The aim of this paper is twofold: (i) to introduce the framework of update semantics and to explain what kind of semantic phenomena may successfully be analysed in it: (ii) to give a detailed analysis of one such phenomenon: default reasoning.

Definition of the problem The umbrella term “explicability” refers to the reduction of opacity of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. These efforts are challenging for medical AI applications because higher accuracy often comes at the cost of increased opacity. This entails ethical tensions because physicians and patients desire to trace how results are produced without compromising the performance of AI systems. The centrality of explicability within the informed consent process for medical AI systems compels an ethical reflection on the trade-offs. Which (...) levels of explicability are needed to obtain informed consent when utilizing medical AI? Arguments We proceed in five steps: First, we map the terms commonly associated with explicability as described in the ethics and computer science literature, i.e., disclosure, intelligibility, interpretability, and explainability. Second, we conduct a conceptual analysis of the ethical requirements for explicability when it comes to informed consent. Third, we distinguish hurdles for explicability in terms of epistemic and explanatory opacity. Fourth, this then allows to conclude the level of explicability physicians must reach and what patients can expect. In a final step, we show how the identified levels of explicability can technically be met from the perspective of computer science. Throughout our work, we take diagnostic AI systems in radiology as an example. Conclusion We determined four levels of explicability that need to be distinguished for ethically defensible informed consent processes and showed how developers of medical AI can technically meet these requirements. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed intensive efforts to specify which requirements ethical artificial intelligence (AI) must meet. General guidelines for ethical AI consider a varying number of principles important. A frequent novel element in these guidelines, that we have bundled together under the term explicability, aims to reduce the black-box character of machine learning algorithms. The centrality of this element invites reflection on the conceptual relation between explicability and the four bioethical principles. This is important because the application of general ethical (...) frameworks to clinical decision-making entails conceptual questions: Is explicability a free-standing principle? Is it already covered by the well-established four bioethical principles? Or is it an independent value that needs to be recognized as such in medical practice? We discuss these questions in a conceptual-ethical analysis, which builds upon the findings of an empirical document analysis. On the example of the medical specialty of radiology, we analyze the position of radiological associations on the ethical use of medical AI. We address three questions: Are there references to explicability or a similar concept? What are the reasons for such inclusion? Which ethical concepts are referred to? (shrink)

Responsibility gaps concern the attribution of blame for harms caused by autonomous machines. The worry has been that, because they are artificial agents, it is impossible to attribute blame, even though doing so would be appropriate given the harms they cause. We argue that there are no responsibility gaps. The harms can be blameless. And if they are not, the blame that is appropriate is indirect and can be attributed to designers, engineers, software developers, manufacturers or regulators. The real problem (...) lies elsewhere: autonomous machines should be built so as to exhibit a level of risk that is morally acceptable. If they fall short of this standard, they exhibit what we call ‘a control gap.’ The causal control that autonomous machines have will then fall short of the guidance control they should emulate. (shrink)

In this paper the system IL for relative interpretability is studied.

The strongest objection to (15) is that speaker's meaning is defined in terms of commitment, a notion which is itself something of a challenge and for which no definition has been given. This would be a strong reason to prefer a definition in terms of some more tractable concept, all things being equal; but it does not lessen the probability that commitment or some similar notion is indispensable to the definition of speaker's meaning.The philosophical writings discussed in this paper all (...) proceed something like this: Particular cases are discussed and a description is given of the mechanisms by which communication takes place. An attempt is made to say something that applies to all instances of speaker's meaning. Words like ‘analysis’, ‘account’ ‘explanation’, ‘explication’, and ‘theory’ are used here, the suggestion being that the objective is to provide for all cases at once what has already been provided for particular cases-an explanation of how meaning works. What is produced, however, looks like adefinition of speaker's meaning, a statement of necessary and sufficient conditions. This definition is then evaluated largely in terms of what counterexamples it does or does not allow.It seems that there is some tendency to conflate two quite distinct objectives: (i) a theory of speaker's meaning-a general description of how it is that speakers are able to communicate; and (ii) a statement of necessary and sufficient conditions for speaker's meaning. Objective (i) might plausibly be regarded as the goal of the study of communication. Objective (ii) is the definition of a certain intuitive, pretheoretical concept of meaning, which might or might not prove to be an important concept with respect to objective (i). The Gricean mechanism and the notion of conventional meaning, on the other hand, are indispensable to (i)-few instances of speaker's meaning could be adequately described without recourse to at least one of these notions. Thus nothing in this paper should be construed as trying to downgrade the importance of the Gricean mechanism for the theory of communication. If objective (ii) and the Gricean mechanism are not as closely associated as has been claimed, this is, if anything, a reason to doubt the importance of (ii) for the theory of communication. (shrink)

