The first edition of Hugo Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis was published in Paris by Nicolas Buon in 1625. An unauthorised second edition appeared in Frankfurt a year later, from the reputable Wechel press. After Grotius made hundreds of changes to the first and second states of the first edition, and failed to convince the publisher Nicolas Buon of the merits of printing yet another edition of the book, the Wechels’s release of a new edition sought to capitalise on (...) the high demand for the text, as copies had sold out in Central Europe by the summer of 1625. In this preliminary report on the 1626 edition, using online and card catalogues, we have located 59 surviving copies. We examined thirteen copies in person, and another three fully digitised copies online, and on the basis of this small sample we have been able to draw a number of conclusions. We hope that this research note on preliminary results will generate interest in this unduly neglected edition, and that readers will kindly bring further copies to our attention. (shrink)

Hugo Grotius’s best-known work, De iure belli ac pacis, appeared in 1625 in Paris with the author’s approval. A second unauthorised version was published in 1626 in Frankfurt. In 1631 the Amsterdam publisher, Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571–1638), issued the third edition, this one authorised by the author – and this edition featured nearly a thousand revisions by Grotius. The purpose of this report is to analyse the context behind the publication of this third edition and the copies’ provenance records. Using (...) online and card catalogues, we have located 154 copies. We examined 52 copies in person, and another three fully digitised copies online. We hope that this research note on preliminary results will generate greater interest in this unduly neglected edition, and that readers will kindly bring further copies to our attention. (shrink)

This is the fourth instalment of our census and study of the reception of the first nine editions of De iure belli ac pacis. Here we focus on the two versions that Johannes Janssonius issued in 1632, one with a copy of Mare liberum attached to it. This report outlines the place of the 1632 Janssonius edition in the context of his long-running rivalry with the printer Willem Blaeu and his firm. It then explores the typographical differences between the two (...) issues, their causes, and their significance for our understanding of the reception of the text. Finally, it provides the preliminary results of the census concerning the circulation and provenance of the fifty-three copies of this edition that we have found. We hope that this research note on the preliminary results will attract interest in this edition and that readers will kindly inform us of further copies. (shrink)

This article constitutes the sixth instalment in our series on the census and study of the reception of the first nine editions of De iure belli ac pacis. This edition has long held a prominent place in studies and editions of Grotius’s work since it was the last published during his lifetime. The report first outlines the genesis of the edition in the context of Grotius’s relationship with Johann Blaeu (1596–1673) and Cornelius Blaeu (1610–1642), who had recently inherited the Blaeu (...) print firm from their father Willem. It then elucidates a number of crucial ways in which the 1642 edition differed from the five previous editions, especially via the addition of an extensive new series of annotations to ibp and a separate set addressed to the Epistle of Philemon. Finally, it concludes by providing the preliminary results of the census concerning the one hundred and twenty-one copies we have found. (shrink)

This article provides new information on the printing and readership history of the fifth edition of De iure belli ac pacis. Building on our earlier research on the way that the dispute between Willem Janszoon Blaeu and Johannes Janssonius influenced the publication of the 1631 edition of the text, this article studies how Blaeu harnessed his position to make the 1632 edition more reputable than the earlier version published by his rival. The article considers how, over four centuries, readers have (...) appreciated the quality of the production and three engaged with the text for radically different ends: Remigius Faesch, Baron von Boineburg, and Wendell Phillips. The article draws attention to the changes and continuities in reading and annotation patterns and offers preliminary insights into the themes that these influential readers focused on. We hope that it will inspire readers to bring further copies to our attention. (shrink)

This article provides new information on the publication history of the first edition of the text that, according to many scholars, laid the ground for the growth of international law: Hugo Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis. Drawing on the preliminary findings of the Grotius Census Project at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the following pages shed light on the first three states of the typescript, the (...) sources that Grotius had access to in France while drafting the book, and the early circulation of the 1625 edition, published by Nicolas Buon in Paris. The goal of this publication is to disseminate updated information on the printing history of this key text in the history of legal and political thought, and to invite readers to come forward with more information about the location of the remaining copies of the text, in order to advance our understanding of the rise of international law around the world. (shrink)

