How is feminist metaphysics possible? -- In defense of experience -- Foucault and experience -- The problem of language -- A phenomenology of birth -- A phenomenology of gender -- The neoliberal subject of feminism -- Feminism and neoliberal governmentality -- Feminist politics of inheritance.

This paper defends the view that attitudinal objects such as claims, beliefs, judgments, and requests form an ontological category of its own sharply distinguished from that of events and states and that of propositions. Attitudinal objects play a central role in attitude reports and avoid the conceptual and empirical problems for propositions. Unlike the latter, attitudinal objects bear a particular connection to normativity. The paper will also discuss the syntactic basis of a semantics of attitude reports based on attitudinal objects.

This paper will first give an overview of the role of events in semantics against the background of Davidsonian semantics and its Neo-Davidsonian variant. Second, it will discuss some serious issues for standard views of events in contemporary semantics and present novel proposals of how to address them. These are [1] the semantic role of abstract (or Kimean) states, [2] wide scope adverbials, and [3] the status of verbs as event predicates with respect to the mass-count distinction. The paper will (...) show that abstract states as the entities described by (most) stative verbs are incompatible with Neo-Davidsonian event semantics and proposes a decompositional analysis of stative verbs that may be able to overcome the difficulty. The paper will argue that in addition to Davidsonian events, the semantics of adverbials requires events as truthmakers as well as actions as more complex entities sharply distinguished from events. The paper will also argue that the verbal domain of events sides with mass nouns rather than dividing into mass and count, unlike event nouns. (shrink)

This paper argues that the notion of a single object or 'being one' does not require worldly or perceived conditions of integrity and even less so concept-relative atomicity. It generally is based on conditions of integrity of some sort, but not strictly so. It rather is imposed by the use of count categories in natural language and thus makes a case for linguistic idealism.

This paper gives a perspectival overview of the semantics of potential property-referring terms and presents new and surprising generalizations about explicit property-referring terms like 'the property of being wise', which raise fundamental issues regarding ontology and learnability and a core-periphery distinction in natural language ontology.

Nominalizations are expressions that are particularly challenging philosophically in that they help form singular terms that seem to refer to abstract or derived objects often considered controversial. The three standard views about the semantics of nominalizations are [1] that they map mere meanings onto objects, [2] that they refer to implicit arguments, and [3] that they introduce new objects, in virtue of their compositional semantics. In the second case, nominalizations do not add anything new but pick up objects that would (...) be present anyway in the semantic structure of a corresponding sentence without a nominalization. In the first and third case, nominalizations in a sense ‘create’ new objects’, enriching the ontology on the basis of the meaning of expressions. I will argue that there is a fourth kind of nominalization which requires a quite different treatment. These are nominalizations that introduce ‘new’ objects, but only partially characterize them. Such nominalizations generally refer to events or tropes. I will explore an account according on which such nominalizations refer to truth makers. (shrink)

The question whether numbers are objects is a central question in the philosophy of mathematics. Frege made use of a syntactic criterion for objethood: numbers are objects because there are singular terms that stand for them, and not just singular terms in some formal language, but in natural language in particular. In particular, Frege (1884) thought that both noun phrases like the number of planets and simple numerals like eight as in (1) are singular terms referring to numbers as abstract (...) objects. (shrink)

Camill Leberer (geb. 1953) gehört zu den profiliertesten deutschen Bildhauern seiner Generation. Das vorliegende Buch untersucht seine durch die Verwendung von Stahl und Glas ausgezeichneten Plastiken erstmals unter dem Aspekt der Immaterialität. Dazu werden Bezüge zur amerikanischen Light and Space Bewegung, zu amerikanischen wie deutschen Stahlkünstlern und zur Gruppe Zero erarbeitet. Unter anderem durch diese wird das ästhetische Prinzip Immaterialität im Werk Leberers anhand der Informationsästhetik Max Benses kunsthistorisch eingeordnet.

