The distinction between action persuasion dialogues and deliberation dialogues is not always obvious at first sight. In this paper, we provide a characterisation of both types of dialogues that draws out the distinctive features of each. It is important to recognise the distinctions since participants in both types of dialogues will have different aims, which in turn affects whether a successful outcome can be reached. Such dialogues are typically conducted by exchanging arguments for and against certain options. The moves of (...) the dialogue are designed to facilitate such exchanges. In particular, we show how the pre- and post-conditions for the use of particular moves in the dialogues are very different depending upon whether they are used as part of a persuasion over action or a deliberation dialogue. We draw out the distinctions with reference to a running example that we also present as a logic program in order to give a clear characterisation of the two types of dialogues, which is intended to enable them to be used more effectively within systems requiring automated communication. (shrink)

This paper explores the interface between users and producers of translational science through three case studies. It argues that effective TS requires a breakdown between user and producer roles: users become producers and producers become users. In making this claim, we challenge conventional understandings of TS as well as linear models of innovation. Policy-makers and funders increasingly expect TS and its associated socioeconomic benefits to occur when funding scientific research. We argue that a better understanding of the hybridity between users (...) and producers in TS is essential to encouraging effective TS activities. In arguing for broader understandings of the hybrid roles of user/producers in TS we rely on empirical observations made during our four-year study of three translational pathways here labeled clinical, commercial, and civic. These pathways were identified in a large-scale network of scientists investigating the pathogenomics of innate immunity (i.e. “the PI.2 network”.. (shrink)

Before COVID-19, dementia singing groups and choirs flourished, providing activity, cognitive stimulation, and social support for thousands of people with dementia in the UK. Interactive music provides one of the most effective psychosocial interventions for people with dementia; it can allay agitation and promote wellbeing. Since COVID-19 has halted the delivery of in-person musical activities, it is important for the welfare of people with dementia and their carers to investigate what alternatives to live music making exist, how these alternatives are (...) delivered and how their accessibility can be expanded. This community case study examines recent practice in online music-making in response to COVID-19 restrictions for people with dementia and their supporters, focusing on a UK context. It documents current opportunities for digital music making, and assesses the barriers and facilitators to their delivery and accessibility. Online searches of video streaming sites and social media documented what music activities were available. Expert practitioners and providers collaborated on this study and supplied input about the sessions they had been delivering, the technological challenges and solutions they had found, and the responses of the participants. Recommendations for best practice were developed and refined in consultation with these collaborators. Over 50 examples of online music activities were identified. In addition to the challenges of digital inclusion and accessibility for some older people, delivering live music online has unique challenges due to audio latency and sound quality. It is necessary to adapt the session to the technology's limitations rather than expect to overcome these challenges. The recommendations highlight the importance of accessibility, digital safety and wellbeing of participants. They also suggest ways to optimize the quality of their musical experience. The pandemic has prompted innovative approaches to deliver activities and interventions in a digital format, and people with dementia and their carers have adapted rapidly. While online music is meeting a clear current need for social connection and cognitive stimulation, it also offers some advantages which remain relevant after COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed. The recommendations of this study are intended to be useful to musicians, dementia care practitioners, and researchers during the pandemic and beyond. (shrink)

Richerson et al. argue that relatively large culturalFSTvalues provide evidence for group structure and therefore scope for group selection. However, recent research on spatial patterns of cultural variation demonstrates that, as in the genetic case, apparent group structure can be a consequence of geographic clines, not group barriers. Such a pattern limits the scope for cultural group selection.

Continuous sedation until death (CSD), the act of reducing or removing the consciousness of an incurably ill patient until death, often provokes medical–ethical discussions in the opinion sections of medical and nursing journals. Some argue that CSD is morally equivalent to physician-assisted death (PAD), that it is a form of “slow euthanasia.” A qualitative thematic content analysis of opinion pieces was conducted to describe and classify arguments that support or reject a moral difference between CSD and PAD. Arguments pro and (...) contra a moral difference refer basically to the same ambiguous themes, namely intention, proportionality, withholding artificial nutrition and hydration, and removing consciousness. This demonstrates that the debate is first and foremost a semantic rather than a factual dispute, focusing on the normative framework of CSD. Given the prevalent ambiguity, the debate on CSD appears to be a classical symbolic struggle for moral authority. (shrink)

Doug Walton, who died in January 2020, was a prolific author whose work in informal logic and argumentation had a profound influence on Artificial Intelligence, including Artificial Intelligence and Law. He was also very interested in interdisciplinary work, and a frequent and generous collaborator. In this paper seven leading researchers in AI and Law, all past programme chairs of the International Conference on AI and Law who have worked with him, describe his influence on their work.

