In this article it is shown that a careful analysis of Kant 's Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte und Beurtheilung der Beweise leads to a conclusion that does not match the usually accepted interpretation of Kant 's reasoning in 1747, according to which the young Kant supposedly establishes a relationship between the tridimensionality of space and Newton's law of gravitation. Indeed, it is argued that this text does not yield a satisfactory explanation of space dimensionality, and actually (...) restricts itself to justifying the tridimensionality of extension. (shrink)

Context: The problems that are most in need of interdisciplinary collaboration are “wicked problems,” such as food crises, climate change mitigation, and sustainable development, with many relevant aspects, disagreement on what the problem is, and contradicting solutions. Such complex problems both require and challenge interdisciplinarity. Problem: The conventional methods of interdisciplinary research fall short in the case of wicked problems because they remain first-order science. Our aim is to present workable methods and research designs for doing second-order science in domains (...) where there are many different scientific knowledges on any complex problem. Method: We synthesize and elaborate a framework for second-order science in interdisciplinary research based on a number of earlier publications, experiences from large interdisciplinary research projects, and a perspectivist theory of science. Results: The second-order polyocular framework for interdisciplinary research is characterized by five principles. Second-order science of interdisciplinary research must: 1. draw on the observations of first-order perspectives, 2. address a shared dynamical object, 3. establish a shared problem, 4. rely on first-order perspectives to see themselves as perspectives, and 5. be based on other rules than first-order research. Implications: The perspectivist insights of second-order science provide a new way of understanding interdisciplinary research that leads to new polyocular methods and research designs. It also points to more reflexive ways of dealing with scientific expertise in democratic processes. The main challenge is that this is a paradigmatic shift, which demands that the involved disciplines, at least to some degree, subscribe to a perspectivist view. Constructivist content: Our perspectivist approach to science is based on the second-order cybernetics and systems theories of von Foerster, Maruyama, Maturana & Varela, and Luhmann, coupled with embodied theories of cognition and semiotics as a general theory of meaning from von Uexküll and Peirce. (shrink)

Ziel dieses Papiers ist es die Ordnungsethik – einen bereichsethischen Ansatz, der derzeit vor allem für wirtschaftsethische Fragestellungen benutzt wird – als eine universelle Methode zur Analyse von bereichsethischen Fragestellungen vorzustellen. Um das Vorhaben handhabbar zu machen, muss es in zweierlei Hinsicht eingeschränkt werden. Zum einen kann es sich hier natürlich nicht um eine voll ausgearbeitete Methodologie für die Analyse von bereichsethischen Fragestellungen handeln, sondern nur um eine methodische Skizze. Zum anderen soll es in diesem Papier im Wesentlichen um solche (...) bereichsethischen Fragestellungen gehen, deren Lösung die Implementierung von formellen wie informellen Regeln erfordert. (shrink)

In the beginning of the 20th century the groundbreaking work of Ramon y Cajal firmly established the neuron doctrine, according to which neurons are the basic structural and functional units of the nervous system. Von Weldeyer coined the term “neuron” in 1891, but the huge leap forward in neuroscience was due to Cajal’s meticulous microscopic observations of brain sections stained with an improved version of Golgi’s la reazione nera (black reaction). The latter improvement of Golgi’s technique made it possible to (...) visualize the arborizations of single neurons that were “colored brownish black even to their finest branchlets, standing out with unsurpassable clarity upon a transparent yellow background. All was sharp as a sketch with Chinese ink”. The high quality of both the visualization of individual nerve cells and the work performed on studying the anatomy of the central nervous system lead Ramon y Cajal to the conclusion that axons output the nervous impulses to the dendrites or the soma of other target neurons. (shrink)

The paper deals with Weizsäcker’s position within the philosophy of mind. It turns out that Weizsäcker’s ontology is based on an unorthodox conception both in the philosophy of physics and in the philosophy of mind. His quantum information theoretic reductionism is based on a subtle combination of atomism and holism, his philosophy of mind connected to this is a neutral monism, which proposes a bold intertwining of mind, matter, and space.

The sentence "The boss fired the employee who is always late" invites the defeasible inference that the speaker is attempting to convey that the lateness caused the firing. We argue that such inferences cannot be understood in terms of familiar approaches to extrasemantic enrichment such as implicature, impliciture, explicature, or species of local enrichment already in the literature. Rather, we propose that they arise from more basic cognitive strategies, grounded in processes of coherence establishment, that thinkers use to make sense (...) of the world. Attention to such cases provides a richer and more varied landscape of extrasemantic enrichment than has been appreciated to date. (shrink)

Ludwig von Mises’s methodological apriorism is frequently attributed to the broader Austrian School of economics, of which, of course, Mises was a prominent member. However, there is considerable controversy concerning the meaning of Mises’s various attempts to justify his apriorism. There are prima facie inconsistencies within and across Mises’s methodological writings that engender massive confusion in the secondary literature. This confusion is aggravated by the fact that Mises’s apriorism cannot be straightforwardly interpreted as an artifact of his historical milieu. Indeed, (...) the two prevailing families of interpretation both treat Mises’s apriorism as radically anachronistic, albeit in different senses. According to “extreme” interpretations, Mises’s apriorism reflects an epistemology several decades, if not centuries, beyond its expiration date. According to “moderate” interpretations, however, Mises’s apriorism anticipates ideas that would not appear in the epistemological literature for several decades to come. Finally, there is evidence to suggest that Mises’s actual methodological beliefs are not reflected in his writings, that Mises either obfuscated or exaggerated his methodological position, for whatever reasons, making it seem more radical than it was in fact. I conclude that we have no idea what justification Mises actually intended when he asserted the a priori nature of the fundamental propositions of economics. If this is right, then, whatever method(s) they follow, Austrian economists cannot (deliberately) follow Mises’s apriorism. (shrink)

