It is well known that people from other disciplines have made significant contributions to philosophy and have influenced philosophers. It is also true (though perhaps not often realized, since philosophers are not on the receiving end, so to speak) that philosophers have made significant contributions to other disciplines and have influenced researchers in these other disciplines, sometimes more so than they have influenced philosophy itself. But what is perhaps not as well known as it ought to be is that researchers (...) in other disciplines, writing in those other disciplines' journals and conference proceedings, are doing philosophically sophisticated work, work that we in philosophy ignore at our peril. Work in cognitive science and artificial intelligence (AI) often overlaps such paradigmatic philosophical specialties as logic, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of action. This special issue offers a sampling of research in cognitive science and AI that is philosophically relevant and philosophically sophisticated. (shrink)
Nietzsche's reflection "What I Owe to the Ancients" in Twilight of the Idols has served as the touchstone for innumerable discussions in the scholarship on his work and thought. Not surprisingly, given the devotion to and kinship with the Greek philosophers that Nietzsche expressed throughout his productive career, these discussions have tended to focus on the impact of those philosophers (especially Socrates and Plato) on Nietzsche's intellectual development and especially on his mature views. That focus has not been misplaced, of (...) course; one can hardly overestimate Nietzsche's intellectual debt to philosophers in Greek antiquity. But the authors in this issue have been encouraged especially to explore untreated .. (shrink)
Founded in 1993, ELEKTRIK: Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, has gradually become better known and is fast establishing itself as a research oriented publication outlet with high academic standards. In a modest attempt to advance this trend, this special issue of ELEKTRIK brings together five papers exemplifying the state of the art in artificial intelligence (AI). Written by experts, the papers are especially aimed at readers interested in gaining a better appraisal of the applications side of the (...) AI enterprise. In all papers there is a strong emphasis on measuring the benefits of the proposed approaches in experimental contexts. The papers broadly fall into five actively researched, contemporary domains of AI: pattern recognition, genetic algorithms, fuzzy sets, intelligent design, and agents. (shrink)
In this special issue of Minds and Machines ("Situations and Artificial Intelligence") we take a close look at recent situation-theoretic research which has mostly originated within a philosophical framework but promises to have strong connotations for Artificial Intelligence workers. The seven papers which make up this special issue (three of the papers appear in Minds and Machines 9(1)) demonstrate the advantages of the situation-based approach towards problems with a definite AI flavor.
Since our visual perception of physical things essentially involves our identifying objects by their colours, any theory of visual perception must contain some account of the colours of things. The central problem with colour has to do with relating our normal, everyday colour perceptions to what science, i.e. physics, teaches us about physical objects and their qualities. Although we perceive colours as categorical surface properties of things, colour perceptions are explained by introducing physical properties like reflectance profiles or dispositions to (...) cause certain experiences in normal human perceivers. Hence, it seems as if colours as they are experienced by us have no place in the physical world, because they are fundamentally different from the properties which we ascribe to physical objects in scientific accounts of colour perceptions. This special issue on perspectives on colour perception presents new suggestions to solve to this major problem. (shrink)
Virtue ethics, the authors believe, is distinct and superior to other options because it considers, in the first place, which preferences are worth pursuing, rather than just blindly maximizing preferences, and it takes into account intuitions, emotions and experience, instead of acting solely on abstract universal principles. Moreover, virtue ethics is seen as firmly rooted in human biology and psychology, particularly in our freedom, rationality, and sociability. Work, business, and management are presented as vital areas for the development of virtues, (...) not the least with a view to human flourishing. We conclude by introducing the articles included in this special issue. (shrink)
From the Guest Editors Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s10806-010-9272-4 Authors Helena Röcklinsberg, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) Department of Animal Environment and Health Box 7068 750 07 Uppsala Sweden Mickey Gjerris, University of Copenhagen Danish Centre for Bioethics and Risk Assessment Rolighedsvej 25 1958 Frederiksberg C Denmark Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863.
From the Guest Editors Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s10806-010-9272-4 Authors Helena Röcklinsberg, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) Department of Animal Environment and Health Box 7068 750 07 Uppsala Sweden Mickey Gjerris, University of Copenhagen Danish Centre for Bioethics and Risk Assessment Rolighedsvej 25 1958 Frederiksberg C Denmark Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863.
In our routine communicative activities, context is exploited both in production and in comprehension, and is strictly related to another problematic notion, viz. meaning. Thus Bateson (1979: 15): ‘‘Without context, words and actions have no meaning at all. This is true not only of human communication in words but also of all communication whatsoever, of all mental process, of all mind, including that which tells the sea anemone how to grow and the amoeba what he should do next.’’.
In traditional linguistic accounts of context, one thinks of the immediate features of a speech situation, that is, a situation in which an expression is uttered. Thus, features such as time, location, speaker, hearer and preceding discourse are all parts of context. But context is a wider and more transcendental notion than what these accounts imply. For one thing, context is a relational concept relating social actions and their surroundings, relating social actions, relating individual actors and their surroundings, and relating (...) the set of individual actors and their social actions to their surroundings. (shrink)
