Epistemological Nature Research Articles

The Ethical and Legal Challenges of Artificial Intelligence: The EU response to biased and discriminatory AI

The proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in decision-making contexts is hailed as a silver bullet, pledging to replace human subjectivity with objective, infallible decisions. Paradoxically, considerable journalistic reporting has recently commanded attention to biased and discriminatory attitudes displayed by AI systems on both sides of the Atlantic. Notwithstanding the permeation of automated decision-making in critical settings, such as criminal justice, job recruitment, and border control, wherein rights and freedoms of individuals and groups are likewise imperilled, there is often no way for human agents to untangle how AI systems reach such unacceptable decisions. The conspicuous bias problem of AI alongside its operation as an inexplicable ‘black box’ render the exploration of this phenomenon pressing, primarily in the less examined EU policy arena. This dissertation pursues an interdisciplinary research methodology to examine which are the main ethical and legal challenges that Narrow AI, especially in its data-driven Machine Learning (ML) form, poses in relation to bias and discrimination across the EU. Chapter 1 equips readers with pertinent background information regarding AI and its interdependent ML and Big Data technologies. In an accessible manner, it takes heed of the definitions and types of AI adopted by EU instruments along with the milestones in its historical progression and its current stage of development. Chapter 2 conducts a philosophical analysis to argue against the putative ethical neutrality of AI. Ethical concerns of epistemological nature reveal that biases traverse AI systems through the selection of objectives, training data, the reliance on correlations, and the epistemic inequality between lay individuals and AI developers in combination with that between human agents and ‘black box’ machines in general. Touching upon normative ethical concerns, AI systems entail effects which, according to egalitarianism, oppose normative ideals of fairness and equality. In more Kafkaesque scenarios, individuals and corporations may use technical particularities of AI to mask their discriminatory intent. In Chapter 3, a doctrinal legal methodology is applied to reveal the tensions of these challenging instantiations of AI in light of soft and hard EU law instruments. In consideration of its data-driven character, biased and discriminatory AI decisions fall within the applicability scope of the newly enforced General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In particular, the data processing principles of Article 5, the Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) of Article 35, the prohibition of automated decision-making and the speculative right to explanation of Article 22, the principles of lawfulness, fairness, and transparency of Article 5 (1) a), the suggested implementation of auditing, and the enhanced enforcement authorities receive scrutiny. The dissertation concludes that a principles-based approach and the provision of anticipatory impact assessments are regulatory strengths of the GDPR. However, the EU should discourage the deployment of AI in crucial decision-making contexts and explore ways to fill related legal gaps. Overall, Trustworthy AI is proposed as an ethical and legal paragon in the face of biased and discriminatory AI.

Thomas Reid on the Improvement of Knowledge

Thomas Reid often seems distant from other Scottish Enlightenment figures. While Hume, Hutcheson, Kames, and Smith wrestled with the nature of social progress, Reid was busy with natural philosophy and epistemology, stubbornly loyal to traditional religion and ethics, and out of touch with the heart of his own intellectual world. Or was he? I contend that Reid not only engaged the Scottish Enlightenment's concern for improvement, but, as a leading interpreter of Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon, he also developed a scheme to explain the progress of human knowledge. Pulling thoughts from across Reid's corpus, I identify four key features that Reid uses to distinguish mature sciences from prescientific arts and inquiries. Then, I compare and contrast this scheme with that of Thomas Kuhn in order to highlight the plausibility and originality of Reid's work.

Overcoming Obstacles to the Formulation and Use of Questions in the Science Classroom: Analysis from a Teacher Reflection Workshop

Studies have investigated various aspects of the use of questions in science lessons, but there is still a lack of research that demonstrates how, during peer reflection, teachers learn through identifying and overcoming obstacles to their own questioning in their professional development process. The present study is aimed at analyzing the types of obstacles identified by science teachers who participated in a Teacher Reflection Workshop (TRW) on the formulation and use of questions in their lessons. The workshop consisted of stage 1 (7 sessions), stage 2 (video recordings in school classrooms), and stage 3 (3 sessions). The discourses of 8 participating teachers in the areas of chemistry, biology, physics, and natural science at different educational institutions in the city of Santiago, Chile, were analyzed in this case study. The analysis was carried out by the professors participating in the workshop, based on the participants’ identification, initial attempts to address, and proposals to overcome, their obstacles. In the earlier stages of the process, the identified obstacles had procedural characteristics, but as the process advanced, they took on a more epistemological nature. One of the main differences between the initial and final identification of obstacles by the participating teachers is that the latter were more precise and critical, and the teachers increasingly demonstrated the ability to propose specific solutions to teaching problems. Engagement with the obstacles does not take place uniformly but depends on the types of obstacles that the teachers identify in their practice. Proposals for overcoming the obstacles require the teachers to have time for reflecting and validating their ideas in their practice.

