Online research in philosophy

In his Menschenwürde nach Nietzsche: Die Geschichte eines Begriffes (Human Dignity According to/after Nietzsche: The History of a Concept), Stefan Lorenz Sorgner conceives a bold plan and executes it remarkably well, with noteworthy results. His plan entails describing four paradigmatic notions of human dignity, then presenting Nietzsche’s critical evaluation of the notion of human dignity in relation to the four paradigms, and finally, reflecting on Nietzsche’s criticism in a way that embraces much of it and, consequently, largely rejects the (...) humanist notion of the dignity of man. Sorgner takes the additional steps of arguing for a posthumanism to replace the outmoded humanist notion of human dignity. Each phase .. (shrink)

Mark Colyvan (University of Sydney)∗ Stefan Linquist (University of Queensland) William Grey (University of Queensland) Paul E. Griffiths (University of Sydney) Jay Odenbaugh (Lewis and Clark College).

In this original and eye-opening study, Stefan Morawski sheds light on the notoriously inconclusive--and all too often confused--debate about the cultural significance of postmodernism and postmodernity. He shows how large the volume of historical and artistic knowledge needs to be to seriously grapple with the issues. Morawski unravels the complex strands which link our perception of postmodernism and postmodernity with aesthetic and human values whose roots lie deep in history. He discusses daily life in a consumer society, science and (...) religion, visual arts, literature, film, television and the most arcane works of contemporary music and offers an impassioned interrogation of the ways in which we understand, evaluate and use contemporary culture. (shrink)

Marx for a Post-Communist Era: On Poverty, Corruption and Banality is a clear and accessible exploration of why Marx still matters today. Despite the countless autopsies on Marx that followed the collapse of the iron curtain, many argue that Marxist ideas are as relevant as ever in the post-communist world. Stefan Sullivan begins with a historical overview of Marx and the development of Marxist thought, before concentrating on the application of Marx's ideas to specific post-1989 features of global capitalism. (...) He shows that that core capitalist obstacles to freedom predicted by Marx - poverty, corruption and banality - continue to hold relevance in the modern world. By examining each of these themes in turn, Sullivan demonstrates the critical potential of Marxist thought in the twenty-first century and sheds light on our understanding of contemporary economics, politics and culture. Marx for a Post Communist Era combines a deep understanding of Marxist thought with journalistic engagement in real world themes. Stefan Sullivan draws on examples including the 2000 US Presidential elections, Russian tax evasion, the recent protests against the World Bank and the IMF, the ascent of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, and the fascination with fake theme bars, ethno-chic fashion and the retro-trend in design. In doing so, he highlights Marx's legacy outside the academic world. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: -- The Roots of Diversity in Pragmatist Thought--James Campbell * The Context of Diversity vs. The Problem of Diversity--William J. Gavin * Reading Dewey and Mouffe on Democratic Norms--Larry A. Hickman * Cultivating Pragmatist Cosmopolitanism: The Diverse Democratic Community after Huntington and Benhabib--Judith M. Green * Democracy: Practice as Needed--Michael Eldridge * Dewey and Levinas on Pluralism, the Other, and Democracy--Jim Garrison * Reconstruction of Philosophy and Inquiry into Human Affairs: Deweyan Pragmatism in Dialogue with the (...) Postmodern Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman--Stefan Neubert and Kersten Reich * Diverse Communities-Dewey's Theory of Democracy as a Challenge for Foucault, Bourdieu, and Rorty--Kersten Reich * The Future of Democratic Diversity. (shrink)

Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money.

Abstract In this paper I offer an anti-Humean interpretation of the causal interactions in somatic medicine. I focus on life-threatening pathological states and show how Nancy Cartwright’s capacities can offer a plausible epistemology for medical processes and the singular causal claims advanced in medical diagnoses. I argue that the capacities manifested in the emergence of symptoms and signs could be tracked down if healthy organisms are construed as nomological machines and suggest that the causal reasoning from current medical practice bears (...) a tacit adherence to anti-Humean assumptions. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-28 DOI 10.1007/s12136-011-0141-1 Authors Stefan Dragulinescu, Drumul Taberei 20, Bucharest, Romania Journal Acta Analytica Online ISSN 1874-6349 Print ISSN 0353-5150. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: -- The Roots of Diversity in Pragmatist Thought--James Campbell * The Context of Diversity vs. The Problem of Diversity--William J. Gavin * Reading Dewey and Mouffe on Democratic Norms--Larry A. Hickman * Cultivating Pragmatist Cosmopolitanism: The Diverse Democratic Community after Huntington and Benhabib--Judith M. Green * Democracy: Practice as Needed--Michael Eldridge * Dewey and Levinas on Pluralism, the Other, and Democracy--Jim Garrison * Reconstruction of Philosophy and Inquiry into Human Affairs: Deweyan Pragmatism in Dialogue with the (...) Postmodern Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman--Stefan Neubert and Kersten Reich * Diverse Communities-Dewey's Theory of Democracy as a Challenge for Foucault, Bourdieu, and Rorty--Kersten Reich * The Future of Democratic Diversity. (shrink)

