This essay makes an analysis of the process of technical innovation in modern society from the point of view of critical theory. It argues that the dominant ideology uses the functional operation of technology to reinforce different ways of alienation and isolation against human freedom.

The core of the problem discussed in this paper is the following: the Church-Turing Thesis states that Turing Machines formally explicate the intuitive concept of computability. The description of Turing Machines requires description of the notation used for the input and for the output. Providing a general definition of notations acceptable in the process of computations causes problems. This is because a notation, or an encoding suitable for a computation, has to be computable. Yet, using the concept of computation, in (...) a definition of a notation, which will be further used in a definition of the concept of computation yields an obvious vicious circle. The circularity of this definition causes trouble in distinguishing on the theoretical level, what is an acceptable notation from what is not an acceptable notation, or as it is usually referred to in the literature, “deviant encodings”. Deviant encodings appear explicitly in discussions about what is an adequate or correct conceptual analysis of the concept of computation. In this paper, I focus on philosophical examples where the phenomenon appears implicitly, in a “disguised” version. In particular, I present its use in the analysis of the concept of natural number. I also point at additional phenomena related to deviant encodings: conceptual fixed points and apparent “computability” of uncomputable functions. In parallel, I develop the idea that Carnapian explications provide a much more adequate framework for understanding the concept of computation, than the classical philosophical analysis. (shrink)

Claudia Blöser has recently proposed that Kant’s duty to be forgiving is grounded on the need to be relieved from the burden of our moral guilt, a need we have in virtue of our morally fallible nature, irrespectively of whether we have repented. I argue that Blöser's proposal does not fit well with certain central aspects of Kant’s views on moral guilt. For Kant, moral guilt is a complex phenomenon, that has both an intellectual and an affective aspect. I argue (...) that it is not even possible for us to fully overcome our intellectual guilt, and to the extent that it is possible to ameliorate our felt guilt, this is largely a matter of self-forgiveness. However, self-forgiveness is only appropriate when there is repentance for the wrongful action and rejection of its underlying immoral maxim by the wrongdoer as part of a project of moral transformation. I offer an alternative account of the human need for forgiveness, an account that makes forgiveness conditional on repentance. (shrink)

La figura de la bruxa, desde su origen histórico como depositaria de saberes y prácticas tradicionales hasta su revitalización en el movimiento neorrural contemporáneo, representa un enclave de gran significación cultural y un ejemplo paradigmático de la feminidad. Este artículo analiza la tríada cíclica y transformativa tierra-vida-muerte como punto interseccional en el que se sitúa la bruxa en la ruralidad. A través de entrevistas con mujeres (neor)rurales que se identifican con esta figura, desvelamos su importante labor social y el legado (...) que deja en las comunidades campesinas como agente de cambio político, ecologista y feminista. La bruxa renace, pues, como una identidad rebelde y reivindicativa, desafiante del discurso hegemónico y luchadora por la diversidad y la simbiosis con la naturaleza. Este estudio propone (re)consideraciones que invitan a no estigmatizar los márgenes ni a sus habitantes, a deconstruir los discursos normativos y a redefinir los marcos de sentido y significado en los que clasificamos el conocimiento y a sus sujetos. En definitiva, la bruxa y su contexto rural se erigen como símbolos de diversidad, pluralidad y (trans)diferencia, fundamentales en la búsqueda de una sociedad más inclusiva y justa. (shrink)

In this article, the author describes sweeping changes in the gender system and offers explanations for why change has been uneven. Because the devaluation of activities done by women has changed little, women have had strong incentive to enter male jobs, but men have had little incentive to take on female activities or jobs. The gender egalitarianism that gained traction was the notion that women should have access to upward mobility and to all areas of schooling and jobs. But persistent (...) gender essentialism means that most people follow gender-typical paths except when upward mobility is impossible otherwise. Middle-class women entered managerial and professional jobs more than working-class women integrated blue-collar jobs because the latter were able to move up while choosing a “female” occupation; many mothers of middle-class women were already in the highest-status female occupations. The author also notes a number of gender-egalitarian trends that have stalled. (shrink)

The present paper discusses the statute of Socrates’ image in The birth of tragedy. From the hypothesis that it is unsatisfactory to treat Socrates only as Nietzsche’s antipode, as supported by a large number of interpreters, I develop the thesis according to which Socrates is a kind of magnifying glass, by means of which the philosopher analyses the beginning and the modern unfolding of western culture. Besides, and mainly, I demonstrate that the richness of antagonisms deliberately used by Nietzsche to (...) analyze Socrates’ images indicates the one of his first conceptions of the philosophical creation itself. (shrink)

In this paper, I present two presumed alternative definitions of metavalidity for metainferences: Local and Global. I defend the latter, first, by arguing that it is not too weak with respect to metainference-cases, and that local metavalidity is in fact too strong with respect to types. Second, I show that although regarding metainference-schemas Local metavalidity is always stable, Global metavalidity is also stable when the language satisfies reasonable expressibility criteria.

