Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

Whether abduction is treated as an argument or as an inference, the mainstream view presupposes a tight connection between abduction and inference to the best explanation (IBE). This paper critically evaluates this link and supports a narrower view on abduction. Our main thesis is that merely the hypothesis-generative aspect, but not the evaluative aspect, is properly abductive in the sense introduced by C. S. Peirce. We show why equating abduction with IBE (or understanding them as inseparable parts) unnecessarily complicates argument evaluation by levelling the status of abduction as a third reasoning mode (besides deduction and induction). We also propose a scheme for abductive argument along with critical questions, and suggest retaining abduction alongside IBE as related but distinct categories.

The gold standard for an empirical science is the replicability of its research results. But the estimated average replicability rate of key-effects that top-tier psychology journals report falls between 36% and 39% (objective vs. subjective rate; Open Science Collaboration (2015)). So the standard mode of applying null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST) fails to adequately separate stable from random effects. Therefore, NHST does not fully convince as a statistical inference strategy. We argue that the replicability crisis is “home-made” because more sophisticated strategies can deliver results the successful replication of which is sufficiently probable. Thus, we can overcome the replicability crisis by integrating empirical results into genuine research programs. Instead of continuing to narrowly evaluate only the stability of data against random fluctuations (discovery context), such programs evaluate rival hypotheses against stable data (justification context).

Abstract Understanding local adaptation to climate change is critical for the overall success of adaptation practices in Europe and around the world. Although it becomes more urgent by the day, existing literature does not adequately touch upon the topic of climate adaptation in small municipalities. This article addresses this gap. It explores whether adaptation measures in small municipalities are overlooked in research focused on other aspects of urban environment, or whether such measures are indeed inadequate. Based on a large quantitative survey among Bavarian municipalities (n = 401), we conducted 11 qualitative case studies to answer the following two questions. First, how active are small municipalities in Bavaria, Germany, in climate change adaptation? Second, why and how do municipal adaptation frontrunners implement adaptation measures and what lessons can we learn from their experience? Our findings confirm that small municipalities rarely adapt to climate change, and when they do, their actions usually target water‐related issues. Most often measures are responsive and pragmatic, instead of being preventive and transformative. The fact that the small municipality representatives that we have interviewed were not able to distinguish between adaptation and mitigation measures clearly illustrates the lack of local adaptation capacities. We conclude that national funding for municipal adaptation coordinators or networks is a promising way to improve local capacities.

Abstract This study examines the origins and main aspects of the Chinese concept of ecological civilization. Originally a philosophical concept, it was later developed into a political and constitutional principle and became the basis of several public policies of the Chinese government. The author also draws attention to several contradictions and weaknesses in the concept, which has been seen as a Chinese version of sustainable development and ultimately as a Chinese concept of global civilization.

Development plans at different levels – from local to global – aspire to eliminate poverty, famine, to make health care accessible, to create better access to education, to improve transportation, employment, and the quality of life, all within next decades. Yet, these plans collide with the reality of climate change, more precisely the Anthropocene, which already creates high-dimensional conflicts. These will only intensify within decades because climate change and other consequences of the environment global devastation lead to a real decrease of resources. These resources enable not only development but also an elementary reproduction of the essential preconditions of life. The current model of development has substantially contributed to the intensification of unequal accessibility to resources and existing conflicts have thus heightened and new ones have emerged. Water as an essential resource will cause new conflicts. Growing population, expansion of deserts and a sea level rise then increase conflicts for the land. Heat waves occur more often which strengthens conflicts for land suitable for human life, meaning that inhabitable areas are spreading. Therefore there is a need to re-evaluate the character and hierarchy of resources and their accessibility, and also concepts of development. The existing development of humankind has been done at the expense of others in many cases and mainly at the expense of the environment. The current situation raises a question of climate justice from both historical and systematic viewpoints. It opens a need to reformulate the concept of human rights from the perspective of their essential environmental preconditions and to define the status of environmental migrants.

In this paper, I explore Derrida's concept of exteriorization in relation to texts generated by machine learning. I first discuss Heidegger's view of machine creation and then present Derrida's criticism of Heidegger. I explain the concept of iterability, which is the central notion on which Derrida's criticism is based. The thesis defended in the paper is that Derrida's account of iterability provides a helpful framework for understanding the phenomenon of machine learning-generated literature. His account of textuality highlights the incalculability and mechanical elements characteristic of all texts, including machine-generated texts. By applying Derrida's concept to the phenomenon of machine creation, we can deconstruct the distinction between human and non-human creation. As I propose in the conclusion to this paper, this provides a basis on which to consider potential positive uses of machine learning.