The current issue of the Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung presents a discussion of social media's future. Geert Lovink and Stefan Heidenreich debate the sense and non-sense of network-critique in light of the internet's modified usage and perception, which is commonly labeled Web 2.0. Lovink is critical about the increasing tendency towards monopolization in Web 2.0. Users, he contends, become thrilled by walled gardens , which are presented to them by big companies. Independent of the question whether the need (...) for practical information and the prevalence of economical interests is understandable or not, Lovink is most of all concerned with artistic alternatives and an activist usage of the nets. According to him, it is time for developers, programmers, freaks and nerds of all nations to become conscious of and active against the dark sides of economical and political control over the internet. Heidenreich, on the other hand, is skeptical. In contrast to the project of network-critique, he pursues a rigorously medial approach, which presents itself as unimpressed by ethical or engaged observations of social media. In his view, the heroization of hackers and nerds is informed by Science Fiction and nostalgia, both of which miss Reality 2.0. Heidenreich asserts that the internet's new generation, which has grown up with the new media, is not particularly interested in network-critique, but uses the given internetservices in various ways. German In der aktuellen Ausgabe der Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung wird über die Zukunft der Social Media gestritten. Geert Lovink und Stefan Heidenreich debattieren über den Sinn und Unsinn von Netzkritik angesichts einer veränderten Nutzung und Wahrnehmung des Internets, die sich hinter dem Schlagwort Web 2.0 verbirgt. Lovink sieht die zunehmende Tendenz zur Monopolisierung im Web 2.0 kritisch. Die Nutzer lassen sich von walled gardens begeistern, die Großunternehmen ihnen vorsetzen. Netzkritik solle sich daher nicht in der Frage erschöpfen, wie man Facebook und Twitter am besten nutzen kann, sondern sich mit echten Alternativen im Netz auseinandersetzen. Unabhängig davon, wie nachvollziehbar der Bedarf an praktischen Informationen und die Dominanz ökonomischer Interessen ist, geht es Lovink vor allem um künstlerische Alternativen und eine aktivistische Nutzung der Netze. Es sei an der Zeit, dass Entwickler, Programmierer, Freaks und Nerds aller Nationen sich die dunklen Seiten der ökonomisch-staatlichen Kontrolle des Internets bewusst machen und dagegen aktiv werden. Heidenreich ist dagegen skeptisch. Im Gegensatz zum Projekt der Netzkritik verfolgt er einen strikt medialen Ansatz, der sich gegenüber einer ethischen oder engagierten Beobachtung sozialer Medien kühl gibt. Die Heroisierung von Hackern und Nerds ist aus seiner Sicht von Science Fiction und Nostalgie geprägt, die an der Realität 2.0 vorbeigeht. Die neue Internetgeneration, die mit dem Medium aufgewachsen ist, habe gar kein ausgeprägtes Interesse an Netzkritik, sondern nutze die gegebenen Netzwerkfunktionen auf unterschiedliche Weise. (shrink)

Adviser: Professor Stefan Baumrin In the first chapter I introduce the distinction between metaethics and normative ethics and argue that metaethics, properly conceived, is a part of cognitive science. For example, the debate between rationalism and sentimentalism can be informed by recent empirical work in psychology and the neurosciences. In the second chapter I argue that the traditional view that one’s theory of semantics determines what one’s theory of justification must be is mistaken. Though it has been the case (...) that there are ‘typical’ combinations of semantic and justificational theories this is by no means forced on one. In the third chapter I examine two current kinds of expressivism; that of Blackburn and Copp. Each gives us an example of different combinations of semantic and justificatory theory. In Blackburn’s case he combines a use theory of meaning with a classic emotivist theory of justification, In Copp’s case it is a neo-Gricean philosophy of language with a realist’s theory of justification. I find both of these wanting as they ultimately collapse into relativistic subjectivism. In the fourth and fifth chapter I turn to developing Emotive Realism. The basic idea behind this view is that when someone says ‘x is wrong/right’ that person has (a) expressed a moral emotion about x and at the same time (b) expressed the belief that the emotion in (a) is the correct one to have. The belief expressed in (b) will be true or false depending on one’s theory of justification. In the fourth chapter I argue that we need separate semantic theories for thoughts and sentences. In the fifth chapter I fill in the details of Emotive Realism as I see it. (shrink)

