Access to legal information is fundamental to access to justice. Yet accessibility refers not only to making legal documents available to the public, but also rendering legal information comprehensible to them. A vexing problem in bringing legal information to the public is how to turn formal legal documents such as legislation and judgments, which are often highly technical, to easily navigable and comprehensible knowledge to those without legal education. In this study, we formulate a three-step approach for bringing legal knowledge (...) to laypersons, tackling the issues of navigability and comprehensibility. First, we translate selected sections of the law into snippets (called CLIC-pages), each being a small piece of article that focuses on explaining certain technical legal concept in layperson’s terms. Second, we construct a Legal Question Bank, which is a collection of legal questions whose answers can be found in the CLIC-pages. Third, we design an interactive CLIC Recommender. Given a user’s verbal description of a legal situation that requires a legal solution, CRec interprets the user’s input and shortlists questions from the question bank that are most likely relevant to the given legal situation and recommends their corresponding CLIC pages where relevant legal knowledge can be found. In this paper we focus on the technical aspects of creating an LQB. We show how large-scale pre-trained language models, such as GPT-3, can be used to generate legal questions. We compare machine-generated questions against human-composed questions and find that MGQs are more scalable, cost-effective, and more diversified, while HCQs are more precise. We also show a prototype of CRec and illustrate through an example how our 3-step approach effectively brings relevant legal knowledge to the public. (shrink)

This is an important work of scholarship with regard to Machiavelli and the development of political thought in England. It charts the reactions of successive English thinkers to Machiavelli’s challenge, and the different aspects of Machiavelli’s thought which were perceived in the changing context of English history. There is the Machiavelli of Catholic and Protestant reformers, the Machiavelli of Raleigh and Bacon, of the royalist Clarendon and the republican Harrington. Through their eyes the reader can see the gradual process whereby (...) the atheistical monster repudiated by the subjects of Henry VIII was quietly absorbed by the politically sophisticated subjects of William III. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:488 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY most extensive study of this aspect of Schelling's thought, at least until 1806. However, even if Schelling was not, as it is frequently stated, indifferent to the problems and the vicissitudes of politics, his theoretical thinking on this subject never went beyond temporary systematizations, to be given up, or modified, after a while. The author shows how Schelling, especially in this fieM, was influenced either (...) by his environment in general, or by some personalities he happened to contact: first his "republican" and francofile friends of the Ttibingen Stilt, afterwards the romantic circle of Jena, and, between 1801 and 1803, Hegel. The author studies in his first chapter, devoted tO the non-philosophic writings of the TUbingen period (1790-1795), not only Kant's and Herder's influence on Schelling, which are usually taken for granted, but also the impact of C. G. Heine and of other GSttingen scholars. This is a stimulating suggestion, showing the need for a more detailed study on the diffusion of the "historicocritical" method in circles, as the Ttibingen school, dominated rather by philosophical and theological than by philological and historical interests. In the following chapters, Schelling is closely related again to the intellectual history of his time; Schelling's relationship to the Aufkliirer Nicolai produces some surprises, and the same may be said about some new particulars (implementing F. Rosenzweig's and F. Bthm's research) on the close connection between Schelling and Htlderlin in 1795-1796. The fourth chapter is devoted to the correlation between theories on "natural philosophy" and moral political theories. The fifth concerns the philosophy of history and of government. This remarkable study, founded on sound scholarship, and conducted with a sharp historical mind, is to be recommended not only to students of Schelling, but to all those who have some interest in early XIXth Century German political thought. GIORGIO TONELLI State University of New York at Binghamton Gesammelte Werke, Vol. IV. By Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Ed. Hartmut Buehner and Otto Ptggeler. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1968. Pp. 622. DM 86.00) Despite the high reputation Germany has long enjoyed with regard to its scientifically reliable editions, up to this very moment, a historic-critical edition of the totality of Hegel's works has not existed. There were only provisional texts of single works available whose philological reliability differed in its sometimes doubtful variety. This is a rather strange fact, considering that Hegel died in 1831. It can be explained only by a phenomenon peculiar to this philosopher: at the peak of his fame, numerous students from all countries of the world attended Hegel's lectures, assiduously taking notes and frequently publishing as authentic what they had understood and jotted down. The philosopher was very generotis in authorizing various versions of his lectures and thus, the international market was swamped with quite incongruous editions of some of his writings at the moment of Hegel's death. Despite this rather confused state of affairs, distinguished scholars have tried, for BOOK REVIEWS 489 more than six decades, to bring order into the posthumous manuscripts of the philosopher, and these efforts were successful, but only to a certain extent. Next to the pioneering publications of Wilhelm Dilthey, Herman Nohl and Frans Rosenzweig, lesser known savants, in the first place, Georg Lasson and Johannes Hoffmeister have devoted many years of self-denying efforts to make /mportant parts of Hegel's manuscripts available to the public and looked for new possibilities to edit the large body of lectures. But the task proved too difficult for individual scholars. For this reason, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, a government-sponsored organization, has commissioned the publication of an all-encompassing historic-critical edition of Hegel's works and arranged for the appointment of a senatorial commission for advising the editors of such a mammoth undertaking. Members of the commission were the aforementioned scholars (see title) and W. Wieland. The Ministry of Education of the State of Nordrhein-Westfalen has opened a research center, originally directed by F. Nicolin, since 1968 by O. Ptggeler. Thus the edition can now be published continuously. Before discussing the contents of volume four, the only volume hitherto published, let's take... (shrink)

