A dynamic semantics for epistemically modalized sentences is an attractive alternative to the orthodox view that our best theory of meaning ascribes to such sentences truth-conditions relative to what is known. This essay demonstrates that a dynamic theory about might and must offers elegant explanations of a range of puzzling observations about epistemic modals. The first part of the story offers a unifying treatment of disputes about epistemic modality and disputes about matters of fact while at the same time avoiding (...) the complexities of alternative theories. The second part of the story extends the basic framework to cover some complicated data about retraction and the interaction between epistemic modality and tense. A comparison between the suggestion made in this essay and current versions of the orthodoxy is provided. (shrink)

Every adequate semantics for conditionals and deontic ought must offer a solution to the miners paradox about conditional obligations. Kolodny and MacFarlane have recently argued that such a semantics must reject the validity of modus ponens. I demonstrate that rejecting the validity of modus ponens is inessential for an adequate solution to the paradox.

In this article, we hypothesize that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are born with a deficit in invariance detection, which is a learning process whereby people and animals come to attend the relatively stable patterns or structural regularities in the changing stimulus array. This paper synthesizes a substantial body of research which suggests that a deficit in the domain-general perceptual learning process of invariant detection in ASD can lead to a cascade of consequences in different developmental domains. We will (...) outline how this deficit in invariant detection can cause uncertainty, unpredictability, and a lack of control for individuals with ASD and how varying degrees of impairments in this learning process can account for the heterogeneity of the ASD phenotype. We also describe how differences in neural plasticity in ASD underlie the impairments in perceptual learning. The present account offers an alternative to prior theories and contributes to the challenge of understanding the developmental trajectories that result in the variety of autistic behaviors. (shrink)

The received wisdom on ability modals is that they differ from their epistemic and deontic cousins in what inferences they license and better receive a universal or conditional analysis instead of an existential one. The goal of this paper is to sharpen the empirical picture about the semantics of ability modals, and to propose an analysis that explains what makes the can of ability so special but that also preserves the crucial idea that all uses of can share a common (...) lexical semantics. The resulting framework combines tools and techniques from dynamic and inquisitive semantics with insights from the literature of the role of agency in deontic logic. It explains not only why the can of ability, while essentially being an existential modal operator, sometimes resists distribution over disjunction and interacts with its duals in particular and hitherto unnoticed ways, but also has a tendency to license free choice inferences. (shrink)

A proof of the consistency of Heyting arithmetic formulated in natural deduction is given. The proof is a reduction procedure for derivations of falsity and a vector assignment, such that each reduction reduces the vector. By an interpretation of the expressions of the vectors as ordinals each derivation of falsity is assigned an ordinal less than ε 0, thus proving termination of the procedure.

To evaluate the success of simple heuristics we need to know more about how a relevant heuristic is chosen and how we learn which cues are relevant. These meta-abilities are at the core of ecological rationality, rather than the individual heuristics.

The influence of conscience on nurses in terms of guilt has frequently been described but its impact on care has received less attention. The aim of this study was to describe nurses' conceptions of the influence of conscience on the provision of inpatient care. The study employed a phenomenographic approach and analysis method. Fifteen nurses from three hospitals in western Sweden were interviewed. The results showed that these nurses considered conscience to be an important factor in the exercise of their (...) profession, as revealed by the descriptive categories: conscience as a driving force; conscience as a restricting factor; and conscience as a source of sensitivity. They perceived that conscience played a role in nursing actions involving patients and next of kin, and was an asset that guided them in their efforts to provide high quality care. (shrink)

If we know that certain ways of making decisions are associated with real-life success, is this then how we should decide? In this paper the relationship between normative and descriptive theories of decision-making is examined. First, it is shown that the history of the decision sciences ensures that it is impossible to separate descriptive theories from normative ones. Second, recent psychological research implies new ways of arguing from the descriptive to the normative. The paper ends with an evaluation of how (...) this might affect normative theories of decision-making. (shrink)

Epistemic modals are a prominent topic in the literature on natural language semantics, with wide-ranging implications for issues in philosophy of language and philosophical logic. Considerations about the role that epistemic "might" and "must" play in discourse and reasoning have led to the development of several important alternatives to classical possible worlds semantics for natural language modal expressions. This is an opinionated overview of what I take to be some of the most exciting issues and developments in the field.

