What should we believe when epistemic and practical reasons pull in opposite directions? The traditional view states that there is something that we ought epistemically to believe and something that we ought practically to (cause ourselves to) believe, period. More recent accounts challenge this view, either by arguing that there is something that we ought simpliciter to believe, all epistemic and practical reasons considered (the weighing view), or by denying the normativity of epistemic reasons altogether (epistemic anti-normativism). I argue against (...) both accounts and defend the traditional view. An agent can be blameworthy in doxastic dilemmas for complying with their practical but not their epistemic reasons. This reveals how epistemic reasons are normative: the concept of epistemic blame helps us track epistemic normativity. (shrink)

The normative force of evidence can seem puzzling. It seems that having conclusive evidence for a proposition does not, by itself, make it true that one ought to believe the proposition. But spelling out the condition that evidence must meet in order to provide us with genuine normative reasons for belief seems to lead us into a dilemma: the condition either fails to explain the normative significance of epistemic reasons or it renders the content of epistemic norms practical. The first (...) aim of this paper is to spell out this challenge for the normativity of evidence. I argue that the challenge rests on a plausible assumption about the conceptual connection between normative reasons and blameworthiness. The second aim of the paper is to show how we can meet the challenge by spelling out a concept of epistemic blameworthiness. Drawing on recent accounts of doxastic responsibility and epistemic blame, I suggest that the normativity of evidence is revealed in our practice of suspending epistemic trust in response to impaired epistemic relationships. Recognizing suspension of trust as a form of epistemic blame allows us to make sense of a purely epistemic kind of normativity the existence of which has recently been called into doubt by certain versions of pragmatism and instrumentalism. (shrink)

Sebastian Schmidt (Zürich) fragt in seinem Beitrag »Wie vernünftig sind Verschwörungstheoretiker?«, wie es um die Vernunft derjenigen steht, die einer Verschwörungstheorie über die Corona-Pandemie anhängen. Im Umgang mit Corona scheint sich zu bestätigen, was die Psychologie seit Jahrzehnten lehrt: Menschen unterliegen in ihrem Denken kognitiven Fehlern und Verzerrungen. Doch ist verschwörungstheoretisches Denken, das solche Fehler ebenfalls begeht, deshalb irrational? Schmidt warnt davor, einander zu leichtfertig als irrational zu betrachten, und verweist auf die wichtige Rolle, die intellektuelles Vertrauen in Wissensgemeinschaften (...) spielt. Am Beispiel des sogenannten Bestätigungsfehlers führt er aus, dass Menschen, die ihre Überzeugungen nicht fortwährend kritisch prüfen, in diesem Verhalten durchaus rational sein können. (shrink)

In this essay I begin to lay out a conceptual scheme for: analysing dualities as cases of theoretical equivalence; assessing when cases of theoretical equivalence are also cases of physical equivalence. The scheme is applied to gauge/gravity dualities. I expound what I argue to be their contribution to questions about: the nature of spacetime in quantum gravity; broader philosophical and physical discussions of spacetime. - proceed by analysing duality through four contrasts. A duality will be a suitable isomorphism between models: (...) and the four relevant contrasts are as follows: Bare theory: a triple of states, quantities, and dynamics endowed with appropriate structures and symmetries; vs. interpreted theory: which is endowed with, in addition, a suitable pair of interpretative maps. Extendable vs. unextendable theories: which can, respectively cannot, be extended as regards their domains of application. External vs. internal intepretations: which are constructed, respectively, by coupling the theory to another interpreted theory vs. from within the theory itself. Theoretical vs. physical equivalence: which contrasts formal equivalence with the equivalence of fully interpreted theories. I will apply this scheme to answering questions - for gauge/gravity dualities. I will argue that the things that are physically relevant are those that stand in a bijective correspondence under duality: the common core of the two models. I therefore conclude that most of the mathematical and physical structures that we are familiar with, in these models, are largely, though crucially never entirely, not part of that common core. Thus, the interpretation of dualities for theories of quantum gravity compels us to rethink the roles that spacetime, and many other tools in theoretical physics, play in theories of spacetime. (shrink)

Hiermit liegt der Kommentar zu Nietzsches Werk Die fröhliche Wissenschaft vor, das 1882 in erster und 1887 in stark erweiterter zweiter Auflage mit dem neuen Untertitel la gaya scienza erschienen ist. Die fröhliche Wissenschaft gehört zu Nietzsches bekanntesten Schriften und gilt als besonders "ausgewogenes" Werk.

