Cet article propose une réflexion sur la spécificité de cet art en marge qu’est le catch. Prenant le contre-pied du célèbre article de Roland Barthes, son ambition est de penser une part sadique de l’appréciation de cet art qui ne se résume pas à la recherche de sensations fortes, mais qui constitue un véritable approfondissement sensible. L’objet de cette appréciation est le heurt, c’est-à-dire l’irruption d’une douleur factuelle dans un cadre fictionnel, déclenchant un jeu plaisant entre factualité et fictionnalité, rendu (...) possible par la grande perméabilité de la structure fictionnelle du catch. L’article distingue trois types de heurts : la chute, les marques sur le corps et le sang. (shrink)

Looking back on it, it seems almost incredible that so many equally educated, equally sincere compatriots and contemporaries, all drawing from the same limited stock of evidence, should have reached so many totally different conclusions---and always with complete certainty.

The Gamer’s Dilemma refers to the philosophical challenge of justifying the intuitive difference people seem to see between the moral permissibility of enacting virtual murder and the moral impermissibility of enacting virtual child molestation in video games (Luck Ethics and Information Technology, 1:31, 2009). Recently, Luck in Philosophia, 50:1287–1308, 2022 has argued that the Gamer’s Dilemma is actually an instance of a more general “paradox”, which he calls the “paradox of treating wrongdoing lightly”, and he proposes a graveness resolution to (...) this paradox. In response, we argue for four key claims. First, we accept Luck’s expansion of the Gamer’s Dilemma to be applicable to a wider set of media, but give a novel recasting of this in terms of the Paradox of Fictionally Going Too Far. Second, we develop a novel criticism of Luck in Philosophia, 50:1287–1308, 2022 graveness resolution to this broader paradox. Third, we argue that the Paradox of Fictionally Going Too Far helps to expose an implicit moralism in the Gamer’s Dilemma literature when compared to relevant nearby literatures about other forms of media. Fourth, we consider a range of non-moral, cultural and media conventions that plausibly help to dissolve the intuitive moral gap between non-sexual and sexual violence that is central to this paradox. (shrink)

The Elephant and the Blind is a book about why we need a new culture of consciousness, and how to get it. A culture of consciousness (or Bewusstseinskultur) is a culture that values and cultivates the mental states of its members in an ethical and evidence-based way.

In this article, we argue that rational persuasion can be a _pro tanto_ wrong and that online platforms possess features that are especially conducive to this wrong. We begin by setting out an account of rational persuasion. This consists of four jointly sufficient conditions for rational persuasion and is intended to capture the core, uncontroversial cases of such persuasion. We then discuss a series of wrong-making features which are present in methods of influence commonly thought of as _pro tanto_ wrong, (...) such as manipulation and paternalism. It is next shown that these wrong-making features are also present in a range of cases that are, by the jointly sufficient conditions already established, rational persuasion, and so some forms of rational persuasion are _pro tanto_ wrong, including in some ways that have not previously been remarked upon. Finally, we demonstrate that online settings possess a number of features that are especially conducive to wrongful rational persuasion. (shrink)

The term robustness is ubiquitous in modern Machine Learning (ML). However, its meaning varies depending on context and community. Researchers either focus on narrow technical definitions, such as adversarial robustness, natural distribution shifts, and performativity, or they simply leave open what exactly they mean by robustness. In this paper, we provide a conceptual analysis of the term robustness, with the aim to develop a common language, that allows us to weave together different strands of robustness research. We define robustness as (...) the relative stability of a robustness target with respect to specific interventions on a modifier. Our account captures the various sub-types of robustness that are discussed in the research literature, including robustness to distribution shifts, prediction robustness, or the robustness of algorithmic explanations. Finally, we delineate robustness from adjacent key concepts in ML, such as extrapolation, generalization, and uncertainty, and establish it as an independent epistemic concept. (shrink)

