Karl Rahner (1904–1984) has exercised a profound influence on Catholic theology. This paper reconstructs both why and how Rahner’s ideas were received in the United States since the 1950s. American theologians did much more than simply repeat what the German Jesuit had outlined. Rather, they made use of his thought in order to do theology constructively. Thus, even today Rahner’s influence in the US is quite noticeable.

In this paper, we aim to clarify and evaluate the contention that immortality would be necessarily boring . It will emerge that, just as there are various importantly different kinds of immortality, there are various distinct kinds of boredom. To evaluate the Necessary Boredom Thesis, we need to specify the kind of immortality and the kind of boredom. We argue against the thesis, on various specifications of “immortality” and “boredom.”.

Near-death experiences offer a glimpse not only into the nature of death but also into the meaning of life. They are not only useful tools to aid in the human quest to understand death but are also deeply meaningful, transformative experiences for the people who have them. In a unique contribution to the growing and popular literature on the subject, philosophers John Martin Fischer and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin examine prominent near-death experiences, such as those of Pam Reynolds, Eben Alexander (...) and Colton Burpo. They combine their investigations with critiques of the narratives' analysis by those who take them to show that our minds are immaterial and heaven is for real. In contrast, the authors provide a blueprint for a science-based explanation. Focusing on the question of whether near-death experiences provide evidence that consciousness is separable from our brains and bodies, Fischer and Mitchell-Yellin give a naturalistic account of the profound meaning and transformative effects that these experiences engender in many. This book takes the reality of near-death experiences seriously. But it also shows that understanding them through the tools of science is completely compatible with acknowledging their profound meaning. (shrink)

This paper evaluates recent proposals for compatibilism about doxastic freedom, and attempts to refine them by applying Fischer and Ravizza’s moderate reasons-responsiveness compatibilism to doxastic freedom. I argue, however, that even this refined version of doxastic compatibilism is subject to challenging counter-examples and is more difficult to support than traditional compatibilism about freedom of action. In particular, it is much more difficult to identify convincing examples of the sort Frankfurt proposed to challenge the idea that responsibility requires alternative possibilities.

The article takes critiques of the entanglement of law with violence as a point of departure for exploring the possibility of a ‘tertium of law’. It thereby seeks to overcome the dichotomous basic assumptions that see law as always oscillating between an apology for violence on the one hand, and a utopia of reason on the other. The text analyses the possibility of this ‘tertium’, a ‘legal force’ beyond legal violence and legal reason, in four steps, drawing on the work (...) of Jacques Derrida and authors of the first generation of the Frankfurt School, in particular on Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. It argues that in a first step law needs to be dissociated from the State. The violence of law, however, does not stem solely from law’s ties with State power. Law itself is violent even where it is not State law. The second step of legal critique thus needs to consist in the commemoration of legal violence, followed by a third that demands the transformation of violence to force. These three instances of critique are the precondition for a last and essential step according to which a critique of law must facilitate the transcendence of legal violence by taking law and its promise of justice at its word in order to turn this promise against law itself. (shrink)

Title: The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades ProjectPublisher: The MIT PressISBN: 0262521644Author: Susan Buck-MorssTitle: Walter Benjamin's PassagePublisher: SuhrkampISBN: 3518580892Author: Pierre Missac, Ulrike Bischoff Title: Erstarrte Unruhe: Walter Benjamins Begriff der GeschichtePublisher: Fischer Taschenbuch VerlagISBN: 3596109620Author: Ralf Konersmann.

Among the phenomena of near-death experiences (NDEs) are what are known as aftereffects whereby, over time, experiencers undergo substantial, long-term life changes, becoming less fearful of death, more moral and spiritual, and more convinced that life has meaning and that an afterlife exists. Some supernaturalists attribute these changes to the experience being real. John Martin Fischer and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin, on the other hand, have asserted a naturalist thesis involving a metaphorical interpretation of NDE narratives that preserves their significance (...) but eliminates the supernaturalist causal explanation. I argue that Fischer and Mitchell-Yellin’s psychological thesis fails as an explanation of NDEs. (shrink)

