The aim of this paper is to provide some acquaintance with the exegetical history of ἐξαίφνης inside the Platonic Tradition, from Plato to Marsilio Ficino, by way of Middle Platonism and Greek Neoplatonism. (Since this is only a draft, several modifications should be made later, notably in order to improve the English.) Some part has been presented in Los Angeles: “Damascius’ Theodicy: Psychic Input of Disorder and Evil into the World”, 16th Annual ISNS (International Society for Neoplatonic Studies) Conference, Loyola (...) Marymount University, 14th June 2018. (shrink)

The question of ontological foundation has undergone a noteworthy revival in recent years: metaphysicians today quarrel about how exactly to understand the asymmetrical and hyperintensional relationship of grounding. One of the reasons for this revival is that the old quantificationalist meta-ontology inherited from Quine has been effectively criticised by leading philosophers favourable to a meta-ontology, the aim of which is to come to know “which facts/items ground (constitute the base of) which other facts/items”, thus to examine the relation of ontological (...) dependence between beings (e.g. chemical properties depend on physical properties, the economic situation on the behaviour of individuals etc.), i.e. to explore the hierarchical structure of reality. I shall not discuss here the relationship of grounding in itself, but make some historical-formal remarks on the properties of the ultimate ontological foundational item itself and its aporetic nature. To do so I explore various more or less exotic philosophical ecosystems in the following order: Heidegger (Seyn), Plato (ἕν), Wáng Bi (道, dào). On the way I shall propose a new interpretation both of certain hypotheses in the Parmenides and of the nature of the opposition between Wáng Bì and Guō Xiàng in regard to the logical grammar of the expression “nothing (無, wú)” (transl. J. Dudley). (shrink)

Review of: R. Polansky & W. Wians (eds.), Reading Aristotle. Argument and Exposition, Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2017, in Revue philosophique de Louvain, 117, p. 166-169.

After reviewing the status of the concept of the phenomenon in Husserl’s phenomenology and the aim of successive attempts to reform, de-formalize, and to widen it, we show the difficulties of a method that, following the example of Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology, intends to connect the phenomenon directly to the revelation of an exteriority. We argue that, on the contrary, Marc Richir’s phenomenology, which strives to grasp the phenomenon as nothing-but-phenomenon, is more likely to capture the “meaning” of the phenomenological (...) , and hence to help us orient in the field of problems that phenomenology encounters without always knowing how to tackle them. Yet, this extension of the phenomenon’s domain does not thereby encompass everything: there may well be certain issues that require a phenomenology without phenomenon ; but the meaning of this cannot be determined before the complete reenvisioning of transcendental phenomenology. (shrink)

In Teoria cunoștinței (Theory of knowledge), the author N. Bagda­sar enunciated the following idea: the metaphysics is conditioned by the theory of knowledge, since the first is a knowledge placed from the beginning under rules. After I will emphasise the Kantian sense of this idea and depict the manner in which the author explains Auguste Comte’s positivism in relation with the meaning of ‘positive’ (given) in that context, I will put into discussion two theories about the unknowability of a “fact” (...) that is in its possibility an object of knowledge. The first, belonging to Mircea Florian, can be deemed as “ontologically negative” and privileges the idea of a suspen­sion of knowledge in the front of the given (an object to be known, in its possibility). The second, belonging to J.-L. Marion, which can be labelled as “cognitively negative”, suggests the idea of negative certitudes – in connection to the recognizing, in some situations, of the unknowability of the given (an object to be known, in its possibility). Both theories condition the “power” of knowledge by the nature of object of knowledge, also assuming that this power, when questions its own possibilities, can produce unknow­ability. In this perspective, the two theories discussed here and Comte’s positive philosophy draw similar conclusions. The references to a possible relation between metaphysics and theory of knowledge will be maintained in the following, but the formal privilege that the last has towards the first in Bagdasar’s view will be relativized. (shrink)

Iris Marion Young (1949-2006) was one of the most influential and innovative political theorists of her generation who had a significant impact on a wide range of topics such as democratic theory, feminist theory, and justice. She bridged many longstanding divides among political theorists, engaging in Continental and critical theory, but also insisting on the importance of normative argument: her corpus stands as a testament to the fruitfulness of engaging in both abstract theory and the 'real world' of everyday (...) politics. This volume spans the several decades of her work, illustrating her intellectual development over time through three major areas of innovation: Gender: Maintaining that gender is both conceptually and politically meaningful, Young theorized gender in terms of structures that, in combination, position different people we call "women" in different ways, such that some women have some structures in common, without all women sharing all gendered structures in common. Justice: Young's early writings on a critical theory of justice evolved in her later and posthumously published works where she developed an account of justice that brought together her theorization of structure with her concern to respond to contemporary claims of injustice. The Politics of Difference: Young rejected universal and abstract theories of justice and maintained that justice instead required attending to the experiences of people marked by difference. (shrink)

Fifty-seven outstanding black-and-white photographs from the central California coast and Sierra reflect the author's special relationship with the coastline of California, as well as capture vivid images from the deserts of California and the Southwest.

