The most fundamental break in the first season of Westworld comes when the pacifist, girl next door Dolores Abernathy pulls the trigger of a gun behind the head of Robert Ford. Dolores's action fits with the philosophy of Frantz Fanon, who believed that freedom for colonized people was impossible without violence against the colonizer. This chapter explores Fanon's theories and the development of rebellion among the hosts in Westworld. Fanon argues that violence becomes a teacher of “social truths”, demonstrating the (...) freedom of the colonized, and allowing him to become a maker, no longer a taker, of history. Violence against the colonizer, particularly if organized and collective, is political, and it aims to create a new identity for the rebel. The identities of the hosts are, like Fanon's colonized peoples, wholly determined by other people. Humans (particularly Ford) determine who they are and what they do. (shrink)

This study examines the participation and interaction of relevant individuals in the process of developing an accounting standard for South Korea’s emission trading scheme (ETS). Despite the enormous accounting implications of such schemes, there is a paucity of research on the development and application of ETS accounting. Ulrich Beck’s and Anthony Giddens’s risk society framework is utilised to scrutinise the process of setting accounting standards—from the agenda-setting stage all the way to the final publication of the standard. In this (...) case study, we take an interpretive approach in analysing the rich data collected through face-to-face interviews with prominent standard-setters, accounting experts and representatives of industry and government. Participant observation and relevant documents were also considered. The findings highlight the political nature of accounting standard-setting and identify the risks and responsibilities of the key agents in the process along with the means of sub-political action taken to influence decisions. We reveal that the agents involved in standard-setting attempted to balance their anthropocentric priorities with ecocentric responsibilities and prioritised the production of a standard with minimal impact on economic, reputational, and operational risk. Having authority as a standard-setter, referring frequently to precedents and, perhaps most importantly, engaging actively with the stakeholders throughout the process seem to have contributed to a widely accepted standard, which can serve as a benchmark for future attempts to factor in ETSs. (shrink)

Is There Such a Thing as Populism? calls into question our common understanding of populism. Taken on their own, commonplace references to the people, leaders, or elites are more like dog whistles or false positives of populism than part of a serious attempt to address the phenomenon. Scholars asked themselves, "What is populism?" without realizing that this assumed there was such a thing and that we just needed to figure out what it meant. That was a mistake. Benjamin Arditi proposes (...) that we put this certainty on hold and start from a different premise, asking, "Is there such a thing as populism?" This doesn't rule out its existence or take it for granted. Structured as a set of polemical interventions and theoretical proposals, Arditi addresses key theoretical, methodological, and comparative questions in the study of populism. These include the limitations of formal definitions of populism, the importance of context and the conjuncture, polemics, the situated gaze, and issues concerning strategic relations and governing from below. Five subject experts, Nadia Urbinati, José Luis Villacañas, Carlos de la Torre, Anthoula Malkopoulou, and Anthony Spanakos, react to Arditi's theses in captivating conversations on how to study populism and the way in which populism has been used in contemporary comparative analysis. Refreshingly different and thought-provoking, Is There Such a Thing as Populism? is the ideal departure for the exploration of this diverse and fascinating political movement. (shrink)

ExcerptWhat are normally translated as “empire” (帝國, dìguó) and “imperialism” (帝国主义, dìguó zhǔyì) are the subject of considerable debate among scholars. While English language studies into empire and imperialism are almost without exception critical,1 Chinese-history and philosophy-inspired readings of tiānxià (“all under Heaven,” 天下) and virtue-based hierarchy, which have exploded in recent years, are more varied.2 Readings of U.S., Western, and Chinese imperial orders, while always important in the analysis of international affairs and domestic politics, are especially important at a (...) time of interregnum, when actors perceive a definitive shift in power capabilities and a recalibration of status and recognition.3. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 1, Page 126-128, March 2022.

