The purpose of this article is to consider the question of whether democratic legitimacy requires viewpoint neutrality with regard to political speech – including extremist political speech, such as hate speech. The starting point of my discussion is Jeremy Waldron’s negative answer to this question. He argues that it is permissible for liberal democracies to ban certain extremist viewpoints – such as vituperative hate speech – because such viewpoint-based restrictions protect the dignity of persons and a social and moral environment (...) of mutual respect. According to Waldron, well-drafted narrow hate speech bans are not democratically illegitimate, and they do not undermine systemic democratic legitimacy – that is, the legitimacy of a democratic political system. In contrast to Waldron, I will argue that democratic legitimacy requires viewpoint neutrality to respect persons as thinking agents. I will defend a civil libertarian doctrine of viewpoint neutrality, and this doctrine requires that citizens in liberal democracies ought to have a legal free speech right to do moral wrong – that is, a legal right to express and defend any political viewpoint or idea, even if it is morally wrong to express, or expose others to, such views. It will be argued that any viewpoint-based restriction on public discourse is democratically illegitimate, and that such restrictions undermine systemic democratic legitimacy. (shrink)

Theorists are divided as to whether truth is or is not a substantive property. In a nutshell, those that maintain that it is, pragmatists, coherentists, and correspondence theorists among others, oppose deflationists who claim that ascribing truth to an assertion is nothing more, or little more, than simply making the assertion. Deflationists typically refuse to grant truth a metaphysical standing, although we must recognise deflationism is not just a statement about the metaphysical status of truth. Unfortunately, propertihood is elusive to (...) define in relation to truth, but to deny it is to say that truth is not a quality bestowed on truth-bearers, one that they possess;1 or to say that truth is not the kind of philosophical entity apt for dissection into constituents and common to all true assertions; or to say that truth ascription is a mere convenience, a façon de parler that eases conversation and confers style; or to say that truth is in some sense a trivial logical fragment that all but disappears upon closer inspection. Intuitions and theories vary on the details of what it takes to be a property, but some or all of these premises are accepted in embracing deflationism. Whiteness, for example, is an uncontroversial property of snow, even if it is arguably a relational one; what deflationism rejects is the analogous property of truth-bearers. (shrink)

Descartes has been accused of reasoning in a circle since the publication of the Meditations. The Circle is easy to point out: it seems that Descartes employs clear and distinct perceptions to demonstrate God’s existence and benevolence, and the latter, in turn, validates the use of clear and distinct perceptions. But is Descartes really guilty of fallacious argument, or can we break the arc somehow?

How may we change ourselves and our society so that animals are treated more justly? To answer this question, I turn to the account of moral change developed by the philosopher Iris Murdoch. The chief obstacle to becoming better, she believed, is an attachment to fantasy, from which we are liberated only through a loving attention directed at the reality of other beings. Building on this account, I argue that human supremacy is one such fantasy—that it acts as an impediment (...) to interspecies justice. I end with a meditation on love as liberatory practice. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether it is permissible for a liberal democratic state to deny anti-liberal-democratic citizens and groups the right to run for parliament. My answer to this question is twofold. On the one hand, I will argue that it is, in principle, permissible for liberal democratic states to deny anti-liberal-democratic citizens and groups the right to run for parliament. On the other hand, I will argue that it is rarely wise (or prudent) for ripe (...) democracies to exclude anti-liberal-democrats from parliamentary elections. There are at least two reasons for this. The first is related to the inherent stability of just institutions. The second is that exclusion can lead to group polarization and enclave deliberation that can engender political extremism and impair processes of interpersonal and intrapersonal deliberation in liberal democracies. (shrink)

The purpose of this chapter is to consider the question of whether respect for persons requires toleration of the expression of any extremist political or religious viewpoint within public discourse. The starting point of my discussion is Steven Heyman and Jonathan Quong’s interesting defences of a negative answer to this question. They argue that respect for persons requires that liberal democracies should not tolerate the public expression of extremist speech that can be regarded as recognition-denying or respect-denying speech – that (...) is, speech or other expressive conduct that expresses viewpoints that explicitly reject that all persons should be regarded and treated as free and equal persons or citizens. According to Heyman and Quong, recognition-denying speech falls outside the scope of the right to participate in public discourse (i.e. what it is a right to). In contrast to Heyman and Quong, one can argue that a strong case can be made for viewpoint neutrality on the basis of what can be called a libertarian or Nozickean status-based theory of rights. According to this theory, toleration in a liberal democracy requires respect for the status of persons as thinking agents, and respect for thinking agents and their sovereignty over their own mind requires viewpoint neutrality – that is, a basic right to participate in public discourse as speakers and listeners free from state-imposed viewpoint-based restrictions. All persons should have a basic right to express, hear and consider any viewpoint within public discourse. This doctrine of viewpoint neutrality requires that citizens in liberal democracies ought to have a legal free speech right to do moral wrong – that is, a legal right to express and defend any viewpoint within public discourse, even if it is morally wrong to express, or expose others to, such views. (shrink)

