In this paper, we present and defend an analysis of harm that we call the Negative Influence on Well-Being Account (NIWA). We argue that NIWA has a number of significant advantages compared to its two main rivals, the Counterfactual Comparative Account (CCA) and the Causal Account (CA), and that it also helps explain why those views go wrong. In addition, we defend NIWA against a class of likely objections, and consider its implications for several questions about harm and its role (...) in normative theorizing. (shrink)

This paper analyses a hitherto unknown technique of using logic diagrams to create argument maps in eristic dialectics. The method was invented in the 1810s and -20s by Arthur Schopenhauer, who is considered the originator of modern eristic. This technique of Schopenhauer could be interesting for several branches of research in the field of argumentation: Firstly, for the field of argument mapping, since here a hitherto unknown diagrammatic technique is shown in order to visualise possible situations of arguments in a (...) dialogical controversy. Secondly, the art of controversy or eristic, since the diagrams do not analyse the truth of judgements and the validity of inferences, but the persuasiveness of arguments in a dialogue. (shrink)

According to the “deprivation approach,” a person’s death is bad for her to the extent that it deprives her of goods. This approach faces the Lucretian problem that prenatal non-existence deprives us of goods just as much as death does, but does not seem bad at all. The two most prominent responses to this challenge—one of which is provided by Frederik Kaufman (inspired by Thomas Nagel) and the other by Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer—claim that prenatal non-existence is relevantly (...) different from death. This paper criticizes these responses. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the question of whether a person’s existence can be better (or worse) for him than his non-existence. Recently, Nils Holtug and Melinda A. Roberts have defended an affirmative answer. These defenses, I shall argue, do not succeed. In different ways, Holtug and Roberts have got the metaphysics and axiology wrong. However, I also argue that a person’s existence can after all be better (or worse) for him than his non-existence, though for reasons other than those (...) provided by Holtug and Roberts. (shrink)

Logic diagrams have been increasingly studied and applied for a few decades, not only in logic, but also in many other fields of science. The history of logic diagrams is an important subject, as many current systems and applications of logic diagrams are based on historical predecessors. While traditional histories of logic diagrams cite pioneers such as Leibniz, Euler, Venn, and Peirce, it is not widely known that Kant and the early Kantians in Germany and England played a crucial role (...) in popularising Euler(-type) diagrams. In this paper, the role of the Kantians in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries will be analysed in more detail. It shows that diagrams (or intuition in general) were a highly contentious topic that depend on the philosophical attitude and went beyond logic to touch on issues of physics, metaphysics, linguistics and, above all, mathematics. (shrink)

In a recent article, I criticized Anthony L. Brueckner and John Martin Fischer’s influential argument—appealing to the rationality of our asymmetric attitudes towards past and future pleasures—against the Lucretian claim that death and prenatal non-existence are relevantly similar. Brueckner and Fischer have replied, however, that my critique involves an unjustified shift in temporal perspectives. In this paper, I respond to this charge and also argue that even if it were correct, it would fail to defend Brueckner and Fischer’s proposal against (...) my critique. (shrink)

Several attractive principles about prudential concern and moral responsibility seem to speak against animalism. I criticize some animalist responses to this kind of problem, and suggest another answer, which has similarites with the most important argument in favor of animalism: the “thinking animal” argument.

A prominent objection to the counterfactual comparative account of harm is that it classifies as harmful some events that are, intuitively, mere failures to benefit. In an attempt to solve this problem, Duncan Purves has recently proposed a novel version of the counterfactual comparative account, which relies on a distinction between making upshots happen and allowing upshots to happen. In this response, we argue that Purves’s account is unsuccessful. It fails in cases where an action makes the subject occupy a (...) high well-being level though one of the available alternatives would have made it even higher. In fact, it fails even in some cases where each of the available alternatives to the action that was actually performed would have made the subject’s well-being level lower. (shrink)

