This book represents a considerable revision and expansion of Public Choice II. Six new chapters have been added, and several chapters from the previous edition have been extensively revised. The discussion of empirical work in public choice has been greatly expanded. As in the previous editions, all of the major topics of public choice are covered. These include: why the state exists, voting rules, federalism, the theory of clubs, two-party and multiparty electoral systems, rent seeking, bureaucracy, interest groups, dictatorship, the (...) size of government, voter participation, and political business cycles. Normative issues in public choice are also examined including a normative analysis of the simple majority rule, Bergson–Samuelson social welfare functions, the Arrow and Sen impossibility theorems, Rawls's social contract theory and the constitutional political economy of Buchanan and Tullock. (shrink)

Words change meaning, usually in unpredictable ways. But some words’ meanings are revised intentionally. Revisionary projects are normally put forward in the service of some purpose – some serve specific goals of inquiry, and others serve ethical, political or social aims. Revisionist projects can ameliorate meanings, but they can also pervert. In this paper, I want to draw attention to the dangers of meaning perversions, and argue that the self-declared goodness of a revisionist project doesn’t suffice to avoid meaning perversions. (...) The road to Hell, or to horrors on Earth, is paved with good intentions. Finally and more importantly, I want to demarcate what meaning perversions are. This, I hope, can help us assess the moral and political legitimacy of revisionary projects. (shrink)

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals and (...) cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. -/- This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change. (shrink)

In the 21st century, we increasingly live in a Nietzschean world. What was once feared as ‘nihilism,’ the loss of all final certainties and absolutes, or ‘relativism,’ that everything relates to a standpoint, has become a lived reality for many people today. Especially younger generations have learned to affirm the living conditions of uncertainty and temporality by eclectically adopting ways of life, routines, and orientations in individual ways for only certain periods of time. Digital technologies, especially the smart phone, have (...) widened our horizons permitting immediate access to different cultures and orientation worlds. Never before have we lived in a world that is as multi-perspectival, fast-paced, and uncertain, while never before have there been so many opportunities for actions. At the same time, people increasingly orient themselves in similar ways to a dominant morality that abbreviates reality and narrows down opportunities of action according to the guiding values of equality and reciprocity, as Nietzsche predicted it. Under these conditions, Nietzsche’s art of living is particularly relevant in many orientation worlds today, especially those of entrepreneurship, business, and our everyday life. -/- This contribution focuses on three aspects of Nietzsche’s art of living that have become relevant today especially in the United States (but not only here): first, regarding some facets of the economic-political conditions of any contemporary art of living; second, the widespread adoption of Nietzsche’s notion of self-overcoming and artistic self-design in entrepreneurship and individual’s lives; and third, how his notion of ‘incorporation’ has been further developed in current approaches to habit design. Eventually I will show via the example of Anthony Robbins that some notions of Nietzsche’s art of living have become most popular outside of academia, namely in the commercial industries of what has been called ‘self-growth’ or ‘self-development.’. (shrink)

Marx’s theory of ground rent has been widely used to help understand the trinity of land, labor, and capital. However, limited attention has been paid to the role of water within the Marxian rent framework. This lack of attention proves troubling due to the role of surface waters as an essential means of production throughout capitalism. Here I restate Marxian ground rent in the form of water rent and discuss the function of water-rent in the two dominant surface water rights (...) doctrines of the United States—the riparian doctrine and the doctrine of prior appropriation. In doing so, I revise the distinction between differential rent 1 and differential rent 2 to provide more analytically useful categories. Paying special attention to issues of drought and scarcity, I fully articulate the function of Marxian rent and its four forms for both surface water rights doctrines, while clearly stating where they do and do not differ. (shrink)

Band 1. Bücher 1, 3, 7 und 8 -- Band 2. Bücher 2, 4, 5 und 6.

