A Methodological Analysis of Experimental Philosophy Based on Selected Examples.

Experimental philosophy (often referred to as 'x-phi') is a new current in modern analytic philosophy that has gained much popularity in recent years. The followers of this approach point at the fact that philosophers often make empirically testable predictions about non-philosophers’ reactions to certain philosophical thought experiments. In order to test these claims, experimental philosophers adopt survey and experimental methods commonly used in social sciences and attempt at collecting information on non-philosophers’ intuitions concerning different philosophical problems. The main aim of this dissertation is to provide a detailed, critical analysis of the novel methodological proposal promoted by experimental philosophers. Chapter I is a short introduction to experimental philosophy. In this chapter, I identify and characterize the methodological solution specific to x-phi studies – the scenario method. I explain the links between experimental philosophy and some classic approaches in philosophy, such as conceptual analysis and the method of thought experiments. I also discuss the diversity of research aims within experimental philosophy and present a classification of branches of experimental philosophy that can be drawn basing on such differences. Chapter II is devoted to the first major objection raised by the opponents of experimental philosophy – the expertise argument. According to this line of reasoning, data collected in x-phi studies are philosophically irrelevant, since nearly all experiments focus on non-philosophers’ intuitions. The proponents of the expertise arguments claim that when one considers philosophical problems, one should rather refer to intuitions shared by experts on the matter – professional philosophers. However, basing on the results of some recent studies, I argue that these expectations towards philosophers are likely to be incorrect. In Chapter III, I present and analyze another objection against experimental philosophy – the argument from quality of intuitions, according to which methods used by experimental philosophers do not guarantee revealing intuitions of the desired kind and because of that, the collected data may not be philosophically significant. I analyze different variants of this argumentative strategy and consider different methodological solutions adopted in experimental philosophy that might be sources of such problems. Finally, I argue that the objection suggesting that the results of x-phi studies are often affected not only by semantic factors, but also by pragmatic factors, is the strongest potential threat for the methodological proposal promoted by experimental philosophers. The claim that the data collected in x-phi studies are usually shaped by pragmatic phenomena, and it is difficult to experimentally isolate the influence of pragmatic and semantic factors on non-philosophers’ judgments, is the main thesis defended in this dissertation. In Chapters IV and V, I present empirical data collected in my own experiments which support the abovementioned thesis. Chapter IV regards the results of x-phi studies concerning contextualism. Previous studies suggest that the outcomes are more favorable to contextualism in the case of within-subject experimental design than in the case of between-subject experimental design. Basing on the results of my studies and provided interpretation of the abovementioned difference in terms of pragmatic phenomena, I argue against using withinsubject design in experiments concerning contextualism. Chapter V focuses on x-phi studies regarding reference of proper names. I suggest that the method of measuring folk intuitions on this issue adopted in previous studies – narrow forced choice – may be a source of serious problems. Referring to the results of my experiments, I argue that data collected in previous studies on this topic may not be only shaped by participants’ semantic considerations (as intended by the researchers) but also by their reactions to some superficial characteristics of the stimuli driven by pragmatic mechanisms. Apart from arguing in support of the main thesis, the dissertation provides many analyses of different methodological solutions used in experimental philosophy, identifying its strengths and weaknesses, and suggests some solutions that might help making experimental philosophy a more successful scientific endeavor

Of impacts, agents, and functions: An interdisciplinary meta-review of smart home energy management systems research

Smart home energy management technologies (SHEMS) have long been viewed as a promising opportunity to manage the way households use energy. Research on this topic has emerged across a variety of disciplines, focusing on different pieces of the SHEMS puzzle without offering a holistic vision of how these technologies and their users will influence home energy use moving forward. This paper presents the results of a systematic, interdisciplinary meta-review of SHEMS literature, assessing the extent to which it discusses the role of various SHEMS components in driving energy benefits. Results reveal a bias towards technical perspectives and controls approaches that seek to drive energy impacts such as load management and energy savings through SHEMS without user or third-party participation. Not only are techno-centric approaches more common, there is also a lack of integration of these approaches with user-centric, information-based solutions for driving energy impacts. These results suggest future work should investigate more holistic solutions for optimal impacts on household energy use. We hope these results will provoke a broader discussion about how to advance research on SHEMS to capitalize on their potential contributions to demand-side management initiatives moving forward

