This article introduces an “ordonomic” approach to corporate citizenship. We believe that ordonomics offers a conceptual framework for analyzing both the social structure and the semantics of moral commitments. We claim that such an analysis can provide theoretical guidance for the changing role of business in society, especially in regard to the expectation and trend that businesses take a political role and act as corporate citizens. The systematicraison d'êtreof corporate citizenship is that business firms can and—judged by the criterion of (...) prudent self-interest—“should” take on an active role in rule-finding discourses and rule-setting processes with the intent of realizing a win-win outcome of the economic game. We identify—and illustrate—four ways that corporate citizens can employ moral commitments as a factor of production to enhance their processes of economic value creation. (shrink)

This article introduces an “ordonomic” approach to corporate citizenship. We believe that ordonomics offers a conceptual framework for analyzing both the social structure and the semantics of moral commitments. We claim that such an analysis can provide theoretical guidance for the changing role of business in society, especially in regard to the expectation and trend that businesses take a political role and act as corporate citizens. The systematicraison d'êtreof corporate citizenship is that business firms can and—judged by the criterion of (...) prudent self-interest—“should” take on an active role in rule-finding discourses and rule-setting processes with the intent of realizing a win-win outcome of the economic game. We identify—and illustrate—four ways that corporate citizens can employ moral commitments as a factor of production to enhance their processes of economic value creation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The notion of “democracy” has become a much-debated concept in scholarship on business ethics, management, and organization studies. The strategy of this paper is to distinguish between a principle of organization that fosters participation (type I democracy) and a principle of legitimation that draws on consent (type II democracy). Based on this distinction, we highlight conceptual shortcomings of the literature on stakeholder democracy. We demonstrate that parts of the literature tend to confound ends with means. Many approaches employ type I (...) democracy notions of participation and often take for granted that this also improves type II democratic legitimation. We hold this to be a mistake. We provide examples of the ambiguity of organizational procedures and show that under some circumstances a decrease in the degree of participation may actually increase legitimation because a governance structure that results in higher productivity can provide higher benefits for all parties involved, serve their interests and therefore meet their agreement. Less type I democracy may mean more type II democracy. We believe this to be an important insight for judging (and further improving) the legitimacy of both capitalistic firms and competitive markets. (shrink)

As forms of private self-regulation, multi-stakeholder initiatives have emerged as an important empirical phenomenon in global governance processes. At the same time, MSIs are also theoretically intriguing because of their inherent double nature. On the one hand, MSIs spell out CSR standards that define norms for corporate behavior. On the other hand, MSIs are also the result of corporate and stakeholder behavior. We combine the perspectives of institutional theory and club theory to conceptualize this double nature of MSIs. Based on (...) a stage model that looks at the interplay of actor and institutional dynamics, we generate insights into why actors join a voluntary MSI, how the various motivations and intentions of the actors influence the standard development, and how these as well as the MSI design are subsequently influenced by both external and internal dynamics. (shrink)

Based on economic ethics, this paper reflects on and aims to improve the semantics of responsibility. The traditional concept of responsibility is threatened with erosion when responsibility is attributed to an actor who is unable to exercise individual control over the outcome of his actions. In the modern world-society this is increasingly the case. The concept of ordo-responsibility is helpful in identifying a suitable approach for the attribution and acceptance of responsibility. The perspective of economic ethics systematically differentiates between the (...) initial basic game of business and the related meta-games of politics and public discourse. In this way, the focus shifts to the rule-setting processes and rule-finding discourses for which the actors can accept governance responsibility and discourse responsibility, respectively. These two forms of ordo-responsibility demonstrate a characteristic which is extremely important for processes of New Governance: they can be attributed to corporative actors, and they can be perceived by them in their own well-reflected interests. (shrink)

It is the nature of powerful ideas that they can summarize a ground-breaking concept in a plain and simple message. In this sense, the concept of sustainability is a very powerful idea. However, although the sustainability debate has already brought about considerable conceptual progress, a pivotal dimension to sustainable development has so far been widely neglected. This article argues that in addition to the ecological, economic, and social dimension, sustainability critically depends on the moral dimension of institutional legitimacy. Against the (...) backdrop of globalization, conventional models of creating and legitimizing institutions are increasingly challenged. Therefore, it is also business that is to play an ever more important role in contributing to fair and functioning institutions. The article discusses “corporate citizenship” as an economic concept as a useful starting point for this new understanding of the business of business. In effect, the underlying objective of this paper is to present a theoretical link between the concepts of sustainability and corporate citizenship. The central thesis is that private enterprises who cooperatively take responsibility for their institutional environment strengthen the moral dimension of institutional legitimacy: They actively contribute to empowering sustainability by corporate citizenship. (shrink)

