkušenosti a kriticky reflektuje předkládaná stanoviska. Postupně se proto zabývá mysticismem, filosofií a vědou o náboženství jakožto možnými garanty osobní náboženské zkušenosti. Ačkoli od prvního vydání Varieties uplynulo již přes sto let, Jamesovy myšlenky v nich obsažené jsou i dnes inspirací pro celou řadu badatelů a výzkumníků. Cílem příspěvku je poskytnout čtenářům (...) skrze historigrafickou analýzu Jamesova díla základní vhled do problematiky zkoumání náboženských zkušeností a objasnit argumentační postup obsažený ve Varieties. V závěru textu bude poukázáno i na reflexi některých Jamesových myšlenek ve vybraných současných neurovýzkumech náboženských zkušeností. (shrink)

The paper discusses ecological grief as a particular affective phenomenon. First, it offers an overview of several philosophical accounts of grief, acknowledging the heterogeneity and complexity of the experience that responds to particular personal points of importance, concern and one’s identity; the loss triggering grief represents a blow to these. I then argue that ecological grief is equally varied and personal: responding to what the grieving person understands as a loss severe enough to present intelligibly a degradation of her life (...) and the world, to their meaningfulness or even sustainability. More specifically, both personal and ecological grief may manifest in an eroded sense of the future as a space in which one would invest oneself with plans, projects, ideas, desires, and endeavours. On the other hand, personal grief is, in some cases, conceptualised as having embedded the inherent possibility to come to closure or “move on” (e.g., by marrying again), while with ecological grief, the intelligibility of overcoming (replacing) the loss may be, depending on its scale, severely limited. I argue that this erosion of the future need not take the shape of paralysing sadness but rather of a disruption of taking some options of projecting oneself into the future seriously or as real. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the mutual interaction as well as the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment on the formation of the Enlightenment in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great. It focuses on the relationship between the work of Adam Smith and Semyon Efimovich Desnitskii, who, thanks to Desnitskii’s studies at the University of Glasgow, got to know each other as teacher and student. The central point of their interaction is the issues of the philosophy of history based on (...) natural-law assumptions and focus on understanding the formation of history, culture, citizenship, and social transformations through morality and law. The paper examines Desnitskii’s ideas on the stages of human coexistence in which Smith’s concept is projected. The paper is not only an attempt to compare these concepts, but it also characterizes Desnitskii’s interest in adapting the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment to Russian reality and needs and using them in the environment of the advancing feudal empire, to which Desnitskii wants to contribute with his work. (shrink)