Tomáš Koblížek: The impact of populist hate speech and misinformation: Insights from the analytic philosophy of language and cognitive science
Tomáš Koblížek (FLÚ AVČR) https://dap.flu.cas.cz/cz/lide/tomas-koblizek The impact of populist hate speech and misinformation: Insights from the analytic philosophy of language and cognitive science ABSTRACT: The conventional view of the effects of hate speech and misinformation, as employed in political populism, focuses exclusively on the direct effects of this type of speech: the spread of hate and the propagation of false beliefs. In this talk, I will focus on the so far underexplored side effects of the populist discourse, which I will divide into two types: linguistic and cognitive. These are cognitive harms (disinterest in politics, impaired attention, cognitive biases, weakened tendency to verify facts, etc.) and linguistic harms (normalisation of lies, hate speech, conspiratorial discourse). I will show why the side effects of populism must be taken into account if we want to investigate the severity of this phenomenon.
Read More ›
Richard Moore: Social Attention in Humans and Great Apes: A Key Difference and its Possible Origins
Richard Moore (University of Warwick) Social Attention in Humans and Great Apes: A Key Difference and its Possible Origins ABSTRACT: In this talk I argue for a small but fundamental difference between humans and other great ape species: our willingness to use others as sources of information about the world. I will argue that this difference explains both our capacity for high fidelity information, and our superior understanding of informative pointing. I then consider the possible origins of this difference. I start this talk by considering the question of when it is appropriate to assume that uniquely human cognitive traits are a product of adaptations in the hominin lineage, and when alternative, non-adaptationist explanations should preferred. I’ll argue that while adaptationism is a highly successful explanatory strategy in the biological sciences, often this strategy has been abused in studies of cognitive development. When this happens, appeals to adaptation are often less a way of explaining human origins than they are of avoiding giving explanations of cognitive development. I illustrate my case with reference to two skills identified as central to human cognitive uniqueness – pointing and imitation, which are sometimes argued to be the result of independent adaptations […]
Read More ›
Marc Slors: Collective intentionality, large-group collaboration and embodied we-feeling
Marc Slors (Radboud University) Collective intentionality, large-group collaboration and embodied we-feeling ABSTRACT: Collective intentionality is influentially employed to explain the emergence of large-scale collaboration by Tomasello and his followers. In this talk I will criticize this explanation and draw some philosophical conclusions from this critique. Crudely put, Tomasello considers the adoption of norms, conventions, and institutions to be motivated by the shared belief that these are beneficial to the group’s thriving and surviving. I will argue that in the case of societies larger than hunter-gatherer groups this collective version of a Humean belief-desire psychology is an implausible overintellectualization, as the required global group-level motivations are much too complex to entertain. As an alternative, I propose to explain at least very many norms, conventions and institutions in terms of psychological tendencies—such as strong reciprocity, basic trust, and overimitation—that are the product of group-level natural and cultural selection. On this alternative explanation, large-scale collaboration is the product of local concerns on the one hand, and norms, conventions and even institutions that are grounded in collective embodied habits on the other. I will highlight two philosophical consequences of this view: (i) collective intentionality is a description of the resulting large-scale collaboration rather than an explanation […]
Read More ›
Tomáš Etzler: China of the emperor Si
Tomáš Etzler China of the emperor Si The talk will be in the Czech language. ABSTRACT in Czech: Čínský prezident Si Ťin-pching nastoupil k moci v Říši středu před dvanácti lety. Jak nástup nejmocnějšího čínského vůdce od dob Mao Ce-Tunga zemi změnil? Jak změnil práci zahraničních novinářů? Stane se Čína skutečně supervelmocí 21. století? O těchto i jiných otázkách bude debatovat na půdě Filozofické Fakulty Univerzity Hradec Králové Tomáš Etzler.
Read More ›
Josef Šlerka: Generative AI as a human simulator
Josef Šlerka (Charles University) Generative AI as a human simulator The talk will be in the Czech language. ABSTRACT in Czech: ChatGPT a další modely přináší pro humanitní vědy zcela nečekanou možnost obohatit svoje výzkumné metody o možnosti simulace. Tím ovšem vykročí zcela mimo svůj obvyklý metodologický rámec. Jaké důsledky toto vykročení přináší? A jak vůbec vykročit? To jsou dvě základní otázky, které se pokusíme v přednášce spojené s malým workshopem zodpovědět.
Read More ›
Alice Murphy: Aesthetics and Agency in Experiments
Alice Murphy (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) Aesthetics and Agency in Experiments ONLINE TALK! Zoom link: https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/92122588367 ABSTRACT: We place agency front-and-center in the aesthetics of science, in particular, in the aesthetics of experiments. We consider how elements of experimental design serve to generate aesthetic experiences in those carrying out the experiment. Our argument is grounded in an analogy between experiments and games (as understood by Suits and Nguyen): both involve artificial practical environments designed to give participants an aesthetic experience of their own agency. We apply the account to Newton’s optical work, and contrast this with contemporary experimental practices, where significantly more ‘experimental distance’ holds between the experimenter and the result. Taking the agency of experimental practice seriously enables a richer account of the role of aesthetic values, sensibilities, and judgments in science. Based on joint work with Adrian Currie and Kirsten Walsh.
