Die Frage nach der Technik ist eine Art der Heideggerschen Frage nach dem Sein, die die Fragen nach dem Menschen in der Moderne und nach der Zivilisation überhaupt impliziert. Im Rahmen der sogenannten "Seinsgeschichte" bildet sie eine Kreuzungsstelle, die von verschiedenen Linien gebildet wird, welche wiederum in ihrer Verschiedenheit zu berücksichtigen sind und nicht einfach textuell hermetisiert werden dürfen. Heidegger besorgt nicht zuletzt mit Hilfe der seinsgeschichtlichen Konstellation des Gestells seine Selbstinterpretation hinsichtlich der Haltung zum Nationalsozialismus. Verweigert wird die falsche (...) Alternative eines platt-realistischen oder biographischen Reduktionismus zum einen und des Jüngerschar-Minimalismus oder kalauernden dekonstruktivistischen Textdesigns zum andern. Genauso einseitig wie der absicherungsstrategische Jargon der Orthodoxie ist die positivistische Abschiebung Heideggers in die Ecke der "Begriffsdichtung". Tatsächlich besteht ein arbeitsteiliger Konsens zwischen beiden Seiten. Gegen diesen Konsens im Dissens opponiert vorliegender Text. (shrink)

Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly adopted in society, creating numerous opportunities but at the same time posing ethical challenges. Many of these are familiar, such as issues of fairness, responsibility and privacy, but are presented in a new and challenging guise due to our limited ability to steer and predict the outputs of AI systems. This chapter first introduces these ethical challenges, stressing that overviews of values are a good starting point but frequently fail to suffice due to the context (...) sensitivity of ethical challenges. Frequently, additional (ethical) values emerge for specific applications, as e.g. challenges with fraud detection are very different from those around language technologies. Second, methods to tackle these challenges are discussed. Main ethical theories (virtue ethics, consequentialism, and deontology) are shown to provide a starting point, but often lack the details needed for actionable AI Ethics. Instead, mid-level philosophical theories coupled to design-approaches such as Design for Values, together with interdisciplinary working methods, offer the best way forwards. The chapter aims to show how these approaches can lead to an ethics of AI that is actionable and that can be proactively integrated in the design of AI systems. (shrink)

Fundamental properties of N-valued logics are compared and eleven theorems are presented for their Logic Algebras, including Łukasiewicz–Moisil Logic Algebras represented in terms of categories and functors. For example, the Fundamental Logic Adjunction Theorem allows one to transfer certain universal, or global, properties of the Category of Boolean Algebras,, (which are well-understood) to the more general category \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\cal L}$$\end{document}Mn of Łukasiewicz–Moisil Algebras. Furthermore, the relationships of LMn-algebras to other many-valued logical structures, (...) such as the n-valued Post, MV and Heyting logic algebras, are investigated and several pertinent theorems are derived. Applications of Łukasiewicz–Moisil Algebras to biological problems, such as nonlinear dynamics of genetic networks – that were previously reported – are also briefly noted here, and finally, probabilities are precisely defined over LMn-algebras with an eye to immediate, possible applications in biostatistics. (shrink)

In A Treatise of Artificial Magnets, John Michell observes, Not being aware of this property [i.e. the equality of attraction and repulsion], he [Gilbert] concluded from some experiments he had made, not very irationally [sic], that the Needle was not attracted by the magnet, but turned into its position by, what he calls, a disponent virtue […]. For Michell, the disponent virtue 1 is the underlying cause of magnetic phenomena in Gilbert’s treatment. He is not alone. Ridley and Carpenter also (...) read Gilbert’s magnetism as positing a disponent virtue.2 I agree. In this paper, I show what it would entail to treat Gilbertian magnetism as... (shrink)

An intro. to Didaktic (the heart of thinking about teaching/teacher educ in Germany) for English-speaking readers, drawing on a range of writings assoc. w/ this tradition. Throws light on assumptions, characteristics, & weaknesses of curriculum thought.

