In this paper I consider three widespread assumptions: (1) the assumption that we are accountable for our intentional actions only if they are in some special sense ours; (2) the assumption that it is possible for us to be more or less “true to” ourselves, and that we are flawed human beings to the extent that we lack “integrity”; and (3) the assumption that we can sometimes give ourselves reasons by giving ourselves commands. I acknowledge that, as Ruediger Bittner (...) has argued, each of these assumptions is problematic, and that the failure to appreciate the problems has led many philosophers astray. I try to show, however, that it is possible to make sense of each assumption in a way that addresses Bittner’s concerns. (shrink)

Ethical theories have been largely focused on finding and clarifying certain amoral principles. However fruitful the communication of moral principles for providing orientation in modern society might be, a serious omission has been made in that the problem of implementation is not addressed. Two fundamental question have neither been raised nor answered: Why should self‐interested individuals follow the proposed moral principles in their daily conduct? Are societal institutions of such a design that is in the power of the individuals to (...) follow these moral principles? It is shown in this article that an economic theory of morals does systematically address these two questions and therefore provides a firm basis for discussing the possibilities and boundaries of following the moral principles inherent in the long history of moral philosophy. (shrink)

Ethical theories have been largely focused on finding and clarifying certain amoral principles. However fruitful the communication of moral principles for providing orientation in modern society might be, a serious omission has been made in that the problem of implementation is not addressed. Two fundamental question have neither been raised nor answered: (1) Why should self‐interested individuals follow the proposed moral principles in their daily conduct? (2) Are societal institutions of such a design that is in the power of the (...) individuals to follow these moral principles? It is shown in this article that an economic theory of morals does systematically address these two questions and therefore provides a firm basis for discussing the possibilities and boundaries of following the moral principles inherent in the long history of moral philosophy. (shrink)

The development of explicit theories of dynamic context change has led to a fundamentally new perspective on the interpretation of discourse. In this paper I show that this development also opens up the possibility of approaching subclausal composition along similar lines. More specifically, I argue that a dynamic theory where type-driven rules apply directly to overt surface structures and fill in missing information by building anaphoric bridges is more faithful to natural language semantics than the classical Montagovian approach.

CHAPTER ONE THE WORLD AS WILL TO POWER /. What there is for Nietzsche Any philosophical system which claims to be at all comprehensive must answer, ...

In this paper we propose a formal theory of partitions (ways of dividing up or sorting or mapping reality) and we show how the theory can be applied in the geospatial domain. We characterize partitions at two levels: as systems of cells (theory A), and in terms of their projective relation to reality (theory B). We lay down conditions of well-formedness for partitions and we define what it means for partitions to project truly onto reality. We continue by classifying well-formed (...) partitions along three axes: (a) degree of correspondence between partition cells and objects in reality; (b) degree to which a partition represents the mereological structure of the domain it is projected onto; and (c) degree of completeness and exhaustiveness with which a partition represents reality. This classification is used to characterize three types of partitions that play an important role in spatial information science: cadastral partitions, categorical coverages, and the partitions involved in folk categorizations of the geospatial domain. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the distinction between private and public and the difference between ‘public’ and ‘official’. Drawing on a comparative analysis of Asian cities, it looks at the ways in which the local, the national and the global levels, which serve different, sometimes contrasting, interests, are negotiated and reconciled in the city. The chapter suggests that different forms of reconciliation have brought about an alternative ‘insitutionalisation’ of the public space. Such an institutionalisation is reflected in the access to, and dissemination (...) of, information—e.g., access to the media—and, above all, in the control over the common goods. The public sphere is used to voice discontent, leading to a new definition of the ‘common good’; that is, the inclusion, or non-exclusion, of large sections of the population which, though initially marginal, can become significant in shaping urban politics. (shrink)

Barsalou's theory of perceptual symbol systems is considered from a metacognitive perspective. Two examples are discussed in terms of the proposed perceptual symbol theory. First, recent results in research on feeling-of-knowing judgement are used to argue for a representation of familiarity with input cues. This representation should support implicit memory. Second, the ability of maintaining a theory of other people's beliefs (theory of mind) is considered and it is suggested that a purely simulation-based view is insufficient to explain the available (...) evidence. Both examples characterize areas where Barsalou's theory would benefit from additional detail. (shrink)

Description Logics are nowadays widely accepted as formalisms which provide reasoning facilities which allow us to discover inconsistencies in ontologies in an automatic fashion. Where ontologies are developed in modular fashion, they allow changes in one module to propogated through the system of ontologies automatically in a way which helps to maintain consistency and stability. For this feature to be utilized effectively, however, requires that domain ontologies be represented in a normalized form.

