The ethical issues related to the possible future creation of machines with general intellectual capabilities far outstripping those of humans are quite distinct from any ethical problems arising in current automation and information systems. Such superintelligence would not be just another technological development; it would be the most important invention ever made, and would lead to explosive progress in all scientific and technological fields, as the superintelligence would conduct research with superhuman efficiency. To the extent that ethics is a (...) cognitive pursuit, a superintelligence could also easily surpass humans in the quality of its moral thinking. However, it would be up to the designers of the superintelligence to specify its original motivations. Since the superintelligence may become unstoppably powerful because of its intellectual superiority and the technologies it could develop, it is crucial that it be provided with human-friendly motivations. This paper surveys some of the unique ethical issues in creating superintelligence, and discusses what motivations we ought to give a superintelligence, and introduces some cost-benefit considerations relating to whether the development of superintelligent machines ought to be accelerated or retarded. (shrink)

Words, Thoughts and Theories argues that infants and children discover the physical and psychological features of the world by a process akin to scientific inquiry, more or less as conceived by philosophers of science in the 1960s (the theory theory). This essay discusses some of the philosophical background to an alternative, more popular, “modular” or “maturational” account of development, dismisses an array of philosophical objections to the theory theory, suggests that the theory theory offers an undeveloped project for artificial (...) intelligence, and, relying on recent psychological work on causation, offers suggestions about how principles of causal inference may provide a developmental solution to the “frame problem”. (shrink)

The rapid development of artificial intelligence, big data, algorithmic systems, and platform-based digital technologies is reshaping human modes of production, social interaction, and governance. These transformations are not only redefining legal subjects, legal relationships, and legal institutions, but are also giving rise to new forms of legal civilization. Against this backdrop, traditional jurisprudential questions—why law exists, how legal subjects are constituted, how legal institutions function, and how legal values are realized—require renewed examination. One of the central challenges of contemporary (...) legal philosophy is how to respond to the emergence of digital civilization while preserving the fundamental achievements of modern rule of law. Taking the foundational question “Why does law exist?” as its point of departure, this book develops a new jurisprudential framework—Awakened Jurisprudence (Juexing Jurisprudence). Drawing upon Natural Law Theory, Analytical Jurisprudence, Historical Jurisprudence, Sociological Jurisprudence, Digital Jurisprudence, AI Law scholarship, and broader traditions of Chinese, Indian, and Western philosophy, the book argues that jurisprudence should extend its focus beyond legal norms and institutions to the broader field of legal civilization. Law, in this view, is not merely a mechanism for maintaining social order but also a civilizational institution that shapes human development, social cooperation, and the future evolution of legal communities. To advance this perspective, the book proposes a Five-Dimensional Model of Legal Civilization, consisting of Ritual-Legal Civilization, Dharma-Legal Civilization, Rational-Legal Civilization, Digital-Legal Civilization, and Awakened-Legal Civilization. These five forms of legal civilization are examined through four interconnected dimensions: legal subjectivity, legal spirit, legal philosophy, and legal institutions. Together they provide a comparative framework for understanding the historical evolution and possible future trajectories of human legal civilization. Within this framework, Ritual-Legal Civilization reflects the developmental logic of ethical communities; Dharma-Legal Civilization embodies traditions of spiritual cultivation and liberation; Rational-Legal Civilization represents the rights-based and rule-oriented order of modern civic society; Digital-Legal Civilization captures emerging forms of algorithmic and intelligent governance; and Awakened-Legal Civilization points toward a future-oriented civilization grounded in shared awareness, responsibility, and cooperation. Rather than treating these civilizations as mutually exclusive, the book interprets them as distinct yet complementary expressions of humanity’s ongoing search for justice, order, meaning, and collective flourishing. Building upon this civilizational model, the book develops a Theory of Subject Growth, arguing that law should be understood not only as a system for regulating behavior, protecting rights, and constraining power, but also as an institutional framework that enables the growth of living subjects and the advancement of legal civilization. The significance of law therefore lies not merely in resolving existing conflicts, but in creating the conditions under which individuals, communities, and institutions can continuously develop together. The reciprocal relationship between subject growth and institutional evolution becomes a central driving force in the development of legal civilization. To provide the philosophical foundation for this theory, the book introduces the Theory of Three Levels of Non-Awakening, the Theory of Three Levels of Awakening, and the Theory of Shared Awakening. These interconnected theories analyze human development through the dimensions of appearances, mind, and foundational reality, exploring how legal subjects move from limited forms of cognition toward deeper levels of self-understanding and social responsibility. Drawing inspiration from diverse philosophical and religious traditions while remaining firmly grounded in modern legal thought, the concept of Shared Awakening is reformulated as a secular public ideal. It serves as a normative framework for collective growth, shared responsibility, participatory governance, and the continued advancement of legal civilization. From this perspective, shared life fosters shared growth; shared growth encourages shared awakening; and shared awakening generates new forms of shared responsibility, governance, and development. This dynamic process constitutes the developmental logic through which legal civilization evolves. The book further develops the concepts of Awakened Legislation, Awakened Compliance, Awakened Adjudication, and Awakened Governance. Among these, Awakened Adjudication proposes a Four-Dimensional Model of Justice, integrating factual justice, normative justice, developmental justice, and community justice. Adjudication is therefore understood not only as the application of legal rules, but also as a process that contributes to human development, institutional improvement, and civilizational progress. Awakened Governance, meanwhile, explores how governance in the age of artificial intelligence can remain faithful to the principles of modern rule of law while expanding from order-centered governance toward civilization-oriented governance. Collectively, the Five-Dimensional Model of Legal Civilization, the Theory of Subject Growth, the Theory of Three Levels of Non-Awakening, the Theory of Three Levels of Awakening, the Theory of Shared Awakening, the Theory of Developmental Justice, and the Theory of Awakened Governance form the core architecture of Awakened Jurisprudence. The book firmly upholds modern rule of law as the institutional foundation of legal civilization, including its commitment to rights protection, procedural justice, lawful governance, and the limitation of public power. At the same time, it seeks to broaden jurisprudential inquiry by incorporating intellectual resources from Chinese philosophy, Indian philosophy, Western legal thought, contemporary legal theory, and the philosophy of artificial intelligence. Through this interdisciplinary and cross-civilizational approach, the book develops an open theoretical framework for addressing fundamental questions of life, subjectivity, consciousness, responsibility, order, and justice in the age of artificial intelligence. Awakened Jurisprudence does not privilege any single nation, legal tradition, or civilization. Instead, it is grounded in the global realities of legal transformation in the digital age and seeks to promote dialogue, mutual learning, and cooperative development among diverse legal civilizations. As both a work of foundational jurisprudence and an exploration of the future of legal civilization, this book offers an open, inclusive, and future-oriented framework for rethinking law in the age of artificial intelligence. It ultimately asks not only how law can govern an increasingly intelligent world, but also how legal civilization can contribute to the flourishing of humanity itself. (shrink)

