Statements such as “X is beautiful but I don’t like how it looks” or “I like how X looks but it is not beautiful” sound contradictory. How contradictory they sound might however depend on the object X and on the aesthetic adjective being used (“beautiful”, “elegant”, “dynamic”, etc.). In our study, the first sentence was estimated to be more contradictory than the latter: If we describe something as beautiful, we often intend to evaluate its appearance, whereas it is less counterintuitive (...) to appreciate an appearance without finding it beautiful. Furthermore, statements including “beautiful” appeared more contradictory than those including “elegant” and “dynamic”, pointing to its greater evaluative component. When related to artworks, sentences could appear less contradictory due to readers’ consideration of the divergence between conventional beauty and art-related sensory pleasures that can even include negative valence. Such ambivalence might be more frequent in art-objects than in other artefacts. Indeed, in our study, sentences referring to artworks were estimated to be less contradictory compared to sentences referring to other artefacts. Meanwhile, an additional small group of graphic design students showed a less clear difference between art-related and non-art-related sentences. We discuss the potential influence of art experience and interest as well as theoretical and methodological challenges like the conceptualization of beauty. (shrink)

Biological ontologies are used to organize, curate, and interpret the vast quantities of data arising from biological experiments. While this works well when using a single ontology, integrating multiple ontologies can be problematic, as they are developed independently, which can lead to incompatibilities. The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies Foundry was created to address this by facilitating the development, harmonization, application, and sharing of ontologies, guided by a set of overarching principles. One challenge in reaching these goals was that the (...) OBO principles were not originally encoded in a precise fashion, and interpretation was subjective. Here we show how we have addressed this by formally encoding the OBO principles as operational rules and implementing a suite of automated validation checks and a dashboard for objectively evaluating each ontology’s compliance with each principle. This entailed a substantial effort to curate metadata across all ontologies and to coordinate with individual stakeholders. We have applied these checks across the full OBO suite of ontologies, revealing areas where individual ontologies require changes to conform to our principles. Our work demonstrates how a sizable federated community can be organized and evaluated on objective criteria that help improve overall quality and interoperability, which is vital for the sustenance of the OBO project and towards the overall goals of making data FAIR. Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. (shrink)

Climate change and other harmful large-scale processes challenge our understandings of individual responsibility. People throughout the world suffer harms—severe shortfalls in health, civic status, or standard of living relative to the vital needs of human beings—as a result of physical processes to which many people appear to contribute. Climate change, polluted air and water, and the erosion of grasslands, for example, occur because a great many people emit carbon and pollutants, build excessively, enable their flocks to overgraze, or otherwise (...) stress the environment. If a much smaller number of people engaged in these types of conduct, the harms in question would not occur, or would be substantially lessened. However, the conduct of any particular person (and, in the case of climate change, of even quite large numbers of people) could make no apparent difference to their occurrence. My carbon emissions (and quite possibly the carbon emissions of much larger groups of people dispersed throughout the world) may not make a difference to what happens to anyone. When the conduct of some agent does not make any apparent difference to the occurrence of harm, but this conduct is of a type that brings about harm because many people engage in it, we can call this agent an overdeterminer of that harm, and their conduct overdetermining conduct. In this essay we explore the moral status of overdetermining harm. (shrink)

Karl Christian Friedrich Krause left an impressive oeuvre consisting of 256 books and articles, covering numerous branches of philosophy, the humanities, and science.[1] His Urbild der Menschheit, his Vorlesungen über das System der Philosophie and his Vorlesungen über die Grundwahrheiten der Wissenschaft are of particular pertinence for philosophers today. [1] See: E. M. Ureña and E. Fuchs, “Einführung in das Gesamtwerk”, in Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. Band 1: Entwurf des Systems der Philosophie, ed. T. Bach and O. Breidbach.

In his Christian and Metaphysical Meditations (1683) Malebranche develops a reflection in which the self discovers in its interiority that the interlocutor able to answer some of its questions is the divine Word. Through references to the Holy Scriptures and to Augustine, Malebranche constructs a meditative itinerary that differs from the one proposed by Descartes, as it moves from the lumière naturelle in the Cartesian sense to the lumière of the Word. In the light of these historical-theoretical data, we (...) propose a reconstruction of the role played by interiority and meditation in certain texts by Malebranche, highlighting the moments in which he appropriated the Cartesian heritage and those in which he distanced himself from Descartes’ philosophical paradigm. (shrink)

This chapter uncovers a less investigated aspect of the relationship between the two most important scholastic schools of the Renaissance, Thomism and Scotism: the influence of Scotist literature on distinctions as seen in some sixteenth-century Thomists. The chapter has a primary focus on Chrysostomus Javelli’s engagement in his discussion of divine attributes with the Scotist doctrine of distinctions, but also considers other Thomist sources. First, the beginnings of the highly specialised Scotist literature on distinctions are traced back to the start (...) of the fourteenth century; I show how some early followers of Duns Scotus, in particular Francis of Meyronnes and Petrus Thomae, systematised Scotus’ ontology of the various grades of being by compiling lists of subtle distinctions to be applied to various levels of reality. I give some indications as to the later reception of these models of distinctions in the Scotist school. Special attention is paid to Étienne Brulefer, since his summary of Petrus Thomae’s model of seven distinctions was Javelli’s source for the Scotist doctrine. I then investigate how Javelli worked with Brulefer’s summary, and how he sought to integrate the Scotist doctrine into his own discussion of divine attributes. Thomists traditionally allowed only a rational or mental kind of distinction among divine attributes, and between them and the divine essence. Javelli, however, endeavours to show how the Thomist position may be reconciled with the Scotist doctrine of a formal or ex natura rei distinction. He did not always endorse this conciliatory approach; I hypothesise that he changed his mind on the subject over time. Finally, I show how other Renaissance Thomists reacted to the Scotist system of distinctions; in particular, I draw attention to the Thomists Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Bartolomeo Manzoli, and Mattia Gibboni da Aquario, who all wrote treatises on Thomist distinction theory modelled on the Scotist system of distinctions. In some of this literature, lists of distinctions based on Thomist metaphysics were compiled in order to replace the Scotist system. I argue that Javelli’s approach is more conciliatory and, in fact, has some overlap with the concordist thought of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who himself considered Scotus and Aquinas to be in fundamental agreement as regards the distinction between divine attributes. (shrink)

