Contract-based approaches have been a focus of attention in business ethics. As one of the grand traditions in political philosophy, contractarianism is founded on the notion that we will never resolve deep moral disagreement. Classical philosophers like Hobbes and Locke, or recent ones like Rawls and Gaus, seek to solve ethical conflicts on the level of social rules and procedures. Recent authors in business ethics have sought to utilize contract-based approaches for their field and to apply it to concrete business (...) dilemmas. However, the application of contractarianism to management contexts can cause difficulties. Our article discusses this conceptual problem of contractarian business ethics and presents the idea of order ethics as an alternative. Order ethics, as we argue, can make a difference by conceptually bridging the gap between contractarianism and business ethics. (shrink)

We can not just see, hear or feel how things are at a time, but we also have perceptual experiences as of things moving or changing. I argue that such temporal experiences have a content that is tenseless, i.e. best characterized in terms of notions such as 'before' and 'after' (rather than, say, 'past', 'present' and 'future'), and that such experiences are essentially of the nature of a process that takes up time, viz., the same time as the process that (...) is being experienced. Both claims have been made before, though usually separately from each other, and I don't believe the connection between them has been sufficiently recognized. (shrink)

Time and Memory throws new light on fundamental aspects of human cognition and consciousness by bringing together, for the first time, psychological and philosophical approaches dealing with the connection between the capacity to represent and think about time, and the capacity to recollect the past. Fifteen specially written essays offer insights into current theories of memory processes and of the mechanisms and cognitive abilities underlying temporal judgements, and draw out key issues concerning the phenomenology and epistemology of memory and its (...) role in our understanding of time. (shrink)

This paper explores the phenomenon of meta-emotions. Meta-emotions are emotions people have about their own emotions. We analyze the intentional structure of meta-emotions and show how psychological findings support our account. Acknowledgement of meta-emotions can elucidate a number of important issues in the philosophy of mind and, more specifically, the philosophy and psychology of emotions. Among them are (allegedly) ambivalent or paradoxical emotions, emotional communication, emotional self-regulation, privileged access failure for repressed emotions, and survivor guilt.

_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)

In apparent motion experiments, participants are presented with what is in fact a succession of two brief stationary stimuli at two different locations, but they report an impression of movement. Philosophers have recently debated whether apparent motion provides evidence in favour of a particular account of the nature of temporal experience. I argue that the existing discussion in this area is premised on a mistaken view of the phenomenology of apparent motion and, as a result, the space of possible philosophical (...) positions has not yet been fully explored. In particular, I argue that the existence of apparent motion is compatible with an account of the nature of temporal experience that involves a version of direct realism. In doing so, I also argue against two other claims often made about apparent motion, viz. that apparent motion is the psychological phenomenon that underlies motion experience in the cinema, and that apparent motion is subjectively indistinguishable from real motion. (shrink)

The notion of the absolute time-constituting flow plays a central role in Edmund Husserl’s analysis of our consciousness of time. I offer a novel reading of Husserl’s remarks on the absolute flow, on which Husserl can be seen to be grappling with two key intuitions that are still at the centre of current debates about temporal experience. One of them is encapsulated by what is sometimes referred to as an intentionalist (as opposed to an extensionalist) approach to temporal experience. The (...) other centres on the thought that temporal experience itself necessarily unfolds over time. I show how some of Husserl’s more enigmatic-sounding remarks about the absolute flow become intelligible if they are read as attempts to accommodate both these intuitions at the same time. However, I also question whether Husserl ultimately provides good reasons for preferring his intentionalist approach to a rival extensionalist one. (shrink)

What is the connection between the way we represent time and things in time, on the one hand, and our capacity to remember particular past events, on the other? This is the substantive question that has stood behind the project of putting together this volume. The methodological assumption that has informed this project is that any progress with the difficult and fascinating set of issues that are raised by this question must draw on the resources of various areas both in (...) philos- ophy and in psychology. (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)