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) gilt weithin als Autor des literarischen Sturm und Drang bzw. der philosophischen und theologischen Spataufklarung. Dass er jedoch auf vielen Gebieten die Klassische Deutsche Philosophie massgeblich beeinflusste, wird eher selten in den Blick genommen. Der Band untersucht dieses sowohl kritische als auch affirmative Rezeptionsverhaltnis Kants, Schellings, Schlegels, Humboldts oder Hegels zu Herder auf den Gebieten der Geschichtsphilosophie, der Metaphysik, der Ethik und Politik sowie der Asthetik und Anthropologie. - Mit Beitragen von Andreas Arndt, Manfred Baum, Christoph (...) Binkelmann, Martin Bondeli, Nigel De Souza, Stefan Greif, Andree Hahmann, Cornelia Klinger, Christian Krijnen, Stephan Nachtsheim, Angelica Nuzzo, Ludger Roth, Gideon Stiening, Violetta Stolz und Gunter Zoller. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger gilt als einer der bedeutendsten und zugleich umstrittensten Philosophen des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Werk und Person üben bis heute diesseits und jenseits philosophischer Diskussionen eine erhebliche Faszination aus. Dies liegt nicht allein an der außergewöhnlichen Originalität seines Denkens und der Kraft seiner Sprache, sondern auch an seinen schwerwiegenden politischen Verstrickungen im Zusammenhang mit der Machtergreifung Hitlers. Florian Grosser zeichnet die wesentlichen Stationen und Entwicklungslinien von Heideggers verschlungenem Denkweg aus einem halben Jahrhundert nach. Dabei arbeitet er die spezifische Gefährlichkeit (...) von Heideggers politischem Denken klar heraus, insbesondere sein radikal revolutionäres und überzogen antagonistisches Verständnis des Politischen, das ihn hindert, reale politische Phänomene angemessen zu verstehen. Grosser geht der Frage nach, ob Heideggers Denken, wie vielfach unterstellt, tatsächlich eine innere Verwandtschaft mit dem Nationalsozialismus aufweist. Die Differenzen immerhin sind gravierend. Die essayistisch gehaltene Darstellung, die im Grenzbereich zwischen Philosophie und Politikwissenschaft angesiedelt ist, erweckt die festgefahrene, seit Jahrzehnten in den starren Mustern von Anklage und Verteidigung verharrende Kontroverse um den "Fall Heidegger" zu neuem Leben. (shrink)

Artykuł ukazuje problematykę rozwoju majątku Floriana Zebrzydowskiego h. Radwan (zm. 1566), jednego z najbardziej zaufanych dworzan, wojskowych i urzędników Zygmunta Augusta. Stosując metodę indukcyjną, zwrócono uwagę na niemal nieznane dotychczas w historiografii wejście przez Zebrzydowskiego w posiadanie majątku we wsi Radocza k. Wadowic w księstwie zatorskim. Jako współwłaściciel tej wsi Zebrzydowski procesował się w latach 1549–1550 z Jakubem Frydrychowskim. Z kolei dokumentem z 1551 roku król nadał Zebrzydowskiemu przywilej budowania tamy/ fosy na rz. Skawie w celu doprowadzania wody do majątku (...) w Radoczy, co było niezbędne m.in. do zbudowania stawów rybnych (edycja wraz z tłumaczeniem w Aneksie). Osiem lat później Florian Zebrzydowski przeprowadził transakcję majątkową dotyczącą Radoczy z Felicją Frydrychowską i jej mężem Stanisławem Milanowskim. Nie udało się jednak ustalić, kiedy dostojnik pozbył się majątku w tej wsi, jednak źródła z okresu ostatnich lat jego życia i kolejnych dziesięcioleci wymieniające właścicieli Radoczy nie wspominają już o Zebrzydowskich. Przy okazji ustaleń dotyczących Radoczy ukazano także przykładowe inne transakcje majątkowe, w których brał udział Zebrzydowski. Studium miało za zadanie zasygnalizować konieczność podjęcia szerszych badań nad rozwojem majątku Floriana Zebrzydowskiego w powiązaniu ze sprawami majątkowymi jego rodziny, szkicując tym samym nowe perspektywy badawcze. (shrink)

