Consequentialism is often criticised as being overly demanding, and this overdemandingness is seen as sufficient to reject it as a moral theory. This paper takes the plausibility and coherence of this objection – the Demandingness Objection – as a given. Our question, therefore, is how to respond to the Objection. We put forward a response that we think has not received sufficient attention in the literature: institutional consequentialism. On this view institutions take over the consequentialist burden, whereas individuals, special occasions (...) aside, are required to set up and maintain institutions. We first introduce the Objection, then explain the theory of institutional consequentialism and how it responds to the Objection. In the remainder of the paper, we defend the view against potential challenges. (shrink)

Elsewhere we have responded to the so-called demandingness objection to consequentialism – that consequentialism is excessively demanding and is therefore unacceptable as a moral theory – by introducing the theoretical position we call institutional consequentialism. This is a consequentialist view that, however, requires institutional systems, and not individuals, to follow the consequentialist principle. In this paper, we first introduce and explain the theory of institutional consequentialism and the main reasons that support it. In the remainder of the paper, we turn (...) to the global dimension where the first and foremost challenge is to explain how institutional consequentialism can deal with unsolved global problems such as poverty, war and climate change. In response, following the general idea of institutional consequentialism, we draw up three alternative routes: relying on existing national, transnational and supranational institutions; promoting gradual institutional reform; and advocating radical changes to the status quo. We evaluate these routes by describing normatively relevant properties of the existing global institutional system, as well as by showing what institutional consequentialism can say about alternatives to it: a world government; and multi-layered sovereignty/neo-medieval system. (shrink)

Most philosophers believe that a person can have an obligation only insofar as she is able to fulfil it, a principle generally referred to as “Ought Implies Can”. Arguably, this principle reflects something basic about the ordinary concept of obligation. However, in a paper published recently in this journal, Wesley Buckwalter and John Turri presented evidence for the conclusion that ordinary people in fact reject that principle. With a series of studies, they claimed to have demonstrated that, in people’s judgements, (...) obligations persist irrespective of whether those who hold them have the ability to fulfil them. We argue in this paper that due to some problems in their design, Buckwalter & Turri’s conclusions may not be war- ranted. We present the results of a series of studies demonstrating the problems with their design and showing that, with an improved design, people judge that obligation depends on ability after all. (shrink)

This chapter describes how philosophical theorizing about justice can be connected with empirical research in the social sciences. We begin by drawing on some received distinctions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to theorizing justice along several different dimensions, showing how non-ideal approaches are needed to address normative aspects of real-world problems and to provide practical guidance. We argue that there are advantages to a transitional approach to justice focusing on manifest injustices, including the fact that it enables us to set (...) aside some reasonable disagreements about justice. The ‘bottom-up’ approach we advocate, for which we borrow Wolff’s term ‘real-world political philosophy’, is an empirically-informed normative analysis that attends to specific, identifiable injustices, and thus is partial, though not isolationist. We illustrate our approach by considering how different models of the nature of disability suggest different kinds of remedy for injustices faced by persons living with disabilities. We reflect on the nature and significance of vulnerabilities, and we assess the role of public opinion in normative theorizing, suggesting a particular significance for the opinions and experiences of marginalized groups. We finally reflect on the relevance of European legal and institutional frameworks for theorizing justice in Europe. (shrink)

Our paper consists of three parts. In the first part we explain the concept of mental fictionalism. In the second part, we present the various versions of fictionalism and their main sources of motivation.We do this because in the third part we argue that mental fictionalism, as opposed to other versions of fictionalism, is a highly undermotivated theory.

This paper argues that group attitudes can be assessed in terms of standards of rationality and that group-level rationality need not be due to individual-level rationality. But it also argues that groups cannot be collective epistemic agents and are not collectively responsible for collective irrationality. I show that we do not need the concept of collective epistemic agency to explain how group-level irrationality can arise. Group-level irrationality arises because even rational individuals can fail to reason about how their attitudes will (...) combine with those of others. In some cases they are morally responsible for this failure, in others they are not. Moreover, the argument for collective epistemic agency is incoherent because reasons-for-groups are ipso facto reasons-for-individual. Instead of talking about reasons-for-groups, we should therefore distinguish between self-regarding reasons and group-regarding reasons. Both kinds of reasons are reasons-for-individuals. These conceptual considerations in favour of moderate individualism are strengthened by an analysis of our moral practice of responding to collective shortfalls of rationality and by the unpalatable moral implications of collectivism about epistemic agency. There is no need to change the subject. Groups can be rational or irrational, but they do not reason. (shrink)

