This article deals with scientific advice to the public where the relevant science is subject to public attention and uncertainty of knowledge. It focuses on a tension in the management and presentation of scientific uncertainty between the uncertain nature of science and the expectation that scientific advisers will provide clear public guidance. In the first part of the paper the tension is illustrated by the presentation of results from a recent interview study with nutrition scientists in Denmark. According to the (...) study, nutrition scientists feel their roles as ‘‘public advisers’’ and ‘‘scientists’’ differ in that the former involves an expectation that they will provide unambiguous advice of the kind that might relegate scientific uncertainty to the background. In the second, more general, part of the paper we provide a normative analysis of different strategies of dealing with the tension. The analysis is structured around the extremes of either total concealment or full openness regarding scientific uncertainty. The result of analysis is that scientific advisers should not simply ‘‘feed’’ scientific conclusions to the public. They should rather attempt to promote the ability and willingness of the public to assess and scrutinize scientific knowledge by displaying uncertainties in the scientific basis of advice. On the other hand, scientific advisers must accommodate the public’s need for guidance. Such guidance should be restricted by careful consideration of what it is relevant for the public to know in order to evaluate scientific advice in practical terms. (shrink)

Research and policymaking on positive mental health and well-being have increased within the last decade, partly fueled by decreasing levels of well-being in the general population and among at-risk groups. However, measurement of well-being often takes place in the absence of reflection on the underlying theoretical conceptualization of well-being. This disguises the fact that different rating scales of well-being often measure very different phenomena because rating scales are based on different philosophical assumptions, which represent radically different foundational views about the (...) nature of well-being. The aim of this paper is to examine the philosophical foundation of the Satisfaction with Life Scale in order to clarify the underlying normative commitments and the psychometric compromises involved in the translation of theory into practice. SWLS is widely used by psychologists, public health professionals, economists, and is popular in national and international surveys of well-being. This paper introduces the philosophical theory of life satisfaction and explores how three central discussions within life satisfaction theory are reflected in the construction of the SWLS; Whether we should be equally satisfied with our past, present and future, Whether we should be satisfied with all the various domains of our lives, and How to avoid the trap of “false consciousness”, i.e. that people fail to recognize the injustice or misfortune of their lives. In the end, life satisfaction theory is contrasted with affective foundational theories of well-being, to explore the magnitude and limits of SWLS as a rating scale based on life satisfaction theory. (shrink)

Abstract.Mandatory risk assessment is intended to reassure concerned citizens and introduce reason into the heated European controversies on genetically modified crops and food. The authors, examining a case of risk assessment of genetically modified oilseed rape, claim that the new European legislation on risk assessment does nothing of the sort and is not likely to present an escape from the international deadlock on the use of genetic modification in agriculture and food production. The new legislation is likely to stimulate the (...) kind of emotive reactions it was intended to prevent. In risk assessment exercises, scientific uncertainty is turned into risk, expressed in facts and figures. Paradoxically, this conveys an impression of certainty, while value-disagreement and conflicts of interest remain hidden below the surface of factuality. Public dialogue and negotiation along these lines are rendered impossible. The only option left to critics is to resort to claims of fear and to call for new risk assessments to be performed, on and on again. Science is allowing itself to be abused by accepting the burden of proof in matters more suited to reflection and negotiation. The specific challenge to science would be to take care of itself – rethinking the role and the limitations of science in a social context, and, thereby gaining the strength to fulfill this role and to enter into dialogue with the rest of society. Scientific communities appear to be obvious candidates for prompting reflection and dialogue on this issue. (shrink)

In Western societies scientists are increasingly expected to seek media exposure and cooperate with industry. Little attention has been given to the way such expectations affect the role of scientific experts in society. To investigate scientists’ own perspectives on these issues eight exploratory, in-depth interviews were conducted in Denmark with reputable nutrition scientists. Additionally, eight interviews were held with ‘key informants’ from the field of nutrition policy. It was found that nutrition scientists experience two dilemmas: first, between their aspiration to (...) make a collective impact on public health and the powerful incentives of each to appear frequently in the media with new messages; second, between their need to cooperate with the food industry for financial reasons and their fear that this may compromise their independence and scientific integrity. It is argued that the dilemmas identified in this study should be dealt with openly by the relevant groups of scientists. (shrink)