Kritische Theorie und Philosophische Anthropologie gelten noch immer als grundsätzlich einander widerstreitende Strömungen. Die Philosophien Helmuth Plessners und Theodor W. Adornos jedoch lassen sich, so die These dieses Buches, unter dem Namen der negativen Anthropologie zusammenführen. Edinger begreift negative Anthropologie im systematischen Sinn als strukturell negativ verfasstes Konzept, um elementare und exklusive Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen Adorno und Plessner sichtbar zu machen. Neben den grundsätzlichen Überlegungen, u.a. zum Konzept der Anthropologie bei Sonnemann und Gehlen, widmet sich der Autor auch beispielhaft den Motiven (...) der Kritik der Moderne und die Kritik der Geschichtsphilosophie durch Plessner und Adorno. Damit erreicht er eine neue Sicht auf das Verhältnis der beiden philosophischen Richtungen, die die gemeinhin akzeptierte unversöhnliche Frontstellung von philosophischer Anthropologie und Kritischer Theorie aufhebt. (shrink)

This paper discusses the nonconceptual theory of mystical ineffability which claims that mystical experiences can’t be expressed linguistically because they can’t be conceptualized. I discuss and refute two objections against it: (a) that unconceptualized experiences are impossible, and (b) that the theory is ad hoc because it provides no reason for why mystical experiences should be unconceptualizable. I argue against (a) that distinguishing different meanings of ‘object of experience’ leaves open the possibility of non-empty but objectless nonconceptual experiences. I show (...) that (b) is a valid objection but can be countered by a new theory of mystical non-conceptuality: mystical experiences are not conceptual because the specific mode of mystical consciousness prevents conceptualization. The dissolution of the subjectivity of consciousness during mystical experiences undermines the very foundation of the possibility of conceptual thought and thus renders them ineffable. (shrink)

It has been argued that rationality consists in responding correctly to reasons. Recent defenses of the normativity of rationality assume that this implies that we always ought to be rational. However, this follows only if the reasons rationality requires us to correctly respond to are normative reasons. Recent meta-epistemological contributions have questioned whether epistemic reasons are normative. If they were right, then epistemic rationality wouldn’t provide us with normative reasons independently of wrong-kind reasons to be epistemically rational. This paper spells (...) out this neglected challenge for the normativity of epistemic rationality by connecting the two bodies of literature. Moreover, it generalizes this challenge to the rationality of desire, intention, and emotion. The upshot is that we can only answer the normative question about rationality if we debate about blame and accountability for holding different kinds of irrational attitudes, as well as about the sources of mental normativity. (shrink)

It has been argued that the explanation of self-control requires positing special motivational powers. Some think that we need will-power as an irreducible mental faculty; others that we need to think of the active self as a dedicated and depletable pool of psychic energy or – in today more respectable terminology – mental resources; finally, there is the idea that self-control requires postulating a deep division between reason and passion – a deliberative and an emotional motivational system. This essay argues (...) that no such special motivational powers are necessary. Yet, at the same time, self-control does powerfully illustrate the importance of a feature of the mind. What it illustrates, I argue, is the importance of the mental activity of attention in the control of all action. It is by appeal to this mental activity that we can dispense with special motivational powers. If we think of Humeanism as the view that there is fundamentally only one kind of motivational system and that all action is based in that system, then this essay contributes to a defense of Humeanism. On the other hand, the essay also shows that any model of agency in terms of only beliefs and desires, motivational and representational states, or preferences and credences is incomplete. A different conception of Humeanism as the view that every mental state is either motivational, representational, or a combination of them, is false. (shrink)

The book series Linguistische Arbeiten (LA) publishes high-quality work in linguistics that addresses current issues in synchrony and diachrony, theoretically or empirically oriented.

