A symposium was held at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge on June 12th 2019, ‘Rethinking Repetition in a Digital Age’, at which Geoff Stead, a leading mobile tech designer, was a keynote speaker. The focus of the Cambridge UK event was on how the potentials of digital technologies—whose harms have received widespread attention—could be redirected for the social good. For Stead, this is precisely what Babbel are doing in (...) their approach to commercial digital language learning. Stead spoke to the idea of reversing our personal relationships to mechanical affordances, and finding empowerment in understanding their designed logics. The transcript of the interview below, made in October 2021, revisits some of the main points he raised at that event. (shrink)

This paper argues against the view that trolley cases are of little or no relevance to the ethics of automated vehicles. Four arguments for this view are outlined and rejected: the Not Going to Happen Argument, the Moral Difference Argument, the Impossible Deliberation Argument and the Wrong Question Argument. In making clear where these arguments go wrong, a positive account is developed of how trolley cases can inform the ethics of automated vehicles.

"Dissecting Bioethics," edited by Tuija Takala and Matti Häyry, welcomes contributions on the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of bioethics. The section is dedicated to the idea that words defined by bioethicists and others should not be allowed to imprison people's actual concerns, emotions, and thoughts. Papers that expose the many meanings of a concept, describe the different readings of a moral doctrine, or provide an alternative angle to seemingly self-evident issues are therefore particularly appreciated. The themes covered in the section (...) so far include dignity, naturalness, public interest, community, disability, autonomy, parity of reasoning, symbolic appeals, and toleration. (shrink)

The words we call slurs are just plain vanilla descriptions like ‘cowboy’ and ‘coat hanger’. They don't semantically convey any disparagement of their referents, whether as content, conventional implicature, presupposition, “coloring” or mode of presentation. What distinguishes 'kraut' and 'German' is metadata rather than meaning: the former is the conventional description for Germans among Germanophobes when they are speaking in that capacity, in the same way 'mad' is the conventional expression that some teenagers use as an intensifier when they’re emphasizing (...) that social identity. That is, racists don’t use slurs because they’re derogatory; slurs are derogatory because they’re the words that racists use. To use a slur is to exploit the Maxim of Manner (or Levinson’s M-Principle) to signal one’s affiliation with a group that has a disparaging attitude towards the slur’s referent. This account is sufficient to explain all the familiar properties of slurs, such as their speaker orientation and “nondetachability,” with no need of additional linguistic mechanisms. It also explains some features of slurs that are rarely if ever explored; for example the variation in tone and strength among the different slurs for a particular group, the existence of words we count as slurs, such as 'redskin', which almost all of their users consider to be respectful, and the curious absence in Standard English of any commonly used slurs—by which I mean words used to express a negative attitude toward an entire group—for Muslims and women. (shrink)

Currently, research ethics committees in the UK meet behind closed doors—their workings and most of the content of their decisions are unavailable to the general public. There is a significant tension between this current practice and a broader societal presumption of openness. As a form of public institution, the REC system exists to oversee research from the perspective of society generally.An important part of this tension turns on the kind of justification that might be offered for the REC system. In (...) this paper I adapt Daniels and Sabin’s accountability for reasonableness model for just resource allocation to the research ethics context to provide some structural legitimacy and to enable progress on the question of openness. After considering the consequences of adopting this model for open REC meetings, I then examine some reasons that might be offered against open meetings. These arguments do not overwhelm the core intuitions behind the presumption of openness but they do, I suggest, give us reason to retreat from fully public meetings. I conclude that there should be important adjustments to the system towards public accountability and that there are grounds for stopping short of fully public meetings. (shrink)

When it comes to using patient data from the National Health Service for research, we are often told that it is a matter of trust: we need to trust, we need to build trust, we need to restore trust. Various policy papers and reports articulate and develop these ideas and make very important contributions to public dialogue on the trustworthiness of our research institutions. But these documents and policies are apparently constructed with little sustained reflection on the nature of trust (...) and trustworthiness, and therefore are missing important features that matter for how we manage concerns related to trust. We suggest that what we mean by ‘trust’ and ‘trustworthiness’ matters and should affect the policies and guidance that govern data sharing in the NHS. We offer a number of initial, general reflections on the way in which some of these features might affect our approach to principles, policies and strategies that are related to sharing patient data for research. This paper is the outcome of a ‘public ethics’ coproduction activity which involved members of the public and two academic ethicists. Our task was to consider collectively the accounts of trust developed by philosophers as they applied in the context of the NHS and to coproduce an argumentative position relevant to this context. (shrink)

