This paper presents the results of qualitative research on academic inbreeding in Czech higher education, the first of its kind. Its focus is on exploring the significance of academic inbreeding, its types, practices, and possible solutions. The research for this paper was done among academic staff at eight institutions of higher education in the Czech Republic. It was conceptually informed by ideas about different types of inbred employees (immobile, mobile, silver-corded, and adherent) and available policy tools. The results show that (...) academic inbreeding has long flown under the radar as an issue. Its impact is perceived ambivalently, as both positive and negative, by academics and experts alike. Generally, its avoidance has not been taken into account in staff recruitment, which has allowed it to become widespread among Czech higher education institutions. The policy tools for combatting academic inbreeding include nodality (open recruitment), reorganization of recruitment procedures, capacity-building (including stays abroad), and hortatory proclamations (paying attention to the issue). Overall, the evidence gathered in the course of research suggests that some progress has been made in limiting academic inbreeding at some workplaces, and that what we would call purely immobile inbred employees are giving way to mobile and “silver-corded” inbred academic staff. Finally, Czech higher education institutions register few cases of pseudo-inbreeding, combining work at the same institution where a PhD was taken with an academically relevant position in a state research institute or the Academy of Sciences. (shrink)

This paper develops axiomatic foundations for a probabilistic-interventionist theory of causal strength. Transferring methods from Bayesian confirmation theory, I proceed in three steps: I develop a framework for defining and comparing measures of causal strength; I argue that no single measure can satisfy all natural constraints; I prove two representation theorems for popular measures of causal strength: Pearl's causal effect measure and Eells' difference measure. In other words, I demonstrate these two measures can be derived from a set of plausible (...) adequacy conditions. The paper concludes by sketching future research avenues. (shrink)

This book provides the reader with an analysis of backward causation. The notion of backward causation faces many different paradoxes that threaten to make the notion inconsistent or incoherent. The book denies that these pose a real threat. It developed a theory of causation according to which the orientation of causation is not dependent on the direction of time. In this process it takes issues with David Lewis' contrafactual analysis of causation, and denies that the direction of time is determined (...) by irreversible processes . Likewise the book argues that the conceptual possibility of backward causation requires that the future is just as real as the past and present. Finally the book considers what the physical processes may look like if backward causation not only a a conceptual possibility but also a physical possibility. The conclusion is that no normal matter can possibly participate in backward causal processes. Instead objects moving backwards in time seem to posses negative mass and energy, a kind of objects that would be different from both ordinary objects and hypothetical tachyons. (shrink)

The bulk of the present book has not been published previously though Chapters II and IV are based in part on two earlier papers of mine: "The Influence of Harald H!1lffding's Philosophy on Niels Bohr's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics", which appeared in Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 1979, and "The Bohr-H!1lffding Relationship Reconsidered", published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 1988. These two papers comple ment each other, and in order to give the whole issue a more extended treatment (...) I have sought, in the present volume by drawing on relevant historical material, to substantiate the claim that H!1lffding was Bohr's mentor. Besides containing a detailed account of Bohr's philosophy, the book, at the same time, serves the purpose of making H!1lffding' s ideas and historical significance better known to a non-Danish readership. During my work on this book I have consulted the Royal Danish Library; the National Archive of Denmark and the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, in search of relevant material. I am grateful for permission to use and quote material from these sources. Likewise, I am indebted to colleagues and friends for commenting upon the manuscript: I am especially grateful to Professor Henry Folse for our many discussions during my visit to New Orleans in November-December 1988 and again here in Elsinore in July 1990. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The concept of an ontological category is central to metaphysics. Metaphysicians argue about which category of existence an object should be assigned to, whether one category can be reduced to another one, or whether there might be different equally adequate systems of categorization. Answers to these questions presuppose a clear understanding of what precisely an ontological category is, and Jan Westerhoff now provides the first in-depth analysis. After examining a variety of attempted definitions, he proceeds to argue for a new (...) understanding of ontological categories, according to which they are systematizations of our knowledge of the world rather than essential characteristics of the world itself. Metaphysicians will find his work highly stimulating. (shrink)

