Currently, the autonomy of artificial systems, robotic systems in particular, is certainly one of the most debated issues, both from the perspective of technological development and its social impact and ethical repercussions. While theoretical considerations often focus on scenarios far beyond what can be concretely hypothesized from the current state of the art, the term autonomy is still used in a vague or too general way. This reduces the possibilities of a punctual analysis of such an important issue, thus leading (...) to often polarized positions. The intent of this paper is to clarify what is meant by artificial autonomy, and what are the prerequisites that can allow the attribution of this characteristic to a robotic system. Starting from some concrete examples, we will try to indicate a way towards artificial autonomy that can hold together the advantages of developing adaptive and versatile systems with the management of the inevitable problems that this technology poses both from the viewpoint of safety and ethics. Our proposal is that a real artificial autonomy, especially if expressed in the social context, can only be achieved through interdependence with other social actors, through continuous exchanges and interactions which, while allowing robots to explore the environment, guarantee the emergence of shared practices, behaviors, and ethical principles, which otherwise could not be imposed with a top-down approach, if not at the price of giving up the same artificial autonomy. (shrink)

This article submits that torture is not an effective tool in asymmetric warfare. It offers a definition of ‘effective’ as it relates to torture, and presents findings which discriminate between torture's tactical utility and its strategic consequences. By doing this, it attempts to convey the paradoxical nature of torture. Torture can help gain bits of information that may prevent terrorist acts. But the very act of torture, or even the perception of its use, holds strategic consequences for those nations who (...) employ it. While they may thwart a given attack, states that apply torture are labeled as torturers regardless of their tactical victories. In essence, their identity is associated with torture. Labeled as such, they endanger their place in politics, villainize themselves in history, and erode their soft power. Any nation involved in an asymmetric struggle would do well to engage the enemy at the strategic level of war, employing all the instruments of power, rather than rest its hopes of victory on the piecemeal and questionable bits of information torture may provide. (shrink)

Non-Archimedean probability functions allow us to combine regularity with perfect additivity. We discuss the philosophical motivation for a particular choice of axioms for a non-Archimedean probability theory and answer some philosophical objections that have been raised against infinitesimal probabilities in general. _1_ Introduction _2_ The Limits of Classical Probability Theory _2.1_ Classical probability functions _2.2_ Limitations _2.3_ Infinitesimals to the rescue? _3_ NAP Theory _3.1_ First four axioms of NAP _3.2_ Continuity and conditional probability _3.3_ The final axiom of NAP (...) _3.4_ Infinite sums _3.5_ Definition of NAP functions via infinite sums _3.6_ Relation to numerosity theory _4_ Objections and Replies _4.1_ Cantor and the Archimedean property _4.2_ Ticket missing from an infinite lottery _4.3_ Williamson’s infinite sequence of coin tosses _4.4_ Point sets on a circle _4.5_ Easwaran and Pruss _5_ Dividends _5.1_ Measure and utility _5.2_ Regularity and uniformity _5.3_ Credence and chance _5.4_ Conditional probability _6_ General Considerations _6.1_ Non-uniqueness _6.2_ Invariance Appendix. (shrink)

We propose an alternative approach to probability theory closely related to the framework of numerosity theory: non-Archimedean probability (NAP). In our approach, unlike in classical probability theory, all subsets of an infinite sample space are measurable and only the empty set gets assigned probability zero (in other words: the probability functions are regular). We use a non-Archimedean field as the range of the probability function. As a result, the property of countable additivity in Kolmogorov’s axiomatization of probability is replaced by (...) a different type of infinite additivity. (shrink)

The naïve idea of “size” for collections seems to obey both Aristotle’s Principle: “the whole is greater than its parts” and Cantor’s Principle: “1-to-1 correspondences preserve size”. Notoriously, Aristotle’s and Cantor’s principles are incompatible for infinite collections. Cantor’s theory of cardinalities weakens the former principle to “the part is not greater than the whole”, but the outcoming cardinal arithmetic is very unusual. It does not allow for inverse operations, and so there is no direct way of introducing infinitesimal numbers. Here (...) we maintain Aristotle’s principle, instead halving Cantor’s principle to “equinumerous collections are in 1–1 correspondence”. In this way we obtain a very nice arithmetic: in fact, our “numerosities” may be taken to be nonstandard integers. These numerosities appear naturally suited to sets of ordinals, but they depend, for generic sets, on a “labelling” of the universe by ordinals. The problem of finding a canonical way of attaching numerosities to all sets seems to be worth further investigation. (shrink)

