Christos Kyriacou
I work primarily in epistemology, metaethics and their intersection (and sometimes also like to look into the history of ethics and epistemology). I did my graduate work in Edinburgh (PhD 2010) and I am now an assistant professor at the University of Cyprus, where I originally come from. I have been a Humboldt fellow at Humboldt University, Berlin (2021-2022).
I am interested in a bunch of different things, such as the semantics of knowledge attributions, epistemic rationality and reasons, moral rationality and reasons, evolutionary debunking arguments, rational intuitionism, conceptual competence, companions-in-guilt arguments, expressivism, virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, logical monism/pluralism and other related matters.
I have prepared with Robin McKenna an edited volume on metaepistemology (2018, Palgrave), an edited volume on skeptical invariantism with Kevin Wallbridge (2021, Routledge) and wrote an introduction to ethics ( forthcoming; in Greek, and with a metaethical bent). I also organize the annual Cyprus Metaethics Workshop.
Nonacademic interests include football, swimming, gardening and hiking. I enjoy reading Russian literature (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky) and occasionally thinking about ancient military strategy (Alexander, Pyrrho, Hannibal, Scipio, Caesar). I am fascinated by how strategic/tactical mind can subdue brutal force (and sheer numbers).
You can find my Homepage here: https://ucyweb.ucy.ac.cy/dir/el/component/comprofiler/userprofile/kchris
and contact me at ckiriakou@gmail.com or kchris@ucy.ac.cy
I am interested in a bunch of different things, such as the semantics of knowledge attributions, epistemic rationality and reasons, moral rationality and reasons, evolutionary debunking arguments, rational intuitionism, conceptual competence, companions-in-guilt arguments, expressivism, virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, logical monism/pluralism and other related matters.
I have prepared with Robin McKenna an edited volume on metaepistemology (2018, Palgrave), an edited volume on skeptical invariantism with Kevin Wallbridge (2021, Routledge) and wrote an introduction to ethics ( forthcoming; in Greek, and with a metaethical bent). I also organize the annual Cyprus Metaethics Workshop.
Nonacademic interests include football, swimming, gardening and hiking. I enjoy reading Russian literature (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky) and occasionally thinking about ancient military strategy (Alexander, Pyrrho, Hannibal, Scipio, Caesar). I am fascinated by how strategic/tactical mind can subdue brutal force (and sheer numbers).
You can find my Homepage here: https://ucyweb.ucy.ac.cy/dir/el/component/comprofiler/userprofile/kchris
and contact me at ckiriakou@gmail.com or kchris@ucy.ac.cy
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First, HI, to the extent that is rational, it is not just mechanical instrumental rationality, it is categorically normative: we don’t just find ourselves with contingent ends, we can choose stance-independent ends on the basis of categorical reasons (or at least we should). Even if HI is not categorically normative, as some philosophers contend, it is embodied, Humean instrumental rationality. Second, AI lacks autonomous reasons-responsiveness, which is a constitutive condition of rational HI. Third, rational HI necessarily involves indispensable affective experience, and we currently have no clue how to build AI systems with subjective, phenomenal life. Fourth, rational HI is not codifiable and computable in absolute moral principles. It relies on virtue-based, moral intuition (and practical wisdom) to discern what is morally right/wrong in a context. I conclude that current AI systems lack the basic cognitive prerequisites for being (virtuous) moral agents in any robust sense and, therefore, they require constant normative guidance and surveillance by virtuous HI.
I then briefly argue that basic epistemic rationality norms are irreducible to descriptive-natural norms (social, biological and psychological) in virtue of an epistemic version of Hume’s law. I conclude that debunking arguments go too far when they imply (or even explicitly deny) that we have good reason to debunk basic epistemic rationality norms.
First, HI, to the extent that is rational, it is not just mechanical instrumental rationality, it is categorically normative: we don’t just find ourselves with contingent ends, we can choose stance-independent ends on the basis of categorical reasons (or at least we should). Even if HI is not categorically normative, as some philosophers contend, it is embodied, Humean instrumental rationality. Second, AI lacks autonomous reasons-responsiveness, which is a constitutive condition of rational HI. Third, rational HI necessarily involves indispensable affective experience, and we currently have no clue how to build AI systems with subjective, phenomenal life. Fourth, rational HI is not codifiable and computable in absolute moral principles. It relies on virtue-based, moral intuition (and practical wisdom) to discern what is morally right/wrong in a context. I conclude that current AI systems lack the basic cognitive prerequisites for being (virtuous) moral agents in any robust sense and, therefore, they require constant normative guidance and surveillance by virtuous HI.
I then briefly argue that basic epistemic rationality norms are irreducible to descriptive-natural norms (social, biological and psychological) in virtue of an epistemic version of Hume’s law. I conclude that debunking arguments go too far when they imply (or even explicitly deny) that we have good reason to debunk basic epistemic rationality norms.
In this paper, I focus on the stronger extant formulation of the argument (by Dinges (2015)) and explore how SI could, in principle, be rendered coherent with the argument (even if SI is not to be considered overall plausible). To this effect, I suggest an overlooked semantically externalist model of meaning and semantic awareness of ‘know’ (in the spirit of Putnam (1975), Burge (1979) and Kripke (1981)) that renders SI coherent with ‘the argument from semantic awareness’. The goal of the paper is modest. It is not to defend, let alone vindicate SI, but to indicate that SI is coherent with ‘the argument from semantic awareness’ in light of an externalist account of meaning and semantic awareness. I demur about the matter of the overall plausibility of SI.