This article presents a critique of an article previously featured in Nursing Philosophy (10: 26–33) by Ursula Naue and Thilo Kroll, who suggested that people living with dementia are assigned a negative status upon receipt of a diagnosis, holding the identity of the ‘demented other’. Specifically, in this critique, we suggest that unwitting use of the adjective ‘demented’ to define a person living with the condition is ill-informed and runs a risk of defining people through negative (...) (self-)attributes, which has a deleterious impact upon that person's social and relational personae. Moreover, use of the locution ‘demented’ reinforces a divide between the ‘demented’ (them) and the ‘healthy others’ (us). Social constructionist theory, malignant positioning and viewing people with dementia as semiotic subjects are the philosophical pillars through which we construct the main arguments of the critique. The article concludes with the voice of one of the authors, a younger person with dementia, asking for language in dementia care to be carefully reconsidered and reframed and for the recognition of the diagnosed person's agency in the conduct of their day-to-day lives. (shrink)

The article focuses on the impact of the concept of self-care on persons who are understood as incapable of self-care due to their physical and/or mental ‘incapacity’. The article challenges the idea of this health care concept as empowerment and highlights the difficulties for persons who do not fit into this concept. To exemplify this, the self-care concept is discussed with regard to persons with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the case of persons with AD, self-care is interpreted in many different (...) ways—depending on the point of view, for instance as an affected person or a carer. To prevent a marginalisation of the growing group of elderly persons with dementia, the article argues that concepts such as those of personhood, wellbeing, autonomy, rationality and normality have to be re-thought with regard to an increasingly ageing population. Taking into account that AD as a socio-medical construct has to be understood in the context of power relations, the article focuses on the mutual influence between the concepts of self-care and of AD and its possible impact on governing dementia and AD in particular. Michel Foucault’s considerations on ‘technologies of the self’ provide the basis for the discussion of the self-care concept within existing societal power relations. (shrink)

Current advances in research, development and application of artificial intelligence systems have yielded a far-reaching discourse on AI ethics. In consequence, a number of ethics guidelines have been released in recent years. These guidelines comprise normative principles and recommendations aimed to harness the “disruptive” potentials of new AI technologies. Designed as a semi-systematic evaluation, this paper analyzes and compares 22 guidelines, highlighting overlaps but also omissions. As a result, I give a detailed overview of the field of AI ethics. Finally, (...) I also examine to what extent the respective ethical principles and values are implemented in the practice of research, development and application of AI systems—and how the effectiveness in the demands of AI ethics can be improved. (shrink)

When I raise my arm, what makes it the case that my arm's going up is an instance of my raising my arm? In this paper, I discuss Aristotle's answer to this question. His view, I argue, is that my arm's going up counts as my raising my arm just in case it is an exercise of a certain kind of causal power of mine. I show that this view differs in an interesting way both from the Davidsonian ‘standard causal (...) account’ of action and from accounts put forward by recent critics of Davidson, such as Hornsby, Alvarez and Hyman. (shrink)

Aesthetic emotions are elicited by different sensory impressions generated by music, visual arts, literature, theater, film, or nature scenes. Recently, the AESTHEMOS scale has been developed to facilitate the empirical assessment of such emotions. In this article we report a semantic profile analysis of aesthetic emotion terms that had been used for the development of this scale, using the GRID approach. This method consists of obtaining ratings of emotion terms on a set of meaning facets which represent five components of (...) the emotion process. The aims here were to determine the dimensionality of the GRID features when applied to aesthetic emotions and compare it to published results for emotion terms in general, and to examine the internal organization of the domain of aesthetic emotion terms in order to identify salient clusters of these items based on the similarity of their feature profiles on the GRID. Exploratory Principal Component Analyses suggest a four-dimensional structure of the semantic space consisting of valence, power, arousal, and novelty, converging with earlier GRID studies on large sets of standard emotion terms. Using cluster analyses, 15 clusters of aesthetic emotion terms with similar GRID feature profiles were identified, revealing the internal organization of the aesthetic emotion terms domain and meaningful subgroups of aesthetic emotions. While replication for further languages is required, these findings provide a solid basis for further research and methodological development in the realm of aesthetic emotions. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper, I ask why Aristotle thinks that ethical virtue (rather than mere self-control) is required for practical wisdom. I argue that a satisfactory answer will need to explain why being prone to bad appetites implies a failing of the rational part of the soul. I go on to claim that the self-controlled person does suffer from such a rational failing: a failure to take a specifically rational kind of pleasure in fine action. However, this still leaves a (...) problem: could there not be someone who (unlike the self-controlled person) took the right kind of pleasure in fine action, but who failed to be virtuous on account of bad appetites? If so, would such a person be practically wise but not virtuous? I end with some suggestions about how Aristotle might answer this. (shrink)

