Prawitz conjectured that the proof-theoretically valid logic is intuitionistic logic. Recent work on proof-theoretic validity has disproven this. In fact, it has been shown that proof-theoretic validity is not even closed under substitution. In this paper, we make a minor modification to the definition of proof-theoretic validity found in Prawitz’s 1973paper ‘Towards a foundation of a general proof theory’ and refined by Schroeder-Heister in ‘Validity concepts in proof-theoretic semantics’ (2006). We will call the new notion generalized proof-theoretic validity and (...) show that the logic of generalized proof-theoretic validity is intuitionistic logic. (shrink)

The interplay of philosophical ambitions and technical reality have given birth to rich and interesting approaches to explain the oft-claimed special character of mathematical and logical knowledge. Two projects stand out both for their audacity and their innovativeness. These are logicism and proof-theoretic semantics. This dissertation contains three chapters exploring the limits of these two projects. In both cases I find the formal results offer a mixed blessing to the philosophical projects. Chapter 1. Is a logicist bound to the claim (...) that as a matter of analytic truth there is an actual infinity of objects? If Hume’s Principle is analytic then in the standard setting the answer appears to be yes. Hodes’s work pointed to a way out by offering a modal picture in which only a potential infinity was posited. However, this project was abandoned due to apparent failures of cross-world predication. I re-explore this idea and discover that in the setting of the potential infinite one can interpret first-order Peano arithmetic, but not second-order Peano arithmetic. I conclude that in order for the logicist to weaken the metaphysically loaded claim of necessary actual infinities, they must also weaken the mathematics they recover. Chapter 2. There have been several recent results bringing into focus the super-intuitionistic nature of most notions of proof-theoretic validity. But there has been very little work evaluating the consequences of these results. In this chapter, I explore the question of whether these results undermine the claim that proof-theoretic validity shows us which inferences follow from the meaning of the connectives when defined by their introduction rules. It is argued that the super-intuitionistic inferences are valid due to the correspondence between the treatment of the atomic formulas and more complex formulas. And so the goals of proof-theoretic validity are not undermined. Chapter 3. Prawitz (1971) conjectured that proof-theoretic validity offers a semantics for intuitionistic logic. This conjecture has recently been proven false by Piecha and Schroeder-Heister (2019). This chapter resolves one of the questions left open by this recent result by showing the extensional alignment of proof-theoretic validity and general inquisitive logic. General inquisitive logic is a generalisation of inquisitive semantics, a uniform semantics for questions and assertions. The chapter further defines a notion of quasi-proof-theoretic validity by restricting proof-theoretic validity to allow double negation elimination for atomic formulas and proves the extensional alignment of quasi-proof-theoretic validity and inquisitive logic.Abstract prepared by Will Stafford extracted partially from the dissertation. (shrink)

Prawitz conjectured that proof-theoretic validity offers a semantics for intuitionistic logic. This conjecture has recently been proven false by Piecha and Schroeder-Heister. This article resolves one of the questions left open by this recent result by showing the extensional alignment of proof-theoretic validity and general inquisitive logic. General inquisitive logic is a generalisation of inquisitive semantics, a uniform semantics for questions and assertions. The paper further defines a notion of quasi-proof-theoretic validity by restricting proof-theoretic validity to allow double negation elimination (...) for atomic formulas and proves the extensional alignment of quasi-proof-theoretic validity and inquisitive logic. (shrink)

Proof-theoretic validity has proven a useful tool for proof-theoretic semantics, because it explains the harmony found in the introduction and elimination rules for the intuitionistic calculus. However, the demonstration that a rule of proof is proof-theoretically valid requires checking an infinite number of cases, which raises the question of whether proof-theoretic validity is decidable. It is proven here that it is for the most prominent formulations in the literature for propositional logic.