Derided and disregarded by many of his contemporaries, Michel Foucault is now regarded as probably the most influential thinker of the twentieth century, his work is studied across the humanities and social sciences. Reading Foucault, however, can be a challenge, as can writing about him, but in Understanding Foucault, the authors offer an entertaining and informative introduction to his thinking. They cover all the issues Foucault dealt with, including power, knowledge, subjectivity and sexuality and discuss the development of his analysis (...) throughout his work. (shrink)

1. Introduction Geoff Cockfield, Ann Firth and John Laurent -/- 2. The Role of Thumos in Adam Smith’s System Lisa Hill -/- 3. Adam Smith’s Treatment of the Greeks in The Theory of Moral Sentiments: The Case of Aristotle Richard Temple-Smith -/- 4. Adam Smith, Religion and the Scottish Enlightenment Pete Clarke -/- 5. The ‘New View’ of Adam Smith and the Development of his Views Over Time James E. Alvey -/- 6. The Moon Before the Dawn: A Seventeenth-Century (...) Precursor of Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments Jack Barbalet -/- 7. Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy as Ethical Self-formation Ann Firth -/- 8. Science and its Applications in The Theory of Moral Sentiments David Thorpe -/- 9. Adam Smith, Charles Darwin and the Moral Sense John Laurent and Geoff Cockfield. (shrink)

This book provides an integrated and philosophically-grounded framework which enables a coherent approach to organizations and organizational ethics from the perspective of practitioners in the workplace, from the perspective of managers in organizations, as well as from the perspective of organizations themselves.

Collective intelligence is much talked about but remains very underdeveloped as a field. There are small pockets in computer science and psychology and fragments in other fields, ranging from economics to biology. New networks and social media also provide a rich source of emerging evidence. However, there are surprisingly few useable theories, and many of the fashionable claims have not stood up to scrutiny. The field of analysis should be how intelligence is organised at large scale—in organisations, cities, nations and (...) networks. The paper sets out some of the potential theoretical building blocks, suggests an experimental and research agenda, shows how it could be analysed within an organisation or business sector and points to the possible intellectual barriers to progress. (shrink)

This paper extends previous discussions of corporate character and corporate virtues. By drawing particularly on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, it offers a perspective on context-dependent categories of the virtues. It then provides a philosophically grounded framework which enables a discussion of which virtues are required for business organizations to qualify as virtuous. It offers a preliminary taxonomy of such corporate virtues and provides a revised definition of corporate character.

Contextualism in epistemology has traditionally been understood as the view that “know” functions semantically like an indexical term, encoding different contents in contexts with different epistemic standards. But the indexical hypothesis about “know” faces a range of objections. This article explores an alternative version of contextualism on which “know” is a semantically stable term, and the truth-conditional variability in knowledge claims is a matter of pragmatic enrichment. The central idea is that in contexts with stringent epistemic standards, knowledge claims are (...) narrowed: “know” is used in such contexts to make assertions about particularly demanding types of knowledge. The resulting picture captures all of the intuitive data that motivate contextualism while sidestepping the controversial linguistic thesis at its heart. After developing the view, the article shows in detail how it avoids one influential linguistic objection to traditional contextualism concerning indirect speech reports, and then answers an objection concerning the unavailability of certain types of clarification speeches. (shrink)

Suppose that an autonomous vehicle encounters a situation where (i) imposing a risk of harm on at least one person is unavoidable; and (ii) a choice about how to allocate risks of harm between different persons is required. What does morality require in these cases? Derek Leben defends a Rawlsian answer to this question. I argue that we have reason to reject Leben’s answer.

Allshorn, Geoff I believe the year in which I was born to be a very important year, perhaps not surprisingly, but particularly because of other events which would ultimately become significant in my own life.

