Although popular, control accounts of privacy suffer from various counterexamples. In this article, it is argued that two such counterexamples—while individually resolvable—can be combined to yield a dilemma for control accounts of privacy. Furthermore, it is argued that it is implausible that control accounts of privacy can defend against this dilemma. Thus, it is concluded that we ought not define privacy in terms of control. Lastly, it is argued that since the concept of privacy is the object of the right (...) to privacy if the former cannot be defined in terms of control, neither can the latter. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the ethical implications of randomised control trials (RCTs) as a practice of quantification in international development. Often referred to as the “gold standard” for the evaluation of development interventions, RCTs are lauded for their ability to generate supposedly objective, unbiased, and rigorous evidence to inform policy decisions for poverty alleviation. At the same time, critiques of quantification within and beyond development challenge claims of objectivity and neutrality, raising epistemological and ethical questions regarding the role of (...) quantitative research, the numbers they produce, and the processes triggered by practices of quantification. Building on these critiques, this study develops a decolonial analysis of the RCT methodology. We argue that RCTs, by enacting the coloniality of being, knowledge, and power, serve to perpetuate global coloniality, and its core organising principle, namely colonial difference. The study contributes to ongoing conversations addressing the ethical stakes of knowledge production and (de)coloniality. (shrink)

Berg, J. Buñuels dagdröm.--Bergström, L. Pessimismens konsekvenser.--Furberg, M. Möjliga teser hos Johannes Climacus.--Halldén, S. Teckenrelationen och språkreglernas juridik.--Hedenius, I. Ett argument mot den rättsfilosofiska domstolsrealismen.--Mates, B. Om Platons argument "den tredje människan."--Marc-Wogau, K. Kant om lögnen.--Næss, A. Om filosofiske projekter som forener empirisk semantikk og metafysisk spekulasjon.--Ofstad, H. Får nazister lettere magesår enn humanister?--Prawitz, D. Om moraliska och logiska satsers sanning.--Stenius, E. Om Descartes' psykofysiska modell.--Tranøy, K. E. Filosofenes etiske ansvar.--Wright, G. H. von. En filosof ser på filosofien.

There are deep connections between education and the question of life's meaning, which derive, ultimately, from the fact that, for human beings, how to live—and therefore, how to raise one's children—is not a given but a question. One might see the meaning of life as constitutive of the meaning of education, and answers to the question of life's meaning might be seen as justifying education. Our focus, however, lies on the contributory relation: our primary purpose is to investigate whether and (...) how education might contribute to children's ability to find meaning in life or at least deal with the question. This issue is not only theoretically interesting —it also has practical urgency. For people have a need for meaning that, if unfulfilled, leads to personal and potentially social crises—a need that often expresses itself first and strongly in adolescence; and there are reasons to have doubts about the contribution of today's traditional formal education system to the meaningfulness of children's lives. We argue for the importance of frameworks of values, as well as for a greater emphasis on the affective dimension of meaning, though we reject pure subjectivism. The underlying purpose of this article, however, is not to argue for a particular comprehensive position, but to persuade philosophers of education of the importance of the issue of life's meaning in thinking about education today. (shrink)

The de minimis principle states that some risks are so trivial that they can be ignored or treated categorically differently from non-trivial risks. Lundgren and Stefánsson criticize the de minimis principle, arguing that it either has to be applied locally or globally and that problems arise whichever application is chosen. Aven and Seif respond to Lundgren and Stefánsson’s argument and defend the de minimis principle as a “meaningful and useful perspective for handling risk in practice.” The response highlights (...) some aspects of the argument in Lundgren and Stefánsson that needs clarification, which is what we do in this note. (shrink)