This paper argues for the philosophical and semantic importance of attitudinal objects, entities such as judgments, claims, beliefs, demands, and desires, as an ontological category distinct from that of events and states and from that of propositions. The paper presents significant revisions and refinements of the notion of an attitudinal object as it was developed in my previous work.

This takes a closer look at the actual semantic behavior of apparent truth predicates in English and re-evaluates the way they could motivate particular philosophical views regarding the formal status of 'truth predicates' and their semantics. The paper distinguishes two types of 'truth predicates' and proposes semantic analyses that better reflect the linguistic facts. These analyses match particular independently motivated philosophical views.

In this paper I will give an analysis of what I call ‘generalizing detached self-reference’ within a general account of reference to the first person. With generalizing detached self-reference an agent attributes properties to a range of individuals by putting himself into their shoes, or simulating them. I will show that generalizing detached self-reference plays an important role in the semantics of natural language, in particular in the English generic one and in what syntacticians call arbitrary PRO.

This paper defends a distinction between ‘abstract states’ and ‘concrete states’, following Maienborn (2005, 2007) in her account of the peculiar semantic behavior of stative verbs. The paper proposes an ontological account of the notion of an abstract state and discusses how it relates to the notion of a trope or particularized property, which has so far been neglected in the semantic literature on stative verbs.

Sentences such as 'Chocolate tastes good' have been widely discussed as sentences that give rise to faultless disagreement. As such, they actually belong to the more general class of impersonal perception reports, which include 'The violin sounds / looks strange' as well sentences that are about an agent-centered situation such as 'It feels / seems like it is going to rain'. I maintain the view that faultless disagreement is due to first person-based genericity, which, roughly, consists in attributing a property (...) to anyone the speaker (or described agent) identifies with (which generally requires a first-person experience) (Moltmann 2010). Unlike my previous analysis (and similar analyses), this paper no longer makes use of experiencers or judges as implicit arguments of taste predicates, but argues that impersonal perception verbs (taste, look, feel, seem), have a logophoric character. More precisely, such verbs describe perceptual occurrences whose experiencer is identical to the agent of the utterance situation, described attitudinal situation, or the situations a generic operator may range over. Perceptual occurrences are sharply distinguished ontologically from perceptual experiences as well as perceptual objects, entities we refer to as ‘the taste of chocolate’, ‘the sound of the violin’, ‘the look of the violin’. Sentences about perceptual objects ('the taste of chocolate is good', 'the sound of the violin is great', 'the look of the violin is beautiful') also give rise to faultless disagreement, but the source of that is a first-person-based attribution of an evaluative predicate to an (objective) perceptual object. (shrink)

Nominalizations of modal predicates have received little, if any, attention in the semantic or philosophical literature. This paper will argue that nominalizations of modal predicates require recognizing a novel ontological category of modal objects and it will outline a new semantics of modals based on modal objects.

This paper elaborates distinctions between a core and a periphery in the ontological and the conceptual domain associated with natural language. The ontological core-periphery distinction is essential for natural language ontology and is the basis for the central thesis of my 2013 book Abstract Objects and the Semantics of Natural Language, namely that natural language permits reference to abstract objects in its periphery, but not its core.

In view of current problem areas, especially with regard to the destruction of nature, the question arises of how we can deal productively with the abysmal flip side of the history of emancipation in Central European thought. The question arises of how a concept of subjectivity, in which the subject maintains responsible sovereignty, is to be thought of without closing itself to its counterpart or negating or even destroying it through its objectifying access. In this book, the author shows that (...) as early as in the work of F.W.J. Schelling, there is an approach that takes this problem into account. (shrink)

