ZusammenfassungDer Artikel skizziert die Grundlagen einer neuen Subdisziplin innerhalb der Religionswissenschaft, der Religionsethologie. Religionsethologie lässt sich letztlich auf Charles Darwin selbst zurückführen, der bereits in seinem Buch The expression of the emotions in man and animals belegen konnte, dass jede Form von Verhalten für das Überleben der Art genau so wichtig ist wie die Adaptation des Phänotypus. In den Geisteswissenschaften wurde der Darwinsche Ansatz sofort aufgegriffen und von bedeutenden Forschern wie Karl Meuli, Aby Warburg und in jüngerer Zeit von Roy (...) Rappaport, Marvin Harris und anderen aufgegriffen und fruchtbar gemacht, indem sie einerseits religiöse Universalien herausarbeiten, andererseits aber auch die Grundzüge einer religiösen Evolution darstellen konnten. Religion ist demnach tief in der Biologie des Menschen verwurzelt und kann demzufolge auch unter biologischen Gesichtspunkten erforscht werden. (shrink)

One of the main characteristics of today’s democratic societies is their pluralism. As a result, liberal political philosophers often claim that the state should remain neutral with respect to different conceptions of the good. Legal and social policies should be acceptable to everyone regard- less of their culture, their religion or their comprehensive moral views. One might think that this commitment to neutrality should be especially pronounced in urban centres, with their culturally diverse populations. However, there are a large (...) number of laws and policies adopted at the municipal level that contradict the liberal principle of neutrality. In this paper, I want to suggest that these perfectionist laws and policies are legitimate at the urban level. Specifically, I will argue that the principle of neutrality applies only indirectly to social institutions within the broader framework of the nation-state. This is clear in the case of voluntary associations, but to a certain extent this rationale applies also to cities. In a liberal regime, private associations are allowed to hold and defend perfectionist views, focused on a particular conception of the good life. One problem is to determine the limits of this perfectionism at the urban level, since cities, unlike private associations, are public institutions. My aim here is therefore to give a liberal justification to a limited form of perfectionism of municipal laws and policies. (shrink)

Patrick Turmel,François Boucher,Marie-Noëlle Carré.

Corradi's book is a detailed account of modernization in Argentina. There has been considerable urbanization and industrialization. There is a highly organized work force and a large educated middle class. Yet, Argentina is not all that different from other Latin American countries, and remains a peripheral capitalist society characterized by “dependency, stagnation, political decay and violence” (p. 2). Although Corradi does not indulge in theoretical debates, his insistence on the analysis of the conscious subjects who have made Argentinian history challanges (...) all linear theories of development, including Wallerstein's world system perspective since it assumes a mechanical hierarchy of economic growth in different regions of the world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Citizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789Patrick HenryCitizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789, by Daniel Gordon; viii & 270 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, $39.50.Under examination here is the early modern period in France from Louis XIV to the French Revolution when kings ruled absolutely and citizens were without sovereignty. Discarding the traditional image of the Enlightenment as the absolute (...) enemy of absolutism, Gordon, in this sense, follows Norbert Elias and Robert Darnton who treat the Enlightenment as part of an elitist and hierarchical establishment. More specifically, as his subtitle indicates, Gordon portrays the invention of a “nonpolitical polis” (p. 6), an ideological social space where, despite political inequality, citizens could practice social equality in a hierarchical régime. The rise of this “nondemocratic egalitarian ethos” (p. 7) brought with it a new cult of sociabilité, a term invented in the eighteenth century to describe the idealization of the private sphere and the practice of social equality.The first chapter, then, ties sociability not to democracy, as in the Habermasian model, but to the absolutism that stimulated it and coexisted with it. A series of five ideal types of sociability depict how men and women, members of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, came together—in commerce, public welfare, scientific academies, salons, cafés, public libraries, and various other social situations not protorevolutionary in character—to create a bond among equals [End Page 279] under the ancien régime. In this framework, progress and modernity are born during the absolute monarchy where sociability suggests conviviality rather than class warfare. Every major French novel of the eighteenth century supports Gordon’s refutation of De Toqueville’s surprising statement that “noblemen and bourgeois never met except by chance in private life “in prerevolutionary France” (p. 27).In chapters two and three, Gordon examines the nature of the rules of sociability found in courtesy literature and their functioning as the imagined basis of the newly invented idealized space called société. In addition to analyzing in great detail the nature and frequency of the vocabulary invented to define and describe sociabilité, Gordon discusses sociabilité in the context of natural law theory in Hobbes, Bossuet, and among others, Pufendorf, who wanted to refute Hobbes by showing that self-interest leads humans to establish stable social relations even before government orders them to do so. Holbach surfaces here too for having amalgamated the older language of politeness and the newer language of natural law. In Holbach, as in the Encyclopédie, sociability, based on egalitarian premises of natural law, is nonetheless fully compatible with the hierarchical regime. Among other things, this shows clearly that the philosophes never preached the French Revolution. Striving to eliminate the abuses of despotism and establish equality in private life was not tantamount to working for political equality and the abolition of all rank. In this same vein, Gordon paints the apolitical essence of the private sphere and, by a rigorous study of the seventeenth-century manuals of polite living, shows convincingly (this time against Elias who saw the court as a model of refined behavior) that the salon was indeed a world unto itself, independent of preexisting social hierarchies. Rejecting Paul Hazard’s conception of absolute rupture between seventeenth-century culture and eighteenth-century thought, Gordon destroys the facile dichotomy between seventeenth-century hierarchy and eighteenth-century equality and, once again, admirably depicts the compatibility of Enlightenment and absolutism.If chapters one to three underscore a certain continuity between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, chapters four and five explain important changes. It is not, for example, the mere preservation of the idea of sociable communication but rather its new use that is germane in understanding the Enlightenment. Now “conversation” and “civility” no longer had meaning only for an urban elite but had in fact become ideals in all philosophical endeavors including the writing of universal history. Sociable communication had become the defining characteristic of modern nations. In the fourth chapter, by analyzing in detail the works of Jean-Baptiste Suard, Gordon demonstrates the meaning that the writing of universal history in Scotland acquired within the French... (shrink)