BackgroundDementia care is essential to promote the well-being of patients but remains a difficult task prone to ethical issues. These issues include questions like whether manipulating a person with dementia is ethically permissible if it promotes her best interest or how to engage with a person who is unwilling to recognize that she has dementia. To help people living with dementia and their carers manage ethical issues in dementia care, we developed the CARE intervention. This is an intervention focused on (...) promoting the ethical self-efficacy of people living with dementia and carers, i.e., their confidence that they can manage ethical issues when they occur. The purpose of this paper is to explain and discuss how we have developed the CARE intervention to promote the ethical self-efficacy of people living with dementia, their family, and professional carers through a specific and, we believe, new use of literary texts.MethodsThe CARE intervention has been developed in two phases: First, we conducted a needs assessment of the occurrence of ethical issues in dementia care and the need for an intervention to support people living with dementia and their carers in managing such issues. Second, in a design phase, we developed the CARE intervention to meet identified needs.ResultsTo address identified ethical issues in dementia care we designed the CARE intervention as a workshop format where people living with dementia and carers can meet, discuss literary texts, and deliberate on how to solve such issues. The workshop is structured by the following elements: An agenda of ethical issues, a collection of literary cases exemplifying ethical issues, a moderator with an understanding of dementia care, and an overview of the ethical principles relevant to the discussion of ethical issues. >This workshop concept is operationalized in three applications tailored to meet the specific ethical issues of each of the study´s three target groups: people living with dementia and family carers, professional and family carers, and professional carers.ConclusionWe conclude the paper by stating that it is possible to develop an intervention that promotes the ethical self-efficacy of people living with dementia and family and professional carers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this survey we have investigated the experiences and attitudes of Danish physicians regarding end‐of life decisions. Most respondents have made decisions that involve hastening the death of a patient, and almost all find it acceptable to do so. Such decisions are made more often, and considered ethically more acceptable, with the informed consent of the patient than without. But both non‐resuscitation decisions, and decisions to provide pain relief in doses that will shorten the patient's life, have been made (...) and found acceptable by at least 50% of the respondents, even when there is no informed consent. Furthermore, 12% have doubled morphine dosages with fixed intervals, thus providing doses substantially higher than that necessary to control pain, without the informed consent of the patient. Two per cent have helped in assisted suicide, and 5% have administered a lethal injection at the patient's request. Respectively 37% and 34% find these last two practices ethically acceptable. Amongst those that do not find them acceptable, the most important reasons to be opposed are, the doctrine of double effect, the doctrine of doing and allowing, and the view that human life is sacred. Amongst supporters, the most important reasons mentioned are, that the patient's right to self‐determination should be respected, the view that a patient should not be forced to suffer, and the view that the patient has a right to be helped to a dignified death. (shrink)

In this survey we have investigated the experiences and attitudes of Danish physicians regarding end-of-life decisions. Most respondents have made decisions that involve hastening the death of a patient, and almost all find it acceptable to do so. Such decisions are made more often, and considered ethically more acceptable, with the informed consent of the patient than without. But both non-resuscitation decisions, and decisions to provide pain relief in doses that will shorten the patient's life, have been made and found (...) acceptable by at least 50% of the respondents, even when there is no informed consent. Furthermore, 12% have doubled morphine dosages with fixed intervals, thus providing doses substantially higher than that necessary to control pain, without the informed consent of the patient. Two per cent have helped in assisted suicide, and 5% have administered a lethal injection at the patient's request. Respectively 37% and 34% find these last two practices ethically acceptable. Amongst those that do not find them acceptable, the most important reasons to be opposed are, the doctrine of double effect, the doctrine of doing and allowing, and the view that human life is sacred. Amongst supporters, the most important reasons mentioned are, that the patient's right to self-determination should be respected, the view that a patient should not be forced to suffer, and the view that the patient has a right to be helped to a dignified death. (shrink)

