Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons's ' moral twin earth argument' raises doubts about the naturalistic realist's ability to make sense of genuine disagreement. I offer three arguments the realist's behalf. First, I argue that the example at the heart of their argument is underdescribed; when fully developed, it loses its intuitive force. Second, I suggest that taking the stipulations of the Horgan-Timmons example seriously gives us reason to revise our initial judgments. Third, I propose combining naturalistic realism about moral (...) judgments with expressivism about the last ought before action in order to preserve the conflict between moralists and twin -moralists. (shrink)

As part of a multifactorial approach to address weak incentives for innovative antimicrobial drug development, market entry rewards are an emerging solution. Recently, the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy released the Priority Antimicrobial Value and Entry Award proposal, which combines a MER with payment reforms, transitioning from volume-based to “value-based” payments for antimicrobials. Here, the PAVE Award and similar MERs are reviewed, focusing on further refinement and avenues for implementation.

Ist das Spurenlesen archaischer Restbestand eines \textgreaterwilden Wissens\textless oder läßt es sich in allen entfalteten Zeichen-, Erkenntnis- und Interpretationstechniken aufspüren? Wie kann das Spurenlesen vom Textlesen und vom Interpretieren sprachlicher und bildlicher Zeichen abgegrenzt werden? Bilden Spuren die Nahtstelle der Entstehung von Sinn aus Nichtsinn? Verbinden sie unsere Zeichenpraktiken mit der Dinghaftigkeit, Körperlichkeit und Materialität der Welt? Werden Spuren entdeckt oder werden sie im Akt des Spurenlesens überhaupt erst hervorgebracht? Das sind Fragen, auf die der Band Antworten sucht. Seine Leitidee (...) ist, daß das Spurenlesen eine Orientierungstechnik und eine Wissenskunst verkörpert, die nicht nur in der Philosophie und den Geisteswissenschaften, sondern auch in den Naturwissenschaften wirksam wird. (shrink)

This article is a discourse analysis based on a theory of figures of speech advocated by Orecchionni that analyzes implicit not only as a mark of literality but also as trope of illocutionary type not lexical, lexical, metaphorical or semantic. It considers also the explicit information of the novel through four levels of competency: linguistic, encyclopedic, logical and pragmatic rhetorical and analyzes the romantic statement according to the maxims of quantity, quality, relation or relevance and modality. This study shows, (...) through verbal interactions of « Douane de mer » that the story is the heiress of the mnemonic representation than of historical representation. It sheds light on the dual role played by implicit as a mediator in relation to historical reality or an opaque screen over the truth of the world. (shrink)

Let us begin with the simple observation that applied mathematics can be very tough! It is a common occurrence that basic physical principle instructs us to construct some syntactically simple set of differential equations, but it then proves almost impossible to extract salient information from them. As Charles Peirce once remarked, you can’t get a set of such equations to divulge their secrets by simply tilting at them like Don Quixote. As a consequence, applied mathematicians are often forced to pursue (...) roundabout and shakily rationalized expedients if any useful progress is to be made. Often these provisional and quasi-empirical procedures within applied mathematics loom large in motivating the “anti-realist” or “anti-unificationist” conclusions of Nancy Cartwright and allied authors. (shrink)

This paper argues that expressivism faces serious difficulties giving an adequate account of univocal moral disagreements. Expressivist accounts of moral discourse understand moral judgments in terms of various noncognitive mental states, and they interpret moral disagreements as clashes between competing attitudes. I argue that, for various reasons, expressivists must specify just what mental states are involved in moral judgment. If they do not, we lack a way of distinguishing moral judgments from other sorts of assessment and thus for identifying narrowly (...) moral disagreements. If they do, we can construct cases of intuitively real dispute that do not rest on the theory's preferred mental states. This strategy is possible because our intuitions about moral concept-ascription do not track speakers' noncognitive states. I discuss various ways of developing this basic argument, then apply it to the work of the two most sophisticated proponents of expressivism, Allan Gibbard and Simon Blackburn. I argue that neither is successful in meeting the challenge. (shrink)

Can failure be aesthetic or artistic? How can failure be described as an aesthetic phenomenon or as a work of art? Starting from a concept of aesthetic experience and presence this paper seeks answers to said question in four steps. After defining the event ›failure‹ (I), its aesthetic potential is determined (II), and distinguished from failure as art and the artfulness of failure (III). Finally, the significance of the aesthetic experience of failure for its existential understanding is examined (IV).