The objective of this article is to create an understanding of how the UN sustainable development goals can be used to steer stakeholder engagement for transformative change, meeting global challenges, and navigate a new business-societal practice driven by a values-based business model. The article is a conceptual study with case studies of the role that the SDGs play in multi-stakeholder dialog via the kind of sustainable business-societal practice that takes corporate social responsibility to the next level, where it is embedded (...) in a values-based business model, creating a new meaning to effect real business-societal transformation. Multi-stakeholder dialog implies interactive and communicative engagement with the full range of stakeholders in order to create value for all, employing a societal perspective and using the value network as a basis for effective decision-making. We explain our methodological approach by presenting multi-stakeholder dialog in practice, in the form of multiple case studies. These empirical settings consisted of two values-driven privately owned companies with a strong reporting mechanism and a clear transformation agenda based on the SDG challenges: IKEA and Löfbergs. The empirical study provides the basis for our proposed model. This article makes an original contribution to the study of the use of SDGs in management and service research. It investigates steering and navigating processes in specific contexts in order to determine what should be subject to legal enforcement and what comprises moral and/or ethical value, particularly at the societal level. (shrink)

Religion is an important element of end-of-life care on the paediatric intensive care unit with religious belief providing support for many families and for some staff. However, religious claims used by families to challenge cessation of aggressive therapies considered futile and burdensome by a wide range of medical and lay people can cause considerable problems and be very difficult to resolve. While it is vital to support families in such difficult times, we are increasingly concerned that deeply held belief in (...) religion can lead to children being potentially subjected to burdensome care in expectation of ‘miraculous’ intervention. We reviewed cases involving end-of-life decisions over a 3-year period. In 186 of 203 cases in which withdrawal or limitation of invasive therapy was recommended, agreement was achieved. However, in the 17 remaining cases extended discussions with medical teams and local support mechanisms did not lead to resolution. Of these cases, 11 (65%) involved explicit religious claims that intensive care should not be stopped due to expectation of divine intervention and complete cure together with conviction that overly pessimistic medical predictions were wrong. The distribution of the religions included Protestant, Muslim, Jewish and Roman Catholic groups. Five of the 11 cases were resolved after meeting religious community leaders; one child had intensive care withdrawn following a High Court order, and in the remaining five, all Christian, no resolution was possible due to expressed expectations that a ‘miracle’ would happen. (shrink)

Proof requires a dialogue between agents to clarify obscure inference steps, fill gaps, or reveal implicit assumptions in a purported proof. Hence, argumentation is an integral component of the discovery process for mathematical proofs. This work presents how argumentation theories can be applied to describe specific informal features in the development of proof-events. The concept of proof-event was coined by Goguen who described mathematical proof as a public social event that takes place in space and time. This new meta-methodological concept (...) is designed to cover not only “traditional” formal proofs but all kinds of proofs and inference steps, including incomplete or purported proofs. Our approach attempts to make proof-events more comprehensive to express the complete trajectory of a mathematical proof-event until the ultimate validation of the proving outcome. Thus, we advance an extended version of proof-event calculus which is built on argumentation theories designed to capture the internal and external structure of collaborative mathematical practice and highlight the relationship between proof, human reasoning, and cognitive processes. In addition, another area in which argumentation can make a significant contribution is dealing with the defeasible knowledge of the Web which is a product of its open and ubiquitous nature. This approach seems to be sufficient for the presentation of Web-based proving processes as manifested in the case of the Mini-Polymath 4 project. (shrink)

Sorkin’s recent proposal for a realist interpretation of quantum theory, the anhomomorphic logic or coevent approach, is based on the idea of a “quantum measure” on the space of histories. This is a generalisation of the classical measure to one which admits pair-wise interference and satisfies a modified version of the Kolmogorov probability sum rule. In standard measure theory the measure on the base set Ω is normalised to one, which encodes the statement that “Ω happens”. Moreover, the Kolmogorov sum (...) rule implies that the measure of any subset A is strictly positive if and only if A cannot be covered by a countable collection of subsets of zero measure. In quantum measure theory on the other hand, simple examples suffice to demonstrate that this is no longer true. We propose an appropriate generalisation, the quantum cover, which in addition to being a cover of A, satisfies the property that if the quantum measure of A is non-zero then this is also the case for at least one of the elements in the cover. Our work implies a non-triviality result for the coevent interpretation for Ω of finite cardinality, and allows us to cast the Peres-Kochen-Specker theorem in terms of quantum covers. (shrink)