This article examines the potential implications of the implementation of artificial intelligence in health care for both its delivery and the medical profession. To this end, the first section explores the basic features of AI and the yet theoretical concept of autonomous AI followed by an overview of current and developing AI applications. Against this background, the second section discusses the transforming roles of physicians and changes in the patient–physician relationship that could be a consequence of gradual expansion of AI (...) in health care. Subsequently, an examination of the responsibilities physicians should assume in this process is explored. The third section describes conceivable practical and ethical challenges that implementation of a single all-encompassing AI healthcare system would pose. The fourth section presents arguments for regulation of AI in health care to ensure that these applications do not violate basic ethical principles and that human control of AI will be preserved in the future. In the final section, fundamental components of a moral framework from which such regulation may be derived are brought forward, and some possible strategies for building a moral framework are discussed. (shrink)

Schulz has shown that the suppositional view of indicative conditionals leads to a corresponding view of epistemic modals. But his case backfires: the resulting theory of epistemic modals gets the facts wrong, and so we end up with a good argument against the suppositional view. I show how and why a dynamic view of indicative conditionals leads to a better theory of epistemic modals.

Revised simulation theory allows mental state attributions containing some or all of the attributor's genuine, non-simulated mental states. It is thought that this gives the revised theory an empirical advantage, because unlike theory theory and rationality theory, it can explain egocentric bias. I challenge this view, arguing that theory theory and rationality theory can explain egocentricity by appealing to heuristic mindreading and the diagnosticity of attributors' own beliefs, and that these explanations are as simple and consistent as those provided by (...) revised simulation theory. (shrink)

Over recent decades, public participation in technology assessment has spread internationally as an attempt to overcome or prevent societal conflicts over controversial technologies. One outcome of this new surge in public consultation initiatives has been the increased use of participatory consensus conferences in a number of countries. Existing evaluations of consensus conferences tend to focus on the modes of organization, as well as the outcomes, both procedural and substantial, of the conferences they examine. Such evaluations seem to rest on the (...) assumption that this type of procedure has universally agreed goals and meanings, and that therefore consensus conferences can readily be interpreted and applied across national boundaries. This article challenges this approach to consensus conferences. The core of the article is a study of national differences in ideas about what constitutes legitimate goals for participatory arrangements. The study looks at three consensus conferences on GMOs, which took place in France, Norway, and Denmark. Drawing on this study, the article discusses the ways in which interpretations of the concept of participation; the value attributed to lay knowledge vs. technical expertise; as well as ideas about the role of the layperson, are all questions that prompt entirely different answers from country to country. Further, the article analyses these national differences within a theoretical framework of notions of democratic legitimacy. (shrink)

Another view has entered the metaethical debate—relaxed realism [Dworkin 1996; Parfit 2011; Scanlon 2014]. Relaxed realists claim that there are irreducible moral properties, but seek to avoid the...

This book explores the ways in which the spatio-temporal contingency of human life is being conceived in different fields of research. Specifically, it looks at the relationship between the situatedness of human life, the situation or place in which human life is supposed to be situated, and the dimensions of space and time in which both situation and place are usually themselves supposed to be situated. Over the last two or three decades, the spatio-temporal contingency of human life has become (...) an important topic of research in a broad range of different disciplines including the social sciences, the cultural sciences, the cognitive sciences, and philosophy. However, this research topic is referred to in quite different ways: while some researchers refer to it in terms of “situation”, emphasizing the “situatedness” of human experience and action, others refer to it in terms of “place”, emphasizing the “power of place” and advocating a “topological” or “topographical turn” in the context of a larger “spatial turn”. Interdisciplinary exchange is so far hampered by the fact that the notions referred to and the relationships between them are usually not sufficiently questioned. This book addresses these issues by bringing together contributions on the spatio-temporal contingency of human life from different fields of research. (shrink)