Motivated by the question of responsible AI and value alignment, I seek to offer a uniquely Foucauldian reconstruction of the problem as the emergence of an ethical subject in a disciplinary setting. This reconstruction contrasts with the strictly human-oriented programme typical to current scholarship that often views technology in instrumental terms. With this in mind, I problematise the concept of a technological subjectivity through an exploration of various aspects of ChatGPT in light of Foucault’s work, arguing that current systems lack (...) the reflexivity and self-formative characteristics inherent in the notion of the subject. By drawing upon a recent dialogue between Foucault and phenomenology, I suggest four techno-philosophical desiderata that would address the gaps in this search for a technological subjectivity: embodied self-care, embodied intentionality, imagination and reflexivity. Thus I propose that advanced AI be reconceptualised as a subject capable of “technical” self-crafting and reflexive self-conduct, opening new pathways to grasp the intertwinement of the human and the artificial. This reconceptualization holds the potential to render future AI technology more transparent and responsible in the circulation of knowledge, care and power. (shrink)

As moral injury is a still-emerging concept within the area of military mental health, prevalence estimates for moral injury and its precursor, potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs), remain unknown for many of the world’s militaries. The present study sought to estimate the prevalence of PMIEs in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), using data collected from CAF personnel deployed to Afghanistan, via logistic regressions controlling for relevant sociodemographic, military, and deployment characteristics. Analyses revealed that over 65% of CAF members reported exposure (...) to at least one event that would be considered a PMIE. The most commonly PMIEs individuals reported included seeing ill or injured women and children they were unable to help (48.4%), being unable to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants (43.6%), and finding themselves in a threatening situation where they were unable to respond due to the rules of engagement under which they were required to operate (35.4%). These findings provide support for both the presence of exposure to PMIEs in CAF members and the need for formal longitudinal data collection regarding PMIE exposure and moral injury development. (shrink)

Critics across the political spectrum have worried that ordinary uses of words like 'racist', 'sexist', and 'homophobic' are becoming conceptually inflated, meaning that these expressions are getting used so widely that they lose their nuance and, thereby, their moral force. However, the charge of conceptual inflation, as well as responses to it, are standardly made without any systematic investigation of how 'racist' and other expressions condemning oppression are actually used in ordinary language. Once we examine large linguistic corpora to see (...) how these expressions are actually used, we find that English speakers have a rich linguistic repertoire for qualifying the degree to which and dimensions along which something is racist, sexist, homophobic, and so on. These facts about ordinary usage undermine the charge of conceptual inflation. Without awareness of facts about ordinary usage, theorists risk making linguistic prescriptions that are unnecessary or counterproductive. (shrink)

Some philosophical theories of the nature of color aim to respect a "common sense" conception of color: aligning with the common sense conception is supposed to speak in favor of a theory and conflicting with it is supposed to speak against a theory. In this paper, we argue that the idea of a "common sense" conception of color that philosophers of color have relied upon is overly simplistic. By drawing on experimental and historical evidence, we show how conceptions of color (...) vary along several dimensions and how even supposedly "core" components of the contemporary "common sense" conception of color are less stable than they have been thought to be. (shrink)

In the past few years there has been a turn towards evaluating the empirical foundation of epistemic contextualism using formal (rather than armchair) experimental methods. By-and-large, the results of these experiments have not supported the original motivation for epistemic contextualism. That is partly because experiments have only uncovered effects of changing context on knowledge ascriptions in limited experimental circumstances (when contrast is present, for example), and partly because existing experiments have not been designed to distinguish between contextualism and one of (...) its main competing theories, subject-sensitive invariantism. In this paper, we discuss how a particular, "third-person", experimental design is needed to provide evidence that would support contextualism over subject-sensitive invariantism. In spite of the theoretical significance of third-person knowledge ascriptions for debates surrounding contextualism, no formal experiments evaluating such ascriptions that assess contextualist claims have previously been conducted. In this paper, we conduct an experiment specifically designed to examine that central gap in contextualism’s empirical foundation. The results of our experiment provide crucial support for epistemic contextualism over subject-sensitive invariantism. (shrink)

Behavioral intervention techniques leveraging reactive responses have gained popularity as tools for promoting ethical behavior. Choice architects, for example, design and present default opt-out options to nudge individuals into accepting preselected choices deemed beneficial to both the decision-maker and society. Such interventions can also employ mild financial incentives or affective triggers including joy, fear, empathy, social pressure, and reputational rewards. We argue, however, that ethical competence is achieved via reflection, and that heavy reliance on reactive behavioral interventions can undermine the (...) development of ethical competence over the long term. Specifically, drawbacks may occur through motivational displacement, dependency, moral crowding out, loss of personal autonomy, and reactance. We introduce complementary cognitive boosting techniques designed to stimulate reflective cognition, as a more promising long-term strategy for instilling ethical behavior. One such approach is the Moral Self-Awareness (MSA) motivational construct, which incrementally leads agents to increasing levels of ethical reflection. We explain why ethical boosting approaches present more edifying and durable alternatives to reactive behavioral interventions and offer suggestions for social and organizational policy. (shrink)

