During the past few decades, a radical shift has occurred in how philosophers conceive of the relation between science and philosophy. A great number of analytic philosophers have adopted what is commonly called a ‘naturalistic’ approach, arguing that their inquiries ought to be in some sense continuous with science. Where early analytic philosophers often relied on a sharp distinction between science and philosophy—the former an empirical discipline concerned with fact, the latter an a priori discipline concerned with meaning—philosophers today largely (...) follow Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) in his seminal rejection of this distinction. -/- This book offers a comprehensive study of Quine’s naturalism. Building on Quine’s published corpus as well as thousands of unpublished letters, notes, lectures, papers, proposals, and annotations from the Quine archives, this book aims to reconstruct both the nature (chapters 2-4) and the development (chapter 5-7) of his naturalism. As such, this book aims to contribute to the rapidly developing historiography of analytic philosophy, and to provide a better, historically informed, understanding of what is philosophically at stake in the contemporary naturalistic turn. (shrink)

Hertwig and Ortmann suggest paying participants contingent upon performance in order to increase the thoroughness they devote to a decision task. We argue that monetary incentives can yield a number of unintended effects including distortions of the subjective representation of the task and impaired performance. Therefore, we conclude that performance-contingent payment should not be generally employed in judgment and decision research.

Rationality in decision making is commonly assessed by comparing choice performance against normative standards. We argue that such a performance-centered approach blurs the distinction between rational choice and adaptive behavior. Instead, rational choice should be assessed with regard to the way individuals make analytic decisions. We suggest that analytic decisions can be made in two different modes in which control processes are directed at different levels. In a RUN mode, thought is directed at controlling the operation of a decision strategy. (...) In the JUMP mode, the individual analyses the interpretation of the decision situation as well as the appropriateness of alternative strategies. We suggest that a decision should be considered “rational” when an individual is able to switch between these modes and balance their interaction. (shrink)

in april 1933, two bright young Ph.D.s were elected to the Harvard Society of Fellows: the psychologist B. F. Skinner and the philosopher/logician W. V. Quine. Both men would become among the most influential scholars of their time; Skinner leads the "Top 100 Most Eminent Psychologists of the 20th Century," whereas philosophers have selected Quine as the most important Anglophone philosopher after the Second World War.1 At the height of their fame, Skinner and Quine became "Edgar Pierce twins"; the latter (...) obtaining the endowed chair at Harvard's department of philosophy, the former taking up the position at Harvard's psychology department.2Besides these biographical parallels, there also... (shrink)

Originating within research on design cognition, the term design thinking has been growing in popularity over the past three decades, and has become a matter in a variety of discourses, assuming diverse and not necessarily congruent notions. In this article we suggest how to differentiate those discourses on design thinking and discuss its evolution into a meta-disciplinary concept.