This imaginative and unusual book explores the moral sensibilities and cultural assumptions that were at the heart of political debate in Victorian and early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the role of intellectuals as public moralists and suggests ways in which their more formal political theory rested upon habits of response and evaluation that were deeply embedded in wider social attitudes and aesthetic judgments. Collini examines the characteristic idioms and strategies of argument employed in periodical and polemical writing, and reconstructs (...) the sense of identity and of relation to an audience exhibited by social critics from John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold to J.M. Keynes and F.R. Leavis. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The notion of “democracy” has become a much-debated concept in scholarship on business ethics, management, and organization studies. The strategy of this paper is to distinguish between a principle of organization that fosters participation (type I democracy) and a principle of legitimation that draws on consent (type II democracy). Based on this distinction, we highlight conceptual shortcomings of the literature on stakeholder democracy. We demonstrate that parts of the literature tend to confound ends with means. Many approaches employ type I (...) democracy notions of participation and often take for granted that this also improves type II democratic legitimation. We hold this to be a mistake. We provide examples of the ambiguity of organizational procedures and show that under some circumstances a decrease in the degree of participation may actually increase legitimation because a governance structure that results in higher productivity can provide higher benefits for all parties involved, serve their interests and therefore meet their agreement. Less type I democracy may mean more type II democracy. We believe this to be an important insight for judging (and further improving) the legitimacy of both capitalistic firms and competitive markets. (shrink)

Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) aims to help people understand black box algorithms, particularly of their outputs. But what are these explanations and when is one explanation better than another? The manipulationist definition of explanation from the philosophy of science offers good answers to these questions, holding that an explanation consists of a generalization that shows what happens in counterfactual cases. Furthermore, when it comes to explanatory depth this account holds that a generalization that has more abstract variables, is broader in (...) scope and/or more accurate is better. By applying these definitions and contrasting them with alternative definitions in the XAI literature I hope to help clarify what a good explanation is for AI. (shrink)

The lack of double negation and de Morgan properties makes fuzzy logic unsymmetrical. This is the reason why fuzzy versions of notions like closure operator or Galois connection deserve attention for both antiotone and isotone cases, these two cases not being dual. This paper offers them attention, comming to the following conclusions: – some kind of hardly describable ‘‘local preduality’’ still makes possible important parallel results; – interesting new concepts besides antitone and isotone ones (like, for instance, conjugated pair), that (...) were classically reducible to the first, gain independency in fuzzy setting. (shrink)

Topic of the paper is Q-logic – a logic of agency in its temporal and modal context. Q-logic may be considered as a basal logic of agency since the most important stit-operators discussed in the literature can be defined or axiomatized easily within its semantical and syntactical framework. Its basic agent dependent operator, the Q-operator (also known as Δ- or cstit-operator), which has been discussed independently by F. v. Kutschera and B. F. Chellas, is investigated here in respect of its (...) relation to other temporal and modal operators. The main result of the paper, then, is a completeness result for a calculus of Q-logic with respect to a semantics defined on the tree-approach to agency as introduced and developed by, among others, F. v. Kutschera and N. D. Belnap. (shrink)

One of the important discussions in the philosophy of mathematics, is that centered on Benacerraf’s Dilemma. Benacerraf’s dilemma challenges theorists to provide an epistemology and semantics for mathematics, based on their favourite ontology. This challenge is the point on which all philosophies of mathematics are judged, and clarifying how we might acquire mathematical knowledge is one of the main occupations of philosophers of mathematics. In this thesis I argue that this discussion has overlooked an important part of mathematics, namely mathematics (...) as it is exercised by ordinary people. I do so by looking at the different theories that have been put forward in the recent debate, and showing for each of these that they are unable to account for the mathematical practices of ordinary people. In order to show that these practices do need to be accounted for, I also argue that ordinary people are doing mathematics, i.e. that they engage in properly mathematical practices. Because these practices are properly mathematical, they should be accounted for by any philosophy of mathematics. The conclusion of my thesis, then, is that current theories fail to do something that they should do, while remaining neutral on how well they perform when it comes to accounting for the practices of professional mathematicians. (shrink)

In The Sea–Mans Kalendar, Henry Bond predicted that magnetic declination would be 0° in 1657, and would then increase westerly for 30 years. Based on these predictions, Bond went on to claim in The Longitude Found that, by using his model of magnetism, he can offer a technique for determining longitude. This paper offers an assessment of Bond’s method for longitude determination and critically evaluates Thomas Hobbes’s so–far neglected response to Bond’s proposal in Decameron physiologicum, in which Hobbes complains about (...) what he takes to be Bond’s implicit natural philosophy and about his use of spherical trigonometry. (shrink)

