Philosophy Carnival #79
Here.
Logic agents?
Does anyone know of any studies that have done something like the following, or know a reason it shouldn’t work? Imagine a population of computer agents that spit out sequences of sentences, random well-formed formulas of first-order logic. Selection acts not at the genetic level, but the agents are able …
Are Conservatives People Who Get Easily Scared?
It’s hard to believe, but apparently there is empirical evidence. This points towards a cure: if we can teach conservatives to be less frightened by danger, they might abandon their crazy political views.
Philosophers’ Carnival #78
Here.
Philosophy of Science in Missouri
Recently there have been some valuable inititiatives in the philosophy of science in MO.Three philosophers at U of MO – Columbia (Andre Ariew, Andrew Melnik, and Philip Robbins) have organized the first Missouri Philosophy of Science Workshop, which will take place next weekend in Columbia.And some philosophers in St. Louis …
Is Belief Required for Knowledge?
Over the past two months, I’ve used a series of surveys to examine the relationship between the concept of knowledge and the concept of belief. So far, the results suggest that many people have intuitions which are in opposition to the claim that knowledge is a species of belief. For …
Computationalism in the Philosophy of Mind
As announced a few weeks ago, I wrote a paper in which I survey the state of the art on computationalism. Thanks a lot to those who suggested topics I should cover. I touched on most of the suggested topics.The paper is due at Philosophy Compass by the end of the month. …