This essay proposes to view networks as sociocultural structures. Following authors from Leopold von Wiese and Norbert Elias to Gary Alan Fine and Harrison White, networks are configurations of social relationships interwoven with meaning. Social relationships as the basic building blocks of networks are conceived of as dynamic structures of reciprocal (but not necessarily symmetric) expectations between alter and ego. Through their transactions, alter and ego construct an idiosyncratic "relationship culture" comprising symbols, narratives, and relational identities. The coupling of social (...) relationships to networks, too, is heavily laden with meaning. The symbolic construction of persons is one instance of this coupling. Another instance is the application of social categories (like race or gender), which both map and structure social networks. The conclusion offers an agenda for research on this "meaning structure of social networks.". (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that medical specialists interpret and diagnose through technological mediations like X-ray and fMRI images, and by actualizing embodied skills tacitly they are determining the identity of objects in the perceptual field. The initial phase of human interpretation of visual objects takes place during the moments of visual perception before we are consciously aware of the perceived. What facilitate this innate ability to interpret are experiences, learning and training that become humanly embodied skills. These embodied (...) skills are actualized during the moments of visual perception. My argument is that biology, society and instruments constitute unique individual ontologies influencing specialist readings of the technological output, in other words, putting limits on the ‘‘truth-to-nature’’ relation, which is so much sought for in science. (shrink)

Since the turn of the millennium, the major development agencies have been promoting “knowledge for development,” “ICT for development,” or the “knowledge economy” as new paradigms to prompt development in less-developed countries. These paradigms display an unconditional trust in the power of Western technology and scientific knowledge to trigger development—they taste of epistemic and technological determinism. This article probes, by means of a genealogy, how and when development cooperation began adhering to epistemic and technological determinism, and which forms this adhesion (...) has taken over time. The genealogy shows, first, that knowledge and technology have always been integrally part of the very “development” idea since this idea was shaped during enlightenment. Second, while the genealogy reveals that epistemic and technological determinism were embedded in the development idea from the very beginning, it also illustrates that the determinism has always been challenged by critical voices. (shrink)

The concept of a socially extended mind suggests that our cognitive processes are extended not simply by the various tools and technologies we use, but by other minds in our intersubjective interactions and, more systematically, by institutions that, like tools and technologies, enable and sometimes constitute our cognitive processes. In this article we explore the potential of this concept to facilitate the development of a critical neuroscience. We explicate the concept of cognitive institution and suggest that science itself is a (...) good example. Science, through various practices and rules, shapes our cognitive activity so as to constitute a certain type of knowledge, packaged with relevant skills and techniques. To develop this example, we focus on neuroscience, its cultural impact, and the various institutional entanglements that complicate its influence on reframing conceptions of self and subjectivity, and on defining what questions count as important and what kind of answers will be valued. (shrink)

We study Kim-independence over arbitrary sets. Assuming that forking satisfies existence, we establish Kim's lemma for Kim-dividing over arbitrary sets in an NSOP1 theory. We deduce symmetry of Kim-independence and the independence theorem for Lascar strong types.

Recent research in Baroque Scholastic and early modern meditational exercises has demonstrated similarity between Descartes’s Meditations and St. Teresa of Ávila’s El Castillo Interior. While there is growing agreement on the influence of Catholic meditations on Descartes, the extent of Teresa’s role is debated. Instead of discussing the full extent of Teresa’s influence, this paper concentrates on one example of the considered influence: the skeptical scenario of demonic deception, having clear anticipation in Teresa’s work where the exercitant faces off against (...) deceiving demonic forces, which confound and temporarily halt the meditative progress. The paper analyzes Teresa’s use of deceptive demons and its influence on the Cartesian Evil Demon scenario, while contrasting both with a discussion of demonic deception in the late Medieval and Baroque Scholastic context, arguing that demonological discussions in 1500s allowed both Teresa’s and Descartes’s deceivers to not only cause diversions but to make the deception laborious to resist. (shrink)