What are the fittingness conditions of gratitude? One assumption seems unquestioned in the literature: that whenever it’s fitting for you to be grateful to me, that’s because I’ve benefitted or tried to benefit you. In this paper, I argue that that’s false. You may sometimes fittingly be grateful precisely because I refrained from benefitting you. Or you may be grateful because I omitted to instrumentalise you, or treated you justly – where this isn’t reducible to benefits. Morality isn’t all about (...) benefits, so gratitude isn’t either. Instead, gratitude is the proper response to being shown more positive moral regard than you’re owed – where such regard might consist in beneficence, or respect, or in whatever kind of positive moral attitude. (shrink)

The extremely rapid evolution of portable technologies and children's receptiveness to constantly accessing the latest information creates the conditions for a number of new developments in most areas of activity. Moreover, their attraction to real-time visualisation of various events and competitions projects a certain level of perception and imitation of certain behaviours. Therefore, special attention should be paid to them from the earliest stages, i.e., from the time they are selected to play various sports. Also, the complementarity of some sports (...) must be taken into account when it is desired to obtain positive results. Age group adaptation and the investigation of some of the parameters relevant to different age groups have generated values that can support positive outcomes in the long term and thus increase motivation to participate in sport at a competitive level. (shrink)

In this paper we study the notion of forcing for Łukasiewicz predicate logic (Ł∀, for short), along the lines of Robinson’s forcing in classical model theory. We deal with both finite and infinite forcing. As regard to the former we prove a Generic Model Theorem for Ł∀, while for the latter, we study the generic and existentially complete standard models of Ł∀.

How do we get out knowledge of the natural numbers? Various philosophical accounts exist, but there has been comparatively little attention to psychological data on how the learning process actually takes place. I work through the psychological literature on number acquisition with the aim of characterising the acquisition stages in formal terms. In doing so, I argue that we need a combination of current neologicist accounts and accounts such as that of Parsons. In particular, I argue that we learn the (...) initial segment of the natural numbers on the basis of the Fregean definitions, but do not learn the natural number structure as a whole on the basis of Hume's principle. Therefore, we need to account for some of the consistency of our number concepts with the Dedekind-Peano axioms in other terms. (shrink)

A vernacular fifteenth-century sermon tells us, in order to warn of the threats to spiritual welfare posed by dance, that cyclic motion and centering of sensory impressions – amongst them intimate conversation – are essential elements of dance. When blending out the parenesis, implicit poetics of medieval dance can be distilled from that sermon. The way how these essential elements of dance are used for generating disruptions within literary plots will be demonstrated in three literary texts dating from the thirteenth (...) to the fifteenth century: Disruptions in connection with dance occur when contrary concepts of motion clash with each other, for example the linearity of the chivalrous way through the Other World with the cyclicity of round dances. ‚Der Württemberger‘, however, collides two contrary concepts of time which can be paraphrased as spatial metaphors, namely the linearity of earthly life which collides with the cyclicity of eternal damnation, a collision symbolized by the expulsion of life out of the dance of the death. Finally in ‚Ritter Sociabilis‘, dance generates a virtual space which subverts the courtly society. The protagonists of all these texts differently manage to resolve disruptions, namely by redemption, by repentance, or by continuing disruptions which they have caused themselves. (shrink)

In the past few decades, a growth in ethical consumerism has led brands to increasingly develop conscientiousness and depict ethical image at a corporate level. However, most of the research studying business ethics in the field of corporate brand management is either conceptual or has been empirically conducted in relation to goods/products contexts. This is surprising because corporate brands are more relevant in services contexts, because of the distinct nature of services and the key role that employees have in the (...) services sector. Accordingly, this article aims at empirically examining the effects of customer perceived ethicality in the context of corporate services brands. Based on data collected for eight service categories using a panel of 2179 customers, the hypothesized structural model is tested using path analysis. The results show that, in addition to a direct effect, customer perceived ethicality has a positive and indirect effect on customer loyalty, through the mediators of customer affective commitment and customer perceived quality. Further, employee empathy positively influences the impact of customer perceived ethicality on customer affective commitment, and customer loyalty positively impacts customer positive word-of-mouth. The first implication of these results is that corporate brand strategy needs to be aligned with human resources policies and practices if brands want to turn ethical strategies into employee behavior. Second, corporate brands should build more authentic communications grounded in their ethical beliefs and supported by evidence from actual employees. (shrink)