Versucht man die philosophische Entwicklung von Hermann Cohen zu überblicken, so sticht ins Auge, dass er genuin rationalistischen Überzeugungen immer näher rückt. Welche Bedeutung dabei der Philosophie von Leibniz für die Entwicklung einer rein idealistischen Urteilslogik zukommt, ist bekannt. Ich denke aber darüber hinausgehend, dass Cohens Ansatz im Verlauf der Jahre ganz zentralen erkenntnistheoretischen Grundintuitionen des klassischen Rationalismus immer näher kommt.

Many ethics initiatives have stipulated sets of principles and standards for good technology development in the AI sector. However, several AI ethics researchers have pointed out a lack of practical realization of these principles. Following that, AI ethics underwent a practical turn, but without deviating from the principled approach. This paper proposes a complementary to the principled approach that is based on virtue ethics. It defines four “basic AI virtues”, namely justice, honesty, responsibility and care, all of which represent specific (...) motivational settings that constitute the very precondition for ethical decision making in the AI field. Moreover, it defines two “second-order AI virtues”, prudence and fortitude, that bolster achieving the basic virtues by helping with overcoming bounded ethicality or hidden psychological forces that can impair ethical decision making and that are hitherto disregarded in AI ethics. Lastly, the paper describes measures for successfully cultivating the mentioned virtues in organizations dealing with AI research and development. (shrink)

For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age--the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity--point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature, eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope. This eloquent volume reconciles the modern scientific understanding of reality with our timeless spiritual yearnings for reverence (...) and continuity. Looking at topics such as evolution, emotions, sexuality, and death, Goodenough writes with rich, uncluttered detail about the workings of nature in general and of living creatures in particular. Her luminous clarity makes it possible for even non-scientists to appreciate that the origins of life and the universe are no less meaningful because of our increasingly scientific understanding of them. At the end of each chapter, Goodenough's spiritual reflections respond to the complexity of nature with vibrant emotional intensity and a sense of reverent wonder. A beautifully written celebration of molecular biology with meditations on the spiritual and religious meaning that can be found at the heart of science, this volume makes an important contribution to the ongoing dialog between science and religion. This book will engage anyone who was ever mesmerized--or terrified--by the mysteries of existence. (shrink)