The ability to anticipate the future is of great benefit to any organism. Whenever such a foreseeing takes place, it typically happens because an organism has been able to learn about some regularity in the past and then uses this information to expect some happenings in the future. Modern human beings have perfected this capacity far beyond any other animal by getting to know the laws by which nature operates. But it is still based on past experience that even human (...) beings are able to say something about the future. So every form of anticipation of the future relies on inductive reasoning based on knowledge of causal processes in the past. Both these processes and the processes by which we learn to anticipate the future are common in the sense that it is always an earlier cause that brings about a later effect. The ability to anticipate depends on the fact that our cognitive faculties only work on information that stems from the past. Had it been possible for us to receive reliable information about the future, the ability of anticipation might not have existed or might have been less faulty than it sometimes is. (shrink)

The article starts from the questions: what is it to be an inhabitant or citizen of a globalised world, and how are we to think of education in relation to such inhabitants? We examine more specifically the so–called ‘European area of higher education’ that is on the way to being established and that can be regarded as a concrete example of a process of globalisation. In the first part of the paper we try to show that the discursive horizon, and (...) the concrete techniques and strategies that accompany the establishment of this space of higher education, invite the inhabitants of that space to see themselves as entrepreneurial and autonomous entities. In the second part we show how this specific kind of subjectivation (this production of subjects), related as it is to this globalised space, involves what we call an immunisation that also affects our thinking and our ideas in and about education. To refer to this as a kind of immunisation implies that globalisation could in fact be considered a closing or enclosing rather than an opening up. We argue, therefore, that this immunisation needs to be refused in favour of the invention of other kinds of subjectivity, other ways of speaking and writing about the world and about education, such that we relate to ourselves in a different way. (shrink)

This collection of essays considers a variety of educational ideas and programs from the perspective of governmentality, integrating conceptual and theoretical insights and empirical investigation of policy documents, and government technologies. Considers different educational ideas of enlightenment, creativity, participation, inclusion, learning, and critique Offers an overview of French philosopher Michel Foucault’s theory on governmentality and how his ideas apply to current developments in society and education Investigates the intrinsic relationship between intellectual and practical educational technologies A study of how educational (...) practice and educational theory have played a constitutive role in practices of subjectivity which are crucial to ‘learning societies’. (shrink)

Certain cases of corporate action seem especially resistant to a shared moral evaluation. Conservatives may argue that if bad intentions cannot be demonstrated, corporations and their managers are not blame-worthy, while liberals may insist that the results of corporate actions were predictable and so somebody must be to blame. Against this background, the theory that sometimes a corporation's moral responsibility cannot be redistributed, even in principle, to the individuals involved, seems quite attractive.This doctrine of unredistributable corporate moral responsibility (UCMR) is, (...) however, ultimately indefensible. I show this in several steps. After first locating UCMR in the context of the evolving debate about corporate moral agency, the paper reexamines cases cited in defense of UCMR and takes up the attempt to defend it by identifying corporate moral agency with corporate practices. A further section explores the claim that UCMR is a convention distinct from, yet compatible with, traditional natural notions of responsibility. The final section develops a notion of combined akratic agency to provide an alternate explanation, compatible with rejection of UCMR, of the phenomena which make the doctrine attractive. (shrink)

La recherche récente a régulièrement remis en cause la catégorie moderne de « lois sacrées » désignant des inscriptions grecques qui forment un ensemble mal défini. Cet article entend dépasser le corpus traditionnel des « lois sacrées » en présentant un projet de recueil alternatif de « Normes rituelles grecques » (CGRN pour l’acronyme anglais), qui s’appuie sur des critères plus sélectifs et sera publié en ligne.

