In this paper we set out a semantics for relevant (counterfactual) conditionals. We combine the Routley-Meyer semantics for relevant logic with a semantics for conditionals based on selection functions. The resulting models characterize a family of conditional logics free from fallacies of relevance, in particular counternecessities and conditionals with necessary consequents receive a non-trivial treatment.

This chapter develops an account of the meaning and use of various types of legal claims, and uses this account to inform debates about the nature and normativity of law. The account draws on a general framework for implementing a contextualist theory, called 'Discourse Contextualism' (Silk 2016). The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the apparent normativity of claims of law from a particular contextualist interpretation of a standard semantics for modals, along with general principles of interpretation and conversation. (...) Though the semantics is descriptivist, it avoids Dworkin’s influential criticism of so-called “semantic theories of law,” and elucidates the nature of “theoretical disagreements” about the criteria of legal validity. The account sheds light on the social, interpersonal function of normative uses of language in legal discourse. It also gives precise expression to Hart’s and Raz’s intuitive distinctions among types of legal claims (internal/external, committed/detached), while giving them a uniform type of analysis. The proposed semantics and pragmatics of legal claims provides a fruitful framework for further theorizing about the nature and metaphysics of law, the relation between law and morality, and the apparent practical character of legal language and judgment. Discourse Contextualism provides a solid linguistic basis for a broader account of legal discourse and practice. (shrink)

Performing and listening to music occurs in specific situations, requiring specific media. Empirical research on music listening and appreciation, however, tends to overlook the effects these situations and media may have on the listening experience. This article uses the sociological concept of the frame to develop a theory of an aesthetic experience with music as the result of encountering sound/music in the context of a specific situation. By presenting a transdisciplinary sub-field of empirical studies, we unfold this theory for one (...) such frame: the classical concert. After sketching out the underlying theoretical framework, a selective literature review is conducted to look for evidence on the general plausibility of the single elements of this emerging theory and to identify desiderata. We refer to common criticisms of the standard classical concert, and how new concert formats try to overcome alleged shortcomings and detrimental effects. Finally, an empirical research program is proposed, in which frames and frame components are experimentally manipulated and compared to establish their respective affordances and effects on the musical experience. Such a research program will provide empirical evidence to tackle a question that is still open to debate, i.e., whether the diversified world of modern-day music listening formats also holds a place for the classical concert – and if so, for what kind of classical concert. (shrink)

The process [by which any individual settles into new opinions] is always the same. The individual has a stock of old opinions already, but he meets a new experience that puts them to a strain…. The result is an inward trouble to which his mind till then had been a stranger, and from which he seeks to escape by modifying his previous mass of opinions. He saves as much of it as he can, for in this matter of belief we (...) are all extreme conservatives. So he tries to change first this opinion, and then that (for they resist change very variously), until at last some new idea comes up which he can graft upon the ancient stock with a minimum of disturbance of the latter, some idea that mediates between the stock and the new experience and runs them into one most felicitously and expediently.The new idea is then adopted as the true one. It preserves the older stock of truths with a minimum of modification, stretching them just enough to make them admit the novelty, but conceiving that in ways as familiar as the case leaves possible. (William James, Lectures on Pragmatism, 1907). (shrink)

Most evolutionary analyses of animal communication suggest that low-cost signals can evolve only when both the signaller and the recipient rank outcomes in the same order. When there is a conflict of interest between sender and receiver, honest signals must be costly. However, recent work suggests that low-cost signals can be evolutionarily stable, even when the sender and the receiver rank outcomes in different orders, as long as the interest in achieving coordination is sufficiently great. In this paper, we extend (...) this body of work by analysing a game theory model that shows that low-cost signals can evolve when there are conflicts of interest and no interest in coordination, as long as individuals interact repeatedly. We also present an empirical example indicating that female rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta, use honest, low-cost, vocal signals to facilitate interactions when conflicts of interest exist. (shrink)

