Wansing’s extended intuitionistic linear logic with strong negation, called WILL, is regarded as a resource-conscious refinment of Nelson’s constructive logics with strong negation. In this paper, (1) the completeness theorem with respect to phase semantics is proved for WILL using a method that simultaneously derives the cut-elimination theorem, (2) a simple correspondence between the class of Petri nets with inhibitor arcs and a fragment of WILL is obtained using a Kripke semantics, (3) a cut-free (...) sequent calculus for WILL, called twist calculus, is presented, (4) a strongly normalizable typed λ-calculus is obtained for a fragment of WILL, and (5) new applications of WILL in medical diagnosis and electric circuit theory are proposed. Strong negation in WILL is found to be expressible as a resource-conscious refutability, and is shown to correspond to inhibitor arcs in Petri net theory. (shrink)

Completeness is shown for several versions of Girard's linear logic with respect to Petri nets as the class of models. One logic considered is the -free fragment of intuitionistic linear logic without the exponential !. For this fragment Petri nets form a sound and complete model. The strongest logic considered is intuitionistic linear logic, with ,&, and the exponential ! , and forms of quantification. This logic is shown sound and complete with respect to atomic (...) nets , though only once we add extra axioms specific to the Petri-net model. The logic is remarkably expressive, enabling descriptions of the kinds of properties one might wish to show of nets; in particular, negative properties, asserting the impossibility of an assertion, can also be expressed. Unfortunately, with respect to this logic, whether an assertion is true of a finite net becomes undecidable. (shrink)

This book studies the phenomenological ontology of breathing. It investigates breathing and air as a question of phenomenological philosophy and looks at phenomenological questions concerning respiratory methodology, ontological experience of respiration, respiratory spirituality and respiratory embodiment. Drawing on the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gaston Bachelard, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Luce Irigaray and David Kleinberg-Levin, the book argues for the ontological primacy of breathing and develops a new principle of philosophy that the author calls "Silence of Breath, Abyss/Yawn of Air". It (...) asserts that breathing is not a thing- or person-oriented relation, but perpetual communication with the immense elemental atmosphere of open and free air. This new phenomenological method of breathing offers readers a chance to begin to wonder, rethink, re-experience and reimagine all questions of life in an innovative and creative way as aerial and respiratory questions of life. Part of the Routledge Critical Perspectives on Breath and Breathing series, the book breaks new ground in phenomenology and phenomenological ontology by offering a decisive and insightful treatment of breath. It will be indispensable for students and researchers of philosophy, phenomenology, and ontology. It will also be of special interest to Merleau-Ponty scholars as it investigates uncharted dimensions of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy. (shrink)

This paper discusses the epistemic import of highly abstract and simplified theoretical models using Thomas Schelling’s checkerboard model as an example. We argue that the epistemic contribution of theoretical models can be better understood in the context of a cluster of models relevant to the explanatory task at hand. The central claim of the paper is that theoretical models make better sense in the context of a menu of possible explanations. In order to justify this claim, we introduce a distinction (...) between causal scenarios and causal mechanism schemes. These conceptual tools help us to articulate the basis for modelers’ intuitive confidence that their models make an important epistemic contribution. By focusing on the role of the menu of possible explanations in the evaluation of explanatory hypotheses, it is possible to understand how a causal mechanism scheme can improve our explanatory understanding even in cases where it does not describe the actual cause of a particular phenomenon. (shrink)

In this chapter we examine Moti Mizrahi’s claim that philosophers’ opposition of scientism is founded on their worry that scientism poses “a threat to the soul or essence of philosophy as an a priori discipline”. We find Mizrahi’s methodology for testing this thesis wanting. We offer an alternative hypothesis for the increased resistance of scientism: the antipathy started as a reaction to the New Atheist movement. We also consider two varieties of weak scientism, narrow and broad, and argue that narrow (...) versions of scientism draw unnatural and unfounded distinctions within science. Mizrahi belongs somewhere between these two types, but he commits the same mistakes as proponents of the narrow variety. We demonstrate that Mizrahi’s defence of weak scientism is problematic, once again, due to methodological reasons. As an alternative, we propose that weak scientism should be based on epistemic opportunism. Epistemic opportunism explains the success of science with scientists’ willingness to adopt any methods that demonstrably work. We also show how opportunistic scientism can avoid charges of triviality. (shrink)

This study explored a dimensional approach to vocal expression of emotion. Actors vocally portrayed emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness) with weak and strong emotion intensity. Listeners (30 university students and 6 speech experts) rated each portrayal on four emotion dimensions (activation, valence, potency, emotion intensity). The portrayals were also acoustically analysed with respect to 20 vocal cues (e.g., speech rate, voice intensity, fundamental frequency, spectral energy distribution). The results showed that: (a) there were distinct patterns of ratings (...) of activation, valence, and potency for the different emotions; (b) all four emotion dimensions were correlated with several vocal cues; (c) listeners' ratings could be successfully predicted from the vocal cues for all dimensions except valence; and (d) the intensity dimension was positively correlated with the activation dimension in the listeners' ratings. (shrink)

This study examines the deliberations of professional MBA students when presented with a dilemma that weighs the difference between commitments to profit-maximization against concerns for fired workers who would need to seek a new job during a recession. Using content analysis, accounting, economic, and ethically based rationales that differ from the profit-maximizing recommendation are categorized. Results also show that those who make non-profit-maximizing recommendations consider, but ultimately reject the profit-maximizing approach to layoffs.

