Recently, there have been attempts at offering new justifications of the Rawlsian idea of public reason. Blain Neufeld has suggested that the ideal of political autonomy justifies public reason, while R.J. Leland and Han van Wietmarschen have sought to justify the idea by appealing to the value of political community. In this paper, I show that both proposals are vulnerable to a common problem. In realistic circumstances, they will often turn into reasons to oppose, rather than support, public reason. However, (...) this counterintuitive result can be avoided if we conceive of autonomy and community differently. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION In ita original form the present paper was presented to the American Mathematical Society, April 2k,, as a companion piece to the writer's ...

Since 1997, FORUM has been an integral part of the landscape of European studies. In addition to contemporary history, it offers insights into the history of ideas and reviews books on Central and Eastern European history. It offers more than just history--for instance, interdisciplinary discussions by political scientists, literary, legal, and economic scholars, and philosophers. FORUM sees itself as a bridge between East and West. Through the translation and publication of texts and contributions from Russian, Polish, and Czech researchers, it (...) offers the Western reader access to the scholarly discourse of Eastern Europe. The 'short' 20th century is one of the best-documented eras in history. Nevertheless, it holds more mysteries than many periods of antiquity or the Middle Ages of which we have only sparse relics. One of the biggest mysteries is the question of the causes of the collapse of civilization in the first half of the century. In Germany as well as in Russia, regimes came to power invoking the implementation of utopias that had been dreamt up during the 'long' 19th century yet which had been considered unrealizable. Now, it turned out, even the most radical utopian blueprint could be put into place. This development, intertwined with an extraordinarily deep crisis of European democracy, did not happen overnight. It had been looming for a long time. There had even been several prescient voices heralding the upcoming crisis--trailing away without being noticed. Volume 19, Issue 1 of FORUM recognizes some of these unheard prophets and scrutinizes their writings. (shrink)

AimsThe aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the revised self-rated version of the Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX-R) within a non-clinical sample.MethodsThe study was hosted online, with 140 participants completing the DEX-R, GAD-2 and PHQ-2. Sixty participants also completed the FrSBe, with 99 additionally completing the DEX-R again 3 weeks later. Correlations with demographic factors and symptoms of anxiety and depression were conducted. Rasch and factor analysis were also used to explore underlying subconstructs.ResultsThe DEX-R correlated highly with (...) the FrSBe, indicating sound concurrent validity. Internal consistency, split-half reliability and test-retest reliability were excellent. Age and symptoms of depression and anxiety correlated with DEX-R scores, with older age associated with less dysexecutive problems. The Rasch analysis confirmed the multidimensionality of the rating scale, and a three-factor structure was found relating to activation-self-regulatory, cognitive and social-emotional processes. Frequencies of responses on DEX-R items varied, many were not fully endorsed indicating specific relevance of most but not all items to patients.ConclusionInterpretations of DEX-R ratings of dysexecutive problems should consider mood and individual variation. Systematic comparison of DEX-R responses between healthy and clinical groups could help identify a suitable cut off for dysexecutive symptoms. (shrink)

The vital status of patients who are a part of controlled donation after circulatory death (cDCD) is widely debated in bioethical literature. Opponents to currently applied cDCD protocols argue that they violate the dead donor rule, while proponents of the protocols advocate compatibility. In this article, we argue that both parties often misinterpret the moral implications of the dead donor rule. The rule as such does not require an assessment of a donor’s vital status, we contend, but rather an assessment (...) of whether procurement of organs in cDCD cause the death of the donor or not. We then argue that commonly practiced cDCD protocols do not violate the dead donor rule, since the donation does not trigger or cause the death of the donors. (shrink)

In Professional Ethics and Civic Morals , Emile Durkheim outlined the core of his theory of morality and social rights which was to dominate his work throughout the course of his life. In Durkheim's view, sociology is a science of morals which are objective social facts, and these moral regulations form the basis of individual rights and obligations. This book is crucial to an understanding of Durkheim's sociology because it contains his much-neglected theory of the state as a moral institution, (...) and it provides an understanding of his critique of anomie and egoistic individualism. The growing interest in cultural revolution and moral regulation make this edition of Durkheim's classic work especially timely. The new preface by Bryan Turner sets the book in its intellectual and historical context, and illustrates the relevance of this work to present day debates on the state, society, and moral regulation. (shrink)

Investigates the assumptions of such philosophers as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger and Sartre regarding Jewish existence.

