rss_2.0Sciendo RSS Feed for Kairos. Journal of Philosophy & Sciencehttps://sciendo.com/journal/KJPShttps://www.sciendo.comhttps://sciendo-parsed-data-feed.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/60095b2bf2a18a0a296b6525/cover-image.jpghttps://sciendo.com/journal/KJPS140216https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0012ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00122021-10-11T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0013ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00132021-10-11T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0014ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00142021-10-11T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0009<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>From the initial analysis of John Morris in 1976 about if computers can lie, I have presented my own treatment of the problem using what can be called a computational lying procedure. One that uses two Turing Machines. From there, I have argued that such a procedure cannot be implemented in a Turing Machine alone. A fundamental difficulty arises, concerning the computational representation of the self-knowledge a machine should have about the fact that it is lying. Contrary to Morris’ claim, I have thus suggested that computers – as far as they are Turing Machines – cannot lie. Consequently, I have claimed that moral agency attribution to a robot or any other automated AI system, cannot be made, strictly grounded on imitating behaviors. Self-awareness as an ontological grounding for moral attribution must be evoked. This can pose a recognition problem from our part, should the sentient system be the only agent capable of acknowledging its own sentience.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00092021-10-11T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0010ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00102021-10-11T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0011<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Rorty saw the course of philosophy in the twentieth century as an effort to part from two major philosophical trends, namely historicism and naturalism, only to inevitably return at the end of a tortuous path to these very same tendencies. If we can concede without major objections (although perhaps with many objections of detail) Rorty’s diagnosis of the trends in contemporary continental and analytical philosophy, which seem to reveal the exhaustion of modern philosophy, based as it has been on epistemology, we must, on the other hand, examine carefully the three main questions that this diagnosis leaves open: (1) How does Rorty reconcile continental idealist subjectivism with materialistic behaviorism? (2) Is it really inevitable that philosophy (and philosophers) blinded by Geist are unable to question prevalent beliefs? (3) Finally, is the acceptance of a liberalism that is not able to give reasons for itself the most effective and pragmatic liberalism? In answering these questions, it may not be possible to avoid a non-dogmatic, but pragmatic, metaphysics: a vocabulary of vocabularies that allows Rorty (and us) to speak of the problems of justice in Plato and Rawls, of the soul in Aristotle and Descartes, of the dystopias in Moro and Orwell. On pragmatic terms, perhaps a modest version of a metaphysic’s “vocabulary” turns out to be as legitimate and practical as any other vocabulary.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00112021-10-11T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0008ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00082021-10-11T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0002ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00022021-05-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0003ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00032021-05-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0006<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The expression “end of nature” has been coined by American environ-mentalist Bill McKibben is his 1989 famous book, <italic>The End of Nature</italic>. Since then, the philosophical implications of such an obituary have been explored, mainly on an ethical perspective over the environment. The conceptual end of nature is one of those implications, in the context of a post-naturalistic environmental philosophy. Our purpose is to build upon the ambiguities of “nature” and reframe some readings of the concept of “integrity” as a guiding principle in the relation between human beings and the environment.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00062021-05-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0007ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00072021-05-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0001ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00012021-05-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-0004<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>This paper will philosophically extend Julian Leff’s Avatar therapy paradigm (AT) for voice-like hallucinations that was initially proposed for treatment-resistant Schizophrenia patients into the realm of gesture-enhanced embodied cognition and Virtual Reality (VR), entitled ^g+TA (gesture-enhanced Avatar Therapy). I propose an philosophy of technology approach of embodied rhetorics of triadic kinetic “actions” in the sense of Charles Sanders Peirce that transforms the voice hallucination incorporated by an avatar- and that can confront acousmatic voice-like hallucinations with a method of gesture synchronization and dyssynchronization and gestural refusal of interaction that the player with the Avatar can resist in full embodiment. This paper therefore introduces a gesture-enhanced, extended version of Cybertherapy with Avatars that tackle multimodal bodily experience of voice-like hallucinations beyond mere visual or auditory stimulation. This is put forward theoretically in a 4E-cognition approach that expands Avatar Therapy with gestures into VR.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2020-00042021-05-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/kjps-2016-0002<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>In this paper, I examine an evolutionary approach to the action selection problem and illustrate how it helps raise an objection to the predictive processing account. Clark examines the predictive processing account as a theory of brain function that aims to unify perception, action, and cognition, but - despite this aim - fails to consider action selection overtly. He off ers an account of action <italic>control</italic> with the implication that minimizing prediction error is an imperative of living organisms because, according to the predictive processing account, action is employed to fulfill expectations and reduce prediction error. One way in which this can be achieved is by seeking out the least stimulating environment and staying there (Friston <italic>et al.