There are striking parallels between current capability theories and the moral philosophy of Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. This article reconstructs central arguments of Krause’s ethics and correlates them with passages from the works of Martha Nussbaum, showing that such similarities extend not only to what, substantially, is being professed in either philosophy but also, procedurally, to the question of how the respective moral conclusions are reached. As Krause correlates responsibility with capability, the article begins with an examination of Krause’s (...) idea of human — as compared to animal — freedom and their respective normative implications. Next, the argument is extended to the social responsibilities of personal freedom, before widening the scope to the cosmopolitan plane. The paper then briefly examines historical links between Krause and current capability theorists, before concluding. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We have previously argued that there are forms of greenhouse gas offsetting for which, when one emits and offsets, one imposes no risk. Orri Stefansson objects that our argument fails to distinguish properly between the people who stand to be harmed by one’s emissions and the people who stand to be benefited by one’s offsetting. We reply by emphasizing the difference between acting with a probability of making a difference to the distribution of harm and acting in a way (...) that worsen’s someone’s prospect. (shrink)

Given their large number of adherents, and the land and property they own, religious communities have been identified as groups that could have an influence on achieving carbon net-zero. The theological views held by religious communities relating to ecological matters – their “ecotheological values” – play an important role in motivating their environmental concern and action. But which ecotheological ideas are most, and which are least, efficacious in this respect? This paper presents findings salient to this question from a (...) recent survey (n = 319) conducted amongst Christian activists and advocates concerned with climate change. It reports on which ecotheological ideas are most widely and firmly held amongst samples from six Christian environmental activist and advocacy groups in the UK, and discusses the extent to which these ideas are either continuous with mainstream Christian theology, or indicate innovative theological thinking. We find examples of both: some mainstream views are popular, and some are unpopular, amongst our sample, whilst some innovative and newer ideas are becoming more popular, whilst others are resisted. These results will be useful in seeking to promote a greater pro-environmental stance within Christian communities more widely. (shrink)

CONTENTS: -/- SEZIONE I IL TUTTO E' UNO? IL RISVEGLIO DI UN PROBLEMA TRA SCOLASTICA E RINASCIMENTO Il principio omne causatum est compositum fra Tommaso e Cajetano Igor Agostini, p. 25 Parti e tutto in Montaigne. La natura e l'individuo tra frammentazione e integrazione Raffaele Carbone 45 Le minuzzarie e il tutto. Giordano bruno e la conoscenza universale Maurizio Cambi 75 -/- SEZIONE II A PARTIRE DA CARTESIO. COME PUO' ESSERE UN TUTTO L'UOMO? -/- Mente/Corpo in Cartesio. Spunti per un'interpretazione (...) mereologica Stefano Di Bella 93 Nos sumus ex Deo et pertinemus ad Deum. Appartenenza, dipendenza e relazione nel pensiero e nel lessico di Arnold Guelincx Cristina Santinelli 115 L'integrità di corpo e mente nell'"invenire" terapeutico di E. W. von Tschirnhaus Manuela Sanna 133 L'indivisibilità della natura umana e della società in Francesco Longano. Un episodio della ricezione di Locke in Italia Roberto Evangelista 147 -/- SEZIONE III L'IRROMPERE DELL'ORGANICO. LA BIOLOGIA FILOSOFICA TRA SEI E SETTECENTO -/- Convenienza e discrepanza. Parti e tutto nella Lettera 32 di Baruch Spinoza Francesco Toto 169 Mereologia della sostanza e mereologia del vivente in Leibniz Enrico Pasini 197 Teleologia e mereologia dell’organismo da Leibniz a Bonnet Francesco Piro 209 Il nesso delle parti: mereologia e scienza secondo Christian Wolff Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero 239 Il problema del tutto e delle parti. il caso del vitalismo di Montpellier Charles T. Wolfe 257 -/- SEZIONE 4 TOTALITA' CRITICHE: DALLA CRISI DEL NATURALISMO ILLUMINISTICO ALLA FILOSOFIA DELLE CULTURE -/- La logica del tutto (e delle parti di tutto, vale a dire niente) in Dom Deschamps Jean-Claude Bourdin 273 l’(in)afferabile forma. Totalità e contingenza nel pensiero di Kant tra Critica della ragion pura e Critica del giudizio Luigi Imperato 303 la relazione Parte-Tutto nel primo Schelling Giuseppe D’Anna 327 Hegel o della totalizzazione dello spazio di interiorità Vittorio Morfino 343 A partire da Kant: Begriffsbiìldung teleologica e relazione Parti-Tutto nelle indagini di Rickert sulla logica delle scienze storiche della cultura Edoardo Massimilla 359 . (shrink)