Bevor ich das Buch kommentiere, möchte ich Kommentare zu Wittgenstein und Searle und der logischen Struktur der Rationalität abgeben. Die Essays hier sind meistens bereits während des letzten Jahrzehnts veröffentlicht (obwohl einige aktualisiert wurden), zusammen mit einem unveröffentlichten Artikel, und nichts hier wird für diejenigen, die mit seiner Arbeit mithalten können, nicht überraschen. Wie W gilt er als der beste Standup-Philosoph seiner Zeit und sein schriftliches Werk ist solide als Fels und bahnbrechender durchweg. SeinVersäumnis, das spätere W so ernst zu (...) nehmen, führt jedoch zu einigen Fehlern und Verwirrungen. Nur ein paar Beispiele: Auf S. 7 stellt er zweimal fest, dass unsere Gewissheit über grundlegende Tatsachen auf das überwältigende Gewicht der Vernunft zurückzuführen ist, das unsere Behauptungen stützt, aber W hat in "On Certainty" definitiv gezeigt, dass es keine Möglichkeit gibt, an der wirklichen axiomamatischen Struktur unserer System-1-Wahrnehmungen, Erinnerungen und Gedanken zu zweifeln, da sie selbst die Grundlage für das Urteil ist und nicht selbst beurteilt werden kann. Im ersten Satz auf P8 sagt er uns, dass Sicherheit revisierbar ist, aber diese Art von "Sicherheit", die wir Sicherheit2 nennen könnten, ist das Ergebnis der Erweiterung unserer axiomamatischen und nicht revisierbaren Gewissheit (Sicherheit1) durch Erfahrung und ist völlig anders, wie sie propositional (wahr oder falsch) ist. Dies ist natürlich ein klassisches Beispiel für den "Kampf gegen die Verhexung unserer Intelligenz durch Sprache", den W. immer wieder demonstrierte. Ein Wort - zwei (oder viele) unterschiedliche Verwendungen. Sein letztes Kapitel "Die Einheit des Vorschlags" (bisher unveröffentlicht) würde auch sehr davon profitieren, W es "On Certainty" oder DMS es two books on OC (siehe meine Rezensionen) zu lesen, da sie den Unterschied zwischen wahren Sätzen, die S1 beschreiben, und wahren oder falschen Sätzen, die S2 beschreiben, deutlich machen. Dies erscheint mir als eine weit überlegene Herangehensweise an Ses Nehmen S1 Wahrnehmungen als propositional, da sie erst T oder F werden, nachdem man beginnt, über sie in S2 nachzudenken. Sein Standpunkt, dass Die Sätze Aussagen von tatsächlicher oder potenzieller Wahrheit und Falschheit, von Vergangenheit und Zukunft und Fantasie erlauben und damit einen enormen Fortschritt gegenüber der vor- oder protolinguistischen Gesellschaft ermöglichen, ist überzeugend. Er sagt: "Ein Satz ist alles, was eine Bedingung der Zufriedenheit bestimmen kann... und eine Bedingung der Zufriedenheit... ist, dass dies der Fall ist und so ist." Oder, das muss man hinzufügen, das könnte oder könnte sein oder sein könnte. Insgesamt ist PNC eine gute Zusammenfassung der vielen wesentlichen Fortschritte gegenüber Wittgenstein, die sich aus S' halbes Jahrhundert Arbeit ergeben, aber meiner Meinung nach ist W immer noch unerreicht, wenn man begreift, was er sagt. Im, Idealfall sollten sie zusammen gelesen werden: Searle für die klare kohärente Prosa und Verallgemeinerungen, illustriert mit W es perspicacious Beispiele und brillanten Aphorismen. Wenn ich viel jünger wäre, würde ich ein Buch schreiben, das genau das tut. Wer aus der modernen zweisystems-Sichteinen umfassenden, aktuellen Rahmen für menschliches Verhalten wünscht, kann mein Buch "The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' 2nd ed (2019) konsultieren. Die jenigen,die sich für mehr meiner Schriften interessieren, können 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophie, Psychologie, Wissenschaft, Religion und Politik auf einem verdammten Planeten --Artikel und Rezensionen 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) und Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) und andere sehen. (shrink)

I present a possible worlds semantics for a hyperintensional belief revision operator, which reduces the logical idealization of cognitive agents affecting similar operators in doxastic and epistemic logics, as well as in standard AGM belief revision theory. (Revised) belief states are not closed under classical logical consequence; revising by inconsistent information does not perforce lead to trivialization; and revision can be subject to ‘framing effects’: logically or necessarily equivalent contents can lead to different revisions. Such results are obtained without resorting (...) to non-classical logics, or to non-normal or impossible worlds semantics. The framework combines, instead, a standard semantics for propositional S5 with a simple mereology of contents. (shrink)