We provide a retrospective of 25 years of the International Conference on AI and Law, which was first held in 1987. Fifty papers have been selected from the thirteen conferences and each of them is described in a short subsection individually written by one of the 24 authors. These subsections attempt to place the paper discussed in the context of the development of AI and Law, while often offering some personal reactions and reflections. As a whole, the subsections build into (...) a history of the last quarter century of the field, and provide some insights into where it has come from, where it is now, and where it might go. (shrink)

We have, to some extent, a duty to help the needy—to meet their basic needs for food, water, shelter, and health care. Call this the duty of beneficence. Below, I argue that it is best understood as a duty both (a) to adopt helping the needy as “a serious, major, continually relevant, life-shaping end” (HILL 2002, 206) and (b) to never behave in a way (via act or omission) that’s factually incompatible with having such an end. (Behaving in a given (...) way is factually incompatible with having an end if and only if someone who knows all the relevant facts couldn’t behave in this way and still count as having this end—at least not if they have both all the other ends that they’re required to have and only those other ends that they’re permitted to have.) I call this the Kantian View, and I argue that it has several advantages over four of its rivals. In particular, I argue that it has the advantage of being able to account for all the following: (1) a diachronic (over-time) duty to take a sufficient number of favorable opportunities for helping the needy over the course of our lives, (2) a synchronic (at-a-time) duty to take every golden opportunity to help the needy that arises, and (3) the relationship between the two. (shrink)

Cenzer, D., R. Downey, C. Jockusch and R.A. Shore, Countable thin Π01 classes, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 59 79–139. A Π01 class P {0, 1}ω is thin if every Π01 subclass of P is the intersection of P with some clopen set. Countable thin Π01 classes are constructed having arbitrary recursive Cantor- Bendixson rank. A thin Π01 class P is constructed with a unique nonisolated point A and furthermore A is of degree 0’. It is shown that no (...) set of degree ≥0” can be a member of any thin Π01 class. An r.e. degree d is constructed such that no set of degree d can be a member of any thin Π01 class. It is also shown that between any two distinct comparable r.e. degrees, there is a degree that contains a set which is of rank one in some thin Π01 class. It is shown that no maximal set can have rank one in any Π01 class, while there exist maximal sets of rank 2. The connection between Π01 classes, propositional theories and recursive Boolean algebras is explored, producing several corollaries to the results on Π01 classes. For example, call a recursive Boolean algebra thin if it has no proper nonprincipal recursive ideals. Then no thin recursive Boolean algebra can have a maximal ideal of degree ≥0”. (shrink)

The philosophical resonance between Zhuangzi and Spinoza has been often cited and rarely studied in detail. It was pointed out by pioneering Chinese scholars such as Hu Shih and Fung Yu-Lan.1 Never...

It can seem a truism that to understand a language is to know what its expressions mean.

Science is being transformed by the increasing capabilities of automation technologies and artificial intelligence (AI). Integrating AI and machine learning (ML) into scientific practice requires changing established research methods while maintaining a scientific understanding of research findings. Researchers are at the forefront of this change, but there is currently little understanding of how they are experiencing these upheavals in scientific practice. In this paper, we examine how researchers working in several research fields (automation engineering, computational design, conservation decision-making, materials science, (...) and synthetic biology) perceive AI/ML technologies used in their work, such as laboratory automation, automated design of experiments, computational design, and computer experiments. We find that researchers emphasised the need for AI/ML technologies to have practical benefits (such as efficiency and improved safety) to justify their use. Researchers were also hesitant to automate data analysis, and the importance of explainability differed between researchers working with laboratory automation and those using AI/ML directly in their research. This difference is due to the different role AI/ML plays in different research fields: laboratory automation performs processes already defined by the researcher and the actions are visible or recorded, while in AI/ML applications the decisions that produced the result may be obscure to the researcher. Understanding the role AI/ML plays in scientific practice is important for ensuring that scientific knowledge continues to grow. (shrink)

