This far-reaching study redraws the intellectual map of the Enlightenment and boldly reassesses the legacy of that highly influential period for us today. Peter Hanns Reill argues that in the middle of the eighteenth century, a major shift occurred in the way Enlightenment thinkers conceived of nature that caused many of them to reject the prevailing doctrine of mechanism and turn to a vitalistic model to account for phenomena in natural history, the life sciences, and chemistry. As he (...) traces the ramifications of this new way of thinking through time and across disciplines, Reill provocatively complicates our understanding of the way key Enlightenment thinkers viewed nature. His sophisticated analysis ultimately questions postmodern narratives that have assumed a monolithic Enlightenment—characterized by the dominance of instrumental reason—that has led to many of the disasters of modern life. (shrink)

This far-reaching study redraws the intellectual map of the Enlightenment and boldly reassesses the legacy of that highly influential period for us today. Peter Hanns Reill argues that in the middle of the eighteenth century, a major shift occurred in the way Enlightenment thinkers conceived of nature that caused many of them to reject the prevailing doctrine of mechanism and turn to a vitalistic model to account for phenomena in natural history, the life sciences, and chemistry. As he (...) traces the ramifications of this new way of thinking through time and across disciplines, Reill provocatively complicates our understanding of the way key Enlightenment thinkers viewed nature. His sophisticated analysis ultimately questions postmodern narratives that have assumed a monolithic Enlightenment—characterized by the dominance of instrumental reason—that has led to many of the disasters of modern life. (shrink)

Introduction i In an important study of the German Enlightenment, Max Wundt wryly observed that the term "Enlightenment" shed very little enlightenment upon ...

In the period of the high and late Enlightenment, the human sciences were reformed based on ideas, methods, and assumptions drawn from the life sciences. The goal was to improve the human sciences by naturalizing them, injecting them with the spirit that animated the search for the principles of life in biology. Many Enlightenment thinkers took interest in the agenda set by a loose group of natural philosophers known as vitalists, which included Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, Paul Barthez, Charles Bonnet, (...) Alexander von Humboldt, Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, and Toberg Olaf Bergman. These vitalists sought to reformulate the concept of matter and proposed theories that resurrected the Renaissance and classical biological ideas rejected by the mechanists. This chapter explores how biological vitalism was utilized by Enlightenment thinkers to formulate strikingly modern concepts of the human sciences, focusing on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Johann Gottfried Herder's Ideen. In particular, it explores how Enlightenment vitalism inspired the two men's conception of a science of humanity, that is, their use of analogy, semiotics, and the epistemology that supported it. (shrink)

For all their differences, the many varieties of thinking commonly known as postmodernism share at least one salient characteristic: they all depend upon a stereotyped account of the Enlightenment. Postmodernity requires a 'modernity' to be repudiated, and the tenets of this modernity have invariably been identified with the Enlightenment Project. This volume aims to explore critically the opposition between Enlightenment and Postmodernity and question some of the conclusions drawn from it. The authors focus on three general areas. Part I, Enlightenment (...) or Postmodernity?, reflects on the way in which contemporary discussion characterizes the two movements as radical alternatives. Part II, Critical Confrontations, charts a series of critical engagements by those who have affirmed or demeaned Enlightenment values in the twentieth century. Part III, A Postmodern Enlightenment?, complicates the perceived dichotomy between Enlightenment and Postmodernity by pointing to the existence within the Enlightenment of elements frequently seen as characteristic of Postmodernity. (shrink)

A new scientific mentality of the late eighteenth century, dissatisfied with mechanistic and mathematical models of reasoning and demonstration, replaced static concepts with dynamic ones and defined reality in terms of complex interconnections. These thinkers believed there were basic regulative patterns common to all living entities which could be grasped only by analogical reasoning and comparison. But they also believed that the specific content, such as laws, languages, and nations, existed within a specific historic context. Historical understanding was seen as (...) combining a sense for the formal pattern of development with an acute awareness of the specific force field of historical and environmental determinants existing at a given moment. (shrink)

