El presente escrito tiene dos propósitos. En primer lugar, busca recapitular algunos temas abordados en los últimos años por el filósofo alemán Jürgen Habermas, como representante del liberalismo: a) la noción de sociedad post-secular, sus condiciones y desafíos; b) la tolerancia y el multiculturalismo; y c) la traducción como actividad mediadora que remedie la dificultad de comprensión entre el pensamiento secular de Occidente y las diferentes cosmovisiones religiosas tradicionales, de variadas procedencias. En segundo lugar, pretende ampliar el panorama de Habermas (...) con el apoyo de dos autores provenientes de otras tradiciones de pensamiento, y que permiten complementar y matizar algunas de las propuestas habermasianas: Michael Walzer, como representante del comunitarismo, y Peter Lamborn Wilson, alias Hakim Bey, como representante del postanarquismo. Esto para construir las bases de una forma más radical de pensar el fenómeno del pluralismo. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to provide a philosophical conceptual framework to understand the theoretical roots and political implications of the interpretations of Plato’s work in Jaeger’s Third Humanism and Krieck’s völkisch-racist pedagogy and anthropology. This article will seek to characterize, as figures of localitas, their conceptions of the individual, community, corporeality, identity, and the State that both authors developed departing from Platonic political philosophy. My main hypothesis is that Jaeger’s and Krieck’s interpretations of Platonic paideía shared several core-elements (...) based on a modern conception of State sovereignty and human will, whose fundamental ground is the subjectivist-technical metaphysics. The “production” of a human type (spiritual and/or racial) and a unitary State political community appears in both authors mediated by a theory of political education, that I define as «State typohumanism», that sought its sustenance in Plato’s political philosophy, mainly by means of a distorted understanding of the notions of týpos and ē̂thos, and that, I argue, played a key role in the intellectual legitimization of völkisch-racism. This would be broadly translated into a programmatic and literal understanding of the Platonic Republic which assumes that the inherent function of any State is to produce subjectivities based on national identities grounded on homogeneous characteristics. In these varied characterizations similar appropriations of humanitas have been expressed both in Jaeger and in Krieck. (shrink)

In this paper we prove that the free algebras in a subvariety equation image of the variety equation image of semi-Heyting algebras are directly decomposable if and only if equation image satisfies the Stone identity.

In this paper, we examine Maduabuchi Dukor’s article titled “Divination: A Science or An Art?”, where he endeavours to demonstrate the character and nature of African science as well as explores the issue whether some practices in Africa can be accorded a scientific status. These tasks to explore and demonstrate the scientific nature of African practices led Maduabuchi Dukor to focus on divination as his working example; and specifically identified Ifa divination. In sum, Maduabuchi Dukor argues that African (Ifa) divination (...) is or can be made a science through formalization and quantification. The main thrust of his argument is that with the aid of formalization and quantification, divination as practiced in Africa can qualify as a science. Our contention as regards this exercise by Maduabuchi Dukor runs from the beginning of the article through to the end of it. That is, our critique of the article concerns some suppositions employed to build up the argument that supports the claim that (Ifa) divination is a scientific enterprise. In other words, the premises and the conclusion so provided, we argue, are full of contestations; and it is these contestations that we showcased in this paper. It is important to make it clear that our contention has nothing to do with the thinking of Maduabuchi Dukor that Ifa divination is a science or can be made to be so; rather, our contention is the suppositions that he deployed to articulate his thought. (shrink)

The rise of foundational dualism and the eclipse of the body -- "Body am I entirely, and nothing else": non-reductive materialism and the struggle against dualism -- Toward a materialist phenomenology of religion -- The phenomenology of embodiment and the study of religion -- Religious bodies as social artifacts -- Holding social constructionism in check: the recovery of the active, lived body -- A cultural neurophenomenology of religion: enter the embodied mind -- The eclipse of practice: textualism at large -- (...) "Ceci n'est pas un texte": from textualism to practice -- Expanding the conversation on emplaced religion -- Mobility, networks, and ecology. (shrink)

