The quickening of interest in the great philosophical figure of Aquinas which has taken place during the last few years is a wellattested phenomenon. Of recent years there has been a distinct recognition that this mediaeval period was a most important time in the development of the human race, and that it has many urgent lessons for a modern age which has begun to realize that science and industry and mechanical efficiency have not succeeded in building such a perfect society (...) as the optimistic Victorians had hastily hoped. (shrink)

Logoi : the history and definition of art and aesthetics -- The broader context -- An ontological foundation -- Doxa : the nature of art -- Inspired by the spirit -- Universal beauty -- Aesthetics of hope -- Praxis : the purpose of art -- Art and creation as play -- Serious art qo -- Church art.

After criticizing some recent writings typical of the different forms of ethical objectivism, that is, intuitionism, naturalism (including the ideal observation theory and supervenience), and rationalism, I gave my reasons for siding with ethical subjectivism. I hope to demonstrate that this alternative meta‐ethical theory does not consider moral judgements meaningless nor arbitrary, and that it is compatible with empiricism in science and with serious moral commitment. Objectivists, on the other hand, tend to take a parochial view of ethics, identifying (...) morality with a particular moral point of view, nowadays liberalism and the common good, while ignoring rival moral principles which are politically important. (shrink)

Der Band nimmt gewisse, mit dem Begriff Theurgie assoziierte Wandlungen innerhalb des spätantiken Neuplatonismus in den Blick. Theurgie wird vor allem als Suche nach immanenten Medien zur Verkörperung göttlicher Kräfte verstanden. Entgegen dem häufig kolportierten Bild vom weltflüchtigen Platonismus zielt die von Iamblichos und seinen Nachfolgern verfochtene Philosophie, so die Grundthese, auf Integration der körperlich-materiellen Wirklichkeitsebenen ab und das Endziel der Philosophie wird stärker unter dem Gesichtspunkt einer positiven Teilhabe am demiurgisch-kosmogonischen Werk begriffen. Diese Aufwertung von Körperlichkeit wird anhand verschiedener (...) Aspekte – z. B. dem Symbolbegriff, der „göttlichen Materie", aber auch des feinstofflichen Ochema-Pneuma-Konzepts – in ihrer Relevanz für das spirituelle Gesamtprofil der theurgischen Neuplatoniker erstmals umfassender untersucht. Abgerundet wird die Studie durch einen Vergleich mit ähnlichen Tendenzen im nicht-dualistischen Śivaismus von Kaschmir. (shrink)

The dialogue Octavius by Minucius Felix is a point of reception in the legacy of Ciceronian skeptical fideism, and as such it deserves its place in the history of skeptical fideism. Drawing on his Ciceronian model, Minucius depicts a skeptical fideist—Caecilius—struggling to hold on to his religious traditions in the face of the challenges posed by the new religion of Christianity. But Minucius himself is a convert to the new religion and writes in its defense. And this authorial intent (...) distorts the skeptical fideism which Minucius found in Cicero’s De natura deorum by adding credulous and/or dogmatic elements that are ill-fitted to skeptical fideism but well-suited to his authorial intention of answering all available objections to Christianity in the hopes of winning converts. (shrink)

Connections between Roman Catholic Modernism and the artistic culture of the fin de siècle have received little attention from scholars, as compared to the prominence accorded intellectual, social, and political issues. Felix Klein is one of a handful of those who worked for intellectual renewal who closely followed developments in literature and music, interpreting those developments in a way that favored an agenda of reconciling Catholicism with modernity. In two collections of essays, Nouvelles tendances en religion et en literature (...) and Autour du dilettantisme Klein expressed hopes for a return to Catholicism among a cultural elite which I turn would have a larger impact upon a broad public. (shrink)

For quite some time, cognitive science has offered philosophy an opportunity to address central problems with an arsenal of relevant theories and empirical data. However, even among those naturalistically inclined, it has been hard to find a universally accepted way to do so. In this article, we offer a case study of how cognitive-science input can elucidate an epistemological issue that has caused extensive debate. We explore Jason Stanley’s idea of the practical grasp of a propositional truth and present naturalistic (...) arguments against his reductive approach to knowledge. We argue that a plausible interpretation of cognitive-science input concerning knowledge—even if one accepts that knowledge how is partly propositional—must involve an element of knowing how to act correctly upon the proposition; and this element of knowing how to act correctly cannot itself be propositional. (shrink)

