According to Vera Moser, the first professorship of healing pedagogy, Heilpädagogik at the University of Zürich in 1931, established pedagogy of the disabled as an academic discipline. Through the definition of the smallest common denominator for all disabilities, which Heinrich Hanselmann called “weakness of the soul,” a connecting element of “imbecility, deaf-mutism, blindness, neglect and idiocy” was established. Under Nazi rule, school pedagogy advanced to völkisch, nationalist special pedagogy, shifting from the category of “innate imbecility” to a broader (...) concept of disability. As an outcome of these programs and policies, 300,000 people with disabilities were killed as a part of the “T4 Aktion.” Within just a few decades after World War II, special pedagogy expanded its sphere of influence through professionalization and institutionalization in West and East Germany and across Europe. This paper explores how special pedagogy aligned itself with the Nazi regime’s discourse and policy on eugenics and race hygiene, leading to the murder and mass sterilization of “disabled” children and adults. It probes questions regarding the extent to which the professionalization of special pedagogy has drawn from the Nazi-era terminology of the deficient and foreign to legitimate the contemporary migrant bias in German and Austrian special pedagogical care. (shrink)

This paper discusses the discourse contrasts that arise in connection to direct evidentiality in Southern Aymara (henceforth, Aymara), an understudied Andean language. Aymara has two direct evidentials, the enclitic _=wa_ and the covert morpheme _-_∅, which are used whenever the speaker has the best possible grounds for some proposition. I make the novel observation that a sentence with _=wa_ can be felicitously uttered if the speaker attempts to update the common ground by addressing an issue on the table. In fact, (...) the sentence with _=wa_ that is uttered must be congruent with prior discourse; I tie this to the claim that _=wa_ is a (presentational) focus marker (Proulx in Language Sciences 9(1):91–102, 1987 ). This paper thus claims that _=wa_ is a marker that combines evidentiality and focus. In contrast, uttering a sentence with _-_∅ entails that the speaker’s contribution is already in the common ground, which likens this evidential to common ground management operators—there is no congruence requirement in this case. I identify which construction can be used in different discourse settings (conversation openers and telling anecdotes). I implement a formal analysis based on Farkas and Bruce (Journal of Semantics 27:81–118, 2010 ) and Faller (Semantics and Pragmatics 12(8):1–53, 2019 ) that links evidentiality and discourse. (shrink)

Although scholars have invoked the escalation framework as a means of explaining the occurrence of numerous organizationally undesirable behaviors on the part of decision makers, to date no empirical research on the potential influences of escalating commitment on the likelihood of unethical behavior at the individual level of analysis has been reported in either the escalation or the ethical decision-making literatures. Thus, the main purpose of this project is to provide a theoretical foundation and empirical support for the contention that (...) escalating commitment situations can induce unethical behavior in decision makers. An experimental research design utilizing a computerized investment task was administered to 155 undergraduate business majors as a means of assessing the hypotheses presented here. Results from a hierarchical logistic regression analysis found strong support for the contention that exposure to an escalation situation increases the likelihood of unethical behavior on the part of decision makers. Further, results also supported previous ethical decision-making findings by confirming the effects of locus of control (LOC) on ethical behavior. Specifically, the data indicated that individuals with an external LOC orientation were significantly more likely to select the unethical option than were individuals with an internal LOC orientation. Interestingly, support was not found for the effects of Machiavellianism or gender on ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Many philosophers are again examining the traditional topic of a priori knowledge, or knowledge that does not depend on sensory experience. This volume collects the most important recent essays on the subject by well-known thinkers such as A.J. Ayer, W.V. Quine, Barry Stroud, C.I. Lewis, Hilary Putnam, Roderick M. Chisholm, Saul A. Kripke, Albert Casullo, R.G. Swinburne, and Philip Kitcher. Including an introduction by the editor and an extensive bibliography, this book provides philosophers and students with an in-depth look at (...) contemporary investigations into the nature of a priori knowledge. (shrink)

This article identifies intellectualism as the view that if we simply think hard enough about our evidence, we get an adequate answer to the question of whether God exists. The article argues against intellectualism, and offers a better alternative involving a kind of volitional evidentialism. If God is redemptive in virtue of seeking divine -human reconciliation, we should expect the evidence for God to be likewise redemptive. In that case, according to the article, the evidence for God would aim to (...) draw the human will toward cooperation with God’s will. Accordingly, the available evidence for God would be volitionally sensitive in that one’s coming to possess it would depend on one’s volitional stance toward its source. The article identifies some implications for divine hiddenness, traditional natural theology, and the view that the evidence for God’s existence is akin to evidence for a scientific hypothesis. (shrink)

