Author Susanne Claxton offers a new ecophenomenological perspective to Heidegger and his engagement with the Greeks, and an alternative to the ruling binary in environmental ethics of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism.

On March 11, 2020 the World Health Organization classified COVID‐19, caused by Sars‐CoV‐2, as a pandemic. Although not much was known about the new virus, the first outbreaks in China and Italy showed that potentially a large number of people worldwide could fall critically ill in a short period of time. A shortage of ventilators and intensive care resources was expected in many countries, leading to concerns about restrictions of medical care and preventable deaths. In order to be prepared for (...) this challenging situation, national triage guidance has been developed or adapted from former influenza pandemic guidelines in an increasing number of countries over the past few months. In this article, we provide a comparative analysis of triage recommendations from selected national and international professional societies, including Australia/New Zealand, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Pakistan, South Africa, Switzerland, the United States, and the International Society of Critical Care Medicine. We describe areas of consensus, including the importance of prognosis, patient will, transparency of the decision‐making process, and psychosocial support for staff, as well as the role of justice and benefit maximization as core principles. We then probe areas of disagreement, such as the role of survival versus outcome, long‐term versus short‐term prognosis, the use of age and comorbidities as triage criteria, priority groups and potential tiebreakers such as ‘lottery’ or ‘first come, first served’. Having explored a number of tensions in current guidance, we conclude with a suggestion for framework conditions that are clear, consistent and implementable. This analysis is intended to advance the ongoing debate regarding the fair allocation of limited resources and may be relevant for future policy‐making. (shrink)

This book investigates how collaborative scientific practice yields scientific knowledge. At a time when most of today’s scientific knowledge is created in research groups, the author reconsiders the social character of science to address the question of whether collaboratively created knowledge should be considered as collective achievement, and if so, in which sense. Combining philosophical analysis with qualitative empirical inquiry, this book provides a comparative case study of mono- and interdisciplinary research groups, offering insight into the day-to-day practice of scientists. (...) The book includes field observations and interviews with scientists to present an empirically-grounded perspective on much-debated questions concerning research groups’ division of labor, relations of epistemic dependence and trust. (shrink)

This book offers a new account of what it is to act for a normative reason. The first part of the book examines the problems of causal accounts of acting for reasons and suggests to solve them by a dispositional approach. The author argues for a dispositional account which unites epistemic, volitional, and executional dispositions in a complex normative competence. This ‘Normative Competence Account’ allows for more and less reflective ways of acting for normative reasons. The second part of the (...) book clarifies the relation between the normative reason that an agent acts for and his or her motivating reasons. It refutes the widely held ‘identity view’ that acting for a normative reason requires the normative reason to be identical with a motivating reason. The author describes how normative reasons are related to motivating reasons by a relation of correspondence, and proposes a new understanding of how normative reasons explain those actions that are performed for them. Determined by Reasons engages with current debates from a wide range of different philosophical areas, including action theory, metaethics, moral psychology, epistemology, and ontology, to develop a new account of acting for normative reasons. (shrink)

This paper sets out from the hypothesis that the embodied competences and expertise which characterise dance and sports activities have the potential to constructively challenge and inform phenomenological thinking. While pathological cases present experiences connected to tangible bodily deviations, the specialised movement practices of dancers and athletes present experiences which put our everyday experiences of being a moving body into perspective in a slightly different sense. These specialised experiences present factual variations of how moving, sensing and interacting can be like (...) for us as body-subjects. To use of these sources inevitably demands that qualitative research methodologies – especially short-term ethnographical fieldwork – form part of the research strategy and qualify the way the researcher involves a second-person perspective when interviewing dancers and athletes about their experiences. In the subsequent phases analysing the data generated, I argue that researchers first strive to achieve internal consistency of empirical themes identified in the case of movement practices in question thus keeping to a contextualised and lived perspective, also denoted as an emic perspective. In subsequent phases phenomenological insights are then actively engaged in the exploration and discussion of the possible transcendental structures making the described subjective experiences possible. The specialised and context-defined experiences of ‘what a moving body can be like’ are accordingly involved as factual variations to constructively add to and potentially challenge phenomenological descriptions. Lastly, I exemplify how actual research strategies have been enacted in a variety of projects involving professional dancers’, golfers’ and sports dancers’ practices and experiences, respectively. (shrink)