In this review article I refer to some of the most relevant recent publications in the field of practical rationality, mainly drawing on two new anthologies by Wallace and Millgram that contain the principal arguments in the current debate, and on new books and articles by Bittner, Dancy, Nida-Rümelin and Raz. The purpose of the article is to offer an overview of the relevant positions in the current debate, to clarify the main arguments against the belief-desire model, and to situate (...) some of the problems - e.g. what counts as a reason - within the wider field of practical rationality as a whole - e.g. how to argue about practical reasoning from the point of view of our self-understanding as autonomous agents. (shrink)

The inference from determinism to predictability, though intuitively plausible, needs to be qualified in an important respect. We need to distinguish between two different kinds of predictability. On the one hand, determinism implies external predictability , that is, the possibility for an external observer, not part of the universe, to predict, in principle, all future states of the universe. Yet, on the other hand, embedded predictability as the possibility for an embedded subsystem in the universe to make such predictions, does (...) not obtain in a deterministic universe. By revitalizing an older result—the paradox of predictability —we demonstrate that, even in a deterministic universe, there are fundamental, non-epistemic limitations on the ability of one subsystem embedded in the universe to predict the future behaviour of other subsystems embedded in the same universe. As an explanation, we put forward the hypothesis that these limitations arise because the predictions themselves are physical events which are part of the law-like causal chain of events in the deterministic universe. While the limitations on embedded predictability cannot in any direct way show evidence of free human agency, we conjecture that, even in a deterministic universe, human agents have a take-it-or-leave-it control over revealed predictions of their future behaviour. (shrink)

The proposal that the concept of innateness expresses a 'folk biological' theory of the 'inner natures' of organisms was tested by examining the response of biologically naive participants to a series of realistic scenarios concerning the development of birdsong. Our results explain the intuitive appeal of existing philosophical analyses of the innateness concept. They simultaneously explain why these analyses are subject to compelling counterexamples. We argue that this explanation undermines the appeal of these analyses, whether understood as analyses of the (...) vernacular concept or as explications of that concept for the purposes of science. (shrink)

A good philosophical understanding of ecology is important for a number of reasons. First, ecology is an important and fascinating branch of biology, with distinctive philosophical issues. Second, ecology is only one small step away from urgent political, ethical, and management decisions about how best to live in an apparently fragile and increasingly-degraded environment. Third, philosophy of ecology, properly conceived, can contribute directly to both our understanding of ecology and help with its advancement. Philosophy of ecology can thus be seen (...) as part of the emerging discipline of “biohumanities”, where biology and humanities disciplines together advance our understanding and knowledge of biology (Stotz and Griffiths 2008). In this paper, we focus primarily on this third role of the philosophy of ecology and consider a number of places where philosophy can play an important role in ecology. In the process, we survey some of the current research being done in philosophy of ecology, as well as make suggestions about the agenda for future research in this area. We also hope to help clarify what philosophy of ecology is and what it should aspire to be. In what follows, we discuss several topics in the philosophy of ecology and conservation biology, starting with the role and understanding of mathematical models. This is followed by a discussion of a couple of practical problems involving the standard model of hypothesis testing and the use of decision-theoretic methods in environmental science. We then move on to discuss the issue of how we should understand biodiversity, and why this matters for conservation management. Finally, we look at environmental ethics and its relationship with ecology and conservation biology. These four topics were chosen because they are all of contemporary interest in philosophy of ecology circles and are ones where there is much fruitful work still to be done. The topics in question are also useful vehicles for highlighting the variety of issues in ecology and conservation biology where philosophy might prove useful.. (shrink)

Philosophical interest in ecology is relatively new. Standard texts in the philosophy of biology pay little or no attention to ecology (though Sterelny and Griffiths 1999 is an exception). This is in part because the science of ecology itself is relatively new, but whatever the reasons for the neglect in the past, the situation must change. A good philosophical understanding of ecology is important for a number of reasons. First, ecology is an important and fascinating branch of biology with distinctive (...) philosophical issues that arise from its study. Second, ecology is only one small step away from urgent political, ethical, and management decisions about how best to live in an apparently increasingly-fragile environment. Third, philosophy of ecology, properly conceived, can contribute directly to both our understanding of ecology and help with its advancement. Philosophy of ecology can thus be seen as part of the emerging discipline of “biohumanities”, where biology and humanities disciplines together advance our understanding and knowledge of biology (Stotz and Griffiths forthcoming). In this paper, we focus primarily on this third role of the philosophy of ecology and consider a number of places where philosophy can play an important role in ecology. In the process, we.. (shrink)

