This article raises the question of whether bioethics qualifies as a discipline. According to a standard definition of discipline as “a field of study following specific and well-established methodological rules” bioethics is not a specific discipline as there are no explicit “well-established methodological rules.” The article investigates whether the methodological rules can be implicit, and whether bioethics can follow specific methodological rules within subdisciplines or for specific tasks. As this does not appear to be the case, the article examines whether (...) bioethics’ adherence to specific quality criteria (instead of methodological rules) or pursuing of a common goal can make it qualify as a discipline. Unfortunately, the result is negative. Then, the article scrutinizes whether referring to bioethics institutions and professional qualifications can ascertain bioethics as a discipline. However, this makes the definition of bioethics circular. The article ends by admitting that bioethics can qualify as a discipline according to broader definitions of discipline, for example, as an “area of knowledge, research and education.” However, this would reduce bioethics’ potential for demarcation and identity-building. Thus, to consolidate the discipline of bioethics and increase its impact, we should explicate and elaborate on its methodology. (shrink)

Pt. I. The apparent good. Evaluative cognition -- Perceiving the good -- Phantasia and the apparent good -- pt. II. The apparent good and non-rational motivation. Passions and the apparent good -- Akrasia and the apparent good -- pt. III. The apparent good and rational motivation. Phantasia and deliberation -- Happiness, virtue, and the apparent good -- Practical induction -- Conclusion : Aristotle's practical empiricism.

Plato's Epistemology presents an original interpretation of one of the central topics in Plato's work: epistemology. Moss argues, against the grain of much modern scholarship, that Plato's epistemology is radically different from our own.

Is there a need for a distinctively diachronic conception of metaphysical emergence? Here I argue to the contrary. In the main, my strategy consists in considering a representative sample of accounts of purportedly diachronic metaphysical emergence, and arguing that in each case, the purportedly diachronic emergence at issue either can (and should) be subsumed under a broadly synchronic account of metaphysical emergence, or else is better seen as simply a case of causation. In addition, I consider and argue against the (...) suggestion that 'in-principle unpredictability' accounts of diachronic emergence support there being distinctively diachronic metaphysical emergence. (shrink)

Fallibilists claim that one can know a proposition on the basis of evidence that supports it even if the evidence doesn't guarantee its truth. Jessica Brown offers a compelling defence of this view against infallibilists, who claim that it is contradictory to claim to know and yet to admit the possibility of error.

did plato and aristotle have anything to say about belief? The answer to this question might seem blindingly obvious: of course they did. Plato distinguishes belief from knowledge in the Meno, Republic, and Theaetetus, and Aristotle does so in the Posterior Analytics. Plato distinguishes belief from perception in the Theaetetus, and Aristotle does so in the De anima. They talk about the distinction between true and false beliefs, and the ways in which belief can mislead and the ways in which (...) it can steer us aright. Indeed, they make belief a central component of their epistemologies.The view underlying these claims—one so widespread these days as to remain largely unquestioned—is that when Plato and Aristotle talk... (shrink)

Kairos has been a key concept in medicine for millennia and is frequently understood as “the right time” in relation to treatment. In this study we scrutinize kairos in the context of diagnostics. This has become highly topical as technological developments have caused diagnostics to be performed ever earlier in the disease development. Detecting risk factors, precursors, and predictors of disease (in biomarkers, pre-disease, and pre-pre-disease) has resulted in too early diagnoses, i.e., overdiagnoses. Nonetheless, despite vast advances in science and (...) technology, diagnoses also come too late. Accordingly, timing diagnostics right is crucial. In this article we start with giving a brief overview of the etymology and general use of the concepts of kairos and diagnosis. Then we delimit kairos in diagnostics by analysing “too early” and “too late” diagnosis and by scrutinizing various phases of diagnostics. This leads us to define kairos of diagnostics as the time when there is potential for sufficient information for making a diagnosis that is most helpful for the person. It allows us to conclude that kairos is as important in diagnostics as in therapeutics. (shrink)

According to a number of contemporary theorists, aesthetic reasons can invite or entice us but never compel us. In this paper, I develop a Kantian account of the normative force of aesthetic reasons. While Kant would likely agree that aesthetic reasons do not give rise to obligations, his account nevertheless gives us the resources for explaining how aesthetic reasons can still have more force than merely enticing reasons. This account appeals to the distinct normativity of aesthetic judgments on Kant's theory (...) and the way in which this kind of normativity structures aesthetic exchanges with other judging subjects. I argue that, in addition to the moral reasons we have for appreciating and preserving beauty, Kant’s account can accommodate distinctly aesthetic reasons for doing so that stem from our membership in aesthetic communities. (shrink)

