Der Aufsatz analysiert den Konnex zwischen Individualisierter Medizin und der Forderung nach mehr gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung, der oft als plausibel angenommen wird, wenn der Individualisierten Medizin das Potential zugesprochen wird, das solidarisch finanzierte Gesundheitssystem in Deutschland zu transformieren. Ausgehend von einer logischen Rekonstruktion des Verantwortungsbegriffs, die dessen Operationalisierbarkeit unter anderem an Sanktionsvollmachten der jeweiligen Verantwortungsinstanz bindet, und basierend auf einem terminologisch präzisierten Verständnis von Individualisierter Medizin wird folgende These entwickelt: Die Annahme, im Rahmen Individualisierter Medizin sei eine verlässliche Prädiktion anlagebedingter und (...) zugleich lebensstilabhängiger Erkrankungsrisiken möglich, verpflichtet logisch nicht zur Übernahme der Forderung, Lebensstile mit negativem Einfluss auf persönliche Erkrankungsrisiken seien zu sanktionieren. Weil die Forderung nach mehr gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung aus dem Programm der Individualisierten Medizin logisch nicht ohne Hinzunahme normativer Prinzipien abzuleiten ist, kann man dieses Programm selbst gut heißen, ohne sich die politische Forderung nach einem Umbau des solidarisch finanzierten Gesundheitssystems unter dem Vorzeichen gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung zu eigen machen zu müssen. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Aufsatz analysiert den Konnex zwischen Individualisierter Medizin und der Forderung nach mehr gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung, der oft als plausibel angenommen wird, wenn der Individualisierten Medizin das Potential zugesprochen wird, das solidarisch finanzierte Gesundheitssystem in Deutschland zu transformieren. Ausgehend von einer logischen Rekonstruktion des Verantwortungsbegriffs, die dessen Operationalisierbarkeit unter anderem an Sanktionsvollmachten der jeweiligen Verantwortungsinstanz bindet, und basierend auf einem terminologisch präzisierten Verständnis von Individualisierter Medizin wird folgende These entwickelt: Die Annahme, im Rahmen Individualisierter Medizin sei eine verlässliche Prädiktion anlagebedingter und (...) zugleich lebensstilabhängiger Erkrankungsrisiken möglich, verpflichtet logisch nicht zur Übernahme der Forderung, Lebensstile mit negativem Einfluss auf persönliche Erkrankungsrisiken seien zu sanktionieren. Weil die Forderung nach mehr gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung aus dem Programm der Individualisierten Medizin logisch nicht ohne Hinzunahme normativer Prinzipien abzuleiten ist, kann man dieses Programm selbst gut heißen, ohne sich die politische Forderung nach einem Umbau des solidarisch finanzierten Gesundheitssystems unter dem Vorzeichen gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung zu eigen machen zu müssen. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Aufsatz analysiert den Konnex zwischen Individualisierter Medizin und der Forderung nach mehr gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung, der oft als plausibel angenommen wird, wenn der Individualisierten Medizin das Potential zugesprochen wird, das solidarisch finanzierte Gesundheitssystem in Deutschland zu transformieren. Ausgehend von einer logischen Rekonstruktion des Verantwortungsbegriffs, die dessen Operationalisierbarkeit unter anderem an Sanktionsvollmachten der jeweiligen Verantwortungsinstanz bindet, und basierend auf einem terminologisch präzisierten Verständnis von Individualisierter Medizin wird folgende These entwickelt: Die Annahme, im Rahmen Individualisierter Medizin sei eine verlässliche Prädiktion anlagebedingter und (...) zugleich lebensstilabhängiger Erkrankungsrisiken möglich, verpflichtet logisch nicht zur Übernahme der Forderung, Lebensstile mit negativem Einfluss auf persönliche Erkrankungsrisiken seien zu sanktionieren. Weil die Forderung nach mehr gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung aus dem Programm der Individualisierten Medizin logisch nicht ohne Hinzunahme normativer Prinzipien abzuleiten ist, kann man dieses Programm selbst gut heißen, ohne sich die politische Forderung nach einem Umbau des solidarisch finanzierten Gesundheitssystems unter dem Vorzeichen gesundheitlicher Eigenverantwortung zu eigen machen zu müssen. (shrink)