Over the last fifty years a plethora of new spiritual practices has emerged in the Church of Sweden. Many fall within a category of holistic practices, aimed at engaging body, soul, and spirit. Among these, two categories are dominant: meditations and movement-based bodily practices. Some of these practices are contested by other Christians on a theological basis. The article asks: Who are the new ritual specialists teaching these practices? Why do they teach these practices? Why in the church? By using (...) a bottom-up perspective and studying practices which lie outside the traditional Christian religious rites, which has been the focus in research on the Church of Sweden, we find that the holistic practices are framed in a culture of care, focusing on bodily and spiritual wellbeing. We suggest that the predominance of women in body-movement practices should be understood as a generational feature rather than as an expression of the feminization of the church. Many of the leaders are women who were part of new spiritual movements as well as body-mind practices and various forms of dance in gyms and yoga studios in the 1990s and early 2000s, finding an openness to bringing their knowledge into the church. (shrink)

Inference has long been a concern in epistemology, as an essential means by which we extend our knowledge and test our beliefs. Inference is also a key notion in influential psychological or philosophical accounts of mental capacities, from perception via utterance comprehension to problem-solving. Consciousness, on the other hand, has arguably been the defining interest of philosophy of mind over recent decades. Comparatively little attention, however, has been devoted to the significance of consciousness for the proper understanding of the nature (...) and role of inference. It is commonly suggested that inference may be either conscious or unconscious. Yet how unified are these various supposed instances of inference? Does either enjoy explanatory priority in relation to the other? In what ways or senses, can an inference be conscious, or fail to be conscious, and how does this matter? This book brings together original essays from established scholars and emerging theorists that illustrate how several current debates in epistemology, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of mind can benefit from reflections on these and related questions about the significance of consciousness for inference. Contributors include: Kirk Ludwig and Wade Munroe; Michael Rescorla; Federico Bongiorno and Lisa Bortolotti; Berit Brogaard; Nicholas Allott; Jake Quilty-Dunn and Eric Mandelbaum; Corine Besson; Anders Nes; David Henderson, Terry Horgan, and Matjaž Potrč; Elijah Chudnoff; and Ram Neta. (shrink)

The purpose of the study was to investigate how numeracy and acuity of the approximate number system (ANS) relate to the calibration and coherence of probability judgments. Based on the literature on number cognition, a first hypothesis was that those with lower numeracy would maintain a less linear use of the probability scale, contributing to overconfidence and nonlinear calibration curves. A second hypothesis was that also poorer acuity of the ANS would be associated with overconfidence and non-linearity. A third hypothesis, (...) in line with dual-systems theory (e.g., Kahneman and Frederick, 2002 ) was that people higher in numeracy should have better access to the normative probability rules, allowing them to decrease the rate of conjunction fallacies. Data from 213 participants sampled from the Swedish population showed that: (i) in line with the first hypothesis, overconfidence and the linearity of the calibration curves were related to numeracy, where people higher in numeracy were well calibrated with zero overconfidence. (ii) ANS was not associated with overconfidence and non-linearity, disconfirming the second hypothesis. (iii) The rate of conjunction fallacies was slightly, but to a statistically significant degree decreased by numeracy, but still high at all numeracy levels. An unexpected finding was that participants with better ANS acuity gave more realistic estimates of their performance relative to others. (shrink)

BackgroundEthical problems in everyday healthcare work emerge for many reasons and constitute threats to ethical values. If these threats are not managed appropriately, there is a risk that the patient may be inflicted with moral harm or injury, while healthcare professionals are at risk of feeling moral distress. Therefore, it is essential to support the learning and development of ethical competencies among healthcare professionals and students. The aim of this study was to explore the available literature regarding ethics education that (...) promotes ethical competence learning for healthcare professionals and students undergoing training in healthcare professions.MethodsIn this integrative systematic review, literature was searched within the PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycInfo databases using the search terms ‘health personnel’, ‘students’, ‘ethics’, ‘moral’, ‘simulation’, and ‘teaching’. In total, 40 articles were selected for review. These articles included professionals from various healthcare professions and students who trained in these professions as subjects. The articles described participation in various forms of ethics education. Data were extracted and synthesised using thematic analysis.ResultsThe review identified the need for support to make ethical competence learning possible, which in the long run was considered to promote the ability to manage ethical problems. Ethical competence learning was found to be helpful to healthcare professionals and students in drawing attention to ethical problems that they were not previously aware of. Dealing with ethical problems is primarily about reasoning about what is right and in the patient’s best interests, along with making decisions about what needs to be done in a specific situation.ConclusionsThe review identified different designs and course content for ethics education to support ethical competence learning. The findings could be used to develop healthcare professionals’ and students’ readiness and capabilities to recognise as well as to respond appropriately to ethically problematic work situations. (shrink)

