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709Non-transitive Parthood, Leveled Mereology, and the Representation of Emergent Parts of ProcessesGrazer Philosophische Studien 91 161-190. 2014.
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456How to Naturalize Intentionality and Sensory Consciousness within a Process Monism with Gradient Normativity--A Reading of SellarsIn James R. O'Shea (ed.), Sellars and His Legacy, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 186-222. 2016.
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259Forms of emergent interaction in General Process TheorySynthese 166 (3): 479-512. 2009.General Process Theory (GPT) is a new (non-Whiteheadian) process ontology. According to GPT the domains of scientific inquiry and everyday practice consist of configurations of ‘goings-on’ or ‘dynamics’ that can be technically defined as concrete, dynamic, non-particular individuals called general processes. The paper offers a brief introduction to GPT in order to provide ontological foundations for research programs such as interactivism that centrally rely on the notions of ‘process,’ ‘interac…Read more
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191Ontological Scope and Linguistic Diversity: Are The Universal Categories?Journal of Semantics 4 (98): 318-343. 2015.The aim of this paper is to address a longstanding concern about the linguistic ‘relativ- ity’ of ontological categories, and resulting limitations in the scope of ontological theo- ries. Given recent evidence on the influence of language on cognitive dispositions, do we have empirical reasons to doubt that there are ontological categories that have uni- versal scope across languages? I argue that this is the case, at least if we retain the stan- dard ‘inferential’ approach within analytical onto…Read more
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125ParticularsIn Roberto Poli & Johanna Seibt (eds.), Theories and Applications of Ontology, Springer. pp. 23--55. 2010.According to the standard view of particularity, an entity is a particular just in case it necessarily has a unique spatial location at any time of its existence. That the basic entities of the world we speak about in common sense and science are particular entities in this sense is the thesis of “foundational particularism,” a theoretical intuition that has guided Western ontological research from its beginnings to the present day. The main aim of this paper is to review the notion of particul…Read more
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118Pure processes and projective metaphysicsPhilosophical Studies 101 (2-3): 253-289. 2000.There is a well-known tension within Sellars' scheme arising from commitments to both an anti-foundationalist epistemology and a Peircean scientific realism. This tension surfaces conspicuously in his treatment of ontological category theory. On the one hand, Sellars applies and extends Carnap's metalinguistic deflation of ontology. On the other hand, however, Sellars is not prepared to 'go conventionalist' but upholds the possibility of a "positive ontology" (Rosenberg). I offer a new reading o…Read more
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117Beyond Endurance and Perdurance: Recurrent DynamicsIn Christian Kanzian (ed.), Persistence, Ontos. pp. 133-164. 2007.
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114Sociable Robots and the Future of Social Relations: Proceedings of Robo-Philosophy (edited book)IOS Press. 2014.The robotics industry is growing rapidly, and to a large extent the development of this market sector is due to the area of social robotics – the production of robots that are designed to enter the space of human social interaction, both physically and semantically. Since social robots present a new type of social agent, they have been aptly classified as a disruptive technology, i.e. the sort of technology which affects the core of our current social practices and might lead to profound cultura…Read more
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109The myth of substance and the fallacy of misplaced concretenessActa Analytica 15 61-76. 2000.Substance ontologists claim that substances are ontologically primary because the category of substance enjoys unique explanatory potential. Unless it can be shown that "only" substances fulfill the central explanatory tasks in ontology, this inference from explanatory success to ontological primacy amounts to a fallacy akin to the error Whitehead called 'the fallacy of misplaced concreteness'. I investigate recent prototypical arguments for substance metaphysics and try to show that some explan…Read more
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108Free process theory: Towards a typology of occurringsAxiomathes 14 (1-3): 23-55. 2004.The paper presents some essential heuristic and constructional elements of Free Process Theory (FPT), a non-Whiteheadian, monocategoreal framework. I begin with an analysis of our common sense concept of activities, which plays a crucial heuristic role in the development of the notion of a free process. I argue that an activity is not a type but a mode of occurrence, defined in terms of a network of inferences. The inferential space characterizing our concept of an activity entails that anything…Read more
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105Process Metaphysics. An Introduction to Process Philosophy (review)Review of Metaphysics 51 (3): 713-714. 1998.
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99Theory and Applications of Ontology: Philosophical Perspectives (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2010.The volume offers an overview of current research in ontology, distinguishing basic conceptual issues, domain applications, general frameworks, and mathematical ...
