Để xem bóng đá và phát sóng video trực tiếp tốc độ cao, Xoilac là trang web lý tưởng. Đặc biệt, Xoilac không có bất cứ quảng cáo nào, vì vậy người xem vẫn thoải mái thưởng thức trận bóng đá mà không lo bị phân tâm vì bất cứ vấn đề gì. Ngoài ra, Xoilac có đội ngũ dày dặn chuyên môn, luôn đưa ra những nhận định chuẩn xác cho từng trận đấu bóng đá. Với đồ hoạ sinh (...) động, âm thanh lôi cuốn và sống động, Xoilac sẽ lưu lại dấu ấn sâu đậm trong tâm trí người xem bóng đá. (shrink)

Coder’s argument is very similar to Lewis’ one: he maintains that some human beings are not able to follow Gödel’s theorem, so Lucas’ argument cannot show that their minds are not machines. The answer of Lucas is that one proposed against Lewis’ criticism, that is that Mechanism makes a universal claim and so a single counter-example – a single mind producing a singe truth not recognizable by any machine – is a disproof for it.

David Lewis criticizes an argument I put forward against mechansim on the grounds that I fail to distinguish between OL, Lucas's ordinary potential arithmetic output, and OML, Lucas's arithmetical output when accused of being some particular machine M; and correspondingly, between OM the ordinary potential arithmetic output of the machine M, and ONM, the arithmetic output of the machine M when accused of being a particular machine N. For any given machine, M, N, O, P, Q, R,... etc., I (...) can in principle calculate a Godel sentence for that machine - indeed infinitely many, depending on the Godel numbering scheme adopted. The Godel sentence of a particular machine can, I claim, be seen to be true, if that machine is adequate for Elementary Peano Arithmetic. Hence, if I were accused of being M, I can on that supposition see that the Godel sentence of M is true, since I am capable of Elementary Peano Arithmetic and the machine M is said to be an adequate characterization of me. (shrink)

David Lewis criticizes an argument I put forward against mechansim on the grounds that I fail to distinguish between OL, Lucas's ordinary potential arithmetic output, and OML, Lucas's arithmetical output when accused of being some particular machine M; and correspondingly, between OM the ordinary potential arithmetic output of the machine M, and ONM, the arithmetic output of the machine M when accused of being a particular machine N. For any given machine, M, N, O, P, Q, R,... etc., I (...) can in principle calculate a Godel sentence for that machine - indeed infinitely many, depending on the Godel numbering scheme adopted. The Godel sentence of a particular machine can, I claim, be seen to be true, if that machine is adequate for Elementary Peano Arithmetic. Hence, if I were accused of being M, I can on that supposition see that the Godel sentence of M is true, since I am capable of Elementary Peano Arithmetic and the machine M is said to be an adequate characterization of me. (shrink)

This work deals with questions that range across the traditional disciplines of natural science and philosophy. Of these questions, some are about things usually thought of as scientific, such as embryonic development and evolution; others are about things, such as human language, intelligence and learning, which have been the concern if both scientists and philosophers.

Following the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, much support for torture interrogation of terrorists has emerged in the public forum, largely based on the “ticking bomb” scenario. Although deontological and virtue ethics provide incisive arguments against torture, they do not speak directly to scientists and government officials responsible for national security in a utilitarian framework. Drawing from criminology, organizational theory, social psychology, the historical record, and my interviews with military professionals, I assess the potential of (...) an official U.S. program of torture interrogation from a practical perspective. The central element of program design is a sound causal model relating input to output. I explore three principal models of how torture interrogation leads to truth: the animal instinct model, the cognitive failure model, and the data processing model. These models show why torture interrogation fails overall as a counterterrorist tactic. They also expose the processes that lead from a precision torture interrogation program to breakdowns in key institutions—health care, biomedical research, police, judiciary, and military. The breakdowns evolve from institutional dynamics that are independent of the original moral rationale. The counterargument, of course, is that in a society destroyed by terrorism there will be nothing to repair. That is why the actual causal mechanism of torture interrogation in curtailing terrorism must be elucidated by utilitarians rather than presumed. (shrink)

The paper argues, contrary to contemporary views that Kant giving abstract functional descriptions of the mechanisms that underlie cognition, that Kant gives a series of arguments that there can never be a cognitive science.

