There is a type of metaphysical picture that surfaces in a range of philosophical discussions, is of intrinsic interest, and yet remains ill-understood. According to this picture, the world contains a range of standpoints relative to which different facts obtain. Any true representation of the world cannot but adopt a particular standpoint. The aim of this paper is to propose a regimentation of a metaphysics that underwrites this picture. Key components are a factive notion of metaphysical relativity, a deflationary notion (...) of adopting standpoints, and two kinds of valid inference, one that allows one to abandon standpoints and one that does not. To better understand how theories formulated in terms of this framework are situated in dialectical space, I sketch a theory in the philosophy of time that admits both temporal and atemporal standpoints. (shrink)

This essay is dedicated to the memory of Katherine Hawley.1Bitcoin was invented to serve as a digital currency that demands no trust in financial institutions, such as commercial and central banks. This paper discusses metaphysical aspects of bitcoin, in particular the view that bitcoin is socially constructed, non-concrete, and genuinely exists. If bitcoin is socially constructed, then one may worry that this reintroduces trust in the communities responsible for the social construction. Although we may have to rely on certain communities, (...) I argue that social construction doesn’t imply a demand for trust because the relevant communities don’t take on any relevant commitments. Bitcoin is indeed trust-free. (shrink)

Fragmentalism was first introduced by Kit Fine in his ‘Tense and Reality’. According to fragmentalism, reality is an inherently perspectival place that exhibits a fragmented structure. The current paper defends the fragmentalist interpretation of the special theory of relativity, which Fine briefly considers in his paper. The fragmentalist interpretation makes room for genuine facts regarding absolute simultaneity, duration and length. One might worry that positing such variant properties is a turn for the worse in terms of theoretical virtues because such (...) properties are not involved in physical explanations and hence theoretically redundant. It will be argued that this is not right: if variant properties are indeed instantiated, they will also be involved in straightforward physical explanations and hence not explanatorily redundant. Hofweber and Lange, in their ‘Fine’s Fragmentalist Interpretation of Special Relativity’, object that the fragmentalist interpretation is in tension with the right explanation of the Lorentz transformations. It will be argued that their objection targets an inessential aspect of the fragmentalist framework and fails to raise any serious problem for the fragmentalist interpretation of special relativity. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is the thought that the phenomenal appearances that accompany mental states are somehow only there, or only real, from the standpoint of the subject of those mental states. The world differs across subjects in terms of which appearances obtain. Not only are subjects standpoints across which the world varies, subjects are standpoints that we can ‘adopt’ in our own theorizing about the world (or stand back from). The picture that is suggested by these claims (...) has an appeal but is at the same time obscure and stands in need of regimentation. This paper explores and motivates a metaphysical account of what it is for subjects to be standpoints, what it is to adopt standpoints in our representations and, most importantly, how these notions might help us better understand the subjective character of conscious mental states. Some well-known observations by Thomas Nagel serve as starting points and the paper concludes by revisiting Nagel’s argument for the inevitable incompleteness of objective accounts of mental states, which will be reframed in terms of the central commitments of the proposed framework. (shrink)

According to Larry Hickman, John Dewey’s general philosophical project of analyzing and critiquing human experience may be understood in terms of technological inquiry (Hickman 1990, 1). Following this, I contend that technology provides a model for Dewey’s analysis of language and meaning, and this analysis suggests a treatment of linguistic metaphor as a way of meeting new demands of experience with old tools of a known and understood language. An account of metaphor consistent with Dewey’s views on language and meaning (...) avoids a strict dualism of literal meaning and metaphorical meaning as well as the explanatory shortcomings of a nondualistic theory like that found in Donald Davidson’s well-known paper ”What Metaphors Mean” (1978).2 A Deweyan explanation of. (shrink)

This contribution aims to explore the historical predecessors of the Five Percenter model of self-realization, as popularized by Hip Hop artists such as Supreme Team, Rakim Allah, Brand Nubian, Wu-Tang Clan, or Sunz of Man. As compared to frequent considerations of the phenomenon as a creative mythological background for a socio-political struggle, Five Percenter teachings shall be discussed as contemporary interpretations of historical models of self-realization in various philosophical, religious, and esoteric systems. By putting the coded system of the tenfold (...) Supreme Mathematics as one of its core teachings in context with the Pythagorean Tetractys, an arrangement of ten points in four lines, the commonalities between the sequence and concepts attributed to the respective numbers will be demonstrated. (shrink)

