First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Nonprofit organizations play a crucial role in society. Unfortunately, many such organizations are chronically underfunded and struggle to meet their objectives. These facts have significant implications for corporate philanthropy and Kant’s notion of imperfect duties. Under the concept of imperfect duties, businesses would have wide discretion regarding which charities receive donations, how much money to give, and when such donations take place. A perceived problem with imperfect duties is that they can lead to moral laxity; that is, a failure on (...) the part of businesses to fulfill their financial obligations to nonprofit organizations. This article argues the problem of moral laxity rests on a misinterpretation of Kantian ethics and, therefore, is really not a problem at all. As such, we argue corporate philanthropy while an imperfect duty should be interpreted more akin to perfect duties and, as a consequence, moral laxity does not arise for those corporations committed to acting on the basis of the moral law. More specifically, firms have duty-based obligations on the basis of benevolence, and as good corporate citizens, to help fund non-profit organizations. (shrink)

This study explored a dimensional approach to vocal expression of emotion. Actors vocally portrayed emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness) with weak and strong emotion intensity. Listeners (30 university students and 6 speech experts) rated each portrayal on four emotion dimensions (activation, valence, potency, emotion intensity). The portrayals were also acoustically analysed with respect to 20 vocal cues (e.g., speech rate, voice intensity, fundamental frequency, spectral energy distribution). The results showed that: (a) there were distinct patterns of ratings of activation, (...) valence, and potency for the different emotions; (b) all four emotion dimensions were correlated with several vocal cues; (c) listeners' ratings could be successfully predicted from the vocal cues for all dimensions except valence; and (d) the intensity dimension was positively correlated with the activation dimension in the listeners' ratings. (shrink)

We consider arbitrary stratified languages. We study structures which satisfy the same stratified sentences and we obtain an extension of Keisler's Isomorphism Theorem to this situation. Then we consider operations which are definable by a stratified formula and modify the `type' of their argument by one; we prove that for such an operation F the sentence c = F(c) and the scheme $\varphi(c) \leftrightarrow \varphi(F(c))$ , where φ(x) varies among all the stratified formulas with no variable other than x free, (...) imply the same stratified {c}-sentences. (shrink)

Most research on cross-cultural emotion recognition has focused on facial expressions. To integrate the body of evidence on vocal expression, we present a meta-analysis of 37 cross-cultural studies...

In this chapter we examine Moti Mizrahi’s claim that philosophers’ opposition of scientism is founded on their worry that scientism poses “a threat to the soul or essence of philosophy as an a priori discipline”. We find Mizrahi’s methodology for testing this thesis wanting. We offer an alternative hypothesis for the increased resistance of scientism: the antipathy started as a reaction to the New Atheist movement. We also consider two varieties of weak scientism, narrow and broad, and argue that narrow (...) versions of scientism draw unnatural and unfounded distinctions within science. Mizrahi belongs somewhere between these two types, but he commits the same mistakes as proponents of the narrow variety. We demonstrate that Mizrahi’s defence of weak scientism is problematic, once again, due to methodological reasons. As an alternative, we propose that weak scientism should be based on epistemic opportunism. Epistemic opportunism explains the success of science with scientists’ willingness to adopt any methods that demonstrably work. We also show how opportunistic scientism can avoid charges of triviality. (shrink)

Comparisons of rival explanations or theories often involve vague appeals to explanatory power. In this paper, we dissect this metaphor by distinguishing between different dimensions of the goodness of an explanation: non-sensitivity, cognitive salience, precision, factual accuracy and degree of integration. These dimensions are partially independent and often come into conflict. Our main contribution is to go beyond simple stipulation or description by explicating why these factors are taken to be explanatory virtues. We accomplish this by using the contrastive-counterfactual approach (...) to explanation and the view of understanding as an inferential ability. By combining these perspectives, we show how the explanatory power of an explanation in a given dimension can be assessed by showing the range of answers it provides to what-if-things-had-been-different questions and the theoretical and pragmatic importance of these questions. Our account also explains intuitions linking explanation to unification or to exhibition of a mechanism. (shrink)

