The main topic of Rudiger Bittner's book 'Doing Things for Reasons' is action theory. We learn what it is to have reasons for action and how acting in response to reasons should be construed; we learn to what extent these reasons are elements of our mental life (and in particular that they aren't mental at all). Almost at the end of the book, however, in chap. 12, all of a sudden we learn something more. We receive an answer to the (...) very core question of anthropology: who we are, as men and women, and what is so special about us - or rather that there is nothing special about us. It is this last part of the book, easily overlooked, that I want to concentrate on in my contribution. (shrink)

Dieser Band stellt die erste Fortsetzung der 2013 begonnenen Publikation zur „Wirtlichen Ökonomie“ dar. Er dient der sich fortsetzenden Frage nach der Wirtlichkeit. Zu dieser Frage gehört es, das Ökonomische aus einer notwendig gewordenen Zurückhaltung gegenüber dem methodischen Vorgriff der modernen Wirtschaftswissenschaften zu denken. Die Zurückhaltung verleiht, indem sie den Fragebereich der Wirtlichkeit eröffnet, den hier versammelten Beiträgen ihren wahren Zusammenhang.

The essays in this volume explore those aspects of Kant’s writings which concern issues in the philosophy of mind. These issues are central to any understanding of Kant’s critical philosophy and they bear upon contemporary discussions in the philosophy of mind. Fourteen specially written essays address such questions as: What role does mental processing play in Kant’s account of intuition? What kinds of empirical models can be given of these operations? In what sense, and in what ways, are intuitions object-dependent? (...) How should we understand the nature of the imagination? What is inner sense, and what does it mean to say that time is the form of inner sense? Can we cognize ourselves through inner sense? How do we self-ascribe our beliefs and what role does self-consciousness play in our judgments? Is the will involved in judging? What kind of knowledge can we have of the self ? And what kind of knowledge of the self does Kant proscribe? These essays showcase the depth of Kant’s writings in the philosophy of mind, and the centrality of those writings to his wider philosophical project. Moreover, they show the continued relevance of Kant’s writings to contemporary debates about the nature of mind and self. Contents: 0. Introduction Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson 1. Kant, The Philosophy Of Mind, And Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy Anil Gomes 2. Synthesis And Binding Lucy Allais 3. Understanding Non-Conceptual Representation Of Objects: Empirical Models Of Sensibility’s Operation Katherine Dunlop 4. Are Kantian Intuitions Object-Dependent? Stefanie Grüne 5. Intuition And Presence Colin McLear 6. Imagination And Inner Intuition Andrew Stephenson 7. Inner Sense And Time Ralf M. Bader 8. Can’t Kant Cognize Himself? Or, A Problem For (Almost) Every Interpretation Of The Refutation Of Idealism Andrew Chignell 9. A Kantian Critique Of Transparency Patricia Kitcher 10. Judging For Reasons: On Kant And The Modalities Of Judgment Jessica Leech 11. Kant On Judging And The Will Jill Vance Buroker 12. Self and Selves Ralph C. S. Walker 13. Subjects Of Kant’s First Paralogism Tobias Rosefeldt 14. The Lessons Of Kant’s Paralogisms Paul Snowdon. (shrink)

This paper assesses the role of the Refutation of Idealism within the Critique of Pure Reason, as well as its relation to the treatment of idealism in the First Edition and to transcendental idealism more generally. It is argued that the Refutation is consistent with the Fourth Paralogism and that it can be considered as an extension of the Transcendental Deduction. While the Deduction, considered on its own, constitutes a 'regressive argument', the Refutation allows us to turn the Transcendental Analytic (...) into a 'progressive argument' that proceeds by the synthetic method. (shrink)

This paper establishes that the occasional identity relation and the contingent identity relation are both non-transitive and as such are not properly classified as identity relations. This is achieved by appealing to cases where multiple fissions and fusions occur simultaneously. These cases show that the contingent and occasional identity relations do not even satisfy the time-indexed and world-indexed versions of the transitivity requirement and hence are non-transitive relations.

This paper develops co-ordinated multiple-domain supervenience relations to model determination and dependence relations between complex entities and their constituents by appealing to R-related pairs and by making use of associated isomorphisms. Supervenience relations are devised for order-sensitive and repetition-sensitive mereologies, for mereological systems that make room for many-many composition relations, as well as for hierarchical mereologies that incorporate compositional and hylomorphic structure. Finally, mappings are provided for theories that consider wholes to be prior to their parts.

