In a recent paper, Jie Gao (Synthese 194:1901–17, 2017) has argued that there are acceptance-based counterexamples to the knowledge norm for practical reasoning (KPR). KPR tells us that we may only rely on known propositions in practical reasoning, yet there are cases of practical reasoning in which we seem to permissibly rely on merely accepted propositions, which fail to constitute knowledge. In this paper, I will argue that such cases pose no threat to a more broadly conceived knowledge-based view of (...) practical reasoning. I will first motivate the view that rational acceptance depends on a knowledge-based condition being met. I will then show how KPR can be amended—yielding what I call KPR+—to include this condition. I will argue that KPR+ not only avoids Gao’s counterexample, but harbours additional explanatory power by providing an account of the normative role of acceptance in practical reasoning. Finally, I will defend KPR+ against objections by employing theoretical tools that are readily available to those sympathetic to knowledge-based views. (shrink)

Hitlers’ concept of the term Heil (well-being etc.) embraced beside political and (pseudo-)religious, also medical connotations. In this respect it is deeply rooted in the European tradition that goes back until to the Greek-Roman Antiquity. The analysis of medical-biological metaphors in Mein Kampf illuminates their focus: a exogenous pathology of the people’s body caused by poison and infection. Beyond its metaphorism this explicative model stresses exclusively the collective character of disease and appeals to political and personal consequences relative (...) to the preservation of health and the prevention of disease.The often violent realization of these demands after the accession to power of the Nazis illustrates impressively the primacy of Hitler’s perception of Heil in his personal way of acting. (shrink)

Common sense and philosophical tradition agree that mind makes a difference. What we do depends not only on how our bodies are put together, but also on what we think. Explaining how mind can make a difference has proved challenging, however. Some have urged that the project faces an insurmountable dilemma: either we concede that mentalistic explanations of behavior have only a pragmatic standing or we abandon our conception of the physical domain as causally autonomous. Although each option has its (...) advocates, most theorists have sought a middle way that accommodates both the common-sense view of mind and the metaphysical conviction about the physical world. This volume presents a collection of new, specially written essays by a diverse group of philosophers, each of whom is widely known for defending a particular conception of minds and their place in nature. Contributors include Robert Audi, Lynne Rudder Baker, Tyler Burge, Donald Davidson, Fred Dretske, Ted Honderich, Jennifer Hornsby, Frank Jackson, Jaegwon Kim, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ruth Garrett Millikan, H. W. Noonan, Philip Pettit, Ernest Sosa, and Robert Van Gulick. (shrink)

Models are of central importance in many scientific contexts. The centrality of models such as inflationary models in cosmology, general-circulation models of the global climate, the double-helix model of DNA, evolutionary models in biology, agent-based models in the social sciences, and general-equilibrium models of markets in their respective domains is a case in point (the Other Internet Resources section at the end of this entry contains links to online resources that discuss these models). Scientists spend significant amounts of time building, (...) testing, comparing, and revising models, and much journal space is dedicated to interpreting and discussing the implications of models. In short, models are one of the principal instruments of modern science. (shrink)

Metaphysics can be understood as the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality. In this textbook for students new to the topic, John Heil covers the key concepts in an original, jargon-free way.

Davidson's account of mental causation initiated in “Mental Events” forms a backdrop to much subsequent discussion of the topic. Davidson is commonly taken to defend token identity – token mental events are identical with token physical events – but type diversity – mental types “supervene on,” but are not reducible to or identical with physical types, where types are understood as properties. Mental events are physical events, but one and the same event can have a physical property and, by virtue (...) of having this property, have a mental property as well. There are two salient difficulties with this account. (1) It gives rise to the problem of “causal relevance”: granted that a mental event can cause a physical event, could it do so by virtue of being mental, by virtue of its possession of a mental property? (2) The view thus described is not Davidson's. This chapter discusses Davidson actual account and shows that, whatever its flaws, they are not what they are commonly thought to be. (shrink)