This paper provides new examples of vagueness phenomena with comparatives. I show that explicit comparatives of the form ‘x is ADJ-er than y’ can be vague due to a fuzziness in how much of a given property makes for a difference in ADJ-ness. Vagueness can be associated not only with how ADJ something must be to count as ADJ, but with how ADJ things are. The examples I provide cannot be reduced to cases of indiscriminability or fuzziness in relevant dimensions, (...) standards, or measurement procedures. A revised degree-based semantics with semiorders, a type of well studied threshold structure, is developed. The semantics captures the truth of tolerance claims expressing that adjacent items in a sorites series are relevantly indistinguishable; and it avoids treating the tolerance claim as implying the inductive premise in a three-step sorites argument. (shrink)

The first comprehensive study of Nietzsche's earliest book, The Birth of Tragedy, this important volume by M. S. Silk and J. P. Stern examines the work in detail: its place in Nietzsche's philosophical career; its value as an account of ancient Greek culture; its place in the history of German ideas, and its value as a theory of tragedy and music. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Lesley Chamberlain, illuminating its enduring (...) importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this accessible study has been revived for a new generation of readers. (shrink)

Should we embrace nihilism, as Nolen Gertz suggests, or try to overcome it? For Nietzsche, nihilism must be overcome – if we're strong enough. The key, argues Alex Silk, is to see how nihilistic beliefs – that, say, nothing matters – derive from nihilistic feelings and bodily states. Understanding the basic features of human nature and experience at the root of nihilism paves the way toward a healthier, affirming perspective on ourselves and human life. Nietzsche’s rhetorical style helps us incorporate (...) such a perspective by engaging our feelings as well as our rational faculties. (shrink)

This paper develops an update semantics for weak necessity modals like ‘ought’ and ‘should’. I start with the basic approach to the weak/strong necessity modal distinction developed in Silk 2018: Strong necessity modals are given their familiar semantics of necessity, predicating the necessity of the prejacent of the actual world (evaluation world). The apparent “weakness” of weak necessity modals derives from their bracketing the assumption that the relevant worlds in which the prejacent is necessary (deontically, epistemically, etc.) need be candidates (...) for actuality. ‘Should φ’ can be accepted without needing to settle that the relevant considerations (norms, preferences, expectations, etc.) that actually apply, given the facts, verify the necessity of φ. I formalize these ideas within an Update with Centering framework. The meaning of ‘Should φ’ is explained, fundamentally, in terms of how its use updates attention toward possibilities in which φ is necessary. The semantics is also extended to deontic conditionals. The proposed analyses capture various contrasting logical properties and discourse properties of ‘should’ and ‘must’ — e.g., in sensitivities to standing contextual assumptions, entailingness, and force — and provide an improved treatment of largely neglected data concerning information-sensitivity. (shrink)

Although it can be straightforward to define the features of physical traits, complex cultural categories tend to elude widely accepted definitions that transcend cultural and historical context. Addressing papers by Mehr et al. and Savage et al., which both aim to explain music as an evolved trait, we discuss fundamental problems that arise from their conceptualizations of music.

The mainstream literature on corporate governance is based on the premise of conflicts of interest in a competitive game played by variously defined stakeholders and thus builds explicitly and/or implicitly on masculinist ethical theories. This article argues that insights from feminist ethics, and in particular ethics of care, can provide a different, yet relevant, lens through which to study corporate governance. Based on feminist ethical theories, the article conceptualises a governance model that is different from the current normative orthodoxy.

This paper considers three horary quadrants of strikingly similar design and underlying mode of conception. Two are dated, 1398 and 1399, while the third, undated instrument can now be dated for the first time with some certainty to 1400. The parameters used in their construction are analysed, and the latitude for which they were made is elucidated. This shows that all three were made for use in London or southern England. One of the three, dated 1399, has previously been attributed (...) to the patronage of Richard II, King of England, by virtue of the badge decorating the quadrant. The badge on the second quadrant, dated 1398, for a long time also associated with Richard II, has now been established to have been used by Richard's half brother, John Holland, Duke of Exeter. The third quadrant undoubtedlybelongs to the group, but cannot be assigned to the patronage of any individual. (shrink)