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91Non-countable [ndlvidualsSouthwest Philosophy Review 12 (1): 225-236. 1996.It is a common presupposition in ontology (metaphysics) that a so-called 'principle of individuation' amounts to a principle of counting. Against this presupposition I argue that the predicates 'x is the same individual as y' and 'x is one with y' are neither co-extensional nor co-intensional. Non-countable entities such as masses or stuffs (or the referents of nouns in classifier languages) also fulfill the requirements of individuality. I suggest that Leibniz' 'principle of the identity of ind…Read more
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88Functions between reasons and causes : on picturingIn Willem A. DeVries (ed.), Empiricism, Perceptual Knowledge, Normativity, and Realism: Essays on Wilfrid Sellars, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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85Attitudinal Change in Elderly Citizens Toward Social Robots: The Role of Personality Traits and Beliefs About Robot FunctionalityFrontiers in Psychology 6 1701. 2015.Attitudes toward robots influence the tendency to accept or reject robotic devices. Thus it is important to investigate whether and how attitudes toward robots can change. In this pilot study we investigate attitudinal changes in elderly citizens toward a tele-operated robot in relation to three parameters: (i) the information provided about robot functionality, (ii) the number of encounters, (iii) personality type. Fourteen elderly residents at a rehabilitation center participated. Pre-encounte…Read more
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80Constitution Theory and Metaphysical NeutralityThe Monist 83 (1): 161-183. 2000.Carnap’s thought not only played a pivotal role for the development of formal semantics and modern philosophy of science, but also engendered the profound methodological reorientation that distinguishes analytical from traditional ontology. Historically and systematically, Carnap’s formal approach to category theory is the primary source of influence on the three research programs that have given analytical ontology its distinctive profile: the design of constructional systems, the investigation…Read more
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71“Embodying” the Internet: Towards the Moral Self via Communication Robots? (review)Philosophy and Technology 25 (3): 285-307. 2012.Abstract Internet communication technology has been said to affect our sense of self by altering the way we construct “personal identity,” understood as identificatory valuative narratives about the self; in addition, some authors have warned that internet communication creates special conditions for moral agency that might gradually change our moral intuitions. Both of these effects are attributed to the fact that internet communication is “disembodied.” Our aim in this paper is to establish …Read more
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66Climate Change and the Concept of Shared Ecological ResponsibilityEnvironmental Ethics 35 (2): 163-187. 2013.The recent debate about justice and responsibility increasingly tries to accommodate a new type of agentive situation in which local short-term actions have global long-term consequences due to the action’s embedding in complex interactional networks. Currently the debate is shifting focus from the spatial to the temporal dimension of such wide-scope results of individual actions. This shift from “global ethics” to “intergenerational ethics” and, in particular, “climate ethics” requires some new…Read more
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64Sociality and Normativity for Robots. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality. (edited book)Springer. 2017.This volume offers eleven philosophical investigations into our future relations with social robots--robots that are specially designed to engage and connect with human beings. The contributors present cutting edge research that examines whether, and on which terms, robots can become members of human societies. Can our relations to robots be said to be "social"? Can robots enter into normative relationships with human beings? How will human social relations change when we interact with robots at…Read more
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63Towards a new scale for assessing attitudes towards social robotsInteraction Studies 21 (1): 24-56. 2020.Background: The surge in the development of social robots gives rise to an increased need for systematic methods of assessing attitudes towards robots. Aim: This study presents the development of a questionnaire for assessing attitudinal stance towards social robots: the ASOR. Methods: The 37-item ASOR questionnaire was developed by a task-force with members from different disciplines. It was founded on theoretical considerations of how social robots could influence five different aspects of rel…Read more
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55Ontological Scope and Linguistic Diversity: Are There Universal Categories?The Monist 98 (3): 318-343. 2015.
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54The dynamic constitution of thingsPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 76 241-278. 2000.
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53Processes: Analysis and application of dynamic categories (edited book, review)Springer Verlag. 2004.
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44A Janus View on Rescher's Perspectival PluralismA System of Pragmatic Idealism: Metaphilosophical InquiriesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (2): 433. 1994.Perspectival pluralism has as little sympathy for "...a kind of Will Rogers pluralism that never met a position it didn't like" (13-27) as it has patience with the myopic self-importance of doctrinalism. Precisely for this reason it is difficult not to like Rescher's pluralism. With philosophy determined as the answer to an existential need for rational systematization of perspec- tival experience, the position promises to span positions that are commonly divided. There's new hope for those tire…Read more
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42Properties as Processes: A Synoptic Study of Wilfrid Sellars' NominalismRidgeview Publishing Co.. 1990.
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39The 'Umbau' - from Constitution Theory to Constructional OntologyHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 14 (3). 1997.The paper traces, historically and systematically, the influence of Carnap’s philosophical program on the writings of Nelson Goodman, focusing on the relationship between Carnap’s Aufbau and Goodman’s Structure of Appearance. In particular, drawing on unpublished material from the Carnap Research Archives, I show that Carnap had already anticipated Goodman’s criticism of the method of quasi-analysis and that Goodman misconstrued the status of this procedure on several counts. I also argue tha…Read more
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38Christian Kanzian, ereignisse und andere partikularien: Vorbemerkungen zu einer mehrkategorialen ontologie. Paderborn: Ferdinand schöningh 2001Grazer Philosophische Studien 65 (1): 223-236. 2002.