1 Einleitung: Die konstruktivistische Herausforderung strukturgenetischer Subjekttheorien........................................................ 11 1. 1 Sozialisationstheorie - jenseits der groBen Entwiirfe......................................... 17 1. 2 Der genetische Strukturalismus im Kontext theoretischer Leitunterscheidungen................................................................................ ....... 20 1. 3 Konstitution als Problemstellung...................................................................... 27 2 Strukturgenetischer und radikaler Konstruktivismus........................... 33 2. 1 Die Erkenntnistheorie des Radikalen Konstruktivismus vor dem Hintergrund einer interaktionistischen strukturgenetischen Theoriestrategie.................................................................................... ........... 36 2. 1. 1 "Realitat" und "Wirklichkeit"........................................................................... 37 2. 1. 2 Konstruktivitat und AuBenwe1t: Piaget und von Glasersfeld............................. 41 2. 1. 3 Abgeschlossenheit, Rekursivitat und strukturelle Koppelung........................... 46 (...) 2. 2 Aquilibration und Adaption - Die differenztheoretische Ausgangslage des strukturgenetischen Konstruktivismus Piagets..................... 51 2. 3 Differenzerfahrung und die Entstehung des Neuen........................................... 54 2. 4 Der Status strukturgenetischer Fragestellungen vor dem Hintergrund des radikalen Konstruktivismus.................................................... 57 3 Soziale Konstitutions- und Systemtheorie.............................................. 62 3. 1 Die soziale Konstitutionshypothese.................................................................. 64 3. 2 Sprachzentrismus und Regelontologie.............................................................. 70 3. 3 Sinn als Grundbegriffund die Eigenstiindigkeit des Sozialen.......................... 72 3. 4 Das Problem der doppelten Kontingenz........................................................... 76 3. 5 Interpenetration und strukturelle Koppelung.................................................... 84 3. 6 Differenz und Identitat in der System- und sozialen Konstitutionstheorie......... 89 3. 7 Zwischenbilanz und Konsequenzen fur die Konzeption des Anfangsproblems 92 5 4 Die Konstitution der Subjekt-Objekt-Differenz: Das grundlegende Bezugsproblem des interaktionistischen Konstruktivismus...................................... 97 4. 1 Die Subjekt-Objekt-Differenzierung im genetischen Strukturalismus Piagets.................... 100 4. 1. 1 Die Ausgangskonstellation............................................ 102 4. 1. 2 1m Reich der Metaphem: Die Rolle der AuBenwelt und der Akkommodation........................................................................ 106 4. 1. 3 Die primaren und sekundaren Zirkularreaktionen im Blick des radikalen Konstruktivismus........................................................ III 4. 1. 4 Die Ausbildung der Subjekt-Objekt-Gegenlage.......................................... (shrink)

In this paper we present a new proposal for defining actual causation, i.e., the problem of deciding if one event caused another. We do so within the popular counterfactual tradition initiated by Lewis, which is characterised by attributing a fundamental role to counterfactual dependence. Unlike the currently prominent definitions, our approach proceeds from the ground up: we start from basic principles, and construct a definition of causation that satisfies them. We define the concepts of counterfactual dependence and production, and put (...) forward principles such that dependence is an unnecessary but sufficient condition for causation, whereas production is an insufficient but necessary condition. The resulting definition of causation is a suitable compromise between dependence and production. Every principle is introduced by means of a paradigmatic example of causation. We illustrate some of the benefits of our approach with two examples that have spelled trouble for other accounts. We make all of this formally precise using structural equations, which we extend with a timing over all events. (shrink)

In this paper, the potentials of systematically linking philosophy of science with bibliometrics are investigated by exploring whether concepts developed within the structuralist theory of science can be used as interpretative basis for author co-citation studies. It is argued that clusters of co-cited authors cannot be interpreted straightforwardly as scientific communities nor as scientific generations. The first reason is that the respective constituents differ (authors vs. scientists), the second is that the co-citation relation generates non-Kuhnian communities, i.e. communities not sharing (...) a paradigm/theory-core. Instead, co-citation clusters can more adequately be taken to represent communities of common (epistemic) interest. Hence, the concepts of interest community and of discourse community are introduced into the structuralist framework making use of the notion of intended application. All in all, it becomes clear that a full-fledged theory of publication is the still missing prerequisite for further linking bibliometrics and philosophy of science at a large scale. (shrink)

Der Band beleuchtet Leibniz' Rechts- und Staatsphilosophie im Kontext seiner Metaphysik, Logik, Erkenntnistheorie und Moralphilosophie. Auch die Rezeption seiner Rechts- und Staatsphilosophie wird in den Beiträgen reflektiert. Gerade im Hinblick auf die aktuelle Diskussion um die politische Gestaltung Europas und die kosmopolitische Gestaltung der Globalisierung verdient seine Philosophie Aufmerksamkeit - nicht zuletzt auch auf Grund interner Spannungen, die das politische Selbstverständnis Europas bis heute kennzeichnen.