Open science will make science more efficient, reliable, and responsive to societal challenges. The European Commission has sought to advance open science policy from its inception in a holistic and integrated way, covering all aspects of the research cycle from scientific discovery and review to sharing knowledge, publishing, and outreach. We present the steps taken with a forward-looking perspective on the challenges laying ahead, in particular the necessary change of the rewards and incentives system for researchers (for which various actors (...) are co-responsible and which goes beyond the mandate of the European Commission). Finally, we discuss the role of artificial intelligence (AI) within an open science perspective. (shrink)

Many authors hold that we cannot have the kind of free will that we seem to have. This article spells out and defends that kind of free will. Most libertarians hold that a free action involves a probabilistic process at some stage. Like the compatibilists, I hold that this is not only not required for free will but even reduces or excludes freedom. But contrary to the compatibilist and contrary to most libertarians, I claim that free will requires that we (...) can bring about events that have no preceding cause. That is what our experience suggests, and there are no beliefs that contradict this and are justified. (shrink)

The biological sciences study (bio)complex living systems. Research directed at the mechanistic explanation of the "live" state truly requires a pluralist research program, i.e. BioComplexity research. The program should apply multiple intra-level and inter-level theories and methodologies. We substantiate this thesis with analysis of BioComplexity: metabolic and modular control analysis of metabolic pathways, emergence of oscillations, and the analysis of the functioning of glycolysis.

Der berühmte Ameisenmann E.O. Wilson war schon immer einer meiner Helden - nicht nur ein hervorragender Biologe, sondern eine der winzigen und verschwindenden Minderheit von Intellektuellen, die es zumindest wagt, die Wahrheit über unsere Natur anzudeuten, die andere nicht verstehen oder, soweit sie es verstehen, aus politischen Gründen unermüdlich vermeiden. Leider beendet er seine lange Karriere auf äußerst schäbige Weise als Partei eines ignoranten und arroganten Angriffs auf die Wissenschaft, der zumindest teilweise durch die religiöse Inbrunst seiner Harvard-Kollegenmotiviertist. Es zeigt (...) die abscheulichen Folgen, wenn Universitäten Geld von religiösen Gruppen annehmen, Wissenschaftszeitschriften von großen Namen so bewundert sind, dass sie eine ordnungsgemäße Peer Review vermeiden und wenn Egos außer Kontrolle geraten dürfen. Es führt uns in die Natur der Evolution, die Grundlagen der wissenschaftlichen Methodik, wie Mathematik mit Wissenschaft zusammenhängt, was eine Theorie ausmacht, und sogar, welche Einstellungen zu Religion und Großzügigkeit angemessen sind, wenn wir uns unaufhaltsam dem Zusammenbruch der industriellen Zivilisation nähern. Ich fand Abschnitte in 'Conquest' mit dem üblichen prägnanten Kommentar (obwohl nichts wirklich Neues oder Interessantes, wenn man seine anderen Werke gelesen hat und auf biologie im Allgemeinen ist) in der oftgestylten Prosa, die sein Markenzeichen ist, aber war ziemlich überrascht, dass der Kern des Buches seine Ablehnung inklusiver Fitness (die seit über 50 Jahren ein Standbein der Evolutionsbiologie ist) zugunsten der Gruppenauswahl ist. Man nimmt an, dass von ihm kommen und mit den articles er bezieht sich auf veröffentlicht von sich selbst und Harvard Mathematik Kollege Nowak in großen Peer-Review-Zeitschriften wie Nature, muss es ein wesentlicher Fortschritt sein,, trotz der Tatsache, dass ich wusste, Gruppenauswahl wurde fast überall abgelehnt, da mit jeder großen Rolle in der Evolution. Ich habe zahlreiche Rezensionen im Netz gelesen und viele haben gute Kommentare, aber die, die ich am meisten sehen wollte, war, dass von renommierten Wissenschaftsautor und Evolutionsbiologe Richard Dawkins. Im Gegensatz zu den meisten von Fachleuten, die in Zeitschriften nur für diejenigen mit Zugang zu einer Universität zur Verfügung stehen, ist es leicht im Netz verfügbar, obwohlanscheinend, entschied er sich, es nicht in einer Zeitschrift zu veröffentlichen, da es angemessen abscheulich ist. Leider findet man eine vernichtende Ablehnung des Buches und den acerbic Kommentar über einen wissenschaftlichen Kollegen, den ich je von Dawkins gesehen habe -- über alles in seinem vielen Austausch mit dem verstorbenen und unbeklagten Demagogen und Pseudowissenschaftler Stephan Jay Gould. Obwohl Gould für seine persönlichen Angriffe auf seinen Harvard-Kollegen Wilson berüchtigt war, stellt Dawkins fest, dass ein Großteil von "Conquest" einen unbequem an Goulds häufige Verfehlungen in "bland, unfocussed ecumenicalis" erinnert. Dasselbe gilt mehr oder weniger für Wilsons populäres Schreiben, einschließlich seines jüngsten Buches "The Meaning of Human Existence" – eine weitere schamlose Eigenwerbung seiner diskreditierten Ideen zu Inklusiver Fitness (IF). Dawkins weist darauf hin, dass das berüchtigte 2010-Papier von Nowak, Tarnita und Wilson in Nature von über 140 Biologen, die einen Brief unterzeichnet haben, fast überall abgelehnt wurde und dass es in Wilsons Buch kein Wort darüber gibt. Auch in den folgenden 4 Jahren mit Artikeln, Vorträgen und mehreren Büchern haben sie dies nicht korrigiert. Es gibt keine andere Wahl, als Dawkins trenchant Kommentar zuzustimmen: "Für Wilson nicht zu zugeben, dass er für sich selbst gegen die große Mehrheit seiner professionellen Kollegen spricht - es schmerzt mich, dies von einem lebenslangen Helden zu sagen -- ein Akt mutwilligen Arroganz." Angesichts von Nowaks späterem Verhalten muss man ihn auch einbeziehen. Ich habe das Gefühl, dass einer der fassungslosen Menschen, die man im Fernsehen sieht, interviewt wird, nachdem der nette Mann von nebenan, der seit 30 Jahren alle Kinder babysitten, als Serienmörder entlarvt wird. Dawkins weist auch darauf hin (wie er und andere seit vielen Jahren), dass inklusive Fitness mit dem Neo-Darwinismus (d.h. logischerweise folgt) entsteht und nicht abgelehnt werden kann, ohne die Evolution selbst abzulehnen. Wilson erinnert uns erneut an Gould, der Kreationisten von der einen Seite seines Mundes anprangerte, während er ihnen Trost spendete, indem er endlosen ultraliberalen marxistisch gefärbten Kauderwelsch über Spandrels, unterbrochenes Gleichgewicht und Evolutionspsychologie von der anderen ausspeist. Die Unbestimmtheit und mathematische Opazität (für die meisten von uns) der Mathematik der Gruppen- oder Mehrebenenauswahl ist genau das, was die Sanftmütigen ihnen ermöglichen wollen, dem rationalen Denken in ihren endlosen antiwissenschaftlichen Gerüchten und (in der Wissenschaft) postmodernen Wortsalate zu entkommen. Schlimmer noch, Wilsons "Eroberung" ist ein schlecht durchdachtes und schlampig geschriebenes Durcheinander voller Nonsequiturs, vager Streifzüge, Verwirrungen und Inkohärenz. Eine gute Bewertung, die einige davon im Detail ist, dass von Absolvent Gerry Carter, die Sie im Netz finden können. Wilson hat auch nichts mit unserem gegenwärtigen Verständnis der Evolutionspsychologie (EP) zu tun (siehe z.B. die letzten 300 Seiten von Pinkers 'The Better Angels of our Nature'). Wenn Sie eine seriöse Buchlänge Bericht über die soziale Evolution und einige relevante EP von einem Experten wollen, siehe 'Principles of Social Evolution' von Andrew F.G. Bourke, oder ein nicht ganz so ernster und zugegebenermaßen fehlerhafter und irrender Bericht, aber ein Muss,das Robert Trivers dennoch lesen muss—'The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life' und ältere, aber immer noch aktuelle und durchdringende Werke wie 'The Evolutionof Cooperation':Revised Edition by Robert Axelrod and 'The Biology ofMoral Systems' von Richard Alexander. (shrink)

