We carry out the Karttunen-Stalnaker pragmatic account of presupposition projection within a state-of-the art version of dynamic epistemic logic. It turns out that the basic projection facts can all be derived from a Gricean maxim ‘be informative’. This sheds light on a recent controversy on the appropriateness of dynamic semantics as a tool for analysing presupposition.

Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin argue for a revolution in our cosmological ideas. Ideal for non-scientists, physicists and cosmologists.

Roberto Mangabeira Unger sets out to reinvent philosophy. His central theme is our transcendence-everything in our existence points beyond itself-and its relation to our finitude: everything that surrounds us, and we ourselves, are flawed and ephemeral. He asks how we can live so that we die only once, instead of dying many small deaths; how we can breathe new life and new meaning into the revolutionary movement that has aroused humanity for the last three centuries, but that is now (...) weakened and disoriented; and how we can make sense of ourselves without claiming for human beings a miraculous exception to the general regime of nature. For Unger, philosophy must be the mind on fire, insisting on our prerogative to speak to what matters most. (shrink)

Das systematische Problem „schlechter Unendlichkeit“, als dessen Überwindung die hegelsche Philosophie angetreten ist und das als solches weit über seinen Ursprung im Deutschen Idealismus hinausgeht, wird in dieser Arbeit rekonstruiert. Als dialektische Figur hat sie die Philosophie Hegels in ihrer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit Kant, Fichte und der Romantik tiefgreifend geprägt. Schelling und Kierkegaard wiederum kritisieren, dass bei Hegel diese Figur eines scheiternden affirmativen Selbstbezugs nicht auf seine logische Struktur beschränkt bleibe, sondern auf die Beschreibung des neuzeitlichen Geistes übergreife, weshalb Hegel (...) in seinem eigenen System keine eigentliche Ethik und kein verantwortliches Selbst mehr denken könne.0. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of recognition and its relation to knowledge. One important observation is that while ‘know’ is a stative verb, ‘recognize’ is an achievement verb. A second is that ‘recognize’ is knowledge entailing, both when combined with a complementizer phrase and when combined with a noun phrase. The behavior of the latter kind of construction is particularly subtle and is the main focus of this paper. This paper ends with an interesting puzzle about object recognition.

In this quite modestly ambitious essay, I'll generally just assume that, for the most part, our "scientifically informed" commonsense view of the world is true. Just as it is with such unthinking things as planets, plates and, I suppose, plants, too, so it also is with all earthly thinking beings, from people to pigs and pigeons; each occupies a region of space, however large or small, in which all are spatially related to each other. Or, at least, so it is (...) with the bodies of these beings. And, even as each of these ordinary entities extends through some space, so, also, each endures through some time. In line with that, each ordinary entity is at least very largely, and is perhaps entirely, an enduring physical entity (which allows that many might have certain properties that aren't purely physical properties.) Further, each ordinary enduring entity is a physically complex entity: Not only is each composed of parts, but many of these parts, whether or not absolutely all of them, are themselves enduring physical entities, and many of them also are such physically complex continuing entities. When an ordinary entity undergoes a significant change, then, at least generally, this change will involve changes concerning that entity's constituting physical parts, whether it be a rearrangement of (some of) these parts, or a loss of parts, or a gain of parts, or whatever. Often, the entity will still exist even after the change occurs. As we may well suppose, this happens when, from two strokes of an ax, an ordinary log loses just a chip of wood. As we may then say, such a change conforms with the log's "persistence conditions." Somewhat less often, such an ordinary entity undergoes a change that means an end to it: When a bomb's explosion makes our log become just so many widely scattered motes of dust, the log will no longer exist. Such a momentous change doesn't conform with the log's persistence conditions. (shrink)

Ways of Living Religion provides a philosophical analysis of different types of religious experience, focusing on the lived experience of religion rather than mere statements of belief or doctrine. Christina M. Gschwandtner distinguishes between experiences by examining their defining features, showing their continuity with human experience.

