The European Union Commission’s whitepaper on Artificial Intelligence proposes shaping the emerging AI market so that it better reflects common European values. It is a master plan that builds upon the EU AI High-Level Expert Group guidelines. This article reviews the masterplan, from a culture cycle perspective, to reflect on its potential clashes with current societal, technical, and methodological constraints. We identify two main obstacles in the implementation of this plan: the lack of a coherent EU vision to drive future (...) decision-making processes at state and local levels and the lack of methods to support a sustainable diffusion of AI in our society. The lack of a coherent vision stems from not considering societal differences across the EU member states. We suggest that these differences may lead to a fractured market and an AI crisis in which different members of the EU will adopt nation-centric strategies to exploit AI, thus preventing the development of a frictionless market as envisaged by the EU. Moreover, the Commission aims at changing the AI development culture proposing a human-centred and safety-first perspective that is not supported by methodological advancements, thus taking the risks of unforeseen social and societal impacts of AI. We discuss potential societal, technical, and methodological gaps that should be filled to avoid the risks of developing AI systems at the expense of society. Our analysis results in the recommendation that the EU regulators and policymakers consider how to complement the EC programme with rules and compensatory mechanisms to avoid market fragmentation due to local and global ambitions. Moreover, regulators should go beyond the human-centred approach establishing a research agenda seeking answers to the technical and methodological open questions regarding the development and assessment of human-AI co-action aiming for a sustainable AI diffusion in the society. (shrink)

Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals. By Tsvi Abusch, Daniel Schwemer, Mikko Luukko, and Greta van Buylaere. Ancient Magic and Divination, vol. 8.3. Leiden: briLL, 2020. Pp. xx + 507, 68 pls. $297. Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals: Glossaries and Indices. By Greta van Buylaere and Mikko Luukko. Ancient Magic and Divination, vol. 8.4. Leiden: briLL, 2020. Pp. viii + 163. $127.

Introduzione: L'uomo alla scoperta di se stesso, di N. Fabro.--Realtà della condizione umana e valori morali; appunti per una antropologia attuale, di S. Misser.--Fede nella creazione ed evoluzionismo, di P. Smulders.--Il senso biologico della morale di San Paolo, di José-Maria Gonzalez-Ruiz.--Immagine umanistica dell'uomo, di J.P. van Praag.--L'etica della situazione, di E. Schillebeeckx.--Dossier Teilhard de Chardin: Introduzione, Teilhard de Chardin, o della fede nell'uomo, di F.V. Joannes. Destino cosmico e destino individuale dell'uomo, di A. Catemario. L'evoluzione spirituale del genere umano, (...) di P. Martini. La Persona nel fenomeno della socializzazione, di F. Russo. (shrink)

In the years 1777–1778 four volumes were published under the title Legal Observations on Several Dark and Until Now Unverified Sections of the Introduction. The volumes were composed by a society of young legal practitioners from The Hague, the most famous among them being Joannes van der Linden. By then Grotius’s Introduction to the Jurisprudence of Holland was still the cornerstone of the law of Holland and around the year 1800 it would become the fundament for attempts to codify (...) this law. Today the Legal Observations can function as entrance to the historical sources of the law of Holland as described by Grotius and developed further after publication of his Introduction. (shrink)

In this thesis, I investigate realist, anti-realist and pluralist views in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of complexity. The philosophy of science can inform the philosophy of complexity and vice versa because we can consider scientific inquiry to largely involve the study of complex systems. I however find that the relevant realist, anti-realist and pluralist views are problematic in various ways, and that a version of pragmatism suggests a promising alternative. This version of pragmatism incorporates elements of pluralism, (...) but maintains a commitment to epistemic hierarchy, convergence and progress. The way to develop such a version of pragmatism is, I argue, by rebooting William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science. Whewell however held to the following two transcendental claims: 1. Empirical inquiry undertaken in science properly practiced can reveal necessary truths. 2. The revelation of such necessary truths grants us a glimpse of the mind of God. Such transcendental claims are obviously at odds with pragmatism. There are however core features of Whewell’s view that are notably pragmatist in nature, features that explicitly inspired Charles Sanders Piece’s convergent pragmatism. These are as follows: 3. Subject and object (or mind and world) are inextricably entwined during scientific inquiry; they are not separated by anything like a correspondence relationship. 4. Science progresses via what Whewell calls the consilience of inductions (an ongoing merging of scientific theories, a merging that increases our understanding of the world over time). I modify Whewell’s view by stripping away its transcendental elements while maintaining its pragmatist elements. What remains is, I argue, a robust and novel kind of pragmatism suitable for being introduced into the contemporary philosophy of science. Whewell suitably-pragmatised can offer new insights into ongoing debates, particularly those around the nature of scientific progress, scientific truth and scientific understanding. (shrink)

Dans sa violente charge contre la Révolution française, Edmund Burke avait élevé le débat politique à un niveau philosophique. Son argument le plus profond consistait à reprocher aux révolutionnaires de pécher par apriorisme, en cherchant à déduire, comme des géomètres, une nouvelle constitution à partir des principes abstraits énoncés dans la Déclaration des droits de l’homme. Reprise par les disciples allemands de Burke, cette critique de la méthode adoptée par la Constituante tirait des postulats empiristes des Lumières anglo-écossaises toutes les (...) implications conservatrices que recelaient déjà les textes politiques et historiques de Hume. Or c’est d’emblée sur ce terrain spéculatif que se joue, chez Fichte, la défense du droit de révolution. Reprochant à l’empirisme de réduire l’esprit au « mécanisme aveugle de l’association des idées », passivement déterminé par une extériorité en soi, Fichte entend au contraire fonder l’expérience elle-même sur l’activité d’un « Moi-en-soi », absolument indépendant. Conçu comme causalité libre, pouvant donc s’affranchir des « conjonctions coutumières » humiennes pour commencer une nouvelle série dans l’ordre des phénomènes, l’homme, pour Fichte, n’a pas seulement la « faculté de se perfectionner », mais la loi de sa liberté lui en fait même un devoir. Au regard de cet impératif catégorique de perfectionnement, il n’y a pas de Common Law qui tienne. Aussi Fichte ne recule-t-il pas devant la révolution, si les institutions du passé font obstacle à la destination de l’homme. (shrink)

