Escalation of commitment causes people to continue a failing course of action. We study the role of construal level in such escalation of commitment. Consistent with the widely held view of construal level as a primed effect, we employed a commonly used prime for manipulating this construct in a laboratory experiment. Our findings revealed that the prime failed to produce statistically significant differences in construal level, which was measured using the Behavior Identification Form. Furthermore, there was no effect of the (...) prime on escalation of commitment, or on constructs that have previously been linked to construal level such as the perceived importance of feasibility considerations relative to desirability considerations, and the number of pros and cons that subjects can think of.Interestingly, however, subjects’ actual construal level scores on the BIF were found to significantly affect escalation. Specifically, our findings show that people with a low construal level are less willing to continue a failing project. This relation is mediated by the perceived importance of the feasibility of the project relative to its desirability. For people with a low construal level, the perceived importance of feasibility relative to desirability is higher, which in turn makes escalation of commitment less likely.Our findings are consistent with prior research suggesting that priming construal level may not always be effective. Thus, while construal level has typically been regarded as a state-like variable that can be primed, in this study, we show that construal level may also be considered as a trait. (shrink)

2019 marked the 50th anniversary of Harry Frankfurt’s seminal paper ‘Moral responsibility without alternate possibilities’. The paper set an avalanche of research on the role of alternative possibilities for freedom and responsibility in motion which has not abated to this day. A good 50 years later, the debate over Frankfurt’s central argument and its implications is still very much alive. [...].

Heidegger’s later philosophy is marked by two conflicting claims about phenomenology. On the one hand, phenomenology and philosophy generally is tasked with “responding to the claim of what is to be thought” in a novel and unprecedented manner. On the other hand, Heidegger recognizes that there have been earlier attempts at thus doing justice to phenomena; in the ontological commitments of earlier thinkers, Heidegger finds accounts of the “things themselves,” each of which has different implications for what phenomenology should concern (...) itself with. Phenomenology, as Heidegger conceives it, should thus both incorporate the history of philosophy and exceed it, yet it is unclear how these ideas can be reconciled. This chapter calls this problem the “dilemma of the historicity of phenomenology” and identifies different versions of it in Heidegger’s works after 1935/6. (shrink)

This collection is drawn from a recent Global Political conference held to mark the centenary of the birth of Harold Innis, Canada's most important political economist. Throughout his life, Innis was concerned with topics which remain central to political ecology today, such as the link between culture and nature, the impact of humanity on the environment and the role of technology and communications. In this volume, the contributors address environmental issues which Innes was concerened with, from a contemporary, political (...) economy perspective. They explore a wide range of themes and issues including: sustainability; risk and regulation; population growth; and planetary management. Case studies provide further insight into issues such as industrial racism, women and development and collective action. (shrink)

Heidegger’s understanding of technology advances a conceptual critique of what he calls “the enframing” (Gestell), the epistemological and ontological presuppositions underlying technology. Reconstructing the central argument of Country Path Conversation (1945), the chapter focuses the positive contrast to “the enframing” Heidegger finds in the idea of Gelassenheit (“releasement”): releasement defines a form of life marked by an intellectual independence from technology achieved through a specific form of thinking. Drawing from Haugeland, section 1 establishes “enabling” as genuine sense of the German (...) verb lassen (to let); in contrast to the form of thinking determinative of technology, which Heidegger describes as imposing, the “released” and genuine form of human thinking is an enabling thinking. In sections 2 and 3, I reconstruct the reductio ad absurdum Heidegger uses to distance this form of thinking from forms of transcendental philosophy embracing (mediational) representationalism. In section 4, I highlight the (ontic) correlate of such thinking, namely the individual things (Dinge) manifest outside the horizon of understanding presupposed by technology. Not based on or anticipating any positive ontology, I argue that “enabling” thinking is ontologically non-committal. Section 5 contrasts this understanding of Gelassenheit with views advanced by Dreyfus, Rojcewicz, Belu, and Feenberg. (shrink)

H actually ran the program on a number of large pieces of English text, though from my point of view, it’s the ability and the willingness to do this that is the motivation of learning Perl. H’s Perl code takes all periods ‘.’ to mark sentence breaks, and of course not all periods really do mark sentence breaks: the previous one earlier in this sentence does not, nor does the period after an abbreviation, most of the time—though the (...) next one does, e.g. The task of writing a program that can distinguish sentence-final periods from all other periods is quite an interesting and challenging one. (shrink)