On 27 September 1943, Hans-Georg Gadamer published a brief but significant article in the conservative newspaper Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten und Handels-Zeitung, entitled ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf. Über den Ruf und Beruf der Wissenschaft in unserer Zeit’ (Science as Vocation: On the Calling and Profession of Science in Our Time). The article, which addressed the problem of the value and status of science and philosophy in the midst of the Second World War, was never reprinted in Gadamer’s work, neither in the ten (...) volumes of his collected writings published by Mohr Siebeck, nor separately in books or journals. I offer here a critical introduction to the context and main contents of this text due to its philosophical, political, and historical relevance. In particular, the introduction analyses Gadamer’s confrontation with his own time through explicit and implicit references to Max Weber’s 1917 lecture, ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf’ (Science as Vocation), and traces echoes in Gadamer’s later works that bear on contemporary challenges. Following that, I present the first English translation of Gadamer’s original German text. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the study of some subvarieties of the variety Q of Q-Heyting algebras, that is, Heyting algebras with a quantifier. In particular, a deeper investigation is carried out in the variety Q subscript 3 of three-valued Q-Heyting algebras to show that the structure of the lattice of subvarieties of Q is far more complicated that the lattice of subvarieties of Heyting algebras. We determine the simple and subdirectly irreducible algebras in Q subscript 3 and we construct (...) the lattice of subvarieties lambda (Q subscript 3) of the variety Q subscript 3. (shrink)

This article aims to readdress Hans-Georg Gadamer's first encounter with Plato's philosophy through his earlier academic journey, the direct and indirect influence exerted by his celebrated mentors at the University of Marburg, and his early publications. For this, I will resort not only to his intellectual biography, but also to neglected texts of Gadamer, such as his 1922 doctoral thesis, reviews and articles published between 1924 and 1928, correspondence, both edited and unpublished, philosophical interviews, as well as archive footage. I (...) will seek to determine the role of his early mentors around Plato’s interpretation through the analysis of the evolution of Gadamer's theoretical positions in order to elucidate his critical reassessments. In the conclusions, I will make an attempt to deepen on Gadamer's process of reception, rupture and emancipation around the then-dominant interpretations of Marburg neo-Kantianism, especially on the link between the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, as well as the transformative character of Gadamer’s approach to the phenomenology of Scheler and Heidegger, and his incursion into classical philology. (shrink)

La pena natural es una situación paradójica que se puede presentar cuando el autor de un delito, al cometerlo o a causa de éste, ha sufrido un daño igual o mayor al que padecería si el juez de la causa le aplicara la pena estatal prevista para tal conducta. Se da con frecuencia al juzgar ciertos accidentes viales, cuando el acusado ya carga el peso de ser quien, por imprudencia, mató a su pareja o familiar cercano, por ejemplo. Pero ¿en (...) qué situaciones y cómo cabe recurrir a la pena natural? En esta investigación, Manuel Serrano explora las diversas aristas y posturas en pugna que atraviesan este tema, donde se cruzan cuestiones como la idea de la “culpa compensada”, la prohibición de aplicar castigo doble por un mismo hecho (non bis in idem) y la clemencia judicial. El autor desmonta la estructura conceptual de la pena natural, estudia jurisprudencia argentina y recorre producciones teóricas de juristas que se han preocupado por este asunto complejo, profundo y poco abordado del derecho penal. (shrink)

This paper discusses the logical space of alternative conceptual engineering projects, with a specific focus on (1) the processes, (2) the targets and goals, and (3) the methods of such projects. We present an overview of how these three aspects interact in the contemporary literature and discuss those alternative projects that have yet to be explored based on our suggested typology. We show how choices about each element in a conceptual engineering project constrain the possibilities for the others, thereby giving (...) rise to distinct groupings of possible projects under the banner of conceptual engineering. We conclude with a critical reflection on the potential ethical issues that arise as a result of effectively putting conceptual engineering into practice. (shrink)

The variety O2 of double Ockham algebras consists of the algebras (A ∨, ∧, f,g 0,1) of type (2,2,1,1,0,0) where (A; ∨, ∧,f, 0,1) and (A; ∨, ∧,g 0,1) are Ockham algebras. In [16], M. Sequeira introduced several subvarieties of O2. In this paper we give a construction of free double Ockham algebras on a partially ordered set. We also describe free objects for the subvarieties of O2 considered in [16].