In this chapter I will employ a well-known scientific research heuristic that studies how something works by focusing on circumstances in which it does not work. Rather than trying to describe what scientific understanding would ideally look like, I will try to learn something about it by observing mundane cases where understanding is partly illusory. My main thesis is that scientists are prone to the illusion of depth of understanding (IDU), and as a consequence they sometimes overestimate the detail, coherence, (...) and depth of their understanding. I will analyze the notion of understanding and its relation to a sense of understanding. In order to make plausible the claim that these are often disconnected, I will describe an interesting series of psychological experiments by Frank Keil and his coauthors that suggests that ordinary people routinely overestimate the depth of their understanding. en I will argue that we should take seriously the possibility that scientific cognition is also aðected by IDU and spell out some possible causes of explanatory illusions in science. I will conclude this chapter by discussing how scientific explanatory practices could be improved and how the philosophy of science might be able to contribute to this process. (shrink)

This paper discusses the epistemic import of highly abstract and simplified theoretical models using Thomas Schelling’s checkerboard model as an example. We argue that the epistemic contribution of theoretical models can be better understood in the context of a cluster of models relevant to the explanatory task at hand. The central claim of the paper is that theoretical models make better sense in the context of a menu of possible explanations. In order to justify this claim, we introduce a distinction (...) between causal scenarios and causal mechanism schemes. These conceptual tools help us to articulate the basis for modelers’ intuitive confidence that their models make an important epistemic contribution. By focusing on the role of the menu of possible explanations in the evaluation of explanatory hypotheses, it is possible to understand how a causal mechanism scheme can improve our explanatory understanding even in cases where it does not describe the actual cause of a particular phenomenon. (shrink)

This work consists of two parts. Part I will be a contribution to a philo- sophical discussion of the nature of causal explanation. It will present my contrastive counterfactual theory of causal explanation and show how it can be used to deal with a number of problems facing theories of causal explanation. Part II is a contribution to a discussion of the na- ture of interest explanation in social studies of science. The aim is to help to resolve some controversies (...) concerning interest explanation by explicating the concept of interest and its explanatory uses by using the account of explanation developed in Part I. (shrink)

This article compares causal and constitutive explanation. While scientific inquiry usually addresses both causal and constitutive questions, making the distinction is crucial for a detailed understanding of scientific questions and their interrelations. These explanations have different kinds of explananda and they track different sorts of dependencies. Constitutive explanations do not address events or behaviors, but causal capacities. While there are some interesting relations between building and causal manipulation, causation and constitution are not to be confused. Constitution is a synchronous and (...) asymmetric relation between relata that cannot be conceived as independent existences. However, despite their metaphysical differences, the same key ideas about explanation largely apply to both. Causal and constitutive explanations face similar challenges (such as the problems of relevance and explanatory regress) and both are in the business of mapping networks of counterfactual dependence—i.e. mechanisms—although the relevant counterfactuals are of a different sort. In the final section the issue of developmental explanation is discussed. It is argued that developmental explanations deserve their own place in taxonomy of explanations, although ultimately developmental dependencies can be analyzed as combinations of causal and constitutive dependencies. Hence, causal and constitutive explanation are distinct, but not always completely separate forms of explanation. (shrink)

The psychiatric category of addiction has recently been broadened to include new behaviors. This has prompted critical discussion about the value of a concept that covers so many different substances and activities. Many of the debates surrounding the notion of addiction stem from different views concerning what kind of a thing addiction fundamentally is. In this essay, we put forward an account that conceptualizes different addictions as sharing a cluster of relevant properties (the syndrome) that is supported by a matrix (...) of causal mechanisms. According to this “addiction-as-a-kind” hypothesis, several different kinds of substance and behavioral addictions can be thought of as instantiations of the same thing – addiction. We show how a clearly articulated account of addiction can facilitate empirical research and the theoretical integration of different perspectives on addiction. The causal matrix approach provides a promising alternative to existing accounts of the nature of psychiatric disorders, the traditional disease model, and its competitors. It is a positive addition to discussions about diagnostic criteria, and sheds light on how psychiatric classification may be integrated with research done in other scientific fields. We argue that it also provides a plausible approach to understanding comorbidity. (shrink)