Die sog. "Schwarzen Hefte" haben umfassender und deutlicher als je zuvor die Verbindungen zwischen Philosophie und Politik bei Heidegger sichtbar werden lassen und damit eine neue Debatte uber den Rang dieses Denkens entfacht. DEnn die dort enthaltenen Texte demonstrieren, dass Philosophie, Metapolitik und Politik bei Heidegger eine Einheit bilden, zu der die Befurwortung des Nationalsozialismus und der Antisemitismus gehoren. INs Zentrum der kritischen Revision ruckt das erste Hauptwerk von 1927, "Sein und Zeit", das nahezu unangefochten als epochaler Beitrag zur Philosophie (...) des 20. JAhrhunderts gilt. DIe "Schwarzen Hefte" fordern eine "Destruktion" dieses Werks auch insofern heraus, als die dort prasentierten Selbstinterpretationen das philosophische Profil dieses Denkens scharfen und neue Gesichtspunkte fur die Diskussion seiner Substanz im philosophischen und ideologischen Kontext des 20. JAhrhunderts eroffnen. 90 Jahre nach seinem Erscheinen stellt sich der philosophischen Forschung die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit "Sein und Zeit" als unabweisbare Aufgabe. IM Vordergrund stehen hierbei zwei Fragen: Wie ist das Unternehmen einer in der "Fundamentalontologie" des Daseins begrundeten temporalen Ontologie der systematischen Intention und Durchfuhrung fachphilosophisch zu beurteilen? Beinhalten die ausgearbeiteten Teile bereits gedankliche Prafigurationen oder Grundlagen fur Heideggers Antisemitismus und Nationalsozialismus? Der Band behandelt diese Problemstellungen aus unterschiedlichen philosophischen, aber auch disziplinaren Perspektiven; er enthalt Beitrage von Charles Bambach, William Blattner, Christoph Demmerling, Emmanuel Faye, Anton M. FIscher, Johannes Fritsche, Hassan Givsan, Marion Heinz, Christoph Jamme, Sidonie Kellerer, Rainer Marten, Daniel Meyer, Livia Profeti, Tom Rockmore und Dieter Thoma. (shrink)

I argue that we need to distinguish between three concepts of actual causation: total, path-changing, and contributing actual causation. I provide two lines of argument in support of this account. First, I address three thought experiments that have been troublesome for unified accounts of actual causation, and I show that my account provides a better explanation of corresponding causal intuitions. Second, I provide a functional argument: if we assume that a key purpose of causal concepts is to guide agency, we (...) are better off making a distinction between three concepts of actual causation. (shrink)

Appraisal and constructivist theories of emotion both emphasize that emotions are not modular phenomena, but are constructed from more basic psychological parts. In the scientific debate, differences between the two approaches are sometimes overplayed, by classifying appraisal theories as “natural kinds” models, and sometimes underplayed, by basically merging them into constructivist accounts. The aim of this contribution is to illustrate some similarities and some differences between contemporary appraisal and constructivist approaches, and to highlight the fact that appraisal theory has indeed (...) already confronted the idea of construction in the elicitation of emotion. In doing so, I want to argue that, while there is a distinction between appraisal and constructivist camps, it is not as stark as one might think, even though the names of the “ingredients” of emotions may differ. (shrink)

_Philosophical Delusion and its Therapy_ provides new foundations and methods for the revolutionary project of philosophical therapy pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein. The book vindicates this currently much-discussed project by reconstructing the genesis of important philosophical problems: With the help of concepts adapted from cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology, the book analyses how philosophical reflection is shaped by pictures and metaphors we are not aware of employing and are prone to misapply. Through innovative case-studies on the genesis of classical problems about (...) the mind and perception, and on thinkers including Locke, Berkeley and Ayer, the book demonstrates how such autonomous habits of thought systematically generate unsound intuitions and philosophical delusions, whose clash with reality, or among each other, gives rise to ill-motivated but maddening problems. The book re-examines models of therapeutic philosophy, due to Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin, and develops an approach that may let us overcome philosophical delusions and the problems they engender. In this way, the book explains where and why therapy in called for in philosophy, and develops techniques to carry it out. (shrink)

