自史蒂芬·霍金(Stephen Hawking) 的暢銷科普著作《時間簡史》(以下簡稱《簡史》) 在上世紀八十年代末問世以來，至今天二十一世紀，華人基督教界就他宇宙無起點的論述仍有相當之評論，但可惜對評論未有綜合分析。評論者因寫作目的，也甚少交代霍金宇宙學的來龍去脈。故本文嘗試略述霍金宇宙學的歷史 背景及發展經過，繼而舉出華人基督教界的評論，帶出其獨特性，並提出商確的地方，以反省未來可行路向。.

What it means for conspiracy theories to become mainstream In debates about conspiracy theories, it is often claimed that conspiracy thinking is on the rise or has even become mainstream. In this article, I want to explore this claim conceptually, and argue that there are at least three ways to interpret the claim that ‘conspiracy thinking has become mainstream’. First, there is the individual level, where it is a matter of counting heads. Mainstream then means that the majority believes in (...) conspiracy theories. But there are two other levels. There is the institutional level, which is about whether conspiracy theories circulate within social institutions in an acceptable way. Is it acceptable to express conspiracy theories as a politician, scientist or journalist? Mainstream here means that dominant institutions in society view conspiracy thinking as an acceptable form of communication. Finally, there is the cultural level. Here the question is whether conspiracy thinking is a culturally acceptable way of speaking and thinking about society. Is it socially accepted as normal behavior, or is it rather a form of deviant behavior, accompanied by (informal) sanctions or demands for additional justification or proof? Mainstream here means that conspiracy thinking is seen as a normal way of speaking, without being accompanied by strange looks, shunning or the need to justify oneself as a conspiracy thinker. By making this distinction, we can think more clearly about whether conspiracy thinking is actually on the rise, and how we should deal with it. (shrink)

Humor is een fascinerend, prachtig geschreven en komisch boek over wat homor ons kan vertellen over onze menselijke natuur. Van de oudheid tot aan de moderne tijd en puttend uit het werk van een breed scala aan auteurs, in het bijzonder Swift, Sterne, Shaftesbury, Bergson, Beckett en Freud, keert Humor het komische binnenstebuiten en onthult ons een smakelijk inzicht in wat we grappig vinden. Humor beantwoordt vragen zoals: "Waarom lijden komieken aan depressies", "Waarom lachen we zo vaak om dieren" en (...) "Wat gebeurt er in racistische en seksistische humor". Humor zal niet alleen de lezers uit een reeks van disciplines zoals filosofie, theologie, literatuurwetenschap, psycholanalyse, geschiedenis en antropologie aanspreken, maar ook zeer tot de verbeelding spreken van een ieder met een gevoel voor humor - ieder van ons dus, hopelijk. (shrink)

Overzicht van ideeën en opvattingen m.b.t. het begrip tijd, vanuit diverseinvalshoeken.

Humor is een fascinerend, prachtig geschreven en komisch boek over wat homor ons kan vertellen over onze menselijke natuur. Van de oudheid tot aan de moderne tijd en puttend uit het werk van een breed scala aan auteurs, in het bijzonder Swift, Sterne, Shaftesbury, Bergson, Beckett en Freud, keert Humor het komische binnenstebuiten en onthult ons een smakelijk inzicht in wat we grappig vinden. Humor beantwoordt vragen zoals: "Waarom lijden komieken aan depressies", "Waarom lachen we zo vaak om dieren" en (...) "Wat gebeurt er in racistische en seksistische humor". Humor zal niet alleen de lezers uit een reeks van disciplines zoals filosofie, theologie, literatuurwetenschap, psycholanalyse, geschiedenis en antropologie aanspreken, maar ook zeer tot de verbeelding spreken van een ieder met een gevoel voor humor - ieder van ons dus, hopelijk. (shrink)

