Katedra filozofie a společenských věd

Přídavkem k pestrému programu LMS Centra bude přednáška profesora Ulfa Hlobila (Concordia University) na lákavé a aktuální téma: Why Machines Cannot Think. Těšíme se na vás i ve zkouškovém období💚👏!

Abstrakt⬇⬇⬇:
I argue that machines (focusing on LLMs) cannot think because they cannot participate in the practice of giving and asking for reasons. They cannot participate in this practice because they cannot genuinely violate (and hence not follow) any norms. Machines cannot violate norms because they cannot be responsible for what they do; and they cannot be responsible for what they do because the idea of holding them responsible does not apply to machines. For, holding someone (or something) responsible make sense only where the idea of well-being applies. The idea of well-being, however, does not apply to machines.

Dalším hostem LMS Centra bude profesor Markus Paulus z Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Poutavým tématem jeho přednášky bude The Communicative Species Hypothesis: Human Ontogeny and Evolution as the Emergence of Communicative Structures. Těšíme se na vás ve středu💚!

Abstrakt⬇⬇⬇:
This talk presents the communicative species hypothesis, a framework on human development. It proposes that ontogeny can be conceived of as the development of individual communicative abilities in social contexts that are already structured by historically grown communicative routines (i.e., communicative structures). The framework stresses the dynamic nature of human ontogeny considering reciprocal effects in the interplay between existing communicative routines and developing individual abilities. I will discuss paradigmatic cases of the development of communication, imitation, Theory-of-Mind and morality, highlighting the communicative nature of each of these human competencies. Most central, the framework implies that the evolutionary success of humans lies in the fact that humans are an extraordinarily communicative species. Overall, the communicative species hypothesis emphasizes how genuine human competences emerge in and through communicative routines.

Dnes ve 14:25 si můžete na vlnách Českého rozhlasu Hradec Králové (https://hradec.rozhlas.cz/) poslechnout rozhovor s naším doktorandem Jaroslavem Malíkem, který získal Cenu primátorky města za studentskou tvůrčí práci za uplynulý rok. Ocenění mu bylo uděleno za mimořádnou studijní aktivitu v oblasti společenskovědního výzkumu. Ještě jednou upřímně gratulujeme💚👏!

Ve své odborné činnosti se věnuje naléhavým a aktuálním tématům spojeným s pronikáním vědy a technologií do lidského života. Zaměřuje se především na filozofickou reflexi umělé inteligence, včetně jejích rizik, možností a dopadů na společnost. V této oblasti je autorem odborných studií publikovaných v mezinárodních vědeckých časopisech. Mezi jeho práce patří například studie Crossing the Trust Gap in Medical AI: Building an Abductive Bridge for xAI publikovaná v časopise Philosophy & Technology. Tento časopis přitom patří mezi nejvýznamnější filozofická periodika a řadí se do prvního kvartilu databáze Scopus.

Zveme vás na další přednášku LMS Centra! Tentokrát s naším hostem Tuomo Tiisalou z University of Vienna. Jeho tématem bude The Two Aspects of the Critique of Constitution💚. Těšíme se na vás😎!

Abstrakt⬇⬇⬇:
Many philosophers have argued that concepts can be evaluated and improved. How viable this is and what it involves, depends on details in a theory of concepts. From this perspective, a view that combines an inferentialist semantics with a normative pragmatics is appealing, because it can explain why concepts, in part, are unknown to concept-users, and how concept-users can increase and exercise their rational control over the concepts they use. This is an account of rules, both implicitly enacted and explicitly represented, in discourse as a social practice. It is an important feature of this account that concepts are not immediately available for evaluation and revision, but we have to bring them under rational control by making explicit rules of inference that are implicitly in play in a discursive practice. As I have argued, it is apt to view this work as a kind of critique whose goal is make the conceptual constitution of experience, roughly, how we make sense of things, available for evaluation and improvement. Only rarely, however, has it been asked what obstacles there might be, preventing or hindering this critical task. In this talk, I explore two aspects of this question. The first aspect concerns various ways in which one may seem to be stuck with a specific concept, being in some sense apparently forced to keep using it, when, in fact, the concept could be evaluated, revised and even rejected. The second aspect concerns the link between concepts and values. Given that concepts are formed for the purpose of attaining or promoting some value, epistemic or non-epistemic, it is essential to the assessment of a concept that we know what values it serves and what values it ought to serve. But how do we acquire knowledge about the links between concepts and values? I will argue that this knowledge must be acquired from the history of concepts, through a genealogy whose aim is not to vindicate nor to debunk, but to disclose the role of values in shaping the given conceptual repertoire.