This paper explores the prospects of employing a functional approach in order to improve our concept of actual causation. Claims of actual causation play an important role for a variety of purposes. In particular, they are relevant for identifying suitable targets for intervention, and they are relevant for our practices of ascribing responsibility. I argue that this gives rise to the challenge of purpose. The challenge of purpose arises when different goals demand adjustments of the concept that pull in opposing (...) directions. More specifically, I argue that a common distinction between certain kinds of preempted and preempting factors is difficult to motivate from an interventionist viewpoint. This indicates that an appropriately revised concept of actual causation would not distinguish between these two kinds of factors. From the viewpoint of retributivist responsibility, however, the distinction between preempted and preempting factors sometimes is important, which indicates that the distinction should be retained. (shrink)

How does experimental philosophy address philosophical questions and problems? That is: What projects does experimental philosophy pursue? What is their philosophical relevance? And what empirical methods do they employ? Answers to these questions will reveal how experimental philosophy can contribute to the longstanding ambition of placing philosophy on the ‘secure path of a science’, as Kant put it. We argue that experimental philosophy has introduced a new methodological perspective – a ‘meta-philosophical naturalism’ that addresses philosophical questions about a phenomenon by (...) empirically investigating how people think about this phenomenon. This chapter asks how this novel perspective can be successfully implemented: How can the empirical investigation of how people think about something address genuinely philosophical problems? And what methods – and, specifically, what methods beyond the questionnaire – can this investigation employ? We first review core projects of experimental philosophy and raise the question of their philosophical relevance. For ambitious answers, we turn to experimental philosophy’s most direct historical precursor, mid-20th century ordinary language philosophy, and discuss empirical implementations of two of its research programmes that use experimental methods from psycholinguistics and corpus methods from the digital humanities. (shrink)

Stanley Cavell's work is distinctive not only in its importance to philosophy but also for its remarkable interdisciplinary range. Cavell is read avidly by students of film, photography, painting, and music, but especially by students of literature, for whom Cavell offers major readings of Thoreau, Emerson, Shakespeare, and others. In this first book-length study of Cavell's writings, Michael Fischer examines Cavell's relevance to the controversies surrounding poststructuralist literary theory, particularly works by Jacques Derrida, J. Hillis Miller, Paul de Man, (...) and Stanley Fish. Throughout his study, Fischer focuses on skepticism, a central concern of Cavell's multifaceted work. Cavell, following J. L. Austin and Wittgenstein, does not refute the radical epistemological questioning of Descartes, Hume, and others, but rather characterizes skepticism as a significant human possibility or temptation. As presented by Fischer, Cavell's accounts of both external-world and other-minds skepticism share significant affinities with deconstruction, a connection overlooked by contemporary literary theorists. Fischer follows Cavell's lead in examining how different genres address the problems raised by skepticism and goes on to show how Cavell draws on American and English romanticism in fashioning a response to it. He concludes by analyzing Cavell's remarks about current critical theory, focusing on Cavell's uneasiness with some of the conclusions reached by its practitioners. Fischer shows that Cavell's insights, grounded in powerful analyses of Descartes, Hume, and Wittgenstein, permit a fresh view of Derrida, Miller, de Man, and Fish. The result is not only a revealing characterization of deconstruction but a much-needed and insightful introduction to Cavell's rich but difficult oeuvre. (shrink)

One popular conception of natural theology holds that certain purely rational arguments are insulated from empirical inquiry and independently establish conclusions that provide evidence, justification, or proof of God’s existence. Yet, some raise suspicions that philosophers and theologians’ personal religious beliefs inappropriately affect these kinds of arguments. I present an experimental test of whether philosophers and theologians’ argument analysis is influenced by religious commitments. The empirical findings suggest religious belief affects philosophical analysis and offer a challenge to theists and atheists, (...) alike: reevaluate the scope of natural theology’s conclusions or acknowledge and begin to address the influence of religious belief. (shrink)

Introduction: "meaning in life and death : our stories" -- John Martin Fischer and Anthony B rueckner, "Why is death bad?", Philosophical studies, vol. 50, no. 2 (September 1986) -- "Death, badness, and the impossibility of experience," Journal of ethics -- John Martin Fischer and Daniel Speak, "Death and the psychological conception of personal identity," Midwest studies in philosophy, vol. 24 -- "Earlier birth and later death : symmetry through thick and thin," Richard Feldman, Kris McDaniel, Jason R. (...) Raibley, eds., The good, the right, life and death (Aldershot : Ashgate Publishing, 2006) -- "Why immortality is not so bad," International journal of philosophical studies, vol. 2, no. 2 (September 1994) -- John Martin Fischer and Ruth Curl, "Philosophical models of immortality in science fiction," in George Slusser et. al., eds., Immortal engines : life extension and immortality in science fiction and fantasy (Athens, Ga. : University of Georgia Press, 1996) -- "Epicureanism about death and immortality," Journal of ethics, vol. 10, no. 4 -- "Stories," Midwest studies in philosophy, vol. 20 -- "Free will, death, and immortality : the role of narrative," Philosophical papers (Special issue : meaning in life) volume 34, number 3, November 2005 -- "Stories and the meaning of life," revised and expanded version of "A reply to Pereboom, Zimmerman, and Smith," part of a book symposium on John Martin Fischer, my way : essays on moral responsibility, philosophical books, vol. 47, no. 3. (shrink)