The first aim of this paper is to prove a topological completeness theorem for a weak version of Stalnaker’s logic KB of knowledge and belief. The weak version of KB is characterized by the assumption that the axioms and rules of KB have to be satisfied with the exception of the axiom (NI) of negative introspection. The proof of a topological completeness theorem for weak KB is based on the fact that nuclei (as defined in the framework of point-free topology) (...) give rise to a profusion of topological belief operators that are compatible with the familiar topological knowledge operator. Thereby a canonical topological model for weak KB can be constructed. For this canonical model a truth lemma for the K and B holds such that a completeness theorem for KB can be proved in the familiar way. The second aim of this paper is to show that the topological interpretation of knowledge K comes along with a complete Heyting algebra of belief operators B that all fit the knowledge operator K in the sense that the pairs (K, B) satisfy all axioms of weak KB. This amounts to a pluralistic relation between knowledge and belief: Knowledge does not fully determine belief, rather it designs a conceptual space for belief operators where different (competing) belief operators coexist. (shrink)

A prominent Thomistic cosmological argument maintains that an infinite regress of causes, which exhibits a certain pattern of ontological dependence among its members, would be vicious and so must terminate in a first member. Interestingly, Jonathan Schaffer offers a similar argument in the contemporary grounding literature for the view called metaphysical foundationalism. I consider the striking similarities between both arguments and conclude that both are unsuccessful for the same reason. I argue this negative result gives us indirect reason to consider (...) metaphysical infinitism as a genuine possibility, the view that chains of ontological dependence or ground can descend indefinitely. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence research and regulation seek to balance the benefits of innovation against any potential harms and disruption. However, one unintended consequence of the recent surge in AI research is the potential re-orientation of AI technologies to facilitate criminal acts, term in this chapter AI-Crime. AIC is theoretically feasible thanks to published experiments in automating fraud targeted at social media users, as well as demonstrations of AI-driven manipulation of simulated markets. However, because AIC is still a relatively young and inherently (...) interdisciplinary area—spanning socio-legal studies to formal science—there is little certainty of what an AIC future might look like. This chapter offers the first systematic, interdisciplinary literature analysis of the foreseeable threats of AIC, providing ethicists, policy-makers, and law enforcement organisations with a synthesis of the current problems, and a possible solution space. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of how the implementation of ML models into healthcare settings requires revising the methodological apparatus of philosophical bioethics. On this account, ML models are cognitive interventions that provide decision-support to physicians and patients. Due to reliability issues, opaque reasoning processes, and information asymmetries, ML models pose inferential problems for them. These inferential problems lay the grounds for many ethical problems that currently claim centre-stage in the bioethical debate. Accordingly, this paper argues that the best way (...) to make progress in remedying these ethical problems is to distil their epistemic core and to identify appropriate epistemic norms as guardrails. The viability of this approach will be highlighted based on four key issues: trust, responsibility, paternalism, and fairness. In that respect, the paper also contributes to a more pronounced view of the specific methodological challenges for ethical theorizing, when the point of reference are complex statistical models that make predictions, rather than individual agents, acting for reasons. (shrink)

This work is a historical study of the philosophical writings emerging from Imperial Russia's theological "academies" – Orthodoxy’s higher educational institutions that ran parallel to the secular universities – from their inception to the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution. Unlike with nineteenth century Russian revolutionary thought, there are few secondary studies of the philosophical works stemming from the academies. These philosophical works focused on ontology and, as such, stand in sharp contrast to the shift toward epistemology in that century as (...) happened in Germany. Another feature of the "academy" philosophies was the continual and explicit attempt to set themselves apart from the pervasive "subjectivism" of Western philosophical systems, although a largely unacknowledged influence persisted. At no time did the academy philosophers look to rational inquiry for more than an assist in understanding their theology. Instead they appealed to tradition and to an alleged direct insight into religious truths at the expense of logic and rational argument. The ultimate result was the pecular historical insularity of their community and concomitantly a subservience to the political state, traits that persist to this day. (shrink)

A premise of the Leibnizian cosmological argument from contingency says that no contingent fact can explain why there are any contingent facts at all. David Hume and Paul Edwards famously denied this premise, arguing that if every fact has an explanation in terms of further facts ad infinitum, then they all do. This is known as the Hume–Edwards Principle (HEP). In this paper, I examine the cosmological argument from contingency within a framework of metaphysical explanation or ground and defend a (...) ground-theoretic version of HEP which says, roughly, that the plurality of contingent facts is grounded in its members. (shrink)