A satisfactory construal of the subject matter of free will debates must allow for disagreements along two axes. First, it must allow for the possibility of higher order disagreements, or disagreements about what concepts, phenomena, or practices an account of free will is supposed to capture or explain. Second, it must allow for the fact of variation in the extent to which theories are bound by antecedent pre-philosophical thought, talk, and practices. A promising way of accommodating these two thoughts is (...) to treat free will in broadly functionalist terms. On the account proposed here, free will is a power that makes sense of everyday responsibility practices. This construal is not widely shared, but it allows for the possibility that we might have false beliefs about the nature of free will, while still making sense of central philosophical debates about free will. (shrink)

El presente artículo está dedicado al trabajo de Hans-Georg Gadamer titulado “Prometeo y Pandora”, publicado originalmente en español en 1949 en el volumen Goethe. 1749 - 28 de agosto – 1949, editado por la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Cuyo, Argentina. En primer lugar, se ofrece una introducción en la que se presenta el contexto original histórico-intelectual de su edición, traducción y publicación, los antecedentes filosóficos del texto dentro de la obra de Gadamer (conferencias y artículos (...) previos sobre el tema), una presentación breve de las fuentes y de los temas que trata el texto, así como una serie de aclaraciones sobre las correcciones que se realizaron para esta edición crítica. En segundo lugar, se ofrece una nueva edición de “Prometeo y Pandora”. Este ensayo es uno de los dos primeros trabajos de Gadamer que fueron traducidos al castellano y, a su vez, una de las primeras traducciones de las producciones de Gadamer a una lengua extranjera. //--// The following investigation focuses on the article of Hans-Georg Gadamer entitled “Prometheus and Pandora”, originally published in Spanish in 1949, in the book: "Goethe. 1749 – 28th August – 1949", edited by the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Cuyo, Argentina. Firstly, an introduction is offered in which is presented the original historical-intellectual context of its edition, translation and publication, the philosophical background of the text within Gadamer’s work (conferences and previous articles on the subject), a brief description of the sources and topics encompassed in the text, as well as a series of clarifications on the corrections made for the current critical edition. This essay is one of the first two works by Gadamer that were translated into Spanish and, in turn, one of the first translations of Gadamer's productions into a foreign language. (shrink)

Firms engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) because they consider that some kind of competitive advantage accrues to them. We contend that resource-based perspectives (RBP) are useful to understand why firms engage in CSR activities and disclosure. From a resource-based perspective CSR is seen as providing internal or external benefits, or both. Investments in socially responsible activities may have internal benefits by helping a firm to develop new resources and capabilities which are related namely to know-how and corporate culture. In (...) effect, investing in social responsibility activities and disclosure has important consequences on the creation or depletion of fundamental intangible resources, namely those associated with employees. The external benefits of CSR are related to its effect on corporate reputation. Corporate reputation can be understood as a fundamental intangible resource which can be created or depleted as a consequence of the decisions to engage or not in social responsibility activities and disclosure. Firms with good social responsibility reputation may improve relations with external actors. They may also attract better employees or increase current employees’ motivation, morale, commitment and loyalty to the firm. This article contributes to the understanding of why CSR may be seen as having strategic value for firms and how RBP can be used in such endeavour. (shrink)

En 1942 Gadamer publicó su ensayo Platos Staat der Erziehung. En este artículo interrogará la mutua relación entre pólis y psyché, así como entre política y filosofía en el diálogo República de Platón. El presente texto se propone exponer de modo crítico el análisis que el autor realizó, en el ensayo mencionado, de la dikaiosýne entendida como “hacer propio” en los diálogos platónicos, así como el rango político de la educación filosófica. Para ello se pondrá énfasis en el papel que (...) desempeñan en su elaboración las nociones de andreía y sophrosýne. Finalmente, en las conclusiones se mostrará cómo en la lectura de Gadamer la educación filosófica de los guardianes y de los líderes se inscribe en una interpretación inescindible de una caracterización utópica de la kallípolis, que problematiza la cuestión del poder en el pensamiento platónico. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering means to provide a method to assess and improve our concepts working as cognitive devices. But conceptual engineering still lacks an account of what concepts are (as cognitive devices) and of what engineering is (in the case of cognition). And without such prior understanding of its subject matter, or so it is claimed here, conceptual engineering is bound to remain useless, merely operating as a piecemeal approach, with no overall grip on its target domain. The purpose of this (...) programmatic paper is to overcome this knowledge gap by providing some guidelines for developing the theories of concepts and of cognition that will ground the systematic unified framework needed to effectively implement conceptual engineering as a widely applicable method for the cognitive optimization of our conceptual devices. (shrink)

