Online research in philosophy

A startling amount of intelligent activity can be controlled without reasoning or thought. By tuning the perceptual system to task relevant properties a creature can cope with (...) relatively sophisticated environments without concepts. There is a limit, however, to how far a creature without concepts can go. Rod Brooks, like many ecologically oriented scientists, argues that the vast majority of intelligent behaviour is concept-free. To evaluate this position I consider what special benefits accrue to concept-using creatures. Concepts are either necessary for certain types of perception, learning, and control, or they make those processes computationally simpler. Once a creature has concepts its capacities are vastly multiplied. (shrink)

J.-P. Morel, « Le Docteur Toulouse ou le Cinéma vu par un psycho-physiologiste (1912-1928) », 1895. Revue de l'association française de recherche sur l'histoire du (...) cinéma, n° 60, 2010, p. 122-155. Cet ensemble de textes, réédités pour la première fois pour la plupart, met en lumière l'intérêt que le cinéma a suscité chez les scientifiques qui cherchaient à évaluer les changements que la perception de l'image intermittente pouvait occasionner sur la physiologie et la psychologie des spectateurs en y (...) - Brèves. (shrink)

Spade 1988 sugges t s tha t t he r e are ac tua l l y two theo r i e s t o address t (...) h i s ques t i o n t o , an ear l y one and a l a t e r one . 2 Most o f the presen t pape r i s a deve l o pmen t o f t h i s i dea . I sugges t tha t ear l y work by Sherwood and o the r s was a s tudy o f quan t i f i e r s : the i r semant i c s and t he e f f e c t s o f con t e x t on i n f e r e n ce s t ha t can be made f r om quan t i f i e d te rms . La te r , i n the hands o f Bur l e y and o the r s , i t changed i n t o a s tudy o f someth i n g e l se , a s tudy o f what I ca l l g loba l quan t i f i c a t i o n a l e f f e c t . In sec t i o n 1 , I exp l a i n what these two op t i o n s are. (shrink)

The general chemistry curriculum includes a prelude that consumes nearly all of the first semester and occupies the first third of the typical textbook. This necessary prelude (...) to the main event is comparable in scope to precalculus though not broken out as a formal ‘prechemistry’ course. Atomic orbitals account for much of this prelude-to-chemistry. By tradition, orbital theory is conveyed to the student in three disjunct pieces, presented in the following illogical order: the Pauli principle, the Aufbau principle, and Hund’s rule. (Often the n + l rule is tossed into the mix as well, though with no fixed place in the scheme). In the early twentieth century, as various researchers announced new insights into the atom at unpredictable intervals, no one could have been faulted for teaching orbitals in such a manner, catch-as-catch-can. A hundred years on, the vestiges of that (presumed) practice look wrong, and are indefensible. In the approach advocated here, orbitals would be taught as a single hierarchical rule-set, with the parts coherently sequenced as Aufbau–Hund–Pauli (and with Madelung’s n + l rule rehabilitated as part of Aufbau, no longer a free-floating mnemonic aid only). Logic aside, pragmatism offers its own argument for adopting this scheme: A tighter approach to Aufbau can lighten the ‘prechemistry’ burden significantly and bring the student that much sooner to chemistry itself. (shrink)

Several philosophical problems are based on an analogy between a real situation and a probabilistic model. Such problems are based on urn analogies. The present dissertation aims (...) to describe and implement a methodology oriented towards the resolution of philosophical problems based on an urn analogy. This methodology is based on the use of the n-universes. To this end, I describe first the n-universes in a detailed way. I also discuss the difficulties of the theory of n-universes related to the demultiplication of the criteria and to the relation one/many between the objects and a given criterion. On the one hand, I present an application of the framework of n-universes to the Doomsday argument and to the problems recently appeared in the literature in keeping with the Doomsday argument. My concern is also with showing how the application of the framework of n-universes to several problems and thought experiments related to the Doomsday argument helps clarifying the problem data and making disappear the associated ambiguity. I present then an analysis of the following problems related to the Doomsday argument: the two urn case, God's Coin Toss, the Sleeping Beauty Problem, the Presumptuous Philosopher, Lazy Adam, and the Shooting-Room Paradox. I present lastly a solution to the Doomsday argument, based on a third route, by contrast to two types of solutions classically described. On the other hand, I present an application of the framework of n-universes to Goodman's paradox. I replace first Goodman's statement in the framework of n-universes. I propose then a solution to the paradox, based on a distinction between two different modelizations of Goodman's statement in two structurally different n-universes. (shrink)

<span class='Hi'>span>6<span class='Hi'>span>. <span class='Hi'>span>Seeing<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>With<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>the<span class='Hi (...) class='Hi'>'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>Mind<span class='Hi'>span>’<span class='Hi'>span>s<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>Eye<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>1<span class='Hi'>span>: <span class='Hi'>span>The<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>Puzzle<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>of<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>Mental<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>Imagery<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>6<span class='Hi'>span>.<span class='Hi'>span>1<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>What<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>is<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>the<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>puzzle<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>about<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>mental<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>imagery<span class='Hi'>span>? <span class='Hi'>span>6<span class='Hi'>span>.<span class='Hi'>span>2<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>Content<span class='Hi'>span>, <span class='Hi'>span>form<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>and<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>substance<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>of<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>representations<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>6<span class='Hi'>span>.<span class='Hi'>span>3<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>What<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>is<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>responsible<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>for<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>the<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>pattern<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>of<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>results<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>obtained<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>in<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>imagery<span class='Hi'>span> <span class='Hi'>span>studies<span class='Hi'>span>? (shrink)

<span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span> readers of Greek ethics tend to (...) class='Hi'> favour those accounts of the virtuous ideal according to which virtue involves the development of our non-rational—appetitive and emotional—<span class='Hi'>span> motivations as well as of our rational motivations.<span class='Hi'>span> So our contemporaries find much of interest and sympathy in Aristotle’s conception of virtue as a condition in which reason does not simply override our appetites and emotions,<span class='Hi'>span> but these non-rational motivations themselves <span class='Hi'>span>‘speak with the same voice as reason’<span class='Hi'>span>.2 By contrast,<span class='Hi'>span> the Stoic.<span class='Hi'>span>. (shrink)

A B S T R AC T:<span class='Hi'>span> In this paper I consider an interpretation of future contingents which motivates a unification of a Łukasiewicz- (...) class='Hi'>style logic with the more classical supervaluational semantics.<span class='Hi'>span> This in turn motivates a new non-classical logic modelling what is <span class='Hi'>span>“made true by history up until now.<span class='Hi'>span>” I give a simple Hilbert-style proof theory,<span class='Hi'>span> and a soundness and completeness argument for the proof theory with respect to the intended models. (shrink)

Il presente scritto e’<span class='Hi'>span> attualmante inedito.<span class='Hi'>span> Per una versione in lingua inglese si veda Stefano Franchi,<span class='Hi'>span> "Palomar,<span (...) class='Hi'>class='Hi'>span> The Triviality of Modernity,<span class='Hi'>span> and the Doctrine of the Void,<span class='Hi'>span>” New Literary History,<span class='Hi'>span> 28 <span class='Hi'>span>(1997)<span class='Hi'>span>, 4,<span class='Hi'>span> 757-778.<span class='Hi'>span> Si prega di non citare da questa versione senza previa autorizzazione. (shrink)