Is a logicist bound to the claim that as a matter of analytic truth there is an actual infinity of objects? If Hume’s Principle is analytic then in the standard setting the answer appears to be yes. Hodes’s work pointed to a way out by offering a modal picture in which only a potential infinity was posited. However, this project was abandoned due to apparent failures of cross-world predication. We re-explore this idea and discover that in the setting of the (...) potential infinite one can interpret first-order Peano arithmetic, but not second-order Peano arithmetic. We conclude that in order for the logicist to weaken the metaphysically loaded claim of necessary actual infinities, they must also weaken the mathematics they recover. (shrink)

An account of mathematical understanding should account for the differences between theorems whose proofs are “easy” to discover, and those whose proofs are difficult to discover. Though Hilbert seems to have created proof theory with the idea that it would address this kind of “discovermental complexity”, much more attention has been paid to the lengths of proofs, a measure of the difficulty of _verifying_ of a _given_ formal object that it is a proof of a given formula in a given (...) formal system. In this paper we will shift attention back to discovermental complexity, by addressing a “topological” measure of proof complexity recently highlighted by Alessandra Carbone ( 2009 ). Though we will contend that Carbone’s measure fails as a measure of discovermental complexity, it forefronts numerous important formal and epistemological issues that we will discuss, including the structure of proofs and the question of whether impure proofs are systematically simpler than pure proofs. (shrink)

Intellectual virtues are an integral part of adequate environmental virtue ethics; these virtues are distinct from moral virtues. Including intellectual virtues in environmental virtue ethics produces a more fine-grained account of the forces involved in environmental exploration, appreciation, and decision making than has been given to date. Intellectual virtues are character traits that regulate cognitive activity in support of the acquisition and application of knowledge. They are virtues because they further the human quest for knowledge and true belief; possessing these (...) traits improves us epistemically. Five intellectual virtues illustrate the nature and relevance of intellectual virtues to environmental ethics: thoroughness, temporal/structural sensitivity, flexibility, intellectual trust, and humility. While these virtues share many features of the moral virtues, there are differences between them that have practical implications and give sound reasons for considering these two types as distinct kinds. Intellectual virtues bear a structural relation to knowledge that moral virtues do not, and it is this epistemological stamp that sets them apart. Additionally, the two types of virtue can be possessed independently of one another. Ideally, intellectual virtues will combine with moral virtues such as respect, compassion, and humility to facilitate environmentally respectful behavior. The moral and intellectual virtues are thus importantly distinct and mutually reinforcing. Both should be present in a truly excellent human being, and both have a role to play in fully developed environmental virtue ethics. (shrink)

Research programs in empirical psychology over the past few decades have led scholars to posit implicit biases. This is due to the development of innovative behavioural measures that have revealed aspects of our cognitions which may not be identified on self-report measures requiring individuals to reflect on and report their attitudes and beliefs. But what does it mean to characterise such biases as implicit? Can we satisfactorily articulate the grounds for identifying them as bias? And crucially, what sorts of cognitions (...) are in fact being measured; what mental states or processes underpin such behavioural responses? In this paper, we outline some of the philosophical and empirical issues engaged when attempting to address these three questions. Our aim is to provide a constructive taxonomy of the issues, and how they interrelate. As we will see, any view about what implicit bias is may depend on a range of prior theoretical choices. (shrink)

There are now many important contributions to the scientific study of the brain-mind continuum. These results come both from research into non-ordinary states of consciousness and into the brain's intrinsic, largely unconscious mechanisms. The larger potential of such investigations consists precisely in making the parameters of our cognitive system apparent. But they also reveal the socio-cultural uses to which these parameters are currently, or in the foreseeable future, being applied. This article wrestles with that fact. Specifically, it examines the implications (...) for those of us interested in the dynamics of visual awareness and the structural and phenomenological aspects of noticing. Because some of the key characteristics of consciousness are so ingrained that we are usually blind to them, it is all the more important to understand how and why we pay attention to certain features of our environment. Subjective consciousness pertains to the realm of inner experience as well as focusing on the external world. What Daniel Dennett terms `intentionality' or directedness towards an object is a sign of our connectedness to the outside world. Beyond connection, I am interested in how complex works of art help us cognize, confer reality, or have knowledge of what lies before our eyes. I will argue that this calibration of the agent's experience and her perception of the world is under threat today. (shrink)