The philosophy of Aristotle and its impact on the process of empirical scientific inquiry has been substantial. The influence of the clarity and orderliness of his thinking, when applied to the acquisition of knowledge in nursing, can not be overstated. Traditional empirical approaches have and will continue to have an important influence on the development of nursing knowledge through nursing research. However, as nursing is primarily a practice discipline, the transition from empirical and syllogistic reasoning is problematic. Other types of (...) inquiry are essential in the application of nursing knowledge obtained by empirical scientific approaches and to understand how that knowledge can best be used in the care of patients. This paper reviews the strengths and limitations of syllogistic reasoning by applying it to a recently published study on temperature measurement in nursing. It then discusses possible ways that the empirical knowledge gained from that study and confirmed in its reasoning by logical analysis could be used in the daily care of critically ill patients. It concludes by highlighting the utility of broader approaches to knowledge development, including interpretative approaches and contemporary empiricism, as a way to bridge the gap between factual empirical knowledge and the practical application of that knowledge in everyday clinical nursing practice. (shrink)

In their manuscript, Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland (2023) argue that controlled donation after circulatory death (cDCD) is compatible with the dead donor rule (DDR) by describing the DDR and the incor...

This edited collection of eight original essays pursues the aim of bringing the spotlight back on Anton Marty. It does so by having leading figures in the contemporary debate confront themselves with Marty’s most significative contributions, which span from philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and ontology to meta-metaphysics and meta-philosophy. -/- The book is divided in three parts. The first part is dedicated to themes in philosophy of language, which were at the centre of Marty’s philosophical thinking throughout his (...) life. The second part focuses on the problem of the objectivity and phenomenology of time and space, upon which Marty was working in the final years of his life. The final part turns to Marty’s meta-metaphysical and meta-philosophical considerations. The intended audience of this book are primarily scholars and students interested in the relevant contemporary debates, as well as scholars working on the Austrian tradition. (shrink)

Causal Modeling Semantics (CMS, e.g., Galles and Pearl 1998; Pearl 2000; Halpern 2000) is a powerful framework for evaluating counterfactuals whose antecedent is a conjunction of atomic formulas. We extend CMS to an evaluation of the probability of counterfactuals with disjunctive antecedents, and more generally, to counterfactuals whose antecedent is an arbitrary Boolean combination of atomic formulas. Our main idea is to assign a probability to a counterfactual (A ∨ B) > C at a causal model M as a weighted (...) average of the probability of C in those submodels that truthmake A∨ B (Briggs 2012; Fine 2016, 2017). The weights of the submodels are given by the inverse distance to the original model M, based on a distance metric proposed by Eva, Stern, and Hartmann (2019). Apart from solving a major problem in the epistemology of counterfactuals, our paper shows how work in semantics, causal inference and formal epistemology can be fruitfully combined. (shrink)

In this paper we propose a semantic analysis of Lewis' counterfactuals. By exploiting the structural properties of the recently introduced boolean algebras of conditionals, we show that counterfactuals can be expressed as formal combinations of a conditional object and a normal necessity modal operator. Specifically, we introduce a class of algebras that serve as modal expansions of boolean algebras of conditionals, together with their dual relational structures. Moreover, we show that Lewis' semantics based on sphere models can be reconstructed in (...) this framework. As a consequence, we establish the soundness and completeness of a slightly stronger variant of Lewis' logic for counterfactuals with respect to our algebraic models. In the second part of the paper, we present a novel approach to the probability of counterfactuals showing that it aligns with the uncertainty degree assigned by a belief function, as per Dempster-Shafer theory, to its associated conditional formula. Furthermore, we characterize the probability of a counterfactual in terms of Gärdenfors' imaging rule for the probabilistic update. (shrink)

A propósito de una reciente biblografía, este trabajo apunta algunas cuestiones esenciales de la teoría del derecho de Grocio, y en relación con ella algunos puntos importantes de la filosofía de Vico.Related with a recent bibliography, this paper arises some fundamental questions about Grocio's legal theory and the relationship it has with Vico's philosophy.

