From a cultural-historical perspective, the impairments of a child with a condition like cerebral palsy have biological origins, but the disability evolves from the mismatch between the child and his/her social conditions for development. One example of this dialectical production of disability can be seen in the challenge of the 21st-century welfare state: How to provide economically feasible health and educational services anchored in evidence-based methods and practices. Standardized social service pathways for children with CP illustrates an attempt to address (...) this challenge and moderate the mismatch by acting in the intersection between impairment and society. The aim of the article is to analyze challenges in the practice of connecting research and practice-based knowledge with societal practices in order to diminish the disability of the child. A multidisciplinary group assembled by the Danish National Board of Social Services engaged in a practice of developing a guideline for a social service pathway. Agendas and minutes from their series of meetings provide insight in how the work evolved through conflictual discussions. Rather than a neutral transformation of knowledge into practice, the practice revealed itself as a value-laden process in which the needs of the child and family were at times decentred and the focus shifted to how social services could be realised in complex, structured social practices. While the group managed to overcome several conflicts and agree of a social service pathway, a socio-economic analysis was unable to argue for the comprehensive social service pathway as an economic sound choice for municipal decision-makers. The conflict between the welfare ideology and economic feasibility remains unresolved and can be expected to limit the extent that impairments can be remedied and the mismatch decreased. Overcoming or diminishing the mismatch might never become economic worthwhile. As the political pendulum oscillates between welfare and economic concerns, the experience of disability will likewise diminish or expand. (shrink)

How should one react when one has a belief, but knows that other people—who have roughly the same evidence as one has, and seem roughly as likely to react to it correctly—disagree? This paper argues that the disagreement of other competent inquirers often requires one to be much less confident in one’s opinions than one would otherwise be.

This paper concentrates on a particular sort of case where it’s plausible that epistemic requirements can conflict: cases where an agent’s higher-order evidence supports doubting her reliability in reacting to her ordinary evidence. Conflicting epistemic requirements can be seen as generating epistemic dilemmas. The paper examines two ways that people have sought to recognize conflicting requirements without allowing them to generate epistemic dilemmas: separating epistemic norms into two different varieties, and positing rational indeterminacy in cases where principles conflict. It argues (...) that these views incur costs, and that the sense in which they avoid dilemmas does not gain them an advantage over a view that simply recognizes dilemmas as a natural outgrowth of agents’ rational reflection on their own thinking. (shrink)

In this chapter, we ask three questions about pedophilia: Is it immoral to be a pedophile? Is it immoral for pedophiles to seek out sexual contact with children? Is it immoral for pedophiles to satisfy their sexual preferences by using computer-generated graphics, sex dolls, and/or sex robots that mimic children? We argue that it is not immoral to be a pedophile, it is immoral for pedophiles to seek out sexual contact with children because of the expected harm to children, and (...) it is morally permissible for pedophiles to satisfy their sexual preferences in ways that do not involve any real children. (shrink)

Within the past ten years, the discussion of the nature of folk psychology and its role in explaining behavior and thought has become central to the philosophy of mind. However, no comprehensive account of the contemporary debate or collection of the works that make up this debate has yet been available. Intending to fill this gap, this volume begins with the crucial background for the contemporary debate and proceeds with a broad range of responses to and developments of these works (...) -- from those who argue that "folk theory" is a misnomer to those who regard folk theory as legitimately explanatory and necessary for any adequate account of human behavior. Intended for courses in the philosophy of mind, psychology, and science, as well as anthropology and social psychology, this anthology is also of great value in courses focusing on folk models, eliminative materialism, explanation, psychological theory, and -- in particular -- intentional psychology. It is accessible to both graduate students and upper-division undergraduate students of philosophy and psychology as well as researchers. As an aid to students, a thorough discussion of the field and the articles in the anthology is provided in the introduction; as an aid to researchers, a complete bibliography is also provided. (shrink)

Logic isn’t special. Its theories are continuous with science; its method continuous with scientific method. Logic isn’t a priori, nor are its truths analytic truths. Logical theories are revisable, and if they are revised, they are revised on the same grounds as scientific theories. These are the tenets of anti-exceptionalism about logic. The position is most famously defended by Quine, but has more recent advocates in Maddy, Priest, Russell, and Williamson. Although these authors agree on many methodological issues about logic, (...) they disagree about which logic anti-exceptionalism supports. Williamson uses an anti-exceptionalist argument to defend classical logic, while Priest claims that his anti-exceptionalism supports nonclassical logic. This paper argues that the disagreement is due to a difference in how the parties understand logical theories. Once we reject Williamson’s deflationary account of logical theories, the argument for classical logic is undercut. Instead an alternative account of logical theories is offered, on which logical pluralism is a plausible supplement to anti-exceptionalism. (shrink)

Introduction to this special issue of The Australasian Journal of Logic.

