Scientific risk evaluations are constructed by specific evidence, value judgements and biological background assumptions. The latter are the framework-setting suppositions we apply in order to understand some new phenomenon. That background assumptions co-determine choice of methodology, data interpretation, and choice of relevant evidence is an uncontroversial claim in modern basic science. Furthermore, it is commonly accepted that, unless explicated, disagreements in background assumptions can lead to misunderstanding as well as miscommunication. Here, we extend the (...) discussion on background assumptions from basic science to the debate over genetically modified (GM) plants risk assessment. In this realm, while the different political, social and economic values are often mentioned, the identity and role of background assumptions at play are rarely examined. We use an example from the debate over risk assessment of stacked genetically modified plants (GM stacks), obtained by applying conventional breeding techniques to GM plants. There are two main regulatory practices of GM stacks: (i) regulate as conventional hybrids and (ii) regulate as new GM plants. We analyzed eight papers representative of these positions and found that, in all cases, additional premises are needed to reach the stated conclusions. We suggest that these premises play the role of biological background assumptions and argue that the most effective way toward a unified framework for risk analysis and regulation of GM stacks is by explicating and examining the biological background assumptions of each position. Once explicated, it is possible to either evaluate which background assumptions best reflect contemporary biological knowledge, or to apply Douglas' 'inductive risk' argument. (shrink)

In this paper I present how the normative inferentialist can make the distinction between sentence meaning and content of the utterance. The inferentialist can understand sentence meaning as a role conferred to that sentence by the rules governing inferential transitions and content of the utterance as just a part of sentence meaning. I attempt to show how such a framework can account for prominent scenarios presented by contextualists as a challenge to semantic minimalism/literalism. I argue that inferentialism can address contextualist (...) challenges in a simple and effective manner by understanding sentence meaning as broad, but invariant. (shrink)

In this article, I offer a methodological analysis of the empirical research on the causal effects of trade liberalisation, and assess whether such studies can be of any use for guiding policy prescriptions in real-world economies. The analysis focuses on the mainstream economic research that has been used to support arguments in favour of trade liberalisation during the last decades. Even though there are empirical results that could be taken as valid evidence for a causal connection between free trade and (...) economic gains, none of the existing evidence licences trustworthy inferences about the policy effectiveness of trade liberalisation reforms in real-world cases. There are three aspects of the empirical literature that make it highly problematic for making reliable policy inferences: (a) the criteria used to define the notion of ‘free trade’, (b) the background assumptions embedded in the econometric techniques used for estimating causal effects, and (c) the widespread desire among academic economists to attain scientific results in terms of universally valid generalisations. The analysis exposes a worrisome mismatch between, on the one hand, the research aims and outcomes of scientific economics and, on the other, the kind of evidence that would be useful for guiding actual policy deliberations. (shrink)

This argument map justifies the claim that using only deductive argument schemes in computer-supported argument visualization stimulates reflection on some of one's implicit background assumptions.

It is often supposed one can draw a distinction, among the assumptions on which an inference rests, between certain background assumptions and certain more salient, or foregrounded, assumptions. Yet what may such a fore-v-background structure, or such structures, consist it? In particular, how do they relate to consciousness? According to a ‘Boring View’, such structures can be captured by specifying, for the various assumptions of the inference, whether they are phenomenally conscious, or access conscious, (...) or else how easily available they are to such consciousness. According to an ‘Interesting View’, there are fore-v-background structures over and above such classifications. The chapter gestures at reasons for thinking that an Interesting View at least merits exploration. The paper discusses some recent contributions to such a view in analytical philosophy; some remarks in Husserl on what he dubbed the horizonal dimension of acts of consciousness; and psychological work on the role of gist or schema representations in perception and memory. It is proposed that background assumptions can figure in consciousness by being as it were condensed into a consciously, though inattentively, entertained notion of their overall thematic gist, where this thematic gist gives the drift of a possible elucidation of how or why such-and-such salient grounds mean that so-and-so conclusion holds. (shrink)

This article is a continuation of a line of investigation I began in ‘Literal Meaning’. Its aim is to explore some of the relations between the meaning of words and sentences and the context of their utterance. The view I shall be challenging is sometimes put by saying that the meaning of a sentence is the meaning that it has independently of any context whatever — the meaning it has in the so-called „null context“. The view I shall be espousing (...) is that in general the meaning of a sentence only has application (it only, for example, determines a set of truth conditions) against a background of assumptions and practices that are not representable as a part of the meaning. (shrink)

Background theories in science are used both to prove and to disprove that theory choice is underdetermined by data. The alleged proof appeals to the fact that experiments to decide between theories typically require auxiliary assumptions from other theories. If this generates a kind of underdetermination, it shows that standards of scientific inference are fallible and must be appropriately contextualized. The alleged disproof appeals to the possibility of suitable background theories to show that no theory choice can (...) be timelessly or noncontextually underdetermined: Foreground theories might be distinguished against different backgrounds. Philosophers have often replied to such a disproof by focussing their attention not on theories but on Total Sciences. If empirically equivalent Total Sciences were at stake, then there would be no background against which they could be differentiated. I offer several reasons to think that Total Science is a philosophers' fiction. No respectable underdetermination can be based on it. (shrink)

