BackgroundEverybody has the right to decide whether to receive specific medical treatment or not and to provide their free, prior and informed consent to do so. As dementia progresses, people with Alzheimer’s dementia (PwAD) can lose their capacity to provide informed consent to complex medical treatment. When the capacity to consent is lost, the autonomy of the affected person can only be guaranteed when an interpretable and valid advance directive exists. Advance directives are not yet common in Germany, and their (...) validity is often questionable. Once the dementia diagnosis has been made, it is assumed to be too late to write an advance directive. One approach used to support the completion of advance directives is ‘Respecting Choices’®—an internationally recognised, evidence-based model of Advance Care Planning (ACP), which, until now, has not been evaluated for the target group of PwAD. This study’s aims include (a) to investigate the proportion of valid advance directives in a memory clinic population of persons with suspected AD, (b) to determine the predictors of valid advance directives, and (c) to examine whether the offer of ACP can increase the proportion of valid advance directives in PwAD.MethodWe intend to recruit at leastN = 250 participants from two memory clinics in 50 consecutive weeks. Of these, the first 25 weeks constitute the baseline phase (no offer of ACP), the following 25 weeks constitute the intervention phase (offer of ACP). The existence and validity of an advance directive will be assessed twice (before and after the memory clinic appointment). Moreover, potential predictors of valid advance directives are assessed.DiscussionThe results of this study will enhance the development of consent procedures for advance directives of PwAD based on the ACP/Respecting Choices (R) approach. Therefore, this project contributes towards increasing the autonomy and inclusion of PwAD and the widespread acceptance of valid advance directives in PwAD.Trial RegistrationDRKS, DRKS00026691, registered 15th of October 2021,https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00026691. (shrink)

BackgroundThe UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the reformed guardianship law in Germany, require that persons with a disability, including people with dementia in Alzheimer’s disease (PwAD), are supported in making self-determined decisions. This support is achieved through communication. While content-related communication is a deficit of PwAD, relational aspects of communication are a resource. Research in supported decision-making (SDM) has investigated the effectiveness of different content-related support strategies for PwAD but has only succeeded in improving understanding, (...) which, although one criterion of capacity to consent, is not sufficient to ensure overall capacity to consent. The aim of the ‘spatial intervention study’ of the DECIDE project is to examine an innovative resource-oriented SDM approach that focuses on relational aspects. We hypothesise that talking to PwAD in their familiar home setting (as opposed to a clinical setting) will reduce the complexity of the decision-making process and enhance overall capacity to consent. MethodsPeople with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease will be recruited from two memory clinics (N = 80). We will use a randomised crossover design to investigate the intervention effect of the decision-making place on capacity to consent. Besides reasoning capacity, which is part of overall capacity to consent and will be the primary outcome, various secondary outcomes (e.g., other aspects of capacity to consent, subjective task complexity, decisional conflict) and suspected moderating or mediating variables (e.g., meaning of home, demographic characteristics) will be assessed.DiscussionThe results of the study will be used to develop a new SDM strategy that is based on relational resources for PwAD. If a change in location achieves the anticipated improvement in capacity to consent, future research should focus on implementing this SDM strategy in a cost-effective manner in clinical practice.Trial registration: DRKS00030799. (shrink)

Nel contributo si analizzano le valutazioni che Ernst Cassirer e Jonas Cohn, in alcuni loro scritti pubblicati tra il 1903 e il 1918, espressero in modo esplicito o implicito l’uno del pensiero dell’altro nelle sfere della teoria della conoscenza e dell’estetica e a proposito della questione del rapporto fra la cultura tedesca e l’ebraismo. Si delineano, allo scopo di comprendere il loro dialogo, i diversi orientamenti della scuola neokantiana marburghese e della scuola neokantiana sud-occidentale, delle quali furono fondatori i (...) loro rispettivi maestri, Hermann Cohen e Wilhelm Windelband. Si ricorda infine l’interesse che ambedue gli autori mostrarono, nelle opere composte durante l’esilio dalla Germania, da cui Cassirer emigrò nel 1933, Cohn nel 1938, per la letteratura religiosa ebraica e cristiana come fonte di concetti filosofici quali l’individuo, l’amore verso l’altro, Dio come persona. (shrink)

