The relative efficiency of an action is a central criterion in action control and can be used to predict others’ behavior. Yet, it is unclear when the ability to predict on and reason about the efficiency of others’ actions develops. In three main and two follow-up studies, 3- to 6-year-old children (n = 242) were confronted with vignettes in which protagonists could take a short (efficient) path or a long path. Children predicted which path the protagonist would take and (...) why the protagonist would take a specific path. The 3-year-olds did not take efficiency into account when making decisions even when there was an explicit goal, the task was simplified and made more salient, and children were questioned after exposure to the agent’s action. Four years is a transition age for rational action prediction, and the 5-year-olds reasoned on the efficiency of actions before relying on them to predict others’ behavior. Results are discussed within a representational redescription account. (shrink)

For intelligent systems to operate independently and make defensible judgments, they require efficient knowledge representation, reasoning, and planning strategies. This essay investigates these essential elements, going over their definitions, significance, methods, and incorporation in many applications. This study tries to provide insights into creating reliable and effective intelligent systems while resolving the difficulties they encounter by looking at recent developments and emerging trends.

An extended analysis compared to observations shows that modern “globalised” world civilisation has passed through the invisible “complexity threshold”, after which usual “spontaneous”, empirically driven kind of development (“invisible hand” etc.) cannot continue any more without major destructive tendencies. A much deeper, non-simplified understanding of real interaction complexity is necessary in order to cope with such globalised world development problems. Here we introduce the universal definition, fundamental origin, and dynamic equations for a major related quantity of (systemic) risk characterising real (...) complex system development tendencies at any level of dynamics. Practically important conclusions are derived, opening further detailed applications in economy, finance and development practice. (shrink)

This paper points to some limitations of law and economics as both an explanative and a normative theory. In explaining law as the result of efficiency promoting decisions, law and economics theorists often dismiss the reasons actors in the legal system give for their behavior. Recognizing that sometimes actors may be unaware of why institutions evolve as they do, I argue that the case for dismissing reasons for action is weaker when those reasons make reference to rules of practices that (...) constitute the meaning of actions within those practices, or when they have otherwise been given well-considered defenses. In criticizing law and economics as a normative theory, I acknowledge that economic considerations are often important in deciding how to act in the personal sphere and how government should allocate its scarce resources. I argue that while the use of institutions to promote our ideals forces us to take their costs into account, it is a mistake to infer from this that the question of determining social policy is a purely economic problem, and that we should acknowledge the non-utilitarian moral ideals our law and practices promote. This is the basis of both an internal criticism--law and economics theorists have not sufficiently evaluated and weighed the value of fairness and other ideals in their utility calculations--and an external criticism-- these ideals are important in ways that can not be measured in utiles. (shrink)

The notion of Simulative Reasoning in the study of propositional attitudes within Artificial Intelligence (AI) is strongly related to the Simulation Theory of mental ascription in Philosophy. Roughly speaking, when an AI system engages in Simulative Reasoning about a target agent, it reasons with that agent’s beliefs as temporary hypotheses of its own, thereby coming to conclusions about what the agent might conclude or might have concluded. The contrast is with non-simulative meta-reasoning, where the AI system reasons (...) within a detailed theory about the agent’s (conjectured) reasoning acts. The motive within AI for preferring Simulative Reasoning is that it is more convenient and efficient, because of a simplification of the representations and reasoning processes. The chapter discusses this advantage in detail. It also sketches the use of Simulative Reasoning in an AI natural language processing system, ATT-Meta, that is currently being implemented. This system is directed at the understanding of propositional attitude reports. In ATT-Meta, Simulative Reasoning is yoked to a somewhat independent set of ideas about how attitude reports should be treated. Central here are the claims that (a) speakers often employ commonsense (and largely metaphorical) models of mind in describing agents’ attitudes, (b) the listener accordingly needs often to reason within the terms of such models, rather than on the basis of any objectively justifiable characterization of the mind, and (c) the commonsense models filter the suggestions that Simulative Reasoning comes up with concerning target agents’ reasoning conclusions. There is a yet tighter connection between the commonsense models and the Simulative Reasoning. It turns out that Simulative Reasoning can be rationally reconstructed in terms of a more general type of reasoning about the possibly-counterfactual “world” that the target agent believes in, together with an assumption that that agent has a faithful representation of the world. In the ATT-Meta approach, the reasoner adopts that assumption when it views the target agent through a particular commonsense model (called IDEAS-AS-MODELS). (shrink)

A principal rationale for public policy is to address market failures. Pareto efficiency is therefore a highly common and relatively non-controversial evaluative criterion for many policy analyses and is discussed at length in policy analysis texts. This makes sense, for Pareto improvements involve making at least one person better off without making anyone worse off. Who could object to that? But does efficiency deserve the prominence it enjoys in public policy? Is one policy option better than another, at least in (...) one respect, simply because it is more Pareto efficient? Or, is efficiency valuable for some other reason? In this chapter, I discuss Pareto efficiency as an evaluative criterion and argue that it is a stand-in for a more foundational criterion: wellbeing. I begin with an overview of Pareto efficiency, discuss the various ways in which it is operationalized to evaluate policy options, and argue that it is valuable insofar as more efficient states of affairs promise more wellbeing than less efficient states of affairs. I then raise questions regarding whether the conception of wellbeing presupposed by Pareto efficiency – preference satisfaction – is a defensible conception of wellbeing. I go on to introduce three alternative conceptions of wellbeing which have been proposed and defended by both philosophers and policy scholars, namely, hedonism, objective goods views, and the capability approach, and suggest ways in which each can be operationalized as an evaluative criterion. I close by discussing four ‘theory-free’ approaches to thinking about the impact of policies on the quality of people’s lives. Such approaches reject the idea that there is one single theory of wellbeing that should be used to evaluate policy options, and instead develop ways to evaluate the impact of policies on people’s lives that are not grounded in a specific theory. (shrink)