An open question in the semantics of modality is what relations there are among different modal flavours. In this article, we consider the thorny issue of whether ascribing to an agent the obligation to φ implies that it is possible for the agent to φ. Traditionally, this issue has been interpreted as whether ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. But another linguistic interpretation is available as well, namely, whether ‘must’ implies ‘can’ (MIC). We show that ‘must’ does imply ‘can’ via a convergent argument. (...) The first strand of the argument is theoretical: it consists in proving MIC from a well-established theory of modality in natural language, i.e., that proposed by Kratzer. The second strand is empirical: we present novel acceptability judgment studies showing that MIC predicts and explains the linguistic behaviour of native English speakers. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend the main claims of our earlier paper “Mental Fictionalism as an Undermotivated Theory” (in The Monist) from Gábor Bács’s criticism, which appeared in his “Mental fictionalism and epiphenomenal qualia” (in Dialectica). In our earlier paper, we tried to show that mental fictionalism is an undermotivated the-ory, so there is no good reason to give up the realist approach to the folk psychological discourse. The core of Bács’s criticism consists in that our argumentation rests on an (...) equivocation concerning the folk psychological concepts of conscious experiences. In our present argumentation, at first, we shortly recapitulate our earlier argumentation and Bács’s main objection to it. After that, we argue against the case of equivocation, claiming that it rests on a highly implausible and unsupported verificationist approach. Lastly, in answering another remark of Bács’s, we discuss the possibility of a realist mental fic-tionalism and conclude that it is an incoherent standpoint. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the first and the third premises of the zombie argument cannot be jointly true: zombies are either inconceivable beings or the possible existence of them does not threaten the physicalist standpoint. The tenability of the premises in question depends on how we understand the concept of a zombie. In the paper, I examine three popular candidates to this concept, namely zombies are creatures who lack consciousness, but are identical to us in their (a) functional (...) organization, (b) entire physical makeup, and (c) microphysical structure. The main aim of the paper is to argue that none of these conceptions conveys a consistent zombie-concept to us, which, at the same time, would be dangerous for physicalism. In the conclusion, I argue that the source of this failure can be found in the logical fallaciousness of the argument, namely the premises simply presuppose the truth of the conclusion. (shrink)

Individualists hold that moral responsibility can be ascribed to single human beings only. An important collectivist objection is that individualism is morally deficient because it leaves a normative residue. Without attributing responsibility to collectives there remains a “deficit in the accounting books” (Pettit). This collectivist strategy often uses judgment aggregation paradoxes to show that the collective can be responsible when no individual is. I argue that we do not need collectivism to handle such cases because the individualist analysis leaves no (...) responsibility-deficit. Harm suffered in such situations can have only two sources. Harm is either due to culpable wrongdoing by individuals. Harm is then redressed by holding these individuals responsible. Or harm does not result from culpable wrongdoing. Such harm may have to be redressed too, but not because anyone is responsible for it. Therefore, the charge of moral insensitivity against individualist accounts can be rejected. Furthermore, in the last section of the chapter I will show that collectivist talk about moral responsibility can be used for ethically questionable purposes as well. Collectivists cannot claim the moral high ground. (shrink)

In this paper we analyze and discuss Jennifer Saul’s account of the famous Gricean notions of ‘what is said’ and ‘what is implicated’ and the alleged conflict between them and the so- called Speaker- Meaning Exhaustiveness Thesis (SMET), which is standardly attributed to Grice in the literature. SMET declares that speaker- meaning divides exhaustively into what is said and what is (conventionally or nonconventionally) implicated by the speaker. After a detailed interpretation of Saul’s position, we argue that her analysis partly (...) misconstrues the relation between Grice’s theory of speaker- meaning and his normative account of conversational implicature. First of all, because SMET is not a genuine part of the Gricean theory of language and meaning – Grice was never committed to it. Secondly, Saul’s interpretation of the Gricean account of conversational implicature does not reflect accurately his original ideas. Although we agree with Saul that conversational implicature has an essential normative aspect, her account cannot capture well the real nature of this normativity, since it does not identify its source and does not delineate its scope. Finally, we present an alternative, speaker- oriented normative interpretation of Grice’s account of conversational implicatures, and argue that it fits better with the Gricean picture of communication and handles better the various problematic cases of conversational implicature than Saul’s mainly audience- oriented interpretation. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that certain hard moral choices constitute tragic moral dilemmas in which no available course of action is justifiable, and so the agent is blameworthy whatever she chooses. This paper criticizes a certain approach to the debate about moral dilemmas and considers the metaethical implications of the criticisms. The approach in question has been taken by many advocates as well as opponents of moral dilemmas who believe that analysing the emotional response of the agent is the key (...) to the debate about moral dilemmas. The metaethical position this approach is most naturally associated with is sentimentalism. Sentimentalists claim that evaluation, and in particular moral evaluation, crucially depends on human sentiment. This paper is not concerned with the question whether moral dilemmas exist, but rather with emotion-based arguments used on both sides of the debate. The first aim of the paper is to show that emotion-based arguments by friends or foes of moral dilemmas cannot garner support from sentimentalism. The second aim is to show that this constitutes a serious problem for sentimentalism. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to show that the privacy of conscious experience is inconsistent with any kind of physicalism. That is, if you are a physicalist, then you have to deny that more than one subject cannot undergo the very same conscious experience. In the first part of the paper we define the concepts of privacy and physicalism. In the second part we delineate two thought experiments in which two subjects undergo the same kind of conscious experience in (...) such a way that all the physical processes responsible for their experiences are numerically the same. Based on the thought experiments and their interpretations we present our argument for the inconsistency of the privacy of experience with physicalism in the third part of the paper. In the final part we defend our argumentation against some objections. (shrink)