In this paper, I analyze the concept of ineffability: what does it mean to say that something cannot be said? I begin by distinguishing ineffability from paradox: if something cannot be said truly or without contradiction, this is not an instance of ineffability. Next, I distinguish two different meanings of ‘saying something’ which result from a fundamental ambiguity in the term ‘language’, viz. language as a system of symbols and language as a medium of communication. Accordingly, ‘ineffability’ is ambiguous, too, (...) and we should make a distinction between weak and strong ineffability. Weak ineffability is rooted in the deficiencies of a particular language while strong ineffability stems from the structure of a particular cognitive system and its capacities for conceptual mental representation. Mental contents are only sayable if we are able to conceptualize them and then create signs to represent them in communication. (shrink)

I argue that the problem of responsibility for attitudes is best understood as a puzzle about how we are responsible for responding to our object-given reasons for attitudes – i.e., how we are responsible for being (ir)rational. The problem can be solved, I propose, by understanding the normative force of reasons for attitudes in terms of blameworthiness. I present a puzzle about the existence of epistemic and mental blame which poses a challenge for the very idea of reasons for attitudes. (...) We are left with three options: denying that there are any reasons for attitudes, opting for pragmatism about reasons for attitudes, or arguing that the challenge rests on a misunderstanding of the normative force of reasons for attitudes. I finally suggest a version of the last strategy. We can understand the normative force of reasons for attitudes, and thereby solve the problem of mental responsibility, by acknowledging that the way we blame each other for failing to respond correctly to our reasons for attitudes is different from the way we blame each other when one failed to respond correctly to reasons for action. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band bietet eine repräsentative Auswahl der wichtigsten Forschungsmanuskripte zur Methode der transzendental-phänomenologischen Reduktion aus Husserls Spätwerk. Werkgeschichtlich orientiert sich diese Edition an den Arbeitsphasen ab 1926, in denen Husserl wiederholt ein `System der Phänomenologie' bzw. ein phänomenologisches Grundwerk zu verfassen beabsichtigte. In den chronologisch angeordneten Texten, die Husserl im Rahmen seiner Manuskriptordnung vom Frühjahr 1935 einer eigenen Sektion (der `B-Gruppe' mit dem Titel 'Die Reduktion') zuwies, führt er aus Vorlesungen und Forschungsmanuskripten der zwanziger Jahre bekannte Themen fort. Neben (...) der Erörterung verschiedener Wege zur phänomenologischen Reduktion und Strategien der Einleitung in die transzendentale Phänomenologie behandelt Husserl das Problem der Phänomenologie als einer eigenständigen, zur intentionalen Psychologie parallelen, transzendentalen Bewußtseinswissenschaft. Hierzu gehören systematisch die Probleme der Unterscheidung von natürlichem und transzendentalem Ich, des Übergangs von natürlicher zu phänomenologischer Einstellung, des Status des unbeteiligten Zuschauers sowie das Problem der `Verweltlichung' des Transzendentalen und dessen `Einströmen' in die vorphilosophische Lebenswelt. In diesen hauptsächlich der Methodik gewidmeten Forschungsmanuskripten wird das Ganze einer phänomenologischen `Systematik' im Umriß erkennbar. (shrink)

Broome takes the debate on rationality to be concerned with the ordinary use of 'rational'. I argue that this is at best misleading. For the object of current theories of rationality is determined by a specific use of 'rational' that is intimately connected to blame and praise. I call the property it refers to 'rationalityRESP'. This focus on rationalityRESP, I argue, has two significant implications for Broome's critique of theories of rationality as reasons-responsiveness. First, rationalityRESP is plausibly conceived of as (...) a kind of reasons-responsiveness. Secondly, Broome's dispute with internalists about normativity as well as his dispute with externalists about rationality both hinge on questions regarding the concept of responsibility. I conclude that philosophers should integrate discussions about responsibility in their debates about rationality. (shrink)

