The political problem John Locke inherited from Thomas Hobbes was to produce a theory of natural rights that would not preclude the possibility of entering peacefully into civil association. If political existence is grounded on an unmediated theory of natural right, where every individual has a natural right to whatever he or she conceives to be useful in assuring his or her preservation, and where there are no moral limits to what one's rights will justify, civil association cannot come about (...) without invoking the coercive power of absolute sovereign authority. The problem with that, Locke insisted, is that absolute political authority transforms citizens into slaves.To avoid the necessity for invoking Hobbesian absolutism, Locke needed philosophical evidence that, in the natural situation, man is limited by natural duties. Locke produces an idea of natural duty which relocates the source of man's identity as a person bearing rights in what might be called the labor of consciousness. For Locke, it is the labor of consciousness itself - i.e. the act of self-imputation and self-ownership implicit in self-consciousness - that connects self-interest with an assumption of responsibility, and that transforms natural right into a natural principle of morality which does not need the mediating authority of sovereign power or the legitimating authority of God. The result is, we do not need to draw on theological foundations or call upon natural law doctrines as moral substitutes for the Hobbesian sovereign in order to legitimate Locke's political philosophy. Unvarnished natural duty is, for Locke, enough to ground civil association. The result is a natural morality that enables humans to enter into conditions of community and mutual trust without enlisting the intervening authority of sovereign power. Das staatsphilosophische Problem, das Locke von Hobbes geerbt hatte, war das Problem, eine Theorie natürlicher Rechte zu formulieren, die dem friedlichen Übertritt in eine bürgerliche Gesellschaft nicht entgegensteht. Wenn die Existenz des Staates mit der unkritisiert bleibenden Vorstellung verbunden wird, jedem Individuum komme ein natürliches Recht auf alles zu, was es als für seine Selbsterhaltung nützlich erachtet, und außerdem die moralischen Grenzen, denen ein derartig umfassendes Recht unterliegt, ebenfalls nicht reflektiert werden, dann läßt sich eine bürgerliche Gesellschaft nicht ohne die zwingende Gewalt einer absolut souveränen Macht begründen. Das Problem eines solchen Konzepts, so betont Locke nachdrücklich, besteht darin, daß unter einer absoluten politischen Autorität Bürger zu Sklaven werden.Um einen Absolutismus Hobbes'scher Prägung zu vermeiden, mußte Locke den Beweis dafür führen, daß der Mensch im Naturzustand durch natürliche Pflichten gebunden ist. Dazu schuf er die Vorstellung von einer natürlichen Verpflichtung, die den Ursprung der Identität des Menschen als einer Person, die Rechte hat, auf etwas zurückführt, was als "Tätigkeit des Bewußtseins" bezeichnet werden könnte. Für Locke ist es die Tätigkeit des Bewußtseins, d.i. der im Selbstbewußtsein gegründete Akt, sich die eigenen Handlungen selbst zuzuschreiben, überhaupt der Akt der Inbesitznahme des eigenen Selbst, der das Eigeninteresse mit der Annahme von Verantwortlichkeit verknüpft und das natürliche Recht in ein natürliches Prinzip der Moralität verwandelt, das der regulierenden Autorität einer souveränen Gewalt oder der legitimierenden Autorität Gottes nicht mehr bedarf. Um Lockes politische Philosophie zu rechtfertigen, sind daher weder theologische Begründungen nötig noch Naturrechtsdoktrinen als moralischer Ersatz für den Hobbes'schen Souverän. Locke betrachtet die bloße natürliche Verpflichtung als hinreichend für die Begründung einer bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Das Resultat ist eine natürliche Moralität, die Menschen erlaubt, sich ohne die Intervention einer souveränen Gewalt in einen Zustand der Gemeinschaft und des gegenseitigen Vertrauens zu begeben. (shrink)

