Towards Log-Linear Logics with Concrete Domains

We present $\mathcal{MEL}^{++}$ (M denotes Markov logic networks) an extension of the log-linear description logics $\mathcal{EL}^{++}$-LL with concrete domains, nominals, and instances. We use Markov logic networks (MLNs) in order to find the most probable, classified and coherent $\mathcal{EL}^{++}$ ontology from an $\mathcal{MEL}^{++}$ knowledge base. In particular, we develop a novel way to deal with concrete domains (also known as datatypes) by extending MLN's cutting plane inference (CPI) algorithm.Comment: StarAI201

Cosmopolitanism for Earth dwellers: Kant on the right to be somewhere

The paper provides a systematic account of Kant’s ‘right to be somewhere’ as introduced in the Doctrine of Right. My claim is that Kant’s concern with the concurrent existence of a plurality of corporeal agents on the earth’s surface (to which the right speaks) occupies a rarely appreciated conceptual space in his mature political philosophy. In grounding a particular kind of moral relation that is ‘external’ (as located in bounded space) but not property-mediated, it provides us with a fundamentally new perspective on Kant’s cosmopolitanism, which I construe as a cosmopolitanism for ‘earth dwellers’

No right to unilaterally claim your territory: on the consistency of Kantian statism

The paper examines the consistency of recent Kantian justifications of state authority through reflection on the normative implications of states’ territorial nature. I claim that their conceptual structure leaves these accounts unable to close the justificatory gap that emerges at the transition from legitimate authority simpliciter, to legitimate state authority. None of the strategies Kantian statists have come up with in order to solve this problem – based on the proximity, occupancy, and permissive principles – provides the needed grounds on which to carve up the earth’s surface into jurisdictional domains. Yet, I conclude that this does not require Kantians to cede statist grounds altogether but to take a distinctly ‘global perspective’ on states

The Predicament of Practical Reason

According to Lea Ypi, Kant’s attempt in the first Critique to unify reason via the practical route fails because his notion of purposiveness as design commits him to a dogmatic metaphysics. I challenge this claim on two grounds. First, I argue that practical reason does not have an interest in a strong modal connection that guarantees the unity of freedom and nature rather than a weak modal connection that merely affirms the possibility of our ends. Second, I highlight that the epistemic status of practical ideas is one of faith or hope rather than knowledge. Hence, Kant’s attempt to unify reason via the practical route can be reconstructed in a way that is largely in line with the commitments of his critical philosophy

LODE: Linking Digital Humanities Content to the Web of Data

Numerous digital humanities projects maintain their data collections in the form of text, images, and metadata. While data may be stored in many formats, from plain text to XML to relational databases, the use of the resource description framework (RDF) as a standardized representation has gained considerable traction during the last five years. Almost every digital humanities meeting has at least one session concerned with the topic of digital humanities, RDF, and linked data. While most existing work in linked data has focused on improving algorithms for entity matching, the aim of the LinkedHumanities project is to build digital humanities tools that work "out of the box," enabling their use by humanities scholars, computer scientists, librarians, and information scientists alike. With this paper, we report on the Linked Open Data Enhancer (LODE) framework developed as part of the LinkedHumanities project. With LODE we support non-technical users to enrich a local RDF repository with high-quality data from the Linked Open Data cloud. LODE links and enhances the local RDF repository without compromising the quality of the data. In particular, LODE supports the user in the enhancement and linking process by providing intuitive user-interfaces and by suggesting high-quality linking candidates using tailored matching algorithms. We hope that the LODE framework will be useful to digital humanities scholars complementing other digital humanities tools

Analyse von Bildmerkmalen zur Identifikation wichtiger Bildregionen

Eine zuverlässige Erkennung wichtiger Bildregionen ist die Grundlage für viele Verfahren im Bereich der Bildverarbeitung wie beispielsweise bei der Bildkompression, bei Verfahren zur Anpassung der Bildauflösung oder beim Einfügen digitaler Wasserzeichen in Bilder. Es wurde ein System entwickelt, das Merkmalspunkte in Bildern identifiziert und diese nutzt, um wichtige Bildbereiche zu identifizieren. Zur Berechnung der Merkmalspunkte wird das SURF-Verfahren (Speeded Up Robust Features) verwendet. Die gefundenen Merkmale werden in einem zweiten Schritt einzelnen Bildregionen zugeordnet. Die Qualität der ermittelten Regionen sowie das Laufzeitverhalten der verschiedenen Verfahren werden anhand einer umfangreichen Bilddatenbank analysiert

Hope in political philosophy

The language of hope is a ubiquitous part of political life, but its value is increasingly contested. While there is an emerging debate about hope in political philosophy, an assessment of the prevalent scepticism about its role in political practice is still outstanding. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of historical and recent treatments of hope in political philosophy and to indicate lines of further research. We argue that even though political philosophy can draw on recent analyses of hope in analytic philosophy, there are distinct challenges for an account of hope in political contexts. Examples such as racial injustice or climate change show the need for a systematic normative account that is sensitive to the unavoidability of hope in politics as much as its characteristic dangers

Theorising from the global standpoint: Kant and Grotius on original common possession of the earth

The paper contrasts Kant's conception of original common possession of the earth with Hugo Grotius's superficially similar notion. The aim is not only to elucidate how much Kant departs from his natural law predecessors—given that Grotius's needs-based framework very much lines in with contemporary theorists’ tendency to reduce issues of global concern to questions of how to divide the world up, it also seeks to advocate Kant's global thinking as an alternative for current debates. Crucially, it is Kant's radical shift in perspective—from an Archimedean ’view from nowhere‘, to a first-personal standpoint through which agents reflexively recognise their systematic interdependence in a world of limited space—that provides him with the more thorough and ultimately convincing global standpoint. This standpoint does not come with ready-made solutions to shared global problems, but provides a promising perspective from which to theorise them

Kant and the global standpoint

Two interpretive trends have driven the recent revival of Kant’s political philosophy. On the one hand, a focus on his cosmopolitanism as providing a normative agenda for a global political order. On the other hand, a turn to Kant as a theorist of a distinctly state-centred political morality, based on his much debated property argument. This thesis argues that these interpretive trends have sidetracked us from Kant’s most sustained, systematic and original cosmopolitan vision as it is laid out in the Doctrine of Right. I develop this framework through the notion of a global standpoint as a distinctly first-person perspective from which agents reflexively recognise their systematic interdependence in a world of limited space. The global standpoint binds what I call ‘earth dwellers’ – corporeal agents who concurrently coexist on the earth’s spherical surface – to a certain kind of comportment towards distant strangers. It is a standpoint from which we must interact with others with the aim of finding shared terms of coexistence. What is particularly fascinating about this cosmopolitan vision and of continuing relevance is the way in which Kant folds it into his account of juridical statehood. The global standpoint is not only predicated on the existences of states. Despite being concerned with our comportment beyond borders, the ensuing obligations are also to be implemented within the state context. Kant’s cosmopolitanism as conceived from the global standpoint is not directed at a global institutional order, but a world of distinctly outwardlooking states that bind themselves (and their citizens) to rightful comportment towards other states and non-state peoples of their own accord. We take up the global standpoint from within states by transforming them into cosmopolitan agents