Although artificial intelligence has been given an unprecedented amount of attention in both the public and academic domains in the last few years, its convergence with other transformative technologies like cloud computing, robotics, and augmented/virtual reality is predicted to exacerbate its impacts on society. The adoption and integration of these technologies within industry and manufacturing spaces is a fundamental part of what is called Industry 4.0, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The impacts of this paradigm shift on the human operators (...) who continue to work alongside and symbiotically with these technologies in the industry bring with it novel ethical issues. Therefore, how to design these technologies for human values becomes the critical area of intervention. This paper takes up the case study of robotic AI-based assistance systems to explore the potential value implications that emerge due to current design practices and use. The design methodology known as Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is proposed as a sufficient starting point for designing these technologies for human values to address these issues. (shrink)

Bobzien presents the definitive study of one of the most interesting intellectual legacies of the ancient Greeks: the Stoic theory of causal determinism. She explains what it was, how the Stoics justified it, and how it relates to their views on possibility, action, freedom, moral responsibility, moral character, fatalism, logical determinism and many other topics. She demonstrates the considerable philosophical richness and power that these ideas retain today.

In this article, we inquire into Maxine Sheets-Johnstone and Michele Merritt’s descriptions and use of dance improvisation as it relates to “thinking in movement.” We agree with them scholars that improvisational practices present interesting cases for investigating how movement, thinking, and agency intertwine. However, we also find that their descriptions of improvisation overemphasize the dimension of spontaneity as an intuitive “letting happen” of movements. To recalibrate their descriptions of improvisational practices, we couple Ezequiel Di Paolo, Thomas Buhrmann, and Xabier E. (...) Barandiaran’s enactive account of the constitution of agency with case studies of two expert performers of improvisation: a dancer and a musician. Our analyses hereof show that their improvisations unfold as a sophisticated oscillation of agency between specialized forms of mental and bodily control and, indeed, a more spontaneous “letting things happen.” In all, this article’s conclusions frame thinking in movement concerning improvisational practices as contextually embedded, purposively trained, and inherently relational. (shrink)

Increasing prevalence of depression poses a huge challenge to the healthcare systems, and the success rates of current standard therapies are limited. While 30% of treated patients do not experience a full remission after treatment, more than 75% of patients suffer from recurrent depressive episodes. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy represents an emerging treatment option of depression, and preliminary studies show promising effects with a probably higher remission rate when compared to control-therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy. In the (...) present study, 49 patients with severe depression were treated with an integrated systemic treatment approach including EMDR therapy that followed a specific protocol with a treatment algorithm for depression in a naturalistic hospital setting. Following their discharge from the hospital, the patients were followed up by a structured telephone interview after 3 and 12 months. 27 of the 49 patients fulfilled the Beck’s depression criteria of a full remission when they were discharged. At the follow-up interview, 12 months after discharge, 7 of the 27 patients reported a relapse, while the remaining 20 patients had stayed relapse-free. The findings of our observational study confirm reports of earlier studies in patients with depression, showing that EMDR therapy leads to a high rate of remission, and is associated with a decreased number of relapses. Patients with depression receiving EMDR treatment may be more resilient to stressors. (shrink)

There is a trade-off between specificity and accuracy in existing models of belief. Descriptions of agents in the tripartite model, which recognizes only three doxastic attitudes—belief, disbelief, and suspension of judgment—are typically accurate, but not sufficiently specific. The orthodox Bayesian model, which requires real-valued credences, is perfectly specific, but often inaccurate: we often lack precise credences. I argue, first, that a popular attempt to fix the Bayesian model by using sets of functions is also inaccurate, since it requires us to (...) have interval-valued credences with perfectly precise endpoints. We can see this problem as analogous to the problem of higher order vagueness. Ultimately, I argue, the only way to avoid these problems is to endorse Insurmountable Unclassifiability. This principle has some surprising and radical consequences. For example, it entails that the trade-off between accuracy and specificity is in-principle unavoidable: sometimes it is simply impossible to characterize an agent’s doxastic state in a way that is both fully accurate and maximally specific. What we can do, however, is improve on both the tripartite and existing Bayesian models. I construct a new model of belief—the minimal model—that allows us to characterize agents with much greater specificity than the tripartite model, and yet which remains, unlike existing Bayesian models, perfectly accurate. (shrink)

