Useful misrepresentation: perception as embodied proactive inference

According to the predictive processing framework, perception is geared to represent the environment in terms of embodied action opportunities as opposed to objective truth. Here, we argue that such an optimisation is reflected by biases in expectations (i.e., prior predictive information) that facilitate ‘useful’ inferences of external sensory causes. To support this, we highlight a body of literature suggesting that perception is systematically biased away from accurate estimates under conditions where utility and accuracy conflict with one another. We interpret this to reflect the brain’s attempt to adjudicate between conflicting sources of prediction error, as external accuracy is sacrificed to facilitate actions that proactively avoid physiologically surprising outcomes. This carries important theoretical implications and offers new insights into psychopathology.

Introduction

The year 2021 has come exactly 700 years after the death of Dante Alighieri, one of the greatest authors of world literature. The Polish Classical, Romantic and Catholic traditions had been drawing from his works by the handful, and especially from the Divine Comedy. Dante was near and dear to many generations of our ancestors, accompanying them on the various levels of education, throughout middle school, high school and university. For the learning youth, he was a mentor and teacher who presented human nature in its all dimensions, from atrocity to heroism and holiness. In times of confusion that we are living through, when not only as individuals and communities, but as the entire Western civilization we have found ourselves in the “dark woods” (una selva oscura) to be preyed upon by the three beasts (le tre fiere): pride, greed and lust, Dante remains a beacon and inspiration for all those who believe that there is an objective truth and universal values that apply to all people regardless of race, nationality or social status.

Modernism, Mysticism and the Pursuit of Freedom - Bringing the initial instinct of the Modernists to its fulfilment in the model of the Christian mystic

While one can certainly debate about the forms Modernism (in the artistic sense) manifested itself in and what actually qualified as Modernism, one cannot deny that the desire for freedom was one of its underlying tenets. In the 21st century it would seem however that the desire for freedom has not been satiated. In the following essay I will explore whether emancipating art from a moral authority achieved the freedom modernist artists so deeply desired and I will question whether severing himself from objective truth the artist was allowed to fully thrive. Comparing Modernist concept’s (Stream of consciousness, that art should reflect reality and the emphasis on subjectivity etc.) with the fundamentals of Christian mysticism (i.e. the interior life) and by reconciling subjective experience with objective truth through the use of St John Paul II’s philosophical anthropology – I hope to pose an alternative path to satiate, truly satiate, the Modernist’s thirst for freedom.

‘So, Is It True?’ Time to Embrace the Hermeneutical Turn in Catholic Religious Education in the Republic of Ireland

A key challenge for educational provision in the Republic of Ireland has been the need to develop appropriate approaches to religious education that are effective in terms of meeting the needs and rights of students in a democratic pluralistic society. At the centre of such discussions, although rarely explicitly recognised, is an attempt to grapple with the question of truth in the context of religious education. This paper argues that religious education, in attempting to engage with this evolving context, is challenged in two trajectories: (a) by approaches that operate from the presumption that objective truth exists and (b) by approaches that are sceptical of any claim to objective truth. It will be argued that proposals, such as those offered by active pluralists, to deal with religious truth claims in religious education are limited in terms of their capacity to adequately treat such claims and the demands that these carry for adherents. This paper argues for a hermeneutical treatment of the context for Catholic religious education in the Republic of Ireland, which is considered under the following headings: (1) irruptions from the periphery, (2) the theological matrix, (3) the status of religion, and (4) the position of students and teachers in religious education classes. From this it will be suggested that promoting religious education as a hermeneutic activity allows for a respectful engagement with competing truth claims.

Technology and Truth. Reflections on Russia, America, and Live Not By Lies

The main thesis of the author of the essay is that in contemporary Western society the objective and subjective truth is created by the people. This is the key to what the author calls technological and technocratic society for which truth and reason are no longer the goals that the man should be striving for in his thoughts and behavior. In a technocratic society the reality itself is created and thus accordingly the term “lie” loses its meaning. Anything can potentially be viewed as a useful step in the process of creating something new and “efficient” for those who above all value the strengthening of their own control (over people, nature, etc). Subjects acting in the framework of technological society deny any identifications and technologically determine themselves what man, nature and society is, – right down to the basics of our biological existence. This approach overturns such notion as absolute truth, establishing relevant truth. In contemporary Western society subjective and objective truth is created. The author examines in detail how this approach is used by the United States in their international policy to achieve dominance. He also considers Russia to be the only great power that is prepared to choose a different line of development due to its historical development. The possibility of such choice is capable to prevent final Americanization of Europe, which, should it happen, would lead to the “mankind as a whole losing its past”, as Simone Weil predicted.