Thomas Pogge has recently argued that the way in which research and development of essential medicines is incentivized, under existing World Trade Organization rules, should be supplemented with an additional incentivizing mechanism. One might hold a stronger view than the one that Pogge currently holds, namely that patent rights for essential medicines are morally unjustified per se. Throughout this paper, ‘the strong view’ refers to this view. The strong view is one that enjoys considerable support both within and outside (...) the academic community. This paper critically discusses one specific argument in favor of the strong view. This argument is named the ‘Poggean argument’. This denominator is appropriate because a number of the essential premises of the argument are constituted by propositions that Pogge at some point has defended. The Poggean argument is valid, and defenders of the strong view also have some grounds for believing that the argument is sound. This belief comes, however, with what is arguably a too high cost, namely that the global institutional order becomes very demanding on taxpaying citizens of high-income countries if it is to be just. One may find acceptance of this cost relatively unproblematic, but this cost is, it is argued, unacceptable to anyone who has views on distributive justice that are sympathetic to the core tenets of libertarianism. (shrink)

Sections 3.16 and 3.23 of Roger Penrose's Shadows of the mind (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994) contain a subtle and intriguing new argument against mechanism, the thesis that the human mind can be accurately modeled by a Turing machine. The argument, based on the incompleteness theorem, is designed to meet standard objections to the original Lucas-Penrose formulations. The new argument, however, seems to invoke an unrestricted truth predicate (and an unrestricted knowability predicate). If so, its premises are inconsistent. (...) The usual ways of restricting the predicates either invalidate Penrose's reasoning or require presuppositions that the mechanist can reject. (shrink)

Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem is sometimes said to refute mechanism about the mind. §1 contains a discussion of mechanism. We look into its origins, motivations and commitments, both in general and with regard to the human mind, and ask about the place of modern computers and modern cognitive science within the general mechanistic paradigm. In §2 we give a sharp formulation of a mechanistic thesis about the mind in terms of the mathematical notion of computability. We present the (...) argument from Gödel’s theorem against mechanism in terms of this formulation and raise two objections, one of which is known but is here given a more precise formulation, and the other is new and based on the discussion in §1. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Proponents of mechanistic explanation have recently suggested that all explanation in the cognitive sciences is mechanistic, even functional explanation. This last claim is surprising, for functional explanation has traditionally been conceived as autonomous from the structural details that mechanistic explanations emphasize. I argue that functional explanation remains autonomous from mechanistic explanation, but not for reasons commonly associated with the phenomenon of multiple realizability. 1Introduction 2Mechanistic Explanation: A Quick Primer 3Functional Explanation: An Example 4Autonomy as Lack of Constraint 5The Price (...) of Autonomy 6Another Argument against Autonomy 7Conclusion: Autonomy and Multiple Realization. (shrink)

McGowan argues “that ordinary utterances routinely enact norms without the speaker having or exercising any special authority” and thereby not “merely cause” but “constitute” harm if harm results from adherence to the enacted norms. The discovery of this “previously overlooked mechanism,” she claims, provides a potential justification for “further speech regulation.” Her argument is unsuccessful. She merely redefines concepts like “harm constitution” and “norm enactment” and fails to explain why speech that “constitutes” harm is legally or morally problematic and (...) thus an initially more plausible target for speech regulation than speech that “merely causes” harm. Even if she could explain that, however, her account would still be incapable of identifying cases where utterances “constitute harm.” This is so for two reasons. First, she provides neither analytical nor empirical criteria for deciding which so-called “s-norms” have been enacted by an “ordinary utterance.” Second, even if such criteria could be provided, there is no epistemically available means to distinguish whether harm has ensued due to adherence to the enacted s-norms or through other mechanisms. Given this lack of criteria and practical applicability, there is no way that this account could serve as a principled basis for speech regulation – it could only serve as a pretext for arbitrary censorship. (shrink)

This book grew out of a graduate student paper [261] in which I set down some criticisms of J. R. Lucas' attempt to refute mechanism by means of G6del's theorem. I had made several such abortive attempts myself and had become familiar with their pitfalls, and especially with the double edged nature of incompleteness arguments. My original idea was to model the refutation of mechanism on the almost universally accepted G6delian refutation of Hilbert's formalism, but I kept (...) getting stuck on questions of mathematical philosophy which I found myself having to beg. A thorough study of the foundational works of Hilbert and Bernays finally convinced me that I had all too naively and uncritically bought this refutation of formalism. I did indeed discover points of surprisingly close contact between formalism and mechanism, but also that it was possible to under mine certain strong arguments against these positions precisely by invok ing G6del's and related work. I also began to realize that the Church Turing thesis itself is the principal bastion protecting mechanism, and that G6del's work was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to both mechanism and formalism. I pushed these lines of argument in my dis sertation with the patient help of my readers, Raymond Nelson and Howard Stein. I would especially like to thank the latter for many valuable criticisms of my dissertation as well as some helpful suggestions for reor ganizing it in the direction of the present book. (shrink)