Die viel beschworene "Wiederkehr der Religion" ist zu einem nicht geringen Teil eine Wiederkehr bzw. eine Aktualisierung von Elementen mystischer Traditionen. Einem angemessenen Verstandnis der gegenwartigen Religionskultur ist also eine Sensibilitat fur das vielschichtige Phanomen des Mystischen vorausgesetzt. Vor diesem Hintergrund bietet der Band kulturhermeneutische, theologische, religionsphilosophische und religionswissenschaftliche Studien zu Wesen und Bedeutung der Mystik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Gemeinsames Ziel der Beitrage ist es, jener besonderen Leidenschaft fur das Unauslotbare auf die Spur zu kommen, die die verschiedensten Denker (...) von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart miteinander verbindet. (shrink)

This paper offers an analytic perspective on epistemic dependence that is grounded in theoretical discussion and field observation at the same time. When in the course of knowledge creation epistemic labor is divided, collaborating scientists come to depend upon one another epistemically. Since instances of epistemic dependence are multifarious in scientific practice, I propose to distinguish between two different forms of epistemic dependence, opaque and translucent epistemic dependence. A scientist is opaquely dependent upon a colleague if she does not possess (...) the expertise necessary to independently carry out, and to profoundly assess, the piece of scientific labor which her colleague is contributing. If the scientist does possess the necessary expertise, I argue, her dependence is translucent. However, the distinction between opaque and translucent epistemic dependence does not exhaust dependence relations in scientific practice, because many dependence relations are neither entirely opaque nor translucent. I will discuss why this is the case, and show how we can make sense of the gray zone between opaque and translucent epistemic dependence. (shrink)

I argue for the view that there are important similarities between knowledge and acting for a normative reason. I interpret acting for a normative reason in terms of Sosa’s notion of an apt performance. Actions that are done for a normative reason are normatively apt actions. They are in accordance with a normative reason because of a competence to act in accordance with normative reasons. I argue that, if Sosa’s account of knowledge as apt belief is correct, this means that (...) acting for a normative reason is in many respects similar to knowledge. In order to strengthen Sosa’s account of knowledge, I propose to supplement it with an appeal to sub-competences. This clarifies how this account can deal with certain Gettier cases, and it helps to understand how exactly acting for a normative reason is similar to apt belief. (shrink)

We frequently engage in activities that impose a risk of serious harm on innocent others in order to realise trivial benefits for ourselves or third parties. Many moral theories tie the evidence-relative permissibility of engaging in such activities to the size of the risk that an individual agent imposes. I argue that we should move away from such a reliance on quantified individual risks when conceptualising morally permissible risk imposition. Under most circumstances of interest, a conscientious reasoner will identify a (...) gap between the factors they deem potentially relevant to the riskiness of an agent’s behaviour, and the factors they are reasonably able to quantify. This then leads a conscientious reasoner to conclude that they cannot, in good faith, come up with a quantitative risk estimate that is genuinely tailored to the agent’s particular situation. Based on this, I argue that principles of morally permissible risk imposition fail to provide us with practical guidance if they ask us to take into account our agent-specific risks in a quantified manner. I also argue that principles of permissible risk imposition which appeal to quantified individual risks implausibly imply that it is frequently indeterminate whether engaging in some risky activity is morally permissible. For both of these reasons, I contend that principles of morally permissible risk imposition should make no reference to quantified individual risks. They should instead acknowledge that any quantitative estimates that an agent might usefully be able to consider will likely not be tailored to the agent’s idiosyncratic situation. (shrink)