W. V. Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", first published in 1951, is one of the most influential articles in the history of analytic philosophy. It does not just question central semantic and epistemological views of logical positivism and early analytic philosophy, it also marks a momentous challenge to the ideas that conceptual analysis is a main task of philosophy and that philosophy is an a priori discipline which differs in principle from the empirical sciences. These ideas dominated early analytic philosophy, (...) but similar views are to be found in the Kantian tradition, in phenomenology and in philosophical hermeneutics. In questioning this consensus from the perspective of a radical empiricism, Quine's article has had a sustained and lasting impact across all these philosophical divisions. Quine himself moved from the abandonment of the analytic/synthetic distinction to a thoroughgoing naturalism, and many analytic philosophers have followed his lead. The current collection differs from other anthologies devoted to Quine in two respects. On the one hand, it focuses on his attack on analyticity, apriority and necessity; on the other, it considers implications of that attack that far transcend the limits of Quine scholarship, and lie at the heart of the current self-understanding of philosophy. The contributors include both opponents and proponents of the dichotomies attacked by Quine. Furthermore, they include both eminent figures such as Boghossian, Burge, and Davidson, and up and coming younger philosophers. (shrink)

W. V. Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", first published in 1951, is one of the most influential articles in the history of analytic philosophy. It does not just question central semantic and epistemological views of logical positivism and early analytic philosophy, it also marks a momentous challenge to the ideas that conceptual analysis is a main task of philosophy and that philosophy is an a priori discipline which differs in principle from the empirical sciences. These ideas dominated early analytic philosophy, (...) but similar views are to be found in the Kantian tradition, in phenomenology and in philosophical hermeneutics. In questioning this consensus from the perspective of a radical empiricism, Quine's article has had a sustained and lasting impact across all these philosophical divisions. Quine himself moved from the abandonment of the analytic/synthetic distinction to a thoroughgoing naturalism, and many analytic philosophers have followed his lead. The current collection differs from other anthologies devoted to Quine in two respects. On the one hand, it focuses on his attack on analyticity, apriority and necessity; on the other, it considers implications of that attack that far transcend the limits of Quine scholarship, and lie at the heart of the current self-understanding of philosophy. The contributors include both opponents and proponents of the dichotomies attacked by Quine. Furthermore, they include both eminent figures such as Boghossian, Burge, and Davidson, and up and coming younger philosophers. (shrink)

Theoretische Philosophie aus phänomenologischer Perspektive Das Verhältnis von Phänomenologie und Metaphysik ist ambivalent. Einerseits richtet sich phänomenologische Deskription gegen leere Spekulation. Andererseits betonen Husserl und seine Nachfolger die Möglichkeit einer kritischen Erneuerung der Metaphysik. Die zwanzig Beiträge dieses Kompendiums untersuchen das Problem einer phänomenologischen Metaphysik von Husserl bis in die Gegenwart und bieten so Antworten auf die Frage, was phänomenologische Metaphysik sein kann und sein sollte.

This book provides an overview of the recent free will debate and considers the consequences of neuroscientific research for the problem of freedom. In the process of surveying the field, the author develops an original position. He takes issue with the broad philosophical consensus that at least one kind of freedom is incompatible with the scientific worldview -- namely, the ability to make decisions one way or another exactly the same circumstances. The book argues that, on closer examination, this so-called (...) libertarian view of freedom (which we accept in our everyday lives) does not contradict any facts but only philosophical doctrines. Although we're unable to alter physical laws, nor are we 'first movers,' this isn't required for us to have acted otherwise under the same circumstances. (shrink)

Back cover: Meister Eckhart betont in seinen Predigten und Traktaten die Gelassenheit als einen radikal freien Lebensvollzug in geistiger Tätigkeit. Anna Keiling vollzieht diese Konzeption anhand des Leitparadigmas der Musse nach. So können Darstellungen der Abgeschiedenheit, Gelassenheit, ledecheit und ruowe in mystischer Literatur in ihrem spezifischen Zusammenhang gesehen werden.