The general topic of my philosophical dissertation is phenomenological ontology of breathing. I do not investigate the phenomenon of breathing as a natural scientific problem, but as a philosophical question. Within our tradition, breathing has been normally understood as a mechanistic-materialistic physiological life-sustaining process of gas exchange and cellular respiration which does not really seem to have any essential connection to human being’s spiritual, mental or philosophical capacities. On the contrary to this natural scientific view, I argue that breathing can (...) be understood as a philosophical question that has phenomenological, experiential, ontological, spiritual, bodily, mental, poetic, elemental, ethical, voluntary and mystical dimensions. My investigation conceptualizes breathing in the first place as a question of phenomenological ontology. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenologico-ontological method of interrogation of the lived body’s experiential openness to the world and Being provides the most fundamental point of departure in this dissertation. Merleau-Ponty emphasized in his investigations the lived body’s perceptual openness to the world and Being. He argued famously for the primacy of perception. His thesis of the primacy of perception means that perception as the perceptual openness to the world and Being is the foundation which is always presupposed by all the other levels of our existence and being-in-the-world. In this dissertation, I challenge this idea of the primacy of perception with Merleau-Ponty’s own remarks about breathing. I argue that in his own remarks about breathing, he implicitly points toward a level which is even more fundamental than the primacy of perception. In this dissertation, this level of our being-in-the-world I call the primacy of breathing. Breathing as the lived body’s respiratory openness to the world and Being is now understood as the foundation which is always presupposed by all the other dimensions of our being-in-the-world. These dimensions are, for example, our theoretical, practical, social and perceptual ways of relating with the world. If the idea of the primacy of breathing is taken seriously, it means that all the questions of philosophy could be rethought, reexamined and re-experienced within the fundamental atmosphere of respiratory openness to the world and Being. In this dissertation, I initially try to rethink philosophy as a new philosophy of breathing. This new philosophy of breathing would be phenomenological ontology of breathing. The bases of this new phenomenological ontology of breathing are Merleau-Ponty’s remarks about breathing. My task is to explicate and interpret them with the help of Merleau- Ponty’s own phenomenological ontology. In my task of beginning philosophy anew as philosophy of breathing or as respiratory philosophy, I will also use the ideas of Martin Heidegger, Gaston Bachelard, Paul Claudel, Luce Irigaray, Edmund Husserl and David Kleinberg-Levin. My dissertation is divided into two main sections. In Section One, I construct within the framework of phenomenological ontology a new notion of breathing as the primacy of breathing. In Section Two, I develop a phenomenological method that I call the method of ontologico-respiratory reduction. This method will lead us back to the primacy of breathing. (shrink)

is chapter takes a fresh look at micro-macro relations in the social sciences from the point of view of the mechanistic account of explanation. Traditionally, micro- macro issues have been assimilated to the problem of methodological individualism. It is not my intention to resurrect this notoriously unfruitful controversy. On the contrary, the main thrust of this chapter is to show that the cul-de-sac of that debate can be avoided if we give up some of its presuppositions. The debate about methodological (...) individualism is based on assumptions about explanation, and once we change those assumptions, the whole argumenta- tive landscape changes. (shrink)

A well known paragraph in Mill's 'Utilitarianism' has standardly been misread. Mill does not claim that if some pleasure is of 'higher quality', then it will be (or ought to be) chosen over the pleasure of lower quality regardless of their respective quantities. Instead he says that if some pleasure will be chosen over another available in larger quantity, then we are justified in saying that the pleasure so chosen is of higher quality than the other. This assertion is unproblematic.

Tiivistelmä: Poliittisen filosofian paluu : teoreettisen politiikantutkimuksen mahdollisuutta koskevan keskustelun historia.