There is conflicting experimental evidence about whether the “stakes” or importance of being wrong affect judgments about whether a subject knows a proposition. To date, judgments about stakes effects on knowledge have been investigated using binary paradigms: responses to “low” stakes cases are compared with responses to “high stakes” cases. However, stakes or importance are not binary properties—they are scalar: whether a situation is “high” or “low” stakes is a matter of degree. So far, no experimental work has investigated the (...) scalar nature of stakes effects on knowledge: do stakes effects increase as the stakes get higher? Do stakes effects only appear once a certain threshold of stakes has been crossed? Does the effect plateau at a certain point? To address these questions, we conducted experiments that probe for the scalarity of stakes effects using several experimental approaches. We found evidence of scalar stakes effects using an “evidence seeking” experimental design, but no evidence of scalar effects using a traditional “evidence-fixed” experimental design. In addition, using the evidence-seeking design, we uncovered a large, but previously unnoticed framing effect on whether participants are skeptical about whether someone can know something, no matter how much evidence they have. The rate of skeptical responses and the rate at which participants were willing to attribute “lazy knowledge”—that someone can know something without having to check—were themselves subject to a stakes effect: participants were more skeptical when the stakes were higher, and more prone to attribute lazy knowledge when the stakes were lower. We argue that the novel skeptical stakes effect provides resources to respond to criticisms of the evidence-seeking approach that argue that it does not target knowledge. (shrink)

There is a standard story told about the rise and fall of ordinary language philosophy: it was a widespread, if not dominant, approach to philosophy in Great Britain in the aftermath of World War II up until the early 1960s, but with the development of systematic approaches to the study of language—formal semantic theories on one hand and Gricean pragmatics on the other—ordinary language philosophy more or less disappeared. In this paper we present quantitative evidence to evaluate the standard story (...) of the rise and fall of ordinary language philosophy, building on the topic model of over 30,000 philosophy articles in Weatherson (2022). Using a combination of qualitative judgment and a topic-model-based measurement of similarity between individual articles, we find evidence that supports the first part of the standard story, according to which ordinary language philosophy arises in the 1940s, peaks between the early 1950s and the late 1960s, and then rapidly declines. But we argue that there is also evidence of a "new wave" of ordinary language philosophy in the early 21st century that defies the second part of the standard story. (shrink)

A single mother is a person who is accountable for raising their children alone because they do not have a husband or live-in partner. Single mothers claim to have no co-parenting relationships at all, comparing single parents to those who are married, cohabiting, or without children, single parents experience the worst work-life balance. A single parent may feel overwhelmed by the demands of juggling child care, a career, paying bills, and maintaining household responsibilities. Single-parent households frequently deal with several extra (...) obligations and possible complications that other families would not. The study also emphasizes the difficulties and coping mechanisms faced by contractual single parents as well as their lived experiences. The study's findings, which were based on an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, were as follows: (1) Work-life balance can be difficult for single parents. They struggle to keep their jobs while taking care of their family because they are the only ones in charge of the children. (2) Single contractual mothers face particular difficulties due to a lack of resources for basic expenses. (3) Contractual single women lean on their kids, the good people in their lives, and their faith in God to get through problems. (shrink)

Education is essential to life, and the epidemic affected everything. Parents want to get their kids the most important teaching. However, since COVID-19 has affected schools and other institutions, providing education has become the most significant issue. Online learning pedagogy uses technology to provide high-quality learning environments for student-centered learning. Further, this study explores the experiences and challenges faced by Filipino tertiary students regarding the lack of gadgets amidst online learning. Employing the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the findings of this study (...) were: Some college students still have difficulty with online learning. Attending online classes is difficult, especially for students with limited resources. Smartphones, other gadgets, and internet connections play a significant role in online classrooms because they are the ones that students utilize while learning online, which is essential for successful participation in online higher education as well as for solving a variety of other difficulties in the new normal. Further, College students face similar health challenges. Having an online learning setup is not just about students' struggles with learning resources but also about their health issues. When our respondents used their smartphones for an extended period, they reported eye aches and blurred vision. They also said that some of their body parts, such as their legs and back, are aching, and feel pressured because they tend to overthink things in their surroundings, which causes them incredible difficulty in performing their best in attending online classes. Even though college students continue to suffer from a lack of learning resources during online sessions, they do their best to manage their needs and the scarcity of learning resources. Students have unique coping methods for dealing with difficulties in online classes. (shrink)

The fact that Gilbert Ryle and J.L. Austin seem to disagree about the ordinary use of words such as ‘voluntary’, ‘involuntary’, ‘voluntarily’, and ‘involuntarily’ has been taken to cast doubt on the methods of ordinary language philosophy. As Benson Mates puts the worry, ‘if agreement about usage cannot be reached within so restricted a sample as the class of Oxford Professors of Philosophy, what are the prospects when the sample is enlarged?’ (Mates, Inquiry 1:161–171, 1958, p. 165). In this chapter, (...) we evaluate Mates’s criticism alongside Ryle’s and Austin’s specific claims about the ordinary use of these words, assessing these claims against actual examples of ordinary use drawn from the British National Corpus (BNC). Our evaluation consists in applying a combination of methods: first aggregating judgments about a large set of samples drawn from the corpus, and then using a clustering algorithm to uncover connections between different types of use. In applying these methods, we show where and to what extent Ryle’s and Austin’s accounts of the use of the target terms are accurate as well as where they miss important aspects of ordinary use, and we demonstrate the usefulness of this new combination of methods. At the heart of our approach is a commitment to the idea that systematically looking at actual uses of expressions is an essential component of any approach to ordinary language philosophy. (shrink)

