Praise and blame are the two currents that wend their way through writings about women from antiquity to modern times. Is woman Eve or Mary, “virtue or venom”? This unresolvable question gave rise to a debate structure that governs many texts dealing with women. Indeed, as Monique Engel observed, this structure points to an ideological impasse, a fundamental contradiction within Christian doctrine on women and marriage. One late-fourteenth-century writer who inscribes himself into this structure is Jean le Fèvre de (...) Ressons, who translated the Lamentations by the misogynist Matheolus and wrote its counterpart, the Livre de Leesce which he designed as a refutation of Matheolus. The Livre de Leesce forms part of the tradition of the praise of women, represented in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by such texts as Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, Christine de Pizan's Epistre au dieu d'amours and Le livre de la cité des dames, and Martin le Franc's Champion des dames. (shrink)

Radioactivity accompanied by ionizing radiation has always existed on the Earth, as well as in space, and so in every living tissue there are traces of radioactivity. With the discovery of the said radiation and identifying its effects on the human body, the fear of this phenomenon appeared. At high doses radiation causes serious tissue damages, while at small doses it can cause cancer and induce genetic defects. The best antidote for fear is knowledge. It is important to know the (...) margins safety of radiation for human life. As a result, the topic of radioactive contamination of the environment has now become one of the most significant. In recent years the radon problem is a subject of a wide debate of geologists, geophysicists, ecologists, physicians, specialists in radiometry, and, of course, philosophers and sociologists, since the need for assessing the potential radon danger concerns human lives, human functions in society, and human future. (shrink)

A concise, easy-to-read introduction to informal logic, "With Good Reason" offers both comprehensive coverage of informal fallacies and an abundance of engaging examples of both well-conceived and faulty arguments. A long-time favorite of both students and instructors, the text continues in its sixth edition to provide an abundance of exercises that help students identify, correct, and avoid common errors in argumentation.

What is truth? What value should we see in or attribute to it? The war over the meaning and utility of truth is at the center of contemporary philosophical debate, and its arguments have rocked the foundations of philosophical practice. In this book, the American pragmatist Richard Rorty and the French analytic philosopher Pascal Engel present their radically different perspectives on truth and its correspondence to reality. Rorty doubts that the notion of truth can be of any practical use (...) and points to the preconceptions that lie behind truth in both the intellectual and social spheres. Engel prefers a realist conception, defending the relevance and value of truth as a norm of belief and inquiry in both science and the public domain. Rorty finds more danger in using the notion of truth than in getting rid of it. Engel thinks it is important to hold on to the idea that truth is an accurate representation of reality. In Rorty's view, epistemology is an artificial construct meant to restore a function to philosophy usurped by the success of empirical science. Epistemology and ontology are false problems, and with their demise goes the Cartesian dualism of subject and object and the ancient problematic of appearance and reality. Conventional "philosophical problems," Rorty asserts, are just symptoms of the professionalism that has disfigured the discipline since the time of Kant. Engel, however, is by no means as complacent as Rorty in heralding the "end of truth," and he wages a fierce campaign against the "veriphobes" who deny its value. _What's the Use of Truth?_ is a rare opportunity to experience each side of this impassioned debate clearly and concisely. It is a subject that has profound implications not only for philosophical inquiry but also for the future study of all aspects of our culture. (shrink)

mechanism" is frequently encountered in the social science literature, but there is considerable confusion about the exact meaning of the term. The article begins by addressing the main conceptual issues. Use of this term is the hallmark of an approach that is critical of the explanatory deficits of correlational analysis and of the covering-law model, advocating instead the causal reconstruction of the processes that account for given macro-phenomena. The term "social mechanisms" should be used to refer to recurrent processes generating (...) a specific kind of outcome. Explanation of social macro-phenomena by mechanisms typically involves causal regression to lower-level elements, as stipulated by methodological individualism. While there exist a good many mechanism models to explain emergent effects of collective behavior, we lack a similarly systematic treatment of generative mechanisms in which institutions and specific kinds of structural configurations play the decisive role. Key Words: causal regression • correlational analysis • emergent effects • micro-macro processes • social mechanisms • structural determinants. (shrink)

Judges in multiple US states, such as New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, and Florida, receive a prediction of defendants’ recidivism risk, generated by the COMPAS algorithm. If judges act on these predictions, they implicitly delegate normative decisions to proprietary software, even beyond the previously documented race and age biases. Using the ProPublica dataset, we demonstrate that COMPAS predictions favor jailing over release. COMPAS is biased against defendants. We show that this bias can largely be removed. Our proposed correction increases overall (...) accuracy, and attenuates anti-black and anti-young bias. However, it also slightly increases the risk that defendants are released who commit a new crime before tried. We argue that this normative decision should not be buried in the code. The tradeoff between the interests of innocent defendants and of future victims should not only be made transparent. The algorithm should be changed such that the legislator and the courts do make this choice. (shrink)