Piéron's Law describes the relationship between stimulus intensity and reaction time. Previously (Stafford & Gurney, 2004), we have shown that Piéron's Law is a necessary consequence of rise-to-threshold decision making and thus will arise from optimal simple decision-making algorithms (e.g., Bogacz, Brown, Moehlis, Holmes, & Cohen, 2006). Here, we manipulate the color saturation of a Stroop stimulus. Our results show that Piéron's Law holds for color intensity and color-naming reaction time, extending the domain of this law, in line (...) with our suggestion of the generality of the processes that can give rise to Piéron's Law. In addition, we find that Stroop condition does not interact with the effect of color saturation; Stroop interference and facilitation remain constant at all levels of color saturation. An analysis demonstrates that this result cannot be accounted for by single-stage decision-making algorithms which combine all the evidence pertaining to a decision into a common metric. This shows that human decision making is not information-optimal and suggests that the generalization of current models of simple perceptual decision making to more complex decisions is not straightforward. (shrink)

The paper will show that on women and the family his writings exhibit a contradictory stance between nineteenth-century patriarchalism and progressive ideas; he appears to oscillate, as it were, between Hegel or Ruskin and Engels or J.S. Mill. This seems curious to a late twentieth-century reader, but was by no means eccentric in the context of German feminist and socialist discourse of his time. His philosophy of gender cannot be dismissed as a mere collection of tired patriarchalist cliches; like (...) his philosophy of society it is rich and still worthy of attention. (shrink)

Clear, concise and authoritative, Professor Stafford summarises and discusses five key works of one of England's greatest nineteenth-century thinkers: Mill's autobiography, Considerations on representative government, On liberty, The subjection of women and utilitarianism. Every year students of a variety of disciplines, political thought, history, literature, must rapidly acquire a basic understanding of some of Mill's principal ideas, their historical importance and continuing significance. This original work will be an invaluable companion.

Excerpt from The Anatomy of Modern Science: An Introduction to the Scientific Philosophy of to-DayIt was clear to me from the start that this need could be met in a way that would satisfy men of science only if the presentation dealt in the first place with the scientific results and not the philosophic problems. This book therefore deals with Inductive Philosophy, so to speak: the philosophic questions grow naturally out of the results and problems of science. I confidently believe (...) that this method is the one that will commend itself to English scientists.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

In this panel six IS researchers from varying backgrounds will discuss whether epistemological anarchy, as proposed by the controversial philosopher Paul Feyerabend, has the potential to foster research progress and can help to create new insights in the IS field. Feyerabend is well known for his notion that "anything goes" in terms of methodology, and many scholars are concerned that this seemingly anarchistic sentiment can undermine efforts to systematically build and structure an epistemological and methodological foundation for an academic (...) discipline. This panel, which will be moderated by Horst Treiblmaier, includes as panelists Andrew Burton-Jones, Shirley Gregor, Rudy Hirschheim, Michael Myers, and Tom Stafford. The outcome of this discussion will be incorporated into a paper published in the DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems. (shrink)

The history of British cybernetics offers us a different form of science and engineering, one that does not seek to dominate nature through knowledge. I want to say that one can distinguish two different paradigms in the history of science and technology: the one that Heidegger despised, which we could call the Modern paradigm, and another, cybernetic, nonModern, paradigm that he might have approved of. This essay focusses on work in the 1950s and early 1960s by two of Britain’s leading (...) cyberneticians, Stafford Beer and Gordon Pask, in the field of what one can call biological computing. My object is to get as clear as I can on what Beer and Pask were up to. At the end, I will discuss Beer’s hylozoist ontology of matter, mind and spirit. This material is not easy to get the hang of—but that is what one should expect from an unfamiliar paradigm. (shrink)

