Vlak vóór zijn terechtstelling gaf Sokrates aan zijn leerling Krito de opdracht 'nog een haan te offeren aan Asklepios', de god van de gezondheid. Niet omdat hij door zijn dood van het leven genezen zou zijn, maar omdat een leven in onwaarheid erger zou zijn dan de dood. Maar wat betekent leven in waarheid concreet? Op basis van zijn eigen ervaringen en een intense lectuur van de filosofische klassieken tracht Ludo Abicht die vraag te beantwoorden. Het atheïsme in dit (...) boek is de kinderziekte van het antiklerikalisme ontgroeid; het rationalisme houdt rekening met de realiteit van gevoelens en passies. (shrink)

The role of evolutionary theory at the origin of life is an extensively debated topic. The origin and early development of life is usually separated into a prebiotic phase and a protocellular phase, ultimately leading to the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Most likely, the Last Universal Common Ancestor was subject to Darwinian evolution, but the question remains to what extent Darwinian evolution applies to the prebiotic and protocellular phases. In this review, we reflect on the current status of evolutionary theory (...) in origins of life research by bringing together philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, and empirical research in the origins field. We explore the various ways in which evolutionary theory has been extended beyond biology; we look at how these extensions apply to the prebiotic development of (proto)metabolism; and we investigate how the terminology from evolutionary theory is currently being employed in state-of-the-art origins of life research. In doing so, we identify some of the current obstacles to an evolutionary account of the origins of life, as well as open up new avenues of research. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to describe the variations in literacy achievement among native and non-native upper primary school children (grades three to six) in the Netherlands. Various measures of word decoding, reading literacy and writing skill were collected from 1091 native Dutch children, 753 children with a former Dutch colonial background and 580 children with a Mediterranean background. The results showed the non-native children to lag behind their native peers on all of the tasks, although the differences on (...) the decoding and writing tasks were fairly small. The Mediterranean children scored significantly lower than the ex-colonial children on all of the reading literacy tasks but equally high on the decoding and writing tasks. For both the native and non-native children, the same underlying factor structure was found to characterise their literacy achievement. Grade and ethnic status consistently predicted the factor scores for Word Decoding, Reading Literacy and Text Writing. In addition, socio-economic status (SES) predicted Reading Literacy and the variable sex predicted Writing Skills. (shrink)

Politiek-filosofisch pleidooi voor een democratie gedragen door de gewone man.

The ‘right to be forgotten’ has been labelled censorship and disastrous for the freedom of expression. In this paper, we explain that effecting the ‘right to be forgotten’ with regard to search results is ‘censorship’ at the level of information retrieval. We however claim it is the least heavy yet most effective means to get the minimum amount of censorship overall, while enabling people to evolve beyond their past opinions. We argue that applying the ‘right to be forgotten’ to search (...) results is not a question of just ‘censoring’ search engines, but that seen from a broader perspective we—as society—will inevitably have to deal with developments in information technologies and choose between three types of ‘censorship’: censorship of original sources, that is on the level of information storage; censorship on the level of the initial encoding of that information or censorship on the level of information retrieval. These three levels at which ‘censorship’ can take place are the three basic elements of the memory process; whether biological, technological or hybrid with the use of mnemonic technologies. Applying censorship as a means of ‘forgetting’ in the collective hybrid memory of the Web enables us to counter—at least partially—the functioning of the Web as a ‘Panopticon over Time’. (shrink)

THE NATURE OF THINKING HAS PERSISTED in eluding attempts at definition. This, I will suggest, is because thinking is heterogeneous: there is no one thing that is called thinking. In this paper, I will describe five forms of thinking that are basic, in the sense that they are episodes of thinking that do not have as parts other episodes of thinking. My aim is not to suggest that every process or activity of thinking can be analyzed, without remainder, as a (...) compound of these five basic forms of thinking, plus perhaps a few other ones. The reason for turning to episodes of thinking that are not composed of further episodes of thinking is to show that thinking is heterogeneous in a nontrivial sense. Although all five basic forms of thinking are episodes that are in some sense "about" or "directed toward" something, it will become clear that beyond this property of intentionality they do not share a single further property. (shrink)

Discussions on the status of definitions of life have long been dominated by a position known as definitional pessimism. Per the definitional pessimist, there is no point in trying to define life. This claim is defended in different ways, but one of the shared assumptions of all definitional pessimists is that our attempts to define life are attempts to provide a list of all necessary and sufficient conditions for something to count as alive. In other words, a definition of life (...) is a strict, descriptive definition. Against this, several pragmatic alternatives have been put forward. On these pragmatic accounts, definitions of life are not strictly, but rather loosely descriptive. Their purpose is not to be true, but to be useful to scientists by guiding scientific practice. More recently, this position has come under attack for not being able to explain how our attempts to define life are connected to scientific progress within the biological sciences. Here, I argue to the contrary by showing how pragmatic definitions of life can be, and in fact are, conducive to scientific progress. Additionally, I show how the pragmatic account of definitions of life can be brought to bear upon our normative discussions involving definitions of life. (shrink)

Shawn Loht's ground-breaking Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience (2017) offers a detailed account of film experience as rooted in Martin Heidegger's existential structure of Dasein. Adapting Being and Time for a phenomenology of cinematic experience, Loht accurately describes how various existential structures of Dasein are “fostered” by the projected world of film: in Loht's account, being-in-the-world is extended in the film experience. Loht's project offers fertile ground for developing the phenomenological basis of film experience. Yet, (...) Loht anchors this account of film experience primarily in Heidegger's early philosophy; this leaves his adaptation not without challenges. First, if the structure of film experience is mapped too closely onto the notion of Dasein projecting itself into the filmworld, this theory presents the risk of taking the early Heidegger's “hands-on” approach too literally. Moreover, in its concern for Dasein's extensions into the world of film, Phenomenology of Film says little about the distinctly mediated character of filmworlds; this leaves ambiguous where the film experience effectively takes place. (shrink)

Inleidend overzicht van de hoofdstromingen van de westerse filosofie van de presocratici tot heden.

Inleiding in geschiedenis en oogmerk van de wijsgerige ethiek.

The core questions of philosophy about the origin of the world and people, the distinction between good and evil, and the meaning of life - these questions keep us all busy. In this introduction to philosophy, these three questions lead our journey. You want to understand the world and man. Then you try to acquire an outlook on the proper course of action. Perhaps you especially hope to gain insight into the meaning of your own life. And our society, as (...) well, repeatedly collides with questions of its economic, social, and ecological limits. Again and again, philosophy is the necessary condition for finding answers in a rational manner to the demands for in-sight, outlook, and the search for meaning. This is a fascinating story of more than 2,500 years of thought, where the reader might feel inspired to add his or her own responses to the most important personal and social questions. But also to ask new questions - the point of philosophy. (shrink)