If folk science means individuals having well worked out mechanistic theories of the workings of the world, then it is not feasible. Laypeople’s explanatory understandings are remarkably coarse, full of gaps, and often full of inconsistencies. Even worse, most people overestimate their own understandings. Yet recent views suggest that formal scientists may not be so different. In spite of these limitations, science somehow works and its success offers hope for the feasibility of folk science as well. The success of science (...) arises from the ways in which scientists learn to leverage understandings in other minds and to outsource explanatory work through sophisticated methods of deference and simplification of complex systems. Three studies ask whether analogous processes might be present not only in laypeople but also in young children and thereby form a foundation for supplementing explanatory understandings almost from the start of our first attempts to make sense of the world. (shrink)

Many candidates have been tried out as proximate causes of actions: belief-desire pairs, volitions, motives, intentions, and other kinds of pro-attitudes. None of these mental states or events, however, seems to be able to do the trick, that is, to get things going. Each of them may occur without an appropriate action ensuing. After reviewing several attempts at closing the alleged “causal gap”, it is argued that on a correct analysis, there is no missing link waiting to be discovered. On (...) the counterfactual account of singular causation, the onset of belief or desire may perfectly well cause an action, although no kind of mental antecedent is ever a causally sufficient condition for a specific kind of action to occur. (shrink)

Philosophie ist der Versuch, durch überzeugendes und durchsichtiges Argumentieren bestimmte Fragen zu lösen. Philosophische Grundthemen sind Fragen nach dem Verständnis der Welt im Ganzen und unserer Stellung in ihr. Diese Fragen können prinzipiell nur kontrovers beantwortet werden. Die Reihe Grundthemen Philosophie möchte der Diskussion solcher philosophischen Grundthemen einen Ort geben. Anstelle einer umfassenden einführenden Darstellung werden in den einzelnen Bänden in Auseinandersetzung mit ausgewählten historischen Positionen die jeweiligen Probleme analysiert und Lösungsmöglichkeiten diskutiert. Dabei setzt der Verfasser/die Verfasserin eigene Akzente und (...) bezieht Stellung, so dass sich nicht bloß ein Blick auf die Geschichte der Philosophie, sondern zugleich auch ein systematischer Beitrag zur Problemdiskussion ergibt. Zur Zeit sind weitere Bände zu den Themen Beziehungen, Kultur, Wissenschaft und Moralbegründung geplant. Die Bände der Reihe richten sich gleichermaßen an Studierende der Philosophie und anderer Fächer sowie an professionelle Philosophen. Außerdem wendet sich die Reihe an alle, die an Grundthemen der Philosophie interessiert sind. (shrink)

Mark Jago presents an original philosophical account of meaningful thought: in particular, how it is meaningful to think about things that are impossible. We think about impossible things all the time. We can think about alchemists trying to turn base metal to gold, and about unfortunate mathematicians trying to square the circle. We may ponder whether God exists; and philosophers frequently debate whether properties, numbers, sets, moral and aesthetic qualities, and qualia exist. In many philosophical or mathematical debates, when (...) one side of the argument gets things wrong, it necessarily gets them wrong. As we consider both sides of one of these philosophical arguments, we will at some point think about something that’s impossible. Yet most philosophical accounts of meaning and content hold that we can’t meaningfully think or reason about the impossible. -/- In The Impossible, Jago argues that we often gain new information, new beliefs, and, sometimes, fresh knowledge through logic, mathematics, and philosophy. That is why logic, mathematics, and philosophy are useful. We therefore require accounts of knowledge and belief, of information and content, and of meaning which allow space for the impossible. Jago’s aim in this book is to provide such accounts. He gives a detailed analysis of the concept of hyperintensionality, whereby logically equivalent contents may be distinct, and develops a theory in terms of possible and impossible worlds. Along the way, he provides a theory of what those worlds are and how they feature in our analysis of normative epistemic concepts: knowledge, belief, information, and content. (shrink)

Die von Kant vorgeschlagene Auflösung der Freiheitsantinomie gehört zu denjenigen Theoriestücken, die auch für den transzendentalen Idealismus aufgeschlossene Philosophen schwer zu verteidigen finden. Dies gilt insbesondere für die Lehre von der nichtzeitlichen Verursachung. Nach dieser Doktrin hebt die »Causalität der Vernunft im intelligibelen Charakter […] nicht zu einer gewissen Zeit an, um eine Wirkung hervorzubringen«. In diesem Beitrag wird nicht Kants Auflösung der Freiheitsantinomie im Mittelpunkt stehen, sondern die Frage, wie das Junktim zwischen Freiheitsrettung und transzendentalem Idealismus allererst motiviert ist. (...) Ich werde zunächst eine Reihe von Gründen dafür anführen, dieses Junktim zu lösen. Kant konstruiert in der dritten Antinomie ein idiosynkratisches Vereinbarkeitsproblem, das auf angreifbaren kausalitätstheoretischen und metaphysischen Vorannahmen beruht. In den Abschnitten 3.-5. versuche ich zu zeigen, dass die transzendental-idealistische Auflösung der Freiheitsantinomie nur nötig wird, weil Kant für Freiheit Erstverursachung fordert, die Gesetzesauffassung der Kausalität für einen analytischen Bestandteil des Kausalbegriffs hält, das Kausalprinzip mit dem Determinismusprinzip identifiziert und mit der Auszeichnung des Kausalprinzips als synthetischen Satz a priori zugleich den deterministischen Charakter des »Naturmechanismus« erwiesen zu haben glaubt. Danach werde ich die Frage erörtern, ob die noumenale »Kausalität aus Freiheit « im Sinne von Akteurskausalität bzw. Substanzkausalität rekonstruiert werden kann. Abschließend werde ich tentative Überlegungen dazu anstellen, ob zumindest einige transzendental-idealistische Elemente eine alternative Rolle in der Freiheits- und Handlungstheorie spielen können. (shrink)