Le sceptique nous demande " Comment sais-tu que tu as deux mains? Peut-être rêves-tu, ou es-tu trompé par quelque Malin Génie? Peut-on même définir ce que c'est que la connaissance? Va savoir! " Lui rétorquer, comme le faisaient G.E. Moore et la tradition de la philosophie du sens commun : " Mais je sais bien que j'ai deux mains! " semble à la fois une pétition de principe et une bien mauvaise réponse. Le mieux, depuis que nous avons perdu le (...) souci de fonder nos croyance sur des raisons ultimes, serait, tout simplement, de ne pas se soucier des questions du sceptique. Ce que l'on sait dépend, nous dit-on, des circonstances, et toutes nos connaissances sont faillibles. N'y a-t-il pas plutôt des savoirs, dont l'histoire nous montre combien leurs modes de validations sont variés? Ce livre entend refuser ce type de réponse contextualiste et relativiste. Il propose de revenir à la réponse de sens commun de Moore, à partir des reformulations contemporaines des raisonnements sceptiques issues de la philosophie analytique de la connaissance. Personne ne peut nous envoyer savoir quelque chose que nous ne pourrions pas savoir. De fait, nous savons, mais notre savoir n'est pas transparent : nous n'avons pas besoin de savoir que nous savons. Pour parvenir à cette réponse, il faut replacer la notion de connaissance, plutôt que celle de croyance justifiée ou rationnelle, au centre de l'épistémologie, et reformuler des questions traditionnelles comme celles de la nature de la perception, du témoignage, et de la connaissance a priori. On peut aussi reprendre le vieux projet d'une enquête sur la nature de la connaissance en général. (shrink)

Precision medicine and digital phenotyping are two prominent data-based approaches within digital medicine. While precision medicine historically used primarily genetic data to find targeted treatment options, digital phenotyping relies on the usage of big data deriving from digital devices such as smartphones, wearables and other connected devices. This paper first focusses on the aspect of data type to explore differences and similarities between precision medicine and digital phenotyping. It outlines different ways of data collection and production and the consequences thereof. (...) Second, it shows how these sorts of data influence dominant beliefs in the field: The field of precision medicine relying on the dominant understanding of ‘genetic determinism’ imported from genetics, digital phenotyping building on the logic of ‘data fundamentalism’. In the end, the analysis shows how digital data informs potentials as well as challenges of precision medicine and digital phenotyping: a better health care for individuals connected with individualisation and responsibilisation for all, with a prognosed shift from reactive to preventive medicine. Additionally, data-based approaches might facilitate epistemological and ontological redirections for the whole field of medicine that will also affect knowledge production and a reassessment of the value of different types of knowledge with all its consequences. Institutionally, it might lead to shifts in distribution of power to experts in big data related technologies, i.e. private companies. (shrink)

As COVID-19 continues to spread, a variety of COVID-19 tracking apps have been introduced to help contain the pandemic. Deployment of this technology poses serious challenges of effectiveness, technological problems and risks to privacy and equity. The ethical use of CTAs depends heavily on the protection of voluntariness. Voluntary use of CTAs implies not only the absence of a legal obligation to employ the app but also the absence of more subtle forms of coercion such as enforced exclusion from certain (...) social and work activities. The protection of individual rights to voluntary use can be enhanced through an ethics by design approach in the development of CTAs that treat the introduction of CTAs for what it is: a complete novelty that is being tested for the first time in democracies. (shrink)

First published in French, Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) was composed during his years in Brussels, when he was developing his economic views and, through confrontations with the chief leaders of the working-class movement, establishing his intellectual standing. In this classic work, which laid the foundation of ideas later developed in Capital, Marx polemicized against then premier French socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon wanted to unite the best features of such contraries as competition and monopoly. He hoped to save the (...) good features of economic institutions while eliminating the bad. Marx, however, declared that no equilibrium was possible between the antagonisms in any given economic system. Social structures were transient historical forms determined by the productive forces: "The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the stream mill, society with the industrial capitalist.". (shrink)

There is a strong interconnection between the social and environmental spheres. The efforts of monitoring and forecasting of disastrous events can illustrate benefits and threats of technicization and science. In ecophilosophy the forecasting of hazards is today extremely needed. It is not about creating theoretical unified structures or practical return to holistic harmony of a primordial man with nature. It is about, as Félix Guattari once held it, the complexity of the relationship between humans and their natural environment. Though the (...) desired maintenance of the conflict between industrial society and natural systems now seems impossible, we still can start moving towards it: theoretically, by developing eco-philosophical ideas, and practically, monitoring and forecasting catastrophes and disasters, to protect human life and health and, as eco-philosophers would say, keep land usable for human purposes. The topic of the earthquakes forecast today is more in demand than ever. (shrink)