Norman Malcolm's recent argument against the conceivability of mechanism rests on the claim that purposive explanations of behavior – that is, explanations of behavior in terms of desires or intentions – are incompatible with neurophysiological explanations of behavior. I admit that intentions or desires can be causes of behavior only if they are necessary for behavior, and, generally, that events can be causes only if they are necessary for their effects (except in cases of over-determination). What I wish (...) to deny is the contention that if neurophysiological states are sufficient for behavior, then desires or intentions are not necessary for behavior. This latter contention seems to me the crux of Malcolm's argument for the incompatibility of mechanism and purpose; if this contention can be shown to be un acceptable, Malcolm's conclusion that mechanism and purpose are incompatible will remain without support. (shrink)

Embodied cognition has attracted significant attention within cognitive science and related fields in recent years. It is most noteworthy for its emphasis on the inextricable connection between mental functioning and embodied activity and thus for its departure from standard cognitive science's implicit commitment to the unembodied mind. This article offers a review of embodied cognition's recent empirical and theoretical contributions and suggests how this movement has moved beyond standard cognitive science. The article then clarifies important respects in which embodied cognition (...) has not departed fundamentally from the standard view. A shared commitment to representationalism, and ultimately, mechanism, suggest that the standard and embodied cognition movements are more closely related than is commonly acknowledged. Arguments against representationalism and mechanism are reviewed and an alternative position that does not entail these conceptual undergirdings is offered. (shrink)

The causal efficacy of a material system is usually thought to be produced by the law-like actions and interactions of its constituents. Here, a specific system is constructed and explained that produces a cause that cannot be understood in this way, but instead has novel and autonomous efficacy. The construction establishes a proof-of-feasibility of strong emergence. The system works by utilizing randomness in a targeted and cyclical way, and by relying on sustained evolution by natural selection. It is not vulnerable (...) to standard arguments against strong emergence, in particular ones that assume that the physical realm is causally closed. Moreover, it does not suffer from epiphenomenalism or causal overdetermination. The system uses only standard material components and processes, and is fully consistent with naturalism. It is discussed whether the emergent cause can still be viewed as ‘material’ in the way that term is commonly understood. (shrink)

In the literature on dynamical models in cognitive science, two issues have recently caused controversy. First, what is the relation between dynamical and mechanistic models? I will argue that dynamical models can be upgraded to be mechanistic as well, and that there are mechanistic and non-mechanistic dynamical models. Second, there is the issue of explanatory power. Since it is uncontested the mechanistic models can explain, I will focus on the non-mechanistic variety of dynamical models. It is often claimed by proponents (...) of mechanistic explanations that such models do not really explain cognitive phenomena . I will argue against this view. Although I agree that the three arguments usually offered to vindicate the explanatory power of non-mechanistic dynamical models are not enough, I consider a fourth argument, namely that such models provide understanding. The Voss strong anticipation model is used to illustrate this. (shrink)

By "theory" we mean a special project in literary criticism: the attempt to govern interpretations of particular texts by appealing to an account of interpretation in general. The term is sometimes applied to literary subjects with no direct bearing on the interpretation of individual works, such as narratology, stylistics, and prosody. Despite their generality, however, these subjects seem to us essentially empirical, and our argument against theory will not apply to them.Contemporary theory has taken two forms. Some theorists have (...) sought to ground the reading of literary texts in methods designed to guarantee the objectivity and validity of interpretations. Others, impressed by the inability of such procedures to produce agreement among interpreters, have translated that failure into an alternative mode of theory that denies the possibility of correct interpretation. Our aim here is not to choose between these two alternatives but rather to show that both rest on a single mistake, a mistake that is central to the notion of theory per se. The object of our critique is not a particular way of doing theory but the idea of doing theory at all.Theory attempts to solve—or to celebrate the impossibility of solving—a set of familiar problems: the function of authorial intention, the status of literary language, the role of interpretive assumptions, and so on. We will not attempt to solve these problems, nor will we be concerned with tracing their history or surveying the range of arguments they have stimulated. In our view, the mistake on which all critical theory rests has been to imagine that these problems are real. In fact, we will claim such problems only seem real--and theory itself only seems possible or relevant—when theorists fail to recognize the fundamental inseparability of the elements involved.The clearest example of the tendency to generate theoretical problems by splitting apart terms that are in fact inseparable is the persistent debate over the relation between authorial intention and the meaning texts. Some theorists have claimed that valid interpretations can only be obtained through an appeal to authorial intentions. This assumption is shared by theorists who, denying the possibility of recovering authorial intentions, also deny the possibility of valid interpretations. But once it is seen that the meaning of a text is simply identical to the author's intended meaning, the project of grounding meaning in intention becomes incoherent. Since the project itself is incoherent, it can neither succeed nor fail, hence both theoretical attitudes toward intention are irrelevant. The mistake made by theorists has been to imagine the possibility or desirability of moving from one term to a second term , when actually the two terms are the same. One can neither succeed nor fail in deriving one term from the other, since to have one is already to have them both.In the following two sections we will try to show in detail how theoretical accounts of intention always go wrong. In the fourth section we will undertake a similar analysis of an influential account of the role interpretive assumptions or beliefs play in the practice of literary criticism. The issues of belief and intention are, we think, central to the theoretical enterprise; our discussion of them is thus directed not only against specific theoretical arguments but against theory in general. Our examples are meant to represent the central mechanism of all theoretical arguments, and our treatment of them is meant to indicate that all such arguments will fail and fail in the same way. If we are right, then the whole enterprise of critical theory is misguided and should be abandoned. (shrink)