Participatory methods aim to address controversy over new technologies through public consultation. This paper first describes the emergence of participatory methods within the framework of technology assessment, then provides an overview of the landscape of participatory arrangements; and, finally, discusses participatory methods in relation to different democratic ideals. The article challenges the widespread assumption that participatory methods can function as normatively neutral tools, which can readily be employed in various social and political settings. Through a case study of consensus conferences (...) on GMOs in three European countries, the article investigates the interpretive processes that take place when participatory procedures are applied in new national political settings. (shrink)

A gendered reading of the liberal peacebuilding and transitional justice project in Bosnia–Herzegovina raises critical questions concerning the quality of the peace one hopes to achieve in transitional societies. By focusing on three-gendered justice gaps—the accountability, acknowledgement, and reparations gaps—this article examines structural constraints for women to engage in shaping and implementing transitional justice, and unmasks transitional justice as a site for the long-term construction of the gendered post-conflict order. Thus, the gendered dynamics of peacebuilding and transitional justice have produced (...) a post-conflict order characterized by gendered peace and justice gaps. Yet, we conclude that women are doing justice within the Bosnian–Herzegovina transitional justice project, and that their presence and participation is complex, multilayered, and constrained yet critical. (shrink)

This paper gives a Gentzen-style proof of the consistency of Heyting arithmetic in an intuitionistic sequent calculus with explicit rules of weakening, contraction and cut. The reductions of the proof, which transform derivations of a contradiction into less complex derivations, are based on a method for direct cut-elimination without the use of multicut. This method treats contractions by tracing up from contracted cut formulas to the places in the derivation where each occurrence was first introduced. Thereby, Gentzen’s heightline argument, which (...) introduces additional cuts on contracted compound cut formulas, is avoided. To show termination of the reduction procedure an ordinal assignment based on techniques of Howard for Gödel’s T is used. (shrink)

This article explores the ethics of world heritage (WH) through a cosmopolitan lens. It proposes that cosmopolitanism provides fertile ground for the study of WH, in particular if combined with sensitivity to distinct indigenous ethical and political claims. Underpinning my article is the question of whether the politics of WH, despite its peaceful and universalist intensions, obscures local disputes and subaltern voices. The empirical emphasis is placed on the WH site of Laponia in the North of Sweden – a location (...) of Sami indigenous communities and commercial mining interests. I provide a narrative analysis of the inconsistencies between the Swedish ‘good state’ narrative defined by support for human and indigenous rights globally and the protection ambition of WH and its generally favourable attitude towards mining, despite its potentially damaging effects on the WH site of Laponia and the cultural heritage and land rights of Sami people living there. My study also provides an analysis of Sami narratives on Laponia – storylines that are rarely included in the Swedish ‘good state’ narrative. The study seeks to contribute to scholarly understandings of indigenous peoples’ ability to lay claims to the cosmopolitan protection logic that prevails in WH. (shrink)

We study the variety Var() of lattice-ordered monoids generated by the natural numbers. In particular, we show that it contains all 2-generated positively ordered lattice-ordered monoids satisfying appropriate distributive laws. Moreover, we establish that the cancellative totally ordered members of Var() are submonoids of ultrapowers of and can be embedded into ordered fields. In addition, the structure of ultrapowers relevant to the finitely generated case is analyzed. Finally, we provide a complete isomorphy invariant in the two-generated case.