Based on an empirical study of a research team in natural science, the author argues that collaborating scientists do not trust each other completely. Due to the inherent incompleteness of trust, epistemic trust among scientists is not sufficient to manage epistemic dependency in research teams. To mitigate the limitations of epistemic trust, scientists resort to specific strategies of indirect assessment such as dialoguing practices and the probing of explanatory responsiveness. Furthermore, they rely upon impersonal trust and deploy practices of hierarchical (...) authorship. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with the relation between motivating and normative reasons. According to a common and influential thesis, a normative reason is identical with a motivating reason when an agent acts for that normative reason. I will call this thesis the ‘Identity Thesis’. Many philosophers treat the Identity Thesis as a commonplace or a truism. Accordingly, the Identity Thesis has been used to rule out certain ontological views about reasons. I distinguish a deliberative and an explanatory version of the (...) Identity Thesis and argue that there are no convincing arguments to accept either version. Furthermore, I point out an alternative to the Identity Thesis. The relation between motivating and normative reasons can be thought of as one of representation, not identity. (shrink)

In this extended essay, I argue that Frege plagiarized the Stoics --and I mean exactly that-- on a large scale in his work on the philosophy of logic and language as written mainly between 1890 and his death in 1925 (much of which published posthumously) and possibly earlier. I use ‘plagiarize' (or 'plagiarise’) merely as a descriptive term. The essay is not concerned with finger pointing or casting moral judgement. The point is rather to demonstrate carefully by means of detailed (...) evidence that there are numerous (over a hundred) and extensive parallels both in formulation and --more importantly-- in content between the Stoics and Frege, parallels so plentiful that one would be hard pressed to brush them off as coincidence. These parallels include several that appear to occur in no other modern works that were published before Frege’s own and were accessible to him. Additionally, a cluster of corroborating historical data is adduced to support the suggestion, showing how easy it would have to been for Frege to plagiarize the Stoics. This (first) part of the essay is easy to read and vaguely entertaining, or so I hope. -/- (Corrigendum: At school, Frege likely had seven, not ten, years of intensive Latin and four years of intensive ancient Greek courses.). (shrink)

This article aims to explore the relation between body and space – specifically how the relation between the embodied awareness of movement and the sense of one’s body-space can be modified and changed deliberately in different kinds of dance practices. Using a multi-sited design, the ethnographical fieldwork, which formed the empirical ground for the study, was from the outset focused on acknowledging the diversity of the dancers’ practices. Each in their own way, the 13 professional dancers involved in the study (...) relate to and experience bodied potentialities, body-space and the spatiality of movement differently. Through their practice, they indicate that the body image is shaped through a multisensorial process of reification, and that seeing is to be related to a broader perceptual engagement. Furthermore, they exemplify how seeing can be deliberately used to expand the sense of their body-space and thereby to affect the spatiality of the fields of their embodied interaction. (shrink)

This paper examines whether an agent becomes liable to defensive harm by engaging in a morally permissible but foreseeably risk-imposing activity that subsequently threatens objectively unjustified harm. It first clarifies the notion of a foreseeably risk-imposing activity by proposing that an activity should count as foreseeably risk-imposing if an agent may morally permissibly perform it only if she abides by certain duties of care. Those who argue that engaging in such an activity can render an agent liable to defensive harm (...) ground this liability in the luck egalitarian thought that we may justly hold individuals responsible for the consequences of their voluntary choices. Against this, I argue that a luck egalitarian commitment to holding people responsible cannot, by itself, ground liability to defensive harm. It can help ground such liability only against the backdrop of a distributively just society, and only if further considerations speak morally in favour of attaching certain well-defined costs to individuals’ risk-imposing choices. I conclude by suggesting that if an account of liability applies robustly across distributively just and unjust contexts alike, then what grounds an agent’s liability is plausibly not her responsibility for threatening objectively unjustified harm, but her culpability for doing so. (shrink)

