The rise of artificial intelligence is changing our lives in fundamental ways. Algorithms know us better than our friends and relatives, we outsource more and more of our decision-making to AI, and much of our socio-economic structure is reliant on algorithmic systems.

The future of AI will likely bring substantial benefits. However, like the development of any revolutionary technology, it will also come with costs.

Some of these costs are inevitable. It’s likely that we are exchanging more of our autonomy for higher levels of convenience and efficiency as we integrate AI into our lives. Other costs could be more…

Alison Jaggar is a contemporary philosopher who developed a feminist critique of traditional epistemology.

It’s a feminist critique in that it highlights the fact that theory has traditionally been undertaken by men, from a masculine perspective. This matters because the perspective from which philosophy is done can, arguably, influence the theory.

Here, I discuss Jaggar’s critique as well as her view of how emotions play a role in understanding our world.

Jaggar argues that traditional epistemology has been selective and biased in its investigation. Particularly, it has neglected the role emotions play in our understanding and acquisition of knowledge.

Jaggar’s…

Contemporary analytic philosophy and 80’s hair-metal owes much of its style to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a 17th-century philosopher, and mathematician. He was also interested in science, law, and literature. The work of Pascal influenced his development of calculus, which Newton, his contemporary, also developed. It was unfortunate for Leibniz that Newton at the time was credited with inventing calculus.

In an earlier post, I discussed John Locke’s epistemology, whose work influenced Leibniz. Nevertheless, Leibniz disputed Locke’s claim that all ideas and concepts originated in sense experience. Unlike Locke, Leibniz was a rationalist: he believed that concepts and knowledge originate primarily…

The history of philosophy is a centuries-long conversation. Contemporaneous philosophers integrate and respond to each other’s views as well as those that came before. I like to imagine they’re all up in some Platonic heaven continuing the conversation in person.

John Locke was born eighteen years after Rene Descartes died. If Locke were to have a conversation with Descartes in Plato’s heaven, he might say something like this:

“Descartes, my friend; you say that all knowledge originates in our thinking, that we can know something only because we are able to identify that thing’s concept in thought. But you haven’t…

Imagine this:

Sam is in the kitchen about to wash dishes. Before starting, Sam places the wedding ring next to the sink. The doorbell rings and Sam leaves the kitchen to see who’s at the door. While absent from the kitchen, a thief opens the window directly above the sink, reaches in, and steals the ring, replacing it with a duplicate that looks and feels exactly like the original. Sam comes back in the kitchen, finishes the dishes, and puts the ring on. Sam believes it’s his/her ring.

But does Sam know it’s her/his ring?

Students tend to give different…

I used to live next to a small duck pond. Sometimes I would stroll around the pond and see if I could get a duck to eat a piece of bread out of my hand. Usually, one of them would timidly walk up to my hand and snatch the bread. The duck performed an action. Back at the college where I work, a colleague down the hall would sometimes offer me a chocolate candy. He would offer it up and I would timidly walk up and take it. I performed an action.

Is there any difference between my action and…

Mindfulness meditation is becoming increasingly popular in the west. There’s a good reason for this since it can make us happier, relieve stress and help us focus. Mindfulness meditation often involves simply sitting and maintaining an awareness of your breathing. After a while, you gain a heightened awareness of the content of your inner world: thoughts, beliefs, emotions, moods, sensations, the feeling of embodiment, and everything else. The philosophy of mind examines this content and, perhaps more importantly, the ‘container’ of this content: the mind

Even though it’s difficult to pin down exactly what a mind is, we all have…

The prominent medical ethics research institute, The Hastings Center, has released a document outlining an ethical framework for healthcare institutions to aid them in managing care in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. I believe this discussion would benefit all healthcare professionals by outlining the ethical terrain that lies ahead.

The document — titled ‘Ethical Framework for Health Care Institutions and Guidelines for Institutional Ethics Services Responding to the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic’ — discusses three points: ethical challenges healthcare providers may face, ethical duties of healthcare leaders, and examples of institutional policies. I will address the first two points.

Ethical Challenges

The…