Philosophy and science employ abstract hypothetical scenarios- thought experiments - to illustrate, defend, and dispute theoretical claims. Since thought experiments furnish no new empirical observations, the method prompts two epistemological questions: whether anything may be learnt from the merely hypothetical, and, if so, how. Various sceptical arguments against the use of thought experiments in philosophy are discussed and criticized. The thesis that thought experiments in science provide a priori knowledge through non-sensory grasping of abstract entities is discussed and rejected. The (...) thesis that thought experimentation consists in manipulations of mental models is examined and found to be of limited epistemological relevance. It is argued that thought experiments are associated with characteristic arguments in a manner similar to ordinary experiments. It is further argued that thought experiments function in the same way as experiments in general: by providing premises for their associated arguments. Like other experiments, a thought experiment is successful when the premises it provides are true. This holds both for philosophical and scientific thought experiments. An argument schema is proposed and shown to be a formal analogue to that associated with ordinary experiments; similar in being subject to epistemological holism; but differing in being modal: in employing statements about possibility and necessity. The evaluation of thought experiments thus depends on how modal statements may be justified. Intuition and conceivability are discussed as sources of modal justification and found problematic. Instead it is suggested that evaluation proceed by accommodation of the statements describing the experiment's hypothetical scenario. The method of accommodation is developed and applied to five influential thought experiments in philosophy: the brain in a vat; Putnam's Twin Earth; Burge's arthritis example; Searle's Chinese Room; and Newcomb's problem. Its application shows some of these to be failed, others to be successful only relative to controversial philosophical doctrines. (shrink)

Philosophical interest in thought experiments has grown over the last couple of decades. Several positions have emerged, defined largely by their differing responses to a perceived epistemological challenge: how do thought experiments yield justified belief revision, even in science, when they provide no new empirical data? Attitudes towards this supposed explanandum differ. Many philosophers accept that it poses a genuine puzzle and hence seek to provide a substantive explanation. Others reject or deflate the epistemic claims made for thought experiments.In this (...) paper I present a model for many thought experiments in philosophy and science. The model doesn't assume that thought experiments in fact manage to achieve epistemic justifi cation, but it allows us to see how they aspire to do so. It also emphasises both the parallels and the discrepancies between thought experiments and ordinary scientific experiments. (shrink)

Deceased organ donation is widely considered as a case of easy rescue―that is, a case in which A may bestow considerable benefits on B while incurring negligent costs herself. Yet, the policy implications of this observation remain unclear. Drawing on Christopher H. Wellman’s samaritan account of political obligations, the paper develops a case for a so-called opt-out system, i.e., a scheme in which people are defaulted into being donors. The proposal’s key idea is that we may arrange people’s options in (...) specific ways for the sake of others. (shrink)

Are virtual objects real? I will claim that the question sets us up for the wrong type of conclusion: Chalmers (2017) argues that a virtual calculator (like other entities) is a real calculator when it is “organizationally invariant” with its non-virtual counterpart—when it performs calculation. However, virtual reality and games are defined by the fact that they always selectively implement their source material. Even the most detailed virtual car will still have an infinite range of details which are missing (gas, (...) engines, pistons, fuel, chemical reactions, molecules, atoms). This means that even the most detailed virtual object will still have fictional aspects. Rather than argue that virtual objects are, or aren’t, real, it is preferable to think of overlaps and continuities between the fictional and the real, where even the most painstakingly detailed virtual reality implementation of a non-virtual object is still art: a human process of selection and interpretation. Virtual reality should therefore not be philosophically understood just as a technological implementation on a trajectory to perfection, but as a cultural artifact which derives its value in part from its simplification and difference from its source material. (shrink)

Obtaining human genetic samples is vital for many biobank research purposes, yet, the ethics of obtainment seems to many fraught with difficulties. One key issue is consent: it is by many considered ethically vital that consent must be fully informed (at least ideally speaking) in order to be legitimate. In this paper, we argue for a more liberal approach to consent: a donor need not know all the specifics of future uses of the sample. We argue that blanket consent is (...) ethically defensible, and that this is buttressed by considerations of (justified) trust-relations. Given robust institutional oversight, blanket consent is a permissible form of consent in the bio-banking context. (shrink)