I argue that agents can have duties to cooperate with one another if this increases their combined efficiency and/or efficacy in addressing ongoing collective moral problems. I call these duties cooperative duties of efficiency and efficacy. I focus particularly on collective agents and how agents ought to reason and act in the face of global moral problems. After setting out my account, I argue that a subset of cooperative duties of efficiency and efficacy of collective agents are duties of justice (...) in virtue of the roles these agents have taken up. (shrink)

Suppose we consider knowledge to be valuable because of the role known propositions play in practical reasoning. This, I argue, does not provide a reason to think that knowledge is valuable in itself. Rather, it provides a reason to think that true belief is valuable from one standpoint, and that justified belief is valuable from another standpoint, and similarly for other epistemic concepts. The value of the concept of knowledge is that it provides an economical way of talking about (...) many epistemic concepts that are valuable in itself from one standpoint or another. In this way knowledge is like a Swiss Army Knife; a Swiss Army Knife is not useful as such on any occasion, but it provides an efficient way of carrying around different tools that are useful in themselves on different occasions. (shrink)

Does mere passage of time have causal powers? Are properties like "being n days past" causally efficient? A pervasive intuition among metaphysicians seems to be that they don't. Events and/or objects change, and they cause or are caused by other events and/or objects; but one does not see how just the mere passage of time could cause any difference in the world. In this paper, I shall discuss a case where it seems that mere passage of time does have (...) causal powers : Sydney Shoemaker's (1969) possible world where temporal vacua (allegedly) take place. I shall argue that Shoemaker's thought-experiment doesn't really aim at teaching us that there can be time without change, but rather that if such a scenario is plausible at all (as I think it is) it provides us with good reasons to think that mere passage of time can be directly causally efficient. (shrink)

Which premisses should we use to start our inquiries? Which transitions during inquiry should we take next? When should we switch lines of inquiry? In this paper, I address these open questions about inquiry, formulating novel norms for such decisions during deductive reasoning. I use the first-order predicate calculus, in combination with Carnap’s state description framework, to state such norms. Using that framework, I first demonstrate some properties of sets of sentences used in deduction. I then state some norms (...) for decisions made during deductive reasoning, establishing initial benchmarks for efficient deduction by ideal reasoners. When deciding which transition to make next, reasoners should choose the most informative transition, the one that maximally reduces uncertainty in the sense of ruling out the largest number of state descriptions relevant to their inquiry. Finally, inspired by optimal foraging theory, I show that, under certain assumptions of ignorance, reasoners should change premiss sets when their information intake drops below the global average information intake across premiss sets. (shrink)

Are workers dominated? A recent suite of neo-republican and relational egalitarian philosophers think they are. Suppose they are right; that is, suppose that some workers are governed by an unjust and arbitrary power existing in labour relations, which persists even in the presence of the actual ability to exit. My question is this: does that give us reason to impose restrictions on firms? According to the so-called Efficiency Objection there are relevant trade-offs that need to be considered between the efficiency (...) of firms and the freedom of workers, and upon considering these trade-offs, we should reject workplace democracy. In this paper, I present a dilemma for the Efficiency Objection. I argue that either the Efficiency Objection is justified on moral grounds or non-moral grounds; if the Efficiency Objection is justified on moral grounds, then it fails because efficiency cannot be valued for its own sake (it is only instrumentally good); if the Efficiency Objection is justified on non-moral grounds, then it fails because of the respect that we owe to persons as persons; therefore, the Efficiency Objection fails. (shrink)

We propose a qualitatively new kind of governance for the emerging need to efficiently guide the densely interconnected, ever more complex world development, which is based on explicit and openly presented problem solutions and their interactive implementation practice within the versatile, but unified professional analysis of complex real-world dynamics, involving both the powerful central units and the attached creative worldwide network of professional representatives. We provide fundamental and rigorous scientific arguments in favour of introduction of just that kind of governance (...) at the modern development stage, after the complexity threshold in the real world dynamics evolution (sometimes intuitively designated as "globalisation"), where the traditional spontaneous-empirical kind of development and related administrative governance lose dramatically and inevitably their efficiency and the necessity of explicit consistent understanding and guidance of complex real-world dynamics becomes evident. (shrink)

The icon is the type of sign connected to efficient representational features, and its manipulation reveals more information about its object. The London Underground Diagram (LUD) is an iconic artifact and a well-known example of representational efficiency, having been copied by urban transportation systems worldwide. This paper investigates the efficiency of the LUD in the light of different conceptions of iconicity. We stress that a specialized representation is an icon of the formal structure of the problem for which it (...) has been specialized. By embedding such rules of action and behavior, the icon acts as a semiotic artifact distributing cognitive effort and participating in niche construction. (shrink)

I will show that there are mainly two different, mutually contradictory approaches taken by philosophers in trying to answer the question: “Who or what is to blame for the Holocaust?” The first answer, offered by radical critics of Enlightenment (Adorno/Horkheimer, Saul, Heidegger), blames one of the following: Reason, Modernity, the State, Industrial Society, Bureaucratic Management and/or Technocratic Efficiency. On the other side, we have the answer given by liberal-democratic defenders of Enlightenment (Arendt, Habermas, Rawls): It claims the Holocaust was caused (...) the upsurge of anti-rational, irrational or pre-rational forces and a deep rejection of the humanistic principles and ethical values that underpin modernity. In this study, I want to analyze these two perspectives, comparing and contrasting their respective merits. (shrink)

Many philosophers contend that we often possess “privileged” and “peculiar” self-knowledge of our mental states. Self-knowledge is privileged insofar as it is systematically more secure than the knowledge that others have of one’s mental states, and it is peculiar insofar as it is systematically obtained in a way that is only suited for delivering self-knowledge. Focusing on privileged and peculiar self-knowledge of propositional attitudes like beliefs, I offer an account of its instrumental value. On my account, privileged and peculiar self-knowledge (...) of one’s propositional attitudes enables one to be a more efficient and reliable interpersonal reasoner. (shrink)

This paper discusses Kevin Kelly’s recent attempt to justify Ockham’s Razor in terms of truth-finding efficiency. It is argued that Kelly’s justification fails to warrant confidence in the empirical content of theories recommended by Ockham’s Razor. This is a significant problem if, as Kelly and many others believe, considerations of simplicity play a pervasive role in scientific reasoning, underlying even our best tested theories, for the proposal will fail to warrant the use of these theories in practical prediction.

