Amy Gutmann cites Oakeshott

amy gutmann, oakeshott, penn state, philosophy of education

Oakeshott cited by Penn State President in convocation address. (Quote from “The Idea of A University,” p. 103, Voice of Liberal Learning, Yale 1989.)

Succumbing to the temptation of easy answers would be fatal to your intellectual growth. You did not come to Penn to regress into what Michael Oakeshott called “the clamorous and conflicting absolutes of adolescence.” Rather, you came here as intellectual adventurers who, by wrestling with complexity, will raise the caliber of discourse in our society.

Julius Moravcsik

Aristotle, Julius Moravcsik, metaphysics

Leiter reports on the passing of Julius Moravcsik. I recall Moravcsik’s work on Aristotle’s metaphysics as being a model of clarity and being informed by recent philosophy of mind. A top-draw philosopher who published because he had something to say; not because he liked the “sound of his own voice”. Click here for a bio-sketch.

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Alan Turing

artificial intelligence, cognition, cognitive modeling, cognitive science, cognitive systems, computational intelligence, computer simulations, liberty, mind body, Turing

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The BBC has been running a series of articles on Turing.

For those of us who often discuss the conceptual aspects of liberty through the great works of social and political philosophy, we should stop and think about how our liberty was, to a great extent, preserved by Alan Turing.

According to Winston Churchill, Turing made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany.

His pivotal role in cracking intercepted messages helped the Allies to defeat the Nazis in several crucial battles.

A Profile and the Turing us philosophers/cognitive scientists know through his “Computing machinery and intelligence”, Mind 50: 433-460.

I PROPOSE to consider the question, ‘Can machines think? ‘This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms’ machine’ and’ think’. The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is dangerous. If the meaning of the words ‘machine’ and  ‘think ‘ are to be found by examining how they are commonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to the question, ‘Can machines think?’ is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup poll. But this is absurd. Instead of attempting such a definition I shall replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words.

PM’s Apology

Petition

Pardon

Lies

anthony grayling, david livingston smith, evolution, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, philosophy, philosophy of biology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, psychology

The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.  ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Anthony Grayling’s article Don’t dismiss dishonesty, it can be virtuous takes wing from two law lecturer’s research (no citation given), who according to Grayling, say “that they have found that there is no consensus in our society about what honesty is.”  Grayling’s thesis, as interesting as it is, is that “across time and culture, our notion of honesty shifts. What doesn’t is the way every generation gets lost in the grey areas” – still doesn’t cut very deep. A deeper and more subtle analysis of dishonesty is to be found in David Livingstone Smith’s Why we lie: The evolutionary roots of deception and the unconscious mind which is reviewed by law professor Tamar Frankel. A listing of interviews (some with links) by David on this topic can be found here.

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Oakeshott ’09 Programme

Attila Molnar, Chor-Yung Cheung, Conor Williams, corey abel, david corey, elizabeth corey, Eric Kos, Eric Voegelin, Ferenc Hörcher, hobbes, Ivo Mosley, jeff rabin, john coats, Kang Chen, kenneth mcintyre, lorraine krall, Martin Woessner, Matthew Sitman, michael henkel, Noël O’Sullivan, oakeshott, oliver lemcke, Paul franco, philosophy, philosophy of education, philosophy of history, Quentin P. Taylor, ralph hancock, Richard Friedman, robert grant, roger scruton, roy tseng, Silviya Lechner, strauss, Suvi Soininen, till kinzel, timothy fuller, William Mathie

MICHAEL OAKESHOTT ASSOCIATION

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

WACO, TEXAS

NOVEMBER 12-14, 2009

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2009

6:30 PM   Check-in—Foyer of Armstrong Browning Library

7:00 PM   Dinner in Cox Reception Hall

7:45-9:00   Address—Timothy Fuller

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2009

8:30-9:00  Coffee service

9:00 -10:15  Address—Roger Scruton: “Politics and Conversation”

10:30-12:00   Panel 1: Oakeshott and Strauss on Hobbes

Kang Chen: What Does It Take to Be Modern, and (Why) Should We Care?: Strauss contra Oakeshott on Hobbes

Silviya Lechner: The Morality of Individuality: Oakeshott and Strauss on Hobbes

Quentin P. Taylor: Michael Oakeshott and the Liberal Hobbes

Chair and Discussant: TBA

12:00-2:00   LUNCH AND BREAK

2-3:30   Panel 2: Politics/Political Theory

Roy Tseng: Scepticism in Politics: A Dialogue between Oakeshott and Dunn

M. Jeffrey Rabin: How Michael Oakeshott is the Philosopher for Our Age

Conor Williams: Oakeshott’s On Human Conduct: Connections Between Non-Foundational Politics and Human Cravings for Solidarity

Ferenc Hörcher: The interpretation of the concept of political phronesis in Oakeshott, Strauss and Voegelin

Chair and Discussant: Corey Abel

4-5:30   Panel 3: The Nature of Philosophy and Its Relation to Politics

Michael Henkel and Oliver Lemcke: Against Platonism: An Oakeshottian Critique of Voegelin and Strauss

