In many European countries,organic agriculture has rapidly beentransformed from a farmers' movement to aninstitutionalized part of agricultural policy.In certification, compliance with publishedorganic standards is verified through annualinspections on farms. In Finland, the role ofadvice in organic inspections has been thesubject of debate. Two inspections are usedhere to show how the term organic was definedand what the role of advice in relation tocompliance was. Both compliance and advisorytypes of interaction between the inspector andthe farmer were identified along an axis from “input (...) substitution” to “system redesign.” Thefindings illustrate the heterogeneity of theprocesses and definitions of the term organicin connection with inspections. System redesignwas less obvious in compliance than items ininspection documents suggest. The physicalsurroundings and the methods used affectinspection practices. Institutionalization isnot merely negative, but may also provideresources for system redesign. Whether adviceis part of a new and emerging way of enforcinginspections is considered. The findings suggestthat dialogue and negotiation are necessary inpromoting system redesign and in enhancing thedevelopmental functions of organicinspections. (shrink)

In this article I shall undertake a preliminary exploration of the notion of second best. I shall follow a three-step strategy. First, I shall introduce some applications of the theorem of the second best in different fields of philosophy and social sciences. Secondly, I shall make several conceptual distinctions related to the theorem. I aim to show that there are certain theoretical results that are similar but not identical to the theorem of the second best, and that the notion of (...) second best is often used quite loosely. Finally, I shall try to shed some light on the question of how the theorem is description-sensitive. The overall aim of the paper is to pay attention to the generality of the problem of the second best and stress the importance of the theorem in political theory in particular. (shrink)

This paper examines explanations that turn on non-local geometrical facts about the space of possible configurations a system can occupy. I argue that it makes sense to contrast such explanations from "geometry of motion" with causal explanations. I also explore how my analysis of these explanations cuts across the distinction between kinematics and dynamics.

This chapter examines the status of inference to the best explanation in naturalistic metaphysics. The methodology of inference to the best explanation in metaphysics is studied from the perspective of contemporary views on scientific explanation and explanatory inferences in the history and philosophy of science. This reveals serious shortcomings in prevalent attempts to vindicate metaphysical "explanationism" by reference to similarities between science and naturalistic metaphysics. This critique is brought out by considering a common gambit of methodological unity: (1) Both metaphysics (...) and science employ inference to the best explanation. (2) One has no reason to think that if explanationism is truth-conducive in science, it is not so in metaphysics. (3) One has a positive reason to think that if explanationism is truth-conducive in science, it is also so in metaphysics. (shrink)

This chapter examines issues surrounding inference to the best explanation, its justification, and its role in different arguments for scientific realism, as well as more general issues concerning explanations’ ontological commitments. Defending the reliability of inference to the best explanation has been a central plank in various realist arguments, and realists have drawn various ontological conclusions from the premise that a given scientific explanation best explains some phenomenon. This chapter stresses the importance of thinking carefully about the nature of explanation (...) in connection with evaluating realists’ appeals to explanatory reasoning and inference to the best explanation. (shrink)

Ricoeur, Culture, and Recognition: A Hermeneutic of Cultural Subjectivity presents Ricoeur’s work from the beginning to its end in form of a cultural theory and proposes a cultural hermeneutic that clarifies the cultural facilitation in a person’s process of attaining a sense of being a human. This exploration of human being as profoundly formed and influenced by the cultural condition also enables a new understanding of intercultural questions by revealing the common human condition that the various cultures manifest.

Based on the double character of “as if,” it is argued in this paper that “the surplus of meaning” turns out to be “the surplus of being,” which reveals a human being who interprets his or her own being and also acknowledges this being as be-ing at the same time. In this article, 1) the notion of “as if” is retrieved from Ricoeur’s early work in relation to the “poetics of being” aspired to by him. This leads us to 2) (...) examine the relation between the “semantic surplus” and the “becoming of being.” 3) Addressing the problem of metaphorical reference, the key philosophical problem of poetics, is, therefore, inevitable. Only after this analysis will we 4) be able to consider whether there is a kind of “poetics of being” in the work of Paul Ricoeur. (shrink)

Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the The Routledge handbook of Scientific Realism covers the following central topics: the historical development of the realist stance; core issues and positions of classic debate; perspectives on contemporary debates and the realism debate in disciplinary context.

Editorial introduction to the Special Issue by Juha Himanka, guest editor.

We study the expressive power of open formulas of dependence logic introduced in Väänänen [Dependence logic (Vol. 70 of London Mathematical Society Student Texts), 2007]. In particular, we answer a question raised by Wilfrid Hodges: how to characterize the sets of teams definable by means of identity only in dependence logic, or equivalently in independence friendly logic.