There seems to be a "what it is like" to the experience of the flow of time in any conscious activity of ours. In this paper, I argue that the feeling that time passes should be understood as a phenomenal modifier of our mental life, in roughly the same way as the blurred or vivid nature of a visual experience can be seen as an element of the experience that modifies the way it feels, without representing the world as being (...) in a certain way. I defend my positions against the deflationary view according to which the passing of time does not have a specific phenomenal character, and the representationalist view according to which the feeling of time passing is a feature of the representational content of our experience, like being red or yellow. (shrink)

The article argues that AI can enhance the measurement and implementation of democratic processes within political parties, known as Intra-Party Democracy (IPD). It identifies the limitations of traditional methods for measuring IPD, which often rely on formal parameters, self-reported data, and tools like surveys. Such limitations lead to the collection of partial data, rare updates, and significant demands on resources. To address these issues, the article suggests that specific data management and Machine Learning (ML) techniques, such as natural language processing (...) and sentiment analysis, can improve the measurement (ML about) and practice (ML for) of IPD. The article concludes by considering some of the principal risks of ML for IPD, including concerns over data privacy, the potential for manipulation, and the dangers of overreliance on technology. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta o conceito de gênero em educação, mostrando sua incorporação como uma categoria útil de análise no campo da dança, no qual as discussões sobre gênero aparecem muito raramente, especialmente quando se analisa a produção brasileira. Utilizando estudiosos(as) do campo dos estudos pósestruturalistas de gênero, reflito sobre a necessidade de incorporação de tal conceito às investigações sobre as questões sociais que envolvem a dança.

This review-essay explores approaches to the thought of the creative Soviet Marxist thinker Evald Ilyenkov as discussed in a recent book edited by Alex Levant and Vesa Oittinen, Dialectics of the Ideal: Evald Ilyenkov and Creative Soviet Marxism. The book consists of a series of commentaries and contextual essays which centre on the translated text of Ilyenkov’s Dialectics of the Ideal. The approach the authors take to Ilyenkov’s work differs from previous ones of exploring the totality of Ilyenkov’s thought or (...) eclectic aspects of it. By commenting on and contextualising Ilyenkov’s major text on the Ideal they locate the contribution of Ilyenkov in dialogue with traditions of classical European philosophy, and Western and Soviet Marxism, and in his importance to contemporary issues in philosophy and other disciplines. A deep analysis of Ilyenkov’s dense and often complex text is also given. By doing so the authors highlight the immense contribution of Ilyenkov to contemporary thought. (shrink)

In this paper, we articulate a version of non-standard A-theory—which we call Flow Fragmentalism—in relation to its take on the issue of supervenience of truth on being. According to the Truth Supervenes on Being (TSB) Principle, the truth of past- and future-tensed propositions supervenes, respectively, on past and future facts. Since the standard presentist denies the existence of past and future entities and facts concerning them that do not obtain in the present, she seems to lack the resources to accept (...) both past and future-tensed truths and the TSB Principle. Contrariwise, positions in philosophy of time that accept an eternalist ontology (e.g., B-theory, moving spotlight, and Fine’s and Lipman’s versions of fragmentalism) allow for a “direct” supervenience base for past- and future-tensed truths. We argue that Flow Fragmentalism constitutes a middle ground, which retains most of the advantages of both views, and allows us to articulate a novel account of the passage of time. (shrink)

The growing interest in fragmentalism is one of the most exciting trends in philosophy of time and is gradually reshaping the contemporary debate. Providing an extensive interpretation of this view, Samuele Iaquinto and Giuliano Torrengo articulate a novel theory of the passage of time and argue that it is the most effective in vindicating the inherent dynamism of reality. Iaquinto and Torrengo offer the first full-range application of fragmentalism to a number of metaphysical topics, including the open future, causation, (...) the A-theoretic interpretation of special relativity and time travel. The resulting picture, they argue, conveys the potential of a radically new understanding of time. (shrink)