The philosophical–ethical literature and the public debate on autonomous vehicles have been obsessed with ethical issues related to crashing. In this article, these discussions, including more empirical investigations, will be critically assessed. It is argued that a related and more pressing issue is questions concerning safety. For example, what should we require from autonomous vehicles when it comes to safety? What do we mean by ‘safety’? How do we measure it? In response to these questions, the article will present a (...) foundation for a continued discussion on these issues and an argument for why discussions about safety should be prioritized over ethical concerns related to crashing. (shrink)

According to the class of de minimis decision principles, risks can be ignored (or at least treated very differently from other risks) if the risk is sufficiently small. In this article, we argue that a de minimis threshold has no place in a normative theory of decision making, because the application of the principle will either recommend ignoring risks that should not be ignored (e.g., the sure death of a person) or it cannot be used by ordinary bounded and information-constrained (...) agents. (shrink)

TOPICS DISCUSSED INCLUDE THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN, THE THEOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE NEW NATURAL SCIENCES, ARGUMENTS FROM MIRACLES, THE MEANING OF STATEMENTS ABOUT GOD, THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE IDEA OF GOD AND VARIOUS APOLOGETIC ARGUMENTS, AND ETHICAL AND META-ETHICAL THEORIES. (BP, EDITED).

Recently, Jakob Thraine Mainz and Rasmus Uhrenfeldt defended a control-based conception of a moral right to privacy —focusing on conceptualizing necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for a privacy right violation. This reply comments on a number of mistakes they make, which have long reverberated through the debate on the conceptions of privacy and the right to privacy and therefore deserve to be corrected. Moreover, the reply provides a sketch of a general response for defending the limited access conception of the (...) right to privacy against control-based intuitions. (shrink)

OBJECTIVES: To study and describe how a group of senior researchers and a group of postgraduate students perceived the so-called "grey zone" between normal scientific practice and obvious misconduct. DESIGN: A questionnaire concerning various practices including dishonesty and obvious misconduct. The answers were obtained by means of a visual analogue scale (VAS). The central (two quarters) of the VAS were designated as a grey zone. SETTING: A Swedish medical faculty. SURVEY SAMPLE: 30 senior researchers and 30 postgraduate students. RESULTS: Twenty (...) of the senior researchers and 25 of the postgraduate students answered the questionnaire. In five cases out of 14 the senior researchers' median was found to be clearly within the interval of the grey zone, compared with three cases for the postgraduate students. Three examples of experienced misconduct were provided. Compared with postgraduate students, established researchers do not call for more research ethical guidelines and restrictions. CONCLUSION: Although the results indicate that consensus exists regarding certain obvious types of misconduct the response pattern also indicates that there is no general consensus on several procedures. (shrink)

It has often been said that discourse ethics as developed by Jürgen Habermas can be understood as a dialogical continuation of the monological ethics developed by Immanuel Kant, as formulated in the categorical imperative in Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Like Kant’s categorical imperative, Habermas’ principle of universalization specifies a rule for impartial testing of norms for their moral worthiness. This article will substantiate that discourse ethics develops a dialogical version of the categorical imperative, and will make this explicit. (...) This is done by presenting a new interpretation of the Kantian ethics. Renewing the traditional understanding, four instead of two or three formulations of the categorical imperative are identified. Finally it is shown how this interpretation relates to Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics. This analysis shows that one must specify which formulation of the categorical imperative one is talking about when discussing it. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that sufficientarian principles are indispensable in the set of principles that have bearing on issues in distributive ethics. I provide two arguments in favor of this claim. First, I argue that sufficientarianism is the only framework that allows us to appropriately analyze what sort of obligations we have toward individuals who are badly off due to their own faults and choices. Second, I argue that sufficientarianism is the only theory that provides an adequate framework for (...) thinking about the desperately badly off. (shrink)