Reflective equilibrium (RE) is often regarded as a powerful method in ethics, logic, and even philosophy in general. Despite this popularity, characterizations of the method have been fairly vague and unspecific so far. It thus may be doubted whether RE is more than a jumble of appealing but ultimately sketchy ideas that cannot be spelled out consistently. In this paper, we dispel such doubts by devising a formal model of RE. The model contains as components the agent’s commitments and a (...) theory that tries to systematize the commitments. It yields a precise picture of how the commitments and the theory are adjusted to each other. The model differentiates between equilibrium as a target state and the dynamic equilibration process. First solutions to the model, obtained by computer simulation, show that the method allows for consistent specification and that the model’s implications are plausible in view of expectations on RE. In particular, the mutual adjustment of commitments and theory can improve one’s commitments, as proponents of RE have suggested. We argue that our model is fruitful not only because it points to issues that need to be dealt with for a better understanding of RE, but also because it provides the means to address these issues. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to re-assess reflective equilibrium (“RE”). We ask whether there is a conception of RE that can be defended against the various objections that have been raised against RE in the literature. To answer this question, we provide a systematic overview of the main objections, and for each objection, we investigate why it looks plausible, on what standard or expectation it is based, how it can be answered and which features RE must have to meet (...) the objection. We find that there is a conception of RE that promises to withstand all objections. However, this conception has some features that may be unexpected: it aims at a justification that is tailored to understanding and it is neither tied to intuitions nor does it imply coherentism. We conclude by pointing out a cluster of questions we think RE theorists should pay more attention to. (shrink)

What is the status of a cat in a virtual reality environment? Is it a real object? Or part of a fiction? Virtual realism, as defended by D. J. Chalmers, takes it to be a virtual object that really exists, that has properties and is involved in real events. His preferred specification of virtual realism identifies the cat with a digital object. The project of this paper is to use a comparison between virtual reality environments and scientific computer simulations to (...) critically engage with Chalmers’s position. I first argue that, if it is sound, his virtual realism should also be applied to objects that figure in scientific computer simulations, e.g. to simulated galaxies. This leads to a slippery slope because it implies an unreasonable proliferation of digital objects. A philosophical analysis of scientific computer simulations suggests an alternative picture: The cat and the galaxies are parts of fictional models for which the computer provides model descriptions. This result motivates a deeper analysis of the way in which Chalmers builds up his realism. I argue that he buys realism too cheap. For instance, he does not really specify what virtual objects are supposed to be. As a result, rhetoric aside, his virtual realism isn’t far from a sort of fictionalism. (shrink)

The Formalist tradition in late-scholastic philosophy has gone unnoticed in standard historiography. This article’s overall objective is to add the Formalist tradition to what we know about Renaissance philosophy. I first show how the Formalist tradition was born out of some innovative considerations of hierarchies of distinctions in the wake of the Franciscan John Duns Scotus’s teaching on the formal distinction in the beginning of the fourteenth century (especially Francis of Meyronnes’s model of four distinctions and Petrus Thomae’s more elaborate (...) doctrine of seven kinds of distinctions). I then trace how Formalist literature developed from being an exclusively Franciscan affair to becoming a much more widespread phenomenon. Thus, from the decades up to 1500 and onwards, authors from various late-scholastic schools (Thomism, Lullism, Averroism, and others) produced Formalist literature, i.e., treatises on multiple kinds of distinctions. I highlight particularly how one Franciscan philosopher of the sixteenth century, Jean Du Douet, proposed to view the Formalist preoccupation with distinctions as a discipline in its own right, a proper scientia formalitatum. I finally argue that while this proposal met with dismissive reactions, Du Douet’s idea does in fact reflect the role Formalism played in the scholastic curriculum in the late sixteenth century, at least in Franciscan milieus. (shrink)

Abstract The first part argues that being an image is an (at least) four part relation between the image itself (x2), properties of recipients (B), the object (x3), and properties of the object (M). Referring to Grice, Schiffer, and Meggle, a distinction is made between communicativity and non-communicativity (manipulativity) of x2 regarding to B, x3, and M. The second part substitutes sign and image by explicates that denote properties relevant for x2 being an image regarding to B, x3, and M, (...) making thus clear why images are signs. Intentional relations and causal relations are the basis of this explication (influenced by Posner) that is also meant to give an idea of those properties that are typical of pieces of fine arts and of some other cultural practices. Additionally, it helps in understanding the difference between typical images and more abstract symbols. -/- Im ersten Abschnitt werden Gründe dafür genannt, Bildsein als mindestens vierstellige Beziehung aufzufassen: als Beziehung zwischen dem Bild (x2), Rezipienteneigenschaften (B), dem Bildgegenstand (x3) und Eigenschaften (M) des Bildgegenstandes. Dabei wird – anknüpfend an Grice, Schiffer und Meggle – zwischen Kommunikativität und NichtKommunikativität (Manipulativität) von x2 bzgl. B, x3 und M unterschieden. Im zweiten Abschnitt wird die Rede von ›Zeichen‹ und von ›Bildsein‹ ersetzt durch Explikate, die Eigenschaften bezeichnen, welche relevant dafür sind, dass x2 ein Bild bzgl. B, x3 und M ist – derart, dass deutlich wird, inwiefern Bilder Zeichen sind. Basis dieser – von Posner angeregten – Explikationen sind intentionale Beziehungen und Bewirken. Aus den Begriffspräzisierungen ergeben sich Einsichten sowohl in Bezug auf Eigenschaften, die typisch für Werke Bildender Kunst und einige andere kulturelle Praktiken sind, als auch in Bezug auf eine Abgrenzung zentraler Vertreter der Kategorie ›Bild‹ von eher nur bildhaften Symbolen. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Philosophical Context in Jena around 1800 A Metaphysics of Freedom Analytic and Synthetic Philosophy Metaphysics of Humanity Socioeconomic Philosophy The Natural World Harmonious Freedom Krause's Philosophy in Spain Ideal de la humanidad (the ideal of humanity) Latin American Reception Conclusion References Further Reading.