'Ik heb een man ontmoet die verontwaardigd was dat de lokale paspoortambtenaren moeilijk deden over zijn paspoort, waarin stond dat hij 53 was, zijn vrouw 54 & zijn dochter 59.'.

In December 1945 Thomas Mann wrote a famous letter to Adorno in which he formulated the principle of montage adopted in his novel Doctor Faustus. The writer expressly invited the philosopher to 'consider, with me, how such a work - and I mean Leverkuhn's work - could more or less be practically realized'. Their close collaboration on questions concerning the character of the fictional composer's putatively late works effectively laid the basis for a further exchange of letters. The ensuing correspondence (...) between the two men documents a rare encounter of creative tension between literary tradition and aesthetic modernism which would be sustained right up until the novelist's death in 1955. In the letters, Thomas Mann openly acknowledged his 'fascinated reading' of Adorno's Minima Moralia and commented in detail on the 'Essay on Wagner', which he was as eager to read as 'the one in the Book of Revelation consumes a book which tastes "as sweet as honey"'. Adorno in turn offered detailed observations upon and frequently enthusiastic commendations of Mann's later writings, such as The Holy Sinner, The Betrayed One and The Confessions of Felix Krull. Their correspondence also touches upon issues of great personal significance, notably the sensitive discussion of the problems of returning from exile to postwar Germany. The letters are extensively annotated and offer the reader detailed notes concerning the writings, events and personalities referred or alluded to in the correspondence. (shrink)