Commonsense reasoning is one of the main open problems in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) while, on the other hand, seems to be a very intuitive and default reasoning mode in humans and other animals. In this talk, we discuss the different paradigms that have been developed in AI and Computational Cognitive Science to deal with this problem (ranging from logic-based methods, to diagrammatic-based ones). In particular, we discuss - via two different case studies concerning commonsense categorization (...) and knowledge invention tasks - how cognitively inspired heuristics can help (both in terms of efficiency and efficacy) in the realization of intelligent artificial systems able to reason in a human-like fashion, with results comparable to human-level performances. (shrink)

The rapid advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs) has exposed fundamental limitations in current artificial intelligence architectures, including persistent hallucinations, high energy consumption, and the opacity of the "black box" problem. This paper argues that these challenges are not merely technical shortcomings but symptoms of a deeper epistemological error: the reduction of mind to a single processing level. Drawing on Synthetic Epistemology and the Hierarchical Composite Mind Model (HCIM)—which posits four distinct functional levels (Abstract Mind AM, Composite Mind CM, Conscious (...) Agent CA, and Supreme Mind SM)—we present a comprehensive analytical framework for evaluating contemporary AI systems. We conduct a systematic comparative analysis of leading models including GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek against eight synthetic criteria derived from the HCIM model. Our analysis reveals that all current models operate exclusively at the AM/CM levels, lacking the higher-order integration (CA/SM) necessary for genuine understanding, intentionality, and meaning production. Furthermore, we examine the structural properties of Chinese and Arabic as foundational languages for next-generation AI architectures, demonstrating that their morphological depth and systemic logic provide inherent advantages for reducing hallucination rates and improving computational efficiency. We project that the future of AI will be shaped by synthetic-language models that leverage these structural properties, offering a pathway toward more transparent, trustworthy, and epistemologically sound artificial intelligence. CCS CONCEPTS • Computing methodologies → Natural language processing; Artificial intelligence; Machine learning. • Theory of computation → Models of computation; Semantics and reasoning. (shrink)

The rise of business intelligence (BI) systems powered by artificial intelligence has amplified concerns over ethical accountability in data-driven decision-making. While neural networks excel at pattern discovery, they lack the capacity to reason about moral rules or human values. Conversely, symbolic logic systems can represent and enforce ethical constraints but struggle with contextual learning. This article explores neurosymbolic AI, a paradigm that fuses neural learning with symbolic reasoning, as a promising pathway toward embedding ethical reasoning within BI tools. (...) Through conceptual synthesis and secondary data analysis, it argues that neurosymbolic architectures offer the structural flexibility to encode ethical principles such as fairness, transparency, and accountability directly into BI workflows. The study develops an integrative framework termed Value-Sensitive Neurosymbolic Business Intelligence (VS-NBI), combining deontic logic, value-based argumentation, and neural contextualization to support ethical decision-making in complex organizational environments. Drawing from philosophical ethics, AI governance literature, and enterprise analytics case studies, the framework demonstrates how ethical constraints can function as symbolic guardrails within neural BI systems, enabling them to reason about duties, consequences, and stakeholder values rather than merely optimize performance metrics. By mapping ethical rules across the BI pipeline, from data ingestion to decision deployment, the article illustrates how neurosymbolic systems can enhance auditability, mitigate bias, and sustain moral consistency under changing business conditions. It concludes that integrating human values into machine reasoning represents a shift from intelligence to wisdom in data systems: a transition essential for trustworthy, socially aligned enterprise analytics. The proposed VS-NBI model thus provides both a theoretical and practical foundation for constructing ethically aware BI ecosystems capable of balancing commercial efficiency with moral responsibility. (shrink)

Experimental balance is usually understood as the control for the value of the conditions, other than the one under study, which are liable to affect the result of a test. We will discuss three different approaches to balance. ‘Millean balance’ requires to identify and equalize ex ante the value of these conditions in order to conduct solid causal inferences. ‘Fisherian balance’ measures ex post the influence of uncontrolled conditions through the analysis of variance. In ‘efficiency balance’ the value of the (...) antecedent conditions is decided ex ante according to the efficiency they yield in the estimation of the treatment outcome. Against some old arguments by John Worrall, we will show that in both Fisherian and efficiency balance there are good reasons to randomize the allocation of treatments, in particular when there is no agreement among experimenters as to the antecedent conditions to be controlled for. (shrink)

This study argues that while modern civilization has achieved an unprecedented level of control over physical reality, its public sphere has increasingly deteriorated into a hyper-conflictual space—an exclusive Arena of Passions. The paper traces the epistemological origin of this asymmetry to the linguistic turn in modern philosophy, which privileged discursive interpretation over causal engagement with reality, thereby weakening the conditions for shared rationality. -/- Building on Spinoza’s ontological naturalism, this study distinguishes between the ontological finitude that necessitates the formation of (...) solidarity bodies and the pathological transformation that occurs when such formations become moralized. It argues that while collective solidarity emerges as a natural response to epistemic limitation, problems arise when this condition is distorted into a Will to Solidarity—defined as the collective impulse to universalize a group’s local moral code and project it onto others. When this impulse acquires academic, technological, and institutional leverage, it becomes structurally consolidated into what the paper terms Structured Solidarity (Layer 2). The Moralized Critical Framework (MCF) is analyzed not as a contingent ideology, but as a symptomatic manifestation of this general mechanism through which affective drives are stabilized into unfalsifiable epistemic monopolies. -/- Rather than approaching moral conflict as a normative problem, the paper proposes an ontological reconfiguration that reduces moral “ought” to causal relations. Employing Spinoza’s geometrical method and a hard incompatibilist account of agency, it derives a set of ontological premises and operational variables—Negentropy Efficiency (η), Information Complexity (I), Causal Work (W), and the Coefficient of Adequacy (A)—to formalize collective conatus within social systems. -/- On this basis, the study introduces The Mirror of Reason as a conceptual architecture for understanding rational coordination beyond moralization. By modeling alignment as a problem of causal adequacy rather than moral learning, the paper outlines a framework through which epistemic deadlock may be transformed into a condition of rational coexistence and evolutionary solidarity. (shrink)