Karl Löwith, den Hans-Georg Gadamer als »den zweifellos begabtesten Schüler Heideggers« bezeichnete, zählt zu den bedeutendsten Vertretern der philosophischen Anthropologie. Sein Denken umkreist die Frage nach dem Selbstverständnis des modernen Menschen in der säkularisierten Welt. Max Weber folgend bejaht Löwith die Situation des modernen Menschen, der ohne göttliche Autorität auskommen muss, sich aber den Spannungen einer modernen kapitalistischen Gesellschaft ebenso ausgesetzt sieht wie den ihm eigenen Widersprüchen. Neben einer Einführung überträgt Jan Schenkenberger Löwiths Philosophie - unter Verwendung von teils unveröffentlichten (...) Quellen - in neue Kontexte und denkt ihren ethischen Kern in die Gegenwart weiter. (shrink)

According to influential accounts of scientific method, such as critical rationalism, scientific knowledge grows by repeatedly testing our best hypotheses. But despite the popularity of hypothesis tests in statistical inference and science in general, their philosophical foundations remain shaky. In particular, the interpretation of non-significant results—those that do not reject the tested hypothesis—poses a major philosophical challenge. To what extent do they corroborate the tested hypothesis, or provide a reason to accept it? Popper sought for measures of corroboration that could (...) adequately answer this question. According to Popper, corroboration is different from probability-raising, and grounded in the predictive success and testability of a hypothesis. As such, corroboration becomes an indicator of the scientific value of a hypothesis and guides our practical preferences over hypotheses that have been subjected to severe tests. This article proves two impossibility results for corroboration measures based on statistical relevance. The generality of these results shows that Popper’s qualitative characterization of corroboration must be misguided. I explore what a more promising and scientifically useful concept of corroboration could look like. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to mount a philosophical challenge to the currently highly visible research and discourse on empathy. The notion of empathetic perspective-shifting—a conceptually demanding, high-level construal of empathy in humans that arguably captures the core meaning of the term—is criticized from the standpoint of a philosophy of normatively accountable agency. Empathy in this demanding sense fails to achieve a true understanding of the other and instead risks to impose the empathizer’s self-constitutive agency upon the person empathized (...) with. Attempts to ‘simulate’ human agency, or attempts to emulate its cognitive or emotional basis, will likely distort their target phenomena in profound ways. Thus, agency turns out to be empathy’s blind spot. Elements of an alternative understanding of interpersonal relatedness are also discussed, focusing on aspects of ‘interaction theory’. These might do some of the work that high-level constructs of empathy had been supposed to do without running into similar conceptual difficulties. (shrink)

We introduce a cyclic proof system for the two-way alternation-free modal μ-calculus. The system manipulates one-sided Gentzen sequents and locally deals with the backwards modalities by allowing analytic applications of the cut rule. The global effect of backwards modalities on traces is handled by making the semantics relative to a specific strategy of the opponent in the evaluation game. This allows us to augment sequents by so-called trace atoms, describing traces that the proponent can construct against the opponent’s strategy. The (...) idea for trace atoms comes from Vardi’s reduction of alternating two-way automata to deterministic one-way automata. Using the multi-focus annotations introduced earlier by Marti and Venema, we turn this trace-based system into a path-based system. We prove that our system is sound for all sequents and complete for sequents not containing trace atoms. (shrink)

rationality has increasingly been a target of attack in contemporary educational research and practice and in its place practical reason and situated thinking have become a focus of interest. The argument here is that something is lost in this. In illustrating how we might think about the issue, this paper makes a response to the charge that as a result of his commitment to the ‘Enlightenment project’ Vygotsky holds abstract rationality as the pinnacle of thought. Against this it is argued (...) that Vygotsky had a far more sophisticated appreciation of reason and of its remit. The paper proceeds first by examining the picture of Vygotsky that is presented in the work of James Wertsch, and especially his claim that Vygotsky was an ambivalent rationalist, goes on to provide an account of Vygotsky that corrects this picture, and develops this in the light of the work of Robert Brandom, who shares Vygotsky’s inheritance of Hegel. The conclusion towards which this piece points is that the philosophical underpinnings of Vygotsky’s work provide a radically different idea of rationality and epistemology from that characterised as abstract rationality and that this has significance for education studies. (shrink)

Friis and Crease illustrate the diversity of content and styles in postphenomenology, a burgeoning field that has attracted attention among scholars engaged in technology studies. Contributors to this edited collection seek to analyze, clarify, and develop postphenomenological language and concepts, expand the work of Don Ihde, the field's founder, and delve into areas that Ihde never tackled.