In den vergangenen Jahren hat die Europäische Union (EU) wiederholt versucht, ihre Institutionen zu reformieren. Als der Entwurf für eine Europäische Verfassung und später der Vertrag von Lissabon ausgehandelt wurden, betraf einer der meistdiskutiertesten Streitpunkte die Frage, nach welcher Entscheidungsregel der EU-Ministerrat abstimmen sollte. Diese Frage ist eine genuin normative Frage. Deshalb sollten auch politische Philosophen und Ethiker etwas zu dieser Frage beitragen können. Im folgenden wollen wir uns dieser Herausforderung stellen und alternative Entscheidungsregeln für den EU-Ministerrat bewerten. Dabei erweisen (...) sich die Methoden der probablistische Modellierung und der Simulation sozialer Prozesse als unerlässlich.1 Damit wird deutlich, wie Simulationen auch innerhalb der angewandten politischen Philosophie als Methode eingesetzt werden können. (shrink)

In this exploration of self-identity, I argue that the self is not a standalone entity but an integral part of a broader consciousness. Deep meditation reveals the self as a construct beyond egoistic confines, interlinked with the external world and others' experiences. Decisions arise from an awareness that transcends individual ego, suggesting that our sense of self is an inexhaustible center of dynamic consciousness rather than an ultimate emptiness.

The mean majority deficit in a two-tier voting system is a function of the partition of the population. We derive a new square-root rule: For odd-numbered population sizes and equipopulous units the mean majority deficit is maximal when the member size of the units in the partition is close to the square root of the population size. Furthermore, within the partitions into roughly equipopulous units, partitions with small even numbers of units or small even-sized units yield high mean majority deficits. (...) We discuss the implications for the winner-takes-all system in the US Electoral College. (shrink)

2024 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of Theodor Smising’s giant volume De Deo Uno (printed in Antwerp in 1624), which was soon followed by a second volume, De Deo Trino (printed in Antwerp in 1626). Smising’s work was the first printed output of what developed into a specific tradition within early modern thought, the Louvain tradition of Scotism, itself but one part of the broad Scotist tradition that build upon the thought of John Duns Scotus (ca. 1266–1308). This (...) Louvain tradition was primarily based in the Franciscan Convent of the Holy Trinity in the famous university town. The convent itself was much older, dating back to around 1230, when the Franciscan Order was in its very beginnings and long before the University of Louvain was founded (in 1425). In 1607 a second Franciscan Convent was founded in Louvain, St. Anthony’s College, one of a series of convents established by the Irish Franciscans as a result of their persecution in their homeland by the English Protestant rulers. The Irish Franciscans in Louvain, and in their other convents on the European continent, also cultivated the intellectual heritage of Duns Scotus, editing and commenting on his works and writing new works “ad mentem Scoti.” Both of the Franciscan convents in Louvain were closed in the turmoil after the French Revolution. The buildings of St. Anthony’s College still exist, whereas the older “Minderbroedersklooster” (on our exhibition poster) completely vanished from the cityscape. In recent decades, the Maurits Sabbe Library has acquired a large fund of Franciscan books, mostly from various houses of the Franciscan Order in Belgium that have closed their doors. Our exhibition “Scotism Made in Louvain – The Scholastic Culture of the Franciscans in Belgium” explores this material, complemented by material from the KU Leuven Central Library’s Special Collections and two manuscripts from the archives of KADOC (Documentatie- en Onderzoekscentrum voor Religie, Cultuur en Samenleving). The exhibition tells the story of a significant local scholarly tradition which is placed in the context of the broader Scotist tradition of the Early Modern Period. Whereas Scholasticism as such is often seen as an exclusively medieval phenomenon, our exhibition highlights one important aspect of early modern scholastic culture. The three brief articles included in this catalogue provide an introduction to John Duns Scotus’s thought, investigate the institutional background of Louvain Scotism, and explore some of the most important aspects of the scholastic output of the Franciscans in Louvain. The numbers attached to the images refer to the annotated list of all exhibits. A virtual exhibition with additional photo material will accompany, and last beyond, the library exhibition. (shrink)

This article is an account of an electronic discussion which took place between November 1995 and June 1996. A number of specialists in relevant research areas had been invited to take part in the discussion from the very beginning, and some were added later. Altogether 30 individuals subscribed to the list. The “target paper,” written by Allen Renear, was sent to the list on November 27, 1995. The target paper alone comprised 8,500 words. The ensuing discussion, to which 9 of (...) the members on the list made one or more individual contributions, comprises 30 entries of altogether 37,000 words. It is the function of this printed article to provide a brief summary and a key to the full electronic discussion which accompanies it. (shrink)