This article examines the connecting lines between the Chilean Project Cybersyn’s interface design, the German Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm and its cybernetically inspired approaches towards information design, and later developments in interaction design and the emerging field of Human–Computer Interaction in the USA. In particular, it first examines how early works of designers Tomàs Maldonado and Gui Bonsiepe on operative communication, that is, language-independent pictogram systems and visual grammars for computational systems, were intertwined with attempts to ground industrial design in (...) a scientific methodology, to address an era of computing machines, and to develop the concept of the interface as a heuristic for a renovated design thinking. It thereby also reconstructs further historical vanishing lines—e.g. the pictorial grammar of Otto Neurath’s ISOTYPE—of the development of the ‘ulm model’ of design. Second, the article explores how an apprehension of first-order cybernetics in West Germany—e.g. represented by hfg ulm staff like Max Bense or Abraham Moles, merged with Cybersyn’s second-order cybernetics ideas, as represented by Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model. And third, it asks about a further conceptual turn regarding an understanding of design which resulted in a focus on communicative interaction, e.g. in the later works of Fernando Flores and Terry Winograd on HCI, or in Beer’s Team Syntegrity approach. As an effect, the text will explore a specific and international network of cybernetic thinking between Latin America, Europe, and North America which emerged around Project Cybersyn, and which was occupied with questions of HCI, a democratization of design, and intelligence amplification. (shrink)

Galatea, or the Future of Darwinism W Russell Brain Originally published in 1927 "A brilliant exposition…of the evolutionary hypothesis." The Guardian "Should prove invaluable…" Literary Guide This non-technical but closely-reasoned book is a challenge to the orthodox teaching on evolution known as Neo-Darwinism. The author claims that although Neo-Darwinian theories can possibly account for the evolution of forms, they are quite inadequate to explain the evolution of functions. 88pp ************** Daedalus or Science and the Future J B S Haldane Originally (...) published in 1924. "The essay is brilliant. Sparkling with wit and bristling with challenges." British Medical Journal "Predicts the most startling changes." Morning Post This volume examines the future of scientific research from religious, philosophical social and economic standpoints. 94pp Automaton, or the Future of Mechanical Man H Stafford Hatfield Originally published in 1928 "It is impossible to do justice to his volume in a brief review…"Daily Herald At the time of original publication mankind’s chief inventions had been extensions of his senses or limbs. This work prophesies the dawn of an era in which substitutes will gradually be found even for the human brain. 96pp Gallio or the Tyranny of Science J W N Sullivan Originally published in 1927 "So packed with ideas it is not possible to give any adequate résumé of its contents." Times Literary Supplement "Remarkable monograph…devastating summary of materialism…" Spectator An attack on the values which science is so successfully imposing upon civilization. 90pp. (shrink)

What does it mean to be visually literate? Does it mean different things in the arts and the sciences? In the West, in Asia, or in developing nations? If we all need to become "visually literate," what does that mean in practical terms? The essays gathered here examine a host of issues surrounding "the visual," exploring national and regional ideas of visuality and charting out new territories of visual literacy that lie far beyond art history, such as law and chemistry. (...) With an afterword by Christopher Crouch, this groundbreaking collection brings together the work of major art and visual studies scholars and critics to explore what impact the new concept of "visual literacy" will have on the traditional field of art history. Contributors: Matthias Bruhn, Vera Dünkel, Jonathan Crary, Christopher Crouch, Peter Dallow, James Elkins, Henrik Enquist, W.J.T. Mitchell, Richard K. Sherwin, Susan Shifrin, Jon Simons, Barbara Maria Stafford, William Washabaugh. (shrink)