What is the relation between time and change? Does time depend on the mind? Is the present always the same or is it always different? Aristotle tackles these questions in the Physics. In the first book in English exclusively devoted to this discussion, Ursula Coope argues that Aristotle sees time as a universal order within which all changes are related to each other. This interpretation enables her to explain two striking Aristotelian claims: that the now is like a moving (...) thing, and that time depends for its existence on the mind. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 159-160 [Access article in PDF] The Nine Lives of the Dynamic Unconscious Jerome Kroll IN THEIR PROVOCATIVE ARTICLE "Dispensing with the Dynamic Unconscious," O'Brien and Jureidini offer two basic arguments against the existence or, more accurately, because we are dealing here with constructs, the plausibility, of the dynamic unconscious. First, they assert, in contradistinction to the psychoanalytic claim that evidence of a (...) cognitive unconscious supports the claim for a dynamic unconscious, that the notion of a cognitive unconscious is incompatible with that of a dynamic unconscious. Second, they argue on the grounds of parsimony that the phenomena explained by a dynamic unconscious can be better explained (accounted for) by other mechanisms.I would argue that neither of their contentions is correct. O'Brien and Jureidini have essentially taken data and evidence from cognitive science, issued a new vocabulary, and then asserted that their vocabulary is superior and constitutes better explanations for the phenomena and observations under question. They have failed to show any incompatibility between the two explanatory constructs. O'Brien and Jureidini agree with the basic Freudian tenet that most mental activity is unconscious, that is, out of consciousness, and that much of what is out of consciousness can be brought into consciousness with proper cueing. No problem so far.The problem with the dynamic unconscious, as O'Brien and Jureidini see it, is that the cognitive unconscious is modular, best described as a series of subpersonal systems akin to a set of narrowly focused computational specialists, whereas the dynamic unconscious contains fully formed repressed memories. What O'Brien and Jureidini have now given us are multiple homunculi rather than just one CEO or executive homunculus. How literally do we want to take these subpersons? Are subpersonal mental states more satisfactory scientifically than personal-level mental states? Second, O'Brien and Jureidini unfairly attribute to the psychoanalytic position the claim that the dynamic unconscious "is presumed to contain fully formed repressed memories." With the compelling evidence from psychology and neuroscience that all memory is a reconstruction, I do not think that any contemporary psychodynamicist makes a case for fully formed repressed memories, nor is this notion essential to a theory of a dynamic unconscious. O'Brien and Jureidini invoke Occam's razor by invoking a straw horse argument. Their description of the action of subpersonal parts doing sufficient specific cuing sounds suspiciously like the work done in the dynamic unconscious. In the next section, an emotional response is described as pushing images out of mind before they can be reported on (assumedly, before they become conscious). What is doing the pushing here? Upon what principles or priorities are images pushed out of mind?The authors explain that mental "representations are inaccessible to consciousness by virtue [End Page 159] of architectural constraints rather than the operation of a repressive force." But architectural constraints sounds like another way of describing neural facilitation and inhibition. Certainly most neural activity, perhaps all, involves facilitation and inhibition of signals at multiple synapses. Repression is just a psychological construct to describe what the processes of facilitation and inhibition bring about in terms of meaningful mental activity. While we are on the topic of choice of words, the repeated description of the dynamic unconscious as subterranean is an inflammatory locution designed to rally opposition to the notion. The cognitive unconscious is equally subterranean.To look further into the supposed superiority of explanation via the cognitive unconscious, we see that O'Brien and Jureidini attribute the following processes to the cognitive unconscious: evaluation, decision making, editing out, filling in, reconstruction, and reconfiguration. But what are the bases of these processes? What guides or influences the way ideas, images, and emotions are reconstructed and reconfigured? It does not appear to be done randomly. When the reconstructive narrative becomes "significantly distorted" because the memory to be retrieved is fraught with distress, what accounts for the shape of the distortion and what (dare we say who?) recognizes that a memory is about to be distressing? We may all be unhappy with the notion of a dynamic unconscious... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Account of Change in Physics III.1–3 Some Problems for This Account of Change Notes Bibliography.

Ursula Coope presents a ground-breaking study of the philosophy of the Neoplatonists. She explores their understanding of freedom and responsibility: an entity is free to the extent that it is wholly in control of itself, self-determining, self-constituting, and self-knowing - which only a non-bodily thing can be.

Certain research strands can yield “forbidden knowledge”. This term refers to knowledge that is considered too sensitive, dangerous or taboo to be produced or shared. Discourses about such publication restrictions are already entrenched in scientific fields like IT security, synthetic biology or nuclear physics research. This paper makes the case for transferring this discourse to machine learning research. Some machine learning applications can very easily be misused and unfold harmful consequences, for instance, with regard to generative video or text synthesis, (...) personality analysis, behavior manipulation, software vulnerability detection and the like. Up till now, the machine learning research community embraces the idea of open access. However, this is opposed to precautionary efforts to prevent the malicious use of machine learning applications. Information about or from such applications may, if improperly disclosed, cause harm to people, organizations or whole societies. Hence, the goal of this work is to outline deliberations on how to deal with questions concerning the dissemination of such information. It proposes a tentative ethical framework for the machine learning community on how to deal with forbidden knowledge and dual-use applications. (shrink)