A new edition of the classic introduction to mathematics, first published in 1930 and revised in the 1950s, explains the history and tenets of mathematics, ...

One version of moral error theory maintains that the central problem with morality is an ontological commitment to irreducible normativity. This paper argues that this version of error theory ultimately depends on an appeal to Ockham’s Razor, and that Ockham’s Razor should not be applied to irreducible normativity. This is because the appeal to Ockham’s Razor always contains an intractable element of epistemic circularity; and if this circularity is not vicious, we can construct a sound argument for the existence of (...) irreducibly normative truths that contains a similar kind of epistemic circularity. This argument is a version of Pascal’s Wager which I call “Parfit’s Wager,” because it is based on a passage from Derek Parfit’s On What Matters. It states that, if we believe that there are some irreducibly normative truths, we are more likely to be believing what we ought to believe compared to not believing that there are such truths, and that this indicates that we ought rationally to believe that there are such truths, justifying the ontological commitment to irreducible normativity in the process. (shrink)

Drawing on natural history, theology and philosophy, this book retraces the shifting foundations of the order of things that characterizes the period between Descartes and Kant with respect to three questions: What is an animal?

The paper presents a novel account of nature and genesis of some philosophical problems, which vindicates a new approach to an arguably central and extensive class of such problems: The paper develops the Wittgensteinian notion of ‘philosophical pictures’ with the help of some notions adapted from metaphor research in cognitive linguistics and from work on unintentional analogical reasoning in cognitive psychology. The paper shows that adherence to such pictures systematically leads to the formulation of unwarranted claims, ill-motivated problems, and pointless (...) theories. To do so, the paper proceeds from a case-study on a lastingly influential development in early modern philosophy: the adoption of the doctrine of secondary qualities, and its principal consequences. The findings motivate a new approach to an arguably extensive and important class of philosophical problems: to the problems we raise in the grip of philosophical pictures. (shrink)

Although the seasons have been a perennial theme in literature and art, their significance for philosophy and environmental theory has remained largely unexplored. This pioneering book demonstrates the ways in which inquiry into the seasons reveals new and illuminating perspectives for philosophy, environmental thought, anthropology, cultural studies, aesthetics, poetics, and literary criticism. The Seasons opens up new avenues for research in these fields and provides a valuable resource for teachers and students of the environmental humanities. The innovative essays herein address (...) a wide range of seasonal cultures and geographies, from the traditional Western model of the four seasons––spring, summer, fall, and winter––to the Indigenous seasons of Australia and the Arctic. Exemplifying the crucial importance of interdisciplinary research, The Seasons makes a compelling case for the relevance of the seasons to our daily lives, scientific understanding, diverse cultural practices, and politics. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have come to understand emotions as dynamic and socially constructed—the product of interdependent cultural, relational, situational, and biological influences. While researchers have called for a multilevel theory of emotion construction, any progress toward such a theory must overcome the fragmentation of relevant research across various disciplines and theoretical frameworks. We present affect control theory as a launching point for cross-disciplinary collaboration because of its empirically grounded conceptualization of social mechanisms operating at the interaction, relationship, and cultural (...) levels, and its specification of processes linking social and individual aspects of emotion. After introducing the theory, we illustrate its correspondence with major theories of emotion construction framed at each of four analytical levels: cultural, interactional, individual, and neural. (shrink)

I revisit my article, “Why Immortality Is Not So Bad,” in which I argued that Bernard Williams’s thesis that immortality would necessarily be boring for any human being is false. Here I point out various ways in which Williams’s treatment of the issues has tilted and distorted the subsequent debates.

