V příspěvcích, které jsou zpracovány formou otázek a odpovědí, zaujali autoři často rozdílná, ba protichůdná stanoviska. Nezabývají se etikou pouze jako vědní disciplínou. Pomáhají pochopit morální jevy a procesy dneška nejen jako takové, ale i ve společenských vztazích. Souvisejí proto s politikou, ekonomikou, sociologií, psychologií a pedagogikou. Hovoří však i k otázkám všedního života.

We report on the deliberations of an interdisciplinary group of experts in science, law, and philosophy who convened to discuss novel ethical and policy challenges in stem cell research. In this report we discuss the ethical and policy implications of safety concerns in the transition from basic laboratory research to clinical applications of cell-based therapies derived from stem cells. Although many features of this transition from lab to clinic are common to other therapies, three aspects of stem cell biology pose (...) unique challenges. First, tension regarding the use of human embryos may complicate the scientific development of safe and effective cell lines. Second, because human stem cells were not developed in the laboratory until 1998, few safety questions relating to human applications have been addressed in animal research. Third, preclinical and clinical testing of biologic agents, particularly those as inherently complex as mammalian cells, present formidable challenges, such as the need to develop suitable standardized assays and the difficulty of selecting appropriate patient populations for early phase trials. We recommend that scientists, policy makers, and the public discuss these issues responsibly, and further, that a national advisory committee to oversee human trials of cell therapies be established. **NB we did not reccommend a NAC, we think it might be appropriate**. (shrink)

Irena Štěpánová in this book explores Isaac Newton’s engagement with ancient wisdom, the Hexameral tradition, Hermeticism, theology, alchemy as well as natural philosophy. In so doing, she brings together the established historiography with her own new insights. Štěpánová’s study is more than a study of Newton’s thought, for it contains a good deal of background on ancient (e.g., Hermeticism) and early modern thought (e.g., the Cambridge Platonists). She also uses the interpretative lenses of several contemporary Newton and non-Newton scholars in (...) her work. Moreover, provides helpful summaries of Newton’s thought (e.g., his theology). Štěpánová has provided Newton scholarship a great service in this book, not only by making her Czech-language work available in English, but bringing to the English-language reader learning on Hebraic thought, philosophy of life and Hermeticism originally published in Czech. (Abstract from the review by Stephen David Snobelen Associate Professor, History of Science and Technology Programme, University of King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Director of Newton Project Canada). (shrink)

"The volume presents the material of the first Oxford-Budapest Conference on Truth, Reference and Realism held at CEU in 2005.

This volume re-examines some of the major themes at the intersection of traditional and contemporary metaphysics. The book uses as a point of departure Francisco Suárez’s _Metaphysical Disputations_ published in 1597. Minimalist metaphysics in empiricist/pragmatist clothing have today become mainstream in analytic philosophy. Independently of this development, the progress of scholarship in ancient and medieval philosophy makes clear that traditional forms of metaphysics have affinities with some of the streams in contemporary analytic metaphysics. The book brings together leading contemporary metaphysicians (...) to investigate the viability of a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics. (shrink)

If stem cell-based therapies are developed, we will likely confront a difficult problem of justice: for biological reasons alone, the new therapies might benefit only a limited range of patients. In fact, they might benefit primarily white Americans, thereby exacerbating long-standing differences in health and health care.

Patients have received experimental pharmaceuticals outside of clinical trials for decades. There are no industry-wide best practices, and many companies that have granted compassionate use, or ‘preapproval’, access to their investigational products have done so without fanfare and without divulging the process or grounds on which decisions were made. The number of compassionate use requests has increased over time. Driving the demand are new treatments for serious unmet medical needs; patient advocacy groups pressing for access to emerging treatments; internet platforms (...) enabling broad awareness of compelling cases or novel drugs and a lack of trust among some that the pharmaceutical industry and/or the FDA have patients’ best interests in mind. High-profile cases in the media have highlighted the gap between patient expectations for compassionate use and company utilisation of fair processes to adjudicate requests. With many pharmaceutical manufacturers, patient groups, healthcare providers and policy analysts unhappy with the inequities of the status quo, fairer and more ethical management of compassionate use requests was needed. This paper reports on a novel collaboration between a pharmaceutical company and an academic medical ethics department that led to the formation of the Compassionate Use Advisory Committee. Comprising medical experts, bioethicists and patient representatives, CompAC established an ethical framework for the allocation of a scarce investigational oncology agent to single patients requesting non-trial access. This is the first account of how the committee was formed and how it built an ethical framework and put it into practice. (shrink)