Das neue Versorgungsrecht für Beamte, Richter und Pensionäre Erhebliche Kostensteigerungen der öffentlichen Haushalte, die zunehmende Zahl der Versorgungsempfänger und deren längere Lebensdauer, aber auch die politische Fortentwicklung der Beamtenversorgung im Einklang mit dem Rentenrecht haben zu zahlreichen und gravierenden Änderungen - aus der Sicht der Beamten und Pensionäre meist Verschlechterungen - des für alle Dienstherrn in Bund und Ländern einheitlichen Rechts der Beamtenversorgung geführt. Dieser Praxiskommentar enthält zahlreiche Anwendungshilfen, Beispiele und Modellrechnungen. Bestens geeignet für jeden Beamten, insbesondere für die mit (...) der Beamtenversorgung befassten Personalleiter und Sachbearbeiter sowie Gewerkschaften des öffentlichen Dienstes. (shrink)

The basic hypothesis of this book is that linguistic reference to kinds should be seen as reference to sortal concepts, i.e. cognitive categories for identifying and classifying objects. Viewed that way, kinds serve as the interface between the conceptual system and the grammatical system. Kind-level predicates differ as to whether they presuppose (e.g. to be extinct) or entail (e.g. to invent) the existence of objects, with crucial consequences for the interpretation of indefinite argument noun phrases. Moreover, object reference always involves (...) underlying kind reference, but kind reference does not always involve object reference. This asymmetry, once recognized, proves useful in solving otherwise puzzling problems in semantic composition. (shrink)

This book comprises a series of essays exploring the transformative insights of Fichte, Herder, Humboldt and the Romantics into the seminal role of language and imagination in shaping human experience and art, including how language, self-consciousness and understanding arise through speech. Along with topics concerning the literary work of art, the philosophy of history, German humanities, philology, and semiotics, the author also discusses the place of phenomenology and the concept of interpretation in literary theory. In highlighting ideas from A. W. (...) Vico, F. Schlegel, Novalis, Germaine de Staël, and Schleiermacher, the author also elucidates romantic poetics, translation, discourse and cultural transfer themes. Das vorliegende Werk umfasst eine Reihe hermeneutischer Abhandlungen des Autors, in deren Fokus die Deutung der Sprachauffassungen Fichtes, Herders, Humboldts und der Romantiker steht. Der Autor untersucht dabei die Formierung von Erfahrung und Kunst durch Sprache und Einbildungskraft sowie die Entstehung von Sprache, Selbstbewusstsein und Verstehen in der Rede. Desgleichen behandelt er Semiotik, Philologie und Philosophie der Geschichte, sowie die Rolle der Phänomenologie und des Interpretationsbegriffs in der Literaturkritik. Im Besonderen hebt der Autor die Auffassungen von Vico, A.W. und F. Schlegel, Novalis, Germaine de Staël, F. Schleiermacher hervor und beleuchtet Übersetzungs-, Diskurs- und Kulturtransfertheorien sowie die Poetik der Romantiker. (shrink)

Kaplan (1999) argued that a different dimension of expressive meaning (“use-conditional”, as opposed to truth-conditional) is required to characterize the meaning of pejoratives, including slurs and racial epithets. Elaborating on this, writers have argued that the expressive meaning of pejoratives and slurs is either a conventional implicature (Potts 2007) or a presupposition (Macià 2002 and 2014, Schlenker 2007, Cepollaro and Stojanovic 2016). We argue that an expressive presuppositional theory accounts well for the data, but that expressive presuppositions are not just (...) propositions to be added to a common ground. We hold that expressives, including pejoratives and slurs, make requirements on a contextual record governed by sui generis norms specific to affective attitudes and their expressions. (shrink)

To be a prisoner either in Plato's cave or in the Beast's castle is a form of existence no one would desire. And yet the story of Disney's Beauty and the Beast – in particular, the spell that imprisoned the Beast and his servants – is a tale as old as time. It is one's common human experience: one's recognition that he/she is shackled by ignorance and unfulfilled potential, and his/her desperate desire to escape. Unfortunately, however, breaking the chains and (...) ending the spell is no easy feat. For just as the Beast and his household companions represent a cave‐like imprisonment, Belle represents in her person the two ideals necessary to break the spell: love (which drew her to the castle to find her father) and beauty (which can compel the love of another). Love never happens without an encounter with beauty. (shrink)

