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Intelligent Inquiry into Intelligence
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Intelligent Inquiry into Intelligence

A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 March 2026) | Viewed by 6574

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Marcin J. Schroeder

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Guest Editor
The Faculty of International Liberal Arts, Akita International University, Akita 010-1292, Japan
Interests: philosophy of information and computation; philosophy and history of science and logic; foundations of physics and mathematics; mathematical formalization of scientific theories
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden
2. School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University, 721 23 Västerås, Sweden
Interests: computing paradigms; computational mechanisms of cognition; philosophy of science; epistemology of science; computing and philosophy; ethics of computing; information ethics; roboethics and engineering ethics; sustainability ethics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to invite submissions to the Special Issue (SI) of Philosophies, titled “Intelligent Inquiry into Intelligence”. This Issue continues and expands a dynamic collegial effort to establish strong philosophical foundations for the study of intelligence—an area of profound relevance across science, technology, culture, and society.

This Special Issue follows the success of the 1st International Online Conference of the Journal Philosophies, held on June 10–14, 2025, which brought together an interdisciplinary community of scholars, researchers, and thinkers to explore intelligence through diverse conceptual lenses and methodological approaches. With its central theme, “Intelligence: Embracing the Diversity of its Conceptualizations and Study Methodologies”, the event offered an engaging platform for rich dialogue and discovery.

Recordings of the keynote and invited talks, panel discussions, and presentations—as well as the Book of Extended Abstracts and the upcoming conference proceedings volume—document a truly inspiring and wide-ranging event. These materials are available on the conference website: (The 1st International Online Conference of the Journal Philosophies - Intelligent Inquiry into Intelligence-Contributing to the 2025 IS4SI Summit,).

Building on this strong foundation, this Special Issue offers an opportunity to deepen and extend the vibrant conversation initiated at the conference. We invite submissions in two main directions.

Expanding the Exploration
The conference programme, shaped by the research interests and contributions of its participants, explored five central themes. Yet the original Call for Contributions (available at: e52d4bedb77f7d2102f8c6d67765050f.pdf) included more than twenty compelling topics, many of which remain open for further exploration. We welcome submissions that address not only the themes already addressed at the conference, but also additional themes described in the original Call for Contributions, the introduction of new philosophical or scientific perspectives, or the proposal of novel conceptual frameworks for understanding intelligence.

Continuing the Dialogue
The discussions and insights shared during the conference have already inspired continued work and new ideas. We invite submissions that build upon those presentations—whether through expanded analysis, new results, or interdisciplinary synthesis. While previously published proceedings papers are not eligible for inclusion in the SI, authors are welcome to submit substantially developed extensions of that work, or entirely new contributions inspired by the conference experience.

The work presented at the conference will soon be published in the form of limited edition proceedings papers in a Special Issue of the journal (MDPI) Proceedings (currently in preparation). This SI is intended as a venue to publish work on the subject of intelligence, possibly published in the proceedings of the conference, but continued and expanded afterwards, along with work by the authors who might not have been contributors to the conference, but who are engaged in the work on its subject.

All submissions to this SI must be original, unpublished works, and therefore papers already published in the proceedings cannot be considered for publication in the SI. However, this does not preclude the submission of substantially extended papers reporting the continuation of the authors’ work after the conference. Moreover, authors who published the results of their work presented at the conference in the proceedings may consider the submission of a paper on another topic to the SI.

Prof. Dr. Marcin J. Schroeder
Prof. Dr. Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Philosophies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • the epistemological status of intelligence
  • intelligence and creativity
  • intelligence and consciousness

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (5 papers)

