This is the third part of a „controversy“, in which I respond to comments from Vera Hoffmann-Kolss, Johannes Hübner, Boris Kment, Kathrin Koslicki, Annina Loets, and Ulrich Metschl concerning my earlier paper „Möglichkeit ohne mögliche Welten“ („possibility without possible worlds“).

The aim of this paper is to explain the Kantian concept of philosophy according to which philosophy can be understood as the narrow door to the teaching of wisdom. This discussion is guided by the question about the relation between logos and mythos. The thesis is that the awareness of the limits of logos, the scientific approach to the world, can be regarded as a presupposition for a proper understanding of mythos, the articulation of wisdom, which expresses the unity of (...) contradictory elements of life. Philosophy has the function of mediating between reason and wisdom by making explicit the limits of scientific explanation. This opens a field of unrestricted and therefore not scientifically explicable thoughts: the sphere of ideas that are accessible in Ethics and Aesthetics. (shrink)

This title invites readers to discover the simple heuristics that people use to navigate the complexities and surprises of environments populated with others.

A comprehensive reference work covering all figures of the earliest period of philosophy in the Islamic world. Both major and minor thinkers are covered, with details of biography and doctrine as well as detailed lists and summaries of each author’s works.

Looking for an adequate explication of the concept of a biological function, several authors have proposed to link function to design. Unfortunately, known explications of biological design in turn refer to functions. The concept of general design I will introduce here breaks up this circle. I specify design with respect to its ontogenetic role. This allows function to be based on design without making reference to the history of the design, or to the phylogeny of an organism, while retaining the (...) normative aspect of function ascriptions. The concept is applicable to the function and design of technical artifacts as well. Several problems well known with other definitions can be overcome by this approach. (shrink)

Individuals who experience stereotype threat – the pressure resulting from social comparisons that are perceived as unfavourable – show performance decrements across a wide range of tasks. One account of this effect is that the cognitive pressure triggered by such threat drains the same cognitive resources that are implicated in the respective task. The present study investigates whether mindfulness can be used to moderate stereotype threat, as mindfulness has previously been shown to alleviate working-memory load. Our results show that performance (...) decrements that typically occur under stereotype threat can indeed be reversed when the individual engages in a brief mindfulness task. The theoretical implications of our findings are discussed. (shrink)

Modern science is, to a large extent, a model-building activity. But how are models contructed? How are they related to theories and data? How do they explain complex scientific phenomena, and which role do computer simulations play here? These questions have kept philosophers of science busy for many years, and much work has been done to identify modeling as the central activity of theoretical science. At the same time, these questions have been addressed by methodologically-minded scientists, albeit from a different (...) point of view. While philosophers typically have an eye on general aspects of scientific modeling, scientists typically take their own science as the starting point and are often more concerned with specific methodological problems. There is, however, also much common ground in middle, where philosophers and scientists can engage in a productive dialogue, as the present volume demonstrates. (shrink)

According to Hans Kamp and Frank Vlach, the two-dimensional tense operators “now” and “then” are ineliminable in quantified tense logic. This is often adduced as an argument against tense logic, and in favor of an extensional account that makes use of explicit quantification over times. The aim of this paper is to defend tense logic against this attack. It shows that “now” and “then” are eliminable in quantified tense logic, provided we endow it with enough quantificational structure. The operators might (...) not be redundant in some other systems of tense logic, but this merely indicates a lack of quantificational resources and does not show any deep-seated inability of tense logic to express claims about time. The paper closes with a brief discussion of the modal analogue of this issue, which concerns the role of the actuality operator in quantified modal logic. (shrink)

This paper describes formalizations of Tait's normalization proof for the simply typed λ-calculus in the proof assistants Minlog, Coq and Isabelle/HOL. From the formal proofs programs are machine-extracted that implement variants of the well-known normalization-by-evaluation algorithm. The case study is used to test and compare the program extraction machineries of the three proof assistants in a non-trivial setting.

Instead of accepting instants of time as metaphysically basic entities, many philosophers regard them as abstractions from something else. There is the Russell-Whitehead view that times are maximal classes of simultaneous events; the linguistic ersatzer's proposal that times are maximally consistent sets of sentences or propositions; and the view that times are made up of temporal parts of material objects. This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these various proposals and concludes in favor of a particular version of linguistic (...) ersatzism about time. (shrink)