Thinking outside the Box to Get inside the Black Box: Alternative Epistemology for Dealing with Financial Innovation

ABSTRACTThis paper seeks to ignite debate surrounding the computerization and change in organizing financial markets and, due to the emergence of trading algorithms, investigates those as disruptive innovation and its side effects. First, we frame the computerization of financial markets as disruptive innovation. Second, we analyze how an extension of a disruptive innovation generates latent effects that contradict the original principles. Third, we argue the necessity to explicitly consider the epistemological nature of financial innovations. This leads to our conclusion that there is a necessity to extend the epistemological dimension of financial innovation, in order to think outside the box to get inside the black box of financial innovation.

Structural Indeterminacy

The threat of ontological deflationism (the view that disagreement about what there is can be non‐substantive) is averted by appealing to realism about fundamental structure—or so tells us Ted Sider. In this paper, the notion of structural indeterminacy is introduced as a particular case of metaphysical indeterminacy; then it is argued that structural indeterminacy is not only compatible with a metaphysics of fundamental structure, but it can even safeguard it from a crucial objection; finally, it is shown that, if there are instances of structural indeterminacy, a hitherto unacknowledged variety of ontological deflationism will arise. Unless structure is shown to be determinate, ontological deflationism remains a live option. Furthermore, I will consider whether structural indeterminacy could be challenged by adopting a naturalistic epistemology of structure; the question is answered in the negative on the basis of a formal result concerning theory choice. Finally, I submit a new way of articulating the epistemology of structure, which hinges on the very possibility of structural indeterminacy.

Philosophical Education and Global Citizenship: Tapping into the Process Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead

This paper outlines how ethics and democracy can be conceived procedurally within the context of education for global citizenship, using the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead as a starting point. Education for global citizenship aims to create active individual consciousness within a community and a commitment to build upon values and practices. As this paper presents, Whitehead’s rejection of systematized, scientific rationalism formed the basis for his theory of internal relatedness. While scientific rationalism promotes the idea that things and individuals are distinct and discreet from each other, Whitehead’s process theory advances the idea that things and persons are internally related to each other. The nature of epistemology in Whitehead’s system of thought shines a spotlight on the immense richness of process theory as well as on the limits of the standard scientific rationalism. The paper, while highlighting the flaws of Kant’s basis for global citizenship, explores Whitehead’s reconstruction of metaphysics and rationality within the framework of process metaphysics. In addition it indicates the sociopolitical and educational implications of process thought. The paper concludes by discussing how Lipman’s Philosophy for Children is related to Whitehead’s process philosophy and, in fact, could actualize Whitehead’s educational philosophy that students should be interactive and creative participants in learning. It also demonstrates how Whitehead’s process thought and Lipman’s Philosophy for Children both share education beliefs that promote the values, skills, culture, and attitude needed for global citizenship.

Concept Selection and Translation Strategy: Subtitling for the Deaf based on Corpus Analysis

In the past 20 years, corpus analysis has been applied to different translation modalities. This study used an annotated multimodal corpus of 52 international films of different genres, which had been dubbed in Spanish and subtitled for Spanish Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) viewers, according to the AENOR, UNE 153010 (2012) standard. The corpus was annotated at two levels. At the first level, we annotated the information that professional subtitlers selected from the audio mode of the source text to translate into subtitles. At the second level, captured information regarding the translation strategies was used. This allowed us to analyse the translation process and reflect the translation preferences of professional subtitlers. Our first objective was to show how corpus analysis can be applied to the study of multimodal texts. The second objective was to provide valuable insights into the understanding, description and specification of the conceptual and epistemological nature of subtitling for the DHH.