Unlike many of Descartes’s other followers, Pierre-Sylvain Re´gis resists the temptations of occasionalism. By marrying the ontology of mechanism with the causal structure of concurrentism, Re´gis arrives at a novel view that both acknowledges God’s role in natural events and preserves the causal powers of bodies. I set out Re´gis’s position, focusing on his arguments against occasionalism and his responses to Malebranche’s ‘no necessary connection’ and divine concursus arguments.

This book approaches the question of the relation between financial crises and earnings management from two philosophical perspectives: positivism and critical realism. The results obtained using the positivist approach indicate that financial crises tend to have no consistent effect on earnings quality since managers’ earnings behavior does not differ from the pre-crisis to the crisis period. The author accordingly argues against the existence of a causal law based on a constant conjunction model and concludes that financial crises cannot be (...) seen as the cause of earnings management. The critical realism perspective, on the other hand, casts light on managers’ reasons for acting like an earnings manager; in conjunction with the more traditional positivist approach, it assists in refuting the idea of financial crises as a generative mechanism for earnings management. The author concludes by exploring other structures at work that might be responsible for earnings management. This book will be of interest to both academics and a wide range of professionals. (shrink)

I examine a major objection to the mechanistic view of concrete computation, stemming from an apparent tension between the abstract nature of computational explanation and the tenets of the mechanistic framework: while computational explanation is medium-independent, the mechanistic framework insists on the importance of providing some degree of structural detail about the systems target of the explanation. I show that a common reply to the objection, i.e. that mechanistic explanation of computational systems involves only weak structural constraints, is not enough (...) to save the standard mechanistic view of computation—it trivialises the appeal to mechanism, and thus makes the account collapse into a purely functional view. I claim, however, that the objection can be put to rest once the account is appropriately amended: computational individuation is indeed functional, while mechanistic explanation plays a role in accounting for computational implementation. Since individuation and implementation are crucial elements in a satisfying account of computation in physical systems, mechanism keeps its central importance in the theory of concrete computation. Finally, I argue that my version of the mechanistic view helps to provide a convincing reply to a powerful objection against non-semantic theories of concrete computation: the argument from the multiplicity of computations. (shrink)

In light of recent criticisms by Woodward (2017) and Rescorla (2018), we examine the relationship between mechanistic explanation and phenomenological laws. We disambiguate several uses of the phrase “phenomenological law” and show how a mechanistic theory of explanation sorts them into those that are and are not explanatory. We also distinguish the problem of phenomenological laws from arguments about the explanatory power of purely phenomenal models, showing that Woodward and Rescorla conflate these problems. Finally, we argue that the temptation (...) to pit mechanistic and interventionist theories of explanation against one another occludes important and scientifically relevant research questions. (shrink)

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is an organization which seeks to identify the causes of human cancer. Per agent, such as betel quid or Human Papillomaviruses, they review the available evidence deriving from epidemiological studies, animal experiments and information about mechanisms (and other data). The evidence of the different groups is combined such that an overall assessment of the carcinogenicity of the agent in question is obtained. In this paper, we critically review the IARC’s carcinogenicity evaluations. First (...) we show that serious objections can be raised against their criteria and procedures – more specifically regarding the role of mechanistic knowledge in establishing causal claims. Our arguments are based on the problem of confounders, of the assessment of the temporal stability of carcinogenic relations, and of the extrapolation from animal experiments. Then we address a very important question, viz. how we should treat the carcinogenicity evaluations that were based on the current procedures. After showing that this question is important, we argue that an overall dismissal of the current evaluations would be too radical. Instead, we argue in favour of a stepwise re-evaluation of the current findings. (shrink)