In contrast to the assumptions of standard economic theory, recent experimental evidence shows that the income of peers has a systematic impact on observed degrees of risk aversion. This paper reports the findings of two experiments examining the impact of income inequality on risk preferences and whether the knowledge of inequality mediates the decisions. In Experiment 1, participants who were recruited for a real-effort task were paid either a low wage or a high wage. Half of the participants were aware (...) of the income inequality, while the other half were not. After completing their task, they were invited to invest a part of their salary in a risky asset. In Experiment 2, we replicated the same experiment in the laboratory with windfall endowments to test the consistency of results in the laboratory settings. The results of the first experiment show that high-wage subjects take higher risks than low-wage participants do if they are aware of the inequality in wages. This finding supports the idea that income comparisons shape risky decisions. In Experiment 2, on the other hand, we did not observe any significant differences in decisions. This may suggest that the income comparison is sensitive to house-money effect. (shrink)

This book has two objectives: to be a contribution to the understanding of Frege's theory of truth – especially a defence of his notorious critique of the correspondence theory - and to be an introduction to the practice of interpreting philosophical texts.

In this note we show that proof-theoretic uniform boundedness or bounded collection principles which allow one to formalize certain instances of countable Heine–Borel compactness in proofs using abstract metric structures must be carefully distinguished from an unrestricted use of countable Heine–Borel compactness.

Form follows function, but it does not follow from function. Form is not derivable from the latter. To realize a desired technical function, a form must first be found that is able to realize it at all. Secondly, the question arises as to whether an envisaged form realizes the function in an appropriate way. Functions are multiply realizable—various different forms can bear the very same function. One needs to find a form of a technical artifact that realizes an envisaged function (...) sufficiently efficient, robust, or whatever criteria might be imposed. This paper scrutinizes biomimetics as one way to find a good solution to the realization problem. Drawing on an approach from the philosophy of simulations, it reconstructs the biomimetic relation as being mediated by a theoretical model. It is shown that the robustness of the functioning system is usually reached in different ways in biological and in technological systems, which explains differences in morphogenetic mechanisms or principles found in these fields. This reconstruction helps to understand problems with robustness in synthetic biology that occur when technical design principles are implemented in a biological system. The mimetic relation between the biological and the technical realm is found to be asymmetric. (shrink)

Michael Dummett claims that the classical model of time as a continuum of instants has to be rejected. In his view, “it allows as possibilities what reason rules out, and leaves it to the contingent laws of physics to rule out what a good model of physical reality would not even be able to describe.” This paper argues otherwise.

role in scientific theories, and their relation to time. ;Chapter 1, "Why Apply Mathematics?" argues that scientific theories are not about the mathematics that is applied in them, and defends this thesis against the Quine-Putnam Indispensability Argument. ;Chapter 2, "Scientific Ontology," is a critical study of W. V. Quine's claim that metaphysics and mathematics are epistemologically on a par with natural science. It is argued that Quine's view relies on a unacceptable account of empirical confirmation. ;Chapter 3, "Prior and the (...) Platonist," demonstrates the incompatibility of two popular views about time: the "Platonist" thesis that some objects exist "outside" time, and A. N. Prior's proposal for treating tense on the model of modality. ;Chapter 4, "What has Eternity Ever Done for You?" argues time), and presents a defense of the rival view that they exist sempiternally. (shrink)

LIMITS OF HUMAN SENSES, Consciousness and Awareness -/- ULRICH DE BALBIAN -/- Meta-Philosophy Research Center My art makes the invisible visible, limits of human awareness -/- 1 Human consciousness and awareness is restricted by stereotypes and notions that cause philosophers and artists to exist in the dark ages as far as their perception and understanding of human inner and outer senses are concerned. Humans perceive 7 colors of rainbows with 16 to 37 or more colors, that are perceived by (...) other organisms, for example certain sea creatures. (shrink)

A conceptual exploration of the umbrella notion Wisdom, as well as dimensions, characteristics and components of the idea of wisdom as suggested by experimental philosophy, neurosciences and other studies and a comparison of the notion of wisdom with those of knowledge, truth, insight and understanding. -/- Keywords: philosophy, knowledge, wisdom, truth, Gettier problem, ibnsights, truth, understanding, knowledge, Experimental philosophy, neuroscience of wisdom -/- Suggested Citation: -/- de Balbian, Ulrich, Philosophy = Philo Sophos = Love of Wisdom (August 24, 2017). (...) Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3025568. (shrink)

In a recent article, O. Ulfbeck and A. Bohr [Found. Phys. 31, 757 (2001)] have stressed the genuine fortuitousness of detector clicks, which has also been pointed out, in different terms, by the present author [Am. J. Phys. 68, 728 (2000)]. In spite of this basic agreement, the present article raises objections to the presuppositions and conclusions of Ulfbeck and Bohr, in particular their rejection of the terminology of indefinite variables, their identification of reality with “the world of experience,” their (...) identification of experience with what takes place “on the spacetime scene,” and the claim that their interpretation of quantum mechanics is “entirely liberated” from classical notions. An alternative way of making sense of a world of uncaused clicks is presented. This does not invoke experience but deals with a free-standing reality, is not fettered by classical conceptions of space and time but introduces adequate ways of thinking about the spatiotemporal aspects of the quantum world, and does not reject indefinite variables but clarifies the implications of their existence. (shrink)