Die verästelte Diskussion über den Naturalismus in der Gegenwartsphilosophie lässt sich grob in einen theoretischen und einen praktischen Zweig gliedern: ›Naturalismus‹ heißt in der theoretischen Philosophie etwas anderes als in der Ethik. Die theoretische Philosophie grenze ich dabei durch das Kriterium ab, dass in ihr die Frage, was wir tun sollen, keine Rolle spielt. Die erste Hälfte des Beitrags ist der Unterscheidung dreier Spielarten des Naturalismus in der theoretischen Philosophie gewidmet, die man ›metaphysischen Naturalismus‹, ›Scientia mensura-Naturalismus‹ und ›analytischen Naturalismus‹ nennen (...) kann. Im dritten und vierten Abschnitt gehe ich auf erklärtermaßen naturalistische Positionen ein, die sich auf die Natur des Menschen berufen. In diesen Positionen kommt der Naturbegriff auf andere Weise ins Spiel als in den drei genannten Varianten des Naturalismus. Wo von der menschlichen Natur die Rede ist, wird ›Natur‹ nicht als Bereichsbezeichnung verstanden, sondern im Sinne von ›Wesen‹ oder ›eigentliche Beschaffenheit‹. Der Schlussteil des Beitrags handelt vom neoaristotelischen oder kurz aristotelischen Naturalismus, der mit einem normativ gehaltvollen Begriff der menschlichen Natur operiert, was auch immer das heißen mag. Der aristotelische Naturalismus wird gewöhnlich als eine Form des ethischen Naturalismus aufgefasst. Auf den zweiten Blick ist die Zuordnung nicht so klar, weil der aristotelische Naturalismus Elemente enthält, die zur Unterscheidung zwischen deskriptiv-anthropologischen und normativen Aussagen quer liegen. Hauptziel des Beitrags ist es, die Naturalismen der menschlichen Natur, den aristotelischen eingeschlossen, im Kreis der anderen Naturalismen zu verorten und insbesondere zu klären, mit welcher Rechtfertigung sie ›naturalistisch‹ genannt werden. (shrink)

Several current theories have essences as primary drivers of inductive potential: e.g., people infer dogs share properties because they share essences. We investigated the possibility that people take occupational roles as having robust inductive potential because of a different source: their position in stable social institutions. In Studies 1–4, participants learned a novel property about a target, and then decided whether two new individuals had the property (one with the same occupation, one without). Participants used occupational roles to robustly generalize (...) rights and obligations, functional behaviors, personality traits, and skills. In Studies 5–6, we contrasted occupational roles (via label) with race/gender (via visual face cues). Participants reliably favored occupational roles over race/gender for generalizing rights and obligations, functional behaviors, personality traits, and skills (they favored race/gender for inferring leisure behaviors and physiological properties). Occupational roles supported inferences to the same extent as animal categories (Studies 4 and 6). In Study 7, we examined why members of occupational roles share properties. Participants did not attribute the inductive potential of occupational roles to essences, they attributed it to social institutions. In combination, these seven studies demonstrate that any theory of inductive potential must pluralistically allow for both essences and social institutions to form the basis of inductive potential. (shrink)