We demonstrate how real progress can be made in the debate surrounding the enhanced indispensability argument. Drawing on a counterfactual theory of explanation, well-motivated independently of the debate, we provide a novel analysis of ‘explanatory generality’ and how mathematics is involved in its procurement. On our analysis, mathematics’ sole explanatory contribution to the procurement of explanatory generality is to make counterfactual information about physical dependencies easier to grasp and reason with for creatures like us. This gives precise content to key (...) intuitions traded in the debate, regarding mathematics’ procurement of explanatory generality, and adjudicates unambiguously in favour of the nominalist, at least as far as explanatory generality is concerned. (shrink)

The article contributes to the academic discussion on Paulo Freire’s pedagogical thinking as a basis for reinventing contemporary non-formal education. In Finland, Freire’s transformational/liberatory theory of adult learning was applied as a framework for developing an adult educational model called Life Skills for All. The pilot project’s case studies were carried out with different groups of people during the model’s development phase. We describe these cases and discuss what can be learned from them for offering basic and life skills education (...) for adult groups at risk of social disenfranchisement. Our case study analysis highlights some new practices and challenges based on the model’s different applications. We argue that even for basic capacity building of employment skills, it is essential to develop a non-instrumental, holistic, and societal educational approach. Elements for such an approach can be derived from both the Nordic and Freirean traditions of adult education. Also, we suggest that the Life Skills for All model benefits learners’ agency and empowerment by putting the learner at the center, combining the learning of different basic skills, and emphasizing the central role of the local community in participants’ learning activities. (shrink)

Climate change conspiracy theories raise many questions. Some of the questions are philosophical in nature. They include issues such as how to define “conspiracy theory” (a conceptual question), what the ethical status of conspiracy theorizing is (a moral question), and how decision-makers should deal with climate change conspiracy theories (a practical question). One way to define “climate change conspiracy theory” is to say that they are explanations that (1) refer to conspiracies, (2) are not in line with more or less (...) unanimous views of the climate scientists, and (3) offer clearly insufficient evidence in support of the alleged conspiracies: Relevant experts find the evidence so bad that the theories are not considered even as competing explanations. Climate change conspiracy theories are ethically problematic. The theories tend to reduce individual persons’ commitment to cut down their carbon footprint. More generally, conspiracy theories undermine trust toward epistemic authorities and social institutions generally. There is no agreement on what the right policy toward climate change conspiracy theories would be, but there are many options. Increasing social trust is among them. (shrink)

A key question in understanding visual awareness is whether any single cortical area is indispensable. In a transcranial magnetic stimulation experiment, we show that observers' awareness of activity in extrastriate area VS depends on the amount of activity in striate cortex (Vl). From the timing and pattern of effects, we infer that back-projections from extrastriate cortex influence information content in Vl, but it is Vl that determines whether that information reaches awareness.

Freethinking seems to be desirable because the human being is seen as an independently thinking being. However, as is well known, freethinking should not be taken for granted: ideological indoctrination, manipulation and propaganda, inter alia, are versatile tools for rulers and, in consequence, regularly repeated phenomena. One of the most drastic intellectual turning points in history occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the incontestable religious world view of European civilization changed along with early modern science and the Age (...) of Enlightenment. Although freethinking and religion do not have to be thought of as opposed, the period in question includes instances of complex and delicate phenomena, which in this article are termed intellectual purism and socio-intellectual control. The discussion includes how five thinkers operated in a restrictive politico-religio-theological framework and how they manifest religious deviance. (shrink)

Quantum theory explains a hugely diverse array of phenomena in the history of science. But how can the world be the way quantum theory says it is? Fifteen expert scholars consider what the world is like according to quantum physics in this volume and offer illuminating new perspectives on fundamental debates that span physics and philosophy.

In this article, the authors investigate the applicability and usefulness of three alternative perspectives on corporate issues management: issue life cycle theory, legitimacy theory, and stakeholder theory. Each perspective makes certain as- sumptions about the nature of issues management activities and certain general predictions about corporate social responsiveness. The authors test the relative applicability of the three theories through a case study of the issues management activities of four large forestry companies in Finland and Canada. The authors conclude that all (...) three perspectives have value but differ in the level of analysis and time frame to which they apply. (shrink)

ABSTRACTKeeping an eye on Ricoeur’s philosophical anthropology in particular, this essay maps out Ricoeur’s explicit references to Kierkegaard in the corpus of his major works. Even though many of...

This article contributes to research on the regulation of technological risks in the form of a case study of the Baltic Sea ferry traffic. The analysis suggests that the social systemic features of an industry heavily influence the relationship between technological failures and risk regulation. The study augments recent work on how regulations affect the handling of technological risks and how failures influence regulatory arrangements. These issues have already been studied in the context of aviation, auto, chemical, nuclear power, and (...) railway industries, but not in shipping. As an extension to previous literature, the authors also explore how different regulatory organizations in this industry act in relation to risks and how they influence each other in risk regulation activities. The study highlights the indirect relationships between technological failures and risk regulation arrangements. It also underlines the influence of the involved actors on the regulatory responses to technological failures. (shrink)

This chapter defends a (minimal) realist conception of progress in scientific understanding in the face of the ubiquitous plurality of perspectives in science. The argument turns on the counterfactual-dependence framework of explanation and understanding, which is illustrated and evidenced with reference to different explanations of the rainbow.