Advance directives (ADs) have for some time been championed by ethicists and patient associations alike as a tool that people newly diagnosed with dementia, or prior to onset, may use to ensure that their future care and treatment are organized in accordance with their interests. The idea is that autonomous people, not yet neurologically affected by dementia, can design directives for their future care that caregivers are morally obligated to respect because they have been designed by autonomous individuals. In this (...) paper, we first criticize the idea that ADs can retain moral authority in severe dementia by arguing that it is paradoxical. Second, we consider two arguments that initially seem to refute this critique of ADs, but we eventually dismiss them. The first argument states that ADs retain moral authority in severe dementia because autonomously formed interests, for example, ADs, can only be appropriately discarded by autonomous persons. This we term the historical autonomy argument. We dismiss it by demonstrating how we, in analog cases, are not obligated to continue to respect autonomously formed interests even though they have been discarded under nonappropriate conditions. The second argument is that ADs can be justified by what we term external interests. While we agree that people with severe dementia plausible can be said to have external interests, we show that ADs cannot express such interests and hence cannot be justified by them. We conclude that none of the discussed arguments support the use of ADs and because of this, the idea of ADs should be reassigned. (shrink)

This important new book by one of the world's leading political theorists boldly questions the moral justification for organizing our world as a territorial states-system and proposes major changes to states' sovereign powers.

This paper draws attention to Foucault’s genealogy of critique. In a series of inquiries, Foucault traced the origins and trajectories of critical practices from the ancient tradition of parrhesia to the enlightenment and the (neo)liberal critique of the state. The paper will elucidate the insights of this history and argue that Foucault’s turn to the genealogy of critique also changed the valence of his theoretical assumptions. Foucault developed a more affirmative practice of genealogy that not only discredits truth claims by (...) tracing them back to their inglorious origins. Rather, he presents a politics of truth as a complex interaction of (governmental) power-knowledge and critique that questions the power effects of truth and rationality. This genealogy of critique contributes to current problematizations of critique by thinkers like Boltanski, Latour and Rancière in highlighting the role of epistemological and technical critique of social rationalization and political reason. (shrink)

Wie verändern sich Mensch und Körper durch Technik? Und welches Menschenverständnis vertritt der Transhumanismus? Anna Puzio befasst sich in der ersten philosophischen Studie zur Anthropologie des Transhumanismus mit führenden Personen des Feldes, u. a. mit Nick Bostrom, David Pearce und Natasha Vita-More. Neben Körperoptimierung und Medizintechnologien beleuchtet sie auch Alltagstechnologien wie Wearables. Dabei entwickelt sie einen neuen Ansatz zur Technikanthropologie und ein neues inklusives Menschen- und Körperverständnis im Anschluss an Donna Haraway und den Kritischen Posthumanismus im amerikanischen Raum.

Policy‐makers, bioethicists, and patient advocates have been engaged in a fierce battle about the merits and potential harms of a federal right‐to‐try law. This debate about access to investigational medical products has raised profound questions about the limits of patient autonomy, appropriate government regulation, medical paternalism, and political rhetoric. For example, do patients have a right to access investigational therapies, as the right‐to‐try movement asserts? What is government’s proper role in regulating and facilitating access to drugs that are still in (...) development? In this review, we analyze the history of the right‐to‐try movement, review the arguments put forth by supporters and opponents of the legislation, and consider the movement’s consequences. Two possible scenarios may emerge. One is that the right‐to‐try pathway may fail to meaningfully increase patient access to investigational products. Alternatively, certain companies may attempt to rely on the federal right‐to‐try legislation to sell investigational products, taking advantage of the provision that allows for direct costs, as there is currently no clear mechanism for enforcement or monitoring of cost calculations. (shrink)

This article elucidates the spatial order that underpins the politics of the Anthropocene – the ecological nomos of the earth – and criticizes its imperial origins and legacies. It provides a critical reading of Carl Schmitt’s spatial thought to not only illuminate the spatio-political ontology but also the violence and usurpations that characterize the Anthropocene condition. The article first shows how with the emergence of the ecological nomos seemingly ‘natural’ spaces like the biosphere and the atmosphere became politically charged. This (...) challenges the modernist separation between natural facts and political norms. It then underlines the imperial origins of this nomos by introducing the concept of air-appropriation understood as the colonization of atmospheric space by CO2 emissions. Instead of assuming that the ecological nomos represents a transition from a colonial to an ecological and cosmopolitan world order, focusing on air-appropriation highlights forms of ecological imperialism that go along with the new nomos. Accordingly, the article calls for a just redistribution of ecospace that takes into account the imperial legacies and ongoing effects of air-appropriation. (shrink)