The chapters in this timely volume aim to answer the growing interest in Arthur Schopenhauer’s logic, mathematics, and philosophy of language by comprehensively exploring his work on mathematical evidence, logic diagrams, and problems of semantics. Thus, this work addresses the lack of research on these subjects in the context of Schopenhauer’s oeuvre by exposing their links to modern research areas, such as the “proof without words” movement, analytic philosophy and diagrammatic reasoning, demonstrating its continued relevance to current discourse on logic. (...) -/- Beginning with Schopenhauer’s philosophy of language, the chapters examine the individual aspects of his semantics, semiotics, translation theory, language criticism, and communication theory. Additionally, Schopenhauer’s anticipation of modern contextualism is analyzed. The second section then addresses his logic, examining proof theory, metalogic, system of natural deduction, conversion theory, logical geometry, and the history of logic. Special focus is given to the role of the Euler diagrams used frequently in his lectures and their significance to broader context of his logic. In the final section, chapters discuss Schopenhauer’s philosophy of mathematics while synthesizing all topics from the previous sections, emphasizing the relationship between intuition and concept. -/- Aimed at a variety of academics, including researchers of Schopenhauer, philosophers, historians, logicians, mathematicians, and linguists, this title serves as a unique and vital resource for those interested in expanding their knowledge of Schopenhauer’s work as it relates to modern mathematical and logical study. (shrink)

One increasingly popular approach to personal identity is called ‘animalism.’ Unfortunately, it is unclear just what the doctrine says. In this paper, I criticise several different ways of stating animalism, and put forward one formulation that I find more promising.

I raise two objections against Christian List and Peter Menzies' influential account of high-level causation. Improving upon some of Stephen Yablo's earlier work, I develop an alternative theory which evades both objections. The discussion calls into question List and Menzies' main contention, namely, that the exclusion principle, applied to difference-making, is false.

Reism or concretism are the labels for a position in ontology and semantics that is represented by various philosophers. As Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz and Jan Woleński have shown, there are two dimensions with which the abstract expression of reism can be made concrete: The ontological dimension of reism says that only things exist; the semantic dimension of reism says that all concepts must be reduced to concrete terms in order to be meaningful. In this paper we argue for the following two (...) theses: (1) Arthur Schopenhauer has advocated a reistic philosophy of language which says that all concepts must ultimately be based on concrete intuition in order to be meaningful. (2) In his semantics, Schopenhauer developed a theory of logic diagrams that can be interpreted by modern means in order to concretize the abstract position of reism. Thus we are not only enhancing Jan Woleński’s list of well-known reists, but we are also adding a diagrammatic dimension to concretism, represented by Schopenhauer. (shrink)

Derek Parfit famously defends a number of surprising views about "fission." One is that, in such a scenario, it is indeterminate whether I have survived or not. Another is that the fission case shows that it does not matter, in itself, whether I survive or not. Most critics of the first view contend that fission makes me cease to exist. Most opponents of the second view contend that fission does not preserve everything that matters in ordinary survival. In this paper (...) I shall provide a critique that does not rely on either of these contentions. There are other, interrelated reasons to reject Parfit's defense of the two theses. In particular, the availability of the following view creates trouble for Parfit: I determinately survive fission, but it is indeterminate which fission product I am. (shrink)

In recent years CL diagrams inspired by Lange’s Cubus Logicus have been used in various contexts of diagrammatic reasoning. However, whether CL diagrams can also be used as a formal system seemed questionable. We present a CL diagram as a formal system, which is a fragment of propositional logic. Syntax and semantics are presented separately and a variant of bitstring semantics is applied to prove soundness and completeness of the system.

