While there is an increasing focus on the use of online networks among autistic users, how autistic adults communicate in social networking sites remains underexplored. The article puts forward an argument for combining systematic observation of digital practices with analysis of evaluative language in order to provide a situated account of ‘autistic sociality’ in social media. Drawing on practice-based theories of social media affordances and discourse analysis research on online self-presentation and affiliation we show how autistic Twitter users rely on (...) association, content persistence and editability in order to signal social engagement through different forms of interaction and alignment. We discuss how the proposed framework can provide a new perspective on communicative practices of autistic social media users and advance development of inclusive digital networking platforms. (shrink)

This book raises in a new way a central question of Christology: what is the divine motive for the incarnation? Throughout Christian history a majority of Western theologians have agreed that God's decision to become incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ was made necessary by "the Fall": if humans had not sinned, the incarnation would not have happened. This position is known as "infralapsarian." A minority of theologians however, including some major 19th- and 20th-century theological figures, championed a "supralapsarian" (...) Christology, arguing that God has always intended the incarnation, independent of "the Fall." Edwin Chr. van Driel offers the first scholarly monograph to map and analyze the full range of supralapsarian arguments. He gives a thick description of each argument and its theological consequences, and evaluates the theological gains and losses inherent in each approach. Van Driel shows that each of the three ways in which God is thought to relate to all that is not God -- in creation, in redemption, and in eschatological consummation -- can serve as the basis for a supralapsarian argument. He illustrates this thesis with detailed case studies of the Christologies of Schleiermacher, Dorner, and Barth. He concludes that the most fruitful supralapsarian strategy is rooted in the notion of eschatological consummation, taking interpersonal interaction with God to be the goal of the incarnation. He goes on to develop his own argument along these lines, concluding in an eschatological vision in which God is visually, audibly, and tangibly present in the midst of God's people. (shrink)

In grapheme-color synesthesia, a number or letter can evoke two different and possibly conflicting color sensations at the same time. In this study, we investigate the relationship between synesthesia and executive control functions. First, no general skill differences were obtained between synesthetes and non-synesthetes in classic executive control paradigms. Furthermore, classic executive control effects did not interact with synesthetic behavioral effects. Third, we found support for our hypothesis that inhibition of a synesthetic color takes effort and time. Finally, individual differences (...) analyses showed no relationship between the two skills; performance on a ‘normal’ Stroop task does not predict performance on a synesthetic Stroop task. Across four studies, the current results consistently show no clear relationship between executive control functions and synesthetic behavioral effects. This raises the question of which mechanisms are at play in synesthetic ‘management’ during the presence of two conflicting sensations. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the discussion of the moral demandingness of Kantian ethics by critically discussing an argument that is currently popular among Kantians. The argument from the system of duties holds that in the Kantian system of duties the demandingness of our duty of beneficence is internally moderated by other moral prescriptions, such as the indirect duty to secure happiness, duties to oneself and special obligations. Furthermore, proponents of this argument claim that via these prescriptions Kant’s system of duties (...) incorporates into morality what current debates on demandingness call happiness and personal projects. These two claims are in conjunction supposed to establish that Kant’s ethics, at least when it comes to beneficence, is not plagued by the problem of excessive moral demands. We show that claims and are mistaken given what Kant says about beneficence, the application of imperfect duties and about emergencies. We finally argue that special obligations towards loved ones, a class of obligations largely overlooked by advocates of the system of duties, are the most promising candidates for internal moderation. These duties are, however, of a narrow scope. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the discussion of the moral demandingness of Kantian ethics by critically discussing an argument that is currently popular among Kantians. The argument from the system of duties holds that (a) in the Kantian system of duties the demandingness of our duty of beneficence is internally moderated by other moral prescriptions, such as the indirect duty to secure happiness, duties to oneself and special obligations. Furthermore, proponents of this argument claim (b) that via these prescriptions Kant’s system (...) of duties incorporates into morality what current debates on (over-)demandingness call happiness and personal projects. These two claims are in conjunction supposed to establish that Kant’s ethics, at least when it comes to beneficence, is not plagued by the problem of excessive moral demands. We show that claims (a) and (b) are mistaken given what Kant says about beneficence, the application of imperfect duties and about emergencies. We finally argue that special obligations towards loved ones, a class of obligations largely overlooked by advocates of the system of duties, are the most promising candidates for internal moderation. These duties are, however, of a narrow scope. (shrink)

Opstellen over de Amerikaanse filosoof (1839-1914), in het bijzonder over de betekenis van zijn pragmatisme voor de semiotiek.