Medizinethik wie auch Pflegeethik werden allgemein als Disziplinen verstanden, die das Handeln von Menschen auf die Geltung seiner Ziele, Motivationen und Resultate hin untersucht. Ausgangspunkt solcher Formen der Ethik bildet die zum Problem gewordene Situation, in der vermeintlich eindeutige Grundziele, wie zum Beispiel Lebensverlängerung einerseits und Leidensverminderung andererseits, miteinander in Konflikt geraten. Es stellen sich dann Fragen, deren praxisanleitende Beantwortungen von einer Pflegeethik gefordert werden. In der theoretisch fundierten Beantwortung dieser Fragen jedoch entfernen sich Medizin- und Pflegeethik von dem, was (...) Menschen tun und erleiden. Mit Hilfe der seinsgeschichtlichen Hermeneutik Heideggers und des amerikanischen Pragmatismus, vertreten durch John Dewey und Richard Rorty, entwickeln die Autoren eine Methode, die - jenseits sogenannter Grundfragen einer medizinischen Ethik - alltägliche Krisen des heutigen klinischen Miteinanders im Spannungsfeld technischer Medizin und individueller Situation lösungsorientiert neu verstehen lässt. Jene werden - derart als Fragen von Mitgefühl und Selbstbestimmung neu verstanden - zu Chancen einer verantwortungsvollen klinischen Praxis. Die Krankenpflege bildet dabei als neu belebter metaphorischer Fundus den poietischen Horizont dieser Praxis, deren methodischer Vollzug von der Ausbildung bis zum beruflichen Handeln ärztlichen und pflegenden Klinikpersonals reicht. Die kulturellen, sprachlichen, rechtlichen und institutionellen Bedingungen des Handelns in Kliniken werden auf den Prüfstand gestellt und neu bewertet. Schließlich wird die Methode eines Klinischen Pragmatismus, als neue Ethik der Pflege, anhand von einschlägigen Fallbeispielen aus der Praxis beispielhaft angewandt. (shrink)

The book develops a philosophical foundation to the field of management education using the work of Martin Heidegger as a guiding philosophy. It asks the questions ‘what is a corporation?’ and ‘what is corporate management?’ These two questions are foundational for management thought in general and management ethics in particular. Most other academic fields are in some way defined and guided by a philosophical discourse. This philosophical discourse is largely missing in the field of management thought and education. Without this (...) foundation it can never be clear what actually belongs into a certain academic discipline and what does not. It also therefore lacks a sound and well articulated ontological foundation critical for developing approaches to ethical management. This book seeks to fill this gap and consequently represents an interdisciplinary effort between the academic field of management/business administration and philosophy, which is vital for business ethics. Intended as required reading for an elective on philosophy of management that is offered annually at the Wits Business School / University of the Witwatersrand / Johannesburg. The structure of the course will be largely based on the structure of the book. (shrink)

Scientific discourse is rife with passages that appear to be ordinary descriptions of systems of interest in a particular discipline. Equally, the pages of textbooks and journals are filled with discussions of the properties and the behavior of those systems. Students of mechanics investigate at length the dynamical properties of a system consisting of two or three spinning spheres with homogenous mass distributions gravitationally interacting only with each other. Population biologists study the evolution of one species procreating at a constant (...) rate in an isolated ecosystem. And when studying the exchange of goods, economists consider a situation in which there are only two goods, two perfectly rational agents, no restrictions on available information, no transaction costs, no money, and dealings are done immediately. Their surface structure notwithstanding, no competent scientist would mistake descriptions of such systems as descriptions of an actual system: we know very well that there are no such systems. These descriptions are descriptions of a model-system, and scientists use model-systems to represent parts or aspects of the world they are interested in. Following common practice, I refer to those parts or aspects as target-systems. What are we to make of this? Is discourse about such models merely a picturesque and ultimately dispensable façon de parler? This was the view of some early twentieth century philosophers. Duhem (1906) famously guarded against confusing model building with scientific theorizing and argued that model building has no real place in science, beyond a minor heuristic role. The aim of science was, instead, to construct theories, with theories understood as classificatory or representative structures systematically presented and formulated in precise symbolic.. (shrink)

Worries about mental causation are prominent in contemporary discussions of the mind and human agency. Originally, the problem of mental causation was that of understanding how a mental substance (thought to be immaterial) could interact with a material substance, a body. Most philosophers nowadays repudiate immaterial minds, but the problem of mental causation has not gone away. Instead, focus has shifted to mental properties. How could mental properties be causally relevant to bodily behavior? How could something mental qua mental cause (...) what it does? After looking at the traditional Problem of Interaction, we survey various versions of the property-based problem and look at proposed solutions to them. (shrink)

This work is the second part of a critical textual edition that is devoted to an extraordinarily rich collection of manuscripts with equally remarkable historical significance dating from late Christian antiquity.

