Recent findings about the capabilities of smart animals such as corvids or octopi and novel types of artificial intelligence (AI), from social robots to cognitive assistants, are provoking the demand for new answers for meaningful comparison with other kinds of intelligence. This book fills this need by proposing a universal theory of intelligence which is based on causal learning as the central theme of intelligence. The goal is not just to describe, but mainly to explain queries like why one kind of intelligence is more intelligent than another, whatsoever the intelligence. Shiny terms like "strong AI," "superintelligence," "singularity" or "artificial general intelligence" that have been coined by a Babylonian confusion of tongues are clarified on the way.

The present book is a natural outgrowth of Rescher s longstanding preoccupation with the rational systematization of our knowledge as manifested in such earlier works as Cognitive Systematization (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979), and Complexity (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998). Accordingly, the role of principles in human affairs is crucial and ubiquitous. Principology, the theory of principles underdeveloped through it may be is accordingly bound to find a significant place in the sphere of philosophical inquiry regarding matters of thought and action."

Never before, in any anthology, have contemporary epistemologists and philosophers of language come together to address the single most neglected important issue at the confluence of these two branches of philosophy, namely: Can we know facts from reliable reports? Besides Hume's subversive discussion of miracles and the literature thereon, testimony has been bypassed by most Western philosophers; whereas in classical Indian (Pramana) theories of evidence and knowledge philosophical debates have raged for centuries about the status of word-generated knowledge. Is the response "I was told by an expert on the subject" as respectable as "I saw" or "I inferred" in answer to "How do you know?"' is a question answered in diverse and subtle ways by Buddhists, Vaisesikas and Naiyayikas. For the first time this book makes available the riches of those debates, translating from Sanskrit some contemporary Indian Pandits' reactions to Western analytic accounts of meaning and knowledge. For advanced undergraduates in philosophy, for researchers - in Australia, Asia, Europe or America - on epistemology, theory of meaning, Indian or comparative philosophy, as well as for specialists interested in this relatively fresh topic of knowledge transmission and epistemic dependence this book will be a feast. After its publication analytic philosophy and Indian philosophy will have no excuse for shunning each other.

"The Knowledge Book" is a unique interdisciplinary reference work for students and researchers concerned with the nature of knowledge. It is the first work of its kind to be organized on the assumption that whatever else knowledge might be, it is intrinsically social. The book consists of 42 alphabetically arranged entries on key concepts at the intersection of philosophy and sociology - what used to be called "sociology of knowledge" but is now increasingly called "social epistemology". The entries include concepts common to disciplines that in recent years have devoted more of their attention to knowledge: cultural studies, communication studies, information science, education, policy studies and business studies. Special attention is given to concepts from the emerging field of science and technology studies. Each entry presents a short, self-contained essay providing an overview of a concept and concludes with suggestions for further reading. All the entries are fully cross-referenced, allowing readers to both make connections and follow their own interests.

This book focuses on the role of intuition in querying Socratic problems, the very nature of intuition itself, and whether it can be legitimately used to support or reject philosophical theses. The reader is introduced to questions connected to the use of intuition in philosophy through an analysis of two methods where the appeal to intuition is explicit: thought experiments and reflective equilibrium. In addition, the debate on the legitimacy of such an appeal is presented as connected to the discussion on the nature of the aims and results of philosophical inquiries. Finally, the main tenets and results of experimental philosophers are discussed, highlighting the methodological limits of such studies. Readers interested in the nature of intuition in philosophy will find this an invaluable and revealing resource.

What do philosophy and computer science have in common? It turns out, quite a lot! In providing an introduction to computer science (using Python), Daniel Lim presents in this book key philosophical issues, ranging from external world skepticism to the existence of God to the problem of induction. These issues, and others, are introduced through the use of critical computational concepts, ranging from image manipulation to recursive programming to elementary machine learning techniques. In illuminating some of the overlapping conceptual spaces of computer science and philosophy, Lim teaches the reader fundamental programming skills and also allows her to develop the critical thinking skills essential for examining some of the enduring questions of philosophy. Key Features Teaches readers actual computer programming, not merely ideas about computers Includes fun programming projects (like digital image manipulation and Game of Life simulation), allowing the reader to develop the ability to write larger computer programs that require decomposition, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking Uses computational concepts to introduce, clarify, and develop a variety of philosophical issues Covers various aspects of machine learning and relates them to philosophical issues involving science and induction as well as to ethical issues Provides a framework to critically analyze arguments in classic and contemporary philosophical debates

