We introduce combinatorial principles that characterize strong compactness and supercompactness for inaccessible cardinals but also make sense for successor cardinals. Their consistency is established from what is supposedly optimal. Utilizing the failure of a weak version of a square, we show that the best currently known lower bounds for the consistency strength of these principles can be applied.

This paper attempts an interpretation of Everett''s relative state formulation of quantum mechanics that avoids the commitment to new metaphysical entities like worlds or minds. Starting from Everett''s quantum mechanical model of an observer, it is argued that an observer''s belief to be in an eigenstate of the measurement (corresponding to the observation of a well-defined measurement outcome) is consistent with the fact that she objectively is in a superposition of such states. Subjective states corresponding to such beliefs are constructed. (...) From an analysis of these subjective states and their dynamics it is argued that Everett''s pure wave mechanics is subjectively consistent with von Neumann''s classical formulation of quantum mechanics. It follows from the argument that the objective state of a system is in principle unobservable. Nevertheless, an adequate concept of empirical reality can be constructed. (shrink)

Promotion of pro-social attitudes and moral behaviour is a crucial and challenging task for social orders. As traditional ways such as moral education have some, but apparently and unfortunately only limited effect, some authors have suggested employing biomedical means such as pharmaceuticals or electrical stimulation of the brain to alter individual psychologies in a more direct way — moral bioenhancement. One of the salient questions in the nascent ethical debate concerns the impact of such interventions on human freedom. Advocates argue (...) that moral bioenhancements do not pose a serious threat to freedom. This contention, however, is based on an overly narrow, if not impoverished, sense of freedom, which comprises only freedom of action and freedom of will. Mind-altering interventions primarily affect another sense of freedom: freedom of mind, a concept that has not received much attention although it should rank among the most important legal and political freedoms. The article introduces three senses of mental freedom potentially infringed upon by moral bioenhancement and places it in a broader perspective. Ignorance of mental freedom has far-ranging consequences for the shape of the political and legal order at large. As many advocates are apparently not aware of the freedoms they seek to undermine, their calls for moral enhancement programmes are dangerously premature. (shrink)

_Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation_ offers a resolution of one of the most vexing problems in Nietzsche scholarship. As perhaps the most significant predecessor of more recent attempts to formulate a postmetaphysical epistemology and ontology, Nietzsche is considered by many critics to share this problem with his successors: How can an antifoundationalist philosophy avoid vicious relativism and legitimate its claim to provide a platform for the critique of arguments, practices, and institutions? Christoph Cox argues that Nietzsche successfully navigates between relativism (...) and dogmatism, accepting the naturalistic critique of metaphysics and theology provided by modern science, yet maintaining that a thoroughgoing naturalism must move beyond scientific reductionism. It must accept a central feature of aesthetic understanding: acknowledgment of the primacy and irreducibility of interpretation. This view of Nietzsche's doctrines of perspectivism, becoming, and will to power as products of an overall naturalism balanced by a reciprocal commitment to interpretationism will spur new discussions of epistemology and ontology in contemporary thought. (shrink)

This paper draws a connection between recent developments in naturalized philosophy of science and the Buchanan research program in economics. Economic approaches in naturalized philosophy of science can be combined to form an economic philosophy of science. After giving an overview of some of these approaches, I lay out the fundamentals of the Buchanan research program. I argue that its main elements are a theory of interactions and a normative foundation in consensus which help to answer some important criticisms of (...) economic philosophy of science. (shrink)

The paper introduces, compares and contrasts formal models of source reliability proposed in the epistemology literature, in particular the prominent models of Bovens and Hartmann and Olsson :127–143, 2011). All are Bayesian models seeking to provide normative guidance, yet they differ subtly in assumptions and resulting behavior. Models are evaluated both on conceptual grounds and through simulations, and the relationship between models is clarified. The simulations both show surprising similarities and highlight relevant differences between these models. Most importantly, however, our (...) evaluations reveal that important normative concerns arguably remain unresolved. The philosophical implications of this for testimony are discussed. (shrink)