Since at least the 1980s, the role of adversariality in argumentation has been extensively discussed within different domains. Prima facie, there seem to be two extreme positions on this issue: argumentation should never be adversarial, as we should always aim for cooperative argumentative engagement; argumentation should be and in fact is always adversarial, given that adversariality is an intrinsic property of argumentation. I here defend the view that specific instances of argumentation are adversarial or cooperative to different degrees. What determines (...) whether an argumentative situation should be primarily adversarial or primarily cooperative are contextual features and background conditions external to the argumentative situation itself, in particular the extent to which the parties involved have prior conflicting or else convergent interests. To further develop this claim, I consider three teloi that are frequently associated with argumentation: the epistemic telos, the consensus-building telos, and the conflict management telos. I start with a brief discussion of the concepts of adversariality, cooperation, and conflict in general. I then sketch the main lines of the debates in the recent literature on adversariality in argumentation. Next, I discuss the three teloi of argumentation listed above in turn, emphasizing the roles of adversariality and cooperation for each of them. (shrink)

In 2012, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed capping the size of sugary beverages that could be sold in the city’s restaurants, sporting and entertainment facilities and food carts. After a lawsuit and multiple appeals, the proposal died in June 2014, deemed an unconstitutional overreach. In dissecting the saga of the proposed soda cap, we highlight both the political perils of certain anti-obesity efforts and, more broadly, the challenges to public health when issues of consumer choice and the threat (...) of paternalism are involved. (shrink)

The 9/11 attacks in the USA had profound political consequences at both domestic and international levels. Specific and controversial policy developments were pursued requiring substantial legitimation to find acceptance. A prime example was the USA PATRIOT Act, which was passed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and subsequently received considerable critique due to the sweeping nature of its redefinition of what was acceptable in the cause of ‘fighting terror’. The media, and their construal of events and policies, played a significant (...) role in the necessary process of legitimation. In this paper, we explore how one particular area of the media, the superhero comic book, was also active in this regard. By focusing specifically on the multimodal meaning construction within Marvel's Civil War comics series, we suggest how a close multimodal discourse analysis can shed further light on the mechanisms by which particular discourse contexts of public opinion are propagated. (shrink)

Since the early 1970s, Marcel Mauss’s Essai sur le Don, translated into English as The Gift in 1954, has been a standard reference in the social science and bioethical literature on the use of human body parts and substances for medical and research purposes. At that time, three social scientists—political scientist Richard Titmuss in the United Kingdom and sociologist Renée C. Fox working with historian Judith Swazey in the United States—had the idea of using this concept to highlight the fundamental (...) structure of the biomedical practices they were studying, respectively, blood donation, and hemodialysis and organ transplantation. The fact that these first applications of Mauss’s essay should emerge in English- rather than in French-speaking countries raises the question of what the translation of the essay, and notably of the word don as gift, may have to do with this fact. Reading Mauss in translation undoubtedly inspired a seminal approach to interpreting medical and research practices based on bodily giving. This article posits that something may have also been lost: a much broader concept of giving with unquestionable links to the Durkheimian concept of solidarity, which Mauss conceptualizes not only as an obligation but also as a liberty to give. (shrink)

In Bad Beliefs, Levy presents a picture of belief-forming processes according to which, on most matters of significance, we defer to reliable sources by relying extensively on cultural and social cues. Levy conceptualizes the kind of evidence provided by socio-cultural environments as higher-order evidence. But his notion of higher-order evidence seems to differ from those available in the epistemological literature on higher-order evidence, and this calls for a reflection on how exactly social and cultural cues are/count as/provide higher-order evidence. In (...) this paper, I draw on the three-tiered model of epistemic exchange that I have been developing recently, which highlights the centrality of relations of attention and trust in belief-forming processes, to explicate how social and cultural cues provide higher-order evidence. I also argue that Levy’s account fails to sufficiently address the issue of strategic actors who have incentives to pollute epistemic environments for their benefit, and more generally the power struggles, incentives, and competing interests that characterize human sociality. Levy’s attempted reduction of the political to the epistemic ultimately fails, but his account of social and cultural cues as higher-order evidence offers an insightful perspective on epistemic social structures. (shrink)