This is a selection of essays on moral responsibility that represent the major components of John Martin Fischer's overall approach to freedom of the will and moral responsibility. The collection exhibits the overall structure of Fischer's view and shows how the various elements fit together to form a comprehensive framework for analyzing free will and moral responsibility. The topics include deliberation and practical reasoning, freedom of the will, freedom of action, various notions of control, and moral accountability. The (...) essays seek to provide a foundation for our practices of holding each other (and ourselves) morally and legally accountable for our behavior. A crucial move is the distinction between two kinds of control. According to Fischer, "regulative control" involves freedom to choose and do otherwise ("alternative possibilities"), whereas "guidance control" does not. Fischer contends that guidance control is all the freedom we need to be morally responsible agents. Further, he contends that such control is fully compatible with causal determinism. Additionally, Fischer argues that we do not need genuine access to alternative possibilities in order for there to be a legitimate point to practical reasoning. Fischer's overall framework contains an argument for the contention that guidance control, and not regulative control, is associated with moral responsibility, a sketch of a comprehensive theory of moral responsibility (that ties together responsibility for actions, omissions, consequences, and character), and an account of the value of moral responsibility. On this account, the value of exhibiting freedom (of the relevant sort) and thus being morally responsible for one's behavior is a species of the value of artistic self-expression. (shrink)

I am going to argue that it is a cost of libertarianism that it holds our status as agents hostage to theoretical physics, but that claim has met with disagreement. Some libertarians regard it as the cost of doing business, not a philosophical liability. By contrast, Peter van Inwagen has addressed the worry head on. He says that if he were to become convinced that causal determinism were true, he would not change his view that humans are free and morally (...) responsible. Rather, he would give up at least one of the formerly-thought-to-be a priori truths that are elements in his argument for the incompatibility of causal determinism and the relevant sort of freedom. Thus, according to van Inwagen, our status as free and morally responsible agents would not be held hostage to the physicists or hang on a thread I think that van Inwagen’s strategy for securing our freedom and responsibility is unattractive. Somewhat tendentiously, I have called the rejection of an a priori ingredient in the incompatibilist’s argument, contingent upon learning that causal determinism is true, ‘metaphysical fip-flopping.’ -/- And it does seem that van Inwagen’s approach is implausible insofar as he is open to such metaphysical fip-fopping. That he is open to it—that he would fip-fop if he became convinced of the truth of causal determinism—is a problem for his actual philosophical position. Or so I will argue. (shrink)

In this paper I explore in a preliminary way the interconnections among narrative explanation, narrative value, free will, an immortality. I build on the fascinating an suggestive work of David Velleman. I offer the hypothesis that our acting freely is what gives our lives a distinctive kind of value - narrative value. Free Will, then, is connected to the capacity to lead a meaningful life in a quite specific way: it is the ingredient which, when aded to others, enows us (...) with a meaning over an above the cumulative value erived from ading together levels of momentary welfare. In acting freely, we are writing a sentence in the story of our lives, and the value of acting freely is thus a species of the value of artistic creativity or self-expression (understood appropriately). Finally, I contend that the fact that our lives are stories need not entail that they have endings, or that immortality would necessarily be unimaginable or essentially different from ordinary, finite human life. Yes, a certain sort of narrative understanding of our lives as a whole would be impossible in the context of immortality; but much of what we care about, and value, in our stories might remain. (shrink)

In the present article we argue that emotional interactions are not appropriately captured in present emotion research and theorizing. Emotional stimuli or antecedents are dynamic and change over time because they often interact and have a specific relationship with the subject. Earlier emotional interactions may, for example, intensify later emotional reactions to a specific person, or our anger reactions towards powerful or powerless others may differ considerably. Thus, we suggest that such social factors not only affect the intensity, but also (...) the nature of emotional experiences and expressions, and specifically the nature of the social movement (e.g., moving towards, away, or against). We discuss different processes that are implicated in the relation between the social environment and our emotions, describe how emotional expressions shape social behavior, and provide suggestions for incorporating the social dimension of emotion in future research. (shrink)

Hardly anyone disputes that discrimination can be a grave moral wrong. Yet this consensus masks fundamental disagreements about what makes something discrimination, as well as precisely why acts of discrimination are wrong. Benjamin Eidelson develops systematic answers to those two questions. He claims that discrimination is a form of differential treatment distinguished by its special connection to the differential ascription of some property to different people, and goes on to argue that what makes some cases of discrimination intrinsically wrongful (...) is that they manifest an attitude of disrespect for the personhood of those who are disfavored. He endeavors to specify what this attitude consists in, and to demonstrate how attending to its character can help us to better understand the moral dimensions of different forms of wrongful discrimination. The book concludes with an extended discussion of racial profiling in law enforcement. (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)

