For several decades, intercultural philosophers have produced an extensive body of scholarly work aimed at mutual intercultural understanding. They have focused on the ideal of intercultural dialogue that is supported by dialogue principles and virtuous attitudes. However, this ideal is challenged by decolonial scholarship as neglecting power inequalities. Decolonial scholars have emphasized the differences between cultures and worldviews, shifting the focus to colonial history and radical alterity. In return, intercultural philosophers have worried about the very possibility of dialogue and mutual (...) understanding in frameworks that use coloniality as their singular pole of analysis. In this paper, we explore the complex relations between decolonial and intercultural philosophies. While we diagnose tensions between both intellectual discourses, we argue that these tensions turn out to be productive: for intercultural philosophers, decolonial challenges provide an opportunity to critically rethink ideals of equitable dialogue in the light of colonial inequity and its deep entrenchment in global philosophical encounters. For decolonial scholars, intercultural philosophies provide an opportunity to sharpen positive proposals of equitable encounters beyond the critique of current forms of colonial domination. Rather than developing a compromise, we propose to embrace the productive tensions between them through a broad methodological toolbox. Decolonial and intercultural motifs serve different functions in the articulation of a critical global philosophy and can sharpen each other without integrating into a middle ground that is “a little bit intercultural” and “a little bit decolonial”. (shrink)

In this article, I draw on the Mesoamerican institution of community offices (cargo) to support the view that political authority should be based on both political legitimacy and political expertise. I argue that the Mesoamerican tradition of cargos allows for a notion of political expertise that one acquires by rendering a service to one’s community. This expertise could be made a prerequisite for political representation without being vulnerable to several charges that have been levelled against epistocracy.

Tradition is a complex phenomenon of which we can find a multiplicity of conceptualizations in the philosophical, sociological, anthropological, and economic literature. In this paper, I offer both a critical and a constructive contribution to answering the question of how tradition should be conceptualized. In the critical part, I argue against attempts to construct a unified conception of tradition. In the constructive part, I discuss three taxonomies proposed in the literature and then develop an analytical grid for conceptions of tradition (...) as an alternative. This analytical grid is based on a sample of 28 accounts of tradition sourced from the contemporary scholarly literature, and makes use of seven dimensions to distinguish among these conceptions. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

In his action theory, John Dewey makes use of the concept of capability to highlight the way human capacities depend on the environment and the character of an agent. In his capability approach, Amartya Sen likewise refers to the environment by discussing the role of conversion factors. Yet, he abstains from a discussion of character development, presumably in order to allow for a variety of conceptions of the good and ways in which characters can develop. In this paper, I develop (...) the outlines of a pragmatist capability theory by enriching the core concepts of Sen’s capability approach with the Deweyan notions of habit and character. In this way, the role of the environment in the capability approach can be reaffirmed and supplemented by a notion of character development. Subsequently, I explore the implications of this framework for Sen’s notions of impartiality and freedom. The result is a pragmatist capability theory which builds on Sen’s conceptual framework and puts additional emphasis on character development and sensitivity to one’s environment. (shrink)

In the academic world, Joseph Margolis is best known as the proponent of a particular combination of radical historicism and robust relativism. In his publications, he argues that “humankind is the measure of all things” with regard to aesthetics, history, natural and social sciences, and philosophy. In doing so, he effortlessly interacts with authors from the continental, pragmatist, and analytic traditions. His book Three Paradoxes of Personhood is a collection of the three Venetian lecture...