Heterogeneity in mitochondrial content has been previously suggested as a major contributor to cellular noise, with multiple studies indicating its direct involvement in biomedically important cellular phenomena. A recently published dataset explored the connection between mitochondrial functionality and cell physiology, where a non‐linearity between mitochondrial functionality and cell size was found. Using mathematical models, we suggest that a combination of metabolic scaling and a simple model of cell death may account for these observations. However, our findings also suggest the existence (...) of alternative competing hypotheses, such as a non‐linearity between cell death and cell size. While we find that the proposed non‐linear coupling between mitochondrial functionality and cell size provides a compelling alternative to previous attempts to link mitochondrial heterogeneity and cell physiology, we emphasise the need to account for alternative causal variables, including cell cycle, size, mitochondrial density and death, in future studies of mitochondrial physiology. (shrink)

The litmus test for the development of a metarepresentational Theory of Mind is the false belief task in which children have to represent how another agent misrepresents the world. Children typically start mastering this task around age four. Recently, however, a puzzling finding has emerged: Once children master the FB task, they begin to fail true belief control tasks. Pragmatic accounts assume that the TB task is pragmatically confusing because it poses a trivial academic test question about a rational agent’s (...) perspective; and we do not normally engage in such discourse about subjective mental perspectives unless there is at least the possibility of error or deviance. The lack of such an obvious possibility in the TB task implicates that there might be some hidden perspective difference and thus makes the task confusing. In the present study, we test the pragmatic account by administering to 3- to 6-year-olds TB and FB tasks and structurally analogous true and false sign tasks. The belief and sign tasks are matched in terms of representational and metarepresentational complexity; the crucial difference is that TS tasks do not implicate an alternative non-mental perspective and should thus be less pragmatically confusing than TB tasks. The results show parallel and correlated development in FB and FS tasks, replicate the puzzling performance pattern in TB tasks, but show no trace of this in TS tasks. Taken together, these results speak in favor of the pragmatic performance account. (shrink)

In his Encyclopedia, the late Hegel makes the highest demands on truth and justification from the first paragraph onward. With this, Hegel takes up the skeptical challenge and believes that he can overcome this problem. However, it is not easy to see how Hegel tries to meet this challenge in the Science of Logic, which plays a fundamental role in Hegel’s encyclopedic project. The present article argues that the question of the justification of the claim to truth is a fruitful (...) perspective for the interpretation of the Science of Logic. For this purpose Hegel’s answer to the Agrippan Trilemma is examined, which P. Franks analyzed as a basic problem for Classical German Philosophy. One possible interpretation of Hegel sees him solving the skeptical trilemma at the beginning of the Logic. The article argues against this possibility that the Logic of the Concept contains Hegel’s actual solution. This solution consists in that the concept represents the principle of logic and that the concept itself must be presented in the form of an apagogical argument. Finally, the article gives a reason why Hegel sees an analogy to the ontological argument in this attempt of an ultimate justification. (shrink)

In this article, we examine which challenges aesthetics and ethics puts pedagogy before. We discuss the intersection of Emmanuel Lévinas's notion of ethics and Jacques Rancière's notion of aesthetics in a pedagogical context through the praxis of Expressive Arts. We begin by introducing Lévinas's ethics and its role in his philosophical system, and also, its implications for relation between human beings. Thereafter we introduce Rancière's aesthetics and its potential to evoke ethics by reproaching non-art as art. After these presentations, we (...) introduce the praxis of EXA through four interviews with participants from an EXA-based work that we ourselves are previously familiar with. We analyze this praxis in the light of the above mentioned philosophical notions and conclude with a discussion on the pedagogical implications of this philosophical perspective on the uses of art in education. We mean that EXA is an advantageous praxis for a pedagogy that aims at taking into account the challenges and the complexity of this aesthetic-ethical approach. Our conclusion is that this approach puts all pedagogy that aims at being more than just knowledge mediating before three challenges: it should originate from equality-in-alterity, it should invite to an ethical subject-hood, and it should have tools for both breaking the prevailing discourse and to constantly continue this process, without reaching an end. (shrink)

