講演者: Dr. Roberto Terrosi (Ritsumeikan University)
日時: 2019年6月6日(木) 17:00-18:30
場所: 京都大学文学部校舎1階会議室
タイトル:
The Question of Posthuman in the Philosophical Thought After the End of Postmodernism
アブストラクト:
Postmodern thought pretended to be the literally the thought that came after the end of modernism. But, was it really so? In the exaltation of hermeneutics they did not escape the so-called “Copernican revolution”. They introduced suspects about the supremacy of the subject, but they were not able to overcome the fundamental transcendentalist approach. Indeed postmodernism conserved its ties with phenomenology. They weakened the subject but they still started from the subject. Their relativism increased the importance of humanistic individualism. The individual was discovered to be influenced by other factors, but not in a deterministic way. This resulted only in a stronger relativism of factors, among which the weak subject could trace her/his path toward success, crossing borders and transgressing taboos. My argumentation wants to show that postmodernism did not succeed in overcoming modernism, and they simply placed themselves on the edge of modernity, or inside the edge itself, in between the limit, which divides modernism from something else. What I will try to say is that posthumanism is the first real attempt of thinking outside and after the modernist paradigm, abandoning the subject within the abandonment of the concept of humanity. My discourse will try to show in which ways posthumanism achieve this position, considering several approaches and criticizing some of them. In this sense, posthumanism is difficult to be thought. Many times, as we will see, alleged posthuman thinkers only propose again the conception of postmodernism or of cultural studies disguised under a new dress (as in the case of the so-called “critical posthumanism”). In other cases, posthumanism is a way to disguise a form of anti-speciesism that is based on the extension of an anthropocentric utilitarian conception of ethics. Finally other times posthumanism is referred to a condition of empowerment of humans as in the case of transhumanism. In my opinion, posthumanism has to be rooted in a deeper philosophical framework concerning epistemology, ontology, ethics, and politics.
キーワード:
post-human, postmodernism, anthropological philosophy, cyber-phisical systems, blindsight, singularity
講演者: Prof. Alan Baker (Swarthmore College)
日時: 2019年5月30日(木) 16:30-18:00
場所: 京都大学文学部校舎1階会議室
タイトル:
Mapping Mathematics to the World
アブストラクト:
Recent philosophical work on applied mathematics has focused on the way that mathematical structures map onto the structure of physical phenomena. Debate has centered on abstraction, in which aspects of physical structure are left out in the mathematical model, and on physically non-meaningful solutions, in which aspects of the mathematical structure have no physical analogs. In this talk I focus on whether it even makes sense to speak of ‘the physical structure’ in such applied mathematical contexts. Using as examples the classical problem of the bridges of Konigsberg and the more contemporary Manhattan river crossing problem, I argue that unique structure is almost never inherent in a physical phenomenon. Finally, I explore whether adopting a more game-like stance toward applied mathematics may allow conceptual progress to be made.
講演者: Dr. Shelley Costa
日時: 2019年6月13日(木) 15:30-17:00
場所: 京都大学文学部校舎1階会議室 第5演習室（２階） ※場所が変更されました！
タイトル:
Action and Abstraction: How the early history of infinitesimal calculus illuminates truth as social process.
アブストラクト:
George Berkeley, Colin MacLaurin, and Daniel Bernoulli each devoted philosophical attention to mathematics and its potential relationship with the physical world. In this talk, I use their examples for two reasons. The first is to show the gradual coming of age — rather than the timeless truth — of the tenet that one should trust mathematics because of its efficacy in the physical world. The second, more general reason for considering this historical narrative is to call attention to some of the myriad ways in which social process generates knowledge. I perceive all types of “constructed” reality, including mathematics, as structurally isomorphic to physical external reality, and as equally meaningful in terms of action or human use in that they yield consistent, often predictable outcomes. By considering reality or existence in action-based terms, I hope to dissolve a falsely rigid dichotomy between constructed truth/reality and external truth/reality. Objectivity is the same in both cases. In both cases, objective knowledge must be attained in a social manner.