Many philosophers, following Williamson (The Philosophical Review 105(4): 489–523, 1996), Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits, Oxford, Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2000), subscribe to the constitutive rule account of assertion (CRAA). They hold that the activity of asserting is constituted by a single constitutive rule of assertion. However, in recent work, Maitra (in: Brown & Cappelen (ed). Assertion: new philosophical essays, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011), Johnson (Acta Analytica 33(1): 51–67, 2018), and Kelp and Simion (Synthese 197(1): 125–137, 2020a), Kelp and (...) Simion (in: Goldberg (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Assertion, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020b) aim to show that, for all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion proposed in the literature, asserting is not an activity constituted by a single constitutive rule and that therefore CRAA is very likely false. To reach this conclusion, they all present a version of what can be dubbed the engagement condition objection. That is, they each propose a necessary condition on engaging in rule-constituted activities. Then they argue that, for all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion proposed in the literature, one can make assertions without satisfying this condition. In response, I present a counterexample that shows that the proposed engagement conditions lead to coun- terintuitive results, and I propose an alternative that better captures our intuitions. Then I argue that this alternative engagement condition is compatible with all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion. (shrink)

Relying on aesthetic testimony seems problematic. For instance, it seems problematic for me to simply believe or assert that The Velvet Underground's debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico (1964) is amazing solely because you have told me so, even though I know you to be an honest and competent music critic. But why? After all, there do not seem to be similar reservations regarding testimony from many other domains. In this paper, I will argue that relying on aesthetic testimony (...) seems problematic because we are attached to an ideal of aesthetic authenticity and feel that living up to this ideal is anathema to simply relying on aesthetic testimony. (shrink)

How does one arrive at a life in politics and policy? What happens to one's ideals when confronted with the reality that the only way to get things done in Washington is compromise? Who are the men and women who help shape our national agenda, and what drives their work? Dispatches From the Eastern Front provides fascinating, intensely personal, yet universal answers to these central questions. Recounting four decades inside Washington politics, Gerald Felix Warburg brings remarkable candor to a (...) most unusual memoir. An idealistic California baby boomer transported to the intimidating world of Capitol Hill policymaking at a young age, Warburg finds himself working to reform nuclear energy, strategic arms control, and foreign policy. As his access and power grow, greater challenges loom: how to maintain principles while cutting deals, and how to balance public purpose with private interests. An eclectic career reveals the slow and often painful development of emotional intelligence for work at the highest reaches of the public arena. (shrink)

This book traces the emergence of a modern culture of exploration, as reflected in the role of institutions such as the Royal Geographical Society and the ...

In moral and political philosophy, collective obligations are promising “gap-stoppers” when we find that we need to assert some obligation, but can not plausibly ascribe this obligation to individual agents. Most notably, Bill Wringe and Jesse Tomalty discuss whether the obligations that correspond to socio-economic human rights are held by states or even by humankind at large. The present paper aims to provide a missing piece for these discussions, namely an account of the conditions under which obligations can apply to (...) loose collections of agents that do not qualify as collective agents in their own right. I first explain the notion of joint obligations of loose collections of agents as opposed to collective obligations of collections of agents that are collective agents in their own right, and argue that the conditions under which agents can jointly have obligations are the conditions under which they are jointly able to do what is required. I then build on Virginia Held’s seminal work on the moral responsibility of “random collections” to develop such conditions for joint ability. My discussion shows that collections of individuals can more easily be subject to moral obligations than previously assumed. It also shows that putative joint obligations need to be carefully time-indexed, and that it is largely an empirical question whether a given collection can be subject to a moral obligation to perform a given joint action at a particular time. (shrink)

When several agents together produce suboptimal outcomes, yet no individual could have made a difference for the better, Act Consequentialism counterintuitively judges that all involved agents act rightly. I address this problem by supplementing Act Consequentialism with a requirement of modal robustness: Agents not only ought to produce best consequences in the actual world, but they also ought to be such that they would act optimally in certain counterfactual scenarios. I interpret this Modally Robust Act Consequentialism as Act Consequentialism plus (...) a requirement of moral virtue, namely, to reliably act rightly and to act rightly for the right reasons. (shrink)

Who should be recognized as a refugee? This article seeks to uncover the normative arguments at the core of legal and philosophical conceptions of refugeehood. It identifies three analytically dist...