Famously, Frank P. Ramsey suggested a test for the acceptability of conditionals. Recently, David Chalmers and Alan Hájek (2007) have criticized a qualitative variant of the Ramsey test for indicative conditionals. In this paper we argue for the following three claims: (i) Chalmers and Hájek are right that the variant of the Ramsey test that they attack is not the correct way of spelling out an acceptability test for indicative conditionals. But there is a suppositional variant of the Ramsey test (...) which is still stated in purely qualitative terms, which avoids the problems, and which looks correct. (ii) While the variant of the Ramsey test that Chalmers and Hájek criticize is not correct, it is still a good approximation of a correct formulation of the Ramsey test which may be usefully employed in various contexts. (iii) The variant of the Ramsey test that Chalmers and Hájek suggest as a substitute for the deficient version of the Ramsey test is itself subject to worries similar to those raised by Chalmers and Hájek, if it is given a non-suppositional interpretation. (shrink)

Mathematicians appear to have quite high standards for when they will rely on testimony. Many mathematicians require that a number of experts testify that they have checked the proof of a result p before they will rely on p in their own proofs without checking the proof of p. We examine why this is. We argue that for each expert who testifies that she has checked the proof of p and found no errors, the likelihood that the proof contains no (...) substantial errors increases because different experts will validate the proof in different ways depending on their background knowledge and individual preferences. If this is correct, there is much to be gained for a mathematician from requiring that a number of experts have checked the proof of p before she will rely on p in her own proofs without checking the proof of p. In this way a mathematician can protect her own work and the work of others from errors. Our argument thus provides an explanation for mathematicians’ attitude towards relying on testimony. (shrink)

While the Gödel centenary year 2006 triggered a lot of conference and workshop activity on Gödel, the years leading to it stand out by exhibiting several excellent publications on Gödel's life and work, most notably the completion of the Kurt Gödel Collected Works series . The two volumes of Kurt Gödel. Wahrheit & Beweisbarkeit, written in German and edited by E. Köhler et al., constitute something like the ‘German-Austrian contribution’ to this renewal of interest in Gödel's legacy, even though not (...) all of the articles in the volumes actually have German or Austrian authors.2 Indeed, as P. Weibel explains in the preface of the first volume, one of the intentions of the editors was to present Gödel as part of the cultural history of Austria. At the same time, the volumes highlight the contrast between Gödel's national reception—or lack thereof—and the way in which he was perceived and appreciated internationally, and although this discrepancy is now fortunately a thing of the past, its history is worth documenting. In this respect the two volumes will be of lasting value and importance, and the editors must be given credit not just for recording Gödel's delayed acceptance by Austrian politicians and university headquarters, but also for promoting Gödel's case. This being said, there is something extravagant and slightly queer about the two Kurt Gödel. Wahrheit & Beweisbarkeit volumes. Parts of them seem to be written for a generally educated audience, while other parts will be understandable only to logicians and philosophers who specialize in the topics covered. The volumes consist partly of biographical essays, interviews about Gödel, photos of him and his family, and letters by or to him, but they also include several non-historical articles which use …. (shrink)