The Luck Problem has existed in one form or another since David Hume, at least. It is perhaps as old as Stoic objections to the Epicurean swerve. Although the general issue admits of different formulations with subtly different emphases, the characterization of it that will serve as my target focuses on “cross-worlds” luck, a kind of luck that arises when the decision-making of agents is indeterministic.

This article queries the very question of and that is ‘gender’, from the vantage of transgender studies. In other words, it moves through Wiegman's question of the desires that propel us and asks what desires propel a feeling of gender's necessity, positing the possibility of relinquishing gender as a vector with the same kind of footing it currently has. In short, the question that is asked is gender itself, and the question is asked from a trans studies that excavates the (...) possibilities of radicality. (shrink)

Investigating the structural transformation of the public sphere should reckon with the secret and its modes of organization. The expansion of secrecy effected by the infrastructures, platforms, and applications of media technology is constitutive for the emergence and transformation of ‘digital publics’. Offering a rereading of Habermas’s Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere that is attuned to the organizational principle of secrecy, this paper discusses current notions of mediated publics in juxtaposition with the redoubling of media-technological and organizational secrecy at (...) work in platform society. How are illegibility, opacity and unavailability organized? Instead of assuming accountability, publicity and transparency as epistemological a priori, investigating the transformation of the public sphere would benefit from adopting epistemes of secrecy and opacity. (shrink)