Fazer filosofia, para Roberto Mangabeira Unger, é pensar radicalmente. É insistir em tratar dos assuntos mais importantes, ainda que tenhamos de fazê-lo na fronteira do que seja possível pensar e dizer. Resignado ao colonialismo mental, o pensamento brasileiro não está acostumado a tal ousadia. Neste primeiro livro, Mangabeira leva o leitor pela mão e se oferece como guia de seu despertar para a ambição de compreender o mundo das ideias mais básicas e influentes. Seu alvo é rever tudo em (...) nossos pontos de partida – na filosofia e na política – que negue ou desmereça nossa capacidade, como indivíduos e como povo, de criar o novo. O livro ressoará num Brasil que está pronto para se repensar e se refazer, e a passar pela desilusão da desilusão. Não à toa, o nosso autor trará ao título e ao cerne da sua análise e proposição dois conceitos (e práticas) hoje atacados pelo ideário totalitário: o conhecimento e a política. Conhecimento e política, publicado em 1975, foi o primeiro livro de Roberto Mangabeira Unger. A editora LeYa Brasil o publica novamente agora, na tradução primorosa da mãe do autor, a poetisa Edyla Mangabeira Unger, para dar início à reedição de toda a obra de Mangabeira no Brasil, uma obra que se mantém atual e, ao mesmo tempo, visionária. O tema do livro é a superação do mais influente sistema de ideias no pensamento Ocidental desde a Renascença: conjunto de conceitos que abrange o individualismo e o liberalismo na política, o ceticismo e o subjetivismo na ética, e o empiricismo e positivismo na filosofia do conhecimento e da natureza. Desde que saiu da sombra de Aristóteles e do cristianismo, o pensamento ocidental se entregou, argumenta Mangabeira, à construção de uma maneira de pensar que o levou a contradições insolúveis e nos fez perder o rumo do esclarecimento e da emancipação. No centro dessas contradições está um equívoco a respeito de quem somos e de como nos relacionamos com o mundo. Pensamos a partir de regimes de pensamento, mas não temos de ser prisioneiros deles. Podemos subvertê-los e transformá-los para chegar mais perto da realidade. Precisamos participar de determinada sociedade e cultura. Nenhum regime social e cultural, contudo, nos serve como moradia definitiva. Daí a importância de construir um regime que facilite sua própria transformação. Nesta obra, Mangabeira iniciou a longa busca do roteiro das rebeldias libertadoras no pensamento e na política. E se levantou contra a tradição intelectual que continua a nos acorrentar. (shrink)

This collection highlights the important role of the topic of revelation in the work of Paul Ricœur. It discusses his biblical hermeneutics and his philosophical hermeneutics of the self on such topics as identity, trauma, or forgiveness, and also puts him in conversation with other thinkers on the topic of revelation.

When it’s time for a game change, you need a guide to the new rules. Helping Students Make Sense of the World Using Next Generation Science and Engineering Practices provides a play-by-play understanding of the practices strand of A Framework for K–12 Science Education (Framework) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Written in clear, nontechnical language, this book provides a wealth of real-world examples to show you what’s different about practice-centered teaching and learning at all grade levels. The book (...) addresses three important questions: 1. How will engaging students in science and engineering practices help improve science education? 2. What do the eight practices look like in the classroom? 3. How can educators engage students in practices to bring the NGSS to life? Helping Students Make Sense of the World Using Next Generation Science and Engineering Practices was developed for K–12 science teachers, curriculum developers, teacher educators, and administrators. Many of its authors contributed to the Framework’s initial vision and tested their ideas in actual science classrooms. If you want a fresh game plan to help students work together to generate and revise knowledge—not just receive and repeat information—this book is for you. (shrink)