Concepts of interaction theory play a central role in media research that deals with the relationship between media offerings and media reception. They cover the diverse activities of media users as well as the adaptation strategies utilized of mass communication. The first part of this article briefly describes where these broad and poorly defined concepts of interaction can be found in different areas of media research. One of the problems is deciding in which cases media communication can be analyzed using (...) interaction models. Another problem is the lack of differentiation between how people deal with media offerings and how media offerings refer to their users. The second part of the article develops a new perspective in media research, which allows the aspects mentioned above to be assigned to processes of media socialization on the one hand, or to the inclusion by mass communication on the other hand. On this basis new research projects can be designed that represent a necessary addition to the established analysis of media reception and media socialization. This research focuses on processes of inclusion as they can be observed in mass communications, mainly in television. This new component of a sociological media theory demonstrates how mass communication itself is able to create an image of its addressees and, in this way, adapt to an anonymous public. (shrink)

I try in this essay to accomplish two things. First I offer some first thoughts toward a clarification of the ethical foundations of private property rights that avoids pitfalls common to more strictly Lockean theories, and is thus better prepared to address arguments posed by critics of standard private property arrangements. Second, I'll address one critical argument that has become pretty common over the years. While versions of the argument can be traced back at least to Pierre Joseph Proudhon, I'll (...) focus on a formulation given it by Jeremy Waldron. The basic idea is that the only sound arguments for private property rights lead to the conclusion that society has an obligation to insure that every citizen possess private property. In Waldron's formulation, what is justifiable is a general, rather than a special, right to private property. I shall try to suggest that this conclusion is unwarranted. (shrink)

Pearl opened the door to formally defining actual causation using causal models. His approach rests on two strategies: first, capturing the widespread intuition that X = x causes Y = y iff X = x is a Necessary Element of a Sufficient Set for Y = y, and second, showing that his definition gives intuitive answers on a wide set of problem cases. This inspired dozens of variations of his definition of actual causation, the most prominent of which are due (...) to Halpern & Pearl. Yet all of them ignore Pearl’s first strategy, and the second strategy taken by itself is unable to deliver a consensus. This paper offers a way out by going back to the first strategy: it offers six formal definitions of causal sufficiency and two interpretations of necessity. Combining the two gives twelve new definitions of actual causation. Several interesting results about these definitions and their relation to the various Halpern & Pearl definitions are presented. Afterwards the second strategy is evaluated as well. In order to maximize neutrality, the paper relies mostly on the examples and intuitions of Halpern & Pearl. One definition comes out as being superior to all others, and is therefore suggested as a new definition of actual causation. (shrink)

We propose that emotion psychology would significantly gain from including narrative(s) and the conversational negotiation of appropriateness. Using the example of anger, we argue that narrators need to construct plausible narratives of emotional events to achieve validating responses by listeners. We argue first that narrators attempt to demonstrate that the appraisal conditions for their emotion are given so that the emotion fits the narrated events. Second, we argue that this in turn explains why narratives of specific emotions exhibit specific forms. (...) Third, we argue that coping with emotional experiences is helped by narrating such that the fittingness of emotions is demonstrated. We conclude that narrative plays an important role for identifying, processing, communicating, and eliciting emotions. (shrink)

Autobiographical memories of older adults show fewer episodic and more non-episodic elements than those of younger adults. This semantization effect is attributed to a loss of episodic memory ability. However the alternative explanation by an increasing proclivity to search for meaning has not been ruled out to date. To test whether a decrease in episodicity and an increase in meaning-making in autobiographical narratives are related across the lifespan, we used different instructions, one focussing on specific episodes, the other on embedding (...) events in life, in two lifespan samples. A continuous decrease of episodic quality of memory was confirmed. An increase of search for meaning was confirmed only up to middle adulthood. This non-inverse development of episodicity and searching for meaning in older age speaks for an autonomous semantization effect that is not merely due to an increase in interpretative preferences. (shrink)