It is not uncommon for patients with advanced disease to express a wish to hasten death. Qualitative studies of the WTHD have found that such a wish may have different meanings, none of which can be understood outside of the patient’s personal and sociocultural background, or which necessarily imply taking concrete steps to ending one’s life. The starting point for the present study was a previous systematic review of qualitative studies of the WTHD in advanced patients. Here we analyse (...) in greater detail the statements made by patients included in that review in order to examine their moral understandings and representations of illness, the dying process and death. We identify and discuss four classes of assumptions: assumptions related to patients’ moral understandings in terms of dignity, autonomy and authenticity; assumptions related to social interactions; assumptions related to the value of life; and assumptions related to medicalisation as an overarching context within which the WTHD is expressed. Our analysis shows how a philosophical perspective can add to an understanding of the WTHD by taking into account cultural and anthropological aspects of the phenomenon. We conclude that the knowledge gained through exploring patients’ experience and moral understandings in the end-of-life context may serve as the basis for care plans and interventions that can help them experience their final days as a meaningful period of life, restoring some sense of personal dignity in those patients who feel this has been lost. (shrink)

Throughout the last quarter of the nineteenth century, researchers became increasingly interested in explaining the ways in which mammalian teeth, especially molars, and their complex arrangements of cusps arose along both developmental and evolutionary timescales. By the 1890s, two theories garnered special prominence; the tritubercular theory and the concrescence theory. The tritubercular theory was proposed by Edward Drinker Cope in 1883, and later expanded by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1888, while the concrescence theory was developed by Carl Röse in 1892. (...) Reviews concerning the evolution of mammalian molar teeth tended to paint the two theories as occupying opposing sides, and debates arose between their main proponents; however, their tenets do not seem logically incompatible. Throughout this paper, I argue that the conflict that arose was due not to the content of the theories, but to a diverse array of commitments Cope, Osborn, and Röse held, which turned into background assumptions within the setting of these theories. This history traces the context in which Cope, Osborn, and Röse developed the tritubercular and concrescence theories, and the ways in which the assumptions that these investigators held influenced their perceptions of their theories. (shrink)

Considering background quantization of gravitational fields, it is generally assumed that the classical background satisfies Einstein's gravitational equations. However, there exist arguments showing that, for high frequency (quantum) fluctuations, this assumption has to be replaced by a condition describing the back reaction of fluctuations on the background. It is shown that such an approach leads to limitations for the quantum procedure which occur at distances larger than Planck's elementary lengthl=(Gh/c 3)1/2.

Reflexivity is a complex phenomenon. In this chapter, we are primarily interested in reflexivity insofar as it is a process of discovering for oneself and one’s audiences the perspectival features (e.g., background assumptions, social positions, and biases) that shape one’s judgments, decisions, and behaviors. So understood, reflexivity isn’t always a good idea. Sometimes thinking can get in the way of doing. (Downhill ski racing springs to mind.) But for some activities, such as action research, reflexivity is critical for (...) doing the activity well. While the value of reflexivity for action research is well understood, we believe that there is a form of reflexivity underappreciated in some research circles – philosophical reflexivity. In this chapter, we outline this form, argue for its importance in sound action research, and offer a technique, the Toolbox approach, for facilitating it. (shrink)

