"Providing a thorough examination of distributive justice, Distributive Justice and Taxation presents and discusses different theories of what constitutes a just society, and how goods should be distributed in such a society. The distribution of goods in society has direct and serious consequences on the lives of the people. There are therefore important questions to be asked regarding the justice of that distribution: Is it just that some people inherit large fortunes while others inherit nothing? Do rich people have additional (...) access to political power because of their wealth? If so, is that just? And should the ambition for economic policies be to combat poverty, or to reduce inequality? This book explores these questions and a number of others through the analysis of related theories, spanning from strong egalitarian theories on the left to right-wing libertarianism. The chapters also explicitly examine the case of taxation - one of the most important and controversial measures of distribution of goods in society. Placing emphasis on the case of Norway and using data from both the UK and USA as a point of comparison, the work details and explores the key features of the tax system. It concludes by presenting and evaluating arguments for and against taxes such as income tax, wealth tax, and inheritance tax. This book is essential reading for those interested in distributive justice, as well as students and scholars of philosophy, law, political science and economics. J2rgen Pedersen is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the Department of Business Administration, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway"--. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to elaborate on the phenomenological approach to expertise as proposed by Dreyfus and Dreyfus and to give an account of the extent to which their approach may contribute to a better understanding of how athletes may use their cognitive capacities during high-level skill execution. Dreyfus and Dreyfus's non-representational view of experience-based expertise implies that, given enough relevant experience, the skill learner, when expert, will respond intuitively to immediate situations with no recourse to deliberate actions (...) or mental representations. The paper will subsequently outline some implications and consequences of such an approach and will also examine to what extent Dreyfus and Dreyfus's skill model is capable to resist different attacks that have been made against their view, and in particular regarding the practical application of their approach to the skill domain of competitive sport. (shrink)

- om Peter Sloterdijks reaktualisering af den muntre videnskab.

The Danish critic Georg Brandes visited Warsaw in 1885 and 1886, with the pretext of lecturing—in French—on modern literature, making thereby the Polish cause for freedom his own. It was his endeavor not to take sides in the smoldering strife between radical and catholic circles, freedom from the brutal Russian regime being the chief common issue. During his second visit he lectured on Polish literature, though only knowing it through translations. This demonstration of solidarity was received with enthusiasm.In his book (...) Impressions from Poland—Danish 1888, in English, German and Polish 1898—he gives a vivid description of the Polish passion for freedom, not hiding more negative sides of the national character as he found them, such as improvidence and bohemianism. The book was understood as an act of solidarity, and during a visit to Krakow in 1898 he was hailed as the spokesman of freedom and one of the few West-European supporters of the Polish cause.When, by November 1914, Brandes learned about Polish religious pogroms he did not hesitate to condemn them in two articles born by indignation. The articles, immediately published in many languages, aroused much attention worldwide, at the same time costing him most of his Polish popularity. (shrink)

The traditional square of opposition is generalized and extended to a cube of opposition covering and conveniently visualizing inter-sentential oppositions in relational syllogistic logic with the usual syllogistic logic sentences obtained as special cases. The cube comes about by considering Frege–Russell’s quantifier predicate logic with one relation comprising categorical syllogistic sentence forms. The relationships to Buridan’s octagon, to Aristotelian modal logic, and to Klein’s 4-group are discussed.GraphicThe photo shows a prototype sculpture for the cube.

Phenomenology has shaped the history of literary studies in a variety of ways. This work reconstructs the central moments of phenomenology's reception in the field, with special emphasis on the theory of interpretation. In doing so, it both contri.

This unique collection of essays, published together for the first time, not only elucidates the complexity of ancient Greek thought, but also reveals Karl Popper's engagement with Presocratic philosophy and the enlightenment he experienced in his reading of Parmenides. As Karl Popper himself states himself in his introduction, he was inspired to write about Presocratic philosophy for two reasons - firstly to illustrate the thesis that all history is the history of problem situations and secondly, to show the greatness of (...) the early Greek philosophers, who gave Europe its philosophy, its science and its humanism. (shrink)