In this paper, we analyze and discuss Schopenhauer’s n-term diagrams for eristic dialectics from a graph-theoretical perspective. Unlike logic, eristic dialectics does not examine the validity of an isolated argument, but the progression and persuasiveness of an argument in the context of a dialogue or even controversy. To represent these dialogue situations, Schopenhauer created large maps with concepts and Euler-type diagrams, which from today’s perspective are a specific form of graphs. We first present the original method with Euler-type diagrams, then (...) give the most important graph-theoretical definitions, then discuss Schopenhauer’s diagrams graph-theoretically and finally give an example of how the graphs or diagrams can be used to analyze dialogues. (shrink)

A pure time preference is a preference for something to occur at one point in time rather than another, merely because of when it occurs in time. Such preferences are widely regarded as paradigm examples of irrational preferences. However, Rosemary Lowry and Martin Peterson have recently argued that, for instance, a pure time preference to go to the opera tonight rather than next month may be rationally permissible, even if the amounts of intrinsic value realized in both cases are identical. (...) In this reply, we argue that Lowry and Peterson's argument is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Abstract: The symmetry argument is an objection to the 'deprivation approach'– the account of badness favored by nearly all philosophers who take death to be bad for the one who dies. Frederik Kaufman's recent response to the symmetry argument is a development of Thomas Nagel's suggestion that we could not have come into existence substantially earlier than we in fact did. In this paper, I aim to show that Kaufman's suggestion fails. I also consider several possible modifications of his theory, (...) and argue that they are unsuccessful as well. (shrink)

John Martin Fischer and Anthony L. Brueckner have argued that a person’s death is, in many cases, bad for him, whereas a person’s prenatal non-existence is not bad for him. Their suggestion relies on the idea that death deprives the person of pleasant experiences that it is rational for him to care about, whereas prenatal non-existence only deprives him of pleasant experiences that it is not rational for him to care about. In two recent articles in The Journal of Ethics, (...) I have objected that it is irrelevant what it is in fact rational for the person to care about. Fischer and Brueckner have replied to my critique. In this paper I respond to their latest pair of replies. (shrink)

Emily Thomas's seminal book The Meaning of Travel has brought the philosophy of travel back into the public eye in recent years. Thomas has shown that the topic of travel can be approached from numerous different perspectives, ranging from the historical to the conceptual‐analytical, to the political or even social‐philosophical perspectives. This article introduces another perspective, which Thomas only indirectly addresses, namely the argumentation‐theoretical perspective. It is notable that contemporary philosophy of travel lacks the nineteenth‐century approach of using diagrams and (...) maps to examine arguments for and against travel. Since this approach starts with Schopenhauer, we first introduce his argument maps, discuss their advantages and disadvantages, and argue that a modified version is suitable to visualize and analyze arguments for and against traveling as presented in Thomas's work. (shrink)

In his recent book, Death and the Afterlife, Samuel Scheffler argues that it matters greatly to us that there be other human beings long after our own deaths. In support of this “Afterlife Thesis,” as I call it, he provides a thought experiment—the “doomsday scenario”—in which we learn that, although we ourselves will live a normal life span, 30 days after our death the earth will be completely destroyed. In this paper I question this “doomsday scenario” support for Scheffler’s Afterlife (...) Thesis. In particular, I suggest that Scheffler has underestimated the importance of a good ending. (shrink)

The question of naturalness in logic is widely discussed in today’s research literature. On the one hand, naturalness in the systems of natural deduction is intensively discussed on the basis of Aristotelian syllogistics. On the other hand, research on “natural logic” is concerned with the implicitly existing logical laws of natural language, and is therefore also interested in the naturalness of syllogistics. In both research areas, the question arises what naturalness exactly means, in logic as well as in language. We (...) show, however, that this question is not entirely new: In his Berlin Lectures of the 1820s, Arthur Schopenhauer already discussed in depths what is natural and unnatural in logic. In particular, he anticipates two criteria for the naturalness of deduction that meet current trends in research: (1) Naturalness is what corresponds to the actual practice of argumentation in everyday language or scientific proof; (2) Naturalness of deduction is particularly evident in the form of Euler-type diagrams. (shrink)

In this paper, we interpret a 19th century diagram, which is meant to visualise G.W.F. Hegel’s entire method of the `Science of Logic' on the basis of bitwise operations. For the interpretation of the diagram we use a binary numeral system, and discuss whether the anti-Hegelian argument associated with it is valid or not. The reinterpretation is intended to make more precise rules of construction, a stricter binary code and a review of strengths and weaknesses of the critique.

