A key question in the philosophy of logic is how we have epistemic justification for claims about logical entailment (assuming we have such justification at all). Justification holism asserts that claims of logical entailment can only be justified in the context of an entire logical theory, e.g., classical, intuitionistic, paraconsistent, paracomplete etc. According to holism, claims of logical entailment cannot be atomistically justified as isolated statements, independently of theory choice. At present there is a developing interest in—and endorsement of—justification holism (...) due to the revival of an abductivist approach to the epistemology of logic. This paper presents an argument against holism by establishing a foundational entailment-sentence of deduction which is justified independently of theory choice and outside the context of a whole logical theory. (shrink)

This paper discusses the Uniqueness Thesis, a core thesis in the epistemology of disagreement. After presenting uniqueness and clarifying relevant terms, a novel counterexample to the thesis will be introduced. This counterexample involves logical disagreement. Several objections to the counterexample are then considered, and it is argued that the best responses to the counterexample all undermine the initial motivation for uniqueness.

The paper gives a detailed reconstruction and discussion of Peirce’s doctrine of propositions, so-called Dicisigns, developed in the years around 1900. The special features different from the logical mainstream are highlighted: the functional definition not dependent upon conscious stances nor human language, the semiotic characterization extending propositions and quasi-propositions to cover prelinguistic and prehuman occurrences of signs, the relations of Dicisigns to the conception of facts, of diagrammatical reasoning, of icons and indices, of meanings, of objects, of syntax in Peirce’s (...) logic-as-semiotics. (shrink)

On the basis of the Suppes–Sneed structuralview of scientific theories, we take a freshlook at the concept of refutability,which was famously proposed by K.R. Popper in 1934 as a criterion for the demarcation of scientific theories from non-scientific ones, e.g., pseudo-scientificand metaphysical theories. By way of an introduction we argue that a clash between Popper and his critics on whether scientific theories are, in fact, refutablecan be partly explained by the fact Popper and his criticsascribed different meanings to the term (...) theoryThen we narrow our attention to one particular theory,namely quantum mechanics, in order to elucidate general matters discussed. We prove that quantum mechanics is irrefutable in a rather straightforward sense, but argue that it is refutable in a more sophisticated sense, which incorporates someobservations obtained by looking closely at the practiceof physics. We shall locate exactly where non-rigourous elements enter the evaluation of a scientific theory – thismakes us see clearly how fruitful mathematics isfor the philosophy of science. (shrink)

The rejection of an infinitesimal solution to the zero-fit problem by A. Elga ([2004]) does not seem to appreciate the opportunities provided by the use of internal finitely-additive probability measures. Indeed, internal laws of probability can be used to find a satisfactory infinitesimal answer to many zero-fit problems, not only to the one suggested by Elga, but also to the Markov chain (that is, discrete and memory-less) models of reality. Moreover, the generalization of likelihoods that Elga has in mind is (...) not as hopeless as it appears to be in his article. In fact, for many practically important examples, through the use of likelihoods one can succeed in circumventing the zero-fit problem. 1 The Zero-fit Problem on Infinite State Spaces 2 Elga's Critique of the Infinitesimal Approach to the Zero-fit Problem 3 Two Examples for Infinitesimal Solutions to the Zero-fit Problem 4 Mathematical Modelling in Nonstandard Universes? 5 Are Nonstandard Models Unnatural? 6 Likelihoods and Densities A Internal Probability Measures and the Loeb Measure Construction B The (Countable) Coin Tossing Sequence Revisited C Solution to the Zero-fit Problem for a Finite-state Model without Memory D An Additional Note on ‘Integrating over Densities’ E Well-defined Continuous Versions of Density Functions. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is threefold. Firstly, §1 and §2 introduce the novel concept logical akrasia by analogy to epistemic akrasia. If successful, the initial sections will draw attention to an interesting akratic phenomenon which has not received much attention in the literature on akrasia (although it has been discussed by logicians in different terms). Secondly, §3 and §4 present a dilemma related to logical akrasia. From a case involving the consistency of Peano Arithmetic and Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem (...) it’s shown that either we must be agnostic about the consistency of Peano Arithmetic or akratic in our arithmetical theorizing. If successful, these sections will underscore the pertinence and persistence of akrasia in arithmetic (by appeal to Gödel’s seminal work). Thirdly, §5 concludes by suggesting a way of translating the dilemma of arithmetical akrasia into a case of regular epistemic akrasia; and further how one might try to escape the dilemma when it’s framed this way. (shrink)