According to tradition, logic is normative for reasoning. Gilbert Harman challenged the view that there is any straightforward connection between logical consequence and norms of reasoning. Authors including John MacFarlane and Hartry Field have sought to rehabilitate the traditional view. I argue that the debate is marred by a failure to distinguish three types of normative assessment, and hence three ways to understand the question of the normativity of logic. Logical principles might be thought to provide the reasoning agent with (...) first-personal directives; they might be thought to serve as third-personal evaluative standards; or they might underwrite our third-personal appraisals of others whereby we attribute praise and blame. I characterize the three normative functions in general terms and show how a failure to appreciate this threefold distinction has led disputants to talk past one another. I further show how the distinction encourages fruitful engagement with and, ultimately, resolution of the question. (shrink)

Organisation auftritt, würde es sich um strukturelle Diskriminierung eines einzelnen oder wiederum einer Gruppe von ... zum Rahmenthema » Stigmatisierung – Diskriminierung in Medizin und Psychotherapie«, in dem Florian Steger vor allem ...

This pioneering book demonstrates the crucial importance of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics to his philosophy as a whole. Marion traces the development of Wittgenstein's thinking in the context of the mathematical and philosophical work of the times, to make coherent sense of ideas that have too often been misunderstood because they have been presented in a disjointed and incomplete way. In particular, he illuminates the work of the neglected 'transitional period' between the Tractatus and the Investigations.

Through careful analysis of phenomenological texts by Husserl and Heidegger, Marion argues for the necessity of a third phenomenological reduction that concerns what is fully implied but left largely unthought by the phenomenologies of both ...

Are nonhuman non-linguistic animals self-conscious? And how is it possible to find out whether they are or not? This question raises two interrelated problems: the conceptual problem and the methodological problem. In order to approach an answer, it is first and foremost necessary to establish criteria for self-consciousness by considering the phenomenon and the abilities connected with it. Subsequently, one can survey the experimental paradigms. Do the experiments really show that the identified ability has to be used to successfully master (...) the given task? Is the presence of self-consciousness the best explanation for the empirical data? This paper proposes that the underlying ability for self-consciousness is the capacity to have mental states, where the subject is thought of as the subject of the mental state. Furthermore, two important current experimental paradigms will be evaluated for their usefulness to identify the presence of self-consciousness. The verdict will be negative. Neither ‘mirror self-recognition’ nor ‘uncertainty monitoring’ need to employ the aforementioned ability in order to be executed. (shrink)

Responding to recent concerns about the reliability of the published literature in psychology and other disciplines, we formed the X-Phi Replicability Project to estimate the reproducibility of experimental philosophy. Drawing on a representative sample of 40 x-phi studies published between 2003 and 2015, we enlisted 20 research teams across 8 countries to conduct a high-quality replication of each study in order to compare the results to the original published findings. We found that x-phi studies – as represented in our sample (...) – successfully replicated about 70% of the time. We discuss possible reasons for this relatively high replication rate in the field of experimental philosophy and offer suggestions for best research practices going forward. (shrink)

If feeling a genuine emotion requires believing that its object actually exists, and if this is a belief we are unlikely to have about fictional entities, then how could we feel genuine emotions towards these entities? This question lies at the core of the paradox of fiction. Since its original formulation, this paradox has generated a substantial literature. Until recently, the dominant strategy had consisted in trying to solve it. Yet, it is more and more frequent for scholars to try (...) to dismiss it using data and theories coming from psychology. In opposition to this trend, the present paper argues that the paradox of fiction cannot be dissolved in the ways recommended by the recent literature. We start by showing how contemporary attempts at dissolving the paradox assume that it emerges from theoretical commitments regarding the nature of emotions. Next, we argue that the paradox of fiction rather emerges from everyday observations, the validity of which is independent from any such commitment. This is why we then go on to claim that a mere appeal to psychology in order to discredit these theoretical commitments cannot dissolve the paradox. We bring our discussion to a close on a more positive note, by exploring how the paradox could in fact be solved by an adequate theory of the emotions. (shrink)