Appearing between two historical touchstones—the alleged end of communism and the 100th anniversary of Nietzsche’s death—this book offers a provocative hypothesis about the philosopher’s afterlife and the fate of leftist thought and culture. At issue is the relation of the dead Nietzsche and his written work to subsequent living Nietzscheanism across the political spectrum, but primarily among a leftist _corps_ that has been programmed and manipulated by concealed dimensions of the philosopher’s thought. If anyone is responsible for what Geoff (...) Waite maintains is the illusory death of communism, it is Nietzsche, the man and concept. Waite advances his argument by bringing Marxist—especially Gramscian and Althusserian—theories to bear on the concept of Nietzsche/anism. But he also goes beyond ideological convictions to explore the vast Nietzschean influence that proliferates throughout the marketplace of contemporary philosophy, political and literary theory, and cultural and technocultural criticism. In light of a philological reconstruction of Nietzsche’s published and unpublished texts, _Nietzsche’s Corps/e_ shuttles between philosophy and everyday popular culture and shows them to be equally significant in their having been influenced by Nietzsche—in however distorted a form and in a way that compromises all of our best interests. Controversial in its “decelebration” of Nietzsche, this remarkable study asks whether the postcontemporary age already upon us will continue to be dominated and oriented by the haunting spectre of Nietzsche’s corps/e. Philosophers, intellectual historians, literary theorists, and those interested in western Marxism, popular culture, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the intersection of French and German thought will find this book both appealing and challenging. (shrink)

The concept of integration has garnered increased attention in the past few years, despite a long history of only brief mention. Integration services are offered by therapists, coaches, and other practitioners, or may be self-guided. There are many definitions of psychedelic integration, and the term encompasses a range of practices and techniques. This seems to have led to confusion about what integration is and how it is best practiced. The primary focus of this manuscript is the presentation of the first (...) extensive review and concept analysis of definitions, practices, and models of psychedelic integration. We provide a synthesized definition of integration, synthesized model of integration, and comprehensive summary of integration practices to bring clarity to the subject. (shrink)

Population-level biomedical research has become crucial to the health system’s ability to improve the health of the population. This form of research raises a number of well-documented ethical concerns, perhaps the most significant of which is the inability of the researcher to obtain fully informed specific consent from participants. Two proposed technical solutions to this problem of consent in large-scale biomedical research that have become increasingly popular are meta-consent and dynamic consent. We critically examine the ethical and practical credentials of (...) these proposals and find them lacking. We suggest that the consent problem is not solved by adopting a technology driven approach grounded in a notion of ‘specific’ consent but by taking seriously the role of research governance in combination with broader conceptions of consent. In our view, these approaches misconstrue the rightful location of authority in the way in which population-level biomedical research activities are structured and organized. We conclude by showing how and why the authority for determining the nature and shape of choice making about participation ought not to lie with individual participants, but rather with the researchers and the research governance process, and that this necessarily leads to the endorsement of a fully articulated broad consent approach. (shrink)

In his excellent essay, ‘Nudges in a post-truth world’, Neil Levy argues that ‘nudges to reason’, or nudges which aim to make us more receptive to evidence, are morally permissible. A strong argument against the moral permissibility of nudging is that nudges fail to respect the autonomy of the individuals affected by them. Levy argues that nudges to reason do respect individual autonomy, such that the standard autonomy objection fails against nudges to reason. In this paper, I argue that Levy (...) fails to show that nudges to reason respect individual autonomy. (shrink)

This article holds that governmental investments in quantum technologies speak to the imaginable futures of digital sovereignty and digital infrastructures, two major areas of change driven by related technologies like AI and Big Data, among other things, in international law today. Under intense development today for future interpolation into digital systems that they may alter, quantum technologies occupy a sort of liminal position, rooted in existing assemblages of computational technologies while pointing to new horizons for them. The possibilities they raise (...) are neither certain nor determinate, but active investments in them (legal, political and material investments) offer perspective on digital technology-driven influences on an international legal imagination. In contributing to visions of the future that are guiding ambitions for digital sovereignty and digital infrastructures, quantum technologies condition digital technology-driven changes to international law and legal imagination in the present. Privileging observation and description, I adapt and utilize a diffractive method with the aim to discern what emerges out of the interference among the several related things assembled for this article, including material technologies and legal institutions. In conclusion, I observe ambivalent changes to an international legal imagination, changes which promise transformation but appear nonetheless to reproduce current distributions of power and resources. (shrink)