Aristotle's observation that all human beings by nature desire to know aptly captures the spirit of "intellectualist" research in psychology and anthropology. Intellectualists in these fields agree that humans' have fundamental explanatory interests (which reflect their rationality) and that the idioms in which their explanations are couched can differ considerably across places and times (both historical and developmental). Intellectualists in developmental psychology (e.g., Gopnik and Meltzoff, 1997) maintain that young children's conceptual structures, like those of scientists, are theories and that (...) their conceptual development--like the development of science--is a process of theory formation and change. They speculate that our explanatory preoccupations result, at least in part, from a natural drive to develop theories. Intellectualists in the anthropology of religion (e.g., Horton, 1970 and 1993) hold that, although it may do many other things as well, religion is primarily concerned with providing explanatory theories. They maintain that religion and science have the same explanatory goals; only the idioms of their explanations differ. The connections between the concern for explanation, the pursuit of science, the persistence of religion, and the cognitive processes underlying each clearly merit further examination. By considering both their cultural manifestations and their cognitive foundations, I hope to clarify not only how science and religion are related but some of the ways their explanatory projects differ. I shall argue that, despite their centuries' old antagonisms, no development in science will ever seriously threaten the persistence of religion or the forms of explanation religion employs or the emergence of new religions. (I strongly suspect that science will never seriously threaten the persistence of particular religions either, but I only aim to defend the weaker, collective claim here.) In this paper's fourth section I shall show that religion and its characteristic forms of explanation 1 are a natural outgrowth of the character and content of human association and cognition.. (shrink)

Michael Wheeler, in his book Reconstructing the Cognitive World, analyses the development of embedded-embodied cognitive science in the light of underlying philosophical differences about the constitution of human agency. On one side he sees orthodox computational cognitive science as holding to Cartesian conceptions of an abstract, disembodied reason deliberating over de-contextualised representations of the world. On the other side, he sees modern-day embodied-embedded cognitive scientists going beyond such Cartesianism to embrace concepts of human agency more in keeping with Heidegger’s (...) account of Dasein in Being and Time. By bringing to light and criticising the Cartesian assumptions of the computationalists and by pointing out and clarifying the connections between embodied-embedded cognitive science and Heidegger’s philosophy, Wheeler aims to lay the “foundations of a genuinely non- Cartesian cognitive science.”. (shrink)

The semantic paradoxes, whose paradigm is the Liar, played a crucial role at a crucial juncture in the development of modern logic. In his 1908 seminal paper, Russell outlined a system, soon to become that of the Principia Mathematicae, whose main goal was the solution of the logical paradoxes, both semantic and settheoretic. Russell did not distinguish between the two and his theory of types was designed to solve both kinds in the same uniform way. Set theoreticians, however, were (...) content to treat only the set-theoretic paradoxes, putting aside the semantic ones as a non-mathematical concern. This separation was explicitly proposed, eighteen years after Russell’s paper, by Ramsey, though he, like Russell, advocated a system that addresses both kinds. Since then, the semantic paradoxes have been viewed within the perspective of the theory of truth, where they have occupied a respectable niche, but one of rather specialized interest. (shrink)

... and a reading knowledge of formal logical symbolism is essential too. (Philosophers often use bits of logical symbolism to clarify their arguments.) Because the artificial and simply formal languages of logic give us highly illuminating objects of comparison when we come thinking about how natural languages work. (Relevant to topics in ‘philosophical logic’ and the philosophy of language.) But mainly because it us the point of entry into the study of one of the major intellectual achievements by philosophers of (...) the 20th – i.e. the development of mathematical logic. (Not least in Cambridge: Russell and Whitehead, Ramsey, Turing.). (shrink)

The Born rule is derived from operational assumptions, together with assumptions of quantum mechanics that concern only the deterministic development of the state. Unlike Gleason’s theorem, the argument applies even if probabilities are de…ned for only a single resolution of the identity, so it applies to a variety of foundational approaches to quantum mechanics. It also provides a probability rule for state spaces that are not Hilbert spaces.

In this chapter, I consider the largely overlooked influence of E. W. von Tschirnhaus' treatise on method, the Medicina mentis, on Wolff's early philosophical project (in both its conception and execution). As I argue, part of Tschirnhaus' importance for Wolff lies in the use he makes of principles gained from experience as a foundation for the scientific enterprise in the context of his broader philosophical rationalism. I will show that this lesson from Tschirnhaus runs through Wolff's earliest philosophical discussions, and (...) indeed continues to inform his major texts in logic and mathematics just before the publication of the German Metaphysics. In the end, my discussion has the effect of revealing Tschirnhaus to be an exceptionally important influence on Wolff's development, perhaps even as important (or so I suggest) as Leibniz. (shrink)

Testimony is responsible, either directly or indirectly, for much of what we know, not only about the world around us but also about who we are. Despite its relative historical neglect, recent work in epistemology has seen a growing recognition of the importance and scope of testimonial knowledge. Most of this work has focused on two central questions, which will be the main topics of this article. First, is testimonial knowledge necessarily acquired through transmission from speaker to hearer, or can (...) testimony generate epistemic features in its own right? Second, is justified dependence on testimony fundamentally basic, or is it ultimately reducible to other epistemic sources, such as perception, memory, and reason? Testimony itself is typically understood quite broadly so as to include a variety of acts of communication that are intended or taken to convey information—such as statements, nods, pointings, and so on. (For a full development of this view, see Lackey 2008.) Knowledge that is distinctively testimonial requires belief that is based or grounded in, not merely caused by, an instance of testimony. For instance, suppose that I sing “I have a soprano voice” in a soprano voice and you come to believe this entirely on the basis of hearing my soprano voice. (This is a variation of an example found in Audi 1997.) While my testimony is certainly causally relevant to the formation of your belief, the resulting knowledge is based on your hearing my soprano voice rather than on what I testified to, thereby rendering it perceptual in nature. What is of import for distinctively testimonial knowledge is that a given belief be formed on the basis of the content of a speaker’s testimony. This prevents beliefs that are formed entirely on the basis of features about a speaker’s testimony from qualifying as instances of testimonial knowledge. (shrink)

Although a few pioneers in psycholinguistics had, for more than twenty years, approached various pragmatic issues experimentally, it is only in the past few years that investigators have begun employing the experimental method in testing pragmatic hypotheses. We see this emergence of a proper experimental pragmatics as an important advance with a great potential for further development. In this chapter we want to illustrate what can be done with experimental approaches to pragmatic issues by presenting one case, that of (...) so-called ‘scalar inferences’, where the experimental method has helped sharpen a theoretical debate and has provided uniquely relevant evidence. We will focus on work done by the first author and his collaborators or work closely related to theirs, but other authors have also made important contributions to the topic. (shrink)