Toen onze grootouders als huilende baby’s ter wereld kwamen telde de vroedvrouw hun vingers en tenen om hun gezondheid te bepalen. Tegenwoordig wordt daarvoor een breed scala aan technieken ingezet, bijvoorbeeld om het bloed te screenen dat een paar dagen na de geboorte wordt afgenomen uit de hiel van een kind. Dit is de zogenaamde hielprik, ofwel de neonatale screening. De technieken die worden gebruikt om babybloed te analyseren hebben de afgelopen veertig jaar gezorgd voor verschuivingen in de visie op (...) wat ‘ziekte’ is en wat ‘gezondheid’. En naar alle waarschijnlijkheid gaan die betekenissen de komende tien jaar opnieuw veranderen, wanneer het goedkoper en effectiever wordt om het hele genoom van een kind bij de geboorte te analyseren dan om de huidige screeningsmethoden te blijven gebruiken. Hoe beïnvloeden deze ontwikkelingen onze visie op wat het betekent om een gezond kind te krijgen? En kunnen ouders in de toekomst ooit nog vol vertrouwen zeggen: ‘Ons kind blaakt van gezondheid’? (shrink)

'Volgens de Duitse denker Carl Schmitt is zonder vijandbeeld geen politiek mogelijk,' schreven Coen Simon en Frank Meester aan Arnon Grunberg. Zij vroegen hem Het begrip politiek van Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) te lezen om na te gaan wat hij ons nu nog te zeggen heeft. Hoeveel natiestaat hebben wij nodig? Hoeveel vijanden? Waartoe dient politiek? En is een samenleving zonder oorlog en geweld mogelijk? Aan de hand van Schmitt en denkers als Walter Benjamin en Jacques Derrida probeert Grunberg antwoord (...) te geven op die vragen. 'Onze cultuur heeft de vegetarische slager voortgebracht en zal uiteindelijk ook de geweldloze oorlog produceren. Hoe die er precies uit zal zien is onduidelijk, maar Schmitts vermoeden dat die oorlog om de oorlog eens en voor altijd uit te roeien gruwelijk zal zijn lijkt me gerechtvaardigd,' aldus Grunberg. Maar ook stelt hij dat er geen rechtvaardigheid kan bestaan als het geweld wordt afgezworen. In Vriend & vijand legt Grunberg de vinger op zowel de zere plekken van de parlementaire democratie als de kritiek erop. Vrienden en vijanden van deze democratie mogen dit essay niet aan zich voorbij laten gaan"--Back cover. (shrink)

This paper develops and defends a new account of B-theoretic endurantism and a new account of the metaphysics of the quantum state, and highlights the parallels between the considerations that motivate them. These new accounts are both fragmentalist, in the sense that they follow Fine (2005) in invoking a symmetric coordination relation between facts, such that facts that are pairwise incompatible (like Hugh's being happy and Hugh's being sad) can both obtain provided that they are not related by this relation. (...) However, while Fine allows that fragments can be logically incoherent— P can obtain in one fragment while not-P obtains in another—the fragmentalist accounts defended here are motivated even if we insist on logical coherence between fragments. (shrink)

This paper is a reply to Richard Lauer’s “Is Social Ontology Prior to Social Scientific Methodology?” (2019) and an attempt to contribute to the meta-social ontological discourse more broadly. In the first part, I will give a rough sketch of Lauer’s general project and confront his pragmatist approach with a fundamental problem. The second part of my reply will provide a solution for this problem rooted in a philosophy of the social sciences in practice.

Simon Blackburn puts forward a compelling original philosophy of human motivation and morality. He maintains that we cannot get clear about ethics until we get clear about human nature. So these are the sorts of questions he addresses: Why do we behave as we do? Can we improve? Is our ethics at war with our passions, or is it an upshot of those passions? Blackburn seeks the answers in an exploration of guilt, shame, disgust, and other moral emotions; he (...) draws also on game theory and cognitive science in his account of the structures of human motivation. Many philosophers have wanted a naturalistic ethics a theory that integrates our understanding of human morality with the rest of our understanding of the world we live in. What is special about Blackburn's naturalistic ethics is that it does not debunk the ethical by reducing it to the non-ethical. At the same time he banishes the spectres of scepticism and relativism that have haunted recent moral philosophy. Ruling Passions sets ethics in the context of human nature: it offers a solution to the puzzle of how ethics can maintain its authority even though it is rooted in the very emotions and motivations that it exists to control. (shrink)