The article develops an ecopedagogical-philosophical approach to the creative lifeforce kindergarden as a future kindergarden for a nature-friendly and sustainable development. It draws empirically on an action-research project in Klokkergaarden nature- and culture kindergarden in Drammen, Norway. The focus has been on the good meetings between humans, culture and nature through the three main topics that are to mark kindergardens and schools over the next years: life mastery, democracy and sustainable development. The target group is the leadership and employees of (...) kindergardens, and the target is to make concrete what the creative lifeforce kindergarden is, how it shows in practice and how it can be developed as an actor in sustainable community development. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 127 seems to imply. Of course, this critique can easily be dismissed as asking for a book that Krieger did not wish to write. His method has produced important results, for Krieger has discerned developmental trends overlooked by others. Otherwise, the only area that I think needs further discussion is Ranke's conception of the nature and function of science. Krieger seems to imply that science automatically means (...) a nomological approach modeled upon the mechanical physical sciences. But Ranke was nourished in an atmosphere where science was often equated with Naturphilosophie. Certainly, Ranke's language is filled with images and terms popularized by Naturphilosophen. Ranke's quest for a science of history may fit very nicely with the ideal dimension of his thought if the science that he is talking about is analogous to Naturphilosophie. It may turn out that the basic polarity in Ranke's idea of history is an analytic construct that has little meaning for Ranke's own intentions. Krieger ends his study with a chapter devoted to the meaning of Ranke's work for modem historiography. It is the dialectical synthesis of the whole study. After recapitulating Ranke's achievements, Krieger then emphasizes the breach that separates Ranke from our conceptual world. We no longer share Ranke's beliefs or values. In fact, for most of us "he must seem simply archaic, and the more he is himself historically restored the more archaic he must seem" (p. 355). For the reader who had to struggle through this difficult book and to contend with Professor Krieger's passion for complex dependent clauses, this announcement appears as a grand denouement. But the shock is only temporary. Krieger's assertion of the differences that separate Ranke from us serves as a warning to those who still take Ranke's approach as an objective model for historical reconstruction. The deeper meaning of Ranke's view of history is the affirmation of history as an autonomous and independent form of knowledge. "History is an inimitable way of rendering comprehensible modes of humanity which must otherwise be incomprehensible" (p. 356). This form of knowledge, which is devoted "to the actual but equipped with a language of common sense organized around the categorical," proceedes by arranging things along a time line (p. 357). Here Krieger launches a spirited counterattack against those modem theorists who have questioned the viability of history as an independent form of knowledge or who have minimized the importance of developmental analysis, preferring instead to concentrate upon relatively static deep structures. Krieger's study affirms Ranke's project in its most general sense; that history is a cumulative logic of the actual, "the meeting ground of philosophy, science, and cataclysmic experience" (p. 356). And it serves, at the same time, as a positive demonstration that a developmental analysis does impart knowledge that other approaches cannot achieve. In this sense, Krieger's masterful study of Ranke reaffirms Ranke's central position as a founding father of modem historical thought. PETER HANNS REILL University of California, Los Angeles Arthur Quinn. The Confidence of British Philosophers:An Essay in Historical Narrative. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977. Pp. xii + 289. Gld. 80. This is a remarkable book. Almost all of it is a study, very well researched and presented, of four major English philosophical movements: Newtonians, the Utilitarians, the Oxford Hegelians, and the Russell, G. E. Moore, and Whitehead group. The study shows the initial enthusiasm, optimism, and confidence of each of the groups. Each believed that it had found a way to solve the intellectual and perhaps moral and social problems of mankind. As each movement developed, the confidence slowly eroded when philosophical problems and difficulties failed to disappear. The picture Quinn presents of these movements is very interesting. He has grouped together 128 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY much detail that makes us see the original intentions of the leaders of each of these movements. He also deftly shows how as stumbling blocks arose each movement lowered its goals and began to fade. Employing a very wide range of printed sources, Quinn presents a series of convincing vignettes, and in so doing be often reveals features of these movements that have been... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 432-442 [Access article in PDF] The Legacy of the Enlightenment James Schmidt What's Left of Enlightenment? A Postmodern Question, edited by Keith Michael Baker and Peter Hanns Reill; ix & 203 pp. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, $45.00 cloth, $19.95 paper. Postmodernism and the Enlightenment: New Perspectives in Eighteenth-Century French Intellectual History, edited by Daniel Gordon; vi & 227 pp. New York: (...) Routledge, 2001, $80.00 cloth, $22.95 paper. IF THE ENLIGHTENMENT did not exist, postmodernists would have had to invent it. It performs the same function, Daniel Gordon argues in his introduction to Postmodernism and the Enlightenment, that the Ancien Regime did for the French revolutionaries: as the "other of postmodernism," it represents "the modern that postmodernism revolts against" (P&E, p. 1). Indeed, the image of the Enlightenment that emerges from the postmodern critique does seem, in large part, to be an invention. As Keith Michael Baker and Peter Hanns Reill suggest in the introduction to their collection What's Left of Enlightenment? the various strands of thought commonly grouped under the label postmodernism "have at least one thing in common": "they all depend upon a stereotyped, even caricatural, account of the Enlightenment" which sees the Enlightenment as the point of origin for the "rationalism, instrumentalism, scientism, logocentrism, universalism, abstract rights, eurocentrism, individualism, humanism, masculinism, etc." that [End Page 432] defines the modernity which postmodernity hopes to supersede (WLE? p. 1).One consequence of the inclination to trace the origin of the various failings of modernity to the Enlightenment is that arguments about the "legacy of the Enlightenment" tend to get out of hand. In a particularly sharp-sighted contribution to the Baker and Reill collection David Hollinger notes that it is all too easy for a critic of Enlightenment to argue that "I'm hot stuff because I'm not only refuting you, my puny opponent, but... every great thinker from Descartes to Popper," and, conversely, all too enticing for those who have been criticized to counter, "watch out, you think you are arguing only against me, but the implications of your reasoning are to deny the common sense of every humane and rational mind since the seventeenth century" (WLE? p. 9). Historians of the eighteenth century have been curiously reluctant to join this battle and have, for the most part, left the field to philosophers, literary scholars, and political theorists (WLE? pp. 17-18; P&E, p. 3). The intent of the two collections reviewed here is to remedy this situation by setting a group of historians to work scrutinizing differing aspects of the postmodernist critique of the Enlightenment. More often than not, the results are quite rewarding, though the question of the relationship between postmodernism and the Enlightenment remains, in the end, somewhat ambiguous.The scope of these two volumes is quite impressive. Baker and Reill's collection opens with essays by David Hollinger and Richard Rorty (one of the two nonhistorians invited to the festivities) offering contrasting characterizations of the relationship of postmodernism and the Enlightenment. It continues with a discussion of a few important interpretations of the Enlightenment (including articles by Jonathan Knudsen on German historicism, Hans Sluga on Heidegger, Johnson Kent Wright on Cassirer, and Michael Meranze on Foucault) and concludes with essays by Lorraine Daston ("Enlightenment Fears, Fears of Enlightenment"), Dena Goodman (on gender difference in the Enlightenment), and Lawrence Klein (on the idea of "conversation" in the Enlightenment) that seek, in differing ways, to reveal "the existence within the Enlightenment of elements frequently seen as characteristic of Postmodernity itself" (WLE? p. 3).Gordon's volume offers a counterpoint to the final part of Baker and Reill's collection: each of its nine essays is intended as confrontation between a postmodernist characterization of a particular aspect of the Enlightenment and an account of "how the theme really operates in [End Page 433] Enlightenment thought" (P&E, p. 5). Thus Malick W. Ghachem examines how Montesquieu's account of law was applied to French colonies in the Caribbean, Arthur Goldhammer discusses Diderot's view of language, Daniel Rosenberg... (shrink)