The purpose of the book is twofold: to give a theory of reference for the indexical I' and to explain what is involved in thinking about oneself. The first part constitutes a critique of different solutions to the problem of how I' refers, while the second part advances a positive account of I' and I-thoughts. It is argued that I' refers indirectly through a de re sense that is based on non-conceptual content. I' expresses an individual concept with two components: a de re sense and a context-independent self-concept. Other issues that are discussed concern self-knowledge, e.g. whether there is something in specific that we have to know about ourselves to be able to self-refer, and the kind of self-consciousness that is required for self-reference. Furthermore, the notions of unity of consciousness and personal identity, as they both are presupposed by a competent use of I', are examined. Audience: The book is intended for philosophers of mind and language with a general interest in theories of reference and meaning, and more specifically in the first person, the self, and self-knowledge.

(1) Beliefs are involuntary, and not nonnally subject to direct voluntary control. For instance I cannot believe at will that my trousers are on fire, or that the Dalai Lama is a living God, even if you pay me a large amount of money for believing such things. (2) Beliefs are nonnally shaped by evidence for what is believed, unless they are, in some sense, irrational. In general a belief is rational if it is proportioned to the degree of evidence that one has for its truth. In this sense, one often says that "beliefs aim at truth" . This is why it is, on the face of it, irrational to believe against the evidence that one has. A subject whose beliefs are not shaped by a concern for their truth, but by what she wants to be the case, is more or less a wishful thinker or a self-deceiver. (3) Beliefs are context independent, in the sense that at one time a subject believes something or does not believe it; she does not believe it relative to one context and not relative to another. For instance if I believe that Paris is a polluted city, I cannot believe that on Monday and not on Tuesday; that would be a change of belief, or a change of mind, but not a case of believing one thing in one context and another thing in another context. If I believe something, the belief is more or 4 less pennanent across various contexts.

Gabriel Marcel reminds me that I asked him to write for this book. This is quite true, but not the whole story. During the visit with Ernest Hocking which he describes so eloquently in his essay, "Solips ism Surmounted," he learned from Hocking's hostess, Elizabeth Hazard, that I was planning hopefully for a Hocking F estschri/t. On his return to Harvard, where he was preparing his James Lectures, he wrote me offering an essay should these plans develop. Encouraged, I kept his letter while I moved my family to India and settled into a new job. When it was possible to begin work on the book in earnest I then made my request, reminding him of his original offer. I mention this because I discovered that his enthusiasm was to be typical of those who came to know about the project. Charles Moore commented that such a book was "long overdue," and Walter Stace spoke for us all when he said: "I am sure that there is no one in our profession who would not wish to be associated with any project in his honor. " Given the wide range of Hocking's interests and influence, it was difficult to know just how the volume should be organized."

"Robert Brandom" is one of the most significant philosophers writing today, yet paradoxically philosophers have found it difficult to get to grips with the details and implications of his work. This book aims to facilitate critical engagement with Brandom's ideas by providing an accessible overview of Brandom's project and the context for an initial assessment. Jeremy Wanderer's examination focuses on Brandom's inferentialist conception of rationality, and the core part of this conception that aims to specify the structure that a set of performances within a social practice must have for the participants to count as sapient beings by virtue of their participation in the practice, and for the performances within the practice to have objective semantic content by virtue of their featuring within the practice. Wanderer's exploration of these two goals forms the structure to the book. It Includes: Part I that provides a structural model of linguistic practice and considers various groups of potential participants in terms of their relationships to this practice; and, Part II that examines the meaning of the performances that are caught up in this gameplaying practice. Brandom's approach to semantics is outlined and the challenge such an approach has in allowing for a representational dimension of language and thought is explored. Wanderer offers readers a valuable framework for understanding the Brandomian system and helps situate Brandom's systematic theorizing within contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. This book will be a sought after aid to reading Brandom for advanced students and philosophers engaging with his challenging body of work.