De la identidad literaria salvadoreña como exilio, se examina la obra clásica de nueve autores. Al aplicar una perspectiva psicoanalítica, el ensayo toma como punto de partida una tarjeta que Roque Dalton envió desde Cuba a una amante lejana en El Salvador. La escritura establece la deuda y la memoria como principios rectores para recuperar el pasado. Un compromiso subjetivo con el objeto del amor perdido la patria y la amante dicta el movimiento de la inscripción poética. Esta ausencia del (...) cuerpo a recuperar se aplica en seguida, en primer lugar, a Francisco Gavidia, que funda el indigenismo salvadoreño, utilizando técnicas literarias europeas, con lo cual ignora las lenguas indígenas, luego a Alberto Masferrer, que se retrata sufriendo las tribulaciones y la pasión de Cristo en el exilio, antes de construir un proyecto político de país. En tercer lugar, Arturo Ambrogi percibe en el campesino salvadoreño al poeta medieval localizado en un locus amoenus, encantado por la belleza del campo. Francisco Miranda Ruano inaugura una visión más trágica, ya que su salida de la ciudad para recrear el esplendor del campo concluye con su regreso a los suburbios pobres, antes de suicidarse. En quinto lugar, Salarrué mezcla fantasía y realismo para retratar sus diversas máscaras o personajes, así como para disimular la violencia sexual y racial. Según el proverbio español “el hábito hace al monje”, el ser y los actos se juzgan siempre por la apariencia. Claudia Lars prescribe un movimiento dual, primero para sustituir su nombre real, Carmen Brannon, por su seudónimo literario, y luego para recuperar su infancia de sus habilidades adultas, que ella desarrolla, gracias al legado poético de su padre extranjero. Los hermanos Alfred y Miguel Ángel Espino proponen un patrimonio complejo. Si el primero idealiza el campo en una recuperación nostálgica del vientre materno cuya contrapartida nombra al amante imposible que lo inclina al suicidio, el segundo apunta a restituir una educación verdaderamente americana, sin revitalización alguna de las lenguas indígenas ni de su tierra ancestral confiscada. José Napoleón Rodríguez Ruiz estipula cómo solo un recuerdo lejano recupera un relato testimonial del pasado. Al vaticinar un tema de actualidad -el acoso sexual y la migración, su personaje campesino narra cómo el exilio reinventa su identidad rural. Finalmente, en un retorno sinodal, desde lejos, Dalton replica la nostalgia de Rubén Darío por ser alguien más de lo que es a la hora de recrear sus años de formación como poeta. En resumen, este bosquejo de nueve autores del siglo XX delinea no solo cómo una idea de exilio anticipa la diáspora actual. El ensayo también sugiere cómo los estudios culturales continúan una nostálgica recuperación de la memoria por una revolución sinódica, y reclama la actualidad de aquellos autores consagrados en un canon literario monolingüe. (shrink)

Lara Buchak sets out a new account of rational decision-making in the face of risk. She argues that the orthodox view is too narrow, and suggests an alternative, more permissive theory: one that allows individuals to pay attention to the worst-case or best-case scenario, and vindicates the ordinary decision-maker.

There are currently two robust traditions in philosophy dealing with doxastic attitudes: the tradition that is concerned primarily with all-or-nothing belief, and the tradition that is concerned primarily with degree of belief or credence. This paper concerns the relationship between belief and credence for a rational agent, and is directed at those who may have hoped that the notion of belief can either be reduced to credence or eliminated altogether when characterizing the norms governing ideally rational agents. It presents a (...) puzzle which lends support to two theses. First, that there is no formal reduction of a rational agent’s beliefs to her credences, because belief and credence are each responsive to different features of a body of evidence. Second, that if our traditional understanding of our practices of holding each other responsible is correct, then belief has a distinctive role to play, even for ideally rational agents, that cannot be played by credence. The question of which avenues remain for the credence-only theorist is considered. (shrink)

The good of those who are worse off matters more to the overall good than the good of those who are better off does. But being worse off than one’s fellows is not itself bad; nor is inequality itself bad; nor do differences in well-being matter more when well-being is lower in an absolute sense. Instead, the good of the relatively worse-off weighs more heavily in the overall good than the good of the relatively better-off does, in virtue of the (...) fact that the former are relatively worse off. This paper articulates and defends the view just described. (shrink)

Suppose we want to do the most good we can with a particular sum of money, but we cannot be certain of the consequences of different ways of making use of it. This article explores how our attitudes towards risk and ambiguity bear on what we should do. It shows that risk-avoidance and ambiguity-aversion can each provide good reason to divide our money between various charitable organizations rather than to give it all to the most promising one. It also shows (...) how different attitudes towards risk and ambiguity affect whether we should give to an organization which does a small amount of good for certain or to one which does a large amount of good with some small or unknown probability. (shrink)