Today many scholars seem to agree that citizens should be involved in expert deliberations on science and technology issues. This interest in public deliberation has gained attraction in many practical settings, especially in the European Union, and holds the promise of more legitimate governance of science and technology. In this article, the authors draw on the European Commission’s report ‘‘Taking the European Knowledge Society Seriously’’ to ask how legitimate these efforts to ‘‘democratize’’ scientific expertise really are. While the report borrows (...) from deliberative democrats’ normative accounts of legitimacy, the authors identify a tension between the principles for legitimate rule prescribed by deliberative democratic theory and the report’s celebration of diversity and dissent. While this inconsistency suggests that the legitimacy of deliberative governance arrangements is justified on empirical rather than normative grounds, it remains an open question whether studies of science and technology offer enough empirical support for such a justification. In this article, the authors address this pressing question and propose three possible responses. (shrink)

Business ethics and firm economic performance have traditionally often been regarded as mutually exclusive ends. We challenge this “either-or” belief and analyze when and how ethical firm leadership and firm performance may harmonize well. In extension of earlier research on ethical leadership and performance at the individual and team level, we study the context–dependency of the organization level relationship between CEO ethical leadership and firm performance. We propose a moderated mediation model of the link between CEO ethical leadership and firm (...) performance, identifying mediating and moderating variables unique to the organization-level of analysis. CEO ethical leadership is argued to work through organizational ethical culture which promotes firm performance under the condition that there is a strong corporate ethics program in place. Results from a multisource cross-sectional study, in which we surveyed 145 participants from 32 organizations and validated organizational performance ratings by objective performance data, showed support for our conceptual model. (shrink)

This book investigates context-sensitivity in natural language by examining the meaning and use of a target class of theoretically recalcitrant expressions. These expressions-including epistemic vocabulary, normative and evaluative vocabulary, and vague language -exhibit systematic differences from paradigm context-sensitive expressions in their discourse dynamics and embedding properties. Many researchers have responded by rethinking the nature of linguistic meaning and communication. Drawing on general insights about the role of context in interpretation and collaborative action, Silk develops an improved contextualist theory of CR-expressions (...) within the classical truth-conditional paradigm: Discourse Contextualism. The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the distinctive linguistic behavior of a CR-expression from a particular contextualist interpretation of an independently motivated formal semantics, along with general principles of interpretation and conversation. It is shown how in using CR-expressions, speakers can exploit their mutual grammatical and world knowledge, and general pragmatic reasoning skills, to coordinate their attitudes and negotiate about how the context should evolve. The book focuses primarily on developing a Discourse Contextualist semantics and pragmatics for epistemic modals. The Discourse Contextualist framework is also applied to other categories of epistemic vocabulary, normative and evaluative vocabulary, and vague adjectives. The similarities/differences among these expressions, and among context-sensitive expressions more generally, have been underexplored. The development of Discourse Contextualism in this book sheds light on general features of meaning and communication, and the variety of ways in which context affects and is affected by uses of language. Discourse Contextualism provides a fruitful framework for theorizing about various broader issues in philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Current literature on ethical leadership and unethical leadership reflects a Western-based private sector perspective, pointing toward a compliance-oriented understanding of ethical and unethical leadership. As today’s executives increasingly have to ethically lead across different cultures and sectors, it becomes vitally important to develop a more holistic picture how ethical and unethical leadership is perceived in the Western and Eastern cultural cluster and the private and the public/social sector. Addressing this issue, the present study aims to identify cross-cultural and cross-sectoral commonalities (...) and differences in international executives’ perceptions of ethical and unethical leadership. Findings from in-depth interviews (N = 36) with executives from Western and Eastern cultures working in the private or the public/social sector reveal collectively held perceptions of ethical leadership (including leader honesty, integrity, concern for responsibility/sustainability, and people orientation) and of unethical leadership (referring to leader dishonesty, corruption, egocentrism, and manipulation). Results indicate limited support for a compliance-oriented perspective on ethical and unethical leadership but yield a much greater trend toward a value-oriented perspective. Concrete practice examples illustrate these different perspectives. Cultural and sectoral particularities of executive perceptions of ethical and unethical leadership are discussed. (shrink)

