The new wave of ‘foundation models’—general-purpose generative AI models, for production of text (e.g., ChatGPT) or images (e.g., MidJourney)—represent a dramatic advance in the state of the art for AI. But their use also introduces a range of new risks, which has prompted an ongoing conversation about possible regulatory mechanisms. Here we propose a specific principle that should be incorporated into legislation: that any organization developing a foundation model intended for public use must demonstrate a reliable detection mechanism for the (...) content it generates, as a condition of its public release. The detection mechanism should be made publicly available in a tool that allows users to query, for an arbitrary item of content, whether the item was generated (wholly or partly) by the model. In this paper, we argue that this requirement is technically feasible and would play an important role in reducing certain risks from new AI models in many domains. We also outline a number of options for the tool’s design, and summarize a number of points where further input from policymakers and researchers would be required. (shrink)

'China, by her resources and her population, is capable of being the greatest power in the world after the United States.' Bertrand Russell, The Problem of China In 1920 the philosopher Bertrand Russell spent a year in China as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Beijing, where his lectures on mathematical logic enthralled students and listeners, including Mao Tse Tung, who attended some of Russell's talks. Written at a time when China was largely regarded by the (...) West as backward and weak, The Problem of China sees Russell rise above the prejudices of his era and presciently assess China's past, present and future. Russell brings his analytical and insightful eye to bear on some fundamental aspects of China's history and politics, cautioning China against adopting a purely Western model of social and economic development, which he regarded as characterized by a combination of greed and militarism. Beginning with an overview of nineteenth-century Chinese history and considering China's relations with Japan and Russia, Russell then contrasts Chinese civilization with Western. He devotes a fascinating chapter to the character of the Chinese, which he argues is complex but ultimately defined by a 'pacific temper'. With uncanny foresight, Russell predicts China's resurgence, but only if it is able to establish an orderly government, promote industrial development under Chinese control and foster the spread of education. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new introduction by Bernard Linsky. (shrink)

Studies on rational conjecture, inference, and reckoning.

Bernard Williams identifies Hume as “in some ways an archetypal reconciler” who, nevertheless, displays “a striking resistance to some of the central tenets of what [Williams calls] ‘morality’”. This assessment, it is argued, is generally correct. There are, however, some significant points of difference in their views concerning moral responsibility. This includes Williams’s view that a naturalistic project of the kind that Hume pursues is of limited value when it comes to making sense of “morality’s” illusions about responsibility and blame. (...) It is, Williams maintains, only when we consider moral responsibility in genealogical terms, which gives attention to the importance of culture and history, that we can find a way of exposing the various prejudices and illusions of “the morality system”. Nevertheless, despite these differences, what Hume and Williams share is a fundamental commitment to provide a more “truthful” and “realistic” understanding of moral responsibility and our human ethical predicament. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger’s Discourse on Thinking lays out a troubling view of the world which holds true today much as it did at the time of the speech: "The world now appears as an object open to the attacks of calculative thought, attacks that nothing is believed able any longer to resist. Nature becomes a gigantic gasoline station, an energy source for modern technology and industry. This relation of man to the world as such, in principle a technical one, developed in (...) the seventeenth century first and only in Europe. It long remained unknown in other continents, and it was altogether alien to former ages and histories" (50). As an architecture professor in an age of modern technology, I believe it critical that design students cultivate an ability to see more comprehensively and learn how to think more meditatively (as Heidegger later suggests). Coming into a state of attunement with context, culture, and environment must be considered to be the most basic criteria for building in the world, as these are the elements that preserve the feeling and identity of ‘place’. Considering being-in-the-world as a stance that necessarily moves more toward complex understandings of the environment, this paper outlines an effort given to the pedagogical implementation of Martin Heidegger’s description of the phenomenon of ‘world’, the three-fold structure for Being-in as a means of teaching students a more attuned comportment toward place, building, and site. I will discuss how these ideas were used in an preliminary design exercise, then clarified and elaborated through a lecture on Terrance Malick’s film The New World. (shrink)