思想文化学専攻の大学院進学説明会が以下の日程で行われます。全体説明のあと、哲学専修個別の説明・相談もあります。
日時 2019 年 5 月 11 日(土)14:00~17:00
場所 文学部第3講義室(第1部)/第1~第7演習室(第2部)
日時：2019年5月16日（木）16:30-18:00
場所：文学部校舎一階会議室
講演者：Prof. Christian Coseru (Department of Philosophy, College of Charleston)
タイトル：Through the Looking-Glass: Phenomenal Content Without Concepts
アブストラクト：
Are there conscious mental states that can make present features of experience, such as subjectivity and the sense of self even though the bearer of those states lacks the concepts necessary for specifying their content? And if there are such states how are their experiential features presented, and what kind of content do those presentations deliver? These questions inform contemporary debates in phenomenology and philosophy of mind about the character of consciousness, the role of conceptual knowledge and narrative competence, and the difference between conceptual and nonconceptual content. They also have been explored at length by Buddhist philosophers (specifically those in the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti tradition) concerned with the epistemological implications of certain liminal states of mind associated with various contemplative practices. Drawing on these two research programs, I put forward an acquaintance model of nonconceptual content according to which we are directly aware of our own mental states as they occur even though we can only articulate their content conceptually. Against externalist account of mental content. I argue that although the complexity of human thought is only conceptually articulable, it is a further epistemic fact that such articulation only becomes known in conscious thought.
講演者：Prof. Sheridan Hough (Department of Philosophy, College of Charleston)
タイトル：The Kierkegaardian Self, and How Nietzsche and Sartre Attend to the ‘Unselving’
アブストラクト：
Kierkegaard’s powerful analysis of the self—the Kierkegaardian individual, forged by an infinite commitment to a finite task— is a valuable benchmark for evaluating later accounts of what a ‘self’ is, and cannot be. Nietzsche’s ‘person as cultural artifact’ provides an antidote to those who would privilege our rational, conscious lives over the habits and practices of which we are made; on the other hand, Sartre’s ‘no self’ view (as first described in La transcendence de l’égo) argues that Husserl’s account of consciousness is not radical enough: the ‘I’ or ego is a pseudo-source of activity (and Sartre thus draws very close to a particularly Buddhist account of personal identity). Sartre’s ontology is unabashedly Kierkegaardian—the ‘self’ is always under construction, and the mechanism is choice—but is Sartre the true descendant of Kierkegaard? I will argue that Nietzsche and Kierkegaard have more in common in their understanding of our intersubjective condition that you might initially suspect.
国立陽明大学からWen-fang Wang氏をお招きにして、CAPEレクチャーを開催いたしますので、奮ってご参加ください。
日時：2月1日(金)16:30-18:00
場所：京都大学総合研究2号館１階第10演習室 (No.34 of this map)
スピーカー：Prof. Wen-fang Wang (National Yang-Ming University)
タイトル：Why Is Weak AI, Let Alone Strong AI, Impossible — R. Penrose vs. S. Russell & P. Norvig?
アブストラクト：
By ‘weak AI’, the authors mean a computational machine whose observable and measurable performances are at least as good as those of an average matured human being in every respect involving intelligence, whereas ‘computational’ refers to a machine that takes series of digital signals as inputs no matter whether it has the ability to learn or not. R. Penrose argues in his The Emperor’s New Mind (1989) and Shadows of the Mind that computational weak AI is impossible (he does not exclude the possibility that some non-computational weak AI may still be possible). Penrose’s argument improves and evolves from that of J. R. Lucas in “Minds, machines, and Godel” (1961) but retains the core part of the latter, i.e., the appeal to Godel’s second incompleteness theorem. Penrose’s argument is no doubt a crucial one, simply in views of the number of citations before and after 1994. However, because of its complexity, Penrose’s argument has not been fully understood even after Penrose had collected 20 objections and responded (quite successfully according to my evaluation) to them in his 1994 book to avoid misunderstanding. For one example, perhaps also under the influence of J. Searle’s Chinese room argument, many philosophers still incline to think that weak AI is certainly possible while the strong one is not. For another example, computer scientists S. Russell and P. Norvig argue confusingly (according to my evaluation) in their influential book Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2009) that Penrose’s argument is implausible for at least three objectionable reasons. In this presentation, the authors will (1) reconstruct Penrose’s complex argument in a simple but sensible way, (2) point out the weakness and confusions in Russell & Norvig’s objections, and (3) therefore show the danger and limitation of the philosophical method of thought experiment. Russell & Norvig’s misunderstanding of Penrose’s argument shows especially that there is still a big gap of mutual misunderstanding between philosophers and computer scientists that has to be crossed over in order to get a breakthrough development both in AI science and in AI philosophy.
Keywords: weak AI, Godel’s incompleteness theorem, thought experiment, philosophical argument.
