One of the key events in the relations between the Central European philosophers and those of the Nordic countries was the Second International Congress for the ...

Gegenwartig, da ein neues Europa errichtet wird, ist es wieder aktuell, nach dem philosophischen und wissenschaftlichen Erbe der kleineren Lander Europas zu fragen, die in der international dominierenden Forschung oft im Schatten geblieben sind. Fern von den Machtzentren existierten dort aber auch Freiheiten und Betatigungsrahmen, wie sie ein Zentrum nicht unbedingt gestattet hatte. Dieses Buch behandelt zumeist unerforschte und unbekannte Materialien aus Schweden, Finnland und Osterreich und zeigt diese sowohl in ihren Kontakten zu den Zentren als auch in ihren lokalen (...) Kontexten: einen Benjamin Hoijer etwa, der in Schweden die Philosophie J.G. Fichtes weiterfuhrte, oder auch die Transformationen des Hegelschen und Feuerbachschen Erbes im europaischen Norden. Die Spannweite von Manninens Studien erstreckt sich von den Reaktionen auf die europaische Aufklarung und die Franzosische Revolution bis hin zum Radikalismus des Wiener Kreises. -In der Sache geht es Juha Manninen immer wieder um das eine: um Vernetzungen und Widerspruche der europaischen Geistesgeschichte sichtbar zu machen und die festgefahrenen Bahnen unlinearer wie nationaler Geschichtsschreibung zu durchbrechen.- (Georg Gimpl)". (shrink)

Georg Henrik von Wright always mentioned that his academic teachers had been Eino Kaila and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He even spoke of the two as his “father figures”. Georg Henrik was a sunny boy, but his “fathers” appear to be quite enigmatic. An industry of philosophical literature is needed to interpret Wittgenstein. Kaila seems to be at most a minor figure with some contacts to the Vienna Circle. It is not wrong to see von Wright as a follower of Wittgenstein, and (...) von Wright’s life-long work was decisive for the fact that all of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass is now available. In what follows, I will concentrate more on Kaila and his Viennese connections than on Wittgenstein. I make an attempt of trying to see the two “fathers” from a perspective that was or at least could have been von Wright’s contemporary view. Vienna – or, more accurately – the recent past of Vienna was also von Wright’s city of dreams. Kaila is an interesting case as concerns the networking typical of the Vienna Circle, especially as an example of Rudolf Carnap’s rich scientific contacts at that point of his career. It was Kaila who made the start of von Wright’s career possible and determined a number of his philosophical interests and orientations, including the specific way in which von Wright’s work can be said to be linked to the Vienna Circle and logical empiricism. Of course, after World War II “analytic philosophy” was the acceptable designation for that kind of work that von Wright was pursuing in Cambridge, but his story can not be told without attention to the impulses from Vienna. (shrink)

Die Philosophie ist keine Lehre sondern ein Tun. Das Ergebnis der Philosophie sind nicht Sätze, sondern das richtige Verstehen von Sätzen. Ihr Ziel ist logische Klärung unserer Gedanken. Hat die Philosophie ihr Ziel erreicht, so wird sie überflüssig. Nicht Vermehrung der Erkenntnisse ist das Ziel der Philosophie, sondern Reinigung der vorhandenen Erkenntnisse. – Eine Führerin, die wir nur so lange gebrauchen als wir irren. – Es gibt keine philosophischen Tatsachen. In der Wissenschaft handelt es sich um den Gegensatz von wahr (...) und falsch, in der Philosophie von sinnvoll und sinnlos. Ein jedes philosophisches Problem entspringt daraus, dass wir den logischen Bau unserer Gedanken nicht durchschauen: dass wir versuchen etwas zu sagen, was sich nicht sagen lässt. – Unsere Sprache hat die Fähigkeit sinnvolle und sinnlose Sätze zu bilden, die auf den ersten Blick ganz gleich aussehen. Daher ist eine Kritik nötig, die die Sprache vor dem Unsinn schützt. Diese Kritik fällt der Philosophie zu. Die Lösung eines philosophischen Problems besteht besteht nicht darin, dass einen neuen Satz aufgestellt wird und dass sich in der berichtigten Sprache das Problem nicht stellen lässt. (shrink)

This comment on Sven Ove Hansson's article on the history of the journal Theoria elaborates and corrects Hansson's characterisation of the political standpoint of the Finnish philosopher Eino Kaila as "sympathetic towards the German regime". Although not an easy question, particularly considering Kaila's unfortunate publications during the Second World War, it is argued that the characterisation is plainly wrong if it refers to the mid-1930s.

