On the basis of an earlier contribution to the philosophy of computer science by Amnon Eden, this essay discusses to what extent Eden’s ‘paradigms’ of computer science can be transferred or applied to software engineering. This discussion implies an analysis of how software engineering and computer science are related to each other. The essay concludes that software engineering can neither be fully subsumed by computer science, nor vice versa. Consequently, also the philosophies of computer science and software engineering—though related to (...) each other—are not identical branches of a general philosophy of science. This also implies that not all of Eden’s earlier arguments can be directly mapped from the domain of computer science into the domain of software science. After the discussion of this main topic, the essay also points to some further problems and open issues for future studies in the philosophy of software science and engineering. (shrink)

In their Minds and Machines essay How would you know if you synthesized a Thinking Thing? (Kary & Mahner, Minds and Machines, 12(1), 61–86, 2002), Kary and Mahner have chosen to occupy a high ground of materialism and empiricism from which to attack the philosophical and methodological positions of believers in artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial life (AL). In this review I discuss some of their main arguments as well as their philosophical foundations. Their central argument: ‘AI is Platonism’, which (...) is based on a particular interpretation of the notion of ‘definition’ and used as a critique against AI, can be counter criticized from two directions: first, Anti-Platonism is not a necessary precondition for criticizing AI, because outspoken Platonist criticism against AI is already known (Penrose, The emperor’s new mind (with a foreword by M. Gardner), 1989). Second, even in case that AI would essentially be ‘Platonism’ this would not be a sufficient argument for proving AI wrong. In my counter criticism I assume a more or less Popperian position by emphasizing the openness of the future: Not by quasi-Scholastic arguments (like Kary and Mahner’s), but only after being confronted with a novel ‘thinking thing’ by future AI engineers we can start to analyze its particular properties (Let me use a history analogon to illustrate my position: In the 19th century, mechanized aviation was widely regarded impossible—only natural organisms (such as birds or bees) could fly, and any science of aerodynamics or aviation did not exist. Only after some non-scientific technicians had confronted their astonished fellows with the first (obviously) flying machine the science of ‘Artificial Aviation’ came into existence, motivated by the need for understanding and mastering that challenging and puzzling new phenomenon). (shrink)

P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb; widows: 2; orphans: 2; }P.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; } Hegel's transient notion of "Aether", developed and finally abandoned again during his short period of time at the University of Jena in the early years of the 19th century, has received comparatively little attention so far – much less than, for example, his Phenomenology (...) of Spirit, or his later systematic works which he published after his departure from Jena. In modern and contemporary physics, on the other hand, novel notions comparable to Hegel's "aether" have become interesting again with the rise of quantum physics. In this essay we recapitulate and explain the notion of "Aether" in Hegel's works and compare it to novel aether concepts which might be appropriate in the context of contemporary quantum physics. Such a juxtaposition would well have matched Hegel's own intentions, since he had always been a keen observer of the latest developments in the natural sciences during his own lifetime. In conclusion we can say that, in spite of a number of differences, both notions of aether can be speculatively characterised by the paradoxical term "reality of possibility". (shrink)

‘Information’ is a fundamental notion in the field of artificial intelligence including various sub-disciplines such as cybernetics, artificial life, robotics, etc. Practically the notion is often taken for granted and used naively in an unclarified and philosophically unreflected manner, whilst philosophical attempts at clarifying ‘information’ have not yet found much consensus within the science-philosophical community. One particularly notorious example of this lack of consensus is the recent Fetzer-Floridi dispute about what is ‘information’—a dispute which has remained basically unsettled until today (...) in spite of a sequence of follow-up publications on this topic. In this chapter our philosophical analysis reveals with reference to Gottlob Frege’s classical semiotics that the above-mentioned Fetzer-Floridi dispute cannot come to any solution at all, because the two competing notions of ‘information’ in that dispute are basically synonyms of what Frege had called ‘sense’ versus what Frege had called ‘meaning’. As Frege had convincingly distinguished sense and meaning very clearly from each other, it is obvious that ‘information’ understood like ‘sense’ and ‘information’ understood like ‘meaning’ are incompatible and cannot be reconciled with each other. Moreover we also hint in this chapter at the often-forgotten pragmatic aspects of ‘information’ which is to say that ‘information’ can always only be ‘information for somebody’ with regard to a specific aim or goal or purpose. ‘Information’, such understood, is thus a teleological notion with a context-sensitive embedding into what the late Wittgenstein had called a ‘language-game’. Shannon’s quantified notion of ‘information’, by contrast, which measures an amount of unexpected surprise and which is closely related to the number of definite yes-no-questions which must be asked in order to obtain the desired solution of a given quiz puzzle, is not the topic of this chapter—although also in Shannon’s understanding of ‘information’ the quiz puzzle scenario, within which those yes-no-questions are asked and counted, is obviously purpose-driven and Sprachspiel-dependent. We conclude our information-philosophical analysis with some remarks about which notion of ‘information’ seems particularly amenable and suitable for an autonomic mobile robotics project which one of the two co-authors is planning for future work. To separate this suitable notion of ‘information’ from other ones a new word, namely ≪enlightation≫, is coined and introduced. (shrink)