The medical concept of prognosis is analysed into its basic constituents: patient data, medical intervention, outcome, utilities and probabilities; and sources of utility and probability values are discussed. Prognosis cannot be divorced from contemplated medical action, nor from action to be taken by the patient in response to prognostication. Regrettably, the usual decision-theoretic approach ignores this latter aspect. Elicitation of utilities, decision contemplation and prognostic counselling interweave, diagnostics playing a subsidiary role in decision-oriented clinical practice. At times the doctor has (...) grounds for withholding information. As this is known to the patient, prognostic counselling becomes a conflict-prone and rationality-thwarting activity. The meaning of standard phrases such as prognosis of a disease, the prognosis of this patient, the prognosis is unknown, is examined. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s essay on Perpetual Peace contains a rejection of the idea of a world government. In connexion with a substantial argument for cosmopolitan rights based on the human body and its need for a space on the surface of the Earth, Kant presents the most rigorous philosophical formulation ever given of the limitations of the cosmopolitan law. In this contribution, Kant’s essay is analysed and the reasons he gives for these restrictions discussed in relation to his main focus: to (...) project a realistic path to perpetual peace. (shrink)

This unique collection of essays not only explores the complexity of ancient Greek thought, but also reveals Popper's engagement with Presocratic philosophy and the enlightenment he experienced in reading Parmenides. It includes writings on Greek science, philosophy and history, and demonstrates Popper's lifelong fascination and admiration of the Presocratic philosophers, in particular Parmenides, Xenophanes and Heraclitus.

This unique collection of essays, published together for the first time, not only elucidates the complexity of ancient Greek thought, but also reveals Karl Popper's engagement with Presocratic philosophy and the enlightenment he experienced in his reading of Parmenides. As Karl Popper himself states himself in his introduction, he was inspired to write about Presocratic philosophy for two reasons - firstly to illustrate the thesis that all history is the history of problem situations and secondly, to show the greatness of (...) the early Greek philosophers, who gave Europe its philosophy, its science and its humanism. (shrink)

The pathway from scientific knowledge (based on data, models, and forecasts) to societal implications and policy advice is a perilous one. The shift from "is" to "ought" may be slippery in terms of climate, biodiversity, regulations, and business. Yet, what is to be done if one's research discloses that fellow humans are unwittingly carrying out destructive actions on a large scale? If they are unaware of the dynamics within which they are (or are in danger of becoming) imprisoned, is there (...) then not an ethical obligation to respond beyond the scope of one's given role? This dilemma lies at the core of the issue of science-based activism, which the life and work of Jorgen Randers in many ways epitomizes. The best means of understanding science-based activism can be found in exploring Randers' steps, as this festschrift does. [Jorgen Randers (born 1945) co-authored The Limits to Growth in 1972 and its sequels in 1992 and 2004. He is a Professor of Climate Strategy at the Norwegian Business School in Oslo where he works on climate and energy issues, system dynamics, and green growth. Randers was President of the Norwegian Business School/BI 1981-89, and Deputy Director General of WWF International 1994-99. He chaired the Norwegian Commission on a Low-Emission Society which reported in 2006. In 2012, his work 2052 - A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years was published.] [Subject: Science, Ethics, Environmental Studies]. (shrink)

A review of volume 11, part 1 of _Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks._.

Läuchli and Pincus showed that existence of algebraic completions of all fields cannot be proved from Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory alone. On the other hand, important special cases do follow. In particular, I show that an algebraic completion of Q p $\mathbb {Q}_p$ can be constructed in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory.

Intuition has increasingly been considered as a legitimate foundation for decision-making, and the concept has started to find its way into military doctrines as a supplement to traditional decision-making procedures, primarily in time-constrained situations. Yet, absent inside the military realm is a critical and level-headed discussion of the ethical implications of intuitive behaviour, understood as an immediate and situational response with no recourse to thoughtful or deliberate activity. In this article the author turns to phenomenological philosophy, and in particular to (...) the works of Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, to elaborate on the ethical implications and consequences of intuitive behaviour. Dreyfus and Dreyfus understand moral behaviour as a skill, and as such they claim that it is possible to develop this capability through practice. They even claim that intuitive behaviour is the hallmark of the way experts respond to situations. The article seeks to investigate if the prerequisites for development of experience-based intuition are fulfilled inside the frames of military operations. The possible implications and consequences of utilizing such a capability are also emphasized. The article's empirical materials are qualitative and build mainly upon extracted information from interviews and informal conversations with Norwegian soldiers and officers serving in Afghanistan under ISAF's Regional Command North in 2007 and 2008. (shrink)