I offer a meta-level analysis of realist arguments for the reliability of ampliative reasoning about the unobservable. We can distinguish form-driven and content-driven arguments for realism: form-driven arguments appeal to the form of inductive inferences, whilst content-driven arguments appeal to their specific content. After regimenting the realism debate in these terms, I will argue that the content-driven arguments are preferable. Along the way I will discuss how my analysis relates to John Norton’s recent, more general thesis that the grounds for (...) licit induction are always material. (shrink)

I explore a challenge that idealisations pose to scientific realism and argue that the realist can best accommodate idealisations by capitalising on certain modal features of idealised models that are underwritten by laws of nature.

The literature on the indispensability argument for mathematical realism often refers to the ‘indispensable explanatory role’ of mathematics. I argue that we should examine the notion of explanatory indispensability from the point of view of specific conceptions of scientific explanation. The reason is that explanatory indispensability in and of itself turns out to be insufficient for justifying the ontological conclusions at stake. To show this I introduce a distinction between different kinds of explanatory roles—some ‘thick’ and ontologically committing, others ‘thin’ (...) and ontologically peripheral—and examine this distinction in relation to some notable ‘ontic’ accounts of explanation. I also discuss the issue in the broader context of other ‘explanationist’ realist arguments. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations was the breakthrough of phenomenology. What made it a breakthrough was the new way of explicating truth or evidence as self-givenness or adequacy. Husserl did however also have another interpretation of truth: evidence as indubitability or certainty of apodicticity. Originally Husserl thought that apodicticity increases the evidence of something already adequately given. Yet, in the first Cartesian Meditation Husserl differentiates the two modes of evidence. In this article the way to this split up of evidence is (...) elaborated with the help of some recent publications in Husserliana. It is also suggested that the fact that Husserl has two separate views on truth is one reason for the dispersed state of Husserl-research. This article argues that Husserl's early view on evidence adequacy is more original and interesting. The real philosophical challenge, however, is to be able to join the two modes of evidence under one strenge Wissenschaft. (shrink)

This article asks whether a country that suffers from serious environmental problems caused by another country could have a just cause for a defensive war? Danish philosopher Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen has argued that under certain conditions extreme poverty may give a just cause for a country to defensive war, if that poverty is caused by other countries. This raises the question whether the victims of environmental damages could also have a similar right to self-defense. Although the article concerns justice of war, (...) we will concentrate only on the issue of what can be just causes of war, instead of evaluating the entire justification of war. This is to say that we will limit our discussion to the question concerning just cause and leave aside more general questions concerning justness and moral permissibility of war. Our aim is to list the questions that must be made and settled if defensive war in the case of serious environmental problems is said to have (or not to have) a just cause. We will argue that there are three questions that are most important in this context. They are the question concerning liability, the question of collective responsibility, and the question whether environmental harms may create a “sufficient reason” for raising a war. (shrink)

Dependence logic, introduced in Väänänen [11], cannot be axiomatized. However, first-order consequences of dependence logic sentences can be axiomatized, and this is what we shall do in this paper. We give an explicit axiomatization and prove the respective Completeness Theorem.

I examine the epistemological debate on scientific realism in the context of quantum physics, focusing on the empirical underdetermin- ation of different formulations and interpretations of QM. I will argue that much of the interpretational, metaphysical work on QM tran- scends the kinds of realist commitments that are well-motivated in the light of the history of science. I sketch a way of demarcating empirically well-confirmed aspects of QM from speculative quantum metaphysics in a way that coheres with anti-realist evidence from (...) the history of science. The minimal realist attitude sketched withholds realist com- mitment to what quantum state |Ψ⟩ represents. I argue that such commitment is not required for fulfilling the ultimate realist motiva- tion: accounting for the empirical success of quantum mechanics in a way that is in tune with a broader understanding of how theoretical science progresses and latches onto reality. (shrink)

The Enhanced Indispensability Argument (Baker [ 2009 ]) exemplifies the new wave of the indispensability argument for mathematical Platonism. The new wave capitalizes on mathematics' role in scientific explanations. I will criticize some analyses of mathematics' explanatory function. In turn, I will emphasize the representational role of mathematics, and argue that the debate would significantly benefit from acknowledging this alternative viewpoint to mathematics' contribution to scientific explanations and knowledge.

