The present paper draws on climate science and the philosophy of science in order to evaluate climate-model-based approaches to assessing climate projections. We analyze the difficulties that arise in such assessment and outline criteria of adequacy for approaches to it. In addition, we offer a critical overview of the approaches used in the IPCC working group one fourth report, including the confidence building, Bayesian and likelihood approaches. Finally, we consider approaches that do not feature in the IPCC reports, including three (...) approaches drawn from the philosophy of science. We find that all available approaches face substantial challenges, with IPCC approaches having as a primary source of difficulty their goal of providing probabilistic assessments. (shrink)

Amongst other countries, the Netherlands currently allows euthanasia, provided the physician performing the procedure adheres to a strict set of requirements. In 2016, Second Chamber member Pia Dijkstra submitted a law proposal which would also allow euthanasia without the reason necessarily having any medical foundation; euthanasia on the basis of a completed life. The debate on this topic has been ongoing for over two decades, but this law proposal has made the discussion much more immediate and concrete. This paper (...) considers the moral permissibility of Pia Dijkstra’s law proposal, focusing on the ethics of the implementation Dijkstra describes in her proposal. I argue that, at present, Dijkstra’s law proposal is unsuitable for implementation, due to a number of as of yet unaddressed problems, including the possible development of an ageist stigma and undue pressure on the profession of end-of-life coordinator. Perhaps adequate responses can be conceived to address these issues. However, the existence of a radically different, yet currently equally unacceptable position regarding the implementation of euthanasia for a completed life as proposed by fellow party member Paul Schnabel suggests it may be difficult to formulate an ethically acceptable implementation for this, in principle, ethically acceptable concept. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Ned Block argues that the higher-order (HO) approach to explaining consciousness is ‘defunct’ because a prominent objection (the ‘misrepresentation objection’) exposes the view as ‘incoherent’. What’s more, a response to this objection that I’ve offered elsewhere (Weisberg 2010) fails because it ‘amounts to abusing the notion of what-it’s-like-ness’ (xxx).1 In this response, I wish to plead guilty as charged. Indeed, I will continue herein to abuse Block’s notion of what-it’s-like-ness. After doing so, I will argue that the HO approach accounts (...) for the sense of what-it’s-like-ness that matters in a theory of consciousness. I will also argue that the only incoherence present in the HO theory is that generated by embracing Block’s controversial notion of what-it’s-like-ness, something no theorist of any stripe ought to do. Block is famous for (among other things) having introduced the notion of ‘phenomenal consciousness’ into contemporary philosophy of mind (Block 1995). This term is widely employed in the philosophical literature and it even appears in the empirical literature. But wide-speared usage has brought about divergent interpretations of the term. We can distinguish a ‘moderate’ and a ‘zealous’ reading of ‘phenomenal consciousness’. On the moderate reading, ‘phenomenal consciousness’ just means ‘experience’. Many people have embraced this sense of the term and use it to roughly pick out conscious experience involving sensory quality (states like conscious visual experiences or conscious pains, for example).2 On the zealous reading, however, phenomenal consciousness is held to be ‘distinct from any cognitive, intentional, or functional property’ (Block 1995: 234). That is, any explanation of phenomenal consciousness in exclusively cognitive, intentional, or functional terms will fail to capture, without remainder, what is really distinctive about phenomenal consciousness. Block, of course, is fully clear about embracing the zealous reading; indeed, his initial introduction of the notion is in those terms. The same ambiguity occurs with the much-used (and abused) idea of ‘what-it’s-like-ness’.. (shrink)

Telling a patient that the outcome of his illness is not good, or even hopeless, requires sensitivity and the ability to communicate with him in the setting of a hospital which is an unnatural environment divorced from family and friends. It is a task which must be taught and learned by doctors and nurses.