This paper offers a contribution to ecophilosophy from the perspective of the scientific research of the environment. The problem considered in the paper deals with a specific issue of environmental risk, namely, the problem of radon ionizing radiation and the highest permissible security norms of it. This problem, now rarely discussed in ecological communities, is one of more important for humankind’s health and safe existence. The awareness of harmful and beneficial biological effects of various environmental factors is a basic step (...) towards ensuring the security of public health. The admissible norms of radon radiation are different in different countries. The article suggests possible causes of these differences and puts forward the thesis that today’s science alone is not a sufficient ground of resolving ecological problems. (shrink)

Recent developments around the sharing economy bring to the fore questions of governability and broader societal benefit—and subsequently the need to explore effective means of public governance, from nurturing, on the one hand, to restriction, on the other. As sharing is a predominately urban phenomenon in modern societies, cities around the globe have become both locus of action and central actor in the debates over the nature and organization of the sharing economy. However, cities vary substantially in the interpretation of (...) potential opportunities and challenges, as well as in their governance responses. Building on a qualitative comparative analysis of 16 leading global cities, our findings reveal four framings of the sharing economy: ‘societal endangerment,’ ‘societal enhancement,’ ‘market disruption,’ and ‘ecological transition.’ Such framings go hand in hand with patterned governance responses: although there is considerable heterogeneity in the combination of public governance strategies, we find specific configurations of framings and public governance strategies. Our work reflects the political and ethical debates on various economic, social, and moral issues related to the sharing economy, and contributes to a better understanding of the field-level institutional arrangements—a prerequisite for examining moral behavior of sharing economy organizations. (shrink)

Democracy depends on a vivid public sphere, where ideas disseminate into the public and can be discussed – and challenged - by everyone. Journalism has contributed significantly to this social mediation by reducing complexity, providing information on salient topics and (planned) political solutions. The digital transformation of the public sphere leads to new forms of media provision, distribution, and use. Journalism has struggled to adapt to the new conditions. Journalistic news values, relevant to democracy, are being replaced by ones relevant (...) to social media platforms’ attention seeking business model. We plead for a broad public debate about the ongoing platformization and about possible policies to ensure a media system that serves and strengthens democracy. (shrink)

In this paper I shall compare two models of concept formation, both inspired by basic convictions of philosophical empiricism. The first, the connectionist model, will be exemplified by Kohonen maps, and the second will be my own dynamic theory of concept formation. Both can be understood in probabilistic terms, both use a notion of convergence or stabilization in modelling how concepts are built up. Both admit destabilization of concepts and conceptual change. Both do not use a notion of representation in (...) some pregiven language, such as a language of thought or some logical language. Representation in a formal language only plays a role on the meta-level, namely within the theory about concept formation. (shrink)

The epistemological problems of unification of two distinct theories are discussed. An approach related to the work of Soviet authors (Stepin, Podgoretzky and Smorodinsky) is used and developed. The notion of ‘crossbred objects’—theoretical objects with contradictory properties which are part of the domain of application of two independent theories—is introduced which helps to describe the dynamics of revolutionary theory change. The occurrence of the cross-contradiction of two theories is reconstructed and the reductionistic and the synthetic means of its elimination are (...) proposed. The results of the methodological analysis are applied to the paradox of equivalence. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger und Hans Jantzen gehören zu den wichtigsten Vertretern der Philosophie und Kunstgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Seit den 1920er bis Ende der 1960er Jahre kritisierten sie vorherrschende, naturwissenschaftlich geprägte Auffassungen des Raums und entwickelten einen neuartigen Begriff. Dieser sogenannte künstlerische Raum sei ein freies Zusammenspiel von materiellen und immateriellen Bestandteilen, das als solches erst in der Wahrnehmung real wird. Die Autorin arbeitet dieses Verständnis heraus und stellt es in einen geistes- und zeitgeschichtlichen Kontext. Neben der Bedeutung der Bestandteile und (...) der Grenze für die Gestalt und die Wirkung des Raums kommt der des Lichts sowie Jantzens Diaphanie-Begriff besondere Aufmerksamkeit zu. Für die erörterte Raumbeschaffenheit werden Anhaltspunkte in der gotischen Kathedrale und in Werken der Bronzezeit, Dorik, Ottonik und Moderne sowie von Kindern und Laien festgestellt. Im Anschluss an zeitgenössische Theorien ergeben sich Übereinstimmungen mit dem Konzept des geopolitischen Groß-raums und einer erdbezogenen Ästhetik. Vor dem Hintergrund des Kunst- und Sprachbegriffs der Epoche wird abschließend Heideggers und Jantzens Ansicht untersucht, alle Kunst sei sprachlich, sowie inwiefern sich diese Sprachlichkeit räumlich manifestiert. Die Zusammenführung von Jantzens Analyse ottonischer Wortbilder mit Heideggers Auslegung moderner Dichtung und Bildkunst zeigt, dass deren Raumbegriff unabhängig von politischen Bezügen bestehen kann. „Bei diesem Buch handelt es sich fraglos um eine kunsthistorisch und philosophisch bedeutsame Untersuchung.“. (shrink)