Christophe Heintz z Central European University bude dalším hostem LMS Centra. Můžete si tak vyslechnout jeho přednášku s názvem When do people trust what they are told: studies on epistemic vigilance. Těšíme se na vás už ve středu💚!

Abstrakt⬇⬇⬇:
I will describe the mechanisms that humans have for updating their beliefs in view of what is communicated. I will argue that trusting what others have communicated is a process of belief updating that can be modelled as Bayesian. I will show that this process account for our ability to make the most of what is communicated, but also for behaviours that have been interpreted as signs of gullibility. I will then specify the challenges that our society face because assessment of trustworthiness needs to be made not just for other humans, but also for social institutions.

This LMS Centre talk is financially supported by the project OP JAK: Knowledge in the Age of Distrust, CZ.02.01.01/00/23_025/0008711.

Dalším hostem LMS Centra bude už ve středu profesor Thomas Grundmann z University of Cologne👏. Jako téma přednášky si zvolil Expert Authority and Thinking for Oneself a vy ji můžete sledovat i online na: https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/91813080382 . Těšíme se na vás💚!

Abstrakt⬇⬇⬇:
In the paper, I argue that two claims, both of which have a lot going for them, cannot easily be reconciled. On the one hand, experts possess the normative status of epistemic authorities for laypeople, i.e. the latter should simply defer to expert testimony and ignore their own evidence regarding the subject matter. I defend this Preemption View of epistemic authority by introducing a novel argument from higher-order defeat. On the other hand, thinking for themselves is epistemically highly valuable or even indispensable for laypeople. It would be an epistemic catastrophe, if laypeople stopped thinking for themselves altogether. In the paper, I explore the question of how the two claims can be reconciled. I suggest that, despite the initial tension, laypeople can simultaneously follow epistemic authorities and think for themselves, as long as the latter happens in terms of acceptances. I will explain the idea of thinking for oneself with acceptances in more detail and defend it against some standard objections.

This LMS Centre talk is financially supported by the project OP JAK: Knowledge in the Age of Distrust, CZ.02.01.01/00/23_025/0008711.

Při prvním dubnu vystoupí s přednáškou The View Which Has No Name pro LMS Centrum náš visiting professor Peter Nicholas Tuck. Těšíme se na vás už ve středu💚😎!

Abstrakt⬇⬇⬇:
This proposed article also forms part of the aforementioned research arc in that it includes a descriptive analysis of the putative association between gradual behaviour in society, and philosophical-ethical thought in the field of animal ethics. Here I argue that the moral-philosophical view that “we should not use or harm non-human animals” has no particular name, but it ought to, and I say the reasons why. Further, I point out that this view is often given, or associated with, the name “vegan”, but that this can be misleading. Veganism can be understood as an identity, an attitude, or a practice, and can be motivated by animal ethical, environmental ethical, or health concerns. In this sense, it can be associated with labels like “catholic”, “European”, or “conservative”.

These are loose terms which can be more specifically defined or motivated in a range of ways. Any particular combination of vegan definitions or motivations may or may not be ethical, and even if ethical, may or may not be anthropocentric. I conclude that we should be very cautious in associating the apparently increasing prevalence of vegan identities or products in European society with a corresponding rise in the popularity of the kind of philosophical-ethical thought that we find in animal ethics. While vegan thought is taken as the specific case study, the arguments and findings here are meant to have more general significance in conceptual ethics, and the practical use of moral language.

At the inaugural meeting of the Philosophical Salon of Hradec Králové, at Fjaka Wine and Tapas bar on March 5th, participants from UHK and the public addressed the question: What is the good life in late-stage modernity? The format is conversation and open to all who are interested💚.

Next month, on Thursday April 23rd at 6 pm in Galerie Artičok (Třída Karla IV. 493), we shall address the question: What Makes us Human? This session will explore a simple but difficult question: are we born human, or do we become human? One possible answer is that human nature is something we possess from birth, independently of how we develop. Another is that we become human through the acquisition of certain cognitive, social, and emotional capacities. The tragic but fascinating cases of children who grew up without sufficient human contact invite us to reflect on just how fragile some of the traits we take to be most distinctively human—for example language—really are.

Find us on: https://www.meetup.com/philosophical-salon-of-hradec-kralove/