Jenefer Robinson believes that feelings can play an important role in the critical evaluation of artworks. In this paper, I want to put some pressure on two important notions in her theory: emotional understanding and affective empathy. I will do this by focusing on the nature of self-conscious emotions. My strategy will be, firstly, to demonstrate the difficulty that Robinson’s two step theory of emotions has in accommodating higher cognitive emotional responses to art. Secondly, I will discuss how the tight (...) connection to the ‘self’ involved in self-conscious emotions makes it difficult to take the emotional perspective of another person as empathy requires. From here, I suggest that Peter Goldie’s feeling-towards and his critique of perspective-shifting may give a better understanding of the role of emotions in the appreciation of art, particularly in the case of reflective emotions. This issue will be explored through a discussion of the expression of autobiographical nostalgia in the work of the avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas. (shrink)

A classic of phenomenology and existentialism and arguably Jonas's greatest work, The Phenomenon of Life sets forth a systematic and comprehensive philosophy -- ...

My aim in this essay is largely defensive. I aim to discuss some problems for moral error theory and to offer plausible solutions. A full positive defense of moral error theory would require substantial investigations of rival metaethical views, but that is beyond the scope of this essay. I will, however, try to motivate moral error theory and to clarify its commitments. Moral error theorists typically accept two claims – one conceptual and one ontological – about moral facts. The conceptual (...) claim is that moral facts are or entail facts about categorical reasons (and correspondingly that moral claims are or entail claims about categorical reasons); the ontological claim is that there are no categorical reasons – and consequently no moral facts – in reality. I accept this version of moral error theory and I try to unpack what it amounts to in Section 2.1 In the course of doing so I consider two preliminary objections: that moral error theory is (probably) false because its implications are intuitively unacceptable (what I call the Moorean objection) and that the general motivation for moral error theory is self-undermining in that it rests on a hidden appeal to norms. The above characterization seems to entail the standard formulation of moral error theory, according to which first-order moral claims are uniformly false. Critics have argued that the standard formulation is incoherent since – by the law of excluded middle – the negation of a false claim is true. Hence if ‘Torture is wrong’ is false, ‘Torture is not wrong’ is true. Contrary to what moral error theorists contend, then, moral error theory seems to carry first-order moral implications that by the theory’s own lights are uniformly false. In Section 3 I suggest a formulation that is consistent with the standard formulation of moral error theory, free of first-order moral implications, and subject to no logical difficulties. In Section 4 I consider and rebut Stephen Finlay’s recent attack on moral error theory. According to Finlay the conceptual claim is false because all moral claims – and indeed all normative claims – are, or should be understood as, relativized to some moral standard or system of ends. Moral error theorists thus attribute to ordinary speakers an error that simply isn’t there. I argue that Finlay’s view has some very implausible implications and that it does not avoid commitment to various forms of error theory. This becomes especially clear when we focus on fundamental moral claims. In Section 5 I consider the worry that error theorists’ rejection of categorical reasons proves too much; in particular, the worry that error theorists’ qualms about categorical reasons apply equally to claims about hypothetical reasons, that is, claims to the effect that there is reason to take the means to one’s ends. In my view error theorists such as Mackie and Joyce have failed to pay due consideration to this problem. What the challenge establishes, I submit, is that error theorists cannot just take for granted that hypothetical reasons are metaphysically unproblematic; they must offer an account of hypothetical reasons that shows that they are. I argue that the only plausible account available to error theorists is one according to which claims about hypothetical reasons reduce to non-normative claims about relations between means and ends. (shrink)

According to T.M. Scanlon's buck-passing account of value, to be valuable is not to possess intrinsic value as a simple and unanalysable property, but rather to have other properties that provide reasons to take up an attitude in favour of their owner or against it. The 'wrong kind of reasons' objection to this view is that we may have reasons to respond for or against something without this having any bearing on its value. The challenge is to explain why such (...) reasons are of the wrong kind. This is what I set out to do, after illustrating the objection more thoroughly. (shrink)

This book both consummates and demonstrates the basic thrust of Jonas's thought: the inseparability of ethics and metaphysics, the reality of values at the ...

