To study (un)conscious perception and test hypotheses about consciousness, researchers need procedures for determining whether subjects consciously perceive stimuli or not. This article is an introduction to a family of procedures called ‘confidence-based procedures’, which consist in interpreting metacognitive indicators as indicators of consciousness. I assess the validity and accuracy of these procedures, and answer a series of common objections to their use in consciousness research. I conclude that confidence-based procedures are valid for assessing consciousness, and, in most cases, accurate (...) enough for our practical and scientific purposes. (shrink)

A uniform construction for sequent calculi for finite-valued first-order logics with distribution quantifiers is exhibited. Completeness, cut-elimination and midsequent theorems are established. As an application, an analog of Herbrand’s theorem for the four-valued knowledge-representation logic of Belnap and Ginsberg is presented. It is indicated how this theorem can be used for reasoning about knowledge bases with incomplete and inconsistent information.

Linguistic expressions frequently make reference to the situation in which they are uttered. In fact, there are expressions whose whole point of use is to relate to their context of utterance. It is such expressions that this article is primarily about. However, rather than presenting the richness of pertinent phenomena (cf. Anderson & Keenan 1985), it concentrates on the theoretical tools provided by the (standard) two-dimensional analysis of context dependence, essentially originating with Kaplan (1989)--with a little help from Stalnaker (1978) (...) and Lewis (1979a, 1980), and various predecessors including Kamp (1971) and Vlach (1973). The current article overlaps in content with the account in Zimmermann (1991), which is however much broader (and at times deeper).. (shrink)

Is perceptual processing in dedicated sensory areas sufficient for conscious perception? Localists say ‘Yes—given some background conditions.’ Prefrontalists say ‘No: conscious perceptual experience requires the involvement of prefrontal structures.’ I review the evidence for prefrontalism. I start by presenting correlational evidence. In doing so, I answer the ‘report argument’, according to which the apparent involvement of the prefrontal cortex in consciousness stems from the requirement for reports. I then review causal evidence for prefrontalism and answer the ‘lesion argument’, which purports (...) to show that prefrontalism is wrong because lesions to the prefrontal cortex do not abolish consciousness. I conclude that multiple sources of evidence converge toward the view that the prefrontal cortex plays a significant role in consciousness. (shrink)

Anosognosia for visual deficits—cases where significant visual deficits go unnoticed—challenges the view that our own conscious experiences are what we know best. We review these widespread and striking failures of awareness. Anosognosia can occur with total blindness, visual abnormalities induced by brain lesions, and eye diseases. We show that anosognosia for visual deficits is surprisingly widespread. Building on previous accounts, we introduce a framework showing how apparently disparate forms of anosognosia fit together. The central idea is that, to notice a (...) deficit, individuals need to form expectations about normal vision, compare expectations and visual input, and judge any mismatch at the metacognitive level. A failure in any of these three steps may lead to unawareness of visual deficits. (shrink)

The first-order temporal logics with □ and ○ of time structures isomorphic to ω (discrete linear time) and trees of ω-segments (linear time with branching gaps) and some of its fragments are compared: the first is not recursively axiomatizable. For the second, a cut-free complete sequent calculus is given, and from this, a resolution system is derived by the method of Maslov.

In our contemporary world, the rights of nature have become an important legal device for environmental protection. Some of the most influential rights of nature frameworks can be found in non-Western contexts and have been strongly influenced by ecocentric accounts of nature. This article addresses the question of whether rights of nature can be implemented in Western contexts as well, focusing in particular on Europe. It first examines ecocentric justifications of the rights of nature and discusses two possible non-ecocentric alternatives. (...) Second, two models for implementing rights of nature—the nature’s rights model and the legal personhood model—are compared to demonstrate how different combinations of elements from both models can fit different socio-cultural contexts, including Western ones. (shrink)

Die meisten Ethik- und Philosophie-Lehrpläne sehen vor, dass Schüler/innen die Grundlagen der Moralphilosophie kennen und verstehen. Im vorliegenden Beitrag nennen und erläutern wir einige Probleme, die der Erreichung dieses Ziels entgegenstehen. Eines dieser Probleme – die Vermischung unterschiedlicher Fragen – illustrieren wir an einer konkreten Lehreinheit. Anschließend skizzieren wir schädliche Folgen dieses Problems und deuten mögliche Wege zu seiner Beseitigung an.