It is often claimed that a minimal form of self-awareness is constitutive of our conscious experience. Some have considered that such a claim is plausible for our ordinary experiences but false when considered unrestrictedly on the basis of the empirical evidence from altered states. In this paper I want to reject such a reasoning. This requires, first, a proper understanding of a minimal form of self-awareness – one that makes it plausible that minimal self-awareness is part of our ordinary experiences. (...) I will argue that it should be understood as Perspectival First-Person Awareness : a non-conceptual identification-free self-attribution that defines the first-person perspective for our conscious experience. I will offer a detailed characterization of PFP-Awareness in semantic and epistemological terms. With this tool in hand, I will review the empirical literature on altered states. I will focus on psychedelics, meditation and dreams, as they have been claimed to present the clearest cases in favor of a radical disruption of self-awareness. I will show that the rejection of the idea that minimal self-awareness is constitutive of our experience on the basis of this evidence is unfounded, for two main reasons. First, although there are good grounds to think that some forms of self-awareness that typically accompany our ordinary experiences are compromised, they do not support the claim that PFP-Awareness is absent. Secondly, the reports that could make us think of a radical disruption of self-awareness are most probably due to a confirmation bias – and hence we should mistrust them – derived from the expectations and metaphysical views of their subjects. (shrink)

In a recent article entitled “The problem of molecular structure just is the measurement problem”, Alexander Franklin and Vanessa Seifert argue that insofar as the quantum measurement problem is solved, the problems of molecular structure are resolved as well. The purpose of the present article is to show that such a claim is too optimistic. Although the solution of the quantum measurement problem is relevant to how the problem of molecular structure is faced, such a solution is not sufficient to (...) account for the structure of molecules as understood in the field of chemistry. (shrink)

A human mission to Mars is technologically feasible, but hugely expensive requiring enormous financial and political commitments. A creative solution to this dilemma would be a one way human mission to Mars in place of the manned return mission that remains stuck on the drawing board. Our proposal would cut the costs several fold but ensure at the same time a continuous commitment to the exploration of Mars in particular and space in general. It would also obviate the need for (...) years of rehabilitation for returning astronauts, which would not be an issue if the astronauts were to remain in the low gravity environment of Mars. We envision that Mars exploration would begin and proceed for a long time on the basis of outbound journeys only. A mission to Mars could use some of the hardware that has been developed for the Moon program. One approach could be to send four astronauts initially, two on each of two space craft, each with a lander and sufficient supplies, to stake a single outpost on Mars. A one way human mission to Mars would not be a fixed duration project as in the Apollo program, but the first step in establishing a permanent human presence on the planet. The astronauts would be re supplied on a periodic basis from Earth with basic necessities, but otherwise would be expected to become increasingly proficient at harvesting and utilizing resources available on Mars. Eventually the outpost would reach self sufficiency, and then it could serve as a hub for a greatly expanded colonization program. There are many reasons why a human colony on Mars is a desirable goal, scientifically and politically. The strategy of one way missions brings this goal within technological and financial feasibility. Nevertheless, to attain it would require not only major international cooperation, but a return to the exploration spirit and risk taking ethos of the great period of Earth exploration, from Columbus to Amundsen, but which has nowadays being replaced with a culture of safety and political correctness.. (shrink)

In den letzten drei Dekaden ist es zu einer Renaissance des Republikanismus gekommen. Ein spezifisch republikanisches Freiheitsverstandnis und die Debatte um entpolitisierende Wirkungen komplexer liberaler Demokratien haben sich dabei als in hohem Masse anschlussfahig an eine Vielzahl gegenwartiger Diskurse - von Global Governance bis hin zu Postdemokratie - erwiesen. Das Verstandnis von Republikanismus als einer modernen politischen Theorie wurde so weiter gestarkt und republikanische Ansatze gelten wieder als der zentrale Gegenspieler eines liberalen Staats- und Politikverstandnisses. Der Sammelband greift diese Renaissance (...) auf und bietet einen fur den deutschen Sprachraum bis dato fehlenden Uberblick uber Entwicklungstendenzen und Debatten im modernen republikanischen Denken. Er liefert eine Systematisierung von Ansatzen und Stromungen und erortert die Leistungsfahigkeit republikanischer Theorie gerade mit Blick auf Gegenwartsfragen. Mit Beitragen von: Richard Bellamy, Dorothea Gadeke, Philip Holzing, Sebastian Huhnholz, Marcus Llanque, Horst Mewes, Andreas Oldenbourg, Emanuel Richter, Daniel Schulz, Winfried Thaa, Thorsten Thiel, Christian Volk, Florian Weber und Sabrina Zucca-Soest. (shrink)