Debunking arguments in metaethics are often presented as particularly challenging for non‐naturalistic versions of moral realism. The first aim of this paper is to explore and defend a response on behalf of non‐naturalism. The second aim of the paper is to argue that although non‐naturalism’s response is satisfactory, this does not mean that debunking arguments are metaethically uninteresting. They have a limited and indirect role to play in the exchange between non‐naturalists and moral error theorists. In the end, debunking arguments (...) can do less for sceptics and nihilists than what is commonly thought, but not nothing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spinoza and the Theory of Organism HANS JONAS I CARTESIANDUALISMlanded speculation on the nature of life in an impasse: intelligible as, on principles of mechanics, the correlation of structure and function became within the res extensa, that of structure-plus-function with feeling or experience (modes of the res cogitans) was lost in the bifurcation, and thereby the fact of life itself became unintelligible at the same time that the (...) explanation of its bodily performance seemed to be assured. The impasse became manifest in Occasionalism : its tour de force of an extraneous, divine "synchronization" of the outer and the inner world (the latter denied to animals) not only suffered from its extreme artificiality, the common failing of such ad hoc constructions, but even at so high a cost failed to accomplish its theoretical purpose by its own terms. For the animal machine, like any machine, raises beyond the question of the "how" that of the "what for" of its functioning---of the purpose for which it had thus been constructed by its maker.1 Its performance, however devoid of immanent teleology, must serve an end, and that end must be someone's end. This end may (directly) be itself, as indeed Descartes had implied when declaring self-preservation to be the effect of the functioning of the organic automaton. In that case the existence as such of the machine would be its end--either terminally, or in turn to benefit something else. In the former case, the machine would have to be more than a machine, for a mere machine cannot enioy its existence. But since, by the rigorous conception of the res extensa, it cannot be more than a machine, its function and/or existence must serve something other than itself. Automata in Descartes ' time were mainly for entertainment (rather than work). But the raison d'etre of the living kingdom could not well be seen in God's indulging his mechanical abilities or in the amusement of celestial spectators--especially since mere complexity of arrangement does not create new quality and thus add something to the unrelieved sameness of the simple substratum that might enrich the spectrum of being. For quality, beyond the primitive determinations of the extended per se, is the subjective creature of sensation, the confused representation of quantity in a mind; and thus organisms cannot harbor it because as mere machines they lack mentality, and pure spirits cannot because they lack sensuality, or the privilege of confusion and thereby of illusion with its possible enjoyment. And as to their intellectual enjoyment, even that, deprived of the thrill of discovery by the same token, would pale in the contemplation of what to sufficiently large The concept of "machine," adopted for its strict confinementto efficientcause, is still a finalisticconcept,even thoughthe final cause is no longer internal to the entity, as a mode of its own operation,but external to it as antecedent design. [43] 44 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY intellects is nothing but the ever-repeated exemplification of the same few, elementary (and ultimately trivial) truths. There remained, then, the time-honored--Stoic as well as Christian--idea that plants and animals are for the benefit of Man. Indeed, since the existence of a living world is the necessary condition for the existence of any of its members, the self-justifying nature of at least one such member (= species) would justify the existence of the whole. In Stoicism, Man provided this end by his possession of reason, which makes him the culmination of a terrestrial scale of being that is also self-justifying throughout all its grades (the end as the best of many that are good in degrees) ; in Christianity, by his possession of an immortal soul, which makes him the sole imago Dei in creation (the end as the sole issue at stake) ; and Cartesian dualism radicalized this latter position by making man even the sole possessor of inwardness or "soul" of any kind, thus the only one of whom "end" can meaningfully be predicated as he alone can entertain ends. All other life then, the product of physical necessity, can be considered his means. However, this traditional idea, in its anthropocentric vanity never a... (shrink)

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Many moral error theorists hold that moral facts are irreducibly normative. They also hold that irreducible normativity is metaphysically queer and conclude that there are no irreducibly normative reasons and consequently no moral facts. A popular response to moral error theory utilizes the so-called ‘companions in guilt’ strategy and argues that if moral reasons are irreducibly normative, then epistemic reasons are too. This is the Parity Premise, on the basis of which critics of moral error theory draw the Parity Conclusion (...) that if there are no irreducibly normative reasons, there are no moral reasons and no epistemic reasons. From the Parity Conclusion and Epistemic Realism (the view that there are epistemic reasons), it follows that it is false that there are no irreducibly normative reasons. In this paper, I argue that the Parity Premise and the Parity Conclusion can both plausibly be rejected. (shrink)