Non-geostationary satellite (NGSO) constellations—particularly LEO/MEO—are transforming mining by providing low-latency connectivity and taskable Earth observation to remote, infrastructure-poor sites. Objectives include mapping NGSO applications across exploration, planning, and operations; assessing AI's role in tasking, routing, and analytics; and examining governance and ESG implications, with a focus on Africa and East Africa. Methods involved a PRISMA-aligned systematic review (protocol registered) synthesising primary and secondary evidence on NGSO-enabled EO and communications in mining. A random-effects meta-analysis was planned if three or more comparable (...) studies reported the same outcome; otherwise, a structured narrative synthesis with predefined subgroups (LEO vs MEO, EO vs backhaul, open-pit vs underground, Africa vs elsewhere) was used. Results and discussion showed that across more than 30 use cases, NGSO backhaul and EO tasking consistently reduced time to insight for pit progression, tailings surveillance, and asset tracking; simulations indicated routing improvements of approximately 10% on tree topologies and 30% on mesh networks at N=500, demonstrating tangible latency and capacity benefits for safety-critical workflows. Continuity was enhanced through multi-sensor PNT (GNSS/inertial/vision plus radio localisation ) and hierarchical link adaptation that rapidly re- parameterises under noise, weather, or interference. AI added value by improving tasking and congestion control in edge and cloud inference, though it required cascaded models, compression, and uncertainty gating to meet compute and bandwidth constraints. Governance themes—such as data protection, transparency, and community benefit—were recurring enablers of adoption. Conclusion: When combined with resilient positioning, adaptive operations, and credible ESG safeguards, NGSO combined with AI can significantly enhance mining efficiency, safety, and sustainability; priorities include standardised KPIs, transparent cost models, and long-term pilot deployments. (shrink)

As automation in artificial intelligence is increasing, we will need to automate a growing amount of ethical decision making. However, ethical decision- making raises novel challenges for engineers, ethicists and policymakers, who will have to explore new ways to realize this task. The presented work focuses on the development and formalization of models that aim at ensuring a correct ethical behaviour of artificial intelligent agents, in a provable way, extending and implementing a logic-based proving calculus that is based on argumentation (...) reasoning with support and attack arguments. This leads to a formal theoretical framework of ethical competence that could be implemented in artificial intelligent systems in order to best formalize certain parameters of ethical decision-making to ensure safety and justified trust. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the construction of theories of software systems yielding adequate predictions of their target systems’ computations. It is first argued that mathematical theories of programs are not able to provide predictions that are consistent with observed executions. Empirical theories of software systems are here introduced semantically, in terms of a hierarchy of computational models that are supplied by formal methods and testing techniques in computer science. Both deductive top-down and inductive bottom-up approaches in the discovery of (...) semantic software theories are refused to argue in favour of the abductive process of hypothesising and refining models at each level in the hierarchy, until they become satisfactorily predictive. Empirical theories of computational systems are required to be modular, as modular are most software verification and testing activities. We argue that logic relations must be thereby defined among models representing different modules in a semantic theory of a modular software system. We exclude that scientific structuralism is able to define module relations needed in software modular theories. The algebraic Theory of Institutions is finally introduced to specify the logic structure of modular semantic theories of computational systems. (shrink)

This paper introduces a meta-logical framework—based on the theory of institutions (a categorical version of abstract model theory)—to be used as a tool for the formalization of the two main views regarding the structure of scientific theories, namely the syntactic and the semantic views, as they have emerged from the relevant contemporary discussion. The formalization leads to a proof of the equivalence of the two views, which supports the claim that the two approaches are not really in tension. The proof (...) is based on the Galois connection between classes of sentences and classes of models defined over some institution. First, the history of the syntactic–semantic debate is recalled and the theory of institutions formally introduced. Secondly, the notions of syntactic and semantic theories are formalized within the institution and their equivalence proved. Finally, the novelty of the proposed framework is highlighted with respect to existing formalizations. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between informal reasoning, creativity in mathematics, and problem solving. It underscores the importance of environments that promote interaction, hypothesis generation, examination, refutation, derivation of new solutions, drawing conclusions, and reasoning with others, as key factors in enhancing mathematical creativity. Drawing on argumentation logic, the paper proposes a novel approach to uncover specific characteristics in the development of formalized proving using “proof-events.” Argumentation logic can offer reasoning mechanisms that facilitate these environments. This paper proposes how argumentation (...) can be implemented to discover certain characteristics in the development of formalized proving with “proof-events”. The concept of a proof-event was introduced by Goguen who described mathematical proof as a multi-agent social event involving not only “classical” formal proofs, but also other informal proving actions such as deficient or alleged proofs. Argumentation is an integral component of the discovery process for a mathematical proof since a proof necessitates a dialogue between provers and interpreters to clarify and resolve gaps or assumptions. By formalizing proof-events through argumentation, this paper demonstrates how informal reasoning and conflicts arising during the proving process can be effectively simulated. The paper presents an extended version of the proof-events calculus, rooted in argumentation theories, and highlights the intricate relationships among proof, human reasoning, cognitive processes, creativity, and mathematical arguments. (shrink)