This article defends three claims. First, that collection and division in the Phaedrus are described as procedures that underlie human speaking and thinking in general, as well as philosophical inquiry, and are not identified with either. Second, that what sets the dialectical use of these procedures apart from their ordinary use are philosophical suppositions independent of the procedures of collection and division themselves; for that reason, collection and division cannot be identified with dialectic as such. Third, that the second part (...) of the Phaedrus is concerned with the broader question how noble or beautiful speaking, in general, may be said to depend on dialectic as much as it is concerned with the question how rhetoric, as a kind of expertise, is related to dialectic. (shrink)

One disturbing but telling demonstration of how definitions of knowledge can go wrong is due to Hawthorne.[1] Although properly intended as an attack on Dretske’s theory of conclusive reasons, it also works against Nozick’s conditional theory. Hawthorne provides a simple example: suppose, he declaims, that salmon induces hallucinations if eaten in great amounts. Suppose that, to be more precise, were you to eat it in amounts greater than 14 pounds at one go (never mind how that is humanly possible), it (...) could cause you to believe that you’ve only had a few tidbits of the savoury fish. Then, on Dretske’s account, if P is the proposition I ate less than 1 pound of salmon, I could know P. On the other hand, let Q be the proposition I ate less than 14 pounds of salmon. Q is not knowable, because were Q to be false, I might still experience the hallucination that I’ve eaten less than a pound of salmon, and therefore I do not have conclusive reasons for Q. (shrink)

Both patients and clinicians frequently report problems around communicating and assessing pain. Patients express dissatisfaction with their doctors and doctors often find exchanges with chronic pain patients difficult and frustrating. This chapter thus asks how we could improve pain communication and thereby enhance outcomes for chronic pain patients. We argue that improving matters will require a better appreciation of the complex meaning of pain terms and of the variability and flexibility in how individuals think about pain. We start by examining (...) the various accounts of the meaning of pain terms that have been suggested within philosophy and suggest that, while each of the accounts captures something important about our use of pain terms, none is completely satisfactory. We propose that pain terms should be viewed as communicating complex meanings, which may change across different communicative contexts, and this in turn suggests that we should view our ordinary thought about pain as similarly complex. We then sketch what a view taking seriously this variability in meaning and thought might look like, which we call the “polyeidic” view. According to this view, individuals tacitly occupy divergent stances across a range of different dimensions of pain, with one agent, for instance, thinking of pain in a much more “bodycentric” kind of way, while another thinks of pain in a much more "mindcentric” way. The polyeidic view attempts to expand the multidimensionality recognised in, e.g., biopsychosocial models in two directions: first, it holds that the standard triumvirate— dividing sensory/cognitive/affective factors— needs to be enriched in order to capture important distinctions within the social and psychological dimensions. Second, the polyeidic view attempts to explain (at least in part) why modulation of experience by these social and psychological factors is possible in the first place. It does so by arguing that because the folk concept of pain is complex, different weightings of the different parts of the concept can modulate pain experience in a variety of ways. Finally, we argue that adopting a polyeidic approach to the meaning of pain would have a range of measurable clinical outcomes. (shrink)

The simulation hypothesis can reinforce a cynical dismissal of human potential. This attitude can allow online platform designers to rationalize employing manipulative neuromarketing techniques to control user decisions. We point to cognitive boosting techniques at both user and designer levels to build critical reflection and mindfulness.

This paper will first provide a synopsis of Thompson's understanding of ideology and then apply it to two selected verses (Mt 5:3 & 4) from the Sermon on the Mount. An attempt will be made to reveal the existence of an ideology in the text, determine its symbolic form and construction, and confirm the suitability of Thompson's modes of operation of ideology and depth hermeneutics as tools of interpretation to be applied to the text. This methodology will disclose how one (...) could control the masses with an ideology that claimed to benefit them; how the text can be presenting an opposing ideology to the prevailing ideologies and finally show that the text also reveals an asymmetrical relation of power and dominion between God and the hearers of the text that ultimately will benefit them. Reading the text in its particular social-historical setting this article will endeavour to disclose and draw attention to symbolic phenomena that serve and sustain relations (domination being one aspect of this association) between God and his people who are the oppressed and persecuted. (shrink)

The Church faces a number of challenges concerning the sociological impact postmodernism is having on society. And one very significant area that has been profoundly disputed is the epistemological content of the concept of truth. Evangelical Christians believe in Objectivism: the conviction that there exists some ahistorical (outside of history) source, foundation or framework to which we can appeal to in determining the substance and nature of truth, knowledge, reality, right or wrong that is independent and external to personal experience (...) or thinking. However, the majority of people no longer believe in absolute truth but in relativism. Relativism is the denial that there exists such an ahistorical source or foundation that we can appeal to. Truth, knowledge, reality, right and wrong are all concepts that are relative to a specific conceptual scheme, framework, or paradigm founded in a society, religion and culture. This paper represents an endeavour to dialogically reunite the two perspectives by arguing for the seeking of the truths in both perspectives. God is Objective Truth and has become involved in history: in the existential; in the material setting of our relative and infallible thoughts and the slanted interpretative experiences of the Triune God and life. The synthesis will be an affirmation that for Christians Truth is discovered and revealed in fellowship within community. And members of the Body of Christ are first and finally called to reveal and demonstrate truth to the world - in their unity. (shrink)