In his inaugural lecture at Cambridge as Regius Professor of Modern History in 1895, Lord Acton urged that the historian deliver moral judgments on the figures of his research. Acton declaimed: I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on (...) wrong.1 In 1902, the year after Acton died, the president of the American Historical Association, Henry Lea, in dubious celebration of his British colleague, responded to the exordium with a contrary claim about the historian’s obligation, namely to render the facts of history objectively without subjective moralizing. Referring to Acton’s lecture, Lea declared: I must confess that to me all this seems to be based on false premises and to lead to unfortunate conclusions as to the objects and purposes of history, however much it may serve to give point and piquancy to a narrative, to stimulate the interests of the casual reader by heightening lights and deepening shadows, and to subserve the purpose of propagating the opinions of the writer.2 As our colleague Peter Novick has detailed in his great account of the American historical profession, by the turn of the century historians in the United States had begun their quest for scientific status, which for most seemed to preclude the leakage of moral opinion into the objective recovery of the past—at least in an overt way. Peter also catalogues the stumbling failures of this noble dream, when political partisanship and rampant nationalism sullied the ideal.3 Historians in our own time continue to be wary of rendering explicit moral pronouncements, thinking it a derogation of their obligations. On occasion, some historians have been moved to embrace the opposite attitude, especially when considering the horrendous events of the twentieth century—the Holocaust, for instance.. (shrink)

In this article, I show that Hegel’s philosophical articulation of the family is inextricably bound to his engagement with political economy by focusing on three central aspects of his theory of the family. Firstly, I analyze how Hegel construes the family as a historically distinct social dispositif and constitutive element of the modern order of property. I argue that Hegel’s construction of the family and its place in the modern order of property is not only gendered but also racialized. Secondly, (...) I focus on Hegel’s articulation of the nexus between the family and civil society and his critical diagnosis of the structural problems that result from it. Thirdly, I discuss Hegel’s concept of labor and the political-epistemic limitations of his problematization of civil society, which are bound to it. I draw attention to three aspects, namely the confinement of the concept of labor to civil society, Hegel’s rearticulation of the gendered matter/form distinction, and the relation between Hegel’s economic notion and speculative usage of “labor.” Finally, I consider briefly how a critical reading of Hegel’s articulation of the political economy of the family can provide productive insights for a multidimensional theory of the family today. (shrink)

The authors of the target article discuss the expansion of the scope of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) that is likely to occur in the near future, including its possible extension to “non-medi...

In this article I advocate a worldly account of normative reasons according to which there is an ontological gap between these and the premises of practical thought, i.e. motivating considerations. While motivating considerations are individuated fine-grainedly, normative reasons should be classified as coarse-grained entities, e.g. as states of affairs, in order to explain certain necessary truths about them and to make sense of how we count and weigh them. As I briefly sketch, acting for normative reasons is nonetheless possible if (...) the connection between normative reasons and motivating considerations is a competence-based correspondence. (shrink)

De Bie et al. (2023) provide a helpful framework for understanding many of the ethical considerations regarding artificial womb technology (AWT), particularly in relation to existing reproductive t...

Over the past 30 years a growing body of scholarship has highlighted the significance of practices of punishment and penality within contemporary Western societies. Penal expansionism, most dramatically evidenced in the United States, has drawn the attention of a raft of commentators, including that of French sociologist Loïc Wacquant. In this essay, Wacquant’s three recent volumes – UrbanOutcasts, Punishing the Poor and Prisons of Poverty – are considered with a particular focus on the theoretical and empirical contours of his over-arching (...) account of the rise of what he calls a ‘new government of social insecurity’. (shrink)

Are epistemic reasons normative in the same sense as, for instance, moral reasons? In this paper I examine and defend the claim that epistemic reasons are normative only relative to an epistemic standard. Unlike moral reasons they are not substantially normative, because they fail to make an independent contribution to obligations or permissions simpliciter. After presenting what I take to be the main argument for this view, I illustrate that the argument has often been defended by examples which controversially presuppose (...) strong epistemic obligations or pragmatic reasons for belief. Opponents of the argument often deny the existence of obligations and reasons of these kinds. I therefore examine whether the argument can withstand that line of critique by employing new examples. (shrink)

