There is a crucial debate concerning the nature of chess chunks: One current possibility states that chunks are built by encoding particular combinations of pieces-on-squares (POSs), and that chunks are formed mostly by “close” pieces (in a “Euclidean” sense). A complementary hypothesis is that chunks are encoded by abstract, semantic information. This article extends recent experiments and shows that chess players are able to perceive strong similarity between very different positions if the pieces retain the same abstract roles in both (...) of them. This casts doubt on the idea that POS information is the key information encoded in chess chunks, and this article proposes, instead, that the key encoding involves the abstract roles that pieces (and sets of pieces) play—a theoretical standpoint in line with the research program in semantics that places analogy at the core of cognition. (shrink)

The well-known game of chess has traditionally been modeled in artificial intelligence studies by search engines with advanced pruning techniques. The models were thus centered on an inference engine manipulating passive symbols in the form of tokens. It is beyond doubt, however, that human players do not carry out such processes. Instead, chess masters instead carry out perceptual processes, carefully categorizing the chunks perceived in a position and gradually building complex dynamic structures to represent the subtle pressures embedded in the (...) positions. In this paper we will consider two hypotheses concerning the underlying subcognitive processes and architecture. In the first hypothesis, a multiple-leveled chess representational structure is presented, which includes distance graphs (with varying levels of quality) between pieces, piece mobilities, and abstract roles. These representational schemes seem to account for numerous characteristics of human player’s psychology. The second hypothesis concerns the extension of the architecture proposed in the Copycat project as central for modeling the emergent intuitive perception of a chess position. We provide a synthesis on how the postulated architecture models chess intuition as an emergent mixture of simultaneous distance estimations, chunk perceptions, abstract role awareness, and intention activations. This is an alternative model to the traditional AI approaches, focusing on the philosophy of active symbols. (shrink)

Analogy-making is an ability with which we can abstract from surface similarities and perceive deep, meaningful similarities between different mental objects and situations. I propose that mental objects are dynamically changing sets of potentially interchangeable connotations. Unfortunately, most models of analogy seem devoid of both semantics and relevance-extraction, postulating analogy as a one-to-one mapping devoid of connotation transfer.

Experts in all fields are able to see what is invisible to others. Experts are also able to see what is visible to all—and this is explored by Bilalić and Gobet. We question the method of normalizing all subjects in an experimental condition, and asking experts to behave as if they were novices. We claim that method leads Bilalić and Gobet to a nonsequitur.

One of the twentieth century’s most brilliant and unconventional thinkers, Alexandre Kojève was a Russian émigré to France whose lectures on Hegel in the 1930s galvanized a generation of French intellectuals. Although Kojève wrote a great deal, he published very little in his lifetime, and so the ongoing rediscovery of his work continues to present new challenges to philosophy and political theory. Written in 1931 but left unfinished, Atheism is an erudite and open-ended exploration of profound questions of estrangement, (...) death, suicide, and the infinite that demonstrates the range and the provocative power of Kojève’s thought. Ranging across Heidegger, Buddhism, Christianity, German idealism, Russian literature, and mathematics, Kojève advances a novel argument about freedom and authority. He investigates the possibility that there is not any vantage point or source of authority—including philosophy, science, or God—that is outside or beyond politics and the world as we experience it. The question becomes whether atheism—or theism—is even a meaningful position since both affirmation and denial of God’s existence imply a knowledge that seems clearly outside our capacities. Masterfully translated by Jeff Love, this book offers a striking new perspective on Kojève’s work and its implications for theism, atheism, politics, and freedom. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of the prospects and ethics of using AI to achieve human enhancement, and more broadly what we call intellectual augmentation (IA). After explaining the central notions of human enhancement, IA, and AI, we discuss the state of the art in terms of the main technologies for IA, with or without brain-computer interfaces. Given this picture, we discuss potential ethical problems, namely inadequate performance, safety, coercion and manipulation, privacy, cognitive liberty, authenticity, and fairness in more detail. (...) We conclude that while there are very significant technical hurdles to real human enhancement through AI, and significant ethical problems, there are also significant benefits that may realistically be achieved in ways that are consonant with a rights-based ethics as well. We also highlight the specific concerns that apply particularly to applications of AI for "sheer" IA (more realistic in the near term), and to enhancement applications, respectively. (shrink)