Vague expressions are omnipresent in natural language. As such, their use in legal texts is virtually inevitable. If a law contains vague terms, the question whether it applies to a particular case often lacks a clear answer. One of the fundamental pillars of the rule of law is legal certainty. The determinacy of the law enables people to use it as a guide and places judges in the position to decide impartially. Vagueness poses a threat to these ideals. In borderline (...) cases, the law seems to be indeterminate and thus incapable of serving its core rule of law value. -/- In the philosophy of language, vagueness has become one of the hottest topics of the last two decades. Linguists and philosophers have investigated what distinguishes "soritical " vagueness from other kinds of linguistic indeterminacy, such as ambiguity, generality, open texture, and family resemblance concepts. There is a vast literature that discusses the logical, semantic, pragmatic, and epistemic aspects of these phenomena. Legal theory has hitherto paid little attention to the differences between the various kinds of linguistic indeterminacy that are grouped under the heading of "vagueness ", let alone to the various theories that try to account for these phenomena. -/- The paper is an introduction to a book of the same title. Bringing together leading scholars working on the topic of vagueness in philosophy and in law, the book fosters a dialogue between philosophers and legal scholars by examining how philosophers conceive legal ambiguity from their theoretical perspective and how legal theorists make use of philosophical theories of vagueness. (shrink)

Heid eg ger führt die Wahrheitsthematik am Ende des ersten Abschnitts von Der Ursprung des Kunstwerks ein. In der Beschreibung des Gemäldes von Van Gogh findet sich zum ersten Mal jene axiomatische Definition, die mehrmals wiederkehrt: Die Kunst ist das „Sich-ins-Werk-Setzen der Wahrheit“ (GA 5, 21; vgl. 25, 44 , 59, 62, 63, 65, besonders 70). Heid eg ger geht, wenn er die ästhetische Wirkung des Gemäldes beschreibt, zur Neubestimmung von Kunst und Wahrheit über. Das Gemälde ist keine bloße Abbildung (...) von Schuhen, sondern „Van Goghs Gemälde ist die Eröffnung dessen, was das Zeug, das Paar Bauernschuhe, in Wahrheit ist. Dieses Seiende tritt in die Unverborgenheit seines Seins heraus.“ (GA 5, 21) Was es heißt, dass „Seiendes“ wie das Paar Schuhe in eine „Unverborgenheit“ kommt, die die „Unverborgenheit“ dieses Seienden in seinem Sein ist, wird erst am Ende des Textes ganz deutlich. Dann wird sich auch klären, wie genau Wahrheit hier als Unverborgenheit im Unterschied zum gängigen Wahrheitsbegriff der Übereinstimmung verstanden werden soll: Einer Auffassung von Wahrheit als Übereinstimmung, Adäquation oder Korrespondenz zufolge wäre ein Kunstwerk wie Van Goghs Gemälde etwas, das (wie ein Aussagesatz) wahr oder falsch sein könnte, weil es mit dem übereinstimmt, was der Fall ist. Das Bild würde, wenn es ‚wahr‘ im Sine der Übereinstimmung wäre, die Wirklichkeit so abbilden, wie ein wahrer Satz einen Sachverhalt richtig wiedergibt.... (shrink)

People feel they understand complex phenomena with far greater precision, coherence, and depth than they really do; they are subject to an illusion—an illusion of explanatory depth. The illusion is far stronger for explanatory knowledge than many other kinds of knowledge, such as that for facts, procedures or narratives. The illusion for explanatory knowledge is most robust where the environment supports real‐time explanations with visible mechanisms. We demonstrate the illusion of depth with explanatory knowledge in Studies 1–6. Then we show (...) differences in overconfidence about knowledge across different knowledge domains in Studies 7–10. Finally, we explore the mechanisms behind the initial confidence and behind overconfidence in Studies 11 and 12, and discuss the implications of our findings for the roles of intuitive theories in concepts and cognition. (shrink)

It is time to bring the rich resources of these traditions into the contemporary debate about the nature of self. This volume is the first of its kind.

What would it be like to have never learned English, but instead only to know Hopi, Mandarin Chinese, or American Sign Language? Would that change the way you think? Imagine entirely losing your language, as the result of stroke or trauma. You are aphasic, unable to speak or listen, read or write. What would your thoughts now be like? As the most extreme case, imagine having been raised without any language at all, as a wild child. What—if anything—would it be (...) like to be such a person? Could you be smart; could you reminisce about the past, plan the future? (shrink)

In a number of articles, Hans-Johann Glock has argued against the »lingualist« view that higher mental capacities are a prerogative of language-users. He has defended the »assimilationist« claim that the mental capacities of humans and of non-human animals differ only in degree. In the paper under discussion, Glock argues that animals are capable of acting for reasons, provided that reasons are construed along the lines of the new »objectivist« theory of practical reasons.