</italic> 2012: 2). Bayesian, neuroscientific, and machine learning approaches into a single framework whose overarching principle is the minimization of surprise (or, equivalently, the maximization of expectation. But, most living organisms do not find, and stay in, surprise free environments. This paper explores this objection, also called the “dark room problem”, and examines Clark’s response to the problem. Finally, I recommend that if supplemented with an account of action selection, Clark’s account will avoid the dark room problem.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/kjps-2016-00022016-04-30T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/kjps-2016-0001<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>While many philosophers speak of ‘pluralism’ within philosophy of biology, there has been little said about what such pluralism amounts to or what its underlying assumptions are. This has provoked so me anxiety about whether pluralism is compatible with their commitment to naturalism (Cussins 1992). This paper surveys three prominent pluralist positions (Sandra Mitchell and Michael Dietrich’s (2006) ‘integrative pluralism’, and both Peter Godfrey-Smith’s (1993) and Beth Preston’s (1998) pluralist analyses of functional explanations in evolutionary biology) and demonstrates how all three are committed to a form of <italic>pragmatism</italic>. This analysis both clarifies the justification and grounding of pluralism and allows these pluralisms to avoid the criticisms of Cussins. I close by making some more general points about pluralism and its relationship to history and integration.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/kjps-2016-00012016-04-30T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/kjps-2016-0003<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>Ortega y Gasset is known for his philosophy of life and his effort to propose an alternative to both realism and idealism. The goal of this article is to focus on an unfamiliar aspect of his thought. The focus will be given to Ortega’s interpretation of the advancements in modern mathematics in general and Cantor’s theory of transfinite numbers in particular. The main argument is that Ortega acknowledged the historical importance of the Cantor’s Set Theory, analyzed it and articulated a response to it. In his writings he referred many times to the advancements in modern mathematics and argued that mathematics should be based on the intuition of counting. In response to Cantor’s mathematics Ortega presented what he defined as an ‘absolute positivism’. In this theory he did not mean to naturalize cognition or to follow the guidelines of the Comte’s positivism, on the contrary. His aim was to present an alternative to Cantor’s mathematics by claiming that mathematicians are allowed to deal only with objects that are immediately present and observable to intuition. Ortega argued that the infinite set cannot be present to the intuition and therefore there is no use to differentiate between cardinals of different infinite sets.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/kjps-2016-00032016-04-30T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/kjps-2016-0005ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/kjps-2016-00052016-04-30T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/kjps-2016-0004<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>My aim in this paper is to critically assess Plantinga’s modal ontological argument for existence of God, such as it is presented in the book “The Nature of Necessity” (1974). Plantinga tries to show that this argument is (i) valid and (ii) it is rational to believe in his main premise, namely “there is a possible world in which maximal greatness is instantiated”. On the one hand, I want to show that this argument is logically valid in both systems B and S5 of modal logic. On the other hand, I think that this argument is not a good argument to show that God exists or that it is rational to believe in God.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/kjps-2016-00042016-04-30T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2018-0008<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>The conventionality of simultaneity thesis as established by Reichenbach and Grünbaum is related to the partial freedom in the definition of simultaneity in an inertial reference frame. An apparently altogether different issue is that of the conventionality of spatial geometry, or more generally the conventionality of chronogeometry when taking also into account the conventionality of the uniformity of time. Here we will consider Einstein’s version of the conventionality of (chrono)geometry, according to which we might adopt a different spatial geometry and a particular definition of equality of successive time intervals. The choice of a particular chronogeometry would not imply any change in a theory, since its “physical part” can be changed in a way that, regarding experimental results, the theory is the same. Here, we will make the case that the conventionality of simultaneity is closely related to Einstein’s conventionality of chronogeometry, as another conventional element leading to it.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2018-00082018-08-20T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2018-0006<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title><p>Vitalism was long viewed as the most grotesque view in biological theory: appeals to a mysterious life-force, Romantic insistence on the autonomy of life, or worse, a metaphysics of an entirely living universe. In the early twentieth century, attempts were made to present a revised, lighter version that was not weighted down by revisionary metaphysics: “organicism”. And mainstream philosophers of science criticized Driesch and Bergson’s “neovitalism” as a too-strong ontological commitment to the existence of certain entities or “forces”, over and above the system of causal relations studied by mechanistic science, rejecting the weaker form, organicism, as well. But there has been some significant scholarly “push-back” against this orthodox attitude, notably pointing to the 18th-century Montpellier vitalists to show that there are different historical forms of vitalism, including how they relate to mainstream scientific practice (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_kjps-2018-0006_ref_053_w2aab3b7b6b1b6b1ab1ac53Aa">Wolfe and Normandin, eds. 2013</xref>). Additionally, some trends in recent biology that run counter to genetic reductionism and the informational model of the gene present themselves as organicist (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_kjps-2018-0006_ref_034_w2aab3b7b6b1b6b1ab1ac34Aa">Gilbert and Sarkar 2000</xref>, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_kjps-2018-0006_ref_049_w2aab3b7b6b1b6b1ab1ac49Aa">Moreno and Mossio 2015</xref>). Here, we examine some cases of vitalism <italic>in the twentieth century and today</italic>, not just as a historical form but as a significant metaphysical and scientific model. We argue for vitalism’s conceptual originality without either reducing it to mainstream models of science or presenting it as an alternate model of science, by focusing on historical forms of vitalism, logical empiricist critiques thereof and the impact of synthetic biology on current (re-)theorizing of vitalism.</p></abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/kjps-2018-00062018-08-20T00:00:00.000+00:00en-us-1