John Coats: “Theory and Practice” in Oakeshott, Strauss and Voegelin

Till Kinzel: The Place of Politics in a Philosophical Education: Reflections on the Thought of Michael Oakeshott and Leo Strauss

Suvi Soininen: Philosophy and its relationship to politics; some touching points of Oakeshott’s and Strauss’ thinking

Chair and Discussant: David Corey

Dinner: On your own

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2009

8:30-9:00   Coffee Service

9:00-10:15  Address—Robert Grant

10:30-12:00   Panel 4: Tradition and Historical Explanation

Martin Woessner: The Critique of Historical Reason and Its Political Consequences: Heidegger, Oakeshott, and Strauss

Lorraine Krall: Oakeshott: In Defense of Tradition

Chor-Yung Cheung: Skepticism, Poetic Imagination and the Art of Non-Instrumentality: Oakeshott and Chuang Tzu

Kenneth B. McIntyre: ‘What’s Gone and What’s Past Help…’:  Oakeshott and Strauss on Historical Explanation

Chair and Discussant: Paul Franco

12:00-2:00   LUNCH AND BREAK

2:00-3:30   Panel 5: Religion; Athens and Jerusalem

Ralph Hancock: Reason, Revelation, and the Problem of Technology in Leo Strauss

Eric Kos: Modernism in Religion: The Idealist’s Approach to Science and Religion

Matthew Sitman: Politics After Babel: Michael Oakeshott, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the Theological Defense of Modernity

Chair and Discussant: Elizabeth Corey

4:00-5:30   Panel 6: Modernity and Politics in the Western World

Noël O’Sullivan: Constitutionalism and modernity in Oakeshott, Strauss and Voegelin

William Mathie: What is Modernity?

Attila Molnar:  The problem of political knowledge and action in the criticism of Modernity

Ivo Mosley:  The Illusion of Democracy

Chair and Discussant: Richard Friedman

6pm till  Closing: Dinner and Reception

at the Coreys’ house, 500 North Park Avenue, Waco

The Lives of Ants

ants, elisabeth gordon, stigmergic, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence, the lives of ants

I came across a “review” of The Lives of Ants by Keller and Gordon. The book seems to have been very well received across several publications. Here is the Economist‘s “review” kindly sent to me by Shannon Selin.

This pheromone-driven behaviour means that although single ants are not clever, collectively they are capable of complex tasks. Such “swarm intelligence” is of huge interest to scientists and has already led to practical applications. Unilever, for instance, has used a computer program based on swarm intelligence to organise movements between storage tanks, mixers and packing lines in one of its factories.

Though Keller and Gordon (nor the reviewer) do not seem to invoke the term stigmergy, they do of course discuss swarm intelligence. This work follows in the wake of Sunstein’s Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge and Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, neither of which are particularly deep. Still, it’s nice to see ideas such as these enter the popular domain.

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Guilty Robots

david mcfarland, guilty robots, robotics, robots, stigmergic, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence

Dov must surely have intended “stigmergy”! David McFarland certainly does: pp. 166, 178, 198. I hope this is picked up for the hardcopy review of McFarland’s Guilty Robots, Happy Dogs: The Question of Alien Minds.

Robots can be simply reactive to certain elements of their environment; they can demonstrate ‘stigmercy’, or ‘[t]he production of behavior that is a direct consequence of the effects produced in the local environment by previous behavior’ (219); a robotic ‘goal-achieving system’ can change its behavior (by stopping, for instance) when a certain goal has been achieved; a ‘goal-seeking system’ is designed to work towards the accomplishment of a certain goal ‘without the goal being represented within the system’ (11), while the behavior of ‘goal-directed’ systems is informed by such representations.

Computer Simulations in Social Epistemology

cognitive modeling, collective intentionality, computational intelligence, computer simulations, episteme, epistemology, Igor Douven, philosophy of social science, simulation, social epistemology

Another reminder: check out the special themed EPISTEME issue edited by Igor Douven.

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iCub hype

consciousness, robotics, robots

Telling aspect to this article:

“Is perception consciousness? The ability to understand that somebody has a goal, is that consciousness?” he asked.

“These kinds of questions, we will be able to ask with much more precision because we can have a test bed, this robot, or zombie, that we can use to implement things,” he said, describing working with iCub as “an outstanding pleasure.”

Away from such highbrow concerns, the aim is also to develop iCub so that it can have practical applications.

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Critical Notices: Thompson and Strawson

Christian Onof, cognitive science, consciousness, distributed cognition, Dorothée Legrand, dualism, embodiment, Enacted, enactivism, Evan Thompson, extended mind, Galen Strawson, journal of mind and behavior, metaphysics, Mind in Life, neurobiology, neurophilosophy, philosophy of mind, psychology, qualia

I want to bring your attention to two superb reviews on the work of Evan Thompson and Galen Strawson. These very thoughtful reviews are not space fillers nor point scoring exercises, but represent a close engagement with the material. If you would like a copy of either review please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the authors – see here for their contact details. If you appreciate these reviews check out another recent review: there are several more in the pipeline.

1. Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind is reviewed by Dorothée Legrand.

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2. Consciousness and its Place in Nature: Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism? is reviewed by my sometime collaborator Christian Onof.

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