Cognitive psychologists have recently identified alterations in perception and reasoning that contribute to the formation and maintenance of beliefs that happen to be delusional. Clinically significant delusions, however, are often deeply unusual. An account of their formation and maintenance must explain not merely how someone can come to hold false or uncommon beliefs, but also how someone can arrive at beliefs that seem profoundly improbable and even bizarre. This paper uses the philosophical concepts of the Bedrock and the Background (...) to provide an account of that foundational, nonrepresentational, non–rule-governed, dispositional structure of everyday understanding that underpins both our perception and our reasoning. The central claim is that the formation and maintenance of delusions becomes intelligible once they are seen to reflect disturbances to this foundational dispositional structure. Different dimensions of the Background are described along with the delusions that might follow from distortions to these dimensions. We challenge the assumption of much recent cognitive psychological theorizing that delusions can be understood as explanations of unusual experiences or as the product of hasty reasoning. Finally, the implications of the theory for the therapy of the delusional patient are briefly discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Standards and Assumptions, the Limits of Inclusion, and Pluralism in PsychiatryBennett Knox*, MA (bio)Let me begin by expressing my gratitude to AAPP, PPP, and the Jaspers Award Committee—I am deeply honored to receive this award. So too let me thank Anke Bueter (2022) and Awais Aftab (2022) for their thought-provoking commentaries. Many of the concerns they bring up are ones that I share, so I am delighted to (...) have a chance to discuss them in my response. I will bring up three central issues in turn: 1) the role of shared standards versus background assumptions, 2) the limits of inclusion, and 3) pluralism in psychiatry.Shared Standards or Background Assumptions?Both Bueter and Aftab reference Longino's "shared public standards" criterion for social objectivity (1990, p. 77; 2002, p. 130), which I did not explicitly discuss in the original paper (Knox, 2022). This was a choice I made partly because in the case of psychiatry determining what constitutes an appropriate "shared public standard" is often not at all straightforward, which points to a potential problem for Longino's view. Namely, in some cases it is a matter of dispute whether some assumption shared within a scientific field should be counted as a "shared public standard" (which Longino requires that there be) or a "background assumption" (which she requires be subjected to critical scrutiny). And it is sometimes unclear how we could effectively adjudicate this type of disagreement.Take the example Bueter uses of "psychiatrists aiming for biomedical explanations of a particular mental disorder, whereas the critics value research that does not assume the existence of mental disorders" (2022, p. 273). A conflict along these lines often does arise between advocates of the pathology paradigm and the neurodiversity paradigm with regard to Autism, for example.1 A psychiatrist working within the pathology paradigm may argue that something like "psychiatry must deal only with mental disorders, understood as pathologies" constitutes a shared standard, and so psychiatric research on Autism must understand it as a pathology. An advocate of the neurodiversity paradigm, however, might argue that this same proposition [End Page 275] is merely a normative background assumption shared among many psychiatrists, which ought to be questioned and ultimately rejected. How might we adjudicate this meta-disagreement about the status of this standard/assumption?Bueter gives some helpful guidance on this issue by pointing to Carrier's requirement that participants exhibit the "epistemic attitude" (2013). I agree that if all participants commit themselves to this attitude, then "…differences in conceptual resources and standards of assessment need not make shared deliberation impossible, and the standards can be a subject of discussion themselves" (Bueter 2022, p. 273). For instance, since this attitude requires some commitment to empirical adequacy, we might search for some empirical evidence that favors one paradigm over the other. But advocates of both paradigms might actually agree on all the empirical facts, and yet still have a deep disagreement about which paradigm's understanding should be accepted as a shared standard. If participants are committed to some common standards and goals, we may often be able to resolve this sort of problem. But there is still a danger that we may arrive at an impasse, with no clear idea how to proceed.Though in many cases scientific experts must be allowed some power to set the standards in their domain (lest we dilute that expertise in ways that Aftab rightly points out would be problematic), I would also caution against accepting that something is a legitimate shared public standard just because the members of a scientific community say so. In keeping with the spirit of Longino's reliance on Quine, none of our shared standards are in principle immune from revision—save perhaps a minimal commitment to empirical evidence and rational argument.The Limits of InclusionMy impression is that Longino's response to the "Nazi problem" presented by Hicks (2011) might be to bite the bullet: her account does require allowing Nazi scientists to participate, and perhaps even cultivating their participation. But if (as seems likely) the Nazi shows themself to be unable to adhere to the shared standards... (shrink)

No single text could be considered more important in the history of philosophy than Descartes' Meditations. This unique collection of background material to this magisterial philosophical text has been translated from the original French and Latin. The texts gathered here illustrate the kinds of principles, assumptions, and philosophical methods that were commonplace when Descartes was growing up. The selections are from: Francisco Sanches, Christopher Clavius, Pierre de la Ramee, Francisco Suárez, Pierre Charron, Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, Scipion Dupleix, (...) Marin Mersenne, Pierre Gassendi, Jean de Silhon, François de la Mothe le Vayer, Charles Sorel, and Jean-Baptiste Morin. (shrink)

Historians generally grumble at the liberties taken with letters and papers by editors and biographers in the past, while reviewers may complain at the professorial pomposities which interfere with the reader's interaction with the text. Certainly, reading is not a mere matter of information retrieval or of source-mining, but a meeting of minds, and any over-zealous editing which makes this more difficult will have failed. Editors, whether of journals or of documents, are midwives of ideas—self-effacingly bringing an author's meaning and (...) style into the world. What reviewers praise is the unobtrusive, and what they damn is ‘a manner at once slapdash and intrusive’, making allowances perhaps for an ‘introduction which is as admirable as his footnotes are useless’. When in the 1960s new technology brought us a flood of facsimile reprints of scientific works, some avoided these problems by appearing naked and unashamed: but for a text on phrenology, or for Goethe's Theory of Colours, a fig leaf or two of commentary is really necessary to help the innocent reader to interact with the book. Facsimiles of nineteenth-century editions of Wilkins' papers, of some Newton correspondence, or of Henry More's poetry are even more problematic; the reader should know that these editors' assumptions cannot be taken for granted, and that their introductions are themselves historical documents. The exact reproduction of misprints and misbindings is of dubious assistance to the modern reader. (shrink)

Research on human causal induction has shown that people have general prior assumptions about causal strength and about how causes interact with the background. We propose that these prior assumptions about the parameters of causal systems do not only manifest themselves in estimations of causal strength or the selection of causes but also when deciding between alternative causal structures. In three experiments, we requested subjects to choose which of two observable variables was the cause and which the (...) effect. We found strong evidence that learners have interindividually variable but intraindividually stable priors about causal parameters that express a preference for causal determinism. These priors predict which structure subjects preferentially select. The priors can be manipulated experimentally and appear to be domain-general. Heuristic strategies of structure induction are suggested that can be viewed as simplified implementations of the priors. (shrink)