What is political about political refugeehood? Theorists have assumed that refugees are special because their specific predicament as those who are persecuted sets them aside from other “necessitous strangers.” Persecution is a special form of wrongful harm that marks the repudiation of a person's political membership and that cannot—contrary to certain other harms—be remedied where they are. It makes asylum necessary as a specific remedial institution. In this article, I argue that this is correct. Yet, the connection between political membership, (...) its repudiation, and persecution is far from clear. Drawing on normative political thought and research on autocracies, repression, and migration studies, I show that it is political oppression that marks the repudiation of political membership and leads to various forms of repression that can equally not be remedied at home. A truly political account moves away from persecution and endorses political oppression as the normative pillar of refugeehood and asylum. (shrink)

Who should be recognized as a refugee? This article seeks to uncover the normative arguments at the core of legal and philosophical conceptions of refugeehood. It identifies three analytically distinct approaches grounding the right to refugee status and argues that all three are normatively inadequate. Refugee status should neither be grounded in individual persecution for specific reasons (classical approach) nor in individual persecution for any discriminatory reasons (human rights approach). It should also not be based solely on harm (humanitarian approach). (...) Rather, this article argues, it should be based on political oppression – on persons lacking public autonomy, formally expressed as a lack of legal–political status. The normative foundation for a claim to refugee status lies in the inability of a person to control, amend and seek recourse to the specific situation she faces. It lies in the lack of public autonomy expressed as a lack of legal–political rights. What matters for a claim to refugee status is thus the legal–political disenfranchisement of a person, ultimately leaving her with no recourse to the particular situation she faces other than flight. Refugees, then, are not only those who fear harm or persecution, but those who are politically oppressed. (shrink)

Bilattices, introduced by Ginsberg as a uniform framework for inference in artificial intelligence, are algebraic structures that proved useful in many fields. In recent years, Arieli and Avron developed a logical system based on a class of bilattice-based matrices, called logical bilattices, and provided a Gentzen-style calculus for it. This logic is essentially an expansion of the well-known Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic to the standard language of bilattices. Our aim is to study Arieli and Avron’s logic from the perspective of abstract (...) algebraic logic . We introduce a Hilbert-style axiomatization in order to investigate the properties of the algebraic models of this logic, proving that every formula can be reduced to an equivalent normal form and that our axiomatization is complete w.r.t. Arieli and Avron’s semantics. In this way, we are able to classify this logic according to the criteria of AAL. We show, for instance, that it is non-protoalgebraic and non-self-extensional. We also characterize its Tarski congruence and the class of algebraic reducts of its reduced generalized models, which in the general theory of AAL is usually taken to be the algebraic counterpart of a sentential logic. This class turns out to be the variety generated by the smallest non-trivial bilattice, which is strictly contained in the class of algebraic reducts of logical bilattices. On the other hand, we prove that the class of algebraic reducts of reduced models of our logic is strictly included in the class of algebraic reducts of its reduced generalized models. Another interesting result obtained is that, as happens with some implicationless fragments of well-known logics, we can associate with our logic a Gentzen calculus which is algebraizable in the sense of Rebagliato and Verdú . We also prove some purely algebraic results concerning bilattices, for instance that the variety of distributive bilattices is generated by the smallest non-trivial bilattice. This result is based on an improvement of a theorem by Avron stating that every bounded interlaced bilattice is isomorphic to a certain product of two bounded lattices. We generalize it to the case of unbounded interlaced bilattices. (shrink)

Since the early 1980’s, with the clinical advent of in vitro fertilization resulting in so-called “test tube babies,” a wide array of ethical considerations and concerns regarding artificial womb technology (AWT) have been described. Recent breakthroughs in the development of extracorporeal neonatal life support by means of AWT have reinitiated ethical interest about this topic with a sense of urgency. Most of the recent ethical literature on the topic, however, pertains not to the more imminent scenario of a physiologically improved (...) method of neonatal care through AWT, but instead to the remote scenario of “complete ectogenesis” that imagines human gestation occurring entirely outside of the womb. This scoping review of the ethical literature on AWT spans from more abstract concerns about complete ectogenesis to more immediate concerns about the soon-to-be-expected clinical life support of what we term the fetal neonate or fetonate. Within an organizing framework of different stages of human gestational development, from conception to the viable premature infant, we discuss both already identified and newly emerging ethical considerations and concerns regarding AWT and the care of the fetonate. (shrink)

