Private associations abounded in the ancient Greek world and beyond, and this volume provides the first large-scale study of the strategies of governance which they employed. Emphasis is placed on the values fostered by the regulations of associations, the complexities of the private-public divide and the dynamics of regional and global networks and group identity. The attested links between rules and religious sanctions also illuminate the relationship between legal history and religion. Moreover, possible links between ancient associations and the early (...) Christian churches will prove particularly valuable for scholars of the New Testament. The book concludes by using the regulations of associations to explore a novel and revealing aspect of the interaction between the Mediterranean world, India and China. (shrink)

This paper presents the main topics, arguments, and positions in the philosophy of AI at present (excluding ethics). Apart from the basic concepts of intelligence and computation, the main topics of ar-tificial cognition are perception, action, meaning, rational choice, free will, consciousness, and normativity. Through a better understanding of these topics, the philosophy of AI contributes to our understand-ing of the nature, prospects, and value of AI. Furthermore, these topics can be understood more deeply through the discussion of AI; so (...) we suggest that “AI Philosophy” provides a new method for philosophy. (shrink)

Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must establish how relativistic spacetime emerges from their non-spatiotemporal structures. We argue that in order to secure this emergence, it is sufficient to establish that only those features of relativistic spacetimes functionally relevant in producing empirical evidence must be recovered. In order to complete this task, an account must be given of (...) how the more fundamental structures instantiate these functional roles. We illustrate the general idea in the context of causal set theory and loop quantum gravity, two prominent approaches to quantum gravity. (shrink)

Holism maintains that a phenomenon is more than the sum of its parts. Yet analysis--a mental process crucial to comprehension--involves dismantling the whole to grasp it piecemeal and relationally. Wading through such quandaries, Vincent Descombes guides readers to a deepened appreciation of the entity that enables understanding: the human mind.

This paper offers a critical reconsideration of the traditional doctrine that responsibility for a crime requires a voluntary act. I defend three general propositions: first, that orthodox Anglo-American criminal theory fails to explain adequately why criminal responsibility requires an act. Second, when it comes to the just definition of crimes, the act requirement is at best a rough generalization rather than a substantive limiting principle. Third, that the intuition underlying the so-called “act requirement” is better explained by what I call (...) the “practical-agency condition,” according to which punishment in a specific instance is unjust unless the crime charged was caused or constituted by the agent's conduct qua practically rational agent. The practical-agency condition is defended as a reconstruction of what is worth retaining in Anglo-American criminal law's traditional notion of an “act requirement.”. (shrink)

While it is often said that robotics should aspire to reproducible and measurable results that allow benchmarking, I argue that a focus on benchmarking can be a hindrance for progress in robotics. The reason is what I call the ‘measure-target confusion’, the confusion between a measure of progress and the target of progress. Progress on a benchmark (the measure) is not identical to scientific or technological progress (the target). In the past, several academic disciplines have been led into pursuing only (...) reproducible and measurable ‘scientific’ results – robotics should be careful to follow that line because results that can be benchmarked must be specific and context-dependent, but robotics targets whole complex systems for a broad variety of contexts. While it is extremely valuable to improve benchmarks to reduce the distance be- tween measure and target, the general problem to measure progress towards more intelligent machines (the target) will not be solved by benchmarks alone; we need a balanced approach with sophisticated benchmarks, plus real-life testing, plus qualitative judgment. (shrink)

There is, in some quarters, concern about high–level machine intelligence and superintelligent AI coming up in a few decades, bringing with it significant risks for humanity. In other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science fiction. We wanted to clarify what the distribution of opinions actually is, what probability the best experts currently assign to high–level machine intelligence coming up within a particular time–frame, which risks they see with that development, and how fast they see these developing. We thus (...) designed a brief questionnaire and distributed it to four groups of experts in 2012/2013. The median estimate of respondents was for a one in two chance that high-level machine intelligence will be developed around 2040-2050, rising to a nine in ten chance by 2075. Experts expect that systems will move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. They estimate the chance is about one in three that this development turns out to be ‘bad’ or ‘extremely bad’ for humanity. (shrink)

