A measure of coherence is said to be truth conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) results in a higher likelihood of truth. Recent impossibility results strongly indicate that there are no (non-trivial) probabilistic coherence measures that are truth conducive. Indeed, this holds even if truth conduciveness is understood in a weak ceteris paribus sense (Bovens & Hartmann, 2003, Bayesian epistemology. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Olsson, 2005, Against coherence: Truth probability and justification. Oxford: (...) Oxford University Press). This raises the problem of how coherence could nonetheless be an epistemically important property. Our proposal is that coherence may be linked in a certain way to reliability. We define a measure of coherence to be reliability conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) results in a higher probability that the information sources are reliable. Restricting ourselves to the most basic case, we investigate which coherence measures in the literature are reliability conducive. It turns out that, while a number of measures fail to be reliability conducive, except possibly in a trivial and uninteresting sense, Shogenji’s measure and several measures generated by Douven and Meijs’s recipe are notable exceptions to this rule. (shrink)

Across eight experiments (N = 2310), we studied whether people would prioritize rescuing individuals who may be thought to contribute more to society. We found that participants were generally dismissive of general rules that prioritize more socially beneficial individuals, such as doctors instead of unemployed people. By contrast, participants were more supportive of one-off decisions to save the life of a more socially beneficial individual, even when such cases were the same as those covered by the rule. This generality effect (...) occurred robustly even when controlling for various factors. It occurred when the decision-maker was the same in both cases, when the pairs of people differing in the extent of their indirect social utility was varied, when the scenarios were varied, when the participant samples came from different countries, and when the general rule only covered cases that are exactly the same as the situation described in the one-off condition. The effect occurred even when the general rule was introduced via a concrete precedent case. Participants' tendency to be more supportive of the one-off proposal than the general rule was significantly reduced when they evaluated the two proposals jointly as opposed to separately. Finally, the effect also occurred in sacrificial moral dilemmas, a general phenomenon occurring in multiple moral contexts. We discuss possible explanations of the effect, including concerns about negative consequences of the rule and a deontological aversion against making difficult trade-off decisions unless they are absolutely necessary. (shrink)

A measure of coherence is said to be reliability conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) results in a higher likelihood that the witnesses are reliable. Recently, it has been proved that several coherence measures proposed in the literature are reliability conducive in a restricted scenario (Olsson and Schubert 2007, Synthese 157:297–308). My aim is to investigate which coherence measures turn out to be reliability conducive in the more general scenario where it is any (...) finite number of witnesses that give equivalent reports. It is shown that only the so-called Shogenji measure is reliability conducive in this scenario. I take that to be an argument for the Shogenji measure being a fruitful explication of coherence. (shrink)

A measure of coherence is said to be reliability conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) among testimonies implies a higher probability that the witnesses are reliable. Recently, it has been proved that several coherence measures proposed in the literature are reliability conducive in scenarios of equivalent testimonies (Olsson and Schubert 2007; Schubert, to appear). My aim is to investigate which coherence measures turn out to be reliability conducive in the more general scenario (...) where the testimonies do not have to be equivalent. It is shown that four measures are reliability conducive in the present scenario, all of which are ordinally equivalent to the Shogenji measure. I take that to be an argument for the Shogenji measure being a fruitful explication of coherence. (shrink)

A measure of coherence is said to be reliability conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (asmeasured) of a set of testimonies implies a higher probability that the witnesses are reliable. Recently, it has been proved that the Shogenji measure of coherence is reliability conducive in restricted scenarios (e.g., Olsson and Schubert, Synthese, 157:297–308, 2007). In this article, I investigate whether the Shogenji measure, or any other coherence measure, is reliability conducive in general. An impossibility theorem (...) is proved to the effect that this is not the case. I conclude that coherence is not reliability conducive. (shrink)

Let us by ‘first-order beliefs’ mean beliefs about the world, such as the belief that it will rain tomorrow, and by ‘second-order beliefs’ let us mean beliefs about the reliability of first-order, belief-forming processes. In formal epistemology, coherence has been studied, with much ingenuity and precision, for sets of first-order beliefs. However, to the best of our knowledge, sets including second-order beliefs have not yet received serious attention in that literature. In informal epistemology, by contrast, sets of the latter kind (...) play an important role in some respectable coherence theories of knowledge and justification. In this paper, we extend the formal treatment of coherence to second-order beliefs. Our main conclusion is that while extending the framework to second-order beliefs sheds doubt on the generality of the notorious impossibility results for coherentism, another problem crops up that might be no less damaging to the coherentist project: facts of coherence turn out to be epistemically accessible only to agents who have a good deal of insight into matters external to their own belief states. (shrink)