This is a commentary on Andrea Lavazza and Murilo Vilaça's article "Human Extinction and AI: What We Can Learn from the Ultimate Threat" (Lavazza & Vilaça, 2024). I discuss the potential concern that their proposal to create artificial successors to "insure" against the tragedy of human extinction might mean being too quick to accept that catastrophic prospect as inevitable, rather than single-mindedly focusing on avoiding it. I also consider the question of the value that we might reasonably assign to such (...) a future of artificial successors under the assumption that they do not enjoy phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

This paper considers the medium of videogames from a goodmanian standpoint. After some preliminary clarifications and definitions, I examine the ontological status of videogames. Against several existing accounts, I hold that what grounds their identity qua work types is code. The rest of the paper is dedicated to the epistemology of videogaming. Drawing on Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin's works, I suggest that the best model to defend videogame cognitivism appeals to the notion of understanding.

Les travaux d'Alexandre Matheron sur Spinoza et sur la philosophie de l'âge classique représentent un des points forts de l'école française d'histoire de la philosophie. Après Individu et Communauté chez Spinoza et Le Christ et le salut des ignorants, ces études complètent la vision du spinozisme et de son contexte, de ses racines et de sa signification historique. Elles traitent de tous les domaines du rationalisme classique : métaphysique, théorie de la connaissance, analyse des passions, éthique, politique et religion. (...) La méthode qui anime ces textes est celle d'une analyse structurale de la pensée philosophique : il s'agit de prendre au sérieux le caractère conceptuel des doctrines, leurs enchaînements argumentatifs, la rigueur et la cohérence de leurs catégories. Mais la considération de l'architecture d'un monument théorique ne se conçoit pas sans la biographie non de l'auteur mais de l'oeuvre : comment Spinoza est devenu Spinoza ; en d'autres termes, comment il a forgé sa pensée en traversant les arguments et les concepts de Machiavel, de Hobbes ou de Descartes pour arriver à des formulations de plus en plus spinozistes de son ontologie de la puissance. Le rationalisme absolu apparaît ainsi non seulement comme contenu des pensées étudiées mais aussi comme méthode d'histoire de la philosophie. Une démarche qui a donné des outils intellectuels à plusieurs générations de chercheurs et qui indique aujourd'hui le chemin pour pénétrer dans l'univers de la pensée classique. La seule façon rigoureuse de nous demander ce qui pour nous, de ces philosophies, est vrai. (shrink)

Too many somersaults -- The strange creature that I am -- Giving meaning to reality -- The sincerity of true kindness -- Embracing our condition -- Drawing strength from our weakness -- Pity anesthetizes -- The other's gaze -- The joy of being alive -- They talked and analyzed -- Culture shock -- Conditional happiness -- A man of God -- A craving for learning -- Genuine friends -- Marginal.

Henri Bergson is primarily known for his work on time, memory, and creativity. His equally innovative interventions into politics and religion have, however, been neglected or dismissed until now. In the first book in English dedicated to Bergson as a political thinker, leading Bergson scholars illuminate his positions on core concerns within political philosophy: the significance of emotion in moral judgment, the relationship between biology and society, and the entanglement of politics and religion. Ranging across Bergson's writings but drawing mainly (...) on his last book, _The Two Sources of Morality and Religion_, the contributors consider Bergson's relevance to contemporary discussions of human rights, democratic pluralism, and environmental ethics. _Contributors._ Keith Ansell-Pearson, G. William Barnard, Claire Colebrook, Hisashi Fujita, Suzanne Guerlac, Vladimir Jankélévitch, Frédéric Keck, Leonard Lawlor, Alexandre Lefebvre, Paola Marrati, John Mullarkey, Paulina Ochoa Espejo, Carl Power, Philippe Soulez, Jim Urpeth, Melanie White, Frédéric Worms. (shrink)

Natural modalities are often analysed from an abstract point of view where they are associated with putative laws of nature. However, the way possibilities are represented in physics is more complex. Lagrangian mechanics, for instance, involves two different layers of modalities: kinematical and dynamical possibilities. This paper examines the status of these two layers, both in the classical and quantum case. The quantum case is particularly problematic: we identify four possible interpretive options. The upshot is that a close inspection of (...) the way possibilities are represented in physics could lead to new ways of thinking about natural modalities. (shrink)