The present paper is an attempt at the investigation of the nature of polarity contrast in natural languages. Truth conditions for natural language sentences are incomplete unless they include a proper definition of the conditions under which they are false. It is argued that the tertium non datur principle of classical bivalent logical systems is empirically invalid for natural languages: falsity cannot be equated with non-truth. Lacking a direct intuition about the conditions under which a sentence is false, we need (...) an independent foundation of the concept of falsity. The solution I offer is a definition of falsity in terms of the truth of a syntactic negation of the sentence. A definition of syntactic negation is proposed for English. (shrink)

Europe’s affluent democracies adopted different policy strategies to buffer their labor markets from the effects of the worldwide recession that followed the financial crisis in 2007. This article offers a sociologically anchored historical institutionalist explanation to account for this divergence. Reviewing the politics of employment policymaking before, during, and after the crisis in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Denmark, the article traces partisan actors’ tactics of maneuvering within the constraints of institutionally embedded mass preferences to legitimate their policies and improve (...) their electoral performance. The analysis moves beyond contemporary treatments of path-dependent institutional evolution in two important ways. Rather than focusing on how arrangements at the work-welfare nexus provide actors with particular functional benefits and differential power resources, it examines institutions’ ideational effects on the construction of electorates’ interests. Moreover, it illuminates partisan politicians’ room for strategic agency, breaking with interpretations that view government responses as the product of particular producer group coalitions. (shrink)

Although it is an increasingly popular assumption that leader mindfulness may positively affect leader behaviors and, in turn, employee outcomes, to date, little empirical evidence supports this view. Against this backdrop, the present research seeks to develop and test a serial mediation model of leader mindfulness. Specifically, we propose that leader mindfulness enhances employee performance and that this relationship is explained by increased leader procedural justice enactment and, subsequently, reduced employees’ emotional exhaustion. We conducted three studies to test this model. (...) Study 1 involved employees from a wide range of organizations in the USA. Study 2 used a sample of leaders and employees from China and measured our model variables at three different points in time. Both studies provide consistent support for our hypotheses. Finally, Study 3 involved a laboratory experiment in which 62 senior executives were assigned to either a mindfulness induction or to a control condition. Again, results revealed a significant and positive link between leader mindfulness and leader procedural justice enactment. In sum, these findings expand our understanding of mindfulness to the domain of leadership, a key area of organizational research. Moreover, they complement prior studies by showing that mindfulness dynamics go beyond intrapersonal effects but also influence the attitudes and behaviors of others. We discuss our findings in light of their contributions to the mindfulness, ethics, and leadership literatures and point out implications for practice. (shrink)

This volume provides a framework for approaching and understanding mental normativity. It presents cutting-edge research on the ethics of belief as well as innovative research beyond the normativity of belief—and towards an ethics of mind. By moving beyond traditional issues of epistemology the contributors discuss the most current ideas revolving around rationality, responsibility, and normativity. -/- The book’s chapters are divided into two main parts. Part I discusses contemporary issues surrounding the normativity of belief. The essays here cover topics such (...) as control over belief and its implication for the ethics of belief, the role of the epistemic community for the possibility of epistemic normativity, responsibility for believing, doxastic partiality in friendship, the structure and content of epistemic norms, and the norms for suspension of judgment. In Part II the focus shifts from the practical dimensions of belief to the normativity and rationality of other mental states—especially blame, passing thoughts, fantasies, decisions, and emotions. These essays illustrate how we might approach an ethics of mind by focusing not only on belief, but also on debates about responsibility, rationality, These essays illustrate how we might approach an ethics of mind by focusing not only on belief, but also more generally on debates about responsibility and rationality, as well as on normative questions concerning other mental states or attitudes. -/- The Ethics of Belief and Beyond paves the way towards an ethics of mind by building on and contributing to recent philosophical discussions in the ethics of belief and the normativity of other mental phenomena. It will be of interest to upper-level students and researchers working in epistemology, ethics, philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, and moral psychology. (shrink)