A detailed exploration of Jewish thought and how it compares with the ideas of modern philosophy.

Selections from Durkheim's writings focus on the nature of his conception of society and its moral context.

We investigate the computational complexity of deciding whether a given inference rule is admissible for some modal and superintuitionistic logics. We state a broad condition under which the admissibility problem is coNEXP-hard. We also show that admissibility in several well-known systems (including GL, S4, and IPC) is in coNE, thus obtaining a sharp complexity estimate for admissibility in these systems.

We develop approximate counting of sets definable by Boolean circuits in bounded arithmetic using the dual weak pigeonhole principle (dWPHP(PV)), as a generalization of results from [15]. We discuss applications to formalization of randomized complexity classes (such as BPP, APP, MA, AM) in PV₁ + dWPHP(PV).

The history of philosophy.--Socrates, the founder of moral science.--Aristotle.--Jacob Boehme, the German philosopher.--Descartes.--Kant.

We develop canonical rules capable of axiomatizing all systems of multiple-conclusion rules over K4 or IPC, by extension of the method of canonical formulas by Zakharyaschev [37]. We use the framework to give an alternative proof of the known analysis of admissible rules in basic transitive logics, which additionally yields the following dichotomy: any canonical rule is either admissible in the logic, or it is equivalent to an assumption-free rule. Other applications of canonical rules include a generalization of the Blok–Esakia (...) theorem and the theory of modal companions to systems of multiple-conclusion rules or (finitary structural global) consequence relations, and a characterization of splittings in the lattices of consequence relations over monomodal or superintuitionistic logics with the finite model property. (shrink)

We show that IPC, K4, GL, and S4, as well as all logics inheriting their admissible rules, have independent bases of admissible rules.

In his book The Intellectual Virtues and the Life of the Mind: On the Place of the Virtues in Contemporary Epistemology, Jonathan Kvanvig argues that there is an interchangeability of personal and doxastic justification, which ‘blocks the quick route to virtue epistemology’. To prove that personal justification is reducible to doxastic justification, he utilizes λ-calculus expressions that aim to show the logical equivalence of the two notions of justification. In this paper, I argue that he has made an illegitimate move (...) in his translation of the ordinary talk of personal justification into λ-expressions because his translation involves both an elimination from and an addition to the ordinary language. Pace Kvanvig, there is no logical equivalence of personal to doxastic justification. So, his argument for the reducibility of personal to doxastic justification founders. More importantly, since he has failed to disprove that personal justification is irreducibly primitive, he hasn’t shown that the prospects for virtue epistemology are ‘hopeless’. (shrink)

According to John Rawls’s famous Liberal Principle of Legitimacy, the exercise of political power is legitimate only if it is justifiable to all citizens. The currently dominant interpretation of what is justifiable to persons in this sense is an internalist one. On this view, what is justifiable to persons depends on their beliefs and commitments. In this paper I challenge this reading of Rawls’s principle, and instead suggest that it is most plausibly interpreted in externalist terms. On this alternative view, (...) what is justifiable to persons is not in any way dependent on, or relativized to, their beliefs and commitments. Instead, what is justifiable to all in the relevant sense is what all could accept as free and equal. I defend this reinterpretation of the view by showing how it is supported by Rawls’s account of the freedom and equality of persons. In addition, a considerable advantage of this suggestion is that it allows for an inclusive account of to whom the exercise of political power must be made justifiable. (shrink)

In this influential work, first published in English in 1963, Durkheim and Mauss claim that the individual mind is capable of classification and they seek the origin of the ‘classificatory function’ in society. On the basis of an intensive examination of forms and principles of symbolic classification reported from the Australian aborigines, the Zuñi and traditional China, they try to establish a formal correspondence between social and symbolic classification. From this they argue that the mode of classification is determined by (...) the form of society and that the notions of space, time, hierarchy, number, class and other such cognitive categories are products of society. Dr Needham’s introduction assesses the validity of Durkhiem and Mauss’s argument, traces its continued influence in various disciplines, and indicates its analytical value for future researches in social anthropology. (shrink)