This article contributes to the debate about the political role of the business firm. The article clarifies what is meant by the “political” role of the firm and how this political role relates to its economic role. To this end, the authors present an ordonomic concept of corporate citizenship and illustrate the concept by way of comparison with the Aristotelian idea of individual citizenship for the antique polis. According to our concept, companies take a political role if they participate in (...) rule-setting processes and rule-finding discourses. Though this political role of the corporation is in principle ambivalent, the authors conclude that in such processes of “new governance” the economic and political roles of the firm need not contradict each other but can follow the same win-win logic of individual self-perfection through cooperative social interactions. (shrink)

This article develops an "ordonomic" approach to business ethics in the age of globalization. Through the use of a three-tiered conceptual framework that distinguishes between the basic game of antagonistic social cooperation, the meta game of rule-setting, and the meta-meta game of rule-finding discourse, we address three questions, the answers to which we believe are crucial to fostering effective business leadership and corporate social responsibility. First, the purpose of business in society is value creation. Companies have a social mandate to (...) organize mutually advantageous cooperation. Second, business ethics should teach the management competencies necessary to fulfill business's societal mandate. These competencies are optimization competence in the basic game of value creation, governance competence in the meta game of (political) rule setting, and the three discourse-related skills of orientation competence, reception competence, and communication competence necessary for engaging in the meta-meta game. Third, companies can help solve global problems through global corporate citizenship if they participate as political and moral actors in rule-setting processes and rule-finding discourse aimed at laying the foundation for value creation on a global scale. (shrink)

The complexity class of [Formula: see text]-polynomial local search problems is introduced and is used to give new witnessing theorems for fragments of bounded arithmetic. For 1 ≤ i ≤ k + 1, the [Formula: see text]-definable functions of [Formula: see text] are characterized in terms of [Formula: see text]-PLS problems. These [Formula: see text]-PLS problems can be defined in a weak base theory such as [Formula: see text], and proved to be total in [Formula: see text]. Furthermore, the [Formula: (...) see text]-PLS definitions can be skolemized with simple polynomial time functions, and the witnessing theorem itself can be formalized, and skolemized, in a weak base theory. We introduce a new [Formula: see text]-principle that is conjectured to separate [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. (shrink)

This 44-chapter volume tackles a quickly-evolving field of inquiry, mapping the existing discourse as part of a general attempt to place current developments in historical context; at the same time, breaking new ground in taking on novel subjects and pursuing fresh approaches. The term "A.I." is used to refer to a broad range of phenomena, from machine learning and data mining to artificial general intelligence. The recent advent of more sophisticated AI systems, which function with partial or full autonomy and (...) are capable of tasks which require learning and 'intelligence', presents difficult ethical questions, and has drawn concerns from many quarters about individual and societal welfare, democratic decision-making, moral agency, and the prevention of harm. This work ranges from explorations of normative constraints on specific applications of machine learning algorithms today-in everyday medical practice, for instance-to reflections on the (potential) status of AI as a form of consciousness with attendant rights and duties and, more generally still, on the conceptual terms and frameworks necessarily to understand tasks requiring intelligence, whether "human" or "A.I.". (shrink)

The new critical edition of Stein’s lectures on philosophical and theological anthropology makes it possible to research further her theory of the person as developed during her middle period in Munster, that is, between 1932 and 1933. Her project revolves around the anthropological foundations of a Catholicpedagogy. Th is phase of her work is marked by various debates. On one hand, she attempts to bring the intellectual legacy of Husserl and phenomenology intodialogue with Thomas Aquinas and other Scholastic thinkers. On (...) the other hand, she confronts the ideas and spirit of National Socialism with her Catholic faith.Stein’s Munster phenomenological method contrasts with Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology; she develops an “eidetic psychology within a universal ontology.” In her “somatological” anthropology, the human being appears as a unity of lived body, soul, and mind. As a person, the human being is investigated as species, double species (man-woman), individual, as having a communal essence (outside the concept of race), and, ultimately, as a seeker of God. Stein examines the freedom of human beings, which lies between the givens of nature and grace, as well as the tension between knowledge and faith. In the final section of this paper, I discuss Stein’s position over against contemporary deconstructivist feminism. (shrink)