In diesem Band sind die nachgelassenen Schriften Moritz Schlicks zur Ethik gesammelt, ediert und kommentiert. Die Beschäftigung mit ethischen Fragen war für Schlick während seines gesamten Lebens von hoher Relevanz, daher sind in diesem Band Schriften aus vier Jahrzehnten versammelt, die die Entwicklung seines ethischen Denkens veranschaulichen. Sie beginnen mit Vorarbeiten zu der „Lebensweisheit“, einem seiner ethischen Hauptwerke, welches bereits in MSGA I/3 erschienen ist. Im Laufe seiner akademischen Laufbahn in Rostock, Kiel und Wien hielt Schlick immer wieder Vorlesungen und (...) Vorträge zu ethischen Themen. Herausstechend sind hier sicherlich „Über Ästhetik und Ethik“, eine von sehr wenigen Schriften Schlicks zur Ästhetik, weiterhin die Dokumente zur Vorlesung „Ethik und Kulturphilosophie“ vom Wintersemester 1935/6 in Wien. Letztere legen nahe, dass Schlick eine Reihe von Publikationen plante, in denen er eine systematische Darstellung seiner Philosophie entwickeln wollte. In dieser sind Ethik und Kulturphilosophie Teile eines zusammenhängenden Ganzen, neben der Geschichte der Philosophie, Logik, Naturphilosophie und Erkenntnistheorie. (shrink)

What does it mean to act politically? This paper contributes an answer to this question by looking at the role that necessity plays in the political theory of Carl Schmitt. It argues that necessity, whether in the form of existential danger or absolute values, does not affect the sovereign decision, which must be free from normative determinations if it is to be a decision in Schmitt’s sense at all. The paper then provides a reading of Schmitt in line with Weber’s (...) ethics of responsibility, according to which the political actor decides not arbitrarily and irresponsibly, but actively assumes responsibility for the decisions he takes. (shrink)

Ontic structural realists hold that structure is all there is, or at least all there is fundamentally. This thesis has proved to be puzzling: What exactly does it say about the relationship between objects and structures? In this article, I look at different ways of articulating ontic structural realism in terms of the relation between structures and objects. I show that objects cannot be reduced to structure, and argue that ontological dependence cannot be used to establish strong forms of structural (...) realism. At the end, I show how a weaker, but controversial, form of structural realism can be articulated on the basis of ontological dependence. (shrink)

The notions of part and whole play an important role for ontology and in many areas of the semantics of natural language. Both in philosophy and linguistic semantics, usually a particular notion of part structure is used, that of extensional mereology. This paper argues that such a notion is insufficient for ontology and, especially, for the semantic analysis of the relevant constructions of natural language. What is needed for the notion of part structure, in addition to an ordering among parts, (...) is the notion of integrated whole. In the context of semantics, the notion of an integrated whole needs to be relativized to a situation, or so it is argued. (shrink)

Regulatory Competition -- The Economic Case for Regulatory Competition -- Regulatory Competition and Utilitarianism -- Political Values under Competitive Pressure -- Law as a Contested Commodity -- Conclusion.

In 'How Should We Aggregate Competing Claims', Alex Voorhoeve suggests accommodating intuitions about duties in rescue cases by combining aggregative and non-aggregative elements into one theory. In this paper, I discuss two problems Voorhoeve’s theory faces as a result of requiring a cyclic pattern of choice, and argue that his attempt to solve them does not succeed.

In this paper I aim to answer two questions: Can spin be treated as a determinable? Can a treatment of spin as a determinable be used to understand quantum indeterminacy? In response to the first question I show that the relations among spin number, spin components and spin values cannot be captured by a single determination relation; instead we need to look at spin number and spin value separately. In response to the second question I discuss three ways in which (...) the determinables model might be modified to account for indeterminacy, and argue that none of them is fully successful in helping us to understand quantum indeterminacy. (shrink)