Zu den wichtigsten Wirkungen Nietzsches gehört seine produktive Rezeption durch jene Autoren des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts, die der sogenannten Konservativen Revolution zugerechnet werden. Der Band bietet einen breiten problemgeschichtlichen Überblick im interdisziplinären Zusammenspiel von literatur-, philosophie- und politikgeschichtlichen Zugängen und erschließt damit erstmals umfassend Nietzsches Bedeutung für die Konservative Revolution.

Die gesellschaftspolitischen Konflikte um die Verschärfung von Fluggastkontrollen belegen, dass es bei Entscheidungen darüber, wie und mit welchen Techniken derartige Kontrollprozesse zu organisieren sind, einen Bedarf an ethischer Expertise gibt. Getroffen werden müssen solche Entscheidungen vor einem komplexen Horizont von Wertvorstellungen, der sich nicht auf den Gegensatz ‚entweder Sicherheit oder Freiheit‘ reduzieren lässt. Entsprechend muss eine informierte Entscheidungsfindung berücksichtigen, welche impliziten Wertvorstellungen uns bei der Forderung nach mehr Sicherheit durch Fluggastkontrollen leiten und welche Wertungskonflikte verschiedene Kontrolltechniken jeweils konkret implizieren. Über (...) eine hermeneutische Lesart von John Deweys Moralpragmatismus werden in dieser Arbeit jene Wertvorstellungen rekonstruiert, die uns bei der Forderung nach Sicherheit leiten, wie auch jene, die dabei auf dem Spiel stehen. Auf dieser Basis präsentiert die Arbeit eine Methode zur operationalisierten Technikbewertung, über die verschiedene Kontrollprozesse verglichen sowie Handlungsempfehlungen generiert werden können. (shrink)

Belief revision theory and philosophy of science both aspire to shed light on the dynamics of knowledge – on how our view of the world changes in the light of new evidence. Yet these two areas of research have long seemed strangely detached from each other, as witnessed by the small number of cross-references and researchers working in both domains. One may speculate as to what has brought about this surprising, and perhaps unfortunate, state of affairs. One factor may be (...) that while belief revision theory has traditionally been pursued in a bottom- up manner, focusing on the endeavors of single inquirers, philosophers of science, inspired by logical empiricism, have tended to be more interested in science as a multi-agent or agent-independent phenomenon. (shrink)

Die Naturphilosophie und die Politische Philosophie werden gemeinhin als Disziplinen aufgefasst, die grundlegend verschiedene Problembereiche zum Gegenstand haben. Die Aporien zu überwinden, welche daraus resultieren, ist die Pointe von Plessners Philosophischer Anthropologie. In dieser Studie wird gezeigt, wie Plessner in der Aneignung elementarer Topoi der klassischen Ontologie eine strukturell neuartige "Ontologie des Organischen" entwickelt. Dieser von Plessner beiläufig verwendete Ausdruck wird in dieser Studie systematisch entwickelt. Was dabei elaboriert wird, ist eine komplexe naturphilosophische "Ontologie des Ausgleichs". In dieser Ontologie des (...) Ausgleichs werden elementare naturphilosophische Ausgleichsleistungen expliziert, die als solche einen Doppelsinn haben: was auf der organismischen Ebene strukturell als Ausgleich des organischen Körpers mit sich selbst und der Umwelt expliziert wird, nimmt im menschlichen Bereich die Gestalt einer Ontologie der Personen an, wo die strukturell identische Ausgleichsleistung als das Spiel der Personalisierung zu vollziehen ist. Plessners Ansatz wird hier als ein auf diese Fragen neuartig antwortender, gleichberechtigt als ontologischer und sozialphilosophischer Ansatz expliziert. (shrink)