The chapter deals with the contrast between defining aspects of religious rigidity, a socio-historically derived counter-narrative, and anti-consumerism in Rastafarian philosophy and culture on one hand and the universal message and commercial success of the music on the other. After discussing the status of the genre as part of Jamaican national culture, the inherent socio-political claim of Reggae and Rastafarian culture are put in context with the conflicting claims of superiority and non-partiality that can frequently be found in the music. (...) Along the lines of religious doctrines in Rastafarian culture and the attempted spiritual transcendence of racism the chapter closes with an exploration of the genre's signature tropes of social justice and anti-materialism, also considering the less strictly defined identity-constructions of recent artists linked to the Reggae Revival movement. "Martin A. M. Gansinger's study of Reggae and class employs Rastafarianism as a key ingredient of both concepts. Gansinger contends that Rastafarianism offers a "spirituality-based consciousness" that lends itself to an egalitarian-driven social consciousness. Reggae's strong social, political and culture capital as a philosophy of liberation owes much to Rastafarianism, which, for all its contradictions, embodied in categories such as the "righteous" and the "wicked", as well as its segregationalist and patriarchal past, offers a means through which the music advances a socially transformative spirituality that may play a part in the rediscovery of a truly social consciousness." (Ian Peddie, Introduction to The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music and Social Class). (shrink)

Disjointism is the view that co-located objects do not share any parts. A human-shaped statue is composed from a torso, head and limbs; the co-located lumpof clay is only composed from chunks of clay. This essay discusses the tenability of this relatively neglected view, focusing on two objections. The first objection is that disjointism implies co-located copies of microphysical particles. I argue that it doesn’t imply this and that there are more plausible disjointist views of tiny parts available. The second (...) objection is that disjointism is at a loss to explain how material objects can be co-located and why the weights of co-located objects don’t add up. The standard pluralist account appeals to the fact that co-located objects stand in mereological relations and this account is not available to the disjointist. I sketch an alternative account that appeals to a notion of ‘material identity’: the statue is taken to be the same matter as the lump of clay. The resort to a new theoretical primitive may seem to invite a quick rejection on grounds of unnecessary theoretical complexity but I argue that an abductive comparison with rival forms of pluralism shows that such a rejection is misguided. (shrink)

Content disjunctivism is the view that veridical experience involves contents and objects that differ from those of corresponding hallucinations. On one formulation of this view, we are aware of ordinary material things in our surroundings when we experience veridically, and we are aware of mere appearances when we hallucinate. This paper proposes a way of developing this view and offers some considerations in support. Central to the proposed regimentation will be a distinction between different notions of appearance. We distinguish between (...) the notion of something merely appearing to have a property and the notion of mere appearances, which are types of objects that we can refer to and be aware of. Mere appearances are not sense data or Meinongian non-existent objects but existing objects that do not have the properties that they appear to have. These notions of appearance will be elucidated, in particular by characterizing how they are involved in hallucination and illusion. I argue that the resulting view is supported by how our mental life seems to us when we experience our environment. (shrink)

This paper proposes a view of time that takes passage to be the most basic temporal notion, instead of the usual A-theoretic and B-theoretic notions, and explores how we should think of a world that exhibits such a genuine temporal passage. It will be argued that an objective passage of time can only be made sense of from an atemporal point of view and only when it is able to constitute a genuine change of objects across time. This requires that (...) passage can flip one fact into a contrary fact, even though neither side of the temporal passage is privileged over the other. We can make sense of this if the world is inherently perspectival. Such an inherently perspectival world is characterized by fragmentalism, a view that has been introduced by Fine in his ‘Tense and Reality’ (2005). Unlike Fine's tense-theoretic fragmentalism though, the proposed view will be a fragmentalist view based in a primitive notion of passage. (shrink)

While US-Hip Hop has been attested considerable influence of the controversial Black supremacy movement Five Percent Nation, a similar pattern can be observed with the rigid Rastafarian doctrine of the Bobo Shanti Order and Jamaican Dancehall-Reggae. Considering the commercial relevance and global popularity of both musical styles, this study attempted to shed light on the question if either artists are using controversy for promotional agendas or it is them being used for missionary purposes in turn. A multi-layerd cross-case study based (...) on Critical Discourse Analysis as well as ethnographic research has been conducted to determine the degree and direction of Bobo Shanti-representations in Jamaican Dancehall-Reggae as compared to Five Percenter Rap in the US, focusing on visual representations, declared affiliations as well as claims of moral superiority and gender roles in reference to doctrinal sources. -/- . (shrink)