According to ‘Fitting Attitude’ (FA) analyses of value, for an object to be valuable is for that object to have properties—other than its being valuable—that make it a fitting object of certain responses. In short, if an object is positively valuable it is fitting to favour it; if an object is negatively valuable it is fitting to disfavour it. There are several variants of FA analyses. Some hold that for an object to be valuable is for it to be such (...) that it ought to be favoured; others hold that value is analyzable in terms of reasons or requirements to favour. All these variants of the FA analysis are subject to a partiality challenge : there are circumstances in which some agents have reasons to favour or disfavour some object—due to the personal relations in which they stand to the object—without this having any bearing on the value of the object. A. C. Ewing was one of the first philosophers to draw attention to the partiality challenge for FA analyses. In this paper I explain the challenge and consider Ewing's responses, one of which is preferable to the other, but none of which is entirely satisfactory. I go on to develop an alternative Brentano-inspired response that Ewing could have offered and that may well be preferable to the responses Ewing actually did offer. (shrink)

The article analyzes arguments, made by John J. Mearsheimer and others, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was largely caused by Western policy. It finds that these arguments rely on a partially false and incomplete reading of history. To do so, the article identifies a range of premises that are both foundational to Mearsheimer’s claims and based on implied or explicit historical interpretations. This includes the varying policies of Ukraine toward NATO and the EU as well as the (...) changing Russian perceptions thereof; the political upheavals in Ukraine in early 2014 that were immediately succeeded by the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass; and the supposed absence of Russian ‘imperialism’ toward Ukraine prior to 2014. Finding that these interpretations do not hold up in light of relevant and available data, the article qualifies and contextualizes the validity of Mearsheimer’s arguments, points to superior ones, and highlights the need for case-specific expertise when using explanatory theory to make sense of politically salient ongoing events. (shrink)

This article addresses the growing industry of retail socially responsible investment (SRI) profiled mutual funds. Very few previous studies have examined the final consumer of SRI profiled mutual funds. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to, in an exploratory manner, examine the impact of a number of pro-social, financial performance, and socio-demographic variables on SRI behavior in order to explain why investors choose to invest different proportions of their investment portfolio in SRI profiled funds. An ordinal logistic regression analysis (...) on 528 private investors revealed that two of the three pro-social variables had a positive impact on how much the consumer invested in SRI profiled funds. Moreover, there was proof of a non-altruistic motive for investing in SRI as consumers who perceive that financial return of SRI is equal or better than "regular" mutual funds, invested a greater proportion of their portfolio in SRI profiled mutual funds. Furthermore, the results showed that women and better-educated investors were more likely to invest a greater proportion of their investment portfolio in SRI. Overall, the findings indicate that both financial perceptions and pro-social attitudes are connected to consumer investment in SRI. (shrink)

The paper distinguishes between two rival views about the nature of final value (i.e. the value something has for its own sake) — intrinsicalism and conditionalism. The former view (which is the one adopted by G.E. Moore and several later writers) holds that the final value of any F supervenes solely on features intrinsic to F, while the latter view allows that the final value of F may supervene on features non-intrinsic to F. Conditionalism thus allows the final value of (...) F to vary according to the context in which F appears. Given the plausible assumption that there is an intimate tie between final values and appropriate attitudinal responses, it appears that conditionalism is the better approach for mainly the following three reasons: First, intrinsicalism is too indiscriminate, which makes it subject to what I call ‘location problems’ of final value. I illustrate this problem by discussing alleged examples of Moorean organic unities. Second, intrinsicalism evokes symptoms of ‘evaluative schizophrenia’. Third, considerations of theoretical economy tell in favour of conditionalism. Thereafter I respond to some recent challenges to conditionalism. An appendix surveys some meritorious implications that conditionalism offers for various substantial versions of such structurally different views about value as monism, pluralism, and particularism. (shrink)

During the 13th century, several logicians in the Latin medieval tradition showed a special interest in the nature of impossibility, and in the different kinds or ‘degrees’ of impossibility that could be distinguished. This discussion resulted in an analysis of the modal concept with a fineness of grain unprecedented in earlier modal accounts. Of the several divisions of the term ‘impossible’ that were offered, one became particularly relevant in connection with the debate on ars obligatoria and positio impossibilis: the distinction (...) between ‘intelligible’ and ‘unintelligible’ impossibilities. In this article, I consider some 13th-century tracts on obligations that provide an account of the relation between impossibility and intelligibility and discuss the inferential principles that are permissible when we reason from an impossible – but intelligible – premise. I also explore the way in which the 13th-century reflection on this topic survives, in a revised form, in some early 14th-century accounts of positio, namely, those of William of Ockham, Roger Swineshead and Thomas Bradwardine. (shrink)

