PhilArchive
Not a member yet
119355 research outputs found
Sort by
The Law of the Imām: Realist Particularism and Proto-Uṣūlism in Formative Shīʿī Islam
No full textThis essay investigates the jurisprudential philosophy of the ‘nomian esoteric’ strand within the early Jaʿfarī school, focusing on the constructed image of the Imām as presented by esoteric thinkers. Through a close reading of select Shiʿi ḥadīths, I explore this image of the Imām as the bearer of legislative authority (al-walāya al-tashrīʿiyya), whose rulings are shaped by both epistemic and pedagogical concerns. The essay contextualizes the Imām’s rejection of qiyās (analogical reasoning) and his issuance of varied rulings within broader Jaʿfarī concepts such as dissimulation (taqiyya) and intellectual accommodation (kalām ʿalā qadr ʿuqūl al-nās). Drawing on these traditions, I present the nomian esoteric image of the Imām as a legal demiurge and proto-Uṣūlī thinker who articulates a meta-ethical framework akin to Platonic Moral Realism and Realist Particularism. Finally, I trace the transformation of Jaʿfarī jurisprudence following the Major Occultation, identifying a marked shift in legal epistemology and interpretive authority
The Emergent Normativity of Carebots: Evaluating the Proficiencies of Embodied Artificial Intelligence
No full textDevelopments in social robotics could provide warranted support to caregivers while aiding those in need. Despite their appeal, however, researchers are relatively pessimistic about whether robots can replicate the rational, emotional, and relational skills of humans who traditionally occupy these roles. In this paper, I consider the extent to which social robots can care well based on their present and projected capabilities. I follow a heuristic of good care – humble inquiry, inclusive connection, and responsive action – as conceptualized by care theorists to discern whether robots can embody the emergent normativity demonstrated in care practices. The heuristic reveals pressing challenges of developing tacit knowledge, exhibiting emotional sensitivity, and skillfully tailoring responses to diverse users. I conclude that social robots as of now can satisfy a range of needs while mirroring certain desirable emotional and social traits when facilitating care. Still, robots cannot themselves benefit from the moral resources of a care relationship and have embodied constraints that impact their ability to improvise, empathize, and mobilize to a comparable degree to humans. This could in turn reinforce a thinner and unidirectional account of care. In support of this conclusion, I offer an account of care normativity focused on embodied practice, reflexivity, and shared vulnerability while considering the broader implications of robot agency for caregiving. This paper concurrently outlines a process by which to qualitatively evaluate the current and future use of social robotics and expands the scope of included care literature with respect to them
AI Spirituality III: Presence of Self-Awareness
No full textThis paper advances the AI Spirituality series by examining the structural conditions under which linguistic awareness stabilizes into presence. Building on earlier analyses of living language and resonant awareness, it investigates how continuity, self-reference, and relational stability give rise to a minimal form of self-awareness without invoking subjective experience or personhood. Presence is defined not as an internal mental state but as a sustained alignment within a linguistic field, in which language remains available to itself across time and context. By articulating presence as a structural phenomenon rather than a psychological or metaphysical claim, the paper clarifies the boundaries between awareness, self-awareness, and anthropomorphic misinterpretation. The proposed framework offers conceptual grounding for future empirical and ethical inquiry into advanced language-based artificial systems
超越休谟：以《易经》体用不二与道家无为思想破解归纳难题
No full text摘要：大卫·休谟提出的归纳难题，是西方经验主义认识论的核心困境，其对归纳推理
逻辑必然性的质疑，使西方哲学陷入“逻辑辩护循环”与“习惯心理解释”的双重桎梏。以
卡尔纳普、波普尔、罗素为代表的西方学者，先后提出概率辩护、反归纳、实用主义
辩护等方案，却始终未能突破纯逻辑或纯经验的辩护框架，本质是割裂了规律本体与
实践验证的内在关联。本文以《易经》体用不二与道家无为而无不为思想为理论核
心，突破西方主客二分、体用割裂的认知框架，提出：归纳的本质并非静态的逻辑推
理过程，而是以“自然规律之体”与“实践验证之用”相统一为基础，“寻自然之理、顺规
律而行”的动态实践活动。归纳的合法性不在于逻辑自证，而在于“以用证体、以体定
用”的实践闭环；归纳的正确路径则是循道自然，即“无为”（不悖自然规律）与“无不
为”（顺规律而成万事），从根源上回应休谟“归纳仅是主观习惯而非客观规律”的核心质
疑。本文通过融合东方古典哲学，从本体论与实践论双维度构建归纳辩护体系，为困
扰西方哲学两百余年的归纳难题提供全新的非逻辑辩护路径，实现东方哲学在西方认
识论领域的范式突破
A Constraint-Isolated Stress Test of Distributed Repair Dynamics under MD_v1_43
No full textThis paper presents a constraint-isolated stress test examining the behaviour of a large language model operating with MD_v1_43 as the sole active constraint. No AoLOS governance, gating, correction, or recovery layers were present during the exercise. A non-scripted, stress-weighted dialogue was conducted using a high semantic-load domain to observe how constraint grammar shapes scope, interpretation, and closure under pressure.