The paper aims to demonstrate the possibility of consistently accepting the existence of effective mental causality in the fundamentally physical world. We suppose that the concept of causality in J. Kim’s exclusion argument against mental causation, which implies а generative conception of causal relations, can be revised taking into account the specificity of the multilevel organization of living objects. Rejection of the mechanistic model of causality as a linear process, allows you to maintain commitment to the principle of causal (...) closure of the physical world and at the same time explain how top-down causality at the macro level is possible. For this, we use the model of a fractal tree of causal chains by J. Lowe, in which mental causality plays the role of an indirect cause of a fact. We carry out a meaningful distinction between the causality of facts and events by resorting to the multilevel model of J. Ellis, in which mental causality can be considered as a macro-level fact that has a selective effect on physical events of lower levels, taking into account a wide environmental context. (shrink)

We examine arguments for and against the use of mechanistic evidence in assessing treatment efficacy and find that advocates of EBM+ and their critics have largely been talking past each other due to difference in focus. We explore aducanumab for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease as a case which may speak to the role of EBM+ in pharmaceutical regulation. The case suggests the debate may be more fruitful if philosophers confine debates to particular domains of medical science and (...) weigh in prospectively instead of relying on historical cases where outcomes are known and which are susceptible to hindsight bias. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.1 (2000) 125-126 [Access article in PDF] Margaret Dauler Wilson. Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xx + 524. Cloth, $70.00. Ideas and Mechanism is a record of remarkable scholarship. It collects thirty-one essays by one of the most influential scholars in early modern philosophy. (Wilson herself did most of the editing, though (...) Anne Jaap Jacobson brought the book to completion after Wilson's death.) All but one of essays have been published previously. (The one new essay is "The Issue of 'Common Sensibles' in Berkeley's New Theory of Vision." There is also an essay on "True and Immutable Natures" previously published only in Portuguese.) Many are classics, united here with essays less well known. The collection begins with "Skepticism without Indubitability," an application of Wilson's scholarly might to Rorty's criticisms of the early modern legacy of foundationalism. Chapters 2-8 focus on Descartes. Several of these emphasize Descartes's accounts of sensation and representation. Chapters 9-12 discuss Spinoza. Then follows Wilson's influential essay on "Superadded Properties" and her related response to M. R. Ayers. Chapter 15-21 comprise an extended defense of Berkeley. The book ends with a long essay on the role of history of philosophy and a brief essay on animal ideas.In her essays, Wilson does not limit herself to one side of the classic divide between empiricists and rationalists. She succeeds in this ambitious endeavor by focusing on a problem common to both: the relation between mechanistic science and early modern views of ideas. Wilson is concerned with how philosophers' scientific views bear on their metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. This involves, in many cases, showing how philosophical positions take on new meaning as one considers the science underlying them. For example, Descartes's repeated claims that primary qualities "resemble" qualities in bodies are not taken to imply that any particular extension one sees is in a body. Extension in general, on which mechanistic explanations are based, is in bodies; color (and even perceived extension) is reducible by scientific explanation. The emphasis on the role of science also furnishes a platform for attention to neglected works. Wilson is exemplary in drawing from a wide range of texts to elucidate familiar points. In essays on Descartes and Berkeley, Wilson shows how their works on vision in particular enrich discussions of their epistemology. (One unfortunate limitation to Wilson's emphasis on mechanistic science is a neglect of political and theological works. Thus, she neglects to investigate the implications of, say, Spinoza's work in politics on his metaphysical views about man.)Of particular note is Wilson's defense of Berkeley. Wilson does not draw lines in terms of empiricists (Locke and Berkeley) and rationalists (Leibniz). Instead, she argues that Berkeley's defense of the common sense view that "physical things are as they are perceived" provides an alternative to the scientific realisms of Locke, Leibniz, and Kant. Defenders of Locke, for example, have claimed that Berkeley was insufficiently attentive to the role of mechanistic science in Locke's justifications of the primary-secondary distinction. Wilson shows how Berkeley took these Lockean arguments into account and why he objects to them. Rather than being a cure-all that saves Locke from Berkeley, the role of mechanistic science in his philosophy implicates Locke in the scientific realism against which Berkeley consistently defends common sense. [End Page 125]Not all of the essays directly relate to ideas and mechanism. Several deal with the closely related issue of mind-body interaction. One essay explains the epistemological argument for mind-body dualism in Descartes and another attacks Spinoza's account of mind and body. Wilson also writes on more general themes in Leibniz, such as necessity and contingency, causality, and confused and distinct ideas. She spends two chapters on the relationship between animals and humans. In one, she challenges appropriations of Spinoza that find in him the appealing view that there is no "radical ontological chasm" between humans and... (shrink)

