I argue that difference-making should be a crucial element for evaluating the quality of evidence for mechanisms, especially with respect to the robustness of mechanisms, and that it should take central stage when it comes to the general role played by mechanisms in establishing causal claims in medicine. The difference- making of mechanisms should provide additional compelling reasons to accept the gist of Russo-Williamson thesis and include mechanisms in the protocols for Evidence- Based Medicine, as the EBM+ research group has (...) been advocating. (shrink)

This article considers the prospects of inference to the best explanation as a method of confirming causal claims vis-à-vis the medical evidence of mechanisms. I show that IBE is actually descriptive of how scientists reason when choosing among hypotheses, that it is amenable to the balance/weight distinction, a pivotal pair of concepts in the philosophy of evidence, and that it can do justice to interesting features of the interplay between mechanistic and population level assessments.

In this paper I offer an anti-Humean critique to Williamson and Russo’s approach to medical mechanisms. I focus on one of the specific claims made by Williamson and Russo, namely the claim that micro-structural ‘mechanisms’ provide evidence for the stability across populations of causal relationships ascertained at the (macro-) level of (test) populations. This claim is grounded in the epistemic account of causality developed by Williamson, an account which—while not relying exclusively on mechanistic evidence for justifying causal judgements—appeals nevertheless to (...) mechanisms, and rejects their anti-Humean interpretation in terms of capacities, powers, potencies, etc. By using (and expanding on) Cartwright’s basic critique against Humean mechanisms, I suggest that, in order to move beyond the level of plausibility, Williamson and Russo’s position is in need of a clarification as to the occurent reading of the components, functioning and interferences of mechanisms. Relatedly, as concerns Williamson’s epistemic account of causation, I argue that this account is in need of a more straightforward answer as to what truth-makers its causal claims should have. (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)

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)

Inference to the Best Explanation is usually employed in the Scientific Realism debates. As far as particular scientific theories are concerned, its most ready usage seems to be that of a theory of confirmation. There are however more uses of IBE, namely as an epistemological theory of testimony and as a means of categorising and justifying the sources of evidence. In this paper, I will present, develop and exemplify IBE as a theory of the quality of evidence - taking examples (...) from medicine and showing that IBE can thereby provide the epistemological underpinning and justify the criteria of grading quality of mechanistic evidence that have been recently provided in the Clarke et al. paper on how evidence of medical mechanisms is to be construed alongside population studies. (shrink)

I question here the differentiation of kinds as substantive universals in Lowe and Ellis' metaphysics, by taking up, for the argument's sake, two extreme approaches on kind differentiation and kind change, a Heraclitan and a Spinozan approach. I show that, as things currently stand, Heraclitanism or Spinozism about kinds is consistent with the broad tenets of Lowe and Ellis' metaphysics of kinds.

I question here the differentiation of kinds as substantive universals in Lowe and Ellis’ metaphysics, by taking up, for the argument’s sake, two extreme approaches on kind differentiation and kind change, a Heraclitan and a Spinozan approach. I show that, as things currently stand, Heraclitanism or Spinozism about kinds is consistent with the broad tenets of Lowe and Ellis’ metaphysics of kinds.

This paper argues that there is an important connection between Inference to the Best Explanation and Bayesianism, in the medical context of the interplay between mechanisms and population studies. It is argued that the criteria for evaluating mechanistic evidence can be used in Inference to the Best Explanation and such use thereby increases the resilience of probabilities in a Bayesian framework. This point grows out of the emerging literature on evidence-based medicine and naturally strengthens McCain and Poston's proposal that explanatory (...) information is evidentially relevant. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a central objection against diseases being natural kinds—namely, that diseases are processes or transitions and hence they should not be conceptualized in the ‘substantish’ framework of natural kinds. I indicate that the objection hinges on conceiving disease kinds as phase kinds, in contrast to the non-phase, natural kinds of the exact sciences. I focus on somatic diseases and argue, via a representative comparison, that if disease kinds are phase kinds, then exact science kinds are phase (...) kinds as well. On the other hand, if exact science kinds are non-phase kinds, then disease kinds are non-phase kinds as well. This objection should thus be rejected, under a certain caveat, though. If natural kind membership has an influence over the diachronic identity of kind members, then it is possible, in principle, to draw the phase/non-phase distinction such that an ‘ontological gap’ lies between medical kinds and exact science kinds. I show further that this caveat is unavoidable even in relation to substantive universals and ‘essential’ properties—two controversial, strong features that were traditionally associated to natural kinds. (shrink)