The epistemic modal auxiliaries must and might are vehicles for expressing the force with which a proposition follows from some body of evidence or information. Standard approaches model these operators using quantificational modal logic, but probabilistic approaches are becoming increasingly influential. According to a traditional view, must is a maximally strong epistemic operator and might is a bare possibility one. A competing account—popular amongst proponents of a probabilisitic turn—says that, given a body of evidence, must \ entails that \\) is (...) high but non-maximal and might \ that \\) is significantly greater than 0. Drawing on several observations concerning the behavior of must, might and similar epistemic operators in evidential contexts, deductive inferences, downplaying and retractions scenarios, and expressions of epistemic tension, I argue that those two influential accounts have systematic descriptive shortcomings. To better make sense of their complex behavior, I propose instead a broadly Kratzerian account according to which must \ entails that \ = 1\) and might \ that \ > 0\), given a body of evidence and a set of normality assumptions about the world. From this perspective, must and might are vehicles for expressing a common mode of reasoning whereby we draw inferences from specific bits of evidence against a rich set of background assumptions—some of which we represent as defeasible—which capture our general expectations about the world. I will show that the predictions of this Kratzerian account can be substantially refined once it is combined with a specific yet independently motivated ‘grammatical’ approach to the computation of scalar implicatures. Finally, I discuss some implications of these results for more general discussions concerning the empirical and theoretical motivation to adopt a probabilisitic semantic framework. (shrink)

The conception of a ‘law of nature’ is a human product. It was created to play a role in natural philosophy, in the Cartesian tradition. In light of this, philosophers and scientists must sort out what they mean by a law of nature before evaluating rival theories and approaches. If one’s conception of the laws of nature is yoked to metaphysical notions of truth and explanation, that connection must be made explicit and defended. If, on the other hand, one’s aim (...) is to disentangle laws from truth or from explanation, that must be stated and defended as well. If philosophers do not make such assumptions, intuitions, and methodological commitments clear, then it will be impossible to identify the source of disagreement in debates about the laws of nature. Are the conflicts rooted in disagreement about the conclusions reached, or do the background commitments of the combatants block any resolution to the dispute in principle or in practice? (shrink)

Enduring disparities in choice of college major constitute one of the most significant forms of gender inequality among undergraduate students. The existing literature generally equates major choice with career choice and overlooks possible variation across student populations. This is a significant limitation because gender differences in major choice among liberal arts students, who attend college less for specific career training and more for broader learning objectives, are just as great as among those choosing pre-professional majors. This study addresses this gap (...) by examining how privileged men and women at an elite, liberal arts university select their fields of study. Drawing on in-depth interviews, findings contradict the prevailing assumption of a unitary model of major choice as career choice by revealing a plurality of gendered meanings around choosing a field of study. Majors may play an important part in the construction of an intellectual identity as much as a means of career preparation. How students approach the choice relates to both gender and social background. For privileged students, traditional gendered associations with bodies of knowledge hold salience in their decision making as well as expectations of reproducing future elite family roles. This research also illuminates how gendered processes of choosing fields of study take place in relationship to particular institutional contexts. (shrink)

In Bioethics and Secular Humanism: The Search for a Common Morality, Tristram Engelhardt examines various possibilities of finding common ground for moral discourse among people from different traditions and concludes their futility. In this paper I will argue that many of the assumptions on which Engelhardt bases his conclusion about the impossibility of a content-full secular bioethics are problematic. By starting with the notion of moral strangers, there is no possibility, by definition, for a content-full moral discourse among moral (...) strangers. It means that there is circularity in starting the inquiry with a definition of moral strangers, which implies that they do not share enough moral background or commitment to an authority to allow for reaching a moral agreement, and concluding that content-full morality is impossible among moral strangers. I argue that assuming traditions as solid and immutable structures that insulate people across their boundaries is problematic. Another questionable assumption in Engelhardt’s work is the idea that religious and philosophical traditions provide content-full moralities. As the cardinal assumption in Engelhardt’s review of the various alternatives for a content-full moral discourse among moral strangers, I analyze his foundationalist account of moral reasoning and knowledge and indicate the possibility of other ways of moral knowledge, besides the foundationalist one. Then, I examine Engelhardt’s view concerning the futility of attempts at justifying a content-full secular bioethics, and indicate how the assumptions have shaped Engelhardt’s critique of the alternatives for the possibility of content-full secular bioethics. (shrink)

Normality, for Husserl, is said in many ways. While the most detailed treatments of this technical Husserlian concept are usually found in discussions concerning the constitutive dimension of the lived body and intersubjectivity, little attention has been paid to the notion of normality understood as the tacit regularity of nature. Indeed, the normal can also be understood as the causal background which is presupposed, tentatively, in the anticipation of uniform processes of change, as well as in poieticinstrumental experiences, that (...) is, in experiences involving the production and use of objects. The subject that elaborates, manipulates or uses objects is installed in nature. Hence, in our productive-instrumental confrontation with objects in the world, we operate under the assumption that the potentially mutable causal scene surrounding our acting life will retain its style. This assumption of normality is the world, in one of the many ways in which Husserl characterizes this concept. The world qua background of normality becomes thematic, retrospectively, precisely when it ceases to cooperate with the agent’s initiatives. This, on my view, is what lies behind Husserl’s assertion that the world is a “super-object” or “higher-level theme”. (shrink)

Meinong-Studies, Vol. 6, contains papers focusing on the connections between intentionality and nonexistent objects, presenting historical analyses on the background of Meinong’s philosophical position up to the Meinong-Russell-Debate. It also contains systematic studies of fictional characters, of Kripke’s alternative theory of fiction, and of the relevance of fictions playing the role of assumptions in scientific contexts. The volume is completed by biographical sketches of Christian von Ehrenfels, founder of Gestalt-theory and Meinong’s close friend, and of Ernst Mally, disciple (...) of Meinong and successor to his chair. (shrink)