Although the character of the “lady detective”is a staple of the cozy mystery genre, we contend that there are no great lady detectives to rival Holmes or Poirot. This is not because there are no clever or interesting lady detective characters, but ratherbecause the concept of greatness is sociallyconstructed and, like coolness, depends on public acclaim and perception. We explore the mechanics of genre formation, arguing that the very structure of cozy mysteries precludes female greatness. To create a “great”character,theauthor cannot (...) just endowher with certain attributes; she must actively work to overcome her audience’s tendency to import structures of oppression into the story, and she must wrestle against the conventions of the genre. In doing so, however, authors risk setting their stories in a wholly different genre. (shrink)

Diversity and disagreement in the religious beliefs among many religious people seem here to stay, however much they bother some inquirers. Even so, the latter inquirers appear not to be similarly bothered by diversity and disagreement in the scientific beliefs among many scientists. They sometimes propose that we should take religious beliefs to be noncognitive and perhaps even nonontological and noncausal regarding their apparent referents, but they do not propose the same for scientific beliefs. Perhaps they would account for this (...) difference in terms of more extensive diversity and disagreement among religious beliefs than scientific beliefs. We shall attend to the alleged significance of diversity and disagreement among religious beliefs, with an eye toward its bearing on epistemic and ontological matters in religion. In particular, we shall ask whether the significance recommends a retreat from first-order to “second-order” religion, as suggested by Branden Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican. (shrink)

It became obvious in classroom case discussions in a required MBA course, Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics, that subjective opinion often prohibited complete and thorough case analyses. Over a two-year period an attempt was made to identify the parameters of situations involving corporate social responsibility in order to develop a methodology which would facilitate classroom learning. The model described in the following manuscript is the result of these efforts.

We aim at a conceptually clear and technically smooth investigation of Ackermann’s substitution method [W. Ackermann, Zur Widerspruchsfreiheit der Zahlentheorie, Math. Ann. 117 162–194]. Our analysis provides a direct classification of the provably recursive functions of , i.e. Peano Arithmetic framed in the ε-calculus.

Offering a unique and wide-ranging examination of the theory of knowledge, the new edition of this comprehensive collection deftly blends readings from the foremost classical sources with the work of important contemporary philosophical thinkers. Human Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Approaches, 3/e, offers philosophical examinations of epistemology from ancient Greek and Roman philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus); medieval philosophy (Augustine, Aquinas); early modern philosophy (Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Kant); classical pragmatism and Anglo-American empiricism (James, Russell, Ayer, Lewis, Carnap, Quine, (...) Rorty); and other influential Anglo-American philosophers (Chisholm, Kripke, Moore, Wittgenstein, Strawson, Putnam). Organized chronologically and thematically, Human Knowledge, 3/e, features exceptionally broad coverage and nontechnical selections that are easily accessible to students. An ideal text for both undergraduate and graduate courses in epistemology, it is enhanced by the editors' substantial general introduction, section overviews, and up-to-date bibliographies. The third edition offers expanded selections on contemporary epistemology and adds selections by Thomas Reid, Richard Rorty, David B. Annis, Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, Ernest Sosa, Barry Stroud, and Louise M. Antony. Human Knowledge, 3/e, offers an unparalleled introduction to our ancient struggle to understand our own intellectual experience. (shrink)

This book offers a detailed analysis of Beauvoir's concepts of freedom and recognition concerning their impact on a philosophy of gender.

While vaccination rates in the United States are high — generally over 90 percent — rates of exemptions have been going up, and preventable diseases coming back. Aside from their human cost and the financial cost of treatment imposed on those who become ill, outbreaks impose financial costs on an already burdened public health system, diverting resources from other areas. This article examines the financial costs of non-vaccination, showing how high they can be and what they include. It makes a (...) case for requiring those who do not vaccinate to cover the costs of outbreak caused by their choice. Such recouping is justified because the choice not to vaccinate can easily be seen as negligent. But even if it is not, that choice involves imposing costs on others, and there are good reasons to require the actors to internalize those costs. The article proposes alternative statutory and regulatory schemes to cover the costs imposed on the public purse, focusing on no-fault mechanisms. We consider both ex ante mechanisms like a tax or a fee that will go into a no-fault fund to cover the costs and ex post mechanisms like a statutory authorization for recoupment of those costs by health officials. (shrink)