This paper provides an account of Kant's categories of freedom, explaining how they fit together and what role they are supposed to play. My interpretation places particular emphasis on the structural features that the table of the categories of freedom shares with the table of judgements and the table of categories laid out by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason. In this way we can identify two interpretative constraints, namely (i) that the categories falling under each heading must form (...) a synthetic unity whereby the third one derives from the combination of the other two. and (ii) that the first two categories falling under each heading must be morally undetermined and sensibly conditioned, while the third category is sensibly unconditioned and determined only by the moral law. (shrink)

This paper analyses Nozick's possible-worlds model of utopia. It identifies and examines three arguments in favour of the minimal state: (1) the minimal state is the real-world analogue of the possible-worlds model and can hence be considered to be inspiring; (2) the minimal state is the common ground of all possible utopian conceptions and can hence be universally endorsed; and (3) the minimal state is the best or at least a very good means for approximating or achieving utopia. While constituting (...) fascinating lines of inquiry, all arguments are found to be wanting and unable to yield the conclusions that Nozick intended to establish. Nonetheless, they establish interesting and important results, in particular the result that the minimal state is the maximal institutional structure that is in principle compatible with the complete satisfaction of the maximal non-arbitrary set of preferences that are in principle co-satisfiable, as well as the corollary that in utopia any state will exert at most the functions of a minimal state. (shrink)

With catastrophic events of «nature» like global warming, arguments emerge that insinuate an equivalence of vulnerability, responsibility or being affected by these catastrophes. Such an alleged equivalence when facing climate catastrophe is already visible, for example, in the notion of the «Anthropocene» itself, which obscures both causes and various vulnerabilities in a homogenized as well as universalized concept of humanity (anthropos). Taking such narratives as a starting point, the paper explores questions about the connection between catastrophe, temporality, and history, following (...) mainly Walter Benjamin, Dipesh Chakrabarty and Jean-Luc Nancy with the goal to provide (1) a critique of the concept «Anthropocene» on the basis of nonequivalence while retaining its key features to still grasp the catastrophic present, (2) an analysis of anthropocenic time and the chronical structure of catastrophe, (3) philosophical considerations on the intersection of catastrophe and history. (shrink)

Kant's claim that time is a subjective form of intuition was first proposed in his Inaugural Dissertation. This view was immediately criticised by Schultz, Lambert and Mendelssohn. Their criticisms are based on the claim that representations change which implies that change is real. From the reality of change they then argue to the reality of time, which undermines its supposed status as a subjective form of intuition that only applies to appearances. Kant took these criticisms very seriously and attempted to (...) reply to them in § 7 of the Transcendental Aesthetic. This paper provides a critical assessment of the objections raised by Schultz, Lambert and Mendelssohn as well as of Kant's diagnosis and response. In particular, it shows how Kant can consistently hold that knowledge of our mental states is restricted to knowledge of appearances. (shrink)

Human dignity is a stubborn concept, at least for jurists and philosophers. After World War II it found its way immediately into the opening articles of the UN Charta, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the German Grundgesetz, apparently out of the blue, i. e. almost without any precedent in earlier juridical docu- ments. Consequently, scholars of law still have difficulties to formulate an adequate understanding of human dignity. And although the concept has a certain tradition in philosophy, if (...) we search for an independent ethi- cally attractive understanding of human dignity, it turns out that going back to Cicero, Kant or the Christian heritage is of little help, too. Much more promising, though, is a look at the long-standing usage of the expression ‘human dignity’ and its German counterpart Würde des Menschen where something like a universal right not to be humiliated is expressed. Given this understanding, we can read the commandment to respect human dignity as the basic obligation to treat other people in a way that allows them to keep their personal, individual dignities—or at least minimally decent ones. To be sure, this formulation is just a very first, tentative step on the way to a philosophically satisfying conception of human dignity, but in the author’s opinion it is definitely a promising start for a research group. (shrink)

A philosophical obituary on Jean-Luc Nancy, who died in 2021, published in the German journal Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie. Ein philosophischer Nachruf auf den 2021 verstorbenen Jean-Luc Nancy, erschienen in der Allgemeinen Zeitschrift für Philosophie.

Original title: 「生の哲學について」『西田幾多郎全集』旧版 [Alte Ausgabe: Gesammelte Werke Nishida Kitarōs]. Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1978, 6: 428–51; 新版 [Neue Ausgabe]. Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 2009, 5: 335–53.