Background: In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of a mindfulness program including Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on the mental health of student teachers when offered at their educational institution in a real-life context.Methods: A parallel randomized controlled trial was conducted among self-selected student teachers at a Danish undergraduate program for teacher education in the autumns of 2019 and 2020. Participation was not recommended in case of clinical depression or a diagnosis of psychosis or schizophrenia, abuse of alcohol, drugs, (...) and/or medicine. Randomization was performed by a Statistician who was blinded to the identity of the students. Data was collected using self-reported questionnaires. The primary outcome was a change in perceived stress 3 months from baseline. Secondary outcome measures were symptoms of anxiety and depression, well-being, resilience, mindfulness, and thoughts and feelings during rest. The effects were analyzed according to the intention-to-treat principle using mixed-effect linear regression models. Mediating effects of mindfulness skills on the mental health outcomes were explored using structural equation modeling.Results: The study group included 67 student teachers with 34 allocated to the intervention group ; and 33 students allocated to a waiting list control group. At baseline, mean Perceived Stress Scale scores were 18.88 in the intervention group and 17.91 in the waiting list control group. A total of 56 students completed the questionnaire at a 3-month follow-up. Statistically significant effects of the intervention were found on perceived stress, symptoms of anxiety and depression, well-being, and on three of seven resting-state dimensions. No effects were found on resilience or mindfulness. Statistically significant mediated effects via resting-state dimensions were found.Conclusion The findings suggested that offering a mindfulness program at an undergraduate program for teacher education could significantly improve the mental health among self-selected students within 3 months. Results of mediation analysis supported the hypothesis that some of the effects might be explained by reduced distracting thoughts.Clinical Trial Registration: [www.ClinicalTrials.gov], identifier [NCT04558099]. (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology offers clear and comprehensive coverage of the main methodological debates and approaches within philosophy. The chapters in this volume approach the question of how to do philosophy from a wide range of perspectives, including conceptual analysis, critical theory, deconstruction, experimental philosophy, hermeneutics, Kantianism, methodological naturalism, phenomenology, and pragmatism. They explore general conceptions of philosophy, centred on the question of what the point of philosophising might be; the method of conceptual analysis and its recent naturalistic (...) critics and competitors; perspectives from continental philosophy; and also a variety of methodological views that belong neither to the mainstream of analytic philosophy, nor to continental philosophy as commonly conceived. Together they will enable readers to grasp an unusually wide range of approaches to methodological debates in philosophy. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to contribute to the formulation of a non-excluding concept of solidarity which is of relevance to contemporary society. The assumption is that in the present individualized and culturally diverse society there is an urgent need for a new form of solidarity to create social cohesion. The central theme is that contemporary solidarity is about recognition and a fair distribution of chances for recognition. This ideal may function as a normative standard for critical research and (...) as a guideline for people in their moral struggles. What ultimately needs to be done is not a purely theoretical question but something which must be settled by a judgement that constitutes a battlefield where conflicting values and perceptions of reality confront each other. (shrink)

Global governance has a major impact on the lives of people around the world. However, traditional theories of legitimacy were usually developed for states and are not suitable for the diversity of global governance institutions that exist today. This book first develops a normative concept of legitimacy that is applicable to all political institutions. According to this concept, to regard an institution as legitimate means ascribing it the right to exercise its function in political practice. Secondly, the book discusses how (...) the use of this concept opens up new perspectives in the debate on legitimacy criteria for global governance institutions. In this context, the book analyses the relationship of legitimacy to the values of justice and democracy and discusses the role of feasibility constraints and the all-affected principle in legitimacy judgements. The concept of legitimacy as the right to function opens up the conceptual space to accommodate the insight that legitimacy criteria are not the same for all global governance institutions, but depend on their function and context. Thirdly, the book applies the developed theoretical framework to a specific global governance institution, the G20. (shrink)