Lawrence Kohlberg's Approach to Moral Education presents what the late Lawrence Kohlberg regarded as the definitive statement of his educational theory. Addressing the sociology and social psychology of schooling, the authors propose that school culture become the center of moral education and research. They discuss how schools can develop as just and cohesive communities by involving students in democracy, and they focus on the moral decisions teachers and students face as they democratically resolve problems. As the authors put it: "...we (...) propose an educational renewal of our democratic society.... We have attempted to establish schools that do more than just teach about democratic citizenship, that are themselves democratic societies.". (shrink)

Achievements have recently begun to attract increased attention from value theorists. One recurring idea in this budding literature is that one important factor determining the magnitude or value of an achievement is the amount of effort the achiever invested. The aim of this paper is to present the most plausible version of this idea. This advances the current state of debate where authors are invoking substantially different notions of effort and are thus talking past each other. While the concept of (...) effort has been invoked in the philosophical analysis of a number of important concepts such as desert, attention, competence, and distributive justice, it has hardly ever been analyzed itself. This paper makes headway in this regard by discussing three ambiguities in the everyday notion of effort. It continues to develop two accounts of effort and shows how both of them are achievement-enhancing. (shrink)

After a general remark about Armstrong’s conception of ontology, I raise objections against this view and defend an alternative account of the connection between particulars and their properties, involving a kind of ontological dependence which is different from Armstrong’s necessary connection between particulars and their properties.

Summary: A review of the cognitivist/extended cognition and extended mind landscape.

Politická reflexia uskutočňovaná v akademických kruhoch predstavuje rad vlastných charakteristík v porovnaní s inými druhmi intelektuálnej činnosti. Nejde len o j e j viac-menej prirodzené preniknutie do domácich mocenských vzťahov, ale o mimoriadnu citlivosť j e j obsahu a rozvoja na spoločenské a politické podmienky inštitucionálneho kontextu. O politickej kultúre krajiny sa môžeme naučiť veľa práve na základe analýzy toho, o čom j e j intelektuáli diskutujú - a o čom nediskutujú, ako aj o teoretických nástrojoch, ktoré pritom využívajú.