Prologue: autumn aroma -- What's left? -- Arts of noticing -- Contamination as collaboration -- Some problems with scale -- Interlude: smelling -- After progress : salvage accumulation -- Working the edge "freedom" -- Open ticket, Oregon -- War stories -- What happened to the state? : two kinds of Asian Americans in translation -- Between the dollar and the yen -- From gifts to commodities and back -- Salvage rhythms : business in disturbance -- Interlude: tracking -- Disturbed beginnings (...) : unintentional design -- The life of the forest : coming up among pines -- History -- Resurgence -- Serendipity -- Ruin in gaps and patches -- In science as translation -- Flying spores -- Interlude: dancing -- In the middle of things -- Matsutake crusaders -- Ordinary assets -- Anti-ending : some people I met along the way -- Spore trail: the further adventures of a mushroom -- Notes -- Index. (shrink)

Grounding theorists insist that grounding and explanation are intimately related. This claim could be understood as saying either that grounding ‘inherits’ its properties from explanation or it could be interpreted as saying that grounding plays an important—possibly an indispensable—role in metaphysical explanation. Or both. I argue that saying that grounding ‘inherits’ its properties from explanation can only be justified if grounding is explanatory by nature, but that this view is untenable. We ought therefore to be ‘separatists’ and view grounding and (...) explanation as distinct. As it turns out, though, once grounding has been in this sense distinguished from the explanation it backs, the view that the role grounding plays in explanation justifies its introduction ends up in serious trouble. I conclude that the role grounding plays in explanation does not justify attributing to grounding whatever nature we think it has, and it most likely does not give us any special reason to think grounding exists. (shrink)

One of David Rosenthal’s many important contributions to the philosophy of mind was his clear and unshirking account of introspection. Here we argue that while there is a kind of introspection (we call it “reflective introspection”) that Rosenthal’s account may be structurally fit to accommodate, there is also a second kind (“primitive introspection”) that his account cannot recover. We introduce Rosenthal’s account of introspection in §1, present the case for the psychological reality of primitive introspection in §2, and argue that (...) Rosenthal’s account lacks the resources to accommodate it in §3. (shrink)

Narratives surrounding ionizing radiation have often minimized radioactivity’s impact on the health of human and non-human animals and the natural environment. Many Cold War research policies, practices, and interpretations drove nuclear technology forward by institutionally obscuring empirical evidence of radiation’s disproportionate and low-dose harm—a legacy we still confront. Women, children, and pregnancy development are particularly sensitive to exposure from radioactivity, suffering more damage per dose than adult males, even down to small doses, making low doses a cornerstone of concern. Evidence (...) of compounding generational damage could indicate increased sensitivity through heritable impact. This essay examines the existing empirical evidence demonstrating these sensitivities, and how research institutions and regulatory authorities have devalued them, willingly sacrificing health in the service of maintaining and expanding nuclear technology. Radiation’s disproportionate impacts should now be the research and policy focus, as society is poised to make crucial and long-lasting decisions regarding climate change mitigation and future energy sources. (shrink)

Domain extension in mathematics occurs whenever a given mathematical domain is augmented so as to include new elements. Manders argues that the advantages of important cases of domain extension are captured by the model-theoretic notions of existential closure and model completion. In the specific case of domain extension via ideal elements, I argue, Manders’s proposed explanation does not suffice. I then develop and formalize a different approach to domain extension based on Dedekind’s Habilitationsrede, to which Manders’s account is compared. I (...) conclude with an examination of three possible stances towards extensions via ideal elements. (shrink)

The study aims at exposing Meinong's ideas that may be of interest to analytic philosophers. It contains all the basic information concerning Meinong's theory of objects with a special focus upon 'objectives', which are Meinong's propositions. Meinong's theory of meaning and his epistemological views are discussed in detail. An outline of his conception of truth, which is classified as firmly realistic, is followed by a review of the critical works touching upon Meinong's epistemological ideas. Finally, Meinong's theory of objects is (...) presented as inspiring the development of Meinongian logics, with his Aussersein as the prototype of an all-inclusive semantic domain. The issues considered include reference of terms and sentences as well as the general features of a Meinongian-style semantics. (shrink)