In The Moral Problem Michael Smith presents what he claims is a decisive argument against moral externalism. Smith's claims that (i) moral externalists are committed to explain the connection between moral beliefs and moral motivation in terms of de dicto desires, and (ii) de dicto desires to perform moral acts amounts to moral fetishism. The argument is spelled out and the difference between desires de dicto and desires de re explained. The tenability of the fetishist argument (as it has been (...) named) is then questioned by focusing on the second clause; contrary to what Smith seems to think, it seems a plausible description of a good moral person that she is often motivated by both kinds of desires and, moreover, there are ways of being motivated to perform moral acts solely by de dicto desires that would not amount to moral fetishism. Lastly, two cases are suggested where being motivated by de dicto desires to perform moral acts would be reasonable as well as morally preferable. Internalists then, should also provide room for de dicto desires in moral motivation.The upshot is that the fetishist argument is unconvincing, though no attempt is made to defend moral externalism in general. (shrink)

The Belief‐Desire model (the B‐D model) of reasons for action has been subject to much criticism lately. Two of the most elaborate and trenchant expositions of such criticisms are found in recent works by Jonathan Dancy (2000) and Fred Stoutland (2002). In this paper we set out to respond to the central pieces of their criticisms. For this purpose it is essential to sort out and regiment different senses in which the term ‘reason’ may be used. It is necessary to (...) go beyond common philosophical practice and distinguish not merely between two such different uses but to make a tripartite distinction. Our aim is largely conciliatory: we grant the main parts of the points made by Stoutland and Dancy but argue that once the B‐D model has been properly stated, and different uses of the term ‘reason’ sufficiently regimented, the B‐D proponent is able to accommodate their respective criticisms within the framework of the B‐D model and thereby undermine their case against the model. (shrink)

Are the pure intuitions of space and time, for Kant, dependent upon the understanding's activity? This paper defends the recently popular Self-Affection Thesis : namely, that the pure intuitions require an activity of self-affection—an influence of the understanding on the inner sense. Two systematic objections to this thesis have been raised: The Independence objection claims that SAT undermines the independence of sensibility; the Compatibility objection claims that certain features of space and time are incompatible with being the products of the (...) understanding's activity. I show that the resources to rebut these objections can be found in Kant's account of causal influence. (shrink)

Recognition and Freedom offers up-to-date discussions of Axel Honneth’s political thought by ten experts in the field. It also includes an interview with Honneth and an essay by him on education and democracy, previously unpublished in English.

Thought experiments are fictional narratives that widen our cognitive horizons both in the sciences and in philosophy. In the present paper we argue that they can perform this function by bringing one’s perspective into view. Despite being traditionally conceived as devices that transmit true propositions to their readers, thought experiments are also particularly apt to express a specific theoretical perspective through the use of imagination. We suggest that this is a significant epistemic feature that is often overlooked in the debate. (...) After presenting our analysis of thought experiments (Section 2) and of the role that imagination plays in them (Section 3), we revisit Galileo Galilei’s use of imaginary cases in light of our account (Section 4). We show that the main aims of Galileo’s thought experiments are to highlight how different perspectives endorsed by fictional characters affect imagination and to invite readers to actively engage in perspectives that are different from their own. This results in a clash of perspectives which plays a crucial epistemic role (Section 5). Readers of thought experiments do not passively absorb information, but critically assess the other’s perspective. In the final part of the paper, we individuate different ways in which readers can react to thought experiments. (shrink)

This chapter explains Franz Brentano's metaethical theory and how it purports to deal with such difficulties. Brentano explains correctness in emotions by analogy with correctness in judgements. For a judgement to be correct is for it to concord with a judgement made by someone who judges with self-evidence (Evidenz). Self-evident judgements are guaranteed to be correct, and they are based either on "inner perception" or on presentations of objects that are rejected apodictically. Brentano's metaethical theory concerns first and foremost the (...) psychology of valuing and of moral judgement. Brentano is clearly a cognitivist about evaluative and moral judgement; such judgements are judgements about the correctness of feelings, and judgements are cognitive acts. However, one aspect of his position that seems congenial to contemporary expressivism. This has to do with expressivist treatments of disagreement. Brentano's views seem akin to the kind of foundationalist intuitionism that is traditionally associated with non-naturalism. (shrink)

