The commentary is presented in three sections. Section 1 presents a brief summary of the main theses in Cummins' paper. In section 2, I argue that this analysis is not peculiar to cognition, and that in fact, a similar, more general analysis has been given [3] in fundamental areas of inquiry, hitherto independent of cognitive science. Finally, in section 3, it is argued that, if this general form of Cummins' analysis is correct, it calls for a profound re‐evaluation of our (...) conception of science. (shrink)

The importance of the Stability Problem in neurocomputing is discussed, as well as the need for the study of infinite networks. Stability must be the key ingredient in the solution of a problem by a neural network without external intervention. Infinite discrete networks seem to be the proper objects of study for a theory of neural computability which aims at characterizing problems solvable, in principle, by a neural network. Precise definitions of such problems and their solutions are given. Some consequences (...) are explored, in particular, the neural unsolvability of the Stability Problem for neural networks. (shrink)

Dialectic of Enlightenment is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism." Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of (...) contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present. The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization. Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book. This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore [(1992) Holism: a shopper's guide, Oxford: Blackwell; (1996) in R. McCauley (Ed.) The Churchlands and their critics , Cambridge: Blackwell] have launched a powerful attack against Paul Churchland's connectionist theory of semantics--also known as state space semantics. In one part of their attack, Fodor and Lepore argue that the architectural and functional idiosyncrasies of connectionist networks preclude us from articulating a notion of conceptual similarity applicable to state space semantics. Aarre Laakso and Gary Cottrell [(1998) (...) in M. A. Gernsbacher & S. Derry (Eds) Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum; Philosophical Psychology ] 13, 47-76 have recently run a number of simulations on simple feedforward networks and applied a mathematical technique for measuring conceptual similarity in the representational spaces of those networks. Laakso and Cottrell contend that their results decisively refute Fodor and Lepore's criticisms. Paul Churchland [(1998) Journal of Philosophy, 95, 5-32 ] goes further. He uses Laakso and Cottrell's neurosimulations to argue that connectionism does furnish us with all we need to construct a robust theory of semantics and a robust theory of translation. In this paper I shall argue that whereas Laakso and Cottrell's neurocomputational results may provide us with a rebuttal of Fodor and Lepore's argument, Churchland's conclusion is far too optimistic. In particular, I shall try to show that connectionist modelling does not provide any objective criterion for achieving a one-to-one accurate translational mapping across networks. (shrink)

Ein berühmter, immer wieder zitierter Satz von Max lautet: "Interessen (materielle und ideelle), nicht: Ideen, beherrschen unmittelbar das Handeln der Menschen. Aber: die 'Weltbilder', welche durch 'Ideen' geschaffen wurden, haben sehr oft als Weichensteller die Bahnen bestimmt, in denen die Dynamik der Interessen das Handeln fortbewegte." Die neuere Soziologie ist diesem Grundsatz allerdings nicht gerecht geworden. Werte und ihre Wirkung werden entweder als gegeben vorausgesetzt (so bei Talcott Parsons) oder überhaupt als irrelevant betrachtet (so in der Rational Choice- und Systemtheorie). (...) Die umfangreiche, empirische Werteforschung hat vielfältige Ergebnisse erbracht, blieb jedoch weitgehend ohne theoretisches Fundament, sodass ihre Befunde vielfach anfechtbar sind. Weber selbst gab im Hinblick auf die Frage nach der Relevanz der Werte nur unbefriedigende Antworten: Die Entscheidung für bestimmte Werte sei eine rein individuelle Angelegenheit und zwischen den verschiedenen Werten gebe es einen unversöhnlichen Kampf. Im vorliegenden Buch wird diese Problematik erstmals in der deutschen Soziologie umfassend untersucht und es wird dafür (u.a. im Anschluss an Autoren wie Immanuel Kant, George H. Mead und Raymond Boudon), eine neue, konstruktive und erklärungsstarke Lösung gefunden. Unter Zuhilfenahme von Überlegungen aus Philosophie, Sozialtheorie und empirischer Sozialforschung sowie unter Einbeziehung historischer Kämpfe zur Anerkennung und Durchsetzung der Werte kann man feststellen, dass es gesellschaftliche Grundwerte gibt, dass deren Anzahl klar bestimmbar ist und dass zwischen ihnen keineswegs Konflikt, sondern Komplementarität besteht. Mit diesen Thesen und Befunden kann dieses Buch als neues soziologisches Standardwerk angesehen werden. Es hat auch für Vertreter vieler anderer geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlicher Disziplinen grundlegende Bedeutung. Der Autor Dr. Max Haller war nach wissenschaftlichen Tätigkeiten am Institut für Höhere Studien in Wien und an der Universität bzw. ZUMA Mannheim 1985-2015 Professor für Soziologie in Graz. Er lehrte als Gastprofessor auch an Universitäten in mehreren Ländern Europas, den USA und Afrika. Seine Publikationen erschienen in den renommiertesten internationalen soziologischen Zeitschriften. Er ist Mitglied der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und forscht dort jetzt zu Fragen der Migration, Staatsbürgerschaft und Mehrsprachigkeit. Er war Mitbegründer der Europäischen Gesellschaft für Soziologie und der Wiener Gesellschaft für Soziologie. (shrink)

