With the rapidly expanding catalogue of scientific publications, especially within the Biomedical Sciences field, it is becoming increasingly difficult for researchers to search for, read or even interpret emerging scientific findings. PubMed, just one of the current biomedical data repositories, comprises over 33 million citations for biomedical research, and over 2500 publications are added each day. To further strengthen the impact biomedical research, we suggest that there should be more synergy between publications and machines. By bringing machines into the realm (...) of research and publication, we can greatly augment the assessment, investigation and cataloging of the biomedical literary corpus. The effective application of machine-based manuscript assessment and interpretation is now crucial, and potentially stands as the most effective way for researchers to comprehend and process the tsunami of biomedical data and literature. Many biomedical manuscripts are currently published online in poorly searchable document types, with figures and data presented in formats that are partially inaccessible to machine-based approaches. The structure and format of biomedical manuscripts should be adapted to facilitate machine-assisted interrogation of this important literary corpus. In this context, it is important to embrace the concept that biomedical scientists should also write manuscripts that can be read by machines. It is likely that an enhanced human–machine synergy in reading biomedical publications will greatly enhance biomedical data retrieval and reveal novel insights into complex datasets. (shrink)

The grammatical manipulation and production of language is a great deceiver. We have become habituated to accept the use of well-constructed language to indicate intelligence, understanding and, consequently, intention, whether conscious or unconscious. But we are not always right to do so, and certainly not in the case of large language models (LLMs) like ChapGPT, GPT-4, LLaMA, and Google Bard. This is a perennial problem, but when one understands why it occurs, it ceases to be surprising that it so stubbornly (...) persists. This paper will have three main sections. In the Introduction I will say a little about language, its aetiology, and useful sub-divisions into natural and cultural. In the second section I will explain the current situation with regard to large language models and fill in the background debates which set the problem up as one of increased complexity rather than one of a qualitatively different kind from narrow or specific AI. In the third section I will present the case for the missing phenomenological background and why it is necessary for the co-creation of shared meaning in both natural and cultural language, and I will conclude this section by presenting a rationale for why this situation arises and will continue to arise. Before we do any of this, I need to clarify one point: I do not wish to challenge the ascription of artificial general intelligence (AGI) to LLMs, indeed I think agnosticism is best in this respect, but I do challenge the more serious, and erroneous, ascription of understanding, intention, reason, and consciousness to them. And so, I am making two points: an epistemological one about why we fall into error in our ascription of a mental life to LLMs, and an ontological one about the impossibility of LLMs being or becoming conscious. (shrink)

Thought experiments, models, diagrams, computer simulations, and metaphors can all be understood as tools of the imagination. While these devices are usually treated separately in philosophy of science, this paper provides a unified account according to which tools of the imagination are epistemically good insofar as they improve scientific imaginings. Improving scientific imagining is characterized in terms of epistemological consequences: more improvement means better consequences. A distinction is then drawn between tools being good in retrospect, at the time, and in (...) general. In retrospect, tools are evaluated straightforwardly in terms of the quality of their consequences. At the cutting edge, tools are evaluated positively insofar as there is reason to believe that using them will have good consequences. Lastly, tools can be generally good, insofar as their use encourages the development of epistemic virtues, which are good because they have good epistemic consequences. (shrink)

Can an ugly experiment be a good experiment? Philosophers have identified many beautiful experiments and explored ways in which their beauty might be connected to their epistemic value. In contrast, the present chapter seeks out (and celebrates) ugly experiments. Among the ugliest are those being designed by AI algorithms. Interestingly, in the contexts where such experiments tend to be deployed, low aesthetic value correlates with high epistemic value. In other words, ugly experiments can be good. Given this, we should conclude (...) that beauty is not generally necessary or sufficient for epistemic value, and increasing beauty will not generally tend to increase epistemic value. (shrink)

As Nelson Goodman highlighted, there are two main senses of “abstract” that can be found in discussions about abstract art. On the one hand, a representation is abstract if it leaves out certain features of its target. On the other hand, something can be abstract to the extent that it does not represent a concrete subject. The first sense of “abstract” is well-known in philosophy of science. For example, philosophers discuss mathematical models of physical, biological, and economic systems as being (...) abstract in this sense. However, it is the second sense that dominates discussions of abstract art in aesthetics. For example, abstract art was (and is) considered revolutionary precisely for being non-figurative. Through an analysis of artists including Kandinsky, Malevich, and Mondrian, we develop a reading of this second sense, which we call “generative abstraction,” as opposed to “subtractive” abstraction. Generative abstraction is a process in which a new artifact is created which does not represent the initial concrete target system that inspired it (if there was one), where the artifact’s features are explored for their own sake, and where the “language” of the new artifact is in some way more “universal.” Focusing on this sense of abstraction is helpful in revealing the complexity of the process of crafting an abstract artifact, in problematizing the notion that abstraction can always be un-done (or concretized), as well as revealing new ways for abstractions to be epistemically (un)successful. (shrink)