Wie denkt Dogen (1200-1253) Sprache im Horizont der sprachkritischen Tradition des Zenbuddhismus? Die vorliegende Studie widmet sich dieser Frage und rekonstruiert umfassend das Sprachdenken des philosophisch fruchtbarsten Autors der japanischen Vormoderne. Dazu wählt der Autor einen doppelten Zugang: zum einen rezeptionsgeschichtlich unter Einschluss von Philosophen des modernen Japans, zum anderen systematisch mithilfe der Symboltheorie Ernst Cassirers in der Theoretisierung eines adäquaten Sprachbegriffs. So verschränken sich mit Interpretationen zum Hauptwerk Dogens, dem Shobogenzo, Außen- und Innenperspektive auf ein zenbuddhistisches Sprachdenken und erweisen (...) es in seiner Kommensurabilität zum philosophischen Diskurs. (shrink)

Eine Spurensuche nach dem Impersonalen im Werk von Gilles Deleuze. Zu diesem Zweck werden einige seiner zentralen Figuren – ein Leben, haecceïtas, man, homo tantum… – so zur Sprache gebracht, dass die methodisch wie inhaltlich entscheidende Stelle des Unpersönlichen in Deleuzes Philosophie erkennbar wird. Von diesem Ergebnis her lassen sich mit Deleuze (anschließend an Esposito und Weil) Ansätze einer Politik des Impersonalen erörtern. Sie greift auf eine Sphäre des Unbestimmten zurück, die in eins unpersönlich und doch singulär gedacht ist und (...) damit ein ‚wir‘ diesseits der Unterscheidung von privat und kollektiv ermöglicht. (shrink)

The widely agreed view that actions are events faces the problem of how to describe the “branches” in so-called action trees, i.e. actions which are done by doing other actions. Moreover, the view is also inconsistent with the existence of two familiar species of agency: omitting something and letting things happen. In this article, an alternative conception of action is proposed which takes letting happen as the paradigm of agency. Agency should be construed as an explanatory relation between agents and (...) things happening in the world. This relational view of agency can accommodate for all kinds of agency: doing, letting happen, omitting, prohibiting. And it also provides a satisfactory account of the ontological basis of action trees. We should at first say that to do something is to originate or to bring into existence, i.e., really, to cause, some not yet existing state either of ourselves or of someone else, or, again, of some body. (shrink)

Modal dispositionalism is the view that possibilities are a matter of the dispositions of individual objects: it is possible that p if and only if something has a disposition for p to be the case. We raise a problem for modal dispositionalism: nothing within the theory rules out that there could be necessary, perfect masks, which make the manifestation of a disposition impossible. Unless such necessary perfect masks are ruled out, modal dispositionalism runs the risk of failing to provide a (...) sufficient condition for possibility, and indeed of engendering contradictions. But to rule them out, modal dispositionalism would have to revise a crucial tenet of the view, its localism. (shrink)

Das Verhältnis von Einheit und Vielheit als ein Grundproblem der Philosophiegeschichte erfährt in den Werken von zwei der gegenwärtig einflussreichsten französischen Denker, Gilles Deleuze und Jean-Luc Nancy, eine je spezifische Reformulierung mit weitreichenden ontologischen sowie politischen Konsequenzen. Durch einen innovativen, aber dennoch einführenden Vergleich kontrastiert und verschränkt Ralf Gisinger erstmalig Ansätze beider Philosophen, indem er sein originäres Konzept der „Pluralisierung“ entwickelt. In einem Feld zwischen Allgemeinheit und Partikularität lassen sich so insbesondere klassische Kategorien der politischen Philosophie wie Identität, Subjekt (...) oder Gesellschaft radikal neu begreifen. -/- Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Luc Nancy, two of the most influential thinkers of our time, both engage with the classic philosophical problem of the one and the many. Ralf Gisinger develops his original concept of ‘pluralization’ by contrasting and intersecting these two philosophers, while shedding a light on the consequences of these pluralizations on an ontological as well as political level regarding notions like identity, subject or society. (shrink)

Lo scritto costituisce un primo saggio preparatorio (redatto in forma di dialogo a quattro voci) di un volume consacrato al pensiero di Eraclito. In esso, si indaga il senso greco iniziale della parola "logos", quale dizione fondamentale della grecità.