Cell morphogenesis encompasses all processes required to establish a three-dimensional cell shape. Cells acquire the architecture specific to their developmental context by using the spatial information provided by internal or external cues. As a response to these signals, cells become reorganized and establish functionally distinct subcellular domains that ultimately lead to morphological changes. In its simplest form, cell morphogenesis results in the establishment of asymmetry along one axis, a cell polarity. Although cell polarity has been studied intensively in budding yeast (...) and epithelial cells, little is known about more complex modes of cell morphogenesis involving multiple axes. In this review we compare the regulation of cell morphogenesis of different genetically well-characterized cell types in Arabidopsis thaliana. BioEssays 20:20–29, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Within debates concerning responsibility for ignorance the distinction between moral and factual ignorance is often treated as crucial. Many prominent accounts hold that while factual ignorance routinely exculpates, moral ignorance never does so. The view that there is an in-principle distinction between moral and factual ignorance has been referred to as the “Asymmetry Thesis.” This view stands in opposition to the “Parity Thesis,” which holds that moral and factual ignorance are in-principle similar. The Parity Thesis has been closely aligned with (...) volitionist accounts of moral responsibility, whereas the Asymmetry Thesis has been closely aligned with Quality of Will accounts. Two central questions are at work here: how ignorance excuses, and whether it excuses in the same way for both moral and factual ignorance. I will argue that these questions have often been confused in the present debate, and once we have distinguished more clearly between them, it seems that Quality of Will accounts are compatible with the Parity Thesis. And more generally: that the distinction between moral and factual ignorance is far less important in debates about responsibility for ignorance than it has often appeared. (shrink)

Modifying the descriptive and theoretical generalizations of Relativized Minimality, we argue that a significant subset of weak island violations arise when an extracted phrase should scope over some intervener but is unable to. Harmless interveners seem harmless because they can support an alternative reading. This paper focuses on why certain wh-phrases are poor wide scope takers, and offers an algebraic perspective on scope interaction. Each scopal element SE is associated with certain operations (e.g., not with complements). When a wh-phrase scopes (...) over some SE, the operations associated with that SE are performed in its denotation domain. The requisite operations may or may not be available in a domain, however. We present an empirical analysis of a variety of wh-phrases. It is argued that the wh-phrases that escape all weak islands (i.e., can scope over any intervener) are those that range over individuals, the reason being that all Boolean operations are defined for their domain. Collectives, manners, amounts, numbers, etc. all denote in domains with fewer operations and are thus selectively sensitive to scopal interveners—a “semantic relativized minimality effect”. (shrink)

Democratic innovations have been widely presented by both academics and practitioners as a potential remedy to the crisis of representative democracy. Many argue that deliberation should play a pivotal role in these innovations, fostering greater citizen participation and political influence. However, it remains unclear how digitalization affects the quality of deliberation—whether digital democratic innovations (DDIs) undermine or enhance deliberation. This paper takes an inductive approach in political theory to critically examine three features of online deliberation that matter for deliberative democracy: (...) scale, transparency, and the facilitation of equality. It argues that the enhancement of equality should be given special attention when designing and implementing deliberative DDIs. Equality is a basic democratic value that is crucial for the intrinsic quality of deliberation. One way of enhancing equality through digital deliberative practices is via AI facilitation, which can assist human facilitators and help mitigate power dynamics, often present in non-digital settings. (shrink)

This chapter argues that human and animal minds indeed depend on a collection of domain-specific, task-specific, and encapsulated cognitive systems: on a set of cognitive ‘modules’ in Fodor's sense. It also argues that human and animal minds are endowed with domain-general, central systems that orchestrate the information delivered by core knowledge systems. The chapter begins by reviewing the literature on spatial reorientation in animals and in young children, arguing that spatial reorientation bears the hallmarks of core knowledge and of modularity. (...) It then considers studies of older children and adults, arguing that human spatial representations change qualitatively over development and show capacities not found in any other species. Finally, it presents two new experiments that investigate the role of emerging spatial language in uniquely human navigation performance. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, virtual and augmented reality, (semi-)autonomous ve- hicles, autoregulatory weapon systems, enhancement, reproductive technologies and human- oid robotics – these technologies (and many others) are no longer speculative visions of the future; they have already found their way into our lives or are on the verge of a breakthrough. These rapid technological developments awaken a need for orientation: what distinguishes hu- man from machine and human intelligence from artificial intelligence, how far should the body be allowed to (...) be changed and what are the dangers and opportunities presented by these technologies? Many of these questions are also addressed to theology. For example, questions about the image of humanity, the understanding of creation, the ethics of technological body interventions or the moral status of robots. What does theology have to say about these technological developments? It is the right time for theology to scientifically explore tech- nologization and AI and to formulate answers. As technology changes the various areas of human life, society and the world around us, the places and topics of theology are also undergoing transformation. Puzio, Anna: Theology Meets AI: Examining Perspectives, Tasks, and Theses on the Intersection of Technology and Religion. In: Puzio, Anna/Kunkel, Nicole/Klinge, Hendrik (Hg.): Alexa, How Do You Feel About Religion? Theological Approaches to Technology and Artificial Intelligence (Theology and AI 1). Darmstadt: wbg 2023, S. 29–41. DOI: 10.53186/1030373. (shrink)