In this book, Lara Ostaric argues that Kant’s seminal Critique of Judgment is properly understood as completing his Critical system. The two seemingly disparate halves of the text are unified under this larger project insofar as both aesthetic and teleological judgment indirectly exhibit the final end of reason, the Ideas of the highest good and the postulates, as if obtaining in nature. She relates Kant’s discussion of aesthetic and teleological judgment to important yet under-explored concepts in his philosophy, and (...) helps the reader to recognize the relevance of his aesthetics and teleology for our understanding of fine arts and genius, the possibility of pure judgments of ugliness, Kant’s philosophy of history, his philosophy of religion, and his conception of autonomy. Ostaric’s novel and thoroughly integrative presentation of Kant’s system will be of interest not only to Kant scholars but also to those working in religious studies, art history, political theory, and intellectual history. (shrink)

Many view cancellation as a method for holding influential personalities accountable for bad behavior, while others think cancelling amounts to censorship and bullying. I hold that neither of these accounts are worth pursuing, especially if the aim is social progress. In this paper, I offer a situated account of cancellation and cancel culture, locating the phenomenon in our exclusionary history while examining the social dynamics of belief. When we situate cancel culture, we can see how problematic instances of cancelling are (...) embedded in ignorance. While combatting ignorance appears to call for a remedy rooted in feminist standpoint epistemology, there are risks in adopting naive practices of deference. Applying criticisms of epistemic injustice and adopting Táíwò’s elite capture framework, I explain how well-intentioned cancelling can work against social movements. Since epistemic trust mechanisms discourage self-reflection and belief revision, the relevant tactics for enacting social change—coalition politics and education—seem out of reach. I conclude by sketching cancel culture as a diagnostic tool: cancellation can be used appropriately in marginalized communities, but when it comes to combatting ignorance among privileged folks, we should view cancel culture as a method for determining where our social institutions are failing us. (shrink)

Conceptions of evil have changed dramatically over time, and though humans continue to commit acts of cruelty against one another, today we possess a clearer, more moral way of analyzing them. In _Narrating Evil_, María Pía Lara explores what has changed in our understanding of evil, why the transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's and Hannah Arendt's ideas about reflective judgment, Lara argues that narrative plays a key role (...) in helping societies acknowledge their pasts. Particular stories haunt our consciousness and lead to a kind of examination and dialogue that shape notions of morality. A powerful description of a crime can act as a filter, helping us to draw conclusions about what constitutes a moral wrong, and public debates over these narratives allow us to construct a more accurate picture of historical truth, leading to a better understanding of why such actions are possible. In building her argument, Lara considers Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's depictions of evil, Joseph Conrad's literary metaphors, and movies that portray human cruelty. Turning to such philosophers and writers as Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, and Ariel Dorfman, Lara defines a reflexive relationship between an event, the narrative of the event, and the public reception of the narrative, and she proves that the stories of perpetrators and sufferers are always intertwined. The process of disclosure, debate, and the public fashioning of collective judgment are vital methods through which we make sense not only of new forms of cruelty but of past crimes as well. _Narrating Evil_ describes the steps of this process and why they are a crucial part of our attempt to build a different, more just world. (shrink)

One phenomenon arising in epistemic life is allegiance to, and break from, a tradition. This phenomenon has three central features. First, individuals who adhere to a tradition seem to respond dogmatically to evidence against their tradition. Second, individuals from different traditions appear to see the same evidence differently. And third, conversion from one tradition to another appears to be different in kind from ordinary belief shift. This paper uses recent work on the nature and rationality of faith to show that (...) these features can all emerge from individuals acting rationally—in particular, from individuals rationally having faith in the core assumptions of their traditions. One upshot is that we don't need to employ the idea of incommensurability to explain these features. (shrink)

This paper provides an account of what it is to have faith in a proposition p, in both religious and mundane contexts. It is argued that faith in p doesn’t require adopting a degree of belief that isn’t supported by one’s evidence but rather it requires terminating one’s search for further evidence and acting on the supposition that p. It is then shown, by responding to a formal result due to I.J. Good, that doing so can be rational in a (...) number of circumstances. If expected utility theory is the correct account of practical rationality, then having faith can be both epistemically and practically rational if the costs associated with gathering further evidence or postponing the decision are high. If a more permissive framework is adopted, then having faith can be rational even when there are no costs associated with gathering further evidence. (shrink)