Die Frage nach der Seinsweise der realen Welt gehört zu den zentralen und am meisten umstrittenen Themen der europäischen Philosophie. Weder die Argumente des Idealismus noch die des Realismus haben das Problem gelöst. Auch die Frage nach dem Wesen und dem Schicksal des Menschen und seiner Stellung in der Welt ist nicht ablösbar von der Grundfrage nach dem Wesen der Natur und der Existenzweise der realen Welt. Eine kritische Prüfung der Problemsituation ergibt, daß die seit mehr als zweihundert Jahren herrschende (...) Neigung, das Problem der Existenz der Welt erkenntnistheoretisch aufzufassen, eine Verschiebung und Verfälschung des eigentlichen Problems mit sich gebracht hat, das kein erkenntnistheoretisches, sondern im Kern ein echt metaphysisches ist. Seine Lösung kann deshalb nur durch eine ontologische Untersuchung vorbereitet werden. Das ist das Ziel von Roman Ingardens »Streit um die Existenz der Welt«. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to present and analyze philosophical conceptions concerning mathematics and logic as formulated by Polish logicians, mathematicians and philosophers in the 1920s and 1930s. It was a remarkable period in the history of Polish science, in particular in the history of Polish logic and mathematics. Therefore, it is justified to ask whether and to what extent the development of logic and mathematics was accompanied by a philosophical reflection. We try to answer those questions by analyzing (...) both works of Polish logicians and mathematicians who have a philosophical temperament as well as their research practice. Works and philosophical views of the following Polish scientists will be analyzed: Wacław Sierpiński, Zygmunt Janiszewski, Stefan Mazurkiewicz, Stefan Banach Hugo Steinhaus, Eustachy Żylińsk and Leon Chwistek, Jan Łukasiewicz, Zygmunt Zawirski, Stanisław Leśniewski, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Alfred Tarski, Andrzej Mostowski and Henryk Mehlberg, Jan Sleszyński, Stanisław Zaremba and Witold Wilkosz. To indicate the background of scientists being active in the 1920s and 1930s we consider in Chapter 1 some predecessors, in particular: Jan Śniadecki, Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński, Samuel Dickstein and Edward Stamm. (shrink)

From an Ontological Point of View is a highly original and accessible exploration of fundamental questions about what there is. John Heil discusses such issues as whether the world includes levels of reality; the nature of objects and properties; the demands of realism; what makes things true; qualities, powers, and the relation these bear to one another. He advances an account of the fundamental constituents of the world around us, and applies this account to problems that have plagued recent (...) work in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics (color, intentionality, and the nature of consciousness). (shrink)

Models and theories are of central importance in science, and scientists spend substantial amounts of time building, testing, comparing and revising models and theories. It is therefore not surprising that the nature of scientific models and theories has been a widely debated topic within the philosophy of science for many years. The product of two decades of research, in this book Roman Frigg provides an accessible yet critical introduction to the debates about models and theories within analytical philosophy of (...) science since the 1920s. Models and Theories is the first book to address the topic from a philosophical perspective, making it essential reading for advanced undergraduates, researchers, and professional philosophers working in philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of technology. It will also be of interest to philosophically minded readers working in physics, computer sciences and STEM fields more broadly. (shrink)

What does reality encompass? Is it exclusively physical, or does it include mental and 'abstract' aspects? What are the elements of being, reality's raw materials? John Heil offers stimulating answers to these questions framed in terms of a comprehensive metaphysics of substances and properties inspired by Descartes, Locke, and their successors.

This is the second of three parts of an introduction to the philosophy of climate science. In this second part about modelling climate change, the topics of climate modelling, confirmation of climate models, the limits of climate projections, uncertainty and finally model ensembles will be discussed.

Determinism and chance seem to be irreconcilable opposites: either something is chancy or it is deterministic but not both. Yet there are processes which appear to square the circle by being chancy and deterministic at once, and the appearance is backed by well-confirmed scientific theories such as statistical mechanics which also seem to provide us with chances for deterministic processes. Is this possible, and if so how? In this essay I discuss this question for probabilities as they occur in the (...) empirical sciences, setting aside metaphysical questions in connection with free will, divine intervention and determinism in history. (shrink)

This is the first of three parts of an introduction to the philosophy of climate science. In this first part about observing climate change, the topics of definitions of climate and climate change, data sets and data models, detection of climate change, and attribution of climate change will be discussed.

Why do systems prepared in a non-equilibrium state approach, and eventually reach, equilibrium? An important contemporary version of the Boltzmannian approach to statistical mechanics answers this question by an appeal to the notion of typicality. The problem with this approach is that it comes in different versions, which are, however, not recognised as such, much less clearly distinguished, and we often find different arguments pursued side by side. The aim of this paper is to disentangle different versions of typicality-based explanations (...) of thermodynamic behaviour and evaluate their respective success. My conclusion will be that the boldest version fails for technical reasons, while more prudent versions leave unanswered essential questions. (shrink)