Philosophers have often misunderstood Kierkegaard's views on the nature and purposes of God due to a fascination with his earlier, pseudonymous works. We examine many of Kierkegaard's later works with the aim of setting forth an accurate view on this matter. The portrait of God that emerges is a personal and fiercely loving God with whom humans can and should enter into relationship. Far from advocating a fideistic faith or a cognitively unrestrained leap in the dark, we argue that Kierkegaard (...) connects this God-relationship to (a particular kind of) evidence and even knowledge. However, such evidence and knowledge – and hence God himself – may remain hidden from many individuals due to misconceptions of God and misuses of the human will. (shrink)

How can the Biblical God be the Lord and King who, being typically unseen and even self-veiled at times, authoritatively leads people for divine purposes? This article’s main thesis is that the answer is in divine moral leading via human moral experience of God (of a kind to be clarified). The Hebrew Bible speaks of God as ‘king,’ including for a time prior to the Jewish human monarchy. Ancient Judaism, as Martin Buber has observed, acknowledged direct and indirect forms of (...) divine rule and thus of theocracy. This article explores the importance of divine rule as divine direct leading, particularly in moral matters, without reliance on indirect theocracy supervised by humans. It thus considers a role for God as Über-King superior to any human king, maintaining a direct moral theocracy without a need for indirect theocracy. The divine goal, in this perspective, is a universal commonwealth in righteousness, while allowing for variation in political structure. The article identifies the importance in the Hebrew Bible of letting God be God as an Über-King who, although self-veiled at times, leads willing people directly and thereby rules over them uncoercively. It also clarifies a purpose for divine self-veiling neglected by Buber and many others, and it offers a morally sensitive test for unveiled authenticity in divine moral leading. (shrink)

What, if anything, has Jesus to do with philosophy? Although widely neglected, this question calls for attention from anyone interested in philosophy,whether Christian or non-Christian. This paper clarifies how philosophy fares under the teaching of Jesus. In particular, it contends that Jesus’slove (agape) commands have important implications for how philosophy is to be done, specifically, for what questions may be pursued. The paper,accordingly, distinguishes two relevant modes of being human: a discussion mode and an obedience mode. Philosophy done under the (...) authority ofJesus’s love commands must transcend a discussion mode to realize an obedience mode of human conduct. So, under Jesus’s teachings, we no longer have business as usual in philosophy. The discipline of philosophy then takes on a purpose foreign to philosophy as we know it, even as practiced by Christian philosophers. Under the authority of Jesus, philosophy becomes agape-oriented ministry in the church of Jesus and thus reflective of Jesus himself. In this respect, Jesus is Lord of philosophy. (shrink)

Mathematics educators suggest that students of all ages need to participate in productive forms of mathematical argument (NCTM, 2000). Accordingly, we developed two complementary frameworks for analyzing the emergence of mathematical argumentation in one second‐grade classroom. Children attempted to resolve contesting claims about the “space covered” by three different‐looking rectangles of equal area measure. Our first analysis renders the topology of the semantic structure of the classroom conversation as a directed graph. The graph affords clear “at a glance” visualization of (...) how various senses of mathematics—as imagined, as performed, and as historically rooted—were interrelated. The graph represents the emergence and intercoordination between conceptual and procedural knowledge in the ebb and flow of classroom conversation. The graph has not just descriptive, but also predictive power: Interconnectedness among the nodes of the graph representing the first 40 min of conversation predicted the structure of recall in the final ten minutes by children who had played little overt role in the conversation up to that point. The second, complementary framework draws upon Goffman's expanded repertoire of roles in speech to demonstrate how the teacher orchestrated this classroom conversation to establish coherent argument. In this second analysis, we establish how the teacher mediated between the everyday talk of her students and the discourse of mathematics. Her revoicing of student talk created interstices for identity and participation in the formation of the argument. Together, the two forms of analysis illuminate the emergence of mathematical argument at two levels: as collective structure and concurrently, as individual activity. (shrink)

The epistemology of monotheism offered by philosophers has given inadequate attention to the kind of foundational evidence to be expected of a personal God whose moral character is ’agapeic’, or perfectly loving, toward all other agents. This article counters this deficiency with the basis of a theistic epistemology that accommodates the distinctive moral character of a God worthy of worship. It captures the widely neglected ’agonic’, or struggle-oriented, character of a God who seeks, by way of personal witness and intentional (...) action, to realize and manifest ’agape’ among humans who suffer from selfishness. In doing so, the article identifies the overlooked role of personifying evidence of God in human moral character formation. In agreement with some prominent New Testament themes, the new perspective offered ties the epistemology of monotheism to robust ’agapeic’ morality in a way that makes such epistemology ethically challenging for inquirers about God’s existence. Accordingly, s. (shrink)

