Purpose Interdisciplinary linkage of information is an emerging topic to create knowledge by collaboration of experts in diverse domains. New insights can be found by using the combined techniques and information when people have the chance to discuss and communicate on a common basis. Design/methodology/approach This paper describes RMS Cloud, an information management system which allows distributed data sources to be searched using dynamic joins of results from heterogeneous data formats. It is based on the well-known Mediator architecture, but reverses (...) the connection of the data sources to grant data owners full control over the data. Findings Data owners and learners are enabled to retrieve information and to cross-connect domain-extrinsic knowledge and enhances collaborative learning with a search interface that is intuitive and easy to operate. Originality/value This novel architecture is able to connect to differently shaped data sources from interdisciplinary domains into one common retrieval interface. (shrink)

Davidson's 1963 essay "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" convinced most philosophers that reason explanations are a species of causal explanation. By way of argument, Davidson challenged the non-causalist to make sense of cases where the agent has more than one reason that would justify her behavior but only acts on one of these reasons. We claim that a teleological account of action explanation can answer Davidson's challenge, but we argue further that if the Davidsonian challenge is a problem for the teleologist, (...) then it is equally a problem for the causalist, and thus cannot serve as an argument for causalism. (shrink)

Hume's Reception in Early America: Expanded Edition brings together the original American responses to one of Britain's greatest men of letters, David Hume. Now available as a single volume paperback, this new edition includes updated further readings suggestions and dozens of additional primary sources gathered together in a completely new concluding section. From complete pamphlets and booklets, to poems, reviews, and letters, to extracts from newspapers, religious magazines and literary and political journals, this book's contents come from a wide variety (...) of sources published in colonial America and the early United States between 1758 and 1850. As well as classics by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, it contains scores of unknown and hard-to-locate items, many of which have not been reprinted since their original publication. These responses are divided into four parts covering Hume's Essays; his Philosophical Writings; his History of England; and his Character and Death. Each of those parts has a separate introductory essay, and every selection is introduced by a short headnote that sets the piece in its historical context and provides bibliographical references. Packed with new insights into Hume and American thought and culture, Hume's Reception in Early America reveals the relevance and impact of Hume on American political, philosophical, historical, religious, and aesthetic debates. (shrink)

In Platons Apologie des Sokrates zeichnet sich eine auf menschliche Art weise Person durch ihre Fähigkeit aus, den epistemischen Status und den Wert ihrer Meinungen über Sachverhalte korrekt zu beurteilen. Sie weiß, ob es sich bei ihnen um Wissen oder bloß um Meinung handelt, aber auch, ob sie etwas nicht weiß. Es ist zudem eine breit geteilte Auffassung, dass intellektuelle Bescheidenheit, obwohl nicht dasselbe wie Weisheit, ein bedeutender Aspekt der Weisheit ist. Doch wenn die hier vorgestellten Überlegungen triftig sind und (...) das Spektrum der relevanten Deutungen abdecken, ist das für Sokratische Weisheit nicht haltbar. Denn die Bedingungen für korrekte Urteile über den epistemischen Status der eigenen Meinungen sind so anspruchsvoll, dass fehlbare Wesen, die ein entsprechendes Wissen zweiter Stufe beanspruchen, nicht anders als epistemisch unbescheiden sein können. Wenn Sokratische Weisheit epistemische Bescheidenheit verlangt, ist Sokrates nicht weise. (shrink)

Dieser Artikel untersucht die Semantik und das logische Verhältnis der Begriffe „Wahrheit“ und „Richtigkeit“ in Anselms De veritate: Werden sie relativ oder absolut verstanden? Sind sie synonym oder nicht? Handelt es sich um ontologische oder um epistemische Begriffe? Richtig ist, was einer Vorschrift genügt oder einer Regel folgt. Bei Gott haben wir es dagegen mit einem einstelligen Gebrauch des Ausdrucks zu tun, da Gott ausschließlich Regelgebender ist und Richtigkeit als Maßstab allererst setzt, ohne selbst danach bemessen zu werden. Wahrheit hat (...) es mit Fakten, Richtigkeit mit Normen zu tun. Als „rectitudo sola mente perceptibilis“ ist „Wahrheit“ ein ontologischer bzw. nichtepistemischer Begriff, der seinerseits von Richtigkeit abhängt, die ein normativer bzw. epistemischer Begriff ist. (shrink)

According to Plato’s Apology of Socrates, a humanly wise person is distinguished by her ability to correctly assess the epistemic status and value of her beliefs. She knows when she has knowledge or has mere belief or is ignorant. She makes no unjustified knowledge claims and considers her knowledge to be limited in scope and value. This means: A humanly wise person is intellectually modest. However, when interpreted classically, Socratic wisdom cannot be modest. For in classical epistemic logic, modelling second-order (...) knowledge of knowing something or not, i.e. positive and negative introspection, requires a degree of self-transparency that would at most be attributed to an omniscient and infallible agent. If intellectual modesty is part of Socratic wisdom, we have to look for another epistemic model. I will offer three proposals and argue that an intuitionist reading of the classical concept of knowledge is best suited for this purpose. (shrink)