Vague expressions are omnipresent in natural language. As such, their use in legal texts is virtually inevitable. If a law contains vague terms, the question whether it applies to a particular case often lacks a clear answer. One of the fundamental pillars of the rule of law is legal certainty. The determinacy of the law enables people to use it as a guide and places judges in the position to decide impartially. Vagueness poses a threat to these ideals. In borderline (...) cases, the law seems to be indeterminate and thus incapable of serving its core rule of law value. -/- In the philosophy of language, vagueness has become one of the hottest topics of the last two decades. Linguists and philosophers have investigated what distinguishes "soritical " vagueness from other kinds of linguistic indeterminacy, such as ambiguity, generality, open texture, and family resemblance concepts. There is a vast literature that discusses the logical, semantic, pragmatic, and epistemic aspects of these phenomena. Legal theory has hitherto paid little attention to the differences between the various kinds of linguistic indeterminacy that are grouped under the heading of "vagueness ", let alone to the various theories that try to account for these phenomena. -/- Bringing together leading scholars working on the topic of vagueness in philosophy and in law, this book fosters a dialogue between philosophers and legal scholars by examining how philosophers conceive vagueness in law from their theoretical perspective and how legal theorists make use of philosophical theories of vagueness. The chapters of the book are organized into three parts. The first part addresses the import of different theories of vagueness for the law, referring to a wide range of theories from supervaluationist to contextualist and semantic realist accounts in order to address the question of whether the law can learn from engaging with philosophical discussions of vagueness. The second part of the book examines different vagueness phenomena. The contributions in part 2 suggest that the greater awareness to different vagueness phenomena can make lawyers aware of specific issues and solutions so far overlooked. The third part deals with the pragmatic aspects of vagueness in law, providing answers to the question of how to deal with vagueness in law and with the professional, political, moral, and ethical issues such vagueness gives rise to. (shrink)

Psychopathic individuals are characterized by impaired affective processing, impulsivity, sensation-seeking, poor planning skills and heightened aggressiveness with poor self-regulation. Based on brain self-regulation studies using neurofeedback of Slow Cortical Potentials (SCPs) in disorders associated with a dysregulation of cortical activity thresholds and evidence of deficient cortical functioning in psychopathy, a neurobiological approach seems to be promising in the treatment of psychopathy. The results of our intensive brain regulation intervention demonstrate, that psychopathic offenders are able to gain control of their brain (...) excitability over fronto-central brain areas. After SCP self-regulation training, we observed reduced aggression, impulsivity and behavioral approach tendencies, as well as improvements in behavioral-inhibition and increased cortical sensitivity for error-processing. This study demonstrates improvements on the neurophysiological, behavioral and subjective level in severe psychopathic offenders after SCP-neurofeedback training and could constitute a novel neurobiologically-based treatment for a seemingly change-resistant group of criminal psychopaths. (shrink)

Die Beiträge dieses Bandes untersuchen die Logik schwieriger Grenzziehungen im Umwelt- und Technikrecht aus juristischer, philosophischer, sozial- und ingenieurswissenschaftlicher Perspektive. Sie sind aus der interdisziplinären Tagung "Unscharfe Grenzen im Umwelt- und Technikrecht" hervorgegangen, die im März 2011 an der RWTH Aachen stattgefunden hat.

Can an ugly experiment be a good experiment? Philosophers have identified many beautiful experiments and explored ways in which their beauty might be connected to their epistemic value. In contrast, the present chapter seeks out (and celebrates) ugly experiments. Among the ugliest are those being designed by AI algorithms. Interestingly, in the contexts where such experiments tend to be deployed, low aesthetic value correlates with high epistemic value. In other words, ugly experiments can be good. Given this, we should conclude (...) that beauty is not generally necessary or sufficient for epistemic value, and increasing beauty will not generally tend to increase epistemic value. (shrink)

A number of philosophers think that grounding is, in some sense, well-founded. This thesis, however, is not always articulated precisely, nor is there a consensus in the literature as to how it should be characterized. In what follows, I consider several principles that one might have in mind when asserting that grounding is well-founded, and I argue that one of these principles, which I call ‘full foundations’, best captures the relevant claim. My argument is by the process of elimination. For (...) each of the inadequate principles, I illustrate its inadequacy by showing either that it excludes cases that should not be ruled out by a well-foundedness axiom for grounding, or that it admits cases that should be ruled out. (shrink)

Once one accepts that certain things metaphysically depend upon, or are metaphysically explained by, other things, it is natural to begin to wonder whether these chains of dependence or explanation must come to an end. This essay surveys the work that has been done on this issue—the issue of grounding and infinite descent. I frame the discussion around two questions: (1) What is infinite descent of ground? and (2) Is infinite descent of ground possible? In addressing the second question, I (...) will consider a number of arguments that have been made for and against the possibility of infinite descent of ground. When relevant, I connect the discussion to two important views about the way reality can be structured by grounding: metaphysical foundationalism and metaphysical infinitism. (shrink)