Scholars and policymakers have increasingly advocated to engage citizens more substantially in the development of science and technology. However, to a large extent it has remained unknown how citizens can contribute to technology development. In this study, we systematically characterized citizens’ contributions in the development of nanotechnology for health. We explored to which technology aspects citizens are able to provide suggestions on and on which values their suggestions are based. Fifty citizens in the Netherlands were asked to discuss different applications (...) of nanotechnology for health. They were divided over eight focus groups, which lasted approximately 6.5h each. The citizens were able to contribute to various technology aspects; they mainly focused on the technologies’ implementation and use, they paid some attention to the development and system aspects, and also addressed, but less, the design and communication aspects. Their suggestions were often derived from concerns about the potential effects of the technologies and were predominantly based on the values of well-being, autonomy, and privacy. (shrink)

This article introduces confirmatory composite analysis (CCA) as a structural equation modeling technique that aims at testing composite models. In doing so, it overcomes a current weakness of structural equation modeling, i.e., the operationalization and assessment of design concepts, so-called artifacts. CCA entails the same steps as confirmatory factor analysis: model specification, model identification, model estimation, and model assessment. Composite models are specified such that they consist of a set of interrelated composites, all of which emerge as linear combinations of (...) observable variables. Researchers must ensure theoretical identification of their specified model. For the estimation of the model, several estimators are available; in particular Kettenring's extensions of canonical correlation analysis provide consistent estimates. Model assessment mainly relies on the Bollen-Stine bootstrap to assess the discrepancy between the empirical and the estimated model-implied indicator covariance matrix. A Monte Carlo simulation examines the efficacy of CCA, and demonstrates that CCA is able to detect various forms of model misspecification. (shrink)

The brain adapts to changes that take place in the body. Deprivation of input results in size reduction of cortical representations, whereas an increase in input results in an increase of representational space. Amputation forms one of the most dramatic disturbances of the integrity of the body. The brain adapts in many ways to this breakdown of the afferent–efferent equilibrium. However, almost all studies focus on the sensorimotor consequences. It is not known whether adaptation takes place also at other “levels” (...) in the system. The present study addresses the question whether amputees dream about their intact body, as before the amputation, or about the body after the amputation and whether the dream content was a function of time since the amputation and type of amputation. The results show that the majority of the dreamers reported dreams about their intact body although the mean time that elapsed since the amputation was twelve years. There is no clear relation with the type of amputation. The results give modest evidence for the existence of a basic neural representation of the body that is, at least, partly genetically determined and by this relatively insensitive for changes in the sensory input. (shrink)

HIV remission clinical researchers are increasingly seeking study participants who are diagnosed and treated during acute HIV infection—the brief period between infection and the point when the body creates detectable HIV antibodies. This earliest stage of infection is often marked by flu-like illness and may be an especially tumultuous period of confusion, guilt, anger, and uncertainty. Such experiences may present added ethical challenges for HIV research recruitment, participation, and retention. The purpose of this paper is to identify potential ethical challenges (...) associated with involving acutely diagnosed people living with HIV in remission research and considerations for how to mitigate them. We identify three domains of potential ethical concern for clinicians, researchers, and ethics committee members to consider: 1) Recruitment and informed consent; (2) Transmission risks and partner protection; and (3) Ancillary and continuing care. We discuss each of these domains with the aim of inspiring further work to advance the ethical conduct of HIV remission research. For example, experiences of confusion and uncertainty regarding illness and diagnosis during acute HIV infection may complicate informed consent procedures in studies that seek to recruit directly after diagnosis. To address this, it may be appropriate to use staged re-consent procedures or comprehension assessment. Responsible conduct of research requires a broad understanding of acute HIV infection that encompasses its biomedical, psychological, social, and behavioral dimensions. We argue that the lived experience of acute HIV infection may introduce ethical concerns that researchers and reviewers should address during study design and ethical approval. (shrink)

The existential analysis -- The death of dasein -- The timeliness of dasein -- The derivation of time -- The time of being.