In this thesis the connection between coherence and reliability is investigated. The question may be phrased as follows: does the fact that a set of testimonies is coherent imply that the witnesses who have reported these testimonies are reliable? The same question may also be expressed in terms of beliefs: does the fact that a set of beliefs is coherent imply that the beliefs were reliably produced? Traditionally, coherence theorists have thought that coherence is connected to truth, but in this (...) dissertation the thesis is that it is rather connected to reliability. The investigation proceeds within a probabilistic framework, the so-called witness scenario, where a number of partially reliable witnesses give independent reports. Hence it is primarily coherent sets of testimonies that are discussed, but coherence of beliefs is taken to function similarly, and thus the results acquired using the witness scenario are, it is argued, relevant for the traditional discussion which mostly concerns coherence of beliefs. Using this scenario a notion of reliability-conduciveness, similar to the much-discussed notion of truth-conducivenes, is formally defined. This definition says, roughly, that a measure of coherence C is reliability-conducive if and only if the more coherent a set of testimonies is, as measured by C, the higher is the probability that a witness who has given one of these testimonies is reliable. In Papers I and II it is tested whether a number of coherence measures proposed in the literature are reliability-conducive in various salient scenarios. It is shown that the only coherence measure that is reliability-conducive in all of those scenarios is the so-called Shogenji measure. This observation is then used to argue that the Shogenji measure is a fruitful explication of the notion of coherence. However, in Paper III it is shown that in the most general scenario neither the Shogenji measure nor any other measure of coherence is reliability-conducive. In Paper IV, the use of coherence reasoning in court is investigated. It is shown that we often use the notion of coherence in judicial reasoning, for example to find out whether certain witnesses are reliable or not. Using the results from Papers I and II, as well as additional formal results that strengthen the connection between coherence and reliability, it is argued that this line of reasoning is valid. Also, it is argued in the introductory chapter that these findings show that coherence is indeed closely connected to reliability, even though it is not generally reliability-conducive, and that this connection is much closer than that between coherence and truth. In Paper V, coherent sets of so-called higher order testimonies are examined, where a higher order testimony is defined as a testimony concerning some other witness’s reliability . Such sets have hitherto not been examined within formal coherence theory. It is shown that coherence must be defined in a non-standard way to account for all our intuitions regarding sets involving higher order testimonies. It is then argued that this shows that in order to correctly estimate the degree of coherence of a set of beliefs, the believer must have a firm grasp of her own reliability; a fact that in turn is taken to be problematic for the coherence theory of justification. (shrink)

It is well known that Ernest Gellner made substantial use of his knowledge of the social sciences in philosophy. Here I discuss how he used it on the basis of a few examples taken from Gellner’s philosophical output. It is argued that he made a number of highly original “translations”, or re-interpretations, of philosophical theories and problems using his knowledge of the social sciences. While this method is endorsed, it is also argued that some of Gellner’s translations crossed the line (...) between the original and the idiosyncratic. (shrink)

This article considers how Ernest Gellner used sociology and anthropology to attack ordinary language philosophy in Words and Things. It argues that this attack can be seen as a part of the movement to make philosophy more empirical or “naturalized,” something that has not been generally noted. It also discusses what general lessons to draw from Words and Things regarding how empirical knowledge should be used in philosophy. Among other things, the article argues that one important lesson is that empirical (...) philosophers should make more use of “soft” social sciences, such as sociology and anthropology, and not focus exclusively on “harder” disciplines, such as physics and experimental psychology. Another upshot of the discussion is that philosophers should draw on empirical knowledge not only when they solve problems but also when they formulate them. (shrink)

SummaryErnest Gellner was, by all accounts, one of the most unconventional thinkers of the twentieth century. Not only was the content of his theories often strikingly original, but he also arrived at them by use of a singularly personal thought-style. The article describes the most salient features of this thought-style: his quest for overviews, on the one hand, and for penetrating and unexpected insights, on the other, his opposition to what he perceived as humanistic complacency, his academic elitism, and much (...) else. In the final section, an assessment of the most conspicuous feature of Gellner's thought-style—his tendency to downplay the importance of detail and to focus on high-level theory—is given. It is argued that this characteristic served Gellner better in philosophy and the history of ideas than in the social sciences. (shrink)