Due to the prevalence, severity, and costs associated with autism spectrum disorders, it has become a public health issue. In response, state governments have adopted ASD-specific private insurance mandates requiring coverage of ASD screening, diagnosis, and treatment. Despite rapid uptake of these laws, differences exist in the type and levels of coverage, especially for allied health services including occupational therapy. We piloted a structured legal research methodology to code ASD insurance mandates that impact allied health service provisions. State private insurance (...) mandates were obtained from WestlawNext. A coding methodology was piloted on 14 states and included variables for age and service limits, treatments covered, and medical necessity. Coding methods were feasible and highly reliable among raters. Ten of 12 states had a coverage mandate, many with specific provisions for allied health providers. A full analysis of all 50 states is warranted to identify provisions affecting allied health providers serving individuals with ASD. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch offers a distinctive conception of moral psychology. She suggests that to develop a moral psychology is to develop what she calls a soul-picture; different philosophical moral psychologies are, as she puts it, “rival soul-pictures.” In this paper I clarify Murdoch’s generic notion of “soul-picture,” the genus of which, for example, Aristotle’s, Kant’s, Nietzsche’s, and Murdoch’s constitute rival species. Are all philosophical moral psychologies soul-pictures? If not, what are the criteria that a moral psychology must meet in order to (...) qualify as a soul-picture? I propose five key dimensions. A soul-picture provides a picture of the soul or self that is 1) holistic, 2) value-rich and psychologically realistic (for Murdoch these are intertwined), 3) reflexive, 4) therapeutic and 5) the articulation of which makes use of imaginative language. (shrink)

The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) is widely regarded as the greatest and most significant English-speaking philosopher and often seen as having had the most influence on the way philosophy is practiced today in the West. His reputation is based not only on the quality of his philosophical thought but also on the breadth and scope of his writings, which ranged over metaphysics, epistemology, morals, politics, religion, and aesthetics. The Handbook's 38 newly commissioned chapters are divided into six parts: Central (...) Themes; Metaphysics and Epistemology; Passion, Morality and Politics; Aesthetics, History, and Economics; Religion; Hume and the Enlightenment; and After Hume. The volume also features an introduction from editor Paul Russell and a chapter on Hume's biography. (shrink)

The tension between the roadside motel’s uncanny and familiar features ensures it a memorable place in contemporary culture. The motel’s uncanniness has developed into a kind of mythology, which has been employed to great effect by popular media, particularly film. In this role the motel is frequently portrayed as a “between” that is structured by its being neither fully home nor fully elsewhere. This article explores how the motel’s betweenness allows it to transcend its own liabilities and afford visitors a (...) unique opportunity to discover what it means to become heimisch (homely) within its walls. (shrink)

The process by which SSRIs reduce “depressive symptoms” remains obscure. Biochemical, functional, and taker self-assessment evidences for the “corrective” nature of this process are inconclusive and ultimately incapable of appropriately addressing the meaning of being “anti-depressed.” In light of their growing prevalence, an understanding of the ways in which SSRIs alter takers' lived worlds is crucial for those who are presently taking them or considering doing so, for those recommending their use, and for those inhabiting societies increasingly composed of people (...) who use them. This study found that the essential lived characteristic of “being-on-SSRIs” was increased distance or disconnection between takers their worlds, a disruption which showed itself most prominently within the emotional, bodily, social, and existential realms. Depression and anxiety are intense modes of relation, and the alteration of meaningful connections is characterized largely by participants as a disruption. SSRIs succeed in alleviating pain and suffering. However, takers' attunement becomes a relatively “a-motional” acceptance of whatever occurs in their world. Their stance becomes an essentially passive approach toward a world that can no longer “touch” them and to which takers are no longer responsible, and numbing “side-effects” are inseparable from the “treatment effect.”. (shrink)

In the process of creating our built environments, the threat of ecological crises often tempt us to focus on “fixes” of resource management and technological innovation. Yet if such approaches overwhelm the significance of place and our complex existential engagements within those places, then the earth becomes a mere collection of resources. Sustainability undertaken in such a categorical manner results in environments that are either nostalgic or alienating, and neither is sustainable. Sustainability becomes a holistic movement capable of coping with (...) both the specific and peculiar when it is undertaken as a recurring process of response. (shrink)