Recent application of theories of embodied or grounded cognition to the recognition and interpretation of facial expression of emotion has led to an explosion of research in psychology and the neurosciences. However, despite the accelerating number of reported findings, it remains unclear how the many component processes of emotion and their neural mechanisms actually support embodied simulation. Equally unclear is what triggers the use of embodied simulation versus perceptual or conceptual strategies in determining meaning. The present article integrates behavioral research (...) from social psychology with recent research in neurosciences in order to provide coherence to the extant and future research on this topic. The roles of several of the brain's reward systems, and the amygdala, somatosensory cortices, and motor centers are examined. These are then linked to behavioral and brain research on facial mimicry and eye gaze. Articulation of the mediators and moderators of facial mimicry and gaze are particularly useful in guiding interpretation of relevant findings from neurosciences. Finally, a model of the processing of the smile, the most complex of the facial expressions, is presented as a means to illustrate how to advance the application of theories of embodied cognition in the study of facial expression of emotion. (shrink)

According to one of the most powerful paradigms explaining the meaning of the concept of natural number, natural numbers get a large part of their conceptual content from core cognitive abilities. Carey’s bootstrapping provides a model of the role of core cognition in the creation of mature mathematical concepts. In this paper, I conduct conceptual analyses of various theories within this paradigm, concluding that the theories based on the ability to subitize (i.e., to assess anexactquantity of the elements in a (...) collection without counting them), or on the ability to approximate quantities (i.e., to assess anapproximatequantity of the elements in a collection without counting them), or both, fail to provide a conceptual basis for bootstrapping the concept of an exact natural number. In particular, I argue that none of the existing theories explains one of the key characteristics of the natural number structure: the equidistances between successive elements of the natural numbers progression. I suggest that this regularity could be based on another innate cognitive ability, namely sensitivity to the regularity of rhythm. In the final section, I propose a new position within the core cognition paradigm, inspired by structuralist positions in philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Testimony is a source of knowledge. A speaker asserts what a hearer may therefore come to know. Assertion has widely been treated as the exclusive or at least the paradigmatic vehicle for testimony. I argue that we testify not only by asserting something, but also by taking something for granted within some other utterance. In philosophy of language, this is called semantic presupposition. The very reasons leading theorists of testimony have for thinking that assertion can be testimony are equally reasons (...) for thinking semantic presupposition can be testimony. (shrink)

Turing and Church formulated two different formal accounts of computability that turned out to be extensionally equivalent. Since the accounts refer to different properties they cannot both be adequate conceptual analyses of the concept of computability. This insight has led to a discussion concerning which account is adequate. Some authors have suggested that this philosophical debate—which shows few signs of converging on one view—can be circumvented by regarding Church’s and Turing’s theses as explications. This move opens up the possibility that (...) both accounts could be adequate, albeit in their own different ways. In this paper, I focus on the question of whether Church’s thesis can be seen as an explication in the precise Carnapian sense. Most importantly, I address an additional constraint that Carnap puts on the explicative power of axiomatic systems—an axiomatisation explicates when it is clear which mathematical entities form the theory’s intended model—and that implicitly applies to axiomatisations of recursion theory used in Church’s account of computability. To overcome this difficulty, I propose two possible clarifications of the pre-systematic concept of “computability” that can both be captured in recursion theory, and I show how both clarifications avoid an objection arising from Carnap’s constraint. (shrink)

This paper provides a description of the role of the clinical ethicist as it is generally experienced in Canada. It examines the activities of Canadian ethicists working in healthcare institutions and the way in which their work incorporates more than ethics case consultation. The Canadian Bioethics Society established a Taskforce on Working Conditions for Bioethics (hereafter referred to as the Taskforce), to make recommendations on a number of issues affecting ethicists and to develop a model role description. This essay carefully (...) assesses this model role description. (shrink)