According to recent social interactionist accounts in developmental psychology, a child's learning to talk about the past with others plays a key role in memory development. Most accounts of this kind are centered on the theoretical notion of autobiographical memory and assume that socio-communicative interaction with others is important, in particular, in explaining the emergence of memories that have a particular type of connection to the self. Most of these accounts also construe autobiographical memory as a species of episodic memory, (...) but its episodic character, as such, is not typically seen as falling within the remit of an explanation in social interactionist terms. I explore the idea that socio-communicative interaction centered on talk about the past might also have an important role to play, quite independently of considerations about the involvement of the self in memory, in accounting for the emergence of memories that are episodic in character, i.e., memories that involve the recollection of particular past events. In doing so, I also try to shed light on a distinctive role that talk about the past plays in socio-communicative interaction. (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)

In this paper, I investigate in detail one theoretical approach to the symptom of thought insertion. This approach suggests that patients are lead to disown certain thoughts they are subjected to because they lack a sense of active participation in the occurrence of those thoughts. I examine one reading of this claim, according to which the patients’ anomalous experiences arise from a breakdown of cognitive mechanisms tracking the production of occurrent thoughts, before sketching an alternative reading, according to which their (...) experiences have to be explained in terms of a withdrawal, on the part of the patients themselves, from certain forms of active engagement in reasoning. I conclude with a discussion of the relationship between this view and the idea that patients’ reports of thought insertion reflect a situation in which the boundaries between the self and the world have become uncertain. (shrink)

This chapter offers an interpretation of Jaspers’ distinction between explaining and understanding, which relates this distinction to that between general and singular causal claims. Put briefly, I suggest that when Jaspers talks about (mere) explanation, what he has in mind are general causal claims linking types of events. Understanding, by contrast, is concerned with singular causation in the psychological domain. Furthermore, I also suggest that Jaspers thinks that only understanding makes manifest what causation between one element of a person’s mental (...) life and another ultimately consists in – that is, the particular way in which one psychic event can emerge from or arise out of another. I contrast the resulting view both with a view on causation in psychiatry recently put forward by John Campbell, and also with another view that is the target of Campbell’s attack, which is due to Donald Davidson and Daniel Dennett. (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)

_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)

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)

In ‘A reductio of coherentism’ (Analysis 67, 2007) Tom Stoneham offers a novel argument against epistemological coherentism. ‘On the face of it’, he writes, ‘the argument gives a conclusive reductio ad absurdum of any coherence theory of justification. But that cannot be right, can it?’ (p. 254). It could be right, but it isn’t. I argue that coherentists need not accept the central premises of Stoneham’s argument and that, even if these premises were acceptable and true, Stoneham’s reductio would not (...) follow. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive book on the philosophy of time. Leading philosophers discuss the metaphysics of time, our experience and representation of time, the role of time in ethics and action, and philosophical issues in the sciences of time, especially quantum mechanics and relativity theory.

In this paper we re-examine the semantics of classical higher-order logic with the purpose of clarifying the role of extensionality. To reach this goal, we distinguish nine classes of higher-order models with respect to various combinations of Boolean extensionality and three forms of functional extensionality. Furthermore, we develop a methodology of abstract consistency methods (by providing the necessary model existence theorems) needed to analyze completeness of (machine-oriented) higher-order calculi with respect to these model classes.

This paper defends the claim that, in order to have a concept of time, subjects must have memories of particular events they once witnessed. Some patients with severe amnesia arguably still have a concept of time. Two possible explanations of their grasp of this concept are discussed. They take as their respective starting points abilities preserved in the patients in question: (1) the ability to retain factual information over time despite being unable to recall the past event or situation that (...) information stems from, and (2) the ability to remember at least some past events or situations themselves (typically because retrograde amnesia is not complete). It is argued that a satisfactory explanation of what it is for subjects to have a concept of time must make reference to their having episodic memories such as those mentioned under (2). It is also shown how the question as to whether subjects have such memories, and thus whether they possess a concept of time, enters into our explanation of their actions. (shrink)

We identify a particular type of causal reasoning ability that we believe is required for the possession of episodic memories, as it is needed to give substance to the distinction between the past and the present. We also argue that the same causal reasoning ability is required for grasping the point that another person's appeal to particular past events can have in conversation. We connect this to claims in developmental psychology that participation in joint reminiscing plays a key role in (...) memory development. (shrink)

Keith DeRose has argued that ‘the knowledge account of assertion – according to which what one is in a position to assert is what one knows – ... provides a ... powerful positive argument in favor of contextualism’ (2009: 80). The truth is that it yields a powerful argument against contextualism, at least against its most popular, anti-sceptical versions. The following argument shows that, if we conjoin (such versions of) epistemic contextualism with an appropriate meta-linguistic formulation of the knowledge account (...) of assertion, contextualism cannot coherently be stated. (shrink)