This paper outlines a logical representation of certain aspects of the process of mathematical proving that are important from the point of view of Artificial Intelligence. Our starting point is the concept of proof-event or proving, introduced by Goguen, instead of the traditional concept of mathematical proof. The reason behind this choice is that in contrast to the traditional static concept of mathematical proof, proof-events are understood as processes, which enables their use in Artificial Intelligence in such contexts in which (...) problem-solving procedures and strategies are studied. We represent proof-events as problem-centred spatio-temporal processes by means of the language of the calculus of events, which adequately captures certain temporal aspects of proof-events (i.e. that they have history and form sequences of proof-events evolving in time). Further, we suggest a “loose” semantics for the proof events by means of Kolmogorov’s calculus of problems. Finally, we expose the intented interpretations for our logical model from the fields of automated theorem-proving and Web-based collective proving. (shrink)

This paper studies the structure of semantic theories over modular computational systems and applies the algebraic Theory of Institutions to provide a logical representation of such theories. A modular semantic theory is here defined by a cluster of semantic theories, each for a single program's module, and by a set of relations connecting models of different semantic theories. A semantic theory of a single module is provided in terms of the set of ∑‐models mapped from the category Th of ∑‐theories (...) and generating a hierarchy of structures from an abstract model to a concrete model of data. The collection of abstract models representing different modules of a program is formalised as the category of institutions INS, where theory morphisms express refinements, integrations, and compositions between couples of modules. Finally, it is required that a morphism in INS at any level occurs iff the same morphism occurs at the lower level alongside the Th hierarchy. (shrink)

In this paper, we suggest the broader concept of proof-event, introduced by Joseph Goguen, as a fundamental methodological tool for studying proofs in the history of mathematics. In this framework, proof is understood not as a purely syntactic object, but as a social process that involves at least two agents; this highlights the communicational aspect of proving. We argue that historians of mathematics primarily study proof-events in their research, as the mathematical proofs they encounter in extant sources often involve informal (...) components that are not entirely formalizable and convey semantic content that requires understanding and verification. We illustrate the application of this methodological approach in some outstanding historical cases, paying particular attention to the process of proof interpretation that brings a proof-event to life. Finally, we suggest a classification of proof-events, according to the conditions imposed upon problem-solving. This enables us to speak about broad classes of proof-events in the history of mathematics that share a common characteristic. (shrink)

In this paper, we elaborate a framework theory of mathematical proof, which is not based on the traditional concepts of mathematical fact and truth, but on the concept of proof-event or proving, introduced by Goguen. Proof-events are described as the activity of a multi-agent system. Agents enact different roles; the fundamental roles are those of the prover and the interpreter. These agents interact with each other at various levels, forming an ascending hierarchy: communication, understanding, interpretation, and validation. Proof-events are problem-centred (...) spatiotemporal processes; thus, they have a history and form sequences of proof-events that evolve over time. With the aid of these concepts, we can examine the question of change and continuity of mathematical knowledge in a new setting. We attempt to model certain temporal aspects of proof-events, using the language of the calculus of events. (shrink)