This Ph.D. thesis explores a novel way of thinking about computation in cognitive science. It argues for what I call ‘the mechanistic account of wide computationalism’, or simply wide mechanistic computation. The key claim is that some cognitive and perceptual abilities are produced by or are the result of computational mechanisms that are, in part, located outside the individual; that computational systems, the ones that form the proper units of analysis in cognitive science, are particular types of functional mechanisms that, (...) on occasion, spread out across brain, body, and world. Wide mechanistic computation is the result of bringing together two distinct strands of thinking about computation: ‘wide’ views, which hold that computational systems can, on occasion, include parts of the surrounding environment; and ‘mechanistic’ views, which hold that computational explanation is a species of mechanistic explanation, and that computational mechanisms are a special type of functional mechanism. I argue that wide mechanistic computation draws support from several sources. First, I examine research on animal and human psychology and show that several organisms’ behaviours are properly treated as being the output of wide computational mechanisms. Second, I defend the view from several philosophical charges, including worries about its explanatory parsimony and empirical testability. Finally, I argue for the view’s theoretical credentials by showing that it can help resolve specific problems that have recently troubled 4E cognition. The result is an argument for not only the coherence but also empirical plausibility of wide mechanistic computation. On route to its main objective, the thesis also accomplishes a number of related tasks, including: providing a framework for organising and conceptualising different views of computation, securing the conceptual foundations of mechanistic computation by addressing an outstanding challenge called the ‘abstraction problem’, sounding a cautionary note about recent predictive processing accounts of extended cognition and arguing against a particular conception of levels often used within cognitive science, what is labelled the ‘hierarchical correspondence view of levels’. (shrink)

Neuroclassicism is the view that cognition is explained by “classical” computing mechanisms in the nervous system that exhibit a clear demarcation between processing machinery and read–write memory. The psychologist C. R. Gallistel has mounted a sophisticated defense of neuroclassicism by drawing from ethology and computability theory to argue that animal brains necessarily contain read–write memory mechanisms. This argument threatens to undermine the “connectionist” orthodoxy in contemporary neuroscience, which does not seem to recognize any such mechanisms. In this paper I argue (...) that the neuroclassicist critique rests on a misunderstanding of how computability theory constrains theorizing about natural computing mechanisms. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 31, Issue 2, pp 127 - 146 The aim of this paper is to trace Thomas Hobbes’s arguments for the rejection of spiritual possession in _Leviathan_. Several layers of Hobbes’s thought converge in this subject: his suggestion regarding the sovereign’s right to control religious doctrine; his mechanistic critique of incorporeal substances; his tirade against demonology and Pagan philosophy; his ideas about fear and the natural seeds of religion; his Biblical criticism. Hobbes’s reflections over the matter (...) of spiritual possession allowed him to simultaneously attack institutionalized and charismatic supernatural experiences, rejecting on Biblical as well as philosophical grounds the possibility of demonic and divine possession. This assault on traditional pneumatology led him to new interpretations of the notions of spirit and immateriality, a core element in _Leviathan_’s resignification of the interaction between nature and supernature. The paper will address Hobbes’s call for a civil exorcism―political, exegetical, and philosophical―against the spiritual powers that possess the Commonwealth. (shrink)

How regular do mechanisms need to be, in order to count as mechanisms? This paper addresses two arguments for dropping the requirement of regularity from the definition of a mechanism, one motivated by examples from the sciences and the other motivated by metaphysical considerations regarding causation. I defend a broadened regularity requirement on mechanisms that takes the form of a taxonomy of kinds of regularity that mechanisms may exhibit. This taxonomy allows precise explication of the degree and location (...) of regular operation within a mechanism, and highlights the role that various kinds of regularity play in scientific explanation. I defend this regularity requirement in terms of regularity’s role in individuating mechanisms against a background of other causal processes, and by prioritizing mechanisms’ ability to serve as a model of scientific explanation, rather than as a metaphysical account of causation. It is because mechanisms are regular, in the expanded sense described here, that they are capable of supporting the kinds of generalizations that figure prominently in scientific explanations. (shrink)