In the process of creating our built environments, the threat of ecological crises often tempt us to focus on “fixes” of resource management and technological innovation. Yet if such approaches overwhelm the significance of place and our complex existential engagements within those places, then the earth becomes a mere collection of resources. Sustainability undertaken in such a categorical manner results in environments that are either nostalgic or alienating, and neither is sustainable. Sustainability becomes a holistic movement capable of coping with (...) both the specific and peculiar when it is undertaken as a recurring process of response. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell was one of the greatest logicians since Aristotle, and one of the most important philosophers of the past two hundred years. As we approach the 125th anniversary of the Nobel laureate's birth, his works continue to spark debate, resounding with unmatched timeliness and power. The Problems of Philosophy, one of the most popular works in Russell's prolific collection of writings, has become core reading in philosophy. Clear and accessible, this little book is an intelligible and stimulating (...) guide to those problems of philosophy which often mistakenly lead to its status as too lofty and abstruse for the lay mind. Focusing on problems he believes will provoke positive and constructive discussion, Russell concentrates on knowledge rather than metaphysics, steering the reader through his famous 1910 distinction between "knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description," and introducing important theories of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Hume, Locke, Plato, and others to lay the foundation for philosophical inquiry by general readers and scholars alike.With a new introduction by John Perry, this valuable work is a perfect introduction to the field and will continue to stimulate philosophical discussion as it has done for nearly forty years. (shrink)

Drawing on existing theory in the fields of business ethics, entrepreneurship, and psychology, this research provides an initial empirical exploration of whether entrepreneurs use cognitive reasoning processes which reflect a higher level of moral development than the level of moral development that has been empirically observed either in middle-level managers or in the general adult population. The Defining Issues Test was used to measure the level of moral reasoning skill of the entrepreneurs in this study. Although the study was limited (...) by a small sample size and the inherent difficulty of making accurate comparisons across other empirical studies, the results of this study suggest that entrepreneurs may exhibit moral reasoning skills at a slightly higher level than middle-level managers or the general adult population. (shrink)

The art of rational conjecture.--The art of drawing inferences.--The art of reckoning.

The Problems of Philosophy is a 1912 book by Bertrand Russell, in which Russell attempts to create a brief and accessible guide to the problems of philosophy. Focusing on problems he believes will provoke positive and constructive discussion, Russell concentrates on knowledge rather than metaphysics: If it is uncertain that external objects exist, how can we then have knowledge of them but by probability. There is no reason to doubt the existence of external objects simply because of (...) sense data. Russell guides the reader through his famous 1910 distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description and introduces important theories of Plato, Aristotle, René Descartes, David Hume, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and others to lay the foundation for philosophical inquiry by general readers and scholars alike. "In the following pages I have confined myself in the main to those problems of philosophy in regard to which I thought it possible to say something positive and constructive, since merely negative criticism seemed out of place. For this reason, theory of knowledge occupies a larger space than metaphysics in the present volume, and some topics much discussed by philosophers are treated very briefly, if at all. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell is concerned in this book with the foundations of knowledge. He approaches his subject through a discussion of language, the relationships of truth to experience and an investigation into how knowledge of the structure of language helps our understanding of the structure of the world. This edition includes a new introduction by Thomas Baldwin, Clare College, Cambridge.

This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks. For those who have known and loved these works in the past, this is an invitation to reunite with old friends in a fresh new format. From Shakespeare's finesse to Oscar Wilde's wit, this unique collection brings together works as diverse and influential as The Pilgrim's Progress and Othello. As an anthology that invites readers to immerse themselves in the masterpieces of (...) the literary giants, it is must-have addition to any library. (shrink)

This brilliant and controversial work investigates the relationship between 'individual' and 'scientific' knowledge.

Academic literature addressing the topic of business ethics has paid little attention to cross-cultural studies of business ethics. Uncertainty exists concerning the effect of culture on ethical beliefs. The purpose of this research is to compare the ethical beliefs of managers operating in South Africa and Australia. Responses of 52 managers to a series of ethical scenarios were sought. Results indicate that despite differences in socio-cultural and political factors there are no statistically significant differences between the two groups regarding their (...) own ethical beliefs. Results thus support the view that culture has little or no impact on ethical beliefs. (shrink)

On a remarkably thin base of evidence – largely the spectral analysis of points of light – astronomers possess, or appear to possess, an abundance of knowledge about the structure and history of the universe. We likewise know more than might even have been imagined a few centuries ago about the nature of physical matter, about the mechanisms of life, about the ancient past. Enormous theoretical and methodological ingenuity has been required to obtain such knowledge; it does not invite easy (...) discovery by the untutored. It may seem odd, then, that we have so little scientific knowledge of what lies closest at hand, apparently ripe for easy discovery, and of greatest importance for our quality of life: our own conscious experience – our sensory experiences and pains, for example, our inner speech and imagery, our felt emotion. Scientists know quite a bit about human visual capacities and the brain processes involved in vision, much less about the subjective experience of seeing; a fair bit about the physiology of emotion, almost nothing about its phenomenology. Philosophers began in earnest in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to describe and classify our patterns of conscious experience. John Locke, for instance, divided experienced “ideas” into those that arise from sensation and those that arise from reflection, and he began to classify them into. (shrink)