The advent of the Web is one of the defining technological events of the twentieth century, yet its impact on the fundamental questions of philosophy has not yet been explored, much less systematized. The Web, as today implemented on the foundations of the Internet, is broadly construed as the space of all items of interest identified by URIs. Originally a space of linked hypertext documents, today the Web is rapidly evolving as a universal platform for data and computation. Even swifter (...) is the Web‐driven transformation of many previously unquestioned philosophical concepts of privacy, belief, intelligence, cognition, and even embodiment in surprising ways. The ensuing essays in this collection hope to explore the philosophical foundation of the World Wide Web and open the debate on whether or not the changes caused by the Web to technology and society warrant the creation of a philosophy of the Web. (shrink)

Cette préface présente le contexte politique et culturel du fameux discours de Helmholtz prononcé à Heidelberg le 22 novembre 1862, où il défend une certaine idée de l’université et des relations entre les différentes disciplines qu’elle enseigne. L’idée de pluridisciplinarité, tant invoquée aujourd’hui, est au cœur de son propos, ainsi que celle d’une conciliation possible entre philosophie et sciences de la nature, mais en partant du point de vue de ces dernières.

Introduction: De la morale dans la littérature.--François Rabelais.--Michel de Montaigne.--Pierre Charron.--Étienne de la Boëtie.--Jean Bodin.--Michel de l'Hôpital.--Dix-septième siècle: considérations préliminaires.--La Rochefoucauld.--La Bruyère.--Récapitulation: moralistes ascétiques, période intermédiaire.--Saint-Evremond.--Pierre Bayle.--De la spontanéité de l'esprit humain en matière de philosophie.--La volonté cherchant sa loi.

In a previous article on cosmological arguments, I have put forward a few examples of complete infinite and circular explanations, and argued that complete non-wellfounded explanations such as these might explain the present state of the world better than their well-founded theistic counterparts (Billon, 2021). Although my aim was broader, the examples I gave there implied merely causal explanations. In this article, I would like to do three things: • Specify some general informative conditions for complete and incomplete non-wellfounded causal (...) explanations that can be used to assess candidate explanations and to generate new examples of complete non-wellfounded explanations. • Show that these conditions, which concern chains of causal explanations, easily generalize to chains of metaphysical, grounding explanations and even to chains involving other “determination relations” such as supervenience. • Apply these general conditions to the recent debates against the existence of nonwellfounded chains of grounds and show, with a couple of precise examples, that the latter can be complete, and that just like in the case of causal explanations, non-wellfoundedness can in fact be an aset rather than a liability. (shrink)

"Alexandre Vanautgaerden's research shows that Erasmus never ceased to adapt, depending on each type of text, the layouts of his books to best control their reception. A reversal of the traditional countdown of the exegesis of Erasmus's works, which lends at times a blind faith to his correspondence, this present work focuses on the study of manuscripts and printed books. Erasmus would not settle for just writing his texts, but preoccupied himself, with a growing scrupulousness, with the manner in (...) which they would be read. In addition to this new biography of an Erasmus who we discover riveted to the material existence of his books, the reader will find a great number of unedited documents, in Latin or in translation, as well as a list of the humanist's first editions. This volume offers a new look on the status of authors and readers at the beginning of the 16th century. It will interest historians of books as much as of humanism"--Publisher's website. (shrink)

This commentary further explores some of the ethical issues raised by Prof. Peter Singer in his Lanson Lecture “Pandemic Ethics: Five Lessons”. In the first part, I distinguish a prioritarian approach to the allocation of scarce medical resources, from the utilitarian one advocated by Singer. I suggest that the prioritarian view better matches common intuitions about fair distribution, even though it likely needs to be balanced with other principles if it is to have plausibility in contexts like vaccine allocation. In (...) the second part of the commentary, I take a global perspective (as Singer himself does regarding the ethics of lockdowns), and highlight the controversial implications of adopting a fully cosmopolitan ethical outlook when deciding how to distribute Covid-19 vaccines. I also raise justice-related concerns about Singer’s proposal to use well-being as a single metric for evaluating public health policies. (shrink)

Patients suffering from the Cotard syndrome can deny being alive, having guts, thinking or even existing. They can also complain that the world or time have ceased to exist. In this article, I argue that even though the leading neurocognitive accounts have difficulties meeting that task, we should, and we can, make sense of these bizarre delusions. To that effect, I draw on the close connection between the Cotard syndrome and a more common condition known as depersonalisation. Even though they (...) are not delusional, depersonalised patients seem to have experiences that are quite similar to those of Cotard patients. I argue that these experiences are essentially characterised by a lack of subjective character and of two other structural features of experience, which I call ‘the present character’ and ‘the actual character’. Cotard's nihilistic delusions simply consist in taking these anomalous experiences at face value. (shrink)