We define the paraconsistent supra-logic Pσ by a type-shift from the booleans o of propositional logic Po to the supra-booleans σ of the propositional type logic P obtained as the propositional fragment of the transfinite type theory Q defined by Peter Andrews as a classical foundation of mathematics. The supra-logic is in a sense a propositional logic only, but since there is an infinite number of supra-booleans and arithmetical operations are available for this and other types, virtually anything can be (...) specified. The supra-logic is a generalization of Lukasiewicz's three-valued logic, with the intermediate value duplicated many times and ordered such that none of the copies of this value imply other ones, but it differs from Lukasiewicz's many-valued logics as well as from logics based on bilattices. There are several automated theorem provers for classical higher order logic and it should be possible to modify these to our needs. (shrink)

Berkeley’s criticism of Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities is a challenge to epistemologists. Do we experience a mind-independent reality, even though we do it with the help of senses bound to give us subjective experiences? Berkeley – or a straw man by that name – played an important part as sparring partner for an influential development of Danish theoretical philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. The protagonists here are Peter Zinkernagel and David Favrholdt. Zinkernagel held (...) an extraordinary appointment as research fellow at the University of Copenhagen. Favrholdt was the founding father of the Philosophical Institute at Odense University. This essay focuses on the constructive moments in Zinkernagel’s alternative to immaterialism, being based on a distinction between perception and action, and on Favrholdt’s development of a reconstruction of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the reception of George Berkeley in a particular corner of 20th-century Danish psychology and philosophy. In contrast to philosophers, such as Peter Zinkernagel and David Favrholdt, Danish experimental psychologists, including Edgar Rubin and Edgar Tranekjær Rasmussen, made highly appreciative reference to the methodology and experimental observations of Berkeley and David Hume. This paper focuses on these psychologists’ interest in Berkeley’s ideas. I will first present Rubin’s path from a mosaic-like understanding of psychological (...) phenomena (elemental psychology) to a holistic view, detailing what he termed adspective psychology and its method. I then turn to Rubin’s embrace of certain experimental observations made by Berkeley and, in particular, by Hume concerning theminima visibilia. The second part of the paper deals with Tranekjær Rasmussen’s interpretation of Berkeley’s work, and in particular of his immaterialism, his notion of God, and his critique of abstract ideas. (shrink)

Filosofi og pædagogik er gamle fæller, og der er et overlap mellem filosofiens historie og pædagogikkens historiske litteratur. Store tænkere som Platon, Aristoteles, Augustin, Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Herbart og Dewey hører hjemme begge steder. I den pædagogiske filosofi kan almene teoretiske og praktisk filosofiske spørgsmål udforskes systematisk og historisk. Gennem diskussioner af sådanne spørgsmål kan man forholde sig mere nysgerrigt, bevidst, begrundet og kritisk til pædagogisk praksis såvel som til pædagogisk teori, empiri og undervisningsteknologi. -/- Fællesskabet er (...) ikke uproblematisk. Pædagogik er ikke filosofi, og pædagogisk filosofi ikke kun pædagogik. Både didaktik og almen pædagogik kan komme i konflikt med pædagogisk filosofi. Hvordan kan almene pædagogiske spørgsmål overhovedet belyses filosofisk, og hvad betyder de for filosofien selv? En pædagogisk filosofisk tilgang forandrer kanon i både pædagogik og filosofi. Udvalget af nøgletekster ændres. Emner, der er værd at diskutere, forskydes. Nye forskningsspørgsmål og prioriteringer viser sig. Et pædagogisk perspektiv på filosofiens udvikling vil fremhæve dens bidrag til at forstå ’den pædagogiske problem- og fænomenverden’, ligesom et filosofisk perspektiv på pædagogikken vil flytte – eller rettere udvide – fokus med hensyn til dens idéhistorie såvel som dens aktuelle teoretiske praksis. Som i al anden filosofi kan man i den pædagogiske filosofi diskutere teoretiske og praktiske, såvel som poetiske og æstetiske spørgsmål; men det er typisk med en særlig vinkel, nemlig den pædagogiske. Man kan således diskutere erkendelse, viden og sandhed, ligeså vel som man kan undersøge ret, retfærdighed og skønhed. Ofte vil det være med en særlig tvist. Den pædagogiske filosofi kan vise sig som særegen både ved sin særlige position og ved at relatere sig til det pædagogiske som genstandsfelt. Hvad denne position og dette genstandsfelt egentlig er, er der dog ingen enighed om. Det kan ikke engang siges at være udelukkende pædagogisk defineret, og derfor må den pædagogiske filosofi forholde sig åbent til begge dele. Studier i pædagogisk filosofi indbyder til denne drøftelse. (shrink)