Following thinkers of the archive such as Derrida, Foucault and Groys, among others, one of the ethical functions of the archive is to enable differentiation: to do archival work is to unlock difference. Yet how is one to deem the archival content outside of those moments in which we deliberately engage with it? More specifically, how is one to think the spectatorial relation to images that, assigned to the sequestered space of the archive, remain most of the time without spectators? (...) In approaching the archival mode through the philosophical lens of sublation and its Hegelian precursor of Aufhebung that performs alteration through preservation-as-cancellation, this essay sets out to articulate a phenomenology of the archived photograph as an image of, or in, sublation. Exploring the fragile dynamics at stake between the archived and its non-archived outside, emphasis is laid on the critical contradictions inherent in the logics of archivization: seeking to preserve its documents, the archive cannot do so without also provoking further differentiation. (shrink)

Im ersten Teil des Werkes untersucht Mertian (1766-1843) die Beziehungen zwischen Sprache und den Operationen des Verstandes. Wahrend er hier Condillac und Leibniz verpflichtet ist, enthalt der zweite Teil seine eigentliche Leistung: den Versuch einer angemessenen Definition der 'Urbegriffe' (grammatische Kategorien), die sich auf die Natur der Sprache selbst grundet. Diese Bemuhungen um die grammatischen Universalien und deren pragnante metasprachliche Bezeichnung sichern dem Werk einen Platz auch in der sprachtheoretischen Diskussion der Gegenwart.

This book claims that Aristotle followed an aspect theory of predication.

Social epistemologists should be well-equipped to explain and evaluate the growing vulnerabilities associated with filter bubbles, echo chambers, and group polarization in social media. However, almost all social epistemology has been built for social contexts that involve merely a speaker-hearer dyad. Filter bubbles, echo chambers, and group polarization all presuppose much larger and more complex network structures. In this paper, we lay the groundwork for a properly social epistemology that gives the role and structure of networks their due. In particular, (...) we formally define epistemic constructs that quantify the structural epistemic position of each node within an interconnected network. We argue for the epistemic value of a structure that we call the (m,k)-observer. We then present empirical evidence that (m,k)-observers are rare in social media discussions of controversial topics, which suggests that people suffer from serious problems of epistemic vulnerability. We conclude by arguing that social epistemologists and computer scientists should work together to develop minimal interventions that improve the structure of epistemic networks. (shrink)

The primary aim of this paper is to defend the Lockean View—the view that a belief is epistemically justified iff it is highly probable—against a new family of objections. According to these objections, broadly speaking, the Lockean View ought to be abandoned because it is incompatible with, or difficult to square with, our judgments surrounding certain legal cases. I distinguish and explore three different versions of these objections—The Conviction Argument, the Argument from Assertion and Practical Reasoning, and the Comparative Probabilities (...) Argument—but argue that none of them are successful. I also present some very general reasons for being pessimistic about the overall strategy of using legal considerations to evaluate epistemic theories; as we will see, there are good reasons to think that many of the considerations relevant to legal theorizing are ultimately irrelevant to epistemic theorizing. (shrink)

The primary objective of this paper is to introduce a new epistemic paradox that puts pressure on the claim that justification is closed under multi premise deduction. The first part of the paper will consider two well-known paradoxes—the lottery and the preface paradox—and outline two popular strategies for solving the paradoxes without denying closure. The second part will introduce a new, structurally related, paradox that is immune to these closure-preserving solutions. I will call this paradox, The Paradox of the Pill. (...) Seeing that the prominent closure-preserving solutions do not apply to the new paradox, I will argue that it presents a much stronger case against the claim that justification is closed under deduction than its two predecessors. Besides presenting a more robust counterexample to closure, the new paradox also reveals that the strategies that were previously thought to get closure out of trouble are not sufficiently general to achieve this task as they fail to apply to similar closure-threatening paradoxes in the same vicinity. (shrink)