In the future, when we compare the welfare of a being of one substrate (say, a human) with the welfare of another (say, an artificial intelligence system), we will be making an intersubstrate welfare comparison. In this paper, we argue that intersubstrate welfare comparisons are important, difficult, and potentially tractable. The world might soon contain a vast number of sentient or otherwise significant beings of different substrates, and moral agents will need to be able to compare their welfare levels. However, (...) this work will be difficult, because we lack the same kinds of commonalities across substrates that we have within them. Fortunately, we might be able to make at least some intersubstrate welfare comparisons responsibly in spite of these issues. We make the case for cautious optimism and call for more research. (shrink)

I argue that racism is essentially a civic character trait: to be a racist is to have a character that rationally reflects racial supremacist sociopolitical values. As with moral vice accounts of racism, character is my account’s primary evaluative focus: character is directly evaluated as racist, and all other racist things are racist insofar as, and because, they cause, are caused by, express or are otherwise suitably related to racist character. Yet as with political accounts of racism, sociopolitical considerations provide (...) my account’s primary evaluative standard: satisfying the sociopolitical standard of racial supremacy is what makes racist character racist. (shrink)

In his critical review of Recht und Gewalt Andreas Fischer-Lescano has suggested that the critical insight into the paradoxical entwinement of law and violence should lead towards the utopian idea of a “transcendence” of law. The response to Fischer-Lescano rejects this idea as a false leveling of the - decisive normative - difference between law and society. This difference is the condition of possibility of law’s critical and hence transformative relation to society. The response thus defends the idea, (...) brought forward in Recht und Gewalt by way of an interpretation of Benjamin’s formula of the Entsetzung of law, that the break with law’s fateful violence cannot consist in the “transcendence” but rather the “depotenciation” of law. (shrink)

Kiesewetter defends the normativity of rationality by presenting a new solution to the problems that arise from the common assumption that we ought to be rational. He provides a defence of a reason-response conception of rationality, an evidence-relative account of reason, and an explanation of structural irrationality in relation to these accounts.

Nelson Pike’s article, “Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action,” is one of the most influential pieces in contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Published over forty years ago, it has elicited many different kinds of replies. We shall set forth some of the main lines of reply to Pike’s article, starting with some of the “early” replies. We then explore some issues that arise from relatively recent work in the philosophy of time; it is fascinating to note that views suggested by recent work (...) in this area and related areas of metaphysics have implications for Pike’s argument - implications perhaps not previously noticed. (shrink)

Diese Festschrift für Michael Fischer ist ein Patchwork und eine wunderbare Mischung aus Wissenschaft, Persönlichem, Freundschaft und Genuss. Sie setzt sich aus unterschiedlichen und vielseitigen Texten, Zeichnungen und Bildern zusammen, von Menschen, die ihn begleitet haben, manche viele Jahre, manche nur eine kurze, aber entscheidende Zeit. Studentinnen und Studenten, die von ihm gelernt haben, Kolleginnen und Kollegen, die mit ihm Ideen entwickelt, Projekte initiiert und geforscht haben, Freunden aus Kunst und Kultur, Theater, Oper und den Bühnen des Lebens, nämlich: (...) Eric Hobsbawm, Claudio Magris, André Glucksmann, Wolf Singer, Johannes Hahn, Volker Gerhardt, Thomas Fischer, Rudolf (+) und Gundl Hradil, Helga Rabl-Stadler, Gerard Mortier, Jürgen Flimm, Brita Steinwendtner, Veit Heinichen, Peter Ruzicka, André Tubeuf, Thomas Oberender, Stefan Zweifel, Hermann Lübbe, Eduardo Chitas, Wilhelm Donner, Hans Eichhorn, Reinhard Kacianka, Tina Perisutti, Ulrich H. J. Körtner, Markus Hengstschläger, Henriette und Conrad Ulrich-Hürlimann, Michael Hagner, Thomas Macho, Johann Weyringer, Birgit Recki, Walther Ch. Zimmerli, Andreas Cesana, Kurt Seelmann. (shrink)

Arguments for veganism don’t make many vegans, or even many who think they ought to be vegans, at least when they’re written by philosophers. Others — such as the one by Jonathan Safran Foer — seem to do a bit better. Why? To answer this question, I sketch a theory of ordinary moral argumentation that highlights the importance of meaning-based considerations in arguing that people ought to act in ways that deviate from normal expectations for behaviour. In particular, I outline (...) an eclectic theory, where we draw on a variety of moral frameworks and don’t assume that morality is generally overriding. I suggest that meaning-based considerations help us sort through the array of reasons available to us, as well as explain why, in a particular case, what we ought to do morally is what we ought to do all things considered. (shrink)