I defend a novel way of working out the Balancing View of Ought, that is, the view that whether one ought to take some action depends on nothing but the balance of the reasons for the action and those against it or for its alternatives. I show that the Balancing View needs to be complemented by certain principles of reason transmission, at least one of which might seem rather surprising. The result is an attractive theoretical package that allows for compelling (...) explanations of noteworthy normative phenomena, including ones that the Balancing View has been claimed to be at odds with. (shrink)

The thesis of this essay is that equal opportunity (EO) "strictly dominates" (in the game-theoretic sense) reparations. That is, (1) all the ways reparations would make our world more just would also be achieved under EO; (2) EO would make our world more just in ways reparations cannot; and (3) reparations would create injustices which EO would avoid. Further, (4) EO has important practical advantages over reparations. These include economic efficiency, feasibility, and long-term impact. Supporters of reparations should abandon that (...) ideal to support equal opportunity instead. (shrink)

What are the truth conditions of want ascriptions? According to an influential approach, they are intimately connected to the agent’s beliefs: ⌜S wants p⌝ is true iff, within S’s belief set, S prefers the p worlds to the not-p worlds. This approach faces a well-known problem, however: it makes the wrong predictions for what we call (counter)factual want ascriptions, wherein the agent either believes p or believes not-p—for example, ‘I want it to rain tomorrow and that is exactly what is (...) going to happen’ or ‘I want this weekend to last forever, but of course it will end in a few hours’. We solve this problem. The truth conditions for want ascriptions are, we propose, connected to the agent’s conditional beliefs. We substantiate this connection by pursuing a striking parallel between (counter)factual and non-(counter)factual want ascriptions on the one hand and counterfactual and indicative conditionals on the other. (shrink)

The work of Thomas White represents a systematic attempt to combine the best of the new science of the seventeenth century with the best of Aristotelian tradition. This attempt earned him the criticism of Hobbes and the praise of Leibniz, but today, most of his attempts to navigate between traditions remain to be explored in detail. This paper does so for his ontology of accidents. It argues that his criticism of accidents in the category of location as entities over (...) and above substances was likely aimed at Francisco Suárez, and shows how White’s worries about the analysis of location were linked with his broader cosmological views. White rejects real qualities, but holds that the quantity of a substance is somehow distinct from its bearer. This reveals a common ground with some of his scholastic interlocutors, but lays bare a deep disagreement with thinkers like Descartes on the nature of matter. (shrink)

Abstract. Traditional epistemology of knowledge and belief can be succinctly characterized as JTB-epistemology, i.e., it is characterized by the thesis that knowledge is justified true belief. Since Gettier’s trail-blazing paper of 1963 this account has become under heavy attack. The aim of is paper is to study the Gettier problem and related issues in the framework of topological epistemic logic. It is shown that in the framework of topological epistemic logic Gettier situations necessarily occur for most topological models of knowledge (...) and belief. On the other hand, there exists a special class of topological models (based on so called nodec spaces) for which traditional JTB-epistemology is valid. Further, it is shown that for each topological model of Stalnaker’s combined logic KB of knowledge and belief a canonical JTB-model (its JTB-doppelganger) can be constructed that shares many structural properties with the original model but is free of Gettier situations. The topological model and its JTB-doppelganger both share the same justified belief operator and have very similar knowledge operators. Seen from a somewhat different perspective, the JTB-account of epistemology amounts to a simplification of a more general epistemological account of knowledge and belief that assumes that these two concepts may differ in some cases. The JTB-account of knowledge and belief assumes that the epistemic agent’s cognitive powers are rather large. Thereby in the JTB-epistemology Gettier cases do not occur. Eventually, it is shown that for all topological models of Stalnaker’s KB-logic Gettier situations are topologically characterized as nowhere dense situations. This entails that Gettier situations are epistemologically invisible in the sense that they can neither be known nor believed with justification with respect to the knowledge operator and the belief operator of the models involved. (shrink)