The paper presents a revised view of quantum mechanics centered on the notion (“genuine fortuitousness”) that the click in a counter is a totally lawless event, which comes by itself. A crucial point is the distinction between events on the spacetime scene and the content of the symbolic algorism. A revised conception of matrix variables emerges, by which such a variable, as part of a whole, does not have a value, under any circumstance. This conception is at variance with that (...) of indeterminate variables. A matrix variable not having a value does not enter spacetime and is not a measurable quantity, but manifests itself by a click in a counter with the remarkable property of having an onset, a beginning, from which the click develops. The individual click with its immense complexity is unique and lawless, even beyond probability. The notion of probability only applies to clicks in low resolution, and the completeness of a probabilistic theory is thereby seen in a new perspective. The genuinely fortuitous click is not produced by the impact of a particle, nor caused by an event in the source prior to the click in the counter. Indeed, there are no particles on the spacetime scene. The theory is thereby liberated from notions, which go with particles having indeterminate variables, and which have given to quantum mechanics the image of an unfathomable theory. With no particle as intermediary, the connection between source and detector is non-local, as is the entire theory, which deals exclusively with distributions of clicks. The locality permeating quantum mechanics is a symbolic one. The wave function enters in the sole role of encoding the probability distributions of clicks. The quest to understand the occurrence of the click in terms of the evolution of the wave function loses its meaning. However, click distributions in low resolution can be analyzed in terms of the connection between click distributions for different sets of counters, as given by the wave function. With increasing resolution, the probabilities, and the wave function, gradually lose significance, whereby the onset remains beyond reach. Thus, the downward path from events on the spacetime scene does not extend beyond the onset. The notion that quantum mechanics deals with particles (or fields) is rooted in the historical evolution but appears unable to accomodate genuine fortuitousness. The latter concept is given its due place by fully accepting the abstract nature of the matrix variables. (shrink)

Anti-exceptionalism about logic is the Quinean view that logical theories have no special epistemological status, in particular, they are not self-evident or justified a priori. Instead, logical theories are continuous with scientific theories, and knowledge about logic is as hard-earned as knowledge of physics, economics, and chemistry. Once we reject apriorism about logic, however, we need an alternative account of how logical theories are justified and revised. A number of authors have recently argued that logical theories are justified by abductive (...) argument (e.g. Gillian Russell, Graham Priest, Timothy Williamson). This paper explores one crucial question about the abductive strategy: what counts as evidence for a logical theory? I develop three accounts of evidential confirmation that an anti-exceptionalist can accept: (1) intuitions about validity, (2) the Quine-Williamson account, and (3) indispensability arguments. I argue, against the received view, that none of the evidential sources support classical logic. (shrink)

Oregon is the only state in the United States where a physician may legally prescribe a lethal dose of barbiturate for a patient intending suicide. The Oregon Death with Dignity Act was passed by voters in 1994 and came into effect after much legal wrangling in October of 1997. At the same time, a cabinetmaker named Pat Matheny was struggling with progressive weakness from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. I met with Pat and his family for a lengthy interview in (...) October 1998 in Coos Bay, Oregon, for a television news report on his decision to get a lethal prescription. Below is an extract from that interview. On the day this introduction was written, 10 March 1999, Pat took the prescribed lethal overdose of barbiturates and died at home. His illness was taking his voice, he could not move his hands or legs, and breathing was becoming very difficult. His mother told me he knew that was for him. (shrink)