(1) The aim of the paper is to develop a reduction of fallacy theory, i.e. to 'deduce' fallacy theory from a positive theory of argumentation which provides exact criteria for valid and adequate argumentation. Such reductionism has several advantages compared to an unsystematic action, which is quite usual in current fallacy but which at least in part is due to the poor state of positive argumentation theory itself. (2) After defining 'fallacy' (3) some principle ideas and (4) the exact criteria (...) for (argumentatively) valid and adequate arguments of the 'practical theory of argumentation' of the author are expounded. These criteria will be used as the positive basis for the following reduction. (5) In the main part of the paper a systematization, definition and explanation of the main types and many subforms of fallacies of argumentative validity and (6) adequacy is developed, following the list of positive conditions of validity and adequacy. In addition to many new types of fallacies, this systematization contains the most important of the traditionally known and named fallacies; these are explained and the criteria for some of them are corrected or put more precisely. (shrink)

The book argues that the theological motifs in Stoic philosophy are pivotal to our understanding of Stoic ethics. Part One offers an introductory overview of the religious world view of the Stoics. Part Two examines the Stoic characterizations of virtue and the virtues. Part Three deals with Stoic theories of how human beings can become virtuous. Part Four studies the practices of Stoic ethics. It shows inter alia how the Chrysippean table of virtues is still an (unacknowledged) influence behind Panaetius’ (...) matrix of kathekonta, but how little agreement on the practical implications of their virtue ethics the Stoics could reach. The book suggests that the identity over time and cohesion of the Stoic school depended less on a commitment to the school founder’s memory and writings than on a common core of shared theological principles. (shrink)

Paradigms of anthropology -- Evolution-hominization-anthropology -- Philosophical anthropology -- Anthropology in the historical sciences: historical anthropology -- Cultural anthropology -- Historical cultural anthropology -- Core issues of anthropology -- The body as a challenge -- The mimetic basis of cultural learning -- Theories and practices of the performative -- The rediscovery of rituals -- Language-the antinomy between the universal and the particular -- Images and imagination -- Death and recollection of birth -- Future prospects.

According to Fred Dretske's externalist theory of knowledge a subject knows that p if and only if she believes that p and this belief is caused or causally sustained by the information that p. Another famous feature of Dretske's epistemology is his denial that knowledge is closed under known entailment. I argue that, given Dretske's construal of information, he is in fact committed to the view that both information and knowledge are closed under known entailment. Hence, if it is true (...) that, as Dretske also believes, accepting closure leads to skepticism, he must either embrace skepticism or abandon his information theory of knowledge. (shrink)

According to one of the most influential views in the philosophy of self-knowledge each person enjoys some special cognitive access to his or her own current mental states and episodes. This view faces two fundamental tasks. First, it must elucidate the general conceptual structure of apparent asymmetries between beliefs about one’s own mind and beliefs about other minds. Second, it must demarcate the mental territory for which first-person-special-access claims can plausibly be maintained. Traditional candidates include sensations, experiences (of various kinds), (...) thoughts, beliefs, desires, and also affective states such as emotions. I reconstruct five prominent privileged access claims that have traditionally been maintained for emotions and discuss logical relations among them. I then argue that none of these claims stands up to scrutiny. The truth is that we often suffer from affective ignorance, and that third-person ascriptions of emotional states should often be credited with more rather than less authority than corresponding self-ascriptions. I conclude by considering, and rejecting, five potential objections to my argument. (shrink)

Arguments for or against a trend in the evolution of complexity are weakened by the lack of an unambiguous definition of complexity. Such definitions abound for both dynamical systems and biological organisms, but have drawbacks of either a conceptual or a practical nature. Physical complexity, a measure based on automata theory and information theory, is a simple and intuitive measure of the amount of information that an organism stores, in its genome, about the environment in which it evolves. It is (...) argued that physical complexity must increase in molecular evolution of asexual organisms in a single niche if the environment does not change, due to natural selection. It is possible that complexity decreases in co‐evolving systems as well as at high mutation rates, in sexual populations, and in time‐dependent landscapes. However, it is reasoned that these factors usually help, rather than hinder, the evolution of complexity, and that a theory of physical complexity for co‐evolving species will reveal an overall trend towards higher complexity in biological evolution. BioEssays 24:1085–1094, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Periodicals, Inc. (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)

