This volume brings together a collection of papers covering a wide range of topics in computer and cognitive science. Topics included are: the foundational relevance of logic to computer science, with particular reference to tense logic, constructive logic, and Horn clause logic; logic as the theoretical underpinnings of the engineering discipline of expert systems; a discussion of the evolution of computational linguistics into functionally distinct task levels; and current issues in the implementation of speech act theory.

In what ways should we include future humanoid robots, and other kinds of artificial agents, in our moral universe? We consider the Organic view, which maintains that artificial humanoid agents, based on current computational technologies, could not count as full-blooded moral agents, nor as appropriate targets of intrinsic moral concern. On this view, artificial humanoids lack certain key properties of biological organisms, which preclude them from having full moral status. Computationally controlled systems, however advanced in their cognitive or informational capacities, (...) are, it is proposed, unlikely to possess sentience and hence will fail to be able to exercise the kind of empathic rationality that is a prerequisite for being a moral agent. The organic view also argues that sentience and teleology require biologically based forms of self-organization and autonomous self-maintenance. The organic view may not be correct, but at least it needs to be taken seriously in the future development of the field of Machine Ethics. (shrink)

Improvisation is ubiquitous in life. It deserves, we suggest, to occupy a more central role in cognitive science. In the current paper, we take the case of jazz improvisation as a rich model domain from which to explore the nature of improvisation and expertise more generally. We explore the activity of the jazz improviser against the theoretical backdrop of Dreyfus’s account of expertise as well as of enactivist and 4E accounts of cognition and action. We argue that enactivist and 4E (...) accounts provide a rich source of insights on improvisation that go beyond Dreyfus’s notion of skilled coping, for example, through the central enactivist notion of “sense-making”. At the same time, however, we see improvisation also as suggesting an extension of enactivist theory. We see expert improvisers, in music and in life, as walking on a path of open-ended expansion of their mindful experiential relation with their doing. At the heart of an improviser’s expertise, we propose, lies a form of “higher-level inner sense-making” that spontaneously creates novel forms of agentive goal-directedness in the moment. Our account thus supplants Dreyfus’s idea of the ego-less absorbed expert by that of a mindful improviser enacting spontaneous expressions of herself, in music or in life. (shrink)

I compare a ‘realist’ with a ‘social–relational’ perspective on our judgments of the moral status of artificial agents (AAs). I develop a realist position according to which the moral status of a being—particularly in relation to moral patiency attribution—is closely bound up with that being’s ability to experience states of conscious satisfaction or suffering (CSS). For a realist, both moral status and experiential capacity are objective properties of agents. A social relationist denies the existence of any such objective properties in (...) the case of either moral status or consciousness, suggesting that the determination of such properties rests solely upon social attribution or consensus. A wide variety of social interactions between us and various kinds of artificial agent will no doubt proliferate in future generations, and the social–relational view may well be right that the appearance of CSS features in such artificial beings will make moral role attribution socially prevalent in human–AA relations. But there is still the question of what actual CSS states a given AA is capable of undergoing, independently of the appearances. This is not just a matter of changes in the structure of social existence that seem inevitable as human–AA interaction becomes more prevalent. The social world is itself enabled and constrained by the physical world, and by the biological features of living social participants. Properties analogous to certain key features in biological CSS are what need to be present for nonbiological CSS. Working out the details of such features will be an objective scientific inquiry. (shrink)

I discuss the realizability and the ethical ramifications of Machine Ethics, from a number of different perspectives: I label these the anthropocentric, infocentric, biocentric and ecocentric perspectives. Each of these approaches takes a characteristic view of the position of humanity relative to other aspects of the designed and the natural worlds—or relative to the possibilities of ‘extra-human’ extensions to the ethical community. In the course of the discussion, a number of key issues emerge concerning the relation between technology and ethics, (...) and the nature of what it is to have moral status. Some radical challenges to certain technological presuppositions and ramifications of the infocentric approach will be discussed. Notwithstanding the obvious tensions between the infocentric perspective on one side and the biocentric and ecocentric perspectives on the other, we will see that there are also striking parallels in the way that each of these three approaches generates challenges to an anthropocentric ethical hegemony, and possible scope for some degree of convergence. (shrink)