This paper argues that Frankfurt-style counterexamples (FSCs) do not compromise the agent’s ability to decide otherwise. In his attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, Frankfurt relied on what Austin called the ‘all-in’ sense of ‘can’, and misconstrued the agent’s inability to do otherwise as an all-in can’t. Like the new dispositionalists, I maintain that the agent’s relevant abilities are ‘masked’ rather than lost in Frankfurt cases. The argument from masked abilities, however, is not confined to a compatibilist construal of (...) the relevant abilities. On a libertarian construal, Black deprives Jones of the opportunity to use his two-way power of choice to a different outcome than he actually uses it. I argue that being deprived of this opportunity is immaterial to what free will requires. In the second half of the paper, I relate my approach to the ‘flicker of freedom’ strategy. On closer look, we do find a residual ability that Jones not only possesses but also exercises in cases where Black intervenes. I argue that Jones tries to decide otherwise in these cases, that Black only thwarts the success of Jones’s attempt, and that being snatched from the wheel at the very last moment does not compromise Jones’s free will. (shrink)

Ralf Stoecker hat argumentiert, dass allein Menschen im strengen Sinne handeln könnten, weil sie allein fähig seien, etwas aus Gründen zu tun und über diese Gründe Rechenschaft abzulegen. In einem weniger strengen Sinn könnten auch Tiere handeln. Ich werde in diesem Beitrag zunächst Stoeckers Begründung seiner zweigeteilten These rekapitulieren (1) und dann zwei Rückfragen dazu stellen: (a) Warum soll es gerade die Praxis des logon didonai sein, die Verhalten zu Handlungen im engen Sinne macht? (b) Warum soll es genau zwei (...) Sinne von ,handeln' geben, einen engen und einen weiten? Handlungsfähigkeit könnte ja auch eine Sache des Grades sein (2). Schon Aristoteles hat einen engen Handlungsbegriff für Menschen reserviert und einen weiteren auf andere Tiere angewandt. Stoecker geht auf Aristoteles nicht ein, doch gibt es interessante Parallelen zwischen beider Ausführungen dazu, welche Fähigkeiten allein Menschen besitzen und warum (3). Im Rest des Beitrags weite ich den Blick und stelle zunächst eigene Überlegungen dazu an, welches die Vorzüge eines gradualistischen Verständnisses von Fähigkeiten sind und welche Rolle die Vagheit fähigkeitszuschreibender Ausdrücke spielt (4). Dann skizziere ich die These, dass die je artspezifischen Fähigkeitsprofile von Menschen und anderen Tieren durch „Realisierungslücken“ voneinander getrennt sind (5). Der Beitrag mündet in Metaüberlegungen zum Streit über die „anthropologische Differenz“: Die zwischen „Assimilationisten“ und „Differentialisten“ umstrittene Frage, ob sich Menschen und andere Tiere in ihren mentalen Fähigkeiten qualitativ oder bloß quantitativ unterscheiden, ist schlecht definiert und unfruchtbar. Sie sollte zugunsten gehaltvollerer Fragen zu den Akten gelegt werden (6). (shrink)

Nondescriptivist views in many areas of philosophy have long been associated with the commitment that in contrast to other domains of discourse, there are no propositions in their particular domain. For example, the ‘no truth conditions’ theory of conditionals1 is understood as the view that conditionals don’t express propositions, noncognitivist expressivism in metaethics is understood as advocating the view that there are not really moral propositions,2 and expressivism about epistemic modals is thought of as the view that there is no (...) such thing as the proposition that Jack might be at home, over and above the proposition that Jack is at home.3 Of course, it is nearly always acknowledged that advocates of a nondescriptivist theory need not deny that there are conditional, moral, or modal propositions ‘at the end of the day’ – for if they also endorse a deflationary reading of talk about propositions, as famously advocated by Simon Blackburn, then they can employ such deflationary talk just as much as the rest of us. They just don’t appeal to propositions to do any of the work in their theories. Rather, they ‘earn the right’ to talk about propositions.4 It is the aim of this paper to upset this way of thinking about the proper attitude of nondescriptivists toward propositions, and to advocate a more constructive and in some ways more radical alternative on behalf of the nondescriptivist. I will begin by introducing and developing a set of problems that are faced by any nondescriptivist theory which tries to do without propositions. All of these problems are easily solved by any view which postulates propositions across the board, but none of them are solved by merely deflationary talk about propositions – their most promising solutions require propositions to do real theoretical work, and therefore the problems themselves remind us of and illustrate some of the important reasons why it is worth positing propositions in the first place.. (shrink)