We propose an ontological theory that is powerful enough to describe both complex spatio-temporal processes (occurrents) and the enduring entities (continuants) that participate therein. The theory is divided into two major categories of sub-theories: (sub-) theories of type SPAN and (sub-)theories of type SNAP. These theories represent two complementary perspectives on reality and result in distinct though compatible systems of categories. In SNAP we have enduring entities such as substances, qualities, roles, functions; in SPAN we have perduring entities such as (...) processes and their parts and aggregates. We argue that both kinds of ontological theory are required in order to give a non-reductionism account of complex domains of reality. (shrink)

The existence of neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) is not enough for philosophical purposes. On the other hand, there's more to NCC than meets the sceptic's eye. (I) NCC are useful for a better understanding of conscious experience, for instance: (1) NCC are helpful to explain phenomenological features of consciousness – e.g., dreaming. (2) NCC can account for phenomenological opaque facts – e.g., the temporal structure of consciousness. (3) NCC reveal properties and functions of consciousness which cannot be elucidated either (...) by introspective phenomenology or by psychological experiments alone – e.g., vision. (II) There are crucial problems and shortcomings of NCC: (1) Correlation implies neither causation nor identity. (2) There are limitations of empirical access due to the problem of other minds and the problem of self-deception, and (3) due to the restrictions provided by inter- and intraindividual variations. (4) NCC cannot be catched by neuroscience alone because of the externalistic content of representations. Therefore, NCC are not sufficient for a naturalistic theory of mind, (5) nor are they necessary because of the possibility of multiple realization. (III) Nevertheless, NCC are relevant and important for the mind-body problem: (1) NCC reveal features that are necessary at least for behavioral manifestations of human consciousness. (2) But NCC are compatible with very different proposals for a solution of the mind-body problem. This seems to be both advantageous and detrimental. (3) NCC restrict nomological identity accounts. (4) The investigation of NCC can refute empirical arguments for interactionism as a case study of John Eccles' dualistic proposals will show. (5) The discoveries of NCC cannot establish a naturalistic theory of mind alone, for which, e.g., a principle of supervenience and a further condition – and therefore philosophical arguments – are required. (shrink)

According to the prevalent 'sum view' of stuffs, each portion of stuff is a mereological sum of its subportions. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the sum view in the light of a modal temporal mereology which distinguishes between different varieties of summation relations. While admitting David Barnett's recent counter-example to the sum view, we show that there is nonetheless an important sense in which all portions of stuff are sums of their subportions. We use our summation relations (...) to develop, as an alternative to the sum view, an analysis of stuffs that distinguisher between the ways in which different sorts of stuffs are sums of their subportions. (shrink)

The existence of quantum correlates of consciousness (QCC) is doubtful from a scientific perspective. But even if their existence were verified, philosophical problems would remain. On the other hand, there could be more to QCC than meets the sceptic's eye: • QCC might be useful or even necessary for a better understanding of conscious experience or quantum physics or both. The main reasons for this are: the measurement problem (the nature of observation, the mysterious collapse of the wave function, etc.), (...) ostensibly shared features of quantum phenomena and conscious phenomena (e.g., complementarity, nonspatiality, acausality, spontaneity, and holism) and connections (ontology, causation, and knowledge), the qualia problem (subjectivity, explanatory gap etc.). But there are many problems, especially questions regarding realism and the nature and role of conscious observers; • QCC are conceptually challenging, because there are definitory problems and some crucial ontological and epistemological shortcomings. It is instructive to compare them with recent proposals for understanding neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). QCC are not sufficient for a quantum theory of mind, nor might they be necessary except perhaps in a very broad sense; • QCC are also empirically challenging. Nevertheless, QCC could be relevant and important for the mindbody problem: QCC might reveal features that are necessary at least for behavioral manifestations of human consciousness. But QCC are compatible with very different proposals for a solution of the mind-body problem. This seems to be both advantageous and detrimental. QCC restrict accounts of nomological identity. The discovery of QCC cannot establish a naturalistic theory of mind alone. But there are also problems with QCC in the framework of other ontologies. (shrink)