Logik ist ein unveranderter, hochwertiger Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1873. Hansebooks ist Herausgeber von Literatur zu unterschiedlichen Themengebieten wie Forschung und Wissenschaft, Reisen und Expeditionen, Kochen und Ernahrung, Medizin und weiteren Genres.Der Schwerpunkt des Verlages liegt auf dem Erhalt historischer Literatur.Viele Werke historischer Schriftsteller und Wissenschaftler sind heute nur noch als Antiquitaten erhaltlich. Hansebooks verlegt diese Bucher neu und tragt damit zum Erhalt selten gewordener Literatur und historischem Wissen auch fur die Zukunft bei.".

A interlocution containing a stimulating lead essay on the relationship between law and violence by one of the key third-generation Frankfurt School philosophers, Christoph Menke, and engaged responses by a variety of influential critics.

Fiction and truth : ancient stories about Pythagoras -- In search of the historical Pythagoras -- The Pythagorean secret society -- Thinkers influenced by Pythagoras and his pupils.

I discuss two accounts of rational religious faith that have recently been proposed by Peter Rohs and Volker Gerhardt, respectively, and critically explore the relations between (i) faith and knowledge and (ii) faith and hope. I argue that, if faith essentially involves some form of eschatological hope, then a theory of rational faith will have to include an analysis of rational hope.

The paper provides a systematic overview of recent debates in epistemology and philosophy of science on the nature of understanding. We explain why philosophers have turned their attention to understanding and discuss conditions for “explanatory” understanding of why something is the case and for “objectual” understanding of a whole subject matter. The most debated conditions for these types of understanding roughly resemble the three traditional conditions for knowledge: truth, justification and belief. We discuss prominent views about how to construe these (...) conditions for understanding, whether understanding indeed requires conditions of all three types and whether additional conditions are needed. (shrink)

Assertion is the central vehicle for the sharing of knowledge. Whether knowledge is shared successfully often depends on the quality of assertions: good assertions lead to successful knowledge sharing, while bad ones don't. In Sharing Knowledge, Christoph Kelp and Mona Simion investigate the relation between knowledge sharing and assertion, and develop an account of what it is to assert well. More specifically, they argue that the function of assertion is to share knowledge with others. It is this function that (...) supports a central norm of assertion according to which a good assertion is one that has the disposition to generate knowledge in others. The book uses this functionalist approach to motivate further norms of assertion on both the speaker and the hearer side and investigates ramifications of this view for other questions about assertion. (shrink)

This paper attempts an interpretation of Everett's relative state formulation of quantum mechanics that avoids the commitment to new metaphysical entities like ‘worlds’ or ‘minds’. Starting from Everett's quantum mechanical model of an observer, it is argued that an observer's belief to be in an eigenstate of the measurement (corresponding to the observation of a well-defined measurement outcome) is consistent with the fact that she objectively is in a superposition of such states. Subjective states corresponding to such beliefs are constructed. (...) From an analysis of these subjective states and their dynamics it is argued that Everett's pure wave mechanics is subjectively consistent with von Neumann's classical formulation of quantum mechanics. It follows from the argument that the objective state of a system is in principle unobservable. Nevertheless, an adequate concept of empirical reality can be constructed. (shrink)

Climate model projections are used to inform policy decisions and constitute a major focus of climate research. Confidence in climate projections relies on the adequacy of climate models for those projections. The question of how to argue for the adequacy of models for climate projections has not gotten sufficient attention in the climate modelling community. The most common way to evaluate a climate model is to assess in a quantitative way degrees of “model fit”; i.e., how well model results fit (...) observation-based data (empirical accuracy) and agree with other models or model versions (robustness). However, such assessments are largely silent about what those degrees of fit imply for a model’s adequacy for projecting future climate. We provide a conceptual framework for discussing the evaluation of the adequacy of models for climate projections. Drawing on literature from philosophy of science and climate science, we discuss the potential and limits of inferences from model fit. We suggest that support of a model by background knowledge is an additional consideration that can be appealed to in arguments for a model’s adequacy for long-term projections, and that this should explicitly be spelled out. Empirical accuracy, robustness and support by background knowledge neither individually nor collectively constitute sufficient conditions in a strict sense for a model’s adequacy for long-term projections. However, they provide reasons that can be strengthened by additional information and thus contribute to a complex non-deductive argument for the adequacy of a climate model or a family of models for long-term climate projections. (shrink)