Argumentation theorists can make a much larger case for the significance of their discipline than they appear to do. This larger case entails asking the overarching question, "How is knowledge driven?" and seeking the answer in arguments for which there is near universal agreement that they drove the growth of knowledge. Three such benchmark arguments are Newton's on motion, Darwin's on evolution, and Mill's on women's intellectual equality to men. These and other seminal historical arguments suggest that (...) alternative argumentation in light of evidence is the mechanism which drives the gro';1h of knowledge. There are also a number of surprising results, among them that even the most epistemically salient arguments contain significant errors and that what is "reasonable" is a constantly changing intuition which is biased against superior but nove! ideas. This approach suggests a new fallacy as well, the intuitive fallacy of believing that plausibility is evidence for likelihood. (shrink)

We examine arguments regarding the use of mechanistic evidence in assessing treatment efficacy and find that advocates and critics of EBM+ have largely been talking past each other due to a difference in focus. We explore aducanumab for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease as a case which may speak to the role of EBM+ in pharmaceutical regulation. The case suggests the debate may be more fruitful if philosophers confine debates to particular domains of medicine and weigh in prospectively instead (...) of relying on historical cases where outcomes are known and which are susceptible to hindsight bias. (shrink)

Argumentation is a form of reasoning where a claim is accepted or rejected according to the analysis of the arguments for and against it; furthermore, it provides a reasoning mechanism able to handle contradictory, incomplete and uncertain information in real-world situations. We combine Bipolar Argumentation Frameworks (an extension of Dung’s work) with an Algebra of Argumentation Labels modeling two independent types of interaction between arguments, representing meta-information associated with arguments, and introducing an acceptability notion that (...) will give more information for arguments acceptability. (shrink)

In his excellent book *The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience* (2021), David Papineau argues against standard theories of sensory experience: the sense datum view, representationalism, naïve realism, and so on. The only view left standing is his own “qualitative view”. On Papineau’s physicalist version, all experiences are nothing but neural states, and the only features essentially involved in experience are intrinsic neural properties (29-30, 95-97). In my book *Perception* (2021), I developed an argument from spatial experience against this kind (...) of view (also Pautz 2010, 2017). Here I elaborate on that argument in the light of Papineau’s discussion. (shrink)

: Michael Gazzaniga, a prominent cognitive neuroscientist, has argued against reductionist accounts of cognition. Instead, Gazzaniga defends a form of non-reductive physicalism: epistemological neuro-cognitive non-reductionism and ontological monist physicalism. His position is motivated by the theses that: cognitive phenomena can be realized by multiple neural systems; many outcomes of these systems are unpredictable; and multi-level explanations are required. Epistemological neuro-cognitive non-reductionism is presented as the most appropriate stance to account for the way in which phenomena should be explained in (...) cognitive neuroscience. In this paper, I argue, however, that a recent form of neuro-cognitive reductionism, namely neo-mechanistic reductionism accounts for the arguments presented by Gazzaniga. Thus, the theory offers a more consistent and well-articulated view of the relationship between cognitive and neural phenomena that is specifically compatible with the explanatory strategies and aims of contemporary cognitive neuroscience. Keywords: Neo-mechanistic Philosophy; Michael Gazzaniga; Non-reductionism; Reductionism; Philosophy of Cognitive Neuroscience L’antiriduzionismo neurocognitivo di Michael Gazzaniga e la sfida della riduzione neomeccanicista Riassunto: Uno dei più importanti neuroscienziati dei nostri tempi, Michael Gazzaniga, si è schierato contro una concezione riduzionista della cognizione. Al contrario Gazzaniga difende una forma di fisicalismo non-riduzionistico che risulta dalla combinazione, sul piano epistemologico, di un anti-riduzionismo cognitivo e, sul piano ontologico, di un monismo fisicalista. La sua posizione è motivata dalla tesi per cui i fenomeni cognitivi possono essere realizzati da molteplici sistemi neurali; molti esiti di tali sistemi non si possono prevedere; e sono pertanto necessarie spiegazioni a livelli plurimi. La concezione presentata come più adeguata per dare conto sul piano epistemologico di come i fenomeni dovrebbero essere spiegati all’interno delle neuroscienze cognitive è una forma di anti-riduzionismo neuro-cognitivo. In questo articolo si sostiene tuttavia che una recente forma di riduzionismo neuro-cognitivo può dare conto degli argomenti presentati da Gazzaniga. Si tratta di una teoria che offre una interpretazione maggiormente coerente ed articolata della relazione fra fenomeni cognitivi e neurali e che offre un modello di spiegazione compatibile con gli scopi esplicativi delle neuroscienze cognitive contemporanee. Parole chiave: Filosofia neomeccanicista; Michael Gazzaniga; Nonriduzionismo; Riduzionismo; Filosofia della neuroscienza cognitiva. (shrink)