In this paper, I enquire whether there are Kuhnian paradigms in medicine, by way of analysing a case study from the history of medicine—the discovery of the germ theory of disease in the nineteenth century. I investigate the Kuhnian aspects of this event by comparing the work of the famous school of microbiology founded by Robert Koch with a rival school, powerful in the nineteenth century, but now almost forgotten, founded by Carl Nageli. Through my case study, I show that (...) medical science possesses some Kuhnian features. Within each school, scientists used similar exemplars and shared the same assumptions. Moreover, their research was resistant to novelty, and the results of one party were disregarded by the other. In other words, in a moderate sense, the Koch and Nageli groups worked within distinct paradigms. However, I reject the stronger Kuhnian claim that the terms used within the two paradigms were mutually unintelligible. Focusing on the semantic aspects, I argue that no account of incommensurability of reference can be given in this case, although, for sociological reasons, the two parties talked past each other. I suggest in addition that the rival scientists could have understood each other more easily if their theoretical commitments had not been so deeply ingrained, and I use the example of Pasteur to indicate that the causal account of meaning might have avoided the communication breakdown. (shrink)

How ought you to evaluate your options if you’re uncertain about which axiology is true? One prominent response is Expected Moral Value Maximisation, the view that under axiological uncertainty, an option is better than another if and only if it has the greater expected moral value across axiologies. EMVM raises two fundamental questions. First, there’s a question about what it should even mean. In particular, it presupposes that we can compare moral value across axiologies. So to even understand EMVM, we (...) need to explain what it is for such comparisons to hold. Second, assuming that we understand it, there’s a question about whether EMVM is true. Since there are many plausible rivals, we need an argument to defend it. In this paper, I’ll introduce a representation theorem for axiological uncertainty to answer these two questions. Roughly, the theorem shows that if all our axiologies satisfy the von Neumann–Morgenstern axioms, and if the facts about which options are better than which in light of your uncertainty also satisfy these axioms as well as a Pareto condition, then these facts have a relevantly unique expected utility representation. If I’m right, this theorem at once affords us a compelling way to understand EMVM—and specifically intertheoretic comparisons—and a systematic argument for its truth. (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.

According to an increasingly popular view among philosophers of science, both causal and non-causal explanations can be accounted for by a single theory: the counterfactual theory of explanation. A kind of non-causal explanation that has gained much attention recently but that this theory seems unable to account for are grounding explanations. Reutlinger :239-256, 2017) has argued that, despite these appearances to the contrary, such explanations are covered by his version of the counterfactual theory. His idea is supported by recent work (...) on grounding by Schaffer and Wilson who claim there to be a tight connection between grounding and counterfactual dependence. The present paper evaluates the prospects of the idea. We show that there is only a weak sense in which grounding explanations convey information about counterfactual dependencies, and that this fact cannot plausibly be taken to reveal a distinctive feature that grounding explanations share with other kinds of explanations. (shrink)

Einleitung -- Charismatische Herrschaft -- Traditionale Herrschaft -- Traditionale und charismatische Herrschaft im vorrationalen Okzident: Antike -- Traditionale und charismatische Herrschaft im vorrationalen Okzident: Mittelalter -- Legale Herrschaft.

Between 1918 and 1933, the masses became a decisive preoccupation of European culture, fueling modernist movements in art, literature, architecture, theater, and cinema, as well as the rise of communism and fascism and experiments in radical democracy. Spanning aesthetics, cultural studies, intellectual history, and political theory, this volume unpacks the significance of the shadow agent known as "the mass" during a critical period in European history. It follows its evolution into the preferred conceptual tool for social scientists, the ideal slogan (...) for politicians, and the chosen image for artists and writers trying to capture a society in flux and a people in upheaval. This volume is the second installment in Stefan Jonsson's epic study of the crowd and the mass in modern Europe, building on his work in _A Brief History of the Masses_, which focused on monumental artworks produced in 1789, 1889, and 1989. (shrink)

Das Thema Staatstheorien bezieht sich auf eines der wichtigsten Gebiete der staatsbürgerlichen Erziehung und damit der stabilen freiheitlich-demokratischen Grundordnung überhaupt. Staatstheo-rien sind in verschiedenen Ausprägungen vorhanden und insofern sind Selektionskriterien und Begründungen erforderlich. Die Staats-theorien der Aufklärung werden zu Recht als maßgeblicher Ein-flussfaktor der heutigen westlichen Demokratieformen gesehen. Innerhalb der Aufklärung gibt es eine Kanonbildung der Vertrags- und Staatstheorien: Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu und Rousseau besitzen seit geraumer Zeit einen festen Platz darin. Zwischen Demokratie und politischer Bildung herrscht ein enger und (...) systematischer Zusammenhang. Demokratie bedeutet dabei gleichzeitig Lebens-, Gesellschafts- und Herrschaftsform. Nicht zu-letzt aus dieser fundamentalen und umfassenden Bedeutung für das Zusammenleben in unserer Gesellschaft rechtfertigt sich die Relevanz des Themas Staatstheorien als Gegenstand einer wissen-schaftlichen Abhandlung. Den Leserinnen und Lesern soll die exorbitante Relevanz des The-mas für unser heutiges gesellschaftspolitisches Zusammenleben vor Augen geführt werden. (shrink)