The counterfactual tradition to defining actual causation has come a long way since Lewis started it off. However there are still important open problems that need to be solved. One of them is the (in)transitivity of causation. Endorsing transitivity was a major source of trouble for the approach taken by Lewis, which is why currently most approaches reject it. But transitivity has never lost its appeal, and there is a large literature devoted to understanding why this is so. Starting from (...) a survey of this work, we will develop a formal analysis of transitivity and the problems it poses for causation. This analysis provides us with a sufficient condition for causation to be transitive, a sufficient condition for dependence to be necessary for causation, and several characterisations of the transitivity of dependence. Finally, we show how this analysis leads naturally to several conditions a definition of causation should satisfy, and use those to suggest a new definition of causation. (shrink)

The ethical concerns regarding the successful development of an Artificial Intelligence have received a lot of attention lately. The idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of an AI causing extreme human suffering is important enough to warrant serious consideration. Others look at this problem from the opposite perspective, namely that of the AI itself. Here the idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that (...) it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of humanity causing extreme suffering to an AI is important enough to warrant serious consideration. This paper starts from the observation that both concerns rely on problematic philosophical assumptions. Rather than tackling these assumptions directly, it proceeds to present an argument that if one takes these assumptions seriously, then one has a moral obligation to advocate for a ban on the development of a conscious AI. (shrink)

Darwin’s fifth chapter, “The Laws of Variation,” may stand in the shadow of the first four that climax with his presentation of “Natural Selection,” but its importance should not be underestimated. It deals with philosophical and methodological issues in the study of variation that would be hotly debated for decades after the publication of the book, many of which are still unsettled today. As the chapter title suggests, Darwin felt that a proper scientific study of variation had to discover the (...) laws of nature that governed it. He could not simply let it be random. He looked for laws in the patterns of co-occurrence of changes in different parts of the body or the same part in different species and also in the apparent consistencies in the effects of environment and habit. There is no one main line of argument in this chapter, but rather an exploration of multiple possible conceptions, patterns, and laws of variation—all ways in which variation might not be entirely random. For example: To what extent was variation responsive to environmental changes or to the organism’s needs and habits? And if Darwin admitted such responses, then how was his theory any different from Lamarck’s? Do all parts of the organism vary freely and independently or are there hidden connections, correlations, or trade-offs between varying parts of the body? Why do related species seem often to vary in similar ways? Many of these questions are still with us, in modern evolutionary developmental biology (“evo-devo”) and studies of epigenetics. (shrink)

Logical positivism is often characterized as a set of naive doctrines on meaning, method, and metaphysics. In recent decades, however, historians have dismissed this view as a gross misinterpretation. This new scholarship raises a number of questions. When did the standard reading emerge? Why did it become so popular? And how could commentators have been so wrong? This essay reconstructs the history of a “caricature” and rejects the hypothesis that it was developed by ill-informed Anglophone scholars who failed to appreciate (...) the subtleties of European scientific philosophy. It argues that the received view has a more complicated history and was frequently promoted by the European positivists themselves. The essay shows that the view has roots in both American and European scientific philosophy and emerged as a result of the complex interplay between the two communities in the years before the intellectual migration. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the origins of Gettier-style epistemology, highlighting the philosophical and methodological debates that led to its development in the 1960s. Though present-day epistemologists assume that the search for necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge began with Gettier’s 1963 argument against the JTB-definition, I show that this research program can be traced back to British discussions about knowledge and analysis in the 1940s and 1950s. I discuss work of, among others, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, A. J. Ayer, Norman (...) Malcom, and A. D. Woozley, showing how exchanges between different schools of analytic philosophy gave rise to new ideas about the nature of knowledge and analysis. Finally, I turn to Gettier's intellectual development and argue that his paper was influenced by some of these debates, suggesting that even his interpretation of Plato’s definition of knowledge can be traced back to discussions in this period. (shrink)