This paper explains how to use a new software tool for argument diagramming available free on the Internet, showing especially how it can be used in the classroom to enhance critical thinking in philosophy. The user loads a text file containing an argument into a box on the computer interface, and then creates an argument diagram by dragging lines from one node to another. A key feature is the support for argumentation schemes, common patterns of defeasible reasoning historically know as (...) topics . Several examples are presented, as well as the results of an experiment in using the system with students in a university classroom. (shrink)

According to one large family of views, scientific explanations explain a phenomenon (such as an event or a regularity) by subsuming it under a general representation, model, prototype, or schema (see Bechtel, W., & Abrahamsen, A. (2005). Explanation: A mechanist alternative. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(2), 421–441; Churchland, P. M. (1989). A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge: MIT Press; Darden (2006); Hempel, C. G. (1965). Aspects of scientific (...) explanation. In C. G. Hempel (Ed.), Aspects of scientific explanation (pp. 331–496). New York: Free Press; Kitcher (1989); Machamer, P., Darden, L., & Craver, C. F. (2000). Thinking about mechanisms. Philosophy of Science, 67(1), 1–25). My concern is with the minimal suggestion that an adequate philosophical theory of scientific explanation can limit its attention to the format or structure with which theories are represented. The representational subsumption view is a plausible hypothesis about the psychology of understanding. It is also a plausible claim about how scientists present their knowledge to the world. However, one cannot address the central questions for a philosophical theory of scientific explanation without turning one’s attention from the structure of representations to the basic commitments about the worldly structures that plausibly count as explanatory. A philosophical theory of scientific explanation should achieve two goals. The first is explanatory demarcation. It should show how explanation relates with other scientific achievements, such as control, description, measurement, prediction, and taxonomy. The second is explanatory normativity. It should say when putative explanations succeed and fail. One cannot achieve these goals without undertaking commitments about the kinds of ontic structures that plausibly count as explanatory. Representations convey explanatory information about a phenomenon when and only when they describe the ontic explanations for those phenomena. (shrink)

Initially, astrobiology subsumed into philosophy. However, philosophy has increasingly subsumed into astrobiology concurrent with it steadily becoming an observational and experimental activity that mainly focuses on the link between life and the cosmos, rather than on extra-terrestrial life per se. However, the steadily increasing probability of locating such extra-terrestrial life and the questions this will lead to might require a refinement of astrobiology, with a bifurcation into astrobiology and astrophilosophy. There are many reasons for the emergence and necessity of astrobiology. (...) One barely realized reason for its emergence, I will argue, is the dawning realization that biology, until now, has been under a geocentric limitation, which has unavoidably pervaded the perception of life. Additionally, as astrobiology can be said to be a long last movement away from this limitation, astrophilosophy represents a movement away from that limitation because philosophy has, strictly speaking, been restrained by the frames for one species, Homo sapiens. Thus, philosophy has, strictly speaking, been anthropomorphic. Thus, when philosophy, like astrobiology, incorporates the Copernican principle, assuming that terrestrial life, and the thinking of Homo sapiens, is not privileged in the universe, astrophilosophy emerges. Astrobiology and astrophilosophy are not competitors but are rather two distinct but complementary activities that address questions with their own well-defined methods and rigor while still informing each other in an inter-dependent manner. Astrophilosophy concerns questions that are philosophical in nature but are procured by an astrobiological perspective. By including scenarios procured by astrobiology, a number of questions regarding value, rights, communication and intelligence that could arise in the interaction between Homo sapiens and extra-terrestrial life can be addressed. (shrink)

Effective altruism is a movement which aims to maximise good. Effective altruists are concerned with extreme poverty and many of them think that individuals have an obligation to donate to effective charities to alleviate extreme poverty. Their reasoning, which I will scrutinise, is as follows: -/- Premise 1. Extreme poverty is very bad. -/- Premise 2. If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, we ought, morally, to do (...) it. -/- Premise 3. Individuals ought to choose the effective option in preventing very bad things. -/- Premise 4. Donating to effective charities is one of the best ways to alleviate extreme poverty. -/- Conclusion. Individuals ought to donate to effective charities working towards extreme poverty alleviation where doing so does not require them to give up anything of moral significance. -/- I will scrutinise each of these premises in turn. -/- For Premise 1, I focus on hedonistic utilitarianism and criticise its outlook on extreme poverty. I claim that hedonistic utilitarianism might be problematic for effective altruism. -/- Premise 2 is Peter Singer's Weaker Principle of Sacrifice. I introduce several possible interpretations of it, and press several objections to it by stressing overpermissiveness, luck, and rights. I defend strengthening the Weaker Principle of Sacrifice without making it overdemanding. -/- I claim that Premise 3 can be attractive to both consequentialists and non-consequentialists. Nevertheless, by showing that effectiveness sometimes violates fairness, I propose a method which avoids always helping the greater number and always giving everyone equal chances of being helped, which is compatible with effective altruism. -/- Against Premise 4, I assess the systemic change objection, which states that effective altruism unjustifiably distracts individuals from systemic change. By considering risk and the moral standing of the future extremely poor, I claim that the systemic change objection is partially successful, but cannot undermine effective altruism. -/- After analysing all of these, I argue that individuals have an obligation to donate to effective charities to alleviate extreme poverty where doing so does not require them to give up anything of moral significance. (shrink)

Suicide or self-destruction means in ordinary language “the act of killing oneself deliberately” (intentionally or on purpose). Indeed, that’s what we read in the Oxford dictionary and the Oxford dictionary of philosophy , which seems to be confirmed by the etymology of the term “suicide”, a term introduced around mid-17th century deduced from the modern Latin suicidium, ‘act of suicide’. Traditionally, suicide was regarded as immoral, irreligious and illegal in Western culture. However, during the 17th century this Christian view started (...) to change as a consequence of the rise of modern science . Generally speaking, Spinoza does not write much on death. His name does even not occur in the Oxford Philosophy of Death, although he had had very particular ideas on the nature of death. However, he even had much more particular ideas on suicide. Moreover, he states in the fourth proposition of the third part of his masterpiece, the Ethics, that self-destruction is simply impossible: Nulla res, nisi à causâ externâ, potest destrui. (shrink)

Robert Kimball, in “What’s Wrong with Argumentum Ad Baculum?” (Argumentation, 2006) argues that dialogue-based models of rational argumentation do not satisfactorily account for what is objectionable about more malicious uses of threats encountered in some ad baculum arguments. We review the dialogue-based approach to argumentum ad baculum, and show how it can offer more than Kimball thinks for analyzing such threat arguments and ad baculum fallacies.