The desideratum of semantic interoperability has been intensively discussed in medical informatics circles in recent years. Originally, experts assumed that this issue could be sufficiently addressed by insisting simply on the application of shared clinical terminologies or clinical information models. However, the use of the term ‘ontology’ has been steadily increasing more recently. We discuss criteria for distinguishing clinical ontologies from clinical terminologies and information models. Then, we briefly present the role clinical ontologies play in two multicentric research projects. Finally, (...) we discuss the interactions between these different kinds of knowledge representation artifacts and the stakeholders involved in developing interoperational real-world clinical applications. We provide ontology engineering examples from two EU-funded projects. (shrink)

The pivotal role of the relation part-of in the description of living organisms is widely acknowledged. Organisms are open systems, which means that in contradistinction to mechanical artifacts they are characterized by a continuous flow and exchange of matter. A closer analysis of the spatial relations in biological organisms reveals that the decision as to whether a given particular is part-of a second particular or whether it is only contained-in the second particular is often controversial. We here propose a rule-based (...) approach which allows us to decide on the basis of well-defined criteria which of the two relations holds between two anatomical objects, given that one spatially includes the other. We discuss the advantages and limitations of this approach, using concrete examples from human anatomy. (shrink)

The topic of this thesis is axiological uncertainty – the question of how you should evaluate your options if you are uncertain about which axiology is true. As an answer, I defend Expected Value Maximisation (EVM), the view that one option is better than another if and only if it has the greater expected value across axiologies. More precisely, I explore the axiomatic foundations of this view. I employ results from state-dependent utility theory, extend them in various ways and interpret (...) them accordingly, and thus provide axiomatisations of EVM as a theory of axiological uncertainty. (shrink)

Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) aims to help people understand black box algorithms, particularly of their outputs. But what are these explanations and when is one explanation better than another? The manipulationist definition of explanation from the philosophy of science offers good answers to these questions, holding that an explanation consists of a generalization that shows what happens in counterfactual cases. Furthermore, when it comes to explanatory depth this account holds that a generalization that has more abstract variables, is broader in (...) scope and/or more accurate is better. By applying these definitions and contrasting them with alternative definitions in the XAI literature I hope to help clarify what a good explanation is for AI. (shrink)

Stefan Jonsson uses three monumental works of art to build a provocative history of popular revolt: Jacques-Louis David's _The Tennis Court Oath_ (1791), James Ensor's _Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889_ (1888), and Alfredo Jaar's _They Loved It So Much, the Revolution_ (1989). Addressing, respectively, the French Revolution of 1789, Belgium's proletarian messianism in the 1880s, and the worldwide rebellions and revolutions of 1968, these canonical images not only depict an alternative view of history but offer a new understanding (...) of the relationship between art and politics and the revolutionary nature of true democracy. Drawing on examples from literature, politics, philosophy, and other works of art, Jonsson carefully constructs his portrait, revealing surprising parallels between the political representation of "the people" in government and their aesthetic representation in painting. Both essentially "frame" the people, Jonsson argues, defining them as elites or masses, responsible citizens or angry mobs. Yet in the aesthetic fantasies of David, Ensor, and Jaar, Jonsson finds a different understanding of democracy-one in which human collectives break the frame and enter the picture. Connecting the achievements and failures of past revolutions to current political issues, Jonsson then situates our present moment in a long historical drama of popular unrest, making his book both a cultural history and a contemporary discussion about the fate of democracy in our globalized world. (shrink)

Examines widespread myths about transhumanism and explores the most pressing ethical issues in the debate over technologically assisted human enhancement.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly adopted in society, creating numerous opportunities but at the same time posing ethical challenges. Many of these are familiar, such as issues of fairness, responsibility and privacy, but are presented in a new and challenging guise due to our limited ability to steer and predict the outputs of AI systems. This chapter first introduces these ethical challenges, stressing that overviews of values are a good starting point but frequently fail to suffice due to the context (...) sensitivity of ethical challenges. Frequently, additional (ethical) values emerge for specific applications, as e.g. challenges with fraud detection are very different from those around language technologies. Second, methods to tackle these challenges are discussed. Main ethical theories (virtue ethics, consequentialism, and deontology) are shown to provide a starting point, but often lack the details needed for actionable AI Ethics. Instead, mid-level philosophical theories coupled to design-approaches such as Design for Values, together with interdisciplinary working methods, offer the best way forwards. The chapter aims to show how these approaches can lead to an ethics of AI that is actionable and that can be proactively integrated in the design of AI systems. (shrink)