Andreas & Günther have recently proposed a difference-making definition of actual causation. In this paper I show that there exist conclusive counterexamples to their definition, by which I mean examples that are unacceptable to everyone, including AG. Concretely, I show that their definition allows c to cause e even when c is not a causal ancestor of e. I then proceed to identify their non-standard definition of causal models as the source of the problem, and argue that there is no (...) viable strategy open to AG to fixing it. I conclude that their definition of causation is damaged beyond repair. (shrink)

The present article reviews modern research on the psychology of emotion regulation. Emotion regulation determines the offset of emotional responding and is thus distinct from emotional sensitivity, which determines the onset of emotional responding. Among the most viable categories for classifying emotion-regulation strategies are the targets and functions of emotion regulation. The emotion-generating systems that are targeted in emotion regulation include attention, knowledge, and bodily responses. The functions of emotion regulation include satisfying hedonic needs, supporting specific goal pursuits, and facilitating (...) the global personality system. Emotion-regulation strategies are classified in terms of their targets and functions and relevant empirical work is reviewed. Throughout this review, emotion regulation emerges as one of the most far-ranging and influential processes at the interface of cognition and emotion. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 94 Heft: 2 Seiten: 590-595.

The ethical concerns regarding the successful development of an Artificial Intelligence have received a lot of attention lately. The idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of an AI causing extreme human suffering is important enough to warrant serious consideration. Others look at this problem from the opposite perspective, namely that of the AI itself. Here the idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that (...) it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of humanity causing extreme suffering to an AI is important enough to warrant serious consideration. This paper starts from the observation that both concerns rely on problematic philosophical assumptions. Rather than tackling these assumptions directly, it proceeds to present an argument that if one takes these assumptions seriously, then one has a moral obligation to advocate for a ban on the development of a conscious AI. (shrink)

Reasoning may help solving problems and understanding personal experiences. Ruminative reasoning, however, is inconclusive, repetitive, and usually regards negative thoughts. We asked how reasoning as manifested in oral autobiographical narratives might differ when it is ruminative versus when it is adaptive by comparing two constructs from the fields of psychotherapy research and narrative research that are potentially beneficial: innovative moments (IMs) and autobiographical reasoning (AR). IMs captures statements in that elaborate on changes regarding an earlier personal previous problem of the (...) narrator, and AR capture the connecting of past events with other parts of the narrator’s life or enduring aspects of the narrator. A total ofN= 94 university students had been selected from 492 students to differ maximally on trait rumination and trait adaptive reflection, and were grouped as ruminators (N= 38), reflectors (N= 37), and a group with little ruminative and reflective tendencies (“unconcerned,”N= 19). Participants narrated three negative personal experiences (disappointing oneself, harming someone, and being rejected) and two self-related experiences of more mixed valence (turning point and lesson learnt). Reflectors used more IMs and more negative than positive autobiographical arguments (AAs), but not more overall AAs than ruminators. Group differences were not moderated by the valence of memories, and groups did not differ in the positive effect of narrating on mood. Trait depression/anxiety was predicted negatively by IMs and positively by AAs. Thus, IMs are typical for reflectors but not ruminators, whereas the construct of AR appears to capture reasoning processes irrespective of their ruminative versus adaptive uses. (shrink)

Rortyian Hope This is a paper about Richard Rorty's notion of hope, and the role that it plays in breaking down Rorty's public/private distinction, and connecting philosophy to politics. The argument that philosophy can be engaged in and with the social-political world is one that is coherent with Rorty's position if philosophy is understood as striving towards its goals with a sense of contextualism and fallibilism. Placing Rorty within the tradition of the classic pragmatists, James and Dewey, I will argue (...) that pluralism can and should serve as a contextual foundation for liberalism. Through an examination and analysis of Rorty's liberal ironist and anti-foundationalism, I will explore how Rortyian hope can be understood as socially and politically transformative, transforming our conception of knowledge from one based on certainty to one based on fallibility. (shrink)

