In the article ‘How to be absolutely fair, Part I: the Fairness formula’, we presented the first theory of comparative and absolute fairness. Here, we relate the implications of our Fairness formula to economic theories of fair division. Our analysis makes contributions to both philosophy and economics: to the philosophical literature, we add an axiomatic discussion of proportionality and fairness. To the economic literature, we add an appealing normative theory of absolute and comparative fairness that can be used to evaluate (...) axioms and division rules. Also, we provide a novel definition and characterization of the absolute priority rule. (shrink)

This paper describes and discusses the phenomenon ‘predatory publishing’, in relation to both academic journals and books, and suggests a list of characteristics by which to identify predatory journals. It also raises the question whether traditional publishing houses have accompanied rogue publishers upon this path. It is noted that bioethics as a discipline does not stand unaffected by this trend. Towards the end of the paper it is discussed what can and should be done to eliminate or reduce the effects (...) of this development. The paper concludes that predatory publishing is a growing phenomenon that has the potential to greatly affect both bioethics and science at large. Publishing papers and books for profit, without any genuine concern for content, but with the pretence of applying authentic academic procedures of critical scrutiny, brings about a worrying erosion of trust in scientific publishing. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 32, Issue 2, Page 415-418, April 2023.

Leszek Kolakowski delves into some of the most intellectually vigorous questions of our time in this remarkable collection of essays garnished with his characteristic wit. Ten of the essays have never appeared before in English. "Exemplary.... It should be celebrated." —Arthur C. Danto, _New York Times Book Review_ "This book... express[es] Kolakowski's thought on God, man, reason, history, moral truth and original sin, prompted by observation of the dramatic struggle among Christianity, the Enlightenment and modern totalitarianism. It is a wonderful (...) collection of topics." —Thomas Nagel, _Times Literary Supplement_ "No better antidote to bumper-sticker thinking exists than this collection of 24 'appeals for moderation in consistency,' and never has such an antidote been needed more than it is now." —Joseph Coates, _Chicago Tribune_ "Whether learned or humorous, these essays offer gems in prose of diamond hardness, precision, and brilliance." —Thomas D'Evelyn, _The Christian Science Monitor_ A "Notable Books of the Year 1991" selection, _New York Times Book Review_—a "Noted with Pleasure" selection, _New York Times Book Review_—a "Summer Reading 1991" selection, _New York Times Book Review_—a "Books of the Year" selection, _The Times_. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 90-92.

Theater rehearsals are (usually) confronted with the problem of having to transform a written text into an audio-visual, situated and temporal performance. Our contribution focuses on the emergence and stabilization of a gestural form as a solution for embodying a certain aesthetic concept which is derived from the script. This process involves instructions and negotiations, making the process of stabilization publicly and thus intersubjectively accessible. As scenes are repeatedly rehearsed, rehearsals are perspicuous settings for tracking interactional histories. Based on videotaped (...) professional theatre interactions in Germany, we focus on consecutive instances of rehearsing the same scene and trace the interactional history of a particular gesture. This gesture is used by the director to instruct the actors to play a particular aspect of a scene adopting a certain aesthetic concept. Stabilization requires the emergence of shared knowledge. We will show the practices by which shared knowledge is established over time during the rehearsal process and, in turn, how the accumulation of knowledge contributes to a change in the interactional practices themselves. Specifically, we show how a gesture emerges in the process of developing and embodying an aesthetic concept, and how this gesture eventually becomes a sign that refers to and evokes accumulated knowledge. At the same time, we show how this accumulated knowledge changes the instructional activities in the rehearsal process. Our study contributes to the overall understanding of knowledge accumulation in interaction in general and in theater rehearsals in particular. At the same time, it is devoted to the central importance of gestures in theater, which are both a means and a product of theatrical staging. (shrink)

Towards a critical posthumanism -- Genealogy of posthumanism -- Our posthuman humanity and the multiplicity of its forms -- Posthumanism and science fiction -- Interdisciplinarity and the posthumanities -- Posthumanism, digitalization, and new media -- Posthumanity, subject, and system -- Other side of life.