Following recent arguments that cultural practices in wild animal populations have important conservation implications, we argue that recognizing captive animals as cultural has important welfare implications. Having a culture is of deep importance for cultural animals, wherever they live. Without understanding the cultural capacities of captive animals, we will be left with a deeply impoverished view of what they need to flourish. Best practices for welfare should therefore require concern for animals’ cultural needs, but the relationship between culture and welfare (...) is also extremely complex, requiring us to rethink standard assumptions about what constitutes and contributes to welfare. (shrink)

Empirical studies of the social lives of non-human primates, cetaceans, and other social animals have prompted scientists and philosophers to debate the question of whether morality and moral cognition exists in non-human animals. Some researchers have argued that morality does exist in several animal species, others that these species may possess various evolutionary building blocks or precursors to morality, but not quite the genuine article, while some have argued that nothing remotely resembling morality can be found in any non-human species. (...) However, these different positions on animal morality generally appear to be motivated more by different conceptions of how the term “morality” is to be defined than by empirical disagreements about animal social behaviour and psychology. After delving deeper into the goals and methodologies of various of the protagonists, I argue that, despite appearances, there are actually two importantly distinct debates over animal morality going on, corresponding to two quite different ways of thinking about what it is to define “morality”, “moral cognition”, and associated notions. Several apparent skirmishes in the literature are thus cases of researchers simply talking past each other. I then focus on what I take to be the core debate over animal morality, which is concerned with understanding the nature and phylogenetic distribution of morality conceived as a psychological natural kind. I argue that this debate is in fact largely terminological and non-substantive. Finally, I reflect on how this core debate might best be re-framed. (shrink)

This paper considers the question of whether chimpanzees possess at least a primitive sense of normativity: i.e., some ability to internalize and enforce social norms—rules governing appropriate and inappropriate behaviour—within their social groups, and to make evaluations of others’ behaviour in light of such norms. A number of scientists and philosophers have argued that such a sense of normativity does exist in chimpanzees and in several other non-human primate and mammalian species. However, the dominant view in the scientific and philosophical (...) literature is that psychological capacities for social norms evolved uniquely in the human lineage, after our last common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos. After reviewing some of the existing evidence for normative capacity in chimpanzees, I defend the thesis of chimpanzee normativity against three key theoretical objections that have been presented in the literature, each of which have played a part in motivating the dominant sceptical position. I argue that, while we still have much to learn about the nature and extent of the normative capacities of other animals, there is strong prima facie evidence for social norms and normative evaluation in chimpanzees and the main theoretical objections to chimpanzee normativity are not at all compelling. (shrink)

This paper defends Kant against a neo‐Hegelian line of criticism, recently advanced by John McDowell, Robert Pippin, and Sebastian Rödl, targeting Kant's alleged claim that forms of sensibility other than space and time are possible. If correct, the criticism identifies a deep problem in Kant's position and points toward Hegel's position and method as its natural solution. I show that Kant has the philosophical resources to respond effectively to the criticism, notably including the set of claims about the limits of (...) meaningful thought that P. F. Strawson calls Kant's “principle of significance.” By Kant's lights, first, the concept “non‐spatio‐temporal form of sensibility” is meaningless, so he cannot meaningfully grant that such a form is possible; and second, there is no need to prove (e.g., from reflection on pure intellect) that non‐spatio‐temporal forms of sensibility are impossible, because insofar as the concept “knowing” means anything, that meaning is provided by our own always‐already‐spatio‐temporal case. An upshot of the argument is that Kant's two “stems” of knowledge or cognition, sensibility and understanding, are merely aspects of a single epistemic capacity rather than each a separate capacity in its own right. Many today are unwilling to take Kant's claims about the limits of meaningful thought at face value, notwithstanding their ubiquity and explicitness. This paper is therefore an indirect argument on behalf of that dimension of Kant's position: We have something significant to lose in not taking it seriously. (shrink)