Devoted to making available, in English, contributions to philosophical comprehension originating in German, Contemporary German Philosophy will be a yearbook following volumes reviewing the 1960-80 period. CGP's aim is in no sense to displace the German language as a medium for philosophical discourse, but rather to provide for the reader who is more at home in English some points of access to such of the more pivotal recent and contemporary contributions originating in German as can lend themselves to translation. In (...) the selection of German-language articles for translation, some preference is given to authors whose work for the most part has not yet appeared in English. Original articles by German scholars also will be featured, and there will be reviews and comments by a worldwide body of scholars concerned with German philosophical traditions. CGP is open to the full range of philosophical interests and orientations to which philosophy in the German language and tradition contributes. It is open as well to items which consider the bearings of insights within such allied fields as mathematics, political science, historiography, and linguistics upon philosophical issues. The term "contemporary" is intended to refer, not to any particular style of doing philosophy, but to philosophical literature of recent origin. (shrink)

In Ludwig Wittgenstein's writings, ethics takes a central place in his thinking. This element investigates his engagement with ethics in both early and later thinking. Starting from the remarks on ethics in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the framing of these remarks, it presents two influential approaches to Tractarian ethics, before it develops a coherent reading of ethics in the early thinking, focusing on ethical silence and the relationship notions of world and the philosophical 'I'. The reading of 'A Lecture on (...) Ethics' focuses on the critique of ethical theory and the personal dimension of ethics, two themes also running through Wittgenstein's later thinking. It considers Wittgenstein's later ethical investigations, of ethical examples, ethically relevant language uses of language and the connections between reflections on ethics and living. It also considers the role of the other in Wittgenstein's later thinking. (shrink)

This paper asks how anti-nuclear activists form collectives that are able to act collectively. It argues that shared interests and collective identities only insufficiently explain the emergence of collective action. Alternatively, the paper investigates meeting talk of German anti-nuclear groups where activists discuss proposals for collective action. Based on audio recordings, a sequential analysis of activists’ deliberations traces the transformation of vague ideas into concrete and collectively agreed to proposals. It is shown how the process by which activists reach a (...) common understanding about a particular protest activity—as something that is being talked about here and now—and the process of becoming an acting collectivity—a group that is ready to carry out this protest activity in the future—are interdependent. Activists make use of “indexicality” to introduce specifically vague proposals, enabling others to respond and contribute to the emerging proposal while group agency is suspended. At first, the authorship of proposals is minimized. Step by step, vague proposals are specified by meeting participants until a “change in footing” marks group consensus. While the group emerges as the author and principal of proposals through this process, the paper shows that implementation relies on individual principals again who take responsibility during and after the meeting. (shrink)

We argue that deliberative decision-making that is inclusive, transparent and accountable can contribute to more trustworthy and legitimate decisions on difficult ethical questions and political trade-offs during the pandemic and beyond.

Logical pluralism has been in vogue since JC Beall and Greg Restall 2006 articulated and defended a new pluralist thesis. Recent criticisms such as Priest 2006a and Field 2009 have suggested that there is a relationship between their type of logical pluralism and the meaning-variance thesis for logic. This is the claim, often associated with Quine 1970, that a change of logic entails a change of meaning. Here we explore the connection between logical pluralism and meaning-variance, both in general and (...) for Beall and Restall's theory specifically. We argue that contrary to what Beall and Restall claim, their type of pluralism is wedded to meaning-variance. We then develop an alternative form of logical pluralism that circumvents at least some forms of meaning-variance. (shrink)

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic payment system that operates as an independent currency. This paper is a philosophical investigation of the ontological constitution of Bitcoin. Using Slavoj Žižek’s ontological triad of the real, the symbolic and the imaginary, the paper distinguishes between three ideal typical theories of money: commodity theory, fiat theory, and credit theory. The constitution of Bitcoin is analysed by comparing the currency to each of these ideal types. It is argued that Bitcoin is commodity money without gold, (...) fiat money without a state, and credit money without debt. In conclusion, it is suggested that Bitcoin poses an ideological challenge to conventional forms of money in so far as it not only provokes sedimented beliefs about money but also exposes the forms of exploitation, risk and even violence inherent in the existing system of state authorized credit money. (shrink)

In this highly original study, Jerome Christensen reconstructs the career of a representative Enlightenment man of letters, David Hume. In doing so, Christensen develops a prototype for a post-structuralist biography. Christensen motivates the interplay between Hume’s texts as arguments and as symbolic acts by conceiving of Hume’s literary career as an adaptive discursive practice, the projected and performed narrative of his social life. Students and scholars of eighteenth-century English and French literature, feminist studies, political theory and history, (...) philosophy, and intellectual history will welcome this unprecedented and challenging view of David Hume and his times. (shrink)