The Sufi tradition remains one of the most mysterious and least understood systems of self-realization. This book demystifies the practice of the sohbet—an ad hoc discourse—as the central instructional tool in the globally influential Naqshbandi-Haqqani Order. -/- It approaches the practice using categories of improvised music to establish a framework for analyzation. Its ritualized formal structure, illustrated via selected talks of Shaykh Nazim Adil al-Haqqani, discloses the underlying—and assumingly primary—function to provoke prolonged states of raised awareness in listeners and condition (...) their sympathetic nervous system. -/- In an extensive discussion based on several years of field research in Cyprus, the book relates this intention to similar practices in other traditional knowledge systems by proposing psychophysical interpretations based on psychology, biochemistry, neuroscience, or quantum physics. It will appeal to scholars and students of Sufism, Islamic studies, and comparative religion, as well as those interested in performance studies and improvised music, interpersonal communication, and education. (shrink)

This chapter aims to direct attention to the political dimension of the social media age. Although current events like the Cambridge Analytica data breach managed to raise awareness for the issue, the systematically organized and orchestrated mechanisms at play still remain oblivious to most. Next to dangerous monopoly-tendencies among the powerful players on the market, reliance on automated algorithms in dealing with content seems to enable large-scale manipulation that is applied for economical and political purposes alike. The successful replacement of (...) traditional parties by movements based on personality cults around marketable young faces like Emmanuel Macron or Austria’s Sebastian Kurz is strongly linked to products and services offered by an industry that simply provides likes and followers for cash. Inspired by Trump’s monopolization of the Twitter-channel, these new political acteurs use the potential of social media for effective message control, allowing them to avoid confrontations with professional journalists. In addition, an extremely active minority of organized agitators relies on the viral potential of the web to strongly influence and dictate public discourse – suggesting a shift from the Spiral of Silence to the dangerous illusion of a Nexus of Noise. (shrink)

There is a traditional interpretation of the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson that portrays him as a champion of nature, wilderness, or country life and an opponent of the city, technology, or urban life. Such a view, though, neglects the role of human activity in the universe as Emerson saw it. Furthermore, this view neglects the proper relation between soul and nature in the universe and risks entailing a philosophy of materialism--an unacceptable position for Emerson. An examination of Emerson's philosophy (...) will show that it is not fundamentally hostile to urban life or technology, and that, in fact, an anti-urban position is opposed to the most central themes of Emerson's philosophical vision. (shrink)

This article is the attempt of an historically oriented analysis focused on the role of Nigerian music as a cultural hub for the export of African cultural influences into the Black diaspora in the United States and its anticipation by the Free Jazz/Avantgarde-scene as well as the import of key-values related to the Black Power-movement to the African continent. The aim is to demonstrate the leading role and international impact of Nigeria's cultural industry among sub-saharan African nation states and its (...) specific ability to absorb and incorporate elements of Western culture. -/- After a short discussion of African influences on jazz music in general and the socio-political, cultural, and artistic context in which Free Jazz emerged, examples for the articulation of African consciousness among influencing key figures such as saxophonist John Coltrane or the Art Ensemble of Chicago are being presented. Furthermore, the personal and ideological links between the Avantgarde Jazz-scene and the Black Power-movement - especially the Black Panther Party - are made transparent. -/- In a second step the central influence of the Nigerian drum-pioneer Babatunde Olatunji on the Africanization of US-Jazz musicians, his personal and creative impact on John Coltrane, as well as the Black Power-movement is being highlighted. On the other hand, Coltrane, Free Jazz, and the Black Panther Party are being portrayed as a central creative and ideological turn in the career and work of Fela Kuti and towards political activism and his efforts to implement and apply the Africa-inspired Black Power -struggle of the US on the African continent in order to fight post-colonial forms of oppression. -/- . (shrink)

Im Rahmen der folgenden Seiten sollen die Kommunikationsbedingungen im Kontext der Kollektiv-Improvisation genauer analysiert und einem Vergleich mit den Voraussetzungen der idealen Sprechsituation von Habermas unterzogen werden. Hinleitend dazu erfolgt zum Einstieg eine Darstellung jener Ausgangsbedingungen, welche die Methode der kollektiven Improvisation von herkömmlichen musikalischen Verfahren unterscheidet. Zu diesem Zweck werden neben einer kurzen Erläuterung der bereits im vorangegangenen Kapitel ausführlich diskutierten Ausgangsbedingungen u.a. Ansätze aus der Musiktherapie herangezogen, die sowohl soziale als auch politische Faktoren mit einbeziehen. Im Anschluss daran (...) sollen mittels einer systemtheoretisch orientierten Annäherung, wie sie von Borgo und Goguen vorgenommen wurde, jene Aspekte genauer beleuchtet werden, die Aufschluss über die tatsächlichen Kommunikationsstrukturen und geben. (shrink)