The idea of considering the archive as a political technology of liberal governmentality is developed in this article, questions of the uses of archives (important as these are) taking second place here to the politics apparent in the design and idea of one particular form of the archive. This form is the public archive as it became apparent in the 19th-century institution of the public library, the two chief examples being in Manchester and at the British Museum in London. The (...) public archive can be seen to constitute a liberal public which was itself increasingly a democratic one. This constitution turned upon ideas such as the ‘free library’, ‘self-help’ and the active constitution of new readings of social life and social conditions. These readings involved the management of class relations at the time, and parallels are drawn between a sort of ‘anthropologizing’ of the archive evident in India and its ‘sociologizing’ in Britain at the same time. The constitution of democratic, liberal citizenship through the archive also turned upon particular readings of the centre-locality relationship and upon notions of urban community. Library catalogues are considered, and the design of libraries, so that the importance of spatial dimensions of the archive is evident. (shrink)

A recurring theme in the history of the United States, beginning with the settlements of Europe's religious dissenters, has been a compulsion to start over. Whether this manifests itself in antipreservationist sentiments in older cities or in the postwar romanticization of suburban sprawl, Americans have long displayed a distinct optimism about newness and growth. In City on a Hill: Urban Idealism in America from the Puritans to the Present, Alex Krieger, an urban design professor at Harvard and a (...) practicing urban planner, makes this spirit—indeed, a utopian sentiment, he believes—the unifying thread for a new account of urbanism in America. Even as the frontier has closed and Americans have little choice but to... (shrink)

Drawing on Charles Tilly’s work on inequality, democracy and cities, we explore the local level dynamics of democratization across urban settings in India, South Africa, and Brazil. In all three cases, democratic institutions are consolidated, but there is tremendous variation in the quality of the democratic relationship between cities and their citizens. We follow Tilly’s focus on citizenship as the key element in democratization and argue that explaining variance across our three cases calls for analyzing patterns of inequality through (...) the kind of relational lens used by Tilly and recognizing that patterns of contestation are shaped by shifting political relationships between the nation and the city. We conclude that Tilly’s theoretical frame is nicely sustained by the comparative analysis of cases very different from those that stimulated his original formulations. (shrink)