Background: Adequate immunity to COVID-19 apparently cannot be attained in Germany by voluntary vaccination alone, and therefore the introduction of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination is still under consideration. We present findings on the potential acceptance of such a requirement by the German population, and we report on the reasons given for accepting or rejecting it and how these reasons vary according to population subgroup. -/- Methods: We used representative data from the Socio-Economic Panel for the period January to December 2021. We (...) linked the respondents’ answers concerning mandatory COVID-19 vaccination to information about their sociodemographic characteristics, state of health, political attitudes, and degree of confidence in the judicial and political systems. We analyzed these data using univariate, bivariate, and multivariate statistical methods. -/- Results: Just over half of the respondents (50.44% [49.08%; 51.79%]) favored mandatory COVID-19 vaccination. Among the supporters, the reason most frequently given (95.22% [94.45; 96.00]) was that, without such a requirement, not enough people would be vaccinated. Among the opponents of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination (49.56% [48.21%; 50.92%]), by far the most common reason given for opposing it was a desire to uphold individual freedom (91.36% [90.31%; 92.40%]). Persons supporting mandatory COVID-19 vaccination, on average, older than those who opposed it; they less commonly had an education beyond secondary school, were less healthy, tended to have no children, had centrist political views, and expressed more confidence in the political system. The largest difference between the two groups was that about 90% of supporters of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination were themselves vaccinated, compared to only about 62% of opponents. -/- Conclusion: The lack of consensus on this issue among politicians and physicians in Germany is reflected in a similar lack of consensus in the German population as a whole. A discussion of the appropriate understanding of individual freedom would be the most promising way to widen the acceptance of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination. A commonly expressed conception of freedom that permits the deliberate endangerment of other people’s health seems morally questionable. -/- DOI: 10.3238/arztebl.m2022.0174. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss the idea of the invisible hand in the connection of its recent use in the philosophy of science. It has been invoked by some philosophers of science with a naturalistic bent as a part of their account of science. Some have made explicit references to the idea (Hull, 1988a) and others have only presupposed it (Giere, 1988; Goldman, 1991; Kitcher, 1993). I will argue that there are some problematic features in the way the idea (...) of the invisible hand isused inthese accounts. I will first discuss some general properties of the invisible hand explanations and then present some motives for its use in the theory of science. Then I will show how one particular philosopher of science, David Hull, uses the idea. I will use Hull's account as a practising target and offer some comments and criticism in order to promote more disciplined use of this model of explanation in science studies. (shrink)

This article discusses agent-based simulation (ABS) as a tool of sociological understanding. I argue that agent-based simulations can play an important role in the expansion of explanatory understanding in the social sciences. The argument is based on an inferential account of understanding (Ylikoski 2009, Ylikoski & Kuorikoski 2010), according to which computer simulations increase our explanatory understanding by expanding our ability to make what-if inferences about social processes and by making these inferences more reliable. The inferential account also suggests a (...) number of ways in which the use of simulation methodology might give rise to illusory understanding. The structure of the article is as .. (shrink)

A well known paragraph in Mill's ‘Utilitarianism’ has standardly been misread. Mill does not claim that if some pleasure is of ‘higher quality’, then it will be chosen over the pleasure of lower quality regardless of their respective quantities. Instead he says that if some pleasure will be chosen over another available in larger quantity, then we are justified in saying that the pleasure so chosen is of higher quality than the other. This assertion is unproblematic.

Generalization from a case study is a perennial issue in the methodology of the social sciences. The case study is one of the most important research designs in many social scientific fields, but no shared understanding exists of the epistemic import of case studies. This article suggests that the idea of mechanism-based theorizing provides a fruitful basis for understanding how case studies contribute to a general understanding of social phenomena. This approach is illustrated with a re- construction of Espeland and (...) Sauder's case study of the effects of rankings on US legal education. On the basis of the reconstruction, it is argued that, at least with respect to sociology, the idea of mechanism-based theorizing captures many of the generalizable elements of case studies. (shrink)

We compare Guala’s unified theory of institutions with that of Searle and Greif. We show that unification can be many things and it may be associated with diverse explanatory goals. We also highlight some of the important shortcomings of Guala’s account: it does not capture all social institutions, its ability to bridge social ontology and game theory is based on a problematic interpretation of the type-token distinction, and its ability to make social ontology useful for social sciences is hindered by (...) Guala’s interpretation of social institution types as social kinds akin to natural kinds. (shrink)

This paper examines the relation between Cartwright's concept of 'capacities' and Mill's concept of 'tendencies' and argues that they are not equivalent. Cartwright's concept of 'capacities' and her motivation to adopt it as a central notion in her philosophy of science are described. It is argued that the Millian concept of 'tendencies' is distinct because Mill restricts its use to a set of special cases. These are the cases in which causes combine 'mechanically'. Hence for Mill 'tendencies' do not merely (...) describe the operation of causes, but also and perhaps even primarily how they combine. This does not hold of Cartwrightian capacities which are meant to have unlimited applicability. Mill also explicitly denies the realism of 'capacities' in a sense which overlaps with Cartwright's. Her attempt to derive empirist credentials for her notion of capacity from Mill is therefore unsuccessful. (shrink)