In order to develop efficient tools for automated reasoning with inconsistency (theorem provers), eventually making Logics of Formal inconsistency (_LFI_) a more appealing formalism for reasoning under uncertainty, it is important to develop the proof theory of the first-order versions of such _LFI_s. Here, we intend to make a first step in this direction. On the other hand, the logic _Ciore_ was developed to provide new logical systems in the study of inconsistent databases from the point of view of (...) _LFI_s. An interesting fact about _Ciore_ is that it has a _strong_ consistency operator, that is, a consistency operator which (forward/backward) propagates inconsistency. Also, it turns out to be an algebraizable logic (in the sense of Blok and Pigozzi) that can be characterized by means of a 3-valued logical matrix. Recently, a first-order version of _Ciore_, namely _QCiore_, was defined preserving the spirit of _Ciore_, that is, without introducing unexpected relationships between the quantifiers. Besides, some important model-theoretic results were obtained for this logic. In this paper we study some proof–theoretic aspects of both _Ciore_ and _QCiore_ respectively. In first place, we introduce a two-sided sequent system for _Ciore_. Later, we prove that this system enjoys the cut-elimination property and apply it to derive some interesting properties. Later, we extend the above-mentioned system to first-order languages and prove completeness and cut-elimination property using the well-known Shütte’s technique. (shrink)

This work consists of two parts. Part I will be a contribution to a philo- sophical discussion of the nature of causal explanation. It will present my contrastive counterfactual theory of causal explanation and show how it can be used to deal with a number of problems facing theories of causal explanation. Part II is a contribution to a discussion of the na- ture of interest explanation in social studies of science. The aim is to help to resolve some (...) controversies concerning interest explanation by explicating the concept of interest and its explanatory uses by using the account of explanation developed in Part I. (shrink)

The general topic of my philosophical dissertation is phenomenological ontology of breathing. I do not investigate the phenomenon of breathing as a natural scientific problem, but as a philosophical question. Within our tradition, breathing has been normally understood as a mechanistic-materialistic physiological life-sustaining process of gas exchange and cellular respiration which does not really seem to have any essential connection to human being’s spiritual, mental or philosophical capacities. On the contrary to this natural scientific view, I argue that breathing can (...) be understood as a philosophical question that has phenomenological, experiential, ontological, spiritual, bodily, mental, poetic, elemental, ethical, voluntary and mystical dimensions. My investigation conceptualizes breathing in the first place as a question of phenomenological ontology. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenologico-ontological method of interrogation of the lived body’s experiential openness to the world and Being provides the most fundamental point of departure in this dissertation. Merleau-Ponty emphasized in his investigations the lived body’s perceptual openness to the world and Being. He argued famously for the primacy of perception. His thesis of the primacy of perception means that perception as the perceptual openness to the world and Being is the foundation which is always presupposed by all the other levels of our existence and being-in-the-world. In this dissertation, I challenge this idea of the primacy of perception with Merleau-Ponty’s own remarks about breathing. I argue that in his own remarks about breathing, he implicitly points toward a level which is even more fundamental than the primacy of perception. In this dissertation, this level of our being-in-the-world I call the primacy of breathing. Breathing as the lived body’s respiratory openness to the world and Being is now understood as the foundation which is always presupposed by all the other dimensions of our being-in-the-world. These dimensions are, for example, our theoretical, practical, social and perceptual ways of relating with the world. If the idea of the primacy of breathing is taken seriously, it means that all the questions of philosophy could be rethought, reexamined and re-experienced within the fundamental atmosphere of respiratory openness to the world and Being. In this dissertation, I initially try to rethink philosophy as a new philosophy of breathing. This new philosophy of breathing would be phenomenological ontology of breathing. The bases of this new phenomenological ontology of breathing are Merleau-Ponty’s remarks about breathing. My task is to explicate and interpret them with the help of Merleau- Ponty’s own phenomenological ontology. In my task of beginning philosophy anew as philosophy of breathing or as respiratory philosophy, I will also use the ideas of Martin Heidegger, Gaston Bachelard, Paul Claudel, Luce Irigaray, Edmund Husserl and David Kleinberg-Levin. My dissertation is divided into two main sections. In Section One, I construct within the framework of phenomenological ontology a new notion of breathing as the primacy of breathing. In Section Two, I develop a phenomenological method that I call the method of ontologico-respiratory reduction. This method will lead us back to the primacy of breathing. (shrink)