Perceptual processes differ from cognitive, this paper argues, in functioning to be causally controlled by proximal stimuli, and being modular, at least in a modest sense that excludes their being isotropic in Jerry Fodor's sense. This claim agrees with such theorists as Jacob Beck and Ben Phillips that a function of stimulus-control is needed for perceptual status. In support of this necessity claim, I argue, inter alia, that E.J. Green's recent architectural account misclassifies processes deploying knowledge of grammar as perceptual. (...) _Pace_ Beck and Phillips, however, I argue a function of stimulus-control is insufficient for perceptual as opposed to cognitive status. One consideration in favour of such insufficiency, noted but (I argue) not convincingly rebutted by these theorists, concerns perpetually grounded demonstrative thought. Two other considerations trade on the fact that a function of stimulus-control can arise not from blind nature but intentional design or social institutions, where so-functioning processes may but need not be perceptual. I offer two cases where such processes are cognitive, viz. skilful play-by-play announcing of ongoing events, and voluntary visualizing of ongoing events under the guidance of apt play-by-play announcements, dubbed announcement-driven visualizing (ADV). The cognitive status of these three diverse phenomena cannot be explained by an absence of a perception-like representational format or content (for ADV has such) or by a presence of personal-level mental states causally mediating between stimuli and outputs (for perception has such). A bettter explanation invokes, I argue, the non-modular character of the generating process. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss anonymity and the threats against it—in the form of deanonymization technologies. The question in the title is approached by conceptual analysis: I ask what kind of concept we need and how it ought to be conceptualized given what is really at stake. By what is at stake I mean the values that are threatened by various deanonymization technologies. It will be argued that while previous conceptualizations of anonymity may be reasonable—given a standard (...) lexical, or common-sense, understanding of the term—the concept of anonymity is not sufficient given what is really at stake. I will argue that what is at stake is our ability to be anonymous, which I will broadly characterize as a reasonable control over what we communicate. (shrink)

The orthodox view of proper names, Millianism, provides a very simple and elegant explanation of the semantic contribution of referential uses of names–names that occur as bare singulars and as the argument of a predicate. However, one problem for Millianism is that it cannot explain the semantic contribution of predicative uses of names. In recent years, an alternative view, so-called the-predicativism, has become increasingly popular. According to the-predicativists, names are uniformly count nouns. This straightforwardly explains why names can be used (...) predicatively, but is prima facie less congenial to an analysis of referential uses. To address this issue, the-predicativists argue that referential names are in fact complex determiner phrases consisting of a covert definite determiner and a count noun—and so, a referential name is a definite description. In this paper, I will argue that despite the appearance of increased theoretical complexity, the view that names are ambiguous between predicative and referential types is in fact superior to the unitary the-predicativist view. However, I will also argue that to see why this ambiguity view is better, we need to give up the standard Millian analysis. Consequently, I will first propose an alternative analysis of referential names that retains the virtues of Millianism, but provides an important explanatory connection to the predicative uses. Once this analysis of names is adopted, the explanation for why names are systematically ambiguous between referential and predicative types is both simple and elegant. Second, I will argue that the-predicativism has the appearance of being simpler than an ambiguity view, but is in fact unable to account for certain key properties of referential names without making ad hoc stipulations. (shrink)

