How should we understand the relationship between global justice and global democracy? One popular view is captured by the aphorism “No global justice without global democracy.” According to Dryzek and Tanasoca's reading of this aphorism, a particular form of deliberative global democracy is seen as the way to specify and justify what global justice is and requires in various contexts. Taking its point of departure in a criticism of this proposal, this essay analyzes how to best understand the relationship between (...) global justice and global democracy. The aim is not to offer a first-order substantial account of this relationship, but to theorize the normative boundary conditions for such an account; that is, the conditions that any plausible theory should respect. These conditions take the form of what is here called a “three-layered view,” which is specified through three claims. It is argued, first, that global democracy is best seen as a partial normative ideal; second, that global democracy must be grounded in fundamental principles of justice; and third, that global democracy is an ideal through which applied principles of distributive justice are formulated and justified in light of reasonable disagreement about what justice requires. (shrink)

Does Normative Behaviourism Offer an Alternative Methodology in Political Theory?

Eva Erman and Niklas Möller have recently presented a trenchant critique of my (2015) argument that ideal normative theories are uninformative for certain practical purposes. Their criticisms are largely correct. In this note, I develop the ideas behind my earlier argument in a way that circumvents their critique and explains more clearly why ideal theory is uninformative for certain purposes while leaving open the possibility that it might be informative for other purposes.

Eva Erman and Niklas Möller have recently criticised a range of political theorists for committing a pragmatistic fallacy, illicitly drawing normative conclusions from politically neutral ideas abo...

The paper is an intervention in the dispute about the moralism of the recent realist trend in political philosophy. It is particularly focused on analysing the debate on this subject between Niklas Erman and Eva Möller (2015a; 2015b) and Robert Jubb and Enzo Rossi (2015a; 2015b). Examining the main arguments of both parties, I argue that realists (i.e., Jubb and Rossi) lost the debate, that realism is, in fact, moralism in disguise, and that its main methodological request – giving (...) up „pre-political” moral principles and values in political philosophy – is „unrealistic” (i.e., unfeasible). (shrink)

Over the past decades, the idea that national sovereignty and the authority of the state have been increasingly challenged or even substantially eroded has been a dominant one. Economic globalization advancing a neo-liberal dis-embedding of the economy is seen as the major reason for this erosion. Concerns have increased about the negative consequences for the social fabric of societies, deprived of the strong shock absorption capacity that the welfare states had established in the time of the embedded liberalism to use (...) a term John Ruggie coined. The concerns have also helped nationalistic movements to gain power in many high-income countries, not at least in the United States, calling for putting their economy first. Accordingly, a number of commentators have announced a return of the nation state. In this special issue, we will show that the retreat-of-the-state thesis as well as the return-of-the-state thesis shares the same shortcomings. They conflate state and authority. As a consequence, both theses underestimate important transformations of authority that have taken place since the end of the “short 20TH century,” to use Eric Hobsbawm's periodization. With this special issue, we seek to contribute to a more nuanced analysis of the transformation of authority. The issue is the outcome of a conference that took place at the Copenhagen Business School in 2015, hosted by the research project ‘Institutional Transformation in European Political Economy: A Socio-Legal Approach’ and funded by the European Research Council. (shrink)

This book is founded on a close reading of Kant’s Opus Postumum in order both to explore the essential motivation that drove Kant to write a last comprehensive magnum opus and, by doing so, to show the essential link between his aesthetics and the idea of Übergang, the title of this last work. For this work contains not only his dynamical theory of matter defining motion as preliminary to the notions of space and time, and the advanced version of his (...) philosophy of natural science, but also his arguments for the phenomenal validity of the metaphysical foundations, his teachings on the aesthetic human faculties of judgment and Anschauung, and the discernment of the transcendental philosophy from Platonic idealism carrying it to a cosmological level, i.e. Kant’s insertion of the concept of cosmotheoros. Since the process of transition is an aesthetic process based on human senses, intuitions and judgments, the argument will follow that in order to explicate Übergang, we need to reconcile cosmology, as the oldest branch of philosophy dealing with the interactions between the cosmic forces and the ways they affect human life, with aesthetics, as the youngest branch of philosophy dealing with how we sense, intuit and judge the form and motion of matter. Therefore, in the last analysis, Übergang becomes rather a cosmologic-aesthetic principle similar to the Heraclitean logos. Another building block of the book is the fruitful comparison between the Kantian sublime and Nietzschean Dionysian, which are going to be construed as the aesthetic theories on human understanding representing the transition from nature to art. For they are not only conceptual – aesthetic but also dynamic – cosmological theories due to their reference both to nature and to human nature. Finally, Cosmological Aesthetics employs the principles of transition and motion to analyze Van Gogh’s Starry Night in an excursus. (shrink)

This article discusses Christian Education based on national character insight. PAK is one of the pillars of character education. Character education will be realized if embedded in the spirit of insight of nationality in the students, therefore PAK is one of the supporting elements of the character of the protege. Through the design of the PAK material nationality students are taught that nationalistic deeds are evidence of faith as in the Bible.