Platon ist nach Homer der antike Autor mit der reichhaltigsten Rezeption vom Altertum über das Mittelalter bis in die Neuzeit. Gleichwohl und gerade aus diesem Grund ist diese bisher allenfalls bruchstückhaft aufgearbeitet worden. Die Autoren versuchen, diesem alten Ziel geisteswissenschaftlicher Forschung auf neuen Wegen näherzukommen, indem sie eine informationswissenschaftliche Perspektive auf Platon und seine Rezeption anwenden. Dazu sind innovative Methoden der Paraphrasensuche entwickelt worden, um diese auch als Methode altertumswissenschaftlich und kulturwissenschaftlich interessierter Forschung zu etablieren.

Wie können Freiheit und Widerstand innerhalb von Foucaults Theorie der Macht und Subjektivierung konzipiert werden? Karsten Schubert liefert die erste systematische Rekonstruktion der sozialphilosophischen Debatte um Freiheit bei Foucault und eine neue Lösung für das Freiheitsproblem: Freiheit als die Fähigkeit zur reflexiven Kritik der eigenen Subjektivierung – kurz: Freiheit als Kritik – ist das Resultat von freiheitlicher Subjektivierung in politischen Institutionen. Der Band zeigt so die Konsequenzen von Foucaults Freiheitsdenken für die Demokratietheorie und die allgemeine sozialphilosophische Freiheitsdiskussion auf.

Employees perception of the existence of a covenantal relationship between themselves and their employer indicates that they believe there is a mutual commitment to shared values and the welfare of the other party in the relationship. Research suggests that these types of employment relationships have positive benefits for both employees and employers. There has been little research, however, on the factors that determine whether such relationships will develop and thrive.In this paper, we suggest that the organizations ethical work climate may (...) be an important factor affecting employees perceptions about the nature of the relational contract between themselves and their employer. Specifically, we argue that work climates emphasizing benevolence and principle will be associated with covenantal relationships. Conversely, we believe that work climates emphasizing egoism will make it less likely that covenantal relationships will develop between an employer and employee. (shrink)

Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1898 Edition.

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

Wissenschaftsfreiheit wird vorherrschend als Freiheit der Wissenschaft von politischer Einmischung verstanden. Der Artikel kritisiert dieses negative Verständnis von Wissenschaftsfreiheit anhand einer Analyse seines prominentesten Vertreters, dem Netzwerk Wissenschaftsfreiheit, das damit eine Politisierung einseitig den Vertreter*innen gesellschaftskritischer Ansätze zuschreibt, während es die eigene Position als ‚rein wissenschaftlich‘ und politisch neutral dargestellt. Demgegenüber schlägt der Artikel ein kritisches Verständnis von Wissenschaftsfreiheit vor, das seine Politizität reflektiert. Ausgehend von der Analyse, dass starre Macht- und Privilegienstrukturen das zentrale Hindernis für die gemeinsame Arbeit an (...) wissenschaftlicher Objektivität sind, geht es beim kritischen Begriff der Wissenschaftsfreiheit um die Reflexion und Transformation des Verhältnisses von Wissenschaft und Politik. Dabei steht die Diversifizierung von Zugangschancen und Standpunkten innerhalb der Wissenschaft im Mittelpunkt – also die Neuverteilung von Macht und Privilegien. Der Artikel entwickelt dieses Verständnis aus einer Diskussion des Verhältnisses von Wissenschaft und Politik in zwei philosophischen Begründungsmöglichkeiten der Wissenschaftsfreiheit und aus einer Rekonstruktion der kritischen politischen Theorie, insbesondere der foucaultschen Machttheorie und der feministischen Standpunkttheorie. Er zeigt auf dieser Grundlage, dass drei verschiedene Arten der Diversifizierung der Wissenschaft – intern, extern-institutionell und extern-aktivistisch –, die vom vor dem Hintergrund des negativen Begriffs als Einschränkung der Wissenschaftsfreiheit verstanden werden, tatsächlich zu ihrer Verbesserung beitragen. -/- . (shrink)