In this paper we define the polyadic Pavelka algebras as algebraic structures for Rational Pavelka predicate calculus . We prove two representation theorems which are the algebraic counterpart of the completness theorem for RPL∀.

This article develops an objection to Kant’s proof of freedom from the Critique of Practical Reason. In his proof — the fact of reason argument — Kant deduces the reality of freedom, understood as the ability to act independently of all inclinations, from our consciousness of the unconditional validity of morality. He calls this consciousness the "fact of reason". After a systematic reconstruction of the argument, I develop an objection that relies on three points: (i) the cultural embeddedness of human (...) beings ("fact of culture"), (ii) an "external" perspective on human deliberative processes, and (iii) an alternative interpretation of the unconditional validity of morality that appears in practical deliberation. Contrary to Kant’s claims, I argue that the reality of freedom cannot be deductively derived from the fact of reason. I then discuss two objections to my argument. The first objection claims that my considerations regarding the "external" perspective misunderstand Kant's methodology. The second objection states that, based on my considerations, the fact of reason ultimately turns out to be an illusion. I discuss both objections and refute them. My ultimate conclusion is that Kant's fact of reason argument is not convincing. (shrink)

We introduce the notion of n-nuanced MV-algebra by performing a Łukasiewicz–Moisil nuancing construction on top of MV-algebras. These structures extend both MV-algebras and Łukasiewicz–Moisil algebras, thus unifying two important types of structures in the algebra of logic. On a logical level, n-nuanced MV-algebras amalgamate two distinct approaches to many valuedness: that of the infinitely valued Łukasiewicz logic, more related in spirit to the fuzzy approach, and that of Moisil n-nuanced logic, which is more concerned with nuances of truth rather than (...) truth degree. We study n-nuanced MV-algebras mainly from the algebraic and categorical points of view, and also consider some basic model-theoretic aspects. The relationship with a suitable notion of n-nuanced ordered group via an extension of the Γ construction is also analyzed. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the algebraic logic of probabilistic models of Łukasiewicz predicate logic. We study the MV-states defined on polyadic MV-algebras and prove an algebraic many-valued version of Gaifman’s completeness theorem.

The Approximate Number System (ANS) is a system that allows us to distinguish between collections based on the number of items, though only if the ratio between numbers is high enough. One of the questions that has been raised is what the representations involved in this system represent. I point to two important constraints for any account: (a) it doesn’t involve numbers, and (b) it can account for the approximate nature of the ANS. Furthermore, I argue that representations of pure (...) magnitude with vehicles that have an imprecision in the value of the unit of measurement (further clarified through a formal model from measurement theory) fit both these requirements. (shrink)

According to Hempel’s influential theory of explanation, explaining why some a is G consists in showing that the truth that a is G follows from a law-like generalization to the effect that all Fs are G together with the initial condition that a is F. While Hempel’s overall account is now widely considered to be deeply flawed, the idea that some generalizations play the explanatory role that the account predicts is still often endorsed by contemporary philosophers of science. This idea, (...) however, conflicts with widely shared views in metaphysics according to which the generalization that all Fs are G is partially explained by the fact that a is G. I discuss two solutions to this conflict that have been proposed recently, argue that they are unsatisfactory, and offer an alternative. (shrink)

Many contemporary students feel as though they are always waiting for the future—for their next test, their next grade, and their next class. Many contemporary teachers feel as though they are always preparing students for the future—for their next stage of schooling, their careers, and the rest of their lives. With all their anxiety about what lies ahead, both students and teachers might be perplexed by the suggestion that the best preparation for the future is living in the fullness of (...) the present.JeffFrank reminds readers that this idea permeates Dewey's educational thought. In particular, he argues that the significance of the present is a key theme in two of Dewey's most important works on education, Democracy... (shrink)