We experimentally assess the ethics of the U.S. government’s indirect bailout of the bank counterparties of American International Group during the 2008 financial crisis. When the indirect bailout is jointly compared with a counterfactual where the government directly bails out the banks, subjects judge the indirect bailout to be far more unethical. On the other hand, when the two scenarios are judged separately, subjects consider a direct bailout of banks to be more unethical. This suggests that ethical judgments of (...) indirect versus direct action exhibit a type of preference reversal that is dependent upon whether the evaluation mode is joint or separate. The pedagogical and policy implications of this preference reversal are discussed. (shrink)

We compare Guala’s unified theory of institutions with that of Searle and Greif. We show that unification can be many things and it may be associated with diverse explanatory goals. We also highlight some of the important shortcomings of Guala’s account: it does not capture all social institutions, its ability to bridge social ontology and game theory is based on a problematic interpretation of the type-token distinction, and its ability to make social ontology useful for social sciences is (...) hindered by Guala’s interpretation of social institution types as social kinds akin to natural kinds. (shrink)

Generalization from a case study is a perennial issue in the methodology of the social sciences. The case study is one of the most important research designs in many social scientific fields, but no shared understanding exists of the epistemic import of case studies. This article suggests that the idea of mechanism-based theorizing provides a fruitful basis for understanding how case studies contribute to a general understanding of social phenomena. This approach is illustrated with a re- construction of Espeland (...) and Sauder's case study of the effects of rankings on US legal education. On the basis of the reconstruction, it is argued that, at least with respect to sociology, the idea of mechanism-based theorizing captures many of the generalizable elements of case studies. (shrink)

We consider arbitrary stratified languages. We study structures which satisfy the same stratified sentences and we obtain an extension of Keisler's Isomorphism Theorem to this situation. Then we consider operations which are definable by a stratified formula and modify the `type' of their argument by one; we prove that for such an operation F the sentence c = F(c) and the scheme $\varphi(c) \leftrightarrow \varphi(F(c))$ , where φ(x) varies among all the stratified formulas with no variable other than x (...) free, imply the same stratified {c}-sentences. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss the idea of the invisible hand in the connection of its recent use in the philosophy of science. It has been invoked by some philosophers of science with a naturalistic bent as a part of their account of science. Some have made explicit references to the idea (Hull, 1988a) and others have only presupposed it (Giere, 1988; Goldman, 1991; Kitcher, 1993). I will argue that there are some problematic features in the way the (...) idea of the invisible hand isused inthese accounts. I will first discuss some general properties of the invisible hand explanations and then present some motives for its use in the theory of science. Then I will show how one particular philosopher of science, David Hull, uses the idea. I will use Hull's account as a practising target and offer some comments and criticism in order to promote more disciplined use of this model of explanation in science studies. (shrink)

Among historians of political thought, Peter Laslett is probably best remembered for his 1956 declaration concerning the death of political philosophy. Laslett's argument was thematically close to the contemporaneous debate on 'the end of ideology', as well as to the worries voiced by scholars such as Leo Strauss of traditional philosophical wisdom being threatened by a new scientism and historicism. Political theory textbooks have often portrayed Laslett as an individual who produced a highly memorable recording of the devastating effects of (...) the emerging modernist modes of knowledge, such as philosophical positivism and social scientific behaviouralism, on political philosophy. However, his personal relation to such modes of knowledge was far more complicated than a simple rejection or endorsement. As opposed to the Straussians, Laslett was not mourning the loss of eternal philosophic wisdom, because he did not have much belief in its existence. As opposed to the positivists, he still wanted to maintain the history of political thought as a central issue area of philosophical and political studies. Laslett's particular way of complementing the philosophical with the empirical and the historical also distinguished him from the end of ideology-theorizing dominated by American scholars. The originality of his views is testified by the emergence of the 'Cambridge School' in the history of political thought, which cannot be adequately understood without taking into account Laslett's contributions in the 1950s. (shrink)

This paper examines the relation between Cartwright's concept of 'capacities' and Mill's concept of 'tendencies' and argues that they are not equivalent. Cartwright's concept of 'capacities' and her motivation to adopt it as a central notion in her philosophy of science are described. It is argued that the Millian concept of 'tendencies' is distinct because Mill restricts its use to a set of special cases. These are the cases in which causes combine 'mechanically'. Hence for Mill 'tendencies' do not merely (...) describe the operation of causes, but also and perhaps even primarily how they combine. This does not hold of Cartwrightian capacities which are meant to have unlimited applicability. Mill also explicitly denies the realism of 'capacities' in a sense which overlaps with Cartwright's. Her attempt to derive empirist credentials for her notion of capacity from Mill is therefore unsuccessful. (shrink)