Immer öfter werden der Natur eigene Rechte zugesprochen. Rund um den Globus helfen sie gefährdeten Ökosystemen, sich gegen schädliche Wirtschaftsinteressen zu verteidigen. Seit ihrer Einführung in die ecuadorianische Verfassung im Jahre 2008 wurden Rechte der Natur unter anderem in Bolivien, Kanada, Kolumbien, Neuseeland und den USA eingeführt. Zuletzt in Spanien zum Schutz einer Salzwasserlagune. Dieses Buch zeigt, wie die Idee der Rechte der Natur entstand, wie sie immer mehr an Fahrt aufnahm und wie sie uns künftig helfen kann, die Natur (...) und gefährdete Ökosysteme zu schützen. Dabei begibt es sich auf die Reise durch verschiedene Länder und Kontinente und stellt konkrete Anwendungsfälle und Initiativen vor. (shrink)

This article addresses ontological negotiations in the Global South through three case studies of community-based research in Brazil and Ghana. We argue that ontological perspectives of Indigenous people and local communities require an ontological pluralism that recognizes both the plurality of representational tools and of ways of being in the world. Locating these two readings of ontological pluralism in the politics of the Global South, the article highlights a wider dynamic from ontological paternalism to ontological diversity to ontological decolonization. We (...) conclude by arguing that this dynamic provides important lessons for the state for social ontology in academic philosophy and for the design of politically reflexive development interventions. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary research knits together knowledge from diverse epistemic communities in addressing social-environmental challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate crises, food insecurity, and public health. This paper reflects on the roles of philosophy of science in transdisciplinary research while focusing on Indigenous and other subaltern forms of knowledge. We offer a critical assessment of demarcationist approaches in philosophy of science and outline a constructive alternative of transdisciplinary philosophy of science. While a demarcationist focus obscures the complex relations between epistemic communities, transdisciplinary (...) philosophy of science provides resources for meeting epistemic and political challenges of collaborative knowledge production. (shrink)

This article addresses ontological negotiations in the Global South through three case studies of community-based research in Brazil and Ghana. We argue that ontological perspectives of Indigenous and other subjugated communities require an ontological pluralism that recognizes the plurality of both representational tools and ways of being in the world. Locating these two readings of ontological pluralism in the politics of the Global South, the article highlights a wider dynamic from ontological paternalism to ontological diversity to ontological decolonization. We conclude (...) by arguing that this dynamic provides important lessons for reorienting agendas in social ontology through Southern Ontologies. (shrink)

Whether the prefrontal cortex is part of the neural substrates of consciousness is currently debated. Against prefrontal theories of consciousness, many have argued that neural activity in the prefrontal cortex does not correlate with consciousness but with subjective reports. We defend prefrontal theories of consciousness against this argument. We surmise that the requirement for reports is not a satisfying explanation of the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious trials, and that prefrontal theories of consciousness come out of this (...) debate unscathed. (shrink)

I develop a theory of counterfactuals about relative computability, i.e. counterfactuals such as 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then the halting problem would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is true, and 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then arithmetical truth would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is false. These counterfactuals are counterpossibles, i.e. they have metaphysically impossible antecedents. They thus pose a challenge to the orthodoxy about counterfactuals, which would treat them as uniformly true. What’s more, I (...) argue that these counterpossibles don’t just appear in the periphery of relative computability theory but instead they play an ineliminable role in the development of the theory. Finally, I present and discuss a model theory for these counterfactuals that is a straightforward extension of the familiar comparative similarity models. (shrink)

Local theories of consciousness state that one is conscious of a feature if it is adequately represented and processed in sensory brain areas, given some background conditions. We challenge the core prediction of local theories based on long-lasting postdictive effects demonstrating that features can be represented for hundreds of milliseconds in perceptual areas without being consciously perceived. Unlike previous empirical data aimed against local theories, localists cannot explain these effects away by conjecturing that subjects are phenomenally conscious of features that (...) they cannot report. We also discuss alternative explanations that localists could offer. (shrink)

Traditionally, the manufacturer/operator of a machine is held (morally and legally) responsible for the consequences of its operation. Autonomous, learning machines, based on neural networks, genetic algorithms and agent architectures, create a new situation, where the manufacturer/operator of the machine is in principle not capable of predicting the future machine behaviour any more, and thus cannot be held morally responsible or liable for it. The society must decide between not using this kind of machine any more (which is not a (...) realistic option), or facing a responsibility gap, which cannot be bridged by traditional concepts of responsibility ascription. (shrink)

To study consciousness, scientists need to determine when participants are conscious and when they are not. They do so with consciousness detection procedures. A recurring skeptical argument against those procedures is that they cannot be calibrated: there is no way to make sure that detection outcomes are accurate. In this article, I address two main skeptical arguments purporting to show that consciousness scientists cannot calibrate detection procedures. I conclude that there is nothing wrong with calibration in consciousness science.