A major part of philosophical work is engagement with argumentative texts. Engaging with an argumentative text involves correctly identifying the arguments presented in this text. In the context of teaching philosophy in school, the difficulty of correctly identifying arguments in philosophical texts is often underestimated. In this paper, I focus on one specific problem with argument identification that has been neglected in philosophy didactics thus far: the problem that there are many non-argumentative phenomena in an argumentative text that are easily (...) misidentified as expressing (part of) an argument. It is easy to fall for such phenomena if one is not aware of this problem, thereby misinterpreting the author’s intentions. This paper aims to present and discuss such phenomena, as well as to provide guidelines on how to help students recognize them. (shrink)

Like many other philosophical disciplines, ethics is sometimes highly abstract. And many key notions of the discipline are vague, ambiguous or both. Abstractness, vagueness, and ambiguity invite confusion. My objective in this paper is to draw attention to a serious problem that, despite being widespread, has so far remained largely unrecognized: the confusion of different questions in teaching ethics. This confusion occurs, for example, when a philosopher’s viewpoint is presented as an answer to one question, but in fact, the philosopher (...) is addressing a different question with that viewpoint. In the first part of this paper, I will present and clarify several ethical questions that are often confused, and point out damaging consequences that the confusion of such questions entails. In the second part, I will demonstrate the confusion of ethical questions by drawing attention to cases of confused teaching of Schopenhauer’s ethics. Finally, for those interested, I outline how Schopenhauer’s ethics could be taught without confusion. (shrink)

The democratic boundary problem raises the question of who has democratic participation rights in a given polity and why. One possible solution to this problem is the all-affected principle, according to which a polity ought to enfranchise all persons whose interests are affected by the polity’s decisions in a morally significant way. While AAP offers a plausible principle of democratic enfranchisement, its supporters have so far not paid sufficient attention to economic participation rights. I argue that if one commits oneself (...) to AAP, one must also commit oneself to the view that political participation rights are not necessarily the only, and not necessarily the best, way to protect morally weighty interests. I also argue that economic participation rights raise important worries about democratic accountability, which is why their exercise must be constrained by a number of moral duties. (shrink)

In the present work, we will analyze the concept of intuition mainly in relation to the epistemological and the metaphysical theses of Schopenhauerian theory. In the first section, we will discuss the central axes of Schopenhauer’s metaphysical system, especially regarding the concept of will (Wille) and the relationship that this entails with his theory of knowledge. Then, we will examine the difference that the German philosopher establishes between representative —or mediated— rational knowledge and direct —or immediate— intuitive knowledge. Likewise, we (...) will trace at first the theses and the fundamental problems of the dualism of representation and we will furtherly establish the problem of the intuition of one’s own body. Finally, we will consider the scope and the limits of intuition, as well as its different variants: mainly aesthetic intuition and its culmination in mystical intuition. (shrink)

The problem of algorithmic structuring of proofs in the sequent calculi LK and LKB ( LK where blocks of quantifiers can be introduced in one step) is investigated, where a distinction is made between linear proofs and proofs in tree form. In this framework, structuring coincides with the introduction of cuts into a proof. The algorithmic solvability of this problem can be reduced to the question of k-l-compressibility: "Given a proof of length k , and l ≤ k : Is (...) there is a proof of length ≤ l ?" When restricted to proofs with universal or existential cuts, this problem is shown to be (1) undecidable for linear or tree-like LK-proofs (corresponds to the undecidability of second order unification), (2) undecidable for linear LKB-proofs (corresponds to the undecidability of semi-unification), and (3) decidable for tree-like LKB -proofs (corresponds to a decidable subprob- lem of semi-unification). (shrink)