We present the results of three experiments investigating the interpretation of comparative constructions involving pronominal reference in which binding Principle C is violated. We show that both children and adults retrieve interpretations that are not predicted. On the one hand, children appear to represent elided pronominal material functionally instead of in a strict identity relation with a pronoun on the surface, generating interpretations that are entirely unexpected from the perspective of the adult grammar. On the other, adult participants often appear (...) to ignore Principle C, being influenced by factors such as prosodic focus, the type of comparative, and structural position of the pronoun. We propose that the way in which the sentence processor is deployed in the incremental processing of such comparative constructions gives rise to so-called acceptable ungrammaticality. (shrink)

The evolutionary origins of deception and its functional role in our species is a major focus of research in the science of human origins. Several hypotheses have been proposed for its evolution, often packaged under either the Social Brain Hypothesis, which emphasizes the role that the evolution of our social systems may have played in scaffolding our cognitive traits, and the Foraging Brain Hypothesis, which emphasizes how changes in the human dietary niche were met with subsequent changes in cognition to (...) facilitate foraging of difficult-to-acquire foods. Despite substantive overlap, these hypotheses are often presented as competing schools of thought, and there have been few explicitly proposed theoretical links unifying the two. Utilizing cross-cultural data gathered from the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), we identify numerous (n = 357) examples of the application of deception toward prey across 145 cultures. By comparing similar behaviors in nonhuman animals that utilize a hunting strategy known as aggressive mimicry, we suggest a potential pathway through which the evolution of deception may have taken place. Rather than deception evolving as a tactic for deceiving conspecifics, we suggest social applications of deception in humans could have evolved from an original context of directing these behaviors toward prey. We discuss this framework with regard to the evolution of other mental traits, including language, Theory of Mind, and empathy. (shrink)

Is there something as masculine and feminine values? Attempt of an everyday language approach The aim of the paper is to answer a question that has often been raised but not thoroughly explored, namely, whether there are masculine and feminine values. In axiology values are mostly considered in a gender-blind way, while in feminist critique, e.g., in difference feminism, there is a valorization of the feminine but a differentiated axiological consideration is not undertaken. By the use of the hermeneutic method (...) of interpretation and linguistic analysis, as well as of an axiological and feminist critical approach, the paper will unfold some ambiguities, and respectively the possible answers of the question, by showing the crucial importance of the value system, which defines the order of discourse and thus legitimizes or puts in question the sociocultural order. (shrink)

In "the theory of epistemic rationality" (harvard university press, 1987), Richard foley presents a version of subjective foundationalism designed to avoid aristotle's famous regress problem. This paper explains why foley's theory does not provide an adequate account of the foundations of inferential epistemic justification. Foley's theory neglects the epistemic significance of 'non'belief perceptual states.

Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit kulturanthropologischen und literarischen Reflexionen auf den Bewegungsmodus des Gehens. Er diskutiert die Frage, inwieweit das Gehen in diesen Diskursen als Linienpraxis aufgefasst wird. Ausgangspunkt ist die Beobachtung, dass die Kulturanthropologie, die dem aufrechten Gang eine Schlüsselfunktion für die Anthropogenese zuweist, diesen zugleich als Produkt eines ›Begradigungsprozesses‹ markiert und an die dichotomische Gegenüberstellung von Natur und Kultur koppelt. In literarischen Texten, aber auch in neueren ökoanthropologischen Ansätzen wird die Natur-Kultur-Opposition und die damit verbundene Privilegierung der geraden (...) Linie kritisch hinterfragt. Setzt die literarische Peripatetik mithin eine alternative Form der Beziehung zwischen Mensch und Umwelt in Szene? Entwirft sie eine Ökologie des Denkens und Wahrnehmens, die sich jenseits der Natur-Kultur-Dichotomie bewegt? Diese Fragen werden an ausgewählten Fallbeispielen beleuchtet. The essay deals with the peripatetic mode of movement as reflected in cultural anthropology and literature. It asks to what extent these discourses view walking as a practice of line-making. The point of departure is the observation that cultural anthropology ascribes a key role to the upright gait within anthropogenesis while associating it with a process of rectilinearization on the one hand and a sharp dichotomy between nature and culture on the other hand. Certain literary texts and recent approaches in ecologically oriented anthropology have, however, challenged the validity of this dichotomy and the concomitant privilege of the straight line. Does literary peripatetics thus propose an alternative way to grasp the relationship between human beings and the environment? Does it outline a new ecology of the mind that supersedes the binary relation between nature and culture? These questions are discussed with reference to selected case studies. (shrink)