How are causal judgements such as 'The ice on the road caused the traffic accident' connected with counterfactual judgements such as 'If there had not been any ice on the road, the traffic accident would not have happened'? This volume throws new light on this question by uniting, for the first time, psychological and philosophical approaches to causation and counterfactuals. Traditionally, philosophers have primarily been interested in connections between causal and counterfactual claims on the level of meaning or truth-conditions. More (...) recently, however, they have also increasingly turned their attention to psychological connections between causal and counterfactual understanding or reasoning. At the same time, there has been a surge in interest in empirical work on causal and counterfactual cognition amongst developmental, cognitive, and social psychologists--much of it inspired by work in philosophy. In this volume, twelve original contributions from leading philosophers and psychologists explore in detail what bearing empirical findings might have on philosophical concerns about counterfactuals and causation, and how, in turn, work in philosophy might help clarify the issues at stake in empirical work on the cognitive underpinnings of, and relationships between, causal and counterfactual thought. (shrink)

Pascal‘s wager is expounded as a paradigm case of a practical,decision-theoretical argument for acting as if a proposition is true when wehave no theoretical reasons to accept or reject it (1.1.–1.2.). Thoughthe paradigm is fallacious in various respects there are valid and adequatearguments for acting as if certain propositions are true: that theoreticalentities exist, that there are material perceptual objects, that the worldis uniform across time (1.3). After this analysis of examples the author‘sgeneral approach for developing criteria for the validity (...) and adequacy oftypes of argument (2.1.) is applied: Having discussed some problems(2.2.–2.3.), a general epistemic principle for such ’pascal arguments‘is developed, which characterizes their premisses and, if introduced as anadditional premiss, can make them deductively valid (2.4). (shrink)

This article is an exercise in combining the exegesis, hermeneutical issues and application of 1 Timothy 2:12 in ecclesial contexts where this prohibition is still taken seriously as a Pauline injunction or, at least, as part of the canon of the Church. It surveys representative proposals in New Testament studies of dealing with this least compromising assertion regarding the teaching of women in early Christianity. It discusses the hermeneutical issues involved in exegesis and application and how one should relate this (...) prohibition to other New Testament references to women and their role in the early Christian communities. In closing, the article discusses whether and how this assertion can still be relevant in contemporary contexts when and where women have a very different role in society and church. (shrink)

The "Subject" of Nietzsche's Perspectivism CHRISTOPH COX FORMERLY TAKEN TO ENDORSE a profound skepticism and relativism, Nietz- sche's "doctrine of perspectivism" recently has been seen to fit within tradi- tional conceptions of epistemology and ontology? In the most recent and influential study of the matter, Maudemarie Clark maintains that, properly understood, perspectivism is "an obvious and nonproblematic doctrine. ''~ In a similar vein, Brian Leiter has recently argued that "perspectivism turns out to be much less radical than is usually (...) supposed," that, with this doctrine, "Nietz- sche.., is merely rehashing familiar Kantian themes, minus the rigor of Kant's exposition."~ According to both Clark and Leiter, perspectivism simply ' With occasional alterations, Nietzsche's texts will be quoted from the Kaufmann/Hollingdale translations and cited in the text according to standard abbreviations of their English titles fol- lowed by the section and/or paragraph number. The exception is "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense," which is cited by page number from Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietz- sche's Notebooks of the Early x87os, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale , 79-9 x. Abbreviations are as follows: A: The Antichrist; BGE: Beyond Good and Evil; BT/SC: Birth of Tragedy, "Attempt at a Self-Criticism"; D: Daybreak; GM: On the Genealogy of Morals; GS: The Gay Science; TI: Twilight of the Idols;.. (shrink)