In the Vienna Circle archives in Haarlem, NL, there are a great number of protocols connected with Moritz Schlick’s philosophical chair – manuscripts, typescripts and shorthand manuscripts. They contain extensive and detailed information about Schlick’s seminars and also about the elementary seminars, so-called proseminars, which were held, as the documents explain: “bei Prof. Schlick”, but actually after 1929 not by him. Since his arrival in Vienna, Schlick was responsible for these both types of seminars and they were under his supervision. (...) They are documented mainly by students. The different participants had the task of producing a handwritten report of the meeting, later also typescripts. It is not mentioned in the protocols who was responsible for the elementary seminars. The professor was the person who mattered. It is interesting to observe that while Schlick’s seminars mainly contained descriptions of chapters in philosophical books, the proseminars were more ambitious. (shrink)

Im Wiener-Kreis-Archiv in Haarlem/NL befinden sich zahlreiche Protokolle, die mit Moritz Schlicks Lehrstuhl für Philosophie in Zusammenhang stehen – Manuskripte, Typoskripte und stenografische Manuskripte. Diese enthalten umfangreiche und ausführliche Informationen über Schlicks Seminare und auch über die sogenannten Proseminare, die den Dokumenten zufolge „bei Prof. Schlick“ stattfanden, nach 1929 jedoch de facto nicht von ihm gehalten wurden. Seit seiner Ankunft in Wien war Schlick für diese beiden Arten von Seminaren verantwortlich, die unter seiner Aufsicht standen und hauptsächlich von Studenten dokumentiert (...) wurden. Die verschiedenen Teilnehmer hatten die Aufgabe, einen handschriftlichen Bericht über das Treffen zu erstellen, später auch Typoskripte. In den Protokollen wird nicht erwähnt, wer für die grundlegenden Seminare verantwortlich war. Die entscheidende Person war der Professor. Interessanterweise nahm Schlick in seinen Seminaren vor allem Beschreibungen von in philosophischen Büchern enthaltenen Kapiteln vor, während die Proseminare ambitionierter waren. (shrink)

Riedel, M. Teleologische Erklärung und praktische Begründung.--Tuomela, R. Erklären und Verstehen menschlichen Verhaltens.--Hertzberg, L. Sich Entscheiden.--Kim, J. Intention und praktischer Schluss.--Stoutland, F. Die kausale Theorie der Handlung.--Martin, R. Erklären und Verstehen in den Geschichtswissenschaften.--Niiniluoto, I. Induktive Erklärung, Disposition und Handlung.--Meggle, G. Eine Handlung verstehen.--Wright. G. H. v. Erwiederungen.

As Paul Feyerabend once remarked, philosophy of science is a subject with a great past. Let me for the moment leave aside his disillusioned impression that it had only a sad present and no future and concentrate on its past. It is surprising indeed that much has been published on the history of science in the last few decades, while only very few efforts have been made to give an overall description of the history of philosophy of science. That of (...) course presupposes a defi nition or at least a rough idea of the subject. And along with that goes an answer to the question when it started and what has been part of it during its development. Some seem to think that philosophy of science already began with Aristotle’s Analytica Posteriora, while others would be inclined to have it start more than 2000 years later, let’s say with the Vienna Circle. (shrink)

This chapter defends a (minimal) realist conception of progress in scientific understanding in the face of the ubiquitous plurality of perspectives in science. The argument turns on the counterfactual-dependence framework of explanation and understanding, which is illustrated and evidenced with reference to different explanations of the rainbow.

In this article, the authors investigate the applicability and usefulness of three alternative perspectives on corporate issues management: issue life cycle theory, legitimacy theory, and stakeholder theory. Each perspective makes certain as- sumptions about the nature of issues management activities and certain general predictions about corporate social responsiveness. The authors test the relative applicability of the three theories through a case study of the issues management activities of four large forestry companies in Finland and Canada. The authors conclude that all (...) three perspectives have value but differ in the level of analysis and time frame to which they apply. (shrink)

I examine the epistemological debate on scientific realism in the context of quantum physics, focusing on the empirical underdetermin- ation of different formulations and interpretations of QM. I will argue that much of the interpretational, metaphysical work on QM tran- scends the kinds of realist commitments that are well-motivated in the light of the history of science. I sketch a way of demarcating empirically well-confirmed aspects of QM from speculative quantum metaphysics in a way that coheres with anti-realist evidence from (...) the history of science. The minimal realist attitude sketched withholds realist com- mitment to what quantum state |Ψ⟩ represents. I argue that such commitment is not required for fulfilling the ultimate realist motiva- tion: accounting for the empirical success of quantum mechanics in a way that is in tune with a broader understanding of how theoretical science progresses and latches onto reality. (shrink)

One of the most famous, and most derided, arguments against the morality of abortion is the argument from potential, which maintains that the fetus' potential to become a person and enjoy the valuable life common to persons, entails that its destruction is prima facie morally impermissible. In this paper, I will revisit and offer a defense of the argument from potential.