The nub of the following argument is that there is a conflict between the idea of (liberal) neutrality on the one hand, and an intuitively plausible idea of political representation on the other. The conflict arises when neutrality is seen as a condition for political legitimacy: neutralist political representation is only legitimate insofar as the representative does not advance political ideas based on conceptions of the good that are not endorsed by the whole of the (reasonable) polity. However, we often (...) encounter examples of political representation that do not live up to this demand but nevertheless seem legitimate. Hence, neutralists should explain either why this counterintuitive notion of representation does not follow from neutrality or explain what representatives are meant and allowed to do in such a political arrangement. A plausible neutralist rejoinder to this is to say that legitimacy is not dependent on neutrality for all political decisions. Neutrality is important (only or predominantly) regarding a certain body of political decisions, viz., using the Rawlsian idiom, 'constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice.' However, such a two-levelled approach is not without its problems. I argue that a skein of theoretical and practical challenges to the two-levelled approach undermines, or at least weakens, this attempt to solve the problem about representation and neutrality, and that the two-levelled approach is unclear in certain key aspects. The aim of the article is, however, quite modest. It is not to challenge neutrality per se ; rather, it is a call for further clarification of the issues pertaining to the relationship between neutrality and representation. (shrink)

In Either/Or, using the voices of two characters - the aesthetic young man of part one, called simply 'A', and the ethical Judge Vilhelm of the second section - Kierkegaard reflects upon the search for a meaningful existence, contemplating subjects as diverse as Mozart, drama, boredom, and, in the famous Seducer's Diary, the cynical seduction and ultimate rejection of a young, beautiful woman. A masterpiece of duality, Either/Or is a brilliant exploration of the conflict between the aesthetic and the ethical (...) - both meditating ironically and seductively upon Epicurean pleasures, and eloquently expounding the noble virtues of a morally upstanding life. (shrink)

These two complementary works give the reader a unique insight into the breadth and substance of Kierkegaard's thought. One reads like a novel and the other a Platonic dialogue but both concern the nature of love, faith, and happiness. These are the first translations to convey the literary quality and philosophical precision of the originals.

Does multiculturalism imply that certain cultural minorities – nomos groups, whose cultural conceptions extend in important ways into views about the law – should have forms of legal autonomy that go beyond normal multicultural accommodations such as exemptions and special protection? In other words: should we allow «minority jurisdictions» for multicultural reasons and give certain minorities powers of legislation and adjudication on certain issues? The paper sketches how one might arrive at such a conclusion given some standard multicultural reasoning, and (...) then proceeds by examining eight key rejoinders to such a proposal. None of these rejoinders provide by themselves knockdown arguments against extending multicultural rights to forms of legal autonomy, but together they do provide a basis for some skepticism about the cogency and desirability of at least more ambitious forms of legal autonomy for cultural minorities within a liberal framework. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrgang: 13 Heft: 2 Seiten: 128-146.

Over the course of the twentieth century, nationalistic approaches to the obstacles of racism in the United States have increasingly come to be seen as the more revolutionary of the various forms of anti-racist struggle. This paper explores several historical instances of Black Nationalism and seeks to demonstrate that, despite the many points on which they might diverge, they share in common a tendency to naturalize and embrace the category of race as a basis for political struggle, and that they (...) therefore constitute an ideologically accommodating and hence essentially regressive approach to the questions of race and racism. It is suggested that a critique of the modern category of race and a political practice aimed at its denaturalization will be a necessary aspect of any attempt to overcome racial oppression and inequality. (shrink)

One of the most important lesson to be learned from the corona pandemic might be, that it makes a difference which normativity sets the norms for our way of living. It makes no small difference to the life of humans and society, whether this normativity is prophylactic or pedagogical. Disease, insecurity and death are faithful companions of the pandemic; and prophylactic reason rules in times of such critical occurences. In such times it might occur that pedagogy so to speak falls (...) into the hands of prophylaxis, thus turning pedagogy into a handmaid of prophylaxis. The essay problematizes this through non-simultaneous specula principum rooted in the ancient art of medicine and living. (shrink)

In this article I argue for the continuity of Sartre's theory of alienation. Therefore, I will depict how the concept of 'alienation' is further developed by Sartre since his early writings, by discussing the different forms of alienation in his late oeuvre and in his works on moral philosophy. First, I will take up the differenciation of individual and social alienation and, furthermore, I will discuss Sartre's radicalized form of alienation, which is beyond pure forms of exploitation or recurrence and (...) was not discussed in the literature, yet. I will connect Sartres theory of value in his "L'Être et le Néant" with the theory of alienation in his "Cahiers pour une Moral" and the "Critique de la Raison dialectique". (shrink)