Ubiquitous news, global information access, instantaneous reporting, interactivity, multimedia content, extreme customization: Journalism is undergoing the most fundamental transformation since the rise of the penny press in the nineteenth century. Here is a report from the front lines on the impact and implications for journalists and the public alike. John Pavlik, executive director of the Center for New Media at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, argues that the new media can revitalize news gathering and reengage an increasingly distrustful and (...) alienated citizenry. The book is a valuable reference on everything from organizing a new age newsroom to job hunting in the new media. (shrink)

Biomarker-based predictive tests for subjectively asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are utilized in research today. Novel applications of artificial intelligence (AI) promise to predict the onset of AD several years in advance without determining biomarker thresholds. Until now, little attention has been paid to the new ethical challenges that AI brings to the early diagnosis in asymptomatic individuals, beyond contributing to research purposes, when we still lack adequate treatment. The aim of this paper is to explore the ethical arguments put forward (...) for AI aided AD prediction in subjectively asymptomatic individuals and their ethical implications. The ethical assessment is based on a systematic literature search. Thematic analysis was conducted inductively of 18 included publications. The ethical framework includes the principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. Reasons for offering predictive tests to asymptomatic individuals are the right to know, a positive balance of the risk-benefit assessment, and the opportunity for future planning. Reasons against are the lack of disease modifying treatment, the accuracy and explicability of AI aided prediction, the right not to know, and threats to social rights. We conclude that there are serious ethical concerns in offering early diagnosis to asymptomatic individuals and the issues raised by the application of AI add to the already known issues. Nevertheless, pre-symptomatic testing should only be offered on request to avoid inflicted harm. We recommend developing training for physicians in communicating AI aided prediction. (shrink)

I present an outline of the Omega Point theory, which is a model for an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, evolving, personal God who is both transcendent to spacetime and immanent in it, and who exists necessarily. The model is a falsifiable physical theory, deriving its key concepts not from any religious tradition but from modern physical cosmology and computer science; from scientific materialism rather than revelation. Four testable predictions of the model are given. The theory assumes that thinking is a purely (...) physical process of the brain, and that personality dies with the brain. Nevertheless, I show that the Omega Point theory suggests a future universal resurrection of the dead very similar to the one predicted in the Judeo‐Christian‐Islamic tradition. The notions of “grace” and the “beatific vision” appear naturally in the model. (shrink)

Compassion is an emotion that occupies a central position in Mah?y?na Buddhist philosophy while it is often a neglected subject in contemporary western philosophy. This essay is a comparison between an Eastern view of compassion based upon Mah?y?na Buddhist perspectives and a western view of the same emotion. Certain principles found in Mah?y?na Buddhist philosophy such as the Bodhisattva Ideal, and suffering to name two, are explored for the information they contain about compassion. An essay by Lawrence Blum is taken (...) as representative of a Western view and it is analyzed for its shortcomings in light of the Buddhist view. The conclusion briefly describes the value of understanding an eastern view on compassion as a means of filling the void one finds in western medical ethics discourse which focuses so heavily, and redundantly, upon issues such as patient autonomy and paternalism. (shrink)

In his first summer lecture at Berkeley in 1914, Josiah Royce, American philosopher of community, confessed as follows.

