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This book develops an original theoretical framework for understanding human-technology relations. The author’s approach, which he calls technoanalysis, analyzes artificial intelligence based on Freudian psychoanalysis, biosemiotics, and Latour’s actor-network theory. How can we communicate with AI to determine shared values and objectives? And what, ultimately, do we want from machines? These are crucial questions in our world, where the influence of AI-based technologies is rapidly growing. Unconscious dynamics influence AI and digital technology and understanding them is essential to better controlling AI systems. This book’s unique methodology— which combines psychoanalysis, bios...
What does humankind expect from AI? What kind of relationship between man and intelligent machine are we aiming for? Does an AI need to be able to recognize human unconscious dynamics to act for the "best" of humans—that "best" that not even humans can clearly define? Humanizing AI analyses AI and its numerous applications from a psychoanalytical point of view to answer these questions. This important, interdisciplinary contribution to the social sciences, as applied to AI, shows that reflecting on AI means reflecting on the human psyche and personality; therefore conceiving AI as a process of deconstruction and reconstruction of human identity. AI gives rise to processes of identification...
Across the social sciences and even in philosophy, trust is most often characterized in terms of expectations and probabilities. This book defends an alternative conception of trust as a moral phenomenon. When one person trusts another to do something, the first relies on the second’s commitment(s). So, trust reflects—and is a product of—agreement about the commitments and obligations that bind persons who live and work together. These commitments and obligations can be implicit, but building (or rebuilding) trust often requires making these commitments and obligations explicit, defining the terms of cooperation. Part 1 argues that this account of trust better captures our actual trust...
This book explores the moral place of the dead in our lives and in our afterlives. It argues that our lives are saturated by the past intentions and values of the dead, and that we offer the dead a form of modest immortality by fulfilling our obligations to remember them. In the first part of the book, the author examines the scope and limits of our obligations to the dead. Our obligations to respect the wishes of the dead are more substantial than commonly acknowledged, but they can be overridden in a range of cases when they conflict with the vital interests of the living, such as in organ donation and wealth inheritance. By contrast, the author contends that the obligation to remember, at...
This book discusses the ethical dimension of the interpretation of texts and events. Its purpose is not to address the neutrality or ideological biases of interpreters, but rather to discuss the underlying issue of the intervention of interpreters into the process of interpretation. The author calls this intervention the "ethical" aspect of interpretation and argues that interpreters are neither neutral nor necessarily activists. He examines three models of interpretation, all of which recognize the role that interpreters play in the process of interpretation. In these models, the question of the truth or validity of interpretation is dependent upon the attitude of interpreters. These three ...
This important new volume addresses an underappreciated dimension of Jung’s work, his concept of the teleology, or “future-orientation”, of psychic reality. The work, authored by an international group of Jungian scholars, expands upon the socio-cultural, psychological, therapeutic, and philosophical import of this key pillar of the Jungian oeuvre, offering a compelling alternative to current, culturally dominant ideas about how change occurs. The book addresses varied aspects of his teleological thought generally, and its application to the psychotherapeutic endeavor specifically, engaging Freudian, neo-Freudian, and related theoretical orientations in an informed dialogue about the critical issue of the emergent unfolding of subjectivity in treatment. This is an illuminating read for those interested in the study of Jungian theory, psychoanalysis, social psychology, religion, transpersonal psychology, indigenous wisdom traditions, and philosophical metapsychology.
This book argues that the major traditions in the philosophy of language have mistakenly focused on highly idealized linguistic contexts. Instead, it presents a non-ideal foundational theory of language that contends that the essential function of language is to direct attention for the purpose of achieving diverse social and political goals. Philosophers of language have focused primarily on highly idealized linguistic contexts in which cooperative agents are working toward the shared goal of gaining information about the world. This approach abstracts away from important issues like power, ideology, social position, and diversity of goals which are crucial to explaining linguistic phenomen...
This book offers a systematic and detailed examination of the conservative case for religion by establishment. In doing so, the author demonstrates that the conservative political tradition is rooted in an inescapably religious worldview, and in turn shows what the future of conservatism might be. The author begins the book by analysing the thought of prominent proponents of secular conservatism, chiefly examining the work of Roger Scruton. The author develops a case to show that Scruton’s arguments on the privatisation of religion are in tension with his basing of a conservative political settlement on "transcendent bonds". The author then examines alternatives to secular conservatism, es...
This book focuses on how we should treat philosophy’s theoretical representations. It argues in favor of an instrumentalist attitude towards pivotal cases of theoretical representation in philosophy that are commonly regarded under a realist attitude. Philosophy is awash with theoretical representations, which raises the question of how we should regard them. This book argues that representations in philosophy should not be regarded under a realist attitude by default as individually disclosing the nature of what they represent. Ori Simchen introduces the reader to the general theme of representations in philosophy and our attitudes towards them via case studies: numbers, modality, and bel...
This book develops an original theory of decision-making based on the concept of plausibility. The author advocates plausible reasoning as a general philosophical method and demonstrates how it can be applied to problems in argumentation theory, scientific theory choice, risk management, ethics, law, economics, and epistemology. Human decisions are conditioned by formidable uncertainty. The standard resource for dealing rationally with uncertainty is the mathematical concept of probability. The probability calculus is well-known, but since the numerical demands for applying it cannot usually be met, it is not widely applicable. By contrast, the concept of plausibility is widely applicable, b...