Both for Kant and for Nietzsche, aesthetics must not be considered as a systematic science based merely on logical premises but rather as a set of intuitively attained artistic ideas that constitute or reconstitute the sensible perceptions and supersensible representations into a new whole. Kantian and Nietzschean aesthetics are both aiming to see beyond the forms of objects to provide explanations for the nobility and sublimity of human art and life. We can safely say that Kant and Nietzsche used the (...) dualities of the beautiful/sublime and Apollonian/Dionysian to advocate their general philosophical worldview, and that the initial formation (in Observations and The Birth of Tragedy) and final dissolution (in the Critique of Judgment and Zarathustra and other later works) of these dualities are determined by the gradually established telos of their philosophical endeavor. Therefore, by observing the evolution of these so-called dualities, Kaplama gathers important clues as to how Kant’s and Nietzsche’s aesthetics transformed into different ways to affirm human art and life. On the one hand, Kaplama argues, the Dionysian came to be the heart and soul of Nietzschean aesthetics and ethics, and the Apollonian (or the formal drive of individuation) was reduced into a mere aesthetic criterion. On the other, Kant treats the sublime (which is originally an idea-producing feeling and/or judgment) as a mere appendix to his Critique of Judgment and aesthetic theory teleologically reducing it into its possible moral consequences. This is why Schopenhauer calls the sublime “by far the most excellent thing in the Critique of Judgment” which touches on the real problem of aesthetics very closely but does not provide a real solution for it. Kant’s forced teleological move is to make his theory of aesthetic judgment stand as a ‘reaffirmation’ of the earlier ethical justification he believed to have accomplished in the first two Critiques and the Groundwork where he defends an affirmation of human life through a teleological morality centered on the principle of free-will. In contrast, Nietzsche’s aesthetics (particularly the Dionysian) guides his ethics and metaphysics again through defining an ideal human nature without which ethos would be static and meaningless, lacking the ability to move and change and represent the tragic pathos of human life. (shrink)

Some artworks are called sublime because of their capacity to move human imagination in a different way than the experience of beauty. The following discussion explores how Van Gogh’s The Starry Night along with some of his other late landscape paintings accomplish this peculiar movement of imagination thus qualifying as sublime artworks. These artworks constitute examples of the higher aesthetic principles and must be judged according to the cosmological-aesthetic criteria for they manage to generate a transition between ethos and phusis (...) and present them in unity. Here, referring to Heraclitean, Kantian, Nietzschean and Heideggerian metaphysics and aesthetics, I propose that the principles of motion and transition be the new cosmologic-aesthetic categories for the judgment of sublime artworks as well as for the understanding of the world (Weltanschauung) they represent. (shrink)

Both Heraclitus and Democritus, as the philosophers of historia peri phuseôs, consider nature and human character, habit, law and soul as interrelated emphasizing the links between phusis, kinesis, ethos, logos, kresis, nomos and daimon. On the one hand, Heraclitus’s principle of change (panta rhei) and his emphasis on the element of fire and cosmic motion ultimately dominate his ethics reinforcing his ideas of change, moderation, balance and justice, on the other, Democritus’s atomist description of phusis and motion underlies his principle (...) of moderation and his ideas of health and measured life. In this series, particularly referring to the main principles of motion, moderation and justice, I attempt to describe a coherent pre-Socratic ethical perspective based on the Heraclitean and Democritean fragments. I explore the connections between their physics and ethics also borrowing from Nietzsche’s lectures and writings on the Pre-Socratics. I redefine such Heraclitean and Democritean concepts as harmony, order, perfection, health, self-control, contentment, cheerfulness, concord, sound judgment, wisdom, measure and balance and discuss them under the principles of motion (phusis), moderation (sophrosyne) and justice. In doing so, I also expose the relevance of the Heraclitean notion of logos (interpreting it as the underlying categorical principle of transition between phusis and ethos) in bringing together these ideas and principles. Finally, based on this pre-Socratic Weltanschauung, I assess the possibility of a coherent picture of humanity, its nature and conduct as extending from or fitting into or extending-from-when-fitting-into the cosmos of moving forces and atoms. (shrink)

This paper is founded on a close reading of Kant’s Opus Postumum in order both to explore the essential motivation that drove Kant to write a last comprehensive magnum opus and, by doing so, to show the essential link between his aesthetics and the idea of Übergang, the title of this last work. For this work contains not only his dynamical theory of matter defining motion as preliminary to the notions of space and time, and the advanced version of his (...) philosophy of natural science, but also his arguments for the phenomenal validity of the metaphysical foundations, his teachings on the aesthetic human faculties of judgment and Anschauung, and the discernment of the transcendental philosophy from Platonic idealism carrying it to a cosmological level, i.e. Kant’s insertion of the concept of cosmotheoros. Since the process of transition is an aesthetic process based on human senses, intuitions and judgments, the argument will follow that in order to explicate Übergang, we need to reconcile cosmology, as the oldest branch of philosophy dealing with the interactions between the cosmic forces and the ways they affect human life, with aesthetics, as the youngest branch of philosophy dealing with how we sense, intuit and judge the form and motion of matter. Therefore, in the last analysis, Übergang becomes rather a cosmologic-aesthetic principle similar to the Heraclitean logos. Another building block of the paper is the fruitful comparison between the Kantian sublime and Nietzschean Dionysian, which are going to be construed as the aesthetic theories on human understanding representing the transition from nature to art. For they are not only conceptual – aesthetic but also dynamic – cosmological theories due to their reference both to nature and to human nature. (shrink)