The potential for biases being built into algorithms has been known for some time, yet literature has only recently demonstrated the ways algorithmic profiling can result in social sorting and harm marginalised groups. We contend that with increased algorithmic complexity, biases will become more sophisticated and difficult to identify, control for, or contest. Our argument has four steps: first, we show how harnessing algorithms means that data gathered at a particular place and time relating to specific persons, can be used (...) to build group models applied in different contexts to different persons. Thus, privacy and data protection rights, with their focus on individuals, do not protect from the discriminatory potential of algorithmic profiling. Second, we explore the idea that anti-discrimination regulation may be more promising, but acknowledge limitations. Third, we argue that in order to harness anti-discrimination regulation, it needs to confront emergent forms of discrimination or risk creating new invisibilities, including invisibility from existing safeguards. Finally, we outline suggestions to address emergent forms of discrimination and exclusionary invisibilities via intersectional and post-colonial analysis. (shrink)

Kant war uberzeugt, dass er das "Wissen aufheben" musste, "um zum Glauben Platz zu bekommen". Wie sich der philosophisch begrundete "Vernunftglaube" aber zum Offenbarungsglauben verhalt, ist eine Frage, die bis heute Nachdenkens bedarf. Der Band vergegenwartigt Uberlegungen von der Stoa bis in unsere Zeit. Er verdeutlicht: Wo Philosophie die Fragen der Religion vergisst oder missachtet, verliert sie Rang und Tiefe. Wo religioser Glaube die Beziehung zum philosophischen Fragen vernachlassigt, wird er verlieren und scheitern. Wo jedoch etwas philosophisch gedachtes Absolutes die (...) Beziehung zur Geschichtlichkeit des menschlichen Lebens aus dem Blick verliert und die faktische Absolutheit im Geschichtlichen nicht zu verstehen versucht, verliert die Philosophie ihre Kernaufgaben aus dem Blick. (shrink)

“Excited Delirium Syndrome” (ExDS) is a controversial diagnosis. The supposed syndrome is sometimes considered to be a potential cause of death. However, it has been argued that its sole purpose is to cover up excessive police violence because it is mainly used to explain deaths of individuals in custody. In this paper, we examine the epistemic conditions giving rise to the controversial diagnosis by discussing the relation between causal hypotheses, evidence, and data in forensic medicine. We argue that the practitioners’ (...) social context affects causal inquiry through background assumptions that enter inquiry at multiple stages. This analysis serves to better understand the wide usage of the controversial diagnosis of ExDS. (shrink)

There isn’t one conversation about animal ethics. Instead, there are several important ones that are scattered across many disciplines. This volume both surveys the field of animal ethics and draws professional philosophers, graduate students, and undergraduates more deeply into the discussions that are happening outside of philosophy departments. To that end, the volume contains more nonphilosophers than philosophers, explicitly inviting scholars from other fields—such as animal science, ecology, economics, psychology, law, environmental science, and applied biology, among others—to bring their own (...) disciplinary resources to bear on matters that affect animals. -/- The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics is composed of 44 chapters, all appearing in print here for the first time, and organized into the following six sections: -/- I. Thinking About Animals -/- II. Animal Agriculture and Hunting -/- III. Animal Research and Genetic Engineering -/- IV. Companion Animals -/- V. Wild Animals: Conservation, Management, and Ethics -/- VI. Animal Activism -/- The chapters are brief, and they have been written in a way that is accessible to serious undergraduate students, regardless of their field of study. The volume covers everything from animal cognition to the state of current fisheries, from genetic modification to intersection animal activism. It is a resource designed for anyone interested in the moral issues that emerge from human interactions with animals. (shrink)

The HRAF databases, eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology, each containing large corpora of curated text subject-indexed at the paragraph-level by anthropologists, were designed to facilitate rapid retrieval of information. The texts describe social and cultural life in past and present societies around the world. As of the spring of 2018, eHRAF contains almost three million indexed “paragraph” units from over 8000 documents describing over 400 societies and archaeological traditions. This chapter first discusses concrete problems of scale resulting from large (...) numbers of complex elements retrieved by any given search. Second, we discuss potential and partial solutions that resolve these problems to advance research, whether based on specific hypotheses, classification or identifying and evaluating embedded patterns of relationships. Third, we discuss new kinds of research possibilities that can be further advanced, have not yet been successfully attempted, or have not even been considered using anthropological data because of scale and complexity of achieving a result. (shrink)