Suppose a driverless car encounters a scenario where harm to at least one person is unavoidable and a choice about how to distribute harms between different persons is required. How should the driverless car be programmed to behave in this situation? I call this the moral design problem. Santoni de Sio defends a legal-philosophical approach to this problem, which aims to bring us to a consensus on the moral design problem despite our disagreements about which moral principles provide the correct (...) account of justified harm. He then articulates an answer to the moral design problem based on the legal doctrine of necessity. In this paper, I argue that Santoni de Sio’s answer to the moral design problem does not achieve the aim of the legal-philosophical approach. This is because his answer relies on moral principles which, at least, utilitarians have reason to reject. I then articulate an alternative reading of the doctrine of necessity, and construct a partial answer to the moral design problem based on this. I argue that utilitarians, contractualists and deontologists can agree on this partial answer, even if they disagree about which moral principles offer the correct account of justified harm. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper is a further development of two previous pieces of work (Moore 2002, 2005) in which modern virtue ethics, and in particular MacIntyre’s (1985) related notions of “practice” and “institution,” have been explored in the context of business. It first introduces and defines the concept of corporate character and seeks to establish why it is important. It then reviews MacIntyre’s virtues-practice-institution schema and the implications of this at the level of the institution in question—the corporation—and argues that the concept (...) of corporate character follows from, but is a novel development of, MacIntyre’s schema. The paper contrasts corporate character and virtues with the more familiar concepts of corporate culture and values. The constitutive and substantive elements of corporate character, including the essential corporate virtues, are then drawn out and illustrated with reference to the cases explored in Koehn (1998). Finally, the paper acknowledges and counters a specific criticism of this approach. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger taught philosophy at Freiburg University (1915-1923), Marburg University (1923-1928), and again at Freiburg University (1928-1945). Early in his career he came under the influence of Edmund Husserl, but he soon broke away to fashion his own philosophy. His most famous work, Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) was published in 1927. Heidegger's energetic support for Hitler in 1933-34 earned him a suspension from teaching from 1945 to 1950. In retirement he published numerous works, including the first volumes of (...) his Collected Edition. His thought has had strong influence on trends in philosophy ranging from existentialism through hermeneutics to deconstruction as well as on the fields of literary theory and theology. (shrink)

The paper begins by exploring whether a “tendency to avarice” exists in most capitalist business organisations. It concludes that it does and that this is problematic. The problem centres on the potential threat to the integrity of human character and the disablement of community.What, then, can be done about it? Building on previous work (Moore, 2002) in which MacIntyre’s notions of practice and institution were explored (MacIntyre, 1985), the paper offers a philosophically based argument in favour of the rediscovery of (...) craftsmanship by those who work in business organisations, and the exercise of craftsmanship in community.The practical implications for individuals of this way of conceptualising business, and the virtues which must then come to the fore, are discussed. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper is a further development of two previous pieces of work (Moore 2002, 2005) in which modern virtue ethics, and in particular MacIntyre’s (1985) related notions of “practice” and “institution,” have been explored in the context of business. It first introduces and defines the concept of corporate character and seeks to establish why it is important. It then reviews MacIntyre’s virtues-practice-institution schema and the implications of this at the level of the institution in question—the corporation—and argues that the concept (...) of corporate character follows from, but is a novel development of, MacIntyre’s schema. The paper contrasts corporate character and virtues with the more familiar concepts of corporate culture and values. The constitutive and substantive elements of corporate character, including the essential corporate virtues, are then drawn out and illustrated with reference to the cases explored in Koehn (1998). Finally, the paper acknowledges and counters a specific criticism of this approach. (shrink)

Some expressions of English, like the demonstratives ‘this’ and ‘that’, are referentially promiscuous: distinct free occurrences of them in the same sentence can differ in content relative to the same context. One lesson of referentially promiscuous expressions is that basic logical properties like validity and logical truth obtain or fail to obtain only relative to a context. This approach to logic can be developed in just as rigorous a manner as David Kaplan’s classic logic of demonstratives. The result is a (...) logic that applies to arguments in English containing multiple occurrences of referentially promiscuous expressions. (shrink)

Arendt famously pointed out that only citizenship actually confers rights in the modern world. To be a citizen is to be one who has the ‘right to have rights’. Arendt’s analysis emerges out of her recognition that there is a contradiction between this way of conferring rights as tied to the nation-state system and the more philosophical and ethical conceptions of the ‘rights of man’ and notions of ‘human rights’ like those championed by thinkers such as Immanuel Kant who understands (...) rights belonging universally to all humans as a result of facts having to do with what it means to be human. Étienne Balibar, in his recent work, adds to this by pointing out that there is a contradictory movement between this universalizing tendency in philosophical thought and the production of the citizen-subject out of the exclusionary acts of law and force. In this article, I put Balibar’s work in dialogue with the contemporary moment where we are witnessing the re-emergence of a nativist right populism. I use Balibar to help distinguish between three modes of political existence that we find today. Two of these three are more or less well understood. They are the non-citizen, who has no – or almost no – rights in a given nation-state and the citizen who enjoys the full benefit of the rights a given nation-state has to give. The third category is what I term the ‘nominal citizen’. This last category is somewhere in between full citizenship and non-citizenship. Individuals in this last category have rights in name but are largely unable to exercise them. Understanding this last category can, among other things, help us at least partially make sense of the return of right populism and also help us see the ways in which the modern category of citizenship, with its contradictions as elaborated by Balibar, can provide a means for resistance. (shrink)