Several authors have recently claimed that we each possess a right against interference with our minds. However, it remains unclear how this claim is to be justified. I offer a novel argument in defence of it. The argument is intuitive—appealing centrally to intuitions regarding cases—and abductive—taking the form of an inference to the best explanation; I offer a series of cases involving intuitively wrongful interventions, argue that five somewhat promising attempts to account for the wrongfulness of these interventions leave some (...) of this wrongfulness unexplained, and show that my proposed alternative explanation, which invokes a right against mental interference, can account for this residual wrongfulness. (shrink)

In her sole philosophical treatise, The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, Anne Conway (1631-1679) offers a demonstration of the proposition that, in addition to God and creatures, there is a being whose essence is the medium between God’s essence and creatures’ essence. We offer an interpretation of Conway’s demonstration that reveals its dependence on a rational principle ('PME'): if beings with extreme natures are united, then they are united by means of a being whose nature is the (...) medium between the extremes. We also assess the extent to which Conway offers a justification for her metaphysics by demonstrating her claims from principles known by the understanding. Conway’s philosophical demonstrations are suggestive of a rationalist position on which her metaphysics may be proved from a small number of propositions established independent of experience. However, we ultimately argue that Conway’s philosophical methodology is not rationalist in this sense: for Conway is willing to take our daily experience as the evidence for a metaphysical principle, and also to argue for her philosophy on the basis of a consensus among authoritative texts. (shrink)

Nosso artigo visa um estudo sobre os cadernos intitulados como “Manuscritos econômico-filosóficos” de Karl Marx, do ano de 1844, tendo em vista a posição privilegiada que o texto ocupa no desenvolvimento do pensamento do autor. Do mesmo modo, os manuscritos guardam os primeiros estudos teóricos da economia política de um jovem Marx e seu pensamento precoce – anterior àquele de “O capital” –, ao mesmo tempo que também representou o aprimoramento das “armas da crítica” pela “crítica das armas” contra os (...) jovens hegelianos do grupo de Berlim (principalmente Bauer e Stirner) e o pensamento e herança deixada por Hegel. Tais estudos possivelmente também foram importantes para a edificação da amizade que ele também começaria poucos meses após os manuscritos serem “concluídos” – conclusão que só seria realizada com a publicação mas que nunca ocorreu durante a vida de Karl Marx, senão, ocorreria apenas em 1932 (integralmente) com a redescoberta dos mesmos alguns anos antes com o impulso da revolução bolchevique na Rússia. Por fim, buscaremos apontar em que medida as concepções e o pensamento do jovem autor se conservam ou se transformam – parcial ou completamente – nos anos imediatamente posteriores. (shrink)

This study employs the uses and gratification approach to investigate how different forms of Facebook use are linked to bridging social capital and bonding social capital. A survey of 152 college students was conducted to address research questions and to test hypotheses. Factor analysis identified six unique uses and gratifications: (a) information seeking, (b) entertainment, (c) communication, (d) social relations, (e) escape, and (f) Facebook applications. Findings reveal that intensity of Facebook use and the use of Facebook for social relations (...) are positive predictors of bridging social capital, whereas the use of Facebook for escape is negatively linked to bonding social capital. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the developments of Young Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia, with a special focus on Max Stirner’s radical critique of Hegelian thinking. It presents an overview of the history of Hegelianism in the 1830s and 1840s, and addresses the theoretical issues raised by Stirner’s attack in 1844. It examines important aspects of Young Hegelianism, including ideas of a modernized civic humanism and emancipation, and traces the Young Hegelians’ reconfiguration of Hegel’s thought in order to eliminate what they saw as (...) its conservative or insufficiently critical elements. The refurbished republicanism of the Young Hegelians took up the new challenges of the industrial age that was dawning in Germany, with special attention to the social question and the intransigent conflicting interests that typified the emergent economic order. Stirner’s critique is framed by its anti-humanist repudiation of Left Hegelian emancipatory projects. (shrink)