Epistemology of Nature inspired Artificial System

International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering (A UGC Approved and indexed with DOI, ICI and Approved, DPI Digital Library) is one of the leading and growing open access, peer-reviewed, monthly, and scientific research journal for scientists, engineers, research scholars, and academicians, which gains a foothold in Asia and opens to the world, aims to publish original, theoretical and practical advances in Computer Science,Information Technology, Engineering (Software, Mechanical, Civil, Electronics & Electrical), and all interdisciplinary streams of Computing Sciences. It intends to disseminate original, scientific, theoretical or applied research in the field of Computer Sciences and allied fields. It provides a platform for publishing results and research with a strong empirical component. It aims to bridge the significant gap between research and practice by promoting the publication of original, novel, industry-relevant research.

External Relations of the Regions: the Main Problems of Paradiplomacy Theory

Introduction:The article discusses the theoretical basis of research in the feld of paradiplomacy or external relations of intrastate administrative-territorial entities. Paradiplomacy is an umbrella concept within several theoretical approaches that are significantly close in content. The author analyzes the main problems in the theory of diplomacy related to the lack of heuristic potential and the lack of a formed conceptual grid.Materials and methods:from a theoretical and methodological point of view, the author uses the hermeneutic approach, which allows to combine descriptive techniques and analysis of the subjective aspects of the given phenomenon. In addition, the author relies on a comparative historical method and a normative political analysis, which makes it possible to ft the facts of political reality into the framework of political theory. The paradiplomatic practice of Russia, Brazil, Canada, USA, Tanzania, and the Republic of South Africa acted as the material for the study.Research results:the author has identifed three main problems of the theory of paradiplomacy, which delay its further development. The theory of paradiplomacy does not have clear answers for questions of the spatial transformation of administrative-territorial units and the relationship of these transformation processes with paradiplomatic activity. The theory of paradiplomacy is unable to explain the phenomena of multilateral interregional relations and the unevenness of paradiplomatic activity.Discussions and conclusions:the author states that the existing theoretical approaches to paradiplomacy are mainly descriptive in nature and do not address the problems of a methodological, epistemological and normative nature, which is an undoubted drawback.

Quine’s Naturalized Epistemology and the Issue of Knowledge Productivity

Since Locke, empiricism has sought to deduce the knowledge of the world in one way or the other from sense experience. The aim of this episiemology has been twofold; to justify and deduce the truth of nature from sensory evidence and to define those truths in terms of observation and logico mathematical auxiliaries. The chief aim of which is to attain absolute certainly in our knowledge of the world. However, Ouine observes that this attempt of normative or traditional epistemology to provide a foundation of science has failed because all efforts of the empiricist philosophers have been productive. Quine concludes on this basis that traditional epistemology can never produce knowledge or criterion of knowing. He therefore calls for the abandonment of traditional epistemology on the basis that it produce knowledge. This paper examines his arguments for the claim that traditional epistemology is unproductive and can never produce knowledge. The paper reveals that the call is untenable as his leap from It has not to ' 'it cannot is unjustifiable. The paper reveals further that it is the aim of traditional epistemology to justify science from sense experience and so far it is in the business of doing this, one can say it is productive. DOI : 10.7176/JPCR/40-03

The Cognitive Unconscious in Native American Embodied Knowing

In this paper, I address only one small parallel between one subsection of Western epistemology and cognitive theory and Native American epistemology. I draw the connection between the recent theories of embodied cognition and distinctive Native modes of embodied implicit procedural knowing, such as blood memory, vision questions, and non-binary logical systems. My reason for doing so is twofold. First, I show how these distinctive ways of knowing within Native worldviews are not mere mystical claims that can be cast aside in favor of more ostensibly “rational” knowing practices. To do so, I utilized Mark Johnson’s account of the cognitive unconscious to demonstrate how and that Native embodied knowing practices and knowledge sources are easily explicable when examined though a phenomenological cognitive lens. Second, I highlight one small respect in which Native epistemologies are conceived of procedurally. Embodied forms of knowing are merely one facet of the procedural performative nature of Native American epistemology but they are highly demonstrative of the fact that procedural ways of knowing—knowing-how—account for deeply implicit ways of knowing that are lacking from other procedural knowledge accounts that are often hamstrung without such an accompanying account of knowing-how beyond counterfactual knowledge.