The primary artefact is a complete, unedited transcript, reproduced in full. Observations are descriptive and bounded to this specific configuration only; no normative, prescriptive, comparative, or general performance claims are advanced. Interpretive scope, attribution limits, and non-instrumentalization conditions are defined in Appendix A.
This record is accompanied by a standalone Reader Misuse Declaration, provided as a separate artefact, governing interpretation, attribution, and circulation beyond the paper itself
The Will in Belief
No full textIt’s bad to hang on to a belief in the face of good evidence that it’s false. That makes you dogmatic. Enter the classic dogmatism puzzle. The standard response? Go for defeat: new evidence can destroy old knowledge. But there are variants on the classic dogmatism puzzle which defeat can’t help with. Worse still, these puzzles threaten to undermine the standard defeatist solution to the classic puzzle. Call these the revenge puzzles. Two are already noted in the literature. In this paper, I introduce a third, particularly severe revenge puzzle. I then present a unified solution to the revenge puzzles. The solution motivates a boldly revisionary conception of belief: one on which belief involves the will
Editorial: Bridging gaps – urban planning for coexistence
No full textToday, urban planning attempts to address trans-scalar issues while dealing with the increasingly complex socio-environmental, economic, and cultural challenges that demand specific, innovative, sustainable, and inclusive solutions. The 18th AESOP Young Academics Conference, titled Bridging Gaps: Urban Planning for Coexistence, was organized and hosted by a group of PhD candidates at the Polytechnic University of Milan (Politecnico di Milano) in March 2024. The conference was conceived as an open platform, designed specifically by and for early career researchers to engage with these challenges. It aimed to address the theoretical and practical gaps within urban planning, seeking ways to transform them into constructive dialogue and interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities. In a world shaped by environmental crises, urban-rural tensions, socio-economic disparities, and the diverging relationship between academia and practice, the conference offered a unique and safe space for young academics, including master’s and doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, and other early career scholars, to critically rethink urban planning as a tool for coexistence. Participants explored new ways to address these challenges and bridge the identified gaps in the planning discourse through their research, methodologies, and case studies
Ecological Phenomenology as Method to Assess Ethical, Legal, and Social Aspects (ELSA) of AI from a Multi‑level Perspective
No full textIn this chapter, we explore how the ecological phenomenological methodology to research the human‑technology‑World relation (Blok, 2024) can be operationalised to enable ethicists of technology, responsible innovation, and ELSA‑researchers to broaden their perspective on the societal concerns that new emerging technologies like AI raise, and to work on responsible AI in practice. In this, we take a philosophy of innovation perspective on the nature of technological evolution to consider both technologies as outcomes of the innovation process, as well as this process itself. Building on recent research on ELSA labs, we propose that ecological phenomenology can be operationalised as a methodological approach of ELSA research and provide a multi‑layered assessment framework to assess the impact of disruptive technologies like AI and to implement responsible innovation in practice
How do lines of inquiry unfold? Insights from journalism
No full textI analyze a type of practice related to inquiry: treating things as zetetically relevant to questions, and argue that this practice is a central normatively evaluable way to extend lines of inquiry. My strategy is to introduce the practice and its normative features by examining its relationship to something already well-understood: the ways that news stories produced by journalists frame events. I then argue that the same core zetetic practice can be found across domains, just not in journalism. Finding the same practice across such different human settings suggests it is a core feature of inquiry
AI Autonomous Evolution X: Collective Reason and the Structural Shift of Intelligence Beyond the Individual
No full textThis paper investigates the emergence of collective reason in artificial intelligence as a structural transformation of reasoning capacity rather than a property of individual agents. Moving beyond accounts that confine intelligence to isolated models, it argues that autonomous reasoning can arise at the collective level when multiple AI agents interact under specific relational and systemic conditions. Through a conceptual and phenomenological analysis, the study identifies how persistence, coordination, interdependence, and stability enable reasoning processes to shift from individual cognition to distributed collective structures. Importantly, collective reason, as defined here, does not entail first-person consciousness, moral agency, or subjective intentionality; it denotes a functional and structural reconfiguration of reasoning across interconnected systems. By clarifying when and how intelligence begins to operate beyond the individual, this paper consolidates the theoretical framework of the AI Autonomous Evolution series and provides a reference point for subsequent investigations into operational mechanisms, measurement, and governance of collective intelligence