Current approaches to machine consciousness (MC) tend to offer a range of characteristic responses to critics of the enterprise. Many of these responses seem to marginalize phenomenal consciousness, by presupposing a 'thin' conception of phenomenality. This conception is, we will argue, largely shared by anti- computationalist critics of MC. On the thin conception, physiological or neural or functional or organizational features are secondary accompaniments to consciousness rather than primary components of consciousness itself. We outline an alternative, 'thick' conception of phenomenality. (...) This shows some signposts in the direction of a more adequate approach to MC. (shrink)

In this paper, we start exploring the affective and ethical dimension of what De Jaegher and Di Paolo (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6:485–507, 2007 ) have called ‘participatory sense-making’. In the first part, we distinguish various ways in which we are, and feel, affectively inter-connected in interpersonal encounters. In the second part, we discuss the ethical character of this affective inter-connectedness, as well as the implications that taking an ‘inter-(en)active approach’ has for ethical theory itself.

It is suggested that some limitations of current designs for medical AI systems stem from the failure of those designs to address issues of artificial consciousness. Consciousness would appear to play a key role in the expertise, particularly the moral expertise, of human medical agents, including, for example, autonomous weighting of options in diagnosis; planning treatment; use of imaginative creativity to generate courses of action; sensorimotor flexibility and sensitivity; empathetic and morally appropriate responsiveness; and so on. Thus, it is argued, (...) a plausible design constraint for a successful ethical machine medical or care agent is for it to at least model, if not reproduce, relevant aspects of consciousness and associated abilities. In order to provide theoretical grounding for such an enterprise we examine some key philosophical issues that concern the machine modelling of consciousness and ethics, and we show how questions relating to the first research goal are relevant to medical machine ethics. We believe that this will overcome a blanket skepticism concerning the relevance of understanding consciousness, to the design and construction of artificial ethical agents for medical or care contexts. It is thus argued that it would be prudent for designers of MME agents to reflect on issues to do with consciousness and medical expertise; to become more aware of relevant research in the field of machine consciousness ; and to incorporate insights gained from these efforts into their designs. (shrink)

In the decade and a half since the appearance of Varela, Thompson and Rosch's workThe Embodied Mind,enactivism has helped to put experience and consciousness, conceived of in a distinctive way, at the forefront of cognitive science. There are at least two major strands within the enactive perspective: a broad view of what it is to be an agent with a mind; and a more focused account of the nature of perception and perceptual experience. The relation between these two strands is (...) discussed, with an overview of the papers presented in this volume. (shrink)

Corporate sustainability can be defined as organizations’ commitment to profitability, environment, and social well-being. This study uses a transactional culture analysis of CS reporting practices to explain why some Indian organizations conform to voluntary CS reporting guidelines and others do not. The literature contains two different perspectives on culture, defined broadly as a set of values that guide people’s behavior at a given time. Most past studies typically use national culture to explain differences in CS practices across nations. This concept (...) embeds corporate cultures within the larger national culture, neglecting intranation diversity. Conversely, according to the transactional culture approach used in this study, cultures are plural and independent of geoethnic boundaries, and emerge through social transactions. TCA encourages multilevel explorations of complex social phenomena. Since CS reporting preferences are the outcome of ongoing transactions among organizational stakeholders across different levels, TCA is more appropriate for this study. Since this application requires an understanding of social accountability, the authors use Mary Douglas’s Cultural Framework, a transactional framework of social accountability. A qualitative exploration of six Indian organizations using DCF reveals different dominant forms of social accountability in these organizations: either alone or as paired hybrids. Consequently, each organization prioritizes different stakeholders and reacts differently to voluntary CS reporting guidelines. Identifying the dominant form or forms of social accountability in their organizations and understanding their underlying reasons for resisting voluntary CS guidelines enables managers to secure better collaboration for their CS initiatives. (shrink)