We investigate the relation between intermediate predicate logics based on countable linear Kripke frames with constant domains and Gödel logics. We show that for any such Kripke frame there is a Gödel logic which coincides with the logic defined by this Kripke frame on constant domains and vice versa. This allows us to transfer several recent results on Gödel logics to logics based on countable linear Kripke frames with constant domains: We obtain a complete characterisation of axiomatisability of logics based (...) on countable linear Kripke frames with constant domains. Furthermore, we obtain that the total number of logics defined by countable linear Kripke frames on constant domains is countable. (shrink)

The argument from inductive risk is considered to be one of the strongest challenges for value-free science. A great part of its appeal lies in the idea that even an ideal epistemic agent—the “perfect scientist” or “scientist qua scientist”—cannot escape inductive risk. In this paper, I scrutinize this ambition by stipulating an idealized Bayesian decision setting. I argue that inductive risk does not show that the “perfect scientist” must, descriptively speaking, make non-epistemic value-judgements, at least not in a way that (...) undermines the value-free ideal. However, the argument is more successful in showing that there are cases where the “perfect scientist” should, normatively speaking, use non-epistemic values. I also show that this is possible without creating problems of illegitimate prescription and wishful thinking. Thus, while inductive risk does not refute value-freedom completely, it still represents a powerful critique of value-free science. (shrink)

I argue that Kant acknowledges two models of spontaneous self-determination that rational beings are capable of. The first model involves absolute unconditional necessity and excludes any form of contingency. The second model involves (albeit not as a matter of definition) a form of contingency which entails alternative possibilities for determining oneself. The first model would be exhibited by a divine being; the second model is exhibited by human beings. Human beings do, however, partake in the divine model up to an (...) extent, namely, as far as the legislative spontaneity of their law-giving faculties are concerned. I conclude by suggesting that for Kant, the mechanistic principle that we are exclusively determined by natural causes poses a twofold threat for human agency. In one respect (in relation to the second model), it threatens us with the obliteration of contingency, or with the universality of hypothetical necessity. But in another respect (in relation to the first model), it threatens us (and our putative "laws") with the obliteration of absolute necessity, or with the universality of contingency. (shrink)

Moral philosophers and psychologists often assume that people judge morally lucky and morally unlucky agents differently, an assumption that stands at the heart of the Puzzle of Moral Luck. We examine whether the asymmetry is found for reflective intuitions regarding wrongness, blame, permissibility, and punishment judg- ments, whether people’s concrete, case-based judgments align with their explicit, abstract principles regarding moral luck, and what psychological mechanisms might drive the effect. Our experiments produce three findings: First, in within-subjects experiments favorable to reflective (...) deliberation, the vast majority of people judge a lucky and an unlucky agent as equally blameworthy, and their actions as equally wrong and permissible. The philosophical Puzzle of Moral Luck, and the challenge to the very possibility of systematic ethics it is frequently taken to engender, thus simply do not arise. Second, punishment judgments are significantly more outcome- dependent than wrongness, blame, and permissibility judgments. While this constitutes evidence in favor of current Dual Process Theories of moral judgment, the latter need to be qualified: punishment and blame judgments do not seem to be driven by the same process, as is commonly argued in the literature. Third, in between-subjects experiments, outcome has an effect on all four types of moral judgments. This effect is mediated by negligence ascriptions and can ultimately be explained as due to differing probability ascriptions across cases. (shrink)

Intellectual humility is an interesting but underexplored disposition. The claim “I am (intellectually) humble” seems paradoxical in that someone who has the disposition in question would not typically volunteer it. There is an explanatory gap between the meaning of the sentence and the meaning the speaker expresses by uttering it. We therefore suggest analyzing intellectual humility semantically, using a psycholexical approach that focuses on both synonyms and antonyms of ‘intellectual humility’. We present a thesaurus-based method to map the semantic space (...) of intellectual humility as a heuristic to support philosophical and psychological analysis of this disposition. We find three semantic clusters that compose intellectual humility: the sensible self, the discreet self, and the inquisitive self; likewise, we find three clusters that compose its contraries: the overrated self, the underrated other, and the underrated self. (shrink)

'Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache' - Ausgehend von diesem Satz Wilhelm von Humboldts wird noch einmal die Frage nach der sprachlichen Verfasstheit des Menschen aufgeworfen. Für Wilhelm von Humboldt war die Sprachlichkeit des Menschen die zentrale anthropologische Konstante: Der Mensch produziert sein Denken in der Dimension des Anderen mittels der Sprache, die Vielfalt der menschlichen Denkmöglichkeiten zeigt sich in der Vielfalt der Sprachen, und dies konstituiert den Menschen als Menschen. Ist diese Annahme noch aktuell? Oder muss sie vor (...) dem Hintergrund aktueller Entwicklungen unserer Kultur, die die Relevanz des Sprachlichen infrage stellen, revidiert werden? In Humboldts Satz steckt heute ein erhebliches Diskussionspotential. Die Beiträge diskutieren die Sprachlichkeit des Menschen aus unterschiedlichen philosophischen, kulturtheoretischen und sprachwissenschaftlichen Perspektiven. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die Frage, wie es sich mit Humboldts sprachzentriertem Menschenbild in unserer Kultur verhält. (shrink)

I identify two reasons for believing in the objectivity of mathematical knowledge: apparent objectivity and applications in science. Focusing on arithmetic, I analyze platonism and cognitive nativism in terms of explaining these two reasons. After establishing that both theories run into difficulties, I present an alternative epistemological account that combines the theoretical frameworks of enculturation and cumulative cultural evolution. I show that this account can explain why arithmetical knowledge appears to be objective and has scientific applications. Finally, I will argue (...) that, while this account is compatible with platonist metaphysics, it does not require postulating mind-independent mathematical objects. (shrink)

In very general terms, an agent is a being with the capacity to act, and 'agency' denotes the exercise or manifestation of this capacity. The philosophy of action provides us with a standard conception and a standard theory of action. The former construes action in terms of intentionality, the latter explains the intentionality of action in terms of causation by the agent’s mental states and events. From this, we obtain a standard conception and a standard theory of agency. There are (...) alternative conceptions of agency, and it has been argued that the standard theory fails to capture agency. Further, it seems that genuine agency can be exhibited by beings that are not capable of intentional action, and it has been argued that agency can and should be explained without reference to causally efficacious mental states and events. Debates about the nature of agency have flourished over the past few decades in philosophy and in other areas of research. In philosophy, the nature of agency is an important issue in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of psychology, the debates on free will and moral responsibility, in ethics, meta-ethics, and in the debates on the nature of reasons and practical rationality. For the most part, this entry focuses on conceptual and metaphysical questions concerning the nature of agency. In the final sections, it provides an overview of empirically informed accounts of the sense of agency and of various empirical challenges to the commonsense assumption that our reasons and our conscious intentions make a real difference to how we act. (shrink)

The basic human ability to treat quantitative information can be divided into two parts. With proto-arithmetical ability, based on the core cognitive abilities for subitizing and estimation, numerosities can be treated in a limited and/or approximate manner. With arithmetical ability, numerosities are processed (counted, operated on) systematically in a discrete, linear, and unbounded manner. In this paper, I study the theory of enculturation as presented by Menary (2015) as a possible explanation of how we make the move from the proto-arithmetical (...) ability to arithmetic proper. I argue that enculturation based on neural reuse provides a theoretically sound and fruitful framework for explaining this development. However, I show that a comprehensive explanation must be based on valid theoretical distinctions and involve several stages in the development of arithmetical knowledge. I provide an account that meets these challenges and thus leads to a better understanding of the subject of enculturation. (shrink)

Previous research in Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) suggests that a main aim of explainability approaches is to satisfy specific interests, goals, expectations, needs, and demands regarding artificial systems (we call these “stakeholders' desiderata”) in a variety of contexts. However, the literature on XAI is vast, spreads out across multiple largely disconnected disciplines, and it often remains unclear how explainability approaches are supposed to achieve the goal of satisfying stakeholders' desiderata. This paper discusses the main classes of stakeholders calling for explainability (...) of artificial systems and reviews their desiderata. We provide a model that explicitly spells out the main concepts and relations necessary to consider and investigate when evaluating, adjusting, choosing, and developing explainability approaches that aim to satisfy stakeholders' desiderata. This model can serve researchers from the variety of different disciplines involved in XAI as a common ground. It emphasizes where there is interdisciplinary potential in the evaluation and the development of explainability approaches. (shrink)