This paper provides a description of the role of the clinical ethicist as it is generally experienced in Canada. It examines the activities of Canadian ethicists working in healthcare institutions and the way in which their work incorporates more than ethics case consultation. The Canadian Bioethics Society established a “Taskforce on Working Conditions for Bioethics” (hereafter referred to as the Taskforce), to make recommendations on a number of issues affecting ethicists and to develop a model role description. This essay carefully (...) assesses this model role description. (shrink)

There is growing evidence to support the claim that we react differently to robots than we do to other objects. In particular, we react differently to robots with which we have some form of social interaction. In this paper I critically assess the claim that, due to our tendency to become emotionally attached to social robots, permitting their harm may be damaging for society and as such we should consider introducing legislation to grant social robots rights and protect them from (...) harm. I conclude that there is little evidence to support this claim and that legislation in this area would restrict progress in areas of social care where social robots are a potentially valuable resource. (shrink)

A major obstacle for materialist theories of the mind is the problem of sensory consciousness. How could a physical brain produce conscious sensory states that exhibit the rich and luxurious qualities of red velvet, a Mozart concerto or fresh-brewed coffee? Caging the Beast: A Theory of Sensory Consciousness offers to explain what these conscious sensory states have in common, by virtue of being conscious as opposed to unconscious states. After arguing against accounts of consciousness in terms of higher-order representation of (...) mental states, the theory claims that sensory consciousness is a special way we have of representing the world. The book also introduces a way of thinking about subjectivity as separate and more fundamental than consciousness, and considers how this foundational notion can be developed into more elaborate varieties. An appendix reviews the connection between consciousness and attention with an eye toward providing a neuropsychological instantiation of the proposed theory. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present the theoretical and philosophical assumptions of the Nursing Manifesto , written by three activist scholars whose objective was to promote emancipatory nursing research, practice, and education within the dialogue and praxis of social justice. Inspired by discussions with a number of nurse philosophers at the 2008 Knowledge Conference in Boston, two of the original Manifesto authors and two colleagues discussed the need to explicate emancipatory knowing as it emerged from the Manifesto . (...) Our analysis yielded an epistemological framework based on liberation principles to advance praxis in the discipline of nursing. This paper adds to what is already known on this topic, as there is not an explicit contribution to the literature of this specific Manifesto , its significance, and utility for the discipline. While each of us have written on emancipatory knowing and social justice in a variety of works, it is in this article that we identify, as a unit of knowledge production and as a direction towards praxis, a set of critical values that arose from the emancipatory conscience-ness and intention seen in the framework of the Nursing Manifesto. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present the theoretical and philosophical assumptions of the Nursing Manifesto, written by three activist scholars whose objective was to promote emancipatory nursing research, practice, and education within the dialogue and praxis of social justice. Inspired by discussions with a number of nurse philosophers at the 2008 Knowledge Conference in Boston, two of the original Manifesto authors and two colleagues discussed the need to explicate emancipatory knowing as it emerged from the Manifesto. Our analysis (...) yielded an epistemological framework based on liberation principles to advance praxis in the discipline of nursing. This paper adds to what is already known on this topic, as there is not an explicit contribution to the literature of this specific Manifesto, its significance, and utility for the discipline. While each of us have written on emancipatory knowing and social justice in a variety of works, it is in this article that we identify, as a unit of knowledge production and as a direction towards praxis, a set of critical values that arose from the emancipatory conscience-ness and intention seen in the framework of the Nursing Manifesto. (shrink)