The paper is a contribution to current debates about conspiracy theories within philosophy and cultural studies. Wittgenstein’s understanding of language is invoked to analyse the epistemological effects of designating particular questions and explanations as a ‘conspiracy theory’. It is demonstrated how such a designation relegates these questions and explanations beyond the realm of meaningful discourse. In addition, Agamben’s concept of sovereignty is applied to explore the political effects of using the concept of conspiracy theory. The exceptional epistemological status assigned to (...) alleged conspiracy theories within our prevalent paradigms of knowledge and truth is compared to the exceptional legal status assigned to individuals accused of terrorism under the War on Terror. The paper concludes by discussing the relation between conspiracy theory and ‘the paranoid style’ in contemporary politics. (shrink)

In some philosophical arguments an important role is played by the claim that certain situations differ from each other with respect to phenomenology. One class of such arguments are minimal pair arguments. These have been used to argue that there is cognitive phenomenology, that high-level properties are represented in perceptual experience, that understanding has phenomenology, and more. I argue that facts about our mental lives systematically block such arguments, reply to a range of objections, and apply my critique to some (...) examples from the literature. (shrink)

In bilateral systems for classical logic, assertion and denial occur as primitive signs on formulas. Such systems lend themselves to an inferentialist story about how truth-conditional content of connectives can be determined by inference rules. In particular, for classical logic there is a bilateral proof system which has a property that Carnap in 1943 called categoricity. We show that categorical systems can be given for any finite many-valued logic using $n$-sided sequent calculus. These systems are understood as a further development (...) of bilateralism—call it multilateralism. The overarching idea is that multilateral proof systems can incorporate the logic of a variety of denial speech acts. So against Frege we say that denial is not the negation of assertion and, with Mark Twain, that denial is more than a river in Egypt. (shrink)

ABSTRACT What do we disagree about when we disagree about logic? On the face of it, classical and nonclassical logicians disagree about the laws of logic and the nature of logical properties. Yet, sometimes the parties are accused of talking past each other. The worry is that if the parties to the dispute do not mean the same thing with ‘if’, ‘or’, and ‘not’, they fail to have genuine disagreement about the laws in question. After the work of Quine, this (...) objection against genuine disagreement about logic has been called the meaning-variance thesis. We argue that the meaning-variance thesis can be endorsed without blocking genuine disagreement. In fact, even the type of revisionism and nonapriorism championed by Quine turns out to be compatible with meaning-variance. (shrink)

In this thesis I seek to advance our understanding of what intuitions are. I argue that intuitions are experiences of a certain kind. In particular, they are experiences with representational content, and with a certain phenomenal character. -/- In Chapter 1 I identify our target and provide some important reliminaries. Intuitions are mental states, but which ones? Giving examples helps: a person has an intuition when it seems to her that torturing the innocent is wrong, or that if something is (...) red it is coloured. We can also provide an initial characterisation of the state by saying that it has representational content, often causes belief, and appears to justify belief. In addition, there is something it is like to have an intuition: intuition has a certain phenomenal character. -/- Some argue that intuition does not explain anything which cannot be explained by other mental states. One version of this view takes intuition to reduce to belief. In Chapter 2 I argue that this entails that agents are rationally criticisable in situations where we know they are not, and that such views are therefore untenable. A parallel argument shows that the corresponding approach to perception fails. This suggests a similarity in nature: both intuition and perception are experiences. -/- Others take intuition to reduce to a disposition to have a belief. In Chapter 3 I consider a line of argument against such views, find it unsuccessful, and present two new arguments. One is likely to be dialectically ineffective. The other suffers no such weakness: it shows that the proposed reduction fails. As before, the argument also applies to perception, and suggests that intuition and perception are both experiences. -/- In the remainder of the thesis I develop an account of intuition as an experience. I distinguish between content-specific and attitude-specific phenomenology, and argue that intuition lacks the former (Chapter 4), but has the latter (Chapter 5). This allows us to say what intuition is: it is is an experience with representational content and with attitude-specific phenomenology of a certain kind. -/- In Chapter 6 I put this account of intuition to use. When a person has a perceptual or intuitional experience, I argue that simply having the experience is what makes the subject justified in believing what the experience represents. Moreover, what explains that intuition and perception can justify belief in this way is precisely their phenomenal character. (shrink)

Nonclassical theories of truth have in common that they reject principles of classical logic to accommodate an unrestricted truth predicate. However, different nonclassical strategies give up different classical principles. The paper discusses one criterion we might use in theory choice when considering nonclassical rivals: the maxim of minimal mutilation.