El presente artículo se centra en el análisis de la lectura de la filosofía política platónica que Hans-Georg Gadamer realiza en su conferencia Plato und die Dichter (1934). Se planteará como hipótesis propia que, en los diálogos platónicos, tanto el filosofar como el poetizar habilitan el acceso a la comprensión del carácter sagrado de la justicia, la dimensión política de la legalidad de la musa poética y la percepción de lo sagrado como necesidad humana que permanece encubierta al modo de (...) lo innecesario. Por otro lado, sobre el final se prestará atención al concepto de phrónēsis en relación a la facultad humana del juicio y como instrumento necesario para la realización práctica del devenir del ser político del hombre en el Estado. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Decade of Teaching Classics in a Massachusetts Prison CHARLES ROWAN BEYE From 1972 until 1982, I volunteered as a teacher in a degree-granting program of liberal arts at the college level in Norfolk State Prison, a medium security prison in Walpole, Massachusetts. Medium security means that the men were not confined to their cells except when there were routine security checks, such as taking attendance which occurred several (...) times a day, or at night when there was a lights-out policy, or whenever the surveillance system of the prison went on alarm. Other than that, the men could work in various shops, or in the prison garden, or, among other things, they could take classes. The men who were incarcerated at Norfolk had been determined not to pose too great a threat to the other inmates, nor to be liable to try to break out in escape attempts that would damage others; the more intractable men were in the maximum security prison down the road, confined to their cells. There had always been shop classes or other kinds of instruction which would train the men into skilled manual labor. I taught in a program that was radically different. It was the dream of an extraordinary woman named Elizabeth Barker who was an old fashioned lefty, a woman of the old money Brahmin class of Boston society, who like so many of her kind had no money any longer, the only indication of her social status being a marbles-in-the-mouth accent, an indifference to money, clothing styles, social distinction, and an arrogance that made her assume that the rest of the world hung on her every word. She was the soul of kindness and generosity, one of the few persons I have met who deserved the accolade of a “true Christian,” although she was insisarion 26.3 winter 2019 tent upon proclaiming her militant atheism. She was also a tremendous bore. I once had the misfortune to drive her back from the prison to Boston. Talking incessantly, in a kind of monotone, relentlessly insisting upon a position that I had agreed with when we started the drive, it was all I could do after a half hour to keep from reaching over, opening the door, and pushing her out. But, God love her, she performed a miracle at Norfolk. Mrs. Barker subscribed to a belief that I soon adopted once I started teaching in her program which was that all people, apart from outright psychopaths, are redeemable, that a teaching relationship offers compassion, instruction, and most of all, a belief in the student, that in itself redeems the student, in this case, the prisoner, from self-hatred, lack of esteem or purpose, and general despair. Conventionally, prisons are run on a mixture of punishment and rehabilitation. At the crudest level you have the concept of solitary confinement, then there is the idea of “at hard labor” where prisoners spend their days breaking rocks under supervision, or as in England at the turn of the century, spending the entire day walking endlessly up a revolving drum with stairs. The lightest so-called punishment is simply the fact of incarceration. The theory is that if you are confined to a prison for so many months, years, the horror of this endurance makes you into a better person because you have had time to realize that you don’t want this to happen again. Relatives of a criminal’s victims are often on hand at parole board hearings because they want the sentence to go on longer, for the prisoner to “suffer more.” Rehabilitation, on the other hand, usually involves teaching skills, on the most basic level, reading and writing, then woodworking, metal work, car repair, on the theory that many males commit crimes because they have no legitimate way to earn money in our economy. Mrs. Barker saw a higher kind of rehabilitation that led into her notion of redemption. The liberal arts, art, music, literature, philosophy, science were in her mind the nourishment of the soul without which no one can truly be said to live. The idea, as you can imag2 a decade of teaching classics in... (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. However, little has been written about how best to conceive of concepts for the purposes of conceptual engineering. In this paper, I aim to fill this foundational gap, proceeding in three main steps: First, I propose a methodological framework for evaluating the conduciveness of a given concept of concept for conceptual engineering. Then, I develop a typology that contrasts two competing concepts of concept that can be used in conceptual (...) engineering — namely, the philosophical and psychological ones. Finally, I evaluate these two concepts of concept using the proposed methodological framework and I show that, when it comes to making conceptual engineering an actionable method, the psychological concept of concept outclasses its philosophical counterpart on all counts. This provides a baseline from which the concept of concept can be further improved for the purposes of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

This essay considers how deployments of the acronym “LGBT” often obscure and flatten the specificity of the terms the letters reference. Also of concern here is how the “T” might be the more fundamental letter, as reactions to “LGBT identity” are indexed in gender transgression, to which the “T” refers. I argue for holding the trouble of the acronym in the “T” and that the trans underlies how “LGBT,” as a marker of subjectivity or violence, becomes legible. To carry this (...) out, the essay makes a parallel to how “LGBT” functions similarly to “people of color” as the terms obscure the fundamentality of the trans and the black, respectively; clarifies the distinction between queer and trans, and subsequently trans and transgender; and demonstrates how transphobic readings are integral to homophobic responses. (shrink)

English title: Gadamer's interpretation of the Aristotelian Protrepticus. -/- Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present and analyse the main hypotheses of Hans-Georg Gadamer in his 1928 essay Der aristotelische Protreptikos und die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtung der aristotelischen Ethik, emphasizing the Gadamerian reception of the notions of phrónēsis, hēdonḗ and, to a lesser extent, phýsis. It will be attempted to show that in this early work of Gadamer there is more than a methodological and interpretative debate regarding the Protrepticus (...) and the Aristotelian ethics. Lastly, the paper argues that it is possible to read in the main arguments of this early essay the first intellectual maturation of relevance of Gadamer, expressed in the form of a critical dialogue with his great masters (Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, Paul Friedländer), departing from the new interpretative possibilities that philology and phenomenology opened to his studies on the ethical-political philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The theoretical consequences of this early article would have both paved the way of Gadamer’s next theoretical interventions regarding Platonic political philosophy as well as for the future developments of philosophical hermeneutics. /// -/- Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es presentar y analizar las principales hipótesis de Hans-Georg Gadamer en su ensayo de 1928 Der aristotelische Protreptikos und die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtung der aristotelischen Ethik, poniendo énfasis en la recuperación gadameriana de las nociones de phrónēsis, hēdonḗ y, en menor medida, phýsis. Se intenta demostrar que en este trabajo temprano de Gadamer hay, en términos metodológicos e interpretativos, más que una discusión con Werner Jaeger con relación al Protréptico y a la ética aristotélica. Finalmente, este artículo sostiene que es posible leer en las principales argumentaciones del ensayo la primera maduración intelectual de relevancia de Gadamer, expresada en forma de diálogo crítico con sus grandes maestros (Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, Paul Friedländer), a partir de las nuevas posibilidades interpretativas que la filología y fenomenología le abrieron para el estudio de la filosofía ético-política de Platón y Aristóteles. Las consecuencias teóricas de este temprano artículo habrían signado tanto el camino de sus siguientes intervenciones teóricas en tono a la filosofía política platónica como también los futuros desarrollos de la hermenéutica filosófica. (shrink)