Forgiveness as a positive response to wrongdoing is a widespread phenomenon that plays a role in the moral lives of most persons. Surprisingly, Kant has very little to say on the matter. Although Kant dedicates considerable space to discussing punishment, wrongdoing and grace, he addresses the issues of human forgiveness directly only in some short passages in the Lectures on Ethics and in one passage of the Metaphysics of Morals. As noted by Sussman, the TL passage, however, betrays some ambivalence. (...) Kant establishes a duty of virtue to be forgiving (TL, 6:460), yet he immediately warns against its excess: meek toleration of recurrent wrongs could manifest a lack of self-respect and a violation of a duty to oneself (TL, 6:461). Sussman claims that this ambivalence ultimately arises from the fact that forgiveness sits uncomfortably in Kant’s moral thought. First, forgiveness has an ‘ineluctably elective aspect’ that makes it, to a certain extent, arbitrary and dependent on particular features of the forgiver’s psychology and, as such, in tension with Kant’s central claims that human beings are autonomous agents capable of determining their own moral status. Second, according to Sussman, Kant’s moral retributivism, i.e. ‘the particular moral position that every moral wrong against another deserves punishment of the wrongdoer’ seems to be in tension with the possibility of a ‘truly redemptive forgiveness’. Moreover, forgiveness also seems to be in tension with a passage of the Religion in which Kant argues that the moral guilt from our original evil disposition cannot be understood as a debt or liability that can be compensated, erased, transferred or otherwise wiped out by others (Rel, 6:72). Thus, to the extent that forgiveness might be thought to involve the forgoing of moral guilt, it seems incompatible with Kant’s views on culpability and punishment. This chapter seeks to clarify Kant’s views on forgiveness in order to show that, although not often appreciated, personal forgiveness plays an important role in the lives of ordinary human agents as understood by Kant. In particular, I aim to show there is a conception of forgiveness available to Kant that is not incompatible with Kant’s views of punishment and culpability. In Section 1, I argue that, for Kant, far from being merely ‘elective,’ forgiveness is, under certain conditions, morally required. I provide a brief summary of an interpretation of Kant’s theory of forgiveness that I have defended in recently published work , in order to argue that Kant’s duty to be forgiving should be understood as an imperfect duty of virtue which is conditional on repentance. Kant is not ambivalent about this duty because he maintains that when the relevant conditions are not met, we have a perfect duty to ourselves not to forgive unrepentant wrongdoers. The TL passage thus identifies two different duties. In Section 2, I show that forgiveness, as conceptualised by Kant, does not require the forgoing of punishment or the overcoming of moral guilt and that this could, in fact, be seen as an attractive feature of Kant’s position. I end by offering a very brief assessment of Kant’s views. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a Fictional Dualism model of social robots. The model helps us to understand the human emotional reaction to social robots and also acts as a guide for us in determining the significance of that emotional reaction, enabling us to better define the moral and legislative rights of social robots within our society. I propose a distinctive position that allows us to accept that robots are tools, that our emotional reaction to them can be important to (...) their usefulness, and that this emotional reaction is not a direct indicator that robots deserve either moral consideration or rights. The positive framework of Fictional Dualism provides us with an understanding of what social robots are and with a plausible basis for our relationships with them as we bring them further into society. (shrink)

The main objective of this paper is to design a common background for various philosophical discussions about adequate conceptual analysis of “computation”.

Forgiveness is clearly an important aspect of our moral lives, yet surprisingly Kant, one of the most important authors in the history of Western ethics, seems to have very little to say about it. Some authors explain this omission by noting that forgiveness sits uncomfortably in Kant’s moral thought: forgiveness seems to have an ineluctably ‘elective’ aspect which makes it to a certain extent arbitrary; thus it stands in tension with Kant’s claim that agents are autonomous beings, capable of determining (...) their own moral status through rational reflection and choice. Other authors recognise that forgiveness plays a role in Kant’s philosophy but fail to appreciate the nature of this duty and misrepresent the Kantian argument in support of it. This paper argues that there is space in Kant’s philosophy for a genuine theory of forgiveness and hopes to lay the grounds for a correct interpretation of this theory. I argue that from a Kantian perspective, forgiveness is not ‘elective’ but, at least in some cases, morally required. I claim that, for Kant, we have an imperfect duty of virtue to forgive repentant wrongdoers that have embarked on a project of self-reflection and self-reform. I develop a novel argument in support of this duty by drawing on Kant’s theory of rational agency, the thesis of radical evil, Kant’s theory of moral development, and the formula of humanity. However, it must be noted that this is a conditional duty and Kant’s position also entails that absence of repentance on the part of the wrongdoer should be taken as evidence of a lack of commitment to a project of self-reflection and self-reform. In such cases, Kant claims, we have a perfect duty to ourselves not to forgive unrepentant wrongdoers. I argue that this duty should be understood as one of the duties of self-esteem, which involves the duty to respect and recognise our own dignity as rational beings. (shrink)

Stigma taints individuals with a spoiled identity and loss of status or discrimination. This article is the first to examine the stigma attached to abortion and surrogacy and consider how law may stigmatize women for failing to conform to social expectations about maternal roles. Courts should consider evidence of stigma when evaluating laws regulating abortion or surrogacy to determine whether these laws are based on impermissible gender stereotyping.