This article traces the development of contextualist methodology in the study of the history of political thought/political theory after WWII. It argues that the so-called ‘Cambridge School’, often regarded as the core of historicist contextualism, arose during the 1950s and 1960s in response to dilemmas that were largely internal to (the history of) political philosophy as it was practiced in Britain in an academic culture dominated by analytic philosophy. This first stage of contextualist theorizing, usually associated with Laslett, Skinner (...) and Pocock, was highly influential, but it also contributed to the formation of a new set of problems. These were connected to the diversification and internationalization of the historicist contextualist study of political thought after the 1960s. The ‘second stage’ of contextualist theorizing was shaped by post-analytic and post-modernist impulses among others. Because of the variety of philosophical and conceptual commitments on notions central to the field such as ‘political thinking’, ‘politics’, or ‘power’, it is unlikely that the present historicist contextualist approaches would come to share a unified methodology or theory of historical interpretation. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 9, Issue 3, pp 347 - 371 A central purpose of historicist contextualism, or the “new history of political thought”, the central methodological ideas of which were laid out between the 1950s and the 70s, was to liberate the history of ideas from distorting influence of political ideology, nationalism, and other presentist narratives that ascribed past events under false teleologies. From the 1980s onwards, it has been possible to find explicitly normative statements in the works of the (...) leading contextualist historians and scholars influenced by their work, for example, Skinner’s defences of neo-Roman republicanism. This article examines the normative content of contextualism. Instead of arguing that the normative aspect was a novelty introduced after the 1980s, the claim here is that contextualist theorising was socially and politically implicated and arguably normative from its very beginning. To substantiate this, the article offers an interpretation of the normativity of early contextualism based on its relationship towards broader socio-political themes such as ideology, agency, emancipation, progress, and societies’ relationship with their pasts. Early contextualist normativity assumed that the professional research of history would be a suitable and sufficient way of generating also socially desirable outcomes. Later, as the political and academic background conditions changed, this normativity was given more explicit formulations in order to keep up its political relevance. (shrink)

Nonprofit organizations play a crucial role in society. Unfortunately, many such organizations are chronically underfunded and struggle to meet their objectives. These facts have significant implications for corporate philanthropy and Kant’s notion of imperfect duties. Under the concept of imperfect duties, businesses would have wide discretion regarding which charities receive donations, how much money to give, and when such donations take place. A perceived problem with imperfect duties is that they can lead to moral laxity; that is, a failure (...) on the part of businesses to fulfill their financial obligations to nonprofit organizations. This article argues the problem of moral laxity rests on a misinterpretation of Kantian ethics and, therefore, is really not a problem at all. As such, we argue corporate philanthropy while an imperfect duty should be interpreted more akin to perfect duties and, as a consequence, moral laxity does not arise for those corporations committed to acting on the basis of the moral law. More specifically, firms have duty-based obligations on the basis of benevolence, and as good corporate citizens, to help fund non-profit organizations. (shrink)

This paper provides an inferentialist account of model-based understanding by combining a counterfactual account of explanation and an inferentialist account of representation with a view of modeling as extended cognition. This account makes it understandable how the manipulation of surrogate systems like models can provide genuinely new empirical understanding about the world. Similarly, the account provides an answer to the question how models, that always incorporate assumptions that are literally untrue of the model target, can still provide factive explanations. (...) Finally, the paper shows how the contrastive counterfactual theory of explanation can provide tools for assessing the explanatory power of models. (shrink)

This paper is a reply to Jonathan Riley’s criticism of my reading of Mill (both published in the Philosophical Quarterly 2003). I show that Riley’s interpretation has no textual support in Mill’s writing by putting the supposedly supporting quotations in their proper context. Secondly it is demonstrated how my reading is not incompatible with hedonism. Mill’s use of the concepts of ‘quality’, ‘quantity’, and ‘pleasure’ are explained and illustrated. I conclude by considering whether the possible redundancy of Mill’s quality/quantity (...) discussion would be problematic. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to further our understanding of mechanisms conceived of as ontologically separable from laws. What opportunities are there for a mechanistic perspective to be independent of, or even more fundamental than, a law perspective? Advocates of the mechanistic view often play with the possibility of internal and external reliability, or with the paralleling possibilities of enforcing, counteracting, redirecting, etc., the mechanisms’ power to produce To further this discussion I adopt a trope ontology. It is (...) independent of the notion of law, and can easily be adapted to account for such characteristics of mechanisms. The idea of tropes as mechanisms is worked out in some detail. According to the resulting picture, there is still an opportunity to link mechanisms and laws. But while the predominant law view conceives of mechanistic approaches as special kinds of law accounts, this study indicates that the converse may be true. Law accounts are special cases of mechanistic accounts, and they work only in those worlds where the mechanisms are of the right kind. (shrink)