Der Raum ist ein eminent philosophisches Thema. Denn so selbstverstandlich es ist, dass wir in Raumen und im Raum leben, so unklar ist, was das bedeutet. Wie verhalten sich lebensweltliche Raume zu `dem Raum` uberhaupt? Gibt es bevorzugte Formen der Raumerfahrung? Wie verhalten sich Raum und Zeit zueinander? Was unterscheidet Nahe und Distanz, Bewegung und Aufenthalt?Die Beitrage des vorliegenden Bandes nahern sich der Philosophie des Raumes aus Richtung der Epistemologie, praktischen Philosophie und Asthetik. Dahinter steht die Uberzeugung, dass der Raum (...) nicht allein ein Thema der theoretischen Philosophie sein sollte, sondern Raumphanomene in allen Bereichen der Philosophie relevant sind. Im Zusammenspiel von klassischen und gegenwartigen Positionen ergibt sich ein Uberblick uber die Moglichkeit, eines der unscheinbarsten Phanomene uberhaupt zu thematisieren. Mit Beitragen von: Diego D'Angelo, Jocelyn Benoist, Christian Bermes, Georg Bertram, Steven G. Crowell, David Espinet, Michael N. Forster, Markus Gabriel, Volker Gerhardt, Tobias Keiling, Ole Meinefeld, Nikola Mirkovi'c, Inga Romer, John Sallis, Alexander Schnel. (shrink)

Die Frage nach einem neuen Materialismus hat gegenwärtig quer durch die Disziplinen Konjunktur. Dabei wird Materie oder 'Matter' nicht länger als passiver Träger von Bedeutung, Diskursen oder menschlicher Manipulation verstanden, sondern die Eigensinnigkeit und Kontingenz der materiellen Welt betont. Dieser Band versammelt Beiträge, die die bislang massgeblich im englischsprachigen Raum und auf theoretischer Ebene stattfindende Debatte aufgreift und sie mit Blick auf ihr gesellschaftskritisches Potenzial diskutiert. Bei aller Diversität der disziplinären und thematischen Zugänge hebt der Band eine grundlegende Tendenz hervor. (...) Zum einen die Unzufriedenheit über die gegenwärtigen gesellschaftlichen Zustände, zum anderen die Unfähigkeit gegenwärtiger Analysen, die aktuellen Bewegungen und Umbrüche in der Gesellschaft anschaulich zu machen. Die unterschiedlichen im Band vorgestellten Ansätze, Materie neu zu denken, nehmen diese Herausforderung an: Sie versuchen, soziale und politische Zusammenhänge in ihrer Komplexität zu erfassen ohne den kritischen Impetus des 'alten' marxistischen Materialismus aufzugeben. Dabei wird versucht, neomaterialistische Ansätze für unterschiedliche Bereiche der Gesellschaftskritik fruchtbar zu machen, darunter Ökonomiekritik, Biopolitik, Feminismus, Raumtheorie, Ästhetik, Technologie und kritische Theorie"--Back cover. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe some of what I take to be the more interesting features of friendship, then explore the extent to which other virtues can be reconstructed as sharing those features. I use trustworthiness as my example throughout, but I think that other virtues such as generosity & gratitude, pride & respect, and the producer’s & consumer’s sense of humor can also be analyzed with this model. The aim of the paper is not to demonstrate that all moral (...) virtues are exactly like friendship in all important respects, but rather to articulate a fruitful model in which to explore the virtues. Section 2 explores the relational nature of friendship, drawing on Aristotle’s discussion of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics. Section 3 catalogues four motivations for taking seriously the friendship model of virtue. Section 4 applies the friendship model in depth to the virtue of trustworthiness. (shrink)

Gaining information can be modelled as a narrowing of epistemic space . Intuitively, becoming informed that such-and-such is the case rules out certain scenarios or would-be possibilities. Chalmers’s account of epistemic space treats it as a space of a priori possibility and so has trouble in dealing with the information which we intuitively feel can be gained from logical inference. I propose a more inclusive notion of epistemic space, based on Priest’s notion of open worlds yet which contains only those (...) epistemic scenarios which are not obviously impossible. Whether something is obvious is not always a determinate matter and so the resulting picture is of an epistemic space with fuzzy boundaries. (shrink)

Three studies provided evidence that syntax influences intentionality judgments. In Experiment 1, participants made either speeded or unspeeded intentionality judgments about ambiguously intentional subjects or objects. Participants were more likely to judge grammatical subjects as acting intentionally in the speeded relative to the reflective condition (thus showing an intentionality bias), but grammatical objects revealed the opposite pattern of results (thus showing an unintentionality bias). In Experiment 2, participants made an intentionality judgment about one of the two actors in a partially (...) symmetric sentence (e.g., “John exchanged products with Susan”). The results revealed a tendency to treat the grammatical subject as acting more intentionally than the grammatical object. In Experiment 3 participants were encouraged to think about the events that such sentences typically refer to, and the tendency was significantly reduced. These results suggest a privileged relationship between language and central theory-of-mind concepts. More specifically, there may be two ways of determining intentionality judgments: (1) an automatic verbal bias to treat grammatical subjects (but not objects) as intentional (2) a deeper, more careful consideration of the events typically described by a sentence. (shrink)