What constitutes better schooling for today's youth? In 1984 educational theorist Theodore R. Sizer formulated nine Common Principles to answer this question and launched The Coalition of Essential Schools, an organization of schools attempting to change their own structure, curriculum, pedagogy, and power relations according to Sizer's Principles. This important book, the first comprehensive look at Coalition schools, charts the course of reform at eight charter member schools. The Coalition now counts over 900 private, parochial, public, urban, suburban, and (...) rural secondary schools among its affiliates nationwide. Donna E. Muncey and Patrick J. McQuillan, experts in anthropology as well as education, conducted a five-year ethnographic study to understand what happened in Coalition schools. The authors looked at curricular and pedagogical developments; how changes affected individual students, teachers, administrators, and other school personnel; and how American cultural beliefs influenced efforts to change. The schools' reform experiences differed: some efforts were sustained when others stalled, change divided some faculties while others found a sense of shared purpose, and the principals of some schools facilitated change while others clearly inhibited it. This compelling book, written for all who are concerned with education in America, offers a wealth of insights into the complexities of change efforts in individual schools and in classrooms. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Citizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789Patrick HenryCitizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789, by Daniel Gordon; viii & 270 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, $39.50.Under examination here is the early modern period in France from Louis XIV to the French Revolution when kings ruled absolutely and citizens were without sovereignty. Discarding the traditional image of the Enlightenment as the absolute (...) enemy of absolutism, Gordon, in this sense, follows Norbert Elias and Robert Darnton who treat the Enlightenment as part of an elitist and hierarchical establishment. More specifically, as his subtitle indicates, Gordon portrays the invention of a “nonpolitical polis” (p. 6), an ideological social space where, despite political inequality, citizens could practice social equality in a hierarchical régime. The rise of this “nondemocratic egalitarian ethos” (p. 7) brought with it a new cult of sociabilité, a term invented in the eighteenth century to describe the idealization of the private sphere and the practice of social equality.The first chapter, then, ties sociability not to democracy, as in the Habermasian model, but to the absolutism that stimulated it and coexisted with it. A series of five ideal types of sociability depict how men and women, members of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, came together—in commerce, public welfare, scientific academies, salons, cafés, public libraries, and various other social situations not protorevolutionary in character—to create a bond among equals [End Page 279] under the ancien régime. In this framework, progress and modernity are born during the absolute monarchy where sociability suggests conviviality rather than class warfare. Every major French novel of the eighteenth century supports Gordon’s refutation of De Toqueville’s surprising statement that “noblemen and bourgeois never met except by chance in private life “in prerevolutionary France” (p. 27).In chapters two and three, Gordon examines the nature of the rules of sociability found in courtesy literature and their functioning as the imagined basis of the newly invented idealized space called société. In addition to analyzing in great detail the nature and frequency of the vocabulary invented to define and describe sociabilité, Gordon discusses sociabilité in the context of natural law theory in Hobbes, Bossuet, and among others, Pufendorf, who wanted to refute Hobbes by showing that self-interest leads humans to establish stable social relations even before government orders them to do so. Holbach surfaces here too for having amalgamated the older language of politeness and the newer language of natural law. In Holbach, as in the Encyclopédie, sociability, based on egalitarian premises of natural law, is nonetheless fully compatible with the hierarchical regime. Among other things, this shows clearly that the philosophes never preached the French Revolution. Striving to eliminate the abuses of despotism and establish equality in private life was not tantamount to working for political equality and the abolition of all rank. In this same vein, Gordon paints the apolitical essence of the private sphere and, by a rigorous study of the seventeenth-century manuals of polite living, shows convincingly (this time against Elias who saw the court as a model of refined behavior) that the salon was indeed a world unto itself, independent of preexisting social hierarchies. Rejecting Paul Hazard’s conception of absolute rupture between seventeenth-century culture and eighteenth-century thought, Gordon destroys the facile dichotomy between seventeenth-century hierarchy and eighteenth-century equality and, once again, admirably depicts the compatibility of Enlightenment and absolutism.If chapters one to three underscore a certain continuity between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, chapters four and five explain important changes. It is not, for example, the mere preservation of the idea of sociable communication but rather its new use that is germane in understanding the Enlightenment. Now “conversation” and “civility” no longer had meaning only for an urban elite but had in fact become ideals in all philosophical endeavors including the writing of universal history. Sociable communication had become the defining characteristic of modern nations. In the fourth chapter, by analyzing in detail the works of Jean-Baptiste Suard, Gordon demonstrates the meaning that the writing of universal history in Scotland acquired within the French... (shrink)