At this point in time the two-dimensional (2D) argument against physicalism is well known (Chalmers 2009; 2010), as are the many responses to it. However there has been a recent development that has yet to be widely discussed. Some philosophers have argued that we have equally compelling reasons to think that dualism is false based on the conceivability of mere physical duplicates which enjoy conscious experience in just the way we do (Martin 1998; Sturgeon 2000; Piccinini 2006; Frankish 2007; (...) Brown 2010; Balog MS). This argument has not yet been properly understood and in this paper I aim to correct the most common misunderstandings. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is a possibility that should not be ignored in any serious thinking about the future, and it raises many profound issues for ethics and public policy that philosophers ought to start thinking about. This article outlines the case for thinking that human-level machine intelligence might well appear within the next half century. It then explains four immediate consequences of such a development, and argues that machine intelligence would have a revolutionary impact on a wide range of the (...) social, political, economic, commercial, technological, scientific and environmental issues that humanity will face over the coming decades. (shrink)

Over the past few years, a new paradigm for thinking about humankind's future has begun to take shape among some leading computer scientists, neuroscientists, nanotechnologists and researchers at the forefront of technological development. The new paradigm rejects a crucial assumption that is implicit in both traditional futurology and practically all of today's political thinking. This is the assumption that the "human condition" is at root a constant. Present-day processes can be fine-tuned; wealth can be increased and redistributed; tools can (...) be developed and refined; culture can change, sometimes drastically; but human nature itself is not up for grabs. (shrink)

In this critical notice we argue against William Craig’s recent attempt to reconcile presentism (roughly, the view that only the present is real) with relativity theory. Craig’s defense of his position boils down to endorsing a ‘neo-Lorentzian interpretation’ of special relativity. We contend that his reconstruction of Lorentz’s theory and its historical development is fatally flawed and that his arguments for reviving this theory fail on many counts.

Purpose – To review and discuss Luciano Floridi’s 2019 book The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design, the latest instalment in his philosophy of information (PI) tetralogy, particularly with respect to its implications for library and information studies (LIS). Design/methodology/approach – Nine scholars with research interests in philosophy and LIS read and responded to the book, raising critical and heuristic questions in the spirit of scholarly dialogue. Floridi responded to these questions. Findings – Floridi’s PI, including (...) this latest publication, is of interest to LIS scholars, and much insight can be gained by exploring this connection. It seems also that LIS has the potential to contribute to PI’s further development in some respects. Research implications – Floridi’s PI work is technical philosophy for which many LIS scholars do not have the training or patience to engage with, yet doing so is rewarding. This suggests a role for translational work between philosophy and LIS. Originality/value – The book symposium format, not yet seen in LIS, provides forum for sustained, multifaceted and generative dialogue around ideas. (shrink)

Conscience is often referred to yet not understood. This text develops a theory of cognition around a model of conscience, the ACTWith model. It represents a synthesis of results from contemporary neuroscience with traditional philosophy, building from Jamesian insights into the emergence of the self to narrative identity, all the while motivated by a single mechanism as represented in the ACTWith model. Emphasis is placed on clarifying historical expressions and demonstrations of conscience - Socrates, Heidegger, Kant, M.L. King - in (...) light of the ACTWith model, while at once turning these resources to developing the basic architecture. In the end, this text aims to enrich moral theory by improving our understanding of moral cognition, while at once providing a useful tool in everyday moral practice and self-development. (shrink)

The long sweep of human history has involved a continuing interaction between peoples' efforts to improve their well-being and the environment's stability to sustain those efforts. Throughout most of that history, the interactions between human development and the environment have been relatively simple and local affairs. But the complexity and scale of those interactions are increasing. What were once local incidents of pollution shared throughout a common watershed or air basin now involve multile nations - witness the concerns for (...) acid desposition in Europe and North America. What were once acute episodes of relatively reversible damage now affect multiple generations - witness the debates over disposal of chemical and radioactive wastes. (shrink)

This project continues our interdisciplinary research into computational and cognitive aspects of narrative comprehension. Our ultimate goal is the development of a computational theory of how humans understand narrative texts. The theory will be informed by joint research from the viewpoints of linguistics, cognitive psychology, the study of language acquisition, literary theory, geography, philosophy, and artificial intelligence. The linguists, literary theorists, and geographers in our group are developing theories of narrative language and spatial understanding that are being tested by (...) the cognitive psychologists and language researchers in our group, and a computational model of a reader of narrative text is being developed by the AI researchers, based in part on these theories and results and in part on research on knowledge representation and reasoning. This proposal describes the knowledge-representation and natural-language-processing issues involved in the computational implementation of the theory; discusses a contrast between communicative and narrative uses of language and of the relation of the narrative text to the story world it describes; investigates linguistic, literary, and hermeneutic dimensions of our research; presents a computational investigation of subjective sentences and reference in narrative; studies children’s acquisition of the ability to take third-person perspective in their own storytelling; describes the psychological validation of various linguistic devices; and examines how readers develop an understanding of the geographical space of a story. This report is a longer version of a project description submitted to NSF. This document, produced in May 2007, is a L ATEX version of Technical Report 89-07 (Buffalo: SUNY Buffalo Department of Computer Science, August 1989), with slightly.. (shrink)

The article revisits the old controversy concerning the relation of the mother's brother and sister's son in patrilineal societies in the light both of anthropological criticisms of the very notion of kinship and of evolutionary and epidemiological approaches to culture. It argues that the ritualized patterns of behavior that had been discussed by Radcliffe-Brown, Goody and others are to be explained in terms of the interaction of a variety of factors, some local and historical, others pertaining to general human dispositions. (...) In particular, an evolved disposition to favor relatives can contribute to the development and stabilization of these behaviors, not by directly generating them, but by making them particularly "catchy" and resilient. In this way, it is possible to recognize both that cultural representations and practices are specific to a community at a time in its history (rather than mere tokens of a general type), and that they are, in essential respects, grounded in the common evolved psychology of human beings. (shrink)

More precisely, transhumanists advocate increased funding for research to radically extend healthy lifespan and favor the development of medical and technological means to improve memory, concentration, and other human capacities. Transhumanists propose that everybody should have the option to use such means to enhance various dimensions of their cognitive, emotional, and physical well-being. Not only is this a natural extension of the traditional aims of medicine and technology, but it is also a great humanitarian opportunity to genuinely improve the (...) human condition. (shrink)

I mostly agree with most of what Paul Moser has said in his books in the Philosophy of Religion. The views he has defended are a needed corrective to the evidentialist paradigm in the philosophy of religion. At the same time, his development of his central ideas has resulted in views that are, somewhat idiosyncratic and extreme. In this essay I hope to present a different articulation of those ideas, also defensible from within a Christian perspective, that preserves their (...) central thrust without being so extreme. (shrink)

The paper investigates what is meant by "good science" and "bad science" and how these differ as between the natural (physical and biological) sciences on the one hand and social sciences on the other. We conclude on the basis of historical evidence that the natural science are much more heavily constrained by evidence and observation than by theory while the social sciences are constrained by prior theory and hardly at all by direct evidence. Current examples of the latter proposition are (...) taken from recent issues of leading social science journals. We argue that agent based social simulations can be used as a tool to constrain the development of a new social science by direct (what economists dismiss as anecdotal) evidence and that to do so would make social science relevant to the understanding and influencing of social processes. We argue that such a development is both possible and desirable. We do not argue that it is likely. (shrink)