I discuss three ways of responding to the logical omniscience problems faced by traditional ‘possible worlds’ epistemic logics. Two of these responses were put forward by Hintikka and the third by Cresswell; all three have been influential in the literature on epistemic logic. I show that both of Hintikka's responses fail and present some problems for Cresswell’s. Although Cresswell's approach can be amended to avoid certain unpalatable consequences, the resulting formal framework collapses to a sentential model of knowledge, which defenders (...) of the ‘possible worlds’ approach are frequently critical of. (shrink)

Transactive memory theory describes the processes by which benefits for memory can occur when remembering is shared in dyads or groups. In contrast, cognitive psychology experiments demonstrate that social influences on memory disrupt and inhibit individual recall. However, most research in cognitive psychology has focused on groups of strangers recalling relatively meaningless stimuli. In the current study, we examined social influences on memory in groups with a shared history, who were recalling a range of stimuli, from word lists to personal, (...) shared memories. We focused in detail on the products and processes of remembering during in-depth interviews with 12 older married couples. These interviews consisted of three recall tasks: (1) word list recall; (2) personal list recall, where stimuli were relevant to the couples’ shared past; and (3) an open-ended autobiographical interview. We conducted these tasks individually and then collaboratively two weeks later. Across each of the tasks, although some couples demonstrated collaborative inhibition, others demonstrated collaborative facilitation. We identified a number of factors that predicted collaborative success, in particular, group-level strategy use. Our results show that collaboration may help or hinder memory, and certain interactions are more likely to produce collaborative benefits. (shrink)

We argue that the interaction of biased media coverage and widespread employment of the recognition heuristic can produce epistemic injustices. First, we explain the recognition heuristic as studied by Gerd Gigerenzer and colleagues, highlighting how some of its components are largely external to, and outside the control of, the cognitive agent. We then connect the recognition heuristic with recent work on the hypotheses of embedded, extended, and scaffolded cognition, arguing that the recognition heuristic is best understood as an instance of (...) scaffolded cognition. In section three, we consider the double-edged sword of cognitive scaffolding. On the one hand, scaffolds can reduce the internal processing demands on cognitive agents while increasing their access to information. On the other hand, the use of scaffolding leaves cognitive agents increasingly vulnerable to forming false beliefs or failing to form beliefs at all about particular topics. With respect to the recognition heuristic, agents rely on third parties (such as the media) to report not just what’s true but also what’s important or valuable. This makes cognitive agents relying on these third parties vulnerable to two erroneous influences: 1) because they don’t recognize something, it isn’t important or valuable, and 2) because they do recognize something, it is important or valuable. Call the latter the Kardashian Inference and the former the Darfur Inference. In section four, we use Fricker’s (2007) concept of epistemic injustice to characterize the nature and harm of these false inferences, with special emphasis on the Darfur Inference. In section five, we use data-mining and an empirical study to show how Gigerenzer’s population estimation task is liable to produce Darfur Inferences. We conclude with some speculative remarks on more important Darfur Inferences, and how to avoid them by scaffolding better. One primary way to accomplish this it to shift the burden of embodying the virtue of epistemic justice from the hearer or consumer of media to the media themselves. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic framework for thinking about the relationship between language and technology and an argument for interweaving thinking about technology with thinking about language. The main claim of philosophy of technology—that technologies are not mere tools and artefacts not mere things, but crucially and significantly shape what we perceive, do, and are—is re-thought in a way that accounts for the role of language in human technological experiences and practices. Engaging with work by Wittgenstein, Heidegger, McLuhan, Searle, Ihde, (...) Latour, Ricoeur, and many others, the author critically responds to, and constructs a synthesis of, three "extreme", idealtype, untenable positions: only humans speak and neither language nor technologies speak, only language speaks and neither humans nor technologies speak, and only technology speaks and neither humans nor language speak. The construction of this synthesis goes hand in hand with a narrative about subjects and objects that become entangled and constitute one another. Using Words and Things thus draws in central discussions from other subdisciplines in philosophy, such as philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics, to offer an original theory of the relationship between language and technology centered on use, performance, and narrative, and taking a transcendental turn. (shrink)