The psychiatric category of addiction has recently been broadened to include new behaviors. This has prompted critical discussion about the value of a concept that covers so many different substances and activities. Many of the debates surrounding the notion of addiction stem from different views concerning what kind of a thing addiction fundamentally is. In this essay, we put forward an account that conceptualizes different addictions as sharing a cluster of relevant properties (the syndrome) that is supported by a matrix (...) of causal mechanisms. According to this “addiction-as-a-kind” hypothesis, several different kinds of substance and behavioral addictions can be thought of as instantiations of the same thing – addiction. We show how a clearly articulated account of addiction can facilitate empirical research and the theoretical integration of different perspectives on addiction. The causal matrix approach provides a promising alternative to existing accounts of the nature of psychiatric disorders, the traditional disease model, and its competitors. It is a positive addition to discussions about diagnostic criteria, and sheds light on how psychiatric classification may be integrated with research done in other scientific fields. We argue that it also provides a plausible approach to understanding comorbidity. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer an introduction to case study research in the social sciences. We begin with a discussion of the definition of case study research. Next, we point to various purposes that case study research may serve in the social sciences and then turn to outline the main philosophical issues raised by case study research. Finally, we briefly present the papers in this special issue.

In this paper I examine the role of thought experiments in the social studies of science. More specifically, I will focus on two strands of social studies of science: the so-called sociology of scientific knowledge and the naturalistically oriented philosophy of science with interest in social dimensions of science. I begin by discussing David Hull's views on thought experiments in the study of science. His account serves as a foil that helps me to make some points about thought experiments. (...) As an illustration I discuss two example of thought experimenting in the social studies of science. The first example is the use of thought experiments by the sociologists of scientific knowledge, and the second case will be the recent work by Philip Kitcher on division of cognitive labour. With the help of these cases, I argue that Hull's negative attitude towards the use of thought experiments requires some, tempering. The notion of thought experiment will be understood broadly in this paper. One could also talk about imaginary or hypothetical examples. In social sciences the contrast for thought experiments is not an experiment, but an empirical case study. Accordingly, thought experiment in social science in an imaginary case study or a made up historical scenario. The focus of my discussion is on the various functions and argumentative roles thought experiments have or could have in social studies of science. An empirical experiment (or a case study) is not an argument by itself, nor is a thought experiment. However, they both are used in making arguments and my aim is to look how they are used. (shrink)

Several vaccines against COVID-19 have now been developed and are already being rolled out around the world. The decision whether or not to get vaccinated has so far been left to the individual citizens. However, there are good reasons, both in theory as well as in practice, to believe that the willingness to get vaccinated might not be sufficiently high to achieve herd immunity. A policy of mandatory vaccination could ensure high levels of vaccination coverage, but its legitimacy is doubtful. (...) We investigate the willingness to get vaccinated and the reasons for an acceptance (or rejection) of a policy of mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 in June and July 2020 in Germany based on a representative real time survey, a random sub-sample (SOEP-CoV) of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Our results show that about 70 percent of adults in Germany would voluntarily get vaccinated against the coronavirus if a vaccine without side effects was available. About half of residents of Germany are in favor, and half against, a policy of mandatory vaccination. The approval rate for mandatory vaccination is significantly higher among those who would get vaccinated voluntarily (around 60 percent) than among those who would not get vaccinated voluntarily (27 percent). The individual willingness to get vaccinated and acceptance of a policy of mandatory vaccination correlates systematically with socio-demographic and psychological characteristics of the respondents. We conclude that as far as people’s declared intentions are concerned, herd immunity could be reached without a policy of mandatory vaccination, but that such a policy might be found acceptable too, were it to become necessary. (shrink)

Manuscript type Empirical. Research question/issue This paper aims to contribute to an improved theoretical and empirical understanding of the role that corporation has to play in anticorruption efforts. Research findings/insights Using cross-country data from three databases (Bribe Payers Index, Corruption Perceptions Index, and Doing Business) we found that pro-bribery Investment Climate conditions in host countries are not related to the payments of bribes by multinational companies when these corporations operate abroad. Theoretical/academic implications After describing the conceptual and policy framework that (...) surrounds the discussion on the role played by firms in anticorruption, we present the current debate regarding the effectiveness of international bribery control instruments, with the World Bank-GAC (2006-2008) report as a basis. Both literature and policy seem to be divided into two main, although not mutually exclusive, positions: one demands improvements in Investment Climate conditions from a joint public-private consensus led by international agencies; the other one supports the effectiveness of self-regulation by firms, independent of Investment Climate improvements. The study provides empirical support to the idea that a better Investment Climate is not enough for reducing corrup tion. Practitioner/policy implications This study offers insights to policy makers interested in promoting the involvement of corporations in the fight against corruption. (shrink)