Begriffsschrift, a formula language, modeled upon that of arithmetic, for pure thought (1879), by G. Frege.--Some metamathematical results on completeness and consistency; On formally undecidable propositions of Principia mathematica and related systems I; and On completeness and consistency (1930b, 1931, and 1931a), by K. Gödel.--Bibliography (p. [111]-116).

In "Off Track" art and philosophy are the inspiration to look differently at daily life and organizations. The book is a plea to approach the complexity of the current world with new metaphors. The author calls this "hinking around". She sees that in "square worlds" there is a need for tools to approach entrenched patterns and systems differently and to get thought processes moving. Sarai van de Boel challenges the reader to look at one's own systems from the inside with (...) a philosophical approach. In eight chapters there are eight "tracks" to follow, but it is also possible to go off the rails. More than fifty works of art by well-known and lesser-known artists and designers play a role in these traces. The author questions the essence of their works and asks philosophical questions about phenomena they evoke. With Marlene Dumas, Marinus Boezem, L.A. Raeven, Ed Atkins, Wong Ping, Kazumasa Nagai, Remy Jungerman, Otto Piene, Eiko Ishioka, Campana brothers, Ann Demeulemeester and Kara Walker. The book ends with the Art & Philosophy Strategy, a theoretical framework for the use of art and philosophy. (shrink)

A total of 80 authors working in a variety of scientific disciplines commented on the theoretical model of CLimate, Aggression, and Self-control in Humans (CLASH). The commentaries cover a wide range of issues, including the logic and assumptions of CLASH, the evidence in support of CLASH, and other possible causes of aggression and violence (e.g., wealth, income inequality, political circumstances, historic circumstances, pathogen stress). Some commentaries also provide data relevant to CLASH. Here we clarify the logic and assumptions of CLASH (...) and discusses its extensions and boundary conditions. We also offer suggestions for future research. Regardless of whether none, some, or all of CLASH is found to be true, we hope it will stimulate future research on the link between climate and human behavior. Climate is one of the most presing issues of our time. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

In this book, Andreas Serafim sets out to investigate the use of religious discourse, by which he means any reference to religious ideas, beliefs, and attitudes in public speaking contexts in classical Athens. Like Gunther Martin (Divine Talk: Religious Argumentation in Demosthenes, 2009), Serafim examines religion primarily as a tool for persuasion, but he differentiates himself from Martin’s book by offering a more comprehensive study: he aims to take into account all extant speeches from t...

La longue histoire de l’Acropole d’Athènes est une vitrine fascinante de la façon dont un patrimoine ancien peut être transformé, d’un sanctuaire païen à un sanctuaire chrétien, à une forteresse islamique, à l’autel symbolique de la Grèce moderne. De plus, ce site a suscité l’admiration presque religieuse des chercheurs et, comme dans le cas des marbres d’Elgin, a été contesté à de nombreux égards. L’auteur du volume analysé, William St Clair, un spécialiste des marbres d’Elgin et de divers a...

We apply the theory of partial algebras, following the approach developed by Van Alten, to the study of the computational complexity of universal theories of monotonic and normal modal algebras. We show how the theory of partial algebras can be deployed to obtain co-NP and EXPTIME upper bounds for the universal theories of, respectively, monotonic and normal modal algebras. We also obtain the corresponding lower bounds, which means that the universal theory of monotonic modal algebras is co-NP-complete and the universal (...) theory of normal modal algebras is EXPTIME-complete. It also follows that the quasi-equational theory of monotonic modal algebras is co-NP-complete. While the EXPTIME upper bound for the universal theory of normal modal algebras can be obtained in a more straightforward way, as discussed in the paper, due to its close connection to the equational theory of normal modal algebras with the universal modality operator, the technique based on the theory of partial algebras is applicable to the study of universal theories of algebras corresponding to a wide range of logics with intensional operators, where no such connection is available. (shrink)

The role of governments in business and society research remains underexplored. The generally accepted principle of voluntarism, which frames responsible business conduct as an unregulated subject under managerial discretion, accounts for this gap. Paradoxically, there are sufficient acknowledgments in academia and practice on different roles of governments. The present article identifies three broad topics for research, addressing the paradox between the principle of voluntarism and the role of governments in B&S, the boundaries of governments and business in their contribution to (...) B&S issues, and the mechanisms of government intervention that affect corporate social performance. The authors approach the first topic with a literature review of 703 articles marked with the term “government” from five journals in the field between 1982 and 2011. This study indicates that the principle of voluntarism remains, despite the broad variety of research related to the role of government in B&S. In addition, the identified content provides deeper insight into the mechanisms of government intervention and on the boundaries of governments in the B&S discourse. This article then provides a summary of the other three research articles included in this special research forum, with a contribution oriented toward the latter two research avenues posited. (shrink)