Is there a morally relevant difference between a brain‐damaged human being and a nonhuman animal at the same cognitive and emotional level to justify, say, performing medical experiments on the animal but not the human being? Some hold that the misfortune of the human being allows us to distinguish between them. I consider the nature of misfortunate and argue that an appeal to misfortune fails to distinguish between the human being and the nonhuman animal when the treatment at issue is (...) equally morally serious, since the source of the limitation taken advantage of by performing the medical experiment, whether misfortunate or natural vulnerability, is irrelevant. (shrink)

Recent studies on mind‐wandering reveal its potential role in goal exploration and planning future actions. How to understand these explorative functions and their impact on planning remains unclear. Given certain conceptions of intentions and beliefs, the explorative functions of mind‐wandering could lead to regular reconsideration of one's intentions. However, this would be in tension with the stability of intentions central to rational planning agency. We analyze the potential issue of excessive reconsideration caused by mind‐wandering. Our response resolves this tension, presenting (...) a model that aligns the roles of mind‐wandering in planning with empirical evidence and the sustained stability of intentions. (shrink)

We propose simple nonlinear mathematical models for the legal concept of balancing of interests. Our aim is to bridge the gap between an abstract formalisation of a balancing decision while assuring consistency and ultimately legal certainty across cases. We focus on the conflict between the rights to privacy and to the protection of personal data in Art. 7 and Art. 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EUCh) against the right of access to information derived from Art. 11 EUCh. (...) These competing rights are denoted by ( \(i_1\) ) _right to privacy _ and ( \(i_2\) ) _access to information_; mathematically, their indices are respectively assigned by \(u_1\in [0,1]\) and \(u_2\in [0,1]\) subject to the constraint \(u_1+u_2=1\). This constraint allows us to use one single index _u_ to resolve the conflict through balancing. The outcome will be concluded by comparing the index _u_ with a prior given threshold \(u_0\). For simplicity, we assume that the balancing depends on only selected legal criteria such as the social status of affected person, and the sphere from which the information originated, which are represented as inputs of the models, called legal parameters. Additionally, we take “time” into consideration as a legal criterion, building on the European Court of Justice’s ruling on the right to be forgotten: by considering time as a legal parameter, we model how the outcome of the balancing changes over the passage of time. To catch the dependence of the outcome _u_ by these criteria as legal parameters, data were created by a fully-qualified lawyer. By comparison to other approaches based on machine learning, especially neural networks, this approach requires significantly less data. This might come at the price of higher abstraction and simplification, but also provides for higher transparency and explainability. Two mathematical models for _u_, a time-independent model and a time-dependent model, are proposed, that are fitted by using the data. (shrink)

Artifacts are probably our most obvious everyday encounter with technology. Therefore, a good understanding of the nature of technical artifacts is a relevant part of technological literacy. In this article we draw from the philosophy of technology to develop a conceptualization of technical artifacts that can be used for educational purposes. Furthermore we report a small exploratory empirical study to see to what extent teachers’ intuitive ideas about artifacts match with the way philosophers write about the nature of artifacts. Finally, (...) we suggest a teaching and learning strategy for improving teachers’ concepts of technical artifacts through practical activities. (shrink)

In the current world of education, politics and public opinion, musical experience is increasingly threatened. It is designated ever more as an expendable luxury. This kind of general trend has hardly left the thinking in the field of music and music education untouched. Inspiration comes from the technical rationality of our time. This rationality affects an oblivion of ontology. In this article we discuss this trend related to Martin Heidegger’s thinking concerning the human existence in the world, artworks and notions (...) like “being” (Sein) and “oblivion-of-being” (Seinsvergessenheit). We think that it is possible to see this “oblivion-of-being” in relation to the trend in cultural and educational politics as well as in music educational thinking to focus on the instrumental usefulness of learning music. (shrink)

Frederik L. Schodt explores his lifelong fascination with the Heart Sutra: its mesmerizing mantra, its ancient history, the 'emptiness' theory, and the way it is used around the world as a metaphysical tool to overcome chaos and confusion and reach a new understanding of reality--a perfection of wisdom."--Back cover.