Data-intensive science comes with increased risks concerning quality and reliability of data, and while trust in science has traditionally been framed as a matter of scientists being expected to adhere to certain technical and moral norms for behaviour, emerging discourses of open science present openness and transparency as substitutes for established trust mechanisms. By ensuring access to all available information, quality becomes a matter of informed judgement by the users, and trust no longer seems necessary. This strategy does not, however, (...) take into consideration the networks of professionals already enabling data-intensive science by providing high-quality data. In the life sciences, biological data- and knowledge bases managed by expert biocurators have become crucial for data-intensive research. In this paper, I will use the case of biocurators to argue that openness and transparency will not diminish the need for trust in data-intensive science. On the contrary, data-intensive science requires a reconfiguration of existing trust mechanisms in order to include those who take care of and manage scientific data after its production. (shrink)

The rapidly increasing role of automation throughout the economy, culture and our personal lives has generated a large literature on the risks of algorithmic decision-making, particularly in high-stakes legal settings. Algorithmic tools are charged with bias, shrouded in secrecy, and frequently difficult to interpret. However, these criticisms have tended to focus on particular implementations, specific predictive techniques, and the idiosyncrasies of the American legal-regulatory regime. They do not address the more fundamental unease about the prospect that we might one day (...) replace judges with algorithms, no matter how fair, transparent, and intelligible they become. The aim of this paper is to propose an account of the source of that unease, and to evaluate its plausibility. I trace foundational unease with algorithmic decision-making in the law to the powerful intuition that there is a basic moral and legal difference between showing that something is true of many people just like you and showing that it is true of you. Human judgment attends to the exception; automation insists on blindly applying the rule. I show how this intuitive thought is connected to both epistemological arguments about the value of statistical evidence, as well as to court-centered conceptions of the rule of law. Unease with algorithmic decision-making in the law thus draws on an intuitive principle that underpins a disparate range of views in legal philosophy. This suggests the principle is deeply ingrained. Nonetheless, I argue that the powerful intuition is not as decisive as it may seem, and indeed runs into significant epistemological and normative challenges. At an epistemological level, I show how concerns about statistical evidence's ability to track the truth can be resolved by adopting a probabilistic, rather than modal, conception of truth-tracking. At a normative level, commitment to highly individualized decision-making co-exists with equally ingrained and competing principles, such as consistent application of law. This suggests that the “rule of law” may not identify a discrete set of institutional arrangements, as proponents of a court-centric conception would have it, but rather a more loosely defined set of values that could potentially be operationalized in multiple ways, including through some level of algorithmic adjudication. Although the prospect of replacing judges with algorithms is indeed unsettling, it does not necessarily entail unreasonable verdicts or an attack on the rule of law. (shrink)

Criminal law as public law -- Criminal law as public law -- Criminal law as public law -- Mass incarceration and the theory of punishment -- Reasons to criminalize -- Formalism and pragmatism in criminal procedure -- Responsibility without resentment.

This open access monograph offers a detailed study and a systematic defense of a key intuition we typically have, as human beings, with respect to the nature of time: the intuition that the future is open, whereas the past is fixed. For example, whereas it seems unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first world war. -/- The book contributes, in particular, three major and original insights. First, it provides a coherent, (...) non-metaphorical, and metaphysically illuminating elucidation of the intuition. Second, it determines which model of the temporal structure of the world is most appropriate to accommodate the intuition, and settles on a specific version of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT). Third, it puts forward a naturalistic foundation for GBT, by exploiting recent results of our best physics (viz. General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Gravity). Three main challenges are addressed: the dismissal of temporal asymmetries as non-fundamental phenomena only (e.g., thermodynamic or causal phenomena), the epistemic objection against GBT, and the apparent tension between GBT and relativistic physics. It is argued that the asymmetry between the open future and the fixed past must be grounded in the temporal structure of the world, and that this is neither precluded by our epistemic device, nor by the latest approaches to Quantum Gravity (​e.g., the Causal Set Theory). -/- Aiming at reconciling time as we find it in ordinary experience and time as physics describes it, this ​innovative book ​will raise the interest of both academic researchers and ​graduate students working on the philosophy of time. More generally, it ​presents contents of interest for all metaphysicians and non-dogmatic philosophers of physics. (shrink)