There is an increasing turn to nationalism around the world. The advocacy of “America First” policies, the Brexit leave campaign in Britain, and recent elections in Poland and Hungary show evidence of a rise in nationalistic sentiments. One reason given to explain this rise in nationalism is that in an increasingly diverse world stability is not possible without close cultural links between members of society, and that a shared national culture can provide those links. Nationalists argue that a shared national (...) culture is a necessary condition of creating social solidarity that creates social stability. However, the nationalist solution to creating social solidarity can be questioned on a number of counts. First, it relies on a conceptually problematic account of national identity that holds that national identity includes elements like a shared culture, a shared history, and a shared connection to a particular geographic territory. There are reasons to think that this type of account of national identity is closer to an account of ethnicity than an account of national identity. An ethnic nationalism is morally problematic as it contends that one can only have solidarity with those who share one’s ethnicity, and could be used to justify discrimination against ethnic minorities. Second, even if this is the correct account of national identity, it is not the case that a shared culture, a shared history, and a shared connection to a particular geographic territory are necessary or sufficient conditions for social solidarity. Finally, nationalist attempts to protect the national identity of a liberal democracy by restricting all immigration, may actually destroy the values, such as individual rights and limited government of that liberal democracy. (shrink)

Big Data’s calculative ontology relies on and reproduces a form of hyperindividualism in which the ontological unit of analysis is the discrete data point, the meaning and identity of which inheres in itself, preceding, separate, and independent from its context or relation to any other data point. The practice of Big Data governed by an ontology of hyperindividualism is also constitutive of that ontology, naturalizing and diffusing it through practices of governance and, from there, throughout myriad dimensions of everyday life. (...) In this paper, I explicate Big Data’s ontology of hyperindividualism by contrasting it to a coconstitutive ontology that prioritizes relationality, context, and interdependence. I then situate the ontology of hyperindividualism in its genealogical context, drawing from Patrick Joyce’s history of liberalism and John Dewey’s pragmatist account of individualism, liberalism, and social action. True to its genealogical provenance, Big Data’s ontological politics of hyperindividualism reduces governance to the management of atomistic behavior, undermines the contribution of urban complexity as a resource for governance, erodes the potential for urban democracy, and eviscerates the possibility of collective resistance. (shrink)

Tens of thousands of students have learned to be more discerning at constructing and evaluating arguments with the help of Patrick J. Hurley. Hurley’s lucid, friendly, yet thorough presentation has made A CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC the most widely used logic text in North America. In addition, the book’s accompanying technological resources, such as CengageNOW and Learning Logic, include interactive exercises as well as video and audio clips to reinforce what you read in the book and hear in class. (...) In short, you’ll have all the assistance you need to become a more logical thinker and communicator. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

Coherent, well organized text familiarizes readers with complete theory of logical inference and its applications to math and the empirical sciences. Part I deals with formal principles of inference and definition; Part II explores elementary intuitive set theory, with separate chapters on sets, relations, and functions. Last section introduces numerous examples of axiomatically formulated theories in both discussion and exercises. Ideal for undergraduates; no background in math or philosophy required.

At least since Aristotle’s famous 'sea-battle' passages in On Interpretation 9, some substantial minority of philosophers has been attracted to the doctrine of the open future--the doctrine that future contingent statements are not true. But, prima facie, such views seem inconsistent with the following intuition: if something has happened, then (looking back) it was the case that it would happen. How can it be that, looking forwards, it isn’t true that there will be a sea battle, while also being true (...) that, looking backwards, it was the case that there would be a sea battle? This tension forms, in large part, what might be called the problem of future contingents. A dominant trend in temporal logic and semantic theorizing about future contingents seeks to validate both intuitions. Theorists in this tradition--including some interpretations of Aristotle, but paradigmatically, Thomason (1970), as well as more recent developments in Belnap, et. al (2001) and MacFarlane (2003, 2014)--have argued that the apparent tension between the intuitions is in fact merely apparent. In short, such theorists seek to maintain both of the following two theses: (i) the open future: Future contingents are not true, and (ii) retro-closure: From the fact that something is true, it follows that it was the case that it would be true. It is well-known that reflection on the problem of future contingents has in many ways been inspired by importantly parallel issues regarding divine foreknowledge and indeterminism. In this paper, we take up this perspective, and ask what accepting both the open future and retro-closure predicts about omniscience. When we theorize about a perfect knower, we are theorizing about what an ideal agent ought to believe. Our contention is that there isn’t an acceptable view of ideally rational belief given the assumptions of the open future and retro-closure, and thus this casts doubt on the conjunction of those assumptions. (shrink)

This book launches a sustained defense of a radical interpretation of the doctrine of the open future. Patrick Todd argues that all claims about undetermined aspects of the future are simply false.