This imaginative and unusual book explores the moral sensibilities and cultural assumptions that were at the heart of political debate in Victorian and early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the role of intellectuals as public moralists and suggests ways in which their more formal political theory rested upon habits of response and evaluation that were deeply embedded in wider social attitudes and aesthetic judgments. Collini examines the characteristic idioms and strategies of argument employed in periodical and polemical writing, and reconstructs (...) the sense of identity and of relation to an audience exhibited by social critics from John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold to J.M. Keynes and F.R. Leavis. (shrink)

Towards a critical posthumanism -- Genealogy of posthumanism -- Our posthuman humanity and the multiplicity of its forms -- Posthumanism and science fiction -- Interdisciplinarity and the posthumanities -- Posthumanism, digitalization, and new media -- Posthumanity, subject, and system -- Other side of life.

This study defends the legitimacy of the Enlightenment project by way of its different realizations in the philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. Today, Enlightenment as a cosmopolitan project with a global claim is often considered synonymous with Western chauvinism. The assertion of a universally binding reason is all too obviously inconsistent with the much-cited recognition of cultural differences. In contrast, it is the conviction brought forward in this book that an adequately understood Enlightenment is an unconditional right (...) of every person taking an active interest in a self-determined way of life. Only the realization of this conception of Enlightenment can provide the required space for the reciprocal recognition of human differences to freely unfold. (shrink)

Die Begegnung von Buddhismus und Christentum fordert ein verwandeltes Selbstverständnis philosophischen Denkens. Der japanische Philosoph Keiji Nishitani sieht in der existenziellen Radikalisierung der Frage «Was ist Religion?» bis zum buddhistischen Standpunkt der Leere die Möglichkeit der Überwindung des Nihilismus. Seine Geschichtsinterpretation öffnet in dieser Arbeit den Zugang zu Nietzsches Leib-Denken in seinem Zarathustra. In diesem Rahmen versucht der Verfasser, mit einer Methodenvielfalt und in Auseinandersetzung mit wichtigen abendländischen Denkern die Fraglichkeit jener Frage an ihre Grenze zu treiben.

Recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) present profound challenges for law. These challenges stem from law’s anthropocentrism, which is often left unspoken. This essay examines both the epistemic and normative dimensions of anthropocentrism within German Law, with a focus on Private Law. It defends the proposition that law’s anthropocentrism does not inherently oppose the idea of granting AI some form of legal capacity. Rather, so the essay argues, it is essentially a question of regulatory prudence to determine (...) the conditions and criteria under which the law should grant a legal status, legal capacity, or partial legal capacity to AI entities. Nonetheless, it is crucial to acknowledge that the core principles of private law as well as questions of liability for fault and negligence are rooted in human agency and cannot be directly applied to AI. It will be argued that the legal discourse on the recognition of AI is to be understood as a fundamentally political discourse. The political dimension of that discourse will be analyzed through the lens of the political theories of Hannah Arendt and Jaques Rancière, among others. (shrink)

There are several conceptions of man in the history of philosophy. However, two considerable tendencies are recurring throughout modern history. A human being can be perceived as a complex mechanism or as a living organism. The response to the query has essential consequences in different areas. The article aims to provide a view of humankind that builds upon an organic conception of life, nature, and human beings, especially as elaborated by A. N. Whitehead and some of his followers. The article (...) also briefly examines the emergence and development of a mechanistic view. The historical overview exposes the close relationship between the worldview of a given era and the understanding of man. Finally, the article argues that the organic conceptions of life developed in the first half of the 20th century provide an essential alternative to mechanistic views and could help us to deal with several problems we are currently encountering. (shrink)

Sur la décomposition des ensembles de points en parties respectivement congruentes.