This paper argues that logical inferentialists should reject multiple-conclusion logics. Logical inferentialism is the position that the meanings of the logical constants are determined by the rules of inference they obey. As such, logical inferentialism requires a proof-theoretic framework within which to operate. However, in order to fulfil its semantic duties, a deductive system has to be suitably connected to our inferential practices. I argue that, contrary to an established tradition, multiple-conclusion systems are ill-suited for this purpose because they fail (...) to provide a 'natural' representation of our ordinary modes of inference. Moreover, the two most plausible attempts at bringing multiple conclusions into line with our ordinary forms of reasoning, the disjunctive reading and the bilateralist denial interpretation, are unacceptable by inferentialist standards. (shrink)

'Education and Social Change' sheds light on Florian Znaniecki's most original program of the sociology of education. The volume contains newly discovered reports from the research under the auspices of the Columbia University in the thirties, focused on educating to participate in democratic social order and cultural innovation. Preparation for cooperative interactions with leaders lies at the core of the analysis. Included are several texts published in English which clearly expound Znaniecki's analysis of social processes in education. The key (...) idea of transforming educational systems in the direction of self-education still proves relevant. (shrink)

The notion of harmony has played a pivotal role in a number of debates in the philosophy of logic. Yet there is little agreement as to how the requirement of harmony should be spelled out in detail or even what purpose it is to serve. Most, if not all, conceptions of harmony can already be found in Michael Dummett's seminal discussion of the matter in The Logical Basis of Metaphysics. Hence, if we wish to gain a better understanding of the (...) notion of harmony, we do well to start here. Unfortunately, however, Dummett's discussion is not always easy to follow. The following is an attempt to disentangle the main strands of Dummett's treatment of harmony. The different variants of harmony as well as their interrelations are clarified and their individual shortcomings qua interpretations of harmony are demonstrated. Though no attempt is made to give a detailed alternative account of harmony here, it is hoped that our discussion will lay the ground for an adequate rigorous treatment of this central notion. (shrink)

It is commonly argued that natural language has the expressive power of quantifying over intensional entities, such as times, worlds, or situations. A standard way of modelling this assumes that there are unpronounced but syntactically represented variables of the corresponding type. Not all that much as has been said, however, about the exact syntactic location of these variables. Meanwhile, recent work has highlighted a number of problems that arise because the interpretive options for situation pronouns seem to be subject to (...) various restrictions. This paper is primarily concerned with situation pronouns inside of determiner phrases, arguing that they are introduced as arguments of (certain) determiners. Verbal predicates, on the other hand, are assumed to not combine with a situation pronoun. The various restrictions on their interpretation are shown to fall out from the semantic system that is developed based on that view. Further support for such an account comes from situation semantic analyses of donkey sentences as well as data on the temporal interpretation of nominal predicates. Its ability to account for this full range of data in a unified manner is shown to set it apart from previous proposals. The paper closes with an outlook on further extensions, including an account of quantifier domain restriction based on situation pronouns. (shrink)

Natural kinds is a widely used and pivotal concept in philosophy – the idea being that the classifications and taxonomies employed by science correspond to the real kinds in nature. Natural kinds are often opposed to the idea of kinds in the human and social sciences, which are typically seen as social constructions, characterised by changing norms and resisting scientific reduction. Yet human beings are also a subject of scientific study.Does this mean humans fall into corresponding kinds of their own? (...) In The Epistemology and Morality of Human Kinds Marion Godman defends the idea of human kinds. She first examines the scientific use and nature of human kinds, considering the arguments of key philosophers whose work bears upon human kinds, such as Ian Hacking, John Searle, Richard Boyd and Ruth Millikan. Using the examples of gender, ethnic minorities and Buddhism she then argues that human kinds are a result of ongoing historical reproduction, chiefly due to pre-existing cultural models and social learning. Her novel argument shifts the focus away from the reductionism characteristic of research about human kinds. Instead, she argues that they are “multiply projectable” and deserving of scientific study not in spite of, but because of their role in explaining our identity, injustice and the emergence of group rights. (shrink)

This paper explores an apparent tension between two widely held views about logic: that logic is normative and that there are multiple equally legitimate logics. The tension is this. If logic is normative, it tells us something about how we ought to reason. If, as the pluralist would have it, there are several correct logics, those logics make incompatible recommendations as to how we ought to reason. But then which of these logics should we look to for normative guidance? I (...) argue that inasmuch as pluralism draws its motivation from its ability to defuse logical disputes—that is, disputes between advocates of rival logics—it is unable to provide an answer: pluralism collapses into monism with respect to either the strongest or the weakest admissible logic. (shrink)