The identification of two possible readings – de re and de dicto – of modal claims is considered one of the greatest achievements of Abelard’s logic. In the Dialectica and the Logica “Ingredientibus,” Abelard uses this distinction as a basis for his modal semantics and theory of modalities. Rather than focusing on Abelard’s own theory, the aim of this article is to pay attention to a number of sources that – like Abelard’s logical works – are datable to the first (...) decades of the twelfth century, to investigate whether the de re–de dicto distinction was already adopted and debated in them. It argues that, even if there is no systematic theorization of the distinction in these sources, Abelard’s contemporaries put forward a number of questions concerning the syntax and the signification of modal claims that contributed to set the stage for the distinction’s identification and later development. (shrink)

A classic of phenomenology and existentialism and arguably Jonas's greatest work, The Phenomenon of Life sets forth a systematic and comprehensive philosophy -- an existential interpretation of biological facts laid out in support of Jonas ...

Does Kant hold that we can have intuitions independently of concepts? A striking passage from § 13 of the Critique of Pure Reason appears to say so explicitly. However, it also conjures up a scenario where the categories are inapplicable to objects of intuition, a scenario presumably shown impossible by the following Transcendental Deduction. The seemingly non-conceptualist claim concerning intuition have therefore been read, by conceptualist interpreters of Kant, as similarly counterpossible. I argue that the passage in question best supports (...) an underappreciated middle position where intuition requires a pre-conceptual use of the understanding. Such pre-conceptual use of the understanding faces both textual and systematic objections. I show that these objections can be rebutted. (shrink)

Several proponents of the 'buck-passing' account of value have recently attributed to G. E. Moore the implausible view that goodness is reason-providing. I argue that this attribution is unjustified. In addition to its historical significance, the discussion has an important implication for the contemporary value-theoretical debate: the plausible observation that goodness is not reason-providing does not give decisive support to the buck-passing account over its Moorean rivals. The final section of the paper is a survey of what can be said (...) for and against the buck-passing account and Moore's views about goodness and reasons. (shrink)

Cognitivism is the view that the primary function of moral judgements is to express beliefs that purport to say how things are; expressivism is the contrasting view that their primary function is to express some desire-like state of mind. I shall consider what I call the freshman objection to expressivism. It is pretty uncontroversial that this objection rests on simple misunderstandings. There are nevertheless interesting metaethical lessons to learn from the fact that the freshman objection is prevalent among undergraduates and (...) non-philosophers. It leaves for expressivists two awkward explanatory tasks. Number one is that of explaining why natural selection – which, by expressivism's own lights, favoured moral thought and talk because of their socially useful regulative and coordinating functions – did not favour a stance that would make moral thought and talk more effective in fulfilling these functions. Number two is that of explaining how moral thought and talk survive in cultural evolution, despite the prevalence of the freshman objection and related worries. I conclude that expressivism as a theory of actual moral discourse rather than a revisionist theory is either false or committed to an implausible error theory, according to which ordinary speakers are systematically mistaken about what they are up to when they make moral judgements. (shrink)

Impossible antecedents entered the scene of medieval logic around the 1120s and soon started to dominate this scene, becoming one of the most debated issues from the second half of the twelfth century onwards. This article focuses on theories of counterpossibles from this period and aims to offer an overview of the different responses offered by twelfth-century logicians on whether everything, something, or nothing follows from an impossible statement. Rather than trying to historically reconstruct the positions of the different authors (...) – an operation that may be premature given the insufficient notions we still have of the authorship and dating of sources – I aim to provide a provisional map of the main arguments that were advanced in favour of or against the ex impossibili quodlibet principle. The article also aims to show that the strategies developed by twelfth-century logical schools in their approach to counterpossibles survive in logical discussions of the same topic during the thirteenth and the early fourteenth century, especially in the syncategoremata and sophistaria traditions. (shrink)

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s seminal essay “Building, Dwelling, Thinking”, published in 1954, is one of the texts which has had most influence on architectural thinking in the second half of 20th and early 21st century. What much of modern and postmodern architectural thinking extracts from Heidegger’s text and revolves around is the understanding of building and dwelling as more or less abstract forms of being without taking into account the people inhabiting space. In these traditions little has been said (...) about what the Danish architect Jørn Utzon adds to the term “being” and announces as the most important aspect of architecture: Well-being understood as human well-being. The present paper means to re-interpret Heidegger’s text critically in order to rethink dwelling and building within an architectural context, presenting Jørn Utzon’s work and thinking as a lifelong search for the architecture of well-being. (shrink)