In der analytischen Handlungstheorie streiten seit einigen Jahren Kausalisten und Teleologen über die angemessene Erklärung menschlichen Handelns aus Gründen. Mit Fokus auf das Problem abweichender Kausalketten zielt der Beitrag auf eine reflektierte Einschätzung des Stands dieses Disputs sowie der Vorzüge und Defizite der involvierten Ansätze und konstatiert ein Patt. Während Kausalisten ein kausaltheoretischer Begriff der Abweichung fehlt, ringen Teleologen mit der Abwägung kontrafaktischer Situationen.

Revisionen moralischer Überzeugungen erfordern nach allgemeiner Auffassung einen festen Bezugspunkt: einen stabilen moralischen Charakter der umdenkenden Personen. Andernfalls können diesen ihre Überzeugungen, Entscheidungen und Handlungen nicht zugerechnet werden. So lehren metaethische Generalisten einerseits und Partikularisten andererseits, für Charakterstabilität seien fixe Moralprinzipien bzw. eine fixe moralische Feinfühligkeit konstitutiv. Beiden Positionen zufolge zielen Revisionen auf moralische Richtigkeit im Sinne synchroner Kohärenz niedrigstufiger moralischer Überzeugungen . Der kritische Befund: Das statische Vermögen, in moralischen Dingen immer richtig zu liegen, bildet keine einer besonderen Zurechnung (...) fähigen moralischen Charaktere aus; das dynamische Vermögen, sich selbst auf angemessene Weise korrigieren zu können, dagegen wohl. Darum argumentiert der Beitrag erstens dafür, Charakterstabilität als diachrone Kohärenz unserer moralischen Überzeugungen aufzufassen. Zweitens wird für eine Sicht plädiert, nach der iterative Revisionen moralischer Überzeugungen nicht nur Moralprinzipien gemäß vorgenommen werden, sondern diese auch affizieren und deren maßvolle Veränderung nach sich ziehen können. Zuletzt wird diskutiert, nach welchen Strategien sich Revisionen dieser Art vollziehen sollten. (shrink)

Distancing myself from theories that present dignity as if it were a feature of an independent reality, I use the concept as defined by praxis and speak about shared dignity. I begin by testing some of the argumentative strategies that dominate current local discussion. This is followed by a probing of Kant's concept of dignity, which significantly determines these strategies. Finally I plead for the alternative view that dignity be understood as something which, firstly, no one can have for themselves (...) and that, secondly, exists only in and only through a social praxis of dignification. (shrink)

As in the Doctrine of Right, Kant uses a principle in the Critique of Prac­tical Reason according to which whatever diminishes the hindrances to an activ­ity is a furthering of this activity itself. This is meant to help to determine a priori from concepts the modus operandi of the moral law, insofar as it is an incentive whose effect confers moral value on actions. I argue, first, that following a par­ticular reading of what is meant by "hindrance," "resistance," and "furthering," (...) this principle is likely to be false. This is because a hindrance obstructs an event or prevents it from taking place. By contrast, the removal of the hindrance or its absence merely permits or enables an event to occur. It does not bring it about. Preventing or disabling and furthering (in terms of "making happen") are not contradictory, but contrary opposites. Either, then, the furthering of an activity is to be understood as limited to enabling that activity by disabling its disablers or the notion of furthering presupposes a lot more than can be seen a priori, in­dependently of such a presupposition. The latter would be question-begging. Second, I point out that the pre-critical writing on the Negative Magnitudes pres­ents a Kantian solution to the motivation problem that, albeit not satisfactory, is more promising than that of the Second Critique. (shrink)

My considerations are typological in nature. A lie is a disingenuous assertion made to another person with the intent of deceiving the other person into believing both that the assertion is true and that the liar believes it to be true. This definition is morally neutral. It requires a further, moral judgment to determine whether a lie is a good or a bad thing, or whether, in specified circumstances, a lie is morally right or wrong. However, what if the truth (...) is not only occasionally contaminated but lies are spread en masse in order to make the addressees question their ability to judge or to induce collective self-deception? Beginning with small-scale use of lies, related variants of dishonesty – especially large scale, propagandistic uses of lies – are conceptually characterized and evaluated. Lies can be systematically distinguished via their purposes. (shrink)

This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

Editor James Fetzer presents an analytical and historical introduction and a comprehensive bibliography together with selections of many of Carl G. Hempel's most important studies to give students and scholars an ideal opportunity to appreciate the enduring contributions of one of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century.

This entirely new work guides the reader through the most basic systems of modal propositional logic up to systems of modal predicate with identity, dealing with both technical developments and discussing philosophical applications.

Includes bibliographical references and index.