The geologists of the International Commission on Stratigraphy’s Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) made a substantial decision on March 4, 2024 , by rejecting the proposal to formally acknowledge the beginning of the Anthropocene—a new geological epoch attributing humanity’s emergence as the primary force shaping the Earth’s strata. This proposal, led by the Anthropocene Working […]
The most recent, and probably most imaginative of the significant contributions to the philosophical debate on whether contemporary science confirms, or at least points to some kind of strongly teleological cosmology, is Philip Goff’s book Why? The Purpose of the Universe . In this book’s arguments, the author builds both upon the ideas about cosmological […]
One of the most recurrent (and most disputed) headers during the last half century in the debates about whether cosmology points to some ‘fundamental purpose’ of the universe is (I didn’t need to say it) the (ill-)famous anthropic principle . Many versions of it have been formulated since it was so named in the 70’s […]
Epistemology • Philosophy of science • Psychology • Sociology
“Censorship” is not a pleasant word to anyone. Its connotations are almost always negative and, in the first instance, an effort should be made to find circumstances that justify a restriction of information. Even more so in the scientific field, where empirical evidence should prevail over authority, tradition, rhetorical eloquence or social prestige. Science seeks […]
Since more than a century ago, every generation has a moment in which religious believers experience an agonising urge to persuade themselves that the ‘truths’ of their religion are compatible with the sophisticate description of the universe that contemporary science is unfolding. Every now and then this leads to the landfall of some best-selling books […]
In their recent paper “Telling Gender: The Pragmatics and Ethics of Gender Ascriptions” , the philosophers Quill Kukla and Mark Lance (well known in the philosophy of language as authors of the 2009 essential book Yo! And Lo! The Pragmatic Topography of the Space of Reasons ) embark on a journey into the heart of […]
One possible and relatively trivial explanation of the absence of the category of “social problem” in the list of topics that have deserved some interest in the social ontology literature, is that perhaps social problems are intuitively seen as being too far from the ‘ground’ or the ‘bottom’ of social reality. According to this hypothesis […]
The absence of ‘social problems’ as a distinct ontological category in the extensive literature on social ontology is a notable oversight. This one and the following entry aim to shed light on this absence and explore the interconnectedness of social problems with both the positive and normative aspects of social reality and thought. In doing […]
democracy There is a growing movement to democratize science, involving the public, often lacking traditional scientific credentials, in the research process. This inclusivity manifests in various forms, particularly involving the public in making value judgments that play a vital role in the scientific decision-making process. As demonstrated by philosophers and scholars of science, scientific inquiry […]
risk The authors of this article are members of The European Lab for Learning & Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) Board: Nuria Oliver, Directora de la Fundación ELLIS Alicante & honorary professor Universidad de Alicante; Bernhard Schölkopf, , Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems; Florence d’Alché-Buc, Professor, Télécom Paris – Institut Mines-Télécom; Nada Lavrač, Research Councillor at […]