The case describes the developments of an ethics code observed in the local government of Suffolk County, New York, USA. In Suffolk County, there is now a dedicated Board of Ethics Agency (“Board”) within the local government to ensure that business operations and government operations run as ethically compliant as possible. This Board was created in 2012 in order to follow compliance with a law that established a replacement for the Ethics Commission (previously existing within Suffolk County) because this Ethics (...) Commission had been involved in a serious controversy. The former County Executive, Steve Levy, was found guilty of compromising the “integrity of an ethics commission”. Suffolk County government prescribed various measures in order to ensure that the citizens of Suffolk County were protected from business ethical violations. The Board also preemptively created laws that discouraged businesses from acting unethically. (shrink)

An implicit ambiguity in the field of prediction-based decision-making concerns the relation between the concepts of prediction and decision. Much of the literature in the field tends to blur the boundaries between the two concepts and often simply refers to ‘fair prediction’. In this paper, we point out that a differentiation of these concepts is helpful when trying to implement algorithmic fairness. Even if fairness properties are related to the features of the used prediction model, what is more properly called (...) ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’ is a decision system, not a prediction model. This is because fairness is about the consequences on human lives, created by a decision, not by a prediction. In this paper, we clarify the distinction between the concepts of prediction and decision and show the different ways in which these two elements influence the final fairness properties of a prediction-based decision system. As well as discussing this relationship both from a conceptual and a practical point of view, we propose a framework that enables a better understanding and reasoning of the conceptual logic of creating fairness in prediction-based decision-making. In our framework, we specify different roles, namely the ‘prediction-modeler’ and the ‘decision-maker,’ and the information required from each of them for being able to implement fairness of the system. Our framework allows for deriving distinct responsibilities for both roles and discussing some insights related to ethical and legal requirements. Our contribution is twofold. First, we offer a new perspective shifting the focus from an abstract concept of algorithmic fairness to the concrete context-dependent nature of algorithmic decision-making, where different actors exist, can have different goals, and may act independently. In addition, we provide a conceptual framework that can help structure prediction-based decision problems with respect to fairness issues, identify responsibilities, and implement fairness governance mechanisms in real-world scenarios. (shrink)

Abstract David Sobel (2001) objects to Bernard Williams's internalism, the view that an agent has a reason to perform an action only if she has some motive that will be served by performing that action. Sobel is an unusual challenger in that he endorses neo-Humean subjectivism, ?the view that it is the agent's subjective motivational set that makes it the case that an agent does or does not have a reason to φ? (219). Sobel's objection in fact arises from this (...) very commitment. Internalism, he says, is incompatible with the best subjectivist accounts of reasons for action?accounts that suggest that there are what he calls fragile reasons and perhaps also superfragile ones, both of which allegedly provide for counterexamples to internalism. I argue that such reasons do not in fact threaten internalism. I then briefly explore whether internalism is vulnerable to a related charge?that it commits the conditional fallacy. (shrink)

"Examines Western culture's... alienation from nature by focusing on the relationship between people and salmon--weaving together key narratives about the Norwegian salmon industry as well as wild salmon in indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest"--Amazon.com.

While readers of Euripides' Hippolytus have long regarded Phaedra's deltos as a mechanism of punitive revenge, I argue here that the tablet models itself on a judicial curse (defixio) and that its main function is to ensure victory for Phaedra in the upcoming “trial” over her reputation. In support of my thesis I examine three interrelated phenomena: first, Hippolytus' infamous assertion that his tongue swore an oath while his mind remains unsworn (612); second, Phaedra's status as a biaiothanatos; and third, (...) Phaedra's claim that Hippolytus “will learn sophrosune” (731), a speech act that, I conclude, anticipates the silencing effect on Hippolytus of Phaedra's death and her writing. (shrink)