'Philosophische Anthropologie' meint in dieser Studie nicht eine philosophische Subdisziplin, sondern eine besondere Theorierichtung in der deutschsprachigen Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts, die mit den Namen Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner, Erich Rothacker, Arnold Gehlen, Adolf Portmann u.v.a. mehr verbunden ist. Der erste Teil erzählt die verwickelte, teils abenteuerliche Entstehungs-, Aufstiegs- und Entfaltungsgeschichte dieser Denkergruppe von 1919 bis 1975 - einschließlich ihrer beachtlichen Wirkungsgeschichte in verschiedenen Disziplinen wie der Soziologie, Psychologie, Biologie und der Philosophie selbst. Im zweiten Teil wird der philosophische Identitätskern (...) dieser Philosophischen Anthropologie als Denkansatz präzisiert. (shrink)

1. bd. Descartes' leben, werke und lehre. 4. neu bearb. aufl. 1897.--2. bd. Spinozas leben, werke und lehre. 4. neu bearb. aufl. 1898.--3. bd. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leben, werke und lehre. 4. aufl. 1902.--4-5. bd. Immanuel Kant und seine lehre. 4. neu bearb. aufl. 1898-99.--6. bd. Fichtes leben, werke und lehre. 3. durchgesehene aufl. 1900.--7. bd. Schellings leben, werke und lehre. 3. aufl. 1902.--8. bd. l.-2. th. Hegels leben, werke und lehre. 1901.--9. bd. Schopenhauers leben, werke und lehre. 2. neu (...) bearb. und verm. aufl. 1898.--10. bd. Francis Bacon und seine schule. Entwicklungsgeschichte der erfahrungsphilosophie. 3. aufl. 1904. (shrink)

English summary: The philosophy of play during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance has been largely neglected by scholars, despite the fact that influential thinkers, such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, perceived recreational play to be a vital part of a philosopher's life. By exploring a heterogeneous collection of diverse philosophical approaches to ludic practices, this innovative study provides the first in-depth discussion of the complexity of medieval and early-modern ludic philosophy. Particular attention is devoted to the relationship between (...) play and philosophy, which the influential Aristotelian discourse on play, initiated by Albert and Thomas, conceptualized as a contradictory dichotomy. By focusing on the manifold epistemic transformations which occurred during the Renaissance, this study analyses how philosophers in various contexts developed alternative or complementary theories of the connection between ludus and philosophia. German description: Die philosophische Geschichte des Spielens nach der Antike lasst man in der Regel mit Friedrich Schillers von Kant inspirierten Briefen Uber die asthetische Erziehung des Menschen beginnen, ohne die ihnen vorausgehende Vielfalt philosophischer Auseinandersetzung mit ludischen Praktiken naher zu betrachten. Vorliegende Studie versteht sich als erster Beitrag zur Erschliessung dieser bislang vernachlassigten spielphilosophischen Ansatze zwischen Mittelalter und Fruher Neuzeit. Dabei wird insbesondere das Verhaltnis von Spielen und Philosophieren in den Blick genommen, das schon bei scholastischen Autoren im Zentrum ludischer Reflexionen stand. So etablierten Gelehrte wie Albertus Magnus oder Thomas von Aquin bereits im 13. Jahrhundert eine strenge Trennung zwischen dem als Rekreation konzipierten Spielen und dem Ernst des Philosophierens, indem sie ludische Erholung mit Ruckgriff auf Aristoteles zum notwendigen Gegenstuck der Kontemplation erklarten. Die Arbeit zeigt, wie Philosophen zwischen Spatmittelalter und Fruher Neuzeit im Zuge vielfaltiger epistemischer Transformationen das Verhaltnis von philosophia und ludus komplementar oder alternativ zu diesem einflussreichen aristotelischen Deutungsschema bestimmten. Unter diesen heterogenen Ansatzen finden sich ein allegorisches Globusspiel des Nikolaus von Kues, die erste philosophischen Therapie ubermassiger Spielleidenschaft und eine naturphilosophische Beschreibung des Tennisspiels am rinascimentalen Hof von Ferrara. (shrink)