The last few years have seen a marked increase of interest in the ethics of psychotherapy. As the field of mental health has recently taken on a new level of prominence, renewed commitment to the ethical analysis of psychiatric and psychological treatment is clearly required. In this review essay, we survey recent work on psychotherapy ethics, taking a critical yet generally sympathetic view of the new literature. There are important considerations that remain neglected or overlooked entirely, in our view, and (...) several substantive and methodological trends are in need of diagnosis and critical response. We structure the discussion around several themes, including the inherently moral nature of psychotherapy, the heterogeneity of such practices, the significance of social, cultural, and historical context, and, finally, questions concerning prevailing methodological assumptions. (shrink)

Der Kalte Krieg war ein historisch konkreter Frieden zwischen zwei globalen Systemantagonisten. Die Dimensionen dieses Friedens werden anhand der Untersuchung des Sozialismus, und der Entwicklung des ihm immanenten gesellschaftlichen Eigentums, entworfen. Es wird der Dialektik von innerem und äußerem Frieden der sozialistischen Gesellschaft gefolgt.

It is widely agreed that protestant scholasticism influenced Kant’s thinking on the question of Divine Providence. But the nature and extent of that influence have never been explored in detail. This is the scholarly lacuna the present volume seeks to fill.

It is a popular view amongst some philosophers, most notably those with Quinean views about ontological commitment, that scientific theories are first-orderizable; that we can regiment all such theories in an extensional first-order language. I argue that this view is false, and that any acceptable account of science needs to take some modal notion as primitive.

Wittgensteins "Philosophische Untersuchungen," von N. Malcolm.--Kritische Notiz zu einigen Begriffen in Wittgensteins Philosophie, von P. F. Strawson.--Wittgenstein über die Privatsprache, von N. Garver.--Der Zugang zu Wittgensteins Spätphilsophie, von S. Cavell.--Ausgewählte Bibliographie der Schriften über Ludwig Wittgenstein, zusammengestellt von Ulrich Steinvorth (p. 157-[171]).

“Anchoring” is a tactic used to manipulate negotiation outcomes. It exploits the fact that people base their estimates of unknown quantities on initial values. If they are given these initial values, their estimations are influened by them. We will address whether there is a rational justification for people to be manipulated by anchoring. We will also look at how to recognize in a negotiation situation whether the anchor effect is being used against you, how to use the anchor effect to (...) your benefit, or at least how to defuse it if it is being used against you. (shrink)

This book publishes for the first time notes from two notebooks of Gödel which formed the basis of a course on intuitionism Gödel delivered at Princeton in the.

The article provides an overview of important topics in contemporary medical ethics. Methodologically, it is a literature review. The article addresses only a limited selection of the problematic areas, which are, however, related to each other: digitisation of medicine, genome editing, personalised medicine as well as ethical problems and dilemmas of allocation in healthcare. The global COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a focus and trigger. Reflections on human rights and justice in medicine are fundamental not only on the individual and (...) social level but also on a global scale. The fundamental question is how society as a whole can be involved in the complex biopolitical and bioethical debate. The social and cultural consequences of life increasingly being understood as a technical product rather than a gift are serious.Contribution: The article also reflects on the specific contribution that Christian theology, and in particular the reformed heritage, can make to bioethical debates in modern society. The distinction between instrumental knowledge [Verfügungswissen] and orientational knowledge [Orientierungswissen] is helpful for its better understanding. A crucial result of this article is that medical treatment is repeatedly faced with ethical dilemmas. Moreover, medical progress not only creates new and better solutions to medical problems, it also raises new ethical questions that did not exist before. The purpose of medical ethics lies in identifying such dilemmas and developing ethical decision-making processes that help us to deal with such dilemmas to some extent. (shrink)

Der Autor rekonstruiert den Kierkegaardschen Handlungsbegriff und die begriffliche Grundlage seiner theologischen Ethik anhand einer textnahen Interpretation der großen Schrift Die Taten der Liebe aus dem Jahre 1847. Es wird der Versuch unternommen, die begriffliche Struktur von Kierkegaards Verständnis menschlichen Handelns herauszuarbeiten und zugleich auf Positionen gegenwärtiger philosophischer sowie theologischer Handlungstheorien zu beziehen. Als zentral für diesen Handlungsbegriff erweist sich die Kategorie des Expressiven.