Scholarship in experimental jurisprudence has reported surprising findings about various concepts of legal significance: _acting intentionally_, _causation_, _consent_, _knowledge, recklessness_, _reasonableness,_ and _law_ itself. Often, these studies examine laypeople’s ordinary concepts and draw broader conclusions about legal experts’ concepts. This Article questions such inferences, from empirical findings about ordinary concepts to conclusions about the concepts of those with legal expertise. It presents a case study concerning what it means to act _intentionally._ An experiment examines intentionality judgments across four populations (N (...) = 774): laypeople, law students, non-law students, and United States judges. Legal training affected judgments in three ways that are consistent with the acquisition of a distinctive legal concept. This case study supports the Article’s broader claim: Laypeople’s ordinary concepts are not equivalent to experts’ legal concepts. The acquisition of legal concepts is an important form of legal expertise. (shrink)

Erkennen wir die Welt so, wie sie wirklich ist oder konstruieren wir die Wirklichkeit, in der wir leben? Der einführende Artikel vom Herausgeber und der Beitrag von E. von Glasersfeld wollen zeigen, dass diese Streitfrage sich durch die ganze abendländische Philosophiegeschichte zieht. In dem Sammelband wird der Streit auf der Grundlage alter und neuer Argumente noch einmal ausgefochten. Stützen sich die einen auf die wissenschaftliche Erforschung unseres Gehirns und unserer kognitiven Fähigkeiten, um ihre These der Nichterkennbarkeit einer von uns unabhängig (...) existierenden Welt zu untermauern, so meinen die anderen, diese Argumentation sei zirkulär, ja, habe der radikale Konstruktivismus recht, so sei er widersprüchlich und damit falsch. Hinter dem konstruktivistischen Paradigma verberge sich zudem letztlich ein naiver Naturalismus, der glaubt, mit Hilfe wissenschaftlicher Forschungen allein erkenntnistheoretische Aussagen machen zu können, so die Argumentation von H.J. Wendel. Hingegen sind es vor allem Literatur- und Sozialwissenschaftler, die in etwas abgewandelter Form den Konstruktivismus durchaus als wissenschaftliches Paradigma akzeptieren. So verteidigt Wolfgang Frindte einen Sozialen Konstruktivismus, der die Auffassung vertritt, wir erzeugten unsere Wirklichkeit zusammen im Diskurs. S.J. Schmidt geht davon aus, dass soziale Systeme über Wirklichkeitsmodelle verfügen, die in der gesellschaftlichen Evolution über die Konstitution und Thematisierung für essentiell gehaltener Unterscheidungen entstehen. Verschiedene Beiträge beziehen sich explizit auf die Theorie von Humberto Maturana. Busse, Locker und Nüse erörtern in ihren Aufsätzen besonders die Problematik, die sich aus dem Konzept der Autopoiese und der daraus resultierenden Geschlossenheit des zentralen Nervensystems ergeben. O. Breidbach nimmt auf die biologische Forschung Bezug und zieht den es noch viel zu verfrüht ist, um auf dem heutigen Kenntnisstand bereits Aussagen über unsere Erkenntnisfähigkeit zu machen. Einige Beiträge befassen sich mehr mit den praktischen Auswirkungen konstruktivistischer Annahmen z.B. in der Familientherapie (Stierlin) oder in der Lerntheorie (Simon). Von Interesse sind auch die Beiträge von Hans Geisslinger, die beschreiben, wie sich unsere Wirklichkeit mit Hilfe einiger weniger Parameter verändern lässt. (shrink)

Empirical insights into language processing have a philosophical relevance that extends well beyond philosophical questions about language. This chapter will discuss this wider relevance: We will consider how experimental philosophers can examine language processing in order to address questions in several different areas of philosophy. To do so, we will present the emerging research program of experimental argument analysis (EAA) that examines how automatic language processing shapes verbal reasoning – including philosophical arguments. The evidential strand of experimental philosophy uses mainly (...) questionnaire-based methods to assess the evidentiary value of intuitive judgments that are adduced as evidence for philosophical theories and as premises for philosophical arguments. Extending this prominent strand of experimental philosophy, EAA underpins such assessments, extends the scope of the assessments, and expands the range of the empirical methods employed: EAA examines how automatic inferences that are continually made in language comprehension and production shape verbal reasoning, and draws on findings about comprehension biases that affect the contextualisation of such default inferences, in order to explain and expose fallacies. It deploys findings to assess premises and inferences from premises to conclusions, in philosophical arguments. To do so, it adapts methods from psycholinguistics and recruits methods from computational linguistics. (shrink)