The problem of approximating a propositional calculus is to find many-valued logics which are sound for the calculus (i.e., all theorems of the calculus are tautologies) with as few tautologies as possible. This has potential applications for representing (computationally complex) logics used in AI by (computationally easy) many-valued logics. It is investigated how far this method can be carried using (1) one or (2) an infinite sequence of many-valued logics. It is shown that the optimal candidate matrices for (1) can (...) be computed from the calculus. (shrink)

Negative subjective reports such as “I didn’t see the stimulus” can be interpreted as indicating either that the subject didn’t see the stimulus, or as indicating that, while the subject did see the stimulus, the strength of sensory signals associated with the stimulus fell below a conservative criterion for answering “seen”. Determining which of these two interpretations is correct is the criterion problem. I present two ways in which researchers can solve this problem. But there’s more. What I call the (...) “new criterion problem” consists in determining whether criteria effects reflect perceptual changes, or changes in response strategy. Through case studies, I argue that this new version of the problem can be solved as well, although there is currently no systematic way to solve it. I conclude that criterion problems do not constitute good reasons for skepticism about the scientific study of consciousness. (shrink)

In the present study, I will consider the crisis of the movement image, and the emergence of a new type of image, namely, the time image. First, I will analyze certain basic concepts used by Deleuze (1925-1995) and by Bergson (1859- 1941) to understand the new type of image that emerges from an interruption of our natural perception, granting us -by separating ourselves from all our previous experiences- pure optical and sound perceptions. Secondly, I will trace the changes that, both (...) inside and outside cinema, made possible this emergence. Finally, according to the signs of the time-image developed by Deleuze, I will analyze the film Paterson (2016), by Jim Jarmusch. The film, inspired not only by the work of the poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), but also by other poets of the New York School, seeks to portray, through visual descriptions, the details of our daily lives. Key-words: natural perception - pure perception - movement image - time image - cinema. (shrink)

In this article, I draw on the Mesoamerican institution of community offices (cargo) to support the view that political authority should be based on both political legitimacy and political expertise. I argue that the Mesoamerican tradition of cargos allows for a notion of political expertise that one acquires by rendering a service to one’s community. This expertise could be made a prerequisite for political representation without being vulnerable to several charges that have been levelled against epistocracy.

In this paper, I examine Alston's arguments for doxastic involuntarism. Alston fails to distinguish (i) between volitional and executional lack of control, and (ii) between compatibilist and libertarian control. As a result, he fails to notice that, if one endorses a compatibilist notion of voluntary control, the outcome is a straightforward and compelling case for doxastic voluntarism. Advocates of involuntarism have recently argued that the compatibilist case for doxastic voluntarism can be blocked by pointing out that belief is never intentional. (...) In response to this strategy, I distinguish between two types of intentionality and argue that belief is no less intentional than action is. (shrink)

Studying consciousness requires contrasting conscious and unconscious perception. While many studies have reported unconscious perceptual effects, recent work has questioned whether such effects are genuinely unconscious, or whether they are due to weak conscious perception. Some philosophers and psychologists have reacted by denying that there is such a thing as unconscious perception, or by holding that unconscious perception has been previously overestimated. This article has two parts. In the first part, I argue that the most significant attack on unconscious perception (...) commits the criterion content fallacy: the fallacy of interpreting evidence that observers were conscious of something as evidence that they were conscious of the task-relevant features of the stimuli. In the second part, I contend that the criterion content fallacy is prevalent in consciousness research. For this reason, I hold that if unconscious perception exists, scientists studying consciousness could routinely underestimate it. I conclude with methodological recommendations for moving the debate forward. (shrink)

It is shown that Gqp↑, the quantified propositional Gödel logic based on the truth-value set V↑ = {1 - 1/n : n≥1}∪{1}, is decidable. This result is obtained by reduction to Büchi's theory S1S. An alternative proof based on elimination of quantifiers is also given, which yields both an axiomatization and a characterization of Gqp↑ as the intersection of all finite-valued quantified propositional Gödel logics.