According to Carruthers ants and bees have minds. This claim is to be understood realistically. We do not interpret the overt behaviour of ants and bees by ascribing to them beliefs and desires in an instrumental manner. They rather possess minds in the relevant cognitive sense. In this paper, I propose to pave the way for a reductio against such a polemic view. In particular, I shall argue that if ants and bees have minds, by the same token, plants do (...) have minds too. In my view, the problem has to do with Carruthers' underlying technical concept of cognitive architecture; a concept which, as I shall argue, can be called into question both on empirical and conceptual grounds. Según Carruthers, las hormigas y las abejas tienen mente. Esta afirmación debe entenderse de modo realista. No es que interpretemos la conducta abierta de hormigas y abejas en términos de creencias y deseos atribuidos instrumentalmente. Se trata más bien de que tienen tales estados mentales en el sentido cognitivo relevante. En este trabajo, me propongo llevar esta polémica concepción a una reductio. En particular, argumentaré que si las hormigas y las abejas tienen mente, por la misma razón las plantas también la tendrían. A mi modo de ver, el problema tiene que ver con el concepto técnico de arquitectura cognitiva de Carruthers ; un concepto que puede ser cuestionado sobre bases empíricas y conceptuales, según argüiré. (shrink)

In this commentary I explore nonclassical connectionism as a coherent framework for evaluation in the spirit of the Newell Test. Focusing on knowledge integration, development, real-time performance, and flexible behavior, I argue that NCC's “within-theory rank ordering” would place subsymbolic modeling in a better position. Failure to adopt a symbolic level of thought cannot be interpreted as a weakness.

La philosophie des sciences de l'empirisme logique avait discredite la causalite comme etant un concept du sens commun irremediablement vague et confus, pour lui substituer le concept d'explication scientifique. Cependant, dans nombre de theories contemporaines, notamment en philosophie de l'esprit et du langage, le concept de causalite continue a jouer un role de premier plan. Ce livre montre qu'il est possible de concevoir la causalite d'une maniere compatible avec des connaissances scientifiques contemporaines. La relation causale fondamentale a lieu entre evenements (...) en fonction de la transmission d'une quantite determinee d'une grandeur conservee; mais ce qui rend vraie une explication causale, ce n'est pas seulement une relation causale entre deux evenements, mais une relation de responsabilite causale. Le concept de loi de la nature qui intervient dans cette analyse s'avere fructueux non seulement dans le cadre de la causalite, mais aussi pour l'eclairage qu'il permet d'apporter a la philosophie des sciences. (shrink)

This paper consists of four parts. In section 1, I shall offer a strategy to bypass a counter‐example which Gareth Evans (1975) offers against Quine’s Thesis of the Inscrutability of Reference. In section 2, I shall introduce a criterion recently pro‐duced by Crispin Wright (1997) in terms of ‘psychological simplicity’ which threatens the perverse route offered in section 1. In section 3, I shall argue that a LOT model of human cognition could motivate Wright’s criterion. In section 4, I shall (...) argue that if we instead model human cognition by a recurrent neural network, then Wright’s criterion is unmotivated. Thus I shall produce a Connectionist Defence of the Inscrutability Thesis. (shrink)

Originally published in 1973, this book shows that methods developed for the semantics of systems of formal logic can be successfully applied to problems about the semantics of natural languages; and, moreover, that such methods can take account of features of natural language which have often been thought incapable of formal treatment, such as vagueness, context dependence and metaphorical meaning. Parts 1 and 2 set out a class of formal languages and their semantics. Parts 3 and 4 show that these (...) formal languages are rich enought to be used in the precise description of natural languages. Appendices describe some of the concepts discussed in the text. (shrink)

Means and ends -- Conflicting panaceas -- The revolt of nature -- Rise and decline of the individual -- On the concept of philosophy.