I argue that the best explanation of the multiplicity of available frameworks for treating any given philosophical topic is that philosophy currently (though not insuperably) lacks fixed standards; I then go on to identify three barriers to philosophical progress associated with our present epistemic situation. First is that the lack of fixed standards encourages what I call “intra‐disciplinary siloing,” and associated dialectical and argumentative failings; second is that the lack of fixed standards makes room for sociological factors (including elite influence (...) and disciplinary inertia) to be determinative of which philosophical frameworks are embraced; third is that the lack of fixed standards encourages (implicit and/or explicit) bias. I close by offering some suggestions about how to move beyond these barriers, even in the absence of fixed standards. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays written by Bob Hale (three co-authored), with a critical introduction from Kit Fine. They comprise Hale’s final years of work, adding to and extending beyond his landmark monograph Necessary Beings: An Essay on Ontology, Modality, and the Relations Between Them (OUP, 2013, 2nd edition 2015). The essays develop and consolidate several key themes in Hale’s work, most notably the notion of definition, especially as it extends beyond definition of a word to definition of (...) a thing more generally, and its relations to essence and existence; how the recently influential notion of truthmaking relates to and illuminates some of these issues; and ontological questions connected with Hale’s metaphysical commitments on the one hand, and his commitments in the foundations of mathematics on the other. Several of the essays engage with and respond to work by Kit Fine, and contributions to Being Necessary: Themes of Ontology and Modality from the Work of Bob Hale (OUP 2018). As such, these essays also demonstrate a rich and fruitful philosophical dialogue between Hale and his critics and friends. (shrink)

Fred Dretske’s account of mental causation, developed in Explaining Behavior and defended in numerous articles, is generally regarded as one of the most interesting and most ambitious approaches in the field. According to Dretske, meaning facts, construed historically as facts about the indicator functions of internal states, are the structuring causes of behavior. In this article, we argue that Dretske’s view is untenable: On closer examination, the real structuring causes of behavior turn out to be markedly different from Dretske’s meaning (...) facts. Our argument proceeds in three steps. First, we set forth the problem of meaning individuation: We argue that the proposal that meaning facts are structuring causes of behavior commits Dretske to a very fine-grained individuation of meanings that is deeply counterintuitive. In a second step, we show that even these finely individuated meaning facts cannot do the job that they are supposed to do, since information facts—which are constitutive of, but distinct from Dretske’s meaning facts—are better candidates for the role of structuring causes. Finally, we argue that it is not even information facts, but facts of co-instantiation which are the real structuring causes of behavior. In concluding, we briefly consider the options that are left for Dretske if our arguments succeed. (shrink)

In April 2017, scientists took to the streets in a historically unprecedented Global March for Science. The event was seen as symbolic of a crisis in the relationship of science and society. This book considers the Global March for Science from a postcolonial perspective to inquire into the toolkit that the academic field of Science & Technology Studies (STS) has to offer. It argues that new concepts and analytical approaches are necessary to investigate current global dynamics in science, technology and (...) society, so as to deliver insights that the recent expansion of STS scholars beyond Western Europe and North America alone is unlikely to provide. The book presents a Programme in Science Studies Elsewhere (SSE) to demonstrate the urgent need to carry postcolonial issues right into the centre of STS's intellectual programme. (shrink)

What are rules? -- Why are rules important? -- Rules for the classroom -- Rules at school -- Rules in the community -- Follow the law! -- Rules and laws must be fair -- All together now -- It's good to have rules.

Horgan (1993) proposed that "superdupervenience" - supervenience preserving physicalistic acceptability - is a matter of robust explanation. I argued against him (1999) that (as nearly all physicalist and emergentist accounts reflect) superdupervenience is a matter of Condition on Causal Powers (CCP): every causal power bestowed by the supervenient property is identical with a causal power bestowed by its base property. Here I show that CCP is, as it stands, unsatisfactory,for on the usual understandings of causal power bestowal, it is trivially (...) satisfied or falsified. I offer a revision of CCP which incorporates the evident fact that causal powers are grounded in fundamental forces. (shrink)

Here I compare two accounts of metaphysical indeterminacy (MI): first, the 'meta-level' approach described by Elizabeth Barnes and Ross Cameron in the companion to this paper, on which every state of affairs (SOA) is itself precise/determinate, and MI is a matter of its being indeterminate which determinate SOA obtains; second, my preferred 'object-level' determinable-based approach, on which MI is a matter of its being determinate---or just plain true---that an indeterminate SOA obtains, where an indeterminate SOA is one whose constitutive object (...) has a determinable property, but no unique determinate of that determinable. In S1, I first note an important difference between our accounts, concerning whether MI is taken to induce propositional indeterminacy; in S2, I highlight and defend certain advantages of my account; in S3, I address certain of Barnes and Cameron's objections to my account. (shrink)