Debate over the normativity of virtual phenomena is now widespread in the philosophical literature, taking place in roughly two distinct but related camps. The first considers the relevant problems to be within the scope of applied ethics, where the general methodological program is to square the intuitive (im)permissibility of virtual wrongdoings with moral accounts that justify their (im)permissibility. The second camp approaches the normativity of virtual wrongdoings as a metaphysical debate. This is done by disambiguating the ‘virtual’ character of ‘virtual (...) wrongdoings’. Doing so is supposed to provide illuminating ontological distinctions that inform ethical aspects of the debate. We argue that each approach faces its own set of issues, and as a result, motivates consideration of an alternative. The alternative we suggest turns inquiry concerning the normativity of virtual wrongdoings into a distinctively conceptual question. Rather than asking whether some action is right or wrong, or whether some virtual phenomenon counts as a particular action at all, we argue that research into the normativity of virtual wrongdoings may be guided by reflecting on whether a concept that originated and developed within a non-virtual context should be exported into a foreign virtual domain. We consider this approach and several objections. (shrink)

Naturalism is the current orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Naturalism is the conjunction of the (ontological) claim that all that truly exists are the entities countenanced by the natural sciences and the (epistemological) claim that the only true knowledge is natural-scientific knowledge. Drawing on some recent work in Critical Theory, this article argues that naturalism qualifies as an ideology. This is the case because naturalism meets three key aspects shared by paradigmatic cases of ideology: (i) naturalism has practical consequences and implications (...) of a specific kind, (ii) those endorsing naturalism fall prey to a dual deception: having false meta-level beliefs about naturalism as being without alternative, and (iii) naturalism has a tendency towards self-immunisation. The article ends by suggesting we pull naturalism out of our collective cognitive backgrounds onto the main stage of critical discourse, making it a proper topic for philosophical critique again. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Theron Pummer's impressive new book The Rules of Rescue seeks to defend effective altruism without taking on the controversial moral theoretical commitments. Through an exploration of the framework of requiring reasons and permitting reasons that is the backbone of his argument, this article raises some doubts about how successful Pummer's strategy of avoidance can be.

While major cases of whistleblowing may not be an everyday occurrence, their effects are often wide-ranging, celebrated, and controversial. Given this potent cocktail, the whistleblower is conspicuously undertheorized within sociology and social theory. Research today takes place mainly within management, business, psychology, law, and public administration studies. While some of this work does draw on sociological theory, we lack a general theory that combines attention to the historical context of whistleblowing, the nature of its critique and intervention, and the democratic (...) meanings with which it is associated. This article offers such a framework. The argument consists of three components. First, whistleblowing is historically tied to the decline of authority in the 1960s and the 1970s. Second, building on field and systems theory, the whistleblower is seen as a field transgressor who, with a democratic intent, exposes information ‘belonging’ to a specific field in the public sphere. Third, in doing so, he/she is cast as both a hero and a villain in a democratic drama about the moral-political foundations of society. (shrink)

In a world of rising income inequality, right-wing nationalisms, and global climate change, people are again looking to Karl Marx for answers. This book offers readers a new perspective on several major ideas in Marx's work. It argues that Marx, contrary to convention, did not think history was deterministic or that reality could be reduced to classical materialism. Marx was not an anthropocentric humanist nor did he have a labor theory of value. This book is written to help those returning (...) to Marx today get answers to their pressing questions about the nature of wealth, ecological crisis, gender inequality, colonialism, migration, and the possibility of socialism. (shrink)

Social scientific reasoning (SSR) is essential to social science education and to a democratic society as a whole. Students are challenged to analyze and reason about social problems such as social inequality, crime, and poverty. However, students experience difficulties with SSR. This study addresses the research question: Which design principles can guide teachers in designing lessons that promote social scientific reasoning? In this design-based research, four social science teachers employed a conceptualization of SSR and its levels together with three initial (...) design principles to develop curriculum materials and activities. These design principles and curriculum materials were piloted in two secondary education classes (9th and 10th grades) and evaluated by four social science teachers, four social science teacher educators and 90 students. The study produced six design principles that can promote students’ SSR. In combination with the curriculum materials, those design principles can help develop teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and guide the design of tasks and units that develop SSR. (shrink)

Detection theory has been applied to a host of varied problems (for example, measuring the accuracy of diagnostic systems or reliability of lie detection tests) and extends far beyond the detection of signals. This book is a primer on the subject.