This volume compiles international contributions that explore the potential risks and chances coming along with the wide-scale migration of society into digital space. Suggesting a shift of paradigm from Spiral of Silence to Nexus of Noise, the opening chapter provides an overview on systematic approaches and mechanisms of manipulation – ranging from populist political players to Cambridge Analytica. After a discussion of the the juxtaposition effects of social media use on social environments, the efficient instrumentalization of Twitter by Turkish politicans (...) in the course of the US-decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is being analyzed. Following a case study of Instagram, Black Lives Matter and racism is a research about the impact of online pornography on the academic performance of university students. Another chapter is pointing out the potential of online tools for the successful relaunch of shadow brands. The closing section of the book deals with the role of social media on the opinion formation about the Euromaidan movement during the Ukrainian revolution and offers a comparative study touching on Russian and Western depictions of political documentaries in the 2000s. (shrink)

Im institutionalisierten Bereich interkultureller Beziehungen kommt es permanent zu Bemühungen, über gemeinsame musikalische Projekte Brücken zum Austausch von Lebensrealitäten und Erfahrungen zu erzielen. In vielen Fällen besteht jedoch nicht die Gelegenheit des gegenseitigen Austausches, weil die beteiligten Akteure entweder nebeneinander agieren, ohne aufeinander einzugehen und die Impulse ihres Gegenübers in den eigenen Beiträgen zu reflektieren, oder aber eine der beiden Bestandteile den anderen dominiert, und keine entsprechende Gelegenheit zur gleichberechtigten Artikulation einräumt. Der Grund dafür liegt häufig in der Starrheit der (...) musikalischen Systeme, die bei solchen Gelegenheiten aufeinander treffen und deren Unfähigkeit, auf Impulse außerhalb des jeweiligen Bezugsrahmens einzugehen. Die Improvisation bietet in diesem Zusammenhang einen tatsächlichen Spielplatz für unterschiedliche Zugänge und Entwürfe, der dazu einlädt, sich spielerisch einander anzunähern. Während im idiomatisch eingeschränkten Ausdrucksspektrum auch hier noch einige Barrieren existieren dürften, stellt sich im Kontext der harmonisch und rhythmisch freien Variante eine scheinbar ideale Basis zum gegenseitigen Erfahrungsaustausch dar. Diese wird nicht zuletzt aufgrund einer stark individualisierten Klangästhetik und Ausdruckspalette erzielt, deren Repräsentationsanteil an deutlich zuzuordnenden Elementen einer jeweiligen kulturellen Entität jedoch oft nicht exakt zu bestimmen ist. So widmet sich ein zentraler Aspekt der Arbeit der Frage nach der Zuweisungsebene der in diesem Zusammenhang getätigten Ausdrucksweisen, die sich im Bereich zwischen eindeutig einer bestimmten kulturellen Entität zuzuordnenden Elemente – häufig in Form von traditionellen Instrumenten als kulturelle Artefakte einer spezifischen regionalen Zugehörigkeit – und der rein technischen Herangehensweise an die musikalische Praxis der Kollektiv-Improvisation als Bestandteil einer global präsenten Subkultur der freien Improvisationsszene bewegt. Regelmäßig initiierte Projekte, die sich mit dieser Thematik auseinandersetzen werden im methodischen Teil der Arbeit zur Diskussion gestellt und als Ausgangspunkt für Erkenntnisse zur Optimierung von Projekten mit ähnlich ausgerichteten Zielsetzungen herangezogen. (shrink)

The volume provides an updated perspective on international aspects of various developments in media and culture. It includes discussions on how the digital environment contributes to the transformation and re-interpretation of existing phenomena, such as violence-on-demand in online movies, the internet appeal of virtual gangsta rappers, or the revived battle rap tradition, which operates outside the commercial limitations of the music industry and generates more views on social media than most recording artists. -/- The book offers a new consideration of (...) long-term trends and developments, and demonstrates in various examples how formerly marginal practices like gaming or the previously shunned Turkish movie industry have turned into influential tools of social change. In addition, the reciprocity of media content and political settings is underlined in a focus on the Arab world and the reconstruction of impulses from transnational media outlets to recent forms of citizen journalism, as well as in the case of governments’ approaches to media policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The book places the spotlight on pressing issues, such as the ongoing enforcement of information control in the name of public health or the local politics and practices that hinder the process of democratization in authoritarian systems. -/- . (shrink)