Background Decisions on limiting life-sustaining treatment for patients in the vegetative state (VS) are emotionally and morally challenging. In Germany, doctors have to discuss, together with the legal surrogate (often a family member), whether the proposed treatment is in accordance with the patient's will. However, it is unknown whether family members of the patient in the VS actually base their decisions on the patient's wishes. Objective To examine the role of advance directives, orally expressed wishes, or the presumed will (...) of patients in a VS for family caregivers' decisions on life-sustaining treatment. Methods and sample A qualitative interview study with 14 next of kin of patients in a VS in a long-term care setting was conducted; 13 participants were the patient's legal surrogates. Interviews were analysed according to qualitative content analysis. Results The majority of family caregivers said that they were aware of aforementioned wishes of the patient that could be applied to the VS condition, but did not base their decisions primarily on these wishes. They gave three reasons for this: (a) the expectation of clinical improvement, (b) the caregivers' definition of life-sustaining treatments and (c) the moral obligation not to harm the patient. If the patient's wishes were not known or not revealed, the caregivers interpreted a will to live into the patient's survival and non-verbal behaviour. Conclusions Whether or not prior treatment wishes of patients in a VS are respected depends on their applicability, and also on the medical assumptions and moral attitudes of the surrogates. We recommend repeated communication, support for the caregivers and advance care planning. (shrink)

Argumentation theory is a distinctly multidisciplinary field of inquiry. It draws its data, assumptions, and methods from disciplines as disparate as formal logic and discourse analysis, linguistics and forensic science, philosophy and psychology, political science and education, sociology and law, and rhetoric and artificial intelligence. This presents the growing group of interested scholars and students with a problem of access, since it is even for those active in the field not common to have acquired a familiarity with relevant aspects (...) of each discipline that enters into this multidisciplinary matrix. This book offers its readers a unique comprehensive survey of the various theoretical contributions which have been made to the study of argumentation. It discusses the historical works that provide the background to the field and all major approaches and trends in contemporary research. Argument has been the subject of systematic inquiry for twenty-five hundred years. It has been graced with theories, such as formal logic or the legal theory of evidence, that have acquired a more or less settled provenance with regard to specific issues. But there has been nothing to date that qualifies as a unified general theory of argumentation, in all its richness and complexity. This being so, the argumentation theorist must have access to materials and methods that lie beyond his or her "home" subject. It is precisely on this account that this volume is offered to all the constituent research communities and their students. Apart from the historical sections, each chapter provides an economical introduction to the problems and methods that characterize a given part of the contemporary research program. Because the chapters are self-contained, they can be consulted in the order of a reader's interests or research requirements. But there is value in reading the work in its entirety. Jointly authored by the very people whose research has done much to define the current state of argumentation theory and to point the way toward more general and unified future treatments, this book is an impressively authoritative contribution to the field. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss a basic assumption tacitly shared by many philosophers of mind and language: that whatever can be meant, can be said. It specifically targets John Searle’s account of this idea, focussing on his Principle of Expressibility (PE henceforth). In the first part of the paper, PE is exposed underlining its analyticity (1) and its relevance for the philosophy of language (2), mind (3), society and action (4). In the critical part, the notion of (...) Background is taken into account in order to re-evaluate two basic distinctions: the one between sentence and utterance meanings (5), and the one between native and type speakers (6). PE is reconsidered in the light of the previous arguments as a methodological strategy that does not prevent uses of language from eventual semantic excesses and deficits (7), and a complementary Principle of Expression Fallibility is finally proposed (8). (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss a basic assumption tacitly shared by many philosophers of mind and language: that whatever can be meant, can be said. It specifically targets John Searle's account of this idea, focusing on his Principle of Expressibility . In the first part of the paper, PE is exposed underlining its analyticity and its relevance for the philosophy of language , mind , society and action . In the critical part, the notion of Background (...) is taken into account in order to re-evaluate two basic distinctions: the one between sentence and utterance meanings , and the one between native and type speakers . PE is reconsidered in the light of the previous arguments as a methodological strategy that does not prevent uses of language from eventual semantic excesses and deficits , and a complementary Principle of Expression Fallibility is finally proposed. (shrink)

The existence of big bang relic neutrinos—exact analogues of the big bang relic photons comprising the cosmic microwave background radiation—is a basic prediction of standard cosmology. The standard big bang theory predicts the existence of 1087 neutrinos per flavour in the visible universe. This is an enormous abundance unrivalled by any other known form of matter, falling second only to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photon. Yet, unlike the CMB photon which boasts its first (serendipitous) detection in the (...) 1960s and which has since been observed and its properties measured to a high degree of accuracy in a series of airborne/satellite and ground based experiments, the relic neutrino continues to be elusive in the laboratory. The chief reason for this is of course the feebleness of the weak interaction. At present, the observational evidence for their existence rests entirely on cosmological measurements, such as the light elemental abundances, anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background, and the large-scale matter power spectrum. In this paper we argue that Direct Detection of relic neutrino background is indeed impossible by any means, because of two chief reasons: (a) there was no such thing of cosmic singularity, hence the hot big bang/primeval atom model was based on false premises (quantum birth assumption); (b) the neutrino existence itself is not unquestionable, in particular if we consider a realism view of vector potential, A, in classical electrodynamics. (shrink)