Research on probabilistic reasoning has discovered several systematic errors, among which ‘base rate neglect and the ‘fallacy of the transposed conditional have featured prominently. This article introduces the term ‘miss rate neglect to capture the systematic failure to properly account for false positives, i.e. the probability of evidence (E) given the hypothesis (H) is false, P(E|~H). Miss rate neglect occurs when decision makers (i) completely disregard the miss rate; (ii) underestimate the importance of differences in the miss rate, or (iii) overlook circumstances that affect the miss rate. We explain the relevance of miss rate neglect for legal decision making, review extant literature, present new experimental work that empirically validates options (ii) and (iii), and propose experimental variations that future research may pursue.

Abstract Vicarious responsibility is a notoriously puzzling notion in normative reasoning. In this article we will explore two fundamental issues, which we will call the “explication problem” and the “justification problem”. The former issue concerns how vicarious responsibility can plausibly be defined in terms of other normative concepts. The latter issue concerns how ascriptions of vicarious responsibility can be justified. We will address these two problems by combining ideas taken from legal theory and moral philosophy. Our analysis will emphasise the importance of the voluntary involvement of the normative parties considered liable in a relation with other normative parties who causally contributed to a prohibited state-of-affairs.

Introduction to special issue "Ricoeur and the Problem of Space"

Abstract Although the phrase “responsible AI” is widely used in the AI industry, its meaning remains unclear. One can make sense of it indirectly, insofar as various notions of responsibility unproblematically attach to those involved in the creation and operation of AI technologies. It is less clear, however, whether the phrase makes sense when understood directly, that is, as the ascription of some sort of responsibility to AI systems themselves. This paper argues in the affirmative, drawing on a philosophically undemanding notion of role responsibility, and highlights the main consequences of this proposal for AI ethics.

Abstract This paper formulates a new argument against the received view in the philosophy of poetry. The received view consists of three tenets: the unity of poetic form and poetic content; the impossibility of paraphrasing and translating poetry; and the hyperintensionality of poetry. We will explore the same detour via direct quotation that has been used by proponents of the received view. We will argue that the hyperintensionality and unity of quotation do not guarantee its untranslatability, and thus that the inference of untranslatability from hyperintensionality and unity is not universally valid. As a consequence, the claim that poetry cannot be translated is left without much support, since it relies on the same kind of inference. However, this does not mean that poetry is translatable; it means only that if it is not translatable, this is due to something other than the combination of hyperintensionality and unity.

This study derives from the genealogy of phenomenological and cubistic aims and their thematic interests at the beginning of the 20th century in the Central-European milieu.In the first part, we observe common and close questions of Husserl's philosophy on the one side and the new artistic initiative of cubists on the other.This level of observation and comparison is in the second part recognized and deepened thanks to the analyses of Czech philosophers (Bayerová, Patočka, Mathauser), theoreticians (Vlček, Kramář, Lamač and others) and works of cubists themselves (Kubišta, Filla, Hofman and others).The philosophical scope of the consideration also opens the principal question -which is the topic of the third part of the study -of the intertwining of phenomenological and cubistic methods (epoché, reduction and pictorial elaboration).Because it is not one unitary style, Cubism brings with it a complicated interpretative task: in relation to this, we present the polemic concerning the use of polyperspectivity and geometrisation; thanks to phenomenology, their deeper meaning can be revealed.We identify as phenomenological tendencies in cubistic works of art, their claim to liberate perception, to create pure forms and to refuse the symbolic, representative and imitative function of art.We analyse these questions with respect to the creative possibilities of the subject/artist as well as the pictorial/ perceptive character of the world.

Abstract Can Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, be considered genuine language users? Can they truly understand the meanings of natural language? This paper adopts an inferentialist perspective, arguing that grasping the meaning of an expression is nothing but grasping the inferential role the expression plays. But roles are conferred by rules . An expression’s contentfulness consists of its use being governed by inferential rules . Meaningful items incorporate norms of inference, which they are subject to. Thus, grasping meanings is mastering this bundle of rules. The paper questions whether LLMs, despite their ability to generate coherent text and perform inference-like tasks, follow such rules. However, unlike humans, LLMs are trained to detect statistical patterns . While it might be suggested that LLMs ‘know’ which words typically follow others based on statistical patterns, the norms they learn to master differ fundamentally from the norms of inference that govern language use. The paper concludes that the current version of LLMs, despite their advanced language processing capabilities, do not genuinely grasp or understand conceptual content and should, therefore, be viewed as simulations of language users rather than true participants in the logical space of reasons.