Among historians of political thought, Peter Laslett is probably best remembered for his 1956 declaration concerning the death of political philosophy. Laslett's argument was thematically close to the contemporaneous debate on 'the end of ideology', as well as to the worries voiced by scholars such as Leo Strauss of traditional philosophical wisdom being threatened by a new scientism and historicism. Political theory textbooks have often portrayed Laslett as an individual who produced a highly memorable recording of the devastating effects of (...) the emerging modernist modes of knowledge, such as philosophical positivism and social scientific behaviouralism, on political philosophy. However, his personal relation to such modes of knowledge was far more complicated than a simple rejection or endorsement. As opposed to the Straussians, Laslett was not mourning the loss of eternal philosophic wisdom, because he did not have much belief in its existence. As opposed to the positivists, he still wanted to maintain the history of political thought as a central issue area of philosophical and political studies. Laslett's particular way of complementing the philosophical with the empirical and the historical also distinguished him from the end of ideology-theorizing dominated by American scholars. The originality of his views is testified by the emergence of the 'Cambridge School' in the history of political thought, which cannot be adequately understood without taking into account Laslett's contributions in the 1950s. (shrink)

Dramatic economic developments have served to highlight ethical questions and responses within business life in Finland, particularly regarding the crisis of the Finnish banking system. Other issues which have aroused public discussion are maintaining the natural biodiversity in the Northern hemisphere forests, and Finland's trade with Russia. The authors, listed alphabetically, are all research fellows at the School of Business Administration in the University of Tampere, PO Box 607, 33101 Tampere,Finland.

The work aims at discussing the double character of works of art in Adorno’s writings. It will be examined the arguments defended by Adorno about the social character of art, especially in the case of music, in which can be seen how the development of the material expresses the contradictions of society. By means of a dialectical critique Adorno discuss the way in which works of art respond to the social problems and become possibilities of resistance to reification. It will (...) be also analyzed the negative influence of culture industry on works of art. Therefore, the paper reflects about the concept of autonomous art as the hermetic character of works of art that enable them a development according their internal rules, without being submitted to a social function. In this sense, it is necessary that the reception of works of art be determined not by the aesthetic pleasure, but by the possibility of disclosing their truth content. The dialectic relation between art and society makes works of art critical and resistant to reification. (shrink)

Trata-se de um estudo que apresenta uma interpretação sobre o livro de Carson McCullers, intitulado O coração é um caçador solitário, com base no argumento de que a referida obra traz consigo elementos literários e filosóficos. Com isto em mente, objetivou-se compreender a solidão para além de um dilema que a encerra em si mesma, mas, sobretudo, compreendê-la inserida no contexto dos tempos sombrios, fenômeno epocal em que se manifesta o ódio e a intolerância (a exemplo de manifestações machistas, racistas, (...) xenófobas e homofóbicas) incentivados por uma espécie de obscurantismo anti-intelectual. O problema investigado se referiu às condições de possibilidade de enfrentar-se educacionalmente a solidão, fenômeno que afeta cada vez mais indivíduos. Em linhas gerais, percorre-se o campo dos conceitos filosóficos amparados pela materialidade da narrativa literária para a apresentação de proposições pedagógico-educacionais. Palavras-chave: Educação; Solidão; Hannah Arendt. Loneliness in somber times: pedagogical-educational propositions for a world out of axes Abstract: This is a study that presents an interpretation of Carson McCullers' book, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, based on the argument that the aforesaid work carries both literary and philosophical elements. That said, the objective was to understand the loneliness beyond a dilemma which encloses in itself, yet, especially, to comprehend it when inserted in dark times context, epochal phenomenon that manifests hatred and intolerance (sexism, racism, homophobic manifestations, for instance), encouraged by some sort of anti-intellectual obscurantism. The problem investigated in this article referred to the conditions of possibility of facing loneliness educationally, a phenomenon that has increasingly affected individuals. In general terms, the philosophical concepts field supported by the materiality of literary narrative for the presentation of pedagogical-educational propositions. Keywords: Education; Loneliness; Hannah Arendt. La solitud en tiempos de oscuridad: proposiciones pedagógico-educacionales para un mundo fuera de los ejes Resumen: Se trata de un estudio que presenta una interpretación sobre el libro de Carson McCullers, El corazón es un cazador solitario, bajo el argumento de que esta obra trae consigo elementos literarios y filosóficos. Con esto en mente, se ha objetivado comprender la solitud más allá de un dilema en si misma, pero, estudiarla introducida en el contexto de los tiempos de oscuridad, fenómeno de una época en que se manifiesta el odio y la intolerancia (a ejemplo de manifestaciones machistas, racistas, xenofóbicas y homofóbicas) incentivadas por una especie de oscurantismo anti-intelectual. El problema investigado se ha referido a las condiciones de posibilidad de enfrentarse, en la educación, la soledad, fenómeno que afecta cada vez más individuos. En líneas generales, vamos de los conceptos filosóficos valiéndose por la materialidad de la narrativa literaria para la presentación de proposiciones pedagógico-educacionales. Palabras-clave: Educación; Soledad; Hannah Arendt. Data de registro: 18/07/2020 Data de aceite: 16/02/2022. (shrink)