The process of cooperative problem solving can be divided into four stages. First, finding potential team members, then forming a team followed by constructing a plan for that team. Finally, the plan is executed by the team. Traditionally, very simple protocols like the Contract Net protocol are used for performing the first two stages of the process. In an open environment however, there can be discussion among the agents in order to form a team that can achieve the collective intention (...) of solving the problem. For these cases fixed protocols like contract net do not suffice. In this paper we present an alternative solution, using structured dialogues, with an emphasis on persuasion, that can be shown to lead to the required team formation. The dialogues are described formally using modal logics and speech acts. (shrink)

Abortion bans have been characterized as cruel especially in not allowing exceptions for rape or incest. The article first examines one approach to morally justifying bans based on the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) which distinguishes morally between killing or letting die intending death versus doing so only foreseeing death. It then presents some criticisms of the implications of the DDE but also argues that what the doctrine permits helps provide a ground for the permissibility of abortions even if the (...) fetus is a person. Whether there are limits on applying this argument is also considered. In conclusion, the article considers whether and why not permitting exceptions to bans for rape and incest is cruel and whether cruelty is a ground for opposition to bans. (shrink)

This paper recommends recognition theory as one useful tool in the diagnosis of the recent rise in two pathologies of democracy, specifically the surging success of populist politicians and parties across many consolidated democracies, and, increases in the social polarization of citizens along partisan lines in several of those nations. It begins by defining and discussing the resurgence of populism in two forms, before turning to a discussion of the concurrent increase in partisan polarization that is puzzlingly unconnected to policy (...) polarization. It then argues that recognition theory does a better job explaining these phenomena than alternative approaches by tying together social changes, moral psychology, and politically powerful social dynamics of identity, in a way that is sensitive to historical changes in recognition orders. It also argues that recognition theory provides an understanding of the specific political psychology supporting populism and polarization that does not treat supporters as mere passive victims of blind emotion, but rather as motivated by distinctly moral experiences of misrecognition and as making claims for recognition to the broader society. In the end, the paper suggests that a central causal role behind populism and polarization must be assigned to responses to a changing recognition order, especially where those enter into a fateful reinforcing causal dynamic with other economic and political causes, potentially turning the engaged use of democratic political freedom into its opposite. (shrink)

Holt argues that Rawls’s first principle of justice requires democratic control of the economy and that property owning democracy fails to satisfy this requirement; only liberal socialism is fully democratic. However, the notion of democratic control is ambiguous, and Holt has to choose between the weaker notion of democratic control that Rawls is committed to and the stronger notion that property owning democracy fails to satisfy. It may be that there is a tension between capitalism and democracy, so that only (...) liberal socialism can be fully democratic, but if so, we should reject, rather than argue from, the theory of democracy we find in justice as fairness. (shrink)

While increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the relation between Foucault’s conception of critique and Kant’s, much controversy remains over whether Foucault’s most sustained early engagement with Kant, his dissertation on Kant’s Anthropology, should be read as a wholesale rejection of Kant’s views or as the source of Foucault’s late return to ethics and critique. In this paper, I propose a new reading of the dissertation, considering it alongside 1950s-era archival materials of which I advance the first (...) scholarly appraisal. I argue that Foucault manifests a fundamental ambivalence to Kantian anthropology, rejecting it in theoretical terms while embracing its practical (‘pragmatic’) conception of the subject. Furthermore, I take these texts to collectively evidence Foucault’s attempt to situate himself within the anthropological-critical tradition rather than extricating himself from it. If we interpret Foucault to reject this tradition’s appeal to an essentialized, theoretical conception of subjectivity, what remains of anthropology is its inherent practical reflexivity in structure. Thus, I situate Foucault’s conception of ethics as one’s relation to oneself in continuity with this tradition. (shrink)

The explication of the Christian hope of resurrection requires Christianity to spell out the way in which God actually deals in the world. Only if we succeed, with regard to past, present, and future, in making the talk of God’s special action in history plausible, are we able to reasonably assert essential Christian beliefs. Yet due to past horrors, present ongoing suffering, and a future that promises of little else, it is precisely this talk that has become doubtful. This article (...) tries to describe God’s action as a process enabling freedom and love in order to develop a theodicy-sensitive speech about God’s action. (shrink)