Recently several educational theorists have argued for the incorporation of a scepticism of a postmodern kind into educational theory and into educational research more specifically. Their understanding of postmodernism in terms of scepticism harbours much potential, but to avoid confusion and misunderstanding it is of importance that the ‘scepticism’ associated with postmodernism is distinguished from traditional philosophical scepticism, be it as part of the very process of theoretical scrutiny or as a challenge towards its results. In this paper it will (...) be argued that the interest of postmodernist ‘scepticism’ lies not in a quest for ever more certainty but rather in the way it moves beyond both foundationalism and philosophical scepticism. This will be elaborated from the point of view of a Wittgensteinian understanding of theoretical scrutiny (as found in On Certainty). This opens up the possibility of shedding light on postmodernist ‘scepticism’ in educational theory in terms of an aesthetic distance towards what is reflected upon. (shrink)

An English double-embedded relative clause from which the middle verb is omitted can often be processed more easily than its grammatical counterpart, a phenomenon known as the grammaticality illusion. This effect has been found to be reversed in German, suggesting that the illusion is language specific rather than a consequence of universal working memory constraints. We present results from three self-paced reading experiments which show that Dutch native speakers also do not show the grammaticality illusion in Dutch, whereas both German (...) and Dutch native speakers do show the illusion when reading English sentences. These findings provide evidence against working memory constraints as an explanation for the observed effect in English. We propose an alternative account based on the statistical patterns of the languages involved. In support of this alternative, a single recurrent neural network model that is trained on both Dutch and English sentences is shown to predict the cross-linguistic difference in the grammaticality effect. (shrink)

On the basis of an earlier contribution to the philosophy of computer science by Amnon Eden, this essay discusses to what extent Eden’s ‘paradigms’ of computer science can be transferred or applied to software engineering. This discussion implies an analysis of how software engineering and computer science are related to each other. The essay concludes that software engineering can neither be fully subsumed by computer science, nor vice versa. Consequently, also the philosophies of computer science and software engineering—though related to (...) each other—are not identical branches of a general philosophy of science. This also implies that not all of Eden’s earlier arguments can be directly mapped from the domain of computer science into the domain of software science. After the discussion of this main topic, the essay also points to some further problems and open issues for future studies in the philosophy of software science and engineering. (shrink)

Recently several educational theorists have argued for the incorporation of a scepticism of a postmodern kind into educational theory and into educational research more specifically. Their understanding of postmodernism in terms of scepticism harbours much potential, but to avoid confusion and misunderstanding it is of importance that the ‘scepticism’ associated with postmodernism is distinguished from traditional philosophical scepticism, be it as part of the very process of theoretical scrutiny or as a challenge towards its results. In this paper it will (...) be argued that the interest of postmodernist ‘scepticism’ lies not in a quest for ever more certainty but rather in the way it moves beyond both foundationalism and philosophical scepticism. This will be elaborated from the point of view of a Wittgensteinian understanding of theoretical scrutiny (as found in On Certainty). This opens up the possibility of shedding light on postmodernist ‘scepticism’ in educational theory in terms of an aesthetic distance towards what is reflected upon. (shrink)

The analytical tension between legal norms, moral values, and national interests seems no uncharted territory in political science, but has found very little interest in legal academia. For lawyers, moral values and national interests are largely “unknowns,” dealt with by other disciplines. Looking a bit deeper, the picture becomes more nuanced, however. As part of a roundtable on “Balancing Legal Norms, Moral Values, and National Interests,” this essay argues that norms, values, and interests are not different universes of legal normativity, (...) morality, and specific interests, but are interrelated concepts. Values clearly influence norms and often underpin them, while seemingly concrete norms (rules) are themselves often fragile constructs trying to balance competing interests. Value systems are quite diverse within societies, and this is even truer for interests; each society is a dynamic system of social interaction where conflicting interests are constantly playing out. In a way, underlying conflicts of values and interests are constantly being renegotiated in the legal system, with the norms enshrined in the text of statutes and treaties serving to constitute transitory reference points. (shrink)

Psychological distance effects have attracted the attention of behavioral economists in the context of descriptive modeling and behavioral policy. Indeed, psychological distance effects have been shown for an increasing number of domains and applications relevant to economic decision-making. The current paper questions whether these effects are robust enough for economists to apply them to relevant policy questions. We demonstrate systematic replication failures for the distance-from-a-distance effect shown by Maglio et al., and relate them to theoretical arguments suggesting that psychological distance (...) theories are currently too poorly specified to make predictions that are precise enough for economic analyses. (shrink)