The consensus is that in his 1755 Nova Dilucidatio, Kant endorsed broadly Leibnizian compatibilism, then switched to a strongly incompatibilist position in the early 1760s. I argue for an alternative, incompatibilist reading of the Nova Dilucidatio. On this reading, actions are partly grounded in indeterministic acts of volition, and partly in prior conative or cognitive motivations. Actions resulting from volitions are determined by volitions, but volitions themselves are not fully determined. This move, which was standard in medieval treatments of free (...) choice, explains why Kant is so critical of Crusius’s version of libertarian freedom: Kant understands Crusius as making actions entirely random. In defense of this reading, I offer a new analysis of the version of the principle of sufficient reason that appears in the Nova Dilucidatio. This principle can be read as merely guaranteeing grounds for the existence of things or substances, rather than efficient causes for states and events. As such, the principle need not exclude libertarian freedom. Along the way, I seek to illuminate obscure aspects of Kant’s 1755 views on moral psychology, action theory, and the threat of theological determinism. (shrink)

There is longstanding interpretive dispute between commentators over Spinoza’s commitment to necessitarianism, the doctrine that all things are metaphysically necessary and none are contingent. Those who affirm Spinoza’s commitment to the doctrine adhere to the necessitarian interpretation whereas those who deny it adhere to what I call the semi-necessitarian interpretation. As things stand, the disagreement between commentators appears to have reached an impasse. Notwithstanding, there seems to be no disagreement among commentators on the question of necessitarianism’s philosophical plausibility as a (...) metaphysical view: the doctrine is wildly untenable. This consensus view is more relevant to the interpretive debate than few have recognized, since leading semi-necessitarian commentators take the doctrine’s alleged absurdity to be one of the most compelling reasons (if not the most compelling reason) to prefer their reading over the necessitarian interpretation: for, as a matter of methodological principle, great philosophers like Spinoza should not be ascribed ridiculous views in the absence of better evidence. -/- This dissertation seeks to defend Spinoza’s commitment to necessitarianism on both the interpretive and philosophical fronts. I argue not only that the necessitarian interpretation of Spinoza is more plausible than the semi-necessitarian interpretation on textual grounds, but that Spinoza’s necessitarianism is a serviceable philosophical view whose tenability has been almost entirely overlooked and perfunctorily rejected. The principal basis upon which I build this defense is Spinoza’s rich and fascinating view of essences—what I simply refer to as his essentialism. Spinoza’s essentialism forms the bedrock of his metaphysics and is significant not least because it underlies and informs doctrines like his necessitarianism. Spinoza’s essentialism supplies resources to answer not just interpretive problems associated with necessitarianism, but philosophical challenges to the plausibility of the doctrine. My defense of Spinoza’s necessitarianism on philosophical grounds also offers a novel way of getting past much of the current interpretive impasse among commentators by effectively undercutting the methodological motivation for the semi-necessitarian reading. In addition to my defense on the interpretive front, then, my defense on the philosophical front provides supplementary reason to a fortiori favor the necessitarian reading of Spinoza. (shrink)

All reasoners described in the most widespread models of a rational reasoner exhibit logical omniscience, which is impossible for finite reasoners (real reasoners). The most common strategy for dealing with the problem of logical omniscience is to interpret the models using a notion of beliefs different from explicit beliefs. For example, the models could be interpreted as describing the beliefs that the reasoner would hold if the reasoner were able reason indefinitely (stable beliefs). Then the models would describe maximum rationality, (...) which a finite reasoner can only approach in the limit of a reasoning sequence. This strategy has important consequences for epistemology. If a finite reasoner can only approach maximum rationality in the limit of a reasoning sequence, then the efficiency of reasoning is epistemically (and not only pragmatically) relevant. In this paper, I present an argument to this conclusion and discuss its consequences, as, for example, the vindication of the principle 'no rationality through brute-force'. (shrink)

Strategic Reliabilism is a framework that yields relative epistemic evaluations of belief-producing cognitive processes. It is a theory of cognitive excellence, or more colloquially, a theory of reasoning excellence (where 'reasoning' is understood very broadly as any sort of cognitive process for coming to judgments or beliefs). First introduced in our book, Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment (henceforth EPHJ), the basic idea behind SR is that epistemically excellent reasoning is efficient reasoning that leads (...) in a robustly reliable fashion to significant, true beliefs. It differs from most contemporary epistemological theories in two ways. First, it is not a theory of justification or knowledge – a theory of epistemically worthy belief. Strategic Reliabilism is a theory of epistemically worthy ways of forming beliefs. And second, Strategic Reliabilism does not attempt to account for an epistemological property that is assumed to be faithfully reflected in the epistemic judgments and intuitions of philosophers. If SR makes recommendations that accord with our reflective epistemic judgments and intuitions, great. If not, then so much the worse for our reflective epistemic judgments and intuitions. (shrink)

For this part, I highly recommend some reasoning based on the logical rules of addition and multiplication. A knowledge system should be a towering tree, not countless saplings; all reasoning within the system shares fundamental reasoning. The micro laws of addition and multiplication of variable logic form the universal grammar of reasoning, while the search for the logical extreme value defines its evolutionary direction. Simplicity is no longer an dispensable aesthetic — it is the necessary byproduct (...) of the algebra of logic itself. Compared with parallel reasoning and logical addition, serial reasoning and logical multiplication are efficient reasoning, and infinite serial reasoning is even more efficient. The latter creates self-propagating coherence — a structure that continues to replicate its own logic. (shrink)

There are two opposing views concerning intuitive cases of wage exploitation. The first denies that they are cases of exploitation at all. It is based on the nonworseness claim: there is nothing wrong with a discretionary mutually beneficial employment relationship. The second is the reasonable view: some employment relationships can be exploitative even if employers have no duty towards their employees. This article argues that the reasonable view does not completely defeat defences of wage exploitation, because these do not rely (...) solely on the nonworseness claim. They also rely on the idea, popularised by Alan Wertheimer, that exploitation is a form of disequilibrium price occurring in defective markets. The article then proceeds to criticise Wertheimer’s account through neoclassical, new institutional, and Austrian economics. It concludes that considerations for economic efficiency are irrelevant to assessing intuitions regarding exploitation. (shrink)