Fetal pain has long been a contentious issue, in large part because fetal pain is often cited as a reason to restrict access to termination of pregnancy or abortion. We have divergent views regarding the morality of abortion, but have come together to address the evidence for fetal pain. Most reports on the possibility of fetal pain have focused on developmental neuroscience. Reports often suggest that the cortex and intact thalamocortical tracts are necessary for pain experience. Given that the cortex (...) only becomes functional and the tracts only develop after 24 weeks, many reports rule out fetal pain until the final trimester. Here, more recent evidence calling into question the necessity of the cortex for pain and demonstrating functional thalamic connectivity into the subplate is used to argue that the neuroscience cannot definitively rule out fetal pain before 24 weeks. We consider the possibility that the mere experience of pain, without the capacity for self reflection, is morally significant. We believe that fetal pain does not have to be equivalent to a mature adult human experience to matter morally, and so fetal pain might be considered as part of a humane approach to abortion. (shrink)

This book examines the concept of post-truth and the impact it is having on contemporary life, bringing out both its philosophical and political dimensions. Post-truth is contextualised within the philosophical discourse of truth, with particular reference to theories of scepticism and relativism, to explore whether it can take advantage of these to claim any intellectual credibility. Sim argues that post-truth cannot be defended on either sceptical or relativistic grounds – even those provided by recent iconoclastic philosophical movements such as poststructuralism (...) and postmodernism. The affinity between post-truth and conspiracy theory is emphasised, and the extent to which post-truth plays a role in religious doctrine is also considered. Post-truth is seen to constitute a threat to liberal democratic ideals and our Enlightenment heritage, raising the question of whether we are moving into a post-liberal age where the far right would hold power. To prevent this, post-truth urgently needs to be countered. (shrink)

Over the past decade, public discussion has focused on the ethics of issuing Do‐Not‐Resuscitate Orders, and the failure of many hospitals to acknowledge their actions openly. Recent efforts on the part of some hospitals to establish formal DNR guidelines that are prudent, fair, and humane, are a helpful beginning, though they cannot account for all the vagaries of illness and human communication. But concerns about DNR should not divert us from looking closely and rigorously at other, more common treatment/nontreatment decisions (...) in the critical care setting. (shrink)

The transplantation and procurement of human organs has become almost routine in American society. Yet, organ transplantation raises difficult ethical and psychosocial issues in the context of “controlled” death, including the blurring of boundaries between life and death, self and other, healing and harming, and killing and letting die. These issues are explored in the context of the actual experiences of organ donors and recipients, brain death, the introduction of non‐heartbeating donor protocols, and the increasing reliance on living donors. The (...) author draws on a thematic analysis of the way that organ transplantation is presented in the media, films, and science fiction and on his clinical experience as a psychiatrist working with transplant patients, their families, and the nurses and physicians who care for them. (shrink)

The primary aim of this essay is to present a case for a heavily revised notion of heterophenomenology. l will refer to the revised notion as ‘enkinaesthesia’ because of its dependence on the experiential entanglement of our own and the other’s felt action as the sensory background within which all other experience is possible. Enkinaesthesia2 emphasizes two things: (i) the neuromuscular dynamics of the agent, including the givenness and ownership of its experience, and (ii) the entwined, blended and situated co-affective (...) feeling of the presence of the other(s), agential (for example, human, horse, cat, beetle) and non-agential (for example, cup, bed, apple, paper) and, where appropriate, the anticipated arc of the other’s action or movement, including, again where appropriate, the other’s intentionality. When the ‘other’ is also a sensing and experiencing agent it is their - in this case, the pair’s - affective intentional reciprocity, their folding, enfolding, and unfolding, which co-constitutes the conscious relation and the experientially recursive temporal dynamics that lead to the formation and maintenance of the deep integral enkinaesthetic structures and melodies which bind us together, even when they pull us apart. Such deeply felt enkinaesthetic melodies emphasise the dialogical nature of the backgrounded feeling of being. (shrink)

Recognition has, over the past three decades, come to occupy a central place in moral and political philosophy, and critical theory; but to the extent that scholars have exhibited an interest in tr...