In this paper, I first introduce one of the most prominent objections against the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT), the so-called ‘epistemic objection’, according to which GBT provides no way of knowing that our time is the objective present and, therefore, leads at best to absolute skepticism about our temporal location, at worst to the quasi-certainty that we are located in the objective past. Secondly, I express my dissatisfaction regarding the various traditional attempts to address this objection, especially Merricks (...) (2006), Forrest (2004) and Correia and Rosenkranz (2018). Thirdly, I show that the passage of time leads to an anti-essentialist picture of natural kinds. Finally, I develop my own solution to the epistemic objection, based on the continued existence of bare particulars. (shrink)

The philosophy of AI has seen some changes, in particular: 1) AI moves away from cognitive science, and 2) the long term risks of AI now appear to be a worthy concern. In this context, the classical central concerns – such as the relation of cognition and computation, embodiment, intelligence & rationality, and information – will regain urgency.

L'identité, dans les acceptions que ce terme revêt aujourd'hui, est une véritable énigme lexicale : elle désigne tout autant l'objet de contrôles sécuritaires policiers, un retour à la religion de ses parents, que, dans un guide touristique, la spécificité en voie de disparition d'un quartier. Reprenons. «Qui suis-je?», «Qui sommes-nous?», ce sont là ce qu'on appelle précisément des «questions d'identité». Nous comprenons spontanément de quoi il retourne parce que nous disposons d'un modèle : connaître l'identité de quelqu'un, c'est savoir comment (...) il s'appelle. Toutefois, lorsque la question de l'identité est posée à la première personne, mon intention n'est pas d'apprendre quels sont mes nom, prénoms et qualité, comme si je devais passer un «contrôle d'identité». Que signifie le mot dès lors qu'il est utilisé avec le possessif («mon identité», «notre identité») et qu'il ne désigne pas l'énoncé d'un état civil? Jadis le mot voulait dire exclusivement qu'il n'y a qu'une seule et même chose là où on aurait pu penser qu'il y en avait deux. Or, depuis quelques dizaines d'années, le mot a revêtu une signification autre, à savoir qu'il y a une chose ou un être qui possèdent la vertu d'être singulièrement eux-mêmes. Ainsi, que des guerres puissent éclater pour des questions qui ne relèvent pas strictement des intérêts matériels bien compris des antagonistes, nul ne saurait s'en étonner, sinon ceux qui nourrissent une conception utilitariste étriquée de l'être humain. En revanche, pourquoi est-ce le mot «identité» qui se trouve désormais chargé de signifier l'enjeu et l'objet de tels conflits? Tel est donc le point précis soulevé par Vincent Descombes : dans tout cela, que vient faire le mot «identit黠? Et que reste-t-il du concept d'identité? (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Pluralistic Ignorance Modal Operator Epistemology Agents and Inquiry Methods Multimodal Systems Knowledge Transmissibility Knowledge Transmissibility and Public Announcement Knowledge Transmissibility and Pluralistic Ignorance References.

Cet ouvrage propose de retracer le parcours intellectuel et spirituel de l’écrivain roumain d’expression française Emil Cioran (1911-1995). Le texte s’appuie sur une approche biographique pour saisir les enjeux philosophiques et identitaires de la vie et de l’oeuvre de Cioran. Tout d’abord son enfance imprégnée de culture allemande où liberté et insouciance cèdent vite la place à l’ennui ; sa fascination pour les thèses ultra-nationalistes pendant sa jeunesse studieuse et angoissée ; la volonté d’aveuglement que lui inspire ensuite son mépris (...) des affaires humaines ; la fuite de la Roumanie pendant la Guerre et l’affirmation de son incertitude identitaire et intellectuelle ; l’abandon finalement de son pays et de sa langue comme refus de sa propre histoire. L’ouvrage tente d’apporter un regard nouveau sur l’homme et son oeuvre pour résoudre les contradictions inhérentes à son renversement identitaire: bien que la mémoire soit au centre de sa pensée, Cioran se dirigea toujours plus vers la nécessité de l’oubli. La démarche de Vincent Piednoir démontre que cette volonté d’oubli a inscrit le philosophe dans la mémoire collective. De nombreux livres ont commenté la pensée de Cioran. L’originalité de celui-ci est de s’étendre, sans esprit de polémique mais sans tabou, sur sa jeunesse roumaine et profasciste. (shrink)