Infant carrying provides an important context for cognitive development and social learning in the first year of life. It enables children to perceive the world from a perspective similar to that of their parents. Lateral carrying provides children with new experiences because it gives them access to a broader range of objects. It also gives them better access to socially significant stimuli and aspects of the environment that are relevant to their parents. Thus, it can significantly contribute to learning about objects and their affordances as well as agents, their actions, and mental states. The paper argues that lateral carrying not only contributes to the development of skills related to the emergence of shared intentionality but may also play an important role in the development of the understanding of the we-mode and perhaps also in the formation of associations in the mirror neuron system. The final sections of the article offer suggestions for further research.

Abstract This work attempts to give a basic introduction to Hegel’s religious thinking by seeing it against the backdrop of the main religious trends in his own day that he was responding to, specifically the Enlightenment and Romanticism. The study provides an account of the criticism of religion by key Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, Lessing, Hume, and Kant. This is followed by an analysis of how the Romantic thinkers, such as Rousseau, Jacobi, and Schleiermacher, responded to these challenges. For Hegel, the views of these thinkers from both the Enlightenment and Romanticism tended to empty religion of its content. The goal that he sets for his own philosophy of religion is to restore this lost content. A detailed account is given of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, with an eye to the issue of the content of religious faith. It is argued that the basic ideas of the Enlightenment and Romanticism are still present today and that this remains an important issue for both academics and non-academics, regardless of their religious orientation.

The issue of human rights and especially social rights is one of the most complex, intricate, and, at the same time, one of the most common topics of contemporary philosophy.It brings forward traditional philosophical themes of justice and equality, questions of bridging the moral and legal aspects of providing equal opportunities for everyone.The diversity of philosophical underpinnings of social rights allows theorists to grasp the issue from different perspectives and to introduce readers to the possibilities of accepting social rights such as the recognition of human dignity, equal opportunities, and equal chances in life.Social rights provide a way of restoring justice and opportunities for those who would not otherwise have it at all.In principle, however, it does not decide how social rights are designed, but how they are implemented and whether they are enforceable, ie, how the system of social services is set up in a state and what approaches states choose in implementing social rights and whether these adequately provide social guarantees for human existence, dignity, life, equal opportunities and prevention of social exclusion.

Although legal contexts are subject to biased reasoning and decision making, to identify and test debiasing techniques has largely remained an open task. We report on experimentally deploying the technique "giving reasons pro et contra" with professional ( N = 239) and lay judges ( N = 372) at Swedish municipal courts. Using a mock legal scenario, participants assessed the relevance of an eyewitness's previous conviction for his credibility. On average, both groups displayed low degrees of bias. We observed a small positive debiasing effect only for professional judges. Strong evidence was obtained for a relation between profession and relevance-assessment: Lay judges seemed to assign a greater importance to the prior conviction than professional judges did. We discuss challenges for future research, calling other research groups to contribute additional samples.

Historical Narrative: A Dispute Between Constructionism and Scientific Realism An intense discussion about the issue of historical narrative arose during the time when the naïve realism of classical historiography was being critiqued and led to a dispute, in the last century, between constructionism and critical or scientific realism. We can distinguish between constructionism and noetic constructivism. According to ontological constructionism all facts are human constructions; according to noetic constructivism, our notions and theories are constructs with objective meaning (sense and reference); they refer to objective reality. Scientific realism recognizes the existence of noetic construction but does not regard facts as our constructions, as pure fictions. The point of contention is the question over whether historical narrative is merely a discursive construction or whether it is also a scientific reconstruction of the past. Resolving the dispute over whether historical narrative can be objectively true, or whether it is subject to empirical control or not, is dependent on finding the answer to this question.

This paper provides an in-depth evaluation of the effectiveness of international climate agreements in addressing the issue of global warming. As concern about climate change increase, global collaboration has become crucial in designing and implementing strategies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The study reviews major international agreements, including the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, and the subsequent Kyoto Climate Agreement, exploring their internal mechanisms, goals, and results. Drawing on empirical data, it assesses how well these agreements have performed in real life as regards limiting the global warming. The paper also discusses the challenges and obstacles in the process of implementing the agreements, such as compliance difficulties, political hurdles, and the involvement of various stakeholders. By synthesizing current research and policy insights, the paper aims to enhance public understanding of the effectiveness of these agreements and provides recommendations for improving their impact in tackling the urgent threat of climate change.

Machery et al.'s 2004 x-phi project has been widely criticised for ambiguities contained in the expression 'talk about'.Interestingly, although 'about' plays a prominent part in the debate, aboutness has not been a topic.This paper discusses this aspect.Alas, it must thereby add a further ambiguity to the list, the ambiguity between aboutness and reference, and thus also between subject matter and referent.It explains the distinction between intracategorical aboutness which makes no ontological demands, and crosscategorical reference which requires the referent to exist.It then analyses the 4-fold embedding contained in Machery et al.'s study and shows how the aboutness-reference distinction bears on it.