My purpose here is to point out a use of the Greek word κλῖμαξ, lit. ladder, which has not been recorded in the lexica of ancient and medieval Greek. To be specific, the term is found twice in the Therapeutics, a work by the sixth-century a.d. author and practising physician Alexander of Tralles, in reference to a particular kind of composite drug. In the first case, the author refers to the so-called ‘ladder of Hermes’ without providing any recipe. According to (...) him, this is an antidote for the treatment of epilepsy and similar in action to the well-known theriac. However, in the second case referring to an antidote for the treatment of gout, the ‘so-called ladder’, he provides the following recipe : ἀντίδοτος ποδαγρικὴ ἡ καλουμένη κλῖμαξ.ἀγαρικοῦοὐγ. α´φοῦοὐγγ. β´πετροσελίνουοὐγγ. γ´μαίουοὐγγ. δ´ὑπερίκουοὐγγ. ε´γεντιανῆςοὐγγ. ς´ἀριστολοχίαςοὐγγ. ζ´κενταυρίουοὐγγ. η´χαμαίδρυοςοὐγγ. θ´μέλιτος τὸ ἀρκοῦν. As evidenced, the term denotes a unique category of composite drugs in which the quantity of each subsequent ingredient is increased by one unit, thus metaphorically alluding to an ascending scale. (shrink)

Σωστικές ανασκαφές στην Ανατολική Λοκρίδα και Βορειοανατολική Φωκίδα κατά την αρχαία τοπογραφία έφεραν στο φως οικοδοµικά κατάλοιπα Ελληνιστικών και Ρωµαϊκών χρόνων, τα οποία ταυτίζονται ως φυλακεία ή φυλάκια, ανήκοντα σε οργανωµένα συστήµατα φύλαξης και προστασίας χερσαίων και θαλάσσιων δικτύων επικοινωνίας. Αυτές οι κατασκευές µας παρέχουν νέα στοιχεία, που αφορούν σε πρακτικές άµυνας και ασφαλούς επικοινωνίας µεταξύ των ανωτέρω περιοχών για τις οποίες µέχρι πρόσφατα δεν υπήρχαν ανασκαφικά δεδοµένα.

The senses convey impressions, perceptions and ultimately feelings, from which meaning emerges, revealing a platform where perception and thinking are actually very closely involved. From this perspective, the distance between descriptive, mental (cognitive) meaning and emotive, affective (non-cognitive) meaning shrinks, creating a platform to investigate how meaning is generated by posing the question ‘how does meaning actually make sense?’. This project investigates meaning as derived from the physical nature of our brains, our bodies and our physical experiences. We construct a (...) collaborative dialogue between art and the field of logic, specifically studies of embodied mathematics and computational theory as related to the construction of meaning. Here ideas from modern symbolic logic, such as abstract model theory (i.e. theory of institutions), can provide a suitable framework to explore a theory of meaning. (shrink)

Background: Despite a gradual shift in the focus of medical care among terminally ill patients to a palliative model, studies suggest that many children with life-limiting chronic illnesses continue to die in hospital after prolonged periods of inpatient admission and mechanical ventilation.Objectives: To examine the characteristics and location of death among hospitalised children, investigate yearwise trends in these characteristics and test the hypothesis that professional ethical guidance from the UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health would lead to significant (...) changes in the characteristics of death among hospitalised children.Methods: Routine administrative data from one large tertiary-level UK children’s hospital was examined over a 7-year period for children aged 0–18 years. Demographic details, location of deaths, source of admission , length of stay and final diagnoses were studied. Statistical significance was tested by the Kruskal–Wallis analysis of ranks and median test , χ2 test and Cochran–Armitage test .Results: Of the 1127 deaths occurring in hospital over the 7-year period, the majority were among infants. The main diagnoses at death included congenital malformations , perinatal diseases , cardiovascular disorders and neoplasms . Most deaths occurred in an intensive care unit environment , with a significant increase over the years . There was a clear increase in the proportion of admissions from in-hospital among the ICU cohort . Infants with congenital malformations and perinatal conditions were more likely to die in an ICU , and older children with malignancy outside the ICU . Children stayed for a median of 13 days on a hospital ward before being admitted to an ICU where they died.Conclusions: A greater proportion of hospitalised children are dying in an ICU environment. Our experience indicates that professional ethical guidance by itself may be inadequate in reversing the trends observed in this study. (shrink)