We present a natural standard translation of inquisitive modal logic $\mathrm{InqML}$ into first-order logic over the natural two-sorted relational representations of the intended models, which captures the built-in higher-order features of $\mathrm{InqML}$. This translation is based on a graded notion of flatness that ties the inherent second-order, team-semantic features of $\mathrm{InqML}$ over information states to subsets or tuples of bounded size. A natural notion of pseudo-models, which relaxes the non-elementary constraints on the intended models, gives rise to an elementary, purely (...) model-theoretic proof of the compactness property for $\mathrm{InqML}$. Moreover, we prove a Hennessy-Milner theorem for $\mathrm{InqML}$, which crucially uses $\omega $ -saturated pseudo-models and the new standard translation. As corollaries we also obtain van Benthem style characterisation theorems. (shrink)

Research focusing on Anglo-European languages indicates that children’s acquisition of the subordinate structure of complement-clause constructions and the semantics of mental verbs facilitates their understanding of false belief, and that the two linguistic factors interact. Complement-clause constructions support false-belief development, but only when used with realis mental verbs like ‘think’ in the matrix clause (de Villiers, Jill. 2007. The interface of language and Theory of Mind.Lingua117(11). 1858–1878). In Chinese, however, only the semantics of mental verbs seems to play a facilitative (...) role in false-belief development (Cheung, Him, Hsuan-Chih Chen & William Yeung. 2009. Relations between mental verb and false belief understanding in Cantonese-speaking children.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology104(2). 141–155). We argue that these cross-linguistic differences can be explained by variations in availability and usage patterns of mental verbs and complement-clause constructions across languages. Unlike English, Mandarin-Chinese has a verb that indicates that a belief might be false:yi3wei2‘(falsely) think’. Our corpus analysis suggests that, unlike English caregivers, Mandarin-Chinese caregivers do not produce frequent, potentially unanalyzed, chunks with mental verbs and first-person subjects, such as ‘I think’. In an experiment, we found that the comprehension of complement-clause constructions used withyi3wei2‘(falsely) think’, but not withjue2de2‘think’, predicted Mandarin children’s false-belief understanding between the ages of 4 and 5. In contrast to English, whether mental verbs were used with first- or third-person subjects did not affect their correlation with false-belief understanding. (shrink)

The paper presents the main ideas of Ultrafilter Logic (UL), as introduced by Veloso and others. A new proposal, Normality Logic (NL), is outlined for expanding the expressive power of UL. The system NL appears to offer a simpler solution to the problem of expressive power than the sorting strategy of Carnielli and Veloso. Interpretations of NL are discussed and an important point of contact to Hansson's notion of non-prioritized belief revision is observed.

Slippery slope‐, taboo‐breaking‐ or Nazi‐analogy‐arguments are common, but not uncontroversial examples of the complex relationship between bioethics and the various ways of using historical arguments in these debates. In our analysis we examine first the relationship between bioethics and medical history both as separate disciplines and as argumentative practices. Secondly, we then analyse six common types of historical arguments in bioethics (slippery slope‐, analogy‐, continuity‐, knockout/taboo‐, ethical progress‐ and accomplice‐arguments), some as arguments within the academic debate of bioethics, others as (...) arguments within political and public debates over bioethical issues. We conclude by suggesting to bioethicists to better understand historical arguments as socially and culturally embedded practices of critical reflection of power, medical and government paternalism and possible future scenarios. More interdisciplinarity between ethicists and medical historians is needed to appropriately rationalize and understand the different legacies. (shrink)

Ethical reflection deals not only with the moral standing and handling of animals, it should also include a critical analysis of the underlying relationship. Anthropological, psychological, and sociological aspects of the human–animal-relationship should be taken into account. Two conditions, asymmetry and ambivalence, are taken as the historical and empirical basis for reflections on the human–animal-relationship in late modern societies. These conditions explain the variety of moral practice, apart from paradoxes, and provide a framework to systematize animal ethical problems in a (...) broader field. This allows the development of ideal relationships as moral orientation across anthropocentric or sentientistic ethical theories. These ideal relationships are called the patronage-model, the friendship-model and the partnership-model. The ethical problem of creating transgenic animals is discussed in the light of these ideal relationships. (shrink)