The current “AI Summer” is marked by scientific breakthroughs and economic successes in the fields of research, development, and application of systems with artificial intelligence. But, aside from the great hopes and promises associated with artificial intelligence, there are a number of challenges, shortcomings and even limitations of the technology. For one, these challenges arise from methodological and epistemological misconceptions about the capabilities of artificial intelligence. Secondly, they result from restrictions of the social context in which the development of applications (...) of machine learning is embedded. And third, they are a consequence of current technical limitations in the development and use of artificial intelligence. The paper intends to provide an overview of current challenges which the research and development of applications in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning have to face, whereas all three mentioned areas are to be further explored in this paper. (shrink)

How is language acquired when infants are exposed to multiple language input from birth and when adults are required to learn a second language after early childhood? How do adult bilinguals comprehend and produce words and sentences when their two languages are potentially always active and in competition with one another? What are the neural mechanisms that underlie proficient bilingualism? What are the general consequences of bilingualism for cognition and for language and thought? This handbook will be essential reading for (...) cognitive psychologists, linguists, applied linguists, and educators who wish to better understand the cognitive basis of bilingualism and the logic of experimental and formal approaches to language science. (shrink)

Industry involvement in the machine learning (ML) community seems to be increasing. However, the quantitative scale and ethical implications of this influence are rather unknown. For this purpose, we have not only carried out an informed ethical analysis of the field, but have inspected all papers of the main ML conferences NeurIPS, CVPR, and ICML of the last 5 years—almost 11,000 papers in total. Our statistical approach focuses on conflicts of interest, innovation, and gender equality. We have obtained four main (...) findings. (1) Academic–corporate collaborations are growing in numbers. At the same time, we found that conflicts of interest are rarely disclosed. (2) Industry papers amply mention terms that relate to particular trending machine learning topics earlier than academia does. (3) Industry papers are not lagging behind academic papers with regard to how often they mention keywords that are proxies for social impact considerations. (4) Finally, we demonstrate that industry papers fall short of their academic counterparts with respect to the ratio of gender diversity. We believe that this work is a starting point for an informed debate within and outside of the ML community. (shrink)

When I raise my arm, what makes it the case that my arm's going up is an instance of my raising my arm? In this paper, I discuss Aristotle's answer to this question. His view, I argue, is that my arm's going up counts as my raising my arm just in case it is an exercise of a certain kind of causal power of mine. I show that this view differs in an interesting way both from the Davidsonian ‘standard causal (...) account’ of action and from accounts put forward by recent critics of Davidson, such as Hornsby, Alvarez and Hyman. (shrink)

In this article, we present results from an interdisciplinary research project aimed at assessing consciousness in dreams. For this purpose, we compared lucid dreams with normal non-lucid dreams from REM sleep. Both lucid and non-lucid dreams are an important contrast condition for theories of waking consciousness, giving valuable insights into the structure of conscious experience and its neural correlates during sleep. However, the precise differences between lucid and non-lucid dreams remain poorly understood. The construction of the Lucidity and Consciousness in (...) Dreams scale was based on theoretical considerations and empirical observations. Exploratory factor analysis of the data from the first survey identified eight factors that were validated in a second survey using confirmatory factor analysis: INSIGHT, CONTROL, THOUGHT, REALISM, MEMORY, DISSOCIATION, NEGATIVE EMOTION, and POSITIVE EMOTION. While all factors are involved in dream consciousness, realism and negative emotion do not differentiate between lucid and non-lucid dreams, suggesting that lucid insight is separable from both bizarreness in dreams and a change in the subjectively experienced realism of the dream. (shrink)

What is the relation between time and change? Does time depend on the mind? Is the present always the same or is it always different? Aristotle tackles these questions in the Physics. In the first book in English exclusively devoted to this discussion, Ursula Coope argues that Aristotle sees time as a universal order within which all changes are related to each other. This interpretation enables her to explain two striking Aristotelian claims: that the now is like a moving (...) thing, and that time depends for its existence on the mind. (shrink)

In the original publication of this article, the Table 1 has been published in a low resolution. Now a larger version of Table 1 is published in this correction. The publisher apologizes for the error made during production.

