AI & Society, published online 04 June 2024.
A brief polemic against over-reliance on generative AI, equating so-called prompt engineering with the art of begging.
AI & Society, published online 29 October 2023.
Large language models and other generative artificial intelligence systems are achieving increasingly impressive results, though the quality of those results still seems dull and uninspired. This paper argues that this poor quality can be linked to the philosophical notion of inauthenticity as presented by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, and that this inauthenticity is fundamentally grounded in the design and structure of such systems by virtue of the way they statistically level down the materials on which they are trained. Although it seems possible to create the conditions for authenticity in these systems, the resulting authenticity would be grounded in machine intelligence, not human intelligence. The argument extends the criticisms of artificial intelligence articulated by Hubert Dreyfus, updated to account for recent developments in machine learning and artificial neural networks. While more optimistic concerning the prospects for successfully creating artificial intelligence than Dreyfus had been, this paper argues that the resulting intelligence may not align well with human intelligence and may not be desirable for humans, if it is fully authentic.
Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, Volume 53, Number 1 (2012), 89-112.
This article formulates five relative systems to evaluate the charge of self-refutation with regard to global relativism. It is demonstrated that all five of these systems support models with at least one thoroughly relativistic perspective. However, when these systems are extended to include an operator expressing the valuation of statements in a perspective, only one relative system, based on a non-normal modal logic, supports a thoroughly relativistic perspective.
Forthcoming 2025
Argues for the abolition of all political parties, expanding on the arguments of Simone Weil.
This study develops a structural analysis of technology as a foundation for investigating the possibility of an authentic relationship between people and technology. It identifies the problematic features compromising that relationship, then defines the conditions whereby people can engage with technology in a fully authentic manner.
This in-depth study aims to develop a rigorous analysis of the nature and the logic of relativism in general as a basis for evaluating the charge of self-refutation against relativism. It develops a general definition of relativism that distinguishes relativism from structurally similar notions such as conventionalism and contextualism. On the basis of this definition, it formulates a series of logical systems that each might be presented as candidates for the logic of relativism. Each system is evaluated to see whether it can sustain the charge of self-refutation. The result is that one of these systems can be proven not to be self-refuting, even under increasingly stronger challenges. Consequently, this study argues that even global relativism can be demonstrated not to refute itself, despite the long history of arguments to the contrary.
The consequences of Quine's criterion of ontological commitment epitomized in his treatment of the term 'Pegasus' in "On What There Is" are evaluated in terms of Quine's own work, in particular in "The Variable" and "Variables Explained Away". There is a cost to maintaining this criterion with regard to the empirical consequences of some non-existent objects, given considerations prompted by Quine's holism. This cost can be reduced by adopting a noneist position according to which non-existent objects can be values of bound variables as well.
Inauthenticity can be understood as following the herd, in line with a metaphor from Nietzsche. The idea of inauthentic philosophy is explored in an analysis of the titles of articles in philosophy journals, particularly those following the general pattern of 'x and the Politics of y'.
Incoherence arguments are intended to demonstrate that some philosophical position should be rejected because it is fatally flawed. I review the kinds of fatal flaws targeted in incoherence arguments, and argue that such arguments are not conclusive against the position they target, but merely pose challenges that require greater imagination. Furthermore, I claim that apparently incoherent positions have an instrumental value in expanding the intellectual resources of philosophy.
There seems to be a difficulty in the practice of metaphysics, in that any methodology used in metaphysical study relies on certain presuppositions, whereby it seems that metaphysical results are relative to those presuppositions. What is needed is a methodology that can yield objective metaphysical results that are not limited by the presuppositions of that methodology. This paper argues for a way to triangulate on stable metaphysical results by using existing methodologies as perspectives on metaphysical topics, and by reducing the differences between those perspectives to non-perspectival truths, if possible.
While philosophical results might seem to be relative to the presuppositions of the methods that generate them, this paper proposes a meta-methodology to coordinate those results. The apparent relativity of competing philosophical methodologies can be reduced by the application of any of three general techniques derived from an analysis of relativism in general, one of which, the technique of commensuration, does not seem to have been very well appreciated within philosophical practice. An ideal application of commensuration suggests two theoretical virtues, competitive subsumption and reflexive reiteration, and these virtues are demonstrated in the examination of competing accounts of the nature of explanation.
In response to suspicions concerning the use of possible worlds in philosophy, this brief paper proposes an analysis of possibility that requires only a single world, using a combination of temporal logic and a potentiality operator.
This paper reviews arguments concerning the relation between relativism and tolerance, both whether tolerance entails relativism, and whether relativism entails tolerance. Two new arguments are offered to support the contention that there is no necessary relation between relativism and tolerance. In particular, building on the classic argument by Geoffrey Harrison, this paper argues that even if there is no strict dichotomy between facts and values, as Harrison had assumed, relativism still does not entail tolerance for every relativized perspective.
In the Categories, Aristotle addresses two different cases of dual categorization, cases in which the same thing might appear in two different categories: relatives and secondary substances in the first case, qualities and relatives in the second. His treatment of these two cases is markedly different. Ackrill thinks dual categorization poses a dilemma for Aristotle’s project as a whole, but I argue that there is a dilemma only on particular understandings of Aristotle’s purpose in compiling the list of categories. I investigate various interpretations of the categories to find one that explains Aristotle’s reactions to dual categorization, and suggest an interpretation of the peculiar four-fold system of classification in Chapter 2.
There is a controversy concerning whether to give Section 1.4.1 of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature a skeptical or naturalistic reading. I divide the overall interpretation of this section into seven smaller interpretative theses, none of which alone determine either a skeptical or naturalistic reading, but which together better support what has been called the naturalistic interpretation.
Ph.D. Thesis, The University of Melbourne, 2009
Relativism is defined as radical indexed pluralism, and the conditions required to qualify as relativism are outlined. Five formal systems are developed to represent the logic of relativism, and the charge of self-refutation is evaluated. The study concludes that relativism is not formally self-refuting.
M.A. Thesis, San Diego State University, 2003
This thesis argues that conclusions reached concerning the cognitive abilities of connectionist systems may be improperly influenced by the intentionality of the programmer of the system. Rather, such conclusions should be based upon a consideration of the native intentionality of the system, but the nature of artificial intentionality must first be explained.
orcid.org/0000-0003-1325-2576