How are love and justice related? Iris Murdoch characterizes the former by drawing on the latter. Love, she maintains, is just attention, which in turn triggers acts of compassion. Arguably, for Murdoch, love is the most important moral activity. By engaging in love, she maintains, moral agents progress on their journey from appearances to reality. Through love, they overcome selfish leanings, acquire a clearer vision of the world and, importantly, other individuals, which in turn enables them to act increasingly well. (...) In this paper, I lay Murdoch’s account of love alongside of Aristotle’s notion of philia. Ultimately, I argue that both Murdochian love and Aristotelian philia are crucial for enabling moral progress. I proceed as follows: First, I introduce Murdoch’s view. I then propose a novel reading of an argument from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in order to explain what I shall call his necessity claim (NC): philia is necessary to a flourishing life. Along the way, I point out ways in which Murdoch’s and Aristotle’s accounts are mutually illuminating. (shrink)

How to conceptualize loving relationships so as to accommodate that just love is geared toward preserving and fostering individual autonomy? To develop an answer, this paper draws on the recent debate on the rational role of experience to motivate a view dubbed Murdochian presentationalism. Murdochian presentationalism takes seriously two presentationalist ideas: 1) individuals harboring different world views who respond to identical situations differently can be equally rational; 2) our views and concepts develop under the constant pressure of experience. It combines (...) these ideas with Murdoch’s tenet that coming to know others (and thus being able to do well by them) requires unselfish love, construed as just attention that involves a continuous refinement of our evaluative concepts and makes us better attuned to what is real. Complemented with a broadly Kantian notion of autonomy, the resulting view fits the bill. The paper ends on a sketch of what is dubbed the ideal lovers’ pledge and a comment on what metaphor the view arrived at suggests for thinking about loving relationships. (shrink)

Historically, scientific and engineering expertise has been key in shaping research and innovation policies, with benefits presumed to accrue to society more broadly over time. But there is persistent and growing concern about whether and how ethical and societal values are integrated into R&I policies and governance, as we confront public disbelief in science and political suspicion toward evidence-based policy-making. Erosion of such a social contract with science limits the ability of democratic societies to deal with challenges presented by new, (...) disruptive technologies, such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, automation and robotics, and artificial intelligence. Many policy efforts have emerged in response to such concerns, one prominent example being Europe's Eighth Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, whose focus on “Responsible Research and Innovation” provides a case study for the translation of such normative perspectives into concrete policy action and implementation. Our analysis of this H2020 RRI approach suggests a lack of consistent integration of elements such as ethics, open access, open innovation, and public engagement. On the basis of our evaluation, we suggest possible pathways for strengthening efforts to deliver R&I policies that deepen mutually beneficial science and society relationships. (shrink)

In recent years, the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has profoundly reshaped the way we access and utilize humanity's vast reservoir of knowledge. Equipped with this powerful tool, I have undertaken a thorough exploration of the Human Mind, motivated by a growing concern: the evident decline in students' enthusiasm for learning. More specifically, as a professor and researcher, my need for understanding has driven me to explore in depth what defines us as Human beings and what sets us apart from (...) other species. This investigative journey prompted me to reevaluate the evolutionary process, revisit Darwin's theories, and contemplate fundamental questions regarding the nature of time and reality. These reflections ultimately culminated in the formulation of a concept we call the ``Total Universe", a realm in which all possible events and interactions coexist. Building on this concept, we formulated a Theory of Consciousness rooted in the exploration of this Universe through our minds. This culminated in the emergence of the ``World of the Mind", which represents Human reality within the Total Universe, the fusion of all existing Human realities. Importantly, this theory not only integrates various theories of consciousness but also provides a clear framework for understanding what it might mean for Artificial Intelligence to attain consciousness. Hence, I invite you to embark on this journey of reflection, guided by this collection of written codes that encapsulate the discoveries made within the Total Universe through my mind, my reality. My perspective may resonate with yours, or it may not, and both are entirely valid. After all, each individual inhabits their own unique reality. (shrink)

Recent studies on mind‐wandering reveal its potential role in goal exploration and planning future actions. How to understand these explorative functions and their impact on planning remains unclear. Given certain conceptions of intentions and beliefs, the explorative functions of mind‐wandering could lead to regular reconsideration of one's intentions. However, this would be in tension with the stability of intentions central to rational planning agency. We analyze the potential issue of excessive reconsideration caused by mind‐wandering. Our response resolves this tension, presenting (...) a model that aligns the roles of mind‐wandering in planning with empirical evidence and the sustained stability of intentions. (shrink)