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17 pages, 456 KB  
Article
Cognition and Intelligence in Natural and Artificial Systems
by Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic
Philosophies 2026, 11(3), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies11030076 - 12 May 2026
Viewed by 305
Abstract
Cognition and intelligence are central concepts in cognitive science, biology, philosophy of mind, and artificial intelligence, yet these disciplines offer conflicting accounts of what each of them means and how the two notions are related. In many accounts the two notions are used [...] Read more.
Cognition and intelligence are central concepts in cognitive science, biology, philosophy of mind, and artificial intelligence, yet these disciplines offer conflicting accounts of what each of them means and how the two notions are related. In many accounts the two notions are used interchangeably, while in others intelligence is defined independently of cognitive processes. Dominant human-centered traditions identify cognition with mental processes associated with brains, whereas life-centered perspectives attribute cognitive capacities to all living systems. This article proposes a relational, life-centered, info-computational framework in which cognition is the ongoing autopoietic and sense-making organization of living systems, while intelligence is the degree of competence with which such organization achieves goal-directed problem solving under novelty, perturbation, and uncertainty. Cognition exists in degrees across living systems, from basal cellular sensing and regulation to increasingly complex cognitive organizations, while intelligence correspondingly appears in degrees in the ability to solve cognitive problems. Current artificial systems can exhibit engineered or derivative intelligence and may implement cognition-like functions, but they are not cognitive in the biological sense. The resulting framework clarifies how human-centered, life-centered, computational, and artificial intelligence can be related. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Inquiry into Intelligence)
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15 pages, 234 KB  
Article
Enhancing or Jeopardizing Human Creativity? Will Humans Be Able to Defend Themselves Against AI Superpowers in an Age of Ethics Washing and Law Washing?
by Lorenzo Magnani
Philosophies 2026, 11(2), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies11020065 - 20 Apr 2026
Viewed by 892
Abstract
I recently introduced the concept of eco-cognitive openness and situatedness to explain how cognitive systems—human or artificial—dynamically interact with their environments to generate information and creative outputs through abductive cognition. Humans display high eco-cognitive openness, integrating tools and cultural contexts through “unlocked strategies” [...] Read more.
I recently introduced the concept of eco-cognitive openness and situatedness to explain how cognitive systems—human or artificial—dynamically interact with their environments to generate information and creative outputs through abductive cognition. Humans display high eco-cognitive openness, integrating tools and cultural contexts through “unlocked strategies” that also enable exceptional creativity. By contrast, generative AI like LLMs operates via “locked strategies” based on pre-existing datasets with limited real-time interaction, which constrains higher creativity. Although LLMs surpass humans in many cognitive tasks, they lack the openness required for truly advanced abductive performance. Notably, most human cognition is repetitive and imitative—humans themselves often resemble “stochastic parrots.” In this sense, LLMs reveal human intellectual poverty more than they expose flaws in artificial intelligence. I will illustrate how LLMs can act as powerful enhancers of human performance while simultaneously threatening our most distinctive prerogative: creativity. Future human–AI collaboration could expand our eco-cognitive openness, but demands vigilant oversight to counter bias and so-called overcomputationalization. GenAI can serve as an epistemic mediator toward unlocked creativity only if humans maintain agency and embed its outputs in broader socio-cultural frameworks. My greatest concern is that ethical and legal safeguards will remain ineffective in practice, resulting in mere “ethics washing” and “law washing” without genuine enforcement. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Inquiry into Intelligence)
21 pages, 320 KB  
Article
Xenoepistemics
by Jordi Vallverdú
Philosophies 2026, 11(2), 57; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies11020057 - 8 Apr 2026
Viewed by 609
Abstract
Epistemology remains tacitly anthropocentric: it treats knowledge as something produced and validated through human cognitive capacities such as understanding, intuition, and transparent justification. Yet contemporary science and artificial intelligence increasingly depend on non-human systems that generate mathematically valid results, empirically successful models, and [...] Read more.