In [Dutilh Novaes, Medieval-obligations as logical Games of Consistency maintenance, synthese, (2004)], I proposed a reconstruction of Walter Burley’s theory of obligationes, based on the idea that Burley’s theory of obligationes could be seen as a logical game of consistency maintenance. In the present paper, I intend to test the game hypothesis on another important theory of obligationes, namely Roger Swyneshed’s theory. In his treatise on obligationes [edited by P.V. Spade, cf. Spade History and philosophy of Logic 3(1982) 1-32], (...) Swyneshed introduced significant modifications to the general framework of obligationes. To compare the two theories, I apply the same formal apparatus used in the previous paper. It will become patent that Swyneshed’s theory is considerably different from Burley’s, among other reasons because the dynamic aspects that play a major role in the latter are simply not present in the former. My conclusion is that Swyneshed’s version of obligationes is not directed towards consistency maintenance, but rather towards inference recognition, and that it is, from a game-theoretical perspective, less interesting a theory than Burley’s. (shrink)

In [Dutilh Novaes, Medieval-obligations as logical Games of Consistency maintenance, synthese, (2004)], I proposed a reconstruction of Walter Burley’s theory of obligationes, based on the idea that Burley’s theory of obligationes could be seen as a logical game of consistency maintenance. In the present paper, I intend to test the game hypothesis on another important theory of obligationes, namely Roger Swyneshed’s theory. In his treatise on obligationes [edited by P.V. Spade, cf. Spade History and philosophy of Logic 3(1982) 1-32], (...) Swyneshed introduced significant modifications to the general framework of obligationes. To compare the two theories, I apply the same formal apparatus used in the previous paper. It will become patent that Swyneshed’s theory is considerably different from Burley’s, among other reasons because the dynamic aspects that play a major role in the latter are simply not present in the former. My conclusion is that Swyneshed’s version of obligationes is not directed towards consistency maintenance, but rather towards inference recognition, and that it is, from a game-theoretical perspective, less interesting a theory than Burley’s. (shrink)

Overdoing Democracy is an important contribution to the literature on (deliberative) democracy, as it offers a sobering diagnosis of the risks and pitfalls of (overdoing) democracy in the form of internal critique. But the book does not go far enough in its diagnosis because it is not sufficiently critical towards some of the basic assumptions of deliberative conceptions of democracy. In particular, Talisse does not sufficiently attend to the inevitable power struggles in a society, where different groups and individuals must (...) protect their own (often conflicting) interests instead of working towards a ‘common good.’ In this essay, I contrast two different visions of democracy and politics, one based on ideals of consensus and cooperation, and another on the inevitability of perennial conflict. I then briefly present an alternative to deliberative conceptions of democracy that has gained traction in recent decades, known as agonism. Next, I offer a short reconstruction of Talisse’s proposal, and finally I sketch a critical assessment of some of his main claims and assumptions from an agonistic perspective. (shrink)

I examine the theory of consequentia of the medieval logician, John Buridan. Buridan advocates a strict commitment to what we now call proposition-tokens as the bearers of truth-value. The analysis of Buridan's theory shows that, within a token-based semantics, amendments to the usual notions of inference and consequence are made necessary, since pragmatic elements disrupt the semantic behaviour of propositions. In my reconstruction of Buridan's theory, I use some of the apparatus of modern two-dimensional semantics, such as two-dimensional matrices and (...) the distinction between the context of formation and the context of evaluation of utterances. (shrink)

In what follows, I analyze Ralph Strode's treatise on obligations. I have used a hitherto unpublished edition of the text (based on 14 manuscripts) made by Prof. E.J. Ashworth. I first give a brief description of Strode's text, which is all the more necessary given that it is not available to the average reader; I also offer a reconstruction of the rules proposed by Strode, following the style of reconstruction used in my analysis of Burley's and Swyneshed's rules elsewhere—that is, (...) essentially based on the idea that obligationes can be viewed as logical games. In the second part, I address Strode's explicit arguments contra Swyneshed. In the third part, I discuss Strode's epistemic and pragmatic approach to obligationes. (shrink)