Les paysages méditerranéens? La construction de leur histoire comme l'expérience de leur aventure esthétique sont fécondées par les migrations, les nomadismes, les rencontres et les commerces géographiques (Fernand Braudel, La Méditerranée). Dans cette perspective, cet essai rend d'abord compte d'une poétique à l'oeuvre dans l'espace méditerranéen, puis d'une représentation en excès où se manifeste un goût des artistes méditerranéens pour l'art des contraires... Les paysages y apparaîtront, dès lors, comme une plate-forme de rencontres inter-sémiotiques, comme une mer des passages entre (...) les images, les textes et les sons dont l'espace et son expression seraient, ici, les dépositaires, le miroir et l'arborescence. Logique de la mappemonde, note sur l'espace (pourquoi méditerranéen?) est accompagné d'un cahier iconographique de photographies de Florence Chevallier, Bernard Guillot, François Méchain, Corinne Mercadier, Bernard Plossu, ainsi que de photogrammes extraits de films de Jean-Luc Godard et de Jean-Daniel Pollet. (shrink)

Ilan Gur-Ze'ev and Education: Pedagogies of Transformation and Peace critically analyses and introduces the main ideas of Ilan Gur-Ze'ev, reflecting on their continuing theoretical and practical relevance for the field of education. This book offers an accessible, higher-level critical discussion on the thought of Ilan Gur-Ze'ev with an impressive breadth and contemporary focus. The book focuses on Gur-Ze'ev's 'counter-pedagogy' project, which brought him much attention and attempts to establish an alternative and non-dogmatic form of education. Gur Ze'ev's views go against (...) 'critical pedagogy' and 'neoliberalism', because while the former advocates achieving an utopia in which there is no oppression, the later defends the idea that 'wants and desires' need to be satisfied through a process of 'marketisation'. This book brings into notice Gur-Ze'ev's concepts of 'counter-education' and 'diasporic education' which seeks to pursue the truth in everyday life, rather than achieving a utopian goal, or the Promised Land. This unique and up-to-date monograph will be of great interest for researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, theory of education, peace education, Jewish education, neoliberalism, and sociology of education. (shrink)

John Rawls was what we might call a “frenemy” to Stanley Cavell. Time and again, Cavell states his admiration for Rawls's political philosophy but criticizes it for two reasons. First, he believes that Rawls too hastily dismisses a perfectionist tradition that is essential for a flourishing liberal democracy. Second, he attacks certain aspects of Rawls's theory of justice as moralistic and legalistic. The first half of this article examines Cavell's critique of Rawls and argues that the two authors are more (...) closely aligned than suspected. It begins by reconstructing Cavell's critique of Rawls, and using archival materials from Harvard University, presents for the first time Rawls's interpretation of this critique. The second half of the article highlights perfectionist themes in Rawls's A Theory of Justice. The contribution of this article is to reevaluate the relationship between two of the most important moral philosophers of the twentieth century and also to provide a more expansive theory of liberalism that incorporates the psychological depth, moral subtlety and political hopefulness of moral perfectionism. (shrink)

Computational reproducibility possesses its own dynamics and narratives of crisis. Alongside the difficulties of computing as an ubiquitous yet complex scientific activity, computational reproducibility suffers from a naive expectancy of total reproducibility and a moral imperative to embrace the principles of free software as a non-negotiable epistemic virtue. We argue that the epistemic issues at stake in actual practices of computational reproducibility are best unveiled by focusing on software as a pivotal concept, one that is surprisingly often overlooked in accounts (...) of reproducibility issues. Software is not only about designing and coding but also about maintaining, supporting, distributing, licensing, and governance; it is not only about developers but also about users. We focus on openness debates among computational chemists involved in molecular modeling software packages as empirical grounding for our argument. We then identify and analyse four epistemic characteristics as key to the role of software in computational reproducibility. (shrink)

" Alexandre est la joie. Celui qui n'a pas rencontré la joie, n'a pas rencontré Alexandre ", écrit Bernard Campan en ouverture de ce livre. A travers des extraits d'entretiens radiophoniques menés avec notamment Albert Jacquard et d'une conférence sur le thème de la résilience, Alexandre Jollien, tel un Socrate du XXIe siècle, fait part de son approche de la philosophie et met en œuvre son talent de passeur. Exégète des textes anciens, amoureux de la dialectique et (...) pédagogue averti, il nous fait comprendre la pensée de Spinoza et nous interroger avec Boèce. En forme d'écho, le comédien et réalisateur Bernard Campan, ami du philosophe suisse, évoque le cheminement de cette amitié sprirituelle avec une infinie délicatesse et une profonde pudeur. (shrink)

(2013). Does consciousness entail subjectivity? The puzzle of thought insertion. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 291-314. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2011.625117.