In December 1945 Thomas Mann wrote a famous letter to Adorno in which he formulated the principle of montage adopted in his novel Doctor Faustus. The writer expressly invited the philosopher to 'consider, with me, how such a work - and I mean Leverkuhn's work - could more or less be practically realized'. Their close collaboration on questions concerning the character of the fictional composer's putatively late works effectively laid the basis for a further exchange of letters. The ensuing correspondence (...) between the two men documents a rare encounter of creative tension between literary tradition and aesthetic modernism which would be sustained right up until the novelist's death in 1955. In the letters, Thomas Mann openly acknowledged his 'fascinated reading' of Adorno's Minima Moralia and commented in detail on the 'Essay on Wagner', which he was as eager to read as 'the one in the Book of Revelation consumes a book which tastes "as sweet as honey"'. Adorno in turn offered detailed observations upon and frequently enthusiastic commendations of Mann's later writings, such as The Holy Sinner, The Betrayed One and The Confessions of Felix Krull. Their correspondence also touches upon issues of great personal significance, notably the sensitive discussion of the problems of returning from exile to postwar Germany. The letters are extensively annotated and offer the reader detailed notes concerning the writings, events and personalities referred or alluded to in the correspondence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:488 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY most extensive study of this aspect of Schelling's thought, at least until 1806. However, even if Schelling was not, as it is frequently stated, indifferent to the problems and the vicissitudes of politics, his theoretical thinking on this subject never went beyond temporary systematizations, to be given up, or modified, after a while. The author shows how Schelling, especially in this fieM, was influenced either (...) by his environment in general, or by some personalities he happened to contact: first his "republican" and francofile friends of the Ttibingen Stilt, afterwards the romantic circle of Jena, and, between 1801 and 1803, Hegel. The author studies in his first chapter, devoted tO the non-philosophic writings of the TUbingen period (1790-1795), not only Kant's and Herder's influence on Schelling, which are usually taken for granted, but also the impact of C. G. Heine and of other GSttingen scholars. This is a stimulating suggestion, showing the need for a more detailed study on the diffusion of the "historicocritical" method in circles, as the Ttibingen school, dominated rather by philosophical and theological than by philological and historical interests. In the following chapters, Schelling is closely related again to the intellectual history of his time; Schelling's relationship to the Aufkliirer Nicolai produces some surprises, and the same may be said about some new particulars (implementing F. Rosenzweig's and F. Bthm's research) on the close connection between Schelling and Htlderlin in 1795-1796. The fourth chapter is devoted to the correlation between theories on "natural philosophy" and moral political theories. The fifth concerns the philosophy of history and of government. This remarkable study, founded on sound scholarship, and conducted with a sharp historical mind, is to be recommended not only to students of Schelling, but to all those who have some interest in early XIXth Century German political thought. GIORGIO TONELLI State University of New York at Binghamton Gesammelte Werke, Vol. IV. By Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Ed. Hartmut Buehner and Otto Ptggeler. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1968. Pp. 622. DM 86.00) Despite the high reputation Germany has long enjoyed with regard to its scientifically reliable editions, up to this very moment, a historic-critical edition of the totality of Hegel's works has not existed. There were only provisional texts of single works available whose philological reliability differed in its sometimes doubtful variety. This is a rather strange fact, considering that Hegel died in 1831. It can be explained only by a phenomenon peculiar to this philosopher: at the peak of his fame, numerous students from all countries of the world attended Hegel's lectures, assiduously taking notes and frequently publishing as authentic what they had understood and jotted down. The philosopher was very generotis in authorizing various versions of his lectures and thus, the international market was swamped with quite incongruous editions of some of his writings at the moment of Hegel's death. Despite this rather confused state of affairs, distinguished scholars have tried, for BOOK REVIEWS 489 more than six decades, to bring order into the posthumous manuscripts of the philosopher, and these efforts were successful, but only to a certain extent. Next to the pioneering publications of Wilhelm Dilthey, Herman Nohl and Frans Rosenzweig, lesser known savants, in the first place, Georg Lasson and Johannes Hoffmeister have devoted many years of self-denying efforts to make /mportant parts of Hegel's manuscripts available to the public and looked for new possibilities to edit the large body of lectures. But the task proved too difficult for individual scholars. For this reason, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, a government-sponsored organization, has commissioned the publication of an all-encompassing historic-critical edition of Hegel's works and arranged for the appointment of a senatorial commission for advising the editors of such a mammoth undertaking. Members of the commission were the aforementioned scholars (see title) and W. Wieland. The Ministry of Education of the State of Nordrhein-Westfalen has opened a research center, originally directed by F. Nicolin, since 1968 by O. Ptggeler. Thus the edition can now be published continuously. Before discussing the contents of volume four, the only volume hitherto published, let's take... (shrink)