There is no consensus as to whether a Liar sentence is meaningful or not. Still, a widespread conviction with respect to Liar sentences (and other ungrounded sentences) is that, whether or not they are meaningful, they are useless . The philosophical contribution of this paper is to put this conviction into question. Using the framework of assertoric semantics , which is a semantic valuation method for languages of self-referential truth that has been developed by the author, we show that certain (...) computational problems, called query structures , can be solved more efficiently by an agent who has self-referential resources (amongst which are Liar sentences) than by an agent who has only classical resources; we establish the computational power of self-referential truth . The paper concludes with some thoughts on the implications of the established result for deflationary accounts of truth. (shrink)

In dialogue with the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt and Seyla Benhabib the author draws on the idea of a right to have rights and raises the question under which political conditions asylum can be a subjective right for political refugees. He argues that mere spontaneous acts of humanitarianism will not suffice to define the institutional commitments of liberal democracies in refugee policy. At the same time, no duty for any particular state to take up refugees can be derived from (...) a right to have rights. The quest for institutional solutions for a timely migration and asylum policy will rather enhance the discourses on the self-understanding of liberal democracies. With a critical eye on German asylum legislation and legal practice, the author contends that it will be a task of any co-ordinated European right of asylum to define political persecution in relation to the first dimension of human rights in order to differentiate the right of asylum from immigration legislation. (shrink)

This note is a reply to "On the Lumping Semantics of Counterfactuals" by Makoto Kanazawa, Stefan Kaufmann, and Stanley Peters. It shows first that the first triviality result obtained by Kanazawa, Kaufmann, and Peters is already ruled out by the constraints on admissible premise sets listed in Kratzer (1989). Second, and more importantly, it points out that the results obtained by Kanazawa, Kaufmann, and Peters are obsolete in view of the revised analysis of counterfactuals in Kratzer..

In this article I confront Jürgen Habermas' deliberative model of democracy with Claude Lefort's analysis of democracy as a regime in which the locus of power remains an empty place. This confrontation reveals several structural similarities between the two authors and explains how the proceduralization of popular sovereignty provides a discourse-theoretical interpretation of the empty place of power. At the same time, Lefort's insistence on the open-ended nature of the democratic struggle also points towards an unresolved tension at the core (...) of Habermas' model between the cognitive nature of deliberation on the one hand and the freedom of moral and political agents on the other. A proper solution of this tension requires a full appreciation of the ineliminable gap between actual and ideal deliberation. Because actual deliberation can never result in an ideal consensus, the actual exercise of democratic power should be understood as an unavoidable interruption of deliberation. Key Words: consensus • deliberation • democracy • empty place of power • Jürgen Habermas • Claude Lefort. (shrink)

Abstract: We are all familiar with the way in which social roles, such as mother, father, professor, club football coach, citizen, and so on, confront us with clusters of duties that purport to bind us. Though we generally experience these role-duties as normatively binding, we might question this. What reason do role-occupants have for conforming to the duties that define their roles? I argue that the agent who identifies with her role thereby has a weighty and important justificatory reason for (...) conforming to the role's defining duties: namely, the identifying agent realizes the fundamental goods of meaning and self-determination by doing so. This is an important normative ground of role-duties because it, unlike the grounds of natural duty or voluntary assumption, ensures that the duties it grounds are not alien impositions but rather are elements of the identifying agent's wellbeing. I also argue that role-identification provides a reason that shares many of the characteristics of a moral reason, and I argue that role-identification in tandem with the principle of fair play grounds a moral duty to conform to one's role-duties. (shrink)