I am focusing here on the main counterarguments that were raised against a thesis I put forward in my article “Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism” (2009), namely that significant similarities can be found on a fundamental level between the concept of the posthuman, as put forward by some transhumanists, and Nietzsche’s concept of the overhuman. The articles with the counterarguments were published in the recent “Nietzsche and European Posthumanisms” issue of The Journal of Evolution and Technology (January-July 2010). As several (...) commentators referred to identical issues, I decided that it would be appropriate not to respond to each of the articles individually, but to focus on the central arguments and to deal with the counterarguments mentioned in the various replies. I am concerned with each topic in a separate section. The sections are entitled as follows: 1. Technology and evolution; 2. Overcoming nihilism; 3. Politics and liberalism; 4. Utilitarianism or virtue ethics?; 5. The good Life; 6. Creativity and the will to power; 7. Immortality and longevity; 8. Logocentrism; 9. The Third Reich. When dealing with the various topics, I am not merely responding to counterarguments; I also raise questions concerning transhumanism and put forward my own views concerning some of the questions I am dealing with. (shrink)

The dissertation provides a reconstruction of Bernard Bolzano's theory of grounding (both in early and late works) against the background of a classical conception of science and scientific explanation.

My aim in this paper is to propose a way to resolve a supposed dilemma currently troubling the debate about rational belief formation in cases of peer disagreement. In section 1, I will introduce the general debate in question as well as the kind of view figuring in the supposed dilemma. In section 2, I will describe how the supposed dilemma arises. In section 3, I will consider the replies that have hitherto been offered and explain in how far these (...) replies should be regarded as unsatisfying. Finally, in sections 4 and 5, I will propose and defend a new reply to the supposed dilemma. This reply consists in rejecting the intuitively appealing view that one should be conciliatory in the relevant kind of case, and in endorsing a more careful position, which respects the intuitions behind conciliationism and which, in contrast to the latter, does not give rise to the kind of dilemma in question. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.ON THE SUPPOSED DILEMMA OF CONCILIATIONISMVolume 13, Issue 3Stefan ReiningDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2015.47Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. ON THE SUPPOSED DILEMMA OF CONCILIATIONISMVolume 13, Issue 3Stefan ReiningDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2015.47Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. ON THE SUPPOSED DILEMMA OF CONCILIATIONISMVolume 13, Issue 3Stefan ReiningDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2015.47Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

This chapter discusses some of the central theoretical perspectives on culture and cultural practices implied in Pragmatism and interactive constructivism. The first part of the chapter highlights three major perspectives on cultural theory to be found in Dewey's thought: culture and experience, culture and habit, and culture and communication. The chapter then compares basic conceptual tools and interpretive approaches and shows that Dewey's work continues to provide fundamental resources in this field. Through this connection, it presents a brief introduction to (...) theories of discourse and power and discusses some implications for current controversies regarding multiculturalism. It argues that Dewey's Pragmatism and the Cologne program of interactive constructivism share a robust interest in culture and cultural diversity. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the question of the scope of justice, in a not unusual distributive, egalitarian, and universalistic framework. Part I outlines some central features of the egalitarian theory of justice I am proposing. According to such a conception, justice is – at least prima facie – immediately universal, and therefore global. It does not morally recognize any judicial boundaries or limits. Part II examines whether, even from a universalistic perspective, there are moral or pragmatic grounds for rejecting (...) or limiting the global scope of justice. In particular, I scrutinize five universalistic objections: (1) the principle of “moral division of labor”; (2) the connection between cooperation and distributive justice; (3) the primacy of democracy; (4) the dangers of a world state; and (5) political‐pragmatic reasons. I intend to show that these objections cannot undermine the strong normative claims of global justice. At the most, political‐pragmatic reasons speak in favor of initially striving for somewhat less, in order to receive more general backing. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 32, Issue 3, Page 877-881, July 2023.

This contribution examines the beginnings of the literary research program based in Geistesgeschichte by considering the work of one of its prominent practitioners, Fritz Strich. The aim is to identify an understanding of geistesgeschichtliche methodology that is relevant and practicable today, in contrast with its original »novelistic« implementation in Strich’s work.

