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This paper discusses two opposing views about the relation between artificial intelligence (AI) and human intelligence: on the one hand, a worry that heavy reliance on AI technologies might make people less intelligent and, on the other, a hope that AI technologies might serve as a form of cognitive enhancement. The worry relates to the notion that if we hand over too many intelligence-requiring tasks to AI technologies, we might end up with fewer opportunities to train our own intelligence. Concerning AI as a potential form of cognitive enhancement, the paper explores two possibilities: (1) AI as extending—and thereby enhancing—people's minds, and (2) AI as enabling people to behave in artificially intelligent ways. That is, using AI technologies might enable people to behave as if they have been cognitively enhanced. The paper considers such enhancements both on the level of individuals and on the level of groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that being there, actually existing, is a notion that cannot be explicated by formal logicians, cannot be defined in terms of conscious perception, and cannot be satisfactorily explained using the theories of mathematics or natural science. So, must we turn to theology to make up for the deficiencies of the methods so far canvassed? The paper concludes by considering the Thomistic identification of God with existence itself, but argues that it would be a mistake to suppose that the mystery of actual existence is thereby dispelled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possibility of consciousness in human brain organoids is sometimes viewed as determinative in terms of the moral status such entities possess, and, in turn, in terms of the research protections such entities are due. This commonsense view aligns with a prominent stance in neurology and neuroscience that consciousness admits of degrees. My paper outlines these views and provides an argument for why this picture of correlating degrees of consciousness with moral status and research protections is mistaken. I then provide an alternative account of the correlation between moral status and consciousness, and consider the epistemic ramifications for research protections of this account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When contemporary philosophers discuss the nature of knowledge, or conduct debates that the nature of knowledge is relevant to, they typically treat all knowledge as propositional. However, recent introductory epistemology texts and encyclopedia entries often mention three kinds of knowledge: (i) propositional knowledge, (ii) abilities knowledge, and (iii) knowledge of things/by acquaintance. This incongruity is striking for a number of reasons, one of which is that what kinds of knowledge there are is relevant to various debates in philosophy. In this paper I focus on this point as it relates to the third kind of knowledge mentioned above – knowledge of things. I start by supposing that we have knowledge of things, and then I show how this supposition reshapes various debates in philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that Heidegger's critique of Aquinas on truth must be seen in light of Vallicella's critique of Heidegger. Heidegger criticized Aquinas for allegedly placing truth in the 'subjectivity' of the human mind via correspondence (adequatio). While the accuracy of this reading of Aquinas is highly contested, the criticism itself has sometimes been turned back upon Heidegger. In three forgotten articles in the 1980s, William Vallicella contended that Heidegger reduces Being to truth, and truth to the alleged 'subjectivity' of Dasein. Though Vallicella garnered some minimal attention at the time, his argument was soon forgotten, along with its potential implications for Heidegger's criticism of Aquinas. This paper will first establish the nature of Heidegger's critique of Aquinas, followed by Vallicella's critique of Heidegger, evaluating the former in light of the latter. It will be shown that Heidegger critiques Thomas for a mistake he does not make, then makes that same mistake himself, only to retreat to a position similar to what Thomas actually holds, but in a way that solves nothing, for he lacks Thomas' anchor in a divine mind. These points will coalesce in the ultimate conclusion that Vallicella can be used to both undermine Heidegger's critique and undergird the value of Aquinas' position on truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Posthumanist approaches in archaeology have given plenty of focus to things in the last decade. This focus on things is a reaction to the over-anthropocentric view of social life advanced by postprocessual archaeologists. Whereas agency of more than 10 years ago was about how individuals expressed purpose and identity, agency today is about how both humans and non-human objects affect one another in a symmetrical manner. It seems without doubt that Posthumanism has contributed greatly to new understandings of social reality, but in the process it has also forced archaeologists to sacrifice many topics of interest, namely those involving consciousness and purpose. But is this sacrifice really necessary? This is one of the central problems of Posthumanism: it disallows a compromise of ideas from more conventional social theory (e.g. norms, purpose, practice) with those of posthumanist theory. This paper revisits John Searle's 'Chinese Room' and reiterates what this thought-experiment meant to understanding consciousness and purpose. The thought-experiment highlighted the differences between humans and machines and demonstrated that, even if a machine could replicate human purpose, it would still not be considered human because, unlike mechanical processes, human purpose is based on ethics. The thought-experiment was the first step in debunking the computational theory of mind. In light of this thought-experiment, the paper argues that, in a world where things interact with humans, we should think of agency in terms of ethics and keep the focus on humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epistemological disjunctivists make two strong claims about perceptual experience's epistemic value: (1) experience