This is a translation from the Russian of Nikolai Lossky’s review of Henri Bergson, Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion (1932). The review was published in the Parisian émigré journal Новый Град (Cité nouvelle) in 1932. In this review, Lossky criticizes Bergson for leaving some key problems of the philosophy of religion unresolved, namely that of God’s relation to the world (theism vs. pantheism), that of immortality, as well as that of evil. He also criticizes Bergson’s (...) “extreme biologism” in his explanation of morality, which, in his view, subjectivizes the objects of religion. For Lossky, the symbolic images of the Christian religion are not subjective “fabulations,” but real symbols through which God reveals himself to us. Likewise, according to Lossky, true morality cannot be explained in terms of biological adaptation, but must rely on the foundation of an objective, i.e., Platonic, axiological sphere. (Frédéric Tremblay). (shrink)

Over the last several decades, the continental phenomenological tradition has been marked by what has been termed “the theological turn.” Major figures such as Levinas, Henry, Marion, and Lacoste have moved beyond the restrictions of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology and have opened up phenomenology to distinctly theological themes. But such a “turn” has not been uncontested. The relation between phenomenology and theology has been at the heart of the discussion, raising the question of what constitutes philosophical description, as well (...) as of theology’s possible claim on phenomenology.Felix Ó Murchadha’s book, A Phenomenology of Christian Life: Glory and Night, situates itself within this discussion and does not hesitate to take sides. Indeed, Ó Murchadha has written a remarkable contribution to the ongoing debate, advocating the possibility of a distinctly Christian phenomenology. Far from confining himself to a commentary on key contributions to the recent debate, Murchadha’s. (shrink)

"L'oeuvre d'art est une tentative vers l'unique, elle s'affirme comme un tout, comme un absolu et, en même temps, elle appartient à un système de relations complexes [...]. Elle est matière et elle est esprit, elle est forme et elle est contenu [...]. Elle est créatrice de l'homme, créatrice du monde et elle installe dans l'histoire un ordre qui ne se réduit à rien d'autre." Un Eloge de la main complète ce texte. "La main arrache le toucher à sa passivité (...) réceptive, elle l'organise pour l'expérience et pour l'action [...]. Elle se mesure avec la matière qu'elle métamorphose, avec la forme qu'elle transfigure. Educatrice de l'homme, elle le multiplie dans l'espace et dans le temps." [Source : 4e de couv.]. (shrink)

Der Band nimmt gewisse, mit dem Begriff Theurgie assoziierte Wandlungen innerhalb des spätantiken Neuplatonismus in den Blick. Theurgie wird vor allem als Suche nach immanenten Medien zur Verkörperung göttlicher Kräfte verstanden. Entgegen dem häufig kolportierten Bild vom weltflüchtigen Platonismus zielt die von Iamblichos und seinen Nachfolgern verfochtene Philosophie, so die Grundthese, auf Integration der körperlich-materiellen Wirklichkeitsebenen ab und das Endziel der Philosophie wird stärker unter dem Gesichtspunkt einer positiven Teilhabe am demiurgisch-kosmogonischen Werk begriffen. Diese Aufwertung von Körperlichkeit wird anhand verschiedener (...) Aspekte – z. B. dem Symbolbegriff, der „göttlichen Materie", aber auch des feinstofflichen Ochema-Pneuma-Konzepts – in ihrer Relevanz für das spirituelle Gesamtprofil der theurgischen Neuplatoniker erstmals umfassender untersucht. Abgerundet wird die Studie durch einen Vergleich mit ähnlichen Tendenzen im nicht-dualistischen Śivaismus von Kaschmir. (shrink)

This Hackett edition, first published in 1981, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the seventh edition as published by Macmillan and Company, Limited. From the forward by John Rawls: In the utilitarian tradition Henry Sidgwick has an important place. His fundamental work, The Methods of Ethics, is the clearest and most accessible formulation of what we may call 'the classical utilitarian doctorine.' This classical doctrine holds that the ultimate moral end of social and individual action is the greatest (...) net sum of the happiness of all sentient beings. Happinesss is specified by the net balance of pleasure over pain, or, as Sidgwick preferred to say, as the net balance of agreeable over disagreeable consciousness.... (shrink)