Uzquiano (Analysis 70:39–44, 2010 ) showed that the Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever ( HLPE ) [in its amended form due to Rabern and Rabern (Analysis 68:105–112, 2008 )] has a solution in only two questions. Uzquiano concludes his paper by noting that his solution strategy naturally suggests a harder variation of the puzzle which, as he remarks, he does not know how to solve in two questions. Wheeler and Barahona (J Philos Logic, to appear, 2011 ) formulated a three question (...) solution to Uzquiano’s puzzle and gave an information theoretic argument to establish that a two question solution for Uzquiano’s puzzle does not exist. However, their argument crucially relies on a certain conception of what it means to answer self-referential yes–no questions truly and falsely . We propose an alternative such conception which, as we show, allows one to solve Uzquiano’s puzzle in two questions. The solution strategy adopted suggests an even harder variation of Uzquiano’s puzzle which, as we will show, can also be solved in two questions. Just as all previous solutions to versions of HLPE , our solution is presented informally. The second part of the paper investigates the prospects of formally representing solutions to HLPE by exploiting theories of truth. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on life-threatening medical conditions and argue that from the point of view of natural properties, induction(s), and participation in laws, at least some of the ill organisms dealt with in somatic medicine form natural kinds in the same sense in which the kinds in the exact sciences are thought of as natural. By way of comparing two ‘divisions of nature’, viz., a ‘classical’ exact science kind (gold) and a kind of disease (Graves disease), I show (...) that there is no justifiable ‘ontological gap’ between disease kinds and exact sciences kinds. We have instead a difference of degree. (shrink)

The year 1905 has been called Einstein's annus mirabilis in virtue of three ground-breaking works completed over the span of a few months --- the light quantum paper (Einstein, 1905a), the Brownian motion paper (Einstein, 1905c), and the paper on the electrodynamics of moving bodies introducing the special theory of relativity (Einstein, 1905d). There are prima facie reasons for thinking that the origins of these papers cannot be understood in isolation from one another. Due to space limitations, we concentrate primarily (...) on the light quantum paper, since, in key respects, it marks the turning point for the annus mirabilis. The task is to probe, not just how the idea of the light quantum might have occurred to Einstein, but, more importantly, what convinced him that the idea was not just a quixotic hypothesis, but an unavoidable and demonstrable feature of radiation. The crucial development, we suggest, arose from comparing the energy fluctuations that following rigorously from the Stefan-Boltmann law, as well as from Wien's distribution formula for blackbody radiation, with what it is reasonable to expect from Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light. A special case of this is addressed in (Einstein, 1904). The outcome for the general case leads naturally to the central theoretical argument of the light quantum paper, the expectation of Brownian-like motion, and several of the key results for the electrodynamics of moving bodies. (shrink)

A measure of coherence is said to be reliability conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) among testimonies implies a higher probability that the witnesses are reliable. Recently, it has been proved that several coherence measures proposed in the literature are reliability conducive in scenarios of equivalent testimonies (Olsson and Schubert 2007; Schubert, to appear). My aim is to investigate which coherence measures turn out to be reliability conducive in the more general scenario where the (...) testimonies do not have to be equivalent. It is shown that four measures are reliability conducive in the present scenario, all of which are ordinally equivalent to the Shogenji measure. I take that to be an argument for the Shogenji measure being a fruitful explication of coherence. (shrink)

The “hypervigilance, escape, struggle, tonic immobility” evolutionarily hardwired acute peritraumatic response sequence is important for clinicians to understand. Our commentary supplements the useful article on human tonic immobility (TI) by Marx, Forsyth, Gallup, Fusé and Lexington (2008). A hallmark sign of TI is peritraumatic tachycardia, which others have documented as a major risk factor for subsequent posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). TI is evolutionarily highly conserved (uniform across species) and underscores the need for DSM-V planners to consider the inclusion of evolution (...) theory in the reconceptualization of anxiety and PTSD. We discuss the relevance of evolution theory to the DSM-V reconceptualization of acute dissociativeconversion symptoms and of epidemic sociogenic disorder(epidemic “hysteria”). Both are especially in need of attention in light of the increasing threat of terrorism against civilians. We provide other pertinent examples. Finally, evolution theory is not ideology driven (and makes testable predictions regarding etiology in “both directions”). For instance, it predicted the unexpected finding that some disorders conceptualized in DSM-IV-TR as innate phobias are conditioned responses and thus better conceptualized as mild forms of PTSD. Evolution theory may offer a conceptual framework in DSM-V both for treatment and for research on psychopathology. (shrink)