Among non-monotonic systems of reasoning, non-monotonic modal logics, and autoepistemic logic in particular, have had considerable success. The presence of explicit modal operators allows flexibility in the embedding of other approaches. Also several theoretical results of interest have been established concerning these logics. In this paper we introduce non-monotonic modal logics based on many-valued logics, rather than on classical logic. This extends earlier work of ours on many-valued modal logics. Intended applications are to situations involving several reasoners, not just one (...) as in the standard development. (shrink)

A qualitatively new, much more liberal and efficient organisation of science is proposed and justified in connection with emerging international science structures, such as the European Research Council, and growing debates about further role and development of fundamental science. Although the ideas are expressed in terms of "common sense" arguments accessible to a "general" audience, they are based on the rigorous analysis within the recently advanced "universal concept of complexity", which can be applied, due to its universality, also to (...) science structure itself considered as a complex system. We demonstrate thus the application of this ultimate criterion of completeness of a system of knowledge (and viability of related intelligence) that should be able to derive consistent, provable, and practically relevant conclusions about its own purpose, sense, evolution, and current state. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper, boldly stated, is to propose a new type of philosophy, a philosophy whose aim is prediction. The pace of technological progress is increasing very rapidly: it looks as if we are witnessing an exponential growth, the growth-rate being proportional to the size already obtained, with scientific knowledge doubling every 10 to 20 years since the second world war, and with computer processor speed doubling every 18 months or so. It is argued that this technological (...) class='Hi'>development makes urgent many empirical questions which a philosopher could be well-suited to help answering. I try to cover a broad range of interesting problems and approaches, which means that I won't go at all deeply into any of them; I only try to say enough to show what some of the problems are, how one can begin to work with them, and why philosophy is relevant. My hope is that this will whet your appetite to deal with these questions, or at least increase general awareness that they worthy tasks for first-class intellects, including ones which might belong to philosophers. (shrink)

Robert Rupert is well-known as an vigorous opponent of the hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC). His Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind is a first-rate development of his “systems-based” approach to demarcating the mind. The results are impressive. Rupert’s account brings much-needed clarity to the often-frustrating debate over HEC: much more than just an attack on HEC, he gives a compelling picture of why the debate matters.

We introduce a realist, unextravagant interpretation of quantum theory that builds on the existing physical structure of the theory and allows experiments to have definite outcomes but leaves the theory’s basic dynamical content essentially intact. Much as classical systems have specific states that evolve along definite trajectories through configuration spaces, the traditional formulation of quantum theory permits assuming that closed quantum systems have specific states that evolve unitarily along definite trajectories through Hilbert spaces, and our interpretation extends this intuitive picture (...) of states and Hilbert-space trajectories to the more realistic case of open quantum systems despite the generic development of entanglement. We provide independent justification for the partial-trace operation for density matrices, reformulate wave-function collapse in terms of an underlying interpolating dynamics, derive the Born rule from deeper principles, resolve several open questions regarding ontological stability and dynamics, address a number of familiar no-go theorems, and argue that our interpretation is ultimately compatible with Lorentz invariance. Along the way, we also investigate a number of unexplored features of quantum theory, including an interesting geometrical structure—which we call subsystem space—that we believe merits further study. We conclude with a summary, a list of criteria for future work on quantum foundations, and further research directions. We include an appendix that briefly reviews the traditional Copenhagen interpretation and the measurement problem of quantum theory, as well as the instrumentalist approach and a collection of foundational theorems not otherwise discussed in the main text. (shrink)

Uncertainty about funding; difficulty in determining research priorities ; and concern about technology transfer (the lack of application of research results): these words stand out in the language of scientific/industrial research and development, today. So called technology transfer seems to be the central issue because the criteria for determining research priorities and funding decisions are mostly based on the expected "pay off", i.e. the economic benefits which will result from the research findings being put into use within the industry. (...) This applies, not only in situations where the industry is providing a proportion of the funding, as in most agricultural research, but to scientific research generally which is intended for the "public good.". (shrink)

In what seems to have been his last paper, Insight and Reflection (1954), Hermann Weyl provides an illuminating sketch of his intellectual development, and describes the principal influences—scientific and philosophical—exerted on him in the course of his career as a mathematician. Of the latter the most important in the earlier stages was Husserl’s phenomenology. In Weyl’s work of 1918-22 we find much evidence of the great influence Husserl’s ideas had on Weyl’s philosophical outlook—one need merely glance through the pages (...) of Space-Time-Matter or The Continuum to see it. Witness, for example, the following passages from the former. (shrink)

The idea that various subsystems of the linguistic faculty interact with and through information structure has an ever growing influence on linguistic theory formation. While this development is very promising, it also involves the risk that fundamental notions are understood in a different way in different subfields, so that congruent results may only be apparent or cross-discipline generalizations may be overlooked – dangers that are very real, as notorious examples from the past have shown. The present volume is an (...) attempt to minimize such risks. First, one of the editors, Manfred Krifka, has contributed an article in which he proposes precise definitions for the key notions of information structure and embeds his definitions into the context of the current debate. Second, we asked colleagues from the SFB 632 and external experts on information structure for short contributions shedding light on the notions of information structure from various perspectives by offering definitions and discussing the scope and nature of the fundamentals of information structure for their subfields. These contributions complement each other, in the sense that Krifka’s proposal may be considered a frame for the other papers. However, they should not be considered the final.. (shrink)

An interesting asymmetry in syntactic change is that OV base order is commonly replaced by VO, whereas the reverse development is quite rare in languages.1 A shift to VO has taken place in several branches of the Indo-European family, as well as in Finno-Ugric. The Germanic languages conform to this trend in that the original OV order seen in its older representatives, and (in more rigid form) in modern German, Dutch, and Frisian, has given way to a consistently head-initial (...) syntax in English, Scandinavian, and Yiddish. (shrink)

National Cancer Institute, Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center, Laboratory of Experimental and Computational Biology, PO Box B, Frederick, MD 21702-1201, USA..