I offer a principled objection to arguments in favour of legalizing non-voluntary euthanasia on the basis of the principle of beneficence. The objection is that the status of death as a benefit to people who cannot formulate a desire to die is more problematic than pain management care. I ground this objection on epistemic and political arguments. Namely, I argue that death is relatively more unknowable, and the benefits it confers more subjectively debatable, than pain management. I am not primarily (...) referring to the claim that it is difficult to make comparisons between live and post-mortem states, but rather to the fact that it is epistemically and metaphysically problematic to impute a “life-worse-than-death” or a state of “suffering-calling-for-death” to people who cannot subjectively wish to die, as though this kind of suffering were a medically observable fact rather than a belief- and value-laden notion. On the contrary, people enduring similar causes of pain may have different experiences of suffering and views on how it affects the worthwhileness of their existence or the desirability of death or of continuing their lives. The projection of a “suffering-calling-for-death” onto infants or people with severe intellectual disabilities may not be indefensible, but it is more controversial than judging that pain management will improve their well-being from the perspective of beneficence. My argument also relies on our society’s liberal endeavour to avoid endorsing unverifiable beliefs about life and death or controversial conceptions of the good life. My goal is not to suggest we should not attend the suffering of cognitively disabled people. On the contrary, I only cast doubt on too quick an assumption that ending their lives is the best way of caring for them, when robust palliative treatments are available. Moreover, I express the concern that a lack of attention to distinctions between “pain-calling-for-relief” and “suffering-calling-for-death” may be based on ableist projections and assumptions. I conclude that it is imperative to continue research into the nature of pain and suffering experienced by individuals with mental or cognitive impairments preventing them from expressing autonomous wishes about the kind of treatment that would most benefit them. (shrink)

This essay argues that while Hume believes both that morality is grounded in our ordinary moral practices, sentiments, and beliefs, and that moral properties are real, he also holds that ordinary moral thinking involves systematically erroneous beliefs about moral properties. These claims, on their face, seem difficult to square with one another but this paper argues that on Hume’s view, they are reconcilable. The reconciliation is effected by making a distinction between Hume’s descriptive metaethics, that is, his account of vulgar (...) moral thought and discourse, and his revisionary metaethics, that is, his account of how vulgar moral thought and discourse could be reformed so as to no longer involve error. This essay concludes that Hume is a projectivist and an error theorist in descriptive metaethics, while he is a projectivist and a subjectivist in revisionary metaethics. (shrink)

ABSTRACTModern technological means allow for meaningful interaction across arbitrary distances, while human morality evolved in environments in which individuals needed to be spatially close in order to interact. We investigate how people integrate knowledge about modern technology with their ancestral moral dispositions to help relieve nearby suffering. Our first study establishes that spatial proximity between an agent's means of helping and the victims increases people's judgement of helping obligations, even if the agent is constantly far personally. We then report and (...) meta-analyse 20 experiments elucidating the cognitive mechanisms behind this effect, which include inferences of increased efficaciousness and personal involvement. Implications of our findings for the scientific understanding of ancestral moral dispositions in modern environments are discussed, as well as suggestions for how these insights might be exploited to increase charitable giving. Our meta-analysis provides a practical example.. (shrink)

Development and maintenance of diverse organ systems require context‐specific regulation of stem cell behaviour. We hypothesize that this is achieved via reciprocal regulation between the cell cycle machinery and differentiation factors. This idea is supported by the parallel evolutionary emergence of differentiation pathways, cell cycle components and complex multicellularity. In addition, the activities of different cell cycle phases have been found to bias cells towards stem cell maintenance or differentiation. Finally, several direct mechanistic links between these two processes have been (...) established. Here, we focus on interactions between cyclin‐CDK complexes and differentiation regulators of the Notch pathway and Sox family of transcription factors within the context of pluripotent and neural stem cells. Thus, this hypothesis formalizes the links between these two processes as an integrated network. Since such factors are common to all stem cells, better understanding their interconnections will help to explain their behaviour in health and disease. (shrink)

In this paper a bootstrap theory of rationality is presented. Such a theory is an attempt to explain how standards of rational inquiry may be rationally revised — without assuming that there are any basic and fixed standards for evaluating such revisions. The general bootstrap idea is briefly presented in the first sections. The main part of the paper consists of a discussion of what normative requirements a bootstrap theory should contain, and a number of requirements on rational revisions are (...) proposed. The final section deals with the question of whether a bootstrap theory is self-referentially coherent. (shrink)