In 2017, Tom Gruber held a TED talk, in which he presented a vision of improving and enhancing humanity with AI technology. Specifically, Gruber suggested that an AI-improved personal memory (APM) would benefit people by improving their “mental gain”, making us more creative, improving our “social grace”, enabling us to do “science on our own data about what makes us feel good and stay healthy”, and, for people suffering from dementia, it “could make a difference between a life of isolation (...) and a life of dignity and connection”. -/- In this paper, Gruber’s idea will be critically assessed. Firstly, it will be argued that most of his pro-arguments for the APM are questionable. Secondly, the APM will also be criticized for other reasons, including the risks and affects to the users’ and other’s privacy and the users’ autonomy. (shrink)

MILLIANISM and DESCRIPTIVISM are without question the two most prominent views with respect to the semantics of proper names. However, debates between MILLIANS and DESCRIPTIVISTS have tended to focus on a fairly narrow set of linguistic data and an equally narrow set of problems, mainly how to solve with Frege's puzzle and how to guarantee rigidity. In this article, the author focuses on a set of data that has been given less attention in these debates—namely, so-called predicative uses, bound uses, (...) and shifted uses of names. The author first shows that these data points seem to favor a DESCRIPTIVIST view over a MILLIAN view, but the author then introduces an alternative view of names that not only provides a simple and elegant way of dealing with the data, but also retains rigidity without becoming subject to the problems raised by Frege's puzzle. This is the view that names are variables, also called VARIABILISM. (shrink)

Todd (2016) proposes an analysis of future-directed sentences, in particular sentences of the form 'will(φ)', that is based on the classic Russellian analysis of definite descriptions. Todd's analysis is supposed to vindicate the claim that the future is metaphysically open while retaining a simple Ockhamist semantics of future contingents and the principles of classical logic, i.e. bivalence and the law of excluded middle. Consequently, an open futurist can straightforwardly retain classical logic without appeal to supervaluations, determinacy operators, or any further (...) controversial semantical or metaphysical complication. In this paper, we will show that this quasi-Russellian analysis of 'will' both lacks linguistic motivation and faces a variety of significant problems. In particular, we show that the standard arguments for Russell's treatment of definite descriptions fail to apply to statements of the form 'will(φ)'. (shrink)

Background: Working as an ambulance nurse involves facing ethically problematic situations with multi-dimensional suffering, requiring the ability to create a trustful relationship. This entails a need to be clinically trained in order to identify ethical conflicts. Aim: To describe ethical conflicts in patient relationships as experienced by ambulance nursing students during clinical studies. Research design: An exploratory and interpretative design was used to inductively analyse textual data from examinations in clinical placement courses. Participants: The 69 participants attended a 1-year educational (...) programme for ambulance nurses at a Swedish university. Ethical consideration: The research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Participants gave voluntary informed consent for this study. Findings: The students encountered ethical conflicts in patient relationships when they had inadequate access to the patient’s narrative. Doubts regarding patient autonomy were due to uncertainty regarding the patient’s decision-making ability, which forced students to handle patient autonomy. Conflicting assessments of the patient’s best interest added to the conflicts and also meant a disruption in patient focus. The absence of trustful relationships reinforced the ethical conflicts, together with an inadequacy in meeting different needs, which limited the possibility of providing proper care. Discussion: Contextual circumstances add complexity to ethical conflicts regarding patient autonomy, dependency and the patient’s best interest. Students felt they were fluctuating between paternalism and letting the patient choose, and were challenged by considerations regarding the patient’s communication and decision-making ability, the views of third parties, and the need for prioritisation. Conclusion: The essence of the patient relationship is a struggle to preserve autonomy while focusing on the patient’s best interest. Hence, there is a need for education and training that promotes ethical knowledge and ethical reflection focusing on the core nursing and caring values of trust and autonomy, particularly in situations that affect the patient’s decision-making ability. (shrink)

This article is about the role of factual uncertainty for moral decision-making as it concerns the ethics of machine decision-making. The view that is defended here is that factual uncertainties require a normative evaluation and that ethics of machine decision faces a triple-edged problem, which concerns what a machine ought to do, given its technical constraints, what decisional uncertainty is acceptable, and what trade-offs are acceptable to decrease the decisional uncertainty.