Relying on aesthetic testimony seems problematic. For instance, it seems problematic for me to simply believe or assert that The Velvet Underground's debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico (1964) is amazing solely because you have told me so, even though I know you to be an honest and competent music critic. But why? After all, there do not seem to be similar reservations regarding testimony from many other domains. In this paper, I will argue that relying on aesthetic testimony (...) seems problematic because we are attached to an ideal of aesthetic authenticity and feel that living up to this ideal is anathema to simply relying on aesthetic testimony. (shrink)

Many philosophers, following Williamson (The Philosophical Review 105(4): 489–523, 1996), Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits, Oxford, Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2000), subscribe to the constitutive rule account of assertion (CRAA). They hold that the activity of asserting is constituted by a single constitutive rule of assertion. However, in recent work, Maitra (in: Brown & Cappelen (ed). Assertion: new philosophical essays, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011), Johnson (Acta Analytica 33(1): 51–67, 2018), and Kelp and Simion (Synthese 197(1): 125–137, 2020a), Kelp and (...) Simion (in: Goldberg (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Assertion, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020b) aim to show that, for all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion proposed in the literature, asserting is not an activity constituted by a single constitutive rule and that therefore CRAA is very likely false. To reach this conclusion, they all present a version of what can be dubbed the engagement condition objection. That is, they each propose a necessary condition on engaging in rule-constituted activities. Then they argue that, for all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion proposed in the literature, one can make assertions without satisfying this condition. In response, I present a counterexample that shows that the proposed engagement conditions lead to coun- terintuitive results, and I propose an alternative that better captures our intuitions. Then I argue that this alternative engagement condition is compatible with all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion. (shrink)

How does one arrive at a life in politics and policy? What happens to one's ideals when confronted with the reality that the only way to get things done in Washington is compromise? Who are the men and women who help shape our national agenda, and what drives their work? Dispatches From the Eastern Front provides fascinating, intensely personal, yet universal answers to these central questions. Recounting four decades inside Washington politics, Gerald Felix Warburg brings remarkable candor to a (...) most unusual memoir. An idealistic California baby boomer transported to the intimidating world of Capitol Hill policymaking at a young age, Warburg finds himself working to reform nuclear energy, strategic arms control, and foreign policy. As his access and power grow, greater challenges loom: how to maintain principles while cutting deals, and how to balance public purpose with private interests. An eclectic career reveals the slow and often painful development of emotional intelligence for work at the highest reaches of the public arena. (shrink)

This book traces the emergence of a modern culture of exploration, as reflected in the role of institutions such as the Royal Geographical Society and the ...

In moral and political philosophy, collective obligations are promising “gap-stoppers” when we find that we need to assert some obligation, but can not plausibly ascribe this obligation to individual agents. Most notably, Bill Wringe and Jesse Tomalty discuss whether the obligations that correspond to socio-economic human rights are held by states or even by humankind at large. The present paper aims to provide a missing piece for these discussions, namely an account of the conditions under which obligations can apply to (...) loose collections of agents that do not qualify as collective agents in their own right. I first explain the notion of joint obligations of loose collections of agents as opposed to collective obligations of collections of agents that are collective agents in their own right, and argue that the conditions under which agents can jointly have obligations are the conditions under which they are jointly able to do what is required. I then build on Virginia Held’s seminal work on the moral responsibility of “random collections” to develop such conditions for joint ability. My discussion shows that collections of individuals can more easily be subject to moral obligations than previously assumed. It also shows that putative joint obligations need to be carefully time-indexed, and that it is largely an empirical question whether a given collection can be subject to a moral obligation to perform a given joint action at a particular time. (shrink)

When several agents together produce suboptimal outcomes, yet no individual could have made a difference for the better, Act Consequentialism counterintuitively judges that all involved agents act rightly. I address this problem by supplementing Act Consequentialism with a requirement of modal robustness: Agents not only ought to produce best consequences in the actual world, but they also ought to be such that they would act optimally in certain counterfactual scenarios. I interpret this Modally Robust Act Consequentialism as Act Consequentialism plus (...) a requirement of moral virtue, namely, to reliably act rightly and to act rightly for the right reasons. (shrink)

Who should be recognized as a refugee? This article seeks to uncover the normative arguments at the core of legal and philosophical conceptions of refugeehood. It identifies three analytically dist...