According to hedonistic act utilitarianism, an act is morally right if and only if, and because, it produces at least as much pleasure minus pain as any alternative act available to the agent. This dissertation gives a partial defense of utilitarianism against two types of objections: action guidance objections and intuitive objections. In Chapter 1, the main themes of the dissertation are introduced. The chapter also examines questions of how to understand utilitarianism, including (a) how to best formulate the moral (...) explanatory claim of the theory, (b) how to best interpret the phrase "pleasure minus pain," and (c) how the theory is related to act consequentialism. The first part (Chapters 2 and 3) deals with action guidance objections to utilitarianism. Chapter 2 defines two kinds of action guidance: doxastic and evidential guidance. It is argued that utilitarianism is evidentially but not doxastically guiding for us. Chapter 3 evaluates various action guidance objections to utilitarianism. These are the objections that utilitarianism, because it is not doxastically guiding, is a bad moral theory, fails to be a moral theory, is an uninteresting and unimportant moral theory, and is a false moral theory. The second part (Chapters 4, 5 and 6) deals with intuitive objections to utilitarianism. Chapter 4 presents three intuitive objections: Experience Machine, Transplant, and Utility Monster. Three defenses of utilitarianism are subsequently evaluated. Chapter 5 and 6 introduces two alternative defenses of utilitarianism against intuitive objections, both of which concern the role that imagination plays in thought experimentation. In Chapter 5, it is argued that we sometimes unknowingly carry out the wrong thought experiment when we direct intuitive objections against utilitarianism. In many such cases, we elicit moral intuitions that we believe give us reason to reject utilitarianism, but that in fact do not. In Chapter 6, it is argued that using the right kind of sensory imagination when we perform thought experiments will positively affect the epistemic trustworthiness of our moral intuitions. Moreover, it is suggested that doing so renders utilitarianism more plausible. In Chapter 7, the contents of the dissertation are summarized. (shrink)

Recent studies indicate that indicative conditionals like "If people wear masks, the spread of Covid-19 will be diminished" require a probabilistic dependency between their antecedents and consequents to be acceptable (Skovgaard-Olsen et al., 2016). But it is easy to make the slip from this claim to the thesis that indicative conditionals are acceptable only if this probabilistic dependency results from a causal relation between antecedent and consequent. According to Pearl (2009), understanding a causal relation involves multiple, hierarchically organized conceptual dimensions: (...) prediction, intervention, and counterfactual dependence. In a series of experiments, we test the hypothesis that these conceptual dimensions are differentially encoded in indicative and counterfactual conditionals. If this hypothesis holds, then there are limits as to how much of a causal relation is captured by indicative conditionals alone. Our results show that the acceptance of indicative and counterfactual conditionals can become dissociated. Furthermore, it is found that the acceptance of both is needed for accepting a causal relation between two co-occurring events. The implications that these findings have for the hypothesis above, and for recent debates at the intersection of the psychology of reasoning and causal judgment, are critically discussed. Our findings are consistent with viewing indicative conditionals as answering predictive queries requiring evidential relevance (even in the absence of direct causal relations). Counterfactual conditionals in contrast target causal relevance, specifically. Finally, we discuss the implications our results have for the yet unsolved question of how reasoners succeed in constructing causal models from verbal descriptions. (shrink)

Doctors routinely refuse donation offers from prospective living kidney donors with certain comorbidities such as diabetes or obesity out of concern for donor wellbeing. This refusal occurs despite the ongoing shortage of kidney transplants and the superior performance of living donor kidney transplants compared to those from deceased donors. In this paper, we argue that this paternalistic refusal by doctors is unjustified and that, within limits, there should be greater acceptance of such donations. We begin by describing possible weak and (...) strong paternalistic justifications of current conservative donor acceptance guidelines and practices. We then justify our position by outlining the frequently under-recognised benefits and the routinely overestimated harms of such donation, before discussing the need to respect the autonomy of willing donors with certain comorbidities. Finally, we respond to a number of possible objections to our proposal for more liberal kidney donor acceptance criteria. We use the situation in Australia as our case study, but our argument is applicable to comparable situations around the world. (shrink)