Logical empiricism is commonly seen as a counter-position to scientific realism. In the present paper it is shown that there indeed existed a realist faction within the logical empiricist movement. In particular, I shall point out that at least four types of realistic arguments can be distinguished within this faction: Reichenbach’s ‘probabilistic argument,’ Feigl’s ‘pragmatic argument,’ Hempel’s ‘indispensability argument,’ and Kaila’s ‘invariantist argument.’ All these variations of arguments are intended to prevent the logical empiricist agenda from the shortcomings of radical (...) positivism, instrumentalism, and other forms of scientific antirealism. On the whole, it will be seen that logical empiricism and scientific realism are essentially compatible with each other. Especially Kaila’s invariantist approach to science (and nature) comes quite close to what nowadays is discussed under the label ‘structural realism.’ This, in turn, necessitates a fundamental reevaluation of Kaila’s role in the logical empiricist movement in particular and in twentieth-century philosophy of science in general. (shrink)

"Rechtsphilosophie zwischen Ost und West" ist das erste Buch, das systematisch das frA1/4he Werk des bedeutenden chinesischen Rechtsgelehrten, Richters, Diplomaten und Schriftstellers John C.H. Wu (1899-1986) behandelt. Die Arbeit setzt sich in chronologischer Reihenfolge kritisch mit den VerAffentlichungen Wus im Zeitraum von 1921 bis 1936 auseinander. Wu, spAter Verfechter einer dynamischen Naturrechtslehre, versucht, die mehr pragmatisch-funktionale Rechtsauffassung der fA1/4hrenden amerikanischen Rechtsgelehrten mit dem von Kant geprAgten Denken R. Stammlers zu einer inneren Begegnung zu bringen. Gleichzeitig ist die Thematik chinesischen Rechtsdenkens (...) und Philosophierens immer gegenwArtig. Die Arbeit legt ein besonderes Augenmerk auf den EinfluA von Wus kulturellem Hintergrund auf die Auseinandersetzung mit westlichem Denken und umgekehrt auf den EinfluA seiner westlichen Ausbildung auf seine Analyse der chinesischen Gedankenwelt. Das Buch will verstArkt auf diesen wichtigen Denker aufmerksam machen und den Grundstein fA1/4r eine wissenschafliche Auseinandersetzung mit ihm legen. Der Leser bekommt nicht nur einen interessanten Einblick in die zeitgeschichtlichen, rechtsphilosophischen Auseinandersetzungen, er bekommt auf einem wenig begangenen Weg Zugang zur chinesischen Kultur. (shrink)

The aim of the current investigation is to analyze the writings On Kingship in the context of sole rulership in Antiquity. Writings On Kingship first appeared in the time of Alexander the Great and flourished during the Hellenistic period, but there are although some treatises written under Roman rule during the Imperial period and in Late Antiquity. Starting point of the analysis is to understand the treatises On Kingship as a literary genre. By taking into account the authors, the addressees, (...) the implicit readers, and the content as well as the literary form it can be shown that the writings On Kingship played an important role in the always difficult communication between kings and Greek cities during the Hellenistic period. As the communicative contexts changed during the Roman Imperial period and in Late Antiquity, the treatises On Kingship lost their original social function. Therefore, the sporadic writings originating from post-Hellenistic times can be understood as a case of failed literary reception. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno is a widely-studied figure, but most often with regard to his work on cultural theory, philosophy and aesthetics. The Sociology of Theodor Adorno provides the first thorough English-language account of Adorno's sociological thinking. Matthias Benzer reads Adorno's sociology through six major themes: the problem of conceptualising capitalist society; empirical research; theoretical analysis; social critique; the sociological text; and the question of the non-social. Benzer explains the methodological and theoretical ideas informing Adorno's reflections on sociology and illustrates Adorno's (...) approach to examining social life, including astrology, sexual taboos and racial prejudice. Benzer clarifies Adorno's sociology in relation to his work in other disciplines and the inspiration his sociology took from social thinkers such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Kracauer and Benjamin. The book raises critical questions about the viability of Adorno's sociological mode of procedure and its potential contributions and challenges to current debates in social science. (shrink)

