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Epistemological Foundation of Biometrics

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Book cover Second Generation Biometrics: The Ethical, Legal and Social Context

Part of the book series: The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology ((ELTE,volume 11))

Abstract

Biometrics provides a further step in the path of science towards quantification of reality. The ancient philosophy of being provides epistemological foundations for a heuristic biometrics. Modern physiology supports the goal of second generation biometrics to detect intentions, since a strong link has been proven to exist between emotions and their easily measurable physiological alterations. Moreover, it has been seen how the body is pre-shaped by the goal of the action it is going to perform. It has been analysed what the sensor recording of identity philosophically means and how this operation reshapes the self-identity. Epistemological investigations have been provided in order to understand limitations and potentials of biometrics and to ground a moral recognition organic to their epistemological status.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cfr. http://www.Biometricscatalog.org/Introduction/default.aspx

  2. 2.

    Stigler (2000).

  3. 3.

    Ruiz et al. (2002).

  4. 4.

    Durkheim (2002).

  5. 5.

    Thomson Kelvin (1883).

  6. 6.

    Ilich (1992).

  7. 7.

    Aristotle did it mainly in his works De Generatione et Corruptione Animalium and in De Anima.

  8. 8.

    Alberti (1980), in this work he establishes the principles of prospective and remarks the main role played by geometry in painting.

  9. 9.

    Ghiberti’s Commentarii (1998), the third book is devoted to the theory of painting.

  10. 10.

    Piero della Francesca (not surely datable between 1460 and 1482) De Prospectiva Pingendi.

  11. 11.

    Leonard’s Treatise on painting [Codex urbinas latinus 1270].

  12. 12.

    On this theme see Rodolfo Papa (2005).

  13. 13.

    It means: nothing is in the understanding that was not earlier in the senses. Cf. Saint Thomas from Aquino (2005), De veritate, Q2, art.3 ad XIX.

  14. 14.

    Moral issues connected with this topic are developed in Mordini (2008).

  15. 15.

    Bohm (1996).

  16. 16.

    Carpenter and McLuhan (1960).

  17. 17.

    McLuhan (1978).

  18. 18.

    Campolo et al. (2009).

  19. 19.

    Fabbri-Destro et al. (2009).

  20. 20.

    For a review on this topic see e.g. Bradley et al. (2007).

  21. 21.

    We are using the etymological sense of the term “phenomenon” that is: what shows itself.

  22. 22.

    Of course it has been remarked that not all actions, not even behaviours, are intentional, if we assume intentionality as something essentially conscious, even if this assumption is not so unquestionable as it could seem. For our argument it is enough to recognize that all intentions are supported by actions or they could be seen in actions, even if the opposite were not true. Either from an historical point of view or from a logical one in our opinion it is not possible to reduce the intentionality to the domain of the consciousness. As a matter of fact also an unconscious intentionality has been studied. It is not possible to discuss here in detail this thesis. It has been analysed in Freud (1900), and in Trincia (2008). Cf. Madioni http://www.rivistacomprendre.org/rivista//uploads/9739ca1c-b78b-8b87.pdf.

  23. 23.

    For a critical analysis of all these schools Cf. Sanguineti (2007). Another antological and useful study, even if not up to date, is: Moravia (1988).

  24. 24.

    Eleatic school e.g. while affirming the true characteristic of being on the one hand, on the other hand denied to the material world any kind of existence, and so the body was considered nothing but an illusion.

  25. 25.

    This is actually just an academic hypothesis, without supporters as long as we know. Maybe Berkley could be seen as an archetypical exponent of this approach according to his spiritual monism flowing from his famous sentence: esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived).

  26. 26.

    Cf. Chalmers (1996).

  27. 27.

    The father of this stream, according to which there are no interior psychological phenomena but just observable behaviours, is Ryle (1949).

  28. 28.

    There are many authors who share this conception, some of the more radical are Churchland (1986, 1996, 1998). Among others, this thesis has been supported by H. Feigl, U. Place, J.J. Smart, and in a more sophisticated way near to functionalism by D.K. Lewis and D. Armstrong.

  29. 29.

    Changeux (1983), Gazzaniga (1998), Damasio (2000), Idem (2003), Edelman (1992), Idem (1989), Tononi and Edelman (2000).

  30. 30.

    Bunge (1980), Margolis (1978), Searle (1984), Idem (1992), Idem (2002).

  31. 31.

    Cf. Kim (1996). A critical discussion about this thesis can be found in Murphy (1999), Seifert (1989).

  32. 32.

    Cf. Fodor (1983), Idem (1994).

  33. 33.

    Cf. Lycan (1987).

  34. 34.

    Cf. Putnam (1975), Idem (1993), Minsky (1988), Dennett (1987), Boden (1977), Idem (1989/1990), Turing (1936, 1950). This is the classic where Touring purposes his famous and eponymous experiment named Turing test. A critical and important article written against this conception, that had a huge impact between the philosophers of mind was, Nagel (1974).

  35. 35.

    The famous passages related to this topic are Phaedo 62D and Ph. 66C – 67B.

  36. 36.

    Cf. Szlesak (1993), Reale (1994); both these philosophers share a new interpretation of the Plato’s thought, according to the which the so called platonic dualism has to be attenuated, because of the fact that even the matter share something of the first principles, which are the One and the Diad. Therefore the body is not just a mere jail of the soul, even if it is true that the goal of the soul needs to get rid of the body in order to be achieved.

  37. 37.

    Cf. Malebranche (1946).

  38. 38.

    The school that adopted this perspective has historically been the thomistic one, some of the authors who developed such theme are: Sanguineti (2005), Maldamé (1998), Aa. Vv (1989), Basti (1991), Possenti (2000), Idem (2000), Borghi (1992), Cross (2002), Haldane (1994), Kenny (1989), Idem (1993).

  39. 39.

    Cf. Aristotle, On the Soul 412b5-7, 413a1-3, 414a15-18.

  40. 40.

    The concept of ratio-sense comes from McLuhan vocabulary and means the way a sense plays a sort of dominance both in perception tasks and in rational recognition.

  41. 41.

    van der Ploeg (2005), quoted in Mordini and Massari (2008).

  42. 42.

    Cfr. Ibidem (2008).

  43. 43.

    Fabro (2006). [Translation of mine].

  44. 44.

    Idem (2006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FAST Istituto di Filosofia dell’Agire Scientifico e Tecnologico, Università Campus Bio-medico - Roma, Via Álvaro del Portillo 21, 00128, Rome, Italy

    Giampaolo Ghilardi

  2. Istituto di Neuroscienze, Università Campus Bio-medico - Roma, Via Álvaro del Portillo 21, 00128, Rome, Italy

    Flavio Keller

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  1. Cittadinanza (CSSC), Centro per la Scienza, la Società e la, Piazza Capo di Ferro 23, Roma, 00186, Italy

    Emilio Mordini

  2. Centre for Research & Technology Hellas, Informatics & Telematics Institute, 1st km Thermi-Panorama Road, Thermi-Thessaloniki, 570 01, Greece

    Dimitros Tzovaras

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Ghilardi, G., Keller, F. (2012). Epistemological Foundation of Biometrics. In: Mordini, E., Tzovaras, D. (eds) Second Generation Biometrics: The Ethical, Legal and Social Context. The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3892-8_2

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