This chapter presents the perceptual reality monitoring theory of consciousness (PRM). PRM is a higher-order theory of consciousness. It holds that consciousness involves monitoring the reliability of one’s own sensory signals. I explain how a perceptual reality monitoring mechanism computes the higher order representations that are crucial for consciousness. While PRM accounts for the difference between conscious and unconscious states, it does not explain, on its own, why experiences feel the way they do—the phenomenal character of experience. PRM is compatible (...) with multiple theories of phenomenal character. Here, I show how to combine it with ‘Mental Quality Space’ theory. I finish by presenting empirical evidence for PRM, as well as some of its predictions. (shrink)

Scholars have struggled with identifying the exact reasoning that leads to the list of human rights in Rawls's Law of Peoples. This essay argues that the list can best be explained by a reasoning based on the value of self-determination of peoples. At the same time, it argues that this reasoning still has serious difficulties. In particular, it is necessary to clarify whether human rights may always be enforced by coercive means against states that violate them. However, once this has (...) been clarified, the balance of reasons on which Rawls’s argument rests no longer indisputably supports his conclusion. (shrink)

Opponents to consciousness in fish argue that fish do not feel pain because they do not have a neocortex, which is a necessary condition for feeling pain. A common counter-argument appeals to the multiple realizability of pain: while a neocortex might be necessary for feeling pain in humans, pain might be realized differently in fish. This paper argues, first, that it is impossible to find a criterion allowing us to demarcate between plausible and implausible cases of multiple realization of pain (...) without running into a circular argument. Second, opponents to consciousness in fish cannot be provided with reasons to believe in the multiple realizability of pain. I conclude that the debate on the existence of pain in fish is impossible to settle by relying on the multiple realization argument. (shrink)

I develop a theory of counterfactuals about relative computability, i.e. counterfactuals such as 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then the halting problem would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is true, and 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then arithmetical truth would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is false. These counterfactuals are counterpossibles, i.e. they have metaphysically impossible antecedents. They thus pose a challenge to the orthodoxy about counterfactuals, which would treat them as uniformly true. What’s more, I (...) argue that these counterpossibles don’t just appear in the periphery of relative computability theory but instead they play an ineliminable role in the development of the theory. Finally, I present and discuss a model theory for these counterfactuals that is a straightforward extension of the familiar comparative similarity models. (shrink)

Whether the prefrontal cortex is part of the neural substrates of consciousness is currently debated. Against prefrontal theories of consciousness, many have argued that neural activity in the prefrontal cortex does not correlate with consciousness but with subjective reports. We defend prefrontal theories of consciousness against this argument. We surmise that the requirement for reports is not a satisfying explanation of the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious trials, and that prefrontal theories of consciousness come out of this (...) debate unscathed. (shrink)

As for most measurement procedures in the course of their development, measures of consciousness face the problem of coordination, i.e., the problem of knowing whether a measurement procedure actually measures what it is intended to measure. I focus on the case of the Perceptual Awareness Scale to illustrate how ignoring this problem leads to ambiguous interpretations of subjective reports in consciousness science. In turn, I show that empirical results based on this measurement procedure might be systematically misinterpreted.

Introspection is the capacity by which we know our own conscious mental states. Several theories aim to explain it. According to acquaintance theory, we know our experiences by being acquainted with them. Acquaintance is non-causal, non-inferential, and non-observational. I present a dilemma for the acquaintance theory of introspection. Either subjects are always acquainted with all their experiences; or some attentional mechanism selects the relevant experiences (or aspects of experiences) for introspection. The first option is implausible: it implies that subjects are (...) omniscient about their own experiences. The second option is also implausible: if acquaintance is a non-causal relation, introspection cannot target specific (aspects of) experiences without violating the principle of causal closure of the physical. (shrink)

Pierre Duhem gilt ais einer der wichtigsten Reprüsentanten der franzosischen Wissenschaftsphilosophie um 1900. Seine Konzeption physikalischer Theorien wird üblicherweise ais moderne Umsetzung des antiken – proto-positivistischen – Programms der „Rettung der Phänomene‟ angesehen. Diese Sicht ist richtig, bedarf aber der Ergänzung, indem der diskursive Kontext der Duhemschen Position berücksichtigt wird. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird dargelegt, dass Duhems philosophischer Zeitgenosse Abel Rey eine zentrale Rolle in diesem Zusammenhang spielte.