What is the good life for a human being? Aristotle’s exploration of this question in the Nicomachean Ethics has established it as a founding work of Western philosophy, though its teachings have long puzzled readers and provoked spirited discussion. Adopting a radically new point of view, Ronna Burger deciphers some of the most perplexing conundrums of this influential treatise by approaching it as Aristotle’s dialogue with the Platonic Socrates. This dialogue initially takes the shape of a debate Aristotle stages (...) with Socrates, identified in the Ethics as a proponent of the doctrine that virtue is knowledge. Tracing the argument of the Ethics as it emerges from the debate, Burger’s careful reading shows how Aristotle represents ethical virtue from the perspective of those devoted to it while standing back to examine its assumptions and implications. Providing brilliant insights into Aristotle’s understanding of the moral life, friendship, and philosophy, Burger’s study uncovers in the speeches of the Ethics an action that proceeds in a Socratic manner to offer a Socratic answer to the question of human happiness. (shrink)

Herbert Clark argues that language use is more than the sum of a speaker speaking and a listener listening. It is the joint action that emerges when speakers and listeners, writers and readers perform their individual actions in coordination, as ensembles. In contrast to work within the cognitive sciences, which has seen language use as an individual process, and to work within the social sciences, which has seen it as a social process, the author argues strongly that language use (...) embodies both individual and social processes. (shrink)

The central debate of natural theology among medieval Muslims and Jews concerned whether or not the world was eternal. Opinions divided sharply on this issue because the outcome bore directly on God's relationship with the world: eternity implies a deity bereft of will, while a world with a beginning leads to the contrasting picture of a deity possessed of will. In this exhaustive study of medieval Islamic and Jewish arguments for eternity, creation, and the existence of God, Herbert Davidson (...) provides a systematic classification of the proofs, analyzes and explains them, and traces their sources in Greek philosophy. Throughout the study, Davidson tries to take into account every argument of a philosophical character, disregarding only those arguments that rest entirely on religious faith or which fall below a minimal level of plausibility. (shrink)

During the past decade, screening tests using computed tomography have disseminated into practice and been marketed to patients despite neither conclusive evidence nor professional agreement about their efficacy and cost-effectiveness at the population level. This phenomenon raises questions about physicians' professional roles and responsibilities within the setting of medical innovation, as well as the appropriate scope of patient autonomy and access to unproven screening technology. This article explores how physicians ought to respond when new screening examinations that lack conclusive evidence (...) of overall population benefit emerge in the marketplace and are requested by individual patients. To this end, the article considers the nature of evidence and how it influences decision-making for screening at both the public policy and individual patient levels. We distinguish medical and ethical differences between screening recommended for a population and screening considered on an individual patient basis. Finally, we discuss specific cases to explore how evidence, patient risk factors and preferences, and physician judgment ought to balance when making individual patient screening decisions. (shrink)

In proof theory one distinguishes sequent proofs with cut and cut-free sequent proofs, while for proof complexity one distinguishes Frege systems and extended Frege systems. In this paper we show how deep inference can provide a uniform treatment for both classifications, such that we can define cut-free systems with extension, which is neither possible with Frege systems, nor with the sequent calculus. We show that the propositional pigeonhole principle admits polynomial-size proofs in a cut-free system with extension. We also define (...) cut-free systems with substitution and show that the cut-free system with extension p-simulates the cut-free system with substitution. (shrink)

This important philosophical statement by an eminent scientist is written with such clarity and directness, and derives from so broad a humanistic perspective, that the thoughtful reader will find it as rewarding as it is instructive. The author's purpose in this undertaking is to: "...outline a system of thought in which notions or values can find a place along with the ideas of causal relationships that are applied in the physical sciences. The essential doctrine of this system, which is taken (...) from the metaphysical picture developed by Alfred North Whitehead... is the assumption that, in every act occurring in the universe, experience derived from that which has gone before is integrated with conceptions concerning possibilities in the future." Analyzing and extending Whitehead's picture, Dr. Burgers argues that the physical view of causality in itself is too restrictive for a general description of the universe, and is valid only for those phenomena where values are irrelevant. His concern is to introduce the entire panorama with its complementary physical and conceptual aspects in such a way that a wider view of causality is obtained, whereby an opening is found for the explanation of life. The author points out that the concept of "organism" implies "purpose," and is thus not amenable to complete description in the terms of molecular biology. Although most evolutionary steps are the result of unplanned chance effects, the recognition and conception of future possibilities are factors in the evolutionary trend: "The existence of matter is the result of persistent repetition of certain patterns. Matter is a set of habits of the universe; it is these habits which are studied in physics. [But] life is more than habit: it is the coordination of spontaneity... a struggle against mere randomness.... "It is the key of the philosophy here presented to consider expectations and valuations not as accidental by-products of physical states of matter, but as essential forms of functioning.". (shrink)