The original proposal of H. H. Pattee (1971) of basing quantum theoretical measurement theory on the theory of the origin of life, and its far reaching consequences, is discussed in the light of a recently emerging biological paradigm of internal measurement. It is established that the "measurement problem" of quantum physics can, in principle, be traced back to the internal material constraints of the biological organisms, where choice is a fundamental attribute of the self-measurement of matter. In this light, which (...) is shown to be a consequence of Pattee's original suggestion, it is proposed that biological evolution is a gradual liberation from the inert unity of "subject" and "object" of inanimate matter (as "natural law" and "initial conditions"), to a split biological existence of them and, as a consequence, the "message of evolution" is freedom, rather than complexity in itself. Some classical philosophical systems are brought into context to show that the epistemologies of several strictly philosophical systems of the social sciences are well acquainted with the problem and their solutions support our conclusions. (shrink)

Three distinct turning points (“bottleneck breakings”) in universal evolution are discussed at some length in terms of “self-reference” and (corresponding) “Reality Principles.” The first (origin and evolution of animate Nature) and second (human consciousness) are shown to necessarily precede a third one, that of Marxist philosophy. It is pointed out that while the previous two could occupy a natural (so in a sense neutral) place as parts of human science, the self-reference of Marxism, as a _social_ human phenomenon, through its (...) direct bearings on the _practice_ of society, did have a stormy history. I conclude that the fall of Bolshevism was unavoidable, and still, we might uphold our hope for a truly free society of humankind, just on the very basis of what we have learned of the fate of Marxist philosophy as such, as a _recursively evolving_ social _practice_: the freedom of humankind of its own ideological burdens (constraints). (shrink)

The scenario of Homo sapiens origin/s within Africa has become increasingly complex, with a pan-African perspective currently challenging the long-established single-origin hypothesis. In this paper, we review the lines of evidence employed in support of each model, highlighting inferential limitations and possible terminological misunderstandings. We argue that the metapopulation scenario envisaged by pan-African proponents well describes a mosaic diversification among late Middle Pleistocene groups. However, this does not rule out a major contribution that emerged from a single population where crucial (...) derived features—notably, a globular braincase—appeared as the result of a punctuated, cladogenetic event. Thus, we suggest that a synthesis is possible and propose a scenario that, in our view, better reconciles with consolidated expectations in evolutionary theory. These indicate cladogenesis in allopatry as an ordinary pattern for the origin of a new species, particularly during phases of marked climatic and environmental instability. (shrink)

This chapter has three aims. Firstly, it elaborates the so-called pragmatic approach to fictionalism. By evoking some classical pragmatic theories of fictive utterances, it gives an account of pragmatic properties responsible for the difference between serious and fictive utterances. The authors argue for the thesis that the pragmatic approach can be applied plausibly to all kinds of fictionalism, that is from instrumentalism to figuralism. Secondly, the authors investigate some consequences of the suggested account for fictionalist theories in general. They show (...) that some more or less known difficulties of fictionalist theories become more serious if one accepts the pragmatic approach. The chapter discusses two of them, namely the problem of entirely fictional discourses and the apparent contradiction between hermeneutic fictionalism and first person authority. Thirdly, the authors investigate the consequences of the pragmatic approach for mental fictionalism in particular. At the end of the paper, they argue that once the pragmatic approach is applied to mental fictionalism, the well-known problem of cognitive suicide becomes especially nagging. They suggest it is highly questionable that mental fictionalism is worth to endorse in the light of these serious difficulties. (shrink)

If you have ever had to move house, you will know this: the worst part is the sofa. You cannot do it alone. Nor will it be enough for me to just lift one end waiting for you to lift the other. We will have to work together to get the job done. If spaces are tight, we will even have to find a practical solution to a tantalizing mathematical puzzle: the moving sofa problem.Joint actions like that are part and (...) parcel of everyday life. But what exactly is special about acting together? After all, the actions of two strangers also depend on one another when one exits and the other enters through a revolving door, when they happen to walk side-by-side along a forest path, or when they exchange blows in a pub brawl.The problem is that two patterns of social behavior might look identical, even though one is a case of joint action and the other is not. There need not be an observable difference between the movements of old friends taking their morning constitutional together, on the one hand, a .. (shrink)

The paper offers a critique of sanctionism. According to this view, moral obligations are generated by the fear of sanctions. I argue that this view cannot capture the nature of important moral concepts and practices. I discuss in detail the practice of attributing moral responsibility to show this.

The theory and practice of constitutionalism is tightly interwoven with references and appeals to values. However, these references and appeals frequently remain undertheorized and are seldom connected directly to philosophical theories of value. This chapter outlines some ways in which such connections might be established.

The concept of exploitation and potentially exploitative real-world practices are the subject of increasing philosophical attention. However, while philosophers have extensively debated what exploitation is and what makes it wrong, they have said surprisingly little about what might be required to remediate it. By asking how the consequences of exploitation should be addressed, this article seeks to contribute to filling this gap. We raise two questions. First, what are the victims of exploitation owed by way of remediation? Second, who ought (...) to remediate? Our answers to these questions are connected by the idea that exploitation cannot be fully remediated by redistributing the exploiter's gain in order to repair or compensate the victim's loss. This is because exploitation causes not only distributive but also relational harm. Therefore, redistributive measures are necessary but not sufficient for adequate remediation. Moreover, this relational focus highlights the fact that exploitative real-world practices commonly involve agents other than the exploiter who stand to benefit from the exploitation. Insofar as these third parties are implicated in the distributive and relational harms caused by exploitation, there is, we argue, good reason to assign part of the burden of remediation to them. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This paper reviews some major episodes in the history of the spatial isomorphism problem of dynamical systems theory. In particular, by analysing, both systematically and in historical context, a hitherto unpublished letter written in 1941 by John von Neumann to Stanislaw Ulam, this paper clarifies von Neumann's contribution to discovering the relationship between spatial isomorphism and spectral isomorphism. The main message of the paper is that von Neumann's argument described in his letter to Ulam is the very first proof that (...) spatial isomorphism and spectral isomorphism are not equivalent because spectral isomorphism is weaker than spatial isomorphism: von Neumann shows that spectrally isomorphic ergodic dynamical systems with mixed spectra need not be spatially isomorphic. (shrink)