According to a standard criticism, Robert Brandom's “normative pragmatics”, i.e. his attempt to explain normative statuses in terms of practical attitudes, faces a dilemma. If practical attitudes and their interactions are specified in purely non-normative terms, then they underdetermine normative statuses; but if normative terms are allowed into the account, then the account becomes viciously circular. This paper argues that there is no dilemma, because the feared circularity is not vicious. While normative claims do exhibit their respective authors' practical attitudes (...) and thereby contribute towards establishing the normative statuses they are about, this circularity is not a mark of Brandom's explanatory strategy but a feature of social practice of which we theorists partake. (shrink)

The text introduces the concept behind the Proceedings of the 2018 ZiF Workshop “Studying Migration Policies at the Interface between Empirical Research and Normative Analysis”. It explains why there is a need to study migration policies across disciplines, includes a short note on the current literature, and provides a look back at the workshop. DOI:10.17879/15199624685 .

Doerig et al. have set several criteria that theories of consciousness need to fulfill. By these criteria, higher-order theories fare better than most existing theories. But they also argue that higher-order theories may not be able to answer both the ‘small network argument’ and the ‘other systems argument’. In response, we focus on the case of the Perceptual Reality Monitoring theory to explain why higher-order theories do just fine.

According to infinitism, all justification comes from an infinite series of reasons. Peter Klein defends infinitism as the correct solution to the regress problem by rejecting two alternative solutions: foundationalism and coherentism. I focus on Klein's argument against foundationalism, which relies on the premise that there is no justification without meta-justification. This premise is incompatible with dogmatic foundationalism as defended by Michael Huemer and Time Pryor. It does not, however, conflict with non-dogmatic foundationalism. Whereas dogmatic foundationalism rejects the need for (...) any form of meta-justification, non-dogmatic foundationalism merely rejects Laurence BonJour's claim that meta-justification must come from beliefs. Unlike its dogmatic counterpart, non-dogmatic foundationalism can allow for basic beliefs to receive meta-justification from non-doxastic sources such as experiences and memories. Construed thus, non-dogmatic foundationalism is compatible with Klein's principle that there is no justification without meta-justification. I conclude that Klein's rejection of foundationalism. fails. Nevertheless, I agree with Klein that when in response to a skeptical challenge we engage in the activity of defending our beliefs, the number of reasons we can give is at least in principle infinite. I argue that this type of infinity is benign because, when we continue to give reasons, we will eventually merely repeat previously stated reasons. Consequently, I reject Klein's claim that the more reasons we give the more we increase the justification of our beliefs. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the new Tweety puzzle. The original Tweety puzzle was addressed by approaches in non-monotonic logic, which aim to adequately represent the Tweety case, namely that Tweety is a penguin and, thus, an exceptional bird, which cannot fly, although in general birds can fly. The new Tweety puzzle is intended as a challenge for probabilistic theories of epistemic states. In the first part of the paper we argue against monistic Bayesians, who assume that epistemic states can (...) at any given time be adequately described by a single subjective probability function. We show that monistic Bayesians cannot provide an adequate solution to the new Tweety puzzle, because this requires one to refer to a frequency-based probability function. We conclude that monistic Bayesianism cannot be a fully adequate theory of epistemic states. In the second part we describe an empirical study, which provides support for the thesis that monistic Bayesianism is also inadequate as a descriptive theory of cognitive states. In the final part of the paper we criticize Bayesian approaches in cognitive science, insofar as their monistic tendency cannot adequately address the new Tweety puzzle. We, further, argue against monistic Bayesianism in cognitive science by means of a case study. In this case study we show that Oaksford and Chater’s (2007, 2008) model of conditional inference—contrary to the authors’ theoretical position—has to refer also to a frequency-based probability function. (shrink)