_In times of economic crisis austerity becomes a rallying cry, but what does history tell us about its chances for success?_ Austerity is at the center of political debates today. Its defenders praise it as a panacea that will prepare the ground for future growth and stability. Critics insist it will precipitate a vicious cycle of economic decline, possibly leading to political collapse. But the notion that abstinence from consumption brings benefits to states, societies, or individuals is hardly new. This (...) book puts the debates of our own day in perspective by exploring the long history of austerity—a popular idea that lives on despite a track record of dismal failure. Florian Schui shows that arguments in favor of austerity were—and are today—mainly based on moral and political considerations, rather than on economic analysis. Unexpectedly, it is the critics of austerity who have framed their arguments in the language of economics. Schui finds that austerity has failed intellectually and in economic terms _every time_ it has been attempted. He examines thinkers who have influenced our ideas about abstinence from Aristotle through such modern economic thinkers as Smith, Marx, Veblen, Weber, Hayek, and Keynes, as well as the motives behind specific twentieth-century austerity efforts. The persistence of the concept cannot be explained from an economic perspective, Schui concludes, but only from the persuasive appeal of the moral and political ideas linked to it. (shrink)

_In times of economic crisis austerity becomes a rallying cry, but what does history tell us about its chances for success?_ Austerity is at the center of political debates today. Its defenders praise it as a panacea that will prepare the ground for future growth and stability. Critics insist it will precipitate a vicious cycle of economic decline, possibly leading to political collapse. But the notion that abstinence from consumption brings benefits to states, societies, or individuals is hardly new. This (...) book puts the debates of our own day in perspective by exploring the long history of austerity—a popular idea that lives on despite a track record of dismal failure. Florian Schui shows that arguments in favor of austerity were—and are today—mainly based on moral and political considerations, rather than on economic analysis. Unexpectedly, it is the critics of austerity who have framed their arguments in the language of economics. Schui finds that austerity has failed intellectually and in economic terms _every time_ it has been attempted. He examines thinkers who have influenced our ideas about abstinence from Aristotle through such modern economic thinkers as Smith, Marx, Veblen, Weber, Hayek, and Keynes, as well as the motives behind specific twentieth-century austerity efforts. The persistence of the concept cannot be explained from an economic perspective, Schui concludes, but only from the persuasive appeal of the moral and political ideas linked to it. (shrink)

This article offers an overview of inferential role semantics. We aim to provide a map of the terrain as well as challenging some of the inferentialist’s standard commitments. We begin by introducing inferentialism and placing it into the wider context of contemporary philosophy of language. §2 focuses on what is standardly considered both the most important test case for and the most natural application of inferential role semantics: the case of the logical constants. We discuss some of the (alleged) benefits (...) of logical inferentialism, chiefly with regards to the epistemology of logic, and consider a number of objections. §3 introduces and critically examines the most influential and most fully developed form of global inferentialism: Robert Brandom’s inferentialism about linguistic and conceptual content in general. Finally, in §4 we consider a number of general objections to IRS and consider possible responses on the inferentialist’s behalf. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that, barring a few important exceptions, the phenomenon we refer to using the expression “being moved” is a distinct type of emotion. In this paper’s first section, we motivate this hypothesis by reflecting on our linguistic use of this expression. In section two, pursuing a methodology that is both conceptual and empirical, we try to show that the phenomenon satisfies the five most commonly used criteria in philosophy and psychology for thinking that some affective episode (...) is a distinct emotion. Indeed, being moved, we claim, is the experience of a positive core value (particular object) perceived by the moved subject as standing out (formal object) in the circumstances triggering the emotion. Drawing on numerous examples, we describe the distinctively rich phenomenology characteristic of the experience as well as the far-reaching action-tendencies and functions associated with it. Having thus shown that the candidate emotion seem to satisfy the five criteria, we go on, in section three, to compare it with sadness and joy, arguing that it should not be confused with either. Finally, in section four, we illustrate the explanatory power of our account of “being moved” by showing how it can shed light on, and maybe even justify, the widespread distrust we feel towards the exhibition of ‘sentimentality’. On the whole and if we are right, we have uncovered an emotion which, though never or rarely talked about, is of great interest and no small importance. (shrink)