This book was compiled in order to connect the dots between past and present expressions of significant phenomena in media and culture. It attempts to provide a “big picture” perspective on how contemporary relevant manifestations of the entertainment industry, artistic expression, mediated civic engagement, technological infrastructure, or automated information control evolved from subversive surroundings, niche markets, and underestimated potentials to shaping forces in todays' society.

This book can be seen as both, a celebration of past and present achievements of creative expression, artistic articulation, cultural contributions, and mediated movements for the sake of liberalization and democracy, and a warning against a “cultural revolution” defined by censorship, suppression of pluralist opinions, unnatural conformity in science and journalism, and the distinction between “fake news” and “fact” handled by artificial intelligence or part-time fact checkers.

This chapter aims at pointing out the consistency of Islam as a source for empowerment strategies of the Black population in the United States and the religion’s effective reinterpretation as a sort of contemporary gnostic self-realization in Hip Hop culture. Moreover, the link between hybrid identity constructions of Hip Hop artists that borrow from religious and cultural sources of Islam and corresponding traditions of spiritual realization in mystical Islam and Sufism is demonstrated in the course of the discussion.

In the age of iDeology - in which individual access and participation to technology is about to replace the rich texture of religion, culture, tradition and political convictions - the social impact of media discourse only magnifies. This volume is an attempt to explore the influence of ever-available communication content on the minds and behavior of a population that has made the permanent and often obsessive use of communication technology a defining element of social orientation. Unlike the many accounts that (...) focus on the remarkably redefined patterns in the context of Western society - ranging from twittering Presidents to the emerging populist movements all over Europe - this volume portrays the situation from the frequently neglected perspective of the global periphery. As opposed to simply transfer and measure perspectives taken from a Western point of view, the clear intention of this volume is to provide ample space for the sincere and explorative consideration of local characteristics and settings of the different social, cultural and political contexts and therefore contribute to providing the ground for future research. (shrink)

The views of John Dewey and Kurt Vonnegut are often criticized for opposite reasons: Dewey’s philosophy is said to be naively optimistic while Vonnegut’s work is read as cynical. The standard debates over the views of the two thinkers cause readers to overlook the similarities in the way each approaches tragic experience. This paper examines Dewey’s philosophic account of time and meaning and Vonnegut’s use of time travel in his autobiographical novel Slaughterhouse-Five to illustrate these similarities. This essay demonstrates how (...) both Dewey and Vonnegut embrace the ameliorative possibilities of art for preserving individuality and meaning in the face of tragic experience. (shrink)

In der musikalischen Methode der kollektiven Improvisation kommt eine Spielauffassung zum Ausdruck, deren demokratisch-emanzipatorische Grundeinstellung Vergleiche mit dem von Jürgen Habermas formulierten Konzept der idealen Sprechsituation nahe legt. Diese Vermutung wird im Rahmen einer einleitenden Annäherung an die kollektive Improvisation als von Interaktivität und Synchronizität geprägtes Beziehungsgeschehen näher ausgeführt. Nach einer Diskussion des improvisatorischen Handelns in der Musik in Bezug auf theoretische, historische und psychologische Aspekte werden die verschiedenen, aus dem Free Jazz der 1960er Jahre hervorgegangenen Entwicklungsstufen der freien bzw. (...) kollektiven Improvisation dargestellt. Im Anschluss daran wird die Kollektiv-Improvisation unter Bezugnahme auf das Konzept der idealen Sprechsituation diskutiert und im interkulturellen Kontext verortet, wobei die von Musikern wie Derek Bailey geforderte Sublimierung idiomatischer, kulturell geprägter Ausdrucksformen durch die individuelle Entwicklung einer charakteristischen Klangsprache am Instrument als egalisierend für die tendenziell asymmetrisch geprägten Dialogformen dieser Situation erläutert wird. Inklusive Interviews mit Evan Parker, Alexander von Schlippenbach und Joe Fonda. (shrink)