The present proposal is an approach to the vision, cosmogony and philosophy of the Totonacapan people, and particularly with the inhabitants of the Totonacapan region in Veracruz Mexico, a town whose wisdom is manifested to this day, in the conservation of customs and traditions , as well as the hierarchy of collective desire that seeks health, well-being and peace in the region, are guides in the evolution of their cultural processes, where a closeness, respectful and deep with Mother Nature stands (...) out. This wisdom by the Council of Elders, transmitted to the new generations, by the Supreme Council of Totonacapan who seek share the basis to understand and conceive the current world, from the ancestral vision and cosmogony to identify their space, thought, spirituality and in the building your social context. In the Totonacapan region, the first pre-hispanic population concentrations were located around 1259 to 1311. Already by the year 1450, there is a record of incursions and the conquest of Totonaca territory, by the Mexica, establishing a relationship of domain and subordination. As a result of the presence of "Mexica" in the Totonaco territory, there was an imposition of customs and language, since in some areas they begin to speak in Nahuatl, resulting in the presence of a bilingualism (Nahuatl-Totonac) , situation that persists, until the encounter with the Spaniards in the year of 1519. At present, the Totonacapan region includes the area that extends from the Cazones River to the north, to the towns of Gutiérrez Zamora and Tecolutla, in the State of Veracruz in Mexico. 2 The importance of the document is that it constitutes an invitation to deepen and understand the vision of the inhabitants of Totonacapan, in the construction of their social context and their connection with nature, as part of an ancient culture, which creates and recreates their vision, in the search for the feeling of belonging and as an inheritance of the children of thunder (Tajin), as well as the need to preserve the benefits that nature itself offers them, seeking a peaceful and harmonious coexistence, in the social and environmental environment. However, the preservation of its history, tradition and philosophy of life, contrast with public policy strategies, particularly in the social sphere, and which are aimed at achieving economic development in the fight against multidimensional poverty and marginalization, all Once they have not incorporated into them, the feeling and living of the relationship between individual and nature, as the guiding axis, of the philosophy of the Totonacapan people. What is sustainability for the people of Totonacapan? What is social justice in the search for sustainability? And what is your concept of justice in sustainability and human development? From the vision and philosophy of the people of Totonacapan, as part of the history and tradition of the children of thunder "Tajin" and in whose worldview, he is responsible for regulating the rain, climate and life of the people of the region. How does the people of Totonacapan live and live in the face of the maelstrom of actions that, from public policy, that seek human development? How do you adjust, your way of life and how do you adapt to the requirements, which from the perspective of justice, are required to contribute to the objectives of the 2030 development agenda? This document is an effort to learn and recognize one of the most important millenary cultures in Mexico, in the construction of a more inclusive vision of the social development of the Totonacapan people, which invites us to reflect on the direction and scope of this response. (shrink)

Philosophy of science sees itself in the tradition of epistemology, whose epistemological paradigm it adopts and on which it is based, namely the subject-object model of cognition in conjunction with the idea of certainty of knowledge and the claim to the 'critical legitimation' of knowledge. On closer inspection, however, its own development turns out to be a deconstruction of the basic epistemological idea, namely the idea of certainty of knowledge. Without this, however, not only the adherence to the linear (...) subject-object model of cognition, but also the claim to the 'legitimation' of cognition loses its binding force. For philosophy of science this means the opportunity to rethink its own task, i.e. to take a step back from the claim of 'critical legitimation' of scientific knowledge to its unbiased reflection, starting from the real, holistic situation of cognition. It is only in this framework that the fundamental difference between the concepts of cognition, namely the object-related concept of metaphysics (to which epistemology also refers), and the transcendental, cross-referential concept of physics becomes epistemologically comprehensible. And the question also arises as to what our notion of cogniton and our epistemological ideas are all about. It will turn out that these are essentially based on an ontological premise, which in reality is gradually being undermined by physics. In other words, these epistemological ideas themselves are an obstacle to an adequate understanding of physics. (shrink)

Part of education as interactive exercise is related to a community of practitioners, a dialogue based philosophy of morals which supposes ethical normative characteristics of the discourse. This normative layer can be interpreted either in relation to the lifeworld, i. e. to the understanding of the good life. Alternatively, it can be realized in relation to some cultural rights, since a mutual recognition based ethics, aiming at highlighting culture as necessary feature of human dignity, can explain an ultimate goal of (...) higher education as global and universal education. Since the whole set of human rights should be seen as an indivisible system of basic limits to individual and collective freedom, a right based approach would be the other main perspective, certainly relevant in the context of the African continent, as it is worldwide. Furthermore a right based understanding is a much ignored aspect of human rights, although intimately related to basic interests of the higher education system from either the point of view of the national education systems, or as private universities and it is also related to non-governmental organisations understanding of the general aim of higher education development, where international organizations could help in the implementation of these cultural rights based good practices. In the first section we first develop briefly a normative ethical model of education based on the transformative model of the ethics of discourse compared to other possible classical models based on merit, then we will present cultural rights, reminding us some aspects of cultural rights related to higher education, and address the relevance for the African context of a contextual reflection on these rights. (shrink)

Imagine a Paleolithic hunter, who has failed to hunt down anything for a couple of days and is hungry. He has an urgent desire, the desire to eat, which he is not able to fulfill – his desire is frustrated by the world. Now imagine our contemporary bank clerk, who went to work forgetting his wallet at home and is hungry too. He too is not able to fulfill his urgent desire to eat because it is frustrated by the world. (...) From the viewpoint of the two individuals the situation is very similar. However, it differs in at least one crucial respect. While the hunter cannot eat because there is no food available to him anywhere near (at least as far as he can find out), the clerk can easily find tons of food - it is enough to visit a nearest supermarket. The reason why he cannot get the food is not that it would be physically impossible, but because taking food from store's shelves without paying is forbidden. This story reminds us that many of the barriers that constrain our lives and make us find our way merely within the space delimited by them are no longer barriers in the literal sense of the word - they are no longer produced by the conspiracy of the causal laws that form our physical niche. Rather they are produced by the conspiracy of attitudes of our fellow humans - they are deliberate rules, rather than inexorable natural laws. In this way evolution is canalized not by the environment relatively independent of it, but rather by the ploy of the organisms it itself has brought into being. I think that realizing the full import of this autocatalyctic situation may lead us, on the one hand, to the appreciation of certain philosophical doctrines, pervasive especially after Kant, regarding normativity as the hallmark of the human, while, on the other hand seeing how they get enlightened by scientific doctrines regarding the development of the human race its continuities/discontinuities with its animal cousins. (shrink)