Moral responsibility seems to presuppose personal identity. However, there are problems with this view, raised by Derek Parfit’s arguments for the view that personal identity isn’t what matters for our practical concerns. While Parfit discusses moral responsibility only in passing, the problems that arise for the connection between moral responsibility and personal identity have recently been sharpened by David Shoemaker. This paper defends the claim that moral responsibility presupposes personal identity against these problems. It argues, first, that only reductionist views (...) about personal identity have problems with the connection between responsibility and identity, which suggests that personal identity is a non-reductionist concept. Second, it argues that while non-reductionism is problematic, there is a novel view—non-representationalism about personal identity, according to which we account for personal identity in terms of a distinctive non-representational function—that is equally well-positioned to rescue the connection as non-reductionism, without suffering from non-reductionism’s problems. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, Derek Baker (Erkenntnis 83(4):829–852, 2018) raises an objection to expressivism as it has been developed by Mark Schroeder (Being for, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008). Baker argues that Schroeder’s expressivist (1) is committed to certain sentences expressing rationally incoherent states of mind, and he objects (2) that the expressivist cannot explain why these states would be rationally incoherent. The aim of this paper is to show that Baker’s argument for (1) is unsound, and (...) that (1) is unlikely to be true. This obviates the need to explain the alleged rational incoherence, and so Baker’s objection to Schroeder’s expressivism is undermined. (shrink)

The KK principle states that knowing entails knowing that one knows. This historically popular principle has fallen out of favour among many contemporary philosophers in light of putative counterexamples. Recently, some have defended more palatable versions of KK by weakening the principle. These revisions remain faithful to their predecessor in spirit while escaping crucial objections. This paper examines the prospects of such a strategy. It is argued that revisions of the original principle can be captured by a generalized knowledge iteration (...) principle, Weak-KK, which states that knowing entails the possibility of knowing that one knows. But Weak-KK is vulnerable to an unknowability result and therefore must be rejected. The arguments here suggest that retreating to weaker iteration principles is not an option for the KK enthusiast. (shrink)

BackgroundClustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats-associated technology may allow for efficient and highly targeted gene editing in single-cell embryos. This possibility brings human germline editing into the focus of ethical and legal debates again.Main bodyAgainst this background, we explore essential ethical and legal questions of interventions into the human germline by means of CRISPR-Cas: How should issues of risk and uncertainty be handled? What responsibilities arise regarding future generations? Under which conditions can germline editing measures be therapeutically legitimized? For this (...) purpose, we refer to a scenario anticipating potential further development in CRISPR-Cas technology implying improved accuracy and exclusion of germline transmission to future generations. We show that, if certain concepts regarding germline editing are clarified, under such conditions a categorical prohibition of one-generation germline editing of single-cell embryos appears not to be ethically or legally justifiable.ConclusionThese findings are important prerequisites for the international debate on the ethical and legal justification of germline interventions in the human embryo as well as for the harmonization of international legal standards. (shrink)

Research and activism have increasingly denounced the problematic environmental record of the infrastructure and value chain underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). Water-intensive data centres, polluting mineral extraction and e-waste dumping are incontrovertibly part of AI’s footprint. In this article, I turn to areas affected by AI-fuelled environmental harm and identify an ethics of resistance emerging from local activists, which I term ‘elemental ethics’. Elemental ethics interrogates the AI value chain’s problematic relationship with the elements that make up the world, critiques the (...) undermining of local and ancestral approaches to nature and reveals the vital and quotidian harms engendered by so-called intelligent systems. While this ethics is emerging from grassroots and Indigenous groups, it echoes recent calls from environmental philosophy to reconnect with the environment via the elements. In empirical terms, this article looks at groups in Chile resisting a Google data centre project in Santiago and lithium extraction (used for rechargeable batteries) in Lickan Antay Indigenous territory, Atacama Desert. As I show, elemental ethics can complement top-down, utilitarian and quantitative approaches to AI ethics and sustainable AI as well as interrogate whose lived experience and well-being counts in debates on AI extinction. (shrink)

This volume includes the commentaries on two works from the third volume of the Critical Studies Edition of Nietzsche's Works: Morgenröthe (The Dawn), and Idyllen aus Messina (Idylls from Messina). Volume 3.2 will be devoted to commentary on The Gay Science. This volume includes the manuscript facsimiles of the Idyllen aus Messina.