This volume commemorates the life, work, and foundational views of Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), most famous for his hallmark works on the completeness of first-order logic, the incompleteness of number theory, and the consistency - with the other widely accepted axioms of set theory - of the axiom of choice and of the generalized continuum hypothesis. It explores current research, advances, and ideas for future directions not only in the foundations of mathematics and logic, but also in the fields of computer (...) science, artificial intelligence, physics, cosmology, philosophy, theology, and the history of science. The discussion is supplemented by personal reflections from several scholars who knew Gödel personally, providing some interesting insights into his life. By putting his ideas and life's work into the context of current thinking and perceptions, this book will extend the impact of Gödel's fundamental work in mathematics, logic, philosophy, and other disciplines for future generations of researchers. (shrink)

Making good decisions in extremely complex and difficult processes and situations has always been both a key task as well as a challenge in the clinic and has led to a large amount of clinical, legal and ethical routines, protocols and reflections in order to guarantee fair, participatory and up-to-date pathways for clinical decision-making. Nevertheless, the complexity of processes and physical phenomena, time as well as economic constraints and not least further endeavours as well as achievements in medicine and healthcare (...) continuously raise the need to evaluate and to improve clinical decision-making. This article scrutinises if and how clinical decision-making processes are challenged by the rise of so-called artificial intelligence-driven decision support systems (AI-DSS). In a first step, this article analyses how the rise of AI-DSS will affect and transform the modes of interaction between different agents in the clinic. In a second step, we point out how these changing modes of interaction also imply shifts in the conditions of trustworthiness, epistemic challenges regarding transparency, the underlying normative concepts of agency and its embedding into concrete contexts of deployment and, finally, the consequences for (possible) ascriptions of responsibility. Third, we draw first conclusions for further steps regarding a ‘meaningful human control’ of clinical AI-DSS. (shrink)

Introspection is the capacity by which we know our own conscious mental states. Several theories aim to explain it. According to acquaintance theory, we know our experiences by being acquainted with them. Acquaintance is non-causal, non-inferential, and non-observational. I present a dilemma for the acquaintance theory of introspection. Either subjects are always acquainted with all their experiences; or some attentional mechanism selects the relevant experiences (or aspects of experiences) for introspection. The first option is implausible: it implies that subjects are (...) omniscient about their own experiences. The second option is also implausible: if acquaintance is a non-causal relation, introspection cannot target specific (aspects of) experiences without violating the principle of causal closure of the physical. (shrink)

For several decades, Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The book series is international in orientation and reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. The series is led by an international team of editors.

This comprehensive volume gives a panorama of the best current work in this lively field, through twenty specially written essays by the leading figures in the field. All essays deal with foundational issues, from the nature of mathematical knowledge and mathematical existence to logical consequence, abstraction, and the notions of set and natural number. The contributors also represent and criticize a variety of prominent approaches to the philosophy of mathematics, including platonism, realism, nomalism, constructivism, and formalism.

A general class of labeled sequent calculi is investigated, and necessary and sufficient conditions are given for when such a calculus is sound and complete for a finite -valued logic if the labels are interpreted as sets of truth values. Furthermore, it is shown that any finite -valued logic can be given an axiomatization by such a labeled calculus using arbitrary "systems of signs," i.e., of sets of truth values, as labels. The number of labels needed is logarithmic in the (...) number of truth values, and it is shown that this bound is tight. (shrink)

We study the Vapnik–Chervonenkis density of definable families in certain stable first-order theories. In particular, we obtain uniform bounds on the VC density of definable families in finite $\mathrm {U}$-rank theories without the finite cover property, and we characterize those abelian groups for which there exist uniform bounds on the VC density of definable families.