Conscious experiences involve subjective qualities, such as colours, sounds, smells and emotions. In this Perspective, we argue that these subjective qualities can be understood in terms of their similarity to other experiences. This account highlights the role of memory in conscious experience, even for simple percepts. How an experience feels depends on implicit memory of the relationships between different perceptual representations within the brain. With more complex experiences such as emotions, explicit memories are also recruited. We draw inspiration from work (...) in machine learning as well as the cognitive neuroscience of learning and decision making to make our case and discuss how the account could be tested in future experiments. The resulting findings might help to reveal the functions of subjective experience and inform current theoretical debates on consciousness. (shrink)

Consciousness is scientifically challenging to study because of its subjective aspect. This leads researchers to rely on report-based experimental paradigms in order to discover neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs). I argue that the reliance on reports has biased the search for NCCs, thus creating what I call 'methodological artefacts'. This paper has three main goals: first, describe the measurement problem in consciousness science and argue that this problem led to the emergence of methodological artefacts. Second, provide a critical assessment of (...) the NCCs put forward by the global neuronal workspace theory. Third, provide the means of dissociating genuine NCCs from methodological artefacts. (shrink)

Some moral value is transparent just in case an agent with average mental capacities can feasibly come to know whether some entity does, or does not, possess that value. In this paper, I consider whether legitimacy—that is, the property of exercises of political power to be permissible—is transparent. Implicit in much theorising about legitimacy is the idea that it is. I will offer two counter-arguments. First, injustice can defeat legitimacy, and injustice can be intransparent. Second, legitimacy can play a critical (...) function in our practical thought, which sometimes requires intransparency. (shrink)

La sensibilité cinétique est un concept issu de la phénoménologie qui comprend les sensations des mouvements à l’intérieur et autour du corps. Nous souhaitons réhabiliter ce concept en tant que connaissance, afin de défendre le rôle du corps dans le savoir et de dénoncer certaines injustices épistémiques. Pour appuyer cela, les éthiques du care nous aideront à reconnaître une légitimité politique envers la vulnérabilité de nos mobilités corporelles. L’intérêt pour la sensibilité cinétique est de permettre à l’agent.e de se soucier (...) de sa relation à l’environnement, en développant un accès pédagogique envers son corps et par l’attention portée envers ses possibilités de mouvement. L’agent.e apprend alors à choisir une manière de s’orienter au sein de l’organisation socio-politique présente. Ainsi, nous travaillerons les liens entre la phénoménologie, les éthiques du care2 et l’injustice épistémique dans le but de comprendre l’agentivité de manière incarnée, sensible et vulnérable. (shrink)

Local theories of consciousness state that one is conscious of a feature if it is adequately represented and processed in sensory brain areas, given some background conditions. We challenge the core prediction of local theories based on long-lasting postdictive effects demonstrating that features can be represented for hundreds of milliseconds in perceptual areas without being consciously perceived. Unlike previous empirical data aimed against local theories, localists cannot explain these effects away by conjecturing that subjects are phenomenally conscious of features that (...) they cannot report. We also discuss alternative explanations that localists could offer. (shrink)

The current global COVID-19 pandemic has led to a deep and multidimensional crisis across all sectors of society. As countries contemplate their mobility and social-distancing policy restrictions, we have a unique opportunity to re-imagine the deliberative frameworks and value priorities in our food systems. Pre-pandemic food systems at global, national, regional and local scales already needed revision to chart a common vision for sustainable and ethical food futures. Re-orientation is also needed by the relevant sciences, traditionally siloed in their disciplines (...) and without adequate attention paid to how the food system problem is variously framed by diverse stakeholders according to their values. From the transdisciplinary perspective of food ethics, we argue that a post-pandemic scheme focused on bottom-up, regional, cross-sectoral and non-partisan deliberation may provide the re-orientation and benchmarks needed for not only more sustainable, but also more ethical food futures. (shrink)

To study consciousness, scientists need to determine when participants are conscious and when they are not. They do so with consciousness detection procedures. A recurring skeptical argument against those procedures is that they cannot be calibrated: there is no way to make sure that detection outcomes are accurate. In this article, I address two main skeptical arguments purporting to show that consciousness scientists cannot calibrate detection procedures. I conclude that there is nothing wrong with calibration in consciousness science.