More than 50 years ago, Bongard introduced 100 visual concept learning problems as a challenge for artificial vision systems. These problems are now known as Bongard problems. Although they are well known in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, only very little progress has been made toward building systems that can solve a substantial subset of them. In the system presented here, visual features are extracted through image processing and then translated into a symbolic visual vocabulary. We introduce a formal language (...) that allows representing compositional visual concepts based on this vocabulary. Using this language and Bayesian inference, concepts can be induced from the examples that are provided in each problem. We find a reasonable agreement between the concepts with high posterior probability and the solutions formulated by Bongard himself for a subset of 35 problems. While this approach is far from solving Bongard problems like humans, it does considerably better than previous approaches. We discuss the issues we encountered while developing this system and their continuing relevance for understanding visual cognition. For instance, contrary to other concept learning problems, the examples are not random in Bongard problems; instead they are carefully chosen to ensure that the concept can be induced, and we found it helpful to take the resulting pragmatic constraints into account. (shrink)

In contemporary theories of language it is common to appeal to propositions as expressed by utterances of sentences. The aim of this paper is to question this idea, for as I argue, the relationship between sentences and propositions cannot be worked out in any rewarding way.

In this annotated critical edition of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Lambda Stefan Alexandru draws upon many hitherto unexplored sources of the direct and indirect tradition, inter alia upon an independent Greek manuscript he has discovered in the Vatican Library.

Die Frage nach Sinn ist eine bleibend existentielle Frage des Menschen. Sie wird dringend aktuell in einer Zeit zunehmender Säkularisierung und Multioptionalität. Eine Theologie, die die Gesellschft prägen will, muss hierzu eine Antwort aus der Mitte des christlichen Glaubens geben können. Stefan Laurs stellt sich dieser Herausforderung. In Auseinandersetzung mit Charles Taylor und Walter Kasper analysiert er den neuzeitlichen Säkularisierungsprozess und widmet sich insbesondere der damit verbundenen Frage des Menschen nach Sinn und Erfüllung. Dabei wird ersichtlich, dass die Sinnfrage (...) aus theologischer Perspektive in der Gottesfrage zur Darstellung kommt. Nur in Gott, der Liebe ist, findet der Mensch den universalen Sinn un die Erfüllung seines Lebens. (shrink)

How do we get out knowledge of the natural numbers? Various philosophical accounts exist, but there has been comparatively little attention to psychological data on how the learning process actually takes place. I work through the psychological literature on number acquisition with the aim of characterising the acquisition stages in formal terms. In doing so, I argue that we need a combination of current neologicist accounts and accounts such as that of Parsons. In particular, I argue that we learn the (...) initial segment of the natural numbers on the basis of the Fregean definitions, but do not learn the natural number structure as a whole on the basis of Hume's principle. Therefore, we need to account for some of the consistency of our number concepts with the Dedekind-Peano axioms in other terms. (shrink)

Intuitively, we lack the standing to blame others in light of moral norms that we ourselves don't take seriously: if Adam is unrepentantly aggressive, say, he lacks the standing to blame Celia for her aggressiveness. But why does blame have this feature? Existing proposals try to explain this by reference to specific principles of normative ethics – e.g. to rule‐consequentialist considerations, to the wrongness of hypocritical blame, or principles of rights‐forfeiture based on this wrongness. In this paper, I suggest a (...) fundamentally different approach. Employing Timothy Williamson's idea of ‘constitutive rules’ of speech acts, I argue that this feature of blame is simply constitutive of any essentially moral form of disapproval. So if Adam had the standing to disapprove of Celia's aggressiveness in some form, necessarily, this disapproval couldn't be blame. If I'm right, this proposal thus not only answers our main question, but also sheds an interesting novel light on the very nature of blame. If we didn't have a form of disapproval with that feature, we wouldn't have our practice of holding each other to moral norms. (shrink)

The paradox of predictability refers to situations in which, even in a deterministic universe, a correct prediction of a future action is seemingly impossible because the agent whose action is predicted is determined to act counterpredictively. In a recent contribution to this journal, Victor Gijsbers provides an example of the paradox in which the undecidability of the situation plays an essential role and claims, additionally, that this undecidability is at the root of all examples of the paradox. This paper argues, (...) first, that the latter claim is not correct because there are clear examples of the paradox in which the situation remains fully decidable. The paper argues, secondly, that, because of its reliance on rather artificial conditions and in contrast with examples referring to the physical nature of the predictor, the example presented by Gijsbers, though technically correct, has little relevance for our understanding of the role of (counter-)predictability in the context of human interactions. (shrink)

A sociologist, a historian and a legal scholar looked at the state of contemporary western societies and none of them liked what they saw. Wolfgang Streeck, Perry Anderson and Martin Loughlin share a concern for the erosion of democracy in Europe, along with the virtues that make democratic citizenship a viable basis for self-governing societies. From their differing perspectives, they decry the advance of neoliberalism, which prioritises individual aspirations at the expense of the common good.