During the 1990s, the Berlin women’s prison was reformed to do justice to female inmates. This redesigning of space and programs was intended to meet women-specific conditions and needs. The present paper engages with this prison reform as transformation in the name of gender justice. Based on interviews with prison reformers, criminologists, and policymakers, as well as on the analysis of historical documents, we illuminate how a specific figure of the “criminalized woman” helps to translate the abstract notion of social (...) justice into situated practice. From the 1970s onward, a new knowledge of women’s crime would emerge: it constituted female offenders as victims of patriarchal oppression and victimization, allowing the prison system to be criticized as androcentric and discriminatory against women. We argue that subsequent reform pursued gender justice in the form of difference-based, gender-responsive programs and spaces targeting individual inmates’ character and mindset. Thereby, the reformers’ initial critique of social justice would be unintentionally depoliticized and so gender, economic, and political inequalities remained unaddressed. Our purpose is hence twofold: first, to review the recent history of women’s incarceration in Germany, and second, to add a social justice focus to the international criminological debate on gender, prison, and reform. (shrink)

Negative compatibility effects in the masked-prime paradigm are usually obtained when primes are masked effectively. With ineffective masks—and primes above the perceptual threshold—positive compatibility effects occur. We investigated whether this pattern reflects a causal relationship between conscious awareness and low-level motor control, or whether it reflects the fact that both are affected in the same way by changes in physical stimulus attributes. In a 5-session perceptual learning task, participants learned to consciously identify masked primes. However, they showed unaltered NCEs that (...) were not different from those produced by participants in a control group without equivalent perceptual learning. A control experiment demonstrated that no NCEs occur when prime identification is made possible by ineffective masking. The results suggest that perceptual awareness and low-level motor control are affected by the same factors, but are fundamentally independent of each other. (shrink)

A growing number of decision theorists have, in recent years, defended the view that rationality is permissive under risk: Different rational agents may be more or less risk-averse or risk-inclined. This can result in them making different choices under risk even if they value outcomes in exactly the same way. One pressing question that arises once we grant such permissiveness is what attitude to risk we should implement when choosing on behalf of other people. Are we permitted to implement any (...) of the rationally permissible risk attitudes, is there some specific risk attitude that is required when choosing for others, or are we required to defer to the risk attitudes of the people on whose behalf we are choosing? This article elaborates on this question, explains its wider practical and theoretical significance, provides an overview of existing answers, and explores how to go about providing a more systematic account of how to choose on behalf of others in risky contexts. (shrink)

Many urgent problems that societies currently face—from climate change to a global pandemic—require citizens to engage with scientific information as members of democratic societies as well as to solve problems in their personal lives. Most often, to solve their epistemic aims (aims directed at achieving knowledge and understanding) regarding such socio-scientific issues, individuals search for information online, where there exists a multitude of possibly relevant and highly interconnected sources of different perspectives, sometimes providing conflicting information. The paper provides a review (...) of the literature aimed at identifying (a) constraints and affordances that scientific knowledge and the online information environment entail and (b) individuals' cognitive and motivational processes that have been found to hinder, or conversely, support practices of engagement (such as critical information evaluation or two-sided dialogue). Doing this, a conceptual framework for understanding and fostering what we callonline engagement with scientific informationis introduced, which is conceived as consisting of individual engagement (engaging on one's own in the search, selection, evaluation, and integration of information) and dialogic engagement (engaging in discourse with others to interpret, articulate and critically examine scientific information). In turn, this paper identifies individual and contextual conditions for individuals' goal-directed and effortful online engagement with scientific information. (shrink)

Besonderes Augenmerk richtet Friederike Barth dabei auf den philosophischen Hintergrund dieses Werks, da die in derEthikentworfene ethische Theologie Bonhoeffers auf einem zumeist unausgewiesenen, differenzierten Rezeptions- und ...

In 'Aboutness' (MIT Press 2014), Yablo argues for the importance of the notions of partial content and of partial truth. This paper argues that those notions are involved in a much greater range of entities than acknowledged by Yablo. The paper also argues that some of those entities involve a notion of partial satisfaction as well as partial existence (and partial validity).

In “Obligations of the Gift,” Lee argues that ethical thinking regarding return of genetic research results has been too narrowly focused on individual consent and participants’ “right to kn...