That wonder is educationally important will strike many people as obvious. And in a way it is obvious, because being capable of experiencing wonder implies an openness to experience and seems naturally allied to intrinsic educational motivation, an eagerness to inquire, a desire to understand, and also to a willingness to suspend judgement and bracket existing—potentially limiting—ways of thinking, seeing, and categorising. Yet wonder is not a single thing, and it is important to distinguish at least two kinds of wonder: (...) active wonder, which entails a drive to explore, to find out, to explain; and deep or contemplative wonder, which is not inherently inquisitive like active wonder and, as a response to mystery, may leave us lost for words. Claims for wonder's importance to education and science often do not distinguish between the two, but whereas for active wonder that importance seems obvious, this is much less so for deep wonder, which by its very nature rather seems to be anti-educational. Yet in this paper I explore exactly the educational importance of deep wonder. This importance is found to lie, not just in its motivational effects—real though they are—but in making us attend to the world for its own sake, and making us aware of the limits of our understanding. (shrink)

Depression is a highly recurrent disorder with limited treatment alternatives for reducing risk of subsequent episodes. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and attention bias modification (ABM) separately have shown some promise in reducing depressive symptoms. This study investigates (a) if group-based ACT had a greater impact in reducing residual symptoms of depression over a 12-month follow-up than a control condition, and (b) if preceding ACT with ABM produced added benefits. This multisite study consisted of two phases. In phase 1, participants (...) with a history of depression, currently in remission (N= 244), were randomized to either receive 14 days of ABM or a control condition. In phase 2, a quasi- experimental design was adopted, and only phase-1 participants from the Sørlandet site (N= 124) next received an 8-week group-based ACT intervention. Self-reported and clinician-rated depression symptoms were assessed at baseline, immediately after phase 1 and at 1, 2, 6, and 12 months after the conclusion of phase 1. At 12-month follow-up, participants who received ACT exhibited fewer self-reported and clinician-rated depressive symptoms. There were no significant differences between ACT groups preceded by ABM or a control condition. There were no significant differences between ACT groups preceded by ABM or a control condition. Group-based ACT successfully decreased residual symptoms in depression over 12 months, suggesting some promise in preventing relapse. (shrink)

New technologies and practices, such as drug testing, genetic testing, and electronic surveillance infringe upon the privacy of workers on workplaces. We argue that employees have a prima facie right to privacy, but this right can be overridden by competing moral principles that follow, explicitly or implicitly, from the contract of employment. We propose a set of criteria for when intrusions into an employee''s privacy are justified. Three types of justification are specified, namely those that refer to the employer''s interests, (...) to the interests of the employee her- or himself, and to the interests of third parties such as customers and fellow workers. For each of these three types, sub-criteria are proposed that can be used to determine whether a particular infringement into an employee''s privacy is morally justified or not. (shrink)

Let me, to begin with, outline the main points of my paper. First of all, I shall draw a very basic distinction between three parts or aspects of reality. I shall then go on to claim that there are certain kinds of understanding and explanation which correspond to each of these three parts, and to discuss the sort of experience these different kinds of understanding involve. Within this perspective, religion will emerge as one kind of understanding and explanation, different from (...) and parallel to scientific understanding. Having reached this point in the argument, we shall be able to see one demarcation-line between scientific and religious understanding, and to offer one explanation why this demarcation-line is changing and culturally dependent. The next step, leading to Part II of my paper, claims that our attempt to understand our situation in the world involves the formation of an overall or ‘total’ view, an all-inclusive picture of reality. I shall then go on to discuss how the different kinds of understanding explained in Part I affect the formation of a total view. This leads to a classification of world-views into four main types, corresponding to the former distinctions. In this scheme, we see how religion can be a kind of understanding different from but dependent on that pointed out in Part I, and bearing a complicated relation to scientific understanding. In explaining this I shall also discuss the reasonableness of different world-views. (shrink)