The Russell's paradox concerns the foundations of naive set theory. This short short paper is about how it can be interpreted in other contexts and has significance in the world of commands. Understanding the paper assumes that the reader is broadly familiar with the foundations of set theory and its history. The text contains many formulas and therefore the reader should be comfortable in the world of logical formulas. My example is somewhat similar to the barber paradox. There, too, we (...) are puzzled by the feasibility of a task. In the case of the barber paradox there is a solution: the barber is a woman, in my example there is no such escape. (shrink)

To solve the ship of Theseus puzzle, you need several keys. First of all, we need to fix the application condition of the physical object—it is a vehicle or an object memory; then the identification criterion—the ship was named The Ship of Theseus when he boarded it; and finally the re-application criterion—a ship (or an object memory) when it is the same ship (or object memory) as before. The degree of change from the previous and reference states must be given. (...) The identity of physical objects over time can be expressed by the uniformity of the time slices of the persisting objects. Uniformity exists from the point of view that these instances are temporal cross-sections of the same object; they may differ in other characteristics; there are no general a priori principles independent of practice. The definition of identity is decided by the community of language users. The two states of an object are the same as long as the rate of change of state remains below the threshold value relative to the reference. The two states of an object are similar as long as the change is below a threshold value with respect to each other. Similarity can be described by a tolerance relationship. The mathematical relation describing uniformity is formally an equivalence relation, just as the relation describing identity is an equivalence relation. A physical object is identical to an equivalence class when we speak of the object's identity over time and identical or not identical to an element of the equivalence class when we speak of the object having changed or ceased to exist. (shrink)

The Truth problem is one of the central problems of philosophy. Nowadays, every major theory of truth that applies to formal languages utilizes devices referring to formulae. Such devices include name-forming functions. The theory of truth discussed in this paper applies to strict formal logic languages, the critique of which must, therefore, also obey mathematical rigour. This is why I have used formal logic derivations below rather than the argumentation of ordinary language.

The influence of Brentano on the emergence of Husserl's notion of intentionality has been usually perceived as the key of understanding the history of intentionality, since Brentano was credited with the discovery of intentionality, and Husserl was his discipline. This much debated question is to be revisited in the present essay by incorporating recent advances in Brentano scholarship and by focusing on Husserl's very first work, his habilitation essay (Über den Begriff der Zahl), which followed immediately after his study years (...) at Brentano, and also on manuscript notes from the same period. It is to be shown that (i) although Brentano failed to enact a direct influence on Husserl's notion of intentionality (much in line with K. Schuhmann's claim), (ii) yet the core of Brentano's notion remained operative in Husserl's theory of relations, which is seemingly influenced by John Stuart Mill and Hermann Lotze. This investigation is intended as a contribution towards the proper understanding of the complexities of Husserl's early philosophy. (shrink)

Sometimes it is worth using Tarski’s solution rather than merely mentioning it.

This chapter describes a philosophical approach to theorizing justice, mapping out some main strands of the tradition leading up to contemporary political philosophy. We first briefly discuss what distinguishes a philosophical approach to justice from other possible approaches to justice, by explaining the normative focus of philosophical theories of justice – that is, a focus on questions not about how things actually are, but about how things ought to be. Next, we explain what sorts of methods philosophers use to justify (...) theories of justice. Following this, in the longest section, we highlight major questions about justice that have drawn the attention of philosophers, and indicate how competing conceptions of justice have arisen from differing answers to these questions. The goal here is not to answer but to elucidate some of the larger questions about justice, as well as to establish a framework for understanding and distinguishing different kinds of claims about justice and some of the relations between them. (shrink)

Denna artikel är den andra i en serie om två artiklar som introducerar astrobiologins filosofi. Detta är ett förhållandevis nytt och i Sverige nästan okänt forskningsfält som dock befinner sig i snabb tillväxt internationellt. Ämnet presenteras här i form av exempel på några centrala frågeställningar inom området. I den här artikeln presenteras några frågeställningar hemmahörande i praktisk filosofi.

This paper offers a qualified defense of a historically popular view that I call sentimental perceptualism. At a first pass, sentimental perceptualism says that emotions play a role in grounding evaluative knowledge analogous to the role perceptions play in grounding empirical knowledge. Recently, András Szigeti and Michael Brady have independently developed an important set of objections to this theory. The objections have a common structure: they begin by conceding that emotions have some important epistemic role to play, but then (...) go on to argue that understanding how emotions play that role means that there must be some alternative, emotion-independent route to obtaining knowledge of value. If there has to be such an emotion-independent route, then the perceptual analogy breaks down in a significant way. In this paper, I argue that the right ways for sentimental perceptualists to respond to each of these objections are revealed by thinking through how analogous objections applied to perception and the empirical domain would be answered. Although Szigeti's and Brady's objections should not persuade sentimental perceptualists to give up their view, the objections do put important constraints on what a form of the view has to be like in order to do exciting metaethical work. (shrink)

Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1986 to 2009 /// Historical background -- An imposed legacy -- Twentieth century contemporaneity -- Appendix: The philosophy of teaching legal philosophy in Hungary /// HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- PHILOSOPHY OF LAW IN CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE: A SKETCH OF HISTORY [1999] 11–21 // PHILOSOPHISING ON LAW IN THE TURMOIL OF COMMUNIST TAKEOVER IN HUNGARY (TWO PORTRAITS, INTERWAR AND POSTWAR: JULIUS MOÓR & ISTVÁN LOSONCZY) [2001–2002] 23–39: Julius Moór 23 / István Losonczy 29 // (...) ON THE SURVIVAL OF ILMAR TAMMELO’S LETTER AND MANUSCRIPT ADDRESSED TO PROFESSOR MOÓR [2009] 41–44 // PROFESSIONAL DISTRESS AND SCARCITY: ALEXANDER HORVÁTH AND THE LEGACY OF NATURAL LAW IN HUNGARY [2005] 45–50 // HUNGARIAN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 20TH CENTURY [2011] 51–72: I. The Pre-war Period [1. Bódog (Felix) Somló (1871–1920) 52] / II. The Inter-war Period [2. Gyula (Julius) Moór (1888–1950) 54 / 3. Barna Horváth (1896–1973) 55 / 4. József Szabó (1909–1992) 57 / 5. István Bibó (1911–1979) 58 / 6. Tibor Vas (1911–1983) 59 / 7. István Losonczy (1918–1980) 60] III. The Post-war Period (Communism) 61 [8. Imre Szabó (1912–1991) 62 / 9. Vilmos Peschka (1929–2006) 63 / 10. Kálmán Kulcsár (1928–2010) 65] IV. Contemporary Trends and Perspectives 66 [11. Csaba Varga (b. 1941) 66 / 12. András Sajó (b. 1949) 69 / 13. Béla Pokol (b. 1950) 70] V. Our Understanding of the Law Today 71 --- AN IMPOSED LEGACY -- LOOKING BACK [1999] 75–94: 1. On Ideologies and Marxism in general 75 / 2. Life of an Intellectual in Communism 79 / 3. On Marxism and its Socialist Cultivation in Particular 82 / 4. Legal Philosophising [4.1. Approaches to Law 87 / 4.2. Arriving at a Legal Ontology 91] 5. Conclusion 94 // LEGAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE MARXISM OF SOCIALISM: HUNGARIAN OVERVIEW IN AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE [2003] 95–151: I. Development and Balance of Marxist Philosophising on Law in Hungary [1. Preliminaries (until 1948) 96 / 2. Stalinism (from the Soviet Occupation on) {a) Liquidation of the »Residues« 98 / b) Soviet-type Uniformisation [Gleichschaltung] 99 / c) Denial of the Past, with a Dual Effect 99 / d) »Socialist Legality«, Drawn from the Progressive Past of Western Europe 103 / e) Search for the Germs of Scholarly Evolution 103} 3. Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation (from the 1960s) [a) Epigonism Becoming the Scholarly Ideal 104 / b) Stalinism in a Critical Self-perspective 105 / c) Disciples Diversified Launching their own Trends 107 / d) Comparatism 110 / e) (Re)discovery of the Western Legal Philosophy as a Competitor 112 / f) A Leading Mediatory Role within the »Socialist World Order« 114} 4. Disintegration (in the 1980s) {a) Attempt at Laying New Foundations for Marxism with Epigonism Exhausted 115 / b) Competitive Trends Becoming Exclusive 115 / c) Western Legal Philosophy Acknowledged as a Fellow-traveller within the Socialist Orbit Proper 116 / d) Hungarian Legal Theory Transforming into a National Corpus 118 / e) The Practical Promotion of Some Balance 119} 5. End-game for a Substitute State Religion (in the 1990s) 120] II. Marxist Legal Philosophising in an International Perspective [Ad 1: To the Preliminaries 122 / Ad 2: To Stalinism 124 / Ad 3: To Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation {a) Late Separation from Vishinskiy’s Theory 125 / b) From Ideological Self-closure to an Apparently Scholarly Openness 127 / c) From Political Ideology to Genuine Scholarship 130 / d) International Recognition of Socialist Jurisprudence as an Independent Trend 135 / e) Together with Western Trends 137} Ad 4: To Disintegration {a) Loss of Attraction as Mere Epigonism 139 / b) Exclusivity of Competing Trends 139 / c) Fellowship with »Bourgeois« Trends 140 / d) An own Trend, Internationally Recognised 141 / e) A yet Progressive Role 142} Ad 5: To the Present state 143] III. A Temporary Balance 145 // AUTONOMY AND INSTRUMENTALITY OF LAW IN A SUPERSTRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE [1986] 151–175: 1. The Strange Fate of Concepts 151 / I. A Relational Category 2. Basis and Superstructure: The Genuine Meaning 154 / 3. Exerting Social Influence as a Conceptual Minimum 156 / 4. Relationships within the Prevailing Totality 158 / 5. Attempts at Interpretation in Hungary 159 / 6. The Lukácsian Stand 162 / 7. Lukács’s Recognitions 168 / 8. Some Criticism 169 / II. The Law’s Understanding 171 / 9. Law Interpreted as Superstructure 171 / 10. Conclusions Drawn for the Law’s Understanding 173 // LEGAL THEORY IN TRANSITION (A PREFACE FROM HUNGARY) [2000] 177–186 // DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL LEGAL THOUGHT IN HUNGARY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM [2006] 187–215: 1. International Environment 188 / 2. The Situation in Hungary 190 / 3. Outlook I: The Historical-comparative Study of Legal Cultures and of the Lawyerly Way of Thinking 203 / 4. Outlook II: The Paradigmatic Enigma of the Transition to Rule of Law 207 / 5. Incongruity in Practice 213 / 6. Perspectives 214 --- TWENTIETH CENTURY CONTEMPORANEITY -- CHANGE OF PARADIGMS IN LEGAL RECONSTRUCTION: CARL SCHMITT AND THE TEMPTATION TO FINALLY REACH A SYNTHESIS [2002] 219–234: 1. Dangers of Intellectualism 219 / 2. Schmitt in Facts 221 / 3. Schmitt and Kelsen 222 / 4. On Bordering Conditions 226 / 5. With Kelsen in Transubstantiation 230 / 6. Polarisation as the Path of Theoretical Development 232 // KELSENIAN DOCUMENTS IN HUNGARY: CHAPTERS ON CONTACTS, INCLUDING THE GENESIS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY [2006] 235–243: 1. Preludes 235 / 2. The Search for Moór’s Bequeath 235 / 3. Moór’s Collegiality 238 / 4. Bibó as a Disciple Translating 241 // THE »HART-PHENOMENON« [2002] 245–267: I. The Hart-miracle 246 [1. The Scene of Britain at the Time 247 / 2. The Personal Career 250 / 3. The Opus’ Career 252 / 4. Verbal Sociologism 255 / 5. Growing into the British Pattern 259] II. The Hart-phenomenon 260 [6. Origination of a Strange Orthodoxy 261 / 7. Mastering Periods of the 20th Century 263 / 8. Raising the Issue of Reception in Hungary 365] // LITERATURE? A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL PHILOSOPHY? [2007] 269–287: 1. The Enigma of Law and its Study 269 / 2. “Law and Literature” 271 / 3. Varieties of “Law and Literature” 274 / 4. The German Study of Artistic Representations 280 / 5. Some Literary Reconsiderations 285 / 6. Conclusion 287 --- APPENDIX -- THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN HUNGARY [2007] 291–320: I. Why and How to Philosophise in Law? 291 / II. The State of Teaching Legal Philosophy 294 / III. The Philosophy of Teaching Legal Philosophy 296 / IV. Programme at the Catholic University of Hungary 300 [1. Graduate Studies 300 {a) Basic Subjects 301 / b) Facultative Seminars 305 / c) Closing Subjects 309 / d) Written Memoranda and the Thesis 312} 2. Postgraduate Studies 313 / 3. Conclusion 317] V. Perspectives 318 /// Index of Subjects 321 / Index of Normative Materials 328 / Index of Names 329 . (shrink)