The conclusion of the paper reads: There is a view compatible with everything Mill says in these passages that can deal with all three problems. It’s a simple act utilitarianism in which the moral value of an action is determined by its actual consequences. On this view, the consequences of an action, what happens, depends on what the agent wants to bring about, that is to say, they depend on the agent’s intentions. Therefore the moral value of an (...) action depends, given that on simple act utilitarianism it entirely depends on the action’s consequences, entirely on the intentions of the agent – at least in the simple cases at issue between Mill and Davies in which people manage to bring about what they want to bring about. In these cases, varying the intention varies the consequences and thus the moral value. The simple act utilitarian nevertheless recognises that motives are also relevant – not necessarily to the consequences of the actions that do get performed but to which actions get performed at all. Hence motives are of paramount importance in theory and practice. However, as actions are individuated by the agent’s intentions and the action’s consequences, without appealing to the motive giving rise to it, any particular action might be brought about by different motives. Mill’s example illustrates this scenario. Hence it is possible to vary the motive due to which an action is performed without varying the action’s consequences, that is, without varying its moral value. In this sense, the moral value of an action does not depend on the motive with which it is done. Hence Davies’s objection is indeed unfounded and Mill’s footnote is rescued. (shrink)

This paper argues that the main global critiques of scientism lose their punch because they rely on an uncharitable definition of their target. It focuses on epistemological scientism and divides it into four categories in terms of how strong (science is the only source of knowledge) or weak (science is the best source of knowledge) and how narrow (only natural sciences) or broad (all sciences or at least not only the natural sciences) they are. Two central arguments against scientism, the (...) (false) dilemma and self‐referential incoherence, are analysed. Of the four types of epistemological scientism, three can deal with these counterarguments by utilizing two methodological principles: epistemic evaluability of reliability and epistemic opportunism. One hopes that these considerations will steer the discussion on scientism to more fruitful pastures in the future. For example, there are interesting methodological considerations concerning what evaluability or reliability and epistemic opportunism entail. (shrink)

In this short commentary on Ken Binmore’s Natural Justice I primarily examine the relationship between mainstream egalitarian theories and Binmore’s ap- proach. I argue that Binmore uses key concepts in non-standard ways. As a result, he doesn’t engage enough with the views he criticises.

Background: According to Gelfand et al., COVID-19 infection and case mortality rates are closely connected to the strength of social norms: “Tighter” cultures that abide by strict social norms are more successful in combating the pandemic than “looser” cultures that are more permissive. However, countries with similar levels of cultural tightness exhibit big differences in mortality rates. We are investigating potential explanations for this fact. Using data from Germany and Japan—two “tight” countries with very different infection and mortality (...) rates—we examined how differences in socio-demographic and other determinants explain differences in individual preventive attitudes and behaviors. Methods: We compared preventive attitudes and behaviors in 2020 based on real-time representative survey data and used logit regression models to study how individual attitudes and behaviors are shaped by four sets of covariates: individual socio-demographics, health, personality, and regional-level controls. Employing Blinder-Oaxaca regression techniques, we quantified the extent to which differences in averages of the covariates between Japan and Germany explain the differences in the observed preventive attitudes and behaviors. Results: In Germany and Japan, similar proportions of the population supported mandatory vaccination, avoided travel, and avoided people with symptoms of a cold. In Germany, however, a significantly higher proportion washed their hands frequently and avoided crowds, physical contact, public transport, peak-hour shopping, and contact with the elderly. In Japan, a significantly higher proportion were willing to be vaccinated. We also show that attitudes and behaviors varied significantly more with covariates in Germany than in Japan. Differences in averages of the covariates contribute little to explaining the observed differences in preventive attitudes and behaviors between the two countries. Conclusion: Consistent with tightness-looseness theory, the populations of Japan and Germany responded similarly to the pandemic. The observed differences in infection and fatality rates therefore cannot be explained by differences in behavior The major difference in attitudes is the willingness to be vaccinated, which was much higher in Japan. Furthermore, the Japanese population behaved more uniformly across social groups than the German population. This difference in the degree of homogeneity has important implications for the effectiveness of policy measures during the pandemic. (shrink)

This study shows how disruptive training methods (DTM) equip students with skills that facilitate intergenerational and intercultural work. Skills and competences of leading international companies and institutions. A review of the literature on disruptive methodology has been carried out. The result shows how traditional education can be adapted to Wikiproducers and Generation Z students, to help them understand and develop some skills that their training is leaving behind, and that can be critical in their early stages of professional and (...) personal life. (shrink)

The article introduces a cognitive and componential view of religious emotions. General emotions are claimed to consist of at least two compounds, the cognitive compound and the affective compound. Religious emotions are typically general emotions which are characterized by three specific conditions: they involve a thought of God or godlike, they are significant for a person feeling them and their meaning is derived from religious practices. The article discusses the notion of spiritual emotions in Ancient theology and compares the idea (...) of it with emotions in music. By referring to the notion of mental language, it is argued that some religious emotions are like emotions in music and as such they can be interpreted as tones of Logos. (shrink)