Bartolomeo Mastri’s Disputations on Metaphysics is the single most important work on metaphysics produced in the Scotist school during the Early Modern period. This contribution guides through the work by highlighting a selection of key passages that convey an impression of its historical-literary context, its subject matter, its main motifs and scientific aims, but also its limitations. Especially, we see Mastri emphasizing the theological aspect of theology, though he in the end refrains from exploring this aspect of metaphysics within his (...) work on metaphysics. I suggest that this discrepancy between Mastri’s concept of metaphysics and his work on metaphysics showcases the difficulty of organizing this discipline during the phase of transition from the traditional commentary format typical of medieval scholasticism to the Early Modern scholastic Cursus philosophicus literature. (shrink)

This essay argues that what is provoking about Ibn Rushd today is not his stance on such topics as the eternity of the world, God's knowledge of singular things, or the immortality of the soul. It is rather his radical philosophical elitisim, i.e., his view that every religion has room for philosophy, but only for the few - the majority must simply follow holy writ and leave all questioning and allegorical interpretation to those few individuals who possess sufficient training in (...) apodictic thinking. I start out with chapters on Salman Rushdie and his view of Ibn Rushd in the novel Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights and the reception of Ibn Rushd in the Latin scholastic tradition. I then switch to Ibn Rushd’s biography and the context of his work in Almohad Andalusia. I provide an overview of the development of Islamic philosophy up until Ibn Rushd. I then, in five chapters, offer a detailed reading of his fatwa in defense of philosophy (called the Decisive Treatise). I conclude with some general remarks on the relationship between metaphysics and politics in Ibn Rushd’s works, drawing parallels to other thinkers both in the Islamic and in the Western tradition. The book ends with a selection of Danish-language translations of texts by Ibn Rushd that were translated into Latin during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (his Letter to a friend concerning God’s knowledge of singular things, the last chapter of the Incoherence of the Incoherence, and commenta 5 and 36 from the Commentary on De anima III). (shrink)

This paper details the content and structure of the folk concept of life, and discusses its relevance for scientific research on life. In four empirical studies, we investigate which features of life are considered salient, universal, central, and necessary. Functionings, such as nutrition and reproduction, but not material composition, turn out to be salient features commonly associated with living beings (Study 1). By contrast, being made of cells is considered a universal feature of living species (Study 2), a central aspect (...) of life (Study 3), and our best candidate for being necessary for life (Study 4). These results are best explained by the hypothesis that people take life to be a natural kind subject to scientific scrutiny. (shrink)

Sufficiently grounding the origin of sense-perceptions in the mind is an issue that has concerned philosophers for a long time, and remains an issue even today. In eighteenth-century Germany prior to the publication of Kant’s Critical philosophy, the two main competing theories to causally ground sense-perceptions were pre-established harmony and physical influx, the latter of which ultimately carried the day. A third option had been around in the seventeenth century: occasionalism. However, historians of philosophy believe this option to have entirely (...) disappeared in the eighteenth century. I will show that this is not the case. In this paper, I focus on one influential German occasionalist: Gottfried Ploucquet (1716–90). Ploucquet not only criticizes Leibniz’s theory of pre-established harmony for providing an ultimately ungrounded, subjective, and arbitrary account of the origin of sense-perceptions, but also presents his own daring alternative: a representationalist-occasionalist theory that locates the objective ground of sense-perceptions in the divine mind. (shrink)

The uniqueness of each standpoint, each point of effect, can only be "overcome" by the standpoint changing to other standpoints and returning. In such alternation, which can also appear as constant change, lies the unity of the world. The wholeness of an alternation, however, is a structure of consciousness due to the special relationship between the circumscribing periphery and the infinitesimal center. This process structure unites determinacy and indeterminacy also totally in every place. Therefore, everywhere we are dealing with forms (...) of consciousness with more or less freedom of choice and an increasingly unknown depth. We live in a world of choosing consciousness, or rather awareness. In this respect, our environment expresses a deep truth about ourselves. (shrink)

This is an edited transcript of a conversation to be included in the collection "Conversations on Rational Choice". The conversation was conducted in Munich on 7 and 9 February 2016.

Humeans about laws maintain that laws of nature are nothing over and above the complete distribution of non-modal, categorical properties in spacetime. ‘Humean compatibilists’ argue that if Humeanism about laws is true, then agents in a deterministic world can do otherwise than they are lawfully determined to do because of the distinctive nature of Humean laws. More specifically, they reject a central premise of the Consequence argument by maintaining that deterministic laws of nature are ‘up to us’. In this paper, (...) we present a new argument for Humean compatibilism. We argue that Humeans about laws indeed have resources for defending compatibilism that non-Humeans lack. Moreover, we show that utilizing these resources does not lead to objectionable consequences. Humeans about laws should thus embrace Humean compatibilism. (shrink)