An unabridged edition with updated footnotes and layout, to include: Recent Criticisms of "Consciousness" - Instinct and Habit - Desire and Feeling - Influence of Past History on Present Occurrences in Living Organisms - Psychological and Physical Causal Laws - Introspection - The Definition of Perception - Sensations and Images - Memory - Words and Meaning - General Ideas and Thought - Belief - Truth and Falsehood - Emotions and Will - Characteristics of Mental Phenomena.

_'Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and acheived fewer results than any other branch of learning... I believe that the time has now arrived when this unsatisfactory state of affairs can be brought to an end'_ - _Bertrand Russell_ So begins _Our Knowledge of the Eternal World_, Bertrand Russell's classic attempt to show by means of examples, the nature, capacity and limitations of the logico-analytical method in philosophy.

Sales professionals have been frequent targets of ethical criticism. This paper reports on a survey on ethics of sales professionals in South Africa. The results revealed salespeoples views on controversial sales practices that involve direct monetary consequences; on practices that adversely affect customers, employers and competitors; and on sales peoples sensitization of ethical issues. Stealing from a competitor at a trade show was viewed as the most unethical of the scenarios, while phone sabotage and lying to a customer were held (...) to be the next most unethical scenarios. Analysis of the results lead to a discussion of the implications for sales management. Ethical perceptions were affected by financial considerations. Marketing and Sales Managers will have to review their approach to training in sales ethics as well as how sales professionals implement the market driven approach. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\INITIATI.252 : 2006-02-27 11:49
rticles HOW TO PROMOTE INITIATIVE B R [The first series of Reith Lectures, delivered weekly on the  by Bertrand Russell in the winter of –, were a resounding success. They were soon published in book form as Authority and the Individual. However, Russell started late in the year to write them, and manuscripts for the lectures show that (...) he encountered difficulty. Surviving in his archives is a false start on the concluding lecture, “How to Promote Initiative” (filed at  .). Lecture  had been called “Control and Initiative: Their Respective Spheres”. Lecture  was finally titled “Individual and Social Ethics”, but an early outline had it as “Principles of Reform”. In the false start Russell described how devolution of authority and individual initiative could be embodied in practice. He provided recipes on how to accomplish this in specific spheres of society: local government, industry, newspapers, books, and education. In replacing the nine leaves of manuscript, he had not come to disagree with them. Instead, as readers of what follows and the final lecture of the book will allow, he now engaged the topic at a higher level. Russell at this time was a friendly critic of the British Labour Party, and his devolutionary reformism is to be seen in that light. Yet his final text transcended politics and engaged his audience at an ethical level, treating of the freedom and duty of conscience, the justifiability of revolution, and life lived as an end. He decided to paint the ideals and let the recipes suggest themselves.—K.B.] f the general principles advocated in my last lecture are accepted, Iwhat can we do practically to give effect to them? Our aim must be to give as much scope to initiative as possible within a large governmental framework. This requires decentralization wherever central conrussell : the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s.  (winter –): – The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U.  - _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\INITIATI.252 : 2006-02-27 11:49    trol is not essential, and it requires democracy in small units, not only in very large ones. The centralized framework is necessary, but has now, in the main, been created except as regards a world government. The danger now is lest this framework should be thought to be all that is needed. State Socialism exists in Russia, and the prestige of Russia has led many to think that State Socialism is synonymous with Utopia. I believe this to be a profound mistake. Before the Russian Revolution there were syndicalists and guild socialists, whose aims, in my opinion, should be revived. It is true that many of those who formerly, though socialists, feared the omnipotence of the State, forgot their fears in admiration of what seemed to them the successful efficiency of the Soviet régime. But for my part I think it important to remember aims that were prominent before , if nominal reforms are not to produce even worse evils than those that they are intended to cure. The first and most obvious region in which decentralization is desirable is local government. For reasons of which I do not dispute the validity, an increasing part of the finance of local government has come to be paid out of taxes, with the result that the central government, and especially the Treasury, is able more and more to control local authorities, and to forbid any bold scheme which may possibly involve expenditure for which there is not adequate precedent. Owing 〈to〉 the method of assessment, rates are more unpopular than taxes. County Councillors and Town Councillors are still unpaid, as Members of Parliament were formerly. These are among the reasons for the very general apathy on questions of local government. There are of course other reasons, quite as important. Whenever there is war or the fear of war, it is natural that political interest should be concentrated on the central government, which has to decide this supremely important issue. Readers of newspapers, for the most part, no longer read truly local newspapers, but journals addressed equally to all parts of the country, and therefore concerned almost wholly with national... (shrink)