Comprendemos la necesidad de abandonar visiones de la naturaleza humana onmicomprensivas y definitivas; sin embargo, los desarrollos tecnobiológicos y tecnobiocráticos parecen obligarnos a la paradoja de tener que proponer límites para lo humano, sin poder creer en ellos como antes. Tal paradoja, que opera tanto en las expectativas epistémicas de las ciencias naturales y humanas, como en el debate y la opinión pública en el mundo globalizado, también reta a la filosofía: ¿por qué resulta necesario trazar esa frontera entre lo (...) humano y lo inhumano? ¿Qué tipo de frontera puede ser? ¿Es posible trazar esa frontera?. We understand the need to abandon all-encompassing and definitive perceptions of human nature. However, techno-biological and techno-biocratical developments seem to paradoxically require us to propose boundaries for what is human without being able to believe in these boundaries as before. Such a paradox, which operates both in the epistemic expectations of the natural and human sciences and in debate and public opinion in the globalized world, also poses a challenge to philosophy. Why is it necessary to draw this boundary between the human and the non-human? What type of boundary might this be? Is it even possible to draw such a boundary? (shrink)

Arendt’s reflections on the reverberations of the bureaucratic way of governing give rise to two distinct and, above all, complementary argumentative trajectories: 1) its investigation as a form of domination originating from imperialism and later used as a model of totalitarian; 2) the role of bureaucrats. Both help to understand why the bureaucracy not only survived the fall of totalitarian regimes, but also remained the organizational model of nations. At the intersection of these readings, the essay “Auschwitz on Trial” presents (...) two types of participants in the Nazi bureaucratic apparatus: bureaucratic assassins (desk murderes) and subordinate men. In common among them was a lack of responsibility for the crimes perpetrated by the regime and thoughtlessness; however, their degree of participation in the hierarchy and their punishability in post-war trials differed greatly. In these terms, this article aims to analyze the similarities and differences between subordinate men and bureaucratic murderers. To do so, it is assumed that understanding them helps to understand bureaucracy as a form of government that makes public freedom and the free exercise of spiritual activities unfeasible. (shrink)

The ‘rollback argument,’ pioneered by Peter van Inwagen, purports to show that indeterminism in any form is incompatible with free will. The argument has two major premises: the first claims that certain facts about chances obtain in a certain kind of hypothetical situation, and the second that these facts entail that some actual act is not free. Since the publication of the rollback argument, the second claim has been vehemently debated, but everyone seems to have taken the first claim for (...) granted. Nevertheless, the first claim is totally unjustified. Even if we accept the second claim, therefore, the argument gives us no reason to think that free will and indeterminism are incompatible. Furthermore, seeing where the rollback argument goes wrong illuminates how a certain kind of incompatibilist, the ‘chance-incompatibilist,’ ought to think about free will and chance, and points to a possibility for free will that has remained largely unexplored. (shrink)

Certain ethical views hold that we should pay more attention, even exclusive attention, to the worst-case scenario. Prominent examples include Rawls's Difference Principle and the Precautionary Principle. These views can be anchored in formal principles of decision theory, in two different ways. On the one hand, they can rely on ambiguity-aversion: the idea that we cannot assign sharp probabilities to various scenarios, and that if we cannot assign sharp probabilities, we should decide pessimistically, as if the probabilities are unfavorable. On (...) the other hand, they can rely on risk-avoidance: the idea that we should pay more attention to worse scenarios, even when we can assign sharp probabilities. I distinguish these two foundations. I also show how they can be modified to support versions of these views that pay more but not exclusive attention to worst-case scenarios. Finally, I argue that risk-avoidance provides a superior foundation than ambiguity-aversion for the Difference Principle and the Precautionary Principle; in particular, it correctly identifies which ethical facts should matter to those who champion these principles. (shrink)