Introduction: the neuroscientific turn in political science The observation that brains and political orders are interdependent is almost trivial. Obviously, political orders require brain processes in order to emerge and to remain in place, as these processes enable action and cognition. Conversely, every since Aristotle coined man as “by nature a political animal” (Aristotle, Pol.: 1252a 3; cf. Eth. Nic.: 1097b 11), this also suggests that the political engagements of this animal has likely consequences for its natural development, including (...) the development of its psychological functions. Given these mutual interdependencies, it is remarkable that only since the 1960s, the more general domain of ‘biopolitics’ has attracted attention though first particularly in the form of behavioral politics (Alford and Hibbing). Since then biopolitics has gained in interest, so much so that different subdomains can be identified. Indeed, a 2008 review of the field of biopolitics identified five ‘headings’ of it: “(1) the case for a ‘more biologically oriented political science’, (2) ‘biologically related’ public policy issues, (3) physiological measures of political attitudes and behaviour, (4) the influence of physiological factors on actual political behaviour, and (5) the manner in which our species’ evolutionary history has left homo sapiens genetically endowed with certain social and political behavioural tendencies” (Somit and Peterson 43). Striking is how the relation between biology and politics is taken here in a rather unidirectional way, emphasizing particularly the decisive power of biology upon politics. The reverse relation is not mentioned specifically, reflecting the field of biopolitics, perhaps until quite recently. This absence of studies of political influences on our biology may have to do with the difficulty in investigating such influences. Empirical studies in biopolitics have two foci, broadly speaking: genetics and the brain, both of which have turned out to be complex and dynamic phenomena (Alford and Hibbing). Yet the studies of genetics and brain processes have made much progress in the last few decades, thanks to the development of research instruments - like fMRI brain scanners and TMS brain stimulation instruments - and of computational tools for data analysis and the simulation of explanatory models. For the field of biopolitics it is particularly relevant that within cognitive neuroscience the study of social and political issues has witnessed an increasing interest of researchers even more recently. Indeed, aware of the enabling and mediating role of the brain regarding those issues, a truly ‘neuroscientific turn’ can be observed in the social sciences, testified for example by the emergence of the field of ‘neuropolitics’ (Connolly; Vandervalk). Developing a systematic neuropolitics or biopolitics in general is a difficult challenge because of the wealth of causal influences on and interdependencies between biological, brain, cognitive and socio-political factors. Taking a somewhat more abstract perspective, this paper focuses on the process of emerging complexity in adaptive systems, enabling those to conduct ever more complex processes. Yet, parallel to that development can be observed that such systems, or organisms, are also capable in reducing the complexity of the information they are to process. Once they’re capable of developing and adjusting such compressed and complex representations of information, those systems or organisms can handle more information faster and more efficient and adaptive, yielding important benefits to the organism in navigating its environment (Halford, Wilson and Phillips). Before focusing on the role of narrative as a cognitive strategy for such a reduction of informational complexity, I will discuss the development of stable structures and increasing complexity in dynamic systems. Such a more general perspective prepares our discussion of the structures of both narratives and politics and in doing so contributes to the explanation of their interaction. (shrink)

Abstract We examine the construction of electromagnetism in its current form, and in an alternative form, from a point of view that combines a minimal realism with strict rational demands. We begin by discussing the requests of reason when constructing a theory and next, we follow the historical development as presented in the record of original publications, the underlying epistemology (often explained by the authors) and the mathematical constructions. The historical construction develops along socio-political disputes (mainly, the reunification of (...) Germany and the second industrial revolution), epistemic disputes (at least two demarcations of science in conflict) and several theories of electromagnetism. Such disputes resulted in the militant adoption of the ether by some, a position that expanded in parallel with the expansion of Prussia. This way of thinking was facilitated by the earlier adoption of a standpoint that required, as a condition for understanding, the use of physical hypothesis in the form of analogies; an attitude that is antithetic to Newton's “hypotheses non fingo”. While the material ether was finally abandoned, the epistemology survived in the form of “substantialism” and a metaphysical ether: the space. The militants of the ether attributed certainties regarding the ether to Faraday and Maxwell, when they only expressed doubts and curiosity. Thus, the official story is not the real history. This was achieved by the operation of detaching Maxwell's electromagnetism from its construction and introducing a new game of formulae and interpretations. Large and important parts of Maxwell work are today not known, as for example, the rules for the transformation of the electromagnetic potentials between moving systems. When experiments showed that all the theories based in the material ether were incorrect, a new interpretation was offered: Special Relativity (SR). At the end of the transformation period a pragmatic view of science, well adapted to the industrial society, had emerged, as well as a new protagonist: the theoretical physicist. The rival theory of delayed action at distance initiated under the influence of Gauss was forgotten in the midst of the intellectual warfare. The theory is indistinguishable in formulae from Maxwell's and its earlier versions are the departing point of Maxwell for the construction of his equations. We show in a mathematical appendix that such (relational) theory can incorporate Lorentz' contributions as well as Maxwell's transformations and C. Neumann's action, without resource to the ether. Demarcation criteria was further changed at the end of the period making room for habits and intuitions. When these intuited criteria are examined by critical reason (seeking for the fundaments) they can be sharpened with the use of the Non Arbitrariness Principle, which throws light over the arbitrariness in the construction of SR. Under a fully rational view SR is not acceptable, it requires to adopt a less demanding epistemology that detaches the concept from the conception, such as Einstein's own view in this respect, inherited from Hertz. In conclusion: we have shown in this relevant exercise how the reality we accept depends on earlier, irrational, decisions that are not offered for examination but rather are inherited from the culture. (shrink)

Skeptical atheism is deeply concerned with the development of a true atheistic belief-system which competes with allegedly false theistic belief-systems. Spiritual atheists are concerned with building a successful atheistic culture to compete with an allegedly dysfunctional theistic culture. These atheisms are compared in terms of their epistemologies, metaphysics, axiologies, eschatologies, soteriologies, prosocial activities, and individual practices. Skeptical atheism is likely to remain a perpetually marginal community. Spiritual atheism may become a significant alternative to theism.

The opposed concepts of continuity and discreteness have figured prominently in the development of mathematics, and have also commanded the attention of philosophers. Continuous entities may be characterized by the fact that they can be divided indefinitely without altering their essential nature. So, for instance, the water in a bucket may be indefinitely halved and yet remain water. (For the purposes of illustration I ignore the atomic nature of matter which has been established by modern physics.) Discrete entities, on (...) the other hand, typically cannot be divided without effecting a change in their nature: half a wheel is plainly no longer a wheel. Thus we have two contrasting properties: on the one hand, the property of being indivisible, separate or discrete, and, on the other, the property of being indefinitely divisible and continuous although not actually divided into parts. (shrink)