This book closely examines our commonly held beliefs about human suffering, and offers unique insights into God's role in why we suffer. Dr. Perri critically examines what it means to be human from a Judeo-Christian perspective, and extrapolates from the work of Carl Gustav Jung showing a deeply complex development of human transcendence in human suffering. On an interpersonal level, Dr. Perri elaborates on the work of Martin Buber and Emanuel Levinas and shows how our suffering can be shared and (...) lessened by our unconditionality and presence for the other. Scriptural passages are quoted from both the Hebrew and New Testament texts, and are used to depict the suffering of humankind as seen in the face of Job. It was this face, according to Perri, that Jesus saw in the faces of those He came to redeem, and that ultimately brought Him to the crucifix of redemption. Dr. Perri challenges Sartre's position that our existence precedes our essence, and draws on the work of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Christian theology in this regard. He further elaborates a neurodevelopmental paradigm that creates essence as the basis of our freedom to choose. This book can be read and studied by both professionals in the helping and healing professions, and lay persons seeking to better understand our suffering, and how to better help those who suffer. Dr. Perri offers specific ways in how to be present for those who suffer, how to read and receive the hidden language of human suffering, and how to use silence as a communication skill. (shrink)

Earth system science (ESS) and modelling have given rise to a new conceptual framework in the recent decades, which goes much beyond climate science. Indeed, Earth system science and modelling have the ambition “to build a unified understanding of the Earth”, involving not only the physical Earth system components (atmosphere, cryosphere, land, ocean, lithosphere) but also all the relevant human and social processes interacting with them. This unified understanding that ESS aims to achieve raises a number of epistemological issues about (...) interdisciplinarity. We argue that the interdisciplinary relations in ESS between natural and social / human sciences are best characterized in terms of what is called ‘scientific imperialism’ in the literature and we show that this imperialistic feature has some detrimental epistemic and non-epistemic effects, notably when addressing the issue of values in ESS. This paper considers in particular the core ESS concepts of Anthropocene, planetary boundaries and tipping points in the light of the philosophy of science discussions on interdisciplinarity and values. We show that acknowledging the interconnections between interdisciplinarity and values suggests ways for ESS to move forward in view of addressing the climate and environmental challenges. (shrink)

Nous partageons, au sujet de la nature du temps, l’intuition fondamentale selon laquelle le futur est ouvert tandis que le passé est fermé. Par exemple, alors que nous pensons pouvoir influencer le cours du futur, nous savons qu’aucune de nos actions ne peut influencer le cours du passé. Cependant, bien que cette intuition soit largement partagée, identifier la nature de l’asymétrie qu’elle reflète n’est pas chose aisée. Dans cet article, j’explore différentes manières de caractériser l’asymétrie entre le ‘futur ouvert’ et (...) le ‘passé fermé’ dans le but de rendre justice à notre intuition. En particulier, je discute la question de savoir si cette asymétrie doit être caractérisée de façon sémantique, épistémique, métaphysique ou ontologique. Je conclus que, bien que plusieurs de ces caractérisations contribuent à une compréhension globale du phénomène, une caractérisation ontologique de l’asymétrie doit être préférée, car elle s’avère supérieure en termes de pouvoir explicatif, d’intelligibilité, ainsi que dans sa capacité à inclure différents sens que l’on peut prêter au concept d’ouverture. (shrink)