This paper argues that expressivism faces serious difficulties giving an adequate account of univocal moral disagreements. Expressivist accounts of moral discourse understand moral judgments in terms of various noncognitive mental states, and they interpret moral disagreements as clashes between competing attitudes. I argue that, for various reasons, expressivists must specify just what mental states are involved in moral judgment. If they do not, we lack a way of distinguishing moral judgments from other sorts of assessment and thus for identifying narrowly (...) moral disagreements. If they do, we can construct cases of intuitively real dispute that do not rest on the theory’s preferred mental states. This strategy is possible because our intuitions about moral concept-ascription do not track speakers’ noncognitive states. I discuss various ways of developing this basic argument, then apply it to the work of the two most sophisticated proponents of expressivism, Allan Gibbard and Simon Blackburn. I argue that neither is successful in meeting the challenge. (shrink)

This is one of those cases to which Dr. 8 oodhouse's remark applies with all its force, that a method which leads to true results must have its logic — H.S Smith (" On Some of the Methods at Present in Use in Pure Geometry," p. 6) A goodly amount of modern metaphysics has concerned itself, in one form or another, with the question: what attitude should we take in regard to a language whose semantic underpinnings seem less than certain? (...) Since much of standard English is surely of this type, many philosophers have felt driven to extreme and unpalatable resolutions — wholesale rejection of attractive logical rules, radical "antirealism", "minimalism" about truth, and so forth, Scientists, however, have long dealt with analogous foundational insecurities and, under the duress of practicality, have framed a set of shifting attitudes towards language and reasoning that seem far more commonsensical than the extreme positions to which pure philosophy has often been led. Following this lead, this essay will recommend a more nuanced approach to linguistic insecurity that is neither naively optimistic nor mired in the gloomy sloughs of antirealism. (shrink)

Mein Beitrag versteht den Werkbegriff nicht nur als ästhetischen, sondern auch als epistemischen Grundbegriff. Ausgehend von einem nachgelassenen Fragment Friedrich Nietzsches, das Eingang in Der Wille zur Macht – einen Text mit prekärem Werkstatus – gefunden hat, wird in drei Schritten argumentiert: (1) Der Werkbegriff ist an verschiedenen Prozeduren in den Geisteswissenschaften beteiligt und bleibt auch dann erhalten, wenn ein werkästhetischer Werkbegriff abgelehnt wird. (2) Innerhalb dieser Prozeduren kommt dem Werkbegriff eine gemeinsame Funktion zu. Sie besteht in der Konstitution epistemischer (...) Dinge. Die Ähnlichkeit der Prozeduren des Werkbegriffs in den Geisteswissenschaften kann mit dieser Beschreibung auch über methodische und disziplinäre Grenzen hinweg beschrieben werden. (3) Der Wille zur Macht wird auch für kulturelle bzw. kulturökonomische Zwecke in Dienst genommen. Der Werkbegriff ist ein Grenzbegriff über die Wissenschaft hinaus. Er bildet boundary objects. (shrink)

On the basis of careful textual exegesis and philosophical analysis, and contrary to the received view, Mark R. Wheeler demonstrates that Aristotle presents and systematically explicates his definition of the essence of the truth in the Metaphysics. Aristotle states the nominal definitions of the terms "truth" and "falsehood" as part of his arguments in defense of the logical axioms. These nominal definitions express conceptions of truth and falsehood his philosophical opponents would have recognized and accepted in the context of (...) dialectical argument. On the basis of these nominal definitions, Aristotle develops his definitions of the essences of truth and falsehood--his "real" definitions of truth and falsehood. Aristotle's methodical exposition of his essential definitions of truth and falsehood in the Metaphysics serves as a well-developed example of how his philosophical inquiry starts with nominal definitions and ends with real definitions. Wheeler also argues for the novel claim that Aristotle defines the most fundamental kind of truth in terms of accurate measurement. Aristotle's metrical conception of truth serves as the theoretical basis for specifying the truth conditions of various assertions, for identifying the sorts of beings implicated in these truth conditions, and for explaining the nature of approximate truth and falsehood. Far from offering us a minimal account of truth, Wheeler shows how Aristotle offers us a sophisticated and metrical theory of truth. (shrink)