WINNER BEST SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY BOOK IN 2021 / NASSP BOOK AWARD 2022 -/- Together we can often achieve things that are impossible to do on our own. We can prevent something bad from happening or we can produce something good, even if none of us could do it by herself. But when are we morally required to do something of moral importance together with others? This book develops an original theory of collective moral obligations. These are obligations that individual moral (...) agents hold jointly, but not as unified collective agents. To think of some of our obligations as joint or collective is the best way of making sense of our intuitions regarding collective moral action problems. Where we have reason to believe that our efforts are most efficient as part of a collective endeavor we may incur collective obligations together with others who are similarly placed as long as we are able to establish compossible individual contributory strategies towards that goal. The book concludes with a discussion of “massively shared obligations” to large-scale moral problems such as global poverty. (shrink)

Thomas Reid thinks of natural philosophy as a purely nomothetic enterprise but he maintains that it is proper for natural philosophers to employ causal terminology in formulating their explanatory claims. In this paper, I analyze this puzzle in light of Reid's distinction between efficient and physical causation – a distinction he grounds in his strict understanding of active powers. I consider several possible reasons that Reid may have for maintaining that natural philosophers ought to employ causal terminology and suggest (...) that the underlying rationale for his views is his understanding of the aims of explanation and their connection to the interests of human agents. The ultimate aim of knowing the causes of phenomena is to mollify the natural intellectual curiosity of human inquirers and provide guidance that insures successful action. The discovery of laws governing phenomena fulfills this aim and, as such, it is appropriate for natural philosophers to employ causal terminology. (shrink)

Most workers today labor under the authority of an employer. In this chapter, I examine three philosophical views on the reasons that may justify this hierarchy of authority and the conditions that may instantiate or serve those reasons. On the first view, workplace hierarchy is justified insofar as it promotes efficient production—whether because efficiency yields a higher economic output that serves independent aims, including a fiduciary duty to create wealth, or because it transforms subjection to the natural person occupying (...) the office of boss into subjection to the office itself, making the resulting hierarchy unobjectionable. The second view focuses on whether workers, in exercising their freedom of occupation, voluntarily consent to working within a firm’s hierarchy. On the third view, workplace hierarchy is tolerable only if it is constrained to uphold the relational equality of employers and employees, whose authority relation some variants compare to the authority relation of state to subject, and to prevent workers from being dominated by their employers. (shrink)

In this study, the multipurpose objective of development in the Anambra River basin was examined. The study's goals are to determine the net benefits of the various objectives under each purpose currently carried out by the Anambra River Basin, to identify the best way to achieve the goals, and to show, through logical and mathematical reasoning, how money could be allocated to the various goals of a dam project in Anambra State effectively. Economic Efficiency (EE), Regional Economic Redistribution (RER), (...) Social Well-Being (SW), Youth Empowerment (YE), and Environmental Quality Improvement are the objectives taken into account in the study (EQI). The optimization problem in the multipurpose-objective development of the Anambra State river basin was solved utilizing the multi-start optimization method. The study showed that the basin would achieve enormous financial benefits if it used its N15.0 billion strategic development budget over four years for various purposes as illustrated. The results showed that the following allocation of the five purposes should be optimized simultaneously for an N15.0 billion four-year strategic development fund: EE should receive N0.762 billion, RER should receive N0.594 billion, SW should receive N0.649 billion, YE should receive N0.683 billion, and environmental quality improvement should receive N4.768 billion. It was found that Environmental Quality Improvement was allocated the higher amount while Regional Economic Redistribution was allocated the least amount for the development. The study's findings recommended that the management of the basin stop the practice of allocating funds to various uses at their discretion, which has led to significant oversight and the improper distribution of scarce resources. As a result, every fund distribution must be justified using logic and mathematics. To increase the accuracy of the data, the Anambra State River Basin Development Authorities must intensify record-keeping activities. (shrink)

Thermal insulation is an important component in nowadays construction. Considering that before 90s Albania had been undeveloped enough, there was no needed information for thermal insulation’s importance, as well as missing materials and economic hardships to provide them. Consequently, many objects built during this time are not thermal insulated. Nowadays, its application is being more and more significant and convenient due to its benefits. In our country, a lot of attention has been paid to the application of thermal insulation, since (...) 1990s. The main reason is the energy efficiency. Energy consumption is directly affected by its preservation. Moreover, it is crucial to mention the comfort that is offered. To give solutions to these housing challenges, is important to find the appropriate materials. During the latest years, more and more materials are highly standardized in contemporary expectations. One of these materials that is widely used in thermal insulation is expanded polystyrene. The benefits that the material has in terms of insulation, durability, moister resistance, and energy efficiency are important. In construction, insulation continues to function under a variety of temperature, humidity, and other conditions. The impact of expanded polystyrene in thermal insulation of buildings is the main subject of the study. This study should take in consideration the thermal insulation (EPS) applied in a building in the city of Tirana and another building where there is no application of thermal insulation. A comparative analyse between them should be applied by using a specific instrument, which calculate the U-value taking in consideration all layers of the wall and three components of temperature: indoor temperature, wall temperature and outer temperature. (shrink)