The treatise attempts to approach and deal with some of the most fundamental problems facing anyone who wishes to uphold some version of the so-called theory of tropes. Three assumptions serve as a basis for the investigation: tropes exist, only tropes exist, and a one-category trope-theory along these lines should be developed so that the tropes it postulates are able to serve as truth-makers for all kinds of atomic propositions. Provided that these assumptions are accepted, it is found that the (...) trope-theorist will have to deal with two important problems. First, some atomic propositions seem to require universal truth-makers. Second, some atomic propositions seem to require concrete truth-makers. As tropes are abstract particulars, it follows that the trope-theorist, in order to fulfil assumption, must provide an account of exactly how he or she could construct universality and concreteness from his or her basic stock of tropes. In the treatise such constructions are attempted and some basic problems with such constructions are revealed. Although these problems are serious enough it is argued that it is nevertheless possible to deal with these basic issues while staying squarely within the boundaries of a one-category trope-ontology. (shrink)

Ways of Scope Taking is concerned with syntactic, semantic and computational aspects of scope. Its starting point is the well-known but often neglected fact that different types of quantifiers interact differently with each other and other operators. The theoretical examination of significant bodies of data, both old and novel, leads to two central claims. (1) Scope is a by-product of a set of distinct Logical Form processes; each quantifier participates in those that suit its particular features. (2) Scope interaction is (...) further constrained by the semantics of the interacting operators. The arguments are developed using Minimalist syntax, Generalized Quantify theory, Discourse Representation Theory, and algebraic semantics. The contributors (Beghelli, Ben-Shalom, Doetjes, Farkas, Gutiérrez Rexach, Honcoop, Stabler, Stowell, Szabolcsi and Zwarts) make tightly related theoretical assumptions and focus on related empirical phenomena, which include the direct and inverse scope of quantifiers, distributivity, negation, modal and intensional contexts, weak islands, event-related readings, interrogatives, wh/quantifier interactions, and Hungarian syntax. An introduction to the formal semantics background is provided. Audience: Linguists, philosophers, computational and psycholinguists; advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in these fields. (shrink)

Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

Trope theory is the view that the world is a world of abstract particular qualities. But if all there is are tropes, how do we account for the truth of propositions ostensibly made true by some concrete particular? A common answer is that concrete particulars are nothing but tropes in compresence. This answer seems vulnerable to an argument (first presented by F. H. Bradley) according to which any attempt to account for the nature of relations will end up either in (...) contradiction, nonsense, or will lead to a vicious infinite regress. I investigate Bradley’s argument and claim that it fails to prove what it sets out to. It fails, I argue, because it does not take all the different ways in which relation and relata may depend on one another into account. If relations are entities that are distinct from yet essentially dependent upon their relata, the Bradleyan problem is solved. We are then free to say that tropes in compresence are what make true propositions ostensibly made true by concrete particulars. (shrink)

Section 1 provides a brief summary of the pair-list literature singling out some points that are particularly relevant for the coming discussion. -/- Section 2 shows that the dilemma of quantifi cation versus domain restriction arises only in extensional complement interrogatives. In matrix questions and in intensional complements only universals support pairlist readings, whence the simplest domain restriction treatment suffices. Related data including conjunction, disjunction, and cumulative readings are discussed -/- Section 3 argues that in the case of extensional complements (...) the domain restriction treatment is inadequate for at least two independent reasons. One has to do with the fact that not only upward monotonic quantifi ers support pairlist readings, and the other with the derivation of apparent scope out readings. The reasoning is supplemented with some discussion of the semantic properties of layered quantifi ers.  The above will establish the need for quantifi cation, so the question arises how the objections explicitly enlisted in the literature against quantifi cation can be answered. Section 4 considers the de dicto reading of the quantifi er s restriction, quanti cational variability, and the absence of pairlist readings with whether questions, and argues that they need not militate against the quanti ficational analysis. -/- Section 5 summarizes the emergent proposal -/- Finally, section 6 discusses the signifi cance of the above findings for the behavior of weak islands. (shrink)