A distinction often drawn is one between conservative versus revisionary conceptions of philosophical analysis with respect to commonsensical beliefs and intuitions. This paper offers a comparative investigation of two revisionary methods: Carnapian explication and ameliorative analysis as developed by S. Haslanger. It is argued that they have a number of common features, and in particular that they share a crucial political dimension: they both have the potential to serve as instrument for social reform. Indeed, they may produce improved versions of (...) key concepts of everyday life, for example those pertaining to social categories such as gender and race, which in turn may lead to social change. The systematic comparison of these two frameworks offered here, where similarities as well as differences are discussed, is likely to provide useful guidance to practitioners of both approaches, as it will highlight important aspects of each of them that tend to remain implicit and under-theorized in existing applications of these methodologies to specific questions. (shrink)

According to a widespread view in medieval scholarship, theories of supposition are the medieval counterparts of theories of reference, and are thus essentially extensional theories. I propose an alternative interpretation: theories of supposition are theories of properties of terms, but whose aim is to allow for the interpretation of sentences. This holds especially of Ockham’s supposition theory, which is the main object of analysis in this paper. In particular, I argue for my intensional interpretation of his theory on the basis (...) of two key-phrases in his Summa Logicae: ‘denotatur’ and ‘propositio est distinguenda’. Finally, I offer a reconstruction of his theory as a set of instructions to be carried out in order to generate the possible readings of (certain) sentences. (shrink)

Explication is the conceptual cornerstone of Carnap’s approach to the methodology of scientific analysis. From a philosophical point of view, it gives rise to a number of questions that need to be addressed, but which do not seem to have been fully addressed by Carnap himself. This paper reconsiders Carnapian explication by comparing it to a different approach: the ‘formalisms as cognitive tools’ conception. The comparison allows us to discuss a number of aspects of the Carnapian methodology, as well as (...) issues pertaining to formalization in general. We start by introducing Carnap’s conception of explication, arguing that there is a tension between his proposed criteria of fruitfulness and similarity; we also argue that his further desideratum of exactness is less crucial than might appear at first. We then bring in the general idea of formalisms as cognitive tools, mainly by discussing the reliability of so-called statistical prediction rules, i.e. simple algorithms used to make predictions across a range of areas. SPRs allow for a concrete instantiation of Carnap’s fruitfulness desideratum, which is arguably the most important desideratum for him. Finally, we elaborate on what we call the ‘paradox of adequate formalization’, which for the Carnapian corresponds to the tension between similarity and fruitfulness. We conclude by noting that formalization is an inherently paradoxical enterprise in general, but one worth engaging in given the ‘cognitive boost’ it affords as a tool for discovery. (shrink)

In the scholarship on medieval logic and semantics of the last decades, Ockham’s theory of supposition is probably the most extensively studied version of such theories; yet, it seems that we still do not fully understand all its intricacies. In this paper, I focus on a phrase that occurs countless times throughout Ockham’s writings, but in particular in the sections dedicated to supposition in the Summa logicae: the phrase ‘denotatur’. I claim that an adequate understanding of the role of the (...) concept of denotatur within Ockham’s supposition theory shall yield a deeper understanding of the theory as a whole. Here, I first examine a few uses of the term ‘denotatur’ and its variants by other authors. I then turn to Ockham: first I briefly mention some uses of the term in contexts other than his theory of supposition. Following that, I focus on his supposition theory, in particular on how ‘denotatur’ allows him to deal with two crucial puzzles, namely the supposition of empty terms and the supposition of terms in false affirmative propositions. The treatment of these two puzzles suggests that Ockham’s theory of supposition must be understood as a theory chiefly intended for the generation of the meanings of propositions. (shrink)

The aim of this investigation is to discuss the merits of the three radically divergent views as to the nature and function of the categories held by Kant, Ward and Alexander.

The paper argues that much of the difficulty with making progress on the issue of the normativity of logic for thought, as discussed in the literature, stems from a misapprehension of what logic is normative for. The claim is that, rather than mono-agent mental processes, logic in fact comprises norms for quite specific situations of multi-agent dialogical interactions, in particular special forms of debates. This reconceptualization is inspired by historical developments in logic and mathematics, in particular the pervasiveness of such (...) dialogical conceptions in the early days of logic in ancient Greece. The multi-agent, dialogical perspective then allows for the formulation of compelling 'bridge principles’ between the relation of logical consequence and dialogical normative principles, something that is notoriously difficult to achieve in a mono-agent setting pertaining exclusively to thought and belief. The upshot is also that the truth-preserving rules of logic generally do not have a primary normative bearing on mono-agent mental processes, and in this sense the paper sides with Harman's critique of the idea that logic has a normative import for thought and belief. (shrink)

