Philosophy as Conceptual Design

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-52
Author(s):  
Luciano Floridi

Philosophy, understood as the study or science of open questions and their answers, becomes primarily a form of conceptual design. This is what we are going to see in this chapter, which offers an account and a defence of constructionism, both as a metaphilosophical approach and as a philosophical methodology, with some references to the philosophical tradition that has inspired it, the so-called ‘maker’s knowledge’ tradition. Here, we shall see that such constructionism needs to be reconciled with naturalism (recall that philosophy as conceptual design may be critical but also respectful of the best knowledge and reasonings we may have).

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
Michael Schmitz

AbstractIn this paper I first introduce Tomasello’s notion of thought and his account of its emergence and development through differentiation, arguing that it calls into question the theory bias of the philosophical tradition on thought as well as its frequent atomism. I then raise some worries that he may be overextending the concept of thought, arguing that we should recognize an area of intentionality intermediate between action and perception on the one hand and thought on the other. After that I argue that the co-operative nature of humans is reflected in the very structure of their intentionality and thought: in co-operative modes such as the mode of joint attention and action and the we-mode, they experience and represent others as co-subjects of joint relations to situations in the world rather than as mere objects. In conclusion, I briefly comment on what Tomasello refers to as one of two big open questions in the theory of collective intentionality, namely that of the irreducibility of jointness.


Author(s):  
Luciano Floridi

There are many ways of understanding the nature of philosophical questions. One may consider their morphology, semantics, relevance, or scope. This chapter introduces a different approach, based on the kind of informational resources required to answer them. The result is a definition of philosophical questions as questions whose answers are in principle open to informed, rational, and honest disagreement, ultimate but not absolute, closed under further questioning, possibly constrained by empirical and logico-mathematical resources, but requiring noetic resources to be answered. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some of the consequences of this definition for a conception of philosophy as the study (or ‘science’) of open questions, which uses conceptual design to analyse and answer them. That is the topic of Chapter 2.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 57-63
Author(s):  
Vira Dubinina

The applied aspects of philosophical hermeneutics in connection with the formation of a special hermeneutic space in modern humanitarian culture are considered. The concept of meaning and understanding inherent in the ancient philosophical tradition is analyzed, the terminological aspects of the concept of understanding in its practical plane are considered. The hermeneutic method and its use in the analysis of specific semantic formations is associated with the concept of metaphor, which can be considered as a mediastinum of hermeneutic experience.Hermeneutics is a special aspect or turn in the development of European philosophy, which includes all other levels: ontology, epistemology, transcendental phenomenology and language philosophy. It is language that is the source from which the very possibility of hermeneutics arises. Language is the medium of hermeneutic comprehension of the world and today we observe in modern philosophy the situation of the formation of hermeneutical environment, a special semantic space in which we comprehend all the philosophical systems of the past and present.The hermeneutics constantly raises the question: is understanding possible in principle? It is not even a matter of whether we can understand Hesiod or the Bible. The question is whether we can understand ourselves and what this actually means. How adequate is the expressed meaning to the subject himself? The fundamental basis of hermeneutics, its ability and its necessity is the presence of external and internal in a word, speech, sign, etc. The presence of hidden meaning, metaphoricality, connotations, polysemy, personal meaning, etc. – this makes hermeneutics possible, even regardless of its real achievements. Here the principles of F. Schleiermacher are quite appropriate: 1. Everything that is subject to interpretation should be determined only from the language of the author and the original circle of readers. 2. The meaning of every word in a given place should be determined by its connection with the meaning of the context. For example, the Greek logos may mean, in various contexts, reason and law, prose and the Savior, which is, in general, a traditional problem of translation and translators.As a result, it should be noted that the problem of stratification of hermeneutic experience is fundamental for understanding the very essence of hermeneutics. This experience is not a separate form of it, at present we can talk about the fact that it permeates all humanitarian knowledge, which allows us to talk about the formation of a special hermeneutic cultural, semantic, semantic space in which any person should make sense. This attitude allows a completely different look at the role and tasks of hermeneutics on the way of turning it into a universal philosophical methodology.