Extensively investigated in the field of psychology, psychiatry, education, and social policy, self-esteem has been comparatively under-researched in philosophy. However, a number of theories and notions relevant to the understanding of self-esteem and related experiences have been put forward in both classical and contemporary phenomenology of emotion. Drawing upon this body of research, in this chapter I will present a phenomenological account of self-esteem. First, I will suggest that this is best understood as a particular kind of background affective orientation, (...) and, more specifically, as a narratively shaped “existential feeling”. I will then move to explore the relevance of such an account for the philosophical understanding of pride, embarrassment, and shyness, thus providing an example of the influence exerted by self-esteem on other self-related affects and traits. (shrink)

Kann der christliche Glaube an Gott in einer der Freiheit verpflichteten Moderne bedeutsam sein? Wie kann man von Gott sprechen unter dem Anspruch der Autonomie der Vernunft? Die Studie gibt darauf eine Antwort mittels einer Analyse der genealogischen Rekonstruktionen von Moderne, wie sie die Philosophen Hermann Krings und Herbert Schnädelbach vorgelegt haben. Dabei zeigt sich, dass es innertheologische Momente waren, die am Ende des Spätmittelalters die Moderne freigesetzt haben. So lässt sich die Moderne als eine Epoche begreifen, in der der (...) Glaube nochmals radikalisiert hermeneutisch erschlossen werden kann." --provided by publisher, back cover. (shrink)

Plotinus (204/5-270 C.E.) is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy. However, during the Middle Ages he was almost unknown. None of the treatises constituting his Enneads were translated, and ancient translations were lost. Although scholars had indirect access to his philosophy through the works of Proclus, St. Augustine, and Macrobius, among others, it was not until 1492 with the publication of the first Latin translation of the Enneads by the humanist philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) that Plotinus was (...) reborn to the Western world. Ficino's translation was accompanied by a long commentary in which he examined the close relationship between metaphysics and anthropology that informed Plotinus's philosophy. Focusing on Ficino's interpretation of Plotinus's view of the soul and of human nature, this book excavates a fundamental chapter in the history of Platonic scholarship, one which was to inform later readings of the Enneads up until the nineteenth century. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in the history of Western philosophy, intellectual history, and book history. (shrink)

Whatever societies accept as "knowledge" is embedded in specific epistemological, political and economic power relations. How is knowledge produced and functionalized? What is the difference between knowledge and the sciences? Can there be science without universal truth claims? Questions like these, all of them highly relevant, are discussed in twelve essays from the perspective of Sociology, Law, Cultural Studies and the Humanities.

Jones recognizes the existence of “primitives of conceptual structures,” out of which “local representations of kinship are constructed.” NSM semantics has identified these primitives through a cross-linguistic search for lexical universals (“NSM” stands for Natural Semantic Metalanguage and also for the corresponding linguistic theory). These empirical universals provide, I argue, a better bridge between cognitive anthropology and evolutionary psychology than the abstract constructs of OT, with dubious claim to conceptual reality.

This commentary offers a linguistic perspective on “pride”. On the basis of a semantic analysis it demonstrates that the interpretation of pride put forward by Tracy, Shariff, and Cheng (2010) is Anglocentric and is consistent with the contemporary use of the English word pride. It compares the English concept of pride with the Russian concept of gordit’sja and demonstrates their differences. It calls for a psychological account of “pride” free from an ethnocentric bias.

This paper considers how women and gender are conceptualised within early German Romanticism and argues that work by early German Romantic women should be addressed in scholarship on this movement. The chapter addresses feminist critiques of early German Romanticism as exemplified by the work of Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis, concluding that an essentialist view of traditional gender characteristics informs central aspects of these writers’ work, including their view of the relationship between human beings and nature and their theories of language (...) and poetry. The paper argues that a thoroughgoing critique of gender categories and development of the implications of this critique are found in the early German Romantic writings, not of Schlegel and Novalis, but of Dorothea Veit-Schlegel and Karoline von Günderrode. (shrink)