This paper considers John Doris, Stephen Stich, Alexandra Plakias, and colleagues’ recent attempts to utilize empirical studies of cross-cultural variation in moral judgment to support a version of the argument from disagreement against moral realism. Crucially, Doris et al. claim that the moral disagreements highlighted by these studies are not susceptible to the standard ‘diffusing’ explanations realists have developed in response to earlier versions of the argument. I argue that plausible hypotheses about the cognitive processes underlying ordinary moral judgment and (...) the acquisition of moral norms, when combined with a popular philosophical account of moral inquiry—the method of reflective equilibrium—undercut the anti-realist force of the moral disagreements that Doris et al. describe. I also show that Stich's recent attempt to provide further theoretical support for Doris et al.'s case is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Morgan’s Canon is a very widely endorsed methodological principle in animal psychology, believed to be vital for a rigorous, scientific approach to the study of animal cognition. In contrast I argue that Morgan’s Canon is unjustified, pernicious and unnecessary. I identify two main versions of the Canon and show that they both suffer from very serious problems. I then suggest an alternative methodological principle that captures all of the genuine methodological benefits that Morgan’s Canon can bring but suffers from none (...) of its problems. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an intense public debate about whether and, if so, to what extent investments in nuclear energy should be part of strategies to mitigate climate change. Here, we address this question from an ethical perspective, evaluating different strategies of energy system development in terms of three ethical criteria, which will differentially appeal to proponents of different normative ethical frameworks. Starting from a standard analysis of climate change as arising from an intergenerational collective action problem, we (...) evaluate whether contributions from nuclear energy will, on expectation, increase the likelihood of successfully phasing out fossil fuels in time to avert dangerous global warming. For many socio-economic and geographic contexts, our review of the energy system modeling literature suggests the answer to this question is “yes.” We conclude that, from the point of view of climate change mitigation, investments in nuclear energy as part of a broader energy portfolio will be ethically required to minimize the risks of decarbonization failure, and thus the tail risks of catastrophic global warming. Finally, using a sensitivity analysis, we consider which other aspects of nuclear energy deployment, apart from climate change, have the potential to overturn the ultimate ethical verdict on investments in nuclear energy. Out of several potential considerations, we suggest that its potential interplay — whether beneficial or adverse — with the proliferation of nuclear weapons is the most plausible candidate. (shrink)

A major international consultancy firm identified ‘AI ethicist’ as an essential position for companies to successfully implement artificial intelligence (AI) at the start of 2019. It declares that AI ethicists are needed to help companies navigate the ethical and social issues raised by the use of AI. Top 5 AI hires companies need to succeed in 2019. The view that AI is beneficial but nonetheless potentially harmful to individuals and society is widely shared by the industry, academia, governments, and civil (...) society organizations. Accordingly and in order to realize its benefits while avoiding ethical pitfalls and harmful consequences, numerous initiatives have been established to a) examine the ethical, social, legal and political dimensions of AI and b) develop ethical guidelines and recommendations for design and implementation of AI. (shrink)

John Rawls's form of constructivism can easily be ramped up into a fullblown metaethics. In this chapter, the author explores an alternative interpretive framework, which basically inverts the roles that the construction of the original position and the reliance on reflective equilibrium play in Rawls's argument. The author sketches out the basic contours of Rawls's thinking if we treat constructivism as his method for theory construction and reflective equilibrium as his metaethics. Metaethics is clearly a part of moral philosophy outside (...) of moral theory. At every major turn in the articulation of Rawls's theory there is a new or more developed account of reflective equilibrium and in particular its justificatory role in the theory. Giving one's argument a form that allows it to more easily appeal to a particular audience, is the job of rhetoric. So it turns out that constructivism is not a metaethical position, but a rhetorical strategy. (shrink)

We examine physicists’ charge of ad hocness against the Higgs mechanism in the standard model of elementary particle physics. We argue that even though this charge never rested on a clear-cut and well-entrenched definition of “ad hoc”, it is based on conceptual and methodological assumptions and principles that are well-founded elements of the scientific practice of high-energy particle physics. We further evaluate the implications of the recent discovery of a Higgs-like particle at the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider for the charge (...) of ad hocness against the Higgs mechanism. (shrink)