Although standard Machine Learning models are optimized for making predictions about observations, more and more they are used for making predictions about the results of actions. An important goal of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) is to compensate for this mismatch by offering explanations about the predictions of an ML-model which ensure that they are reliably action-guiding. As action-guiding explanations are causal explanations, the literature on this topic is starting to embrace insights from the literature on causal models. Here I take (...) a step further down this path by formally defining the causal notions of sufficient explanations and counterfactual explanations. I show how these notions relate to (and improve upon) existing work, and motivate their adequacy by illustrating how different explanations are action-guiding under different circum- stances. Moreover, this work is the first to offer a formal definition of actual causation that is founded entirely in action-guiding explanations. Although the definitions are motivated by a focus on XAI, the analysis of causal explanation and actual causation applies in general. I also touch upon the significance of this work for fairness in AI by showing how actual causation can be used to improve the idea of path-specific counterfactual fairness. (shrink)

György Lukacs was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, writer, and literary critic who shaped mainstream European Communist thought. _Soul and Form_ was his first book, published in 1910, and it established his reputation, treating questions of linguistic expressivity and literary style in the works of Plato, Kierkegaard, Novalis, Sterne, and others. By isolating the formal techniques these thinkers developed, Lukács laid the groundwork for his later work in Marxist aesthetics, a field that introduced the historical and political implications of text. For (...) this centennial edition, John T. Sanders and Katie Terezakis add a dialogue entitled "On Poverty of Spirit," which Lukács wrote at the time of _Soul and Form_, and an introduction by Judith Butler, which compares Lukács's key claims to his later work and subsequent movements in literary theory and criticism. In an afterword, Terezakis continues to trace the Lukácsian system within his writing and other fields. These essays explore problems of alienation and isolation and the curative quality of aesthetic form, which communicates both individuality and a shared human condition. They investigate the elements that give rise to form, the history that form implies, and the historicity that form embodies. Taken together, they showcase the breakdown, in modern times, of an objective aesthetics, and the rise of a new art born from lived experience. (shrink)

Many scholars claim that Frege's theory of colouring is committed to a radical form of subjectivism or emotivism. Some other scholars claim that Frege's concept of colouring is a precursor to Grice's notion of conventional implicature. I argue that both of these claims are mistaken. Finally, I propose a taxonomy of Fregean colourings: for Frege, there are purely aesthetic colourings, communicative colourings or hints, non-communicative colourings.

Carnap and Quine first met in the 1932-33 academic year, when the latter, fresh out of graduate school, visited the key centers of mathematical logic in Europe. In the months that Carnap was finishing his Logische Syntax der Sprache, Quine spent five weeks in Prague, where they discussed the manuscript “as it issued from Ina Carnap’s typewriter”. The philosophical friendship that emerged in these weeks would have a tremendous impact on the course of analytic philosophy. Not only did the meetings (...) effectively turn Quine into Carnap's disciple, they also paved the way for their seminal debates about meaning, language, and ontology---the very discussions that would change the course of analytic philosophy in the decades after the Second World War. -/- Yet surprisingly little is known about these first meetings. Although Quine has often acknowledged the impact of his Prague visit, there appears to be little information about these first encounters, except for the fact that the Quines “were overwhelmed by the kindness of the Carnaps” and that it was Quine’s “most notable experience of being intellectually fired by a living teacher”. Neither their correspondence nor their autobiographies offer a detailed account of these meetings. In this paper, I shed new light on Carnap’s and Quine’s first encounters by examining a set of previously unexplored material from their personal and academic archives. Why did Quine decide to visit Carnap? What did they discuss? And in what ways did the meetings affect Quine’s philosophical development? In what follows, I address these questions by means of a detailed reconstruction of Quine’s year in Europe based on a range of letters, notes, and reports from the early 1930s. (shrink)