We reassess Woodward’s counterfactual account of explanation in relation to regularity explananda. Woodward presents an account of causal explanation. We argue, by using an explanation of Kleiber’s law to illustrate, that the account can also cover some noncausal explanations. This leads to a tension between the two key aspects of Woodward’s account: the counterfactual aspect and the causal aspect. We explore this tension and make a case for jettisoning the causal aspect as constitutive of explanatory power in connection with regularity (...) explananda. (shrink)

We develop the general outlines of an evolutionary biodiversity policy that is consistent with the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce and the institutional economics of John R. Commons. Our model is applied to recent experiences with biodiversity policy in Finland, especially a local policy initiative: Natural Values Trading. The purpose of this experiment was to explore how a voluntary, fixed-term, payment- and incentive-based scheme for biodiversity protection might perform. As a result of the experiment, the principles of the scheme have (...) become a formalised part of Finnish forest biodiversity law and policy. In this paper we analyse the evolution of this particular institutional arrangement by applying Peircean semiosis and the negotiational psychology of Commons. A central component of our approach will be to explicate the role and significance of sign processes in: how and why the need for new policy instruments emerges; how those policies are developed, designed and tested; and how decisions about those new instruments are made. We urge that the sign process should play a greater role in how scholars understand the evolution of biodiversity policy. Semiosis is 'good to think with'. (shrink)

The idea of this paper is to approach linear orderings as generalized ordinals and to study how they are made from their initial segments. First we look at how the equality of two linear orderings can be expressed in terms of equality of their initial segments. Then we shall use similar methods to define functions by recursion with respect to the initial segment relation. Our method is based on the use of a game where smaller and smaller initial segments of (...) linear orderings are considered. The length of the game is assumed to exceed that of the descending sequences of elements of the linear orderings considered. By use of such game-theoretical methods we can for example extend the recursive definitions of the operations of sum, product and exponentiation of ordinals in a unique and natural way for arbitrary linear orderings. Extensions coming from direct limits do not satisfy our game-theoretic requirements in general. We also show how our recursive definitions allow very simple constructions for fixed points of functions, giving rise to certain interesting linear orderings. (shrink)

The topic of the paper is the justness of the so-called global redistributive wars — wars whose prime purpose would be the correction of global economic and power structures that are said to cause suffering in poor countries. My aim is to comment on Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen’s argument concerning the implications of Thomas Pogge’s theory of global poverty. Pogge has argued that affluent coun-tries uphold global institutional structures that have a significant causal role in leading to the poverty-related deaths of millions (...) of peo-ple who live in poor countries. According to Pogge, rich countries harm the citizens of poor countries. The argument by Lippert-Rasmussen is important, as it suggests that Pogge’s theory of the causes of global poverty, if correct, has a strange implication, namely, the implication that poor countries are or at least could be entitled to a military attack against rich countries. In this paper I will try to show that Lippert-Rasmussen’s argument is not fully compelling, and I will argue that it is not clear whether a global redistributive war would meet the principle of just cause. (The paper is here: http://www.kantiana.ru/upload/iblock/0ff/2014_12_01_raikka.pdf). (shrink)

I examine explanations’ realist commitments in relation to dynamical systems theory. First I rebut an ‘explanatory indispensability argument’ for mathematical realism from the explanatory power of phase spaces (Lyon and Colyvan 2007). Then I critically consider a possible way of strengthening the indispensability argument by reference to attractors in dynamical systems theory. The take-home message is that understanding of the modal character of explanations (in dynamical systems theory) can undermine platonist arguments from explanatory indispensability.

A commitment to receive input from stakeholders is often obligatory in the crafting of environmental policies. This requirement is presumed to satisfy certain conditions of democracy. The need for stakeholder input is quite intuitive; public decision makers want to know what their constituents—or at least a limited number of them—think about certain issues. At the same time, individuals, groups, communities, and various interest groups want to learn about the plans that authoritative agencies have concerning those things that affect their daily (...) lives. In light of this widespread commitment to stakeholder input, it is surprising that little attention has been paid to the necessary conditions under which .. (shrink)

Fernando Floresin ja Terry Winogradin Understanding Computers and Cognition poikkeaa perinteisistä ohjelmoinnin lähtökohtien pohdinnoista. Teoksessa asetetaan syrjään lähtökohta, jota tekijät kutsuvat rationalistiseksi perinteeksi, ja syvennytään sen sijaan fenomenologiaan. Keskeinen tekijä tässä siirtymässä on representaationhypoteesin hylkääminen. Kirjoittajat nojaavat lähinnä Martin Heideggerin, Hans-Georg Gadamerin ja Humberto Maturanan tuotantoon, mutta tässä artikkelissa lähden liikkeelle Edmund Husserlin fenomenologisesta reduktiosta. Tulkitsen Floresin suorittaneen reduktion hänen päätyessään hylkäämään representaatiot.