The article proposes a novel approach to the much discussed question of which symmetries have ‘direct empirical significance’ and which do not. The approach is based on a development of a recently proposed framework by Hilary Greaves and David Wallace, who claim that, contrary to the standard folklore among philosophers of physics, ‘local’ symmetries may have direct empirical significance no less than ‘global’ ones. Partly vindicating the standard folklore, a result is derived here from a number of plausible assumptions, that (...) states that local symmetries can indeed have no direct empirical significance. Ways to interpret the result are considered and possible morals are outlined. 1 Introduction2 Greaves and Wallace on Interior versus Non-interior Symmetries3 Elaborating on the Greaves/Wallace Framework4 The Result5 Problems with ’t Hooft’s Beam Splitter6 Summary and Conclusion. (shrink)

The recent debate surrounding scientific realism has largely focused on the “no miracles” argument (NMA). Indeed, it seems that most contemporary realists and anti-realists have tied the case for realism to the adequacy of this argument. I argue that it is mistake for realists to let the debate be framed in this way. Realists would be well advised to abandon the NMA altogether and pursue an alternative strategy, which I call the “local strategy”.

Focusing on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) implementation process, we analyze how institutional complexity that arises from tensions between social and environmental elements and economic and technical concerns is managed by CSR managers. We further question how these micro-level processes interact with organizational-level processes over time. Our research is a 24-month qualitative process study in which we followed CSR managers. The study’s results allow us to distinguish between four strategies that CSR managers use to promote CSR implementation and to cope (...) with tensions. Our results further indicate that organizational characteristics influence the intensity with which these strategies are applied and that the intensity of strategy application affects organizational behavior in the course of time. Through the discussion of these findings, our study contributes to the research on micro-level processes that occur in response to complex institutional demands as well as to the development of a comprehensive, multilevel approach to CSR implementation. (shrink)

This chapter describes how philosophical theorizing about justice can be connected with empirical research in the social sciences. We begin by drawing on some received distinctions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to theorizing justice along several different dimensions, showing how non-ideal approaches are needed to address normative aspects of real-world problems and to provide practical guidance. We argue that there are advantages to a transitional approach to justice focusing on manifest injustices, including the fact that it enables us to set (...) aside some reasonable disagreements about justice. The ‘bottom-up’ approach we advocate, for which we borrow Wolff’s term ‘real-world political philosophy’, is an empirically-informed normative analysis that attends to specific, identifiable injustices, and thus is partial, though not isolationist. We illustrate our approach by considering how different models of the nature of disability suggest different kinds of remedy for injustices faced by persons living with disabilities. We reflect on the nature and significance of vulnerabilities, and we assess the role of public opinion in normative theorizing, suggesting a particular significance for the opinions and experiences of marginalized groups. We finally reflect on the relevance of European legal and institutional frameworks for theorizing justice in Europe. (shrink)

We demonstrate that the quantum-mechanical description of composite physical systems of an arbitrary number of similar fermions in all their admissible states, mixed or pure, for all finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, is not in conflict with Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII). We discern the fermions by means of physically meaningful, permutation-invariant categorical relations, i.e. relations independent of the quantum-mechanical probabilities. If, indeed, probabilistic relations are permitted as well, we argue that similar bosons can also be discerned in all (...) their admissible states; but their categorical discernibility turns out to be a state-dependent matter. In all demonstrated cases of discernibility, the fermions and the bosons are discerned (i) with only minimal assumptions on the interpretation of quantum mechanics; (ii) without appealing to metaphysical notions, such as Scotusian haecceitas, Lockean substrata, Postian transcendental individuality or Adamsian primitive thisness; and (iii) without revising the general framework of classical elementary predicate logic and standard set theory, thus without revising standard mathematics. This confutes: (a) the currently dominant view that, provided (i) and (ii), the quantum-mechanical description of such composite physical systems always conflicts with PII; and (b) that if PII can be saved at all, the only way to do it is by adopting one or other of the thick metaphysical notions mentioned above. Among the most general and influential arguments for the currently dominant view are those due to Schrodinger, Margenau, Cortes, Dalla Chiara, Di Francia, Redhead, French, Teller, Butterfield, Giuntini, Mittelstaedt, Castellani, Krause and Huggett. We review them succinctly and critically as well as related arguments by van Fraassen and Massimi. (shrink)