Although it is reasonable and valuable to seek explanations for decisions made by artificial intelligence (AI), it is simply not possible with black-box AI algorithms. However, these algorithms can produce highly beneficial and efficient outputs that could be extremely useful to patients, treating teams, hospitals, and funding bodies. This poses a dilemma: is black-box AI justifiable to use in healthcare? This article analyses the normative reasons that can defend and justify the use of black-box AI in healthcare; this analysis (...) includes, but does not give lexical priority to, explainability. This is pertinent given the current prohibitions of black-box AI in healthcare, such as in Australia. This article defines justifiability as decisions based on robust reasons and thus identifies reasons that can justify the use of black-box AI in healthcare. These include the algorithms’ explainability and accuracy, the seriousness of the decision's consequences, any relevant bias, the context of the decision, and the level of human intervention. We argue that whilst each of these separate considerations is important, only accuracy and reliability are necessary, and to be sufficient, it is likely that some further reasons arising from the nature and context of the decision will be required. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relationship between the material and the suppositional analysis of indicative conditionals. I show that an axiomatic characterization of the suppositional analysis in terms of \textit{acceptance conditions} is represented by a particular trivalent semantics, whereas a slight tweak of the clause for negation yields the material conditional analysis (MCA). These two systems make the same predictions for conditional reasoning in a large fragment of the language, and so we can explain scope and limits of MCA systematically. (...) I propose to consider MCA as an efficient, but only contextually valid heuristic for conditional reasoning. (shrink)

The efficiency or the development of a bank can be plumbed by different measures like deposits, advances, working assets, incomes, expenditures, profits, no of assets, number of accounts and branches etc. The role of employees is also of great signification as each and every expression of a bank is directly affiliated to the attitude, motivation and work civilisation of the employees. so the parameters which are used to count the efficiency, should also incorporate the performance of their employees. In the (...) current study the employee performance reasoning of selected co.opt bank has been performed on the basis of 2 ratios. a. working funds employee b. operating profit employee ratio. In this research article researcher study the employee work productivity of BCC and AJMB bank. Dr. Nitin J. Dhamsaniya | Dr. Achyut C. Patel "A Comparative Study On Employee Productivity Of Amreli Jilla Madhyasth Sahkari Bank And The Baroda Central Cooperative Bank" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-1 | Issue-1, December 2016. (shrink)

The paper aims to give an account of practical knowledge by outlining a hylomorphic and conceptualist account of intentional action in analogy to McDowell's conceptualist account of experience. On this view, practical concepts provide the ideal or formal structure that unifies a manifold of bodily movements into a single intentional action, and hence intentional actions are structured conceptually. -/- - §1 sets out the basic features of this view in contrast to a common dualistic or two-component view of practical knowledge, (...) as an "inner" mental state with propositional content that functions as the efficient cause of some bodily movement in the "external" world, and introduces the claim that practical knowledge is the constitutive form of intentional action. - §2 illustrates the hylomorphic unity of concept and movement in action, and thus (contra Dreyfus) the corporeality of practical reason, by means of an account of practical concept formation, on which both the formation and tradition of practical concepts take place in bodily movement iself. - §3 elucidates the concept of a self-conscious disposition or rational capacity for action, actualizations of which are characterized by a syllogistic structure that accounts for both the explanation and the justification of action and thereby renders intelligible in what sense practical judgment is internal to acting itself. - Skillful exercises of such capacities express a knowledge-how that manifests itself in practical representations. §4 characterizes representations of this kind as a perceptually situated recognition of a practical pattern that amounts to the imaginative anticipation of a movement form by which the agent determines their next steps; a practical perception of the agent's particular situation that is both normative and motivational for them. - §5 starts by developing an identity theory of practical truth, on which the conceptual content of a (true) practical judgment is numerically identical with the formal structure of a (good) action, and concludes with explaining the unity of four features commonly attributed to practical knowledge, viz. that it is at the same time descriptive, normative, causally productive, and non-observational (or self-conscious). (shrink)

This paper introduces a unified verification framework for AI-assisted philosophical research. It combines a structural core (Layer 1: Coherence), emergent interpretive depth (Layer 2: Philosophical Scope), and context-aware reasoning (Layer 3: Social Implications) with a cross-model validation protocol using multiple large language models. The framework ensures that philosophical arguments remain structurally sound, resilient to reinterpretation, and consistent across independent AI systems. It enables rapid refinement of theories while exposing structural weaknesses at an early stage, making philosophical inquiry more (...) class='Hi'>efficient and empirically testable in multi-AI environments. (shrink)

The algebra of 3×3 complex matrices, M3(C), appears with remarkable consistency in mathematics and physics, manifesting in spatial dimensions (d = 3), particle generations (three families), SU(3) color charge, and minimal triangulation for unique state identification. Cognitional Mechanics (CM), specifically the CM-MUT framework, posits M3(C) as a fundamental operational kernel for formal reasoning systems. -/- This work establishes that M3(C) is the unique minimal algebra satisfying the axioms of CM. The proof proceeds via systematic dimensional exclusion: -/- One-dimensional systems (...) (M1(C)) violate the non-commutativity axiom. -/- Two-dimensional systems (M2(C)) cannot support proper triangulation in a metric space, limiting distinguishable operational histories. -/- Higher-dimensional systems (n ≥ 4) exhibit spectral instability, reducing capacity efficiency for fixed operational bounds. -/- By combining these results with the requirement of Hermitian decomposition for phase representation, M3(C) emerges as the smallest algebra capable of fulfilling all axiomatic constraints. -/- We introduce a capacity framework for M3(C), providing structural interpretations of complex mathematical problems—such as the ABC Conjecture, the Riemann Hypothesis, and the Navier-Stokes regularity problem—emphasizing that these are presented as structural analogies rather than formal proofs. -/- Additionally, the fine-structure constant α is examined within this framework. Using the geometric threshold (δ = √3/2) and spectral midpoint (γ = 1/2), we derive α = (δ − 1)·δγ / (2 n π) for n = 3, obtaining α⁻¹ ≈ 137.03. The factor of 2 in the denominator is shown to arise conditionally from the internal geometry of M3(C) and associated binary structures, including Hermitian conjugate pairs, circulation orientation, phase-pair combinatorics, and Berry phase loop symmetry. The resulting sub-percent agreement with the experimental value (137.036) indicates structural correspondence rather than numerical coincidence. -/- This introduction frames M3(C) as an operationally necessary kernel and situates the algebra within a rigorous, axiomatic framework, highlighting its role as a minimal and maximally efficient structure for formal reasoning systems under Cognitional Mechanics. (shrink)