This article is discussing the possibilities of new media technologies in the context of transmitting ancient spiritual traditions in various cultural and religious backgrounds. The use of internet as a means to preserve the orally transmitted knowledge of the Aboriginals and Maoris, and in doing so transferring their cultural heritage to their younger generations and interest groups. Following is an extended case study of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order and its specific compatibility of a traditional orientation towards spiritual work among people (...) rather than monastic seclusion and its recent application of digital media resources. Therefore, new technology is being discussed as a logical extension, not without attention being drawn to possible limitations, however. (shrink)

This edited volume is designed to explore different perspectives of culture, identity and social development using the impact of the digital age as a common thread, aiming at interdisciplinary audiences. Cases of communities and individuals using new technology as a tool to preserve and explore their cultural heritage alongside new media as a source for social orientation ranging from language acquisition to health-related issues will be covered. Therefore, aspects such as Art and Cultural Studies, Media and Communication, Behavioral Science, Psychology, (...) Philosophy and innovative approaches used by creative individuals are included. From the Aboriginal tribes of Australia, to the Maoris of New Zealand, to the mystical teachings of Sufi brotherhoods, the significance of the oral and written traditions and their current relation to online activities shall be discussed in the opening article. The book continues with a closer look at obesity awareness support groups and their impact on social media, Facebook usage in language learning context, smartphone addiction and internet dependency, as well as online media reporting of controversial ethical issues. The Digital progress has already left its dominating mark as the world entered the 21st century. Without a doubt, as technology continues its ascent, society will be faced with new and altering values in an effort to catch-up with this extraordinary Digitization, adapt satisfactorily in order to utilize these strong developments in everyday life. (shrink)

Available reports provide an account of academic staff’s poor job performance in higher education institutions and universities in particular. Consequently, a growing body of research has been attracted to this area, including those seeking ways to understand the problem and others aimed at proffering solutions. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the influence of occupational stress on the job performance of academic staff in universities. Three null hypotheses directed the study in line with the quantitative ex-post facto research (...) design. A sample of 150 respondents was obtained using the systematic random sampling technique from a population of 400 lecturers in the Faculty of Education from two public universities in Nigeria. A 31-item questionnaire was used for data collection. The null hypotheses were tested at the .05 alpha level using simple linear regression analysis. It was revealed that remuneration is a significant positive predictor of academic staff job performance. The prediction of workload was negatively non-significant on the job performance of academics. The provision of institutional amenities has a positive but non-significant prediction on academic staff job performance in the two public universities. It was concluded that occupational stress significantly influences the job performance of lecturers in universities. The study recommended that the government constantly pay lecturers’ salaries as and when due. Institutional managers should reward lecturers with outstanding performance to boost their morale for effective service delivery. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the ‘social meanings’ associated with sociolinguistic variation put pressure on the standard philosophical conception of language, according to which the foremost thing we do with words is exchange information. Drawing on parallels with the explanatory challenge posed by slurs and pejoratives, I argue that the best way to understand social meanings is to think of them in speech act theoretic terms. I develop a distinctive form of pluralism about the performances realized by means of (...) sociolinguistic variants, and I claim that engagement with such performances is an utterly pervasive feature of our linguistic activity. (shrink)

People construe reality by using words as basic units of meaningful categorization. The present theory-driven study applied the method of a free association task to explore how people express the concepts of the world and the self in words. The respondents were asked to recall any five words relating with the word world. Afterwards they were asked to recall any five words relating with the word self. The method of free association provided the respondents with absolute freedom to choose any (...) words they wanted. Such free recall task is suggested as being a relatively direct approach to the respondents’ self- and world-related conceptual categories, without enormous rational processing. The results provide us, first, with associative ranges for constructs of the world and the self, where some associative dimensions are defined by semantic polarities in the meanings of peripheral categories (e.g., Nature vs. Culture). Second, our analysis showed that some groups of verbal categories that were associated with the words world and self are central, while others are peripheral with respect to the central position. Third, the analysis of category networks revealed that some categories play the role of a transmitter, mediating the pathway between other categories in the network. (shrink)

While agreeing with the main conclusion of Dominic Wilkinson and colleagues (Wilkinson, Butcherine, and Savulescu 2019), namely, that there is no moral difference between treatment withholding and withdrawal as such, we wish to criticize their approach on the basis that it treats the widespread acceptance of withdrawal aversion (WA) as a cognitive bias. Wilkinson and colleagues understand WA as “a nonrational preference for withholding (WH) treatment over withdrawal (WD) of treatment” (22). They treat WA as a manifestation of loss aversion (...) and refer to Kahneman and colleagues (1991), which defined this effect as follows: “the disutility of giving up an object is greater that the utility associated with acquiring it” (194). In a previous work, Wilkinson and Savulescu understood nonequivalence between treatment withholding and withdrawal as a reflection of slightly different, although related, phenomena: status quo bias or omission bias (Wilkinson and Savulescu 2012, 130–131). In neither of these two papers do they describe precisely the relation between these well-known psychological effects and WA, nor do they explain why they treat these effects as examples of nonrational preferences, despite the fact that these issues have been the subject of wide-ranging discussions on the intersection of psychology, economy, and philosophy. (shrink)