One of the main contentions of the framework for Responsible Innovation (RI) is that social and ethical aspects have to be addressed by deliberative engagement with stakeholders and the wider public throughout the innovation process. The aim of this article is to reflect on the question to what extent is deliberative engagement suitable for conducting RI in business. We discuss several tensions that arise when this framework is applied in the business context. Further, we analyse the place of deliberative engagement (...) in several theories of business ethics. We conclude that there remains a tension between the ideal of RI and the way in which the competitive market operates. Hence, RI scholars should reflect more critically on changes that are required in the market in order to make RI possible, modify the ideal of deliberative engagement for RI in business, or attempt to strike a balance between these two responses. (shrink)

Kit Fine (2000) breaks with tradition, arguing that, pace Russell (e.g., 1903: 228), relations have neither directions nor converses. He considers two ways to conceive of these new "neutral" relations, positionalism and anti-positionalism, and argues that the latter should be preferred to the former. Cody Gilmore (2013) argues for a generalization of positionalism, slot theory, the view that a property or relation is n-adic if and only if there are exactly n slots in it, and (very roughly) that each slot (...) may be occupied by at most one entity. Slot theory (and with it, positionalism) bears the full brunt of Fine's (2000) symmetric completions and conflicting adicities problems. I fully develop an alternative, plural slot theory (or pocket theory), which avoids these problems, key elements of which are first considered by Yi (1999: 168 ff.). Like the slot theorist, the pocket theorist posits entities (pockets) in properties and relations that can be occupied. But unlike the slot theorist, the pocket theorist denies that at most one entity can occupy any one of them. As a result, she must also deny that the adicity of a property or relation is equal to the number of occupiable entities in it. By abandoning these theses, however, the pocket theorist is able to avoid Fine's problems, resulting in a stronger theory about the internal structure of properties and relations. Pocket theory also avoids a serious drawback of anti-positionalism. (shrink)

This article introduces the notion of duplex elements of the finite rings and corresponding neutrosophic rings. The authors establish duplex ring Dup(R) and neutrosophic duplex ring Dup(R)I)) by way of various illustrations. The tables of different duplicities are constructed to reveal the comparison between rings Dup(Zn), Dup(Dup(Zn)) and Dup(Dup(Dup(Zn ))) for the cyclic ring Zn . The proposed duplicity structures have several algebraic systems with dissimilar consequences. Author’s characterize finite rings with R + R is different from the duplex ring (...) Dup(R). However, this characterization supports that R + R = Dup(R) for some well known rings, namely zero rings and finite fields. (shrink)

Synthetic biologists aim to generate biological organisms according to rational design principles. Their work may have many beneficial applications, but it also raises potentially serious ethical concerns. In this article, we consider what attention the discipline demands from bioethicists. We argue that the most important issue for ethicists to examine is the risk that knowledge from synthetic biology will be misused, for example, in biological terrorism or warfare. To adequately address this concern, bioethics will need to broaden its scope, contemplating (...) not just the means by which scientific knowledge is produced, but also what kinds of knowledge should be sought and disseminated. (shrink)

Replacing the value-free ideal (VFI) for science requires attention to the broader understanding of how science in society should function. In public spaces, science needed to project the VFI in norms for science advising, science education, and science communication. This resulted in the independent science advisor model and a focus on science literacy for science education and communication. Attending to these broader implications of the VFI which structure science and society relationships is crucial if we are to properly replace the (...) VFI with a better ideal. (shrink)

Das deutsche Gesundheitswesen steht durch die schnell steigende Anzahl an CO- VID-19-Erkrankten vor erheblichen Herausforderungen. In dieser Krisensituation sind alle Beteiligten mit ethischen Fragen konfrontiert, beispielsweise nach gerech- ten Verteilungskriterien bei begrenzten Ressourcen und dem gesundheitlichen Schutz des Personals angesichts einer bisher nicht therapierbaren Erkrankung. Daher werden schon jetzt klinische und ambulante Ethikberatungsangebote verstärkt mit Anfragen nach Unterstützung konfrontiert. Wie können Ethikberater*innen Entscheidungen in der Krankenversorgung im Rahmen der COVID-19-Pandemie unterstützen? Welche Grenzen von Ethikberatung sind zu beachten? Bislang liegen hierzu (...) noch wenige praktische Erfahrungen vor. Angesichts der dynamischen Entwicklung erscheint es der Akademie für Ethik in der Medizin (AEM) wichtig, einen Diskurs über die angemessene Rolle der Ethikberatung bei der Bewältigung der vielfachen Heraus- forderungen durch die COVID-19-Pandemie zu führen und professionelle Hinweise zu geben. Mit dem vorliegenden Diskussionspapier möchte die AEM einen Beitrag zur Beantwortung wesentlicher Fragen leisten, die sich für die Ethikberatung in den verschiedenen Bereichen des Gesundheitswesens stellen. Sie regt an, diesen Dis- kurs weiter zu führen und hat ein Online-Forum (s. unten) eingerichtet, in dem Ethikberater*innen ihre Erfahrungen teilen und die professionelle Selbstreflexion der Ethikberatung in Pandemiezeiten mit Anregungen fördern können. (shrink)