I confront Feyerabend's position and critical rationalism in order to have a foundation or starting point for my (historical) investigation. The main difference of his position towards falsificationism is the belief that different theories cannot be discussed rationally. Feyerabend is convinced that Galilei's observations with the telescope in the historical context of the Copernican revolution supports his criticism. In particular, he argues that the Copernican theory was supported by deficient hypotheses, and falsifications were disposed by ad hoc hypotheses and propaganda. (...) Furthermore, he claims that his philosophy of science reconstructs Galilei's defence of the Copernican theory. He introduces a central principle of his position (the principle of tenacity) in order to justify a research strategy of not eliminating falsified theories. He tries to show that the tenacious defence of a theory corresponds to Galilei's defence of the Copernican theory. Remarkably, Feyerabend's approach to explain the development of science earns an important support from his interpretation of Galilei's observations. On this basis I give a falsificationist interpretation of Galilei's observations with the telescope, and oppose this interpretation to Feyerabend's. From a falsificationist perspective, auxiliary hypotheses compete during the Copernican revolution which can (with some effort) be critically discussed. Then I analyse the historical case in order to test Feyerabend's interpretation of the Copernican revolution. Inter alias I investigate thoroughly whether Galilei, as Feyerabend claims, immunised falsifications of the Copernican theory by the introduction of ad hoc hypotheses. The investigation considers Galilei's explanation of Venus' phases, his establishment of the irradiation hypothesis, the explanation of the telescope's functionality, and the role of the reproducibility of the observations with the telescope. Finally I provide a rational reconstruction of Galilei's falsification of the Ptolemaic theory. The formalisation shows that Galilei was not a cautious critical rationalist, but a very confident scientist using the method of falsification. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, transhumanism is a movement seeking to advance the cause of post-humanity. It advocates using science and technology for a reconstruction of the human condition sufficiently radical to call into question the appropriateness of calling it “human” anymore. While there is not universal agreement among transhumanists as to the best path to this goal, the general outline is clear enough. Advances in genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, robotics and nanotechnology will make possible the achievement of the Baconian vision of “the (...) relief of man’s estate,” as they allow us to conquer disease, eliminate unhappiness, end scarcity and postpone, perhaps indefinitely, death itself. But fulfilling such long-standing dreams is only the beginning of what our new powers will make possible. Left to itself, the present trajectory of technological development necessarily aims at a future incomprehensible to beings such as we are – at no distant date an evolutionary leap in the way intelligence is embodied, and what it can accomplish. Transhumanism seeks to make sure no atavistic scruple obstructs this momentum, and to maximize its benefits and minimize its admitted risks. While there is no lack of illuminating print works advocating transhumanism, that its public face should be on the World Wide Web is as much a matter of course as once would have been the use by similar movements of the printed broadside or the public lecture. On the websites of the World Transhumanist Association (www. transhumanism.org) and the Extropy Institute (www.extropy. org) – premier among transhumanism’s many organizations – one finds authoritative statements explaining and justifying the transhumanist project. If transhumanism were primarily an academic school or a professional association, it would not be entirely fair to turn to these admittedly popular presentations for a critical look at the transhumanist vision. But as these are the documents by which transhumanism presents itself to the public as a movement, and through which it hopes to gain adherents, it is legitimate to make.... (shrink)

The rapid development of artificial intelligence is profoundly transforming the production, dissemination, and application of knowledge, creating the most significant structural challenge to higher education since the emergence of the modern university. As large language models increasingly undertake knowledge retrieval, text generation, coding, data analysis, and even certain creative tasks, the traditional university centered on knowledge transmission is gradually losing its monopoly over knowledge production and distribution. Although contemporary educational reforms have shifted from knowledge-based learning toward competency development, (...) problem-oriented learning, and human–AI collaboration, these approaches largely remain within the framework of subject formation and fail to address the deeper crisis of subjectivity emerging in the age of artificial intelligence. Drawing upon the Theory of Subject Generation and the Philosophy of Awakening-Culture Education, this article argues that subject development unfolds through three stages of non-awakening—phenomenal consciousness, self-reflective consciousness, and ontological consciousness—corresponding respectively to conceptual attachment, innate ego-attachment, and innate attachment to ultimate principles. Beyond these stages lies a threefold path of awakening: emptiness, illusory existence, and the non-duality of emptiness and existence. On this basis, the paper proposes a new educational paradigm that moves from subject generation to awakening generation. The future university should not merely cultivate knowledge subjects, moral subjects, or civilizational subjects, but ultimately foster awakened subjects capable of meaning creation, responsibility, self-transcendence, and civilizational leadership. Accordingly, the fundamental mission of higher education in the AI era is not to produce individuals who can outperform artificial intelligence in calculation and reasoning, but to cultivate awakened human beings who can guide the future development of intelligent civilization. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Higher Education; Subject Generation; Awakening Education; Philosophy of Awakening-Culture Education; Philosophy of AI Awakening; Awakening Generation; Crisis of Subjectivity; Awakened Civilization; Philosophy of Education. (shrink)

Although there has been little written to date that speaks directly to problems of religious luck, described in other terms these problems have a long history. Contemporary contributors to the literature have referred to “soteriological luck” (Anderson 2011) “salvific luck” (Davidson 1999) and “religious luck” (Zagzebski 1994). Using “religious” as the unifying term, Part I of this monograph begins with the need a more comprehensive taxonomy. Serious philosophic interest in moral and epistemic luck took hold only after comprehensive taxonomies for (...) those kinds of luck were introduced, but this has not yet been done for religious luck. Even if incomplete, the more comprehensive taxonomy, as introduced in Chapter One enables better diagnostic questions to be raised for researchers. Emerging questions about potentially ‘luck leaning’ attributions of good/bad religious luck, and of the possibility and desirability of “luck free theologies,” are questions which I hope to motivate as of central interest to researchers in philosophy of religion, both secular and religious. The taxonomy highlights why we should take two concerns — with the concept of religious luck and with asymmetric or sharply differential ascriptions of religious value — to be inextricably connected. The connection between attributing good/bad luck and violating inductive norms is easy to see upon reflection. One related distinction common in recent work on epistemic luck is that between benign evidential luck (‘benign’ because consistent with justified belief and knowledge), and malign (positive epistemic status undercutting) veritic luck. How, philosophically, this distinction should be understood is an especially acute problem when it comes to testimonial trust, and to intellectually virtuous or vicious ways of assessing testimonial claims, and sources of claims. So the chapter concludes with development of the case of Tess, as an example of testimonial environmental veritic luck. The Tess case is constructed to be formally analogous to the environmental veritic luck operating in fake barn cases (where visual perception rather than reception of testimony is the source of the agent’s belief). There does seem to be an intrinsic connection between epistemic assessment of the agent’s beliefs and the inductive context in which their own and their religious community’s inquiry takes place. This will allow for some potentially powerful thought experiments in successive chapters, about luck, risk, and questions of epistemic in/justice as they pertain to religious faith ventures. (shrink)

The physics literature contains many claims that elementary particles have been observed: such observational claims are, of course, important for the development of existential knowledge. Regarding claimed observations of short-lived unstable particles in particular, the use of the word 'observation' is based on the convention in physics that the observation of a short-lived unstable particle can be claimed when its predicted decay products have been observed with a significance of 5 sigma. This paper, however, shows that this 5 sigma (...) convention is inconsistent with existing concepts of observation by showing that unstable particles with a lifetime of less than 0.01 attosecond are fundamentally unobservable both from the perspective of Fox's recent concepts of direct and indirect observation, and from the perspective of Van Fraassen's notion of observability. This cognitive inaccessibility of parts of the subatomic world has far-reaching implications for physics, not the least of which is that the aforementioned convention is untenable: claims that such short-lived unstable particles have been observed will thus have to be retracted. The main implications are two incompleteness theorems for physics, respectively stating (i) that experiments cannot prove completeness of a physical theory predicting short-lived unstable particles, and (ii) that experiments cannot prove correctness of such a theory|one can at most test its empirical adequacy. On a general note, the conclusion is that the importance of philosophical arguments for particle physics is herewith demonstrated: it is, thus, a widespread misconception that philosophical arguments can be completely avoided. (shrink)