This note examines the theory of optimal insurance purchasing in the presence of a nonpecuniary background risk. The occurrence of the qualitative uninsurable background loss can increase, decrease or can leave the marginal utility of wealth unchanged, whereas a financial background loss (as in Doherty and Schlesinger, 1883a) always increases it. Existing theorems on the optimal level of insurance and the optimal form of insurance contracts are shown to hold only under restrictive assumptions on the correlation (...) level between risks. The paper shows that sufficient conditions for the validity of the theorems depend not only on the correlation between the insurable and noninsurable losses, but also on the variation of the marginal utility of wealth with respect to the nonpecuniary variable. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Kant’s doctrine of definitions, as it is developed in theTranscendental Doctrine of Method(TDM) and in the lectures on logic, lays down the semantic background of the problem of the objective reality of the categories and of the solution Kant provides for it in theTranscendental Analytic. The distinction between nominal and real definitions introduces a two-dimensional element in Kant’s theory of concepts, and this, I argue, provides a compelling explanation for the assumption Kant makes (...) in §13 that it is possible to possess a concept without knowing the conditions of its legitimate application. This view is supported by the parallels between Kant’s discussion of empirical, mathematical, and philosophical concepts in §13 and in theTDM. And, it allows clarifying the sense in which the arguments that prove the objective reality of the categories are, at the same time, counterfactual reflections that give us (incomplete) insight into their real definitions. (shrink)

Forecasts predicting the reunification of the Korean Peninsula were common throughout the 1990s. Since then, enthusiasm for such predictions has dampened, and though the fundamental assumption of reunification remains, predictions of when and how this will happen have been more restrained. Reunification leaves two unresolved yet interdependent issues: reunification itself, which is the urgent challenge; and the strategic issues that emerge from reunification, which have the potential to fundamentally transform strategic relations in the region of Northeast Asia. Within this context, (...) this paper examines the prospects of Korean reunification against the background of the interstate relations. Initially, it will establish the framework from which such scenarios will emerge: the historical background of the division, the extreme differences between the two states, the role played by the North Korean nuclear threats and the impact of the September 11, 2001 on the interstate relations, and finally general situation and relations in the East Asian region. Then, three possible scenarios of the unification will be developed: through peaceful integration, through the fall of North Korea or through a war. Summing up, even the death of Kim Jong Il will not bring change in the domestic and foreign policy of North Korea which is going to continue an aggressive approach toward the South. In the short-term reunification is definitely not in the interest of the current ROK administration, and the South has no intention of encouraging it. None of the considered scenarios envisions early reunification, and it seems that for the future, the status quo on the Korean Peninsula will remain. (shrink)

The article examines the development of Husserl’s early philosophy from his Habilitationsschrift (1887) to the Philosophie der Arithmetik (1891). -/- An attempt will be made at reconstructing the lost Habilitationsschrift (of which only the first chapter survives, which we know as Über den Begriff der Zahl). The examined sources show that the original version of the Habilitationsschrift was by far broader than the printed version, and included most topics of the PA. -/- The article contains an extensive and detailed comparison (...) of these texts to illustrate the changes in Husserl’s position before and after February 1890. This date is taken as a turning point in his development, because of Husserl’s announcement in a letter to Carl Stumpf that he was mistaken in his basic assumption, i.e. that the (psychological) analysis of the concept of Anzahl would yield a foundation for arithmetic. Some interesting conclusions in this respect can also be drawn from an unpublished lecture that Husserl held in the WS 1889/90, in which he anticipates aspects of his position hitherto deemed to belong to the last phases of the PA. (shrink)

Following Aristotle, Averroes rejects atomism and the infinite division of geometric lines. Thus, his arguments dealt with the continuity and contiguity of the non-atomic parts of motion. He vindicates the perceptual aspect of physical movement that shows itself like in-progress-path between two edge points A and B, in which there are middle parts where qualitative, local, or quantitative changes occur. Ramon Llull took the lines’ geometrical points as “motion parts.” Points are intermediate divisions that represent physical phenomena by the continuity (...) of geometrical lines, surfaces, and figures. Also, he appeals to relational logic to spot the middle parts between A and B into the in-progress-path of motion. Those middle parts are signified by a dynamic vocabulary, called: correlative language. This contribution focuses on the conceptual environment of Llull’s assumptions, in which Averroes’ Latin readers explored the geometry and the vocabulary of motion intermediate parts. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to apply Józef M. Bocheński’s logic of authority to a key interpersonal relation of philosophical interest: the master–disciple relation. The present research addresses the problem of philosophical authority in terms of the assumptions of the logic of authority and its consequences for philosophical historiographical research and verifies the claims of the logic of authority in this respect. The analyses show that, in the field of philosophy, the axiological authority of the master plays a (...) fundamental role and is not limited solely to epistemic or deontic authority. (shrink)

This study was designed to investigate the trust relationship between parents and teachers in first grade. Additional research questions were whether trust was related to ethnicity and reading performance. The five facets of trust; benevolence, reliability, competence, honesty and openness, were measured on a 4-point Likert scale. Reading performance was measured by the three-minute test. Parents were found to have more trust in the reliability, competence and honesty of teachers than teachers in parents. Native-Dutch and immigrant parents have the same (...) trust level towards their children?s teacher. However, teachers reported lower trust levels on all five facets of trust for immigrant parents. Our findings indicated that ethnicity has no influence on parents trust in teachers, but ethnicity may explain teachers? trust in parents. Some support was found for the assumption that teachers? trust plays a role in reading performance. Children were found to have higher reading performance when teachers reported higher trust in the benevolence and openness of parents. (shrink)