In this essay I argue that John Duns Scotus offers two arguments to support his well-known supralapsarian Christological position: a formal argument based on the ordering within God’s will, and a material argument based on the ordering of God’s love. While the latter is constructively more fruitful, its most natural reading, according to which God becomes incarnate so as to be loved not just by Godself but also by another, is also inconsistent with Scotus’s own account of the metaphysics of (...) the incarnation. An alternative reading, according to which God hypostatically unites with the human soul of Christ because God falls in love with it, is equally untenable. I offer therefore an alternative reading that, while not consistent with the letter of Scotus’s argument, I believe nonetheless to be consistent with its spirit. On this reading, the love expressed in the incarnation is directed at creation. In deciding to become incarnate, God decides to give Godself to that what is not God; the embodiment of this decision is Christ. The incarnation is not an expression of divine self-love, or love for one particular soul, but an expression of love for others. (shrink)

Rationale In Belgium, several policies regulating reimbursement of acid suppressant drugs and evidence-based recommendations for clinical practice were issued in a short period of time, creating a unique opportunity to observe their effect on prescribing. Aims and objectives To describe the evolution of prescriptions for acid suppressants and explore the interaction of policies and practice recommendations with prescribing patterns. Method Monthly claims-based data for proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) and H-2-antihistamines by general practitioners, internists and "astroenterologists were obtained from the Belgian (...) national health insurance database (1997-2005). The evolution of reimbursed defined daily doses and expenses after introduction of reimbursement regulations and dissemination of practice recommendations was explored. Results Recommendations had no impact on prescribing. All changes can be related to concomitant policies. Lifting reimbursement restrictions for cheaper products did not control growth or save costs in the Iona term. Only restricting reimbursement of all PPIs managed to curb the growth. We observed an unintended increase of non-omeprazole PPIs by gastroenterologists. Conclusions Reimbursement policies influence prescribing, but their effect can be unintended. A dialogue between policymakers and guideline developers, and evidence-based policies that are linked to clinical guidelines, could be an effective way to pursue both cost-containment and quality of care. (shrink)

In various cultural and religious contexts, from West Asia to Southeast Asia, we come across a number of quite similar creation myths in which a peacock, seated on a cosmic tree, plays a central part. For the Yezidis, a sect of Sufi origins that has moved away from Islam, the Peacock Angel, who is the most glorious of the angels, is the master of the created world. This belief may be related to early Muslim cosmologies involving the Muhammadan Light, which (...) in some narratives had the shape of a peacock and participated in creation. In a different set of myths, the peacock and the Tree of Certainty play a role in Adam and Eve’s fall and expulsion from Paradise. The central myth of the South Indian Hindu cult of the god Murugan also involves a tree and a peacock. The myth is enacted in the annual ritual of Thaipusam, like the Nur Muhammad myth is still enacted annually in the Maulid festival of Cikoang in South Sulawesi. Images of the peacock, originating from South India, have moved across cultural and religious boundaries and have been adopted as representing the different communities’ peacock myths. (shrink)

The Christian philosopher Muto Kazuo contributed substantially to the predominantly Buddhist “Kyoto School of Philosophy.” Through critical exchange with its representatives, he opened up new perceptions of Christian faith, enabled mutual understanding between Buddhism and Christianity, and challenged the Western dialectical method.

Reading the Tractatus. And appreciating it The reception history of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus displays an impressive and persistent diversity. This paper explores possible sources of that diversity and locates them in different takes on the text and its context of origin, and in different perspectives of the readers. This hermeneutics is illustrated by a comparison of two views on the importance of ethics for an understanding of the Tractatus: that of Cora Diamond and the one developed by the authors in (...) previous work. (shrink)

The paper addresses the way in which modern linguistics, − in particular, but not exclusively, the generative tradition − , has constructed its core concepts. It argues that a particular form of construction, reminiscent of, but crucially different from, abstrac- tion, which is dubbed ‘idealisation’, plays a central role here. The resemblances and differences between abstractions and idealisations are investigated, and consequences of the reliance on idealisations are reviewed.