Pluralistic ignorance is a socio-psychological phenomenon that involves a systematic discrepancy between people’s private beliefs and public behavior in certain social contexts. Recently, pluralistic ignorance has gained increased attention in formal and social epistemology. But to get clear on what precisely a formal and social epistemological account of pluralistic ignorance should look like, we need answers to at least the following two questions: What exactly is the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance? And can the phenomenon arise among perfectly rational agents? In (...) this paper, we propose answers to both these questions. First, we characterize different versions of pluralistic ignorance and define the version that we claim most adequately captures the examples cited as paradigmatic cases of pluralistic ignorance in the literature. In doing so, we will stress certain key epistemic and social interactive aspects of the phenomenon. Second, given our characterization of pluralistic ignorance, we argue that the phenomenon can indeed arise in groups of perfectly rational agents. This, in turn, ensures that the tools of formal epistemology can be fully utilized to reason about pluralistic ignorance. (shrink)

This paper will explore some of the issues and arguments and offer some critical reflection on the ideas and ways that people have proposed to overcome or uphold the dilemma or conflict between the existence of the God of classical theism and evil and the consequence of evil - suffering. I seek explanation of the plain fact of evil and suffering but I do not seek it in the arrogant belief that I can explain evil away. My Christian faith is (...) not meant to provide complete answers and understanding to all life’s vexing questions. The purpose of my faith is to become aware and share in the life of the infinite and unlimited creator God. My belief provides strength and wisdom to live all of life but does not provide the perfect philosophical apologetic. My faith leaves me with much unsolved mystery and perplexing puzzle, often my faith is accompanied by doubt and existential pain and anxiety. Evil is not a theoretical problem but an existential problem. In the face of evil we are challenged to examine who we are and what we value as well as seeking a deeper insight into the nature and purposes of God. (shrink)

Seit Beginn der frühen Neuzeit ist das naturwissenschaftliche Verfahren maßgeblich durch ein neues Konzept geprägt: das Konzept des experimentellen, gestalterischen Eingriffs in die Natur. Es geht nun nicht mehr darum, eine Geschichte der "freien und ungebundenen Natur" (Bacon) zu erzählen, die in ihrem eigenen Lauf belassen und als vollkommene Bildung betrachtet wird. Es geht vielmehr darum, der "gebundenen und bezwungenen Natur" (Bacon) vermittels der experimentellen Tätigkeit des Menschen die Geheimnisse zu entreißen. Diese technisch-praktische Konzeption grenzt sich explizit von den klassischen (...) kontemplativen Wissenschaftsvorstellungen der Antike ab. Wie es Kant paradigmatisch in Bezug auf Bacon formuliert hat, ist diese "Revolution der Denkart" maßgeblich durch ein gewandeltes Verständnis des Verhältnisses des Menschen zur Natur geprägt. Der Mensch als Experimentator hat für Kant nicht mehr die "Qualität eines Schülers", der sich passiv von der Natur belehren läßt und an ihrem "Leitbande" (Kant) gegängelt wird. Seine neu gewonnene Autorität verleiht ihm vielmehr den Status eines Richters, der nun die Natur nötigen kann, auf gestellte Fragen zu antworten. Die Laborforschung der modernen Naturwissenschaft ist von den Formen der alten Naturwissenschaft so weit entfernt, daß sie den Vorwurf auf sich zog, sie untersuche Artekakte, aber nicht Natur. Die grundlegenden Theorien über Natur können in der Regel nur unter den künstlichen Bedingungen des Labors aufgestellt werden. Daraus darf aber nicht geschlossen werden, die anhand von Laborphänomenen aufgestellten und getesteten Theorien handelten nicht von der Natur außerhalb der Labore. Aber ihrer exakten und detaillierten Anwendung auf Prozesse außerhalb der Labore stehen eine Fülle von Schwierigkeiten entgegen. Insofern markiert das Labor sehr wohl eine Grenze exakter Naturforschung, die für den Umgang der wissenschaftlich-technischen Zivilisation mit der Natur wichtige Konsequenzen hat. Inhalt: Kristian Köchy / Gregor Schiemann: Natur im Labor Lothar Schäfer: Die Erscheinung der Natur unter Laborbedingungen Holm Tetens: Das Labor als Grenze der exakten Naturforschung Christoph Rehmann-Sutter: Genes in Labs - Concepts of Development and the Standard Environment Kristian Köchy: Lebewesen im Labor. Das Experiment in der Biologie Jutta Weber: Mannigfaltige Techno-Naturen. Von epistemischen Modellsystemen und situierten Maschinen Thomas Sören Hoffmann: Gezeigte versus sich zeigende Natur. Eine Skizze im Blick auf das Verhältnis von Labor und Natur Klaus Michael Meyer-Abich: Laborforschung im Erkenntnishandeln der Experimentiergesellschaft. Eine holistisch-pragmatische Perspektive für die Wissenschaftstheorie. (shrink)

Plato’s Sophist and Statesman stand out from many other Platonic dialogues by at least two features. First, they do not raise a ti esti question about a single virtue or feature of something, but raise the questions what sophist, statesman, and philosopher are, how they differ from each other, and what worth each should be accorded. Second, a visitor from Elea, rather than Socrates, seeks to addressed these questions and does so by employing what is commonly referred to as the (...) method of collection and division. Some scholars have argued that this so-called method is value neutral and therefore unable to address the question how philosophy differs from sophistry and statesmanship according to worth. This article contends that the procedures of collection and division does not preclude the visitor from taking considerations of worth into account, but rather helps establish an objective basis for settling the main questions of the dialogue. (shrink)