When the first edition of Semantics appeared in 1976, the developments in this aspect of language study were exciting interest not only among linguists, but among philosophers, psychologists and logicians. Professor Palmer's straightforward and comprehensive book was immediately welcomed as one of the best introductions to the subject. Interest in Semantics has been further stimulated recently by a number of significant, and often contriversial, theoretical advances; and the publication of this second edition has enabled Professor Palmer to bring his survey (...) thoroughly up to date. There is also an important new chapter on 'Semantics and logic', showing clearly and simply the influence that logical models have had on the study of meaning. Professor Palmer always illustrates his argument with helpful examples, and his non-technical explanations will be readily intelligible to the interested layman as well as to beginning students of language and linguistics. (shrink)

Psychological experirnents have repeatedly shown that in judging the likelihood of uncertain events people do not follow the principles of probability theory. A notorious example is given by the so called conjunction fallacy. In this paper I argue that this fallacy is not really a fallacy when it is analysed in the light of a dynamic theory of default reasoning. The question that immediately rises is whether the fact that this theory conforms better to the way people actually think provides (...) a reason to prefer it to probability theory. (shrink)

This research looks what happens to human reproduction when human genetic information is digitized. By employing speculative design as a transdisciplinary strategy to construct such an alternative future to open up public dialogues, it aims to stimulate audiences in an artistic way to deliberate two key questions: (1) how will biotechnology recondition and recontextualize the natural processes of genetic information (i.e. expression, replication, transmission and mutation) and our physiological processes (e.g. reproduction)? And (2) what might be the ethical, legal and (...) social implications (ELSI) for using such biotechnology? To this end, this practice-based research introduces the ‘e-gamete Digital Procreation Service’ (2019) – a speculative design project that has been developed as an approach to invite audiences to a future scenario of network-transmitted genetic information and computer-simulated human procreation. The carefully designed future service (an ironic practice of commercialization) allows human reproduction to take place outside of the human body. Audiences are encouraged to contemplate what novel situations might occur within their own futures and to consider broader questions like how family, parenthood, marriage, etc. are redefined and what new social relationships might emerge. By employing speculative design as an artistic research tool/tactic to step outside the technical limitations and craft the future service, the project asks vital question about the future in a provocative and quasi-realistic manner. Thus, the research forms a unique entanglement of sensitive topics by dealing with future biotechnology and human reproduction. (shrink)

We discuss the foundations of constructive mathematics, including recursive mathematics and intuitionism, in relation to classical mathematics. There are connections with the foundations of physics, due to the way in which the different branches of mathematics reflect reality. Many different axioms and their interrelationship are discussed. We show that there is a fundamental problem in BISH (Bishop’s school of constructive mathematics) with regard to its current definition of ‘continuous function’. This problem is closely related to the definition in BISH of (...) ‘locally compact’. Possible approaches to this problem are discussed. Topology seems to be a key to understanding many issues. We offer several new simplifying axioms, which can form bridges between the various branches of constructive mathematics and classical mathematics (‘reuniting the antipodes’). We give a simplification of basic intuitionistic theory, especially with regard to so-called ‘bar induction’. We then plead for a limited number of axiomatic systems, which differentiate between the various branches of mathematics. Finally, in the appendix we offer BISH an elegant topological definition of ‘locally compact’, which unlike the current definition is equivalent to the usual classical and/or intuitionistic definition in classical and intuitionistic mathematics, respectively. (shrink)

Over the course of the 20th century the sex differential in life expectancy at birth in the industrialized countries has widened considerably in favour of women. Starting in the early 1970s, the beginning of a reversal in the long-term pattern of this differential has been noted in some high-income countries. This study documents a sustained pattern of narrowing of this measure into the later part of the 1990s for six of the populations that comprise the G7 countries: Canada, France, Germany, (...) Italy, England and Wales (as representative of the United Kingdom) and USA. For Japan, a persistence of widening sex differences in survival is noted. The sex differences in life expectancy are decomposed over roughly three decades (early 1970s to late 1990s) from the point of view of four major cause-of-death categories: circulatory diseases, cancers, accidents/violence/suicide, and (residual) causes. In the six countries where the sex gap has narrowed, this has resulted primarily from reduced sex differences in circulatory disease mortality, and secondarily from reduced differences in male and female death rates due to accidents, violence and suicide combined. In some of the countries sex differentials in cancer mortality have been converging lately, and this has also contributed to a narrowing of the difference in life expectancy. In Japan, males have been less successful in reducing their survival disadvantage in relation to Japanese women with regard to circulatory disease and cancer; and in the case of accidents/violence/suicide, male death rates increased during the 1990s. These trends explain the divergent pattern of the sex difference in life expectation in Japan as compared with the other G7 nations. (shrink)