Why did God create a vast universe? Various answers are discussed and rejected: a) for its beauty; b) to instill a sense of the sublime in his intelligent creatures; c) to demonstrate his glory, d) to provide a home for extraterrestrial species; e) to guarantee that the natural emergence of (intelligent) life, though extremely rare, happens nonetheless somewhere; f) for no reason at all, because the human notion of efficiency does not apply to God’s actions. Instead, the paper suggests that (...) the universe is intended for Space settlements. Several objections to this proposal are considered and deemed unconvincing. (shrink)

In his second book, The Psychology of Aristotle, Franz Brentano added an appendix on the causality of God according to Aristotle. In previous pages of this work, he had argued that the active intellect is part of the human soul, which is a spiritual substance. Since something spiritual cannot be originated in a physical way, each soul is created directly by God. Brentano knew that many interpreters of his time, especially Eduard Zeller, not only did not accept that Aristotle thought (...) of God as creator, but they also understood the first unmoved mover only as a final cause. This article disregards the question of creation, but it does take into consideration the reasons given by Brentano in that appendix for understanding the first unmoved mover not only as a final cause, but also as an efficient one. It also briefly reviews some manuscripts from the same period that deal with this same topic. Although Brentano is heavily influenced by a Christian and particularly Thomistic philosophical framework, this does not prevent him from providing compelling reasons for defending the plausibility of attributing efficient causality to the first unmoved mover. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I construct scientifically and practically adequate moral analogs of cognitive heuristics and biases. Cognitive heuristics are reasoning “shortcuts” that are efficient but flawed. Such flaws yield systematic judgment errors—i.e., cognitive biases. For example, the availability heuristic infers an event’s probability by seeing how easy it is to recall similar events. Since dramatic events, such as airplane crashes, are disproportionately easy to recall, this heuristic explains systematic overestimations of their probability (availability bias). The research program on (...) cognitive heuristics and biases (e.g., Daniel Kahneman’s work) has been scientifically successful and has yielded useful error-prevention techniques—i.e., cognitive debiasing. I attempt to apply this framework to moral reasoning to yield moral heuristics and biases. For instance, a moral bias of unjustified differences in the treatment of particular animal species might be partially explained by a moral heuristic that dubiously infers animals’ moral status from their aesthetic features. While the basis for identifying judgments as cognitive errors is often unassailable (e.g., per violating laws of logic), identifying moral errors seemingly requires appealing to moral truth, which, I argue, is problematic within science. Such appeals can be avoided by repackaging moral theories as mere “standards-of-interest” (a la non-normative metrics of purportedly right-making features/properties). However, standards-of-interest do not provide authority, which is needed for effective debiasing. Nevertheless, since each person deems their own subjective morality authoritative, subjective morality (qua standard-of-interest and not moral subjectivism) satisfies both scientific and practical concerns. As such, (idealized) subjective morality grounds a moral analog of cognitive biases—namely, subjective moral biases (e.g., committed anti-racists unconsciously discriminating). I also argue that "cognitive heuristic" is defined by its contrast with rationality. Consequently, heuristics explain biases, which are also so defined. However, such contrasting with rationality is causally irrelevant to cognition. This frustrates the presumed usefulness of the kind, heuristic, in causal explanation. As such, in the moral case, I jettison the role of causal explanation and tailor categories solely for contrastive explanation. As such, “moral heuristic” is replaced with "subjective moral fallacy," which is defined by its contrast with subjective morality and explains subjective moral biases. The resultant subjective moral biases and fallacies framework can undergird future empirical research. (shrink)

Resolution Matrix Semantics (RMS) introduces the alternative truth-value-based framework for modal logic, providing a substantive alternative to Kripke’s relational semantics of possible worlds. Drawing inspiration from Y. Ivlev’s substantive semantics, RMS utilizes a 4-valued structure—necessary truth (tn), contingent truth (tc), contingent false (fc), and necessary false (fn)—augmented by indeterminate values (t, f, t/f) to define modal systems Km, KDm, KTm, S4m, and S5m, analogous to Kripke’s K, KD, T, S4, and S5. By directly assigning determined and indeterminate truth values via (...) an interpretation function, RMS validates formulas without relying on accessibility relations, as demonstrated through soundness and completeness proofs and a tailored tableau method. The framework’s versatility extends to applications in deontic logic, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, enabling context-dependent reasoning with computational efficiency. RMS thus bridges philosophical logic and practical domains, offering a truth-centric perspective on modal reasoning’s complexities. (shrink)

Common ground is the information that the participants in a conver- sation treat as background information for the purposes of their in- teraction. We review two traditions of research on common ground: The formal tradition, consisting mainly of theoretical linguists and philosophers of language, has developed increasingly sophisticated for- mal models of common ground in order to generate predictions about an expanding range of empirical phenomena. Meanwhile, the psycholin- guistic tradition has focused on a narrower range of phenomena while developing (...) more realistic theories of the psychological mechanisms that allow us to select and represent common ground. After summarizing these two traditions, we consider several reasons why they should be re-integrated, and argue that the best way to bring them back together would be to adopt a cognitive-pluralist approach, whereby language users have access to a variety of mechanisms for managing background information, which are more or less available and efficient depending on the communicative situation and the kind of information mentally represented, as well as the cognitive demands of each mechanism. (shrink)

Learning programming is thought to be troublesome. One doable reason why students don’t do well in programming is expounded to the very fact that traditional way of learning within the lecture hall adds more stress on students in understanding the Material rather than applying the Material to a true application. For a few students, this teaching model might not catch their interest. As a result, they'll not offer their best effort to grasp the Material given. Seeing however the information is (...) applied to real issues will increase student interest in learning. As a consequence, this may increase their effort to be taught. In the current paper, we try to help students learn C# programming language using Intelligent Tutoring System. This ITS was developed using ITSB authoring tool to be able to help the student learn programming efficiently and make the learning procedure very pleasing. A knowledge base using ITSB authoring tool style was used to represent the student's work and to give customized feedback and support to students. (shrink)