Gödel’s ontological proof is by now well known based on the 1970 version, written in Gödel’s own hand, and Scott’s version of the proof. In this article new manuscript sources found in Gödel’s Nachlass are presented. Three versions of Gödel’s ontological proof have been transcribed, and completed from context as true to Gödel’s notes as possible. The discussion in this article is based on these new sources and reveals Gödel’s early intentions of a liberal comprehension principle for the higher order (...) modal logic, an explicit use of second-order Barcan schemas, as well as seemingly defining a rigidity condition for the system. None of these aspects occurs explicitly in the later 1970 version, and therefore they have long been in focus of the debate on Gödel’s ontological proof. (shrink)

This article examines the concept of creating shared value as articulated by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, in non-Western and Western contexts. We define non-Western contexts as those in so-called “developing” countries and emerging economies, whereas Western ones pertain to dominant thinking in “developed” regions. We frame our research in postcolonial theory and offer an overview of existing critiques of CSV. We conduct a critical discourse analysis of 66 articles to identify how CSV is being cited by authors, and potential (...) underlying power dynamics that affect its relevance for non-Western contexts. Our review exposes increasingly critical views about the paradoxical positioning of CSV as an instrumental concept that can offer “win-win” solutions, particularly from those working in non-Western settings. Western perspectives generally tend to be more supportive of its instrumental nature, but also recognize the increasing complexity of the business-society nexus and stakeholder engagement. We argue that the CSV framework requires further development to maintain credibility and applicability, especially in non-Western domains. (shrink)

This article analyses problem situations in the context of anaesthesia care. It considers what it means for nurse anaesthetists to be in problematic situations in the anaesthesia care of older patients. Benner’s interpretive phenomenological approach proved useful for this purpose. Paradigm cases are used to aid the analysis of individual nurses’ experiences. Thirty narrated problematic anaesthesia care situations derived from seven interviews were studied. These show that experienced nurse anaesthetists perceive anaesthesia care as problematic and highly demanding when involving older (...) patients. To be in problematic anaesthesia care situations means becoming morally distressed, which arises from the experience or from being prevented from acting according to one’s legal and moral duty of care. An important issue that emerged from this study was the need for an ethical forum to discuss and articulate moral issues, so that moral stress of the kind experienced by these nurse anaesthetists can be dealt with and hopefully reduced. (shrink)

Beziehungen sind nicht gegeben, sie werden gemeinsam gemacht. Der Band untersucht Relationalitäten als prozessuale Aushandlungen zwischen Künsten und Wissenschaften, zwischen gebautem Raum und sozialem Körper, zwischen theoretischem und poetisch-künstlerischem Schreiben und Sprechen, zwischen Form, Material und Handlung. Plädiert wird für eine Wissenspolitik der Künste, die von einer radikalen Verstricktheit theoretischer, ästhetischer, medialer und gesellschaftlicher Praktiken und Techniken ausgeht. Mit Beiträgen von / with contributions by Bini Adamczak, Emily Apter, Alice Chauchat, Beatriz Colomina, Gradinger / Schubot, Annika Haas, Maximilian Haas, (...) Orit Halpern, Tom Holert, Amy Lien & Enzo Camacho, Maurício Liesen, Hanna Magauer, Michaela Ott, Sibylle Peters, Dennis Pohl, Possible Bodies (Helen Pritchard, Jara Rocha, Femke Snelting), Ghassan Salhab, Mirjam Schaub, Melanie Sehgal, Nora Sternfeld, Kathrin Thiele, Jeremy Wade, Brigitte Weingart. (shrink)

Malpractice issues in psychotherapy and psychological treatments refer to the unethical behavior of a psychologist or psychotherapist toward the patient. The current study reviewed complaints directed at psychologists and psychotherapists in Sweden with regard to possible incidents of malpractice. Eligible cases were retrieved from a database managed by the Health and Social Care Inspectorate [Inspektionen för vård och omsorg (IVO)], an administrative authority responsible for the safety and quality of healthcare and social services delivery. These cases were analyzed using thematic (...) analysis. In total, 33 complaints matched the keywords proposed by IVO, and were scrutinized in detail. The cases primarily involved psychiatric care by a psychologist in outpatient settings, although many cases comprised multiple healthcare providers responsible for the patient’s care, or targeted the healthcare unit as a whole. The results demonstrated that different forms of malpractice occur, and can be classified in two general themes, Incorrect administration and implementation and Attitude and behavior, which involve organizational aspects as well as examples of malpractice and unethical behavior. Implications for clinical practice and future research include further training in ethics and malpractice, video recording or auditing sessions, routine outcome monitoring, and providing patients with information on how to file complaints. (shrink)