It is widely accepted that there is what has been called a non-hypocrisy norm on the appropriateness of moral blame; roughly, one has standing to blame only if one is not guilty of the very offence one seeks to criticize. Our acceptance of this norm is embodied in the common retort to criticism, “Who are you to blame me?”. But there is a paradox lurking behind this commonplace norm. If it is always inappropriate for x to blame y for a (...) wrong that x has committed, then all cases in which x blames x (i.e. cases of self-blame) are rendered inappropriate. But it seems to be ethical common-sense that we are often, sadly, in position (indeed, excellent, privileged position) to blame ourselves for our own moral failings. And thus we have a paradox: a conflict between the inappropriateness of hypocritical blame, and the appropriateness of self-blame. We consider several ways of resolving the paradox, and contend none is as defensible as a position that simply accepts it: we should never blame ourselves. In defending this startling position, we defend a crucial distinction between self-blame and guilt. (shrink)

This paper offers a new approach to an old debate about superaddition in Locke. Did Locke claim that some objects have powers that are unrelated to their natures or real essences? The question has split commentators. Some (Wilson, Stuart, Langton) claim the answer is yes and others (Ayers, Downing, Ott) claim the answer is no. This paper argues that both of these positions may be mistaken. I show that Locke embraced a robust epistemic humility. This epistemic humility includes ignorance of (...) the real essences of bodies, of the causal processes underlying the production of natural phenomena, and of God’s method of creation. I show how this epistemic humility offers strong support for an agnostic response to the question of superaddition. Locke did not intend to claim that bodies either do or do not have properties unrelated to their real essences. Instead, his primary goal in discussing the topic was to emphasize the strict limits to human knowledge. (shrink)

Most definitions of radical emergentism characterize it epistemologically. This leads to misunderstandings and makes it hard to assess the doctrine's metaphysical worth. This paper puts forward purely metaphysical characterizations of emergentism and property emergence. It explores the nature of the necessitation relation between base and emergent and argues that emergentism entails a Humean account of causation and related relations. Then it presents arguments against emergentism, both as a wider metaphysic and as an account of consciousness. These maintain that emergentism makes (...) implausible claims about how the world works. The paper also stresses the doctrine's contemporary relevance: most current property dualists endorse views effectively identical to classical emergentism less its historical commitment to novel emergent forces. (shrink)

Management and Morality provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of the moral and ethical dimension to organizational and individual behavior, while adding an original, developmental perceptive. Management and Morality combines organizational theory and behavior with approaches to organizational and individual development. The first two sections of the book, Ethical Thinking and Management Practice, and Moral Issues in Organizations, provide a clear and thorough coverage of these areas relevant to ethical behavior in and of organizations. On this basis, the third section, (...) A Developmental Perspective, develops a new approach to ethical development of organizations and individuals concerned with the improvement of organizational structures, processes, and practices so as to allow for individual morality and individual moral behavior. Rich in its coverage of the field and variety of ideas, Management and Morality will be essential reading to students and academics in management, business and organizational ethics, organizational behavior and development, and organizational sociology. (shrink)

The Polymath Project is an online collaborative enterprise that was initiated in 2009, when Timothy Gowers asked whether and how groups could work together to solve mathematical problems that “do not naturally split up into a vast number of subtasks.” Gowers proposed to answer this question himself by actually trying to set up such a collaboration, based on interactions taking place in the comment-threads of a series of posts on a WordPress blog. Hence, the first project officially started in early (...) 2009, to be proclaimed successful only 6 weeks later (Gowers and Nielsen 2009). From its inception until April 2018, 15 more Polymath problems (and a handful of smaller or related ones) have been launched. These projects have attracted attention from different scholarly communities, including the philosophy of mathematical practices, from the perspective of which the Polymath Project can be seen as a vast repository of mathematics in action. This chapter continues previous work by its authors on the topic in question and topics related. More specifically, for the purposes of this volume, it is our aim to both summarize and expand upon these earlier contributions. The starting point is the above observation that in the past decade, the issue of “massively collaborative mathematics” (to be qualified below) has drawn quite some attention. However, does it also warrant intensive philosophical attention in particular? For, as exciting as these developments might be from mathematical and other points of view, the enhanced possibilities that have come with it do not per se give rise to any philosophical import. In Van Bendegem (2011), one of us has indeed tentatively argued for the philosophical relevance of these new dynamics of proof construction flowing from the wide availability and efficiency of Internet technology. We shall below briefly rehearse and update the argument given there. (shrink)