Sometimes our intentions and beliefs exhibit a structure that proves us to be irrational. This dissertation is concerned with the question of whether we ought (or have at least good reason) to avoid such irrationality. The thesis defends the normativity of rationality by presenting a new solution to the problems that arise from the common assumption that we ought to be rational. The argument touches upon many other topics in the theory of normativity, such as the form and the content (...) of rational standards or requirements, the preconditions of criti¬cism, and the function of reasons in deliberation and advice. Over and above an exten¬sive assessment of the problems discussed in the literature, the thesis provides a detailed defence of a reason-response conception of rationality, a novel, evidence-relative account of reasons, and an explanation of structural irrationality in terms of these accounts. (shrink)

Dialectic IV convenes contributions with new takes on the long held proposition that architects are providers of design services. They service everyone from the status quo all the way to the subaltern. We know well how architects have historically fashioned themselves to be able to procure the most valued building commissions a people have to offer. There are temples, churches, and shrines, palaces and private villas, and surely monuments, state institutions, and corporate headquarters. But how have the members of the (...) same profession managed to fashion themselves as the custodians of the public good? (shrink)

mischer Entwicklung: da werden selbst die Grundlagen der Einzel­ wissenschaften in Frage' gestellt, und der Forscher kann nicht umhin, sich iiber die Probleme der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis Gedanken zu machen. Heute leben wir in einer solchen Epoche gesteigerten erkenntnistheoretischen Interesses: Mathematiker, Astronomen, Phy­ siker, Biologen und Arzte fiihlen das Bediirfnis, sich mit philo­ sophischen Problemen auseinanderzusetzen, wie sich anderseits die Fachphilosophen immer mehr in die Problematik der Einzelwissen­ schaften vertiefen, urn die Geltung ihrer Gedankenkonstruktionen an der verwickelten Wirklichkeit der Wissenschaften zu (...) erproben. Erkenntnistheoretische Darstellungen verfallen oft in den Fehler einseitiger Orientierung, indem sie entweder lediglich die psycho­ logische oder allein die logische Seite der Erkenntnistatigkeit ihren Betrachtungen zugrunde legen. Um dieser Gefahr mit allen ihren Folgen vorzubeugen, wurden vor dem eigentlichen erkenntnistheo­ retischen Abschnitt sowohl die psychologischen wie die logischen Grundlagen der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis in besonderen Kapiteln besprochen. Die beste Methode, einen in einschlagigen Studien haufig anzutreffenden Psychologismus zu vermeiden, ist nicht die absicht­ liche Ignorierung der psychologischen Faktoren der Erkenntnistatig­ keit, sondern die Darstellung der Denkpsychologie und die daraus sich ergebende scharfe Grenzziehung zwischen Psychologie, Logik und Erkenntniskritik. Wenn die vorliegende Darstellung der Erkenntnislehre die philosophisch interessierten Wissenschaftler zum weiteren Nachden­ ken iiber die Grundlagen ihrer Sondergebiete anregt, so hat sie ihren Zweck erfiillt. Moge sie in bescheidenem MaEe dazu beitragen, das unter dem Eindruck agnostizistischer Stromungen ins Wanken geratene Selbst­ vertrauen der Wissenschaft wiederherzustellen und der Wissen­ schaft jene Stellung in unserem Wertsystem wiederzugeben, welche ihr, als der hochsten Leistung der menschlichen Vernunft, gebiihrt. (shrink)

'Philosophische Anthropologie' meint in dieser Studie nicht eine philosophische Subdisziplin, sondern eine besondere Theorierichtung in der deutschsprachigen Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts, die mit den Namen Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner, Erich Rothacker, Arnold Gehlen, Adolf Portmann u.v.a. mehr verbunden ist. Der erste Teil erzählt die verwickelte, teils abenteuerliche Entstehungs-, Aufstiegs- und Entfaltungsgeschichte dieser Denkergruppe von 1919 bis 1975 - einschließlich ihrer beachtlichen Wirkungsgeschichte in verschiedenen Disziplinen wie der Soziologie, Psychologie, Biologie und der Philosophie selbst. Im zweiten Teil wird der philosophische Identitätskern (...) dieser Philosophischen Anthropologie als Denkansatz präzisiert. (shrink)

Nothing seems more possible to me than that people some day will come to the definite opinion that there is no copy in the… nervous system which corresponds to a particular thought, or a particular idea, or, memory.WittgensteinIn a recent essay it was emphasized that brain and mind appear to the mind as complementary and reciprocally recursive domains of a hermeneutic circle (Fischer, 1987). An outstanding and not yet recognized feature of this hermeneutic circle is that interpretation within this (...) circle is not rule-governed and hence appears self-organized: individual features of the world (or the brain) become intelligible in terms of the whole context (of the mind)… while the entire context becomes intelligible through individual features (or brain functions). How, or from where then is significance arising? (shrink)