guarantees the knowledgeable character of perceptual beliefs; (2) experience's epistemic value is "reflectively accessible". In this paper I develop a form of disjunctivism grounded in a presentational view of experience, on which the epistemic benefits of experience consist in the way perception presents the subject with aspects of her environment. I show that presentational disjunctivism has both dialectical and philosophically fundamental advantages over more traditional expositions. Dialectically, presentational disjunctivism resolves a puzzle disjunctivists face in their posture vis-à-vis skeptical scenarios. More systematically, presentational disjunctivism provides an especially compelling view of disjunctivism as an internalist view of perceptual consciousness by explaining the way perceptual presence manifests the subject's rationality in a distinct way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Chalmers advocates the view that the phenomenon of consciousness is fundamentally different from all other phenomena studied in the life sciences, positing a uniquely hard problem that precludes the possibility of a mechanistic explanation. In this paper, I evaluate three demarcation criteria for dividing phenomena into hard and easy problems: functional definability, the puzzle of the accompanying phenomenon, and the first-person data of subjective experience. I argue that none of the proposed criteria can accurately discriminate between the phenomenon of consciousness and mechanistically explainable phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ways in which grievance procedures are used and perceived by incarcerated people raise important questions about the operation of procedural justice and legal consciousness and mobilization scholarship in settings where rights are especially vulnerable. This paper analyzes perceptions and usage of the grievance procedure for incarcerated people using survey data from people (N = 508) in three prisons in Ireland. We find that incarcerated people's views of the grievance procedures are generally negative, though some use it, especially those serving long sentences and those in segregation, with education level not significant in terms of usage. Additionally, having confidence in staff is associated with satisfaction with the procedure, as is the perception that one's rights are respected, showing important connections between perceptions of complaints and aspects of legal consciousness. We suggest a need for further situated analyses of procedural justice and legal consciousness, as well as practical requirements for complaints systems to elicit confidence among incarcerated people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antarctica differs from all other regions in the world, not only from its unique geography, but also in the way humans understand it and have incorporated it into global relations. Considering Antarctica's distinctive landscapes and human relations, this paper discusses aspects of how time is humanly perceived in Antarctica. Basing on elements from different human occupations, nineteenth-century sailor-hunters and current incursions, this discussion approximates different historical groups in their experiences of Antarctica, connecting their personal lives, past and present. Meanwhile, also put into issue are the dualities that separate nature and culture, physical and relative time, and past and present, as well as the related notions of time in itself, perceived time speed and internal time consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary view of the relationship between conscious and unconscious intentionality consists in two claims: (i) unconscious propositional attitudes represent the world the same way conscious ones do, and (ii) both sets of attitudes represent by having determinate propositional content. Crane (2017) has challenged both claims, proposing instead that unconscious propositional attitudes differ from conscious ones in being less determinate in nature. This paper aims to evaluate Crane's proposal. In particular, I make explicit and critique certain assumptions Crane makes in support of his asymmetry, and argue for a conditional claim: if Crane is right that unconscious intentional states are (relatively) indeterminate, this suggests that conscious intentional states are indeterminate in a similar fashion as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The suggestion has been made that future advanced artificial intelligence (AI) that passes some consciousness-related criteria should be treated as having moral status, and therefore, humans would have an ethical obligation to consider its well-being. In this paper, the author discusses the extent to which software and robots already pass proposed criteria for consciousness; and argues against the moral status for AI on the grounds that human malware authors may design malware to fake consciousness. In fact, the article warns that malware authors have stronger incentives than do authors of legitimate software to create code that passes some of the criteria. Thus, code that appears to be benign, but is in fact malware, might become the most common form of software to be treated as having moral status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embodiment is typically given insufficient weight in debates concerning the moral status of Novel Synthetic Beings (NSBs) such as sentient or sapient Artificial Intelligences (AIs). Discussion usually turns on whether AIs are conscious or self-aware, but this does not exhaust what is morally relevant. Since moral agency encompasses what a being wants to do, the means by which it enacts choices in the world is a feature of such agency. In determining the moral status of NSBs and our obligations to them, therefore, we must consider how their corporeality shapes their options, preferences, values, and is constitutive of their moral universe. Analysing AI embodiment and the coupling between cognition and world, the paper shows why determination of moral status is only sensible in terms of the whole being, rather than mental sophistication alone, and why failure to do this leads to an impoverished account of our obligations to such NSBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]