In Facing the Future, Belnap et al. reject bivalence and propose double time reference semantics to give a pragmatic response to the following assertion problem: how can we make sense of assertions about future events made at a time when the outcomes of those events are not yet determined? John MacFarlane employs the same semantics, now bolstered with a relative-truth predicate, to accommodate the following apparently conflicting intuitions regarding the truth-value of an uttered future contingent: at the moment of utterance, (...) if asked to evaluate the truth-value of the asserted future contingent one has the intuition that the assertion is neither true nor false, yet later, at the moment of the predicted event, one has the intuition that the assertion was, already, either true or false. Both MacFarlane and Belnap assume that assertions of future contingents have complete propositional content – the traditional propositional contents that, according to him ‘are the contents of assertions and beliefs’. This assumption is challenged. (shrink)

Discusses conceptual models and research findings into how affect influences non-conscious processing. Divided into two sections, the book discusses affect and perception, and affect and attention.

Although clinical ethicists are becoming more prevalent in healthcare settings, their required training and education have not been clearly delineated. Most agree that training and education are important, but their nature and delivery remain topics of debate. One option is through completion of a clinical ethics fellowship. In this paper, the first four fellows to complete a newly developed fellowship program discuss their experiences. They describe the goals, structure, participants and activities of the fellowship. They identify key elements for succeeding (...) as a clinical ethicist and sustaining a clinical ethics program. They critically reflect upon the challenges faced in the program. The one-year fellowship provided real-time clinical opportunities that helped them to develop the necessary knowledge and skills, gain insight into the role and scope of practice of clinical ethicists and hone valuable character traits. The fellowship enabled each of the fellows to assume confidently and competently a position as a clinical ethicist upon completion. (shrink)

Nostalgia is standardly assumed to be directed towards the past, to involve some salient feeling of the irretrievability of the past, and to be directed towards the memory of an event. In this paper I argue that none of these standard assumptions hold. I use a time‐traveller example to demonstrate that nostalgia is not essentially past‐directed. Once nostalgia is prised from the objective past, we can examine the other purported conditions, making space for the conclusion that the felt irretrievability of (...) the past is not the necessary feature of nostalgia that we assumed it to be. I then argue that the notion that nostalgia is directed towards the memory of an event is misguided. Finally, I distinguish two routes to nostalgia and, with this distinction in place, argue that nostalgia is neither essentially time nor place directed. Nostalgia is simply change‐directed. (shrink)

An analysis of Nicholas of Cusa’s conception of the power of judgment that shows it enables morality as well as cognition.

The aim of this paper is to investigate among a group of non-profit organizations: a) the effect of ethical leadership on volunteers’ satisfaction, affective organizational commitment and intention to stay in the same organization; b) the role played by job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between ethical leadership and volunteers’ intentions to stay in the same organization, as well as between ethical leadership and affective commitment. An anonymous questionnaire was individually administered to 198 Italian volunteers of different non-profit (...) organizations. The questionnaire contained the Ethical Leadership Scale, the Volunteers Satisfaction Index, the Affective organization Scale, as well as questions regarding the participants’ age, sex, type of work, level of education, length of their volunteer works, intention to volunteer in the following months in the same organization. The construct as well the effects of EL on volunteers is approached in light of the Social Exchange Theory and the Social Learning Theory. Structural equation models were used to test hypothesized relationships. The results confirm the role of mediation of volunteer satisfaction in the relationships between the variables studied. In particular, ethical leadership was found to be positively associated both with volunteers’ intention of staying and with their affective commitment. In the first case this relationship is fully explained by the mediation of the volunteers’ satisfaction, while the latter is explained by both direct and indirect factors. To the authors’ knowledge, this the first attempt to understand the role played by ethical leadership on volunteers’ behavior and, more in general, in the management of non-profit organizations. Findings are relevant both for practitioners and managers of non-profit organization, since they suggest the relevance of the perception of ethical leadership by volunteers, as well as for scholars, since they further deepen the knowledge on EL and its effects on the followers. Limits of the study: the questionnaire was administered only among a group of non-statistical sample of volunteers. Furthermore, the study reached only volunteers from Italian non-profit organization. (shrink)