Linnebo in 2018 argues that abstract objects like numbers are “thin” because they are only required to be referents of singular terms in abstraction principles, such as Hume's principle. As the specification of existence claims made by analytic truths (the abstraction principles), their existence does not make any substantial demands of the world; however, as Linnebo notes, there is a potential counter-argument concerning infinite regress against introducing objects this way. Against this, he argues that vicious regress is avoided in the (...) account of arithmetic based on Hume's principle because we are specifying numbers in terms of the concept of equinumerosity, or its ordinal equivalent. But far from being only a matter for philosophy, this implies a distinct empirical prediction: in cognitive development, the principle of equinumerosity is primary to number concepts. However, by analysing and expanding on the bootstrapping theory of Carey in 2009, I argue in this paper that there are good reasons to think that the development could be the other way around: possessing numerosity concepts may precede grasping the principle of equinumerosity. I propose that this analysis of early numerical cognition can also help us understand what numbers as thin objects are like, moving away from Platonist interpretations. (shrink)

The paper develops an account of minimal traces devoid of representational content and exploits an analogy to a predictive processing framework of perception. As perception can be regarded as a prediction of the present on the basis of sparse sensory inputs without any representational content, episodic memory can be conceived of as a “prediction of the past” on the basis of a minimal trace, i.e., an informationally sparse, merely causal link to a previous experience. The resulting notion of episodic memory (...) will be validated as a natural kind distinct from imagination. This trace minimalist view contrasts with two theory camps dominating the philosophical debate on memory. On one side, we face versions of the Causal Theory that hold on to the idea that episodic remembering requires a memory trace that causally links the event of remembering to the event of experience and carries over representational content from the content of experience to the content of remembering. The Causal Theory, however, fails to account for the epistemic generativity of episodic memory and is psychologically and information-theoretically implausible. On the other side, a new camp of simulationists is currently forming up. Motivated by empirical and conceptual deficits of the Causal Theory, they reject not only the necessity of preserving representational content, but also the necessity of a causal link between experience and memory. They argue that remembering is nothing but a peculiar form of imagination, peculiar only in that it has been reliably produced and is directed towards an episode of one’s personal past. Albeit sharing their criticism of the Causal Theory and, in particular, rejecting its demand for an intermediary carrier of representational content, the paper argues that a causal connection to experience is still necessary to fulfill even the minimal requirements of past-directedness and reliability. (shrink)

The current humanitarian use of drones is focused on two applications: disaster mapping and medical supply delivery. In response to the growing interest in drone deployment in the aid sector, we sought to develop a resource to support value sensitivity in humanitarian drone activities. Following a bottom-up approach encompassing a comprehensive literature review, two empirical studies, a review of guidance documents, and consultations with experts, this work illuminates the nature and scope of ethical challenges encountered by humanitarian organizations embarking upon (...) innovation programmes. The Framework for the Ethics Assessment of Humanitarian Drones (FEAHD) identifies five values and five key questions related to ethical considerations along the decision chain of humanitarian drone activities. It fills a gap between high-level, principle-based guidance related to humanitarian innovation, and detailed operation-oriented checklists for projects involving the use of drones. In this way, the FEAHD contributes to support value sensitivity in the humanitarian use of drones. (shrink)

Metaphysics and science have a long but troubled relationship. In the twentieth century the Logical Positivists argued metaphysics was irrelevant and that philosophy should be guided by science. However, metaphysics and science attempt to answer many of the same, fundamental questions: What are laws of nature? What is causation? What are natural kinds? -/- In this book, Markus Schrenk examines and explains the central questions and problems in the metaphysics of science. He reviews the development of the field from (...) the early modern period through to the latest research, systematically assessing key topics including -/- dispositions, counterfactual conditionals, laws of nature, causation, natural kinds, essence, necessity. -/- With the addition of chapter summaries and annotated further reading, Metaphysics of Science is a much-needed, clear and informative survey of this exciting area of philosophical research. It is essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy of science and metaphysics. (shrink)

This essay attempts to demonstrate that it is doubtful if Galileo's famous thought experiment concerning falling bodies in his 'Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences' (Galileo 1954: 61-64) actually does succeed in proving that Aristotle was wrong in claiming that "bodies of different weight […] move […] with different speeds which stand to one another in the same ratio as their weights," (Galileo 1954: 61). (Part I); and further that it is likewise doubtful that that argument does or even can establish (...) Galileo's own famous 'Law of Falling Bodies,' viz., that regardless of their weight all bodies fall with the same speed. (Part II). (shrink)