There is considerable likelihood that Gottlob Frege began writing his Foundations of Arithmetic with the expectation that he could introduce his numbers, not with sets, but through some algebraic techniques borrowed from earlier writers of the Gottingen school. These rewriting techniques, had they worked, would have required strong philosophical justification provided by Frege's celebrated "context principle," which otherwise serves little evident purpose in the published Foundations.

The ability to engage in reflexive thought—in thought about thought or about other mental states more generally—is regarded as a complex intellectual achievement that is beyond the capacities of most nonhuman animals. To the extent that reflexive thought capacities are believed necessary for the possession of many other psychological states or capacities, including consciousness, belief, emotion, and empathy, the inability of animals to engage in reflexive thought calls into question their other psychological abilities. This chapter attacks the idea that reflexive (...) thought is required in this pervasive way and holds that supposing that it is derives from a tendency among philosophers and scientists toward overcomplication. Against this tendency, it recommends an aponoian framework, from apó, “away from” and noûs, “intelligence” or “thought,” arguing that seemingly complex psychological abilities are often not as complex as they seem, and do not require the ability to engage in reflexive thought. (shrink)

Philosophers have come to distinguish between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ kinds of reasons for belief, intention, and other attitudes. Several theories about the nature of this distinction have been offered, by far the most prevalent of which is the idea that it is, at bottom, the distinction between what are known as ‘object-given’ and ‘state-given’ reasons. This paper argues that the object-given/state-given theory vastly overgeneralizes on a small set of data points, and in particular that any adequate account of the distinction (...) between the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ kinds of reason must allow state-given reasons to be of the right kind. The paper has three main goals, corresponding to its three main parts. In part 1 I set up the problem by introducing the right-kind/wrong-kind distinction, the object-given/state-given distinction, and the object-given/state-given theory, according to which the former distinction simply amounts to the latter. Part 2 presents the main argument of the paper: I argue against the object-given/state-given theory by showing that all of the earmarks of the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ kinds of reason apply to reasons not to intend and not to believe, but that these cases can’t be captured by the object-given/state-given theory. Finally, in part 3 I use these arguments to motivate and explore a more general hypothesis about the rightkind/wrong-kind distinction, and explore some of the consequences of rejecting the object-given/stategiven theory. (shrink)

In a context where individuals are increasingly more sensitive to corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and where mobilization of savings for the energy transition is essential, our article is the first to study the drivers of online green bank adoption. By analyzing 1075 questionnaires from a panel of French individuals in charge of financial decisions in their households, we show that altruism and green consumption values are significant drivers of individuals' green banking adoption and reveal that willingness to adopt a (...) green bank is mediated by the preference for green savings. These results extend the nascent literature dealing with the link between responsible consumption and saving behaviors. Briefly speaking, green banks (and associated savings products) have the potential to enable households to express their consumption values through their investments. That said, our results suggest that households' financial well-being and financial literacy can be barriers to the mobilization of green savings. Our results also demonstrate the significant influence of information system variables, such as personal innovativeness and trust, on willingness to adopt green banking. By shedding light on the drivers of individuals' green bank adoption, our results provide valuable insights for the banking industry. (shrink)

Several authors have recently endorsed the thesis that there is what has been called pragmatic encroachment on knowledge—in other words, that two people who are in the same situation with respect to truth-related factors may differ in whether they know something, due to a difference in their practical circumstances. This paper aims not to defend this thesis, but to explore how it could be true. What I aim to do, is to show how practical factors could play a role in (...) defeating knowledge by defeating epistemic rationality—the very kind of rationality that is entailed by knowledge, and in which Pascalian considerations do not play any role—even though epistemic rationality consists in having adequate evidence. (shrink)

In this essay, I attempt to interpret the educational philosophy of John Dewey in a way that accomplishes two goals. The first of these is to avoid any reference to Dewey as a propagator of a particular scientific method or to any of the individualist and cognitivist ideas that is sometimes associated with him. Secondly, I want to overcome the tendency to interpret Dewey as a naturalist by looking at his concept of intelligence. It is argued that ‘intelligent experience’ is (...) the basic concept of education. I suggest how this concept should be understood. I propose to look at it as an interplay between the faculties of imagination and judgment. (shrink)

It is time to bring the rich resources of these traditions into the contemporary debate about the nature of self. This volume is the first of its kind.