The DSM-III, DSM-IV, DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10 have judiciously minimized discussion of etiologies to distance clinical psychiatry from Freudian psychoanalysis. With this goal mostly achieved, discussion of etiological factors should be reintroduced into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V). A research agenda for the DSM-V advocated the "development of a pathophysiologically based classification system". The author critically reviews the neuroevolutionary literature on stress-induced and fear circuitry disorders and related amygdala-driven, species-atypical fear behaviors of clinical severity in (...) adult humans. Over 30 empirically testable/falsifiable predictions are presented. It is noted that in DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10, the classification of stress and fear circuitry disorders is neither mode-of-acquisition-based nor brain-evolution-based. For example, snake phobia (innate) and dog phobia (overconsolidational) are clustered together. Similarly, research on blood-injection-injury-type-specific phobia clusters two fears different in their innateness: 1) an arguably ontogenetic memory-trace-overconsolidation-based fear (hospital phobia) and 2) a hardwired (innate) fear of the sight of one's blood or a sharp object penetrating one's skin. Genetic architecture-charting of fear-circuitry-related traits has been challenging. Various, non-phenotype-based architectures can serve as targets for research. In this article, the author will propose one such alternative genetic architecture. This article was inspired by the following: A) Nesse's "Smoke-Detector Principle", B) the increasing suspicion that the "smooth" rather than "lumpy" distribution of complex psychiatric phenotypes (including fear-circuitry disorders) may in some cases be accounted for by oligogenic (and not necessarily polygenic) transmission, and C) insights from the initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome by the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium published in late 2005. Neuroevolutionary insights relevant to fear circuitry symptoms that primarily emerge overconsolidationally (especially Combat related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) are presented. Also introduced is a human-evolution-based principle for clustering innate fear traits. The "Neuroevolutionary Time-depth Principle" of innate fears proposed in this article may be useful in the development of a neuroevolution-based taxonomic re-clustering of stress-triggered and fear-circuitry disorders in DSM-V. Four broad clusters of evolved fear circuits are proposed based on their time-depths: 1) Mesozoic (mammalian-wide) circuits hardwired by wild-type alleles driven to fixation by Mesozoic selective sweeps; 2) Cenozoic (simian-wide) circuits relevant to many specific phobias; 3) mid Paleolithic and upper Paleolithic (Homo sapiens-specific) circuits (arguably resulting mostly from mate-choice-driven stabilizing selection); 4) Neolithic circuits (arguably mostly related to stabilizing selection driven by gene-culture co-evolution). More importantly, the author presents evolutionary perspectives on warzone-related PTSD, Combat-Stress Reaction, Combat-related Stress, Operational-Stress, and other deployment-stress-induced symptoms. The Neuroevolutionary Time-depth Principle presented in this article may help explain the dissimilar stress-resilience levels following different types of acute threat to survival of oneself or one's progency (aka DSM-III and DSM-V PTSD Criterion-A events). PTSD rates following exposure to lethal inter-group violence (combat, warzone exposure or intentionally caused disasters such as terrorism) are usually 5-10 times higher than rates following large-scale natural disasters such as forest fires, floods, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. The author predicts that both intentionally-caused large-scale bioevent-disasters, as well as natural bioevents such as SARS and avian flu pandemics will be an exception and are likely to be followed by PTSD rates approaching those that follow warzone exposure. During bioevents, Amygdala-driven and locus-coeruleus-driven epidemic pseudosomatic symptoms may be an order of magnitude more common than infection-caused cytokine-driven symptoms. Implications for the red cross and FEMA are discussed. It is also argued that hospital phobia as well as dog phobia, bird phobia and bat phobia require re-taxonomization in DSM-V in a new "overconsolidational disorders" category anchored around PTSD. The overconsolidational spectrum category may be conceptualized as straddling the fear circuitry spectrum disorders and the affective spectrum disorders categories, and may be a category for which Pitman's secondary prevention propranolol regimen may be specifically indicated as a "morning after pill" intervention. Predictions are presented regarding obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (e.g., female-pattern hoarding vs. male-pattern hoarding) and "culture-bound" acute anxiety symptoms (taijin-kyofusho, koro, shuk yang, shook yong, suo yang, rok-joo, jinjinia-bemar, karoshi, gwarosa, Voodoo death). Also discussed are insights relevant to pseudoneurological symptoms and to the forthcoming Dissociative-Conversive disorders category in DSM-V, including what the author terms fright-triggered acute pseudo-localized symptoms (i.e., pseudoparalysis, pseudocerebellar imbalance, psychogenic blindness, pseudoseizures, and epidemic sociogenic illness). Speculations based on studies of the human abnormal-spindle-like, microcephaly-associated (ASPM) gene, the microcephaly primary autosomal recessive (MCPH) gene, and the forkhead box p2 (FOXP2) gene are made and incorporated into what is termed "The pre-FOXP2 Hypothesis of Blood-Injection-Injury Phobia." Finally, the author argues for a non-reductionistic fusion of "distal (evolutionary) neurobiology" with clinical "proximal neurobiology," utilizing neurological heuristics. It is noted that the value of re-clustering fear traits based on behavioral ethology, human-phylogenomics-derived endophenotypes and on ontogenomics (gene-environment interactions) can be confirmed or disconfirmed using epidemiological or twin studies and psychiatric genomics. (shrink)