Gegenstand dieser politikwissenschaftlichen Arbeit ist weder die >Textur des Gewissens von Politikern, noch das sozialöffentliche Gewissen, also die Untersuchung von Wohlfahrts-sytemen. Es geht vielmehr um Konzeptionen des moralisch-individuellen Gewissens und der darin konturierten Beziehung zum politischen System. Zentrales Thema ist mithin die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von individueller Freiheit und politischer Ordnung. Dabei wird das semantische Feld im Kontext der Termini Gewissen, Moral und Ethik neu formuliert. Mittels einer Analyse der Gewissensdiskurse in der Frühmoderne sowie in der Spätmoderne läßt sich (...) die These entfalten, daß die Erkenntnis der neuartigen normativen Prob-lemstrukturen im technischen Zeitalter eine politologische Aufklärung erfordern, welche die zu-nehmend erkennbar werdenden Grenzen des Wissens in die Theoriebildung einbezieht. Die Poli-tik- und Sozialwissenschaften befinden sich gegenwärtig in einer Schwellenphase, in der die herkömmlichen normativen Erklärungsmuster, die in der Tradition des ethischen Humanismus verwurzelt sind, zu erodieren beginnen - doch werden die weitreichenden Konsequenzen des gegenwärtig sich vollziehenden sozio-technischen Umbruchs für die politische Ethik allenfalls halbherzig gezogen. Anstelle des populären Rufs nach einer Ethiksteuerung, die via wissenschaft-licher Begründungskonstruktionen und Regelwerken die politische Emanzipation der Individuen verbindlich anleiten soll, wird in diesem Buch für einen Perspektivenwechsel durch die Ver-schiebung der gewissensrelevanten Leitfragen votiert. Dabei erweist sich - kontraintuitiv -, daß dem Subjekt. (shrink)

When it comes to second-order knowledge (i.e. knowing that one knows), internalists typically contend that when we know that p, we can, by reflecting, directly know that we are knowing it. Gettier considerations are employed to challenge this internalistic contention and to make out a prima facie case for internalistic metaepistemological skepticism, the thesis that no one ever intemalistically knows that one internalistically knows that p. In particular, I argue that at the metaepistemological second-order level, the Gettier problem generates three (...) distinct problems which, taken together, seriously undermine the possibility of anyone possessing second-order internalistic knowledge. (shrink)

English summary: Since Herodotus and Thucydides the assumption that the historic structures of the past sooner or later reappear in the present and future has provided a methodological basis for all serious historic philosophical debate, and the ultimate social self-justification within historical disciplines. In addition to a broad methodological introduction to the subject, this volume contains selected contributions to the cyclical and biological patterns of thought in the philosophy of history including such diverse thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Sallust, Virgil, (...) Livy, Seneca, Orosius, Simplicius, Proclus, Joachim of Fiore, Machiavelli, Vico, Kant, Hegel, Spengler, Thomas Mann, Toynbee, Huntington and Fukuyama. German description: Seit Herodot und Thukydides gilt die Annahme, daa die historischen Strukturen der Vergangenheit fruher oder spater auch in Gegenwart und Zukunft wiederkehren, als methodologische Grundlage allen echten geschichtsphilosophischen Argumentierens und als ultimative gesellschaftliche Selbstbegrundung der historischen Disziplinen. Unter den verschiedenen diesbezuglichen Denkschulen, welche sich in der Antike und im Abenland herausgebildet haben, war die Vermutung, politische oder kulturelle Einheiten konnten sich analog zum Lebenszyklus naturlicher Korper verhalten und biologistische bzw. zyklische Etappen wie Geburt, Wachstum, Reife, Alter und Tod bzw. Neubeginn erleben, ganz besonders wirkmachtig und pragt auch heute noch unter dem Schlagwort vom Aufstieg und Niedergang der groaen Hochkulturen unser Verstandnis von den notwendigen Etappen einer jeden Zivilisation. Vorliegender Band beinhaltet, neben einer breiten methodologischen Einfuhrung in das Thema, ausgewahlte Beitrage zu zyklischen und biologistischen Denkstrukturen in der Geschichtsphilosophie so unterschiedlicher Denker wie Platon, Aristoteles, Polybios, Sallust, Vergil, Livius, Seneca, Orosius, Simplikios, Proklos, Joachim von Fiore, Machiavelli, Vico, Kant, Hegel, Spengler, Thomas Mann, Toynbee, Huntington und Fukuyama. (shrink)