Discussions in sociological theory often focus on ontological questions on the nature of social reality. Against the underlying epistemological realism, I argue for a constructivist notion of theory: Theories are webs of concepts that we use to guide empirical observations and to make sense of them. We cannot know the real features of the social world, only what our theoretical perspectives make us see. Theories therefore represent social phenomena by highlighting certain features and relating them in a logical system. In (...) this system, theoretical sentences can be considered true if they meet two conditions: They are consistent with the theory at hand and adequately map empirically observable relations between objects denoted by theoretical constructs. Truth is therefore relative to a perspective; it is not objectively determinable. Theories should be assessed not for their ontologies but for what they allow us to see and how they connect to empirical observations. (shrink)

Review text: "Es gibt Bücher, die durch ihre unprätentiöse, stille und sorgfältige Vorgehensweise auf den ersten Blick über die Sensation hinwegtäuschen, die sie bloßlegen und zur Diskussion anbieten. So ein Buch ist die "Wissenschaftphilosophie? von Jan C. Schmidt, die über die "Instabilität in Natur und Wissenschaft? handelt."Günter Altner in: Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau 9/2009.

Chapter One Moral Issues and Moral Theory The Subject Matter of This Inquiry Until about thirty years ago, courses in ethics were devoted almost exclusively ...

Conceiving of nuclear energy as a social experiment gives rise to the question of what to do when the experiment is no longer responsible or desirable. To be able to appropriately respond to such a situation, the nuclear energy technology in question should be reversible, i.e. it must be possible to stop its further development and implementation in society, and it must be possible to undo its undesirable consequences. This paper explores these two conditions by applying them to geological disposal (...) of high-level radioactive waste. Despite the fact that considerations of reversibility and retrievability have received increased attention in GD, the analysis in this paper concludes that GD cannot be considered reversible. Firstly, it would be difficult to stop its further development and implementation, since its historical development has led to a point where GD is significantly locked-in. Secondly, the strategy it employs for undoing undesirable consequences is less-than-ideal: it relies on containment of severely radiotoxic waste rather than attempting to eliminate this waste or its radioactivity. And while it may currently be technologically impossible to turn high-level waste into benign substances, GD’s containment strategy makes it difficult to eliminate this waste’s radioactivity when the possibility would arise. In all, GD should be critically reconsidered if the inclusion of reversibility considerations in radioactive waste management has indeed become as important as is sometimes claimed. (shrink)

This innovative book proposes a unique and original perspective on the nature of the mind and how phenomenal consciousness may arise in a physical world. From simple sentient organisms to complex self-reflective systems, Faye argues for a naturalistic-evolutionary approach to philosophy of mind and consciousness. Drawing on substantial literature in evolutionary biology and cognitive science, this book offers a promising alternative to the major theories of the mind-body problem: the quality of our experiences should not, as some philosophers have claimed, (...) be associated with subjectivity that is not open for scientific explanation, nor should it be associated with intrinsic properties of the brain. Instead, Faye argues that mental properties are extrinsic properties of the brain caused by the organism’s interaction with its environment. Taking on the explanatory gap, and rejecting the ontological pluralism of present naturalist theories of the mind, Faye thus proposes a unified view of reality in which it is possible to explain qualitative mental presentations as part of the physical world. (shrink)