Thomas Paine's words were like no others in history: they leaped off the page, inspiring readers to change their lives, their governments, their kings, and even their gods. In an age when spoken and written words were the only forms of communication, Paine's aroused men to action like no one else. The most widely read political writer of his generation, he proved to be more than a century ahead of his time, conceiving and demanding unheard-of social reforms that are now (...) integral elements of modern republican societies. Among them were government subsidies for the poor, universal housing and education, pre- and post-natal care for women, and universal social security. An Englishman who emigrated to the American colonies, he formed close friendships with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and his ideas helped shape the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. (shrink)

"a book about religion and a religious work in its own right, it proposes the content of a religion that can survive faith in a transcendent God and in life after death. According to this religion—the religion of the future—human beings can be more human by becoming more godlike, not just later, in another life or another time, but right now, on Earth and in their own lives."--Publishers website.

Addressing God -- Approaching God -- Experiencing God -- Receiving God -- Worshipping God -- Manifesting God.

Microaggressions are a new moral category that refers to the subtle yet harmful forms of discriminatory behavior experienced by members of oppressed groups. Such behavior often results from implicit bias, leaving individual perpetrators unaware of the harm they have caused. Moreover, microaggressions are often dismissed on the grounds that they do not constitute a real or morally significant harm. My goal is therefore to explain why microaggressions are morally significant and argue that we are responsible for their harms. I offer (...) a conceptual framework for microaggressions, exploring the central mechanisms used for identification and the empirical research concerning their harm. The cumulative harm of microaggressions presents a unique case for understanding disaggregation models for contributed harms, blame allocation, and individual responsibility within structural oppression. Our standard moral model for addressing cumulative harm is to hold all individual contributors blameworthy for their particular contributions. However, if we aim to hold people responsible for their unconscious microaggressions and address cumulative harm holistically, this model is inadequate. Drawing on Iris Marion Young's social connection model, I argue that we, as individual perpetrators of microaggressions, have a responsibility to respond to the cumulative harm to which we have individually contributed. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and explore some ideas about how factive emotional states and factive perceptual states each relate to knowledge and reasons. This discussion will shed light on the so-called ‘perceptual model’ of the emotions.

Each case study defines:The dilemma in questionThe context of the organizational/management settingThe conditions that create the dilemmaThe courses of action ...

I analyse the 2014 policy to promote 'British values' in schools from the perspective of the two main positions in contemporary liberal theory, comprehensive liberalism and political liberalism. I highlight in what ways comprehensive and political liberal defences of the policy are unsatisfactory, before briefly sketching a possible alternative position – ‘thin comprehensive liberalism’ – and discussing its potential for justifying a substantive education in liberal values. In light of this theoretical perspective, I suggest some ways that the existing British (...) values policy might be amended in practice so as to bring it more in line with the liberal ideal. (shrink)

How do people decide which claims should be considered mere beliefs and which count as knowledge? Although little is known about how people attribute knowledge to others, philosophical debate about the nature of knowledge may provide a starting point. Traditionally, a belief that is both true and justified was thought to constitute knowledge. However, philosophers now agree that this account is inadequate, due largely to a class of counterexamples (termed ‘‘Gettier cases’’) in which a person’s justified belief is true, but (...) only due to luck. We report four experiments examining the effect of truth, justification, and ‘‘Gettiering’’ on people’s knowledge attributions. These experiments show that: (1) people attribute knowledge to others only when their beliefs are both true and justified; (2) in contrast to contemporary philosophers, people also attribute knowledge to others in Gettier situations; and (3) knowledge is not attributed in one class of Gettier cases, but only because the agent’s belief is based on ‘‘apparent’’ evidence. These findings suggest that the lay concept of knowledge is roughly consistent with the traditional account of knowledge as justified true belief, and also point to a major difference between the epistemic intuitions of laypeople and those of philosophers. (shrink)

A unique take on death and bereavement without a belief in God or an afterlife Accepting death is never easy, but we don't need religion to find peace, comfort, and solace in the face of death. In this inspiring and life-affirming collection of short essays, prominent atheist author Greta Christina offers secular ways to handle your own mortality and the death of those you love.