In The Enigma of Reason, Mercier and Sperber (M&S) present and defend their interactionist account of reason. In this piece, I discuss briefly the points of agreement between M&S and myself and, more extensively, the points of disagreement, most of which pertain to details of the evolutionary components of their account. I discuss in particular the purported modular nature of reason; their account of myside bias as an optimum/adaptation; and the claim that reason thus construed must be an individual‐level and (...) not a group‐level adaptation. In the final section, I offer brief considerations on an alternative account of reasoning, where the focus is on how sociocultural environments may tune the social production and evaluation of arguments. (shrink)

John Maynard Keynes was the most important economist of the twentieth century. He was also a philosopher who wrote on ethics and the theory of probability and was a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group of writers and artists. In this volume contributors from a wide range of disciplines offer new interpretations of Keynes's thought, explain the links between Keynes's philosophy and his economics, and place his work and Keynesianism - the economic theory, the principles of economic policy, and the (...) political philosophy - in their historical context. Chapter topics include Keynes's philosophical engagement with G. E. Moore and Franz Brentano, his correspondence, the role of his General Theory in the creation of modern macroeconomics, and the many meanings of Keynesianism. New readers will find this the most convenient, accessible guide to Keynes currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Keynes. (shrink)

John Maynard Keynes was the most important economist of the twentieth century. He was also a philosopher who wrote on ethics and the theory of probability and was a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group of writers and artists. In this volume contributors from a wide range of disciplines offer new interpretations of Keynes's thought, explain the links between Keynes's philosophy and his economics, and place his work and Keynesianism - the economic theory, the principles of economic policy, and the (...) political philosophy - in their historical context. Chapter topics include Keynes's philosophical engagement with G. E. Moore and Franz Brentano, his correspondence, the role of his General Theory in the creation of modern macroeconomics, and the many meanings of Keynesianism. New readers will find this the most convenient, accessible guide to Keynes currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Keynes. (shrink)

Ledin and Machin's critique of the use of some current approaches to multimodality for the purposes of critical discourse studies raises some important methodological concerns that need to be addressed. However, both the particular position they develop as well as some of the key points they raise are themselves problematic. In this response, I argue that Ledin and Machin misconstrue some significant aspects of the body of theory they critique and, as a consequence, offer a potentially misleading view of the (...) relevant state of the art in multimodality. I suggest that pursuing closer alignments with theoretically more nuanced accounts of multimodality would allow the account that Ledin and Machin propose to be revised in ways better suited to the task of conducting empirically-driven multimodal critical discourse studies. (shrink)

After witnessing extraordinary scientific and regulatory efforts to speed development of and access to new COVID-19 interventions, patients facing other serious diseases have begun to ask “where’s...

Thomas Bradwardine makes much of the fact that his solution to the insolubles is in accordance with Aristotle's diagnosis of the fallacy in the Liar paradox as that of secundum quid et simpliciter. Paul Spade, however, claims that this invocation of Aristotle by Bradwardine is purely "honorary" in order to confer specious respectability on his analysis and give it a spurious weight of authority. Our answer to Spade follows Bradwardine's response to the problem of revenge: any proposition saying of itself (...) that it is false says more than does Bradwardine's proposition saying of it that it is false, and so follows from that other proposition only in respect of part of what it says, and not simpliciter. (shrink)

In earlier work, I have presented an interpretation of Obligationes as logical games of consistency maintenance; this interpretation has some advantages, in particular that of capturing the multi-agent, goal-oriented, rule-governed nature of the enterprise by means of the game analogy. But it has as its main limitation the fact that it does not provide a satisfactory account of the deontic aspect of the framework—i.e. of what being obliged to a certain statement consists in. In order to remedy this shortcoming, this (...) paper argues for the more encompassing thesis that Obligationes can be viewed as a theory of rational dialogical practices, in particular concerning the management of one's discursive commitments. The main inspiration for this interpretation comes from R. Brandom's inferentialist, normative pragmatism, but more generally, it relies heavily on a dialogical conception of logic. I argue that it offers a more compelling account of several aspects of the obligational framework, in particular the role of doubting responses and the ubiquity of obligational vocabulary in the context of scientific discourse in the medieval tradition. (shrink)