Should refugees receive political rights in liberal democracies? I argue that they should. Refugees are special – at least when it comes to claims towards democratic inclusion. They lack exit options and are significantly impacted by decisions made in liberal democracies. Enfranchisement is a matter of urgency to them and should occur on a national level. But what justifies the democratic inclusion of refugees? I draw on the all-subjected principle in arguing that all those subjected to rule in a political (...) unit should have a say in such rule. I show that refugees cannot be denied democratic inclusion based on the argument that transients should be excluded from participation. Refugees are not transients. Finally, I show that naturalization is not a prerequisite for enfranchisement. Political rights and citizenship can be had independently of each other. Refugees, then, should be nationally enfranchised as soon as they receive refugee status. (shrink)

Recently, Jennifer Saul (“Racial Figleaves, the Shifting Boundaries of the Permissible, and the Rise of Donald Trump”, 2017; “Racist and Sexist Figleaves”, 2021) has explored the use of what she calls “figleaves” in the discourse on race and gender. Following Saul, a figleaf is an utterance that, for some portion of the audience, blocks the conclusion that some other utterance, R, or the person who uttered R is racist or sexist. Such racial and gender figleaves are pernicious, says Saul, because, (...) among other things, they can shift the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable to think or say. This paper expands on Saul’s picture in a threefold way: It is first argued that appeals to statistics can function as figleaves. It is then argued that—as far as figleaves go—there is reason to believe that statistics-as-figleaves are especially pernicious. Finally, the paper explores some strategies for counterspeech. (shrink)

The fourth volume of the _Adagia_ (Proverbs) of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin texts of Erasmus gives an introduction in German and a critical edition of the Latin text of the second half of the second thousand _Adages_.

Should refugees govern refugee camps? This paper argues that they should. It draws on normative political thought in consulting the all-subjected principle and an instrumental defense of democratic rule. The former holds that all those subjected to rule in a political unit should have a say in such rule. Through analyzing the conditions that pertain in refugee camps, the paper demonstrates that the all-subjected principle applies there, too. Refugee camps have developed as near distinct entities from their host states. They (...) have formed their own economic, legal and even political systems within which refugees are subjected to political rule. The paper then demonstrates that democratic rule should be preferred over any other decision-making procedure. No amount of experts can replace the institutions that would lead to the accountability of decision-makers and to the incorporation of refugees as situated and epistemically diverse knowers of the problems they face and the solutions that would work best. (shrink)

Since the outbreak of the war in the Ukraine, realism has made a comeback in public discourses but it is not clear what realism actually means as it seems to stand for everything: from supporting the Ukraine against Russian aggression to the war is the West’s fault. This is the result of decades of not distinguishing between neorealism and classical realism and implicitly acknowledging neorealist storytelling of having systematized classical realist thought. The present paper is a further intervention to carefully (...) distinguish between both theoretical perspectives to uncover what they can add to current world political problems. It finishes by asking if neorealist scholars like John Mearsheimer have a point that it is the West’s fault and a diplomatic solution needs to be found. They often refer to Hans Morgenthau not least because he was one of the most outspoken critics of the Vietnam War. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that lying differs from mere misleading in a way that can be morally relevant: liars commit themselves to something they believe to be false, while misleaders avoid such commitment, and this difference can make a moral difference. Even holding all else fixed, a lie can therefore be morally worse than a corresponding misleading utterance. But, we argue, there are also cases in which the difference in commitment makes lying morally better than misleading, (...) as well as cases in which the difference is not morally relevant. This view conflicts with the two main positions philosophers have defended in the ethics of lying and misleading, which entail either that lying is in virtue of its nature worse than misleading or that there is no morally relevant difference between lying and misleading. (shrink)

It is being increasingly recognized that the Saussurean dictum of “the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign” is in conflict with the pervasiveness of the phenomenon commonly known as “sound symbolism”. After first presenting a historical overview of the debate, however, we conclude that both positions have been exaggerated, and that an adequate explanation of sound symbolism is still lacking. How can there, for example, be (perceived) similarity between expressionsand contents across different sensory modalities? We offer an answer, based on the (...) Peircian notion of iconic ground, and G. Sonesson’s distinction betweenprimary and secondary iconicity. Furthermore, we describe an experimental study, in a paradigm first pioneered by W. Kohler, and recently popularized by V.Ramachandran, in which we varied vowels and consonants in fictive word-forms, and conclude that both types of sounds play a role in perceiving an iconic ground between the word-forms and visual figures. The combination of historical conceptual analysis, semiotic explication and psychological experimentationpresented in this article is characteristic of the emerging paradigm of cognitive semiotics. (shrink)

The fifth and sixth volume of the _Adagia_ (Proverbs) of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin texts of Erasmus give an introduction in German and a critical edition of the Latin text of the third thousand _Adages_.