I have two aims for the present paper, one narrow and one broad. The narrow aim is to show that a class of data originally described by Lynsey Wolter empirically undermine the leading treatments of complex demonstratives that have been described in the literature. The broader aim of the paper is to show that Wolter demonstratives, as I will call the constructions I focus on, are a threat not just to existing treatments, but to any possible theory that retains the (...) uncontroversial assumptions that relative clauses always form a constituent with the nouns they modify, and that semantic composition proceeds sequentially and locally, with the inputs to interpretation having the structure syntax tells us they do. (shrink)

The twenty-first century will witness an unprecedented decline in the diversity of the world’s languages. While most philosophers will likely agree that this decline is lamentable, the question of what exactly is lost with a language has not been systematically explored in the philosophical literature. In this paper, I address this lacuna by arguing that language loss constitutes a problematic form of illocutionary silencing. When a language disappears, past and present speakers lose the ability to realize a range of speech (...) acts that can only be realized in that language. With that ability, speakers lose something in which they have a fundamental interest: their standing as fully empowered members of a linguistic community. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have offered compelling reasons to think that demonstratives are best represented as variables, sensitive not to the context of utterance, but to a variable assignment. Variablists typically explain familiar intuitions about demonstratives—intuitions that suggest that what is said by way of a demonstrative sentence varies systematically over contexts—by claiming that contexts initialize a particular assignment of values to variables. I argue that we do not need to link context and the assignment parameter in this way, and that we (...) would do better not to. (shrink)

If people believe that some property is true of all members of a class such as sofas, then they should also believe that the same property is true of all members of a conjunctively defined subset of that class such as uncomfortable handmade sofas. A series of experiments demonstrated a failure to observe this constraint, leading to what is termed the inverse conjunction fallacy. Not only did people often express a belief in the more general statement but not in the (...) more specific, but also when they accepted both beliefs, they were inclined to give greater confidence to the more general. It is argued that this effect underlies a number of other demonstrations of fallacious reasoning, particularly in category-based induction. Alternative accounts of the phenomenon are evaluated, and it is concluded that the effect is best interpreted in terms of intensional reasoning [Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D.. Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: the conjunction fallacy in probability judgment. Psychological Review, 90, 293-315.]. (shrink)

Stojnić et al. (2013, 2017) argue that the reference of demonstratives is fixed without any contribution from the extra-linguistic context. On their `prominence/coherence' theory, the reference of a demonstrative expression depends only on its context-independent linguistic meaning. Here, we argue that Stojnić et al.’s striking claims can be maintained in only the thinnest technical sense. Instead of eliminating appeals to the extra-linguistic context, we show how the prominence/coherence theory merely suppresses them. Then we ask why one might be tempted to (...) try and offer such a view. Since we are rather sympathetic to the motivations we find, we close by sketching a more plausible alternative. (shrink)

Background Implicit biases are present in the general population and among professionals in various domains, where they can lead to discrimination. Many interventions are used to reduce implicit bias. However, uncertainties remain as to their effectiveness. -/- Methods We conducted a systematic review by searching ERIC, PUBMED and PSYCHINFO for peer-reviewed studies conducted on adults between May 2005 and April 2015, testing interventions designed to reduce implicit bias, with results measured using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) or sufficiently similar methods. (...) -/- Results 30 articles were identified as eligible. Some techniques, such as engaging with others’ perspective, appear unfruitful, at least in short term implicit bias reduction, while other techniques, such as exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars, are more promising. Robust data is lacking for many of these interventions. -/- Conclusions Caution is thus advised when it comes to programs aiming at reducing biases. This does not weaken the case for implementing widespread structural and institutional changes that are multiply justified. (shrink)