Logic, the tradition has it, is normative for reasoning. But is that really so? And if so, in what sense is logic normative for reasoning? As Gilbert Harman has reminded us, devising a logic and devising a theory of reasoning are two separate enterprises. Hence, logic's normative authority cannot reside in the fact that principles of logic just are norms of reasoning. Once we cease to identify the two, we are left with a gap. To bridge the gap one would (...) need to produce what John MacFarlane has appropriately called a bridge principle, i.e. a general principle articulating a substantive and systematic link between logical entailment and norms of reasoning. This is Harman's skeptical challenge. In this paper I argue that Harman's skeptical challenge can be met. I show how candidate bridge principles can be systematically generated and evaluated against a set of well‐motivated desiderata. Moreover, I argue that bridge principles advanced by MacFarlane himself and others, for all their merit, fail to address the problem originally set forth by Harman and so do not meet the skeptical challenge. Finally, I develop a bridge principle that meets Harman's requirements as well as being substantive. (shrink)

One of the goals of computerized tutoring systems is to optimize the learning of facts. Over a hundred years of declarative memory research have identified two robust effects that can improve such systems: the spacing and the testing effect. By making optimal use of both and adjusting the system to the individual learner using cognitive models based on declarative memory theories, such systems consistently outperform traditional methods. This adjustment process is driven by a continuously updated estimate of the rate of (...) forgetting for each item and learner on the basis of the learner's accuracy and response time. In this study, we investigated to what extent these estimates of individual rates of forgetting are stable over time and across different materials. We demonstrate that they are stable over time but not across materials. Even though most theories of human declarative memory assume a single underlying rate of forgetting, we show that, in practice, it makes sense to assume different materials are forgotten at different rates. If a computerized, adaptive fact-learning system allowed different rates of forgetting for different materials, it could adapt to individual learners more readily. (shrink)

In the past decade, experimental philosophy---the attempt at making progress on philosophical problems using empirical methods---has thrived in a wide range of domains. However, only in recent years has aesthetics succeeded in drawing the attention of experimental philosophers. The present paper constitutes the first survey of these works and of the nascent field of 'experimental philosophy of aesthetics'. We present both recent experimental works by philosophers on topics such as the ontology of aesthetics, aesthetic epistemology, aesthetic concepts, and imagination, as (...) well as research from other disciplines that not only are relevant to philosophy of aesthetics but also open new avenues of research for experimental philosophy of aesthetics. Overall, we conclude that the birth of an experimental philosophy of aesthetics is good news not only for aesthetics but also for experimental philosophy itself, as it contributes to broaden the scope of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the question of logic’s normative status in the light of Carnap’s Principle of Tolerance. I begin by contrasting Carnap’s conception of the normativity of logic with that of his teacher, Frege. I identify two core features of Frege’s position: first, the normative force of the logical laws is grounded in their descriptive adequacy; second, norms implied by logic are constitutive for thinking as such. While Carnap breaks with Frege’s absolutism about logic and hence with the (...) notion that any system of logic should have a privileged claim to correctness, I argue that there is a sense in which Carnap’s framework-relative conception of logical norms has a constitutive role to play: though they are not constitutive for the conceptual activity for thinking, they do nevertheless set the ground rules that make certain forms of scientific inquiry possible in the first place. I conclude that Carnap’s principle of tolerance is tamer than one might have thought and that, despite remaining differences, Frege’s and Carnap’s conceptions of logic have more in common than one might have thought. (shrink)

We challenge an argument that aims to support Aesthetic Realism by claiming, first, that common sense is realist about aesthetic judgments because it considers that aesthetic judgments can be right or wrong, and, second, that becauseAesthetic Realism comes from and accounts for “folk aesthetics,” it is the best aesthetic theory available.We empirically evaluate this argument by probing whether ordinary people with no training whatsoever in the subtle debates of aesthetic philosophy consider their aesthetic judgments as right or wrong. Having shown (...) that the results do not support the main premise of the argument, we discuss the consequences for Aesthetic Realism and address possible objections to our study. (shrink)

This chapter seeks clarification into how Marion understands “desire,” especially in The Erotic Phenomenon. Philosophies of “objectivity” have lost sight of love and its uniquely supporting evidences, and desire plays a number of roles in restoring to love the “dignity of a concept,” in its contribution to forming selfhood and “individualization,” and in its establishing the paradoxical bases of the erotic reduction and “eroticization.” Since he claims in La Rigueur des Choses that “The Erotic Phenomenon logically completes the phenomenology (...) of the gift and the saturated phenomenon,” it is necessary to conceive of how and to what degree. The erotic reduction demands that one bracket oneself and return to the Ursprung of intuition by asking the important question “can I be the first to love?” This chapter initiates an application of these findings on the manifold of desire back onto Marion’s understanding of “the gift” and his phenomenology of givenness. How might the erotic reduction and the reduction to givenness interrelate? Might love and desire be modes or “capacities” of alteration of one’s experience within intuition? Desire, which is conceived in relation to “lack” as a resource, provides a kind of “negative assurance” that allows the adonné to access an affirmation of love. (shrink)

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the experimental philosophy of action, focusing on the various different accounts of the Knobe Effect.