In the criminal law, the law of attempts is of comparatively recent vintage. It is part of an important contemporary legal trend towards early intervention in the criminal process. There are now a substantial number of crimes on the books that, like the crime of attempt, only require that the perpetrator start down the road to carrying out his criminal intentions and do not require him actually to have harmed his victim. Besides the law of attempts, these new crimes include (...) conspiracy and solicitation, forgery and counterfeiting, the possession offences, even corruption of youth. In all these cases, the law is stepping in to forestall harm, rather than waiting until a harm has already happened. (shrink)

For much of his adult life, Nietzsche wrote notes on philosophical subjects in small notebooks that he carried around with him. After his breakdown and subsequent death, his sister supervised the publication of some of these notes under the title The Will to Power, and that collection, which is textually inaccurate and substantively misleading, has dominated the English-speaking discussion of Nietzsche's later thought. The present volume offers, for the first time, accurate translations of a selection of writings from Nietzsche's late (...) notebooks, dating from his last productive years between 1885 and 1889. Many of them have never before been published in English. They are translated by Kate Sturge from reliable texts in the Colli-Montinari edition, and they are edited by Rüdiger Bittner, whose introduction places them in the context of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole. (shrink)

Der Artikel spürt den subtilen Veränderungen nach, die bei Patienten, die mit tiefer Hirnstimulation behandelt werden, möglicherweise beobachtet werden können. Dabei sollen im Rückgriff auf Konzeptionen zur narrativen Identität mittels einer möglichst genauen Beschreibung und Analyse der Selbstwahrnehmung der Patienten sowie der Wahrnehmung ihres Umfelds die Änderungen im praktischen Selbstverhältnis untersucht werden, u. a. am Beispiel technomorpher Metaphern, die von den Patienten in ihren Selbstbeschreibungen verwendet werden. Ziel ist es, die Neuartigkeit und das Spezifische der Neurotechnologien – über die bisherigen (...) Untersuchungen hinaus – hinsichtlich des Umgangs mit sich selbst herauszuarbeiten und greifbar zu machen. Abschließend werden auf Basis der Analyse der Patienten-Narrationen die entsprechenden normativen Implikationen für eine ethische Bewertung des Einsatzes von Neurotechnologien benannt. (shrink)

Der Artikel spürt den subtilen Veränderungen nach, die bei Patienten, die mit tiefer Hirnstimulation behandelt werden, möglicherweise beobachtet werden können. Dabei sollen im Rückgriff auf Konzeptionen zur narrativen Identität mittels einer möglichst genauen Beschreibung und Analyse der Selbstwahrnehmung der Patienten sowie der Wahrnehmung ihres Umfelds die Änderungen im praktischen Selbstverhältnis untersucht werden, u. a. am Beispiel technomorpher Metaphern, die von den Patienten in ihren Selbstbeschreibungen verwendet werden. Ziel ist es, die Neuartigkeit und das Spezifische der Neurotechnologien – über die bisherigen (...) Untersuchungen hinaus – hinsichtlich des Umgangs mit sich selbst herauszuarbeiten und greifbar zu machen. Abschließend werden auf Basis der Analyse der Patienten-Narrationen die entsprechenden normativen Implikationen für eine ethische Bewertung des Einsatzes von Neurotechnologien benannt. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 16 Heft: 1 Seiten: 65-88.

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 30-32.

We have a variety of different ways of dividing up, classifying, mapping, sorting and listing the objects in reality. The theory of granular partitions presented here seeks to provide a general and unified basis for understanding such phenomena in formal terms that is more realistic than existing alternatives. Our theory has two orthogonal parts: the first is a theory of classification; it provides an account of partitions as cells and subcells; the second is a theory of reference or intentionality; it (...) provides an account of how cells and subcells relate to objects in reality. We define a notion of well-formedness for partitions, and we give an account of what it means for a partition to project onto objects in reality. We continue by classifying partitions along three axes: (a) in terms of the degree of correspondence between partition cells and objects in reality; (b) in terms of the degree to which a partition represents the mereological structure of the domain it is projected onto; and (c) in terms of the degree of completeness with which a partition represents this domain. (shrink)

The Eskimo language Kalaallisut (alias West Greenlandic) has traditionally been described as having a rich tense system, with three future tenses (Kleinschmidt 1851, Bergsland 1955, Fortescue 1984) and possibly four past tenses (Fortescue 1984). Recently however, Shaer (2003) has challenged these traditional claims, arguing that Kalaallisut is in fact tenseless.