Stolz, Ärger, Angst, Neid - das ganze Spektrum der Gefühle wird philosophischen Einzelanalysen unterzogen. Ausgehend von der Alltagserfahrung stehen die gemeinsamen Merkmale und die Differenzen der einzelnen Gefühle im Vordergrund. Dabei wird Bezug genommen auf die Philosophiegeschichte und aktuelle philosophische Kontroversen. Nicht nur Struktur und Gehalt der Gefühle, sondern auch ihre leibliche Erfahrung werden betrachtet. Ein einmaliges Nachschlagewerk für Philosophen und Psychologen.

In the Critique of Judgment, Kant quotes the traditional view of the relation between the ethical and the aesthetical ('the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good'). However, he elaborates this view in a radically new way: as equivalence between two forms of reflection, between ethical and aesthetic reflection. The article distinguishes three different aspects of aesthetic reflection in Kant and discusses their respective ethical meaning. It shows the unresolved tension between Kant's program of an 'aesthetics of autonomy' on (...) the one hand, and his reference to sensualistic and vitalist motifs of an aesthetic 'energetism' on the other. (shrink)

The question of whether cognition can influence perception has a long history in neuroscience and philosophy. Here, we outline a novel approach to this issue, arguing that it should be viewed within the framework of top-down information-processing. This approach leads to a reversal of the standard explanatory order of the cognitive penetration debate: we suggest studying top-down processing at various levels without preconceptions of perception or cognition. Once a clear picture has emerged about which processes have influences on those at (...) lower levels, we can re-address the extent to which they should be considered perceptual or cognitive. Using top-down processing within the visual system as a model for higher-level influences, we argue that the current evidence indicates clear constraints on top-down influences at all stages of information processing; it does, however, not support the notion of a boundary between specific types of information-processing as proposed by the cognitive impenetrability hypothesis. (shrink)

Self-deception is a special kind of motivational dominance in belief-formation. We develop criteria which set paradigmatic self-deception apart from related phenomena of automanipulation such as pretense and motivational bias. In self-deception rational subjects defend or develop beliefs of high subjective importance in response to strong counterevidence. Self-deceivers make or keep these beliefs tenable by putting prima-facie rational defense-strategies to work against their established standards of rational evaluation. In paradigmatic self-deception, target-beliefs are made tenable via reorganizations of those belief-sets that relate (...) relevant data to target-beliefs. This manipulation of the evidential value of relevant data goes beyond phenomena of motivated perception of data. In self-deception belief-defense is pseudo-rational. Self-deceivers will typically apply a dual standard of evaluation that remains intransparent to the subject. The developed model of self-deception as pseudo-rational belief-defense is empirically anchored. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to develop general criteria of argumentative validity and adequacy for probabilistic arguments on the basis of the epistemological approach to argumentation. In this approach, as in most other approaches to argumentation, proabilistic arguments have been neglected somewhat. Nonetheless, criteria for several special types of probabilistic arguments have been developed, in particular by Richard Feldman and Christoph Lumer. In the first part (sects. 2-5) the epistemological basis of probabilistic arguments is discussed. With regard to (...) the philosophical interpretation of probabilities a new subjectivist, epistemic interpretation is proposed, which identifies probabilities with tendencies of evidence (sect. 2). After drawing the conclusions of this interpretation with respect to the syntactic features of the probability concept, e.g. one variable referring to the data base (sect. 3), the justification of basic probabilities (priors) by judgements of relative frequency (sect. 4) and the justification of derivative probabilities by means of the probability calculus are explained (sect. 5). The core of the paper is the definition of '(argumentatively) valid derivative probabilistic arguments', which provides exact conditions for epistemically good probabilistic arguments, together with conditions for the adequate use of such arguments for the aim of rationally convincing an addressee (sect. 6). Finally, some measures for improving the applicability of probabilistic reasoning are proposed (sect. 7). (shrink)