The aim of this exploratory paper is to review an under-appreciated parallel between group agency and artificial intelligence. As both phenomena involve non-human goal-directed agents that can make a difference to the social world, they raise some similar moral and regulatory challenges, which require us to rethink some of our anthropocentric moral assumptions. Are humans always responsible for those entities’ actions, or could the entities bear responsibility themselves? Could the entities engage in normative reasoning? Could they even have rights and (...) a moral status? I will tentatively defend the (increasingly widely held) view that, under certain conditions, artificial intelligent systems, like corporate entities, might qualify as responsible moral agents and as holders of limited rights and legal personhood. I will further suggest that regulators should permit the use of autonomous artificial systems in high-stakes settings only if they are engineered to function as moral (not just intentional) agents and/or there is some liability-transfer arrangement in place. I will finally raise the possibility that if artificial systems ever became phenomenally conscious, there might be a case for extending a stronger moral status to them, but argue that, as of now, this remains very hypothetical. (shrink)

Scientists and philosophers frequently speak about levels of description, levels of explanation, and ontological levels. In this paper, I propose a unified framework for modelling levels. I give a general definition of a system of levels and show that it can accommodate descriptive, explanatory, and ontological notions of levels. I further illustrate the usefulness of this framework by applying it to some salient philosophical questions: (1) Is there a linear hierarchy of levels, with a fundamental level at the bottom? And (...) what does the answer to this question imply for physicalism, the thesis that everything supervenes on the physical? (2) Are there emergent properties? (3) Are higher-level descriptions reducible to lower-level ones? (4) Can the relationship between normative and non-normative domains be viewed as one involving levels? Although I use the terminology of “levels”, the proposed framework can also represent “scales”, “domains”, or “subject matters”, where these are not linearly but only partially ordered by relations of supervenience or inclusion. (shrink)

Over the last decades, network-based approaches have become highly popular in diverse fields of biology, including neuroscience, ecology, molecular biology and genetics. While these approaches continue to grow very rapidly, some of their conceptual and methodological aspects still require a programmatic foundation. This challenge particularly concerns the question of whether a generalized account of explanatory, organisational and descriptive levels of networks can be applied universally across biological sciences. To this end, this highly interdisciplinary theme issue focuses on the definition, motivation (...) and application of key concepts in biological network science, such as explanatory power of distinctively network explanations, network levels, and network hierarchies. (shrink)

Biosemiotics is a growing fi eld that investigates semiotic processes in the living realm in an attempt to combine the fi ndings of the biological sciences and semiotics. Semiotic processes are more or less what biologists have typically referred to as “ signals, ” “ codes, ”and “ information processing ”in biosystems, but these processes are here understood under the more general notion of semiosis, that is, the production, action, and interpretation of signs. Thus, biosemiotics can be seen as biology (...) interpreted as a study of living sign systems — which also means that semiosis or sign process can be seen as the very nature of life itself. In other words, biosemiotics is a field of research investigating semiotic processes (meaning, signification, communication, and habit formation in living systems) and the physicochemical preconditions for sign action and interpretation. -/- (...). (shrink)

Can we trace back consciousness, reality, awareness, and free will to a single basic structure without giving up any of them? Can the universe exist in both real and individual ways without being composed of both? This dialogue founds consciousness and freedom of choice on the basis of a new reality concept that also includes the infinite as far as we understand it. Just the simplest distinction contains consciousness. It is not static, but a constant alternation of perspectives. From its (...) entirety and movement, however, there arises a freedom of choice being more than reinterpreted necessity and unpredictability. Although decisions ultimately involve the whole universe, they are also free in varying degrees here and now. The unity and openness of the infinite enables the individual to be creative while this creativity directly and indirectly enters into all other individuals without impeding them. A contrary impression originates only in a narrowed awareness. But even the most conscious and free awareness can neither anticipate all decisions nor extinguish individuality. Their creativity is secured. (shrink)

In order to reason in a non-trivializing way with contradictions, para- consistent logics reject some classically valid inferences. As a way of re- covering some of these inferences, Graham Priest ([Priest, 1991]) proposed to nonmonotonically strengthen the Logic of Paradox by allowing the se- lection of “less inconsistent” models via a comparison of their respective inconsistent parts. This move recaptures a good portion of classical logic in that it does not block, e.g., disjunctive syllogism, unless it is applied to contradictory (...) assumptions. In Priest’s approach the inconsistent parts of models are compared in an extensional way by considering their inconsis- tent objects. This distinguishes his system from the standard format of (inconsistency-)adaptive logics pioneered by Diderik Batens, according to which (atomic) contradictions validated in models form the basis of their comparison. A well-known problem for Priest’s extensional approach is its lack of the Strong Reassurance property, i.e., for specific settings there may be infinitely descending chains of less and less inconsistent models, thus never reaching a minimally inconsistent model. In this paper, we demonstrate that Strong Reassurance holds for the extensional approach under a cardinality-based comparison of the incon- sistent parts of models. Furthermore, we introduce and investigate the metatheory of the class of first-order nonmonotonic inconsistency-tolerant construct over the extensional or quantitative comparisons of their respec- tive models. Core model-theoretic properties for these logics, such as the Löwenheim-Skolem theorems, along with other nonmonotonic properties, are further studied. (shrink)

The main argument in this book is the undeniable openness of every system to the unknown. And the fundamental question goes: What does this openness produce? We are a part of the infinite universe and an incorporation of its wholeness. Both for us means an individualized reality, through which the universe expresses itself and on the other hand through which it is built up with. It also means our necessity, importance and indestructibility for the sum of its incorporations. Most connections (...) among ourselves are hardly conscious for us. Meanwhile the infinitesimality structure of all consciousness guarantees not only the logical lack of inconsistency of these connections but also the freedom of choice of every individual. Our goal by no means can be to decide completely consciously. Responsibility contains spontaneity or rather trust in a meaningful working together of the forces. We increasingly become aware of our role in the entire relationship and we learn to contribute optimally to the value fulfillment of all individuals, ourselves included. Beyond the supposed differences between objective and subjective reality, we at some point of awareness comprehend that we create our reality out of our innermost depths. (shrink)