Cyberwarfare and Cybersecurity

Information warfare is part of the technology-based challenge by China and Russia to the post–World War II liberal order. Russia uses traditional and social media in a long-range, systematic, worldwide disinformation campaign to undermine Western democracies and alliances and the idea of objective truth. China seeks to dominate the technology, management, and policy of the future Internet through its competitive 5G technology, so as to surpass the United States politically and technologically. It exports the techno-authoritarian system of mass surveillance and artificial intelligence that it developed to control its Uyghur minority. Like a nuclear attack, a large-scale cyberattack could spiral out of control into a cyber-apocalypse in the absence of agreed guidelines. But to authoritarian governments, the free flow of information is also a form of cyberattack, complicating negotiations. It is critically important to develop internationally agreed norms for cyberwarfare, building on the Tallinn Manual and similar efforts. This will take time.

Rethinking the Rhetorical Epistemics of Gaslighting

Gaslighting is defined as a dysfunctional communication dynamic in which one interlocutor attempts to destabilize another’s sense of reality. In this article, we advance a model of gaslighting based in an epistemic rhetoric perspective. Our model directs attention to the rhetorics used to justify competing knowledge claims, as opposed to philosophical models that tend to rely on objective truth-value. We probe the discursive manifestations of gaslighting in logocentric, ethotic, or pathemic terms. We then apply our model to explain sexist and racist gaslighting that derives power from normatively instantiated discourses of rape culture and White supremacy. Specifically, our analysis identifies the appeal structures used to legitimate such gaslighting in response to disclosures of sexual violence and testimony about racial injustice.

Waltz with Bashir’s Animated Traces

Contemporary documentary practices are strongly challenged by growing suspicions of the cinematic claim to truth by indexical capture—the notion that footage objectively captures traces of the past is becoming increasingly less convincing. Under this light, the chapter re-examines Waltz with Bashir (2008, dir. Ari Folman), a groundbreaking animated documentary, and its unique slew of strategies for making powerful non-indexical truth claims about the reality of war experiences and the creative, post-traumatic ways in which they are remembered. Waltz with Bashir’s final sequence, which cuts from animation to archival footage, grounds the story’s moment of catharsis in solid historical proof and appears to retreat from the film’s creative strategies. The chapter explores the stitches hiding behind this unusual cut and suggests an alternative, subversive reading of the final sequence. It then concludes that the film’s meaningfulness and documentary value are sustained despite skepticism about the objective truth of its cathartic ending.

Evidence – trial and pre-trial

The article again raises the question of the concept of proof in criminal proceedings. The adoption of the Code of Criminal Procedure in 2001, based on principles different from those of earlier times, did not lead to any noticeable revision of the postulates of the theory of evidence, including the concept of proof, but further aggravated the long-known contradictions. The incompatibility of the ideas of proving, which developed in the previous period of our history, as a cognitive activity aimed at establishing objective truth, with the principles of the presumption of innocence and competition is far from obvious to everyone, so the author of the article attempts to separate two fundamentally different approaches to the concept of proof between two fundamentally different parts of the criminal process and thereby reconcile the irreconcilable sides of the scientific discussion.

Problems of using formal means of proof in russian criminal proceedings

The article deals with the problem of the need to establish the objective truth in a criminal case in the context of consolidation in the criminal and criminal procedure legislation of the norms on the use of formal means of proof along with evidence. The article describes the characteristic features of various types of formal means of proof, reveals their significance in the Russian criminal process, and also highlights the most problematic issues of using formal means of proof to achieve the goals of criminal proceedings. The author suggests approaches to solving this problem from the point of view of achieving a reasonable balance of using the advantages that formal means of proof provide, if necessary, to minimize the negative aspects of their use, taking into account modern means and methods of obtaining evidence. The author substantiates the idea of the need to make changes to the relevant regulatory framework, which should eliminate the existing one at the present time.