: This article aims: 1) to review several, key, earlier studies of Josiah Royce's relations to Asian thinkers (mainly Indian); 2) to discover through a survey of Royce's writings how widely and deeply Royce familiarized himself with, and employed Hindu, Buddhist, and other Asian traditions; and, 3) to measure how relevant Royce's most mature philosophy (1912–1916) is for the currently needed inter-cultural, inter-religious, and inter-faith dialogues. Parts One and Two supply foundations which reveal Royce's lifelong commitment to open "windows" to (...) Eastern thought, in order to dialogue with Asian thinkers and invite other Westerners to do the same. The article climaxes in Part Three by revealing the relevance of the late Royce's "philosophy of the 'Spirit,' his "philosophical pneumatology." I trace ten of its implied positions, significant for contemporary philosophers of religion and theologians. I conclude by showing that Royce's "philosophy of the 'Spirit"' and its implied positions are all rooted in Royce's view of a "middle faith." Such a faith supports his view of the "invisible church," his "Beloved Community of all "Christians"—"Christians" taken in his wider sense of "all genuine loyalists who are members of a Beloved Community.". (shrink)

[PHILPEOPLE DOESN'T ALLOW PARAGRAPH BREAKS IN ABSTRACTS...] My [Frank Scalambrino's] dissertation first traces the development of a philosophical theory of ontological negation from Plato’s Parmenides and Sophist through Aristotle’s Metaphysics to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, especially his “Table of Nothing” (A 292). Whereas Plato’s “puzzle of non-being” sets the stage for the subsequent discussion of ontological negation, Kant’s Table of Nothing provides a formalization of the possible solutions to the puzzle. According to Kant, there are four (4) different (...) ways in which “ontological negation” could be meant. By way of this formalization two major trends for interpreting ontological negation may be seen in the history of Western philosophy. The Aristotelian trend may be seen as a reduction of ontological negation to logical negation such that the fourth possibility in Kant’s Table of Nothing is eliminated. This Aristotelian trend was later adopted by both Hegel and Heidegger. [NEW PARAGRAPH........................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .......]The Platonic trend, exemplified by the “puzzle of non-being” from the Sophist, affirms what is later formalized as the fourth possibility in Kant’s Table of Nothing. How exactly to characterize such ontological negation is precisely “the puzzle of non-being.” The idea being that if it is not even possible to characterize this type of ontological negation, then it should be eliminated, that is, by following Aristotle’s trend and reducing ontological negation to logical negation. It was as a reaction against Hegel, and thereby the Aristotelian trend regarding ontological negation, then, which prompted Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida to take up the puzzle of non-being and pursue the Platonic trend. [NEW PARAGRAPH........................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .......]Both of their solutions to the puzzle of non-being follow the Platonic trend in two (2) ways: first, they affirm the fourth possibility in Kant’s Table of Nothing, and, second, they take an approach already initiated in the Sophist; that is, they attempt to characterize ontological negation in terms of one of Plato’s “Great Kinds” – Difference. Of course, both Deleuze and Derrida take a post-Kantian approach to characterizing ontological negation in terms of difference. In fact, given the internal criteria of the puzzle of non-being, in terms of historical hindsight, Kant’s critical turn seems a necessary condition for solving the puzzle. Therefore, both Deleuze and Derrida characterize ontological negation in terms of “pure difference.” When we interrogate the idea of “pure difference” we find that it refers to Différance in Derrida and what Deleuze refers to as “?-being.” [NEW PARAGRAPH........................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .......]Next, my dissertation provides a critical reading of “pure difference” in Deleuze and Derrida by criticizing the ability of “pure difference” to characterize the fourth possibility in Kant’s Table of Nothing. The criticism culminates in my advancing a different characterization of the fourth possibility in Kant’s Table of Nothing. Whereas Deleuze and Derrida provide solutions from the standpoint of a post-Kantian general ontology, I provide a solution from the standpoint of a philosophical psychology, understood in terms of Kant’s theoretical philosophy. That is to say, I provide a characterization of the fourth possibility in Kant’s Table of Nothing in terms of the relation between the Critique of Pure Reason’s Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Unity of Apperception. By juxtaposing a Kantian ontology in terms of philosophical psychology and general ontology, I examine the difference between the transcendental structure of internal time-consciousness and the register in general ontology conforming to the transcendental structure of time-consciousness, specifically what may be understood as the transcendental structure conditioning the human experience of the duration of a moment. Given that this structure is both “transcendental” and the condition for experiencing “duration,” I refer to it as “transcendental memory.” [NEW PARAGRAPH........................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .......]Thus, the limits constituting the experience of the duration of a moment for humans may be used to characterize the fourth possibility in Kant’s Table of Nothing. On the one hand, this provides a solution to the puzzle of non-being along the lines of the Platonic trend. On the other hand, this provides a solid basis for criticizing attempts to solve the puzzle along the Aristotelian trend. Further, the solution to the puzzle of non-being found in my dissertation provides a way to extend Kant’s theoretical philosophy and a pathway for future metaphysics. (Frank Scalambrino, Ph.D. Duquesne University, 2011). (shrink)