This article, originally meant for an Auroville publication, consists mainly, besides the quotations, of a wide range of suggestions related to a transcultural approach to various questions raised by transdisciplinary research. All these suggestions converge on a central focus; the virtual reality of a subject/object interaction that eludes narrow disciplinary restrictions as well as rigid cultural definitions. Here, significantly, etymology seems to lead towards mythical cultural watersheds, just as philology has been offering clues to some fundamental philosophical discoveries, from Nietsche (...) to G. Colli. The recent impact of Orientalist studies leads further into the same initiatic dimension, wherein metaphysics, ontology, aesthetics, linguistics, cosmology and psychology, all blend in a continuum of psychic experience, while variations of conscious awareness could only be described, and not sharply differentiated. All this would point, not only to the emergence of new cognitive methods, but also to correspondingly adequate means of expression. A transcultural approach could, moreover, provide vital links between today's originality and the spiritual traditions of the past, adding thus a sense of cultural continuity to our endeavours in understanding evolution. (shrink)

This book studies the phenomenological ontology of breathing. It investigates breathing and air as a question of phenomenological philosophy and looks at phenomenological questions concerning respiratory methodology, ontological experience of respiration, respiratory spirituality and respiratory embodiment. Drawing on the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gaston Bachelard, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Luce Irigaray and David Kleinberg-Levin, the book argues for the ontological primacy of breathing and develops a new principle of philosophy that the author calls "Silence of Breath, Abyss/Yawn of Air". It (...) asserts that breathing is not a thing- or person-oriented relation, but perpetual communication with the immense elemental atmosphere of open and free air. This new phenomenological method of breathing offers readers a chance to begin to wonder, rethink, re-experience and reimagine all questions of life in an innovative and creative way as aerial and respiratory questions of life. Part of the Routledge Critical Perspectives on Breath and Breathing series, the book breaks new ground in phenomenology and phenomenological ontology by offering a decisive and insightful treatment of breath. It will be indispensable for students and researchers of philosophy, phenomenology, and ontology. It will also be of special interest to Merleau-Ponty scholars as it investigates uncharted dimensions of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy. (shrink)

This paper is a reply to Jonathan Riley’s criticism of my reading of Mill (both published in the Philosophical Quarterly 2003). I show that Riley’s interpretation has no textual support in Mill’s writing by putting the supposedly supporting quotations in their proper context. Secondly it is demonstrated how my reading is not incompatible with hedonism. Mill’s use of the concepts of ‘quality’, ‘quantity’, and ‘pleasure’ are explained and illustrated. I conclude by considering whether the possible redundancy of Mill’s quality/quantity discussion (...) would be problematic. (shrink)