Locke famously claimed that morality was capable of demonstration. But he also refused to provide a system of demonstrative morality. This paper addresses the mismatch between Locke’s stated views and his actual philosophical practice. While Locke’s claims about demonstrative morality have received a lot of attention it is rare to see them discussed in the context of his general theory of demonstration and his specific discussions of particular demonstrations. This paper explores Locke’s general remarks about demonstration as well as his (...) claims about demonstration in natural philosophy, mathematics, and morality. Careful attention to these detailed discussions motivates a reevaluation of Locke’s views on demonstrative knowledge of morality. Specifically, while Locke did believe that some demonstrative moral knowledge might be in-principle available to us he also believed that facts about the difficulty of demonstration meant that this knowledge would in-practice be largely unattainable. (shrink)

The author uses social epistemology to develop the cognitive authority theory. The fundamental concept of cognitive authority is that people construct knowledge in two different ways: based on their first-hand experience or on what they have learned second-hand from others. What people learn first-hand depends on the stock of ideas they bring to the interpretation and understanding of their encounters with the world. People primarily depend on others for ideas as well as for information outside the range of direct experience. (...) Much of what they think of the world is what they have gained second-hand. All that people know of the world beyond the narrow range of their own lives is what others have told them. However, people do not count all hearsay as equally reliable; only those who are deemed to “know what they are talking about” become cognitive authorities. --. (shrink)

This modern, advanced textbook reviews modal logic, a field which caught the attention of computer scientists in the late 1970's.

Incompatibilism about responsibility and determinism is sometimes directly construed as the thesis that if we found out that determinism is true, we would have to give up the reactive attitudes. Call this "the consequence". I argue that this is a mistake: the strict modal thesis does not entail the consequence. First, some incompatibilists (who are also libertarians) may be what we might call *resolute responsibility theorists* (or "flip-floppers"). On this view, if we found out that determinism is true, this would (...) not be to find out that no one is responsible; instead, what this would suggest is that incompatibilism is after all false. Second, some incompatibilists may instead deny the claim that if we found out that no one deserves the reactiveattitudes, we would have to give up the reactive attitudes. Call this position *innocent incompatibilism*. I explore several different reasons why the fact that no one deserves the reactive attitudes likely does not translate into a requirement for us to give up the reactive attitudes. The upshot: incompatibilism may be practically irrelevant, even if true. (shrink)

In information societies, operations, decisions and choices previously left to humans are increasingly delegated to algorithms, which may advise, if not decide, about how data should be interpreted and what actions should be taken as a result. More and more often, algorithms mediate social processes, business transactions, governmental decisions, and how we perceive, understand, and interact among ourselves and with the environment. Gaps between the design and operation of algorithms and our understanding of their ethical implications can have severe consequences (...) affecting individuals as well as groups and whole societies. This paper makes three contributions to clarify the ethical importance of algorithmic mediation. It provides a prescriptive map to organise the debate. It reviews the current discussion of ethical aspects of algorithms. And it assesses the available literature in order to identify areas requiring further work to develop the ethics of algorithms. (shrink)

The text includes fragments of his work that have never before been translated.