Approximately a century after the bio-philosopher Hans Driesch had published some of his most interesting books, which had been to some extent misunderstood and subsequently fallen to some extent into oblivion, the relevance of some of Driesch's ideas for our own time is, since recently, beginning to be rediscovered. This is, inter alia, because the philosophical triple-relation between the notions of 'mind', 'living body', and 'machine' is still not compellingly clarified by any of the various competing philosophical 'schools' until today, (...) whereby the advent of the programmable computer as an entirely new type of 'machine' has made all the related problems even more complicated. Within this science-philosophical context, this review article revisits and briefly recapitulates some of Driesch's most 'salient' thoughts on the mind-body-problem, and additionally provides some bibliographic auxiliary materials which nowadays students of Driesch's ideas might find useful. The writing of this review was motivated by the desire to clarify some often-seen misunderstandings of Driesch's concept of 'soul' within his two-fold framework of 'vitalism plus phenomenology', as well as by the desire to reconnect our contemporary science-, mind-, nature- and computer-philosophical discourses with one of their most important historic sources. (shrink)

Over the past four decades, software engineering has emerged as a discipline in its own right, though it has roots both in computer science and in classical engineering. Its philosophical foundations and premises are not yet well understood. In recent times, members of the software engineering community have started to search for such foundations. In particular, the philosophies of Kuhn and Popper have been used by philosophically-minded software engineers in search of a deeper understanding of their discipline. It seems, however, (...) that professional philosophers of science are not yet aware of this new discourse within the field of software engineering. Therefore, this article aims to reflect critically upon recent software engineers’ attempts towards a philosophy of software engineering and to introduce our own philosophical thoughts in this context. Finally, we invite the professional philosophers of science to participate in this interesting new discourse. (shrink)

Examines widespread myths about transhumanism and explores the most pressing ethical issues in the debate over technologically assisted human enhancement.

This paper develops a model of political consensus in order to explain the missing link between inequality and political redistribution. Political consensus is an implicit agreement not to vote for extreme policy proposals. We show that such an agreement may play an efficiency-enhancing role. Voters anticipate that voting for extremist parties increases policy uncertainty in the future. A political consensus among voters reduces policy uncertainty because self-interested politicians propose non-discriminatory policies. We study how much inequality can be sustained in a (...) democracy and how the limits to redistribution vary with initial inequality. The bounds of the set of political equilibria may react in a fundamentally different manner to changes in exogenous variables than do the policy variables in the one-dimensional, one-shot game. More initial inequality need not lead to more redistribution from the rich to the poor. The maximum amount of redistribution decreases with inequality if (and only if) agents are sufficiently patient. In this case inequality is politically self-sustaining. (shrink)

It is pointed out against the two critics (a) that an identity or partial identity of meanings and facts is logically impossible, (b) that the logical grammar of ?identify? and ?explain? is different from that of ?understand? and that hence understanding can never be an operation of identifying or explaining, and (c) that rational understanding does not involve a ?reproduction? of the subject matter in any controversial sense.

"Provides translations of Bolzano's most important work on grounding, including previously untranslated material"--.

Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money.

In this chapter we deal with the challenge to the existence of free will and moral responsibility that is raised by the threat of determinism from a Wittgensteinian perspective. Our argument starts by briefly recapitulating Wittgenstein’s analysis of the practice of doubt in On Certainty. We subsequently turn to the problem of free will. We argue that the existence of free will is a basic certainty and that the thesis of determinism fails to cast doubt on it. We thereby make (...) use of – but also try to go beyond – Wittgenstein’s own remarks in his “Lectures on Freedom of the Will”. In the final section we focus more explicitly on moral responsibility. Inspired by P.F. Strawson’s work on free will and moral responsibility, which we take to be deeply Wittgensteinian, we argue that our practices of holding each other responsible manifest basic human certainties which cannot be meaningfully challenged by invoking the thesis of determinism. (shrink)