Is there a universal biolinguistic disposition for the development of basic' colour words? This question has been a subject of debate since Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution was published in 1969. Naming the Rainbow is the first extended study of this debate. The author describes and criticizes empirically and conceptually unified models of colour naming that relate basic colour terms directly to perceptual and ultimately to physiological facts, arguing that this strategy has overlooked the cognitive dimension of colour naming. He proposes a psychosemantics for basic colour terms which is sensitive to cultural difference and to the nature and structure of non-linguistic experience. Audience: Contemporary colour naming research is radically interdisciplinary and Naming the Rainbow will be of interest to philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, and cognitive scientists concerned with: biological constraints on cognition and categorization; problems inherent in cross-cultural and in interdisciplinary science; the nature and extent of cultural relativism.

Engaging with the challenging and controversial reading of Spinoza presented by Gilles Deleuze in Expressionism in Philosophy (1968), this book focuses on Deleuze's redeployment of Spinozist concepts within the context of his own philosophical project of constructing a philosophy of difference as an alternative to the Hegelian dialectical philosophy. Duffy demonstrates that a thorough understanding of Deleuze's Spinozism is necessary in order to fully engage with Deleuze's philosophy of difference.

The fourteen award-winning essays in this volume discuss a range of novel ideas and controversial topics that could decisively influence the course of human life on Earth. Their authors address, in accessible language, issues as diverse as: enabling our social systems to learn; research in biological engineering and artificial intelligence; mending and enhancing minds; improving the way we do, and teach, science; living in the here and now; and the value of play. The essays are enhanced versions of the prize-winning entries submitted to the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) essay competition in 2014. FQXi, catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality, but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." This collection of essays addresses a philosophical problem raised by the first clause of these famous words. Does each signatory of the Declaration of Independence hold these truths individually, do they share some kind of a common attitude, or is there a single subject over and above the heads of its individual members that possesses a belief? "Collective Epistemology" is a name for the view that cognitive attitudes can be attributed to groups in a non-summative sense. The aim of this volume is to examine this claim, and to place it in the wider context of recent epistemological debates about the role of sociality in knowledge acquisition, in virtue and social epistemology, and in philosophy and sociology of science.

On 5-6 April 1991, there was a conference on Kant at Florida State University; this volume collects the (revised versions ofthe) papers presented on that occasion. The occasion was, give or take a few months, the 90th birthday of Professor (Emeritus) William H. Werkmeister. Werkie (as all his friends call hirn) hirnself gave the final paper at this conference. Hence the inclusion of a paper by Werkie in a volume honoring hirn. Although he is primarily known for his expertise in the field of Kantian philosophy, Werkie's published scholarship has spanned a wide range of subjects for more than fifty years: his first book, A Philosophy of Science, appeared in 1940; today, among other endeavors, he is at work on a book on Heidegger, and there have been other books and more than a hundred papers in between. Readers interested in fuller biographical information about Werkie should consult the first three papers in the 1 Festschrift celebrating his eightieth hirthday in 1981. Since then, Werkie's activities have continued without much letup. He no longer teaches regularly, hut he gives frequent colloquia in the Philosophy Department here, participates in conferences on Kant around the world, and continues to puhlish, particularly on Kant and Nicolai Hartmann. Wayne McEvilly, 'The Teacher Remembered'; Charles H.

The current debate in philosophy of science and epistemology is characterised by some strong oppositions, such as those between instrumentalism and scientific realism, methodological anarchism and critical rationalism, historical contextualism and metaphysical realism, naturalism and normativism. By means of a close interaction between historical research and theoretical perspective, this book aims to develop a third way' between absolutism and radical relativism. This new conception is called positive' because it is linked to the basic features of the esprit positif: empiricism, moderate epistemic relativism, and non-metaphysical objectivism. This book revives the early twentieth century controversy between the immanent and transcendent conception of the object of knowledge, and offers a new interpretation of the relationships between Logical Positivism, Kantian thought, and conventionalist philosophy of science. According to the author, such a positive philosophy' is able to counter the conversational' and post-modern attacks on objectivity and truth. Knowledge and Reality presents an original view of the status and role of philosophy, spelling out the intrinsic limitations of the analytic approach, together with the reasons that induce the author to place himself within that tradition. Audience: Libraries and research workers in epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, history of philosophy and history of science, and philosophy of language.