A practising lawyer is not always aware of the fact that case decisions are more determined by legal doctrine – attitudes of authoritative lawyers and scientific legal discussion of other forms – than by changes in positive law. Regulations of specific case decisions are directly reliant on the ideas and statements of legal discussions – as one of the factors influencing the decisions of the courts. During the twenty years of independence, the form, content and argumentation of the Lithuanian court (...) judgments has fundamentally changed, especially with regard to the understanding of the courts (the judiciary) in terms of how unrestrained they are when interpreting a legal text and making decisions. The judicial discretion to interpret a legal text is treated diversely in various legal traditions and within the scope of the western legal tradition itself. In common law countries, the competence of a judge to deviate from a legal text or to create their own legal framework is treated with much greater understanding. In civil law tradition, the attempts of judges to take over the functions of the legislature are usually considered more critically. Even the representatives of comparative law emphasise that judges in civil law tradition countries tend to call the creation of legal rules differently – mostly as interpretation of the law. The discussion on the power of judges to create law through its interpretation has been taking place everywhere and at all times. Judicial discretion in decision-making is not due to individual factors such as era, social structure, cultural background, but is determined by some other factors that are not easy to identify. The interpretative activity of the courts is also influenced by the prevailing doctrinal regulations of judicial activity. It is the changes of the Lithuanian legal doctrines that could have encouraged the courts to determine the scope of their activity in the direction of its growth. After the restoration of independence, the Lithuanian legal community began an active discussion on whether legal positivism was the correct form of legal understanding. Studies appeared, in which legal positivism was seen exclusively negatively, reminding that it was specifically this legal concept that had eliminated values from law and was likely to be blamed for the ills of humanity such as the Holocaust or genocide. Numerous publications emerged calling judges to be active and reminding them to check every rule of law in accordance with its consistency with the principles of law and to disapply any rule of law that did not meet this requirement. Almost universally, lawyers (and especially the courts) were encouraged to move from mechanical (a priori improper) application of the law to the creative (a priori the best and aspirational) one. The courts were encouraged: they started to freely interpret legal rules, under which the legislature established their competence; although court judgments have become more reasoned, this did not prevent them from applying speculative or ambivalent arguments; criticism could be expressed to courts due to lengthy processes that are, objectively looking, not required, and for low activity in exercising their powers to prevent abuse of law. Respect for the legislature directly responsible for creating legal rules and taking care of legal protection, judicial recognition that a court should deviate from the legal text or otherwise create new rules only when it is objectively inevitable, and lawyers’ societal openness to discussion on various issues – these can become conceptual prerequisites for higher confidence in the courts. (shrink)

The Darwinian concept of natural selection was conceived within a set of Newtonian background assumptions about systems dynamics. Mendelian genetics at first did not sit well with the gradualist assumptions of the Darwinian theory. Eventually, however, Mendelism and Darwinism were fused by reformulating natural selection in statistical terms. This reflected a shift to a more probabilistic set of background assumptions based upon Boltzmannian systems dynamics. Recent developments in molecular genetics and paleontology have put pressure on (...) Darwinism once again. Current work on self-organizing systems may provide a stimulus not only for increased problem solving within the Darwinian tradition, especially with respect to origins of life, developmental genetics, phylogenetic pattern, and energy-flow ecology, but for deeper understanding of the very phenomenon of natural selection itself. Since self-organizational phenomena depend deeply on stochastic processes, self-organizational systems dynamics advance the probability revolution. In our view, natural selection is an emergent phenomenon of physical and chemical selection. These developments suggest that natural selection may be grounded in physical law more deeply than is allowed by advocates of the autonomy of biology, while still making it possible to deny, with autonomists, that evolutionary explanations can be modeled in terms of a deductive relationship between laws and cases. We explore the relationship between, chance, self-organization, and selection as sources of order in biological systems in order to make these points. (shrink)

A background assumption in much contemporary political philosophy is that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, taking priority over other values such as beneficence. This assumption is typically treated as a methodological starting point, rather than as following from any particular moral or political theory. In this paper, I challenge this assumption. To frame my discussion, I argue, first, that justice doesn’t in principle override beneficence, and second, that justice doesn’t typically outweigh beneficence, since, in institutional contexts, (...) the stakes of beneficence are often extremely high. While there are various ways one might resist this argument, none challenge the core methodological point that political philosophy should abandon its preoccupation with justice and begin to pay considerably more attention to social beneficence—that is, to beneficence understood as a virtue of social institutions. Along the way, I also highlight areas where focusing on social beneficence would lead political philosophers in new and fruitful directions, and where normative ethicists focused on personal beneficence might scale up their thinking to the institutional case. GPI Working Paper No. 11-2022. (shrink)

Elaborates some of the background assumptions made by the chapters that follow and situates the theory that the author espouses within a wider context and range of alternatives. More specifically, it distinguishes between creature consciousness and state consciousness, and between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. And it defends representationalist accounts of consciousness against brute physicalist accounts. The chapter also introduces the remaining 11 chapters.