Locke’s remarks about attention have not received a great deal of attention from commentators. In Section 1, I make the case that attention plays an important role in his philosophy. In Section 2, I describe and discuss five Lockean claims about attention. In Section 3, I explore Locke’s views about attention in relation to his account of sense perception. He thinks that we attend to objects by attending to ideas, and I argue that he treats sensory ideas as transparent in (...) a particular sense. In Section 4, I raise the worry that some of Locke’s remarks about attention seem at odds with his doctrine of the transparency of the mind. I offer two ways of resolving the problem, and suggest that they are parts of a single story. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

This text presents a comprehensive survey of the intellectual developments that have brought about a shift in cultural perspectives of postmodernism. It is divided into three sections: essays; biographical entries; and a glossary of terms.

Ultimately we will only understand biological agency when we have developed a theory of the organization of biological processes, and science is still a long way from attaining that goal. It may be possible nonetheless to develop a list of necessary conditions for the emergence of minimal biological agency. The authors offer a model of molecular autonomous agents which meets the five minimal physical conditions that are necessary (and, we believe, conjointly sufficient) for applying agential language in biology: autocatalytic reproduction; (...) work cycles; boundaries for reproducing individuals; self-propagating work and constraint construction; and choice and action that have evolved to respond to food or poison. When combined with the arguments from preadaptation and multiple realizability, the existence of these agents is sufficient to establish ontological emergence as against what one might call Weinbergian reductionism. Minimal biological agents are emphatically not conscious agents, and accepting their existence does not commit one to any robust theory of human agency. Nor is there anything mystical, dualistic, or non-empirical about the emergence of agency in the biosphere. Hence the emergence of molecular autonomous agents, and indeed ontological emergence in general, is not a negation of or limitation on careful biological study but simply one of its implications. (shrink)

Hume's admiration for the Roman philosopher and statesman, Cicero, is well-known. Yet scholars have largely overlooked how Hume's interpretation of Cicero – initially as a Stoic, and subsequently as an academic sceptic – evolved with Hume's own intellectual development. Moreover, scholars tend to focus on Hume's debts to Cicero with regard either to his epistemological scepticism or his philosophy of religion. This essay suggests instead that Hume's engagement with Cicero was at its most intense, and productive, when evaluating the relationship (...) between morality and religious belief. Closer attention to the place of Cicero in Hume's writings illuminates our understanding of Hume's intellectual development, particularly in the crucial pre- Treatise years. It also, however, shines light on Hume's interpretation of the history of occidental philosophy (not least the consequences of its engagements with Christian theology), and on how Hume saw his own work to relate to this history. (shrink)

This book traces the crystallisation of post-Marxism as a specific theoretical position in its own right and considers the role played in its development by post-structuralism, postmodernism and second-wave feminism. It examines the history of dissenting tendencies within the Marxist tradition and considers what the future prospects of post-Marxism are likely to be.

Evolutionary psychology, the self-proclaimed scientific theory of human nature, owes much of its controversial notoriety to reports in public media. In part this is because of its bold claims that human psychological characteristics are adaptations to the Pleistocene environment in which they evolved and these inherited characteristics we exhibit now constitute our human nature. Proponents maintain that evolutionary psychology is a scientific account of human nature that explains what this much abused concept means. Critics counter that some evolutionary psychological hypotheses (...) threaten to undermine other intuitive concepts of human nature and well-being, specifically, by emphasizing purported scientific evidence of natural inequalities based on sex, gender, or race. They argue that this “gene machine” view entails consequences endorsing or at least seeming to give scientific aid and comfort to politically conservative, “right-wing” social agendas. Proponents deny that the theory has such unwelcome implications. Such objections, they reply, stem from “left-wing” egalitarian ideologies that presuppose the cogency of the disputed tabula rasa concept of mind intrinsic to the standard social science model of behavior explanations. Philip Kitcher’s initial scathing analysis of sociobiology, now called evolutionary psychology, as the science of human nature went basically unchallenged. Bioethicist Janet Radcliffe Richards has given a detailed critique of Kitcher’s arguments; she finds them to be “leftward-leaning,” and wanting. Here I examine her arguments and find them wanting though not “rightward-leaning.”. (shrink)

This book is designed to trace the critical history of the postmodern paradigm.

The author discusses the application of logic to the diverse scientific methods of the several natural and social sciences and to the humanities.

One kind of philosopher takes it as a working hypothesis that belief/desire psychology (or, anyhow, some variety of prepositional attitude psychology) is ...

The proposal that the hippocampus is important for the encoding of episodic information, but not familiarity-based recognition, is incompatible with the available data. An alternative way to think about functional specialization within the medial temporal lobe memory system is suggested, based on neuroanatomy.