Neuroscience has studied deductive reasoning over the last 20 years under the assumption that deductive inferences are not only de jure but also de facto distinct from other forms of inference. The objective of this research is to verify if logically valid deductions leave any cerebral electrical trait that is distinct from the trait left by non-valid deductions. 23 subjects with an average age of 20.35 years were registered with MEG and placed into a two conditions paradigm (100 trials for (...) each condition) which each presented the exact same relational complexity (same variables and content) but had distinct logical complexity. Both conditions show the same electromagnetic components (P3, N4) in the early temporal window (250–525 ms) and P6 in the late temporal window (500–775 ms). The significant activity in both valid and invalid conditions is found in sensors from medial prefrontal regions, probably corresponding to the ACC or to the medial prefrontal cortex. The amplitude and intensity of valid deductions is significantly lower in both temporal windows (p = 0.0003). The reaction time was 54.37% slower in the valid condition. Validity leaves a minimal but measurable hypoactive electrical trait in brain processing. The minor electrical demand is attributable to the recursive and automatable character of valid deductions, suggesting a physical indicator of computational deductive properties. It is hypothesized that all valid deductions are recursive and hypoactive. (shrink)

If you utter sentence (1) ‘Obama was born in 1961’ now, you say something true about the past. Since the past will always be such that the year 1961 has the property of being a time in which Obama was born, it seems impossible that could ever be false in a future context of utterance. We shall consider the case of a sentence about the past exactly like (1), but which was true when uttered a few years ago and is (...) no longer true now. On this basis, we shall conclude that the past has changed. (shrink)

Eastern philosophy and western science have convergent and divergent viewpoints for their explanation of consciousness. Convergence is found for the practice of meditation allowing besides a time dependent consciousness, the experience of a timeless consciousness and its beneficial effect on psychological wellbeing and medical improvements, which are confirmed by multiple scientific publications. Theories of quantum mechanics with non-locality and timelessness also show astonishing correlation to eastern philosophy, such as the theory of Penrose-Hameroff (ORC-OR), which explains consciousness by reduction of quantum (...) superposition in the brain. Divergence appears in the interpretation of the subjective experience of timeless consciousness. In eastern philosophy, meditation at a higher level of awareness allows the personal experience of timeless and non-dual consciousness, considered as an empirical proof for the existence of pure consciousness or spirituality existing before the material world and creating it by design. Western science acknowledges the subjective, non-dual experience, and its multiple beneficial effects, however, the interpretation of spirituality designing the material universe is in disagreement with the Darwinian Theory of mutation and selection. A design should create an ideal universe without the injustice of 3% congenital birth defects and later genetic health problems. The western viewpoint of selection is more adapted to explain congenital errors. The gap between subjectivity and objectivity, the mind-body problem, is in eastern philosophy reduced to the dominance of subjectivity over objectivity, whereas western science attributes equal values to both. Nevertheless, there remains an astonishing complementarity between eastern and western practices. (shrink)

Existing research suggests that people's judgments of actual causation can be influenced by the degree to which they regard certain events as normal. We develop an explanation for this phenomenon that draws on standard tools from the literature on graphical causal models and, in particular, on the idea of probabilistic sampling. Using these tools, we propose a new measure of actual causal strength. This measure accurately captures three effects of normality on causal judgment that have been observed in existing studies. (...) More importantly, the measure predicts a new effect ("abnormal deflation"). Two studies show that people's judgments do, in fact, show this new effect. Taken together, the patterns of people's causal judgments thereby provide support for the proposed explanation. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue for a complex of three theses. First, that the problem of deep disagreement is an instance of the regress problem of justification. Second, that the problem of deep disagreement, as a regress problem, depends on a dialecticality requirement for arguments. Third, that the dialecticality requirement is plausible and defensible.

The limited aim here is to explain what John Dewey might say about the formulation of the grue example. Nelson Goodman’s problem of distinguishing good and bad inductive inferences is an important one, but the grue example misconstrues this complex problem for certain technical reasons, due to ambiguities that contemporary logical theory has not yet come to terms with. Goodman’s problem is a problem for the theory of induction and thus for logical theory in general. Behind the whole discussion of (...) these issues over the last several decades is a certain view of logic hammered out by Russell, Carnap, Tarski, Quine, and many others. Goodman’s nominalism hinges in essential ways on a certain view of formal logic with an extensional quantification theory at its core. This raises many issues, but the one issue most germane here is the conception of predicates ensconced in this view of logic. (shrink)

[For an updated version of this thesis, see Frederik A. Bakker, Epicurean Meteorology: Sources, Method, Scope and Organization, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016] This dissertation consists of three studies dealing with various aspects of Epicurean cosmology. The first study discusses the Epicurean practice of explaining astronomical and meteorological phenomena by multiple alternative theories. The second study compares the meteorological accounts of Epicurus and Lucretius with other ancient meteorologies as regards the scope and order of their subject matter. The third one examines the (...) claim that Epicurus and Lucretius held the earth to be flat. (shrink)

Epistemic infinitism is the view that infinite series of inferential relations are productive of epistemic justification. Peirce is explicitly infinitist in his early work, namely his 1868 series of articles. Further, Peirce's semiotic categories of firsts, seconds, and thirds favors a mixed theory of justification. The conclusion is that Peirce was an infinitist, and particularly, what I will term an impure infinitist. However, the prospects for Peirce's infinitism depend entirely on the prospects for Peirce's early semantics, which are not good. (...) Peirce himself revised the semantic theory later, and in so doing, it seems also his epistemic infinitism. (shrink)

Does Aristotle offer a definition of the soul? In fact, he rejects the possibility of defining the soul univocally. Because “life” is a homonymous concept, so too is “soul”. Given the specific causal role that Aristotle envisages for form and essence, the soul requires multiple different definitions to capture how it functions as a cause in each form of life. Aristotle suggests demonstrations can be given which express these causal definitions; I reconstruct these demonstrations in the paper.