Civilization, Modernity, and Critique provides the first comprehensive, cutting edge engagement with the work of one of the most foundational figures in civilizational analysis: Johann P. Arnason. In order to do justice to Arnason's seminal and wide-ranging contributions to sociology, social theory and history, it brings together distinguished scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical contexts. Through a critical, interdisciplinary dialogue, it offers an enrichment and expansion of the methodological, theoretical, and applicative scope of civilizational analysis, by addressing (...) some of the most complex and pressing problems of contemporary global society. A unique and timely contribution to the ongoing task of advancing the project of a critical theory of society, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in historical sociology, critical theory and civilizational analysis. (shrink)

This is Part B of an article that defends non-eliminative structuralism about mathematics by means of a concrete case study: a theory of unlabeled graphs. Part A motivated an understanding of unlabeled graphs as structures sui generis and developed a corresponding axiomatic theory of unlabeled graphs. Part B turns to the philosophical interpretation and assessment of the theory: it points out how the theory avoids well-known problems concerning identity, objecthood, and reference that have been attributed to non-eliminative structuralism. The part (...) concludes by explaining how the theory relates to set theory, and what remains to be accomplished for non-eliminative structuralists. (shrink)

According to Hanne Andersen, "an analysis of goes beyond research ethics and includes important epistemological aspects" (p.1). Her purpose is to point at a new area for philosophy of science in practice, which she does by highlighting different epistemological issues about malpractices and showing how documenting them in a precise way is beneficial to their solution. She articulates in particular two questions, namely the issue of the identification of bad practices and malpractices, and the ways of preventing the latter from (...) happening. I shall discuss how Andersen contributes to these issues, and make additional suggestions. Before going further, I first want to clarify a few points. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue for a revised and precisified version of the infamous Verifiability Criterion for the meaningfulness of declarative sentences. The argument is based on independently plausible premises concerning probabilistic confirmation and meaning as context-change potential, it is shown to be logically valid, and its ramifications for potential applications of the criterion are being discussed. Although the paper is not historical but systematic, the criterion thus vindicated will resemble the original one(s) in some important ways. (...) At the same time, it will also be more modest insofar as meaningfulness will turn out to be relativized linguistically and probabilistically, and different choices of the linguistic and probabilistic parameters may lead to different verdicts on meaningfulness. (shrink)

This chapter provides a historical reconstruction of how Alfred Schutz’s American writings were critically engaged by the feminist sociologists Dorothy E. Smith and Patricia Hill Collins. Schutz’s articulation of a phenomenological sociology in relation to, among others, the sociology of Talcott Parsons and the philosophies of science of Ernest Nagel and Carl G. Hempel proved fruitful to Smith in the development of her feminist standpoint theory in her 1987 The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Collins likewise draws on (...) Schutz’s writing in the development of her own standpoint theory in her 1986 paper “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought,” but in a way that addresses some of her own concerns with Smith’s feminist sociology. As I hope to show with the recovery of this underappreciated history, the critical insights of Smith and Collins with regard to the possible uses and limits of phenomenology for feminist theorizing, are still valuable today. (shrink)

Transfers of critically ill neonates are frequent phenomena. Even though parents’ participation is regarded as crucial in neonatal care, a transfer often means that parents and neonates are separated. A systematic review of the parents’ experiences of neonatal transfer is lacking. This paper describes a meta‐study addressing qualitative research about parents’ experiences of neonatal transfer. Through deconstruction and reflections of theories, methods, and empirical data, the aim was to achieve a deeper understanding of theoretical, empirical, contextual, historical, and methodological issues (...) of qualitative studies concerning parents’ experiences of neonatal transfer over the course of this meta‐study (2000–2017). Meta‐theory and meta‐method analyses showed that caring, transition, and family‐centered care were main theoretical frames applied and that interviewing with a small number of participants was the preferred data collection method. The meta‐data‐analysis showed that transfer was a scary, unfamiliar, and threatening experience for the parents; they were losing familiar context, were separated from their neonate, and could feel their parenthood disrupted. We identified ‘wavering and wandering’ as a metaphoric representation of the parents’ experiences. The findings add knowledge about meta‐study as an approach for comprehensive qualitative research and point at the value of meta‐theory and meta‐method analyses. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions became the most widely read book about science in the twentieth century. His terms 'paradigm' and 'scientific revolution' entered everyday speech, but they remain controversial. In the second half of the twentieth century, the new field of cognitive science combined empirical psychology, computer science, and neuroscience. In this book, the theories of concepts developed by cognitive scientists are used to evaluate and extend Kuhn's most influential ideas. Based on case studies of the Copernican revolution, (...) the discovery of nuclear fission, and an elaboration of Kuhn's famous 'ducks and geese' example of concept learning, this volume, first published in 2006, offers accounts of the nature of normal and revolutionary science, the function of anomalies, and the nature of incommensurability. (shrink)

Wodurch zeichnet sich menschliches intelligentes Handeln aus und in welcher Beziehung steht dieses Handeln zum Wissen der handelnden Personen? Diesen Fragen wird im vorliegenden Buch nachgegangen. Praktische Intelligenz wird als Fähigkeit verstanden, im Denken, Handeln und Fühlen durch Standards und Normen geleitet zu werden. Aufbauend auf eine Interpretation von Überlegungen Gilbert Ryles entwickelt Hannes Worthmann einen neuartigen Ansatz, praktische Intelligenz und die Unterscheidung zwischen Wissen-wie und Wissen-dass jenseits verbreiteter intellektualistischer und anti-intellektualistischer Auffassungen verständlich zu machen.