Analyzing the transformation of climate activism in a rapidly changing political landscape, this book traces everyday renewable energy actions within a growing 'epistemic community', dispersed across organizational boundaries and domains. It will be of interest to social science scholars of business, renewable energy and sustainability transitions.

Prior research suggests that interviewers play an important role in representing their organization and in making the interview a pleasant experience for applicants. This study examined whether impression management used by interviewers (organization-enhancement and applicant-enhancement) is perceived by applicants, and how it influences applicants’ attitudes, intentions, and emotions. Adopting a signaling perspective, this article argues that applicants’ positive attitudes and intentions towards the organization increase if interviewers not only enhance the organization, but if the signals they sent (i.e., organization-enhancement) are (...) actually received by the applicant. Similarly, applicants’ positive emotions should increase if interviewers not only enhance the applicant, but if the signals they send (i.e., applicant-enhancement) are actually received by the applicant. A field study which involved video coding interviewers’ impression management behavior during 153 selection interviews and pre- and post-interview applicant surveys showed that the signals sent by interviewers during the interview were received by applicants. In addition, applicants rated the organization’s prestige and their own positive affect after the interview more positively when they perceived higher levels of organization-enhancement during the interview. Furthermore, applicants reported more positive affect and interview self-efficacy after the interview when they perceived higher levels of interviewer applicant-enhancement. We also found an indirect effect of interviewers’ organization-enhancement on organizational prestige through applicants’ perceptions of organization-enhancement as well as indirect effects of interviewers’ applicant-enhancement on applicants’ positive affect and interview self-efficacy through applicants’ perceptions of applicant-enhancement. Our findings contribute to an integrated understanding of the effects of interviewer impression management and point out both risks and chances in selling and smooth-talking towards applicants. (shrink)

Throughout the animal kingdom, p53 genes function to restrain mobile elements and recent observations indicate that transposons become derepressed in human cancers. Together, these emerging lines of evidence suggest that cancers driven by p53 mutations could represent “transpospoathies,” i.e. disease states linked to eruptions of mobile elements. The transposopathy hypothesis predicts that p53 acts through conserved mechanisms to contain transposon movement, and in this way, prevents tumor formation. How transposon eruptions provoke neoplasias is not well understood but, from a broader (...) perspective, this hypothesis also provides an attractive framework to explore unrestrained mobile elements as inciters of late‐onset idiopathic disease.Also see the video abstract here. (shrink)

Introduction -- Part one : Challenges to the subject -- Subjects in subjection : bodies, desires, and the psychic life of norms -- Moral subjects and agents of morality -- Part two : Responsibility -- Responsibility as response : Levinas and responsibility for others -- Ambivalent desires of responsibility : Laplanche and psychoanalytic translations -- Part three : Critique -- The aporia of critique and the future of moral philosophy -- Critique and political ethics : justice as a question.

We propose that leaders play a more important role in voters’ party sympathy in proportional representation systems than previous research has suggested. Voters, from the 2018 Swedish General Election, were in an experiment asked to describe leaders and parties with three indicative keywords. Statistical models were conducted on these text data to predict their vote choice. The results show that despite that the voters vote for a party, the descriptions of leaders predicted vote choice to a similar extent as descriptions (...) of parties. However, the order of the questions mattered, so that the first questions were more predictive than the second question. These analyses indicate that voters tend to conflate characteristics of leaders with their parties during election campaigns, and that leaders are a more important aspect of voting under PR than previous literature has suggested. Overall, this suggests that statistical analysis of words sheds new light of underlying sympathies related to voting. (shrink)