BASIC STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGY OF INTELLECTUAL DUALITY OF HUMANITY IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

The article includes new conceptual explanation of civilization content as an information process. Civilization is revealed as a global sociocultural quantum based on a specific picture for civilization and alien to others. The analysis of civilizational “quanta” historically reveals spiritual synergy of the past humanity with reconstructing goal of its entire positive present. This analysis is a product of our reflection thinking on those fractal objects of civilization as a quantum - invariants that are extracted from the space of its worldviews and events. According to the exponential growth of information production in all civilizational “quanta”, basic strategic technologies in information space are revealed as a result of ever-increasing intellectual activity of mankind in its processing, storage and protection. The basic strategic technologies include: coding, symbolization and digitalization. Coding is disclosed as a dialectical process of the relationship of thought and sign, the translation of thought into a sign; the epistemological nature of the sign and the sign situation is explained. The value-cognitive status of symbolization is analyzed. The symbol is characterized as a form of representing the ideal expression of things, phenomena and processes in image or sign form. Digital technologies, as an integral feature of the third industrial revolution, in unfolding context of its new stage - the fourth, are developing in basic strategiccontext of the entire information space, covering all areas of civilizations from the standpoint of its innovative development.

Epistemological Nature of Legislative Powers of Parliament: Issues of Theory and a Conceptual Apparatus

Epistemological Nature of Legislative Powers of Parliament: Issues of Theory and a Conceptual Apparatus

História, ciência ou romance? O tema das identidades no futebol brasileiro

Já há algum tempo, uma percepção de crise vem se manifestando no campo das ciências humanas e, por consequência, no campo historiográfico acerca do status de ciência para História de uma forma geral. Trata-se de uma questão de cunho epistemológico e que, assim sendo, repercute e desafia historiadores como um todo, independente das especificidades do seu objeto. O objetivo central deste artigo é problematizar o campo de estudos históricos envolvendo identidade e futebol que se desenvolve no Brasil, a luz daquele diagnóstico de crise. Para tal, parte-se de uma breve apresentação da referida crise, destacando a proposta historiográfica de Jörn Rüsen como forma de superá-la. Na sequência, a partir de uma dada escolha bibliográfica, apresenta-se um panorama geral sobre estudos, no Brasil, envolvendo o tema das identidades no futebol. Finalmente, conclui-se o artigo com alguns apontamentos e a possibilidade do uso da teoria elisiana na escrita da história do esporte.

Asymmetry, Disagreement and Biases: Epistemic Worries about Expertise

ABSTRACTThis paper contributes to an on-going exchange in political theory on the normative legitimacy of expert bodies. It focuses on epistemic worries about the expertisation of politics, and uses the Nordic system of advisory commissions as an empirical case. Epistemic concerns are often underplayed by those who defend an increasing role of experts in policy-making, while those who have epistemic worries often tend to overstate them and debunk expertise. We present ten epistemic worries, of which some are of an epistemological nature, while others are related to failures and biases. These worries must not be overstated, but no doubt point to real problems which have to be handled through the design of expert bodies and institutions of science advice. We introduce three groups of mechanisms that are likely to contribute to remedying the problems of expertise and discuss what they imply for the design of a system of public advisory commissions.

Intertextuality and Dialectics of the Self in Barnes's The Sense of an Ending and in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina

The article examines the literary relationship between The Sense of an Ending and Anna Karenina. Following Kristeva’s definition of intertextuality, resting upon the complex dialogic way in which words become intertwined in a literary work of art, it pursues the analysis of permeability of a literary act. The comparative reading process of The Sense of an Ending and of Anna Karenina brings to light the importance of the dialogical principle present in these texts, both in structural and thematic terms. The sense of strangeness or unfathomability involved in the encounter with otherness arises questions about the epistemological nature of the cultural web that constitutes uniqueness. The evocation of the self and of alterity announced in the element of unfamiliarity and resistance in its confrontation with the other helps us to penetrate deeper into the realm of subjectivity. The relationship of The Sense of an Ending to Anna Karenina, revisited in this article, rests upon comparative analysis of discursive practices employed in both texts. The analysis describes a host of symbolic ways in which The Sense of an Ending exploits consciousness and ideas from Anna Karenina, setting up reader’s perception that the creation of literary texts arises mostly from the permanent contact of these texts with prior texts. Emphasizing Bakhtin’s [1] idea that this contact is “a dialogic contact between several literary works of art” (p.162), the article reflects on different communicative practices, including both the identification of literary sources and the anticipation of future meditations on reading a sense of literary memory as observed in these texts. Specifically, revisiting philosophical reflections on the sense of a self, proposed in Anna Karenina, The Sense of an Ending achieves a connection between personal and collective levels in a process by which literary memory exploits the issue of identity.