In 1972, in Chile, the German designer Gui Bonsiepe was in charge of the Industrial Design Department of Technological Institute of the National Corporation for the Promotion of Production INTEC Corfo, during the government of socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile. In this article from the INTEC magazine n.2, published this time for the first time in English, Bonsiepe develops a theoretical formulation, applied to the field of design, through which he proposes a concept that will be fundamental in (...) the field of interactive development, both analog and digital: the Interface. Thus, it also includes concepts of cybernetics such as variability and predictive study of behavior in the field of projecting disciplines. Bonsiepe is an exceptional representative during the formation of the iconic Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm. And among other elements, one very outstanding was his time as a student of Professor Max Bense and Horst Rittel, who would have introduced the concepts of first-order Cybernetics in the teaching of communication, and the design of information, in a pioneering way. The challenge posed in 1972, in Chile, focused on the possibility of calculating elements of criticism of political economy, in the field of knowledge generated by sensitive experiences, "calculating the use value" of the field of esthetics. As a renowned disciple of Max Bense and Tomas Maldonado, Bonsiepe represents the meeting of two Cybernetic traditions, collaborating with the emblematic Cybersyn Corfo project, in which the formulation of interaction mechanisms was strategic in combination with Stafford Beer's approaches to a second-order Cybernetics, according to the Viable System Model, for a project of decentralized state production, and transmission of information in real time. (shrink)

This article surveys recent work on the idea of "citizenship", not as a legal category, but as a normative ideal of membership and participation. We focus on two emerging issues. First, whereas traditional notions of citizenship assume that membership and participation are promoted by the possession of rights, many theorists now emphasize civic responsibilities. Second, whereas traditional theories assume that citizenship provides a common status and identity, some theorists now argue that the distinctive needs and identities of certain groups -such (...) as women, ethnic minorities, the disabled - can only be accommodated through "group-differentiated citizenship". The writings of neo-conservatives, participatory democrats, civic republicans, feminists, civil society theorists, virtue theorists and cultural pluralists are surveyed. (shrink)

It is a commonplace in philosophy of action that there is and must be teleologically basic action: something done on an occasion without doing it by means of doing anything else. It is widely believed that basic actions are exercises of skill. As the source of the need for basic action is the structure of practical reasoning, this yields a conception of skill and practical reasoning as complementary but mutually exclusive. On this view, practical reasoning and complex intentional action depend (...) on skill and basic action, but the latter pair are not themselves rationally structured: the movements a basic action comprises are not intentional actions, and they are not structured as means to an end. However, Michael Thompson and Douglas Lavin have argued that action that bears no inner rational structure is not intentional action at all, and that therefore there can be no such thing as basic action. In this paper, I argue that their critique shows that standard conceptions of basic action are indeed untenable, but not that we can do without an alternative. I develop an alternative conception of skill and basic action on which their basicness is not to be equated with simplicity: like deliberation and non-basic action, they are teleologically complex, but their complexity takes a different form. On this view, skill contrasts with deliberation—not because it is not a manifestation of practical reason, but because the two are specifically different manifestations of practical reason. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions of knowledge how typically focus on the question whether or not knowing how to do ϕ consists in propositional knowledge, and divide the field between intellectualists and anti-intellectualists. This way of framing the issue is said to derive from Gilbert Ryle. I argue that this is a misreading of Ryle, whose primary interest in discussing knowledge how was not epistemological but rather action-theoretical, whose argument against intellectualism has for this reason been misunderstood and underestimated, and whose positive view (...) aims to chart a middle course between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. (shrink)

The rapid development of machine-learning algorithms, which underpin contemporary artificial intelligence systems, has created new opportunities for the automation of work processes and management functions. While algorithmic management has been observed primarily within the platform-mediated gig economy, its transformative reach and consequences are also spreading to more standard work settings. Exploring algorithmic management as a sociotechnical concept, which reflects both technological infrastructures and organizational choices, we discuss how algorithmic management may influence existing power and social structures within organizations. We identify (...) three key issues. First, we explore how algorithmic management shapes pre-existing power dynamics between workers and managers. Second, we discuss how algorithmic management demands new roles and competencies while also fostering oppositional attitudes toward algorithms. Third, we explain how algorithmic management impacts knowledge and information exchange within an organization, unpacking the concept of opacity on both a technical and organizational level. We conclude by situating this piece in broader discussions on the future of work, accountability, and identifying future research steps. (shrink)