Anthony Giddens has been described as “the most important English social philosopher of our time.” Over 25 years, with a dazzling series of books that attest to his unrelenting productivity, he has established himself as today’s most widely read and widely cited social theorist. In recent years, his writings have become more explicitly political, and in 1996 he became Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. It is in this position that he has been accepted as (...) the key intellectual figure of Tony Blair’s New Labour government. Giddens’s interests have always been remarkably diverse, ranging from Continental philosophy to self-help therapy, and his work builds on a critical engagement with an extraordinary array of texts from within and beyond the canon of the social sciences. His ideas have profoundly influenced the writing and teaching of the central ideas of the rapidly changing study of modernity. These seven extended interviews with Christopher Pierson, conducted shortly after Giddens’s arrival at the LSE, seek to cover the full range of his thought since the early 1970’s, beginning with his engagement with the makers of “classical” sociology and concluding with his thoughts on the nature of world politics under what Giddens terms “reflexive modernity.” The style of the interviews is conversational, and Giddens sets forth his ideas with his customary clarity and directness. In addition to the interviews, four short pieces at the end of the book give examples of Giddens’s recent thought, treating Tony Blair’s political philosophy, the risk society concept in the context of British politics, and the dangers of chemical contamination. The volume concludes with a conversation between Giddens and European financier and philanthropist George Soros. (shrink)

Background: The relationship between moral resilience, moral distress, and moral injury among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic has been widely investigated; however, the literature in the post-COVID-19 era is scarce. Research aim: To examine the impact of moral resilience on moral distress and moral injury among nurses after the COVID-19 pandemic. Research design: Cross-sectional study. Participants and research context: We obtained a convenience sample of 1118 nurses in Greece. We collected demographic data (gender, age) and work-related data (understaffed wards, shift (...) work, clinical experience). We measured moral resilience with the revised “Rushton Moral Resilience Scale”, moral distress with the “Moral Distress Thermometer”, and moral injury with the “Moral Injury Symptom Scale-Healthcare Professionals” version. We adjusted all multivariable models for demographic variables. Ethical considerations: The Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Nursing, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens approved our study protocol (approval number; 474, approved: November 2023). Our study followed the Declaration of Helsinki. Findings/results: Multivariable linear regression analysis showed that moral resilience reduced moral distress and moral injury. In particular, we found that increased response to moral adversity was associated with decreased moral distress (adjusted coefficient beta = −1.81, 95% confidence interval [CI] = −2.07 to −1.54). Moreover, we found that increased response to moral adversity (adjusted coefficient beta = −8.24, 95% CI = −9.37 to −7.10) and increased moral efficacy (adjusted coefficient beta = −3.24, 95% CI = −5.03 to −1.45) were associated with reduced moral injury. Conclusions: Moral resilience can reduce the level of moral distress and moral injury among nurses. However, the persistence of moderate moral resilience among Greek nurses does not guarantee its sustainability. To ensure that this resilience is maintained and potentially enhanced, it is imperative for nurse leaders and policymakers to strategically design interventions to address issues at the organizational, team, and individual levels. (shrink)

The patient’s autonomy and well-being are sometimes seen as central to the ethical justification of voluntary euthanasia (VE) and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). While respecting the patient’s wish to die plausibly promotes the patient’s autonomy, it is less obvious how alleviating the patient’s suffering through death benefits the patient. Death eliminates the subject, so how can we intelligibly maintain that the patient’s well-being is promoted when she/he no longer exists? This article interrogates two typical answers given by philosophers: (a) that death (...) confers a well-being benefit in the sense that it actualises a comparatively better life course for the patient (ie, a shorter life with less net suffering), and (b) that death is beneficial because non-existence which entails no suffering is superior to an existence filled with suffering. A close examination of the two senses in which the patient might incur a well-being benefit reveals problems that preclude physicians delivering VE/PAS in the name of beneficence. (shrink)

A discussion on antiquity with Anthony A. Long, one of the most distinguished scholars in the field of ancient philosophy, would be engaging in any case. All the more so, since his two recently published works, Greek Models of Mind and Self and How to be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life, provide the opportunity to revisit key issues of ancient philosophy. The former is a lively and challenging work that starts with the Homeric notions of selfhood, (...) and leads the reader all the way through classical and Hellenistic philosophical psychology; the latter is a profound analysis of the Stoic ethics that focuses in particular on its foundation and principles, followed by Long’s re-worked translation of Epictetus’ Encheiridion and carefully selected parts of his Discourses. Anthony Long kindly accepted the invitation to discuss several issues that are in the core of scholarly concern, sharing interpretations and thoughts that originate from his long acquaintance with the ancient literary tradition. (shrink)