Epistemology remains tacitly anthropocentric: it treats knowledge as something produced and validated through human cognitive capacities such as understanding, intuition, and transparent justification. Yet contemporary science and artificial intelligence increasingly depend on non-human systems that generate mathematically valid results, empirically successful models, and operationally reliable inferences that no human can fully survey or interpret. This article develops xenoepistemics, a structural theory of non-anthropocentric knowledge. The central claim is that epistemic evaluation must be reformulated in terms of system-level properties—reliability, robustness, counterfactual sensitivity, and domain transfer—rather than mentalistic notions such as belief or understanding. I offer (i) a definition of xenoepistemic systems as systems that track structure in a target domain without requiring human-style semantic access; (ii) a minimal account of epistemic agency without minds that avoids trivialization; and (iii) a non-circular trust framework that distinguishes empirical success from epistemic legitimacy using independent validation regimes. This paper addresses a reflexive worry—that a human-authored theory cannot dethrone human epistemology—by separating standpoint from object: xenoepistemics is articulated by humans but is not about human cognition. I discuss the pragmatic value of xenoepistemic knowledge production, the limits of independent verification for opaque systems, domain-relative thresholds for xenoepistemic authority, and the problem of constitutionally human-inaccessible knowledge. Finally, I diagnose and formalize the Marcusian regress paradox: recurrent goalpost-shifting, whereby every machine competence is reclassified as irrelevant once achieved. Xenoepistemics reframes this debate by treating non-human knowledge as a present reality requiring new norms, not as a future curiosity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Inquiry into Intelligence)
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19 pages, 280 KB  
Article
Social Science in the Age of AI: Unveiling Opportunities, Confronting Biases, and Charting Ethical Pathways
by Tarik Mokadi, Osama Tawfiq Jarrar and Ayman Yousef
Philosophies 2026, 11(2), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies11020052 - 1 Apr 2026
Viewed by 1354
Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a significant paradigm of methodology and epistemology in the social sciences. Machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and generative models enable researchers to work with big, multimodal datasets, identify complex patterns, and recreate events in the social [...] Read more.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a significant paradigm of methodology and epistemology in the social sciences. Machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and generative models enable researchers to work with big, multimodal datasets, identify complex patterns, and recreate events in the social world in ways that previously were not feasible. At the same time, these innovations also lead to ethical challenges related to algorithmic bias, black boxes, data extractivism, and reinforced structural inequalities in welfare, government services, education, and criminal justice. The article critically questions the social sciences in the light of AI on three dimensions that are inextricably linked, namely: (1) the opportunities that AI provides to social-scientific inquiry; (2) the biases and constraints generated through data, models, and institutional application; and (3) ethical pathways that are necessary for the responsible governance of AI-facilitated research and decision support. The article is based on a scoping, critical thematic review of the recent literature, and its conceptualization of AI as a socio-technical infrastructure is that it produces knowledge and, at the same time, offers power. It explains the impact AI practices have on restructuring disciplines like sociology, psychology, political science, and policy analysis, and how it blindly predicts how data practices, design choices, and governance arrangements can either preserve or destroy existing hierarchies. The paper suggests an analytical framework synthesizing AI practices, social research practices, and governance structures in ethical frameworks. It argues that the emancipatory promise of AI in the social sciences is dependent on the attainment of something beyond principle-based claims of so-called ethical AI by operational governance mechanisms that make systems visible, debatable, and responsible in their respective situations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Inquiry into Intelligence)
18 pages, 265 KB  
Article
Wittgenstein, Turing, and the Intelligence of Games
by Rossella Lupacchini
Philosophies 2026, 11(1), 10; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies11010010 - 16 Jan 2026
Viewed by 1221
Abstract
One of Wittgenstein’s most quoted passages from his Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology concerns Turing’s “machines” and says verbatim: “These machines are humans who calculate. And one might express what he [Turing] says also in the form of games.” This passage [...] Read more.
One of Wittgenstein’s most quoted passages from his Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology concerns Turing’s “machines” and says verbatim: “These machines are humans who calculate. And one might express what he [Turing] says also in the form of games.” This passage not only captures the kernel of Turing’s conceptual argument for the adequacy of his definition of “computability”, as presented in his article On Computable Numbers (1936), but also helps clarify Turing’s idea of “mechanical intelligence.” Indeed, the notion of game provides an ideal means to focus on similarities and differences between Turing and Wittgenstein’s views of mechanical procedures, mathematical understanding, and thinking activity. The live encounter between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alan Turing took place in Cambridge in 1939, when Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics were regularly attended by Turing. Interestingly, during the conversations between the two, Turing seems to play the role of the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus, to allow the present Wittgenstein to reassess what he deplores as mistaken or misleading in his early work. As for Turing himself, his reflection on thinking machines from the late 1940s demonstrates the significance of his dialogue with Wittgenstein. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Inquiry into Intelligence)
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