ArgumentIn 1877, a young mathematician named Joseph Boussinesq presented amémoireto theAcadémiedes sciences which demonstrated that some differential equations may have more than one solution. Boussinesq linked this fact to indeterminism and to a possible solution to the free will versus determinism debate. Boussinesq's main interest was to reconcile his philosophical and religious views with science by showing that matter and motion do not suffice to explain all there is in the world. His argument received mixed criticism that addressed both his (...) philosophical views and the scientific content of his work, pointing to the physical “realisticness” of multiple solutions. While Boussinesq proved to be able to face the philosophical criticism, the scientific objections became a serious problem, thus slowly moving the focus of the debate from the philosophical plane to the scientific one. This change of perspective implied a wide discussion on topics such as instability, the sensitivity to initial conditions, and the conservation of energy. The Boussinesq debate is an example of a philosophically motivated debate that transforms into a scientific one, an example of the influence of philosophy on the development of science. (shrink)

Children’s future-oriented cognition has become a well-established area of research over the last decade. Future-oriented cognition encompasses a range of processes, including those involved in conceiving the future, imagining and preparing for future events, and making decisions that will affect how the future unfolds. We consider recent empirical advances in the study of such processes by outlining key findings that have yielded a clearer picture of how future thinking emerges and changes over childhood. Our interest in future thinking stems from (...) a broader interest in temporal cognition, and we argue that a consideration of developmental changes in how children understand and represent time itself provides a valuable framework in which to study future-oriented cognition. (shrink)

Collective Action, Philosophy and Law brings together two important strands of philosophical analysis. It combines general philosophical inquiry into collective agency with analyses of specific questions about plural entities and activities in the legal domain. These are issues of growing interest in areas of philosophy like action theory and social ontology, as well as in philosophy of law. The book contains thirteen original chapters written by an international team of leading philosophers and legal theorists, and is divided into four clear (...) parts: The nature of law and of legislative intention Practical reasoning and duties Causality, blameworthiness, and responsibility Citizens, states, and institutions. These sections cut across, and build on, different accounts to advance the debate on classical and new issues in collective agency. Each part also features legal-philosophical analyses that draw on general accounts of collective agency to cast new light on the law, descriptive as well as normatively. Collective Action, Philosophy and Law is the first major interdisciplinary and multi-authored work bridging legal and philosophical approaches to collective agency. As such, it is essential reading for students and researchers of philosophy of law, ethics, political philosophy, jurisprudence, and legal theory. (shrink)

Our understanding of what it means to be a parent is shaped by our biological, social, legal, and moral concepts of parenthood. This book combines traditional philosophical methods with research in the broader social sciences and humanities to explore the dilemmas which challenge our understanding of parenthood today.

Amartya Sen has demonstrated a possible inconsistency between a (liberal) right and Pareto optimality. Neither Sen nor the subsequent literature have discussed the origin of the rights that lead to the liberal paradox. In this article I examine one possible origin of rights definitions-a constitutional contract agreed to by all members of the community. Constitutional rights are show to be vulnerable to a similar paradox as with liberal rights, but if the writers of the constitution were correct in their choice (...) of actions to protect, such paradoxes will be unlikely and involve small welfare losses when they do occur. The article demonstrates that both the origin of rights and their potential role in advancing the interests of citizens can be explained using a utilitarian/welfarist methodology. (shrink)

Is it possible that all of the social sciences could employ a common methodology? If so, what would it be? This article adresses these questions. It takes off from James Coleman's recent book, The Foundations of Social Theory. Coleman's social theory is built on the postulate that individuals are rational actors, the same postulate that most of modern economics is built upon. This article critiques the use of this postulate in economics, and thus questions whether it is a useful building (...) block for the methodological foundations of social science research. It proposes an adaptive view of human behavior as an alternative in which preferences are conditioned by past experience. The work of Joseph Schumpeter is discussed as an exemplar of the methodology advocated here. (shrink)