RESUMEN Se aborda el pensamiento de E.M. Cioran desde la perspectiva de un sinsabor vital denominado sentimiento de muerte. El término, aunque aparece solo en su primer escrito, es transversal a toda su obra, puesto que para el autor los seres humanos nos intuimos como posesos de la muerte en cada momento de nuestra existencia. Esto cambia el tono normal de la vida, al poner frente a la persona una realidad carente de sentido y dominada por circunstancias radicales y limitantes (...) como el dolor y la agonía, que culmina en una atmósfera gobernada por la intuición trágica de la vida. ABSTRACT The article addresses the thought of E.M. Cioran from the perspective of that vital uneasiness known as the sentiment of death. Although the term appears only in his first book, the idea cuts across his entire work given that, for Cioran, human beings intuit themselves as possessed by death at every moment of their lives. When persons are faced with a meaningless reality, dominated by radical and limiting circumstances such as pain and agony, the whole tenor of life changes until it becomes a tragic intuition of life. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene el objetivo de reflexionar sobre los elementos que pueden constituir un modelo de crítica cultural feminista, pensado desde la intersección entre el campo de los estudios feministas y los estudios culturales críticos, con el ánimo de abonar a la discusión sobre el “giro cultural” del feminismo en Latinoamérica. Para ello, se visitan textos clásicos de los citados campos para dar un sentido histórico y epistemológico a la propuesta y se apuesta narrativa y políticamente por un ejercicio (...) de “fabulación”, en el cual se hace una metáfora de lo que significa “hacer trabajar la cultura”, desde posicionamientos feministas, por medio de la novela La historia sin fin (1979), de Michael Ende, argumentando que la defensa de Fantasía equivale a dotarnos de otros marcos de inteligibilidad, de otros paradigmas de pensamiento y acción, que aborden de frente la pregunta por el poder y se comprometan con proyectos de transformación social, en contextos específicos. (shrink)

Derecho natural y positivismo jurídico.--Derecho y poder.--Ley y conciencia.--Hans Welzel.--Obras de Hans Welzel.

Presentation of issue No 66 about epistemic injustices.

Writing from a scientifically and philosophically informed perspective, the authors provide a critical overview of the conceptual difficulties encountered in many current neuroscientific and psychological theories.

Author Max Black argues that language should conform to the discovered regularities of experience it is radically mistaken to assume that the conception of language is a mirror of reality.

Author Max Black argues that language should conform to the discovered regularities of experience it is radically mistaken to assume that the conception of language is a mirror of reality.

The book "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience" is an engaging criticism of cognitive neuroscience from the perspective of a Wittgensteinian philosophy of ordinary language. The authors' main claim is that assertions like "the brain sees" and "the left hemisphere thinks" are integral to cognitive neuroscience but that they are meaningless because they commit the mereological fallacy—ascribing to parts of humans, properties that make sense to predicate only of whole humans. The authors claim that this fallacy is at the heart of Cartesian (...) dualism, implying that current cognitive neuroscientists are Cartesian dualists. Against this claim, we argue that the fallacy cannot be committed within Cartesian dualism either, for this doctrine does not allow for an intelligible way of asserting that a soul is part of a human being. Also, the authors' Aristotelian essentialistic outlook is at odds with their Wittgensteinian stance, and we were unconvinced by their case against explanatory reductionism. Finally, although their Wittgensteinian stance is congenial with radical behaviorism, their separation between philosophy and science seems less so because it is based on a view of philosophy as a priori. The authors' emphasis on the a priori, however, does not necessarily commit them to rationalism if it is restricted to conceptual or analytical truths. (shrink)

Reductionist forms of moral realism, such as naturalist realism, are often thought immune to epistemological objections that have been raised against nonnaturalist realism in the form of reliability worries or evolutionary debunking arguments. This article establishes that reductionist realist views can only explain the reliability of our moral beliefs at the cost of incurring repugnant first-order conclusions.

When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to. From the collapse of Enron and corruption in the tobacco industry, to sales of the defective Ford Pinto, the downfall (...) of Bernard Madoff, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the authors investigate the nature of ethical failures in the business world and beyond, and illustrate how we can become more ethical, bridging the gap between who we are and who we want to be. Explaining why traditional approaches to ethics don't work, the book considers how blind spots like ethical fading--the removal of ethics from the decision--making process--have led to tragedies and scandals such as the Challenger space shuttle disaster, steroid use in Major League Baseball, the crash in the financial markets, and the energy crisis. The authors demonstrate how ethical standards shift, how we neglect to notice and act on the unethical behavior of others, and how compliance initiatives can actually promote unethical behavior. They argue that scandals will continue to emerge unless such approaches take into account the psychology of individuals faced with ethical dilemmas. Distinguishing our "should self" from our "want self", the authors point out ethical sinkholes that create questionable actions. Suggesting innovative individual and group tactics for improving human judgment, Blind Spots shows us how to secure a place for ethics in our workplaces, institutions, and daily lives. (shrink)

This text gives examples of how a different kind of human experience may be explored, and how the methods used for investigating phenomena may contribute to the process of human understanding.