The commitment of transplant physicians to protect the physical and psychological health of potential donors is fundamental to the process of living donor organ transplantation. It is appropriate that strict regulations to govern an individual’s decision to donate have been developed. Some may argue that adherence to such regulations creates a doctor-patient relationship that is rooted in paternalism, which is in drastic contrast with a doctor-patient relationship that is rooted in patients’ autonomy, characteristic of most other operative interventions.In this article (...) we analyze the similarities between cosmetic plastic surgery and living donor surgery as examples of surgeries governed by different ethical principles. It is interesting that, while the prevailing ethical approach in living donor surgery is based on paternalism, the ethical principle guiding cosmetic surgery is respect for patients’ autonomy. The purpose of this article is not to criticize either practice, but to suggest that, given the similarities between the two procedures, both operative interventions should be guided by the same ethical principle: a respect for patients’ autonomy. We further suggest that if living organ donation valued donors’ autonomy as much as cosmetic plastic surgery does, we might witness a wider acceptance of and increase in living organ donation. (shrink)

Emergent phenomena are quite interesting and amazing, but they present two main scientific obstacles: to be rationally understood and to be mathematically modelled. In this paper we propose a powerful mathematical tool for modelling emergent phenomena by applying category theory. Furthermore, since great part of biological phenomena are emergent, we present an essay of how to access an emergence from observational data. In the mathematical perspective, we utilize constructs (categories whose objects are structured sets), their operations and their corresponding generalized (...) underlying functor (which are not necessarily faithful) to define emergence. From this definition, we elaborate several results concerning homomorphism between emergences, representability, pull-back, push-out, equalizer, product and co-product of emergences among other results. After we have presented such mathematical model, we utilize a hierarchical structure as example—from molecules to a flatworm—, in order to understand the relation between biological systems and its underlying emergence in a hierarchical model. (shrink)

The moving spotlight account (MS) is a view that combines an eternalist ontology and an A-theoretic metaphysics. The intuition underlying MS is that the present time is somehow privileged and experientially vivid, as if it were illuminated by a moving spotlight. According to MS-theorists, a key reason to prefer MS to B-theoretic eternalism is that our experience of time supports it. We argue that this is false. To this end, we formulate a new family of positions in the philosophy of (...) time, which differ from MS in that, intuitively, they admit a plurality of moving spotlights. We argue that these ‘deviant’ variants of MS cannot be dismissed as conceptually incoherent, and that they are as well-supported by our experience as is MS. One of these variants, however, is consistent with the B-theory. Thus, if our experience of time supports MS, then it supports the B-theory as well. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that the adoption of an unrestricted principle of bivalence is compatible with a metaphysics that (i) denies that the future is real, (ii) adopts nomological indeterminism, and (iii) exploits a branching structure to provide a semantics for future contingent claims. To this end, we elaborate what we call Flow Fragmentalism, a view inspired by Kit Fine (2005)’s non-standard tense realism, according to which reality is divided up into maximally coherent collections of tensed (...) facts. In this way, we show how to reconcile a genuinely A-theoretic branching-time model with the idea that there is a branch corresponding to the thin red line, that is, the branch that will turn out to be the actual future history of the world. (shrink)

In this contribution, we focus on probabilistic problems with a denumerably or non-denumerably infinite number of possible outcomes. Kolmogorov (1933) provided an axiomatic basis for probability theory, presented as a part of measure theory, which is a branch of standard analysis or calculus. Since standard analysis does not allow for non-Archimedean quantities (i.e. infinitesimals), we may call Kolmogorov's approach "Archimedean probability theory". We show that allowing non-Archimedean probability values may have considerable epistemological advantages in the infinite case. The current paper (...) focuses on the motivation for our new axiomatization. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce a variational principle from which the fundamental equations of classical physics can be deduced. This principle permits a sort of unification of the gravitational and the electromagnetic fields. The basic point of this variational principle is that the world-line of a material point is parametrized by a parameter a which carries some physical information, namely it is related to the rest mass and to the charge. In particular, the (inertial) rest mass will not be a (...) property of a material point, but it will be a constant of the motion which is determined by the initial conditions. In this framework the equality between the inertial and gravitational mass can be deduced. (shrink)

This volume is the proceedings of a workshop to discuss the recent work on complex systems in physics and biology, its epistemological and cultural implications, and its effect for the development of these two sciences. The workshop is geared towards physicists, biologists, and science historians.