After a wave of breakthroughs in image‐based medical diagnostics and risk prediction models, machine learning (ML) has turned into a normal science. However, prominent researchers are claiming that another paradigm shift in medical ML is imminent—due to most recent staggering successes of large language models—from single‐purpose applications toward generalist models, driven by natural language. This article investigates the implications of this paradigm shift for the ethical debate. Focusing on issues like trust, transparency, threats of patient autonomy, responsibility issues in the (...) collaboration of clinicians and ML models, fairness, and privacy, it will be argued that the main problems will be continuous with the current debate. However, due to functioning of large language models, the complexity of all these problems increases. In addition, the article discusses some profound challenges for the clinical evaluation of large language models and threats to the reproducibility and replicability of studies about large language models in medicine due to corporate interests. (shrink)

Have humans been sharing the planet with other intelligent life for millions of years without realizing it? _In Defense of Dolphins_ combines accessible science and philosophy, surveying the latest research on dolphin intelligence and social behavior, to advocate for their ethical treatment. Encourages a reassessment of the human-dolphin relationship, arguing for an end to the inhuman treatment of dolphins Written by an expert philosopher with almost twenty-years of experience studying dolphins Combines up-to-date research supporting the sophisticated cognitive and emotional capacities (...) of dolphins with entertaining first-hand accounts Looks at the serious questions of intelligent life, ethical treatment, and moral obligation Engaging and thought-provoking. (shrink)

In this chapter, I consider the unity of self-consciousness and objectivity. Starting from the notion that the objective character and the self-conscious character of thought seem in tension, I discuss Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness and Objectivity and his thesis that this tension is merely apparent. This resolution suggests an immediate route to absolute idealism. I recall two Hegelian objections against such an immediate route. Against this background, it transpires that the dissolution of the apparent opposition of objectivity and self-consciousness can only (...) be a preliminary step, opening our eyes to an actual opposition animating the pursuit of knowledge: the opposition of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge. This actual opposition cannot be removed as merely apparent and instead has to be sublated through articulation of its speculative unity. I consider two paradigms for the exposition of such a speculative unity: Kant’s account of judgments of beauty, and Hegel’s account of the speculative unity of life and self-consciousness. I close by contrasting these two approaches with Rödl’s characterization, which strikes me as one-sided. Absolute idealism, properly understood, requires us to develop the speculative unity of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge from both sides, showing us that knowledge of nature is self-knowledge, but equally: that self-knowledge requires knowledge of ourselves as nature. (shrink)

Art has long been said to open up a different relationship to nature for the subject than ordinary theoretical or practical knowledge allows. Instead of making nature the distanced object of our contemplation or the mere material and means of our practical constructions, art discloses to us an intelligibility of nature that reaches further than our concepts and a naturalness of ourselves that connects us with what we usually relate to as our other. Against this backdrop, it does not seem (...) surprising that the discussions about the problematic relationship to nature that have characterised the Anthropocene repeatedly turn to art and highlight its ability to overcome the problematic modern opposition of subject and object, spirit and nature, which has got us in this mess. In what follows, I want to argue, however, that art and aesthetic experience can only help here if it leads beyond the classical aesthetic paradigms of the beautiful and the sublime. The beautiful dwells in a dream of a harmonic fit between subject and nature that is precisely in question in the Anthropocene, and the sublime presents the superior power of nature only to bring out a different kind of power in the intelligent subject that remains untouched by natural might. These classical figures of aesthetic experience thus obscure how profoundly we need to revise our relation to nature in order to respond to the Anthropocene. -/- In order to see this, it is helpful to first take a look at how (I) modern aesthetics around 1800 fundamentally conceived of art as a second or other nature. Against this background, we can understand more precisely (II) in which sense the figures of natural beauty and the sublime conceive of the relationship to nature. In view of the Anthropocene, these figures threaten to become part of an aesthetic ideology. We therefore need (III) other aesthetic strategies which I will point to in the third part. (shrink)