Various philosophers have claimed that a necessary condition for A to wrongfully exploit B is for A to benefit from interacting with B. On a subjective understanding of benefits, A benefits from an interaction only if that interaction contributes to the satisfaction of one of A’s actual and current goals or desires. On the other hand, interests may be read as objective or real interests. Proposals for characterizing real interests range from those that restrict real interests to psychological states to (...) those that involve states that are not psychological. On the objective understanding, A benefits from an interaction with B only if that interaction promotes one of A’s real interests. I dispute the claim that a requirement of wrongful exploitation is an objective benefit to the exploiter. (shrink)

I respond to Michael Zimmerman and Gideon Yaffe, both of whom have written thoughtful and constructive criticisms of my “Ignorance of Law”. Zimmerman believes I do not go far enough in exculpating morally ignorant wrongdoers; he accuses me of lacking the courage of my convictions in allowing exceptions for reckless wrongdoers and for willfully ignorant wrongdoers. Yaffe, by contrast, thinks I rely on a defective foundation of moral blameworthiness. He proposes an alternative account he alleges to conform more closely to (...) common sense. In responding to both critics, I emphasize that our points of agreement may be more significant than our disagreements. (shrink)

This is an interesting study with a great deal of information on Eliade's main themes and a detailed account of his understanding of myth.

O presente artigo investiga algumas das principais relações entre a húbris moderna e a antiga, valendo-se tanto de resultados no campo da psicologia e dos estudos corporativos, de um lado, e dos estudos clássicos, de outro. Particular atenção é dada ao tratamento do tema por Aristóteles, em especial na Retórica e na Política, sem descuidar de outras fontes clássicas como Hérodoto e Ésquilo.

Studies of the history of life provide an interesting case study of how the questions scientists can ask, and from which they expect reliable answers, change over time. Some of these changes reflect the introduction of new technology or methodological advances in other fields that open new opportunities; other changes reflect an evolving perspective on what constitutes important research questions or the integration of multiple streams of information. In this contribution, I consider the changing nature of questions in paleontology, largely (...) focusing on English-speaking paleontologists since the mid-twentieth century. Rather than bemoaning the field’s limitations, paleontologists have pioneered techniques to identify and often correct preservation and collecting biases in the fossil record. Rigorous methods to infer and test phylogenies have been integrated with molecular clock studies to infer branch-points in phylogeny, and with insights from comparative developmental studies, which together inform our understanding of evolutionary dynamics, particularly novelty. Together, these advances have changed the questions paleontologists can address about the history of life, eliminating some questions (particularly in paleoecology), but greatly expanding research programs in other areas as well as collaborations with biologists and other Earth scientists. I suggest that the questions driving paleontologists have evolved from primarily descriptive and explanatory to increasingly analytical and integrative. These trends are briefly illustrated with examples from studies of the Ediacaran-Cambrian diversification of animals, and from studies of mass extinctions. (shrink)

Friendship constitutes an integral part of human flourishing. Aristotle (1996) famously wrote, ‘For no one would choose to live without friends, but possessing all other good things’ (205). Members of our respective practice communities (MacIntyre, 1984) understand and appreciate our passion for running or basketball, tennis or cycling. The friends we develop through sport, and herein I focus on running, have the potential to help us cultivate human flourishing in the Aristotelian sense. Highlighting this point, Austin (2007) writes that ‘The (...) friendships of runners often illustrate Aristotle’s understanding of this highest form of friendship, as well as friendship in its lower forms. And as we shall see, running is well suited for fostering the type of friendship that Aristotle thinks is necessary for being happy’ (12). In his book, Philosophy Americana, Anderson (2006) provides an overview of the themes which pervade the academic discipline known as American philosophy. Individuals typically cited within this domain include Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Josiah Royce, and John Dewey, among others. Examining the nature of running friendships provides a way to explicate American philosophical themes; and the themes provide a means to more fully understand and appreciate the nature of running friendships. My purpose here is to examine running friendships through the lens of the American philosophical tradition. The themes I have in mind here are: patience; commitment and immersion; risk and precipitousnes; and experience. I begin with an overview of friendship, including friendship as a form of human flourishing as well as the formation of friendship. I then transition to an examination of American philosophical themes related to running and friendship. (shrink)