According to what I term the Dependency Thesis, the ability to grasp the concept of the past depends on possession of episodic memory, i.e., the capacity to recollect particular past events. I consider two questions regarding the Dependency Thesis. First, suppose the Dependency Thesis is true. How exactly should we think of the role that episodic memory plays in grasp of the concept of the past? Secondly, is the Dependency Thesis actually true?

Das spezifische Ziel von Argumentationen ist nicht einfach, den Adressaten etwas glauben zu machen - dies wäre bloße Rhetorik ﷓, sondern: den Adressaten beim Erkennen der Akzeptabilität (insbesondere der Wahrheit) der These anzuleiten und ihn so zu begründetem Glauben, zu Erkenntnis zu führen. Argumentationen leiten das Erkennen an, indem sie in ihren Argumenten hinreichende Akzeptabilitätsbedingungen der These als erfüllt beurteilen und so den Adressaten implizit auffordern, diese Bedingungen zu überprüfen. Argumentationen sind gültig, wenn sie prinzipiell das Erkennen anleiten können; d. (...) h. wenn die genannten Akzeptabilitätsbedingungen hinreichend sind, wenn sie tatsächlich erfüllt (die Argumente also wahr) sind und wenn es irgendjemanden gibt, der zwar die Akzeptabilität der Argumente, nicht aber die der These erkannt hat. Eine gültige Argumentation ist adäquat, um einen bestimmten Adressaten rational zu überzeugen, wenn dieser u. a. die Akzeptabilität der Argumente, nicht aber die der These erkannt hat. Die in gültigen Argumentationen als erfüllt beurteilten Akzeptabilitätsbedingungen sind Konkretisierungen allgemeiner Erkenntnisprinzipien für die spezifische These, z. B. des deduktiven Erkenntnisprinzips: 'Eine Proposition ist wahr, wenn sie von wahren Propositionen logisch impliziert wird.' oder des erkenntnisgenetischen Erkenntnisprinzips: 'Eine Proposition ist wahr, wenn sie korrekt verifiziert worden ist.' Eine Konkretisierung des deduktiven Prinzips für eine These p wäre z. B.: 'p ist wahr, 1. wenn q und r wahr sind und 2. wenn q und r zusammen p logisch implizieren.' Sind beide Bedingungen erfüllt, so könnte 'q; r; also p.' eine gültige deduktive Argumentation sein. Die verschiedenen Argumentationstypen unterscheiden sich danach, auf welchem Erkenntnisprinzip sie basieren. Das argumentativ angeleitete Erkennen der Akzeptabilität der These funktioniert so: Der Adressat benutzt das von ihm (zumindest implizit) gewußte allgemeine Erkenntnisprinzip als Checkliste, auf der er nach dem Vorbringen der Argumente abhakt, welche Akzeptabilitätsbedingung des Erkenntnisprinzips durch das Zutreffen des Arguments jeweils erfüllt wird. Auf der Basis dieser Funktionsbestimmung werden in der "Praktischen Argumentationstheorie" (erstmalig) präzise Gültigkeitskriterien für Argumentationen allgemein und für mehrere spezielle Argumentationstypen entwickelt, erkenntnistheoretisch begründet und auf komplexe Argumentationsbeispiele aus Philosophie, Wissenschaft, Technik und Kultur angewendet. Die Analyse der erkenntnistheoretischen Grundlagen - der zugrundeliegenden Erkenntnisprinzipien - vor allem der interpretierenden und praktischen Argumentationen ist zudem von erheblicher Bedeutung weit über die Argumentationstheorie hinaus: für die Interpretationstheorie, die Handlungstheorie und die praktische Philosophie. (shrink)