In this paper, we explain and showcase the promising methodology of testimonial network analysis and visualization for experimental epistemology, arguing that it can be used to gain insights and answer philosophical questions in social epistemology. Our use case is the epistemic community that discusses vaccine safety primarily in English on Twitter. In two studies, we show, using both statistical analysis and exploratory data visualization, that there is almost no neutral or ambivalent discussion of vaccine safety on Twitter. Roughly half the (...) accounts engaging with this topic are pro-vaccine, while the other half are con-vaccine. We also show that these two camps rarely engage with one another, and that the con-vaccine camp has greater epistemic reach and receptivity than the pro-vaccine camp. In light of these findings, we question whether testimonial networks as they are currently constituted on popular fora such as Twitter are living up to their promise of delivering the wisdom of crowds. We conclude by pointing to directions for further research in digital social epistemology. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the rise of a new family of non-probabilistic accounts of epistemic justification. According to these views—we may call them Normalcy Views—a belief in P is justified only if, given the evidence, there exists no normal world in which S falsely beliefs that P. This paper aims to raise some trouble for this new approach to justification by arguing that Normalcy Views, while initially attractive, give rise to problematic accounts of epistemic defeat. As we will see, on (...) Normalcy Views seemingly insignificant pieces of evidence turn out to have considerable defeating powers. This problem—I will call it the Easy-Defeat Problem—gives rise to a two-pronged challenge. First, it shows that the Normalcy View has counterintuitive implications and, second, it opens the door to an uncomfortable skeptical threat. (shrink)

In recent work, Bengson, Cuneo, and Shafer‐Landau (2020) develop a new social version of moral intuitionism that promises to explain why our moral intuitions are trustworthy. In this paper, we raise several worries for their account and present some general challenges for the broader class of views we call Social Moral Intuitionism. We close by reflecting on Bengson, Cuneo, and Shafer‐Landau's comparison between what they call the “perceptual practice” and the “moral intuition practice”, which we take to raise some difficult (...) normative and meta‐normative questions for theorists of all stripes. (shrink)

Medieval theologians discussed the logical structure of reduplicative propositions in the midst of their discussions of the Incarnation and the Trinity. Aquinas has the usual medieval analyzes of reduplicative propositions: the specificative and the strictly reduplicative. But neither analysis resolves successfully the problems of the consistency of the statements about God while avoiding making the Trinity or the Incarnation a merely accidental feature of Him. However, Scotus introduces another analysis: abstractive. I shall conclude that Scotus’s view of reduplication, one, if (...) not invented by him, as least stressed and developed by him, offers a better solution of the consistency of the Incarnation and the Trinity than that of Aquinas. (shrink)

Avtar Brah (AB) was interviewed by Les Back (LB) on 3 July 2009 at a colloquium held to mark her retirement where, inter alia, her work was discussed. The interview is a reflection on her politics, activism and scholarship. It touches on some key moments of her life.

Teaching ethics in public health programmes is not routine everywhere – at least not in most schools of public health in the European region. Yet empirical evidence shows that schools of public health are more and more interested in the integration of ethics in their curricula, since public health professionals often have to face difficult ethical decisions.

One of the core doctrines of Mozi 墨子 is his teaching on jian'ai 兼愛, and this is discussed primarily in the three chapters bearing this term in their title.1 The term "jian'ai" and its theme also appear scattered throughout the Mozi, such as in chapters like "Standards and Rules" and the "Intention of Tian." Jian'ai has been translated into English as "Universal Love," "Inclusive Care," "Impartial Care," and other similar phrases. As these various translations suggest, there is not yet a (...) prevailing consensus on the exact meaning of jian'ai.2Despite his renowned clarity and simplicity and his skill at argumentation, those who try to pin down Mozi's teaching on jian'ai soon encounter difficulties. I think there are... (shrink)

ZusammenfassungPatientenmobilität und grenzüberschreitende Gesundheitsversorgung sind alltägliche Phänomene in der Europäischen Union. Im Jahr 2011 hat die EU eine Richtlinie erlassen, um in diesem Kontext Rechtssicherheit herzustellen. Bisher gibt es keine umfassenden systematischen Studien über ethische Aspekte grenzübergreifender Gesundheitsversorgung. In dieser Arbeit werden die rechtlichen Entwicklungen der grenzübergreifenden Gesundheitsversorgung dargestellt und die in der Literatur vereinzelt erwähnten ethisch relevanten Aspekte heuristisch und auf Patiententypologien aufbauend systematisch inventarisiert und diskutiert. Es zeigt sich, dass die Möglichkeit der Patientenmobilität und die damit vor allem (...) verbundenen Finanzierungsregelungen die Autonomie einiger Patienten sicherlich verbessern kann. Allerdings können wohl nicht alle Patienten Versorgungsverbesserungen erwarten. Im Gegenteil können sogar negative Konsequenzen für einige Patienten folgen, was vor allem aus gerechtigkeitstheoretischen Überlegungen kritisch zu sehen ist. (shrink)

In his Parts of Animals, Aristotle distinguishes three modes of the necessary.However, it is not clear just what these three modes are.Nor is it clear how this passage fits with other texts where A...