Users of sociotechnical systems often have no way to independently verify whether the system output which they use to make decisions is correct; they are epistemically dependent on the system. We argue that this leads to problems when the system is wrong, namely to bad decisions and violations of the norm of practical reasoning. To prevent this from occurring we suggest the implementation of defeaters: information that a system is unreliable in a specific case (undercutting defeat) or independent information that (...) the output is wrong (rebutting defeat). Practically, we suggest to design defeaters based on the different ways in which a system might produce erroneous outputs, and analyse this suggestion with a case study of the risk classification algorithm used by the Dutch tax agency. (shrink)

In order to explain that sentences containing empty definite descriptions are nevertheless true or false, Russell famously analyzes sentences of the form ‘The F is G’ as ‘There is exactly one F and it is G’. Against this it has been objected that Russell’s analysis provides the wrong truth-conditions when it comes to non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. For example, according to Heim, Kripke, and Elbourne (HKE), there are circumstances in which (1) is true and (2) is false. Hans wants the ghost (...) in his attic to be quiet tonight.Hans wants there to be exactly one ghost in his attic and for it to be quiet tonight. After all, the argument goes, unlike (2), (1) can be true without Hans wanting there to be exactly one ghost in his attic. Kaplan and Neale famously reply that the HKE objection presupposes that non-doxastic attitudes are closed under entailment, which they are not. For Rostworowski, on the other hand, the problematic principle used by the HKE objection is a substitutivity principle for non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. This is further supported by the fact that, as Elbourne points out, Russell’s analysis already leads to a problem similar to the HKE objection together with substitutivity alone. By questioning substitutivity for non-doxastic attitude ascriptions, Rostworowski tries to block both the HKE objection and Elbourne’s variant of the HKE objection. In this paper, I will argue that Russell’s analysis of definite descriptions leads to a variant of the HKE objection even in the context of doxastic attitude ascriptions. Since, as we will see, doxastic attitude ascriptions do not seem to suffer from the substitutivity problems discussed by Rostworowski in the context of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions, this will further exacerbate the problem for Russell’s analysis. I will then discuss the possibility to reject substitutivity for doxastic attitude ascriptions using a contextualist analysis of attitude ascriptions. However, we will see that, independent of whether we accept substitutivity for doxastic attitude ascriptions, a complete solution of the doxastic problem has to reject Russell’s analysis of the truth-conditions of sentences of the form ‘The F is G’. Concluding, I will show that, unlike Russell’s analysis, the Frege–Strawson analysis of definite descriptions, according to which a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ presupposes that there is exactly one F, rather than asserting it, provides an explanation of the HKE objection, Elbourne’s variant of the HKE objection, and the doxastic problem presented in this paper. This will speak not only in favor of a Fregean analysis of definite descriptions, but also of a Fregean conception of propositions. (shrink)

Transhumanism : in a nutshell -- On a silicon-based transhumanism -- On a carbon-based transhumanism -- A fictive ethics -- The end of the beginning.

Wenn digitale Technologien wie künstliche Intelligenz, Blockchain und Robotik auf die Medizin treffen, entstehen zwangsläufig ethische Fragestellungen. Diese lassen sich nicht ohne Weiteres mit medizinisch-technologischen, rechtlichen oder ökonomischen Argumenten allein beantworten. Neue Themenfelder wie die sich wandelnde Rolle der Patienten, die neue Verantwortung von Ärzten und Pflegenden, neue digitale Möglichkeiten in der Medizin, Smart Hospitals im Klinikalltag, die gesellschaftliche Legitimität eines möglichen dritten Datengesundheitsmarktes, eine zukunftsfeste Ausbildungslandschaft für den Gesundheits-/Medizinbereich sowie die Grenzen der digitalen Forschung bedürfen einer kritischen und gleichzeitig (...) thematisch breiten Auseinandersetzung mit ethischen Aspekten in der digitalen Gesundheitswirtschaft und Medizin. (shrink)

Das Werk entkräftet das Vorurteil, Kants Philosophie sei für eine Reflexion der kulturellen Welt unzureichend. Klingner entwickelt die Option einer Kulturphilosophie als Theorie technischer Vernunft mit Bezug auf den kantischen Kulturbegriff und auf seinen Philosophiebegriff. Damit erweist sich zugleich, dass eine kantische Kulturphilosophie rekonstruierbar und in ihrem Gehalt auch heute noch diskussionswürdig ist.