Curiosity is a wonder of the human mind. It goes to the heart of modernity, as a driving force for learning, novel insights, and innovation, both for individuals and communities. In societies dependent on science and development, finding out what promotes or hampers curiosity and wonder in school curricula and science education is accordingly essential. In this conceptual article, I suggest a framework for curiosity-based science education and I explore options for its wellbeing and development during preschool, preadolescence, and adolescence. (...) In preschool, curiosity and wonder are triggered by perceptive beauty rather than by facts, and a method emphasizing maximism as a complementary factor in preschool science education is proposed. In prepuberty, curiosity is encouraged by exploring the diversity of the world. Facts and clear-cut knowledge constitute a firm foundation for scientific thinking. In high school, curiosity is ignited by means of a better balance between models and phenomenology. Criticism has arisen over the one-sided use of models in high school science education, which limits scientific thinking to frameworks defined by the actual model. Possible solutions to maintain students’ curiosity and ideas to improve the balance between phenomenology and models are discussed. (shrink)

Adaptation by means of natural selection depends on the ability of populations to maintain variation in heritable traits. According to the Modern Synthesis this variation is sustained by mutations and genetic drift. Epigenetics, evodevo, niche construction and cultural factors have more recently been shown to contribute to heritable variation, however, leading an increasing number of biologists to call for an extended view of speciation and evolution. An additional common feature across the animal kingdom is learning, defined as the ability to (...) change behavior according to novel experiences or skills. Learning constitutes an additional source for phenotypic variation, and change in behavior may induce long lasting shifts in fitness, and hence favor evolutionary novelties. Based on published studies, I demonstrate how learning about food, mate choice and habitats has contributed substantially to speciation in the canonical story of Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands. Learning cannot be reduced to genetics, because it demands decisions, which requires a subject. Evolutionary novelties may hence emerge both from shifts in allelic frequencies and from shifts in learned, subject driven behavior. The existence of two principally different sources of variation also prevents the Modern Synthesis from self-referring explanations. (shrink)

I attempt to answer the question of what Aristotle's criteria for 'being a substance' are in the Categories. On the basis of close textual analysis, I argue that subjecthood, conceived in a certain way, is the criterion that explains why both concrete objects and substance universals must be regarded as substances. It also explains the substantial primacy of concrete objects. But subjecthood can only function as such a criterion if both the subjecthood of concrete objects and the subjecthood of substance (...) universals can be understood as philosophically significant phenomena. By drawing on Aristotle's essentialism, I argue that such an understanding is possible: the subjecthood of substance universals cannot simply be reduced to that of primary substances. Primary and secondary substances mutually depend on each other for exercising their capacities to function as subjects. Thus, subjecthood can be regarded as a philosophically informative criterion for substancehood in the Categories. (shrink)

Are our beliefs justified only relatively to a specific culture or society? Is it possible to give reasons for the superiority of our scientific, epistemic methods? Markus Seidel sets out to answer these questions in his critique of epistemic relativism. Focusing on the work of the most prominent, explicitly relativist position in the sociology of scientific knowledge – so-called 'Edinburgh relativism' or the 'Strong Programme' –, he scrutinizes the key arguments for epistemic relativism from a philosophical perspective: underdetermination and (...) norm-circularity. His main negative result is that these arguments fall short of establishing epistemic relativism. -/- Despite arguing for epistemic absolutism, Seidel aims to provide an account of non-relative justification that nevertheless integrates the basic, correct intuition of the epistemic relativist. His main positive result is that the epistemic absolutist can very well accept the idea that people using different standards of justification can be equally justified in holding their beliefs: Rational disagreement, he maintains, is perfectly possible. -/- The book provides a detailed critique of relativism in the sociology of scientific knowledge and beyond. With its constructive part it aims at making conciliatory steps in a highly embittered discussion between sociology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

In der 1970 gegr ndeten Reihe erscheinen Arbeiten, die philosophiehistorische Studien mit einem systematischen Ansatz oder systematische Studien mit philosophiehistorischen Rekonstruktionen verbinden. Neben deutschsprachigen werden auch englischsprachige Monographien ver ffentlicht. Gr ndungsherausgeber sind: Erhard Scheibe (Herausgeber bis 1991), G nther Patzig (bis 1999) und Wolfgang Wieland (bis 2003). Von 1990 bis 2007 wurde die Reihe von J rgen Mittelstra mitherausgegeben.