In 1 Peter 1:3-7 we read that the Christians were facing persecution because of their faith and the author reminds them that every trial is a test of their faith. The trials and consequential suffering can be withstood because they are able to look forward to an inheritance – eternal life with God. Christians can endure all trials and suffering because of the hope of glory and ultimate joy. There is a grace afforded by God in the presence to match (...) whatever trial or suffering they might face. Thus it appears that there is both a purpose – one being the testing, transforming and purifying of one’s faith and a great prize for those who endure suffering – the Lord himself rewarding us. It is with this thought I will end this essay - with this belief of an inheritance, a resurrection and the gift of immortality. However, I will not shun asking the difficult questions, nor will I avoid critical reflection and analysis of a number of the contradictory or unpleasant answers. I will not eschew the lack of answers relating to evil and suffering – the pains of the scourges of poverty, persecution and oppression, the ravages of war and natural disasters, and all the inequity and injustice that has fallen throughout history – often on the innocent. This wickedness and agony that has throughout history indiscriminately befallen Christians and non-believers alike, has initiated great dismay, depression and consternation for many and some have even rejected the concept of God and the Gospel because of the malevolence and affliction they have been subjected to. The horrendous profundity and extent of human suffering and the history of the inhumanity of people makes the idea of a loving Creator seem quite implausible and predisposes many to accept a naturalistic theory of religion. At the end of this essay I will attempt to show that the declarations that the writer of 1 Peter makes concerning the Christian’s inheritance and suffering proffers some expectation for those who are faced with the quandary of evil and offer some hope now to enable them to endure whatever life has thrown onto their journey. Whilst I will with candour endeavour to query the issues and questions relating to evil I am conscious of the fact that many books and essays have been written by vastly more erudite authors. Consequently I acknowledge that what I have to say is ultimately nothing more than the personal reflection birthed in my own life’s experiences and learning. (shrink)

Numerous agricultural wastes are impractically discarded every day, and one of these is rice bran. This study investigated the production of a biodegradable straw made of cassava starch and powdered rice bran. It aimed to determine the effectiveness of the different treatments of Cassava Starch-Rice Bran in terms of water resistance, tensile strength, and biodegradability. An experimental design was used in conducting the study. There were three treatments made in making CSRB straws: the first, with more rice bran; the second, (...) with the same cassava starch and rice bran ratio; and the third, with more cassava starch. These treatments produced three replicates each. The straws were placed in a dehydrating machine for 24 hours at a temperature of 60° Celsius. The straws were then coated with beeswax after being removed from their respective molders. The CSRB straws were found to be water resistant due to the beeswax coating applied, although it had a weak tensile strength even with the presence of beeswax. The rate of biodegradability of the CSRB straw was fast due to it being made up of organic materials. The results revealed that straws made from Cassava Starch and Powdered Rice Bran are effective in terms of water resistance and biodegradability. (shrink)

The digression of Plato’s Theaetetus (172c2–177c2) is as celebrated as it is controversial. A particularly knotty question has been what status we should ascribe to the ideal of philosophy it presents, an ideal centered on the conception that true virtue consists in assimilating oneself as much as possible to god. For the ideal may seem difficult to reconcile with a Socratic conception of philosophy, and several scholars have accordingly suggested that it should be read as ironic and directed only at (...) the dramatic character Theodorus. When interpreted with due attention to its dramatic context, however, the digression reveals that the ideal of godlikeness, while being directed at Theodorus, is essentially Socratic. The function of the passage is to introduce a contemplative aspect of the life of philosophy into the dialogue that contrasts radically with the political-practical orientation characteristic of Protagoras, an aspect Socrates is able to isolate as such precisely because he is conversing with the mathematician Theodorus. (shrink)

Research for this study was served by the hypothesis that the Christian’s lifestyle and witness in a postmodern world will depend on the definition and practice of worship and spirituality. The Old Testament reveals a spirituality that has ‘Yahweh’ involved in all aspects of life. Awareness and experience of the presence of God is linked to obedience to God. New Testament spirituality implies imitation of Christ and an effort to obey Christ's twofold command: to love God and neighbor as self. (...) Christian exhortation (contemplation/meditation) and adoration never take place in isolation from the world because God is active in the world. Adoration leads to action in the world which, in turn, leads to adoration of God. All work done and all life lived for God's sake is, in essence, worship. Being a Christian implies living a life of sacrifice, making a gift of your life to God. As the Christian strives with the Spirit's guidance and empowerment to love God with his/her heart, soul, mind, body - and his/her neighbor as him/her self, in a moment by moment way; as he/she worships God with adoration and action; then he/she is living a true Biblical Christian life and experiencing and practicing true Biblical worship and spirituality. For the postmodernist, religious relativism is incompatible with the objective truth claims of Christianity and the words ‘Christian’ and ‘Church’ mean either empty tradition or abusive totalizing metannarrative. To maintain its identity and practice effective and relevant ministry, the Church should reflect an internal unity in desire, in life, in purpose, and in love. The Church must be the incarnate and engaged love and glory of God to a world that judges Christian truth claims by the lifestyle and witness of Christians. A praxis-orientated apologetic of an incarnational engaged worship and spirituality will demonstrate Christians truth claims. This gives Christianity integrity, credibility, and intelligibility to postmodernists that seek an experiential spirituality in the postmodern era of deconstruction. Evangelism is founded in who God is and what God has done for humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christian’s demonstrate the Gospel as they love their God and their neighbor with devotion and conduct. They proclaim God’s love with plausibility when they reveal God’s love in action as a visual aid for Gods truth. As Christian worship and spirituality produce the actions that give voice to the nature and will of God, Jesus Christ will ‘rise again’ in the postmodern world through an incarnational and engaged Christian faith. Point summary: i. Authentic Biblical Christian worship is a lifestyle that takes place in an interdependent rhythm of both adoration (joyful praise of God) and action (obedient service to God). ii. Holistic spirituality is the lived moment by moment experience of Christian belief in both general and specialized forms (the Christian faith), and the reaction that the Christian’s belief system arouses in religious consciousness and practice moment by moment (the Christian faith). iii. Biblical worship and spirituality is thus conformity of heart and life with the confession and character of Jesus Christ. It is living life in the coram Deo (the presence of God) in obedience to His will out of gratitude for salvation. iv. Worship, spirituality, and the Christian faith become equivalent terms for each other and as defined in i-iii above reflect an incarnational engaged approach to evangelism. v. Worship and spirituality as a praxis-orientated apologetic presented as an incarnational engaged approach (that tells God’s story and your story) in a postmodern world, will be a more effective method of evangelism than rational apologetics and program/method based evangelism. -/- . (shrink)