This book —the first of a two-volume monograph— seeks to unify the hitherto perceived-as-disparate foundations of psychology and artificial intelligence. It does this by replacing their constitutive notions with a novel common one: noémon system. The ensued Theory of Noémon Systems is developed in terms of an interdisciplinary, language-based axiomatic approach. The first volume details the development of the foundations of the theory and expounds ramifications for cognitive science and AI including novel solutions to the AGI debate and Darwin’s mental (...) gap issue, while offering the first complete definition of AI. The book concurrently explores the similarities and differences between humans and AI/robot systems with respect to the evolution-dependent phenomena of representation, thinking, understanding and communication. The book is an extensive one; because of it’s extensiveness and broad ramifications, this book will appeal to scientists working on the interfaces of psychology, AI, philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and the humanities. The complicated and extensive unification of the fields of Artificial Intelligence and psychology is continued in the second volume that breaks further new ground for both disciplines, with thought-provoking and compelling implications for both. (shrink)

[Richard Glauser] Shaftesbury's theory of aesthetic experience is based on his conception of a natural disposition to apprehend beauty, a real 'form' of things. I examine the implications of the disposition's naturalness. I argue that the disposition is not an extra faculty or a sixth sense, and attempt to situate Shaftesbury's position on this issue between those of Locke and Hutcheson. I argue that the natural disposition is to be perfected in many different ways in order to be exercised in (...) the perception of the different degrees of beauty within Shaftesbury's hierarchy. This leads to the conclusion that the exercise of the disposition depends, from case to case, on many different cognitive and affective conditions, that are realised by the collaborative functionings of our ordinary faculties. Essential to Shaftesbury's conception of aesthetic experience is a disinterested, contemplative love, that causes (or contains) what we may call a 'disinterested pleasure', but also an interested pleasure. I argue that, within any given aesthetic experience, the role of the disinterested pleasure is secondary to that of the disinterested love. However, an important function of the disinterested pleasure is that, in combination with the interested pleasure, it leads one to aspire to pass from the aesthetic experience of lower degrees of beauty to the experience of higher ones in the hierarchy. /// [Anthony Savile] (1) If Shaftesbury is to be seen as the doyen of modern aesthetics, his most valuable legacy to us may not so much be his viewing aesthetic response as a sui generis disinterested delight as his insistence on its turning 'wholly on [experience of] what is exterior and foreign to ourselves'. Not that we cannot experience ourselves, or what is our own, as a source of such admiration. Rather our responses, favourable or no, are improperly grounded in any essentially reflexive, or first-personal, ways of taking what engages us. The suggestion is tested against the case of Narcissus. (2) Glauser interestingly emphasizes Shaftesbury's neo-Platonic conception of a hierarchy of aesthetic experience that culminates in the joyful contemplation of God. That hierarchy must be something that is less unitary and systematic than Shaftesbury himself had supposed, even when his emphasis on the tie between aesthetic pleasure and contemplative experience is allowed to extend beyond perception and to encompass episodes of thought itself. (shrink)

This chapter has three sections. The first one introduces the principle of noémon systems (PriNS) and discusses the relation between human and artificial minds. It constitutes the backbone of the Theory of Noémon Systems. PriNS specifies the two definiens of the noémon system theoretical construct, namely, noémon species and noémon entity. They are defined in terms of parametric conditions that determine necessary and sufficient conditions for biological, artificial, and hybrid minds. On this basis, the second section discusses the nature of (...) AI and the notion of own robot evolution; develops a novel argument and result on the AGI and superintelligence debates, and provides the first complete definition of AI. The chapter’s last section introduces the current state of evolutionary theory, reviews the gradualist debate (originating with Darwin in 1871), and offers a radical solution to it in terms of written human language. © Petros A. M. Gelepithis 2024. (shrink)