Longtermists claim that what we ought to do is mainly determined by how our actions might affect the very long-run future. A natural objection to longtermism is that these effects may be nearly impossible to predict — perhaps so close to impossible that, despite the astronomical importance of the far future, the expected value of our present actions is mainly determined by near-term considerations. This paper aims to precisify and evaluate one version of this epistemic objection to longtermism. To that (...) end, I develop two simple models for comparing ‘longtermist’ and ‘neartermist’ interventions, incorporating the idea that it is harder to make a predictable difference to the further future. These models yield mixed conclusions: if we simply aim to maximize expected value, and don’t mind premising our choices on minuscule probabilities of astronomical payoffs, the case for longtermism looks robust. But on some prima facie plausible empirical worldviews, the expectational superiority of longtermist interventions depends heavily on these ‘Pascalian’ probabilities. So the case for longtermism may depend either on plausible but non-obvious empirical claims or on a tolerance for Pascalian fanaticism. (shrink)

This paper sketches a new and somewhat heterodox metaphysical theory of consciousness: the “many-worlds theory”. It drops the assumption that all conscious subjects’ experiences are features of one and the same world and instead associates different subjects with different “first-personally centred worlds”. We can think of these as distinct “first-personal realizers” of a shared “third-personal world”, where the latter is supervenient, in a sense to be explained. This is combined with a form of modal realism, according to which different subjects’ (...) first-personally centred worlds are all real, though only one of them is present for each subject. The theory offers a novel way of capturing the irreducibly subjective nature of conscious experience without lapsing into solipsism. The paper also looks at some scientific theories of consciousness, such as integrated information theory, through the proposed lens and reconsiders the hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

Humean reductionism about laws of nature appears to leave a central aspect of scientific practice unmotivated: If the world’s fundamental structure is exhausted by the actual distribution of non-modal properties and the laws of nature are merely efficient summaries of this distribution, then why does science posit laws that cover a wide range of non-actual circumstances? In this paper, we develop a new version of the Humean best systems account of laws based on the idea that laws need to organize (...) information in a way that maximizes their cognitive usefulness for creature like us. We argue that this account motivates scientific practice because the laws’ applicability to non-actual circumstances falls right out of their cognitive usefulness. (shrink)

We will begin with seemingly simple interactions in our daily lives, examine how they originate on a deeper level, come to understand the essentials of consciousness, and finally recognize that we create our reality in its entirety. In the course of this quest, we will uncover little-heeded paths to accessing our subconscious, other individuals, and that which can be understood by the term "God". And the solution to the classical problem of free will constitutes the gist of the concepts is (...) thus revealed. The present text is a very abridged version of a book I wrote out of the desire to examine the structure of our reality from a standpoint unbiased by established teachings, be they academic- scientific, popular- esoteric, or religious in nature. (shrink)

Suppose that the members of a group each hold a rational set of judgments on some interconnected questions, and imagine that the group itself has to form a collective, rational set of judgments on those questions. How should it go about dealing with this task? We argue that the question raised is subject to a difficulty that has recently been noticed in discussion of the doctrinal paradox in jurisprudence. And we show that there is a general impossibility theorem that that (...) difficulty illustrates. Our paper describes this impossibility result and provides an exploration of its significance. The result naturally invites comparison with Kenneth Arrow's famous theorem (Arrow, 1963 and 1984; Sen, 1970) and we elaborate that comparison in a companion paper (List and Pettit, 2002). The paper is in four sections. The first section documents the need for various groups to aggregate its members' judgments; the second presents the discursive paradox; the third gives an informal statement of the more general impossibility result; the formal proof is presented in an appendix. The fourth section, finally, discusses some escape routes from that impossibility. (shrink)

In the growing literature on decision-making under moral uncertainty, a number of skeptics have argued that there is an insuperable barrier to rational "hedging" for the risk of moral error, namely the apparent incomparability of moral reasons given by rival theories like Kantianism and utilitarianism. Various general theories of intertheoretic value comparison have been proposed to meet this objection, but each suffers from apparently fatal flaws. In this paper, I propose a more modest approach that aims to identify classes of (...) moral theories that share common principles strong enough to establish bases for intertheoretic comparison. I show that, contra the claims of skeptics, there are often rationally perspicuous grounds for precise, quantitative value comparisons within such classes. In light of this fact, I argue, the existence of some apparent incomparabilities between widely divergent moral theories cannot serve as a general argument against hedging for one's moral uncertainties. (shrink)

Defenders of deontological constraints in normative ethics face a challenge: how should an agent decide what to do when she is uncertain whether some course of action would violate a constraint? The most common response to this challenge has been to defend a threshold principle on which it is subjectively permissible to act iff the agent's credence that her action would be constraint-violating is below some threshold t. But the threshold approach seems arbitrary and unmotivated: what would possibly determine where (...) the threshold should be set, and why should there be any precise threshold at all? Threshold views also seem to violate ought agglomeration, since a pair of actions each of which is below the threshold for acceptable moral risk can, in combination, exceed that threshold. In this paper, I argue that stochastic dominance reasoning can vindicate and lend rigor to the threshold approach: given characteristically deontological assumptions about the moral value of acts, it turns out that morally safe options will stochastically dominate morally risky alternatives when and only when the likelihood that the risky option violates a moral constraint is greater than some precisely definable threshold (in the simplest case, .5). I also show how, in combination with the observation that deontological moral evaluation is relativized to particular choice situations, this approach can overcome the agglomeration problem. This allows the deontologist to give a precise and well-motivated response to the problem of uncertainty. (shrink)