A. THE TEXT The main importance of these two treatises lies in the insight they provide into Spinoza's conception of the relation between mathematics and certain disciplines not touched upon elsewhere in his major writings. The mathematics they involve are not the as those of the Ethics however, and the precise connection same between the geometrical order of this work and these excursions into optics and probability is by no means obvious. Add to this difficulty the knotty problems presented by (...) their editorial his tory, dating and scientific background, and it is not perhaps surprising that in spite of the fact that they provide such an excellent illustration of Spinoza's reaction to certain important developments in the history of physics and mathematics, they should not, so far, have attracted much attention. They were first published in 1687 by Levyn van Dyck (d. 1695), official printer to the town council in The Hague. Printing anything by Spinoza was not without its risks, and it is probably significant that during the same year van Dyck should also have published a lengthy and elaborate refutation of Spinozism by 1 the pious and eccentric physician ]. F. Helvetius. Spinoza's name was omitted from the title-page, possibly because the editor or publisher thought that his reputation as an atheist might prejudice the sale of the booklet, and it was not until 1860 that the Amsterdam bookseller Frederik Muller (1817-1881) identified him as its author. (shrink)

Social scientists associate agent-based simulation (ABS) models with three ideas about explanation: they provide generative explanations, they are models of mechanisms, and they implement methodological individualism. In light of a philosophical account of explanation, we show that these ideas are not necessarily related and offer an account of the explanatory import of ABS models. We also argue that their bottom-up research strategy should be distinguished from methodological individualism.

The systemic complexity of sustainable development imposes a major cognitive challenge to students’ learning. Faculty can explore new approaches in the classroom to teach the topic successfully, including the use of technology. We conducted an experiment to compare the effectiveness of a simulation vis-à-vis a case-based method to teach sustainable development. We found that both pedagogical methods are effective for teaching this concept, although our results support the idea that simulations are slightly more effective than case studies, particularly to teach (...) its multidimensional and inter-temporal nature. Therefore, our findings suggest the use of both simulations and case studies as pedagogical tools to convey the main ideas associated with sustainable development. (shrink)

Dramatic economic developments have served to highlight ethical questions and responses within business life in Finland, particularly regarding the crisis of the Finnish banking system. Other issues which have aroused public discussion are maintaining the natural biodiversity in the Northern hemisphere forests, and Finland's trade with Russia. The authors, listed alphabetically, are all research fellows at the School of Business Administration in the University of Tampere, PO Box 607, 33101 Tampere,Finland.

Dramatic economic developments have served to highlight ethical questions and responses within business life in Finland, particularly regarding the crisis of the Finnish banking system. Other issues which have aroused public discussion are maintaining the natural biodiversity in the Northern hemisphere forests, and Finland's trade with Russia. The authors, listed alphabetically, are all research fellows at the School of Business Administration in the University of Tampere, PO Box 607, 33101 Tampere,Finland.

We do not know how much clinical physicians carrying out clinical trials in oncology and haematology struggle with ethical concerns. To our knowledge, no empirical research exists on these questions in a Nordic context. Therefore, this study aims to learn what kinds of ethical challenges physicians in Sweden, Denmark and Finland face when caring for patients in clinical trials; and what strategies, if any, they have developed to deal with them. The main findings were that clinical cancer trials (...) pose ethical challenges related to autonomy issues, unreasonable hope for benefits and the therapeutic misconception. Nevertheless, some physicians expressed that struggling with such challenges was not of great concern. This conveys a culture of hope where health care professionals and patients uphold hope and mutually support belief in clinical trials. This culture being implicit, physicians need opportunities to deliberately reflect over the characteristics that should constitute this culture. (shrink)