Logic has traditionally been construed as a normative discipline; it sets forth standards of correct reasoning. Explosion is a valid principle of classical logic. It states that an inconsistent set of propositions entails any proposition whatsoever. However, ordinary agents presumably do — occasionally, at least — have inconsistent belief sets. Yet it is false that such agents may, let alone ought to, believe any proposition they please. Therefore, our logic should not recognize explosion as a logical law. Call this the (...) ‘normative argument against explosion’. Arguments of this type play — implicitly or explicitly — a central role in motivating paraconsistent logics. Branden Fitelson, in a throwaway remark, has conjectured that there is no plausible ‘bridge principle’ articulating the normative link between logic and reasoning capable of supporting such arguments. This paper offers a critical evaluation of Fitelson’s conjecture, and hence of normative arguments for paraconsistency and the conceptions of logic’s normative status on which they repose. It is argued that Fitelson’s conjecture turns out to be correct: normative arguments for paraconsistency probably fail. (shrink)

Epistemic utility theory is generally coupled with veritism. Veritism is the view that truth is the sole fundamental epistemic value. Veritism, when paired with EUT, entails a methodological commitment: norms of epistemic rationality are justified only if they can be derived from considerations of accuracy alone. According to EUT, then, believing truly has epistemic value, while believing falsely has epistemic disvalue. This raises the question as to how the rational believer should balance the prospect of true belief against the risk (...) of error. A strong intuitive case can be made for a kind of epistemic conservatism – that we should disvalue error more than we value true belief. I argue that none of the ways in which advocates of veritist EUT have sought to motivate conservatism can be squared with their methodological commitments. Short of any such justification, they must therefore either abandon their most central methodological principle or else adopt a permissive line with respect to epistemic risk. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Increasingly, global businesses are confronted with the question of complicity in human rights violations committed by abusive host governments. This contribution specifically looks at silent complicity and the way it challenges conventional interpretations of corporate responsibility. Silent complicity implies that corporations have moral obligations that reach beyond the negative realm of doing no harm. Essentially, it implies that corporations have a moral responsibility to help protect human rights by putting pressure on perpetrating host governments involved in human rights abuses. This (...) is a controversial claim, which this contribution proposes to analyze with a view to understanding and determining the underlying conditions that need to be met in order for moral agents to be said to have such responsibilities in the category of the duty to protect human rights. (shrink)

This theoretical paper considers the morality of machine learning algorithms and systems in the light of the biases that ground their correctness. It begins by presenting biases not as a priori negative entities but as contingent external referents—often gathered in benchmarked repositories called ground-truth datasets—that define what needs to be learned and allow for performance measures. I then argue that ground-truth datasets and their concomitant practices—that fundamentally involve establishing biases to enable learning procedures—can be described by their respective morality, here (...) defined as the more or less accounted experience of hesitation when faced with what pragmatist philosopher William James called “genuine options”—that is, choices to be made in the heat of the moment that engage different possible futures. I then stress three constitutive dimensions of this pragmatist morality, as far as ground-truthing practices are concerned: the definition of the problem to be solved, the identification of the data to be collected and set up, and the qualification of the targets to be learned. I finally suggest that this three-dimensional conceptual space can be used to map machine learning algorithmic projects in terms of the morality of their respective and constitutive ground-truthing practices. Such techno-moral graphs may, in turn, serve as equipment for greater governance of machine learning algorithms and systems. (shrink)