THIS PAPER ARGUES THAT GLOBAL SUPERVENIENCE IS NOT\nEQUIVALENT TO KIM'S STRONG SUPERVENIENCE (AS HE HAS ARGUED\nIT IS) AND THAT IT DOES NOT ENTAIL THE TYPE OR TOKEN\nREDUCIBILITY OF THE SUPERVENIENT PROPERTIES TO THE\nPROPERTIES UPON WHICH THEY SUPERVENE (AS STRONG\nSUPERVENIENCE DOES). IT THEN TURNS TO AN EXAMINATION OF THE\nARGUMENT THAT GLOBAL SUPERVENIENCE IS EQUIVALENT TO\nIMPLICIT DEFINABILITY WHICH ACCORDING TO BETH'S THEOREM\nENTAILS EXPLICIT DEFINABILITY. THE AUTHOR HOPES TO SHOW\nTHAT GLOBAL SUPERVENIENCE IS A DISTINCT AND ESPECIALLY\nINTERESTING RELATION WHICH CAPTURES ASPECTS OF THE\nRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN (...) PHYSICAL PROPERTIES AND THOSE\nPROPERTIES WHICH ARE DETERMINED BY THEM THAT OTHER\nRELATIONS DO NOT DO JUSTICE TO. (shrink)

This paper challenges (in a shorter version than the also listed 2002 LSE discussion paper) the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the belief (...) cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

This paper challenges the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the belief cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket (...) shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

The article introduces a cognitive and componential view of religious emotions. General emotions are claimed to consist of at least two compounds, the cognitive compound and the affective compound. Religious emotions are typically general emotions which are characterized by three specific conditions: they involve a thought of God or godlike, they are significant for a person feeling them and their meaning is derived from religious practices. The article discusses the notion of spiritual emotions in Ancient theology and compares the idea (...) of it with emotions in music. By referring to the notion of mental language, it is argued that some religious emotions are like emotions in music and as such they can be interpreted as tones of Logos. (shrink)

This article traces the development of contextualist methodology in the study of the history of political thought/political theory after WWII. It argues that the so-called ‘Cambridge School’, often regarded as the core of historicist contextualism, arose during the 1950s and 1960s in response to dilemmas that were largely internal to (the history of) political philosophy as it was practiced in Britain in an academic culture dominated by analytic philosophy. This first stage of contextualist theorizing, usually associated with Laslett, Skinner and (...) Pocock, was highly influential, but it also contributed to the formation of a new set of problems. These were connected to the diversification and internationalization of the historicist contextualist study of political thought after the 1960s. The ‘second stage’ of contextualist theorizing was shaped by post-analytic and post-modernist impulses among others. Because of the variety of philosophical and conceptual commitments on notions central to the field such as ‘political thinking’, ‘politics’, or ‘power’, it is unlikely that the present historicist contextualist approaches would come to share a unified methodology or theory of historical interpretation. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 9, Issue 3, pp 347 - 371 A central purpose of historicist contextualism, or the “new history of political thought”, the central methodological ideas of which were laid out between the 1950s and the 70s, was to liberate the history of ideas from distorting influence of political ideology, nationalism, and other presentist narratives that ascribed past events under false teleologies. From the 1980s onwards, it has been possible to find explicitly normative statements in the works of the (...) leading contextualist historians and scholars influenced by their work, for example, Skinner’s defences of neo-Roman republicanism. This article examines the normative content of contextualism. Instead of arguing that the normative aspect was a novelty introduced after the 1980s, the claim here is that contextualist theorising was socially and politically implicated and arguably normative from its very beginning. To substantiate this, the article offers an interpretation of the normativity of early contextualism based on its relationship towards broader socio-political themes such as ideology, agency, emancipation, progress, and societies’ relationship with their pasts. Early contextualist normativity assumed that the professional research of history would be a suitable and sufficient way of generating also socially desirable outcomes. Later, as the political and academic background conditions changed, this normativity was given more explicit formulations in order to keep up its political relevance. (shrink)

The conclusion of the paper reads: There is a view compatible with everything Mill says in these passages that can deal with all three problems. It’s a simple act utilitarianism in which the moral value of an action is determined by its actual consequences. On this view, the consequences of an action, what happens, depends on what the agent wants to bring about, that is to say, they depend on the agent’s intentions. Therefore the moral value of an action depends, (...) given that on simple act utilitarianism it entirely depends on the action’s consequences, entirely on the intentions of the agent – at least in the simple cases at issue between Mill and Davies in which people manage to bring about what they want to bring about. In these cases, varying the intention varies the consequences and thus the moral value. The simple act utilitarian nevertheless recognises that motives are also relevant – not necessarily to the consequences of the actions that do get performed but to which actions get performed at all. Hence motives are of paramount importance in theory and practice. However, as actions are individuated by the agent’s intentions and the action’s consequences, without appealing to the motive giving rise to it, any particular action might be brought about by different motives. Mill’s example illustrates this scenario. Hence it is possible to vary the motive due to which an action is performed without varying the action’s consequences, that is, without varying its moral value. In this sense, the moral value of an action does not depend on the motive with which it is done. Hence Davies’s objection is indeed unfounded and Mill’s footnote is rescued. (shrink)