Thoughtful Images: Philosophy Illustrated is the first systematic investigation of how artists throughout the ages have illustrated philosophical texts, ideas, concepts, and theories. The book begins by developing a theory of visual illustrations of philosophical texts and undermining what the author calls "the denigration of illustration." The book then takes a more historical approach, beginning in Ancient Greece and Rome and proceeding through Medieval illuminations and printed broadsides to the frontispieces of philosophical texts. Throughout, attention is paid to how technological (...) developments enable different means for illustrating philosophy. (shrink)

There is an unresolved stand-off between ontological naturalism and phenomenological thought regarding the question whether normativity can be reduced to physical entities. While the ontological naturalist line of thought is well established in analytic philosophy, the phenomenological reasoning for the irreducibility of normativity has been largely left ignored by proponents of naturalism. Drawing on the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Schütz, Stein and others, I reconstruct a phenomenological argument according to which natural science (as the foundation of naturalization projects) is itself (...) a part of the essentially normative life-world to the effect that ontological naturalism faces a bootstrapping problem. I aim to demonstrate that this stand-off is grounded in a deep disagreement about the possibility of reduction. I close by arguing that this deep disagreement turns on the question which conception about the nature of (natural) science is true. This result pits a perfectionist model of science (implied by ontological naturalism) against a pragmatist conception of science (in favour of the phenomenological argument). The motivation is that transforming the disagreement about the controversial principle into a disagreement about conceptions of science may help to offer a foundation for different attempts at solving the stand-off. (shrink)

Husserl famously characterized phenomenology as a science of “infinite tasks.” Among other things, this claim refers to the maximally general scope of phenomeno.

This book analyzes iconic British children's literature through the lens of formal educational theory, policy, and practice. Examining themes like growth mindset and project-based learning alongside educational philosophers like Plato, Rousseau, and Dewey, the author sheds new light on children’s classics from Alice in Wonderland to Harry Potter.

Quantum mechanics predicts non-local correlations in spatially extended entangled quantum systems, and these correlations are empirically very well confirmed. This raises philosophical questions of how nature could be that way, prompting the study of purported completions of quantum mechanics by hidden variables. Bell-type theorems connect assumptions about hidden variables with empirical predictions for the outcome of quantum correlation experiments. From among these assumptions, the Setting Independence assumption has received the least formal attention. Its violation is, however, central in the recent (...) discussion about super-deterministic models for quantum correlation experiments. In this paper, we focus on the non-local modal correlations in the GHZ experiment. We model the introduction of hidden variables in the form of instruction sets via structure extensions in the framework of Branching Space-Times. This framework allows us to show in formal detail how the introduction of non-contextual instruction sets results in a specific violation of Setting Independence; a similar result is derived for contextual instruction sets. Our discussion provides additional reasons for foregoing the introduction of local hidden variables, and for accepting non-local quantum correlations as a resource provided by nature. (shrink)

Written in the European tradition of Kant's philosophical trilogy on critique and Hegel's concept of ethical life it outlines the great traditions in ethical philosophy: Aristotelian virtue ethics, Kantian ethics, and utilitarianism. It presents modern ethics from Nietzsche, Adorno, and Habermas to Kohlberg's stages of moral development.

The prevalent rule-based perspective on diversity management renders most diversity initiatives more or less uniform, and it therefore also renders the individual in charge of these initiatives replaceable. Against this background, this article argues that an ethical realignment towards a virtue-based perspective, focusing on the diversity manager him- or herself, could help rethink diversity management, and to refashion it into a more impactful shape. The virtue in question is the Aristotelian notion of the virtue of practical wisdom. Making their practical (...) wisdom a selection criterion for the recruitment process is a first step in the direction of upgrading the concept of diversity management. However, it is also important to adjust their working conditions, the design of their role, as well as their autonomy and performance evaluations in a way that allows them to develop, maintain, and practice this phrónēsis. (shrink)