It is a natural assumption in mainstream epistemological theory that ascriptions of knowledge of a proposition p track strength of epistemic position vis-à-vis p. It is equally natural to assume that the strength of one’s epistemic position is maximally high in cases where p concerns a simple analytic truth. For instance, it seems reasonable to suppose that one’s epistemic position vis-à-vis “a cat is a cat” is harder to improve than one’s position vis-à-vis “a cat is on the mat”, and (...) consequently, that the former is at least as unambiguous a case of knowledge as the latter. The current paper, however, presents empirical evidence which challenges this intuitive line of reasoning. Our study on the epistemic intuitions of hundreds of academic philosophers supports the idea that simple and uncontroversial analytic propositions are less likely to qualify as knowledge than empirical ones. We show that our results, though at odds with orthodox theories of knowledge in mainstream epistemology, can be explained in a way consistent with Wittgenstein’s remarks on ‘hinge propositions’ or with Stalnaker’s pragmatics of assertion. We then present and evaluate a number of lines of response mainstream theories of knowledge could appeal to in accommodating our results. Finally, we show how each line of response runs into some prima facie difficulties. Thus, our observed asymmetry between knowing “a cat is a cat” and knowing “a cat is on the mat” presents a puzzle which mainstream epistemology needs to resolve. (shrink)

The prior issue of Krisis (42:1) published Critical Naturalism: A Manifesto, with the aim to instigate a debate of the issues raised in this manifesto – the necessary re-thinking of the role (and the concept) of nature in critical theory in relation to questions of ecology, health, and inequality. Since Krisis considers itself a place for philosophical debates that take contemporary struggles as starting point, it issued an open call and solicited responses to the manifesto. This is one of the (...) sixteen selected responses, which augment, specify, or question the assumptions and arguments of the manifesto. (shrink)

The paper traces some of the assumptions that have informed conservative naturalism in linguistic theory, critically examines their justification, and proposes a more liberal alternative.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

The article argues for a contextualised reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. It analyses in detail the role that use and application play in the text and how that supports a conception of transcendentality of logic that allows for contextualisation. The article identifies a tension in the text, between the requirement that sense be determinate and the contextual nature of application, and suggests that it is this tension that is a major driver of Wittgenstein’s later ideas.

This paper examines the structure of moral responsibility for outcomes. A central feature of the analysis is a condition that we term the 'avoidance potential', which gives precision to the idea that moral responsibility implies a reasonable demand that an agent should have acted otherwise. We show how our theory can allocate moral responsibility to individuals in complex collective action problems, an issue that sometimes goes by the name of 'the problem of many hands'. We also show how it allocates (...) moral responsibility in the classic Frankfurt example. (shrink)

We present evidence for the existence of `responsibility voids' in committee decision-making, that is, the existence of situations where no member of a committee can individually be held morally responsible for the outcome. We analyse three types of reasons (causal, normative and epistemic) for the emergence of responsibility voids, and show that each of them can occur in committees. But the conditions for these voids are so restrictive as to reduce the philosophical or institutional significance they might be thought to (...) possess. (shrink)

The step to e-research in philosophy depends on the availability of high quality, easily and freely accessible corpora in a sustainable format composed from multi-language, multi-script books from different historical periods. Corpora matching these needs are at the moment virtually non-existing. Within @PhilosTei, we have addressed this corpus building problem by developing an open source, web-based, user-friendly workflow from textual images to TEI, based on state-of-the-art open source OCR software, to wit Tesseract, and a multi-language version of TICCL, a powerful (...) OCR post-correction tool. We have demonstrated the utility of the tool by applying it to a multilingual, multi-script corpus of important eighteenth to twentieth-century European philosophical texts. (shrink)