This paper considers challenges resulting from the use of advanced artificial judicial intelligence (AAJI). We argue that these challenges should be considered through the lens of value alignment. Instead of discussing why specific goals and values, such as fairness and nondiscrimination, ought to be implemented, we consider the question of how AAJI can be aligned with goals and values more generally, in order to be reliably integrated into legal and judicial systems. This value alignment framing draws on AI safety and (...) alignment literature to introduce two otherwise neglected considerations for AAJI safety: specification and assurance. We outline diverse research directions and suggest the adoption of assurance and specification mechanisms as the use of AI in the judiciary progresses. While we focus on specification and assurance to illustrate the value of the AI safety and alignment literature, we encourage researchers in law and philosophy to consider what other lessons may be drawn. (shrink)

: This article analyzes German debates on the microbiology of infectious diseases from 1865 to 1875 and asks how and when organic pollution in tissues became noteworthy for aetiology and pathogenesis. It was with Ernst Hallier's pleomorphistic microbiology that the organic character of alien material in tissues came to be regarded as important for pathology. The process that followed saw both vigorous biological critique and a number of medical applications of Hallier's work. Around 1874 contemporaries reached the conclusion that pleomorphous (...) vegetation was most likely of little importance if not accidental in relation to the aetiology of infectious diseases whereas the idea of monomorphous micro-organisms facilitated a causal explanation. It was only then that notions such a pure cultures, bacterial specificity, etc. favored by Ferdinand Julius Cohn and his school became popular in medical circles. (shrink)

Computational philosophy is the use of mechanized computational techniques to unearth philosophical insights that are either difficult or impossible to find using traditional philosophical methods. Computational metaphysics is computational philosophy with a focus on metaphysics. In this paper, we (a) develop results in modal metaphysics whose discovery was computer assisted, and (b) conclude that these results work not only to the obvious benefit of philosophy but also, less obviously, to the benefit of computer science, since the new computational techniques that (...) led to these results may be more broadly applicable within computer science. The paper includes a description of our background methodology and how it evolved, and a discussion of our new results. (shrink)

The main focus of this paper is the question as to what it is for an individual to think of her environment in terms of a concept of causation, or causal concepts, in contrast to some more primitive ways in which an individual might pick out or register what are in fact causal phenomena. I show how versions of this question arise in the context of two strands of work on causation, represented by Elizabeth Anscombe and Christopher Hitchcock, respectively. I (...) then describe a central type of reasoning that, I suggest, a subject has to be able to engage in, if we are to credit her with causal concepts. I also point out that this type of reasoning turns on the idea of a physical connection between cause and effect, as articulated in recent singularist approaches of causation. (shrink)

Specialist philosophy periodicals first appeared in the early eighteenth century. Germany led the way with Acta Philosophorum . Published in Halle and edited by the theologian Christoph August Heumann, this pioneering journal reflected the great developments taking place in German intellectual life. In tone and content it embodies the era's growing enthusiasm and interest in all matters relating to both the history and the recent developments of philosophy. It forms a fascinating document not only of Germany's intellectual progress but (...) also of the earliest steps of the Enlightenment. Acta Philosophorum 's articles cover ancient philosophy as well as discussion of the current issues of the day and summaries of major philosophical works. With a broad European focus, contents include a description of the life of Locke, and discussions of Thomas Burnet, Bruno, Galileo and Stanley's History of Philosophy . Originally appearing in 18 parts, Acta Philosophorum includes several fold-out tables and engraved portraits, and is indexed by author and subject. This exceptionally rare document of pre-Kantian philosophy and the German Enlightenment is now available as an important historical resource for libraries. (shrink)

In “Process Reliabilism and the Value Problem” I argue that Erik Olsson and Alvin Goldman's conditional probability solution to the value problem in epistemology is unsuccessful and that it makes significant internalist concessions. In “Kinds of Learning and the Likelihood of Future True Beliefs” Olsson and Martin Jönsson try to show that my argument does “not in the end reduce the plausibility” of Olsson and Goldman's account. Here I argue that, while Olsson and Jönsson clarify and amend the conditional probability (...) approach in a number of helpful ways, my case against it remains intact. I conclude with a constructive proposal as to how their account may be steered in a more promising direction. (shrink)

Alvin Goldman and Erik Olsson have recently proposed a novel solution to the value problem in epistemology, i.e., to the question of how to account for the apparent surplus value of knowledge over mere true belief. Their “conditional probability solution” maintains that even simple process reliabilism can account for the added value of knowledge, since forming true beliefs in a reliable way raises the objective probability that the subject will have more true belief of a similar kind in the future. (...) I argue that this proposal confronts significant internal problems and implicitly invokes higher-level epistemic conditions that run against the spirit of externalism. (shrink)

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.