Kant makes a much-unexpected confession in a much-unexpected place. In the Criticism of the third paralogism of transcendental psychology of the first Critique Kant accepts the irrefutability of the Heraclitean notion of universal becoming or the transitory nature of all things, admitting the impossibility of positing a totally persistent and self-conscious subject. The major Heraclitean doctrine of panta rhei makes it impossible to conduct philosophical inquiry by assuming a self-conscious subject or “I,” which would potentially be in constant motion like (...) other thoughts. For it rules out the possibility of completely detached reasoning which necessitates an unchanging state of mind. In this paper, Kaplama uses panta rhei to critically examine the philosophical shortcomings and contradictions of Kantian and Enlightenment ethics. In his examination, he specifically focuses on the teleological nature of Kant’s principle of freedom and ideal of moral autonomy which have dominated the Enlightenment thought. By doing so, he argues that it is essentially inaccurate to posit Überlegenheit (the state of being superior to nature) as the foundation of philosophical inquiry mainly because this would contradict the Enlightenment’s claim to constitute a rupture from classic and medieval metaphysics and would render Enlightenment a mere extension of Christian metaphysics. As in Christianity, Überlegenheit presupposes two separate realms, the actual (contingent) and ideal (pure) realms of thought and assumes that the transcendence commences from the level of the late metaphysical/teleological construction of the ‘subject’ who is completely persistent, self-conscious and immune to change. He then substantiates these points with reference to the philosophical roots of ethnic prejudice displayed by the post-Enlightenment colonialists and the missionaries in Fiji and the Pacific. This brief critical examination of the post-Enlightenment ethnocentrism will be conducted under the following three points: a) On the Enlightenment’s teleological and universalistic understanding of humanity and the concept of progress versus the Fijian concepts of the continuity of life, regeneration, and reproduction b) On the Enlightenment’s ideal of the free-willing and independent individual subject versus the Fijian ideas of 'the cord', reciprocity, and vanua, and c) On the Enlightenment’s (and Christianity’s) strict dualism between physics and metaphysics, nature and human mind, body and soul versus the Fijian bio-centrism, the sanctity of vanua and the cosmological concept of mana. (shrink)

Not only the direct physical experiences of deployment can severely harm soldiers’ mental health. Witnessing violations of their moral principles by the enemy, or by their fellow soldiers and superiors, can also have a devastating impact. It can cause soldiers’ moral disorientation, increasing feelings of shame, guilt, or hate, and the need for general answers on questions of right and wrong. Various attempts have been made to keep soldiers mentally sane. One is to provide convincing causes for their deployment, which (...) risks an “end justifies the means” way of thinking. The good cause can provide a moral justification for horrible atrocities. Another method, introduced in the USA, Canada, and Australia, aims to strengthen military personnel’s resistance by promoting and maintaining a happy, optimistic state of mind through the use of positive psychology. Alongside making soldiers “morally fit” for all kinds of situations, the focus could also be on moral recovery and forgiveness. Such a care-based military ethics approach, aimed at mutual understanding and interdependence, could help soldiers handle the emotional impact of moral conflicts. This demands that military units reflect on their organizational culture and rethink oaths and codes of conduct that focus mainly on efficiency and readiness, as well as the soldierly self-image with its seemingly still deeply rooted warrior ethos. Today, resilience and positive psychology in the military is apparently mainly geared to assuring its soldiers’ readiness. An appropriate set of virtues and understanding of virtue ethics that are less centered on self-perfection and autonomy could point to a different form of character-building and lead to a better understanding of others. (shrink)

Objective: microRNAs (miRNAs) have important potential as biomarkers in the diagnosis and prognosis of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in coronary artery bypass grafting surgery (CABG). This study investigated the relationship between preoperative (preop) and postoperative (post-op) cardiac parameters and miRNA expressions in CABG. -/- Methods: We analyzed a total of 94 individuals (CABG, n= 46 and healthy control, n=48). Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT) was performed to determine plasma miRNA expressions (miR-21, miR-181a, miR-199a, miR-199b, and miR-320a-5p) in triplicates: before surgery, (...) 1 hour after surgery, and 24 hours after surgery. The target genes and pathways of miRNA were determined using bioinformatic analysis. The biomarker potentials of miRNAs were evaluated with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. -/- Results: All miRNAs were significantly downregulated (p < 0.05). Troponin I, LVEF, CPK, and CK-MB were found to be statistically significant for operation groups (p < 0.05). miRNA expressions and cardiac markers were associated with troponin I and/or CK-MB. In ROC analyses, miR-199a was a good diagnostic marker. CREBRF and ZNF704 genes may be a target for these miRNAs. -/- Conclusions: Downregulation of miR-199a has a regulatory role in ischemia/reperfusion. They may contribute to CABG pathology through these two genes involved in signaling cascades to turn on protein response and ion binding. (shrink)