In the present chapter, the design of select margins of late medieval Old Norse manuscripts containing the Icelandic ‘Jónsbók’, ‘Kristinréttr Árna biskups’ and Norwegian ‘Landslǫg’ law codes is addressed. In particular, it discusses the size and fillings of margins in these codices and the relation to their modes of use by original clients and later owners. Although it is well-known that Scandinavian law manuscripts contain a large number of notes written by both original and later users, the particular use of (...) marginal spaces by original scribes and illuminators for glosses and other annotations and illuminations has scarcely been investigated to date. In my contribution, two distinctive features will be addressed: (1.) The different use of margins by Norwegian and Icelandic readers of the manuscripts, and (2.) the use of margins by illuminators surrounding the column(s) and incorporated initials. (shrink)

We consider the historic Harress-Sagnac experiment in the light of our absolute space-time theory, proposing two modifications, and we give an account of its recent practical performance. We show that the effect of the rotating disk experiment is a direct result of the light velocity's direction dependence and we point out that our recently performed coupled-mirrors experiment, with whose help for the first time we have measured the Earth's absolute velocity, can be considered as a logical result of the rotating (...) disk experiment. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Die Einführung von Impfprogrammen bei einer immun-naiven Bevölkerung in Europa spielte eine wesentliche Rolle für den Verlauf der COVID-19 Pandemie. Vor allem zu Beginn waren Impfprogramme jedoch durch einen Mangel an Impfdosen gekennzeichnet. Bei einer Zuteilung geringer Dosen an Krankenhäuser in der Initialphase, waren Krankenhausleitungen durch eine möglichst faire Verteilung dieser Impfdosen unter dem Krankenhauspersonal gefordert. Der Beitrag dokumentiert das Vorgehen im ersten Quartal 2021 an fünf deutschen Krankenhäusern in einem Klinikverbund. Wir berichten über einen regel-konsequentialistischen Ansatz auf der (...) strategischen Ebene, der durch einen egalitären Ansatz auf der taktischen Ebene ergänzt wurde. Es erfolgte die ethisch begleitete Entwicklung eines hybriden Schemas unter Verzicht auf klassische Verteilungsmuster, wie dem First-Come-First-Served Schema. Die Kombination des strategischen regel-konsequentialistischen Schemas mit egalitärer Verteilung auf der taktischen Ebene war vollständig funktional und unter den Mitarbeitenden des Klinikverbundes gut akzeptiert. In Zeiten von Pandemien und knappen Ressourcen spielt die Verteilung von medizinischen Gütern für die Funktionalität medizinischer Einrichtungen eine wichtige Rolle. Die Verteilung von Gütern, die durch den Staat bereitgestellt werden, bedarf jedoch einer Anpassung an die jeweiligen Gegebenheiten der Institutionen. Dieser Bericht zeigt eine mögliche Option für die Verteilung knapper Impfdosen auf, die nicht nur unter Personen der Zielgruppe verteilt wurden, sondern die auch die Funktionalität der medizinischen Versorgung in einer Region sicherte. (shrink)

Users of sociotechnical systems often have no way to independently verify whether the system output which they use to make decisions is correct; they are epistemically dependent on the system. We argue that this leads to problems when the system is wrong, namely to bad decisions and violations of the norm of practical reasoning. To prevent this from occurring we suggest the implementation of defeaters: information that a system is unreliable in a specific case (undercutting defeat) or independent information that (...) the output is wrong (rebutting defeat). Practically, we suggest to design defeaters based on the different ways in which a system might produce erroneous outputs, and analyse this suggestion with a case study of the risk classification algorithm used by the Dutch tax agency. (shrink)

ABSTRACT How do non-experts single out numbers for reference? Linnebo has argued that they do so using a criterion of identity based on the ordinal properties of numerals. Neo-logicists, on the other hand, claim that cardinal properties are the basis of individuation, when they invoke Hume’s Principle. I discuss empirical data from cognitive science and linguistics to answer how non-experts individuate numbers better in practice. I use those findings to develop an alternative account that mixes ordinal and cardinal properties to (...) provide a detailed answer to the question: how do we in fact semantically individuate numbers? (shrink)