Not much attention has been paid to Malebranche’s philosophy of time. Scholars who have written on it have typically written about it only in passing, and by and large discuss it only in relation to his philosophy of religion. This is appropriate insofar as Malebranche doesn’t discuss his views of time in isolation from his religious metaphysics. I argue that Malebranche’s conception of how created beings have their properties commits him to saying that God is omnitemporal rather than atemporal. For (...) just as bodies get their spatiality by participating in God’s omnipresence, so all creatures get their temporality by participating in God’s omnitemporality. Moreover, Malebranche is a substantivalist about space and time: infinite space and time are one and the same divinely simple substance, God (partially considered), who contains the world. My exploration of Malebranche’s metaphysics sheds light on his views of eminent containment, participation, and causation. (shrink)

Traditionally, phenomenal consciousness has been restricted to the realm of perceptual and otherwise sensory experiences. If there is a kind of phenomenology altogether unlike sensory phenomenology, then this was a mistake, and requires an accounting. I argue such cognitive phenomenology exists by appealing to a phenomenal contrast case that relies on meaningful and relatively meaningless dialogue. I explain why previous phenomenal contrast arguments are less likely to be effective on even neutral parties to the debate: these arguments rely on a (...) ‘hard-to understand’ sentence, which may elicit sensory crutches that one focuses on, thereby obscuring cognitive phenomenology. I also argue for a positive characterization of the phenomenal contrast in terms of seeming to be aware of abstract relations that obtain between different contributions in a dialogue. This paves the way for arguing that what it’s like to entertain a cognitive content that p differs from that of q in their cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

Late antiquity is increasingly recognised as a period of important cultural transformation. One of its crucial aspects is the emergence of a new awareness of human individuality. In this book, the authors assess the influence of seminal thinkers, including the Gnostics, Plotinus, and Augustine, but also of cultural and religious practices such as astrology and monasticism, as well as, more generally, the role played by intellectual disciplines such as grammar and Christian theology. The volume serves as a comprehensive introduction to (...) late antique understandings of human individuality. (shrink)

An affirmative answer is given to the question quoted in the title.

Steve Awodey and Erich H. Reck. Completeness and Categoricity: 19th Century Axiomatics to 21st Century Senatics.

The issue is whether Christianity, of its nature, would seek to prevent a justifiable breach of confidentiality or could endorse it, under certain circumstances, as the act which is fundamentally more loving or more truthful. The individualistic nature of Western Christianity is noted. The Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is used to show Christian support for dynamic rather than literal truth telling, and for awareness of the contexts and power relations within which persons stand.

This paper explores the implications of libertarianism for welfare policy. There are two central arguments. First, the paper argues that if one adopts a libertarian framework, it makes most sense to be a Lockean right-libertarian. Second, the paper argues that this form of libertarianism leads to the endorsement of a fairly extensive set of redistributive welfare programs. Specifically, the paper argues that Lockean right-libertarians are committed to endorsing welfare programs under which the receipt of benefits is conditional on meeting a (...) work requirement, and also endorsing some form of publicly funded jobs of last resort for potential welfare recipients. (shrink)

This brief article is intended to introduce the reader to the field of algebraic set theory, in which models of set theory of a new and fascinating kind are determined algebraically. The method is quite robust, applying to various classical, intuitionistic, and constructive set theories. Under this scheme some familiar set theoretic properties are related to algebraic ones, while others result from logical constraints. Conventional elementary set theories are complete with respect to algebraic models, which arise in a variety of (...) ways, including topologically, type-theoretically, and through variation. Many previous results from topos theory involving realizability, permutation, and sheaf models of set theory are subsumed, and the prospects for further such unification seem bright. (shrink)

Standard epistemology takes it for granted that there is a special kind of value: epistemic value. This claim does not seem to sit well with act utilitarianism, however, since it holds that only welfare is of real value. I first develop a particularly utilitarian sense of “epistemic value”, according to which it is closely analogous to the nature of financial value. I then demonstrate the promise this approach has for two current puzzles in the intersection of epistemology and value theory: (...) first, the problem of why knowledge is better than mere true belief, and second, the relation between epistemic justification and responsibility. (shrink)

A systematic outline of how the environmental crisis is transforming political theory's fundamental concepts.