Jeff Bernard was a distinguished semiotician, always au courant with the main accomplishments in the field. Although Jeff himself had specialized in socio-semiotics, his architectural training and his artistic youth had lent him a really open mind, able to comprehend almost everything.Jeff Bernard was also an excellent administrator. He and Gloria organized countless international conferences, most of them based in Vienna (at the Institute for Socio-Semiotic Studies Jeff was the director of ), but also in other places in Austria, (...) Germany, Italy. All of them were a success. Jeff ran the ISSS almost single-handed. He edited books (he published three of mine, among many, many others), anthologies, semiotic journals. He knew how to raise funding, of which the whole semiotic community benefitted. In 2003, he acted as my “impresario”, as he jokingly said, and organized a lecturing tour through Central Europe for me.Jeff was also a wonderful host; he considered his guests as part of the family and treated them accordingly. Many were the times when he picked me up from one Viennese railway station or the other, or when he drove me there, when I stopped in Vienna, to or from other places. It was owing to Jeff and Gloria that I discovered Grinzig, Baden, and various other cozy places in and around Vienna. Last but not least, it was also due to Jeff and Gloria that I discovered the charm of many Viennese restaurants.Jeff was kind and generous, elegant and discreet. He helped quite a lot of semioticians to forward their careers, and more important still, he did it unobtrusively. Jeff was also a likeable person, with an entertaining conversation and a fine sense of humor.“I am a Feminist”, Jeff once said. (For the sake of historical accuracy, it was in September 1997, round a dinner table at the Early-Fall School of Semiotics, thenheld in Bankya, Bulgaria). And he further expanded: “Otherwise, we couldn’t be living with Gloria. And my life would be pretty difficult, virtually surrounded as I am by so many professional women. But they all think I am a Feminist, and they are happy to work for my benefit. So I sit at my desk in Vienna, and my women colleagues from all over the world send me contributions for this and that, come over to participate in conferences, etc. It pays being a Feminist”.“Ich bin ein Berliner”, said Jeff on another occasion. For historical accuracy, it was in September 2003, during the conference celebrating his 60th birthday, in answer to a remark made by Roland Posner. It seemed a humorous statement, and everybody smiled. But I think this was true in spirit. These few lines, as well as (I suppose) those written by other colleagues who have contributed to the present issue, are meant to illustrate this self-definition. Jeff had always sympathized with the less privileged people everywhere. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on changing moral values associated with the provision of public goods, which incorporates an additional moral condition based on donor self-interest. Assistance for less-developed countries to replace ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons with non-ozone-depleting hydrofluorocarbons helps the donor country to achieve a thicker stratospheric ozone layer, which protects its own citizens, along with others. The elimination of corrupt practices can provide LDCs with markets for primary exports and lead to better provision of public goods. Improved economic (...) conditions in these countries through different economic and humanitarian measures can improve the prospects of secondary public goods sectors. Aggregator technologies can also play a key role in public goods assistance, with greater implications for the donor and recipient countries. (shrink)

We argue that the idea of ECC is more in line with libertarian than liberal thinking. The basic idea of ECC is the dislocation of the provider of citizenship rights from governments to corporations: corporations provide and administrate the same citizenship rights, which governments provided earlier, before the political processes started the privatization of these entitlements . According to John Rawls’ liberal viewpoint, citizens’ relations to the public structures of society are supposed to be fundamentally different from their relations (...) to private associations like business corporations. In libertarian thinking , instead, citizens relations to public institutions do not significantly differ from their relations to business corporations. Both are based on voluntary agreements, bringing forth the idea of a contract-society. Since ECC is backed up by this kind of contractsociety, it brings forth libertarian interpretations of the most central political matters - like the basic structure of society, and the concepts of freedom and democracy. (shrink)

Modern software is infested with flaws having information security aspects. Pervasive computing has made us and our society vulnerable. However, software developers do not fully comprehend what is at stake when faulty software is produced and flaws causing security vulnerabilites are discovered. To address this problem, the main actors involved with software vulnerability processes and the relevant roles inside these groups are identified. This categorisation is illustrated through a fictional case study, which is scrutinised in the light of (...) ethical codes of professional software engineers and common principles of responsibility attribution. The focus of our analysis is on the acute handling of discovered vulnerabilities in software, including reporting, correcting and disclosing these vulnerabilities. We recognise a need for guidelines and mechanisms to facilitate further improvement in resolving processes leading to and in handling software vulnerabilities. In the spirit of disclosive ethics we call for further studies of the complex issues involved. (shrink)

In France, ULISs (localized units for inclusive education) offer a specific educational space within which coordinating teachers provide ongoing support to pupils with recognized disabilities. Our qualitative research study focuses on the implementation of educational pathways for the pupils involved. We focus on how coordinating teachers navigate this « in-between » space in their practices and how this in-between stance manifests itself. By outlining a few types of the positions adopted, we show how the practices and relational arrangements interact (...) in a reflexivity that is enriched as experience is gained. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to elucidate the nature of that sense of 'methodology' which is concerned with the strategies, techniques, and procedures of scientific experimentation. It is claimed that methodology in this sense is at bottom a set of logical relations between sentences expressing pervasive facts of the subject matter and sentences describing experimental behavior. In particular a successful methodology is one in which the set of these sentences is logically consistent. I then turn to the problems involved (...) in teaching and learning an explicit methodology. Finally, I argue that this analysis throws fresh light on the distinction between knowing a fact and possessing a skill or competence. (shrink)

During the first week of October 1983, the Italian Institute for the Study of Philosophy, together with the Philosophical Seminar of the University of Tübingen, organized a public colloquium on Hegel’s philosophy of the natural sciences. Those attending included a selected group of Italian scholars doing advanced research into early nineteenth century German philosophy, students and members of the general public from Tübingen, and a number of specialists from elsewhere in Germany and from the Netherlands.