Postmodern political critiques speak of the death of ideology, the end of history, and the postsecular return of religious attitudes, yet radical conservative theorists such as Mark Lilla argue religion and politics are inextricably intertwined. Returning much-needed uncertainty to debates over the political while revitalizing the very terms in which they are defined, María Pía Lara explores the ambiguity of secularization and the theoretical potential of a structural break between politics and religion. For Lara, secularization means three things: (...) the translation of religious semantics into politics; a transformation of religious notions into political ideas; and the reoccupation of a space left void by changing political actors that gives rise to new conceptions of political interaction. Conceptual innovation redefines politics as a horizontal relationship between governments and the governed and better enables societies (and individual political actors) to articulate meaning through action--that is, through the emergence of new concepts. These actions, Lara proves, radically transform our understanding of politics and the role of political agents and are further enhanced by challenging the structural dependence of politics on religious phenomena. (shrink)

In the peer disagreement debate, three intuitively attractive claims seem to conflict: there is disagreement among peers on many important matters; peer disagreement is a serious challenge to one’s own opinion; and yet one should be able to maintain one’s opinion on important matters. I show that contrary to initial appearances, we can accept all three of these claims. Disagreement significantly shifts the balance of the evidence; but with respect to certain kinds of claims, one should nonetheless retain one’s beliefs. (...) And one should retain them even though these beliefs would not be supported by the new total evidence if one didn’t already hold them. (shrink)

Decision theory has at its core a set of mathematical theorems that connect rational preferences to functions with certain structural properties. The components of these theorems, as well as their bearing on questions surrounding rationality, can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Philosophy’s current interest in decision theory represents a convergence of two very different lines of thought, one concerned with the question of how one ought to act, and the other concerned with the question of what action consists (...) in and what it reveals about the actor’s mental states. As a result, the theory has come to have two different uses in philosophy, which we might call the normative use and the interpretive use. It also has a related use that is largely within the domain of psychology, the descriptive use. This essay examines the historical development of decision theory and its uses; the relationship between the norm of decision theory and the notion of rationality; and the interdependence of the uses of decision theory. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to elaborate on the concept of prefiguration by outlining the necessity of its contribution to a progressive public philosophy for the 2020s. In the introduction, I explain how the object of critique for many social theorists has shifted over the course of the last decade from neoliberal globalization to capitalism understood as an encompassing form of life. In light of this, I enumerate the features that should define a progressive public philosophy: radical, emancipatory, and (...) decolonized. The introduction is followed by an overview of the academic debates emerging after the North Atlantic financial crisis of 2007–8. Among these, accelerationism fundamentally rejects the incorporation of prefigurative politics in any emancipatory political agenda. To better understand this position, I examine the origin and meaning of prefiguration and prefigurative practices in more detail in Section III. In it, I argue that prefigurative politics entails a holistic approach to social change that digs its roots in feminist and ecological thought and focuses on social reproduction and the preservation of life rather than solely economic production. Subsequently, I deploy the case of Occupy Wall Street to show that a growing number of contemporary social movements are implementing a dualistic strategy that simultaneously combines repertoires of action typical of protest movements with prefigurative practices focused on the embodiment of alternatives. This dualism, along with the limited success of Occupy Wall Street in concretizing its claims and goals, has led prefigurative politics to being labelled as incompatible with, if not even hindering, any emancipatory strategy. My argument instead is that prefigurative politics constitutes a fundamental and necessary component of any political strategy aimed at transcending contemporary capitalism since it conceives progressive social change in an ontologically and epistemologically different way with respect to political parties and protest movements. Taking this into consideration, I conclude that conventional politics and prefigurative politics can be seen as having the potential to mutually reinforce each other and that prefigurative politics should be acknowledged as a pivotal concept in establishing a progressive public philosophy for the 2020s. Only by doing so, will this philosophy be truly radical, emancipatory, and decolonial. (shrink)

Anne Phillips argues that definitions of the human are a trap for the political claims to equality contained in humanitarianism or human rights discourse. However, defining the human also hides the ontological and political problem addressed by the Philosophical Anthropology. There is an ethical and political stake in the philosophical anthropology of the last century when it insists on the indefinability of the human. With this, it criticizes the politics implicit in the definition of the human. And also, it questions (...) the metaphysical positions that the act of defining implies. -/- //// La lógica de inclusión/exclusión presente en toda definición de lo humano no solo es una trampa para las reivindicaciones políticas de la igualdad contenidas en el humanitarismo o el discurso de los derechos humanos, como ha argumentado Anne Phillips, sino que también oblitera la problemática ontológica contenida en la pregunta fundamental de toda antropología filosófica y su correspondiente dimensión práctica. Las tesis de la indefinibilidad del ser humano y la problematicidad ontológica constitutiva de lo humano —desarrolladas por la antropología filosófica crítica del último siglo— cuestionan toda política de la definición de lo humano y las posturas metafísicas que tales políticas implican. Por ello, el artículo también pone en cuestión la imagen negativa del aporte de la antropología filosófica a la ética y la filosofía social. -/- . (shrink)