Special Issue “Risks of artificial general intelligence”, Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 26/3 (2014), ed. Vincent C. Müller. http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/teta20/26/3# - Risks of general artificial intelligence, Vincent C. Müller, pages 297-301 - Autonomous technology and the greater human good - Steve Omohundro - pages 303-315 - - - The errors, insights and lessons of famous AI predictions – and what they mean for the future - Stuart Armstrong, Kaj Sotala & Seán S. Ó hÉigeartaigh - pages 317-342 - - (...) - The path to more general artificial intelligence - Ted Goertzel - pages 343-354 - - - Limitations and risks of machine ethics - Miles Brundage - pages 355-372 - - - Utility function security in artificially intelligent agents - Roman V. Yampolskiy - pages 373-389 - - - GOLEM: towards an AGI meta-architecture enabling both goal preservation and radical self-improvement - Ben Goertzel - pages 391-403 - - - Universal empathy and ethical bias for artificial general intelligence - Alexey Potapov & Sergey Rodionov - pages 405-416 - - - Bounding the impact of AGI - András Kornai - pages 417-438 - - - Ethics of brain emulations - Anders Sandberg - pages 439-457. (shrink)

I sitt berömda bevis för tidens overklighet påstod McTaggart att det sätt händelser tycks skifta position i tiden från framtid till nutid och till förfluten tid, innebär en motsägelse. Vad McTaggart egentligen menade har varit föremål för en livlig debatt ända sedan beviset först publicerades 1908. Beviset består av två delar. I den första argumenterar McTaggart för att ingenting kan förändras förutom genom att övergå från framtid till förfluten tid. I den andra argumenterar han för att en sådan övergång innebär (...) en motsägelse och att det därför inte kan finnas någon förändring överhuvudtaget, vilket i sin tur innebär att det heller inte finns någon tid. De flesta filosofer är i dag eniga om att McTaggart har fel, men oeniga om på vilket sätt han har fel. Olika filosofer förkastar olika delar av beviset, beroende på om de har vad som kallas en A- eller B-uppfattning av tiden. De som har en A-uppfattning förnekar att tid förstådd som övergång från framtid till förfluten tid är motsägelsefull. De som har en B-uppfattning förnekar att en övergång från framtid till förfluten tid är nödvändig för förändring, men håller med om att sådan övergång är motsägelsefull. Det är min uppfattning att denna oenighet beror på att McTaggarts argument från första början blivit missuppfattat, av både A- och B-teoretiker. Av någon anledning har det alltid betraktats som ett självständigt argument, ett som är oberoende av det ontologiska system McTaggart förespråkade. Jag föreslår ett nytt sätt att förstå hur han menade att tiden är motsägelsefull. Ett sätt som tar hans ontologiska system som utgångspunkt. (shrink)