What exactly are the reasons we do things, and how are they related to the resulting actions? Bittner explores this question and proposes an answer: a reason is a response to that state of affairs. Elegantly written, this work is a substantial contribution to the fields of rationality, ethics, and action theory.

This book surveys the ways in which languages of different types refer to past, present, and future events and how these referents are related to the knowledge and attitudes of discourse participants. The book is the culmination of fifteen years of research by the author. Four major language types are examined in-depth: tense-based English, tense-aspect-based Polish, aspect-based Chinese, and mood-based Kalaallisut. Each contributes to a series of logical representation languages, which together define a common logical language that is argued to (...) underlie all language types. The four types differ in whether they choose to grammaticalize discourse reference to times (tense), events (aspect), and/or attitudes (mood), and how non-grammaticalized elements are inferred. The common logical language is a dynamic update logic, building on DRT and Centering Theory, but with a novel architecture—e.g. the distinction between focal vs. peripheral attention plays a key role, parallel to focal vs. peripheral vision. (shrink)

ML-HCAs have the potential to significantly change an entire healthcare system. It is not even necessary to presume that this will be disruptive but sufficient to assume that the mere adaptation of...

Rooth & Partee (1982) and Rooth (1985) have shown that the English-specific rule-by-rule system of PTQ can be factored out into function application plus two transformations for resolving type mismatch (type lifting and variable binding). Building on these insights, this article proposes a universal system for type-driven translation, by adding two more innovations: local type determination for gaps (generalizing Montague 1973) and a set of semantic filters (extending Cooper 1983). This system, dubbed Cross-Linguistic Semantics (XLS), is shown to account for (...) various phenomena — including scope relations in English and Greenlandic Eskimo, internally headed relative clauses in Lakhota, serial verbs in Yoruba and VP ellipsis in English. (shrink)

In English, discourse reference to time involves grammatical tenses interpreted as temporal anaphors. Recently, it has been argued that conditionals involve modal discourse anaphora expressed by a parallel grammatical system of anaphoric modals. Based on evidence from Kalaallisut, this paper argues that temporal and modal anaphora can be just as precise in a language that does not have either grammatical category. Instead, temporal anaphora directly targets eventualities of verbs, without mediating tenses, while modal anaphora involves anaphoric moods and/or attitudinal verbs.

Two senses of ‘ontology’ can be distinguished in the current literature. First is the sense favored by information scientists, who view ontologies as software implementations designed to capture in some formal way the consensus conceptualization shared by those working on information systems or databases in a given domain. [Gruber 1993] Second is the sense favored by philosophers, who regard ontologies as theories of different types of entities (objects, processes, relations, functions) [Smith 2003]. Where information systems ontologists seek to maximize reasoning (...) efficiency even at the price of simplifications on the side of representation, philosophical ontologists argue that representational adequacy can bring benefits for the stability and resistance to error of an ontological framework and also for its extendibility in the future. In bioinformatics, however, a third sense of ‘ontology’ has established itself, above all as a result of the successes of the Gene Ontology (hereafter: GO), which is a tool for the representation and processing of information about gene products and their biological functions [Gene Ontology Consortium 2000]. We show how Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) has established itself as an overarching ontology drawing on all three of the strands distinguished above, and describe applications of BFO especially in the treatment of biological granularity. (shrink)

Partee (1973) noted anaphoric parallels between English tenses and pronouns. Since then these parallels have been analyzed in terms of type-neutral principles of discourse anaphora. Recently, Stone (1997) extended the anaphoric parallel to English modals. In this paper I extend the story to languages of other types. This evidence also shows that centering parallels are even more detailed than previously recognized. Based on this evidence, I propose a semantic representation language (Logic of Change with Centered Worlds), in which the observed (...) parallels can be formally analyzed. (shrink)