Dray: Mandelbaum legislates regarding the historian's "task" in the guise of descriptive analysis. He seems to envisage two fundamental tasks for the historian: explaining, and relating parts to wholes. Contrary to Mandelbaum's implication, there is no more opposition between narration and either of these tasks than there is between the two tasks themselves.Ely: Mandelbaum refutes White and Danto, who both hold that historical writing is essentially narrative; but not Gallie, who asserts that historical writing is necessarily, but never solely, a (...) narrative construction. The claim that history is essentially narrative is fruitful even though false because it recognizes an important characteristic of historical thinking - the historian's conceptual isolation of a series of intentional human actions from the situations with which they were designed to cope.Gruner: Mandelbaurn is correct in his criticism of narrativism, but does not support his criticism by good reasons. Historians offer both static, non-narrative descriptions and kinetic, narrative descriptions. Historical description is therefore not the same as historical narration; the latter is only a species of the former. (shrink)

This chapter discusses some of the central theoretical perspectives on culture and cultural practices implied in Pragmatism and interactive constructivism. The first part of the chapter highlights three major perspectives on cultural theory to be found in Dewey's thought: culture and experience, culture and habit, and culture and communication. The chapter then compares basic conceptual tools and interpretive approaches and shows that Dewey's work continues to provide fundamental resources in this field. Through this connection, it presents a brief introduction to (...) theories of discourse and power and discusses some implications for current controversies regarding multiculturalism. It argues that Dewey's Pragmatism and the Cologne program of interactive constructivism share a robust interest in culture and cultural diversity. (shrink)

Throughout his philosophical work, Schelling came to increasingly emphasize his conviction that the ultimate principles of philosophy are essentially practical: the ego formally conceived as act in early philosophy, creation as the unfolding of structurally rich action in late philosophy. It remained unclear, however, exactly what constituted the practicality of these principles, namely which concept of action Schelling used and how it is being integrated into the totality of his system. The task this study sets itself is to investigate into (...) these issues in respect to his middle and late philosophy. With the doctrine of potencies serving as point of departure, spirit is first reconstructed as practical consciousness. Creation as an ontotheological original act with the historical world as the space of human action is then systematically developed. Freedom, foresight, purposefulness, intentionality and futurity prove to be the central practical attributes of both human and divine action. Their connection is manifested in the religious consciousness of man and instantiated metaphysically in the relationship of time and eternity. Schelling's positive philosophy shows that these practical aspects are the irreducable prerequisites to render the historical world process intelligible. (shrink)

This imaginative and unusual book explores the moral sensibilities and cultural assumptions that were at the heart of political debate in Victorian and early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the role of intellectuals as public moralists and suggests ways in which their more formal political theory rested upon habits of response and evaluation that were deeply embedded in wider social attitudes and aesthetic judgments. Collini examines the characteristic idioms and strategies of argument employed in periodical and polemical writing, and reconstructs (...) the sense of identity and of relation to an audience exhibited by social critics from John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold to J.M. Keynes and F.R. Leavis. (shrink)

Sur la décomposition des ensembles de points en parties respectivement congruentes.

We are currently witnessing the emergence of a ‘third culture’, driven by unprecedented developments that are changing the playing field. These include advances in AI, big data analysis and robotics. The traditional ‘two cultures’ view (S. P. Snow) distinguishes between the sciences and the humanities. The wisdoms these two cultures offer are separated from each other, with little to no interaction or mutual comprehension. However, over the past two decades, and for the first time in human history, a new, third (...) culture has appeared. This new culture, rooted in new technologies, not only pursues its own form of rationality but also supports advances in the original two cultures, deepening and expanding our individual and collective consciousness so that we can see more and do better. It will eventually give rise to new forms of consciousness based not on biochemical signals, but on copper wires and lithium chips. These new machine intelligences will change the world and force us to realise: we are no longer alone. The human species’ position in the twenty-first century will be fundamentally redefined: not as a conductor leading the orchestra, but a single string player within it. (shrink)

La sensation d'être soumis à une contrainte implacable peut déclencher une souffrance intense, une activité délirante, ou bien une créativité irrépressible. Elle peut prendre la forme d'une "machine" à influencer. Cette figure majeure de la maladie psychique depuis deux cents ans est le point de départ et le fil conducteur pour éclairer la structure complexe et paradoxale de la subjectivité. Loin d'être un outil technique, elle est un enjeu d'abord existentiel et esthétique. De Tausk à Szondi et Maldiney, de Merleau-Ponty (...) à Guattari et Deleuze, de Deligny à Nauman et Duchamp, de Sobchack à Epstein et Godard, et enfin, à nouveau, de Merleau-Ponty à Guattari, on voit émerger les contours d'une subjectivité en tension,toujours déjà habitée d'une altérité qui la garde en mouvement. Et l'ontologie de la chair apparaît finalement comme un champ essentiellement politique. (shrink)