Das Hauptargument dieses Buches ist die unleugbare Offenheit jedes Systems zum Unbekannten hin. Und die Grundfrage lautet: Was ergibt sich aus dieser Offenheit? Wir sind ein Teil des unendlichen Universums und eine Verkörperung seiner Ganzheit. Beides bedeutet für uns eine individualisierte Wirklichkeit, durch die sich das Universum ausdrückt und durch die es andererseits mit gebildet wird. Es bedeutet ebenfalls unsere Notwendigkeit, Wichtigkeit und Unzerstörbarkeit für die Gesamtheit seiner Verkörperungen. Die meisten Verbindungen untereinander sind uns kaum bewusst. Indessen gewährleistet die Infinitesimalstruktur (...) allen Bewusstseins nicht nur die logische Widerspruchsfreiheit dieser Verbindungen, sondern auch die unaufhebbare Wahlfreiheit jedes einzelnen Individuums. Unser Ziel kann jedoch keineswegs darin liegen, vollkommen bewusst zu entscheiden. Verantwortung schließt Spontanität beziehungsweise das Vertrauen auf ein sinnvolles Zusammenwirken der Kräfte ein. Wir werden unserer Rolle im Gesamtzusammenhang zunehmend gewahr und lernen, einen optimalen Beitrag zur Werterfüllung aller Individuen, einschließlich uns selbst, zu leisten. Jenseits der vermeintlichen Unterschiede zwischen objektiver und subjektiver Wirklichkeit begreifen wir, dass wir unsere Realität aus unserem tiefsten Innern heraus erschaffen. (shrink)

This paper generalises the classical Condorcet jury theorem from majority voting over two options to plurality voting over multiple options. The paper further discusses the debate between epistemic and procedural democracy and situates its formal results in that debate. The paper finally compares a number of different social choice procedures for many-option choices in terms of their epistemic merits. An appendix explores the implications of some of the present mathematical results for the question of how probable majority cycles (as in (...) Condorcet's paradox) are in large electorates. (shrink)

I argue that free will and determinism are compatible, even when we take free will to require the ability to do otherwise and even when we interpret that ability modally, as the possibility of doing otherwise, and not just conditionally or dispositionally. My argument draws on a distinction between physical and agential possibility. Although in a deterministic world only one future sequence of events is physically possible for each state of the world, the more coarsely defined state of an agent (...) and his or her environment can be consistent with more than one such sequence, and thus different actions can be “agentially possible”. The agential perspective is supported by our best theories of human behaviour, and so we should take it at face value when we refer to what an agent can and cannot do. On the picture I defend, free will is not a physical phenomenon, but a higher-level one on a par with other higher-level phenomena such as agency and intentionality. (shrink)

It is often argued that higher-level special-science properties cannot be causally efficacious since the lower-level physical properties on which they supervene are doing all the causal work. This claim is usually derived from an exclusion principle stating that if a higher-level property F supervenes on a physical property F* that is causally sufficient for a property G, then F cannot cause G. We employ an account of causation as difference-making to show that the truth or falsity of this principle is (...) a contingent matter and derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which a version of it holds. We argue that one important instance of the principle, far from undermining non-reductive physicalism, actually supports the causal autonomy of certain higher-level properties. (shrink)

This article is not an attempt to explain consciousness in terms basically of quantum physics or neuro-biology. Instead I should like to place the term "Consciousness" on a broader footing. I shall therefore proceed from everyday reality, precisely where we experience ourselves as conscious beings. I shall use the term in such a general way as to resolve the question whether only a human being enjoys consciousness, or even a thermostat. Whilst the difference is considerable, it is not fundamental. Every (...) effect exists in the perception of a consciousness. I elaborate on its freedom of choice, in my view the most important source of creativity, in a similarly general way. The problems associated with a really conscious decision do not disappear by mixing determination with a touch of coincidence. Both must enter into a higher unity. In so doing it will emerge that a certain degree of freedom of choice is just as omnipresent as consciousness - an inherent part of reality itself. (shrink)

What George Spencer-Brown wants to rationalize out of existence is alternation itself – the prerequisite of his whole operation. By that he simplifies (identifies) more than he says. And he does not say all that is important.

Everything is in motion. "Inertness" arises from (approximative) repetition, that is, through rotation or an alternation that delineates a focus of consciousness. This focus of consciousness, in turn, must also move/alternate (the two differ only in continuity). If its alternation seems to go too far - physically, psychically or intellectually - it reaches into the subconscious. In this way, interconnection is established by the alternation of the focus of consciousness. Therefore, in a world in which everything is interconnected, all focuses (...) must reciprocally transition into each other. "Reality" is a common "goal", a focus which all participants can switch into and which is conscious to them as such, as a potential one. Its "degree of reality" is the probability of its fully becoming conscious (or more simply: its current degree of consciousness). Thus, a reality is created when all participants increase its probability or, respectively, their consciousness of it. (shrink)