A natural view in distributive ethics is that everyone's interests matter, but the interests of the relatively worse off matter more than the interests of the relatively better off. I provide a new argument for this view. The argument takes as its starting point the proposal, due to Harsanyi and Rawls, that facts about distributive ethics are discerned from individual preferences in the "original position." I draw on recent work in decision theory, along with an intuitive principle about risk-taking, to (...) derive the view. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that faith is recalcitrant in the face of new evidence, but it is puzzling how such recalcitrance could be rational or laudable. I explain this aspect of faith and why faith is not only rational, but in addition serves an important purpose in human life. Because faith requires maintaining a commitment to act on the claim one has faith in, even in the face of counter-evidence, faith allows us to carry out long-term, risky projects that we (...) might otherwise abandon. Thus, faith allows us to maintain integrity over time. (shrink)

Heavily influenced by Frantz Fanon and critically engaging the theories of decoloniality and liberatory psychoanalysis, Lara Sheehi and Stephen Sheehi platform the lives, perspectives, and insights of psychoanalytically-inflected Palestinian psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals, centering the stories that non-clinical Palestinians have entrusted to them over four years of community engagement with clinicians throughout historic Palestine. Sheehi and Sheehi document the stories of Palestinian clinicians in relation to settler-colonialism and violence but, even more so, in relation to their (...) patients, communities, families, and one another (as a clinical community). In doing so, they track the appearance of settler colonialism as a psychologically extractive process, one that is often effaced by discourses of "normalization," "trauma," "resilience," and human rights, with the aid of clinicians, as well as psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine unpacks the intersection of psychoanalysis as a psychological practice in Palestine, while also advancing a set of therapeutic theories in which to critically engage and "read" the politically complex array of conditions that define life for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. (shrink)

In the shift from the balance of nature to the flux of nature paradigm, the concept of resilience has gained great traction in ecology. While it has been suggested that the concept of resilience does not imply a genuine departure from the balance of nature paradigm, I shall argue against this stance. To do so, I first show that the balance of nature paradigm and the related conception of a single-state equilibrium relies on what Eliot Sober has named the “Natural (...) State Model (NSM)”, suggesting that the NSM has instead been dismissed in the flux of nature paradigm. I then focus on resilience as the main explanatory concept of the flux paradigm. After distinguishing between two main different understandings of “resilience”, namely engineering resilience and ecological resilience, I argue that the former is close to the concept of balance or stability and still part of the NSM, while the latter is not. Finally, I claim that ecological resilience is inconsistent with the NSM, concluding that this concept–being incompatible with the NSM–is not part of the balance of nature paradigm but rather a genuinely new explanatory tool. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 3, Page 291-300, September 2022.

This paper addresses the question of whether gathering additional evidence is always rationally required, both from the point of view of instrumental rationality and of epistemic rationality. It is shown that in certain situations, it is not instrumentally rational to look for more evidence before making a decision. These are situations in which the risk of “misleading” evidence – a concept that has both instrumental and epistemic senses – is not offset by the gains from the possibility of non-misleading evidence. (...) These situations also undermine a particular argument for the claim that it is epistemically rational to look for more evidence, though it is argued that the relationship between instrumental and epistemic rationality makes such arguments flawed to begin with. Furthermore, these situations show us that our epistemic and our practical goals sometimes point us in different directions, not merely because of our limited resources or because our desires are sometimes best served by being in particular epistemic states, but because of the nature of rational action. (shrink)