When do children acquire a propositional attitude folk psychology or theory of mind? The orthodox answer to this central question of developmental ToM research had long been that around age 4 children begin to apply “belief” and other propositional attitude concepts. This orthodoxy has recently come under serious attack, though, from two sides: Scoffers complain that it over-estimates children’s early competence and claim that a proper understanding of propositional attitudes emerges only much later. Boosters criticize the orthodoxy for underestimating early (...) competence and claim that even infants ascribe beliefs. In this paper, the orthodoxy is defended on empirical grounds against these two kinds of attacks. On the basis of new evidence, not only can the two attacks safely be countered, but the orthodox claim can actually be strengthened, corroborated and refined: what emerges around age 4 is an explicit, unified, flexibly conceptual capacity to ascribe propositional attitudes. This unified conceptual capacity contrasts with the less sophisticated, less unified implicit forms of tracking simpler mental states present in ontogeny long before. This refined version of the orthodoxy can thus most plausibly be spelled out in some form of 2-systems-account of theory of mind. (shrink)

This is a review of David Löwenstein’s book "Know-how as Competence. A Rylean Responsibilist Account".

Business scholars have recently proposed that the virtue of personal wisdom may predict leadership behaviors and the quality of leader–follower relationships. This study investigated relationships among leaders’ personal wisdom—defined as the integration of advanced cognitive, reflective, and affective personality characteristics (Ardelt, Hum Dev 47:257–285, 2004)—transformational leadership behaviors, and leader–member exchange (LMX) quality. It was hypothesized that leaders’ personal wisdom positively predicts LMX quality and that intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration, two dimensions of transformational leadership, mediate this relationship. Data came from (...) 75 religious leaders and 1–3 employees of each leader (N = 158). Results showed that leaders’ personal wisdom had a positive indirect effect on follower ratings of LMX quality through individualized consideration, even after controlling for Big Five personality traits, emotional intelligence, and narcissism. In contrast, intellectual stimulation and the other two dimensions of transformational leadership (idealized influence and inspirational motivation) did not mediate the positive relationship between leaders’ personal wisdom and LMX quality. Implications for future research on personal wisdom and leadership are discussed, and some tentative suggestions for leadership development are outlined. (shrink)

Over the last decades, science has grown increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary and has come to depart in important ways from the classical analyses of the development of science that were developed by historically inclined philosophers of science half a century ago. In this paper, I shall provide a new account of the structure and development of contemporary science based on analyses of, first, cognitive resources and their relations to domains, and second of the distribution of cognitive resources among collaborators and (...) the epistemic dependence that this distribution implies. On this background I shall describe different ideal types of research activities and analyze how they differ. Finally, analyzing values that drive science towards different kinds of research activities, I shall sketch the main mechanisms underlying the perceived tension between disciplines and interdisciplinarity and argue for a redefinition of accountability and quality control for interdisciplinary and collaborative science. (shrink)

In interdisciplinary research scientists have to share and integrate knowledge between people and across disciplinary boundaries. An important issue for philosophy of science is to understand how scientists who work in these kinds of environments exchange knowledge and develop new concepts and theories across diverging fields. There is a substantial literature within social epistemology that discusses the social aspects of scientific knowledge, but so far few attempts have been made to apply these resources to the analysis of interdisciplinary science. Further, (...) much of the existing work either ignores the issue of differences in background knowledge, or it focuses explicitly on conflicting background knowledge. In this paper we provide an analysis of the interplay between epistemic dependence between individual experts with different areas of expertise. We analyze the cooperative activity they engage in when participating in interdisciplinary research in a group, and we compare our findings with those of other studies in interdisciplinary research. (shrink)