Sokrates var inte bara en filosofisk nydanare. Genom sitt sätt att involvera sina samtalspartners i den filosofiska processen var han också i hög utsträckning en pedagogisk nydanare. Hans pedagogiska grundidé var den så kallade majeutiska metoden – det vill säga ”barnmorskemetoden”. Med det menade han att han inte överförde sina egna färdiga tankar till den han talade med utan han hjälpte sin samtalspartner att föda sina egna tankar. Inom pedagogiken är det vanligt att använda den så kallade ”Sokratiska metoden” vilket (...) i sin enklaste form bara innebär att man ställer frågor till studenterna. Den här artikeln kommer emellertid att handla om en mer sofistikerad metod som används för begreppsanalys/begreppsdefinition i grupp. Metoden är inspirerad av Sokrates men skiljer sig också en del från hur Sokrates själv grep sig an sina dialoger – åtminstone så som de beskrivs av Platon. Artikeln innehåller en kort historisk och pedagogisk bakgrund men syftar framför allt till att utgöra en praktisk vägledning för genomförande av sokratiska dialoger i filosofiundervisningen. Artikeln bygger framför allt på mina egna erfarenheter av att använda Sokratisk Dialog i undervisningen vid Filosofiska institutionen vid Lunds universitet, Lunds Tekniska Högskola, Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet och i det privata näringslivet. Artikeln vänder sig till alla som undervisar i filosofi på universitetet eller gymnasiet eller i filosofiska metoder för studenter vid andra utbildningar, t.ex. värdeteori, vetenskapsteori eller tillämpad etik för ingenjörer eller medicinare – eller i vilket annat ämne som helst där det förekommer begrepp som saknar en enkel och knivskarp definition men som är viktiga för ämnet. (shrink)

Papers from the conference on AI Risk (published in JETAI), supplemented by additional work. --- If the intelligence of artificial systems were to surpass that of humans, humanity would face significant risks. The time has come to consider these issues, and this consideration must include progress in artificial intelligence (AI) as much as insights from AI theory. -- Featuring contributions from leading experts and thinkers in artificial intelligence, Risks of Artificial Intelligence is the first volume of collected chapters dedicated to (...) examining the risks of AI. The book evaluates predictions of the future of AI, proposes ways to ensure that AI systems will be beneficial to humans, and then critically evaluates such proposals. 1 Vincent C. Müller, Editorial: Risks of Artificial Intelligence - 2 Steve Omohundro, Autonomous Technology and the Greater Human Good - 3 Stuart Armstrong, Kaj Sotala and Sean O’Heigeartaigh, The Errors, Insights and Lessons of Famous AI Predictions - and What they Mean for the Future - 4 Ted Goertzel, The Path to More General Artificial Intelligence - 5 Miles Brundage, Limitations and Risks of Machine Ethics - 6 Roman Yampolskiy, Utility Function Security in Artificially Intelligent Agents - 7 Ben Goertzel, GOLEM: Toward an AGI Meta-Architecture Enabling Both Goal Preservation and Radical Self-Improvement - 8 Alexey Potapov and Sergey Rodionov, Universal Empathy and Ethical Bias for Artificial General Intelligence - 9 András Kornai, Bounding the Impact of AGI - 10 Anders Sandberg, Ethics and Impact of Brain Emulations 11 Daniel Dewey, Long-Term Strategies for Ending Existential Risk from Fast Takeoff - 12 Mark Bishop, The Singularity, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI -. (shrink)

In this introduction, I first present the general problematic of the special section. Our world faces several existential challenges war, and global injustice) and some would argue that the only adequate answer to these challenges is setting up a world government. I then introduce the contributions that comprise the scholarly body of the special section: Andrić on global democracy; Hahn on global political reconciliation; Pinheiro Walla on Kant and world government; Miklós & Tanyi on institutional consequentialism and world governance. (...) Lastly, I briefly describe the practical context in which the idea of the special section has arisen and in which the present contributions have taken shape. (shrink)

Jag tror att det är ett misstag att kräva av humanvetenskaperna (d.v.s. humaniora, samhälls- och beteendevetenskaperna) att de imiterar naturvetenskapernas forskningsmetodik. Humanvetenskaperna studerar meningsfulla fenomen vilkas natur är på ett grundläggande sätt annorlunda än de blott fysiska fenomen som naturvetenskapen studerar. Den största skillnaden är att meningsfulla fenomen inte uppenbarligen är lagbundna på samma sätt som fysiska fenomen och uppvisar därför inte samma regelbundenhet och förutsägbarhet som fysiska fenomen. För att studera meningsfulla fenomen krävs därför andra forskningsmetoder. Trots att humanvetenskaperna (...) studerar fenomen som inte är lagbundna och är på ett visst sätt subjektiva, så vill jag mena att de studerar objektivt verkliga fenomen och kan få giltig kunskap om dem. Att subjektiva fenomen också kan vara objektivt verkliga kan låta märkligt för vissa läsare, varför jag rundar av med en diskussion om vad det egentligen innebär för något att vara objektivt verkligt. Enligt den definition jag föreslår så framstår att meningsfulla fenomen, också de som kallas ”sociala konstruktioner”, kan förstås som objektivt verkliga företeelser trots att de på ett betydelsefullt sätt också är subjektiva. (shrink)