"... no comprehensive scholarly study of the conceptual development of quantum mechanics has heretofore appeared. The popular or semiscientific publications available hardly skim the surface of the subject... The publication... seems therefore to fill an important lacuna in the literature on the history and philosophy of physics." -- Pref.

Se aborda el pensamiento de E.M. Cioran desde la perspectiva de un sinsabor vital denominado sentimiento de muerte. El término, aunque aparece solo en su primer escrito, es transversal a toda su obra, puesto que para el autor los seres humanos nos intuimos como posesos de la muerte en cada momento de nuestra existencia. Esto cambia el tono normal de la vida, al poner frente a la persona una realidad carente de sentido y dominada por circunstancias radicales y limitantes como (...) el dolor y la agonía, que culmina en una atmósfera gobernada por la intuición trágica de la vida. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic-induced worldwide contingency has significantly disrupted the way education has been delivered, going through a crucial period of change and adaptation. But how does this dynamic impact both students’ and teachers’ educational process? This research on the teaching of renewable energies at the higher education level in engineering programs reveals the main challenges to this transformation as well as how they were overcome. The methodology is qualitative with two-way dynamic reflection, between the facts and their interpretation, and impacts (...) 130 engineering students, from all of Colombia’s regions. Among the main results, six challenges stand out, which were addressed through different strategies. (shrink)

Tissues are shaped and patterned by mechanical and chemical processes. A key mechanical process is the positioning of the mitotic spindle, which determines the size and location of the daughter cells within the tissue. Recent force and position-fluctuation measurements indicate that pushing forces, mediated by the polymerization of astral microtubules against­ the cell cortex, maintain the mitotic spindle at the cell center in Caenorhabditis elegans embryos. The magnitude of the centering forces suggests that the physical limit on the accuracy and (...) precision of this centering mechanism is determined by the number of pushing microtubules rather than by thermally driven fluctuations. In cells that divide asymmetrically, anti-centering, pulling forces generated by cortically located dyneins, in conjunction with microtubule depolymerization, oppose the pushing forces to drive spindle displacements away from the center. Thus, a balance of centering pushing forces and anti-centering pulling forces localize the mitotic spindles within dividing C. elegans cells. We discuss microtubule-based mechanisms of the mitotic spindle positioning, a key mechanical process that shapes and patterns tissues. The magnitude of the centering forces indicates that the physical limit on the accuracy and precision of centering is set by the number of contributing microtubules rather than by thermally driven fluctuations. (shrink)

Tissues are shaped and patterned by mechanical and chemical processes. A key mechanical process is the positioning of the mitotic spindle, which determines the size and location of the daughter cells within the tissue. Recent force and position-fluctuation measurements indicate that pushing forces, mediated by the polymerization of astral microtubules against­ the cell cortex, maintain the mitotic spindle at the cell center in Caenorhabditis elegans embryos. The magnitude of the centering forces suggests that the physical limit on the accuracy and (...) precision of this centering mechanism is determined by the number of pushing microtubules rather than by thermally driven fluctuations. In cells that divide asymmetrically, anti-centering, pulling forces generated by cortically located dyneins, in conjunction with microtubule depolymerization, oppose the pushing forces to drive spindle displacements away from the center. Thus, a balance of centering pushing forces and anti-centering pulling forces localize the mitotic spindles within dividing C. elegans cells. We discuss microtubule-based mechanisms of the mitotic spindle positioning, a key mechanical process that shapes and patterns tissues. The magnitude of the centering forces indicates that the physical limit on the accuracy and precision of centering is set by the number of contributing microtubules rather than by thermally driven fluctuations. (shrink)

In this book, psychologists and philosophers describe and discuss a range of case studies of delusional beliefs, drawing out general lessons both for the cognitive architecture of the mind and for the notion of rationality, and exploring connections between the delusional beliefs that occur in schizophrenia and the flawed understanding of beliefs that is characteristic of autism.