The writings of Greek philosopher ARISTOTLE (384BC322Bestudent of Plato, teacher of Alexander the Greatare among the most influential on Western thought, and indeed upon Western civilization itself. From theology and logic to ethics and even biology, there is no area of human knowledge that has not been touched by his thinking. In The Metaphysicsconsidered by many the greatest works not just of Aristotle but of the entire discipline of philosophythe philosopher explores the most fundamental of questions: What is existence? Why does anything exist? How can we comprehend being? What is infinity? Is there a god? With these questions, and the answers he found, Aristotle exerted a powerful sway on thinkers, scientists, artists, and writers for centuries, and continues to do so today. Students and armchair philosophers will find this a demanding but satisfying read.

This book presents an experiential, aesthetic-affective approach to the study of institutions. Drawing on institutional sociology, hermeneutics, phenomenology and process philosophy, it conceptualises institutions as collective experiences with their own self-promoting and self-propelling powers. Instead of seeing institutional emergence, change and decline as the result of actors' interests and manipulations, this book re-establishes the importance of factors beyond human design and intervention. Drawing on process theory, it shows how ideas, norms and values can form self-stabilising configurations that affect people without conscious realisation. It complements current thinking about institutions by showing how institutions constitute people long before people constitute them. With the help of authors as diverse as Antonio Damasio, A.N. Whitehead, J.W. von Goethe and Max Weber, Elke Weik crafts a perspective that allows us to understand institutions as aesthetic and affective powers in their own right. This book is for researchers interested in process theory, institutional and organisational studies, hermeneutics, and aesthetics.

In relation to the problems faced today, in contemplation and in practical affairs, philosophers must confront the question 'What is knowledge?', and consider whether knowledge has lost its object. Such was the problem placed before the seminar convened by the Philosophical Society of Turkey at Ankara in 1989. The 17 papers derived from the lectures and discussions deal with problems of knowing and believing, of the kinds and criteria of knowledge, of truth and fallibility, and of the cultural as well as individual factors in cognition. The authors include Guido Kung, L. Jonathan Cohen, Ernest Sosa, Arda Denkel, Venant Cauchy, David Evans, Gurol Irzik, Ioanna Kucuradi, Evandro Agazzi, Richard T. DeGeorge, Kwasi Wiredu, Teo Grunberg, H. Odera Oruka, Jindrich Zeleny, V.A. Lektorsky, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, and Francisco Miro Quesada. There is a critical and analytical Prologue by the convener of the Seminar, Ioanna Kucuradi.

The relation between logic and knowledge provoked a heated debate since the 1960s. The epistemic approaches, found their formal argument in the mathematics of Brouwer and intuitionistic logic. And following Michael Dummett - started to call themselves: antirealists'. Others persisted with the formal background of the Frege-Tarski tradition, where Cantorian set theory is linked via model theory to classical logic. Jaakko Hintikka tried to join both traditions by means of what is now known as explicit epistemic logic'. Here the epistemic content is introduced into the object language as an operator which yield propositions from propositions rather than as metalogical constraint on the notion of inference. The Realism-Antirealism debate had thus three players: classical logicians, intuitionists and explicit epistemic logicians. The editors of the present volume think that in these days and age of Alternative Logics, where manifold developments in logic happen in a breathtaking pace, this debate should be revisited. Using the most recent logical and epistemological tools, this book provides a novel and refreshing view on the most important topics of the Realism vs. Antirealism debate. Its general scope is to show the most recent developments in philosophical logic to deal with problems inherited from this debate. It is meant for researcher and advanced students in philosophy, logic, formal methods. It's complete collection with a variety of approaches, it is written by leading authors in the fields, every chapter is self-contained.