This essay develops a framework for understanding what I call the ethics of reflexivity, that is, the norms that govern attitudes and actions with respect to one’s own worth. I distinguish five central aspects of the reflexive commitment to living in accordance with one’s personal ideals: the extent to which and manner in which one regards oneself from an evaluative point of view, the extent to which one cares about receiving the respect of others, the degree to which one interprets (...) one’s personal ideals in an individualistic or collective manner, the degree to which one’s commitment to living in accordance with one’s personal ideals is rigid or flexible, and the worthiness of one’s personal ideals. This framework, I argue, illuminates the nature and moral significance of virtuous and vicious forms of the character trait of pride. (shrink)

Consider the following 'principles':2(Norm of Belief Schema) Necessarily, a belief of is correct (relative to some scenario) if and only if p (at that scenario) — where 'p' has the aforementioned content .(Generalized Norm of Belief) Necessarily, for all propositions , a belief of is correct (relative to some scenario) if and only if is true (at that scenario).Both 'principles' appear to capture the aim(s) of belief. (NBS) particularizes the aims to beliefs of distinct content-types. (GNB) generalizes these aims of (...) beliefs as truth. Properly understood, the instances of (NBS) appear to be at least approximately true as does (GNB). Of course, one might harbor concerns about whether these are mere .. (shrink)

An increasing number of regulations propose the notion of ‘AI audits’ as an enforcement mechanism for achieving transparency and accountability for artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Despite some converging norms around various forms of AI auditing, auditing for the purpose of compliance and assurance currently have little to no agreed upon practices, procedures, taxonomies, and standards. We propose the ‘criterion audit’ as an operationalizable compliance and assurance external audit framework. We model elements of this approach after financial auditing practices, and argue (...) that AI audits should similarly provide assurance to their stakeholders about AI organizations’ ability to govern their algorithms in ways that mitigate harms and uphold human values. We discuss the necessary conditions for the criterion audit, and provide a procedural blueprint for performing an audit engagement in practice. We illustrate how this framework can be adapted to current regulations by deriving the criteria on which ‘bias audits’ for hiring algorithms can be performed, as required by the recently effective New York City Local Law 144 of 2021. We conclude by offering critical discussion on the benefits, inherent limitations, and implementation challenges of applying practices of the more mature financial auditing industry to AI auditing where robust guardrails against quality assurance issues are only starting to emerge. Our discussion as informed by experiences in performing these audits in practice highlights the critical role that an audit ecosystem plays in ensuring the effectiveness of such methodology. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that we need to consider the ‘change- makers’ if we want to provide a comprehensive theory of persistence. The classical theories of persistence, endurantism and perdurantism in all their flavours, are content with avoiding the looming contradiction in the context of Leibniz’s Law. They do not account for how change is brought about. I argue that this is not sufficient to constitute a theory of persistence and I will introduce produrantism as a new access (...) towards a comprehensive approach. (shrink)

According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief – much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the assumption that epistemic reasons are normative. In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a number of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of reasons epistemic reasons are if (...) they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism. (shrink)

This chapter first talks about LEGO modal epistemology. Modal epistemology has the two parts. Some of it is the study of how one knows that some things are contingent and others necessary. The other part of modal epistemology concerns how much one know about what is contingent and necessary. The chapter then talks about what went wrong with the imagination‐based story. Whatever the story about how one knows what he/she can build, it had better be one that factors in his/her (...) background knowledge, since that is what makes the imagination useful. With working knowledge of those little pieces, one can make judgments about what can and can not be done with them. Crucially, there are various ways to make those judgments. The chapter further focuses on a segment of the LEGO community that might seem a bit fussy: purists. (shrink)

According to an attractive and widely held view, all practical reasons are explained in terms of the (instrumental or final) value of the action supported by the reason. I argue that this theory is incompatible with plausible assumptions about the practical reasons that correspond to certain moral rights, including the right to a promised action and the right to an exclusive use of one’s property. The argument is an explanatory rather than extensional one: while the actions supported by the relevant (...) reasons (e.g. keeping a valid promise or respecting property) can be argued to have a certain kind of value, I argue that this value presupposes a moral right, and therefore cannot explain the reason. Reflection on such cases suggest the conclusion that reasons that are subject to normative powers are generally not value-based. This also has important implications for the dialectic between ‘value-first’ and ‘reasons-first’ approaches to normativity. (shrink)