Roman Ingardens Werk über das Kausalproblem führt entscheidend über den Problemstand hinaus, wie er von John Stuart Mill und seinen Nachfolgern gekennzeichnet und seither kaum mehr verändert worden war. Anknüpfend an deren Analyse von Bedingungszusammenhängen unternimmt Ingarden es, die Bereiche und Verteilungen ursächlicher Beziehungen im Sinne relativ isolierter Systeme innerhalb des einen Weltzusammenhanges zu interpretieren. Es gelingt ihm mittels einer formalen Analyse, verschiedene Typen möglicher kausaler Beziehungen zu unterscheiden und insbesondere das Determinismusproblem aus der leidigen Alternative "Zufall oder Notwendigkeit" (...) herauszuführen. (shrink)

The present collection takes stock of posthumanism and its theoretical development and impact in the field of Anglophone literary and cultural studies, with a particular focus on its role in education and the practice of teaching English. Posthumanism informs work in environmental or ecological criticism, climate change research, or human-animal studies - and poses an educational challenge since it also affects curricular and pedagogic theory and practice. Moreover, humanist idea(l)s of subject formation and individually acquired competences have a direct bearing (...) on conceptions of education. This is why the volume interrogates the potentials and pitfalls of posthumanist pedagogies and its connections with digitization, multiliteracies, non-European and non-anthropocentric thinking, and the role of literature pedagogy more generally, presenting case studies of teaching the posthuman from primary to tertiary levels. (shrink)

Transformácia politického systému -- Aktuálne problémy a riešenia -- Alternatívy súčasného kapitalizmu -- Cynizmus ako princíp -- Appendix o školstve.

Between the zone of certainty beyond all doubt and the zone of incomprehensible uncertainty, the sources of which are nothing but chance, we need to use solid results from a vast interdisciplinarity. We wish to give here a sense of the factors in play and the state of the debate and advance in the territory of how interdisciplinarity may help to solve problems which are common in many areas of knowledge. Chaos and complexity certainly put limits on what we can (...) know. High complexity, asymmetry and/or non-linearity are universal types of imprecision. Can hazard have purpose and direction?The idea is that the more effort we put into project design to cover as many details and possible consequences as possible we can grasp in our in-depth analysis aiming to create the project (in art or science or society), the greater the chances that the random occurrence of the unpredictable event will settle on the project's purpose and direction and not on contrary to them. There is no vicious circle here. This kind of method can explain many good results already obtained in such circumstances. Simplicity, beauty, rationalistic optimism, are features of unshakeable scientific results We may call this feature of scientific theory or art _uniqueness. _Uniqueness is strongly correlated with _essentialization. _Science is working in that sense: to simplify a phenomenon to its essence in order to study it easily without losing anything important in the analysis. That is _essentialization. _Why and how complex systems move to the edge of chaos? And what do they do to stay there? They are in constant struggle to create or keep order in complexity. That is the pattern of self-organization, the specific feature of human nature. That is why our action is meant to build resilience to deal better with unpredictable events and prevent the emergence of a critical threshold. Uncertainty, indeterminacy, randomness, and contradictions appear, not as non-essential substances of debate to be eliminated by explanation, but as everlasting ingredients of our conception of reality. There are compelling reasons to believe that it is impossible to make accurate, nontrivial predictions concerning human behavior. Logic and reason are and remain priority, but unpredictability forces us to imagination and creative thinking. Indeed we are confronted with a new human landscape. The anomalies become the new normal. (shrink)

Der thematisch scharf umgrenzte Sammelband ist von grundlegender Bedeutung füuuml;r die Ästhetik der Gegenwart und vervollstäauml;ndigt Ingardens großen Entwurf einer philosophisch begründeten Theorie des Kunstwerks. Im Mittelpunkt der Eröouml;rterungen stehen das ästhetische Erlebnis, das Form-Inhalt-Problem im literarischen Kunstwerk und vor allem der Fragenkomplex des ästhetischen Wertes.

This book aims at reconciling the emerging conceptions of mind and their contents that have, in recent years, come to seem irreconcilable. Post-Cartesian philosophers face the challenge of comprehending minds as natural objects possessing apparently non-natural powers of thought. The difficulty is to understand how our mental capacities, no less than our biological or chemical characteristics, might ultimately be products of our fundamental physical constituents, and to do so in a way that preserves the phenomena. Externalists argue that the significance (...) of thought turns on the circumstances of thinkers; reductionists hold that mental characteristics are physical; eliminationists contend that the concept of thought belongs to an outmoded folk theory of behavior. John Heil explores these topics and points the way to a naturalistic synthesis, one that accords the mental a place in the physical world alongside the non-mental. (shrink)

We reconsider the Nagelian theory of reduction and argue that, contrary to a widely held view, it is the right analysis of intertheoretic reduction. The alleged difficulties of the theory either vanish upon closer inspection or turn out to be substantive philosophical questions rather than knock-down arguments.