The Church is facing a dilemma in how to apply and live out its message in a postmodern world. For many in the Church an understanding and application of morals and ethics has become bewildering. This assignment attempts to develop a Christian vocabulary and conceptual framework for morality. This is done by firstly elucidating the milieu out of which postmodernism arose. Modernism, through universal claims of reason and instrumental rationality, believed in the ultimate mastery of the world. The failure of (...) the Enlightenment project to develop universal morality and law led to a new perspective on reason and reality and new reflection on life, morality and meaning. Thus, I reflect on the parturition and value of postmodernism through offering an evaluation and critique of the ideology of postmodernism. Next, I propose the need for Christian ideology to be firstly separated from cultural interpretations so as to avoid ethnocentrism and cultural imperialism. After exploring the development and purpose of worldviews I argue for the building of cultural bridges and for the Gospel and Biblical worldview to be suitably encoded. After learning about God's nature as reflected in the narrative of the Prodigal Son I posit an understanding of what postmodern ethics entails and how then to define and respond to ethical issues. Through case studies I apply the key principles identified in the study. These are that moderation is a virtue; that many timeless truths are customary truths that arise in a specific historical/cultural situations; that many problems are not ethical issues but are rather a comprehension and/or a misinterpretation of the Scriptures regarding what it means to be a Christian and how we are to live our Christian profession to mention a few. I reason and plead for a Christian ethical system of incarnational engaged compassion in a postmodern world. I hope this academic paper stimulates critical theological reflection whilst hopefully illuminating and enlightening the reader. (shrink)

In the exploratory study reported here, we tested the efficacy of an intervention designed to train teenagers with Möbius syndrome (MS) to increase the use of alternative communication strategies (e.g., gestures) to compensate for their lack of facial expressivity. Specifically, we expected the intervention to increase the level of rapport experienced in social interactions by our participants. In addition, we aimed to identify the mechanisms responsible for any such increase in rapport. In the study, five teenagers with MS interacted with (...) three naïve participants without MS before the intervention, and with three different naïve participants without MS after the intervention. Rapport was assessed by self-report and by behavioral coders who rated videos of the interactions. Individual non-verbal behavior was assessed via behavioral coders, whereas verbal behavior was automatically extracted from the sound files. Alignment was assessed using cross recurrence quantification analysis and mixed-effects models. The results showed that observer-coded rapport was greater after the intervention, whereas self-reported rapport did not change significantly. Observer-coded gesture and expressivity increased in participants with and without MS, whereas overall linguistic alignment decreased. Fidgeting and repetitiveness of verbal behavior also decreased in both groups. In sum, the intervention may impact non-verbal and verbal behavior in participants with and without MS, increasing rapport as well as overall gesturing, while decreasing alignment. (shrink)

At least since Socrates, philosophy has been understood as the desire for acquiring a special kind of knowledge, namely wisdom, a kind of knowledge that human beings ordinarily do not possess. According to ancient thinkers this desire may result from a variety of causes: wonder or astonishment, the bothersome or even painful realization that one lacks wisdom, or encountering certain hard perplexities or aporiai. As a result of this basic understanding of philosophy, Greek thinkers tended to regard philosophy as an (...) activity of inquiry (zētēsis) rather than as a specific discipline. Discussions concerning the right manner of engaging in philosophical inquiry – what methodoi or routes of inquiry were best suited to lead one to wisdom – became an integral part of ancient philosophy, as did the question how such manners or modes of inquiry are related to, and differ from, other types of inquiry, for instance medical or mathematical. In this special issue of History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis, we wish to concentrate in particular on ancient modes of inquiry. (shrink)

The present chapter investigates Heidegger's early understanding of Platonic dialectic in its contrast to sophistry as this comes to expression in his lectures on Plato's Sophist.