The condition of liberty which Sen used in his famous theorem on the impossibility of the Paretian liberal was defined in terms of individual preferences. The preference-based approach has been the subject of much criticism, which led to the evolution of the game-theoretic analysis of rights. In this approach no references to individual preferences are made. Two questions are examined in this paper: how can different types of right be distinguished within a game-theoretic setting, and how do rights come into (...) existence? These questions are addressed on the basis of ideas originating from legal theory The discussion shows that an analysis of rights should take account of the whole legal system of which a legal norm forms part. Furthermore, it reveals that preferences should be re-introduced into the formal study of individual rights. (shrink)

The term “evolution” is often used in the administrative sciences to designate dynamic processes of change in general. In biology, evolution has a very specific meaning, namely the application of a generative variation-selective retention scheme to change. Applying this to the administrative sciences is more exacting: describing what the variation consists of, how replication of the generated variation occurs and delineating the population from which the selection is made are far from easy. While it is the intention of this special (...) issue as a whole to provide some empirical examples of evolutionary change in the public and private sectors, this introduction will lay out the main lines of thought in what is often referred to as universal Darwinism and what this means in the administrative sciences. Key concepts here are generative variation, selective retention, and selective institutional environment. According to the authors, the Darwinian scheme of evolutionary theory focuses on how new ideas or concepts arise, how they propagate and influence wider actor thinking and on how the institutional environment in which they operate affects their differential survival. This evolutionary process is an interplay between actors and replicators (sounds, images, and in this context mostly words) in which it cannot be said in advance which one is fooling the other. (shrink)

Governments and companies are increasingly promoting and organizing Responsible Innovation. It is, however, unclear how the seemingly incompatible demands for responsibility, which is associated with care and caution, can be harmonized with demands for innovation, which is associated with risk-taking and speed. We turn to the tradition of virtue ethics and argue that it can be a strong accomplice to Responsible Innovation by focussing on the agential side of innovation. Virtue ethics offers an adequate response to the epistemic and moral (...) complexity in innovation and encourages moral behaviour. We enumerate a number of virtues that people involved in Responsible Innovation would need to cultivate both related to responsibility, such as justice, anticipation, civility and inclusion, and virtues related to innovation, such as courage, dedication, curiosity and creativity. We put forward practical wisdom as a key virtue to regulate relevant virtues and to deal with the tension between responsibility and innovation. Practical wisdom helps an agent to find an appropriate mean in exercising and expressing the other virtues—where the mean is relative to the specific context of action and the role and abilities of the agent. (shrink)

The term “evolution” is often used in the administrative sciences to designate dynamic processes of change in general. In biology, evolution has a very specific meaning, namely the application of a generative variation-selective retention scheme to change. Applying this to the administrative sciences is more exacting: describing what the variation consists of, how replication of the generated variation occurs and delineating the population from which the selection is made are far from easy. While it is the intention of this special (...) issue as a whole to provide some empirical examples of evolutionary change in the public and private sectors, this introduction will lay out the main lines of thought in what is often referred to as universal Darwinism and what this means in the administrative sciences. Key concepts here are generative variation, selective retention, and selective institutional environment. According to the authors, the Darwinian scheme of evolutionary theory focuses on how new ideas or concepts arise, how they propagate and influence wider actor thinking and on how the institutional environment in which they operate affects their differential survival. This evolutionary process is an interplay between actors and replicators (sounds, images, and in this context mostly words) in which it cannot be said in advance which one is fooling the other. (shrink)

Freedom, today perceived simply as a human right, was a continually contested idea in the early modern period. In Freedom and the Construction of Europe an international group of scholars explore the richness, diversity and complexity of thinking about freedom in the shaping of modernity. Volume 1 examines debates about religious and constitutional liberties, as well as exploring the tensions between free will and divine omnipotence across a continent of proliferating religious denominations. Volume 2 considers free persons and free states, (...) examining differing views about freedom of thought and action and their relations to conceptions of citizenship. Debates about freedom have been fundamental to the construction of modern Europe, but represent a part of our intellectual heritage that is rarely examined in depth. These volumes provide materials for thinking in fresh ways not merely about the concept of freedom, but how it has come to be understood in our own time. (shrink)

There is a noticeable gap between results of cognitive neuroscientific research into basic mathematical abilities and philosophical and empirical investigations of mathematics as a distinct intellectual activity. The paper explores the relevance of a Wittgensteinian framework for dealing with this discrepancy.