Any intermediate propositional logic can be extended to a calculus with epsilon- and tau-operators and critical formulas. For classical logic, this results in Hilbert’s $\varepsilon $ -calculus. The first and second $\varepsilon $ -theorems for classical logic establish conservativity of the $\varepsilon $ -calculus over its classical base logic. It is well known that the second $\varepsilon $ -theorem fails for the intuitionistic $\varepsilon $ -calculus, as prenexation is impossible. The paper investigates the effect of adding critical $\varepsilon $ - (...) and $\tau $ -formulas and using the translation of quantifiers into $\varepsilon $ - and $\tau $ -terms to intermediate logics. It is shown that conservativity over the propositional base logic also holds for such intermediate ${\varepsilon \tau }$ -calculi. The “extended” first $\varepsilon $ -theorem holds if the base logic is finite-valued Gödel–Dummett logic, and fails otherwise, but holds for certain provable formulas in infinite-valued Gödel logic. The second $\varepsilon $ -theorem also holds for finite-valued first-order Gödel logics. The methods used to prove the extended first $\varepsilon $ -theorem for infinite-valued Gödel logic suggest applications to theories of arithmetic. (shrink)

Psychiatric research is in crisis because of repeated failures to discover new drugs for mental disorders. Lack of measurement validity could partly account for these failures. If researchers do not actually measure the effects of drugs on the disorders they aim to investigate, one should expect suboptimal treatment outcomes. I argue that this is the case, focusing on depression, and fear & anxiety disorders. In doing so, I show how psychiatric research illustrates a more general phenomenon that I call “validity (...) drift.” A validity drift occurs when, in the course of developing new measurement procedures, researchers end up studying something different from what they originally aimed to study. I analyze the different ways in which scientists attempt to validate procedures for measuring mental disorders for the purpose of testing drugs in animal models. I show how those validation efforts might fail, thereby leading to validity drifts. Overall, this analysis highlights the complex interplay between the development of new measurement procedures, their calibration, and scientific theories of the target phenomena. (shrink)

Some European countries legally recognise a “right to roam”—a right to freely traverse across land, even if privately owned. Political philosophers have paid little attention to the right, and have often conceptualised property rights to include strong claim-rights to exclude others. I offer an account of the right to roam, and consider whether it can be philosophically justified on a left-liberal account of property. After finding a defence in terms of the interests served by the right lacking, I suggest that (...) the most promising defence of the right to roam is that it serves as a symbolic reminder of a fundamental type of social equality. (shrink)

In this book review, I summarize the main argument of Tilo Wesche's book "Die Rechte der Natur: Vom nachhaltigen Eigentum" (The rights of Nature: On sustainable ownership) and conclude with a critical appraisal.

We investigate a lattice of conditional logics described by a Kripke type semantics, which was suggested by Chellas and Segerberg – Chellas–Segerberg (CS) semantics – plus 30 further principles. We (i) present a non-trivial frame-based completeness result, (ii) a translation procedure which gives one corresponding trivial frame conditions for arbitrary formula schemata, and (iii) non-trivial frame conditions in CS semantics which correspond to the 30 principles.

The present paper is concerned with Helmholtz’s theory of measurement. It will be argued that an adequate understanding of this theory depends on how Helmholtz’s application of the concepts of perception and coincidence is interpreted. In contrast both to conventionalist and Kantian readings of Helmholtz’s theory, a more realistic interpretation will be suggested.