This paper contends that Stoic logic (i.e. Stoic analysis) deserves more attention from contemporary logicians. It sets out how, compared with contemporary propositional calculi, Stoic analysis is closest to methods of backward proof search for Gentzen-inspired substructural sequent logics, as they have been developed in logic programming and structural proof theory, and produces its proof search calculus in tree form. It shows how multiple similarities to Gentzen sequent systems combine with intriguing dissimilarities that may enrich contemporary discussion. Much of Stoic (...) logic appears surprisingly modern: a recursively formulated syntax with some truth-functional propositional operators; analogues to cut rules, axiom schemata and Gentzen’s negation-introduction rules; an implicit variable-sharing principle and deliberate rejection of Thinning and avoidance of paradoxes of implication. These latter features mark the system out as a relevance logic, where the absence of duals for its left and right introduction rules puts it in the vicinity of McCall’s connexive logic. Methodologically, the choice of meticulously formulated meta-logical rules in lieu of axiom and inference schemata absorbs some structural rules and results in an economical, precise and elegant system that values decidability over completeness. (shrink)

In light of the many corporate scandals, social and ethical commitment of society has increased considerably, which puts pressure on companies to communicate information related to corporate social responsibility (CSR). The reasons underlying the decision by management teams to engage in ethical communication are scarcely focussed on. Thus, grounded on legitimacy and stakeholder theory, this study analyses the views management teams in large listed companies have on communication of CSR. The focus is on aspects on interest, motives/reasons, users and problems (...) related to corporate communication of CSR information. A questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews confirm that there is a distinct trend shift: towards more focus on CSR in corporate communication. Whilst this trend shift started as a reactive approach initiated by the many corporate scandals, the trend shift is now argued to be of a proactive nature focussed at preventing legitimacy concerns to arise. These findings are significant and interesting, implying that we are witnessing a transit period between two legitimacy strategies. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the way respondents argue when it comes to CSR activities coincides with consequentialism or utilitarianism, i. e. companies engage in CSR activities to avoid negative impacts instead of being driven by a will to make a social betterment or acting in accordance with what is fundamentally believed to be right to do. This provides new input to the ongoing debate about business ethics. The findings should alert national and international policy makers to the need both to increase the vigilance and capacity of the regulatory and judicial systems in the CSR context and to increase institutional pressure to enhance CSR adoption and CSR communication. Furthermore, stakeholders need to be careful in assuming that CSR communication is an evidence of a CSR commitment influencing corporate behaviour and increasing business ethics. (shrink)

Susanne Burri explores some of the moral complexities of the WWII bombings.

Most descriptions of higher-order vagueness in terms of traditional modal logic generate so-called higher-order vagueness paradoxes. The one that doesn't is problematic otherwise. Consequently, the present trend is toward more complex, non-standard theories. However, there is no need for this.In this paper I introduce a theory of higher-order vagueness that is paradox-free and can be expressed in the first-order extension of a normal modal system that is complete with respect to single-domain Kripke-frame semantics. This is the system QS4M+BF+FIN. It corresponds (...) to the class of transitive, reflexive and final frames. With borderlineness defined logically as usual, it then follows that something is borderline precisely when it is higher-order borderline, and that a predicate is vague precisely when it is higher-order vague.Like Williamson's, the theory proposed here has no clear borderline cases in Sorites sequences. I argue that objections that there must be clear borderline cases ensue from the confusion of two notions of borderlineness—one associated with genuine higher-order vagueness, the other employed to sort objects into categories—and that the higher-order vagueness paradoxes result from superimposing the second notion onto the first. Lastly, I address some further potential objections. (shrink)