We know facts, but we also know how to do things. To know a fact is to know that a proposition is true. But does knowing how to ride a bike amount to knowledge of propositions? This is a challenging question and one that deeply divides the contemporary landscape. A Critical Introduction to Knowledge-How introduces, outlines, and critically evaluates various contemporary debates surrounding the nature of knowledge-how. Carter and Poston show that situating the debate over the nature of knowledge-how in other epistemological debates provides new ways to make progress. In particular, Carter and Poston explore the question of what knowledge-how involves, and how it might come apart from propositional knowledge, by engaging with key epistemological topics including epistemic luck, knowledge of language, epistemic value, virtue epistemology and social epistemology. New frontiers for research on knowledge-how are also explored relating to the internalism - externalism debate as well as embodied and extended knowledge. A Critical Introduction to Knowledge-How provides an accessible introduction to the main arguments in this important and thriving debate suited for undergraduates and postgraduates in philosophy and related areas. A strength of the book is its methodology which places a premium on placing the debates over knowledge-how in a broader conversation over the nature of knowledge. This book also offers an opinionated discussion of various lines of argument which will be of interest to professional philosophers as well.

In this short monograph, John Horty explores the difficulties presented for Gottlob Frege's semantic theory, as well as its modern descendents, by the treatment of defined expressions.
The book begins by focusing on the psychological constraints governing Frege's notion of sense, or meaning, and argues that, given these constraints, even the treatment of simple stipulative definitions led Frege to important difficulties. Horty is able to suggest ways out of these difficulties that are both philosophically and logically plausible and Fregean in spirit. This discussion is then connected to a number of more familiar topics, such as indexicality and the discussion of concepts in recent theories of mind and language.
In the latter part of the book, after introducing a simple semantic model of senses as procedures, Horty considers the problems that definitions present for Frege's idea that the sense of an expression should mirror its grammatical structure. The requirement can be satisfied, he argues, only if defined expressions--and incomplete expressions as well--are assigned senses of their own, rather than treated contextually. He then explores one way in which these senses might be reified within the procedural model, drawing on ideas from work in the semantics of computer programming languages.
With its combination of technical semantics and history of philosophy, Horty's book tackles some of the hardest questions in the philosophy of language. It should interest philosophers, logicians, and linguists.

Postmodern, postcolonial and post-truth are broadly used terms. But where do they come from? When and why did the habit of interpreting the world in post-terms emerge? And who exactly were the 'post boys' responsible for this? Post-everything examines why post-Christian, post-industrial and post-bourgeois were terms that resonated, not only among academics, but also in the popular press. It delves into the historical roots of postmodern and poststructuralist, while also subjecting more recent post-constructions (posthumanist, postfeminist) to critical scrutiny. This study is the first to offer a comprehensive history of post-concepts. In tracing how these concepts found their way into a broad range of genres and disciplines, Post-everything contributes to a rapprochement between the history of the humanities and the history of the social sciences. -- .

THIS ESSAY was begun a long time ago, in 1962, when I spent a year in Rome on a Guggenheim Fellowship. That twenty one years were required to complete it is owing both to the character of the theory presented and to my peculiar habits of mind. The theory presented is a coherence theory of knowledge: the con ception of coherence is here dominant and pervasive. But considera tions of coherence dictate an attention to details. The fact of the matter is that I get hung up on details: everything must fit, and if it does not, I do not want to proceed. A second difficulty was that all the epistemological issues seemed too clear. That may sound weird, but that's the way it is. I write philosophy to make things clear to myself. If, rightly or wrongly, I think I know the answer to a question, I can't bring myself to write it down. What happened, in this case, is that I finally became persuaded, in the course of lecturing on epistemology to under graduates, that not everything was as clear as it should be, that there were gaps in my presentation that were seriously in need of filling."

Wilfrid Sellars (1912-89) has been called "the most profound and systematic epistemological thinker of the twentieth century" (Robert Brandom). He was in many respects ahead of his time, and many of his innovations have become widely acknowledged, for example, his attack on the "myth of the given", his functionalist treatment of intentional states, his proposal that psychological concepts are like theoretical concepts, and his suggestion that attributions of knowledge locate the knower "in the logical space of reasons". However, while many philosophers have begun to acknowledge Sellars's inspiration in their work, their interpretation of his thought has not always been the most accurate. His writings are difficult. Individually, his essays are complex and sometimes rely on doctrines and arguments he put forward elsewhere. Each of his articles is deepened and strengthened by seeing it in its systematic context, but he never wrote a unified exposition of his system, which therefore has to be pieced together from numerous disparate sources. Willem deVries addresses these difficulties specifically and provides a careful reading and remarkable overview of Sellars's systematic philosophy that will become the standard point of reference for all philosophers seeking to understand Sellars's hugely significant body of work.