The concepts of social capital are important in improving the quality of life. However, the effects of social capital accumulated in the economic, social and political spheres can be both positive and negative. Article brings the specificity of trust as a key variety of social capital and it's status among the Poles. Indicated are also differences between the suspicion, mistrust and functional substitutes for trust. The whole is complemented by breakdown of bottom-up methods of social capital building. ** Koncepcje kapitału (...) społecznego mają istotne znaczenie w podnoszeniu jakości życia. Niemniej skutki oddziaływania nagromadzonego kapitału społecznego w sferach ekonomicznej, społecznej i politycznej mogą być zarówno pozytywne, jak i negatywne. Artykuł przybliża specyfikę zaufania jako kluczowej odmiany kapitału społecznego i jego stan wśród Polaków. Wskazane zostają też różnice między nieufnością, brakiem zaufania i funkcjonalnymi substytutami zaufania. Całość uzupełnia zestawienie oddolnych metod budowania kapitału społecznego. (shrink)

Summary Transsexuals are individuals who identify as a member of the gender opposite to that which they are born. Many transsexuals report that they have always had a feeling of a mismatch between their inner gender-based ‘‘body image’’ and that of their body’s actual physical form. Often transsexuals undergo gender reassignment surgery to convert their bodies to the sex they feel they should have been born. The vivid sensation of still having a limb although it has been amputated, a phantom (...) limb, was first described by Weir Mitchell over a century ago. The same phenomenon is also occurs after amputation of the penis or a breast. Around 60% of men who have had to have their penis amputated for cancer will experience a phantom penis. It has recently been shown that a significant factor in these phantom sensations is ‘‘cross-activation’’ between the de-afferented cortex and surrounding areas. Despite this it also known that much of our body image is innately ‘‘hard-wired’’ into our brains; congenitally limbless patients can still experience phantom sensations. We hypothesise that, perhaps due to a dissociation during embryological development, the brains of transsexuals are ‘‘hard-wired’’ in manner, which is opposite to that of their biological sex. We go on to predict that male-to-female transsexuals will be much less likely to experience a phantom penis than a ‘‘normal’’ man who has had his penis amputated for another reason. The same will be true of female-to-male transsexuals who have had breast removal surgery. We also predict that some female-to-male transsexuals will have a phantom penis even although there is not one physically there. We believe that this is an easily testable hypothesis, which, if correct, would offer insights into both the basis of transsexuality and provide farther evidence that we have a gender specific body image, with a strong innate component that is ‘‘hard-wired’’ into our brains. This would furnish us with a better understanding the mechanism by which nature and nurture interact to link the brain-based internal body image with external sexual morphology.. (shrink)

From my ongoing "Metalogical Plato" project. The aim of the diagram is to make reasonably intuitive how the Socratic elenchos (the logic of refutation applied to candidate formulations of virtues or ruling knowledges) looks and works as a whole structure. This is my starting point in the project, in part because of its great familiarity and arguable claim to being the inauguration of western philosophy; getting this point less wrong would have broad and deep consequences, including for philosophy’s self-understanding. (i.) (...) is the first pass at elenchos in which the Socratic interlocutor does not reflect on knowledge being the crux of the problem. (ii.) is the second, rarer, reflective pass in which they are, making the investigation explicitly about knowledge. Its centrality in the Charmides makes that neglected dialogue of superlative importance. This structure is also the gateway through which the discussion/dialectic crosses into the Agathology (discussion of the form of the good) at Republic 505. The problem of elenchos, then, grasped as a whole structure, is that it seems that knowledge can neither satisfactorily be included in nor excluded from its own scope. The development of the ti esti (“what is ---?”) question leads to the introduction of knowledge into its own scope (i. implicitly, as goodness contrasted with blind rule-following ii. explicitly qua knowledge) while the development of the dual peri tinos (“----about what?) question leads to K’s elimination from its own scope. The introductions are motivated to avoid contradiction, but produce regress; the eliminations are motivated to avoid regress, but produce contradiction. In scholarship, and in the history of philosophy, the ti esti question is universally recognized, to the point of being identified with philosophy’s origin and essence; the peri tinos question is neglected textually and never recognized as the equal dual to the ti esti. This, I claim, has blocked the development of a nontrivial logical appreciation of what Plato's Socrates is up to. (One rather disastrous effect of this neglect is taking Aristotle as the beginning of the development of logic, rather than, correctly, for the beginning of logic’s fatal separation from mathematics and dialectic.) Further, because of this monopticism of the ti esti, the function of consistency in the elenchos has not been understood, even with respect to the ti esti. The ti esti is actually in search of completeness, given a norm of consistency; the peri tinos is in search of consistency, given a norm of completeness. Only appreciating the two questions as dual allows space in the structure to clarify these different orientations relative to consistency. (And, dually, to completeness, whose function in the elenchos is generally entirely missed by scholars and relegated to discussions of eros; it's not out of place there, of course, but its significance is secured here.) Recognizing the duality of the ti esti and peri tinos questions is thus the royal road, in the Socratic-Platonic context, to catching sight of what we post-Cantorians can recognize as the metalogical duality of consistency and completeness. (The salutary disruptive effects of this Plato-Cantor proximity have, of course, been traced in complementary ways by Badiou.) Note that the diagram is supposed to provide a relatively accessible orientation, not to stand on its own, and certainly not to be the last word on any subject. An important qualification (telegraphed in the previous paragraph) is that what elenchos shows is not finally circular or paradoxical, though the problem first presents as such (stubbornly, obdurately, as "difficult" Plato's Socrates always says with characteristic understatement). What is depicted here is meant, at a first pass, to be the shape of that first presentation, the form of the problem of elenchos, rather than of its solution. It's not an accident that this problem strongly resembles "Russell's paradox" (not Russell's not a paradox.) Problem is to solution as RP is to the diagonal theorems. (shrink)

The importance of the working document is that it allows the analysis of the information and the status of cases associated with (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19 as open data at the municipal, state and national level, with a daily record of patients, according to a age, sex, comorbidities, for the condition of (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19 according to the following characteristics: a) Positive, b) Negative, c) Suspicious. Likewise, it presents information related to the identification of an outpatient and / or hospitalized patient, attending to (...) their medical development, identifying: a) Recovered, b) Deaths and c) Active, in Phase 3 and Phase 4, in the five main population areas speaker of indigenous language in the State of Veracruz - Mexico. The data analysis is carried out through the application of a data mining algorithm, which provides the information, fast and timely, required for the estimation of Medical Care Scenarios of (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19, as well as for know the impact on the indigenous language speaking population in Veracruz. For this purpose, the following study zones are presented: a) Totonacapan Zone, b) Huasteco from the Tantoyuca Zone, c) Otomi from the Inxhuatlan de Madero Zone, d) Nahuatl from the Zongolica Zone, e) Nahuatl from the Chicontepec Zone, f) Nahualt from the Pajapan Zone and g) Popoluca from the Soteapan Zone. This data article presents the information as of August 1, 2020 corresponding to the Totonacapan Area. (shrink)