This paper discusses Hans-Georg Gadamer’s account of what he sees as a major change in the approach to the Western philosophical and aesthetic traditions that began in the second half of the eighteenth century, and the results of this change today. According to Gadamer, these traditions ceased to be binding at this time and became objects of historical research. Instead of being seen even as potential sources of insight, traditional knowledge claims and works of art were subjected to historical and (...) aesthetic analysis. And Gadamer holds that these approaches have partially come to encompass the present as well. Thus, modern art has often downplayed cognitive and pedagogical tasks in proceeding in a purely aesthetic, playful way. And the study of history has been seen as providing insight into the contextually determined nature of presuppositions, those of the modern age included. According to Gadamer, this unduly limits the possibilities of both art and history to provide learning. (shrink)

The article takes the first steps towards a general theory of civil society elites, a concept not fully developed in either elite or civil society research. This conceptual gap hampers academic and public understanding of the dynamics at the top of civil society. To address this, the authors rely on the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu to build a theory of civil society elites as managers of civic capital. This role is illustrated through examples from the differently institutionalised UK and (...) Nordic civil societies. The first part of the article introduces the notion of civic capital and its emergence during the 19th century. The second part focuses on elite positions in civil society fields, demonstrating how civil society elites, as managers of civic capital, navigate between their constituents and other elite groups. These elites wield the power to consecrate social relations while misrecognising their own symbolic and economic gains. Recent scandals in the climate movement and UK and Nordic civil societies shed light on the symbolic aspects of the positions of civil society elites. This comprehensive analysis contributes to elite and civil society research and enriches public discussions about the role of civil society leaders in society. (shrink)

The-Predicativism is the view that names are count nouns. For example, the meaning of the name ‘Louise’ is roughly the property of being called Louise. Moreover, proponents of this view maintain that names that are ostensibly in argument position of a predicate are covert definite descriptions. In recent years, The-Predicativism has acquired a number of new supporters, mainly Elbourne (), Matushansky (), and Fara (). And while it was pointed out by Kripke () that these kinds of views generally struggle (...) with capturing the rigidity of proper names, these new views are alleged to solve this problem. In this paper I argue that the more recent versions of the view continue to struggle. In particular, I show that the views fail to provide an explanatory and/or empirically adequate analysis of rigidity. My discussions of these views are then supplemented with a general diagnosis of the problem and an explanation of why it is unlikely to be solved by The-Predicativism. (shrink)

This article analyzes approaches to nondeterminacy that suggest that one can make justified choices when primary criteria fail to fully determine a best alternative by introducing a secondary criterion. It is shown that these approaches risk violating Basic Contraction Consistency. Some ways of adjusting two-step models in order to protect against this are addressed, and it is suggested that proponents of two-step models should adopt formal conditions which qualify what counts as a permissible secondary criterion that resemble supervaluationist conditions that (...) qualify what counts as admissible precisifications of vague terms. (shrink)

That wonder is educationally important will strike many people as obvious. And in a way it is obvious, because being capable of experiencing wonder implies an openness to experience and seems naturally allied to intrinsic educational motivation, an eagerness to inquire, a desire to understand, and also to a willingness to suspend judgement and bracket existing—potentially limiting—ways of thinking, seeing, and categorising. Yet wonder is not a single thing, and it is important to distinguish at least two kinds of wonder: (...) active wonder, which entails a drive to explore, to find out, to explain; and deep or contemplative wonder, which is not inherently inquisitive like active wonder and, as a response to mystery, may leave us lost for words. Claims for wonder's importance to education and science often do not distinguish between the two, but whereas for active wonder that importance seems obvious, this is much less so for deep wonder, which by its very nature rather seems to be anti-educational. Yet in this paper I explore exactly the educational importance of deep wonder. This importance is found to lie, not just in its motivational effects—real though they are—but in making us attend to the world for its own sake, and making us aware of the limits of our understanding. (shrink)