Business ethicists should examine not only business practices but whether a particular type of business is even prima facie ethical. To illustrate how this might be done I here examine the contemporary U.S. defense industry. In the past the U.S. military has engaged in missions that arguably satisfied the just war self-defense rationale, thereby implying that its suppliers of equipment and services were ethical as well. Some recent U.S. military missions, however, arguably fail the self-defense rationale. At issue, then, is (...) whether a business supporting these latter missions may not be circumstantially unethical. No it is not, say defense industry advocates, for two principal reasons. For one, this business benefits society at large in numerous ways. And, for another, the organizer of these military missions is a superpower which by its very nature is not subject to the ethical constraints of the self-defense rationale. I dispute both reasons, argue against the second, and conclude that the U.S. military-industrial complex (MIC) is circumstantially unethical. (shrink)

An adequate understanding of the ubiquitous practice of mechanistic explanation requires an account of what Craver termed “constitutive relevance.” Entities or activities are constitutively relevant to a phenomenon when they are parts of the mechanism responsible for that phenomenon. Craver’s mutual manipulability account extended Woodward’s account of manipulationist counterfactuals to analyze how interlevel experiments establish constitutive relevance. Critics of MM argue that applying Woodward’s account to this philosophical problem conflates causation and constitution, thus rendering the account incoherent. These criticisms, we (...) argue, arise from failing to distinguish the semantic, epistemic, and metaphysical aspects of the problem of constitutive relevance. In distinguishing these aspects of the problem and responding to these critics accordingly, we amend MM into a refined epistemic criterion, the “matched interlevel experiments” account. Further, we explain how this epistemological thesis is grounded in the plausible metaphysical thesis that constitutive relevance is causal betweenness. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss a powerful challenge to high-liberalism: the challenge presented by neoclassical liberals that the high-liberal assumptions and values imply that the full range of economic liberties are basic rights. If the claim is true, then the high-liberal road from ideals of democracy and democratic citizenship to left-liberal institutions is blocked. Indeed, in that case the high-liberal is committed to an institutional scheme more along the lines of laissez-faire capitalism than property-owning democracy. To present and discuss this (...) challenge, I let John Rawls represent the high-liberal argument that only a narrow range of economic liberties are basic rights and John Tomasi represent the neoclassical liberal argument that the full range of economic liberties are basic rights. I show that Rawls’s argument is inadequate, but also that Tomasi’s argument fails. I thus conclude that high-liberalism is in a precarious situation, but is not yet undone by the neoclassical liberal challenge. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a focal point for research aimed at extending business ethics to extra-corporate issues; and as a result many companies now seek to at least appear dedicated to one or another version of CSR. This has not affected the arms industry, however. For, this industry has not been discussed in CSR literature, perhaps because few CSR scholars have questioned this industry's privileged status as an instrument of national sovereignty. But major changes in the organization of (...) political communities call traditional views of sovereignty into question. With these considerations in mind I assess the U.S. arms industry on the basis of CSR requirements regarding the environment, social equity, profitability, and use of political power. I find that this industry fails to meet any of these four CSR requirements. Countering a claim that these failings should not be held against arms manufacturers because their products are crucial to national defense, I contend that many of these companies function not as dutiful agents of a nation-state but as politically powerful entities in their own right. So, I conclude, they should be held responsible for the foreseeable consequences that flow from use of their products. This responsibility should include civil liability and, in cases involving war crimes and violations of human rights, responsibility under international human rights standards. (shrink)

This article considers some different views of fairness and whether they conflict with the use of a version of Cost Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) that calls for maximizing health benefits per dollar spent. Among the concerns addressed are whether this version of CEA ignores the concerns of the worst off and inappropriately aggregates small benefits to many people. I critically examine the views of Daniel Hausman and Peter Singer who defend this version of CEA and Eric Nord among others who criticize (...) it. I come to focus in particular on the use of CEA in allocating scarce resources to the disabled. (shrink)

Complex human reasoning involves minimal abilities to extract conclusions implied in the available information. These abilities are considered “deductive” because they exemplify certain abstract relations among propositions or probabilities called deductive arguments. However, the electrophysiological dynamics which supports such complex cognitive pro- cesses has not been addressed yet. In this work we consider typically deductive logico- probabilistically valid inferences and aim to verify or refute their electrophysiological functional connectivity differences from invalid inferences with the same content (same relational variables, same (...) stimuli, same relevant and salient features). We recorded the brain electrophysiological activity of 20 participants (age 1⁄4 20.35 ± 3.23) by means of an MEG system during two consecutive reasoning tasks: a search task (invalid condition) without any specific deductive rules to follow, and a logically valid deductive task (valid condition) with explicit deductive rules as instructions. We calculated the functional connectivity (FC) for each condition and conducted a seed-based analysis in a set of cortical regions of interest. Finally, we used a cluster-based permutation test to compare the dif- ferences between logically valid and invalid conditions in terms of FC. As a first novel result we found higher FC for valid condition in beta band between regions of interest and left prefrontal, temporal, parietal, and cingulate structures. FC analysis allows a second novel result which is the definition of a propositional network with operculo-cingular, parietal and medial nodes, specifically including disputed medial deductive “core” areas. The experiment discloses measurable cortical processes which do not depend on content but on truth-functional propositional operators. These experimental novelties may contribute to understand the cortical bases of deductive processes. (shrink)

This Article outlines a vision of responsible innovation and outlines a public policy and implementation strategy for it.