Recently, Fahrbach and Park have argued that the pessimistic meta-induction about scientific theories is unsound. They claim that this very argument does not properly take into account scientific progress, particularly during the twentieth century. They also propose amended arguments in favour of scientific realism, which are supposed to properly reflect the history of science. I try to show that what I call the argument from scientific progress cannot explain satisfactorily why the current theories should have reached a degree of success (...) that excludes their future refutations and allows the inference to their truth. I further argue that this line of argumentation dismisses the burden of proof in a rather unfair manner by using a delaying tactic to postpone the question about the validity of the PMI in the future. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that, barring a few important exceptions, the phenomenon we refer to using the expression “being moved” is a distinct type of emotion. In this paper’s first section, we motivate this hypothesis by reflecting on our linguistic use of this expression. In section two, pursuing a methodology that is both conceptual and empirical, we try to show that the phenomenon satisfies the five most commonly used criteria in philosophy and psychology for thinking that some affective episode (...) is a distinct emotion. Indeed, being moved, we claim, is the experience of a positive core value (particular object) perceived by the moved subject as standing out (formal object) in the circumstances triggering the emotion. Drawing on numerous examples, we describe the distinctively rich phenomenology characteristic of the experience as well as the far-reaching action-tendencies and functions associated with it. Having thus shown that the candidate emotion seem to satisfy the five criteria, we go on, in section three, to compare it with sadness and joy, arguing that it should not be confused with either. Finally, in section four, we illustrate the explanatory power of our account of “being moved” by showing how it can shed light on, and maybe even justify, the widespread distrust we feel towards the exhibition of ‘sentimentality’. On the whole and if we are right, we have uncovered an emotion which, though never or rarely talked about, is of great interest and no small importance. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that algorithmic decisions can reflect gender bias. The increasingly widespread utilization of algorithms in critical decision-making domains (e.g., healthcare or hiring) can thus lead to broad and structural disadvantages for women. However, women often experience bias and discrimination through human decisions and may turn to algorithms in the hope of receiving neutral and objective evaluations. Across three studies (N = 1107), we examine whether women’s receptivity to algorithms is affected by situations in which they believe that (...) their gender identity might disadvantage them in an evaluation process. In Study 1, we establish, in an incentive-compatible online setting, that unemployed women are more likely to choose to have their employment chances evaluated by an algorithm if the alternative is an evaluation by a man rather than a woman. Study 2 generalizes this effect by placing it in a hypothetical hiring context, and Study 3 proposes that relative algorithmic objectivity, i.e., the perceived objectivity of an algorithmic evaluator over and against a human evaluator, is a driver of women’s preferences for evaluations by algorithms as opposed to men. Our work sheds light on how women make sense of algorithms in stereotype-relevant domains and exemplifies the need to provide education for those at risk of being adversely affected by algorithmic decisions. Our results have implications for the ethical management of algorithms in evaluation settings. We advocate for improving algorithmic literacy so that evaluators and evaluatees (e.g., hiring managers and job applicants) can acquire the abilities required to reflect critically on algorithmic decisions. (shrink)

Since at least Hume and Kant, philosophers working on the nature of aesthetic judgment have generally agreed that common sense does not treat aesthetic judgments in the same way as typical expressions of subjective preferences—rather, it endows them with intersubjective validity, the property of being right or wrong regardless of disagreement. Moreover, this apparent intersubjective validity has been taken to constitute one of the main explananda for philosophical accounts of aesthetic judgment. But is it really the case that most people (...) spontaneously treat aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity? In this paper, we report the results of a cross‐cultural study with over 2,000 respondents spanning 19 countries. Despite significant geographical variations, these results suggest that most people do not treat their own aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories of aesthetic judgment and the purpose of aesthetics in general. (shrink)

Identification of propositions as the core of attitudes and beliefs (De Houwer, 2014) has resulted in the development of implicit measures targeting personal evaluations of complex sentences (e.g., the IRAP or the RRT). Whereas their utility is uncontested, these paradigms are subject to limitations inherent in their block based design, such as allowing assessment of only a single belief at a time. We introduce the Propositional Evaluation Paradigm (PEP) for assessment of multiple propositional beliefs within a single experimental block. Two (...) experiments provide first evidence for the PEP’s validity. In Experiment 1 endorsement of racist beliefs measured with the PEP was related to criterion variables such as explicit racism assessed via questionnaire and indicators of behavioral tendencies. Experiment 2 indicates that the PEP’s implicit racism scores may predict actual behavior over and above explicit, self-report measures. Finally, Experiment 3 tested the PEP's applicability in the domain of hiring discrimination. Whereas general PEP based gender stereotypes were not related to hiring bias, results suggest a possible role of female stereotypes in hiring discrimination. In the context of these findings, we discuss both the potential and possible challenges in adopting the PEP to different beliefs. In sum, these initial findings suggest that the PEP may offer researchers a reliable and easily administrable option for the indirect assessment of propositional evaluations. (shrink)