Wie gehen wir mit Gewordenem um, wie bedingt das Gewordene unser Handeln? Wie interagieren das Gewordene und wir? Das sind grundlegende Fragen unseres Alltags, die in diesem Buch zum Prinzip einer kulturwissenschaftlichen Methode - der Signifikanten-Interaktionsanalyse - erhoben werden. Die Analyseobjekte der Signifikanten-Interaktionsanalyse (SIA) werden als Formation verstanden, die aus materiellen, perzeptiven, emotionalen, sprachlichen Signifikanten bestehen. SIgnifikanten verweisen aufeinander und bedingen sich relational, so dass fur sich stehende, eigentlich bedeutungslose Signifikanten in ihrem relationalen Verbund Aussagekraft entfalten. JEde Aussage beruht auf (...) einer Interaktion mehreren Signifikanten. JEder Signifikant wird als potentieller Aktant verstanden. MIt der SIA lassen sich die Interaktionen zwischen Signifikanten auf formalisierte Aussagen reduzieren. DIes geschiet mittels dreier Interaktionsmodi - Belassen, Anpassen oder Beseitigen -, die aus dem Umgang mit Gewordenem abgeleitet werden. DIe formalisierten Aussagen konnen Werthaltung, Wertschopfung, Wertvernichtung, identitat, Integritat, Einzigartigkeit und Differenz von Signifikanten erfassen. (shrink)

In der vorliegenden Studie geht der Autor den mannigfaltigen Zusammenhängen von Gründung und Begründung in der Welt nach, um mit Martin Heidegger zu zeigen, dass all diese Zusammenhänge Freiheit voraussetzen, aus Freiheit hervorgehen oder doch zumindest freiheitsbedingt sind. Die Analyse des ontologischen Freiheitsbegriffs Heideggers nimmt so die Gestalt einer phänomenologischen Destruktion von „Grund“ an. Der Fokus des Buches liegt auf Heideggers tatsächlichem Gebrauch des Begriffs „Freiheit“. Ausgangspunkt der Untersuchung ist das Diktum „Die Freiheit ist der Grund des Grundes“. Dieser Satz (...) fällt in Heideggers „metaphysische Periode“, die sich auf den Zeitraum von 1928 bis 1930 beschränkt und in der er versucht, einen positiven Begriff von Metaphysik, eine Metaphysik des Daseins, zu entwerfen. Zur Aufschlüsselung dieses Diktums konzentriert sich die Untersuchung daher auf eben jenen Zeitraum. Im ersten Kapitel wird der Begriff des Grundes systematisch und philosophiehistorisch untersucht, um unsere Praxis des Begründens offenzulegen und aufzuzeigen, wie diese Praxis bereits den Begriff von Welt präsupponiert. Das zweite Kapitel widmet sich Heideggers positivem Verständnis von Freiheit und weist nach, wie die beiden Begriffe „Grund“ und „Freiheit“ mittels des Weltbegriffs miteinander verwoben sind. Das dritte Kapitel zieht ein Resümee und setzt die Ergebnisse in einen breiteren phänomenologischen Kontext, der nicht allein auf Heidegger beschränkt bleibt. Das vierte und letzte Kapitel setzt sich mit den ethischen Implikationen von Heideggers ontologischem Freiheitsbegriff auseinander. (shrink)

Towards a critical posthumanism -- Genealogy of posthumanism -- Our posthuman humanity and the multiplicity of its forms -- Posthumanism and science fiction -- Interdisciplinarity and the posthumanities -- Posthumanism, digitalization, and new media -- Posthumanity, subject, and system -- Other side of life.

This study defends the legitimacy of the Enlightenment project by way of its different realizations in the philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. Today, Enlightenment as a cosmopolitan project with a global claim is often considered synonymous with Western chauvinism. The assertion of a universally binding reason is all too obviously inconsistent with the much-cited recognition of cultural differences. In contrast, it is the conviction brought forward in this book that an adequately understood Enlightenment is an unconditional right (...) of every person taking an active interest in a self-determined way of life. Only the realization of this conception of Enlightenment can provide the required space for the reciprocal recognition of human differences to freely unfold. (shrink)