Die analytische Philosophie hat selbst da, wo sie explizit an Kant anschließt, erhebliche Schwierigkeiten mit dessen Idee eines synthetischen Wissens a priori. Damit verliert sie eine ganze Dimension der philosophischen Tradition. Das vorliegende Buch gewinnt diese Idee zurück, indem es gerade den Anschauungsbezug und damit den Zeitbezug des menschlichen Denkens zum Gegenstand einer logischen Untersuchung macht. Nur wenn man die Zeit als inneres und formbildendes Merkmal des menschlichen Aussagens erkennt, versteht man den Begriff empirischer Wahrheit und sinnlich vermittelter Erkenntnis. In (...) diesem Gedanken, so zeigt sich, liegt die Einheit einer philosophischen Tradition, die Aristoteles mit Kant und beide mit dem späten Wittgenstein verbindet. (shrink)

Discussions regarding which norms, if any, govern our practices of forming, maintaining and relinquishing beliefs have come to be collected under the label “The ethics of belief”. Included in the ethics of belief are debates about how those normative issues relate to the nature of belief, whether belief formation is, for example, ever voluntary. The present talk concerns an analogous set of questions regarding our practices of attention. “The ethics of attention” thus concerns the discussion of which norms, if any, (...) govern our practices of attention: what norms govern what we should attend to, how we should engage our capacity for attention, when we should begin and when we should stop to pay attention to something? Like the ethics of belief, the ethics of attention will connect those normative questions to issues regarding the nature of attention, what may or may not be subject to such normative pressures. Compared with rich, complex, and systematic investigation of the ethics of belief, the study of the ethics of attention is more or less undeveloped. This paper aims to begin to change that. Specifically, it shows that attention is an appropriate target for serious normative investigation and then classifies potential norms of attention along three dimensions: whether they are manner or object based, instrumental or non-instrumental, and whether its source is moral, prudential or epistemic. -/- [EDIT. 10. November 2021: this paper has been superseded by a new version. Please cite that in turn]. (shrink)

We present a new notion of game equivalence that captures basic powers of interacting players. We provide a representation theorem, a complete logic, and a new game algebra for basic powers. In doing so, we establish connections with imperfect information games and epistemic logic. We also identify some new open problems concerning logic and games.

We propose a new perspective on logics of computation by combining instantial neighborhood logic INL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {INL}$$\end{document} with bisimulation safe operations adapted from PDL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {PDL}$$\end{document}. INL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {INL}$$\end{document} is a recent modal logic, based on an extended neighborhood semantics which permits quantification over individual neighborhoods plus their contents. This system has a natural interpretation as a (...) logic of computation in open systems. Motivated by this interpretation, we show that a number of familiar program constructors can be adapted to instantial neighborhood semantics to preserve invariance for instantial neighborhood bisimulations, the appropriate bisimulation concept for INL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {INL}$$\end{document}. We also prove that our extended logic IPDL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {IPDL}$$\end{document} is a conservative extension of dual-free game logic, and its semantics generalizes the monotone neighborhood semantics of game logic. Finally, we provide a sound and complete system of axioms for IPDL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {IPDL}$$\end{document}, and establish its finite model property and decidability. (shrink)

It is commonly held that Bradley’s regress has a solution within a trope ontology. This seems to happen when a bundle is understood as constituted by non-transferable tropes. It also seems to happen when a bundle is understood as constituted by transferable tropes related by a relational trope of compresence whose existence specifically depends on those relata. In this article I demonstrate that these proposals fail in addressing the essential question that underlies the regress, incurring in a question-begging response already (...) anticipated by Bradley. (shrink)