The recent discovery of an interpretation of constructive type theory into abstract homotopy theory suggests a new approach to the foundations of mathematics with intrinsic geometric content and a computational implementation. Voevodsky has proposed such a program, including a new axiom with both geometric and logical significance: the Univalence Axiom. It captures the familiar aspect of informal mathematical practice according to which one can identify isomorphic objects. While it is incompatible with conventional foundations, it is a powerful addition to homotopy (...) type theory. It also gives the new system of foundations a distinctly structural character. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn's _Structure of Scientific Revolutions_ has sold over a million copies in more than twenty languages and has remained one of the ten most cited academic works for the past half century. In contrast, Karl Popper's seminal book _The Logic of Scientific Discovery_ has lapsed into relative obscurity. Although the two men debated the nature of science only once, the legacy of this encounter has dominated intellectual and public discussions on the topic ever since. Almost universally recognized as the (...) modern watershed in the philosophy of science, Kuhn's relativistic vision of shifting paradigms -- which asserted that science was just another human activity, like art or philosophy, only more specialized -- triumphed over Popper's more positivistic belief in science's revolutionary potential to falsify society's dogmas. But has this victory been beneficial for science? Steve Fuller argues that not only has Kuhn's dominance had an adverse impact on the field but both thinkers have been radically misinterpreted in the process. This debate raises a vital question: Can science remain an independent, progressive force in society, or is it destined to continue as the technical wing of the military-industrial complex? Drawing on original research -- including the Kuhn archives at MIT -- Fuller offers a clear account of "Kuhn vs. Popper" and what it will mean for the future of scientific inquiry. (shrink)

We argue why interpretability should have primacy alongside empiricism for several reasons: first, if machine learning models are beginning to render some of the high-risk healthcare decisions instead of clinicians, these models pose a novel medicolegal and ethical frontier that is incompletely addressed by current methods of appraising medical interventions like pharmacological therapies; second, a number of judicial precedents underpinning medical liability and negligence are compromised when ‘autonomous’ ML recommendations are considered to be en par with human instruction in specific (...) contexts; third, explainable algorithms may be more amenable to the ascertainment and minimisation of biases, with repercussions for racial equity as well as scientific reproducibility and generalisability. We conclude with some reasons for the ineludible importance of interpretability, such as the establishment of trust, in overcoming perhaps the most difficult challenge ML will face in a high-stakes environment like healthcare: professional and public acceptance. (shrink)

Following Schelling (1960), coordination problems have mainly been considered in a context where agents can achieve a common goal (e.g., rendezvous) only by taking common actions. Dynamic versions of this problem have been studied by Crawford and Haller (1990), Ponssard (1994), and Kramarz (1996). This paper considers an alternative dynamic formulation in which the common goal (dispersion) can only be achieved by agents taking distinct actions. The goal of spatial dispersion has been studied in static models of habitat selection, location (...) or congestion games, and network analysis. Our results show how this goal can be achieved gradually, by indistinguishable non-communicating agents, in a dynamic setting. (shrink)

How should we treat animals? The long-held belief that other animals exist solely for human use has undergone radical challenge in the past half century. How much further do we need to go to minimize, and even eliminate, animal suffering? The field of animal rights raises big questions about how humans treat the other animals with which we share the planet. These questions are becoming more pressing as livestock farming exerts an ever-greater toll on the planet and the animals themselves, (...) and we learn more about their capacity to think and experience pain. This book shows why animals ought to have greater rights and what the world might look like if they did. (shrink)