During the pandemic lockdown period, residents had to stay at home and increased stress and other mental health problems have been associated with the lockdown period. Since most public parks were closed, community parks within gated residential areas became the most important green space in Chinese cities, and the use of such space might help to reduce the residents’ stress levels. This study aimed to investigate to what extent urban residents in China used community parks, engaged in outdoor activity during (...) the lockdown period and if the use of such spaces helped to reduce their stress levels. An online questionnaire survey was carried out from 23 March to 23 April 2020. Ordinary Least Squares regression was used to analyse the association between community park use, outdoor activity, willingness to engage in outdoor activity, and stress level. All results have been further analysed by two-sampled t-test to explore the difference between young and old age groups. We found that the overall self-reported stress level of the respondents was relatively moderate during the lockdown period. Respondents had generally reduced their use of community parks and engagement in outdoor activity. There was no significant association between stress level and the use of community parks or the engagement in outdoor activities. However, we found that older people showed much lower stress levels, used community parks more frequently, and engaged in more outdoor activities than younger adults. The findings suggest that outdoor activities and spatial characteristics in urban China differ from Western studies and advance the need to integrate the stress management role of community parks with urban green space policy to optimise the use of community parks blended in with everyday life, particularly during the lockdown period. (shrink)

Encyclopedia entry on the debate over simplicity/parsimony and Ockham's Razor in the philosophy of science.

Famously, Kant is a transcendental idealist. Yet he also endorses empirical realism, and even boasts that only the transcendental idealist can be an empirical realist. The difficulty of making sense of those commitments together leads many interpreters to begin by attributing to Kant some variant of conventional, subjective idealism. That in turn requires that Kant's empirical realism be at best a merely ersatz or quasi-realism. But that drains Kant's boast of its significance. For any idealist can be a realist if (...) the 'realism' in question is defined in terms of a prior commitment to idealism. Thus I argue, on the contrary, that we must begin the interpretation of Kant's Critical philosophy by taking his empirical realism to be a genuine, common-sense realism about empirical things. That approach yields a consistent, satisfying, and novel reading of the Critical enterprise, including transcendental idealism, as explaining how empirical realism is possible. Along the way I show, among other things, (1) how to make systematic sense of Kant's controversial theory of meaning, which is standardly either downplayed or regarded as grossly inconsistent with his other core commitments; (2) how to dispense with the centuries-old Neglected Alternative objection; and (3) how to account for the syntheticity of the moral law and its role in conferring experience-immanent meaning on the practical postulates (e.g., of the existence of God). (shrink)

Is it possible to approach quantum theory in a 'therapeutic' vein that sees its foundational problems as arising from mistaken conceptual presuppositions? The book explores the prospects for this project and, in doing so, discusses such fascinating issues as the nature of quantum states, explanation in quantum theory, and 'quantum non-locality'.

If the laws of nature are fine-tuned for life, can we infer other universes with different laws? How could we even test such a theory without empirical access to those distant places? Can we believe in the multiverse of the Everett interpretation of quantum theory or in the reality of other possible worlds, as advocated by philosopher David Lewis? At the intersection of physics and philosophy of science, this book outlines the philosophical challenge to theoretical physics in a measured, well-grounded (...) manner. The origin of multiverse theories are explored within the context of the fine-tuning problem and a systematic comparison between the various different multiverse models are included. Cosmologists, high energy physicists, and philosophers including graduate students and researchers will find a systematic exploration of such questions in this important book. (shrink)

Economic games provide models of real-world contexts in which researchers can probe dispositional and structural determinants of intergroup relations. Most intergroup games focus on determinants of aggression between groups and constrain the possibilities for peace. However, paradigms such as the intergroup parochial and universal cooperation game allow for peaceful intergroup relations and can be adapted for the study of peace.

