The technology of Artificial Intelligence is here, and moving fast, without ethical standards in place. A Blueprint for the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Technologies leans on classical western philosophy for its ethical grounding. Values such as conscience, rights, equity, and discrimination, establish a basis for regulatory standards. Multiple international agencies with governing interests are compared. The development of ethical standards is suggested through two new non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The first is to develop standards that evolve from practice, while the second acts as an ombudsman to settle abuse. Both NGOs are envisioned to cooperate with regulators. More than seeking a perfect solution, the book aims to balance the tension between conflicting interests, with the goal to keep this dangerously wonderful technology under global human control. For that to materialize, the technology needs to have a seat on the table of global ethics. The final chapter lists fourteen thinking points to achieve an ethics balance for new technologies.

The Evolution of Consciousness brings together interdisciplinary insights from philosophy, neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science to explain consciousness in terms of the biological function that grounds it in the physical world. Drawing on the novel analogy of a house of cards, Paula Droege pieces together various conceptual questions and shows how they rest on each other to form a coherent, structured argument. She asserts that the mind is composed of unconscious sensory and cognitive representations, which become conscious when they are selected and coordinated into a representation of the present moment. This temporal representation theory deftly bridges the gap between mind and body by highlighting that physical systems are conscious when they can respond flexibly to actions in the present. With examples from evolution, animal cognition, introspection and the free will debate, this is a compelling and animated account of the possible explanations of consciousness, offering answers to the conceptual question of how consciousness can be considered a cognitive process.

Unified Philosophy: Interdisciplinary Metaphysics, Ethics, and Liberal Arts demonstrates how an integrated vision of metaphysics, ethics, and hermeneutics can serve as an underlying philosophy for general education or liberal arts courses and programs. Its unique approach elevates such courses to orientation and reorientation courses and seminars within higher education. The book introduces and reintroduces concepts in philosophy in ethics for students and faculty. It underscores that philosophy is theoretical and applied metaphysics; metaphysics is applied ethics and hermeneutics; and ethics and hermeneutics are applied metaphysics. The opening chapter explores metaphysics: inquiry into reality. It consists of two sections: part and whole; and change and stability. Part and whole involve four positions about reality: part-alone, holistic or limited part, part-whole dualism, or whole-alone. Change and stability also entail four positions about reality: change-alone, holistic or directed change, change-stability dualism, or stability-alone. In turn, each of the eight positions integrates the apparently unrelated languages of game theory, mereology, functions, sets, virtue ethics, phenomenology, cybernetics, and ergonomics/human factors. Chapter One forms the model of which the remaining chapters are applications. The third edition expands Alphonse Chapanis' environment-user interface to four interfaces: environment-environment, environment-person, person-environment, and person-person interfaces. New chapters include Chapter One, Chapter Two, and Chapter Seven. Chapter Two examines positivism through subjectivity spectrum. Chapter Seven examines management reality including authority. Written in recognition of ethics and metaphysics as fundamental components of philosophy and the quest for wisdom, Unified Philosophy is a thought-provoking text for students of theology, ethics, law, medicine, and engineering, education, and city planning/environmental science.

Providing theoretical and applied analyses of Michel Henry’s practical philosophy in light of his guiding idea of Life, this is the first sustained exploration of Henry’s practical thought in anglophone literature, reaffirming his centrality to contemporary continental thought. This book ranges from the tension between his methodological insistence on life as non-intentional and worldly activities to Henry’s engagement with the practical philosophy of intellectuals such as Marx, Freud, and Kandisky to topics of application such as labor, abstract art, education, political liberalism, and spiritual life. An international team of leading Henry scholars examine a vital dimension of Henry's thinking that has remained under-explored for too long.

Introduction to Philosophy: Themes for Classroom and Reflection is a series of original essays that span the breadth of topics commonly discussed in the college classroom. Designed to serve as conversation starters, the essays take a reconciliatory approach to controversial issues while still challenging students to think beyond commonly held positions. The essays are grouped by theme into dedicated parts on defining philosophy, logical matters, metaphysics, epistemology, metaethics, normative ethics, social morality, political morality, biomedical ethics, professional ethics, sexuality, faith and the supernatural, and aesthetics. Topics range from the theoretical in essays on empirical skepticism and whether or not we can truly think outside the box, to the social in a writing on the potential dangers of wealth, to the personal in a work on the purpose of sex. The third edition includes 20 new essays and expands the breadth of coverage considerably. Additionally, for the first time, each essay includes questions for discussion. Introduction to Philosophy successfully avoids being polemic while still encouraging students to engage in considered debate on difficult subjects. The book is designed for use in introductory philosophy and ethics classes, and can also serve as a reader for philosophically-based discussion groups.

Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, and Jimmy Kimmel—these comedians are household names whose satirical takes on politics, the news, and current events receive some of the highest ratings on television. In this book, James E. Caron examines these and other satirists through the lenses of humor studies, cultural theory, and rhetorical and social philosophy, arriving at a new definition of the comic art form. Tracing the history of modern satire from its roots in the Enlightenment values of rational debate, evidence, facts, accountability, and transparency, Caron identifies a new genre: “truthiness satire.� He shows how satirists such as Colbert, Bee, Oliver, and Kimmel—along with writers like Charles Pierce and Jack Shafer—rely on shared values and on the postmodern aesthetics of irony and affect to foster engagement within the comic public sphere that satire creates. Using case studies of bits, parodies, and routines, Caron reveals a remarkable process: when evidence-based news reporting collides with a discursive space asserting alternative facts, the satiric laughter that erupts can move the audience toward reflection and possibly even action as the body politic in the public sphere. With rigor, humor, and insight, Caron shows that truthiness satire pushes back against fake news and biased reporting and that the satirist today is at heart a citizen, albeit a seemingly silly one. This book will appeal to anyone interested in and concerned about public discourse in the current era, especially researchers in media studies, communication studies, political science, and literary and cultural studies.