The article contributes to the academic discussion on Paulo Freire’s pedagogical thinking as a basis for reinventing contemporary non-formal education. In Finland, Freire’s transformational/liberatory theory of adult learning was applied as a framework for developing an adult educational model called Life Skills for All. The pilot project’s case studies were carried out with different groups of people during the model’s development phase. We describe these cases and discuss what can be learned from them for offering basic and life skills education (...) for adult groups at risk of social disenfranchisement. Our case study analysis highlights some new practices and challenges based on the model’s different applications. We argue that even for basic capacity building of employment skills, it is essential to develop a non-instrumental, holistic, and societal educational approach. Elements for such an approach can be derived from both the Nordic and Freirean traditions of adult education. Also, we suggest that the Life Skills for All model benefits learners’ agency and empowerment by putting the learner at the center, combining the learning of different basic skills, and emphasizing the central role of the local community in participants’ learning activities. (shrink)

In this book the practical dimension of social justice is explained using the analysis and discussion of a variety of well-known topics. These include: the relation between theory and practice in normative political philosophy; the issue of justice under uncertainty; the question of whether we can and should unmask social injustices by means of conspiracy theories; the issues of privacy and the right to privacy; the issue of how certain psychological states may affect our moral obligations, in particular the obligation (...) to treat others fairly; and finally the concepts of morality, fairness, and self-deception. The primary goal of the book is to provide readers with an updated discussion of some important and practical social justice issues. These issues are presented from a new perspective, based on the author ́s research. It is hoped that bringing these topics together in a single book will promote the emergence of new insights and challenges for future research. Juha Räikkä is a professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Turku, Finland. His research focuses on ethics and political philosophy. (shrink)

Psychoactive drugs are being prescribed to millions of Americans at an increasing rate. In many cases these drugs are necessary in order to overcome debilitating emotional problems. Yet in other instances, these drugs are used to supplant, not supplement, interpersonal therapy. The process of overcoming emotional obstacles by introspection and the attainment of self knowledge is gradually being eroded via the gratuitous use of psychoactive medication in order to rapidly attain a release from the common problems that life inevitably presents (...) us with. In this paper, I argue that Kant’s formula of humanity, which maintains that persons ought never to treat others or themselves soley as a means to an end, proscribes this. Moreover, Kant argues that we have an imperfect duty of self development, and I argue that we fail to adhere to such a duty whenever we seek to evade the process of introspection and self knowledge in favour of the expedient results that drugs may provide us with as we attempt to overcome the emotional hurdles in our lives. (shrink)

One argument used by detractors of human embryonic stem cell research (hESCR) invokes Kant's formula of humanity, which proscribes treating persons solely as a means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves. According to Fuat S. Oduncu, for example, adhering to this imperative entails that human embryos should not be disaggregated to obtain pluripotent stem cells for hESCR. Given that human embryos are Kantian persons from the time of their conception, killing them to obtain their cells for research (...) fails to treat them as ends in themselves. (shrink)

My colleague Harri Laakso suggested in one of his presentations that we should stop talking about the different types of knowing and admit, or even emphatically argue, that in art we are dealing with something that is "otherwise-than-knowing". Harri Laakso's remark suddenly shed light on an issue that was partly clouded and partly lit: why is it important to so many that art remain art, and why are so many interested in doing research that is based on artistic activity and (...) that takes seriously art's own way of operating, its manifestations and methods of conveying something to others, either through whispers, screams or discussions? These meditations stem from the frenzied thinking and discussion going on in art universities around the world. Art is seen as the ability to change the world, not by money or force, but by orientation: by radically transforming the "sensible", or sensory, reality of the eye, ear, taste, touch and smell, which unavoidably results in a change in ideas, understanding and insight. It may be about distancing, it may be about getting closer sometimes it is irony or camp, sometimes it is a serious attempt to find illuminating concepts and their verbalisations, and sometimes it is the need to create new myths or just tell stories. (shrink)

I examine explanations’ realist commitments in relation to dynamical systems theory. First I rebut an ‘explanatory indispensability argument’ for mathematical realism from the explanatory power of phase spaces (Lyon and Colyvan 2007). Then I critically consider a possible way of strengthening the indispensability argument by reference to attractors in dynamical systems theory. The take-home message is that understanding of the modal character of explanations (in dynamical systems theory) can undermine platonist arguments from explanatory indispensability.