What is political about political refugeehood? Theorists have assumed that refugees are special because their specific predicament as those who are persecuted sets them aside from other “necessitous strangers.” Persecution is a special form of wrongful harm that marks the repudiation of a person's political membership and that cannot—contrary to certain other harms—be remedied where they are. It makes asylum necessary as a specific remedial institution. In this article, I argue that this is correct. Yet, the connection between political membership, (...) its repudiation, and persecution is far from clear. Drawing on normative political thought and research on autocracies, repression, and migration studies, I show that it is political oppression that marks the repudiation of political membership and leads to various forms of repression that can equally not be remedied at home. A truly political account moves away from persecution and endorses political oppression as the normative pillar of refugeehood and asylum. (shrink)

Bilattices, introduced by Ginsberg as a uniform framework for inference in artificial intelligence, are algebraic structures that proved useful in many fields. In recent years, Arieli and Avron developed a logical system based on a class of bilattice-based matrices, called logical bilattices, and provided a Gentzen-style calculus for it. This logic is essentially an expansion of the well-known Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic to the standard language of bilattices. Our aim is to study Arieli and Avron’s logic from the perspective of abstract (...) algebraic logic . We introduce a Hilbert-style axiomatization in order to investigate the properties of the algebraic models of this logic, proving that every formula can be reduced to an equivalent normal form and that our axiomatization is complete w.r.t. Arieli and Avron’s semantics. In this way, we are able to classify this logic according to the criteria of AAL. We show, for instance, that it is non-protoalgebraic and non-self-extensional. We also characterize its Tarski congruence and the class of algebraic reducts of its reduced generalized models, which in the general theory of AAL is usually taken to be the algebraic counterpart of a sentential logic. This class turns out to be the variety generated by the smallest non-trivial bilattice, which is strictly contained in the class of algebraic reducts of logical bilattices. On the other hand, we prove that the class of algebraic reducts of reduced models of our logic is strictly included in the class of algebraic reducts of its reduced generalized models. Another interesting result obtained is that, as happens with some implicationless fragments of well-known logics, we can associate with our logic a Gentzen calculus which is algebraizable in the sense of Rebagliato and Verdú . We also prove some purely algebraic results concerning bilattices, for instance that the variety of distributive bilattices is generated by the smallest non-trivial bilattice. This result is based on an improvement of a theorem by Avron stating that every bounded interlaced bilattice is isomorphic to a certain product of two bounded lattices. We generalize it to the case of unbounded interlaced bilattices. (shrink)

Who should be recognized as a refugee? This article seeks to uncover the normative arguments at the core of legal and philosophical conceptions of refugeehood. It identifies three analytically distinct approaches grounding the right to refugee status and argues that all three are normatively inadequate. Refugee status should neither be grounded in individual persecution for specific reasons (classical approach) nor in individual persecution for any discriminatory reasons (human rights approach). It should also not be based solely on harm (humanitarian approach). (...) Rather, this article argues, it should be based on political oppression – on persons lacking public autonomy, formally expressed as a lack of legal–political status. The normative foundation for a claim to refugee status lies in the inability of a person to control, amend and seek recourse to the specific situation she faces. It lies in the lack of public autonomy expressed as a lack of legal–political rights. What matters for a claim to refugee status is thus the legal–political disenfranchisement of a person, ultimately leaving her with no recourse to the particular situation she faces other than flight. Refugees, then, are not only those who fear harm or persecution, but those who are politically oppressed. (shrink)

Should refugees receive political rights in liberal democracies? I argue that they should. Refugees are special – at least when it comes to claims towards democratic inclusion. They lack exit options and are significantly impacted by decisions made in liberal democracies. Enfranchisement is a matter of urgency to them and should occur on a national level. But what justifies the democratic inclusion of refugees? I draw on the all-subjected principle in arguing that all those subjected to rule in a political (...) unit should have a say in such rule. I show that refugees cannot be denied democratic inclusion based on the argument that transients should be excluded from participation. Refugees are not transients. Finally, I show that naturalization is not a prerequisite for enfranchisement. Political rights and citizenship can be had independently of each other. Refugees, then, should be nationally enfranchised as soon as they receive refugee status. (shrink)