Though everyday life accords a great deal of significance to practical abilities—such as the ability to walk, to speak French, to play the piano—philosophers of action pay surprisingly little attention to them. By contrast, abilities are discussed in various other philosophical projects. From these discussions, a partial theory of abilities emerges. If the partial theory—which is at best adequate only to a few examples of practical abilities—were correct, then philosophers of action would be right to ignore practical abilities, because they (...) could play no fundamental role in an account of human agency. For the idea that practical abilities *do* play a fundamental role in human agency to be worth considering, an alternative conception of them is needed. As a first step, I attempt some of the necessary ground-clearing work. (shrink)

In his book SEXUAL DESIRE, Roger Scruton wrongly maintains that human sexual experience is essential intentional. His thesis depends on his highly revisionary definition of 'sexual desire', the artificial nature of which I expose and criticise. He admits that homosexual desire is capable of the same kind of intentionality as heterosexual desire, and is therefore not intrinsically obscene or perverted, but he advances reasons why homosexuality is morally different from heterosexuality and is therefore an object of disapproval. His arguments presuppose (...) 'an impassable moral divide' between the sexes, and are, on his own admission, not very cogent. Since he allows that homosexual desire is a natural and spontaneous phenomenon and also proposes that moral education should guide us towards a state in which our sexuality is entirely integrated within a life of personal affection and responsibility, consistency requires that he adopt a sexual ideology which does not discriminate against homosexuality. For homosexuals are unlikely to achieve the 'sexual integrity' which Scruton advocates (and which I endorse) if they are constantly encouraged to disparage their own sexual nature and if social institutions make no positive provision for them. (shrink)

Julia Annas proposes to shed light on the intelligence of virtue through an analogy with the intelligence of practical skills. To do so, she first aims to distinguish genuine skills and skillful actions from mere habits and routine behaviour: like skills, habits are acquired through habituation and issue in action immediately (i.e. unmediated by reasoning about what to do), but the routine behaviour in which habit issues is mindless and unintelligent, and cannot serve to establish or illuminate the intelligence of (...) virtuous action. In a second step, she argues that virtue has the same kind of intellectual structure—and is acquired through the same kind of habituation—as skill. I argue that Annas’s proposal fails at the first step: her conceptions of the rational articulacy of skill and the immediacy that characterizes its exercise in action cannot be squared. I offer an alternative conception of the intelligence of skill and its exercise that draws on Aristotle’s conception of rational capacities as two-way powers. But as a virtue is not a two-way power, virtues and skills do not share a common intellectual structure. (shrink)

The Anthropocene concept arose within the Earth System science community, albeit explicitly as a geological time term. Its current analysis by the stratigraphical community, as a potential formal addition to the Geological Time Scale, necessitates comparison of the methodologies and patterns of enquiry of these two communities. One means of comparison is to consider some of the most widely used results of the ESS, the ‘planetary boundaries’ concept of Rockström and colleagues, and the ‘Great Acceleration’ graphs of Steffen and colleagues, (...) in terms of their stratigraphical expression. This expression varies from virtually non-existent to pronounced and many-faceted, while in some cases stratigraphical proxies may help constrain anthropogenic process. The Anthropocene concepts of the ESS and stratigraphy emerge as complementary, and effective stratigraphic definition should facilitate wider transdisciplinary communication. (shrink)

The three major schools of Vedanta— a kara's Advaita, R m nuja's Viśi dvaita, and Madhva's Dvaita—all claim to be based on the Upanishads, but they have evolved very different views of Brahman, or the Supreme Reality, and the soul's relation to that Reality once it is liberated from rebirth, when mok a or eternal life commences. Advaita teaches that liberated souls merge into the seamless blissful Brahman, the only Reality, and finally escape their earth dreams of sin and suffering, (...) even to the point of forfeiting individuality. Both Viśi dvaita and Dvaita are resolutely realist systems and see essential differences between Brahman and souls that are never transcended, even in the world of the liberated, visualized in these systems as a glorious paradise where God (Vishnu) reigns in splendor over blissful souls devoted to Him everlastingly. But whereas Madhva sees innate differences in souls, each with a greater or lesser capacity for bliss, R m nuja sees a universal sameness in the quality and degree of bliss, even to the point of equating it with the bliss of God Himself. The author points out these and other contrasts between the three views of mok a , critiques each, then develops a view of the liberated state more satisfactory (in his view) than any of the three in a marriage of East and West. (shrink)

This book examines the politics of diversity, and explores potential sources of support for an inclusive solidarity, in particular political sources of solidarity.