I argue that some perceptual experiences are vague. To do so, I identify a characteristic feature of vagueness and show that some perceptual experiences have this feature. These include blurry experiences, experiences of color under low lighting, and experiences of number, as in the case of the speckled hen. The conclusion that these experiences are vague has two noteworthy consequences. First, it presses us to see whether and how existing theories of vagueness can be extended to perceptual experience. Second, it (...) sheds light on several puzzles in the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

Soren Kierkegaard is remembered chiefly in connection with the development of existentialist philosophy in this century, but that view is misleading. In a short and unhappy life he wrote many books and articles on themes that were literary, satirical, religious and psychological, but the diversity and idiosyncratic style of his writing have contributed to a misunderstanding of his ideas. In this book, the only introduction to the full range of Kierkegaard's thought, Patrick Gardiner demonstrates how Kierkegaard developed his ideas (...) and examines his thoughts in light of the doctrines on society that his contemporaries Marx and Feuerbach were creating. Finally he assesses how original and how important Kierkegaard's ideas were and how profoundly they have influenced modern ways of thinking. (shrink)

In this paper back-and-forth structures are applied to the semantics of natural language. Back-and-forth structures consist of an event structure and an interval structure communicating via a relational link; transitions in the one structure correspond to transitions in the other. Such entities enable us to view temporal constructions (such as tense, aspect, and temporal connectives) as methods of moving systematically between information sources. We illustrate this with a treatment of the English present perfect, and progressive aspect, that draws on ideas (...) developed in Moens & Steedman (1988), and discuss the role of rich ontologies in formal semantics. (shrink)

I want to suggest that it would be bad if compatibilism were true, and that this gives us good reason to think that it isn't. This is, you might think, an outlandish argument, and the considerable burden of this paper is to convince you otherwise. There are two key elements at stake in this argument. The first is that it would be ‐ in a distinctive sense to be explained ‐ bad if compatibilism were true. The thought here is that (...) compatibilism ultimately presents us with a picture on which, in principle, powerful manipulators can effectively guarantee that finite moral agents should become blameworthy. To my mind, this isn't just false ‐ though I think that it is ‐ it is also such that it would be bad (unfortunate, undesirable…) if it were true. The second is that the fact that it would be ‐ in this sense ‐ bad if true gives us reason to think that it isn't. It may be bad that there is no afterlife. But that, in itself, hardly gives us reason to think that there is an afterlife. That is true, but ‐ as others before me have suggested ‐ when the object of the relevant badness is morality itself, the inference seems secure. A more general aim of the paper is to investigate the nature of this very form of argument in itself, and I compare my argument (inter alia) to a recent argument from Sayre–McCord against the possibility of genuine moral dilemmas. (shrink)

A small consortium of philosophers has begun work on the implications of epistemic networks (Zollman 2008 and forthcoming; Grim 2006, 2007; Weisberg and Muldoon forthcoming), building on theoretical work in economics, computer science, and engineering (Bala and Goyal 1998, Kleinberg 2001; Amaral et. al., 2004) and on some experimental work in social psychology (Mason, Jones, and Goldstone, 2008). This paper outlines core philosophical results and extends those results to the specific question of thresholds. Epistemic maximization of certain types does show (...) clear threshold effects. Intriguingly, however, those effects appear to be importantly independent from more familiar threshold effects in networks. (shrink)