Following Lauwers and Van Liedekerke (1995), this paper explores in a model-theoretic framework the relation between Arrovian aggregation rules and ultraproducts, in order to investigate a source of impossibility results for the case of an infinite number of individuals and an aggregation rule based on a free ultrafilter of decisive coalitions.

The remarkable movement known as Solidarity recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in Poland. This essay provides a theoretical appreciation of the values and principles that guided and undergirded the movement, which greatly contributed to the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. This systematic overview of the ethic of the Solidarity movement fills a lacuna in the field of ethics because ethicists who are interested in the concept of solidarity have largely overlooked the Polish experience of the 1980s. This (...) essay attempts to describe the key ingredients of the Polish ethic of solidarity by analyzing both Polish treatises on the subject and accounts of events on the ground. It elaborates conceptual categories and describes characteristic features of the movement in order to provide a phenomenological account of the nature of solidarity embodied in Poland during this era. These categories and characteristics include unity among differences, the foundation of hope at the movement's roots, self-sacrifice and heroism, promoting the equality and dignity of all, the centrality of participation, the affirmation of "bread and freedom," an option for the poor, and the insistence on life in truth. Although this essay does not attempt to demonstrate the relevance of this "thick" ethic of solidarity to capitalist, democratic societies today, by way of conclusion it raises questions pertaining to the contemporary significance of the Polish ethic of solidarity. (shrink)

Deprivation offers a plausible explanation for the badness of death, so fear is not unreasonable. But horror at the prospect of one's death is not just extreme fear because horror is structurally different than fear. Horror requires a different explanation. For Sartre, horror is possible only in unique circumstances. I argue that Sartre's view, when combined with the subjective incomprehensibility of one's annihilation, can explain horror and other negative emotions that are not contingent on deprivation. Further, I argue that while (...) fear can be reasonable if one's death will deprive, Lucretius's Symmetry Argument shows that horror is unreasonable. (shrink)

This paper gives a fIrst overview over the role of mereology the theory of parts and wholes - in semiotics. The mereology of four major semioticians - Husserl, Jakobson, Hjelmslev, and Peirce is presented briefly and its role in the overall architecture of each of their theories is outlined - with Brentano tradition as reference. Finally, an evaluation of the strength and weaknesses of the four is undertaken, and some guidelines for further research is proposed.

This paper formally explores the common ground between mild versions of epistemological coherentism and infinitism; it proposes—and argues for—a hybrid, coherentist–infinitist account of epistemic justification. First, the epistemological regress argument and its relation to the classical taxonomy regarding epistemic justification—of foundationalism, infinitism and coherentism—is reviewed. We then recall recent results proving that an influential argument against infinite regresses of justification, which alleges their incoherence on account of probabilistic inconsistency, cannot be maintained. Furthermore, we prove that the Principle of Inferential Justification (...) has rather unwelcome consequences—formally resembling the Sorites paradox—as soon as it is iterated and combined with a natural Bayesian perspective on probabilistic inferences. We conclude that strong versions of foundationalism and infinitism should be abandoned. Positively, we provide a rough sketch for a graded formal coherence notion, according to which infinite regresses of epistemic justification will often have more than a minimal degree of coherence. (shrink)

Default logic has been a very active research topic in artificial intelligence since the early 1980s, but has not received as much attention in the philosophical literature thus far. This paper shows one way in which the technical tools of artificial intelligence can be applied in contemporary epistemology by modeling a paradigmatic case of deep disagreement using default logic. In §1 model-building viewed as a kind of philosophical progress is briefly motivated, while §2 introduces the case of deep disagreement we (...) aim to model. On the heels of this, §3 defines our formal framework, viz., a refined Horty-style default logic. §4 then uses the framework to model deep disagreement, and finally §5 provides a critical discussion of the result. (shrink)

This paper discusses the uniqueness thesis, a core thesis in the epistemology of disagreement. After presenting uniqueness and clarifying relevant terms, a novel counterexample to the thesis will be introduced. This counterexample involves logical disagreement. Several objections to the counterexample are then considered, and it is argued that the best responses to the counterexample all undermine the initial motivation for uniqueness.

This article gives a brief overview of Christian-Muslim Relations in sub-Saharan Africa. It points out that in recent years, due to the pentecostalisation of Christianity and the increased influence of fundamentalist Islamic groups, relations in sub-Sahara Africa seem to deteriorate, despite initiatives to work on harmonious interfaith relations. The article then identifies three current trends in Christian-Muslim relations: an increase in polarisation and polemics, the debate on the implementation of shari’a and joint social action programmes.