Induction and Epistemological Naturalism

Epistemological naturalists reject the demand for a priori justification of empirical knowledge; no such thing is possible. Observation reports, being the foundation of empirical knowledge, are neither justified by other sentences, nor certain; but they may be agreed upon as starting points for inductive reasoning and they function as implicit definitions of predicates used. Making inductive generalisations from observations is a basic habit among humans. We do that without justification, but we have strong intuitions that some inductive generalisations will fail, while for some other we have better hopes. Why? This is the induction problem according to Goodman. He suggested that some predicates are projectible when becoming entrenched in language. This is a step forward, but not entirely correct. Inductions result in universally generalised conditionals and these contain two predicates, one in the antecedent, one in the consequent. Counterexamples to preliminary inductive generalisations can be dismissed by refining the criteria of application for these predicates. This process can be repeated until the criteria for application of the predicate in the antecedent includes the criteria for the predicate in the consequent, in which case no further counterexample is possible. If that is the case we have arrived at a law. Such laws are implicit definitions of theoretical predicates. An accidental generalisation has not this feature, its predicates are unrelated. Laws are said to be necessary, which may be interpreted as ‘“Laws” are necessarily true’. ‘Necessarily true’ is thus a semantic predicate, not a modal operator. In addition, laws, being definitions, are necessarily true in the sense of being necessary assumptions for further use of the predicates implicitly defined by such laws. Induction, when used in science, is thus our way of inventing useful scientific predicates; it is a heuristic, not an inference principle.

Democracia, concordia y deliberación pública en la" Política" de Aristóteles”

El artículo analiza la concepción aristotélica de las diferentes formas de democracia, atendiendo especialmente a los libros de la Política, con el objeto de identificar algunas conexiones entre las coordenadas teóricas de deliberación pública que se eligen en ellos y el juicio acerca de las formas políticas que consideran apropiadas. Se asume como centro de análisis un pensador clásico clave para comprender la formación del vocabulario político europeo. El trabajo toma en consideración asimismo el elogio de la homonoia en la Ética Nicomáquea, que se presenta como una condición irrenunciable de cohesión social en la polis, así como la desconfianza aristotélica generalizada hacia la visión política del plethos y las prácticas de sorteo y votación extendidas en la democracia ateniense en los siglos V y IV a.C. Se pretende extraer algunas conclusiones relevantes sobre las razones, fundamentalmente epistemológicas, que impiden a un pensador como Aristóteles entender la democracia como una forma política beneficiosa para la comunidad humana.

Натурфилософия и эпистемология вкуса в Индии: вайшешика и буддизм

Натурфилософия и эпистемология вкуса в Индии: вайшешика и буддизм

Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Kultur: Vom Neuroimaging über Critical Neuroscience zu Cultural Neuroscience – und zurück zur Kritik

AbstractIn Search of Lost Culture: From Neuroimaging via Critical Neuroscience to Cultural Neuroscience – and back to Critique. The availability of new technologies for visualizing brain activity generated great expectations to identify the centers responsible for human action and behavior and to “reduce” all mental processes to neuronal states. Some scientists even called society to adapt to the new insights from brain research by giving up outdated concepts of autonomy and free will. This project spurred harsh critiques from philosophy, sociology, and cultural studies, diagnosing the rise of a new phrenology. A critical neuroscience group took up these criticisms and pledged for a more nuanced reflection about the political, historical and ethical contexts and implications of current neuroscience and argued for an integration of societal concerns into the research agenda – rather similar to the agenda for responsible research of the EU. With the development of more sophisticated visualization strategies, new sub‐disciplines emerged, integrating sociocultural aspects into neuroimaging. Social and cultural neuroscience replaced overstated reductionist claims without leaving the overarching naturalist epistemology, but extending the ontological realm. New research objects such as empathy, religion or ‘Western’ vs. ‘East‐Asian’ attitudes of thinking started to populate the research domain. Especially cultural neuroscience was widely celebrated as new scientific bridge across the nature‐culture gulf. A closer look, however, reveals that this claim and the popular success of cultural neuroscience are based on a decisive lack of conceptual clarity. ‘Culture’ functions as fuzzy denominator for a broad range of social phenomena with unknown links to neurophysiological processes but visualized as brain states. Instead of implementing more reflexive forms of research, cultural neuroscience stabilizes problematic stereotypes and racist attitudes by an expansion of neuro‐culture. In light of this deflation of interdisciplinary cooperation a more radical critique of this ideology seems in place.