In the year 1714, Johann Christian Lange published a baroque textbook about a logic machine, supposed to simulate human cognitive abilities such as perception, judgement, and reasoning. From today’s perspective, it can be argued that this blueprint is based on an inference engine applied to a strict ontology which serves as a knowledge base. In this paper, I will first introduce Lange’s approach in the period of baroque logic and then present a diagrammatic modernization of Lange’s principles, entitled Calculus CL. (...) Finally, I would like to discuss the possibilities of how to apply CL to modern cases of concern by using an example from epidemiology. (shrink)

Chris Heathwood has recently put forward a novel and ingenious argument against the view that intrinsic value is analyzable in terms of fitting attitudes. According to Heathwood, this view holds water only if the related but distinct concept of welfare—intrinsic value for a person —can be analyzed in terms of fitting attitudes too. Moreover, he argues against such an analysis of welfare by appealing to the rationality of our bias towards the future. In this paper, I argue that so long (...) as we keep the tenses and the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction right, the fitting-attitudes analysis of welfare can be shown to survive Heathwood’s criticism. (shrink)

The counterfactual comparative account of harm has counterintuitive implications in cases involving overdetermination and preemption. A popular strategy for dealing with these problems appeals to plural harm—several events being jointly harmful. Björn Petersson criticizes this strategy on the grounds that it conflicts with a strong intuition that helps to motivate the counterfactual comparative account, namely, that harming someone essentially involves making a difference for the worse for her. In this paper, I argue that Petersson’s argument is unconvincing.

The so-called 'Extreme Claim' asserts that reductionism about personal identity leaves each of us with no reason to be specially concerned about his or her own future. Both advocates and opponents of the Extreme Claim, whether of a reductionist or non-reductionist stripe, accept that similar problems do not arise for non-reductionism. In this paper I challenge this widely held assumption.

The essay examines Stanisław Brzozowski’s ideas on mutual interactions between the sphere of culture and the realm of the political. It shows how Brzozowski made use of literary texts in order to elucidate social and political processes. In doing so, he insisted on a specific form of knowledge accessible through texts of literature and literary criticism, which are not limited by the mere “logic of notions.” Following Vico and Sorel Brzozowski detected an “irrational core” at the bases of human collectivities (...) such as above all modern nations, and it is through literature that this core can be revealed. Brzozowski’s understanding of political ideas and concepts is informed—to a decisive degree—by the literary imagination. This can be shown by a semantic and rhetorical analysis of some of his later writings. (shrink)

In a recent article, Joyce L. Jenkins challenges the common belief that desire satisfactionists are committed to the view that a person's welfare can be affected by posthumous events. Jenkins argues that desire satisfactionists can and should say that posthumous events only play an epistemic role: though such events cannot harm me, they can reveal that I have already been harmed by something else. In this response, however, we show that Jenkins's approach collapses into the view she aims to avoid.

What is the primacy of logic? Concepts, judgments, or inferences? Whereas representationalists traditionally argue for a primacy of the conceptual, rationalists, referring to the context principle and the use theory of meaning, consider judgments and inferences to be primary. This dispute also seems to be applicable to logic diagrams: Whereas “Euler-type diagrams” are actually only for judgments and inferences, “concept diagrams” represent ontologies by using concepts. With reference to Schopenhauer, the paper develops a position called “rational representationalism.” According to this (...) point of view, the question of primacy is decided by analyzing the functions of the logic principles: For the explanation of logic and language, concepts are primary, but for understanding it is judgments. The mediation between intuitive representation and logical rationality is ensured by concept diagrams. (shrink)

Offers historical and philosophical arguments for treating the humanities as sciences.