This article addresses the possible conditions under which parodies of prayer could emerge and be transmitted in the High and Late Middle Ages. It aims to offer a systematic overview over the different forms of prayer parody in the German-speaking Middle Ages. After some preliminary remarks on definitions I suggest a typology of German-speaking prayer parodies and conclude with some general observations on the possible contexts in which such texts were used.

Robert Spaemanns Philosophie und Ethik stellen eine Herausforderung für die zeitgenössische Philosophie wie für die Moraltheologie dar. Er steht dem "Projekt der Moderne" kritisch, wenn nicht gar ablehnend gegenüber, da er darin Totalitarismen erblickt, die dazu führen, dass die Metaphysik mehr und mehr durch ein funktionales Denken abgelöst wird. In sokratischer Manier hinterfragt er die Argumentationen so lange, bis sie den Gesetzen der Vernunft genügen oder ihre Ergänzungsbedürftigkeit, wenn nicht Haltlosigkeit offenkundig ist. Die vorliegende Untersuchung zeigt dies vor allem anhand (...) der ethischen Schriften von Spaemann auf, auch wenn er sich nie als Ethiker, sondern grundsätzlich als Philosoph bezeichnet. 0Die Auseinandersetzung mit der konsequenzialistischen Moralbegründung steht daher im Vordergrund und konkretisiert sich in einzelnen ethischen Handlungsfeldern. Spaemanns Argumentation basiert hierbei auf seinem Verständnis von Natur und Naturrecht, dem Verständnis der menschlichen Person und seinen grundsätzlichen philosophischen und religionsphilosophischen Grundlagen. 00. (shrink)

To philosophize or not is a matter of conscious choice and option. But when we start with such a premise, we have to lay down what we understand by this activity. In the paper the author undertakes this task, distinguishing four-fold the philosophizing practice with regard to the domain of aesthetics. In the final section of the paper he considers the problem which seems to him fundamental, namely why today philosophizing via aesthetics in a definite way should be recommendable and (...) primary, as well as why it has to be bitter-juicy. (shrink)

A computational model of inference during story comprehension is presented, in which story situations are represented distributively as points in a high‐dimensional “situation‐state space.” This state space organizes itself on the basis of a constructed microworld description. From the same description, causal/temporal world knowledge is extracted. The distributed representation of story situations is more flexible than Golden and Rumelhart's [Discourse Proc 16 (1993) 203] localist representation.A story taking place in the microworld corresponds to a trajectory through situation‐state space. During the (...) inference process, world knowledge is applied to the story trajectory. This results in an adjusted trajectory, reflecting the inference of propositions that are likely to be the case. Although inferences do not result from a search for coherence, they do cause story coherence to increase. The results of simulations correspond to empirical data concerning inference, reading time, and depth of processing.An extension of the model for simulating story retention shows how coherence is preserved during retention without controlling the retention process. Simulation results correspond to empirical data concerning story recall and intrusion. (shrink)

The ocean’s properties and processes are now mostly known through distributed sensor networks. Among the most widespread of such networks are those that connect wave-measuring buoys. Buoys have been deployed and consulted by national meteorological organizations, state militaries, multinational corporations, and citizens. This paper zeroes in on the Directional Waverider, the most widely used buoy, manufactured since 1961 in the Netherlands by Datawell. I am interested in this buoy’s material qualities and networks of use, its life within legal frameworks, and (...) its media ecology. Staging my account against the metaphysical Italian author Italo Calvino’s “Reading a Wave,” I explore what it means to “read” a sensing technology. (shrink)

In this article we focus on how the language of developmental psychology shapes our conceptualisations and understandings of childrearing and of the parent-child relationship. By analysing some examples of contemporary research, policy and popular literature on parenting and parenting support in the UK and Flanders, we explore some of the ways in which normative assumptions about parenthood and upbringing are imported into these areas through the language of developmental psychology. We go on to address the particular attraction of developmental psychology (...) in the field of parenting and upbringing within our current cultural context. Drawing on the work of (among others) Zygmunt Bauman, we will show how developmental psychology, as one of the instruments that contributes to a breaking down of our existential condition into a series of well-defined, and thus apparently manageable, tasks and categories, displaces rather than confronts the possibly limitless depth of the enormity of the reality of ‘being a parent’. (shrink)