The being is derived by a difference in Lacanian ontology. This difference is the basic element in Lacanian theory that grounds the unconscious subject. Because according to Lacan, the existence of the subject can not be self-proclaimed and it is represented by a signifier. Lacan gives the name "object a" to this paradoxical being which is distinguished by this difference or lack, and uses some topological transformations in order to be able to explain the structural paradoxes in the psychological theory. (...) The aim of this study is to explore the ontology of these paradoxical situations and try to decipher the function of topology in Lacan's theory. (shrink)

Objective: microRNAs (miRNAs) have important potential as biomarkers in the diagnosis and prognosis of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in coronary artery bypass grafting surgery (CABG). This study investigated the relationship between preoperative (preop) and postoperative (post-op) cardiac parameters and miRNA expressions in CABG. -/- Methods: We analyzed a total of 94 individuals (CABG, n= 46 and healthy control, n=48). Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT) was performed to determine plasma miRNA expressions (miR-21, miR-181a, miR-199a, miR-199b, and miR-320a-5p) in triplicates: before surgery, (...) 1 hour after surgery, and 24 hours after surgery. The target genes and pathways of miRNA were determined using bioinformatic analysis. The biomarker potentials of miRNAs were evaluated with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. -/- Results: All miRNAs were significantly downregulated (p < 0.05). Troponin I, LVEF, CPK, and CK-MB were found to be statistically significant for operation groups (p < 0.05). miRNA expressions and cardiac markers were associated with troponin I and/or CK-MB. In ROC analyses, miR-199a was a good diagnostic marker. CREBRF and ZNF704 genes may be a target for these miRNAs. -/- Conclusions: Downregulation of miR-199a has a regulatory role in ischemia/reperfusion. They may contribute to CABG pathology through these two genes involved in signaling cascades to turn on protein response and ion binding. (shrink)

I present an explanatory argument for the reasons-first view: It is superior to knowledge-first views in particular in that it can both explain the specific epistemic role of perception and account for the shape and extent of epistemic justification.

This paper explores a new and post-structuralist discourse on the relationship between Lacan’s theory of mirror stage and the story of Narcissus as a mythological narrative. According to this discourse, subject is a construction posterior to the ‘I’. Lacan suggests that in the mirror stage 6-18 months old infants discern the I as something distinct from and outside of themselves for the first time through a reflective surface. An infant comprehends the image they see in this reflective surface as a (...) being independent of their mother and an object belonging to themselves, and they greatly admire this independent object as an ideal-I. That is, by discerning their own being through an image, the infant achieves a feeling of unity via this image and perceives their own being as an admirable unity. This feeling of I and unity, however, is doomed to decay as to become subject by means of the elements of Lacanian reality, namely language and the laws of society. Within the reality, Narcissus – exactly like in the Lacan’s theory of mirror – lost the confrontation of perceiving the image he admired in his reflection. The I of Narcissus, which he has been holding on as an image in this world, is drawn and demised whilst going beyond the water mirror so as to become a subject. In other words, the I that Narcissus admired in the reflection of the water underwent an unsurmountable deformation and he paid the price with his life. In this study, from the perspective of the Lacanian theory of subject it will be argued that the tragic split between imaginary and symbolic order represented by the death of Narcissus is not only a psychopathologic fact, but it is also a fundamental narrative about the construction of subject in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Over the past decades, the idea that national sovereignty and the authority of the state have been increasingly challenged or even substantially eroded has been a dominant one. Economic globalization advancing a neo-liberal dis-embedding of the economy is seen as the major reason for this erosion. Concerns have increased about the negative consequences for the social fabric of societies, deprived of the strong shock absorption capacity that the welfare states had established in the time of the embedded liberalism to use (...) a term John Ruggie coined. The concerns have also helped nationalistic movements to gain power in many high-income countries, not at least in the United States, calling for putting their economy first. Accordingly, a number of commentators have announced a return of the nation state. In this special issue, we will show that the retreat-of-the-state thesis as well as the return-of-the-state thesis shares the same shortcomings. They conflate state and authority. As a consequence, both theses underestimate important transformations of authority that have taken place since the end of the “short 20TH century,” to use Eric Hobsbawm's periodization. With this special issue, we seek to contribute to a more nuanced analysis of the transformation of authority. The issue is the outcome of a conference that took place at the Copenhagen Business School in 2015, hosted by the research project ‘Institutional Transformation in European Political Economy: A Socio-Legal Approach’ and funded by the European Research Council. (shrink)

According to influential arguments from several branches of philosophy, there exist some gradable natural language expressions that violate the following principle: if x and y are both F to some degree, then either x is at least as F as y or y is at least as F as x. Dorr, Nebel and Zuehl (2022) (DNZ), who refer to this principle as ‘Comparability’, respond to these arguments and offer a systematic case in support of Comparability. In this paper, I respond (...) to DNZ and develop an opposing case against Comparability that (i) buttresses previous criticisms of the principle, (ii) identifies two new arguments against the principle, and (iii) rebuts DNZ’s prospective arguments in favour of the principle. (shrink)

Dependency is a keyword in disability studies. The article reviews the negative force of the term and why disability researchers and activists have made the case for the independence of disabled people. But dependency, I claim, is a feature of any human life and I argue that disability studies needs to neutralize the term and appropriate dependency as that which binds people, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. I argue that we can acknowledge dependency and work toward an ideal of (...) "managed dependency.". (shrink)