Realists about science tend to hold that our scientific theories aim for the truth, that our successful theories are at least partly true, and that the entities referred to by the theoretical terms of these theories exist. Antirealists about science deny one or more of these claims. A sizable minority of philosophers of science prefers not to take sides: they believe the realism debate to be fundamentally mistaken and seek to abstain from it altogether. In analogy with other realism debates (...) I will call these philosophers quietists. In the philosophy of science quietism often takes a somewhat peculiar form, which I will call naturalistic quietism. In this paper I will characterize Maddy’s Second Philosophy as a form of naturalistic quietism, and show what the costs for making it feasible are. (shrink)

This article argues that Lara Buchak’s risk-weighted expected utility (REU) theory fails to offer a true alternative to expected utility theory. Under commonly held assumptions about dynamic choice and the framing of decision problems, rational agents are guided by their attitudes to temporally extended courses of action. If so, REU theory makes approximately the same recommendations as expected utility theory. Being more permissive about dynamic choice or framing, however, undermines the theory’s claim to capturing a steady choice disposition in the (...) face of risk. I argue that this poses a challenge to alternatives to expected utility theory more generally. (shrink)

This article analyses Simone de Beauvoir’s understanding of temporality in the essays Pyrrhus and Cinéas (1944) and Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) and situates it in relation to the tradition of phenomenology with particular focus on the thought of Martin Heidegger. In Being and Time, Heidegger develops an “ek-static” description of time, a lived experience of time where the past, the future, and the present are united in the authentically grasped moment or Augenblick. The article demonstrates that this notion of temporality (...) is also present in Beauvoir’s essays, and it reinterprets her understanding of the concepts of future and repetition in light of this reading. The article suggests that Beauvoir makes a distinction between authentic and inauthentic attitudes towards the future. It is also suggested that Beauvoir’s accounts of women in terms of immanence or of a repetition of the present that underpins her analysis in The Second Sex should not be taken as ontological, but rather as descriptions of the ways in which time is experienced under oppression. (shrink)

Background Moral courage means courage to act according to individual’s own ethical values and principles despite the risk of negative consequences for them. Research about the moral courage of whistle-blowers in health care is scarce, although whistleblowing involves a significant risk for the whistle-blower. Objective To analyse the moral courage of potential whistle-blowers and its association with their background variables in health care. Research design Was a descriptive-correlational study using a questionnaire, containing Nurses Moral Courage Scale©, a video vignette of (...) the wrongdoing situation with an open question about the vignette, and several background variables. Data were analysed statistically and inductive content analysis was used for the narratives. Participants and research context Nurses as healthcare professionals (including registered nurses, public health nurses, midwives, and nurse paramedics) were recruited from the membership register of the Nurses’ Association via email in 2019. A total of 454 nurses responded. The research context was simulated using a vignette. Ethical considerations Good scientific inquiry guidelines were followed. Permission to use the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale© was obtained from the copyright holder. The ethical approval and permission to conduct the study were obtained from the participating university and the Nurses’ Association. Findings The mean value of potential whistle-blowers’ moral courage on a Visual Analogue Scale (0–10) was 8.55 and the mean score was 4.34 on a 5-point Likert scale. Potential whistle-blowers’ moral courage was associated with their socio-demographics, education, work, personality and social responsibility related background variables. Discussion and conclusion In health care, potential whistle-blowers seem to be quite morally courageous actors. The results offer opportunities for developing interventions, practices and education to support and encourage healthcare professionals in their whistleblowing. Research is needed for developing a theoretical construction to eventually increase whistleblowing and decrease and prevent wrongdoing. (shrink)

This important new collection considers Jurgen Habermas's discourse theory from a variety of feminist vantage points. Feminist scholars have been drawn to Habermas's work because it reflects a tradition of emancipatory political thinking rooted in the Enlightenment and engages with the normative aims of emancipatory social movements. The essays in Feminists Read Habermas analyze various aspects of Habermas's work, ranging from his moral theory to political issues of identity and participation. The contributors share a conviction about the potential significance of (...) Habermas's work for feminist reflections on power, norms and subjectivity. (shrink)