The ninth and last volume of the _Adagia_ (Proverbs) of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin texts of Erasmus gives an introduction in German and a critical edition of the Latin text of the _Collectanea_, an early version of the _Adagia_ that completely differs from the latter collection.

Whitehead ignorierte Fichte, und beider Denk- und Darstellungsweisen sind auf den ersten Blick vollkommen verschieden. Dennoch bestätigen sie einander in der für beide zentralen Lehre von der untrennbaren Verbundenheit von Erkennen, Handeln, Fühlen und Selbstbewußtsein. Versucht man aber diese Lehre konsequent als schlechthin apriorische Einsicht zu verstehen, so löst sie sich unweigerlich in leere Redewendungen auf. Die tiefe Bedeutung, um die es durchaus bereits bei Fichte geht, kommt der Einsicht in die Einheit des Menschen in Erkennen, Handeln, Fühlen und Selbstbewußtsein (...) eigentlich erst dann zu, wenn man wie Whitehead die Last des rein aprioristischen Denkens abwirft. (shrink)

As a scientific discipline and profession, law has been for centuries at the heart of social and political power of many Western societies. Professors of law, as influential representatives of the profession, are important powerbrokers between academia, politics and the corporate world. Their influence is based on scientific reputation, institutional mandates inside and outside academia or privileged network connections with people in powerful positions. In this study, based on a full sample of all Swiss law professors in the years 1957, (...) 1980 and 2000, we contrast two theories of the distribution of power among law professors: Bourdieu’s thesis on the trade-off between scientific reputation and -academic institutional power vs. the thesis of an opposition between a group of established incumbents and socio-demographically marginal challengers who try to gain access to the profession. We show that among Swiss law professors the endowment with scientific capital is not opposed to the possession of institutional power within academia. Our findings reveal rather an opposition between a challenging group of professors devoid of resources and an incumbent fraction with a high amount of scientific, institutional and social capital alike. In the conclusion we discuss a series of explanations of this specific power structure, including the specific status scientific reputation and social capital can have for law professors. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Avner de Shalit argues that philosophers should listen to what the public thinks. He argues that by engaging with people in the streets, political philosophy will improve. Yet, what makes the public special in this regard? This response will do three things. First, it asks whether discussing with the public differs in any meaningful way from discussing with other people such as colleagues or students. Second, it questions the methodological approach, asking whether de Shalit's approach provides a legitimate answer (...) to his question. Third, it raises the worry that this approach is prone to doing politics rather than philosophy. (shrink)

In a previous work we studied, from the perspective ofAlgebraic Logic, the implicationless fragment of a logic introduced by O. Arieli and A. Avron using a class of bilattice-based logical matrices called logical bilattices. Here we complete this study by considering the Arieli-Avron logic in the full language, obtained by adding two implication connectives to the standard bilattice language. We prove that this logic is algebraizable and investigate its algebraic models, which turn out to be distributive bilattices with additional implication (...) operations. We axiomatize and state several results on these new classes of algebras, in particular representation theorems analogue to the well-known one for interlaced bilattices. (shrink)

La nada y el vacío son conceptos que podemos reconocer como fundamentales en la filosofía oriental, sin embargo, a diferencia de las concepciones adoptadas en Occidente, en el pensamiento antiguo chino –y haciendo énfasis en el daoísmo (??)– la nada no se presenta como algo de carácter ontológico, sino como un estado previo indefinible. De manera similar, el espacio vacío se manifestaba en las artes como la representación del lugar en el que ocurrían los cambios y las transformaciones de la (...) realidad, apuntando hacia el ideal del artista en dejarse fluir durante el proceso de creación. De esta manera se hacía presente la ausencia, acercándose al origen de todas las cosas. (shrink)