The debate about global distributive justice is characterized by an often stark opposition between universalistic approaches, advocating an egalitarian global redistribution of wealth (Beitz, Pogge, Barry, Tan), and particularistic positions, aiming to justify a restriction of redistribution to the domestic community (D. Miller, R. Miller, Blake, Nagel, Rawls). I argue that an approach starting from the deliberative model of democracy (Habermas) can overcome this opposition. On the one hand, the increasingly global scope of economic interactions implies that the range of (...) individuals concerned with the redistribution of wealth should also be increasingly universal. On the other hand, the need for democratic deliberation refers to the fact that demands of justice should be contextual and should take into account the particular circumstances, needs and values of the people concerned. Both concerns can be realized simultaneously only within a multi-layered democratic system in which redistribution is a concern at the domestic, the international and the global level. (shrink)

Respect for autonomy is typically considered a key reason for allowing physician assisted suicide and euthanasia. However, several recent papers have claimed this to be grounded in a misconception of the normative relevance of autonomy. It has been argued that autonomy is properly conceived of as a value, and that this makes assisted suicide as well as euthanasia wrong, since they destroy the autonomy of the patient. This paper evaluates this line of reasoning by investigating the conception of valuable autonomy. (...) Starting off from the current debate in end-of-life care, two different interpretations of how autonomy is valuable is discussed. According to one interpretation, autonomy is a personal prudential value, which may provide a reason why euthanasia and assisted suicide might be against a patient’s best interests. According to a second interpretation, inspired by Kantian ethics, being autonomous is unconditionally valuable, which may imply a duty to preserve autonomy. We argue that both lines of reasoning have limitations when it comes to situations relevant for end-of life care. It is concluded that neither way of reasoning can be used to show that assisted suicide or euthanasia always is impermissible. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a framework in which we analyze three riddles about truth that are all (originally) due to Smullyan. We start with the riddle of the yes-no brothers and then the somewhat more complicated riddle of the da-ja brothers is studied. Finally, we study the Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever (HLPE). We present the respective riddles as sets of sentences of quotational languages , which are interpreted by sentence-structures. Using a revision-process the consistency of these sets is established. (...) In our formal framework we observe some interesting dissimilarities between HLPE’ s available solutions that were hidden due to their previous formulation in natural language. Finally, we discuss more recent solutions to HLPE which, by means of self-referential questions , reduce the number of questions that have to be asked in order to solve HLPE . Although the essence of the paper is to introduce a framework that allows us to formalize riddles about truth that do not involve self-reference, we will also shed some formal light on the self-referential solutions to HLPE. (shrink)

Research on patients with damage to ventromedial frontal cortices suggests a key role for emotions in practical decision making. This field of investigation is often associated with Antonio Damasio’s Somatic Marker Hypothesis–a putative account of the mechanism by which autonomic tags guide decision making in typical individuals. Here we discuss two ‘myths’ surrounding the direction and interpretation of this research. First, it is often assumed that there is a single somatic marker hypothesis. As others have noted, however, Damasio’s ‘hypothesis’ admits (...) of multiple interpretations (Colombetti, [2008]; Dunn et al. [2006]). Our analysis builds upon this point by characterizing decision making as a multi-stage process and identifying the various potential roles for somatic markers. The second myth is that the available evidence suggests a role for somatic markers in the core stages of decision making, i.e. during the generation, deliberation or evaluation of candidate options. To the contrary, we suggest that somatic markers most likely have a peripheral role, in the recognition of decision points, or in the motivation of action. This conclusion is based on an examination of the past 25 years of research conducted by Damasio and colleagues, focusing in particular on some early experiments that have been largely neglected by the critical literature. (shrink)

The globalization movement in recent decades has meant rapid growth in trade, financial transactions, and cross-country ownership of economic assets. In this article, we examine how the globalization of national business systems has influenced the framing of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This is done using text analysis of CEO letters appearing in the annual reports of 15 major corporations in Sweden during a period of transformational change. The results show that the discourse about CSR in the annual reports has changed (...) from a national and communitarian view of social responsibility (cf. a negotiated view of CSR) toward an international and individualistic view of social responsibility (cf. a self-regulating view of CSR). The article contributes theoretically (1) by adding a national–global dimension to previous conceptualizations of CSR and (2) by showing that the rise of CSR discourse and activities in the last 10 years does not have to imply an increased commitment and interest in corporate responsibility per se, only that there are increased societal expectations that corporations should develop the capability to act more independently as moral agents. (shrink)