Elaborates some of the background assumptions made by the chapters that follow and situates the theory that the author espouses within a wider context and range of alternatives. More specifically, it distinguishes between creature consciousness and state consciousness, and between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. And it defends representationalist accounts of consciousness against brute physicalist accounts. The chapter also introduces the remaining 11 chapters.

In a recent paper Weinberg (2007) claims that there is an essential mark of trustworthiness which typical sources of evidence as perception or memory have, but philosophical intuitions lack, namely that we are able to detect and correct errors produced by these “hopeful” sources. In my paper I will argue that being a hopeful source isn't necessary for providing us with evidence. I then will show that, given some plausible background assumptions, intuitions at least come close to being (...) hopeful, if they are reliable. If this is true, Weinberg's new challenge comes down to the claim that philosophical intuitions are not reliable since they are significantly unstable. In the second part of my paper I will argue that and why the experimentally established instability of folk intuitions about philosophical cases does not show that philosopher's expert intuitions about these cases are instable. (shrink)

The terms ‘compatibilism’ and ‘incompatibilism’ were introduced in the mid-20th century to name conflicting views about the logical relationship between the thesis of determinism and the thesis that someone has free will. These technical terms were originally introduced within a specific research paradigm, the classical analytic paradigm. This paradigm is now in its final stages of degeneration and few free-will theorists still work within it (i.e. using its methods, granting its substantive background assumptions, etc.). This chapter discusses how (...) the ambiguity of the terms ‘incompatibilism’ and ‘compatibilism’ took root and why it matters to the contempory debate. I explain why the ambiguity of these anachronistic terms, though relatively innocuous when they were first introduced, is now encouraging theorists to tolerate and perpetuate serious philosophical errors (e.g. to conflate relations as different in kind and importance as correlation and causation, to knowingly promote invalid arguments, and to equivoate on jargon in ways that keep the free-will debate mired in psuedo-stalemates). I also suggest a new paradigm for anyone looking for relief from the confusion and deadlock created by the use of inadequate classical narratives and jargon. -/- A selection from the publication is available to download here. For full version, please gmail me, username: kristin.mickelson.42 -/- . (shrink)

A background assumption of this paper is that the repertoire of inference schemes available to humanity is not fixed, but subject to change as new schemes are invented or refined and as old ones are obsolesced or abandoned. This is particularly visible in areas like health and environmental sciences, where enormous societal investment has been made in finding ways to reach more dependable conclusions. Computational modeling of argumentation, at least for the discourse in expert fields, will require the possibility (...) of modeling change in a stock of schemes that may be applied to generate conclusions from data. We examine Randomized Clinical Trial, an inference scheme established within medical science in the mid-20th Century, and show that its successful defense by means of practical reasoning allowed for its black-boxing as an inference scheme that generates (and warrants belief in) conclusions about the effects of medical treatments. Modeling the use of a scheme is well-understood; here we focus on modeling how the scheme comes to be established so that it is available for use. (shrink)

A background assumption of much of 20th century and recent metaethics and moral psychology is that moral judgements either express beliefs rather than desire-like attitudes or express desire-like attitudes rather than beliefs. In a recent series of papers and а monograph, Michael Ridge seeks to reject this assumption, and thereby to steer the focus of metaethical debate away from the Frege-Geach problem. In particular, Ridge claims that we can formulate “ecumenical” views on which moral judgements express both beliefs and (...) desire-like attitudes, and that his own favoured metaethical position – Ecumenical Expressivism – can use the resources of cognitivism to provide a relatively straightforward solution to the Frege-Geach problem. In this paper we argue that Ridge’s Ecumenical Expressivist response to the Frege-Geach problem is inadequate and explore the consequences of this inadequacy for our outlook on moral psychology. (shrink)

In response to earlier papers in Informal Logic by Robert Fogelin and Andrew Lugg, this paper explores the issue of whether disagreement could ever be so deep that it defied rational resolution. Contra Lugg, I agree with Fogelin that such unresolvable disagreement is possible and, contra Fogelin, I suggest that the focus of such disagreement can be quite Iimited-a single proposition rather than a whole system of beliefs. I also suggest that emphasising arguing as a human practice rather than arguments (...) as a structure of propositions is unhelpful to consideration of these issues. (shrink)

The first argument that Hume offers against believing in miracle stories in Part 2 of his essay on miracles relies on social context in a way that makes it difficult to follow. Hume says that there’s never been a miracle story that’s well enough attested with respect to certain criteria of testimonial strength. A little later in the essay, he cites recent miracle stories coming from that Saint Médard cemetery as meeting the criteria to an exceptionally high degree, but even (...) so, he claims that we can dismiss the stories out of hand. The hidden background assumption is that his Protestant readers wouldn’t have been tempted to believe in miracle stories coming from an oppressed Catholic sect. Other examples in Part 2 of the essay work in the same way. Hume praises to the skies the quality of the evidence for an earlier Jansenist miracle, for a miracle involving the restoration of a leg through holy water at a Catholic cathedral, and a miracle at a temple of Serapis knowing that his readers won’t be inclined to believe in any of them. The point is that these miracles are better attested than the miracle stories in the Bible, and if we shouldn’t believe in the better attested stories, then we shouldn’t believe in the worse. This can seem like an appeal to prejudice, but really Hume is doing something subtler. He knows that it’s easier to criticize the irrational beliefs of others, but sees that once we turn the same standards that we use on others on our own beliefs, epistemic progress is possible. (shrink)