Read More ›
Vladislav Suvák: Socratic dialogue as a genre
Vladislav Suvák (University of Prešov) Socratic dialogue as a genre The talk will be in the Slovak language. ABSTRACT in Slovak: Zámerom prednášky je pozrieť sa na sókratovský dialóg ako na literárny žáner. V nadväznosti na práce Michaila Bachtina venované románom Dostojevského sa pozrieme na sókratovský dialóg a menippovskú satiru ako na bezprostredných predchodcov európskeho románu. Pokúsime sa o charakteristiku základných rysov sókratovského dialógu a Bachtiniove úvahy doplníme o poznámky, ktoré sa opierajú o texty a fragmenty sókratovských autorov, s kterými Bachtin pracuje minimálne alebo s nimi nepracuje vôbec. Sústredíme sa na niekoľko bodov: (1) na dialogickú povahu pravdy a ľudského premýšľania o pravde; (2) na základné postupy rozvíjajúce diskusiu (synkrisis a anakrisis); (3) na ideologický charakter sokratovského dialógu; (4) na sujetovú situáciu, ktorá posilňuje charakter diskusie. Výsledkom našich exkurzov po textoch sókratovských dialógov by mohlo byť lepšie porozumenie tomu, čo vlastne sledujú sókratovskí autori svojím písaním.
Read More ›
Ivan Koniar: On the definition of autonomous weapon systems
Ivan Koniar (Catholic university in Ružomberok) On the definition of autonomous weapon systems The talk will be in the Slovak language. ABSTRACT in Slovak: Prednáška sa zameria na prebiehajúcu diskusiu o definícii autonómnych zbraňových systémov. Táto diskusia bude predstavená pomocou dvoch prístupov k definícii autonómie: (1) autonómia ako vzťah človek – stroj a (2) autonómia ako komplexnosť rozhodovacích schopností stroja. Cieľom je kriticky zhodnotiť súčasný stav diskusie o definícii autonómnych zbraní a analyzovať kľúčové otázky súvisiace s jednotlivými prístupmi k definovaniu takýchto zbraní. Tvrdím, že v súčasnom diskurze ani jeden z prístupov neposkytuje dostatočný základ pre definovanie autonómnych zbraňových systémov.
Read More ›
Tomasz Żuradzki: Who are the worst off? Well-being and time
Tomasz Żuradzki (Jagiellonian University) Who are the worst off? Well-being and time ABSTRACT: A seminal presentation of prioritarianism states that “Benefiting people matters more the worse off these people are” (Parfit 1997). However, there is no agreement on who counts as ‘the worst off’. The dimension on which I concentrate in this paper is the dynamic aspect, that is, different ways one can conceptualize someone (or a group) as the worst off over time. While some assume that expected benefits matter more the worse off the recipient is in the world such-as-it-is (input prioritarianism, see Segall 2016), others argue that what matters is the distribution that is relatively the best (in comparison with other possible distributions resulting from other possible interventions) for those who are worse off in that distribution while ignoring the situation of the worst off in the world such-as-it-is (output prioritarianism, see Eyal, Herlitz 2023). Moreover, some argue that a decision-maker should categorize the worst off by referring only (or primarily) to their entire lifetime, others that only (or primarily) to some part of their lifespan. The first view (Adler 2019), which is dominant among philosophically oriented scholars (as well as some versions of the […]
Read More ›
Lee McIntyre: The Nexus of Post-Truth, Disinformation, and AI: A Problem from Hell
Lee McIntyre (Boston University) The Nexus of Post-Truth, Disinformation, and AI: A Problem from Hell ONLINE TALK! Zoom link: https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/97898079568 ABSTRACT: The recent appearance of ChatGPT and other Large Language Model (LLM) AI platforms threaten to overwhelm the information sphere with disinformation, fake news, and plagiarism, thus plunging us even deeper into the “post-truth” era. Given the prior scope of the problem — with politicians lying, fake news run rampant, social media platforms amplifying disinformation for profit, and governments afraid to fight back for fear of accusations of political bias — some wonder if we now find ourselves on the verge of collapse. Certainly, many of our truth-telling institutions are at least threatened by these challenges. Denialism about vaccines, climate, and other topics has damaged trust in science and put lives in peril. Denialism about the outcome of a free and fair presidential election in the USA puts the oldest democracy in the world at risk of slipping into authoritarianism. And disinformation — from both foreign and domestic sources — lies at the heart of it. In this talk I will explore the nature of the challenges we face today and the prospects for any solutions we […]
Read More ›