Over the course of three books—Wandering Significance, Physics Avoidance, and most recently Imitation of Rigor—Mark Wilson seeks to rectify what he takes to be a century of error regarding analytic philoso-phy’s understanding of scientific theorizing. This is largely framed in terms of a sustained attack on what Wilson terms ‘theory T thinking’, which he uses to refer to a melange of philosophical tendencies that he argues fail to do justice to the nuances of how world–theory relations are forged in the (...) physical sciences. In its place, Wilson puts forward an intricate account of the shifting explanatory strategies scientists and mathematicians utilize, strategies that result in the morphing of the semantic import of our scientific terms. In the aftermath an important question emerges: what is to become of scientific realism? Despite numerous pronunciations of his own ‘stout’ realist stance, it remains unclear what Wilson’s position might actually entail. -/- I first sketch Wilson’s disputes with theory T thinking and demonstrate how his rejection of the main tenets of most contemporary realist accounts leaves a question as to what his own realist avowals could mean, further arguing that these are largely attempts to distance himself from any whiff of neo-Kantianism. In the remainder of the article, I turn to discuss a neo-Kantian account that I argue is both complementary to Wilson’s viewpoint and provides a foundation for a post-theory T realism: Ernst Cassirer’s account of concept-formation in the natural sciences. By fleshing out Cassirer’s notion of the transformation of the given and the particular role he attributes to theoretical idealization, I reconstruct his account in a way that draws out a number of fruitful parallels between his philosophy and Wilson’s. The upshot is that a post-theory T scientific realism can plausibly be brought into line with neo-Kantian conceptions. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 3, Page 291-300, September 2022.

The moral enhancement of human beings is a constant theme in the history of humanity. Today, faced with the threats of a new, globalised world, concern over this matter is more pressing. For this reason, the use of biotechnology to make human beings more moral has been considered. However, this approach is dangerous and very controversial. The purpose of this article is to argue that the use of another new technology, AI, would be preferable to achieve this goal. Whilst several (...) proposals have been made on how to use AI for moral enhancement, we present an alternative that we argue to be superior to other proposals that have been developed. (shrink)

Faith is a central attitude in Christian religious practice. The problem of faith and reason is the problem of reconciling religious faith with the standards for our belief-forming practices in general (‘ordinary epistemic standards’). In order to see whether and when faith can be reconciled with ordinary epistemic standards, we first need to know what faith is. This chapter examines and catalogues views of propositional faith: faith that p. It is concerned with the epistemology of such faith: what cognitive attitudes (...) does such faith require, what epistemic norms govern these attitudes, and whether Christian faith can ever adhere to them. (shrink)

Many of our daily activities are now made more convenient and efficient by virtual assistants, and the day when they can be designed to instruct us in certain skills, such as those needed to make moral judgements, is not far off. In this paper we ask to what extent it would be ethically acceptable for these so-called virtual assistants for moral enhancement to use subtle strategies, known as “nudges”, to influence our decisions. To achieve our goal, we will first characterise (...) nudges in their standard use and discuss the debate they have generated around their possible manipulative character, establishing three conditions of manipulation. Secondly, we ask whether nudges can occur in moral virtual assistants that are not manipulative. After critically analysing some proposed virtual assistants, we argue in favour of one of them, given that by pursuing an open and neutral moral enhancement, it promotes and respects the autonomy of the person as much as possible. Thirdly, we analyse how nudges could enhance the functioning of such an assistant, and evaluate them in terms of their degree of threat to the subject’s autonomy and their level of transparency. Finally, we consider the possibility of using motivational nudges, which not only help us in the formation of moral judgements but also in our moral behaviour. (shrink)

Background: The proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation reciprocal contraction pattern has the potential to increase the maximum rate of torque development. However, it is a more complex resistive exercise task and may interfere with improvements in the maximum rate of torque development due to motor skill learning, as observed for unidirectional contractions. The purpose of this study was to examine the cost-benefit of using the PNF exercise technique to increase the maximum rate of torque development.Methods: Twenty-six participants completed isometric maximal extension-to-flexion or (...) flexion-only contractions at the wrist. Ten of the assigned contractions were performed on each of three sessions separated by 48-h for skill acquisition. Retention was assessed with 5 contractions performed 2-weeks after acquisition. Torque and surface electromyographic activity were analyzed for evidence of facilitated contractions between groups, as well as alterations in muscle coordination assessed across test sessions. The criterion measures were: mean maximal isometric wrist flexion toque; the maximal rate of torque development ; root-mean-square error variability of the rate of torque versus torque phase-plane; the rate of wrist flexion muscle activation ; a coactivation ratio for wrist flexor and extensor sEMG activity; and wrist flexor electromechanical delay.Results: There were no significant differences between groups with respect to maximal wrist flexion torque, dτ/dtmax or RMSE variability of torque trajectories. Both groups exhibited a progressive increase in maximal strength and in dτ/dtmax from the start of acquisition to retention. RMSE was lowest after a 2-week rest interval. There were no significant differences between groups in the rate of muscle activation or the coactivation ratio. There was a reduction in coactivation that was retained after a 2-week rest interval. Alternatively, EMD was significantly greater in the experimental group across all sessions. However, both groups had a similar pattern of improvement to the third consecutive day of testing, but returned close to baseline value after the 2-week rest interval.Discussion: The wrist extension-to-flexion contraction pattern did not result in a greater maximal rate of torque development than simple contractions of the wrist flexors. There was no difference between groups with respect to motor skill learning. The main adaptation in neuromotor control was a decrease in coactivation, not the maximal rate of muscle activation. (shrink)