In Either/Or, using the voices of two characters—the aesthetic young man of part one, called simply "A," and the ethical Judge Vilhelm of the second section—Kierkegaard reflects upon the search for a meaningful existence, contemplating subjects as diverse as Mozart, drama, boredom, and, in the famous Seducer's Diary, the cynical seduction and ultimate rejection of a young, beautiful woman. A masterpiece of duality, Either/Or is a brilliant exploration of the conflict between the aesthetic and the ethical - both meditating ironically (...) and seductively upon Epicurean pleasures, and eloquently expounding the noble virtues of a morally upstanding life. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. (shrink)

The article examines the role of natural kinds in semantic theorizing, which has largely been conducted in isolation from relevant work in science, metaphysics, and philosophy of science. We argue that the Kripke–Putnam account of natural kind terms, despite recent claims to the contrary, depends on a certain metaphysics of natural kinds; that the metaphysics usually assumed—micro-essentialism—is untenable even in a ‘placeholder’ version; and that the currently popular homeostatic property cluster theory of natural kinds is correct only to an extent (...) that fails to vindicate the Kripke–Putnam account. This undermines the metasemantics required for anti-descriptivist semantics. _1_ Introduction _2_ From Semantics to Metaphysics _3_ Metaphysics, Part I: The Demise of Micro-essentialism _3.1_ Original micro-essentialism _3.2_ Placeholder essentialism _4_ Metaphysics, Part II: Homeostatic Property Cluster Theory _5_ Prospects for Natural Kind Term Semantics. (shrink)

In the luck egalitarian literature, one influential formulation of luck egalitarianism does not specify whether equalities that do not reflect people’s equivalent exercises of responsibility are bad with regard to inequality. This equivocation gives rise to two competing versions of luck egalitarianism: asymmetrical and symmetrical luck egalitarianism. According to the former, while inequalities due to luck are unjust, equalities due to luck are not necessarily so. The latter view, by contrast, affirms the undesirability of equalities as well as inequalities insofar (...) as they are due to luck. The symmetrical view, we argue, is by far the more compelling, both by internal luck egalitarian standards and in light of the external rightist emphasis on choice and responsibility to which luck egalitarianism may partly be seen as a response. Our main case for the symmetrical view is that when some people, against a background of equal opportunities, do not exercise their responsibility to the same degree as others, they cannot justifiably call for equalizing measures to be put in place. Indeed, such measures would be positively unfair. The symmetrical view, accordingly, rejects compensation in such cases, whereas the asymmetrical view, implausibly, enjoins it. We also examine two objections to this argument. First, that this view fails to qualify as genuinely egalitarian, instead collapsing the notion of equality into the notion of desert. Second, that the opposing asymmetrical view, in contrast to the symmetrical view, can draw support from its compatibility with sufficientarian concerns. Both objections are rebutted. We conclude that luck egalitarians are best served by endorsing the symmetrical, luck-neutralizing stance. (shrink)

The main topic of this essay is symbolic mathematics or the method of symbolic construction, which I trace to the end of the sixteenth century when Franciscus Vieta invented the algebraic symbolism and started to use the word ‘symbolic’ in the relevant, non-ontological sense. This approach has played an important role for many of the great inventions in modern mathematics such as the introduction of the decimal place-value system of numeration, Descartes’ analytic geometry, and Leibniz’s infinitesimal calculus. It was also (...) central for the rigorization movement in mathematics in the late nineteenth century, as well as for the mathematics of modern physics in the 20th century.However, the nature of symbolic mathematics has been concealed and confused due to the strong influence of the heritage from the Euclidean and Aristotelian traditions. This essay sheds some light on what has been concealed by approaching some of the crucial issues from a historical perspective. Furthermore, I argue that the conception of modern mathematics as symbolic mathematics was essential to Wittgenstein’s approach to the foundations and nature of mathematics. This connection between Wittgenstein’s thought and symbolic mathematics provides the resources for countering the still prevalent view that he defended an uttrely idiosyncratic conception, disconnected from the progress of serious science. Instead, his project can be seen as clarifying ideas that have been crucial to the development of mathematics since early modernity. (shrink)