The civil rights and feminist movements of the sixties did not leave legal theory untouched. Over the following two decades, the critical legal studies movement--led by the Brazilian philosopher, social theorist and politician Roberto Unger--sought to transform traditional views of law and legal doctrine, revealing the hidden interests and class dominations in prevailing legal frameworks. It remains highly influential, having spawned more recent movements, including feminist legal studies and critical race theory. The Critical Legal Studies Movement develops its major (...) ideas, showing how laws and legal discourse hide the social inequalities and political biases that so interest philosophy and revolutionary politics. (shrink)

According to one understanding of the problem of dirty hands, every case of dirty hands is an instance of moral conflict, but not every instance of moral conflict is a case of dirty hands. So, what sets the two apart? The dirty hands literature has offered widely different answers to this question but there has been relatively little discussion about their relative merits as well as challenges. In this paper I evaluate these different accounts by making clear which understanding of (...) concept distinctness underlies them and which of them is, ultimately, the most plausible one in the case of dirty hands and ordinary moral conflict. In order to do so, I will borrow from the terminology employed in recent debates in the philosophy of evil which have tackled a similar problem to the one at hand, i.e. defining what sets evil apart from ordinary wrongdoing. Here it has been argued that concepts could be distinct in three ways: they can have a quantitative difference, a strong qualitative or a moderate qualitative difference. I conclude that the most convincing definition of dirty hands draws a moderate qualitative distinction between ordinary moral conflict according to which dirty hands are those moral conflicts that involve a serious violation or betrayal of a core moral value. (shrink)

As technology continues to advance, the use of computers and the Internet in educational environments has immensely increased. But just how effective has their use been in enhancing children's learning? In this thought-provoking book, Christina E. Erneling conducts a thorough investigation of scholarly journals articles on how computers and the Internet affect learning.

English summary: It seems that reason is less a universal principle than something inherently bound to the contexts in which it appears. These contributions to a conference held on the occasion of Christoph Schwobel's 60th birthday explore the character of reason's manifold contexts: the grounding of reason in the inner word of God 's Trinitarian life as well as the disclosure of reason and and its limits in human conversation. German description: Vernunft scheint in der Gegenwart weniger ein allgemeines Prinzip (...) als eine in Kontexte eingebundene Grosse zu sein. Die Beitrage einer Tagung anlasslich von Christoph Schwobels 60. Geburtstag, gehen der Frage nach dem Charakter dieser Kontextbindung nach: der Begrundung der Vernunft im trinitarischen Gesprach wie der Erschliessung und Problematisierung der Vernunft im menschlichen Gesprach. Mit Beitragen von V. Brummer, G. van den Brink, C. Drobe, H. J. Eckstein, D.-M. Grube, J. Halfwassen, S. Heine, F. Hermanni, E. Herms, W. Harle, W. Homolka, W. Jeanrond, R. W. Jenson, D. Kelsey, A. F. Koch, A. Kupsch, V. Leppin, P.-C. Lai, P. Lo, A. Min, J. Moltmann, M. Muhling, P. Peterson, M. Sarot, F. Schweitzer, A. Torrance, J. Webster, M. Welker, M. Wendte, M. Wisse, H. Wisskirchen und L. Zak. (shrink)

Der Band wagt eine Wiederentdeckung der politischen Philosophie Arthur Schopenhauers, die als "Pessimistischer Liberalismus" ausgewiesen wird: Das metaphysisch begründete Leiden von Mensch und Tier bildet den Kern seines liberalen Staatsverständnisses, dessen Fundament das Misstrauen wider Welt und Existenz ist.

Einleitung -- Phänomenologie als Wesensforschung -- Leibphänomenologische Perspektiven -- Musik und Leiblichkeit -- Leibphänomenologie und Musikpädogogik? -- Bewegungen zu einem Orgelstück -- Ausblick.