This chapter contains sections titled: A Tale of Two Philosophies: URIs between Proper Names and REST; From References to Referentialization; and Toward Ontological Politics.

Le noyau de cet ouvrage est formé par les notes prises de janvier 1933 à mai 1939 au cours que fit Alexandre Kojève à l'Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, sous le titre La philosophie religieuse de Hegel, et qui était en réalité une lecture commentée de la Phénoménologie de l'Esprit. Chaque année de cours est complétée par le résumé publié dans l'Annuaire de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes. De plus, les trois premières leçons de l'année 1937-1938 et toute l'année 1938-1939 (...) sont données dans leur texte intégral. Enfin, en guise d'introduction, on trouvera la traduction commentée de la section A du chapitre IV de la Phénoménologie de l'Esprit, parue dans Mesures (14 janvier 1939). (shrink)

Remise en cause de la théorie d’Einstein, de celle de Darwin, créationnisme et fondamentalismes, cosmologies païennes, mouvements technofascistes, idéologies radicales anti-science… Pourquoi des personnes formées à la science en viennent-elles à adopter une attitude en opposition virulente à la science de leur époque? Comment mobilisent-elles leur capacité de raisonnement au service de dogmes et d’idéologies sans rapport avec la science? Peut-on tirer un fil historique entre ces postures depuis la naissance de la science moderne au XVIe siècle? De nos jours, (...) quel est l’impact sur les rapports entre science et société de ces attitudes, diffusées et multipliées par le canal de l’Internet? Rejet de la science contemporaine, de la spécialisation et de l’abstraction mathématique ; appel au bon sens et à une science globale ; vitupération pouvant aller jusqu’à l’invocation de la théorie du complot ; instrumentalisation de la science à des fins idéologiques ou religieuses : voilà les principales caractéristiques des mouvements ou des individus étudiés dans cet ouvrage. Alexandre Moatti, ingénieur en chef des Mines, est chercheur associé en histoire des sciences et des idées à l’université Paris-VII-Denis-Diderot. Il est notamment l’auteur deEinstein, un siècle contre lui (2007). (shrink)

Using emotional film clips is one of the most popular and effective methods of emotion elicitation. The main goal of the present study was to develop and test the effectiveness of a new and comprehensive set of emotional film excerpts. Fifty film experts were asked to remember specific film scenes that elicited fear, anger, sadness, disgust, amusement, tenderness, as well as emotionally neutral scenes. For each emotion, the 10 most frequently mentioned scenes were selected and cut into film clips. Next, (...) 364 participants viewed the film clips in individual laboratory sessions and rated each film on multiple dimensions. Results showed that the film clips were effective with regard to several criteria such as emotional discreteness, arousal, positive and negative affect. Finally, ranking scores were computed for 24 classification criteria: Subjective arousal, positive and negative affect (derived from the PANAS; Watson & Tellegen, 1988), a positive and a negative affect scores derived from the Differential Emotions Scale (DES; Izard et al., 1974), six emotional discreteness scores (for anger, disgust, sadness, fear, amusement and tenderness), and 15 “mixed feelings” scores assessing the effectiveness of each film excerpt to produce blends of specific emotions. In addition, a number of emotionally neutral film clips were also validated. The database and editing instructions to construct the film clips have been made freely available in a website. (shrink)

According to what we will call subjectivity theories of consciousness, there is a constitutive connection between phenomenal consciousness and subjectivity: there is something it is like for a subject to have mental state M only if M is characterized by a certain mine-ness or for-me-ness. Such theories appear to face certain psychopathological counterexamples: patients appear to report conscious experiences that lack this subjective element. A subsidiary goal of this chapter is to articulate with greater precision both subjectivity theories and the (...) psychopathological challenge they face. The chapter’s central goal is to present two new approaches to defending subjectivity theories in the face of this challenge. What distinguishes these two approaches is that they go to great lengths to interpret patients’ reports at face value – greater length, at any rate, than more widespread approaches in the extant literature. (shrink)