John D. Norton is responsible for a number of influential views in contemporary philosophy of science. This paper will discuss two of them. The material theory of induction claims that inductive arguments are ultimately justified by their material features, not their formal features. Thus, while a deductive argument can be valid irrespective of the content of the propositions that make up the argument, an inductive argument about, say, apples, will be justified (or not) depending on facts about apples. The argument (...) view of thought experiments claims that thought experiments are arguments, and that they function epistemically however arguments do. These two views have generated a great deal of discussion, although there hasn’t been much written about their combination. I argue that despite some interesting harmonies, there is a serious tension between them. I consider several options for easing this tension, before suggesting a set of changes to the argument view that I take to be consistent with Norton’s fundamental philosophical commitments, and which retain what seems intuitively correct about the argument view. These changes require that we move away from a unitary epistemology of thought experiments and towards a more pluralist position. (shrink)

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the considerable challenge of sourcing expertise and determining which experts to trust. Dissonant information fostered controversy in public discourse and encouraged an appeal to a wide range of social indicators of trustworthiness in order to decide whom to trust. We analyze public discourse on expertise by examining how social indicators inform the reputation of Dr. Didier Raoult, the French microbiologist who rose to international prominence as an early advocate for using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. To (...) comprehend how these indicators came to inform his reputation, we outline Dr. Raoult's rise to fame based on discourse about hydroxychloroquine. We then discuss why we trust in experts like scientist-practitioners. This is followed by an examination of how social indicators of trust like status, epistemic authority, influence and values have informed Dr. Raoult's reputation. We conclude with recommendations for how to improve the selection and evaluation social indicators of trust and reputations. Our aim here, instead of making a claim about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine or Dr. Raoult's reputation per se, is to outline through this case study how social indicators of trust inform reputation and the challenge they present to evaluating expertise. (shrink)

We introduce and consider the inner-model reflection principle, which asserts that whenever a statement \varphi(a) in the first-order language of set theory is true in the set-theoretic universe V, then it is also true in a proper inner model W \subset A. A stronger principle, the ground-model reflection principle, asserts that any such \varphi(a) true in V is also true in some non-trivial ground model of the universe with respect to set forcing. These principles each express a form of width (...) reflection in contrast to the usual height reflection of the Lévy–Montague reflection theorem. They are each equiconsistent with ZFC and indeed \Pi_2-conservative over ZFC, being forceable by class forcing while preserving any desired rank-initial segment of the universe. Furthermore, the inner-model reflection principle is a consequence of the existence of sufficient large cardinals, and lightface formulations of the reflection principles follow from the maximality principle MP and from the inner-model hypothesis IMH. We also consider some questions concerning the expressibility of the principles. (shrink)

According to classical theism, impassibility is said to be systematically connected to divine attributes like timelessness, immutability, simplicity, aseity, and self-sufficiency. In some interesting way, these attributes are meant to explain why the impassible God cannot suffer. I shall argue that these attributes do not explain why the impassible God cannot suffer. In order to understand why the impassible God cannot suffer, one must examine the emotional life of the impassible God. I shall argue that the necessarily happy emotional life (...) of the classical God explains why the impassible God cannot suffer. (shrink)

Summary: Throughout the history of science, indeed throughout the history of knowledge, unification has been touted as a central aim of intellectual inquiry. We’ve always wanted to discover not only numerous bare facts about the universe, but to show how such facts are linked and interrelated. Large amounts of time and effort have been spent trying to show diverse arrays of things can be seen as different manifestations of some common underlying entities or properties. Thales is said to have originated (...) philosophy and science with his declaration that everything was, at base, a form of water. Plato’s theory of the forms was thought to be a magnificent accomplishment because it gave a unified solution to the separate problems of the relation between knowledge and belief, the grounding of objective values, and how continuity is possible amid change. Pasteur made numerous medical advancements possible by demonstrating the interconnection between microorganisms and human disease symptoms. Many technological advances were aided by Maxwell’s showing that light is a kind of electromagnetic radiation. The attempt to unify the various known forces is often referred to as “The Holy Grail” of physics. Some philosophers have even suggested that providing explanations is itself just a sort of unifying of our knowledge. But while unification (like simplicity) has often been hailed as a tremendous virtue in science, the meaning of the term is not altogether clear. Scientists often don’t specify what, precisely, they mean by unification. And in cases where what they mean is clear, different thinkers plainly mean different things by the term. What are the various senses of unification, and why has unification been such an important aim in the history of inquiry? (shrink)

Sensation should be understood globally: some infant behaviors do not make sense on the model of separate senses; neonates of all species lack time to learn about the world by triangulating among different senses. Considerations of natural selection favor a global understanding; and the global interpretation is not as opposed to traditional work on sensation as might seem.