This short essay analyzes an unusual typographical feature in the Epistle to the Reader that precedes Locke’s Essay. Specifically, it asks why there is a line prior to Christiaan Huygens’ name in the famous Underlaborer Passage. The paper provides a thorough look at the line’s longevity through early editions of the Essay and considers a number of possible explanations for the line’s presence. It is argued that the line may well have held some meaning for early readers; contemporary scholars should (...) be motivated to investigate the issue further. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.2 (2001) 292-294 [Access article in PDF] Secada, Jorge. Cartesian Metaphysics: The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 333. Cloth, $59.95. Descartes scholars can welcome this book. Secada supports trends in scholarship that criticize seeing Descartes as merely an anti-skeptical foundationalist, and he challenges many prominent interpretations of Descartes's metaphysics. In addition, Secada helpfully references (...) Scholastic sources to provide context for Descartes's views. This book is also valuable for philosophers in contemporary metaphysics and epistemology. Secada uses the tools and idiom of analytic philosophy to explain and defend Descartes, and he is sympathetic to Descartes's project, even if he grants that aspects of it "are difficult to articulate clearly and convincingly" (174).The book's central theme is the contrast between Descartes's "essentialism" and the "existentialism" of Scholastics. Secada explains the distinction as follows: "Essentialism (existentialism) is the doctrine, first, that one cannot know the existence (essence) of any substance without first knowing its essence (existence), and, secondly, that one can know the essence (existence) of some substance without knowing its existence (essence)" (8). Cartesian Metaphysics interprets Descartes's corpus as a defense of essentialism in the light of Scholastic existentialism.The first three chapters set the stage. Chapter One distinguishes essentialism from existentialism. Chapter Two provides historical background necessary to understand the role of Scholasticism in Descartes's thought. Chapter Three discusses the role of Christian Platonism in both Descartes and the Scholastics, especially their shared Augustinian presupposition that knowledge of essences is of "how things are in themselves" (56).The next three chapters discuss the metaphysical status of ideas. In Chapter Four, Secada contrasts Descartes's "immanent" theory according to which "the immediate objects of ideas must exist in the mind" (85) with the "realist Scholastic" theory that "takes mental acts to be immediately directed towards things" (83). In Chapter Five, this account is applied to an interpretation of the Second Meditation as a defense of intellectualist essentialism against Scholastics and empiricists. "Contrary to the Scholastics and other empiricists, Descartes attributed to the intellect and not to the senses the power to reach the world of substances existing outside of the inner theatre of the mind" (116). Through comparing Descartes with Suarez and Gassendi, Secada argues that all the proofs of existence in the Meditations, including for the cogito, argue from [End Page 292] knowledge of essence to knowledge of existence. Chapter Six turns to Descartes's proofs for the existence of God. According to Secada, even for a posteriori proofs, knowledge of God's existence depends on knowledge of his essence.The last three chapters examine Descartes's theory of substance. Chapter Seven reconstructs Descartes's distinction between substances and properties. A substance is something that "exists without inhering" and "exists uncaused" (185). Secada discusses the nature of substance, how substances other than God can be "uncaused," and the plausibility of Descartes's sharp distinction between substances and properties. The chapter ends by arguing that Descartes's doctrine about the relationship between substances and properties inadvertently "heralds Spinoza's pantheism" (185). Chapter Eight examines real and essential properties in Cartesian metaphysics in contrast to Suarez and Fonseca, and ends with a partial defense of Descartes's ontological argument. Chapter Nine offers a detailed discussion of two fundamental substances in Descartes's metaphysics: body and mind. Secada argues that Descartes offers no satisfactory explanations of body, mind, or the relationship between the two.As is clear from this brief summary, Cartesian Metaphysics is a rich book. It presents important historical details without endless irrelevant details (see especially the sketch of Descartes's Scholastic background on 27-33). The exegetical arguments make strong cases for new interpretations of Descartes. Secada effectively shows that Descartes is more concerned with metaphysics than with refuting skepticism. Comparisons with Suarez and Fonseca shed new light on Cartesian arguments. Reconstructions of Cartesian arguments even tempt one to take Descartes seriously in contemporary metaphysics. And the criticisms of Descartes are thought-provoking.Unfortunately, the... (shrink)

In this paper, we clarify, unpack, and ultimately resist what is perhaps the most prominent argument for the compatibility of free will and determinism: the epistemic argument for compatibilism. We focus on one such argument as articulated by David Lewis: (i) we know we are free, (ii) for all we know everything is predetermined, (iii) if we know we are free but for all we know everything is predetermined, then for all we know we are free but everything is predetermined, (...) (iv) if for all we know we are free but predetermined, then it is really possible that we are, so (v) compatibilism. We uncover how the crucial epistemic modality underlying (iv) must be understood, and contend that, understood this way, the libertarian can resist (iv). Importantly, however, resisting the argument does commit the libertarian to what has been called “flip-flopping”—but we argue that this is perfectly coherent. We conclude by articulating two crucially ways the libertarian can resist the argument, by saying that we can know that determinism is false "from the armchair". (shrink)

Im Transit ist eine subjektorientierte Analyse von Transnationalisierungsprozessen in der Wissenschaft.In dieser exploariven Studie werden das Lehr- und Lernsetting eines außergewöhnlichen Rahmen-Experiments zur Transnationalisierung der ...

The Schopenhauers and England Danzig Arthur Schopenhauer was born in the then free city of Danzig on 22 February (Byron had been born in London on 22 ...

Les auteurs, à partir de rencontres entre historiens et spécialistes de littérature ou de cinéma, se penchent sur la récurrence du thème de la défaite. Vercingétorix, Jeanne d'Arc, Waterloo, Sedan, juin 1940 : la France exalte volontiers vaincus et pertes. La défaite permet de refonder une nation, un peuple, une communauté, elle est l'occasion d'un sursaut.