Several different versions of the theory of numerosities have been introduced in the literature. Here, we unify these approaches in a consistent frame through the notion of set of labels, relating numerosities with the Kiesler field of Euclidean numbers. This approach allows us to easily introduce, by means of numerosities, ordinals and their natural operations, as well as the Lebesgue measure as a counting measure on the reals.

This work is part of a program which has the aim to investigate which phenomena can be explained by nonlinear effects in classical mechanics and which ones require the new axioms of quantum mechanics. In this paper, we construct a nonlinear field equation which admits soliton solutions. These solitons exibit a dynamics which is similar to that of quantum particles.

This article analyses Valla’s historiographical stance in the light of his dialectical assumptions about possibility, verisimilitude, and truth. I argue that, at variance with most humanists, Valla believed that historical truth should satisfy the requirements of logical necessity, being therefore incompatible with verisimilar reconstructions of past events. However, Valla also realized that a critical method of assessment grounded in verisimilitude was indispensable to the analysis of doubtful accounts and traditions. In order to explore these matters, Valla developed a genre distinct (...) from history proper and closer to the forensic, inquisitorial tradition. While history had to deal with necessary truths, the aim of ‘historical inquisitio’ was to draw probable conclusions from pieces of conjectural evidence. According to Valla’s dialectical principles, these conclusions were not absolutely true but could be considered true thanks to the notion of intellectual acumen, which allowed Valla to take a leap from the field of possibility or verisimilitude to that of truth and necessity. (shrink)

Las llamadas manāqib (sg. manqaba) son un género literario bastante extendido en los últimos siglos. Algunas de estas manāqib han sido publicadas en ediciones críticas, y su circulación entre los estudiosos suele referirse a la historia norteafricana o a ciertos aspectos de la religiosidad popular. Sin embargo, este tipo de obras ha recibido una atención muy limitada desde el punto de vista lingüístico, a pesar de que presentan características propias de las variedades habladas del árabe. Por lo tanto, las manāqib (...) constituyen una de las pocas fuentes que pueden utilizarse para analizar el árabe hablado y escrito en el pasado. El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar la lengua de la obra titulada Rawḍat al-azhār wa-munyat al-sādāt al-abrār fī manāqib Sīdī ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar, una colección de manāqib relacionadas con el santo sufí libio ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar de la ciudad de Zlīten (siglo XV), escrita por Karīm al-Dīn al-Baramūnī al-Miṣrātī. (shrink)

To a greater extent than in other technical domains, research and progress in Artificial Intelligence has always been entwined with the fictional. Its language echoes strongly with other forms of cultural narratives, such as fairytales, myth and religion. In this essay we present varied examples that illustrate how these analogies have guided not only readings of the AI enterprise by commentators outside the community but also inspired AI researchers themselves. Owing to their influence, we pay particular attention to the similarities (...) between religious language and the way in which the potential advent of greater than human intelligence is presented contemporarily. We then move on to the role that fiction, science fiction most of all, has historically played and is still playing in the discussion of AI by influencing researchers and the public, shifting the weights of different scenarios in our collectively perceived probability space. We sum up by arguing that the lore surrounding AI research, ancient and modern, points to the ancestral and shared human motivations that drive researchers in their pursuit and fascinate humanity at large. These points of narrative entanglement where AI meets the wider culture should serve to amplify the call to engage ourselves with the discussion of the potential destination of this technology. (shrink)

Ostrich presentists maintain that we can use all the expressive resources of the tensed language to provide an explanation of why true claims about the past are true, without thereby paying any price in terms of ontology or basic ideology. I clarify the position by making a distinction between three kinds of explanation, which has general interest and applicability. I then criticize the ostrich position because it requires an unconstrained version of the third form of explanation, which is out of (...) place in metaphysics. (shrink)

Every criminal act ought to be matched by a corresponding punishment, or so we may suppose, and every punishment ought to reflect a criminal act. We know how to count punishments. But how do we count crimes? In particular, how does our notion of a criminal action depend on whether the prohibited action is an activity, an accomplishment, an achievement, or a state?