This volume brings together philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives on improvisation. The contributions connect the theoretical dimensions of improvisation with different viewpoints on its practice in the arts and the classroom. The chapters address the phenomenon of improvisation in two related ways. On the one hand, they attend to the lived practices of improvisation both within and without the arts in order to explain the phenomenon. They also extend the scope of improvisational practices to include the role of improvisation in habit (...) and in planned action, at both individual and collective levels. Drawing on recent work done in the philosophy of mind, they also address questions such as whether improvisation is a single unified phenomenon, or whether it entails different senses that can be discerned theoretically and practically. Finally, they ask after the special kind of improvisational expertise which characterizes musicians, dancers, and other practitioners, an expertise marked by the artist's ability to participate competently in complex situations while deliberately relinquishing control. Philosophy of Improvisation will appeal to researchers working in philosophy, aesthetics, and pedagogy and the arts as well as practitioners involved in different kinds of music, dance, and theater performances. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Sammelband analysiert die diversen Formen einer ideologisch motivierten Instrumentalisierung von Meister Eckharts Mystik in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus und bietet darüber hinaus auch ganz neues, bislang noch unveröffentlichtes Quellenmaterial zu den institutionellen Hintergründen der Eckhart-Rezeption im Dritten Reich. This volume analyses the various forms of ideological instrumentalization Meister Eckhart’s mysticism has been subject to during the era of National Socialism. Furthermore, the volume includes hitherto unpublished source material concerning the institutional background of Eckhart’s reception in the Third Reich.

Intuitionistic logic provides an elegant solution to the Sorites Paradox. Its acceptance has been hampered by two factors. First, the lack of an accepted semantics for languages containing vague terms has led even philosophers sympathetic to intuitionism to complain that no explanation has been given of why intuitionistic logic is the correct logic for such languages. Second, switching from classical to intuitionistic logic, while it may help with the Sorites, does not appear to offer any advantages when dealing with the (...) so-called paradoxes of higher-order vagueness. We offer a proposal that makes strides on both issues. We argue that the intuitionist’s characteristic rejection of any third alethic value alongside true and false is best elaborated by taking the normal modal system S4M to be the sentential logic of the operator ‘it is clearly the case that’. S4M opens the way to an account of higher-order vagueness which avoids the paradoxes that have been thought to infect the notion. S4M is one of the modal counterparts of the intuitionistic sentential calculus and we use this fact to explain why IPC is the correct sentential logic to use when reasoning with vague statements. We also show that our key results go through in an intuitionistic version of S4M. Finally, we deploy our analysis to reply to Timothy Williamson’s objections to intuitionistic treatments of vagueness. (shrink)

Martin Heideggers Denken nach 1938 ist vor allem durch drei große Themen geprägt: den Wandel des Menschenbildes, die Einführung eines neuen Begriffes vom Denken und den Nachweis, dass Sein ›Seyn in Beziehung‹ ist. Dabei stützt er sich auf das Denken Franz Rosenzweigs, das bereits in der Formulierung von »Sein und Zeit« erkennbar ist, in den Schriften der 40er und 50er Jahre aber in besonders intensiver Weise nachwirkt.

From colonialism to a neocolonial state -- Law and court : the making of familial ideologies during the Colonial era -- The making of the new Yemeni woman -- "This is our customs and traditions" -- Social maps and a mystery -- Morality, causality, and social praxis.

In the face of increasing intervention in childbirth, ‘normal birth’ is currently being promoted by the World Health Organization, national governments, professional bodies and other organisations throughout the world. This paper takes a postmodernist stance and explores the idea of the ‘normal’ before going on to analyse normal childbirth, referring to concepts of the normal and the natural. It refers to historical developments in childbearing and lay organisations along with research relating to women’s views of childbirth, to question the appropriateness (...) of using ‘normal’ to describe the very individual experiences of childbirth. It laments the way in which women have been treated and arguably continue to be ‘cared for’ in maternity/obstetric services. It adds to the current discussion by recalling psychoanalytical theory and philosophical analysis to conclude with a call for future consideration of the ‘good‐enough’ birth instead of concentrating on promoting normal birth which is very difficult, if not impossible to define in retrospect, or to prospectively promote. (shrink)

Building on the emotion-centered model of voluntary work behavior, this research tests the relations between leader narcissism, followers’ malicious and benign envy, and supervisor-targeted counterproductive work behavior. Results across five studies, two experimental studies, and two field surveys indicate that leader narcissism relates positively to followers’ negative emotions, which in turn mediates the positive relation between leader narcissism and supervisor-targeted CWB. Proposed negative relations between leader narcissism and positive emotions were only partly supported. Our findings advance the understanding of envy (...) and the detrimental impact of leader narcissism on organizational functioning. (shrink)