This paper employs network theory, mining data and bibliometric analysis when mapping the scientific contribution of Nobel Prize candidate; Manuel Sandoval Vallarta, the first and most renowned Mexican physicist and important figure in Latin American science. Vallarta died in 1977, and the existing literature is about his life and contributions to science but not about how those are still valuable today. This paper is the first to highlight, with mapping tools, that his contributions are relevant to the international community of (...) cosmic rays, quantum mechanics and relativity. These tools delivered three findings: Identify how he built his own field of study, same as universal knowledge. Unveil that the backward and forward Vallarta citations follow a scale-free network distribution. Determine social factors that benefited or affected his scientific activities—such as World War II interrupting Vallarta’s successful productivity at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Furthermore, this study confirmed the interdisciplinary nature of the mapping studies of the scientist's contributions using scientometric tools. As a result, several interesting questions arose throughout our research, some of which were answered from the history and philosophy of science. However, others need to be analyzed by experts in the fields of Vallarta. Mapping research sends an invitation to interdisciplinary dialogue/research between experts in different areas of study to better understand the process of knowledge production both, individual and collective. (shrink)

In secondary literature, Schelling’s Naturphilosophie is most commonly discussed within the context of Kant’s epistemology and the transcendental deduction, which was swiftly identified by the generation of young Kantians as a skeptical problem, i.e., the need to demonstrate that our a priori conditions of knowledge indeed determine their object. In this paper I argue that the central concern that motivates Schelling’s Naturphilosophie is better understood within the context of the question of unity of theoretical and practical reason with which Schelling (...) was familiar from his study of Kant’s third Critique. But unlike Kant, for whom the occurrences of beauty and organisms in the world exhibit a contingent harmony of nature with the demands of our rationality, Schelling demands a necessary correspondence between reason and nature. Schelling anchors the necessary correspondence between the self and nature in the claim that nature is not a dead object of self-consciousness, but that which is at the same time a subject and its own object. He takes the latter to be the essential characteristic of 'life'. Nature must not be conceived as a dead mechanism, but as a living organization and as an “analogue of reason” because to be one’s own subject and object defines both the spontaneity of self-consciousness and the spontaneity of self-determination. Thus, nature that is no longer represented mechanically, but as an “analogue of reason,” is nature that is necessarily amenable with both the minimal (i.e., cognitive) and final ends of our rationality (i.e., freedom). (shrink)

This paper examines medical scientists’ accounts of their rediscoveries and reassessments of old materials. It looks at how historical patient files and brain samples of the first cases of Alzheimer’s disease became reused as scientific objects of inquiry in the 1990s, when a genetic neuropathologist from Munich and a psychiatrist from Frankfurt lead searches for left-overs of Alzheimer’s ‘founder cases’ from the 1900s. How and why did these researchers use historical methods, materials and narratives, and why did the biomedical community (...) cherish their findings as valuable scientific facts about Alzheimer’s disease? The paper approaches these questions by analysing how researchers conceptualised ‘history’ while backtracking and reassessing clinical and histological materials from the past. It elucidates six ways of conceptualising history as a biomedical matter: (1) scientific assessments of the past, i.e. natural scientific understandings of ‘historical facts’; (2) history in biomedicine, e.g. uses of old histological collections in present day brain banks; (3) provenance research, e.g. applying historical methods to ensure the authenticity of brain samples; (4) technical biomedical history, e.g. reproducing original staining techniques to identify how old histological slides were made; (5) founding traditions, i.e. references to historical objects and persons within founding stories of scientific communities; and (6) priority debates, e.g. evaluating the role particular persons played in the discovery of a disease such as Alzheimer’s. Against this background, the paper concludes with how the various ways of using and understanding ‘history’ were put forward to re-present historic cases as ‘proto-types’ for studying Alzheimer’s disease in the present. (shrink)