In his 2001 article 'Teaching to Lie and Obey: Nietzsche on Education', Stefan Ramaekers defends Nietzsche's concept of perspectivism against the charge that it is relativistic. He argues that perspectivism is not relativistic because it denies the dichotomy between the 'true' world and the 'seeming' world, a dichotomy central to claims to relativism. While Ramaekers' article is correct in denying relativistic interpretations of perspectivism it does not go far enough in this direction. In fact, the way Ramaekers makes his (...) case may actually encourage the charge of relativism, especially when it comes to his appropriation of perspectivism for education. This article proposes to pick up where Ramaekers left off. It will argue that Nietzsche's denial of the opposition between the 'true' world and the 'seeming' world opens up the possibility for the reestablishment of truth, albeit in a modified form. After examining Nietzsche's modified 'realist' epistemology, the paper will explore the implications of it for his philosophy of education. It will be argued that Nietzsche's educational philosophy is founded on his concept of perspectivism in so far as he demands that students be rigorously inculcated into a pedagogical framework that teaches students to discriminate between 'true' and 'false' perspectives. This framework is essential for the development of an intellectually robust and life-affirming culture. (shrink)

The focus of this article is the analysis of generative mechanisms, a basic concept and phenomenon within the metatheoretical perspective of critical realism. It is emphasized that research questions and methods, as well as the knowledge it is possible to attain, depend on the basic view – ontologically and epistemologically – regarding the phenomenon under scrutiny. A generative mechanism is described as a trans empirical but real existing entity, explaining why observable events occur. Mechanisms are mostly possible to grasp only (...) indirectly by analytical work (theory-building), based however on empirical observations. In order to achieve such an explanatory analysis, five methodological steps are suggested and discussed, among them abduction and retroduction. These steps are illustrated throughout by examples drawn from empirical research regarding social work practice. The article is concluded with a discussion of the need for knowledge of generative mechanisms. (shrink)

: In this paper we wish to give a short introduction to the programme of interactive constructivism, an approach founded by Kersten Reich and under further development at the University of Cologne. This introduction will be combined with a discussion about the importance of pragmatism as a source of a socially oriented constructivism. For the Cologne programme, especially the philosophy of John Dewey has been very helpful in this respect. We will try to show this relation in two main steps. (...) In the first part we will venture to reconsider Dewey's concept of experience from the standpoint of interactive constructivism. In the second part we will do the same with Dewey's concept of communication. Although we will not be able to explicate all the diverse and complex theoretical perspectives contained in both approaches, we will at least try to give you an impression of how pragmatism and constructivism might mutually enrich each other from our point of view. Please allow us to use a somewhat unconventional form of talk for this purpose. We will introduce in both parts the role of a hypothetical Dewey who discusses and exchanges ideas with us. Contrary to the way that Richard Rorty sometimes resorts to a hypothetical Dewey in his writings, we will use this figure to give Dewey the chance to quote from his own works in order to pose questions to us and criticize our views. Nevertheless, we are aware of the potential traps that such a procedure implies, and it's up to the reader to criticize our ways of selection and omission. (shrink)

This paper discusses counterexamples to the thesis that the probabilities of conditionals are conditional probabilities. It is argued that the discrepancy is systematic and predictable, and that conditional probabilities are crucially involved in the apparently deviant interpretations. Furthermore, the examples suggest that such conditionals have a less prominent reading on which their probability is in fact the conditional probability, and that the two readings are related by a simple step of abductive inference. Central to the proposal is a distinction between (...) causal and purely stochastic dependence between variables. (shrink)

This article develops an “ordonomic” approach to business ethics in the age of globalization. Through the use of a three-tiered conceptual framework that distinguishes between the basic game of antagonistic social cooperation, the meta game of rule-setting, and the meta-meta game of rule-finding discourse, we address three questions, the answers to which we believe are crucial to fostering effective business leadership and corporate social responsibility. First, the purpose of business in society is value creation . Companies have a social mandate (...) to organize mutually advantageous cooperation. Second, business ethics should teach the management competencies necessary to fulfill business’s societal mandate. These competencies are optimization competence in the basic game of value creation, governance competence in the meta game of (political) rule setting, and the three discourse-related skills of orientation competence, reception competence, and communication competence necessary for engaging in the meta-meta game. Third, companies can help solve global problems through global corporate citizenship if they participate as political and moral actors in rule-setting processes and rule-finding discourse aimed at laying the foundation for value creation on a global scale. (shrink)