This paper examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is implemented through social partnerships. Drawing on previous literature and case study research, it presents a conceptual model of the process of implementation. An exploratory case study of the social responsibility partnership programme at the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has been conducted. The case study draws on interview data and documentary sources of evidence gathered from UEFA and the six partner organisations that comprise its CSR portfolio. The conceptual model identifies (...) three stages of the implementation process (selection, design, management), with partnership evaluation being an ongoing process during all three. The latter consists of two elements, namely project and process evaluation. A key finding is the lack of process evaluation due to a high degree of inter‐personal trust. The conceptual model adds to the growing body of research on the implementation of social partnerships and CSR. This paper is also the first to empirically explore the process of CSR implementation through social partnerships in the football sector. (shrink)

In this paper the problematic nature of the morality of management, in particular related to business organisations operating under Anglo-American capitalism, is explored. MacIntyre’s critique of managers in After Virtue serves as the starting point but this critique is itself subjected to analysis leading to a more balanced and contemporary view of the morality of management than MacIntyre provides. Paradoxically perhaps, MacIntyre’s own virtues-goods-practice-institution schema is shown to provide a way of re-imagining business organisations and management and thereby holds out (...) the possibility of resolving the issue of the morality of management within such organisations. Implications for management practice are drawn out. (shrink)

Theoria, Volume 87, Issue 1, Page 136-151, February 2021.

The Enlightenment project of theodicy did not so much diminish relations between God and man as it elevated the opacity of these relations into a vehicle for moral reflection. This vehicle was a suitable one for a moment when uncertainty embedded itself in the very bones of human experience. It was a felt sense of discontinuity between what is experienced and what is assumed to be true about the world that made the Book of Job speak so powerfully to the (...) Enlightenment. More generally, this chapter argues, if we want to understand the role of God in the Enlightenment, we are poorly served by focusing on metaphysical or theological axioms, or any other programmatic statements about the world, God, heaven, hell, and so on. It was above all the sense that such axioms were inadequate to experienced reality that compelled the Enlightenment to such creative reuse of the Christian archive. (shrink)

The current economic and preceding financial crises seem to provide evidence in favour of the self-destruction thesis of capitalism. Responses to the crisis have been polarised. Some suggest that regulatory changes are all that is needed. Others suggest the need to change the economic system by developing a new global economic ethic. The first is too limited, the second too utopian. This article suggests that a MacIntyrean virtue ethics approach provides both a more convincing diagnosis of the problem and leads (...) to a more workable prescription. First, we need to understand the internal contradictions of the tradition that has developed of how to ‘do’ business. Then we need the virtues to be exercised inside practices and institutions. But virtue itself needs to be institutionalised; we need an appropriate governance of virtue in organizations. Even though governance is usually taken to ‘crowd out’ virtue, this article proposes an approach to governance that ‘crowds in’ virtue. (shrink)

In an earlier defense of the view that the fundamental logical properties of logical truth and logical consequence obtain or fail to obtain only relative to contexts, I focused on a variation of Kaplan’s own modal logic of indexicals. In this paper, I state a semantics and sketch a system of proof for a first-order logic of demonstratives, and sketch proofs of soundness and completeness. (I omit details for readability.) That these results obtain for the first-order logic of demonstratives shows (...) that the significance of demonstratives for logic exceeds their behavior as rigid designators in counterfactual reasoning, or reasoning about alternative possibilities. Furthermore, the results in this paper help address one common objection to the view that logical truth and consequence obtain only relative to contexts. According to this objection, the view entails that logical consequence is not formal. (shrink)

L’affaire Faye: Johannes Fritsche’s bizarre Historical Destiny and National Socialism in Heidegger’s Being and Time mistranslates every key term in Sein und Zeit §74 and distorts the entire book. Gaëtan Pégny’s justification of Emmanuel Faye’s mistranslations of Heidegger is beyond irresponsible. François Rastier’s “Open Letter to Philosophy Today” lends uncritical support to Faye’s dubious “scholarship.”.