The paper investigates the epistemic conception of quantum states---the view that quantum states are not descriptions of quantum systems but rather reflect the assigning agents' epistemic relations to the systems. This idea, which can be found already in the works of Copenhagen adherents Heisenberg and Peierls, has received increasing attention in recent years because it promises an understanding of quantum theory in which neither the measurement problem nor a conflict between quantum non-locality and relativity theory arises. Here it is argued (...) that the main challenge for proponents of this idea is to make sense of the notion of a state assignment being performed correctly without thereby acknowledging the notion of a true state of a quantum system---a state it is in. An account based on the epistemic conception of states is proposed that fulfills this requirement by interpreting the rules governing state assignment as constitutive rules in the sense of John Searle. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence is supposed to perform tasks autonomously, make competent decisions, and interact socially with people. From a psychological perspective, AI can thus be expected to impact users’ three Basic Psychological Needs, namely autonomy, competence, and relatedness to others. While research highlights the fulfillment of these needs as central to human motivation and well-being, their role in the acceptance of AI applications has hitherto received little consideration. Addressing this research gap, our study examined the influence of BPN Satisfaction on Intention (...) to Use an AI assistant for personal banking. In a 2×2 factorial online experiment, 282 participants watched a video of an AI finance coach with a female or male synthetic voice that exhibited either high or low agency. In combination, these factors resulted either in AI assistants conforming to traditional gender stereotypes or in non-conforming conditions. Although the experimental manipulations had no significant influence on participants’ relatedness and competence satisfaction, a strong effect on autonomy satisfaction was found. As further analyses revealed, this effect was attributable only to male participants, who felt their autonomy need significantly more satisfied by the low-agency female assistant, consistent with stereotypical images of women, than by the high-agency female assistant. A significant indirect effects model showed that the greater autonomy satisfaction that men, unlike women, experienced from the low-agency female assistant led to higher ITU. The findings are discussed in terms of their practical relevance and the risk of reproducing traditional gender stereotypes through technology design. (shrink)

The cluster account, one of the best attempts at art classification, is guilty of ahistoricism. While cluster theorists may be happy to limit themselves to accounting for what art is now rather than how the term was understood in the past, they cannot ignore the fact that people seem to apply different clusters when judging art from different times. This paper shows that while allowing for this kind of historical relativity may be necessary to save the account, doing so could (...) result in incorporating an essentially institutional component or making the theory extremely complex and virtually impossible to use. (shrink)

This volume is designed to set out some of the central issues in the theory of truth. It draws together, for the first time, the debates between philosophers who favor 'robust' or 'substantive' theories of truth, and those other, 'deflationist' or minimalists, who deny that such theories can be given. The editors provide a substantial introduction, in which they look at how the debates relate to further issues, such as the Liar paradox and formal truth theories.

Most modern definitions of art fail to successfully address the issue of the ever-changing nature of art, and rarely even attempt to provide an account that would be valid in more than just the modern Western context. This article develops a new theory that preserves the advantages of its predecessors, solves or avoids their problems, and has a scope wide enough to account for art of different times and cultures. It argues that an object is art in a given context (...) iff some person culturally competent in this context have afforded it the status of a candidate for appreciation for reasons considered good in this context. This weakly institutional view is supplemented by auxiliary definitions explaining the notions of cultural contexts, competence, and good reasons for affording the status. The relativisation to contexts brings increased explanatory power and scope, and the ability to account for the diversity of art. (shrink)

In Ethics–Politics–Subjectivity, Simon Critchley takes up three questions at the centre of contemporary theoretical debate: What is ethical experience? What can be said of the subject who has this experience? What, if any, is the relation of ethical experience to politics? Through spirited confrontations with major thinkers, such as Lacan, Nancy, Rorty, and, in particular, Levinas and Derrida, Critchley finds answers in a nuanced “ethics of finitude” and defends the political possibilities of deconstruction. Democracy, economics, friendship, and technology are (...) all considered anew in Critchley’s bold excursions on the meaning and value of recent French philosophy. (shrink)