We study the expressive power of open formulas of dependence logic introduced in Väänänen [Dependence logic (Vol. 70 of London Mathematical Society Student Texts), 2007]. In particular, we answer a question raised by Wilfrid Hodges: how to characterize the sets of teams definable by means of identity only in dependence logic, or equivalently in independence friendly logic.

We discuss an abstract notion of a logical operation and corresponding logics. It is shown that if all the logical operations considered are implicitely definable in a logic *, then the same holds also for the logic obtained from these operations. As an application we show that certain iterated forms of infinitely deep languages are implicitely definable in game quantifier languages. We consider also relations between structures and show that Karttunen's characterization of elementary equivalence for the ordinary infinitely deep languages (...) can be generalized to hold for the iterated infinitely deep languages. An early version of this work was presented in the Abstracts Section of ICM '78. (shrink)

Climate change is imposing intensified and novel selection pressures on organisms by altering abiotic and biotic environmental conditions on Earth, but studies demonstrating genetic adaptation to climate change mediated selection are still scarce. Evidence is accumulating to indicate that both genetic and ecological constrains may often limit populations' abilities to adapt to large scale effects of climate warming. These constraints may predispose many organisms to respond to climate change with range shifts and phenotypic plasticity, rather than through evolutionary adaptation. In (...) general, broad conclusions about the role of evolutionary adaptation in mitigating climate change induced fitness loss in the wild are as yet difficult to make.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays: How will fish that evolved at constant sub‐zero temperatures cope with global warming? Notothenioids as a case study Abstract. (shrink)

A key question in understanding visual awareness is whether any single cortical area is indispensable. In a transcranial magnetic stimulation experiment, we show that observers' awareness of activity in extrastriate area VS depends on the amount of activity in striate cortex (Vl). From the timing and pattern of effects, we infer that back-projections from extrastriate cortex influence information content in Vl, but it is Vl that determines whether that information reaches awareness.

The literature on the indispensability argument for mathematical realism often refers to the ‘indispensable explanatory role’ of mathematics. I argue that we should examine the notion of explanatory indispensability from the point of view of specific conceptions of scientific explanation. The reason is that explanatory indispensability in and of itself turns out to be insufficient for justifying the ontological conclusions at stake. To show this I introduce a distinction between different kinds of explanatory roles—some ‘thick’ and ontologically committing, others ‘thin’ (...) and ontologically peripheral—and examine this distinction in relation to some notable ‘ontic’ accounts of explanation. I also discuss the issue in the broader context of other ‘explanationist’ realist arguments. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have recently suggested that some abstract, plausibly non-causal and/or mathematical, explanations explain in a way that is radically dif- ferent from the way causal explanation explain. Namely, while causal explanations explain by providing information about causal dependence, allegedly some abstract explanations explain in a way tied to the independence of the explanandum from the microdetails, or causal laws, for example. We oppose this recent trend to regard abstractions as explanatory in some sui generis way, and argue (...) that a prominent ac- count of causal explanation can be naturally extended to capture explanations that radically abstract away from microphysical and causal-nomological details. To this end, we distinguish di erent senses in which an explanation can be more or less abstract, and analyse the connection between explanations’ abstractness and their explanatory power. According to our analysis abstract explanations have much in common with counterfactual causal explanations. (shrink)

The Enhanced Indispensability Argument (Baker [ 2009 ]) exemplifies the new wave of the indispensability argument for mathematical Platonism. The new wave capitalizes on mathematics' role in scientific explanations. I will criticize some analyses of mathematics' explanatory function. In turn, I will emphasize the representational role of mathematics, and argue that the debate would significantly benefit from acknowledging this alternative viewpoint to mathematics' contribution to scientific explanations and knowledge.

We define a complete measurement of a quantum observable (POVM) as a measurement of the maximally refined (rank-1) version of the POVM. Complete measurements give information on the multiplicities of the measurement outcomes and can be viewed as state preparation procedures. We show that any POVM can be measured completely by using sequential measurements or maximally refinable instruments. Moreover, the ancillary space of a complete measurement can be chosen to be minimal.