Philosophical theories of memory rarely distinguish between importantly different sorts of memory: procedural, semantic and episodic. I argue for a temporal representation theory to explain the unique characteristic of episodic memory as the only form of conscious memory. A careful distinction between implicit and explicit representation shows how the past figures in memory. In procedural and semantic memory, the influence of the past is implicit by which I mean that the past experience is used but not represented in the skill (...) or knowledge. Episodic memory, in contrast, depends on representing a past experience as past. On a temporal representation theory of consciousness, a conscious state represents the present moment, and in the case of episodic memory, it includes a representation of past experience. The embedded account of the ‘feeling of pastness’ takes past experience to be part of the explicit content of a conscious state. An episodic memory is a representation of the present that includes a representation of the past. Whereas a higher-order theory of consciousness can give no reason why only episodic memories are conscious, a temporal theory explains why episodic memories are both higher-order and conscious. Finally, I consider the essential role of episodic memory in the formation of a temporally extended self. The demands of a social environment motivate development of an ability to track the mental states of others and oneself over time. By incorporating past experience (and future experience) into the present, episodic memory extends experience in time to form the sense of self. Through a careful examination of the function of temporal representation, we can see why the past is not consciously represented in procedural and semantic memory and the value of consciously representing the past in episodic memory. (shrink)

Images abound of women throughout the ages engaging in various activities. But why are there so few representations of childbirth in visual art? Feminist artist Judy Chicago once suggested that depictions of women giving birth do not commonly occur in Western culture but can be found in other contexts such as pre-Columbian art or societies previously considered "primitive." Chicago's own exploration of the theme resulted in the creation of The Birth Project (1980-85): an unprecedented series of eighty handcrafted works of (...) art created in a variety of needlework techniques by more than 130 artisans that celebrate the experience of birth and a woman's transformation into motherhood. But why is The Birth Project an aberration from today's norm? What are the reasons that childbirth remains a taboo subject in our visual culture? Why is the birthing experience--so pervasive for women--so infrequently celebrated, even by female artists? (shrink)

In ‘Human Fallibility and the Need for Forgiveness’, Claudia Blöser has proposed a Kantian account of our reasons to forgive that situates our moral fallibility as their ultimate ground. Blöser argues that Kant’s duty to be forgiving is grounded on the need to be relieved from the burden of our moral failure, a need that we all have in virtue of our moral fallible nature, regardless of whether or not we have repented. Blöser claims that Kant’s proposal yields a plausible (...) account of the normative status of forgiveness. Kant classifies the duty to be forgiving as a wide duty of virtue, and according to Blöser, this means that Kantian forgiveness is elective in the sense that forgiveness is good in general but without being obligatory in each particular case. In the course of presenting her own reconstruction of Kant’s account, Blöser also objects to some aspects of an interpretation of Kant’s theory of forgiveness which I had previously defended in my paper ‘Forgiveness and Moral Development’. Although there are a lot of points of agreement between our interpretations, the aim of this article is to highlight four key points of disagreement. These issues are worth discussing because they have implications not only for a plausible interpretation of a recognisable Kantian account of forgiveness but also for wider debates in the contemporary literature on forgiveness. First, I show that Kant is not committed to a form of weak situationism as suggested by Blöser and that Kant’s grounding of the duty to be forgiving does not appeal to moral luck. Second, I argue that although Kant’s duty to be forgiving is elective in one sense of the term, it is not elective in another important sense of the term, and that it is in fact better not to interpret Kantian imperfect duties as being elective. Third, I show that awareness of moral fallibility per se does not provide a morally appropriate ground for forgiveness and offer an alternative reconstruction of Kant’s account- in which fallibility plays a role, but it is not the main reason to forgive. Finally, I argue that Blöser’s account of the need to be forgiven is not recognisable Kantian because, from a Kantian perspective, repentance is a necessary condition for the desirability and, in fact, the very possibility of ameliorating our own guilt. (shrink)

Most literature on vagueness deals with the phenomenon as applied to predicates. On the contrary, even the idea of vague connectives seems to be taken as an oxymoron. The goal of this article is to propose an understanding of vague logical connectives based on vague quantifiers. The main idea is that the phenomenon of vagueness translates to connectives in terms of the property of Abnormality. I also argue that Prior’s Tonk can, according to this approach, be considered a vague connective. (...) In order to do so, I provide a sound and complete interpretation for it, based on Strict-Tolerant semantics, in which Tonk has a non-normal truth-table. (shrink)