The intent of this chapter is to suspend the belief in the goodness of literacy -- our chirographic bias -- in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the engagement with texts structures human consciousness, and particularly the minds of children. In the following pages literacy (a term which in this chapter refers to the ability to read and produce written text) is discussed as a consciousness altering technology. A phenomenological analysis of the act of reading shows the child’s (...) engagement with texts as a perceptual as well as a symbolic event that builds upon but also alters children’s speech acts. Speaking and reading are both forms of language use, but with different configurations of perceptual and symbolic qualities. Children’s literature uses textual technology and, intentionally or not, participates in structuring children’s pre-literate minds. Some of its forms, such as picture books and early readers, are directly intended to bridge the gap between the pre-literate listener and the literate reader and ease the transition into the literate state. It is my hope that the phenomenological analysis of the experiences of speaking and reading might help us understand more clearly how children’s literature impacts the minds of children. Such an analysis can awaken a critical awareness of the power that letters wield as they shape the reader’s psychological reality, and it can sharpen our sense of wonder about the metamorphosis of language from speaking to writing. (shrink)

The principle of indifference states that in the absence of any relevant evidence, a rational agent will distribute their credence equally among all the possible outcomes under consideration. Despite its intuitive plausibility, PI famously falls prey to paradox, and so is widely rejected as a principle of ideal rationality. In this article, I present a novel rehabilitation of PI in terms of the epistemology of comparative confidence judgments. In particular, I consider two natural comparative reformulations of PI and argue that (...) while one of them prescribes the adoption of patently irrational epistemic states, the other provides a consistent formulation of PI that overcomes the most salient limitations of existing formulations. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s name has become almost synonymous with militant atheism. Born into a pious Christian family, this son of a Lutheran pastor declared himself the Antichrist. But could this have been yet another of his masks of hardness? Nietzsche rarely revealed his innermost self in the published writings, and this can be gleaned mainly from his private letters and the accounts of friends. These sources bring to light the philosopher’s inner struggle with his own, deeply religious nature.Losing his father at a (...) young age was a calamity from which Nietzsche never recovered, and I argue that his famous thought-image “God is dead” was a transfiguration of the painful memory of this loss. In this essay, I trace Nietzsche’s tortuous path from an ardent devotee of God to a vociferous critic of Christianity, a path that was punctuated with veiled longings for a loving deity. Deep in his heart, he remained faithful to Christian ideals. Rather like Cordelia, the only truly loving daughter of King Lear, Nietzsche refused to utter words of intense affection and reverence, as these had been blatantly devalued and corrupted. Instead, he adopted a mask of a wrongdoer and a blasphemer who took not the punishment but the guilt.Nietzsche’s attitude to religion is discussed from the perspective of his life, his personality, and his mental condition. The discussion draws on psychoanalytical concepts of Freud, Erikson, Winnicott and Kohut. This is not an exclusive reading, but complementary to other studies in this field. (shrink)

Objective: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia in adults. Anticoagulation significantly reduces stroke and related mortality in AF patients. This study conducted a bibliometric analysis of the top 50 most-cited articles in the literature on dabigatran, the first new-generation oral anticoagulant. -/- Methods: We searched the Web of Science for articles with dabigatran in the title. The top 50 most cited articles (T50) were selected. Characteristics of the articles (such as author, source, institution, country, scientific category, number (...) of citations, citation density, and citations per article) were analyzed. -/- Results: T50 had a total of 33,301 citations. The average number of citations per article was 666. The United States of America (USA) was the most prolific country in T50, with 36 papers and 26,043 citations. Wallentin Lars from Uppsala University was the most prolific author, with 14 articles and 13,532 citations. Circulation was the most prolific journal, with 11 articles. -/- Conclusions: We analyzed the classic publications on dabigatran, the first new-generation oral anticoagulant. The most prolific country was the USA, author was Wallentin, and journal was Circulation. Researchers and clinicians can easily access influential publications by reviewing our study. (shrink)

Suppositions can be introduced in either the indicative or subjunctive mood. The introduction of either type of supposition initiates judgments that may be either qualitative, binary judgments about whether a given proposition is acceptable or quantitative, numerical ones about how acceptable it is. As such, accounts of qualitative/quantitative judgment under indicative/subjunctive supposition have been developed in the literature. We explore these four different types of theories by systematically explicating the relationships canonical representatives of each. Our representative qualitative accounts of indicative (...) and subjunctive supposition are based on the belief change operations provided by AGM revision and KM update respectively; our representative quantitative ones are offered by conditionalization and imaging. This choice is motivated by the familiar approach of understanding supposition as `provisional belief revision' wherein one temporarily treats the supposition as true and forms judgments by making appropriate changes to their other opinions. To compare the numerical judgments recommended by the quantitative theories with the binary ones recommended by the qualitative accounts, we rely on a suitably adapted version of the Lockean thesis. Ultimately, we establish a number of new results that we interpret as vindicating the often-repeated claim that conditionalization is a probabilistic version of revision, while imaging is a probabilistic version of update. (shrink)