Examines acts of showing--from dog shows to striptease--to understand and theorize instances of heightened performance in everyday life as well as on the stage.

Current European innovation and security policies are increasingly channeled into efforts to address the assumed challenges that threaten European societies. A field in which this has become particularly salient is digitized EU border management. Here, the framework of responsible research and innovation (RRI) has recently been used to point to the alleged sensitivity of political actors towards the contingent dimensions of emerging security technologies. RRI, in general, is concerned with societal needs and the engagement and inclusion of various stakeholder groups (...) in the research and innovation processes, aiming to anticipate undesired consequences of and identifying socially acceptable alternatives for emerging technologies. However, RRI has also been criticized as an industry-driven attempt to gain societal legitimacy for new technologies. In this article, we argue that while RRI evokes a space where different actors enter co-creative dialogues, it lays bare the specific challenges of governing security innovation in socially responsible ways. Empirically, we draw on the case study of BODEGA, the first EU funded research project to apply the RRI framework to the field of border security. We show how stakeholders involved in the project represent their work in relation to RRI and the resulting benefits and challenges they face. The paper argues that applying the framework to the field of (border) security lays bare its limitations, namely that RRI itself embodies a political agenda, conceals alternative experiences by those on whom security is enacted upon and that its key propositions of openness and transparency are hardly met in practice due to confidentiality agreements. Our hope is to contribute to work on RRI and emerging debates about how the concept can (or cannot) be contextualized for the field of security—a field that might be more in need than any other to consider the ethical dimension of its activities. (shrink)

Sehen, Horen, Riechen, Schmecken, Tasten: Die Autorin fragt nach Entstehung, Begrundung und Folgen dieser tradierten Ordnung der Sinne. Sie fragt auch nach den abweichenden Varianten, die von der antiken Idee des Korpers als ganzheitliches Sensorium uber die hoheren Sinne des Mittelalters bis zu den sinnlichen Vermogen der Aufklarung, wie Einbildungskraft und Dichtungsvermogen, reichen. Im 18. Jahrhundert verstarkte sich zusammen mit der anthropologischen Aufwertung der Sinnlichkeit der Impuls zur Uberschreitung der Funfzahl der Sinne und zur Umordnung der uberkommenen Hierarchie. An Textbeispielen (...) von Platon, Ovid und Goethe untersucht die Autorin uberdies Zusammenhange, aber auch Widerspruche, die zwischen der europaischen Liebeskultur und der Bewertung von Auge und Ohr als hohere, von Geschmack, Geruch und Tasten als niedere Sinne bestehen. (shrink)

Environmental philosophers are often concerned to show that non-sentient things, such as plants or ecosystems, have interests and therefore are appropriate objects of moral concern. They deny that mentality is a necessary condition for having interests. Yet they also deny that they are committed to recognizing interests in things like machines. I argue that either machines have interests (and hence moral standing) too or mentality is a necessary condition for inclusion within the purview of morality. I go on to argue (...) that the aspect of mentality necessary for having interests is more complicated than mere sentience. (shrink)

Two different concepts of iconicity compete in Peirce's diagrammatical logic. One is articulated in his general reflections on the role of diagrams in thought, in what could be termed his diagrammatology — the other is articulated in his construction of Existential Graphs as an iconic system for representing logic. One is operational and defines iconicity in terms of which information may be derived from a given diagram or diagram system — the other has stronger demands on iconicity, adding to the (...) operational criterion a demand for as high a degree of similarity as possible and may be termed optimal iconicity. Peirce himself does not clearly distinguish these two iconicity notions, a fact that has caused some confusion. By isolating them, we get a clearer and more refined conceptual apparatus for analyzing iconic signs, from pictures to logic. (shrink)

This article is an investigation of parallel themes in Heinrich Hertz's philosophy science and Kant's theory of schemata, symbols and regulative ideas. It is argued that Hertz's "pictures" bears close similarities to Kantian "schemata", that is, they are rules linking concepts to intuitions and provide them with their meaning. Kant's distinction between symbols and schemata is discussed and related to Hertz's three pictures of mechanics. It is argued that Hertz considered his own picture of mechanics as symbolic in a different (...) way than the force and energy pictures. In the final part of the article it is described how Harald Høffding soon after the publication of Hertz's Principles of Mechanics developed a general theory of analogical reasoning, relying on the ideas of Hertz and Kant. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Jeanne Peijnenburg and David Atkinson [ Studia Logica, 89:333-341 ] have challenged the foundationalist rejection of infinitism by giving an example of an infinite, yet explicitly solvable regress of probabilistic justification. So far, however, there has been no criterion for the consistency of infinite probabilistic regresses, and in particular, foundationalists might still question the consistency of the solvable regress proposed by Peijnenburg and Atkinson.