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

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

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

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

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

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

In der sozialphilosophischen Debatte um Freiheit bei Foucault wird das ‚Freiheitsproblem‘ verhandelt: Wie können Freiheit und Widerstand innerhalb von Foucaults Theorie der Macht und Subjektivierung konzipiert werden? Die Arbeit unterscheidet systematisch vier verschiedene Interpretationsstrategien von Foucaults Werk, die es als kohärente sozialphilosophische Theorie konstruieren und dabei das Freiheitsproblem lösen sollen; sie rekonstruiert die Arbeiten von exemplarischen Vertreter_innen dieser Strategien: 1. Foucault ist kohärent (Paul Patton), 2. Foucault korrigiert sich (Thomas Lemke), 3. Foucault kritisiert kohärent (Martin Saar), 4. Foucault ist nicht (...) genug (Amy Allen). Das erste Ziel der Arbeit ist, die Debatte und die in ihr verhandelten Probleme und Begriffe durch die systematische Rekonstruktion zu differenzieren und klarer zu fassen. Dafür werden einige neue systematische Unterscheidungen entwickelt: u.a. das Freiheitsproblem der Machtdetermination im Gegensatz zum Freiheitproblem der Subjektivierung, Freiheit als Anders-handeln-Können im Gegensatz zu Freiheit als Kritik, verschiedene Modalitäten dieser Freiheitsbegriffe und eine Foucault-Lesart der Regierungstranszendenz im Gegensatz zu einer Lesart der radikalen Immanenz. Das zweite Ziel der Arbeit ist die Entwicklung einer neuen These zur Freiheit im Rahmen einer Subjektivierungstheorie durch die interne Kritik der vier Interpretationsstrategien auf Grundlage der dort entwickelten Differenzierungen. Freiheit als die Fähigkeit zur reflexiven Kritik der eigenen Subjektivierung ‒ kurz: Freiheit als Kritik ‒ kann verstanden werden als das Resultat von freiheitlicher Subjektivierung, deren gesellschaftlicher Ort politische Institutionen sind, die im Rahmen einer postfundamentalen, pluralen und liberalen politischen Theorie bestimmt werden können. Drittens verfolgt die Arbeit das Ziel, durch den Begriff der Freiheit als Kritik die allgemeine sozialphilosophische Debatte um Freiheitsbegriffe zu erweitern und ihn als einen Kandidaten neben der negativen, reflexiven und sozialen Freiheit zu präsentieren, der einerseits plausible Einsichten dieser drei Ansätze aufnimmt und andererseits ihre blinden Flecken korrigiert. (shrink)

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

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

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

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

Entgegen der landlaufigen Meinung, unser Zeitalter sei durch einen irreversiblen Pluralismus philosophischer Diskurse gekennzeichnet, versucht diese Schrift zu zeigen, dass es Einheit in der Vielheit geben kann, wenn Denkzusammenhange auf ihre bildliche Expressivitat bezogen werden. Dabei lasst sich darstellen, dass heterogene Denkentwurfe wie Heideggers "Sein und Zeit," die Psychoanalyse, Wittgensteins "Traktat" oder Einsteins spezielle Relativitatstheorie trotz aller sachlicher Verschiedenheit einen einheitlichen Expressionszusammenhang bilden, welcher durch eine "Hohlweltmetapher" gekennzeichnet ist. Das Absolute wird in den Raum der Endlichkeit verlagert. Der christliche Gott (...) wird neu gedeutet.". (shrink)

In general, there are two main approaches to settling the alleged conflict between religion and science. On the first approach, one argues that there is not even the possibility of such a conflict, since the uses of religious utterances are sufficiently different from those of scientific ones to constitute them a distinct logical type. Thus, if religion appears to conflict with science, either this is merely an appearance, or else one of them, at least, is also performing the function of (...) the other, in which case their conflict is really either a scientific conflict or a religious conflict. In no case, however, can the truth of a scientific utterance be any reason for inferring the falsity of a religious one, and much less can it be any reason for entertaining doubts about the religious utterance's logical propriety. (shrink)

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

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

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

Die Fuhrung von Streitkraften in Einsatzen ist eine verantwortungsvolle Aufgabe. Militarische Fuhrer benotigen dafur eine ausgepragte moralische Urteilskraft. Was ist aber damit gemeint? Wie konnen ethische Reflexionen bei der Fuhrung von Streitkraften im Einsatz helfen? Hartwig von Schubert bietet neben einer Klarung ethischer Begriffe praxisnahe Kriterien fur einen ethischen Entscheidungs-Check an, die er anhand einer komplexen militarischen Lage einem Praxistest unterzieht. Er pladiert fur eine integrative Militarethik, die sich aus den Ethiken verschiedenster Berufsgruppen speist und die interdisziplinar und international (...) vermittelbar ist.". (shrink)