The paper presents the main ideas of Ultrafilter Logic (UL), as introduced by Veloso and others. A new proposal, Normality Logic (NL), is outlined for expanding the expressive power of UL. The system NL appears to offer a simpler solution to the problem of expressive power than the sorting strategy of Carnielli and Veloso. Interpretations of NL are discussed and an important point of contact to Hansson's notion of non-prioritized belief revision is observed.

The book generalises earlier theories of belief change to cover all kinds of changes of sets by sets. The principal focus is still on changes of belief sets in response to new evidence, but the formal theory extends to all domains with a closure operation and a preference structure including, for example, systems of action. Contraction is the key notion; all other changes can be defined. Various new applications of the theory are outlined. A sentential version of contraction, subtraction, is (...) proposed as a formal counterpart to 'except'-locutions in natural language. Connections are emphasised with other areas at the interface between philosophical logic and artificial intelligence such as reasoning from default assumptions or from inconsistent premises. A relation of merge inference is proposed as a means of retrieving maximal but nontrivial information from inconsistent premises. Merge inference respects certain anti-Boolean intuitions while avoiding a revision of classical logic. (shrink)

The writers Thomas Mann and Erich Kästner took in the years between 1933 and 1945 extreme positions of inner and outer emigration, which can be shown concerning autobiographical aspects and concerning their works which they wrote during the time of national socialism. While Kästner, who represents the inner emigration, wrote humorous stories like "Drei Männer im Schnee" and "Der kleine Grenzverkehr", Mann completed his tetralogy of "Joseph und seine Brüder", which deals with the foundation and development of the monotheistic jewish (...) world religion, in France, Switzerland and America where in 1943 he began his dark artist novel "Doktor Faustus", while in Europe internicine warfare and the Shoa were in progress. While Erich Kästner, who was a very engaged political author in the so called Weimar Republic, was captivated during the period of national socialism by his inwardness, Thomas Mann released himself from this attitude in view of the Third Reich and became an emancipated author who was politically engaged and with moral integrity. (shrink)

Outsourcing clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies from industrialized countries to low- -income countries – summarized as transnational biomedical research – has lead to many concerns about ethical standards. Whether study participants are particularly vulnerable is one of those concerns. However, the concept of vulnerability is still vague and varies in its definition. Despite the fact that important international ethical guidelines such as the Declaration of Helsinki by the World Medical Association or the Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human (...) Subjects by the Council of International Organizations of Medical Sciences refer to vulnerability as ethical principle, each of their approaches are different. To overcome these shortcomings, we analyze and unite different approaches of vulnerability and develop practical criteria in order to operationalize the concept especially for the context of TBR. These criteria refer to the context of a study as well as the characteristics and the current living situation of study participants. Based on a case study of an HIV-vaccine-trial conducted in India we demonstrate how those criteria can be applied in a retrospective way to identify potential ethical conflicts. The criteria can also indicate a prospective function for ethical pre-assessment. For this, we provide an outlook for three major topics: 1. Vulnerability as a normative concept: Different ways of protection; 2. The relevance of transparency and 3. Vulnerability as an instrument to increase decision participation of human subjects. (shrink)

In response to the significant increase of judgment and judgmentalism in contemporary film and television, 'A Critique of Judgment in Film and Television' investigates the evolving connections between the aesthetics and ethics of judgment. The volume ultimately contemplates whether we should, and can, do without judgment, questions that are just the beginning of a much-needed re-examination. The individual contributions of the collection all work towards a very specific focus on judgment that is unprecedented in its transdisciplinary composition and contemporary relevance. (...) By exploring examples of entertainment that aim to instigate judgment, 'A Critique of Judgment in Film and Television' advances the as yet underdeveloped area of research into television and philosophy. (shrink)