A prevalent assumption in metaethics is that people believe in moral objectivity. If this assumption were true then people should believe in the possibility of objective moral progress, objective moral knowledge, and objective moral error. We developed surveys to investigate whether these predictions hold. Our results suggest that, neither abstractly nor concretely, people dominantly believe in the possibility of objective moral progress, knowledge and error. They attribute less objectivity to these phenomena than in the case of science and no more, (...) or only slightly more, than in the cases of social conventions and personal preferences. This finding was obtained for a regular sample as well as for a sample of people who are particularly likely to be reflective and informed (philosophers and philosophy students). Our paper hence contributes to recent empirical challenges to the thesis that people believe in moral objectivity. (shrink)

The achievements of the textile industry in Roman Britain are often underestimated as a result of the meagreness of our available evidence. The Edict on maximum prices issued by Diocletian in A.D. 301 shows that British capes commanded high prices on the markets of the Empire, and that in the late third century A.D. British rugs were the best in the world. In view of the competition from the traditional centres of rug manufacture in the East, this is an astonishing (...) achievement. (shrink)

The received translation and interpretation of many of the technical terms current in the textile industry of the Roman Empire are inaccurate, because lexicographers have either fought shy of being precise, or have thought that they recognized in the ancient world technical processes which originated at a much later date. The evidence is often equivocal or insufficient, but may still yield details that have been overlooked. The textile expression scutulatus, to take an example, deserves more attention than Blümner has devoted (...) to it. When it refers to the appearance of a garment, Lewis and Short, s.v. scutulatus, translate ‘diamond or lozenge-shaped, checkered’. It seems worth while to attempt a more precise translation, and, if possible, to estimate the significance in context of the goods so designated. (shrink)

Living out of silence, out of a fully functioning, lovingly attentive mind, and not just out of thought, out of a partially functioning mind, is requisite for depth or profundity in living or relating. A fully attentive, truly silent or meditative mind sees that there is real dualism of time and the timeless and that time and the timeless each has its own unique value. The timeless, or real silence, that which alone can make for depth in one's living and (...) relating, can be there only when, in one's awareness, time and all that is related to time, have come to an end. An examination of a wide variety of statements made by writers, both past and present, shows that these understandings are seldom there in contemporary writings, just as they were not there in writings that have come down to us from the past. 'Living beyond the One and the Many' invites readers to consider the possibility that what is presented in it can bring deep meaning to one's way of living in the world"--Publisher's description, back cover. (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

Jeffrey Collins’ new book aims to presents Locke’s views on religious toleration in the light of Thomas Hobbes’ political philosophy. At first blush, Hobbes seems an unusual choice as a point of co...

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 10 Heft: 1 Seiten: 39-114.

The changing sacred landscape of Late Antiquity has long been seen in terms of a monolithic development ‘from temple to church’. Recent scholarship, however, has discarded this picture in favour of a more complex view, in which freestanding churches (and monasteries) were increasingly built from the fourth century onwards, while at the same time various, mostly practical, ways were found of dealing with the sacred built environment of the past. The Late Antique papyri from Oxyrhynchus contain dozens of references to (...) churches and monasteries, and, occasionally, also temples. The city thus affords an excellent opportunity to study the changing sacred landscape of this period in a local context. In previous scholarship, several lists have been compiled to collect the attestations of churches. The last comprehensive collection of the material dates back two decades, however, while the one list of monasteries is heavily outdated. Moreover, a list of temples in the Late Antique papyri has never been put together. This article, then, presents, in the appendix, a brand-new Checklist of temples, churches and monasteries of Late Antique Oxyrhynchus. It serves as the basis for the detailed analysis of the data that precedes it, which shows that these data are in perfect agreement with the now prevalent general view among Late Antique scholars of how the sacred landscape changed over time. For comparison with the findings from the papyri, we will also briefly discuss the results of recent excavations at the site. (shrink)