Recent work on testimony has raised questions about the extent to which testimony is a distinctively second-personal phenomenon and the possible epistemic significance of its second-personal aspects. However, testimony, in the sense primarily investigated in recent epistemology, is far from the only way in which we acquire knowledge from others. My goal is to distinguish knowledge acquired from testimony (learning from being told) from knowledge acquired from teaching (learning from being taught), and to investigate the similarities and differences between the (...) two with respect to the interpersonal dimensions of their structures. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the sustained and multifaceted attempt of Jürgen Habermas to reconstruct Kant's theory of cosmopolitan right for our own times. In a series of articles written in the post‐1989 period, Habermas has argued that the challenge posed both by the catastrophes of the twentieth century, and by social forces of globalization, has given new impetus to the idea of cosmopolitan justice that Kant first expressed. He recognizes that today we cannot simply repeat Kant's eighteenth‐century vision: that (...) if we are to grapple with the complexities of present‐day problems, it is necessary to iron out certain inconsistencies in Kant's thinking, radicalize it where its break from the old order of nation‐states is incomplete, socialize it so as to draw out the connections between perpetual peace and social justice, and modernize it so as to comprehend the “differences both in global situation and conceptual framework that now separate us from him.”1 His basic intuition, however, is that Kant's idea of cosmopolitan right is as relevant to our times as it was to Kant's own. If it was Kant's achievement to formulate the idea of cosmopolitanism in a modern philosophical form, Habermas takes up the challenge posed by Karl‐Otto Apel: to “think with Kant against Kant” in reconstructing this idea. What follows is a critical assessment of Habermas's response to this challenge. We focus here on the dilemmas he faces in grounding his normative commitment to cosmopolitan politics and in reconciling his cosmopolitanism with the national framework in which he developed his ideas of constitutional patriotism and deliberative democracy. (shrink)

Modalists think that knowledge requires forming your belief in a “modally stable” way: using a method that wouldn't easily go wrong, or using a method that wouldn't have given you this belief had it been false. Recent Modalist projects from Justin Clarke-Doane and Dan Baras defend a principle they call “Modal Security,” roughly: if evidence undermines your belief, then it must give you a reason to doubt the safety or sensitivity of your belief. Another recent Modalist project from Carlotta Pavese (...) and Bob Beddor defends “Modal Virtue Epistemology”: knowledge is a belief that is maximally modally robust across “normal” worlds. We'll offer new objections to these recent Modalist projects. We will then argue for a rival view, Explanationism: knowing something is believing it because it's true. We will show how Explanationism offers a better account of undermining defeaters than Modalism, and a better account of knowledge. (shrink)

In Intention, Anscombe says that practical reasoning is practical, not by virtue of its content, but rather by virtue of its form. But in her later essay ‘Practical Inference’, she seems to take this back, claiming instead that (1) the practicality of practical reasoning (or inference) resides in the distinctive use it makes of the premises, and (2) ‘it is a matter of indifference’ whether we say that it exemplifies a distinctive form. I aim to show that Anscombe is right (...) about (1) but wrong about (2): the distinctive use (or teleology) of practical reasoning explains its distinctive formal features, and when the former is thought through, the latter are revealed to be more numerous and significant than Anscombe seems to recognize. (shrink)

Philosophy has often been represented by its detractors, and even sometimes by its practitioners, as a subject which, unlike the natural sciences, exhibits a degree of progress far from commensurate with its long history. Many of the questions entertained by the ancients are still very much alive: answers proffered are put forward very tentatively, seldom meet with universal acceptance, and frequently give rise to controversy even more prolific than that which they were intended to lay low.