« L’invocation henryenne de la « structure monadique de l’être » ne doit pas prêter à confusion. En particulier, on ne saurait assimiler les individualités pathétiques aux monades leibniziennes, qui « n’ont point de fenêtres, par lesquelles quelque chose y puisse entrer ou sortir » : la « monadologie » de Michel Henry ne consiste point en une juxtaposition d’idéalités repliées sur elles-mêmes et coordonnées du dehors par une harmonie préétablie […] ». Ces lignes d’Olivier Tinland nous donnent...

In many areas of scientific inquiry, the phenomena under investigation are viewed as functions on the real numbers. Since observational precision is limited, it makes sense to view these phenomena as bounded functions on the rationals. One may translate the basic notions of recursion theory into this framework by first interpreting a partial recursive function as a function on Q. The standard notions of inductive inference carry over as well, with no change in the theory. When considering the class of (...) computable functions on Q, there are a number of natural ways in which to define the distance between two functions. We utilize standard metrics to explore notions of approximate inference — our inference machines will attempt to guess values which converge to the correct answer in these metrics. We show that the new inference notions, NV∞, EX∞, and BC∞, infer more classes of functions than their standard counterparts, NV, EX, and BC. Furthermore, we give precise inclusions between the new inference notions and those in the standard inference hierarchy. We also explore weaker notions of approximate inference, leading to inference hierarchies analogous to the EXn and BCn hierarchies. Oracle inductive inference is also considered, and we give sufficient conditions under which approximate inference from a generic oracle G is equivalent to approximate inference with only finitely many queries to G. (shrink)

Recent obituaries for traditional non-naturalistic approaches to rationality are not just premature but demonstrably self-defeating. One such prominent obituary appears in the writings of W. V. Quine, whose pessimism about traditional epistemology stems from his scientism, the view that the natural sciences have a monopoly on legitimate theoretical explanation. Quine also offers an obituary for the a priori constraints on rationality found in “first philosophy”, resting on his rejection of the “pernicious mentalism” of semantic theories of meaning. Quine’s pronouncements of (...) the death of traditional conceptions of rationality in epistemology and in the theory of meaning are, we contend, but misguided wishes for their death, wishes that face severe problems of self-defeat. In addition, Quine’s naturalistic epistemology is subject to damaging skeptical worries, the force of which one cannot escape by ignoring them. A non-naturalistic approach to rationality is here to stay, whether friends of Quine’s naturalism like it or not. Any sweeping claim that non-naturalistic accounts of rationality are dead will face insurmountable obstacles from unavoidable questions about its own rational justification. Such questions will keep non-naturalistic epistemology and first philosophy alive forever, or at least as long as philosophers endure. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to make visible Max Scheler's great contribution to philosophical research on virtues and values, and to re-integrate it into the current discourse. Christoph Halbig's marginal reference to Scheler provides a good opportunity for this. Since both authors pursue completely different objectives, the question arises as to how much of Halbig's approach to a theory of action can be reconciled with Scheler's personalist understanding of virtue. While Halbig seeks criteria for assessing the actions of others, (...) Scheler points to the empowerment supplied by virtue itself. The author argues that Scheler already anticipated some ideas, which has led to a new awareness of virtues in contemporary psychology. (shrink)

Many philosophers and theologians try to add credibility to Christian faith by means of philosophical arguments and explanations. There are two main ways to pursue this aim, and one way is arguably more defensible than the other, at least from the perspective of the apostle Paul. Philosophers and theologians who hold that Paul has a contribution to make in this area should consider the relative efficacy of these two ways. The key area of contrast lies in the epistemic basis of (...) relevant philosophical arguments and explanations: either a basis in the power of direct divine self-manifestation or a basis just in philosophical claims. The latter basis will neglect or obscure the power distinctive of the Christian God and thus miss out on foundational evidence characteristic of that God. This article clarifies what that power is, in terms of responsive divine self-manifestation as God’s self-witness to divine reality and goodness in receptive human moral experience and character formation. The article explains how such power, being interactive toward divine righteousness, serves as a significant alternative to such prominent philosophical overlays on Christian faith as Platonism, Thomism, and Kantianism. The latter overlays improperly depersonalize key evidence for God’s reality and goodness. (shrink)