Dependent plural pronouns with Skolemized choice functions

The present paper discusses two interesting phenomena concerning phi-features on plural pronouns: (i) plural pronouns that denote atomic individuals (‘dependent plural pronouns’), and (ii) plural pronouns with more than one binder (‘partial binding’). A novel account of these two phenomena is proposed, according to which all occurrences of phi-features are both semantically and morphologically relevant. For such a ‘uniformly semantic account’ of phi-features, dependent plural pronouns constitute a theoretical challenge, while partial binding is more or less straightforwardly accounted for. In order to make sense of the semantic effects of the phi-features on dependent plural pronouns, the following idea is pursued: the phi-features on a dependent plural pronoun reflect the range of values that the pronoun takes, rather than the particular value it denotes at a time. This idea is implemented in a compositional semantics by making use of (Skolemized) choice functions. An appealing feature of the present account is that, unlike its predecessors, it accounts for dependent plural pronouns without c-commanding antecedents in essentially the same way as for those with c-commanding antecedents. It is also shown how this account of dependent plural pronouns can straightforwardly be augmented with set indices to account for partial binding

Depression, Relationship Quality, and Couples’ Demand/Withdraw and Demand/Submit Sequential Interactions

This study investigated the associations among depression, relationship quality, and demand/withdraw and demand/submit behavior in couples’ conflict interactions. Two 10-min conflict interactions were coded for each couple (N = 97) using Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB; Benjamin, 1979a, 1987, 2000a). Depression was assessed categorically (via the presence of depressive disorders) and dimensionally (via symptom reports). Results revealed that relationship quality was negatively associated with demanding behavior, as well as receiving submissive or withdrawing behavior from one’s partner. Relationship quality was positively associated with withdrawal. Demanding behavior was positively associated with women’s depression symptoms but negatively associated with men’s depression symptoms. Sequential analysis revealed couples’ behavior was highly stable across time. Initiation of demand/withdraw and demand/submit sequences were negatively associated with partners’ relationship adjustment. Female demand/male withdraw was positively associated with men’s depression diagnosis. Results underscore the importance of sequential analysis when investigating associations among depression, relationship quality, and couples’ interpersonal behavior

Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer Advancing from Conceptual Design

The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) project has completed its Conceptual Design Phase. This paper is a status report of the MSE project regarding its technical and programmatic progress. The technical status includes its conceptual design and system performance, and highlights findings and recommendations from the System and various subsystems design reviews. The programmatic status includes the project organization and management plan for the Preliminary Design Phase. In addition, this paper provides the latest information related to the permitting process for Maunakea construction.Comment: 15 pages; Proceedings of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2018; Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VI

The Nature of Rights

The twentieth century saw a vigorous debate over the nature of rights. Will theorists argued that the function of rights is to allocate domains of freedom. Interest theorists portrayed rights as defenders of well-being. Each side declared its conceptual analysis to be closer to an ordinary understanding of what rights there are, and to an ordinary understanding of what rights do for rightholders. Neither side could win a decisive victory, and the debate ended in a standoff. This article offers a new analysis of rights. The first half of the article sets out an analytical framework adequate for explicating all assertions of rights. This framework is an elaboration of Hohfeld’s, designed around a template for displaying the often complex internal structures of rights. Those unfamiliar with Hohfeld’s work should find that the exposition here presumes no prior knowledge of it. Those who know Hohfeld will find innovations in how the system is defined and presented. Any theorist wishing to specify precisely what is at stake within a controversy over some particular right may find this framework useful. The analytical framework is then deployed in the second half of the article to resolve the dispute between the will and interest theories. Despite the appeal of freedom and well-being as organizing ideas, each of these theories is clearly too narrow. We accept rights, which do not (as the will theory holds) define domains of freedom; and we affirm rights whose aim is not (as the interest theory claims) to further the interests of the rightholder. A third theory, introduced here, is superior in describing the functions of rights as they are commonly understood

Scaling Monte Carlo Tree Search on Intel Xeon Phi

Many algorithms have been parallelized successfully on the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor, especially those with regular, balanced, and predictable data access patterns and instruction flows. Irregular and unbalanced algorithms are harder to parallelize efficiently. They are, for instance, present in artificial intelligence search algorithms such as Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS). In this paper we study the scaling behavior of MCTS, on a highly optimized real-world application, on real hardware. The Intel Xeon Phi allows shared memory scaling studies up to 61 cores and 244 hardware threads. We compare work-stealing (Cilk Plus and TBB) and work-sharing (FIFO scheduling) approaches. Interestingly, we find that a straightforward thread pool with a work-sharing FIFO queue shows the best performance. A crucial element for this high performance is the controlling of the grain size, an approach that we call Grain Size Controlled Parallel MCTS. Our subsequent comparing with the Xeon CPUs shows an even more comprehensible distinction in performance between different threading libraries. We achieve, to the best of our knowledge, the fastest implementation of a parallel MCTS on the 61 core Intel Xeon Phi using a real application (47 relative to a sequential run).Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

The Four Phases of Philosophy

Introduction and translation of “The Four Phases of Philosophy” by Franz Brentano