I offer a novel reading in this dissertation of René Descartes’s (1596–1650) skepticism in his work Meditations on First Philosophy (1641–1642). I specifically aim to answer the following problem: How is Descartes’s skepticism to be read in accordance with the rest of his philosophy? This problem can be divided into two more general questions in Descartes scholarship: How is skepticism utilized in the Meditations, and what are its intentions and relation to the preceding philosophical tradition? -/- I approach the topic (...) from both a historical and a text-based analysis, combining textual and contextual research. I examine Descartes’s skepticism against two main traditions in the historical analysis: philosophical skepticism and Aristotelian Scholasticism. I argue that skepticism in the Meditations is intended to oppose and upheave both Scholasticism and skepticism. The intended results of the work are not merely epistemological but also metaphysical and even ethical. Furthermore, these ambitions cannot be neatly distinguished but merge into each other. -/- The third historical context against which the skeptical meditations are examined is the literary genre of meditative exercises, particularly from the 1500–1600’s, which, while religiously and spiritually oriented, likewise provided the practitioner with an enlightened understanding of self-knowledge and their cognitive place in the world on the way to closer spiritual proximity to God. I argue by this reading that the skepticism of the Meditations is an attentive, meditational cognitive exercise that is not merely instrumental and methodological but is to have a genuine and serious (psychologically real) effect on our thinking. The skeptical meditation is not simply a theoretical thought experiment but is to be seriously practiced as a transformative process of reorienting one’s cognitive framework to discover truth, certainty, and a way to a happy, tranquil, and virtuous life. -/- I offer a close reading in the textual analysis of the first three meditations of the Meditations. I argue that the meditative skepticism employed in the work does not reject the previous beliefs but suspends judgment on them, withdrawing assent until further evidence can be found. I introduce a new term into Descartes scholarship in this analysis, based on the terminology of ancient skepticism: Cartesian epochē (gr. epochē, suspension, withdrawal). Instead of rejecting previous beliefs or assenting to the probably false, the skeptical procedure of the Meditations is argued to emulate in important ways the suspension of judgment on equally balanced reasons in ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism. Novel interpretations are presented along the way of the will’s freedom, of the First Meditation’s skeptical scenarios, of the cogito, and of the vindication of metaphysical certainty, as well as a clarification of the Cartesian Circle problem. -/- Reinterpreting the relation of Descartes’s skepticism to the preceding historical and literary traditions leads to a new look at the skeptical method itself. Presenting a new interpretation of skepticism in the Meditations leads at the same time to a new look at its relation to the historical context. The two research questions are, then, intrinsically tied together. -/- My focus in the study is on the Meditations, but I also reference and discuss Descartes’s other philosophical works, as well as his correspondence, when necessary. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION This study arose from involvement with the works of Thomas Aquinas (/5-) that was not only intensive, but also extensive in the time devoted to ...

This paper argues that there are practical problems of such a kind that neither impartial morality nor rational choice theory can provide us with comfort and guidance in our attempt to make the right choice if confronted with such a problem. It argues that both morality and rational choice theory are bound to misconstrue problems of this kind. Appreciating the limits of both morality and rational choice theory, as currently discussed in the literature, enables us to identify the features of (...) these particular practical problems, and allows us to elaborate the idea of an alternative of oneself, which is crucial to a proper understanding of the kind of practical problem the paper draws attention to. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

The issues that Paul Standish alerts us to are significant since they situate McDowell's argument in reference to works lying outside the mainstream tradition o.

The pragmatic theory of explanation is an attempt to see explanation as a linguistic response to a cognitive problem where the content of the response depends on the context of the scientific inquiry. The present paper draws on the rhetorical situation, as it is defined by Loyld Bitzer, in order to understand how the context may influence the content as well as the acceptability of the response.

Our aim in this study is to examine the attitude to violence expressed in the works of two leading figures in the history of Czech philosophical thought. Several scholars in the field of Comeniology have expressed the belief that not only clear parallels but also direct continuity can be traced between the views of Petr Chelčický and those of Jan Amos Comenius. To make a proper judgement as to whether Comenius and Chelčický shared identical attitudes to the question of the (...) legitimacy of violence, we focus first on Comenius’s climactic work, in which his point of view is most fully expressed. Subsequently we analyse Chelčický’s views and compare them with Comenius’s attitude. A comparison of the works of the two thinkers leads to the conclusion that on the one hand Comenius’s key opinions are much more comprehensively founded; on the other, he does not restrict himself to a critique of physical violence but also deals with the spiritual struggle. Any analogy between Chelčický and Comenius’s attitude to violence can therefore be related only to the early works of Comenius in which his concept of universal tolerance was not yet thoroughly thought through. The study therefore focuses on the issue of the development of Comenius’s concept of tolerance as well. (shrink)