In this essay, I attempt to interpret the educational philosophy of John Dewey in a way that accomplishes two goals. The first of these is to avoid any reference to Dewey as a propagator of a particular scientific method or to any of the individualist and cognitivist ideas that is sometimes associated with him. Secondly, I want to overcome the tendency to interpret Dewey as a naturalist by looking at his concept of intelligence. It is argued that ‘intelligent experience’ is (...) the basic concept of education. I suggest how this concept should be understood. I propose to look at it as an interplay between the faculties of imagination and judgment. (shrink)

Intentions matter. They have some kind of normative impact on our agency. Something goes wrong when an agent intends some end and fails to carry out the means she believes to be necessary for it, and something goes right when, intending the end, she adopts the means she thinks are required. This has even been claimed to be one of the only uncontroversial truths in ethical theory. But not only is there widespread disagreement about why this is so, there is (...) widespread disagreement about in what sense it is so. In this paper I explore an underdeveloped answer to the question of in what sense it is so, and argue that resolving an apparent difficulty with this view leads to an attractive picture about why it is so. (shrink)

Moral discourse allows for speakers to disagree in many ways: about right and wrong acts, about moral theory, about the rational and conative significance of moral failings. Yet speakers’ eccentricities do not prevent them from engaging in moral conversation or from having (genuine, not equivocal) moral disagreement. Thus differences between speakers are compatible with possession of moral concepts. This paper examines various kinds of moral disagreements and argues that they provide evidence against conceptual-role and informational atomist approaches to understanding our (...) moral concepts. Conceptual role approaches fail because they cannot account for shared concepts among speakers with different commitments to the practical and conative ramifications of moral judgments. Informational atomist views fail because speakers need not be locked on to the same moral properties to share moral concepts. (shrink)

In the 1960s, Peter Geach and John Searle independently posed an important objection to the wide class of 'noncognitivist' metaethical views that had at that time been dominant and widely defended for a quarter of a century. The problems raised by that objection have come to be known in the literature as the Frege-Geach Problem, because of Geach's attribution of the objection to Frege's distinction between content and assertoric force, and the problem has since occupied a great deal of the (...) attention both of defenders of broadly noncognitivist views, and of their critics. In this article I explain Geach and Searle's historical objections, and put the subsequent discussion into dialectical context, paying some attention to the developments along the way and how they have enhanced our overall understanding of the problem. The article covers a lot of territory, so we will only be able to see the highlights, along the way. For further reading, see the Works Cited. (shrink)

This paper is a survey of recent ‘hybrid’ approaches to metaethics, according to which moral sentences, in some sense or other, express both beliefs and desires. I try to show what kinds of theoretical issues come up at the different choice points we encounter in developing such a view, to raise some problems and explain where they come from, and to begin to get a sense for what the payoff of such views can be, and what they will need to (...) do in order to earn that payoff. (shrink)

In this essay it is argued that the educational philosophy of John Dewey gains in depth and importance by being related to his philosophy of nature, his metaphysics. The result is that any experiental process is situated inside an event, an existence, a thing, and I try to interpret this “thing” as schools or major cultural events such as the French revolution. This basic view is correlated to Dewey’s concept of transaction, of experience and finally, it is related to a (...) discussion of methods in education. (shrink)