Scott Campbell has recently defended the psychological approach to personal identity over time by arguing that a person is literally a series of mental events. Rejecting four-dimensionalism about the persistence of physical objects, Campbell regards constitutionalism as the main rival version of the psychological approach. He argues that his "series view" has two clear advantages over constitutionalism: it avoids the "two thinkers" objection and it allows a person to change bodies. In addition, Campbell suggests a reply to the objection, often (...) raised against views such as his, that thoughts must be distinct from their thinker. In this paper, I argue that Campbell's responses to the "two thinkers" and the "thoughts/thinker" objections are unsuccessful. Furthermore, his reply to the latter leads to four-dimensionalism of the kind he wanted to avoid – and this view too allows a person to change bodies. Moreover, I argue that it speaks against the series view that generalised versions of it fare much more poorly than do generalised versions of constitutionalism and four-dimensionalism. (shrink)

For Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), logic as a discipline belongs to the human faculty of reason, more precisely to the faculty of language. This discipline of logic breaks down into two areas. Logic or analytics is one side of the coin; dialectic or the art of persuasion is the other. The former investigates rule-oriented and monological language. The latter investigates result-oriented language and persuasive language...

In this paper we present an overview of the current interpretations of the first volume of Arthur Schopenhauer’s main work The World as Will and Representation (W I) and discuss their problems. We discuss four issues, which in our opinion must clarify a current interpretation implicitly or explicitly, if it claims to be an interpretation of the whole book: (1) What does Schopenhauer mean by the fact that his work shares only one (single) thought? (2) How are the individual books (...) of W I related? (3) Do we have to read Schopenhauer’s W I as a normative guide to the denial of will-to-live or as a neutral description of the world? (4) Do the often discussed contradictions and aporias within the book follow a plan or are they errors of thought? (shrink)

According to the “deprivation approach,” a person’s death is bad for her to the extent that it deprives her of goods. This approach faces the Lucretian problem that prenatal non-existence deprives us of goods just as much as death does, but does not seem bad at all. The two most prominent responses to this challenge—one of which is provided by Frederik Kaufman and the other by Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer—claim that prenatal non-existence is relevantly different from death. This (...) paper criticizes these responses. (shrink)

Most versions of the psychological-continuity approach to personal identity (PCA) contain a 'non-branching' requirement. Recently, Robert Francescotti has argued that while such versions of PCA handle Parfit's standard fission case well, they deliver the wrong result in the case of an intact human brain. To solve this problem, he says, PCA-adherents need to add a clause that runs contrary to the spirit of their theory. In this response, I argue that Francescotti's counterexample fails. As a result, the revision he suggests (...) is not needed. (shrink)

Rebecca Roache’s recent critique of David Lewis’s cohabitation view assumes that a person cannot be properly concerned about something that rules out that she ever exists. In this brief response, I argue against this assumption.

A widely debated question in current research centres on determining the precursors to G. W. F. Hegel's theory of recognition. Until now Fichte, Rousseau and Aristotle have been discussed. However, the present paper analyses a further surprising correspondence between Marsilio Ficino's theory of love and Hegel's theory of recognition. Here it is shown that Hegel studied Ficino in 1793 and that we can discover syntactical, semantical, and structural vestiges of Ficino's De amore II 8 in Hegel's early fragments on religion (...) (1793) and love (1797), which are closely related to the general theory of recognition found in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Not only may this thesis be relevant for Hegel or Ficino scholarship, but it could also be a further indication that social theories with normative content are an integral characteristic of (early) modern self-consciousness. (shrink)

Knowledge on regulatory relations, in for example regulatory pathways in biology, is used widely in experiment design by biomedical researchers and in systems biology. The knowledge has typically either been represented through simple graphs or through very expressive differential equation simulations of smaller sections of a pathway. As an alternative, in this work we suggest a knowledge representation of the most basic relations in regulatory processes regulates, positively regulates and negatively regulates in logics based on a semantic analysis. We discuss (...) the usage of these relations in biology and in artificial intelligence for hypothesis development in drug discovery. (shrink)