" Vivid . . . immense clarity . . . the product of a brilliant and extremely forceful intellect." — Journal of the Royal Naval Scientific Service "Still a sheer joy to read." — Mathematical Gazette "Should be read by any student, teacher or researcher in mathematics." — Mathematics Teacher The originator of algebraic topology and of the theory of analytic functions of several complex variables, Henri Poincare (1854–1912) excelled at explaining the complexities of scientific and mathematical ideas to lay (...) readers. Science and Method, written in 1908, has been appreciated by a wide audience of nonprofessionals and translated into many languages. It defines the basic methodology and psychology of scientific discovery, particularly in regard to mathematics and mathematical physics. Drawing on examples from many fields, it explains how scientists analyze and choose their working facts, and it explores the nature of experimentation, theory, and the mind. 1914 edition. Translated by Francis Maitland. (shrink)

Should refugees govern refugee camps? This paper argues that they should. It draws on normative political thought in consulting the all-subjected principle and an instrumental defense of democratic rule. The former holds that all those subjected to rule in a political unit should have a say in such rule. Through analyzing the conditions that pertain in refugee camps, the paper demonstrates that the all-subjected principle applies there, too. Refugee camps have developed as near distinct entities from their host states. They (...) have formed their own economic, legal and even political systems within which refugees are subjected to political rule. The paper then demonstrates that democratic rule should be preferred over any other decision-making procedure. No amount of experts can replace the institutions that would lead to the accountability of decision-makers and to the incorporation of refugees as situated and epistemically diverse knowers of the problems they face and the solutions that would work best. (shrink)

Since the outbreak of the war in the Ukraine, realism has made a comeback in public discourses but it is not clear what realism actually means as it seems to stand for everything: from supporting the Ukraine against Russian aggression to the war is the West’s fault. This is the result of decades of not distinguishing between neorealism and classical realism and implicitly acknowledging neorealist storytelling of having systematized classical realist thought. The present paper is a further intervention to carefully (...) distinguish between both theoretical perspectives to uncover what they can add to current world political problems. It finishes by asking if neorealist scholars like John Mearsheimer have a point that it is the West’s fault and a diplomatic solution needs to be found. They often refer to Hans Morgenthau not least because he was one of the most outspoken critics of the Vietnam War. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that lying differs from mere misleading in a way that can be morally relevant: liars commit themselves to something they believe to be false, while misleaders avoid such commitment, and this difference can make a moral difference. Even holding all else fixed, a lie can therefore be morally worse than a corresponding misleading utterance. But, we argue, there are also cases in which the difference in commitment makes lying morally better than misleading, (...) as well as cases in which the difference is not morally relevant. This view conflicts with the two main positions philosophers have defended in the ethics of lying and misleading, which entail either that lying is in virtue of its nature worse than misleading or that there is no morally relevant difference between lying and misleading. (shrink)

It is being increasingly recognized that the Saussurean dictum of “the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign” is in conflict with the pervasiveness of the phenomenon commonly known as “sound symbolism”. After first presenting a historical overview of the debate, however, we conclude that both positions have been exaggerated, and that an adequate explanation of sound symbolism is still lacking. How can there, for example, be (perceived) similarity between expressionsand contents across different sensory modalities? We offer an answer, based on the (...) Peircian notion of iconic ground, and G. Sonesson’s distinction betweenprimary and secondary iconicity. Furthermore, we describe an experimental study, in a paradigm first pioneered by W. Kohler, and recently popularized by V.Ramachandran, in which we varied vowels and consonants in fictive word-forms, and conclude that both types of sounds play a role in perceiving an iconic ground between the word-forms and visual figures. The combination of historical conceptual analysis, semiotic explication and psychological experimentationpresented in this article is characteristic of the emerging paradigm of cognitive semiotics. (shrink)