Considérez les énoncés suivants : « La bombe a causé la destruction du pont » ; « L’explosion de la bombe a causé la destruction du pont » ; « Booth a causé la mort de Lincoln » ; et « Le tir de Booth a causé la mort de Lincoln ». Ces énoncés suggèrent que les objets, tels que les bombes ou les personnes, font partie de la catégorie ontologique des causes, au même titre que les évènements, comme le (...) tir de Booth et l’explosion de la bombe. À première vue, le fait que les objets et les personnes puissent être des causes n’a rien de particulièrement surprenant. Cependant, les philosophes du XXe siècle ont fait preuve d’une extrême méfiance à l’égard de cette idée. Une majorité de philosophes ont trouvé l’idée même de causalité par des objets ou des agents inintelligible, à tel point que les théories standards de la causalité présupposent que les entités reliées comme causes à effets sont des évènements, ou encore des faits, des propriétés ou des états. Pourtant, cette hostilité à l’égard de la causalité des objets est relativement récente ; la causalité agentive semble, au moins jusqu’à Thomas Reid (1710-1796), avoir été la norme, et non le mystère. La mise à l’écart des objets et des agents de la catégorie de cause est-elle justifiée ? Un nombre grandissant de philosophes, les agentialistes (agent-causalists), soutiennent que non et cherchent à réhabiliter l’idée de causalité agentive (par des agents) et/ou substantielle (par des substances), tandis que d’autres, les évènementialistes (event-causalists), défendent que celle-ci est au mieux réductible à la causalité entre évènements, ou au pire que l’idée est incohérente. L’importance de cette question n’est pas négligeable, car elle revient à demander quels sont les moteurs du changement. En effet, nous voulons savoir si certains objets tels que les couteaux, les bombes, les animaux et les personnes sont parfois à l’origine du changement, ou si tout effet procède uniquement de changements antérieurs, d’évènements. Existe-t-il une relation causale, la causalité agentive ou substantielle, reliant objets et changements, différente des relations causales habituellement traitées par les philosophes de la causalité ? Quelle est sa relation avec la causalité évènementielle ? Et comment fonctionne-t-elle ? (shrink)

Can the issue of how important it is whether or not there is a God be decided prior to deciding whether or not there is a God? In this paper, I explore some difficulties that stand in the way of answering this question in the affirmative and some of the implications of these difficulties for that part of the Philosophy of Religion which concerns itself with assessing arguments for and against the existence of God, the implications for how its importance (...) may best be defended within secular academe. (shrink)

It has been widely argued that words are analogous to species such that words, like species, are natural kinds. In this paper, I consider the metaphysics of word-kinds. After arguing against an essentialist approach, I argue that word-kinds are homeostatic property clusters, in line with the dominant approach to other biological and psychological kinds.

Tennenbaum's Theorem yields an elegant characterisation of the standard model of arithmetic. Several authors have recently claimed that this result has important philosophical consequences: in particular, it offers us a way of responding to model-theoretic worries about how we manage to grasp the standard model. We disagree. If there ever was such a problem about how we come to grasp the standard model, then Tennenbaum's Theorem does not help. We show this by examining a parallel argument, from a simpler model-theoretic (...) result. (shrink)

Das Buch stellt den ersten Teil eines mehrbändigen Sammelwerkes dar, in dem von Philosophen sowie klassischen und modernen Philologen Beiträge zur ethischen Ökonomie und ihrer Geschichte zusammengeführt sind. Es gliedert sich in zwei Teile. Der erste Teil – „Philosophische Quellen“ – enthält Studien zur ökonomischen Dimension im Denken Heraklits, Platons, der Stoa, Thomas von Aquins, Ockhams, Kants, Nietzsches, Thoreaus, Simone Weils; der zweite Teil – „Dichterische Quellen“ – versammelt entsprechende Untersuchungen zu Aischylos, zur Augusteischen Dichtung, zu Shakespeare, Ramuz, Pound und (...) Cummings. (shrink)