In this chapter, I discuss some ways in which debates about temporal experience intersect with wider debates about the nature of perception in general. In particular, I suggest that bearing in mind some general questions about the nature of perception can help with demarcating different theoretical approaches to temporal experience. Much of the current debate about temporal experience in philosophy is framed in terms of a debate between three specific main positions sometimes referred to as the extensional model, the retentional (...) model and the cinematic model. It is typically assumed that the differences between these three models are obvious. Yet, on closer inspection, it turns out to be surprisingly difficult to make out what exactly distinguishes the cinematic model from the extensional one, on the one hand, and from the retentional model, on the other. I criticise some existing ways in which the models are sometimes demarcated from one another, before suggesting that the differences between the three views become clearer if the debate between them is seen as turning on contrasting pictures of the nature of perceptual experience they embody. (shrink)

(2003). Perfecting the Individual: Wilhelm von Humboldt's concept of anthropology, Bildung and mimesis. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 241-249.

Abstracts These are abstracts of the papers that receive a reply, not of the replies themselves. The abstracts appear in the alphabetical order of the authors' names; for the contributions to the ...

This essay investigates the impact of the digital age on corporality as a constitutive condition of experience. Rather than just considering the multitude of phenomena at the surface of digitalization, the essay uncovers the conceptual development that underlies them. I apply Edmund Husserl’s concept of the “mathematization of nature” to digitalization, and, more specifically, digitization of data from experience. This leads to an explanation of some of the reasons for the apparent and the factual loss of corporality. Building on ideas (...) of Gnther Anders and Martin Heidegger, I then show how the use of humans as a source of data deepens the incorporation of the human body into the digital world. Yet, other recent developments of the digital age, such as “virtual reality” and other forms of “extended reality,” rediscover not only the human body but also corporality. I again make use of Husserl’s insights into digitization, this time inverting them to explain the computation of “extended reality.”. (shrink)

Many contemporary philosophers consider justice to be the crucial normative concept of ethics and political philosophy. This view goes back to J. S. MillÏs Utilitarianism (ch. 5), and to J. RawlsÏ A Theory of Justice. In this paper, I challenge this view. As I take it, justice is not the core of our normative convictions for many normative convictions do not concern questions of justice. I aim to show that our idea of justice has a very specific content and function.

Vor dem Hintergrund der aktuellen Frage nach einer angemessenen Einladungspolitik für akademische Veranstaltungen wird zunächst betont, dass das Recht auf freie Meinungsäußerung zum absoluten Kern jeder liberalen politischen Ordnung gehört. Seine Wahrnehmung unterliegt jedoch zugleich klaren Bedingungen und weist Legitimitätsgrenzen auf. Im vorliegenden Artikel werden fünf solche Bedingungen genereller Art formuliert, nämlich ein a) Moralitätskriterium, b) ein Reziprozitätskriterium, c) ein Legalitätskriterium, d) ein republikanisches Gemeinwohlkriterium und e) ein Relevanzkriterium. Es folgen weitere sechs Kriterien für die Limitierung des wissenschaftstypischen Gebrauchs von (...) Meinungsfreiheit: f) das Sozialisationskriterium, g) das Expertisekriterium, h) das Einschlägigkeitskriterium, i) das Methodenkriterium, j) das Qualitätskriterium und k) das Objektivitätskriterium. Illiberale Positionen werden sodann als solche definiert, die das Prinzip des Vorrangs der Grundfreiheiten nicht anerkennen. Schließlich stelle ich Überlegungen zum Toleranzbegriff mit dem Ergebnis an, dass gegenüber illiberalen Positionen Toleranz in der Regel nicht angemessen ist. (shrink)