First published in 1981. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1984 as part of The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell , Theory of Knowledge represents an important addition to our knowledge of Russell's thought. In this work Russell attempts to flesh out the sketch implicit in The Problems of Philosophy . It was conceived by Russell as his next major project after Principia Mathematica and was intended to provide the epistemological foundations for his work. Russell's subsequent difficulties in presenting his theory of (...) knowledge, brought on by what he considered to be devastating criticisms of Wittgenstein, led to both his abandonment of this work and to a major transformation in his thought. Theory of Knowledge , now available for the first time in paperback, gives us a picture of one of the great minds of the twentieth century at work. It is possible to see the unsolved problems left without disguise or evasion. This second edition has retained the full scholarly introduction. The photographs of the manuscript, appendices, and notes on textual matters have been eliminated to provide a concise and accessible guide to understanding both Russell's own thought and his relationship with Wittgenstein. (shrink)

One of Russell's most important and interesting books which reconciles the materialistic tendency of psychology with the anti-materialistic tendency of physics.

Enactivists frequently argue their account heralds a revolution in cognitive science: enactivism will unseat cognitivism as the dominant paradigm. We examine the lines of reasoning enactivists employ in stirring revolt, but show that none of these prove compelling reasons for cognitivism to be replaced by enactivism. First, we examine the hard sell of enactivism: enactivism reveals a critical explanatory gap at the heart of cognitivism. We show that enactivism does not meet the requirements to incite a paradigm shift in the (...) Kuhnian sense—there is no internal crisis in cognitivism. Nor does it provide inherently better explanations of cognition as some have claimed. Second, we consider the soft sell of enactivism: enactivism provides a more attractive, parsimonious, or clear-eyed lens on cognition. This move proves to boil down to a misunderstanding of how theories are selected in science. Instead we lend support to a broader and more desirable way to conceive of enactivism, the recent proposal that enactivism is a philosophy of nature. We explain how a philosophy of nature does more than support a single research paradigm by integrating scientific questions into a cohesive picture. (shrink)

A founder of modern analytic philosophy and one of the most important logicians of the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell has influenced generations of philosophers. This volume explores this influence in detail and responds to renewed interest in Russell's philosophical approach, presenting the best guide to research in Russell studies today. Bringing new insights into Russell's relationship with his contemporaries, a team of experts explore his life-long battles with important philosophical issues. They consider how he influenced thinkers (...) and schools of thought, from Schröder, Frege and Meinong to Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, while also covering his impact on individual issues in epistemology, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and political philosophy. Importantly this companion discusses often overlooked topics. Through a combination of enlightening historical background and sustained focus on Russell's impact on contemporary areas of philosophy, it demonstrates why Russell continues to influence philosophers of language, mathematics, epistemology and metaphysics. (shrink)

Anger and disgust may have distinct roles in sexual morality; here, we tested hypotheses regarding the distinct foci, appraisals, and motivations of anger and disgust within the context of sexual offenses. We conducted four experiments in which we manipulated whether mutual consent (Studies 1–3) or desire (Study 4) was present or absent within a counter-normative sexual act. We found that anger is focused on the injustice of non-consensual sexual acts, and the transgressor of the injustice (Studies 1 and 3). Furthermore, (...) the sexual nature of the act was not critical for the elicitation of anger—as anger also responded to unjust acts of violence (Study 3). By contrast, we hypothesised and found that disgust is focused on whether or not a person voluntarily engaged in, desired or consented to a counter-normative sexual act (Studies 2–4). Appraisals of abnormality and degradation were the primary appraisals of disgust, and the sexual nature of the act was a critical elicitor of disgust (Study 3). A final study ruled out victimisation as the mechanism of the effect of consent on disgust and indicated that the consenter's sexual desire was the mechanism (Study 4). Our results reveal that anger and disgust have differential roles in consent-related sexual offenses due to the distinct appraisals and foci of these emotions. (shrink)