Concreteness ratings are frequently used in a variety of disciplines to operationalize differences between concrete and abstract words and concepts. However, most ratings studies present items in isolation, thereby overlooking the potential polysemy of words. Consequently, ratings for polysemous words may be conflated, causing a threat to the validity of concreteness‐ratings studies. This is particularly relevant to metaphorical words, which typically describe something abstract in terms of something more concrete. To investigate whether perceived concreteness ratings differ for metaphorical versus non‐metaphorical (...) word meanings, we obtained concreteness ratings for 96 English nouns from 230 participants. Results show that nouns are perceived as less concrete when a metaphorical (versus non‐metaphorical) meaning is triggered. We thus recommend taking metaphoricity into account in future concreteness‐ratings studies to further improve the quality and reliability of such studies, as well as the consistency of the empirical studies that rely on these ratings. (shrink)

Alfredo Traps in Durrenmatt’s tale discovers that he has brought off, all by himself, a murder involving considerable ingenuity. The mock prosecutor in the tale demands the death penalty “as reward for a crime that merits admiration, astonishment, and respect.” Traps is deeply moved; indeed, he is exhilarated, and the whole of his life becomes more heroic, and, ironically, more precious. His defense attorney proceeds to argue that Traps was not only innocent but incapable of guilt, “a victim of the (...) age.” This defense Traps disavows with indignation and anger. He makes claim to the murder as his and demands the prescribed punishment—death. (shrink)

relative to the actual world) of a propositional theory are defined. A theory is ‘closer to the truth’ the logically stronger its positive content and the logically weaker its negative content. This proposal delivers the same verisimilar preordering of theories that has been defined by Brink and Heidema as a ‘power ordering’. The preordering may be collapsed to a partial ordering and then embedded into a complete distributive lattice. The preordering may also be refined to a partial ordering by employing (...) the ‘convex content’ and the ‘non-convex content’ of each theory. Philosophical implications and historical relations are discussed. (shrink)

A Mathematical Introduction to Logic, Second Edition, offers increased flexibility with topic coverage, allowing for choice in how to utilize the textbook in a course. The author has made this edition more accessible to better meet the needs of today's undergraduate mathematics and philosophy students. It is intended for the reader who has not studied logic previously, but who has some experience in mathematical reasoning. Material is presented on computer science issues such as computational complexity and database queries, with additional (...) coverage of introductory material such as sets. Increased flexibility of the text, allowing instructors more choice in how they use the textbook in courses. Reduced mathematical rigour to fit the needs of undergraduate students. (shrink)

The intuitive notion of a binary relation on information-bearers, comparingthem with respect to their closeness to the available information, is oftenconstrued in terms of comparing their symmetric difference with, orcompositional similarity to, the available information. This happens forinstance in some treatments of verisimilitude. We expound an abstractmathematical rendering of the relevant data-dependent relation in theframework of Boolean algebras. For every element t of a Boolean algebra B we construct the t-modulated Boolean algebra Btin which the order relation represents `is at (...) most as compatible with t as' or `is at best as similar to t as'. In the case of Lindenbaum-Tarskialgebras, t expresses the available information, and the compatibilityrelation turns out to be an entwinement of inferential and conjecturalrelations. It is just classical entailment when no information is available(i.e., when t is logically true) and becomes more boldly abductive themore information is available. The rich algebraic structures of a Boolean algebra –- including its Boolean group structures –- play a significant role in this combination of deduction and abduction and also induce cautious anddaring variants of the compatibility relation. Links with the literature onverisimilitude, abduction, and related topics are indicated. (shrink)

For the classA of uncountable Archimedian real closed fields we show that the statement “TheL <ω-theory ofA is complete” is independent of ZFC. In particular we have the following results:Assuming the Continuum-Hypothesis (CH) is incomplete. Conversely it is possible to build a model of set theory in which is complete and decidable. The latter can also be deduced from the Proper Forcing Axiom (PFA). In this case turns out to be equivalent to the elementary theory of the real numbers ℝ (...) (by a quantifier-elimination procedure).Formally: is incomplete. is complete and decidable. (shrink)