Inductive inference considers two types of queries: Queries to a teacher about the function to be learned and queries to a non-recursive oracle. This paper combines these two types — it considers three basic models of queries to a teacher (QEX[Succ], QEX[ The results for each of these three models of query-inference are the same: If an oracle is omniscient for query-inference then it is already omniscient for EX. There is an oracle of trivial EX-degree, which allows nontrivial query-inference. Furthermore, (...) queries to a teacher cannot overcome differences between oracles and the query-inference degrees are a proper refinement of the EX-degrees. In the case of finite learning, the query-inference degrees coincide with the Turing degrees. Furthermore oracles can not close the gap between the different types of queries to a teacher. (shrink)

This short, smart book tells you everything you need to know about " nothing." What remains when you take all the matter away? Can empty space--" nothing "--exist?

If K is a field of finite Morley rank, then for any parameter set $A \subseteq K^{eq}$ the prime model over A is equal to the model-theoretic algebraic closure of A. A field of finite Morley rank eliminates imaginaries. Simlar results hold for minimal groups of finite Morley rank with infinite acl( $\emptyset$ ).

The terms “politics” and “political” have become so overdetermined that it is difficult to use them in any effective manner. We argue that this has dangerous political consequences, and that this could be addressed by providing a new, sounder, notion of politics. This paper argues that defining politics in relation to the notion of play can provide a notion both intuitively appealing and able to withstand the problematic overdeterminations. We argue that politics is the set of practices through which the (...) indeterminate of Spielraum is made more determinate. This suggests that politics is always partly a matter of play: it is about instituting values without making any claims about the legitimacy of this instituting act. With reference to Huizinga and Nietzsche’s analyses of play, we define play as the living unity of seriousness and frivolity, and non-play as either seriousness without frivolity or frivolity without seriousness. In order to illustrate this, we comparatively analyse the attitudes of Barack Obama and Donald Trump in the single context of the well-known yearly White House Correspondent’s Dinner. There, we see two opposed attitudes to playfulness. Our analysis allows us to apply our _Spielraum_ model of politics to show that the thrust of Obama’s attitude involves an embrace of the non-foundational nature of politics as play, whereas Trump’s attitude is politicidal: it is animated by a refusal to acknowledge its own lack of foundation, leading to an oscillation between over-seriousness and over-frivolity. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 44 Heft: 1 Seiten: 267-290 In this paper, I examine the possibility of constructing an ontological phenomenology of love by tracing Nietzsche’s questioning about science. I examine how the evolution of Nietzsche’s thinking about science and his increasing suspicion towards it coincide with his interest for the question of love. Although the texts from the early and middle period praise science as an antidote to asceticism, the later texts associate the scientifi c spirit with asceticism. (...) I argue that this shift is motivated by Nietzsche’s realization that asceticism and science share the same fetish of facts. It is now for Nietzsche no longer a matter of proving the so-called facts of the backworlds to be wrong (something science is very capable of doing), but a matter of rejecting the very structure of thought that reduces a shapeless reality into a series of facts, subjects and objects. It is this second attitude that Nietzsche regards as the common core of science and asceticism. From this critique of science and its correlative critique of facts, Nietzsche begins searching for a counter-attitude able to perform the reduction of the factual attitude. This is the attitude he calls love. Although Nietzsche’s concept of love has oft en been elucidated in terms of its object or its subject, I argue that such interpretations precisely defeat Nietzsche’s point, which is to recover a ground that precedes the division of the world into subjects and objects. Love becomes the name of this intra-relationship of being, opening up to new perspectives on Nietzsche’s ontology of the will to power. (shrink)