A well-known trilemma faces the interpretation of Kant’s theory of affection, namely whether the objects that affect us are empirical, noumenal, or both. I argue that according to Kant, the things that affect us and cause representations in us are not empirical objects. I articulate what I call the Causal Power Argument, according to which empirical objects cannot affect us because they do not have the right kind of power to cause representations. All the causal powers that empirical objects have (...) are moving powers, and such powers can only have spatial effects. According to Kant, however, the representations that arise in us as a result of the affection of our sensibility are non-spatial. I show that this argument is put forward by Kant in a number of passages, and figures as a decisive reason for rejecting empirical affection and instead endorsing affection by the things in themselves. (shrink)

A central aim for philosophers of science has been to understand scientific theory change, or more specifically the rationality of theory change. Philosophers and historians of science have suggested that not only theories but also scientific methods and standards of rational inquiry have changed through the history of science. The topic here is methodological change, and what kind of theory of rational methodological change is appropriate. The modest ambition of this paper is to discuss in what ways results in formal (...) theories of belief revision can throw light on the question of what an appropriate theory of methodological change would look like. (shrink)

This article investigates Abelard’s defence of the compatibility between universal bivalence and the existence of future contingent events. It first considers the standard strategy put forward by twelfth-century commentators to solve Aristotle’s dilemma in De Interpretatione 9, which fundamentally relies on Boethius’ distinction between definite and indefinite truth values. Abelard’s own position on the dilemma is then introduced, focusing on a specific deterministic argument considered in his logical works that aims to demonstrate that, given the determinacy of present-tense propositions such (...) as ‘“that Socrates will eat tomorrow” is true’, future contingent events such as that Socrates will eat tomorrow are determinate in advance. In addition to presenting Abelard’s reply to the argument, the article offers an analysis of his notions of contingency, determinacy, and future events, and a comparison between Abelard’s position and other twelfth-century discussions on future contingents. (shrink)

The last 20 years or so has seen an intense search carried out within Dempster–Shafer theory, with the aim of finding a generalization of the Shannon entropy for belief functions. In that time, there has also been much progress made in credal set theory—another generalization of the traditional Bayesian epistemic representation—albeit not in this particular area. In credal set theory, sets of probability functions are utilized to represent the epistemic state of rational agents instead of the single probability function of (...) traditional Bayesian theory. The Shannon entropy has been shown to uniquely capture certain highly intuitive properties of uncertainty, and can thus be considered a measure of that quantity. This article presents two measures developed with the purpose of generalizing the Shannon entropy for (1) unordered convex credal sets and (2) possibly non-convex credal sets ordered by second order probability, thereby providing uncertainty measures for such epistemic representations. There is also a comparison with the results of the measure AU developed within Dempster–Shafer theory in a few instances where unordered convex credal set theory and Dempster–Shafer theory overlap. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:An Episcopal priest reflects on the spiritual practices and perspectives that guide her work to mobilize a Spirit-filled, faithful response to climate crisis. After considering how Buddhist meditation informs the author's understanding of Christianity, the essay acknowledges that versions of Christianity have inflicted, and continue to inflict, enormous harm on human beings, the land, and the other creatures with whom we share this planet. Yet Christianity, like other religious traditions, can sift through its teachings, practices, and rituals to locate the (...) gold, the elements of deep ecological wisdom that the human community so desperately needs. Every religious tradition must ask itself: How does this unprecedented moment in human history challenge us to evolve so that we truly serve the common good? Our need to "think outside the box" is illustrated by the puzzle of nine dots that can only be connected by four lines if the lines extend beyond the borders of the box. Similarly, four lines of thought or four arrows of prayerful intention disclose an underlying, sacred reality: the love that created all things, connects all things, and sustains all things. The four arrows: (i) We cultivate an interior relationship of love, learning contemplative practices that quiet our minds and deepen our inner stability; (ii) We awaken to the expansive love that dissolves our tightly gripped sense of self and asserts moral values quite different from those of late-stage capitalism—in particular, intersectional justice and reverence for the natural world; (iii) We practice both sorrow and joy, making room for expressive, visceral forms of prayer, lament, and emotional release; and (iv) We take bold action for healing. Love's four arrows pull us out of the box of ordinary consciousness, the box of business as usual, and into a larger, more connected space: a space of healing and transformation. (shrink)