Preview: /Review: Jennifer A. Herdt, Forming Humanity: Redeeming the German Bildung Tradition, 312 pages./ Jennifer A. Herdt’s book Forming Humanity: Redeeming the German Bildung Tradition traces the post-Kantian secularization of Bildung from its roots in Pietism through its development into the human autocracy of Herder and Goethe, to the reconciliation and expression of the concept in Hegel. In the journey through the history of Bildung, Herdt specifically focuses on the role of Christianity in human formation, the tension between human formation (...) and divine formation, and the failures of Kunstreligion to achieve the formation of humanity. Reforming Humanity is a meticulously researched foray into the history of a question that has haunted humans since it emerged as the Greek paideia: How do we form humanity? For any scholars of the German philosophical or theological tradition, or any scholars of the aesthetic purpose of education, Herdt’s book is a vital library addition. (shrink)

Civility is often treated as an essential virtue in liberal democracies that promise to protect diversity as well as active disagreement in the public sphere. Yet the fear that our tolerant society faces a crisis of incivility is gaining ground. Politicians and public intellectuals call for "more civility" as the solution--but is civility really a virtue? Or is it something more sinister--a covert demand for conformity that silences dissent? Mere Civility sheds light on this tension in contemporary political theory and (...) practice by examining similar appeals to civility in early modern debates about religious toleration. In seventeenth-century England, figures as different as Roger Williams, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke could agree that some restraint on the wars of words and "persecution of the tongue" between sectarians would be required; and yet, they recognized that the prosecution of incivility was often difficult to distinguish from persecution.--. (shrink)

An account of the development of temporal understanding is proposed which links such understanding with the development of episodic memory. We distinguish between different ways of representing time in terms of the kinds of temporal frameworks they involve. Distinctions are made between frameworks that are perspectival or nonperspectival and those that represent recurrent sequences or particular times. Even primitive temporal understanding integrates both perspectival and nonperspectival components. However, since early frameworks are event-based and localized, they are not yet sufficient for (...) episodic memory in that they do not enable the child to think of events as having occurred at particular points in time. We describe the emergence of new kinds of frameworks in terms of the development of temporal decentering. Two levels of temporal decentering are distinguished, with the higher level involving an appreciation of how event representations depend on one's temporal perspective. (shrink)

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine raises fundamental ethical issues. As one example, AI systems in the field of mental health successfully detect signs of mental disorders, such as depression, by using data from social media. These AI depression detectors (AIDDs) identify users who are at risk of depression prior to any contact with the healthcare system. The article focuses on the ethical implications of AIDDs regarding affected users’ health-related autonomy. Firstly, it presents the (ethical) discussion of AI (...) in medicine and, specifically, in mental health. Secondly, two models of AIDDs using social media data and different usage scenarios are introduced. Thirdly, the concept of patient autonomy, according to Beauchamp and Childress, is critically discussed. Since this concept does not encompass the specific challenges linked with the digital context of AIDDs in social media sufficiently, the current analysis suggests, finally, an extended concept of health-related digital autonomy. (shrink)

This is the second of two volumes which together provide a comprehensive look at the rich and colorful history of higher education exchange between the United States and the countries of the Middle East. Twenty-first century developments, and the current scope and character of higher education exchange between America and the Middle East are explored in this new book.

Higher education exchange between America and the Middle East is a comparatively recent development, but the colorful history of circumstances and events that preceded the relationship is ancient and deep. Here, Brawner explores the multifarious and intriguing story from antiquity to the end of the twentieth century.

Post-secularism is the fundamental evidence of the end of modernity. Modernity, as sleeping reason in Francisco Goya's painting, realizes that, although it thought that it was awake, it was producing monsters. We try to analyze post-secular philosophy from the point of view of Russian religious thought. We believe that such philosophers as Vladimir Soloviev, Pavel Florensky, Sergey Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Georges Florovsky, and Semen Frank may be helpful for understanding and overcoming post-secular order. Their unique views on the relations between (...) religion and philosophy, science, and social life are apparently missing in the current Western debates. It seems to us that Russian religious philosophy becomes surprisingly up-to-date and attractive in the contemporary world. We hope that the present volume will be a significant step forward in the inclusion of the heritage of Russian religious philosophy in contemporary debates. (shrink)