Complex and urgent challenges including climate change and the significant decline in biodiversity provide a broad agenda for interdisciplinary scholars interested in the implications facing businesses, humanity, and other species. Within this context of sustainability, persistent conflicts between key paradigms create substantial barriers against—but also opportunities for—developing new conceptual approaches and theoretical models to understand and respond to these critical issues. Here, I revisit paradigmatic tensions to assess their impact on research and debate on sustainability, ethics, and business. Drawing on (...) relational ontology and values of nature that recognise humanity’s tight embeddedness within the planetary ecosystem, I examine how conceptualising sustainability as the _pursuit of life_ might generate new insights for research and practice into the wider transformation needed to sustain and restore socioecological systems. The aim here, however, is not to reconcile these paradigmatic tensions but instead use them as a fruitful lens for examining the implications for sustainability, while acknowledging the inherent ethical dilemmas for individuals, organisations, and society. (shrink)

Lucretius famously argued that if we think death is bad because it deprives us of time we could have had by living longer than we do, then when we are born must be bad too, since we could have been born earlier than we were, and so be deprived of that time as well. John Martin Fischer thinks Lucretius’s symmetry argument fails because we have a bias toward the future. I argue that Fischer’s approach does not answer Lucretius. In contrast (...) to Fischer, I think that we can show an objective difference between the time before our birth and the time after our death, which means that we are justified in adopting different attitudes towards them. I revise a point made by Thomas Nagel that while we might live longer than we do, we cannot exist earlier than we did and remain the same people throughout. (shrink)

Organized immaturity refers to the capacity of widely institutionalized sociotechnical systems to challenge qualities of human enlightenment, autonomy, and self-determination. In the context of surveillance capitalism, where these qualities are continuously put at risk, data transparency is increasingly proposed as a means of restoring human maturity by allowing individuals insight and choice vis-à-vis corporate data processing. In this article, however, I draw on research on General Data Protection Regulation–mandated data transparency practices to argue that transparency—while potentially fostering maturity—itself risks producing (...) new forms of organized immaturity by facilitating user ignorance, manipulation, and loss of control of personal data. Considering data transparency’s relative “successes” and “failures” regarding the cultivation of maturity, I outline a set of possible remedies while arguing for a general need to develop more sophisticated ethical appreciations of transparency’s complex and potentially problematic implications for organized (im)maturity in the digital age. (shrink)

We characterise the intermediate logics which admit a cut-free hypersequent calculus of the form \, where \ is the hypersequent counterpart of the sequent calculus \ for propositional intuitionistic logic, and \ is a set of so-called structural hypersequent rules, i.e., rules not involving any logical connectives. The characterisation of this class of intermediate logics is presented both in terms of the algebraic and the relational semantics for intermediate logics. We discuss various—positive as well as negative—consequences of this characterisation.

It is a well-known fact that Ernst Cassirer was inspired by his colleague, the biologist Jakob von Uexkiill at the university of Hamburg. This paper claims this inspiration was double—affecting both Cassirer's philosophical anthropology and Cassirer's epistemology of biology, but in two rather different ways. Thus, the paper intends to shed light on a corner of the history of the development of German thought of the interwar period. It may also have an actual interest because both Cassirer and Uexkiill enjoy, (...) for the time being and each in their way, a renaissance, e.g. in the recent field of biosemiotics. (shrink)

I argue that forgiveness necessarily involves overcoming resentment to which we are entitled when wronged. My view calls into question the standard understanding of forgiveness according to which resentment is no longer warranted once the transgressor apologizes or makes amends in some other way. If forgiveness entails relinquishing unwarranted resentment, as the standard account has it, then it is not freely given, since one must relinquish unwarranted resentments. On my view, forgiveness remains elective since one chooses to relinquish resentment to (...) which one has every right irrespective of whether the transgressor apologizes. (shrink)