In the recently published manuscript “The Argument against Need” (ca. 1963), Heidegger discusses the notion of being-in-itself (Ansichsein) with regard to entities that predate the existence of knowers. Section 1 introduces the problem of so-called “ancestral facts,” which Meillassoux and Boghossian have used to argue for a specific form of realism. Sections 2 identifies a specific understanding of time as the basis for their argument. Sections 3–4 show how Heidegger rejects this account of time. Section 5 describes the general form (...) of ontologies that deny entity independence (dependence ontology). Section 6 turns to Heidegger’s account of a resistance to ontological sense-making in what he calls “beingless” (seinlos) entities. Discussing work by Haugeland and Wrathall, I conclude in section 7 that Heidegger’s response to the “argument against need” is to reject the idea of unidirectional dependence in favor of a triadic interdependence between being, entities, and us. (shrink)

The article introduces and defends the Nomological Account of ground, a reductive account of the notion of metaphysical explanation in terms of the laws of metaphysics. The paper presents three desiderata that a theory of ground should meet: it should explain the modal force of ground, the generality of ground, and the interplay between ground and certain mereological notions. The bulk of the paper develops the Nomological Account and argues that it meets the three desiderata. The Nomological Account relies on (...) two central notions: the notion of a ‘law of metaphysics’ and the notion of ‘determination via the laws’. The paper offers the constructional conception of the laws of metaphysics, on which the metaphysical laws are general principles that characterize construction–operations such as composition, constitution, or set-formation. The role of determination in the account is explained and some reductive approaches to the notion are sketched. The case for the Nomological Account presented in this article is also a case for the laws of metaphysics. Since the Nomological Account offers a promising approach to metaphysical explanation we should take the laws of metaphysics seriously. (shrink)

From ‘connecting the dots’ and finding ‘the needle in the haystack’ to predictive policing and data mining for counterinsurgency, security professionals have increasingly adopted the language and methods of computing for the purposes of prediction. Digital devices and big data appear to offer answers to a wide array of problems of (in)security by promising insights into unknown futures. This article investigates the transformation of prediction today by placing it within governmental apparatuses of discipline, biopower and big data. Unlike disciplinary and (...) biopolitical governmentality, we argue that prediction with big data is underpinned by the production of a different time/space of ‘between-ness’. The digital mode of prediction with big data reconfigures how we are governed today, which we illustrate through an analysis of how predictive policing actualizes between-ness as hotspots and near-real-time decisions. (shrink)

The paper explores a deductive-nomological account of metaphysical explanation: some truths metaphysically explain, or ground, another truth just in case the laws of metaphysics determine the latter truth on the basis of the former. I develop and motivate a specific conception of metaphysical laws, on which they are general rules that regulate the existence and features of derivative entities. I propose an analysis of the notion of ‘determination via the laws’, based on a restricted form of logical entailment. I argue (...) that the DN-account of ground can be defended against the well-known objections to the DN-approach to scientific explanation. The goal of the paper is to show that the DN-account of metaphysical explanation is a well-motivated and defensible theory. (shrink)

This collection of vivid and eloquent testimonies by environmentalists, eco-theologians, and native peoples illustrates a variety of responses to the same universal question: Where are we as a species heading on this planet? Contributors include Rick Bass, Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard. Gretel Ehrlich, Barry Lopez, Peter Mattheisen, Thomas Moore, Terry Tempest Williams, and others.

Obtaining informed consent from patients is a moral and legal duty and, thus, a key legitimation for medical treatment. The pivotal prerequisite for valid informed consent is decision-making capacity of the patient. Related to the question of whether and when consent should be morally and legally valid, there has been a long-lasting philosophical debate about freedom of will and the connection of freedom and responsibility. The scholarly discussion on decision-making capacity and its clinical evaluation does not sufficiently take into account (...) this fundamental debate. It is contended that the notion of free will must be reflected when evaluating decision-making capacity. Namely, it should be included as a part of the appreciation-criterion for decision-making capacity. The argumentation is mainly drawn on the compatibilism of Harry Frankfurt. A solution is proposed which at the same time takes the notion of free will seriously and enriches the traditional understanding of decision-making capacity, strengthening its justificatory force while remaining clinically applicable. (shrink)