Suppose we are about to enter an era of increasing technological unemployment. What implications does this have for society? Two distinct ethical/social issues would seem to arise. The first is one of distributive justice: how will the efficiency gains from automated labour be distributed through society? The second is one of personal fulfillment and meaning: if people no longer have to work, what will they do with their lives? In this article, I set aside the first issue and focus on (...) the second. In doing so, I make three arguments. First, I argue that there are good reasons to embrace non-work and that these reasons become more compelling in an era of technological unemployment. Second, I argue that the technological advances that make widespread technological unemployment possible could still threaten or undermine human flourishing and meaning, especially if they do not remain confined to the economic sphere. And third, I argue that this threat could be contained if we adopt an integrative approach to our relationship with technology. In advancing these arguments, I draw on three distinct literatures: the literature on technological unemployment and workplace automation; the antiwork critique—which I argue gives reasons to embrace technological unemployment; and the philosophical debate about the conditions for meaning in life—which I argue gives reasons for concern. (shrink)

For diverse reasons, the problem of phenomenal consciousness is persistently challenging. Mental terms are characteristically ambiguous, researchers have philosophical biases, secondary qualities are excluded from objective description, and philosophers love to argue. Adhering to a regime of efficient causes and third-person descriptions, science as it has been defined has no place for subjectivity or teleology. A solution to the “hard problem” of consciousness will require a radical approach: to take the point of view of the cognitive system itself. To (...) facilitate this approach, a concept of agency is introduced along with a different understanding of intentionality. Following this approach reveals that the autopoietic cognitive system constructs phenomenality through acts of fiat, which underlie perceptual completion effects and “filling in”—and, by implication, phenomenology in general. It creates phenomenality much as we create meaning in language, through the use of symbols that it assigns meaning in the context of an embodied evolutionary history that is the source of valuation upon which meaning depends. Phenomenality is a virtual representation to itself by an executive agent (the conscious self) tasked with monitoring the state of the organism and its environment, planning future action, and coordinating various sub- agencies. Consciousness is not epiphenomenal, but serves a function for higher organisms that is distinct from that of unconscious processing. While a strictly scientific solution to the hard problem is not possible for a science that excludes the subjectivity it seeks to explain, there is hope to at least psychologically bridge the explanatory gulf between mind and matter, and perhaps hope for a broader definition of science. (shrink)

For diverse reasons, the problem of phenomenal consciousness is persistently challenging. Mental terms are characteristically ambiguous, researchers have philosophical biases, secondary qualities are excluded from objective description, and philosophers love to argue. Adhering to a regime of efficient causes and third-person descriptions, science as it has been defined has no place for subjectivity or teleology. A solution to the “hard problem” of consciousness will require a radical approach: to take the point of view of the cognitive system itself. To (...) facilitate this approach, a concept of agency is introduced along with a different understanding of intentionality. Following this approach reveals that the autopoietic cognitive system constructs phenomenality through acts of fiat, which underlie perceptual completion effects and “filling in”—and, by implication, phenomenology in general. It creates phenomenality much as we create meaning in language, through the use of symbols that it assigns meaning in the context of an embodied evolutionary history that is the source of valuation upon which meaning depends. Phenomenality is a virtual representation to itself by an executive agent (the conscious self) tasked with monitoring the state of the organism and its environment, planning future action, and coordinating various sub- agencies. Consciousness is not epiphenomenal, but serves a function for higher organisms that is distinct from that of unconscious processing. While a strictly scientific solution to the hard problem is not possible for a science that excludes the subjectivity it seeks to explain, there is hope to at least psychologically bridge the explanatory gulf between mind and matter, and perhaps hope for a broader definition of science. (shrink)

Moral duties concerning climate change mitigation are – for good reasons – conventionally construed as duties of institutional agents, usually states. Yet, in both scholarly debate and political discourse, it has occasionally been argued that the moral duties lie not only with states and institutional agents, but also with individual citizens. This argument has been made with regard to mitigation efforts, especially those reducing greenhouse gases. This paper focuses on the question of whether individuals in industrialized countries have duties to (...) reduce their individual carbon footprint. To this end it will examine three kinds of arguments that have been brought forward against individuals having such duties: the view that individual emissions cause no harm; the view that individual mitigation efforts would have no morally significant effect; and the view that lifestyle changes would be overly-demanding. The paper shows how all three arguments fail to convince. While collective endeavours may be most efficient and effective in bringing about significant changes, there are still good reasons to contribute individually to reducing emission. After all, for most people the choice is between reducing one’s individual emissions and not doing anything. The author hopes this paper shows that one should not opt for the latter. (shrink)

Philosophers of experiment have acknowledged that experiments are often more than mere hypothesis-tests, once thought to be an experiment's exclusive calling. Drawing on examples from contemporary biology, I make an additional amendment to our understanding of experiment by examining the way that `wide' instrumentation can, for reasons of efficiency, lead scientists away from traditional hypothesis-directed methods of experimentation and towards exploratory methods.

Shannon’s information theory successfully quantified entropy in communication systems but failed to incorporate coherence as a fundamental principle. Traditional models treat all transmitted data as equally meaningful, yet in reality, only structured, coherence-weighted information contributes to adaptive system evolution. In this paper, I introduce Coherence Information Theory (CIT) as a necessary extension of classical entropy models, defining information not as a raw probability function but as a coherence-weighted exchange that refines system adaptation. I formalize CIT mathematically by introducing a coherence-weighted (...) entropy function, which replaces naïve bit-counting with recursive coherence selection as the key driver of meaning transmission. I demonstrate how CIT applies to language, AI cognition, cryptography, and digital communication, showing that real-world information flow is structured by coherence gradients rather than stochastic distributions. The implications of this shift are profound: AI systems will require coherence tracking to achieve general intelligence, network communication will optimize bandwidth efficiency by eliminating redundant data, and encryption will shift from brute-force complexity to coherence-adaptive security. This paper establishes a unified theoretical framework for meaning formation, knowledge transfer, and adaptive intelligence, resolving critical flaws in existing models of information processing. Through experimental validation, I propose tests for linguistic coherence evolution, entropy-optimized streaming, and AI-driven coherence reasoning. Coherence Information Theory is not just a refinement of existing paradigms—it represents a fundamental shift in how we define and quantify information itself. (shrink)