In the original publication of this article, the Table 1 has been published in a low resolution. Now a larger version of Table 1 is published in this correction. The publisher apologizes for the error made during production.

In Physics, Aristotle starts his positive account of the infinite by raising a problem: “[I]f one supposes it not to exist, many impossible things result, and equally if one supposes it to exist.” His views on time, extended magnitudes, and number imply that there must be some sense in which the infinite exists, for he holds that time has no beginning or end, magnitudes are infinitely divisible, and there is no highest number. In Aristotle's view, a plurality cannot escape having (...) bounds if all of its members exist at once. Two interesting, and contrasting, interpretations of Aristotle's account can be found in the work of Jaako Hintikka and of Jonathan Lear. Hintikka tries to explain the sense in which the infinite is actually, and the sense in which its being is like the being of a day or a contest. Lear focuses on the sense in which the infinite is only potential, and emphasizes that an infinite, unlike a day or a contest, is always incomplete. (shrink)

Machine behavior that is based on learning algorithms can be significantly influenced by the exposure to data of different qualities. Up to now, those qualities are solely measured in technical terms, but not in ethical ones, despite the significant role of training and annotation data in supervised machine learning. This is the first study to fill this gap by describing new dimensions of data quality for supervised machine learning applications. Based on the rationale that different social and psychological backgrounds of (...) individuals correlate in practice with different modes of human–computer-interaction, the paper describes from an ethical perspective how varying qualities of behavioral data that individuals leave behind while using digital technologies have socially relevant ramification for the development of machine learning applications. The specific objective of this study is to describe how training data can be selected according to ethical assessments of the behavior it originates from, establishing an innovative filter regime to transition from the big data rationale n = all to a more selective way of processing data for training sets in machine learning. The overarching aim of this research is to promote methods for achieving beneficial machine learning applications that could be widely useful for industry as well as academia. (shrink)

The term complementarity plays a central role in quantum physics, not least in various approaches to defining entanglement and the conditions for its occurrence. It has, however, been used in a variety of ways by different authors, denoting different concepts and relationships. Here we describe and clarify some of them and analyze the role they play with respect to the phenomenon of entanglement. Based on these considerations we discuss the recently proposed system-theoretical generalization of the concepts entanglement and complementarity (Atmanspacher (...) et al. in Found Phys 32(3):379–406, 2002; von Lucadou et al. in J Conscious Stud 14(4):50–74, 2007; Filk and Römer in Axiomathes 21(2):211–220, 2011; Walach and Von Stillfried in Axiomathes 21(2): 185–209, 2011). We hope that a clarification regarding the specific meaning of these terms can be useful to the growing engagement with this interesting hypothesis and its critical investigation. (shrink)

The term complementarity plays a central role in quantum physics, not least in various approaches to defining entanglement and the conditions for its occurrence. It has, however, been used in a variety of ways by different authors, denoting different concepts and relationships. Here we describe and clarify some of them and analyze the role they play with respect to the phenomenon of entanglement. Based on these considerations we discuss the recently proposed system-theoretical generalization of the concepts entanglement and complementarity (Atmanspacher (...) et al. in Found Phys 32(3):379–406, 2002; von Lucadou et al. in J Conscious Stud 14(4):50–74, 2007; Filk and Römer in Axiomathes 21(2):211–220, 2011; Walach and Von Stillfried in Axiomathes 21(2): 185–209, 2011). We hope that a clarification regarding the specific meaning of these terms can be useful to the growing engagement with this interesting hypothesis and its critical investigation. (shrink)