American philosopher Zhu Dien • Ba Tele that for granted with a series of related discussion, and while there are of a fixed body of the material. Bate Le read de Beauvoir's "Second Sex" that this is not Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" women's issues or situations in the application. De Beauvoir said that consciousness exists in which a person's body, and in the cultural vein, the participation in the formation of a person's gender. Ba Tele think understanding the philosophy of (...) Sartre's body, in many ways we can improve the appreciation of Beauvoir thought, and concluded that she is a thinker with originality. (shrink)

As parents of a young woman who very much resembles Ashley, we recognize the way her parents speak of their daughter’s preciousness, and of the love and joy she brings into their life. We know too well the hardships associated with rearing a child with severe physical and intellectual disabilities, especially in our own society, unyielding as it is to the medical needs even “normals” have. We would not have our daughter Sesha undergo similar interventions. We do not believe she (...) is a perpetual child, even if her intellectual capacities do not exceed those of a child, for she has lived for thirty-seven years in this world and with that has acquired knowledge, sensitivities, and sensibilities that no child of “comparable” capacities could have. (shrink)

This is a 2000-word review of Eva Kittay's recent book on cognitive disability.

Proponents of the reasoning view analyze normative reasons as premises of good reasoning and explain the normativity of reasons by appeal to their role as premises of good reasoning. The aim of this paper is to cast doubt on the reasoning view by providing counterexamples to the proposed analysis of reasons, counterexamples in which premises of good reasoning towards φ‐ing are not reasons to φ.

This book investigates the consecutive shifts between three types of intermediary institutions in the European context: Corporatist, Neo-corporatist and Governance institutions. It develops a new conceptual framework for understanding the function and position of intermediary institutions in society, as well as a vocabulary capable of explaining the causes and consequences of these shifts for politics, economy and society at large. The book is designed to fill a gap in three rather distinct, yet also overlapping bodies of literature: European Political Economy, (...) European Integration and governance studies, and socio-legal studies in the European context. -/- Reviews: - Anne Guisset: Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 22, 3, 427-429, 2016. -/- - Ian Bruff, Capital & Class, 40, 3, 555 – 57, 2016. -/- . (shrink)

The phenomenon of parental care shared through social media (sharenting) is increasingly widespread. This research aimed to elaborate on the motives, strategies, and psychological effects of sharenting by millennial parents. This research is qualitative research with a phenomenological approach. The subjects are millennial parents who have a habit of sharing parenting on social media and are members of the professional community. Determination of the sample uses purposive sampling so that as many as ten people consisted of five females and five (...) males. Interviews, observations, and documentation are the methods used in data collection. Data were analyzed using reduction techniques, data presentation, and verification. The results showed that the motive of sharenting parents is to receive affirmation and social support, demonstrate the ability to care for children, social participation, and documentation. Millennial parents with a peer-oriented communication model do Sharenting. Sharenting for millennial parents has both positive and negative impacts, namely by providing new information and knowledge, making new friends, and support. The negative effects include feeling insecure, comparing her child with someone else's child, causing animosity and dissent. Thus, it can be concluded that sharenting by millennial parents is carried out with a variety of motives, carried out with a peer approach strategy, and has both positive and negative impacts at the same time. The implication is that millennial parents are more knowledgeable about parenting, understand good sharenting, and are psychologically trained in responding to netizens for their sharenting. (shrink)

In this article, we address a major outstanding question of probabilistic Bayesian epistemology: how should a rational Bayesian agent update their beliefs upon learning an indicative conditional? A number of authors have recently contended that this question is fundamentally underdetermined by Bayesian norms, and hence that there is no single update procedure that rational agents are obliged to follow upon learning an indicative conditional. Here we resist this trend and argue that a core set of widely accepted Bayesian norms is (...) sufficient to identify a normatively privileged updating procedure for this kind of learning. Along the way, we justify a privileged formalization of the notion of ‘epistemic conservativity’, offer a new analysis of the Judy Benjamin problem, and emphasize the distinction between interpreting the content of new evidence and updating one’s beliefs on the basis of that content. (shrink)