El objetivo general de este artículo es interrogar el lugar de la crítica a la idea de progreso en la filosofía de Walter Benjamin, argumentando que las raíces de su pensamiento político podrían encontrarse en el misticismo cabalista. La intención principal es determinar, siguiendo a Benjamin, algunas de las principales características de la creencia en el progreso como problema y su relación con una determinada normatividad histórica. Este recorrido permitirá elucidar la relación que, según el autor, mantendría una comprensión procesualista (...) y lineal de la historia con una actitud político-intelectual apoyada en el conformismo y la indiferencia. Por último, se propone considerar la original interpretación sobre la temporalidad que aparece en una vertiente del misticismo judío, el cabalismo de Isaac Luria de Safed, actualizada en forma heterodoxa por Benjamin, que permitiría comprender desde un nuevo punto de vista, conforme a la argumentación presentada, el vínculo temporal que supone la idea de tradición y rememoración en el materialismo histórico benjaminiano. (shrink)

Perhaps 20% of known animal species are haplodiploid: unfertilized haploid eggs developinto males and fertilized diploid eggs into females. Sex determination in such haplodiploid species does not rely on a difference in heteromorphic sex chromosome composition but the genetic basis has been elucidated in some hymenopteran insects (wasps, sawflies, ants, bees). In these species, the development into one sex or the others depends on an initial signal whether there is only one allele or two different alleles of a single gene, (...) thecomplementary sex determiner(csd), in the zygotic genome. The gene has been most‐recently identified in the honey bee and has been found to encode an arginine serine‐rich (SR) type protein. Heterozygosity generates an active protein that initiates female development while hemizygosity/homozygosity results in a non‐active CSD protein and default male development. I will discuss plausible models of how the molecular decision of male and female is made and implemented. Comparison to hierarchies of dipteran insects suggests that SR‐type protein has facilitated the differentiation of sex‐determining systems and hierarchies. BioEssays 26:1131–1139, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The article deals with the legal, political, philosophical and religious dimensions of Socrates’ trial and execution. It considers the issue in five separate aspects: 1) the validity of charging Socrates with impiety and corrupting the youth of the Athens; 2) the legal basis of the philosopher’s indictment; 3) the then manner of conducting a legal trial in the Athens; 4) the extent to which Socrates’ conviction can ultimately be characterized as unjust and — finally — 5) the cultural ramifications of (...) the philosopher’s trial and execution. (shrink)

Understanding what motivates employees is essential to the success of organizational objectives. Therefore, properly capturing and explaining the full range of such motivations are important. However, the classical and most popular theories describing employee motives have neglected, if not omitted entirely, the importance of the ethical and spiritual dimensions of motivation. This has led to a model of a person as self-interested, amoral, and non-spiritual. In this paper, we attempt to expose this omission and offer a more complete taxonomy of (...) motivations which include these dimensions. Although more work will need to be done to fully develop the ethical and spiritual dimensions of motivation, the expanded taxonomy will provide the foundations and serve as a guide for such further research. Furthermore, this new categorization of motivations brings out the full dimensions of being human, which promises to lead to improved management practices with regard to employees and foster greater human flourishing in the workplace. (shrink)