Allow me to rehearse a familiar scenario. We all know that which ends you have has something to do with what you ought to do. If Ronnie is keen on dancing but Bradley can’t stand it, then the fact that there will be dancing at the party tonight affects what Ronnie and Bradley ought to do in different ways. In short, (HI) you ought, if you have the end, to take the means. But now trouble looms: what if you have (...) dreadful, murderous ends? Ought you to take the means to them? Seemingly not. But fortunately, an assumption made by deontic logics1 comes to the rescue. Since ‘‘ought’’, according to this assumption, is a sentential operator, HI must really be ambiguous. It could be read either as (Narrow) You have the end ! O(you take the means) or as (Wide) O(you have the end ! you take the means). Now if Narrow is true, then you really ought to take the means to your murderous ends. But this doesn’t follow from Wide. All that follows from Wide is that you ought to either take the means to these ends or else give them up. Conclusions: (1) Since HI is on some reading true, but Narrow isn’t, Wide is true. (2) Wide accounts for the relationship between your ends and what you ought to do. This elegant scenario repeats itself in many other domains in which it seems like something can have a bearing on what some particular agent ought to do. Does what you know affect what you ought to do? Do your beliefs about what you ought to do affect what you ought to do? Do your promises affect what you ought to do? Do your beliefs affect what you ought to believe? On each of these counts, the intuitive answer is ‘‘yes’’. And so each of these questions leaves something for the moral philosopher or the epistemologist to investigate. On each count, it seems that what we all know, is that (Account) you ought, if p, to do A. But on each count, the Narrow-scope reading of the ‘‘ought’’ in this claim yields unintuitive consequences. So since Account is true, it must be true on the Wide-scope reading.. (shrink)

Stereological techniques allow biologists to create quantitative, three-dimensional descriptions of biological structures from two- dimensional images of tissue viewed under the microscope. For example, they can accurately estimate the size of a particular organelle, the total length of a mass of capillaries, or the number of neurons or synapses in a particular region of the brain. This book provides a practical guide to designing and critically evaluating stereological studies of the nervous system and other tissues. It explains the basic concepts (...) behind design-based stereology and how to get started. Also included are detailed descriptions of how to prepare tissue appropriately, perform pilot studies and decide on the appropriate sampling strategy, and account for phenomena such as tissue shrinkage. Numerous examples of applications of stereological methods that are applicable to studies of the central system and a wide variety of other tissues are explained. The book is therefore essential reading for neurobiologists and cell biologists interested in generating accurate representations of cell and tissue architecture. (shrink)

In much theory there is a tendency to place thought above action, or the opposite, action over thought. The consequence of the first option is that philosophy or scientific evidence gains the upper hand in educational thinking. The consequence of the second view is that pragmatism and relativism become the dominant features. This article discusses how different branches of the Aristotelian tradition can mediate between these two views. I argue, contrary to some other Aristotelian approaches, that thinking and action are (...) both separated and yet prerequisites for each other and point to some educational consequences of this way of thinking. To build this argument I draw on selected aspects of the philosophy of Hanna Arendt, Leo Strauss and John Dewey. (shrink)

It is now generally understood that constraints play an important role in commonsense moral thinking and generally accepted that they cannot be accommodated by ordinary, traditional consequentialism. Some have seen this as the most conclusive evidence that consequentialism is hopelessly wrong,1 while others have seen it as the most conclusive evidence that moral common sense is hopelessly paradoxical.2 Fortunately, or so it is widely thought, in the last twenty-five years a new research program, that of Agent-Relative Teleology, has come to (...) the rescue on all sides. While consequentialism says that every agent ought always to do that action that will bring about the most good, according to Agent- Relative Teleology. (shrink)

Particularists in ethics emphasize that the normative is holistic, and invite us to infer with them that it therefore defies generalization. This has been supposed to present an obstacle to traditional moral theorizing, to have striking implications for moral epistemology and moral deliberation, and to rule out reductive theories of the normative, making it a bold and important thesis across the areas of normative theory, moral epistemology, moral psychology, and normative metaphysics. Though particularists emphasize the importance of the holism of (...) the normative, however, it is not something that they have been able to explain. In this paper I’ll show how to use a small number of simple and, I’ll argue, independently compelling assumptions in order to both predict and explain the holistic features of the normative with respect to the non-normative. The basic idea of the paper is simple. It is that normative claims are holistic because they are general, rather than because they defy generalization. (shrink)