Det är min uppfattning att tabellen över avsiktlighet (rationalitet, medvetande, sinne, tanke, språk, personlighet etc.) som har framträdande här beskriver mer eller mindre exakt, eller åtminstone fungerar som en heuristisk för, hur vi tänker och beter sig, och så det omfattar inte bara filosofi och psykologi, men allt annat (historia, litteratur, matematik, politik etc.). Observera särskilt att avsiktlighet och rationalitet som jag (tillsammans med Searle, Wittgenstein och andra) visa det, omfattar både medvetna deliberative språkliga System 2 och omedvetna automatiserade prelinguistiska (...) System 1 åtgärder eller reflexer. Jag ger en kritisk undersökning av några av de viktigaste resultaten av två av de mest framstående studenter beteende i modern tid, Ludwig Wittgenstein och John Searle, om den logiska strukturen av avsiktlighet (sinne, språk, medvetande, beteende), med som min utgångspunkt Wittgenstein grundläggande upptäckt, att alla verkligt "filosofiska" problem är desamma-förvirring om hur man använder språket i ett visst sammanhang, och så alla lösningar är desamma, titta på hur språket kan användas i det aktuella sammanhanget så att dess sanningsvillkor (Villkor för tillfredsställelse eller COS) är tydliga. Det grundläggande problemet är att man kan säga vad som helst, men man kan inte betyda (ange tydliga COS för) någon godtycklig yttrande och mening är endast möjligt i ett mycket specifikt sammanhang. Jag analyserar olika skrifter av och om dem från det moderna perspektivet av de två tankesystemen (populariserades som "tänkande snabbt, tänkande långsamt"), med en ny tabell över avsiktlighet och nya dubbla system nomenklatur. Jag visar att detta är en kraftfull heuristisk för att beskriva beteende. Således är allt beteende intimt ansluten om man tar rätt synvinkel. Den fenomenologiska Illusion (glömska till vårt automatiserade System 1) är universell och sträcker sig inte bara hela filosofin utan hela livet. Jag är säker på att Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg och påven skulle vara skeptiska om berättade att de lider av samma problem som Hegel, Husserl och Heidegger, (eller att de skiljer sig endast i grad från drog-och sexmissbrukare i att motiveras av stimulering av deras frontalkortices genom leverans av dopamin (och över 100 andra kemikalier) via ventrala tegmentum och nukleos accumbens), men det är helt klart sant. Medan fenomenologerna bara slösat bort en hel del människors tid, slösar de bort jorden och deras ättlings framtid. (shrink)

Det är min uppfattning att tabellen över avsiktlighet (rationalitet, medvetande, sinne, tanke, språk, personlighet etc.) som har framträdande här beskriver mer eller mindre exakt, eller åtminstone fungerar som en heuristisk för, hur vi tänker och beter sig, och så det omfattar inte bara filosofi och psykologi, men allt annat (historia, litteratur, matematik, politik etc.). Observera särskilt att avsiktlighet och rationalitet som jag (tillsammans med Searle, Wittgenstein och andra) visa det, omfattar både medvetna deliberative språkliga System 2 och omedvetna automatiserade prelinguistiska (...) System 1 åtgärder eller reflexer. Jag ger en kritisk undersökning av några av de viktigaste resultaten av två av de mest framstående studenter beteende i modern tid, Ludwig Wittgenstein och John Searle, om den logiska strukturen av avsiktlighet (sinne, språk, medvetande, beteende), med som min utgångspunkt Wittgenstein grundläggande upptäckt, att alla verkligt "filosofiska" problem är desamma-förvirring om hur man använder språket i ett visst sammanhang, och så alla lösningar är desamma, titta på hur språket kan användas i det aktuella sammanhanget så att dess sanningsvillkor (Villkor för tillfredsställelse eller COS) är tydliga. Det grundläggande problemet är att man kan säga vad som helst, men man kan inte betyda (ange tydliga COS för) någon godtycklig yttrande och mening är endast möjligt i ett mycket specifikt sammanhang. Jag analyserar olika skrifter av och om dem från det moderna perspektivet av de två tankesystemen (populariserades som "tänkande snabbt, tänkande långsamt"), med en ny tabell över avsiktlighet och nya dubbla system nomenklatur. Jag visar att detta är en kraftfull heuristisk för att beskriva beteende. Således är allt beteende intimt ansluten om man tar rätt synvinkel. Den fenomenologiska Illusion (glömska till vårt automatiserade System 1) är universell och sträcker sig inte bara hela filosofin utan hela livet. Jag är säker på att Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg och påven skulle vara skeptiska om berättade att de lider av samma problem som Hegel, Husserl och Heidegger, (eller att de skiljer sig endast i grad från drog-och sexmissbrukare i att motiveras av stimulering av deras frontalkortices genom leverans av dopamin (och över 100 andra kemikalier) via ventrala tegmentum och nukleos accumbens), men det är helt klart sant. Medan fenomenologerna bara slösat bort en hel del människors tid, slösar de bort jorden och deras ättlings framtid. (shrink)