Metaphors are found all throughout science: in published papers, working hypotheses, policy documents, lecture slides, grant proposals, and press releases. They serve different functions, but perhaps most striking is the way they enable understanding, of a theory, phenomenon, or idea. In this paper, we leverage recent advances on the nature of metaphor and the nature of understanding to explore how they accomplish this feat. We attempt to shift the focus away from the epistemic value of the content of metaphors, to (...) the epistemic value of the metaphor’s consequences. Many famous scientific metaphors are epistemically good, not primarily because of what they say about the world, but because of how they cause us to think. Specifically, metaphors increase understanding either by improving our sets of representations, or by making it easier for us to encode and process data about complex subjects by changing how we are disposed to conceptualize those subjects. This view hints towards new positions concerning testimonial understanding, factivity, abilities, discovery via metaphor, and the relation between metaphors and models. (shrink)

I argue that descartes' doubting of the external world does not rest on doubting the truth of clear and distinct ideas. in fact, he denies that we clearly and distinctly perceive the "existence" of material things. thus, their existence is not established through the validation of such ideas and we can understand why descartes' argument for their existence takes the form it does. i suggest that dreams lead him to conclude that the existence of material things is not clearly perceived (...) and to doubt their existence. (shrink)

This Open Access book about the Zadeh Project demonstrates and explores a core question in clinical ethics: how can ethics consultants be accountable in the face of a robust plurality of ethical standpoints, especially those that underwrite practices and methods for doing ethics consultation as well as those viewpoints and values encountered in daily clinical ethics practice? Underscoring this question is the recognition that the field of clinical ethics consultation has arrived at a crucial point in its maturation. Many efforts (...) are underway to more formally “professionalize” the field, with most aimed toward stabilizing a specific set of institutional considerations. Stretched between these institutional and practical initiatives resides a crucial set of of ethical considerations, chief among them the meaning and scope of responsibility for clinical ethics consultants. Developed around a long-form case scenario, the Zadeh Project provides a multi-layered series of “peer-reviews”: critique of the actions of the case scenario’s ethics consultant; reflection on clinical ethics method; examination of the many ways that commitments to method and practice can, and do, intersect, overlap, and alter one another. The design and format of this book thus models a key element for clinical ethics practice: the need and ability to provide careful and thoughtful explanation of core moral considerations that emerge among diverse standpoints. Specifically designed for those studying to become and those who are ethics consultants, this book, with its innovative and multi-layered approach, allows readers to share a peer-review-like experience that shows accountability to be what it is, an ethical, not merely procedural or administrative, undertaking. (shrink)

In his brief autobiography, Hume recalls how the publication of the heterodox Anglican clergyman, Conyers Middleton's Free Inquiry caused a ‘furore’ in England in 1748, whereas his own Philosophical Essays were ‘neglected’. This has secured Middleton a very marginal place in Hume scholarship. This essay argues that Middleton's importance at a crucial stage of Hume's intellectual development, during the Ninewells years (April 1749 – July 1751), was more significant than has been allowed. On his return to Ninewells, Hume reflected on (...) the reasons for Middleton's success. Section I considers the nature of Middleton's contributions to English philosophical-theological debate. In Section II, it is argued that this English context illuminates our understanding of both the manner and the matter of Hume's writings from the Ninewells years, which show a marked concern with the heathen philosophers’ treatments of the relationship between morality and religion. Here, the similarities between Gibbon's situation in the 1760s and Hume's from the late 1740s are foregrounded: a period in which both authors confronted the challenge of translating their philosophical insights into an English ‘idiom’. The essay concludes by offering some broader reflections on why intellectual historians have tended to dismiss, rather than to explore the Hume-Middleton connection. (shrink)

The first thematically arranged collection of Hume's political writings, this new work brings together substantive selections from _A Treatise on Human Nature_, _An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals_, and _Essays: Moral, Political and Literary_, with an interpretive introduction placing Hume in the context of contemporary debates between liberalism and its critics and between contextual and universal approaches.

The principal object of Ihis essay is to elucidate some of the story of how a theory that was so entrenched in the minds of intellectuals, namely, natural rights theory, fell so out of favor. This is the story of how the terror, fear, and destruction that became part of the French Revolution was laid at the feet of natural rights theory by three powerful figures: Burke, Bentham, and Hegel. It was these three figures, more than any others, who were (...) responsible for the demise of natural rights theory in the nineteenth century; and their respective criticisms of natural rights theory were made under the omnipresent shadow of, and in response to, the French Revolulion. (shrink)