Every set can been thought of as a directed graph whose edge relation is ∈. We show that many natural examples of directed graphs of this kind are indivisible: for every infinite κ, for every indecomposable λ, and every countable model of set theory. All of the countable digraphs we consider are orientations of the countable random graph. In this way we find indivisible well‐founded orientations of the random graph that are distinct up to isomorphism, and ℵ1 that are distinct (...) up to siblinghood. (shrink)

It is a commonplace amongst communitarians, socialists and feminists alike that liberalism is to be rejected for its excessive ‘individualism’ or ‘atomism,’ for ignoring the manifest ways in which we are ‘embedded’ or ‘situated’ in various social roles and communal relationships. The effect of these theoretical flaws is that liberalism, in a misguided attempt to protect and promote the dignity and autonomy of the individual, has undermined the associations and communities which alone can nurture human flourishing.My plan is to examine (...) the resources available to liberalism to meet these objections. My primary concern is with what liberals can say in response, not with what particular liberals actually have said in the past. Still, as a way of acknowledging intellectual debts, if nothing else, I hope to show how my arguments are related to the political morality of modem liberals from J.S. Mill through to Rawls and Dworkin. The term ‘liberal’ has been applied to many different theories in many different fields, but I’m using it in this fairly restricted sense. First, I’m dealing with a political morality, a set of moral arguments about the justification of political action and political institutions. Second, my concern is with this modem liberalism, not seventeenth-century liberalism, and I want to leave entirely open what the relationship is between the two. It might be that the developments initiated by the ‘new liberals’ are really an abandonment of what was definitive of classical liberalism. G.A. Cohen, for example, says that since they rejected the principle of ‘self-ownership’ which was definitive of classical liberalism, these new liberals should instead be called ‘social democrats.’My concern is to defend their political morality, whatever the proper label. (shrink)

This text considers how a host of ethical traditions define civil society.

ABSTRACT:Employing utilitarian criteria, Jones and Felps, in “Shareholder Wealth Maximization and Social Welfare: A Utilitarian Critique” (Business Ethics Quarterly23[2]: 207–38), examined the sequential logic leading from shareholder wealth maximization to maximal social welfare and uncovered several serious empirical and conceptual shortcomings. After rendering shareholder wealth maximization seriously compromised as an objective for corporate operations, they provided a set of criteria regarding what a replacement corporate objective would look like, but do not offer a specific alternative. In this article, we draw (...) on neo-utilitarian thought to advance a refined version of normative stakeholder theory that we believe addresses a major remaining criticism of extant versions, their lack of specificity. More particularly, we provide a single-valued objective function for the corporation—stakeholder happiness enhancement—that would allow managers to make principled choices between/among policy options when stakeholder interests conflict. (shrink)

Barbara Stafford is at the forefront of a growing movement that calls for the humanities to confront the brain’s material realities. In Echo Objects she argues that humanists should seize upon the exciting neuroscientific discoveries that are illuminating the underpinnings of cultural objects. In turn, she contends, brain scientists could enrich their investigations of mental activity by incorporating phenomenological considerations—particularly the intricate ways that images focus intentional behavior and allow us to feel thought. This, then, is a book for (...) both sides of the aisle, a stunningly broad exploration of how complex images—or patterns that compress space and time—make visible the invisible ordering of human consciousness. Stafford demonstrates, for example, how the compound formats of emblems, symbols, collage, and electronic media reveal the brain’s grappling to construct mental objects that are redoubled by prior associations. On the other hand, she compellingly shows that findings in evolutionary biology and the neurosciences are providing profound opportunities for understanding aesthetic conundrums as old and deep-seated as the human urge to imitate, the mapping of inner space, and the role of narrative and nonnarrative representation. As precise in her discussions of firing neurons as she is about the coordinating dynamics of image making, Stafford locates these major transdisciplinary issues at the intersection of art, science, philosophy, and technology. Ultimately, she makes an impassioned plea for a common purpose—for the acknowledgement that, at the most basic level, these separate projects belong to a single investigation. (shrink)

J Martin Stafford; Marxism, Neutrality and Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 161–166, https://doi.org/10.111.