Karl Popper is a philosopher of knowledge and politics, rationality and freedom. His ideas have won acceptance and provoked controversy among an academic as well as a more general audience. This book aims to broaden our understanding of Popper's philosophy. It is one of the few studies to present his work as an evolving "system of ideas", and to take account of the full range of his writings. The book discusses Popper's early philosophy of politics, science and social science, as (...) well as his later philosophy, which offers an evolutionary account of human nature and the growth of knowledge. Contrary to many earlier interpretations, Stokes argues that we should look to Popper's political values to understand the unity of his work and the evolution of his theory of knowledge and general philosophy. The chapters in this book examine Popper's arguments, and offer critical analysis of the achievements and shortcomings of his philosophy. In particular, Stokes considers the problems of rationality, politics and ethics in the context of debates between the Frankfurt School of critical theory and critical rationalism. The book will be of interest to second-year undergraduates and above in the fields of philosophy and critical theory. (shrink)

This paper presents a dilemma for the additive model of reasons. Either the model accommodates disjunctive cases in which one ought to perform some act $$\phi $$ just in case at least one of two factors obtains, or it accommodates conjunctive cases in which one ought to $$\phi $$ just in case both of two factors obtains. The dilemma also arises in a revised additive model that accommodates imprecisely weighted reasons. There exist disjunctive and conjunctive cases. Hence the additive model (...) is extensionally inadequate. The upshot of the dilemma is that one of the most influential accounts of how reasons accrue to determine what we ought to do is flawed. (shrink)

Suppose that an autonomous vehicle encounters a situation where imposing a risk of harm on at least one person is unavoidable; and a choice about how to allocate risks of harm between different persons is required. What does morality require in these cases? Derek Leben defends a Rawlsian answer to this question. I argue that we have reason to reject Leben’s answer.

This paper examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is implemented through social partnerships. Drawing on previous literature and case study research, it presents a conceptual model of the process of implementation. An exploratory case study of the social responsibility partnership programme at the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has been conducted. The case study draws on interview data and documentary sources of evidence gathered from UEFA and the six partner organisations that comprise its CSR portfolio. The conceptual model identifies (...) three stages of the implementation process (selection, design, management), with partnership evaluation being an ongoing process during all three. The latter consists of two elements, namely project and process evaluation. A key finding is the lack of process evaluation due to a high degree of inter-personal trust. The conceptual model adds to the growing body of research on the implementation of social partnerships and CSR. This paper is also the first to empirically explore the process of CSR implementation through social partnerships in the football sector. (shrink)

Even if our justified beliefs are closed under known entailment, there may still be instances of transmission failure. Transmission failure occurs when P entails Q, but a subject cannot acquire a justified belief that Q by deducing it from P. Paradigm cases of transmission failure involve inferences from mundane beliefs (e.g., that the wall in front of you is red) to the denials of skeptical hypotheses relative to those beliefs (e.g., that the wall in front of you is not white (...) and lit by red lights). According to the Bayesian explanation, transmission failure occurs when (i) the subject’s belief that P is based on E, and (ii) P(Q|E) P(Q). No modifications of the Bayesian explanation are capable of accommodating such cases, so the explanation must be rejected as inadequate. Alternative explanations employing simple subjunctive conditionals are fully capable of capturing all of the paradigm cases, as well as those missed by the Bayesian explanation. (shrink)

What follows is an English reading of the first edition of Martin Heidegger's inaugural lecture at Freiburg University,“Was ist Metaphysik?” delivered on Wednesday, July 24, 1929. The German text was first published in December of 1929, some five months after it was delivered, by Friedrich Cohen Verlag in Bonn, to whose heirs gratitude is expressed for the requisite arrangements. The original German publication of 1929 differs in a number of relatively minor ways from later editions -- for example, changes in (...) wording, additions of certain phrases (and at one place two sentences), paragraphization, and the like – without any basic alteration of sense. Some of those changes are listed in an appendix at the end. (shrink)

The product/process distinction with regards to “argument” has a longstanding history and foundational role in argumentation theory. I shall argue that, regardless of one’s chosen ontology of arguments, arguments are not the product of some process of arguing. Hence, appeal to the distinction is distorting the very organizational foundations of argumentation theory and should be abandoned.

The Thousands of Problems for Theorem Provers (TPTP) World is a well-established infrastructure that supports research, development and deployment of automated theorem proving systems. This paper provides an overview of the logic languages of the TPTP World, from classical first-order form (FOF), through typed FOF, up to typed higher-order form, and beyond to non-classical forms. The logic languages are described in a non-technical way and are illustrated with examples using the TPTP language.