Článek se snaží přiblížit přístup Josepha Priestleyho ke zkoumání lidské mysli. Postupně jsou ukázány dva kroky, ve kterých Priestley mění svůj pohled na hmotu a ducha a dochází k materialismu. V prvním kroku redefinuje pojem hmoty a přisuzuje hmotě zcela nové vlastnosti – síly přitahování a odpuzování. V druhém kroku pomocí těchto nových vlastností vysvětluje schopnost vnímání a myšlení. V těchto krocích navíc využívá poznatky tehdejší přírodní filosofie, zejména mechaniky. Člověk a jeho mysl jsou podle Priestleyho součástí přírody. To znamená, (...) že člověk a lidská mysl jsou určitým mechanismem, který pracuje podle přírodních zákonů a lze jej pomocí těchto zákonů také vysvětlit. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 30, Number 2, November 2004, pp. 213-236 Pleased and Afflicted: Hume on the Paradox of Tragic Pleasure E. M. DADLEZ How fast can you run? As fast as a leopard. How fast are you going to run? A whistle sounds the order that sends Archie Hamilton and his comrades over the top of the trench to certain death. Racing to circumvent that order and arriving seconds (...) too late, Archie's friend Frank screams in rage and despair. Archie is cut down before he has run twenty yards. Peter Weir's film Gallipoli is a chronicle of the disastrous Dardanelles campaign of the first World War, but it is also a film about racing. Archie is trained by his uncle Jack to run "as fast as a leopard." The film begins as it ends, with Archie sprinting in response to a whistle. Frank is first shown racing after a train, along with friends who are on their way to enlist. Archie and Frank meet while competing in a race, they race in Cairo once they have enlisted, and they finally race death. From the beginning, Archie has been faster; even at the end he is the first to die. And from the beginning he has swept Frank along in his wake, encouraging him, pushing him, inspiring him, and helping him to positions for which he is inadequately qualified. In the end, Archie's compassion and kindness prompt a decision which has grim consequences both for himself and for hundreds of others. Knowing that his friend fears death in the trenches, Archie recommends Frank as a substitute for himself, a designated message runner. But Frank is not fast enough, and falls short by mere seconds which Archie would not have lost. This is what leads to the failure of the one real effort to countermand the fatal charge. E. M. Dadlez is Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK 73034, USA. e-mail: [email protected] 214 E. M. Dadlez I am an emotional wreck by the time the movie is over, though I should admit that most of my tears are the result of sheer rage. Both my dogs exited the room in some haste once I began to shout at the television and the unpardonably dimwitted British officers who sat sipping tea at a comfortable distance as they gave the order for soldiers to commit suicide. But it isn't just the scope of the real human disaster, or the enormity of the blunder, or the pointlessness of the entire enterprise, or even my renewed conviction that stupidity is, in fact, evil, that is so unsettling. The film unnerves with respect to personal as well as global concerns, focusing attention on the chance of vanity's leading one to undertake responsibilities beyond one's competence, the possibility of advancement or security being achievable only at the expense of another, and the realization of how easy it might be to let those things happen. Gallipoli is a sad, disturbing film, and the spectator is grieved and disturbed in the course of watching it. Yet, having said that, I must own to having a copy in my possession, and to having watched it more than once. I recommend it to friends, offering to lend them my videotape. In fact, I press it on them. I say that it is a terrific, rewarding work which they should take the time to see. How is it that I can describe my experience of the film in such glowing terms and at the same time acknowledge the extreme distress I felt in the course of watching it? How can I reconcile the discordant aspects of my experience? David Hume explores some possible answers in his essay "Of Tragedy."1 He begins by calling attention to the paradox of tragic pleasure: It seems an unaccountable pleasure, which the spectators of a well written tragedy receive from sorrow, terror... and other passions, which are in themselves disagreeable and uneasy. The more they are touched and affected, the more are they delighted with the spectacle.... The whole art of the poet is employed in rousing and supporting the compassion and... (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty beschreibt die Phänomenologie als einen erkennbaren, praktischen Denkstil, der als Bewegung schon bestand bevor er sich als Philosophie bewusst war. Im Folgenden wird gezeigt, wie Goethe’s naturwissenschaftliches Denken in diesen erkennbaren, praktischen Denkstil der phänomenologischen Bewegung hineinpaßt. Diese Studie über Goethe und die Phänomenologie ist auf drei Themenkreise beschränkt: die phänomenologische Weltanschauung, die von Husserl’s Werk geprägt wurde; die phänomenologische Methode, die ihren Ursprung in Husserl, aber ihre Ausarbeitung in neueren Phänomenologen hat; und letztlich die phänomenologische Naturphilosophie, die (...) ihre Ansätze im Spätwerk Merleau-Ponty’s findet. (shrink)