Expressivists have a problem with negation. The problem is that they have not, to date, been able to explain why ‘murdering is wrong’ and ‘murdering is not wrong’ are inconsistent sentences. In this paper, I explain the nature of the problem, and why the best efforts of Gibbard, Dreier, and Horgan and Timmons don’t solve it. Then I show how to diagnose where the problem comes from, and consequently how it is possible for expressivists to solve it. Expressivists should accept (...) this solution, I argue, because it is demonstrably the only way of avoiding the problem, and because it generalizes. Once we see how to solve the negation problem, I show, it becomes easy to state a constructive, compositional expressivist semantics for a purely normative language with the expressive power of propositional logic, in which we can for the first time give explanatory, formally adequate expressivist accounts of logical inconsistency, logical entailment, and logical validity. As a corollary, I give what I take to be the first real expressivist explanation of why Geach’s original moral modus ponens argument is genuinely logically valid. This proves that the problem with expressivism cannot be that it can’t account for the logical properties of complex normative sentences. But it does not show that the same solution can work for a language with both normative and descriptive predicates, let alone that expressivists are able to deal with more complex linguistic constructions like tense, modals, or even quantifiers. In the final section, I show what kind of constraints the solution offered here would place expressivists under, in answering these further questions. (shrink)

It doesn’t seem possible to be a realist about the traditional Christian God while claiming to be able to reduce God talk in naturalistically acceptable terms. Reduction, in this case, seems obviously eliminativist. Many philosophers seem to think that the same is true of the normative—that reductive “realists” about the normative are not really realists about the normative at all, or at least, only in some attenuated sense. This paper takes on the challenge of articulating what it is that makes (...) reductive theological realism look hopeless, with the aim of explaining why we should think that the normative is relevantly different. Although it follows from my diagnosis that reductivists have their work cut out for them, I find nothing which suggests that the prospects for a successful reductive realism about the normative are in any way diminished—particularly for reductive views about reasons. Even reductivists, I argue, can at least aspire to a realism that is robust. (shrink)

Expressivism’s central idea is that normative sentences bear the same relation to non-cognitive attitudes that ordinary descriptive sentences bear to beliefs: the expression relation. Allan Gibbard teIls us that “that words express judgments will be accepted by almost everyone” - the distinctive contribution of expressivism, his claim goes, is only a view about what kind of judgments words express. But not every account of the expression relation is equally suitable for the expressivist’s purposes. In fact, what I argue in this (...) paper, considering four possible accounts of expression, is that how suitable each account is for the expressivist’s purpose varies in proportion to how controversial it is. So Gibbard is wrong - if expression is to get expressivism off the ground, then it will be enormously controversial whether words do express judgments. And thus expressivism is committed to strong claims about the semantics of non-normative language. (shrink)

The “therapeutic obligation” is a physician’s duty to provide his patients with what he believes is the best available treatment. We begin by discussing some prominent formulations of the obligation before raising two related considerations against those formulations. First, they do not make sense of cases where doctors are permitted to provide suboptimal care. Second, they give incorrect results in cases where doctors are choosing treatments in challenging epistemic environments. We then propose and defend an account of the therapeutic obligation (...) that solves the problems that undermined previous efforts at formulating the TO. We conclude by considering how apparent problems with our proposal actually rest on difficulties with informed consent. (shrink)

This article presents a discussion of how postmodernist, poststructuralist and critical educational thinking relate to different theories of power. I argue that both Critical Theory and some poststructuralist ideas base themselves on a concept of power borrowed from a modernist tradition. I argue as well that we are better off combining a postmodern idea of education with a postmodern idea of power. To this end the concept of power presented by the works of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe is introduced. (...) This concept controverts a number of major educational concepts, i.e. concepts such as causality, autonomy, subjectivity and originality. In other words, it allows us to take a fresh look at old concepts. Finally, I relate the discussion to a number of recent theories of learning. (shrink)

Socrates provides an argument at the end of the Apology that he believes gives hope that death is a blessing. This argument, grounded on the claim that death is one of two things, has been the subject of much derision and some recent defense. In this essay, I build on the work of other sympathetic commentators to show that Socrates' argument, when taken in context, not only makes good sense, but unifies Socrates' speech into a cohesive exhortation toward virtue.