We live in a liberal, democratic, multicultural society where ideally the values of personal liberty and autonomy are paramount. In such a society the state, through the law, should not be concerned with telling people how they should live their lives. In spite of this, many of the ethical stances taken in liberal societies are paternalistic and authoritarian. This readable and balanced book is an original discussion of contemporary issues in bioethics. Max Charlesworth argues that as there can be no (...) public consensus on a set of core values – liberal societies accept a variety of religious, non-religious, political and moral stances - there should be a plurality of ethical stances as well. On this basis he discusses issues such as the ending of human life, the new reproductive technologies and ethical distribution of limited health-care resources, particularly hospital care. (shrink)

Delusional beliefs have sometimes been considered as rational inferences from abnormal experiences. We explore this idea in more detail, making the following points. Firstly, the abnormalities of cognition which initially prompt the entertaining of a delusional belief are not always conscious and since we prefer to restrict the term “experience” to consciousness we refer to “abnormal data” rather than “abnormal experience”. Secondly, we argue that in relation to many delusions (we consider eight) one can clearly identify what the abnormal cognitive (...) data are which prompted the delusion and what the neuropsychological impairment is which is responsible for the occurrence of these data; but one can equally clearly point to cases where this impairments is present but delusion is not. So the impairment is not sufficient for delusion to occur. A second cognitive impairment, one which impairs the ability to evaluate beliefs, must also be present. Thirdly (and this is the main thrust of our chapter) we consider in detail what the nature of the inference is that leads from the abnormal data to the belief. This is not deductive inference and it is not inference by enumerative induction; it is abductive inference. We offer a Bayesian account of abductive inference and apply it to the explanation of delusional belief. (shrink)

This paper develops a critique of the concept of ‘ethical identity’ as this has been used recently to distinguish between ‘cynical’ and ‘authentic’ forms of corporate responsibility. Taking as our starting point Levinas’ demanding view of responsibility as ‘following the assignation of responsibility for my neighbour’, we use a case study of a packaging company—PackCo—to argue that a concern with being seen and/or seeing oneself as responsible should not be confused with actual responsibility. Our analysis of the case points first (...) to the allure of programmes of strategic corporate responsibility and the ways in which, through identification, they can provide a tacit form of moral sanction to managers in their aggressive pursuit of profit. It then contrasts the responses of different managers to negative staff feedback to illustrate the difference between managers’ attempts to defend their identity of being ‘responsible’ managers, and responsible conduct itself. The paper concludes that a potent danger of programmes of corporate responsibility is that they allow managers to deceive not just others, but also themselves in relation to the exercise of responsibility. (shrink)

This work represents an attempt to stake out the landscape for dynamicism based on a radical dismissal of the information-processing paradigm that dominates the philosophy of cognitive science. In Section 2, after setting up the basic toolkit of a theory of minimal representationalism, I introduce the central tenets of dynamic systems theory (DST) by discussing recent research in the dynamics of embodiment (Thelen et al. [2001]) in the perseverative-reaching literature. A recent proposal on the dynamics of representation--the dynamic field approach (...) (Spencer and Schöner [2003])-- according to which the alleged representational gap between DST and representational theories of cognition needs to be bridged in order to explain higher-order cognitive activity will then be reviewed. In Section 3 I shall argue that Spencer and Schöner's attempt to bridge the representational gap may jeopardize the whole (antirepresentationalist) spirit of the DST project. In order to show why, I shall introduce the key concepts of "reliability of environment" and "primagenesis", and argue that DST can account for de-coupled, offline cognitive activity with no need of positing representational resources. Conclusions and directions for future research will follow. (shrink)

When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to. From the collapse of Enron and corruption in the tobacco industry, to sales of the defective Ford Pinto, the downfall (...) of Bernard Madoff, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the authors investigate the nature of ethical failures in the business world and beyond, and illustrate how we can become more ethical, bridging the gap between who we are and who we want to be. Explaining why traditional approaches to ethics don't work, the book considers how blind spots like ethical fading--the removal of ethics from the decision--making process--have led to tragedies and scandals such as the Challenger space shuttle disaster, steroid use in Major League Baseball, the crash in the financial markets, and the energy crisis. The authors demonstrate how ethical standards shift, how we neglect to notice and act on the unethical behavior of others, and how compliance initiatives can actually promote unethical behavior. They argue that scandals will continue to emerge unless such approaches take into account the psychology of individuals faced with ethical dilemmas. Distinguishing our "should self" from our "want self", the authors point out ethical sinkholes that create questionable actions. Suggesting innovative individual and group tactics for improving human judgment, Blind Spots shows us how to secure a place for ethics in our workplaces, institutions, and daily lives. (shrink)