Davon ausgehend, dass Natur und Kultur das gemeinsame Erbe des Menschen bilden, wird dargestellt, was wir unter dem Anthropozän verstehen. Es werden die ungewollten Wirkungen der Industrialisierung und Modernisierung untersucht. Dazu gehören der Klimawandel, die Zerstörung der Biodiversität, die gestörten biogeochemischen Kreisläufe, die Versauerung der Ozeane und die Verschmutzung des Planeten mit der Gefahr der Zerstörung der Lebensgrundlagen der Menschen, Tiere und Pflanzen. Welche Rolle spielen in diesem Prozess die Maschinen? Ohne ihre Erfindung wäre es nicht zu diesem Prozess mit (...) seinen zahlreichen Nebenwirkungen gekommen. Ihre Entwicklung reicht von der Dampfmaschine über die Prothetik bis zur Robotik. Ein wichtiger Motor der Entwicklung sind heute die digitale Kultur und die Künstlichen Intelligenz. Lassen sich diese auch für die nachhaltige Entwicklung nutzen? Ohne die Digitalisierung wäre es nicht zu den Entwicklungen der Gentechnologie gekommen. Mit der Erfindung und Nutzung der CRISPR-Technologie werden Eingriffe in die Evolution möglich, die sich als eine Zuspitzung der Dynamik des Anthropozäns begreifen lassen. Gibt es Möglichkeiten, die Gefährdungen und die negativen Auswirkungen dieser Entwicklungen zu vermeiden oder sie sogar zu kompensieren? Hier entstehen viele nicht einfach beantwortbare anthropologische Fragen, die für ein historisch und kulturell reflexives (Selbst-)Verständnis des Menschen von zentraler Bedeutung sind. (shrink)

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

The origin of colour categories and their relationship to colour perception have been the prime example for testing the influence of language on perception and thought and more generally for investigating the biological, ecological and cultural determination of human cognition. These themes are central to a broad range of disciplines, including vision research, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, developmental science, cultural anthropology, linguistics, computer science, and philosophy. Unfortunately, though, it has been tacitly taken for granted that the conceptual assumptions and methodological practices (...) from the dawn of empirical research on colour categorisation are the gold standard for current colour category research. Here, we show that these assumptions and practices are obsolete and flawed and have led to four fundamental and widespread misconceptions about colour categorisation: 1.) that colour perception is inherently categorical; 2.) that English Basic Colour Terms correspond to universal categories that are the end point of a fixed evolutionary sequence; 3.) that the prototypes of English basic colour terms are perceptually salient and qualify as focal colours; and 4.) that colour category research essentially revolves around the universalism-realism debate. State-of-the-art research on colour categorisation provides new, more sophisticated approaches and allows for rectifying those four statements. At the same time, some of the questions underlying those statements are not convincingly answered yet and constitute major challenges to future research. The critical considerations on colour categorisation may be transferred to research on other kinds of perceptual categorisation to inspire new, more general research questions. (shrink)

Young children learn to make sense of the world through mimetic processes. These processes are focused to begin with on their parents, brothers and sisters and people they know well. Young children want to become like these persons. They are driven by the desire to become like them, which will mean that they belong and are part of them and their world. Young children, and indeed humans in general are social beings. They, more than all non-human primates, are social beings (...) who cannot survive without the Other. In mimetic processes the outside world becomes the inner world and the inner world becomes the outside world. The imaginary is developed and the imaginary develops ways of relating to the outside world. In a mimetic loop, this in turn affects the inner world of the imaginary. These processes are sensory and governed by desire. All the senses are involved which means that the imaginary has multiple layers. Since there is an intermingling of images, emotions and language, these processes are rooted in the body and at the same time transcend the body as they become part of the imaginary. Human beings create images of themselves in all cultures and historical periods. They need these images to understand themselves and their relationship to other human beings and to develop social relations and communities. Images of the human being are designs and projections of the human being and his or her relationship to other people and to the world. They are formed to visualize representations of individuals or aspects of them. They arise when we communicate about ourselves. They support us to live with diversities and to develop similarities and feelings of belonging with other people. They are the result of complex anthropological processes, in which social and cultural power structures play an important role. (shrink)

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