Thinking in medicine is still dominated by the cartesian view of science of the past centuries, dividing individuals into the reasoning mind (res cogitans) and an objective body as part of all non-subjective things of the world (res extensa). This classical scientific paradigm does not take into account the influence the observer exerts on the observed phenomena. Applying this paradigm to medical research and education has consequences regarding the relationship between physicians and patients as well as between medical teachers and (...) their students. An improvement of medical education towards a broader understanding of complex illnesses with their psycho-social implications must be based on philosophical and epistemological issues. The requirements of modern medicine cannot just be met by adding more psycho-social content to somatic medical education or by changing the didactic approach without reflection on the underlying concepts and the relation of the human being to his world. (shrink)

For some time sociologists and philosophers have tended to label present day society “post-industrial” or “post-modern.” Understandable as the wish is to set off the present from the age of advanced capitalism, the terms selected are no less problematic. A new epoch is introduced before the question is even asked, let alone answered, as to how decisive current social changes are, and whether they require that a new epochal boundary be set. The term “post-modern,” moreover, has the additional disadvantage of (...) only naming the new period abstractly. There is an even more drastic disadvantage. Of course, deep economic, technical and social changes can be observed when compared with the second half of the nineteenth century, but the dominant mode of production has remained the same: private appropriation of collectively produced surplus value. (shrink)

In the introduction to the second volume of Capitalism and Schizophrenia Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari develop, under the tide Rhizome, the principles of a new method of thinking. One could, with the certain approval of the authors, turn around the theorem of Carl Schmitt and claim that, since the “highpoints of great [philosophy] are at the same time those moments in which the enemy is sighted in concrete distinctness as an enemy,” rhizome-thinking also starts out from the definition of (...) the enemy. It is discerned in Western Rationalism, which rhizome-thinking rejects in all its historical manifestations. An argumentational strategy characteristic of rhizome-thinking is thus made visible: that it again and again reproduces the categories that it negates. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article introduces the Hyperbole Identification Procedure, a first systematic method for identifying linguistic hyperbole in discourse. We start by comparing existing definitions of linguistic hyperbole. Based on the commonalities shared by these definitions, we provide our operational definition of hyperbole as “an expression that is more extreme than justified given its ontological referent.” The next section argues why it is useful to identify hyperbole, as with metaphor in Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit, at the level of lexical units, and (...) subsequently introduces the steps of HIP. We follow up with two sample analyses of HIP in practice. First, we show how to unitize and analyze one complete sample sentence. Second, we present sample analyses of a number of selected cases. Then we present data showing that HIP can be reliably applied to a sample corpus of Dutch news texts. We end with discussing applications and implications of using HIP in corpus research. (shrink)

While Plato and Aristotle both recognize the importance of friendship and love, Aristotle seems to be as much the philosopher of philia as Plato is of eros. Aristotle’s extensive discussion of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics includes only a few scattered remarks about eros. Following the thread of those remarks, however, uncovers a movement from the disparagement of eros, contrasted with friendship of the virtuous, to its elevation as the shared experience of philosophic friendship. In the quite different context of (...) Metaphysics Lambda, eros serves as the model for Aristotle’s famous account of the unmoved mover, where the activity of thought thinking itself provides, as an object of love, the ultimate source of motion in the universe. This paper explores what connection or common ground there may be between the presumably cosmological role of eros directed to the completed activity of mind and its place in Aristotle’s discussion of friendship. (shrink)

Moses Maimonides, scholar, physician, and philosopher, was the most influential Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages. In this magisterial new biography, the work of many years, Herbert Davidson provides an exhaustive guide to Maimonides' life and works. After considering Maimonides' upbringing and education, Davidson expounds all of his voluminous writings in exhaustive detail, with separate chapters on rabbinic, philosophical, and medical texts. This long-awaited volume is destined to become the standard work on this towering figure of Western intellectual history.