O povo Kaingang é o mais populoso do Sul do Brasil e está entre os mais numerosos povos indígenas do país. Neste trabalho faz-se uma relação entre as informações encontradas na literatura e a atualidade na Terra Indígena Kaingang em relação ao conhecimento que possuem sobre o uso de plantas para a cura de doenças e como interpretam a ação da erva no organismo. Para isto, realizou-se uma pesquisa de campo em uma Terra Indígena Kaingang no Paraná, cujo entrevistas forneceram (...) confirmações históricas em relação aos etnoconhecimentos da etnia, da evolução dos aspectos químicos e das atitudes perante a química e os remédios de origem farmacêutica e natural. (shrink)

de Anima III.10 characterizes akrasia as a conflict between phantasia (“imagination”) on one side and rational cognition on the other: the akratic agent is torn between an appetite for what appears good to her phantasia and a rational desire for what her intellect believes good. This entails that akrasia is parallel to certain cases of perceptual illusion. Drawing on Aristotle's discussion of such cases in the de Anima and de Insomniis , I use this parallel to illuminate the difficult discussion (...) of akrasia in Nicomachean Ethics VII.3, arguing that its account of akrasia as involving ignorance is compatible with, and in fact crucially supplements, the more straightforward account we find elsewhere in the corpus of akrasia as a struggle between desires. (shrink)

Excerpt from Empfindung und Vorstellung: Ein Beitrag zur Klarung Psychologischer Grundbegriffe Vor kurzem erschien eine Abhandlung von Carl Stumpf uber Empfindung und Vorstellung, welche auf Grund feinfuhliger Selbstbeobachtungen und unter Berucksichtigung der grossen einschlagigen Literatur in die vielen Winkel und Dunkelheiten dieses Problems der deskriptiven Psychologie hineinleuchtet. Unter sorgfaltiger Analyse der von den verschiedenen Beobachtern gegebenen Beschreibungen und scharfsinniger Untersuchung der logischen Durchfuhrbarkeit jeder einzelnen der bisher ausgesprochenen Auffassungen versucht diese Abhandlung die Frage zu klaren, worin der wesentliche Unterschied beider (...) Erlebnisarten besteht. Als Ergebnis gelangt Stumpf in der Hauptsache zu einer Rechtfertigung der altuberlieferten Auffassung, nach der ein "spezifischer" Unterschied zwischen Empfindung und Vorstellung nicht vorliegt, sich die Vorstellungen vielmehr vor allem durch ihre geringere Intensitat von den Empfindungen unter-scheiden. Ausser an Intensitat fehlt es den Vorstellungen im Gegensatz zu den Empfindungen an Fulle und Bestandigkeit, ferner sind sie dadurch charakterisiert, dass sie willkurlich leichter modifizierbar sind, dass ihnen gegenuber der Glaube an die Realitat fur das erlebende Bewusstsein einer Rechtfertigung bedarf, und dass sie durchschnittlich schwachere Gefuhlswirkungen mit sich fuhren. Vorstellungen stellen sich so den Empfindungen gegenuber als "Erscheinungen zweiter Ordnung" dar: in dem Inhalt der Erlebnisse, nicht in den Akten des Erlebens, ist ihre Verschiedenheit zu suchen. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

The objective of this article is to analyse the value-ladenness of technology in the context of medicine. To address this issue several characteristics of technology are investigated: i) its interventive capacity, ii) its expansiveness and iii) its influence on the concept of disease, iv) its generalising character, v) its independence of the subjective experience of the patient. By this analysis I hope to unveil the double face of technology: Technology has a Janus-face in modern medicine, and the opposite of its (...) factual face is evaluative. (shrink)

Drawing on the moving story of the last year of the life of her own treasured dog, Ody, she presents an in-depth exploration of the practical, medical, and moral issues that trouble pet owners confronted with the decline and death of their ...

This is a comprehensive discussion of determinables, determinates, and their relation ('determination', for short), covering the historical development of these notions, the theoretical options for understanding them, and certain of their contemporary applications.

Human actions have diverse consequences. Some consequences are intended, others are considered side effects, although they too, such as climate-damaging CO2 emissions, can be ethically relevant. Ethically speaking, considering consequences in a differentiated way is therefore clearly unavoidable. After discussing the influential concepts of utilitarianism and moral theology, the author presents his own approach to considering consequences.

According to a classical causal account of perception, to perceive that object x is F is to fulfill the following conditions: (i) one has an experience as of x's being F, (ii) x is F, and (iii) one's experience of x's being F depends causally on x's being F. This is the core of Grice's causal theory of perception, and it is initially quite plausible (Grice 1961).