ABSTRACTWhat do we disagree about when we disagree about logic? On the face of it, classical and nonclassical logicians disagree about the laws of logic and the nature of logical properties. Yet, s...

Rational addiction theories illustrate how absurd choice theories in economics get taken seriously as possibly true explanations and tools for welfare analysis despite being poorly interpreted, empirically unfalsifiable, and based on wildly inaccurate assumptions selectively justified by ad-hoc stories. The lack of transparency introduced by poorly anchored mathematical models, the psychological persuasiveness of stories, and the way the profession neglects relevant issues are suggested as explanations for how what we perhaps should see as displays of technical skill and ingenuity are (...) allowed to blur the lines between science and games. (shrink)

Logic, Logical connectives, Verbal disputes, Proof theory, Non-classical logic.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of the school strikes for climate, initiated in August 2018 by the Swedish student Greta Thunberg, soon to become a global social movement involving hundreds of thousands of students. I examine 10 speeches of Thunberg as recontextualizations of environmental ethical values that have been formulated within the context of United Nations. With this approach, guided by an ethical and educational interest grounded in moral education, and informed by conceptions of (...) Seyla Benhabib, this paper demonstrates how students become democratic citizens appropriating the concern for future generations as a cosmopolitan claim in a resistance to exclusions from current politics. (shrink)

"The nature of intuition and its relation to other mental faculties, particularly perception, is one of the most hotly contested debates in philosophy of mind and psychology. Do intuitions justify belief or merely dispositions to believe? Is intuition a mental state with distinctive phenomenal qualities and if so, how do these differ from normal perceptual states? Drawing on the most recent philosophical research on intuition and perception, Ole Koksvik defends the idea that intuition not only justifies belief but can play (...) a much wider role in our everyday epistemic lives than previously thought. Arguing that intuitional experience is similar to perceptual experience he develops a novel view of intuition as conscious experience. His argument involves both a close description of the kind of experience that intuition is and a defence of intuition against criticism from experimental philosophy. The picture that emerges defends intuitions not because they can be found to be true or false but because they permit us to consider the world as it is might otherwise be and are continuous with the rest of general human inquiry"--. (shrink)

This volume offers a revisionist interpretation of Paracelsus and Paracelsianism. It points to the need for a new historiographical approach to the man and his ideas, while demonstrating the value of seeing them in their totallity, as well as in their proper historical text.

'Business Ethics and Organizational Values' operates on three levels - society, organization and values. First, the dynamics of modern society are analyzed. Secondly, organizations are viewed as autopoietic systems constantly engaged in value debates with their stakeholders. Thirdly, values are placed in a business context.

ABSTRACT Norway has a complex, even paradoxical, relationship to the United Nations Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It makes considerable financial contributions to the United Nations and has strongly supported the establishment of the sustainability agenda aimed at promoting global equity and mitigating the ecological and climate crises. Norway is also a prominent petroleum-producing nation. The Norwegian position is explored using an approach that emphasizes justice and education in the sustainability agenda. Three key texts are studied. The (...) first is the objectives clause in the Education Act, the second is an address by then prime minister Erna Solberg at the annual conference of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise, and the third are educational assignments published by the Norwegian Petroleum Museum addressing sustainability and climate change. What is decisive is how specific facets of justice are emphasized in ways that detach Norway from tensions, contradictions, and dilemmas involved. (shrink)

When a person has an intuition, it seems to her that things are certain ways; to many it seems that torturing the innocent for fun is wrong, for example. When a person has an intuition, there is also something particular it is like to be her: intuitions have a characteristic phenomenal character. This article asks how the phenomenal character of intuition is related to two core core questions in the philosophy of intuition, namely: Is intuition a source of justification and (...) knowledge? and What are intuitions?. (shrink)