In their insightful article, Brent Kious and Margaret Battin (2019) correctly identify an inconsistency between an involuntary psychiatric commitment for suicide prevention and physician aid in dying (PAD). They declare that it may be possible to resolve the problem by articulating “objective standards for evaluating the severity of others’ suffering,” but ultimately they admit that this task is beyond the scope of their article since the solution depends on “a deep and difficult” question about comparing the worseness of two possible (...) scenarios: letting someone die (who could have been helped) with not letting someone die (whose suffering could only be alleviated by death). In our commentary, we argue that creating such standards is more difficult than the authors assume because of the many types of deep uncertainties we have to deal with: (1) diagnostic, (2) motivational, and (3) existential. (shrink)

Most philosophers recognize that applying the standard semantics for complex demonstratives to non-deictic instances results in truth conditions that are anomalous, at best. This fact has generated little concern, however, since most philosophers treat non-deictic demonstratives as marginal cases, and believe that they should be analyzed using a distinct semantic mechanism. In this paper, I argue that non-deictic demonstratives cannot be written off; they are widespread in English and foreign languages, and must be treated using the same semantic machinery that (...) is applied to deictic instances. (shrink)

Standard semantic theories predict that non-deictic readings for complex demonstratives should be much more widely available than they in fact are. If such readings are the result of a lexical ambiguity, as Kaplan (in: Almog, Perry, Wettstein (eds) Themes from Kaplan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1977) and others suggest, we should expect them to be available wherever a definite description can be used. The same prediction follows from ‘hidden argument’ theories like the ones described by King (Complex Demonstratives: a Quantificational (...) Account, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001) and Elbourne (Situations and Individuals, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2005). Wolter (That’s That; the Semantics and Pragmatics of Demonstrative Noun Phrases. Ph.D. thesis, University of California at Santa Cruz, 2006), however, has shown that complex demonstratives admit non-deictic interpretations only when a precise set of structural constrains are met. In this paper, I argue that Wolter’s results, properly understood, upend the philosophical status quo. They fatally undermine the ambiguity theory and demand a fundamental rethinking of the hidden argument approach. (shrink)

What determines the meaning of a context-sensitive expression in a context? It is standardly assumed that, for a given expression type, there will be a unitary answer to this question; most of the literature on the subject involves arguments designed to show that one particular metasemantic proposal is superior to a specific set of alternatives. The task of the present essay will be to explore whether this is a warranted assumption, or whether the quest for the one true metasemantics might (...) be a Quixotic one. We argue that there are good reasons—much better than are commonly appreciated—for thinking the latter, but that there nevertheless remains significant scope for metasemantic theorizing. We conclude by outlining our preferred option, metasemantic pluralism. (shrink)

It is increasingly common for philosophers to rely on the notion of an idealised listener when explaining how the semantic values of context-sensitive expressions are determined. Some have identified the semantic values of such expressions, as used on particular occasions, with whatever an appropriately idealised listener would take them to be. Others have argued that, for something to count as the semantic value, an appropriately idealised listener should be able to recover it. Our aim here is to explore the range (...) of ways that such idealisation might be worked out, and then to argue that none of these results in a very plausible theory. We conclude by reflecting on what this negative result reveals about the nature of meaning and responsibility. (shrink)

In this paper, I show how a novel treatment of speech acts can be combined with a well-known liberal argument for multiculturalism in a way that will justify claims about the preservation, protection, or accommodation of minority languages. The key to the paper is the claim that every language makes a distinctive range of speech acts possible, acts that cannot be realized by means of any other language. As a result, when a language disappears, so does a class of speech (...) acts. If we accept that our social identities are in large part constituted by the decisions we make about how to speak, language loss, then, will amount to a substantial infringement on our autonomy in a particularly important domain. (shrink)

Many epistemologists have responded to the lottery paradox by proposing formal rules according to which high probability defeasibly warrants acceptance. Douven and Williamson present an ingenious argument purporting to show that such rules invariably trivialise, in that they reduce to the claim that a probability of 1 warrants acceptance. Douven and Williamson’s argument does, however, rest upon significant assumptions – amongst them a relatively strong structural assumption to the effect that the underlying probability space is both finite and uniform. In (...) this paper, I will show that something very like Douven and Williamson’s argument can in fact survive with much weaker structural assumptions – and, in particular, can apply to infinite probability spaces. (shrink)

How does affectivity contribute to moral judgment making? -- Normative dissonance vs. the order of argumentation -- Facing otherness as an ethical experiment -- The concepts of respect revisited -- What is universal? Between subjectivity and intersubjectivity -- Experimenting with values in legal contexts : Hegel and Radbruch -- Democracy begins in the mind. Developing democratic personality.