This essay examines the role of virtue and the status of non-moral goods in conceptions of the good human life through an exploration of the thought of Confucius and Mencius. Both Confucius and Mencius lived in quite similar worlds, but their conceptualizations of the world differed from each another. This difference led them to hold different views on the role of virtue and the status of non-moral goods. On the one hand, Confucius highlighted the self-sufficiency of virtue, but he acknowledged (...) and appreciated the intrinsic and instrumental value of non-moral goods. On the other hand, while Mencius underscored the role of virtue as the best means to the best ends, he tried to depreciate the value of non-moral goods. As a consequence, even though their conceptions of the good life were essentially predicated on virtue, they parted company concerning the status of non-moral goods in human life. (shrink)

Scholars of classical philosophy have long disputed whether Aristotle was a dialectical thinker. Most agree that Aristotle contrasts dialectical reasoning with demonstrative reasoning, where the former reasons from generally accepted opinions and the latter reasons from the true and primary. Starting with a grasp on truth, demonstration never relinquishes it. Starting with opinion, how could dialectical reasoning ever reach truth, much less the truth about first principles? Is dialectic then an exercise that reiterates the prejudices of one's times and at (...) best allows one to persuade others by appealing to these prejudices, or is it the royal road to first principles and philosophical wisdom? In From Puzzles to Principles? May Sim gathers experts to argue both these positions and offer a variety of interpretive possibilities. The contributors' thoughtful reflections on the nature and limits of dialectic should play a crucial role in Aristotelian scholarship. (shrink)

IN THIS PAPER THE AUTHOR DEALS WITH AQUINAS’ SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM, WHETHER THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION IS CONSISTENT. HE FIRST SHOWS WHY THERE IS A PROBLEM OF CONSISTENCY WITH THIS DOCTRINE, GIVEN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN BELIEFS. HE THEN CLAIMS THAT AQUINAS HAS TWO SOLUTIONS, AND THAT BOTH FAIL: THE FIRST SOLUTION, AS SCOTUS ALSO OBSERVES, DOES NOT RESOLVE THE APPARENT INCONSISTENCY, AND THE OTHER DEPENDS ON MAKING HUMANITY ACCIDENTAL TO CHRIST, AND HENCE ON ABANDONING THE ORTHODOX POSITION.

The likelihood principle of Bayesian statistics implies that information about the stopping rule used to collect evidence does not enter into the statistical analysis. This consequence confers an apparent advantage on Bayesian statistics over frequentist statistics. In the present paper, I argue that information about the stopping rule is nevertheless of value for an assessment of the reliability of the experiment, which is a pre-experimental measure of how well a contemplated procedure is expected to discriminate between hypotheses. I show that, (...) when reliability assessments enter into inquiries, some stopping rules prescribing optional stopping are unacceptable to both Bayesians and frequentists. (shrink)

This paper responds to Love's Labor, Eva Feder Kittay's seminal contribution to feminist disability theory, arguing that Kittay's “nested obligations” approach creates a two-tiered system of justice in which care relationships built around private dependence and private obligation are figured as wholly prepolitical, to the detriment of both gender justice and disability justice. I suggest that centering the civic membership of the disabled person allows us to keep what is valuable in Kittay's contribution, namely her theorization of the nature of (...) care and its political significance, and her call for collective support of care relationships, while omitting the nesting of obligations and resituating care recipients and care workers as equal and interdependent. (shrink)

This essay intends to criticize Hans-Georg Gadamer’s conception of language on the basis of which he justifies the proposition that learning is only possible through conversation. Although he understands as language non-verbal forms of communication such as gestures, physiognomic expressions, looks, Gadamer conceives language as word. However, I believe, and no one would deny it, language needs to be understood and, above all, learned. So here is the motivating problem of this essay: if language has to be understood as word, (...) how is it possible to learn it before mastering the word during childhood? To answer this problem, first, I clarify what I understand as philosophical conception of education. Then I demonstrate, in a broad examination of Gadamer’s essays written over five decades, the absence of a pre-predicative conception of language. Finally, I outline a pre-predicative conception of language by which I intend to show how it is possible to learn language before mastering the word. (shrink)