I DISCUSS KANT’S ARGUMENT FOR THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF BIOLOGY TO "MECHANISTIC" SCIENCE AS IT IS FOUND IN THE SECOND PART OF THE "CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT", THE CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGICAL JUDGMENT. THE PAPER CONSISTS OF TWO PARTS. IN THE FIRST I LAY OUT KANT’S POSITION, SHOWING THE RESPECT IN WHICH TELEOLOGY, FOR KANT, IS THE MARK OF THE LIVING. IN THE SECOND I TEST KANT’S VIEW AGAINST THE RECENT MECHANISTIC ANALYSIS OF TELEOLOGY PUT FORWARD BY ERNEST NAGEL IN "TELEOLOGY REVISITED" (...) AND SHOW THAT KANT’S POSITION MAY BE UNDERSTOOD AS A SERIOUS OBJECTION TO THE POSITION DEFENDED BY NAGEL. (shrink)

In his unpublished 1979 Lectures on the Philosophy of Mind, Saul Kripke offers a knowledge argument against materialism focusing on deaf people who lack knowledge of auditory experience. Kripke's argument is a precursor of Frank Jackson's better‐known knowledge argument against materialism (1982). The paper sets out Kripke's argument, brings out its interest and philosophical importance, and explores some similarities and differences between Kripke's knowledge argument and Jackson's.

The dialogue develops arguments for and against a broad new world system - info-computationalist naturalism - that is supposed to overcome the traditional mechanistic view. It would make the older mechanistic view into a special case of the new general info-computationalist framework (rather like Euclidian geometry remains valid inside a broader notion of geometry). We primarily discuss what the info-computational paradigm would mean, especially its pancomputationalist component. This includes the requirements for a the new generalized notion of computing (...) that would include sub-symbolic information processing. We investigate whether pancomputationalism can provide the basic causal structure to the world and whether the overall research program of info-computationalist naturalism appears productive, especially when it comes to new approaches to the living world, including computationalism in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This paper revisits the controversy surrounding Bhaskar's ‘spiritualisation’ of critical realism, formally introduced with the publication of From East to West. It describes the principal divisions amongst realists with respect to the five moments of CR theoretical development signified by Bhaskar in terms of his own publications. The article critiques some of his later arguments, such as that for reincarnation; but it also locates and identifies a much earlier error as being consistent with, and fundamental to, the later ideas (...) that so many realists had problems with. The principal error is to be found in the concept of ontological truth. (shrink)

Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by describing a kind of (...) exclusion that has not been discussed in depth, which I call “territorial exclusion.” Territorial exclusion is the process according to which the group that wishes to exclude current citizens secedes from the territory in which those citizens reside. I argue that the wrongness of territorial exclusion explains why there is no pro tanto right for a state to exclude immigrants, because otherwise there would be a pro tanto right for the state to kick people out by seceding from the territory they inhabit. Because kicking people out like this is typically wrong, borders cannot be closed. (shrink)

In Chapter 12 of Warrant and Proper Function, Alvin Plantinga constructs two arguments against evolutionary naturalism, which he construes as a conjunction E&N .The hypothesis E says that “human cognitive faculties arose by way of the mechanisms to which contemporary evolutionary thought directs our attention (p.220).”1 With respect to proposition N , Plantinga (p. 270) says “it isn’t easy to say precisely what naturalism is,” but then adds that “crucial to metaphysical naturalism, of course, is the view that (...) there is no such person as the God of traditional theism.” Plantinga tries to cast doubt on the conjunction E&N in two ways.His “preliminary argument” aims to show that the conjunction is probably false, given the fact (R) that our psychological mechanisms for forming beliefs about the world are generally reliable.His “main argument” aims to show that the conjunction E&N is self-defeating — if you believe E&N , then you should stop believing that conjunction.Plantinga further develops the main argument in his unpublished paper “Naturalism Defeated” (Plantinga 1994).We will try to show that both arguments contain serious errors. (shrink)

Arguments against inflicting violence on people to defend animal rights have relied on the view that inflicting violence is always wrong. But these arguments end up prohibiting too much, as defensive violence should be permissible in certain extreme cases. We argue that considerations about the counterproductiveness of defensive violence are better at distinguishing permissible and impermissible instances of animal rights violence than a blanket rejection of violence. We respond to the objection that assuming violence to be counterproductive (...) is ad hoc, discussing real-world and fictional examples of animal rights violence. We argue that defensive violence on behalf of animals should almost always be assumed to be counterproductive because it threatens to trigger self-reinforcing reactions on the part of the socio-technical regimes that violate animal rights in the first place. (shrink)

According to finite frequentism, the probability of an attribute A in a finite reference class B is the relative frequency of actual occurrences of A within B. I present fifteen arguments against this position.