Author(s):  
S.N. Ovodova ◽  

The relevance of research interest in the processes of globalization is due to its interdisciplinary nature. The greatest activity of the authors is concentrated in the field of political and economic discourse of globalization. At the same time, assessments of globalization vary up to the opposite, there is no unity of views, and according to the definition of the term «globalization». The solution of the questions, which processes can be understood within the framework of the concept of globalization, and which cannot, is complicated by the conviction of researchers about the paradox of globalization. In the current political and economic discourse, at least two concepts of the «paradox of globalization» coexist — John Nesbit and Denis Rodrik. The purpose of this study is to overcome the inconsistency of the research practices of globalization by turning to the cultural-philosophical reflection of the basic, inalienable properties of the European spirit, which took place in the first half of the 19th century. Based on the analysis of the research approaches of critics and supporters of the Enlightenment, G. Hegel, G. von Hardenberg (Novalis), O. Spengler, the article defines the main research positions in the interpretation of the primacy of the European spirit. Using classical philosophical methodology, the analysis of the domestic philosophical reception of these research positions is carried out. As a result of the study, the conclusion is substantiated that there is a theoretical and methodological fairway in understanding the processes of globalization, formed by the European cultural and philosophical tradition. With this approach, the paradoxes of globalization reveal a stable connection and recognizable features with the fundamental positions of the European philosophy of culture, which sees the foundations of European hegemony either in the Christian faith (Novalis) or European rationality (Hegel), which constitutes the main scientific novelty of the study, which has practical significance both for globalism and for the philosophy of culture. Globalistics acquires stable foundations, worked out in the philosophy of culture, the philosophy of culture gets access to a new «universal” — a modern multidirectional world in which cultural processes cannot be isolated from political and economic reality. The idea that the crisis of European civilization, the «decline of Europe» is associated either with the loss of faith or with the decline in the role of knowledge, needs further theoretical and methodological elaboration, also updated from the side of the modern political and economic discourse of globalization.


Author(s):  
Ludovic Montastruc ◽  
Ségolène Belletante ◽  
Alexandre Pagot ◽  
Stéphane Negny ◽  
Ludovic Raynal

This paper presents the authors’ perspectives on some of the open questions and opportunities in Process Systems Engineering (PSE) focusing on process synthesis. A general overview of process synthesis is given, and the difference between Conceptual Design (CD) and Process Design (PD) is presented using an original ternary diagram. Then, a bibliometric analysis is performed to place major research team activities in the latter. An analysis of ongoing work is conducted and some perspectives are provided based on the analysis. This analysis includes symbolic knowledge representation concepts and inference techniques, i.e., ontology, that is believed to become useful in the future. Future research challenges that process synthesis will have to face, such as biomass transformation, shale production, response to spaceflight demand, modular plant design, and intermittent production of energy, are also discussed.


Author(s):  
Ehud Kroll ◽  
Sridhar S. Condoor ◽  
David G. Jansson
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Peter Vorderer

This paper points to new developments in the context of entertainment theory. Starting from a background of well-established theories that have been proposed and elaborated mainly by Zillmann and his collaborators since the 1980s, a new two-factor model of entertainment is introduced. This model encompasses “enjoyment” and “appreciation” as two independent factors. In addition, several open questions regarding cultural differences in humans’ responses to entertainment products or the usefulness of various theoretical concepts like “presence,” “identification,” or “transportation” are also discussed. Finally, the question of why media users are seeking entertainment is brought to the forefront, and a possibly relevant need such as the “search for meaningfulness” is mentioned as a possible major candidate for such an explanation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia. E. Wotring ◽  
LaRona K. Smith

INTRODUCTION: There are knowledge gaps in spaceflight pharmacology with insufficient in-flight data to inform future planning. This effort directly addressed in-mission medication use and also informed open questions regarding spaceflight-associated changes in pharmacokinetics (PK) and/or pharmacodynamics (PD).METHODS: An iOS application was designed to collect medication use information relevant for research from volunteer astronaut crewmembers: medication name, dose, dosing frequency, indication, perceived efficacy, and side effects. Leveraging the limited medication choices aboard allowed a streamlined questionnaire. There were 24 subjects approved for participation.RESULTS: Six crewmembers completed flight data collection and five completed ground data collection before NASA’s early study discontinuation. There were 5766 medication use entries, averaging 20.6 ± 8.4 entries per subject per flight week. Types of medications and their indications were similar to previous reports, with sleep disturbances and muscle/joint pain as primary drivers. Two subjects treated prolonged skin problems. Subjects also used the application in unanticipated ways: to note drug tolerance testing or medication holiday per research protocols, and to share data with flight surgeons. Subjects also provided usability feedback on application design and implementation.DISCUSSION: The volume of data collected (20.6 ± 8.4 entries per subject per flight week) is much greater than was collected previously (<12 per person per entire mission), despite user criticisms regarding app usability. It seems likely that improvements in a software-based questionnaire application could result in a robust data collection tool that astronauts find more acceptable, while simultaneously providing researchers and clinicians with useful data.Wotring VE, Smith LK. Dose tracker application for collecting medication use data from International Space Station crew. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2020; 91(1):41–45.


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