We do not know how much clinical physicians carrying out clinical trials in oncology and haematology struggle with ethical concerns. To our knowledge, no empirical research exists on these questions in a Nordic context. Therefore, this study aims to learn what kinds of ethical challenges physicians in Sweden, Denmark and Finland face when caring for patients in clinical trials; and what strategies, if any, they have developed to deal with them. The main findings were that clinical cancer trials pose ethical (...) challenges related to autonomy issues, unreasonable hope for benefits and the therapeutic misconception. Nevertheless, some physicians expressed that struggling with such challenges was not of great concern. This conveys a culture of hope where health care professionals and patients uphold hope and mutually support belief in clinical trials. This culture being implicit, physicians need opportunities to deliberately reflect over the characteristics that should constitute this culture. (shrink)

This comment discusses Kaidesoja and raises the issue whether his analysis justifies stronger conclusions than he presents in the book. My comments focus on four issues. First, I argue that his naturalistic reconstruction of critical realist transcendental arguments shows that transcendental arguments should be treated as a rare curiosity rather than a general argumentative strategy. Second, I suggest that Kaidesoja’s analysis does not really justify his optimism about the usefulness of causal powers ontology in the social sciences. Third, I raise (...) some doubts about the heuristic value of Mario Bunge’s social ontology that Kaidesoja presents as a replacement for critical realist ontology. Finally, I propose an alternative way to analyze failures of aggregativity that might better serve Kaidesoja’s purposes than the Wimsattian scheme he employs in the book. (shrink)

Modeling is a relatively new topic in biblical and related subjects—it was first introduced in the 1970s—and it is controversial because the application of social-scientific models raises the difficult question of the cultural gap between the present societies, where the models are usually developed, and the ancient cultural context to which the models are applied.Because biblical and related studies may not belong to the most familiar scholarly fields of the readers of this journal, I first sketch an overall picture of (...) the development of the discipline and its main methods (Section 2). The subsequent sections summarize the arguments presented for and against modeling in biblical studies (Section 3), and discuss .. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Mental Capacity Act was enacted in 2007 in England and Wales, but the assessment of mental capacity still remains an area of professional concern. Doctors’ compliance with legal and professional standards is inconsistent, but the reasons for poor compliance are not well understood. This preliminary study investigates doctors’ experiences of and attitudes toward mental capacity assessment.MethodsThis is a descriptive, cross-sectional study where a two-domain, study-specific structured questionnaire was developed, piloted and digitally disseminated to doctors at differing career stages employed (...) in a large, multi-site National Health Service Trust in London over 4 months in 2018. Descriptive statistics and frequency tables adjusted for missing data were generated and secondary analysis was conducted.ResultsParticipants were predominantly UK trained, female and between the ages of 30 and 44 years. Less than half of the participants reported receiving formal MCAx training. Only one-third of the participants self-rated themselves as very competent or extremely competent. Self-reported MCA confidence was significantly affected by career stage with Consultants with over 10 years of experience reporting lowest confidence.ConclusionsThis study describes significant variation in practice by doctors and low self-confidence in the practice of MCAx. These results raise concerns that MCAx continues to be inconsistently performed by doctors despite appropriate awareness of the law and professional guidance on best practice. (shrink)

It is well known that John Stuart Mill repeatedly acknowledges Harriet Taylor Mill's substantial contribution to On Liberty. After her death, however, he decides to publish the book under his name only. Are we justified in continuing this practice, initiated by JSM, of refusing unequivocal co-authorship status to HTM? Drawing on stylometric analyses, we make a preliminary case that JSM did not write On Liberty all by himself and that HTM had a hand in formulating it. Drawing on plausible standards (...) for authorship ascription, we further point out that authorship status requires, in addition to a substantial contribution, the approval by all contributors. We discuss potential reasons to assume that HTM did not approve the published version of On Liberty and would have objected to including her name on the title page. (This paper is available on an open-access basis at UTILITAS). (shrink)