The debate surrounding ‘big tech’ and antitrust has dominated public policy discourses over the past few years in many parts of the world. Noteworthy is that several countries and regions, including China, the European Union, and the United States, have launched investigations into the allegedly anticompetitive and exclusionary business practices of companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google and their Chinese counterparts, Alibaba and Tencent. This paper builds on the renewed interest in the topic and discusses in detail – (...) and from an ordoliberal perspective – the key characteristics of the digital economy, the business conduct of tech platforms, and the corresponding antitrust concerns, as well as possible reform steps which could help to strengthen modern-day competition law and policy (and antitrust enforcement). (shrink)

Plural definite descriptions across many languages display two well-known properties. First, they can give rise to so-called non-maximal readings, in the sense that they ‘allow for exceptions’. Second, while they tend to have a quasi-universal quantificational force in affirmative sentences, they tend to be interpreted existentially in the scope of negation. Building on previous works, we offer a theory in which sentences containing plural definite expressions trigger a family of possible interpretations, and where general principles of language use account for (...) their interpretation in various contexts and syntactic environments. Our theory solves a number of problems that these previous works encounter, and has broader empirical coverage in that it offers a precise analysis for sentences that display complex interactions between plural definites, quantifiers and bound variables, as well as for cases involving non-distributive predicates. The resulting proposal is briefly compared with an alternative proposal by Križ, which has similar coverage but is based on a very different architecture and sometimes makes subtly different predictions. (shrink)

This book is conceived as an introductory text into the theory of syntactic and semantic information, and information flow.

Theoretical tools aimed at making explicit the injustices suffered by certain socially disadvantaged groups might end up serving purposes which were not foreseen when the tools were first introduced. Nothing is inherently wrong with a shift in the scope of a theoretical tool: the popularization of a concept opens up the possibility of its use for several strategic purposes. The thesis that we defend in this paper is that some public figures cultivate a public persona for whom the conditions of (...) the notion of testimonial injustice might be taken to apply, and this situation is exploited to their advantage, as a means to advance their political agendas. More specifically, they take advantage of this to generate situations of crossed disagreements, which in turn foster polarization. (shrink)

The paper presents a renewed Habermasian view on transnational multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) and assesses the institutional characteristics of the Equator Principles Association (EPA) from a deliberative democracy perspective. Habermas’ work has been widely adopted in the academic literature on the political responsibilities of (multinational) corporations (i.e., political corporate social responsibility), and also in assessing the democratic qualities of MSIs. Commentators, however, have noted that Habermas’ approach relies very much on ‘nation-state democracy’ and may not be applicable to democracy in MSIs—in (...) which nation-states are virtually absent. We argue that Habermas’ detailed conceptualization of the institutionalization of deliberative democracy can be applied to transnational MSIs if these initiatives can be said to have their own ‘dèmoi’ that can be represented in associational decision-making. Therefore, we develop a definition of the dèmos of an MSI based on the notion of collective agency. Subsequently, we explain how Habermas’ approach to democracy can be applied to MSIs and show that it has more to offer than hitherto has been uncovered. Our illustrative analysis of the EPA confirms the criticisms regarding this MSI which have recently been articulated by researchers and practitioners, but also yields new findings and possible avenues for the further development of the EPA: That is, although our assessment suggests that the EPA in its current state is still far from being a democratic MSI, the possibility of a sensible analysis of its democratic character indicates that transnational MSIs can, in principle, help to fill governance gaps in a democratic way. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. Some have recently claimed that the implementation of such method in the form of ameliorative projects is truth-driven and should thus be epistemically constrained, ultimately at least (Simion 2018; cf. Podosky 2018). This paper challenges that claim on the assumption of a social constructionist analysis of ideologies, and provides an alternative, pragmatic and cognitive framework for determining the legitimacy of ameliorative conceptual projects overall. The upshot is that one should (...) not ameliorate for the sake of truth or knowledge, in the case of ideologies—at least, not primarily. (shrink)