This article introduces the Verbal Irony Procedure (VIP), a first systematic method for identifying irony in natural discourse. The first section discusses previous operationalizations of irony and demonstrates that these are not explicit about which criteria were used to separate irony from non-irony. The second section argues why irony can be defined as an “utterance with a literal evaluation that is implicitly contrary to its intended evaluation.” This section also explains why ironic utterances can be placed on an evaluation scale. (...) In the third section, clauses are proposed as a good unit of analysis when looking at irony in natural discourse. The different steps of the VIP are then introduced in the fourth section and subsequently applied in a sample analysis of a natural text in the fifth section. The sixth section discusses a reliability analysis of the VIP protocol. The article ends with an outlook on how future research on verbal irony might benefit from applying the VIP. (shrink)

A study of problems, all revolving around the subject of intellect in the philosophies of Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, this book starts by reviewing discussions in Greek and early Arabic philosophy which served as the background for the three Arabic thinkers. Davidson examines the cosmologies and theories of human and active intellect in the three philosophers and covers such subjects as: the emanation of the supernal realm from the First Cause; the emanation of the lower world from the transcendent active (...) intellect; stages of human intellect; illumination of the human intellect by the transcendent active intellect; conjunction of the human intellect with the transcendent active intellect; prophecy; and human immortality. Davidson shows that medieval Jewish philosophers and the Latin Scholastics had differing perceptions of Averroes because they happened to use works belonging to different periods of his philosophic career. (shrink)

For people to contribute to discourse, they must do more than utter the right sentence at the right time. The basic requirement is that they add to their common ground in an orderly way. To do this, we argue, they try to establish for each utterance the mutual belief that the addressees have understood what the speaker meant well enough for current purposes. This is accomplished by the collective actions of the current contributor and his or her partners, and these (...) result in units of conversation called contributions. We present a model of contributions and show how it accounts for a variety of features of everyday conversations. (shrink)

Social robots serve people as tutors, caretakers, receptionists, companions, and other social agents. People know that the robots are mechanical artifacts, yet they interact with them as if they were actual agents. How is this possible? The proposal here is that people construe social robots not as social agents per se, but as depictions of social agents. They interpret them much as they interpret ventriloquist dummies, hand puppets, virtual assistants, and other interactive depictions of people and animals. Depictions as a (...) class consist of three physical scenes with part-by-part mappings between them: (a) a base scene (the raw physical artifact), (b) the depiction proper (the artifact construed as a depiction), and (c) the scene depicted (the scene people are to imagine). With social robots, evidence shows people form the same three scenes plus mappings: They perceive the raw machinery of a robot, construe it as a depiction of a character, and, using the depiction as a guide, engage in the pretense that they are interacting with the character depicted. With social robots, people also recognize three classes of agents – the characters depicted, the intended recipients of the depictions (those who view or interact with the robots), and the authorities responsible for the robots (the designers, makers, and owners). Construing social robots as depictions, we argue, accounts for many phenomena not covered by alternative models. (shrink)

Since antiquity the Phaedo has been considered the source of "the twin pillars of Platonism" -- the theory of ideas and the immortality of the soul. Burger's attempt to trace the underlying argument of the work as a whole leads to a radical rethinking of the status of those doctrines.

This volume consists of a collection of articles published by Spencer in leading Victorian periodicals, such as The Westminster Review, The Fortnightly Review and Mind. The wide range of subjects explored includes science, philosophy, aesthetics, ethics, psychology and politics.

The civic sociology of Herbert Blumer speaks to the fundamental problem of modernity: how freedom and equity can be ensured when institutional and personal ...

When there are equally strong claimants for a scarce good, lotteries are often argued to be a fair method of allocation. This paper reproduces four of the views on the fairness of lotteries that have been presented in the literature: the distributive view; the preference view; the actual consent view; and the expressive view. It argues that these four views cannot offer plausible explanations for the fairness of lotteries. The distributive view is argued to be inadequate because, even though receiving (...) expectations to a good is of value to the participants, this value cannot plausibly make a contribution to the satisfaction of a participant’s claim. Both the preference and actual consent views are argued to be implausible because they lead to accepting procedures as legitimate that fail to correspond with what a claim is. Finally, it is contended that the expressive view identifies a value that is relevant to respecting equal claimants, but that cannot plausibly be related to a procedure’s fairness. The paper concludes by maintaining that an equal treatment view can accept all the valid insights from these four views without needing to accept their untenable implications. (shrink)