We describe a strategy for integration of data that is based on the idea of semantic enhancement. The strategy promises a number of benefits: it can be applied incrementally; it creates minimal barriers to the incorporation of new data into the semantically enhanced system; it preserves the existing data (including any existing data-semantics) in their original form (thus all provenance information is retained, and no heavy preprocessing is required); and it embraces the full spectrum of data sources, types, models, and (...) modalities (including text, images, audio, and signals). The result of applying this strategy to a given body of data is an evolving Dataspace that allows the application of a variety of integration and analytic processes to diverse data contents. We conceive semantic enhancement (SE) as a lightweight and flexible process that leverages the richness of the structured contents of the Dataspace without adding storage and processing burdens to what, in the intelligence domain, will be an already storage- and processing-heavy starting point. SE works not by changing the data to which it is applied, but rather by adding an extra semantic layer to this data. We sketch how the semantic enhancement approach can be applied consistently and in cumulative fashion to new data and data-models that enter the Dataspace. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate the understanding of eros expressed in the speeches of Phaedrus and Agathon in Plato’s Symposium, two speeches often neglected in the literature. I argue that they contain crucial insights about the nature of eros that reappear in Diotima’s speech. Finally, I consider the relation of Socrates and Alcibiades in light of these insights, arguing that the figure of Alcibiades should be seen as a negative illustration of the notion of erotic education described by Diotima.

We investigate claims about the frequency of "know" made by philosophers. Our investigation has several overlapping aims. First, we aim to show what is required to confirm or disconfirm philosophers’ claims about the comparative frequency of different uses of philosophically interesting expressions. Second, we aim to show how using linguistic corpora as tools for investigating meaning is a productive methodology, in the sense that it yields discoveries about the use of language that philosophers would have overlooked if they remained in (...) their "armchairs of an afternoon", to use J.L. Austin’s phrase. Third, we discuss facts about the meaning of "know" that so far have been ignored in philosophy, with the aim of reorienting discussions of the relevance of ordinary language for philosophical theorizing. (shrink)

I denne artikel argumenteres der for, at døden i Phaidon primært skal forstås metaforisk, som sjælens adskillelse fra kroppen i den rene tænkning. Artiklens hovedtese er, at de fire argumenter for sjælens udødelighed, der findes i dialogen, skal læses som en fremadskridende afklaring af, hvilken væremåde sjælen har, når den isolerer sig fra kroppen, snarere end at læses bogstaveligt som beviser for, at sjælen er udødelig. Tillige argumenteres der for, at den såkaldt anden sejlads – Sokrates’ beskrivelse af, hvorledes han (...) for at forstå virkeligheden søgte tilflugt i argumenter og ideer snarere end i sanserne – skal forstås som et forsvar for en bestemt opfattelse af menneskelig frihed. Når Sokrates indfører ideerne som årsager i løbet af Phaidon, skal dette først og fremmest ses som en forklaring på, hvordan den rene tænkning kan erkende virkeligheden og derigennem kontrollere vores umiddelbare tilbøjeligheder. Det er mulighedsbetingelsen for menneskelig frihed som Platons Sokrates forstår den. Frihed skal da primært forstås som mulighed, nemlig mulighed til at handle i overensstemmelse med det, den fornuftsbestemte indsigt tilsiger en, at man skal gøre, uden hensyntagen til umiddelbare, kropsligt bestemte tilbøjeligheder, herunder tilbøjeligheden til selvopretholdelse for enhver pris. Den foreslåede læsning peger dermed på en politisk dimension af Phaidon, der ofte overses som følge af, at argumenterne for sjælens udødelighed tages for bogstaveligt. (shrink)

In this paper, I question a widespread reading of a passage in the last part of the Phaedrus dealing with the science of dialectic. According to this reading, the passage announces a new method peculiar to the later Plato aiming at defining natural kinds. I show that the Phaedrus itself does not support such a reading. As an alternative reading, I suggest that the science of dialectic, as discussed in the passage, must be seen as dealing primarily with philosophical rhetoric (...) and knowledge of human souls. (shrink)

Plato often depicts Socrates inquiring together with an interlocutor into a thing/concept by trying to answer the “What is it?” question about that thing/concept. This typically involves Socrates requesting that his discussion partner answer the question, and usually ends in failure. There are, however, instances in which Socrates provides the sort of answer, in relation to a more familiar thing/concept, that he would like to receive in relation to a more obscure thing/concept, thus furnishing his interlocutor with an example of (...) how he would like him to answer. This chapter considers this dialectical tool by focusing on three instances of its use (Meno 73e3–76e4; Laches 191e9–192b3; Theaetetus 146e7–147c6). It argues, first, that in these instances Socrates provides true and adequate definitions of the things/concepts in question. It further argues that dialectic, for Plato, is just as much about the essences everyday things/concepts as it is about the essences of more obscure things/concepts; and that it is just as much about the meanings of the words we use to designate things, as it is about the essences of those things. (shrink)

The “battle” between corporealists and idealists described in Plato’s Sophist 245e6–249d5 is of significance for understanding the philosophical function of the dramatic exchange between the Eleatic guest and Theaetetus, the dialogue's main interlocutors. Various features of this exchange indicate that the Eleatic guest introduces and discusses the dispute between corporealists and idealists in order to educate Theaetetus in ontological matters. By reading the discussion between Theaetetus and the Eleatic guest in the light of these features, one comes to see that (...) the primary audience for the proposal advanced by the Eleatic guest in this passage, namely that being is power, is not any of the participants in the “battle,” as has been commonly assumed, but Theaetetus himself—a fact to bear in mind in any viable interpretation of the passage. (shrink)