ABSTRACT In ethics, the use of empirical data has become more and more popular, leading to a distinct form of applied ethics, namely empirical ethics. This ‘empirical turn’ is especially visible in bioethics. There are various ways of combining empirical research and ethical reflection. In this paper we discuss the use of empirical data in a special form of Reflective Equilibrium (RE), namely the Network Model with Third Person Moral Experiences. In this model, the empirical data consist of the moral (...) experiences of people in a practice. Although inclusion of these moral experiences in this specific model of RE can be well defended, their use in the application of the model still raises important questions. What precisely are moral experiences? How to determine relevance of experiences, in other words: should there be a selection of the moral experiences that are eventually used in the RE? How much weight should the empirical data have in the RE? And the key question: can the use of RE by empirical ethicists really produce answers to practical moral questions? In this paper we start to answer the above questions by giving examples taken from our research project on understanding the norm of informed consent in the field of pediatric oncology. We especially emphasize that incorporation of empirical data in a network model can reduce the risk of self‐justification and bias and can increase the credibility of the RE reached. (shrink)

BackgroundPreprint usage is growing rapidly in the life sciences; however, questions remain on the relative quality of preprints when compared to published articles. An objective dimension of quality that is readily measurable is completeness of reporting, as transparency can improve the reader’s ability to independently interpret data and reproduce findings.MethodsIn this observational study, we initially compared independent samples of articles published in bioRxiv and in PubMed-indexed journals in 2016 using a quality of reporting questionnaire. After that, we performed paired comparisons (...) between preprints from bioRxiv to their own peer-reviewed versions in journals.ResultsPeer-reviewed articles had, on average, higher quality of reporting than preprints, although the difference was small, with absolute differences of 5.0% [95% CI 1.4, 8.6] and 4.7% [95% CI 2.4, 7.0] of reported items in the independent samples and paired sample comparison, respectively. There were larger differences favoring peer-reviewed articles in subjective ratings of how clearly titles and abstracts presented the main findings and how easy it was to locate relevant reporting information. Changes in reporting from preprints to peer-reviewed versions did not correlate with the impact factor of the publication venue or with the time lag from bioRxiv to journal publication.ConclusionsOur results suggest that, on average, publication in a peer-reviewed journal is associated with improvement in quality of reporting. They also show that quality of reporting in preprints in the life sciences is within a similar range as that of peer-reviewed articles, albeit slightly lower on average, supporting the idea that preprints should be considered valid scientific contributions. (shrink)

Der Begriff der Autorität verortet sich im 20. Jahrhundert in einer komplexen Matrix zwischen zeitgeschichtlichem Problembewusstsein, »konservativem« Denken und politischer Theoriebildung. Drei Perspektiven kennzeichnen die Rede von Autorität im 20. Jahrhundert: erstens die vermeintliche Krise einer vormals fraglosen Gültigkeit, zweitens der Versuch genealogischer Rückversicherung durch Versatzstücke der Tradition und drittens die Behauptung, Autorität könne als Grundbegriff politischer Theoriebildung und insbesondere demokratischer Ordnungen dienen. Der Sammelband analysiert das Konzept der Autorität entsprechend entlang der drei Dimensionen der Krise, der Konstruktion und der (...) Konjunktur. Der Band arbeitet dabei interdisziplinär: Vereint werden historische, literaturwissenschaftliche und philosophische Ansätze. (shrink)

Armchair philosophers have questioned the significance of recent work in experimental philosophy by pointing out that experiments have been conducted on laypeople and undergraduate students. To challenge a practice that relies on expert intuitions, so the armchair objection goes, one needs to demonstrate that expert intuitions rather than those of ordinary people are sensitive to contingent facts such as cultural, linguistic, socio-economic, or educational background. This article does exactly that. Based on two empirical studies on populations of 573 and 203 (...) trained philosophers, respectively, it demonstrates that expert intuitions vary dramatically according to at least one contingent factor, namely, the linguistic background of the expert: philosophers make different intuitive judgments if their native language is English rather than Dutch, German, or Swedish. These findings cast doubt on the common armchair assumption that philosophical theories based on armchair intuitions are valid beyond the linguistic background against which they were developed. (shrink)