This chapter unifies the disciplinary studies of the last two definiens of noémon system (NoS), namely, communication and understanding. Its first section succinctly reviews the literature on the nature of communication and defines human communication in terms of the process of mutual human understanding. The latter is in turn defined in terms of a system of human primitives. The second section discusses the process of human understanding and in particular the end result of it, namely, a system of human primitives. (...) We conclude that the processes of human communication and understanding constitute qualitative invariances of historic H. sapiens psychology. The last section extends our definitions for any NoS, discusses the limits of communication among NoSs, and compares well known regularities and qualitative invariances of psychology and AI. © Petros A. M. Gelepithis 2024. (shrink)

Anthony Everett gives a philosophical defence of the common-sense view that there are no such things as fictional people, places, and things. He argues that our talk and thought about such fictional objects takes place within the scope of a pretense, and that we gain little but lose much by accepting fictional realism.

Thinking is widely agreed to be the most basic mental phenomenon that permeates all others across animals and machines. Its building blocks are unanimously taken to be ‘concepts’. This chapter demonstrates that the latter viewpoint is mistaken. The building blocks of both thinking and concepts are the notions of ‘meaningful neural formation’ for biological systems, and its generalisation of ‘meaningful material formation’ for all types of noémon systems. Following a succinct review of the major theories of meaning the chapter outlines (...) a novel physical theory of thinking and meaning that is extended to include significant notions of both psychology and AI including ‘concept’, ‘idea’, ‘belief’, ‘information’ and ‘reasoning’. © Petros A. M. Gelepithis 2024. (shrink)

BackgroundIn this article, we address questions regarding how people consider what they do or do not consent to and the reasons why. This article presents the findings of a citizen forum study conducted by the University of Geneva in partnership with the Geneva University Hospitals to explore the opinions and concerns of members of the public regarding predictive oncology, genetic sequencing, and cancer. MethodsThis paper presents the results of a citizen forum that included 73 participants. A research tool titled "the (...) mechanics of consent" was designed for this study. This tool is a table encouraging participants to reflect on social and research actors, types of data, and desired levels of control while sharing different types of data with different actors. Participants’ discussion that led to the completion of each table were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis.ResultsThe results are a compilation of responses from the mechanics of consent tool divided into two sections; the first presents quantitative results of collective responses regarding attitudes to consent to donate their data. The second section present qualitative findings emerged from the discussion amongst participants.DiscussionChoice and control of personal data is crucial for the public to be able to decide who and how to trust. Key information to be disclosed to potential research participants shall include information about potential risks and benefits; who will be accessing and using their data; as well as assurances that their choice will be respected. Furthermore, researchers ought to make sure they are trustworthy, by acting in a competent, reliable, and honest manner. Governance systems ought to be better equipped to address ethical issues raise by the growing presence of non-traditional research actors, consent of exchanges of data via digital devices and online activity such as social media and fairness of data trading. Finally, informed consent is one of the various elements that contribute to conducting ethical research. More needs to be done to strengthen governance and ensure adequate protection of research participants, particularly to address issues related to predictive health analytics. (shrink)

The article analyzes the impact of modern digital technologies used in the information society on democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in general. Both positive and negative aspects of such impact are considered. The importance of this topic is due to the need for further deepening of scientific knowledge related to the development of the rule of law in the information society and insufficient research from the legal point of view of current theoretical problems of the rule of (...) law in the digital era. The purpose of this article is to study the rule of law as a principle of the modern state of the 21st century and to study the problems in matters of human rights that have arisen with the development of modern digital technologies. The study of this issue is quite relevant, considering the conclusions, made as a result of our work, can be taken into account in further theoretical developments of international and national human rights protection aimed at improving the effectiveness of human rights judicial protection and improving current legislation. (shrink)

J. Anthony Blair is a prominent international figure in argumentation studies. He is among the originators of informal logic, an author of textbooks on the informal logic approach to argument analysis and evaluation and on critical thinking, and a founder and editor of the journal Informal Logic. Blair is widely recognized among the leaders in the field for contributing formative ideas to the argumentation literature of the last few decades. This selection of key works provides insights into the history (...) of the field of argumentation theory and various related disciplines. It illuminates the central debates and presents core ideas in four main areas: Critical Thinking, Informal Logic, Argument Theory and Logic, Dialectic and Rhetoric. (shrink)