A l'instantanéité doit succéder la réflexion, à la réaction incessante le recul stratégique. La stratégie naît il y a 2500 ans, à Athènes et en Chine avec Sun Tzu et son célèbre Art de la guerre. Art militaire au départ, méthode de pensée pour l'action, elle apparaît de plus en plus indispensable dans notre monde moderne. Pourtant, le sens en a été oublié. Aujourd'hui, les décideurs - entrepreneurs, politiques, militaires - sont accaparés par le court terme et la tactique. Atteints (...) de myopie décisionnelle, ils éprouvent des difficultés grandissantes à prendre du recul. Ils ont perdu l'habitude et le goût de la stratégie, qu'ils pratiquent de moins en moins alors qu'elle seule peut apporter des réponses à la complexité du monde et à l'accélération du temps. Il faut entrer en stratégie, utiliser celle-ci pour modeler le présent et bâtir l'avenir. Le but de cet ouvrage est de faciliter cette démarche, de l'éclairer et de la démythifier. Entrer en stratégie est un guide de survie et de succès. (shrink)

La religion ne serait-elle que déraison ?

Concerned with the notions of morality that Christians have inherited, Vincent MacNamara revisits a topic he wrote about in 'The Truth in Love'. Going to the heart of the matter of morality and situating it in the call to be human, he displays a sympathetic understanding of the human condition and the demands of modern life.

No philosopher in the second half of the twentieth century or the opening decade of the twenty-first did more to recover the voice of philosophy in the conversation of humankind than John Edwin Smith. From The Social Infinite, his landmark study of Josiah Royce, to "Niebuhr's Prophetic Voice", he has shown in compelling detail how philosophical reflection is relevant to contemporary life. Indeed, virtually all of the eventual developments within contemporary philosophy in recent decades worthy of our unqualified support were (...) ones to which Smith was committed at the outset of his career. He not only anticipated these developments but also pointed the way forward beyond the stultifying impasses of so much contemporary thought. In particular, his conceptions of subjectivity, symbolization, interpretation, experience and philosophy itself provide invaluable resources for twisting free from our present impasses. The essays in this volume make the salience and implications of Smith's writings on these and other topics manifest. The authors assembled here bear eloquent witness to the wit of the man no less than the depth of the philosopher from whom they learned how to take up the urgent task of philosophical reflection in a world riven by seemingly intractable conflicts and characterized by mutual misunderstanding. John E. Smith was a widely learned man; he was also a deeply wise one. Hence, it should be no surprise that he aids us in creating ways to address such conflicts and to counter such misunderstanding. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage propose d'unifier les sciences de l'homme entre elles et avec la philosophie en les articulant grâce à trois concepts fondamentaux: forme, sens et historicité.

"L'abstention, le désintérêt, le désespoir et la haine que suscite "la politique" appellent à changer désormais la stratégie. Le terme de stratégie, interrogé sous le prisme des implications que peuvent avoir ses connotations militaires en termes d'affects et de désaffection, le type d'action politique qu'il paraît induire, ouvre un commentaire précis de Jacques Rancière, de ses positions et intentions. En passant par la littérature, car "l'homme est un animal politique parce que c'est un animal littéraire", Vincent Jarry dessine alors (...) autre chose en résonance : une démocratie des murmures loin des donneurs de leçon, piste pratique cherchant à conjurer le manque de sensibilité dont souffre trop souvent le militantisme."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

En politique, la promesse a mauvaise réputation. Le rapport de la politique aux promesses juge la politique, et il la juge sévèrement. La politique serait un art du mensonge, de la ruse, de la séduction, de la trahison. Et la promesse ne serait qu'un instrument parmi d'autres pour gouverner la populace, qui par nature est crédule. Pourtant, malgré ce constat sombre, on constate qu'on ne peut se passer de promesses, et même que l'on en redemande toujours. La promesse, même mensongère, (...) même intenable, serait consubstantielle à la politique, et nous permettrait d'en saisir la nature singulière. Vincent Peillon s'interroge sur la nécessité de quitter l'horizon de la modernité et des théories du Contrat pour méditer à nouveaux frais le modèle biblique de l'Alliance. Ce qui le conduit à faire de la promesse comme figure juive du théologico-politique un recours pour notre temps marqué par la faillite de l'humanisme. (shrink)