This book considers Robert Brandom's philosophy and presents an original and exciting analysis of the semantic argument in legal argumentation.

Simulations are used in very different contexts and for very different purposes. An emerging development is the possibility of using simulations to obtain a more or less representative reproduction of organs or even entire persons. Such simulations are framed and discussed using the term ‘digital twin’. This paper unpacks and scrutinises the current use of such digital twins in medicine and the ideas embedded in this practice. First, the paper maps the different types of digital twins. A special focus is (...) put on the concrete challenges inherent in the interactions between persons and their digital twin. Second, the paper addresses the questions of how far a digital twin can represent a person and what the consequences of this may be. Against the background of these two analytical steps, the paper defines first conditions for digital twins to take on an ethically justifiable form of representation. (shrink)

Die vorliegende erste deutschsprachige Monographie über den russischen Literaturwissenschaftler und Kulturphilosophen Michail Bachtin (1895-1975) geht der unter der schillernd-mehrdeutigen Oberfläche von Bachtins Arbeiten verborgenen Tiefenstruktur seines Denkens nach. In der Tiefe zeigt sich als die entscheidende Eigenart literarischer Texte ihr Wertcharakter. Die Konsequenzen, die sich daraus für die Produktion und Rezeption von literarischer Kunst ergeben, werden in der vorliegenden Arbeit kritisch erörtert.

Die Beiträge zur Altertumskunde enthalten Monographien, Sammelbände, Editionen, Übersetzungen und Kommentare zu Themen aus den Bereichen Klassische, Mittel- und Neulateinische Philologie, Alte Geschichte, Archäologie, Antike Philosophie sowie Nachwirken der Antike bis in die Neuzeit. Dadurch leistet die Reihe einen umfassenden Beitrag zur Erschließung klassischer Literatur und zur Forschung im gesamten Gebiet der Altertumswissenschaften.

Conditional structures lie at the heart of the sciences, humanities, and everyday reasoning. It is hence not surprising that conditional logics – logics specifically designed to account for natural language conditionals – are an active and interdisciplinary area. The present book gives a formal and a philosophical account of indicative and counterfactual conditionals in terms of Chellas-Segerberg semantics. For that purpose a range of topics are discussed such as Bennett’s arguments against truth value based semantics for indicative conditionals.

The core feature that distinguishes moods from emotions is that moods, in contrast to emotions, are diffuse and global. This article outlines a dispositional theory of moods (DTM) that accounts for this and other features of mood experience. DTM holds that moods are temporary dispositions to have or to generate particular kinds of emotion-relevant appraisals. Furthermore, DTM assumes that the cognitions and appraisals one is disposed to have in a given mood partly constitute the experience of mood. This article outlines (...) a number of implications of DTM (e.g., regarding the noncognitive causation and rationality of moods) and summarizes empirical results supporting the theory. (shrink)

We investigate interpolation properties of many-valued propositional logics related to continuous t-norms. In case of failure of interpolation, we characterize the minimal interpolating extensions of the languages. For finite-valued logics, we count the number of interpolating extensions by Fibonacci sequences.

Trust is one of the big buzzwords in debates about the shaping of society, democracy, and emerging technologies. For example, one prominent idea put forward by the High‐Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence appointed by the European Commission is that artificial intelligence should be trustworthy. In this essay, we explore the notion of trust and argue that both proponents and critics of trustworthy AI have flawed pictures of the nature of trust. We develop an approach to understanding trust in AI (...) that does not conceive of trust merely as an accelerator for societal acceptance of AI technologies. Instead, we argue, trust is granted through leaps of faith. For this reason, trust remains precarious, fragile, and resistant to promotion through formulaic approaches. We also highlight the significance of distrust in societal deliberation, as it is relevant to trust in various and intricate ways. Among the fruitful aspects of distrust is that it enables individuals to forgo technology if desired, to constrain its power, and to exercise meaningful human control. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 80-99, January 2022.