Excerpt: 1. Introduction This chapter provides insight into the diverse ethical debates on genetics and epigenetics. Much controversy surrounds debates about intervening into the germline genome of human embryos, with catchwords such as genome editing, designer baby, and CRISPR/Cas. The idea that it is possible to design a child according to one’s personal preferences is, however, a quite distorted view of what is actually possible with new gene technologies and gene therapies. These are much more limited than the editing and (...) design metaphors suggest. Such metaphors are therefore highly problematic phrases in the context of new gene technologies, for two reasons. On one hand, to design a child of choice by modifying the genome would require modifying any gene of choice, which is more than can be done with current gene technologies, such as CRISPR/Cas. On the other hand, a modification of genes would need to be enough to create any characteristic of choice in the future child. The latter presupposes the assumption of genetic determinism. Moreover, the CRISPR/Cas technology can not only be used in a potentially therapeutic manner at the germline level. In addition, there is the (more likely) scenario of a future clinical therapeutic use of these new gene technologies for modifying the DNA sequence of other cells of the body (somatic genome editing). There is also the option of modifying the epigenome, that is, the spatial configuration of DNA (epigenome editing) (see table 1). Like genetics and genome editing, epigenetics has been at the center of recent popular scientific and ethical discourse as well as scientific debates. The concept of epigenetics has given rise to very different notions of inheritability and responsibility for health, which, however, are oftentimes based on scientifically controversial basic assumptions. That there continues to be covert genetic determinism in the form of epigenetic determinism (see table 2) in debates about epigenetics has been pointed out in ethical analyses of epigenetics. Neither genetic determinism nor epigenetic determinism has been confirmed scientifically. It is therefore important to recognize the concepts that are discussed (and sometimes harshly criticized) in debates about genome editing and epigenetics—for example, concepts about the causal role of DNA for our own life course. This importance is based on the fact that if we understand such controversial concepts, we will be able to remain critical when evaluating scientific knowledge and ethical arguments about genome editing and epigenetics. This chapter, therefore, explains some of these concepts. For an ethical analysis of epigenetics as well as of genome editing, it is necessary to understand and critically reflect upon the underlying concepts of genetic determinism and other, related -isms. The following section offers a detailed introduction to these -isms (section 2; see also table 2). Section 3 provides an ethical analysis of genome editing and epigenetics based on the explanations in section 2. Section 3 focuses on inheritability and responsibility, justice, safety, the problem of consent, and the effects of genome editing and epigenetics on embryos and future generations. This section does not discuss in detail further points that can be found in ethical debates about epigenetics as well as in ethical debates about genome editing. These points include (among others): • fear that the findings of epigenetics and that the methods of genome editing are misused—this also with respect to eugenics and enhancement; • naturalness—an issue we mention in passing a few times in the following analysis; • a possible connection between the genome/epigenome and the concept of human dignity, and the derived danger of instrumentalization and infringement of autonomy when intervening in the genome or epigenome. Since current discourse about ethical issues associated with genome editing focuses mainly on germline interventions, which are, for instance, interventions into a human embryo’s genome, we mainly focus on germline interventions when comparing the debates on genome editing and on epigenetics in section 3. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Topos quantum theory is standardly portrayed as a kind of ‘neo-realist’ reformulation of quantum mechanics.1 1 In this article, I study the extent to which TQT can really be characterized as a realist formulation of the theory, and examine the question of whether the kind of realism that is provided by TQT satisfies the philosophical motivations that are usually associated with the search for a realist reformulation of quantum theory. Specifically, I show that the notion of the quantum state (...) is problematic for those who view TQT as a realist reformulation of quantum theory. 1Introduction 2Topos Quantum Theory 2.1Phase space 2.2Hilbert space 2.3Beyond Hilbert space 2.4Defining realism 2.5The spectral presheaf 2.6The logic of topos quantum theory 3Interpreting States in Topos Quantum Theory 4Interpreting Truth Values and Clopen Subobjects in Topos Quantum Theory 4.1Interpreting the truth values 4.2Interpreting Subcl 5Neo-realism 5.1The covariant approach 6Conclusion. (shrink)

Although consolation is one of the classic religious subjects it plays no role in the current debate about religious emotions. One reason for this neglect could be that this debate is mostly based on classical emotions such as joy and fear, love and hope, and that consolation is not understood as an emotion. This paper tries to show that consolation in fact can and should be seen as an emotion. After naming and refuting some reasons that speak against taking consolation (...) to be an emotion, I will explain how consolation can be positively conceptualized as an emotion within a recent theory of emotions. It will be decisive to see that the experience of consolation can be understood not only hedonistically-qualitatively, but also intentionally. This structural conception allows for a differentiated description of various types of consolation as an emotion, also, in the tradition of William James, of a secular as well as a religious form of consolation. (shrink)

Arlie Hochschild glosses the practice of women migrants in poor nations who leave their families behind for extended periods of time to do carework in other wealthier countries as a “global heart transplant” from poor to wealthy nations. Thus she signals the idea of an injustice between nations and a moral harm for the individuals in the practice. Yet the nature of the harm needs a clear articulation. When we posit a sufficiently nuanced “right to care,” we locate the harm (...) to central relationships of the migrant women. The “right to (give and receive) care” we develop uses a concept of a relational self drawn from an ethics of care. The harm is situated in the broken relationships, which in turn have a serious impact on a person’s sense of equal dignity and self-respect, particularly since the sacrifice of central relationships of the migrant woman allows others (mostly women) to maintain these same relationships. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some of the solutions we need to consider. (shrink)

Some recent theories of emotion propose that emotions are perceptions of value laden situations and thus provide us with epistemic access to values. In this paper I take up Mark Wynn’s application of this theory to religious experience and try to argue that his McDowell-inspired account of intentional emotions leads to limitations for the justificatory force of religious experiences and to difficult questions about the metaphysical status of the object of religious experiences: if emotions and religious experiences are largely similar, (...) then, just as emotions, religious experiences cannot justify beliefs about the existence of objects, but merely beliefs about certain qualities they might have. Also, if emotions and religious experiences are largely similar, then, just as the objects of emotions, the object of religious experience turns out to be essentially mind-dependent. (shrink)

The problem of old evidence, first described by Glymour [1980], is still widely regarded as one of the most pressing foundational challenges to the Bayesian account of scientific reasoning. Many solutions have been proposed, but all of them have drawbacks and none is considered to be definitive. Here, we introduce and defend a new kind of solution, according to which hypotheses are confirmed when we become more confident that they provide the only way of accounting for the known evidence.

I explore what and when hypocrisy is a moral wrong by interrogating the case of hypocrisy of Julien in Stendhal's The Red and The Black. I conclude hypocrisy is most morally vexed in those sphere where sincerity is required.