The artificial intelligence models with machine learning that exhibit the best predictive accuracy, and therefore, the most powerful ones, are, paradoxically, those with the most opaque black-box architectures. At the same time, the unstoppable computerization of advanced industrial societies demands the use of these machines in a growing number of domains. The conjunction of both phenomena gives rise to a control problem on AI that in this paper we analyze by dividing the issue into two. First, we carry out an (...) epistemological examination of the AI’s opacity in light of the latest techniques to remedy it. And second, we evaluate the rationality of delegating tasks in opaque agents. (shrink)

In the light of several ongoing antitrust investigations in the E.U. and the U.S., the following research paper analyzes whether ‘big tech’ – same as the big banks – need special regulatory (and economic -political) attention and if so, how an updated form of regulatory policy for the digital era could look like. It does so by utilizing – and reviving – the normative and business -ethical ideals of German ‘neoliberalism’, also known as (classical) ordoliberalism. Especially, Walter Eucken’s work has (...) the potential to inform and enrich the current debate concerning the regulation of big tech. The main goal of the paper is to outline a potentially new regulatory framework – one that combines (and revises) Eucken’s ordoliberalism with the competition policy of the European Union. (shrink)

When public opinion gets polarized, the population’s beliefs can experience two different changes: they can become more extreme in their contents or they can be held with greater confidence. These two possibilities point to two different understandings of the rupture that characterizes political polarization: extremism and radicalism. In this article, I show that from the close examination of the best available evidence regarding how we get polarized, it follows that the pernicious type of political polarization has more to do with (...) radicalism than with extremism. Reinforcing the confidence in the core beliefs of the group we identify with makes our beliefs immune to the reasons coming from the other political side. Finally, I also suggest that the rise of political polarization is not necessarily the result of an irrational process. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore Gadamer’s early reflections on Plato’s utopian thought and its potential topicality. In the following section, I will show how areté, understood as a hermeneutical and existential virtue, is dialectically related to ethics and politics in Gadamer’s phenomenological reception of Plato’s philosophy. I argue that, in Gadamer’s eyes, Socratic-Platonic self-understanding enables human beings to be aware of their political responsibilities, to recognize how they are existentially and mutually related to the other, and to (...) clarify dialectically their own existential possibilities in order to transcend their inherited world of values. In the third section, I aim to show how these are the grounds on which Gadamer’s initial thoughts on the utopian dimension of Platonic political philosophy developed, mainly through his further critical account of the works on the German “political Plato” published in Germany between 1927 and 1933, i.e., Kurt Singer’s Platon, der Gründer (1927), Julius Stenzel’s Platon. Der Erzieher (1928), and Kurt von Hildendrandt‘s Platon, Der Kampf des Geistes um die Macht (1933). Then, in the fourth section, I will express my own views on the relevance of reconsidering how the notions of areté, phrónesis, and andreía are already related in Plato’s dialogues, complementing the insights on Gadamer’s interpretation of areté in section two. My purpose is to go beyond Gadamer’s reading and provide us with a more solid ground to address his late reflections on political courage and its relations with his dialectical understanding of Platonic utopia as a myth. Therefore, I will explore the problem of civil disobedience, a topic that was actually not at the centre of Gadamer’s concerns, as a genuine mode of utopian political action which can enact a true deviation from the sophistic pólis and its understanding of power. Finally, in the conclusion, I will characterize Gadamer’s portrait of Platonic utopia as a dialectical myth which enables human beings to recognize when politics are being reduced to mere power abuse by the State and also suggest why Gadamer’s approach to utopias is still relevant today. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. On its ‘broad-spectrum’ version, it is expected to be appropriately applicable to any of our representation-involving cognitive activities, with major consequences for our whole cognitive life. This paper is about the theoretical foundations of conceptual engineering thus characterised. With a view to ensuring the actionability of conceptual engineering as a broad-spectrum method, it addresses the issue of how best to construe the subject matter of conceptual engineering and successively (...) defends the theses that conceptual engineering should be: (i) About concepts, (ii) psychologically theorised, (iii) as multiply realised functional kinds. Thereby, I claim to theoretically secure and justify the maximum scope, flexibility, and impact for the method of conceptual engineering on our representational devices in our whole cognitive life—in other words, a broad-spectrum version of conceptual engineering. (shrink)