When I raise my arm, what makes it the case that my arm's going up is an instance of my raising my arm? In this paper, I discuss Aristotle's answer to this question. His view, I argue, is that my arm's going up counts as my raising my arm just in case it is an exercise of a certain kind of causal power of mine. I show that this view differs in an interesting way both from the Davidsonian ‘standard causal (...) account’ of action and from accounts put forward by recent critics of Davidson, such as Hornsby, Alvarez and Hyman. (shrink)

Nineteen newly-transliterated letters between Ferdinand Christian Baur and his friend Ludwig Friedrich Heyd are presented. Seventeen of them were written by Baur, and two by Heyd in the period between 10th February 1836 and 16th January 1842. A further sixteen earlier letters were already published by Carl Egbert Hester in 1993. The correspondence between the two close friends cover a broad range of subjects, predominantly historical, as well as family, scientific, political themes and particularly university politics. The key personal topic (...) is the death of Baur’s wife in 1839 and the consequences of this for their children. The scientific themes concern firstly Baur’s efforts to assist Heyd in his research into the history of Württemberg, and to promote these works to publishers. Secondly, the letters document the reaction of the two to David Friedrich Strauß’s work “Das Leben Jesu”, and how their views changed during this correspondence. The central political themes of the letters relate primarily to appointments within Tübingen University, and in particular to previously unknown attacks on Baur’s own position there. Further discussions concern two politically arranged festivals; the Buchhändlerfest of 1840, and the 25th coronation anniversary of King Wilhelm I. of Württemberg in 1841, at which Baur gave a courageous speech on the political situation in Württemberg. Of particular interest in the letters previously transliterated by Hester are two topics, firstly the “Polish Petition” regarding the political situation in Poland in the 1830s, and secondly regarding the constitution of Tübingen University. To better understand the significance of these private letters and their openness, a short biography of Heyd is included. (shrink)

Although much technical and philosophical attention has been given to relevance logics, the notion of relevance itself is generally left at an intuitive level. It is difficult to find in the literature an explicit account of relevance in formal reasoning. In this article I offer a formal explication of the notion of relevance in deductive logic and argue that this notion has an interesting place in the study of classical logic. The main idea is that a premise is relevant to (...) an argument when it contributes to the validity of that argument. I then argue that the sequents which best embody this ideal of relevance are the so-called perfect sequents—that is, sequents which are valid but have no proper subsequents that are valid. Church’s theorem entails that there is no recursively axiomatizable proof-system that proves all and only the perfect sequents, so the project that emerges from studying perfection in classical logic is not one of finding a perfect subsystem of classical logic, but is rather a comparative study of classifying subsystems of classical logic according to how well they approximate the ideal of perfection. (shrink)

Ursula Coope presents a ground-breaking study of the philosophy of the Neoplatonists. She explores their understanding of freedom and responsibility: an entity is free to the extent that it is wholly in control of itself, self-determining, self-constituting, and self-knowing - which only a non-bodily thing can be.

Digital literature is playing an increasingly important role in children's everyday lives and opening up new paths for family literacy and early childhood education. However, despite positive effects of electronic books and picture-book apps on vocabulary learning, early writing, or phonological awareness, research findings on early narrative skills are ambiguous. Particularly, there still is a research gap regarding how app materiality affects children's story understanding. Thus, based on the ViSAR model for picture-book app analysis and data stemming from 12 digital (...) reading dyads containing German monolingual 2- to 3-year-olds and their caregivers this study assessed the narrative potential of a commercial picture-book app and how this is used in interaction. Results of the media analysis showed that the app provides a high number of narrative animations. These animations could be used interactively to engage the child in the story. However, results of the interaction analysis showed that adult readers do not exploit this potential due to their strong concentration on operative prompts and instructions. Furthermore, an explorative analysis of the relation between adults' utterances and children's story comprehension provided preliminary indicators regarding how the length of reading duration and the number of utterances might relate to children's understanding of the story. Findings and methodological limitations of the study are discussed and combined didactically with practical recommendations on how to use narrative animations in interaction effectively. (shrink)

En esta entrevista con el Prof. Dr. Daniel Brauer, uno de los investigadores que ha dedicado importantes estudios al pensamiento de Hegel y ha contribuido a su recepción en Argentina, se ponen de manifiesto algunos momentos significativos de su experiencia como docente e investigador en las últimas décadas.

Ignacio Jane has argued that second-order logic presupposes some amount of set theory and hence cannot legitimately be used in axiomatizing set theory. I focus here on his claim that the second-order formulation of the Axiom of Separation presupposes the character of the power set operation, thereby preventing a thorough study of the power set of infinite sets, a central part of set theory. In reply I argue that substantive issues often cannot be separated from a logic, but rather must (...) be presupposed. I call this the logic-metalogic link. There are two facets to the logic-metalogic link. First, when a logic is entangled with a substantive issue, the same position on that issue should be taken at the meta- level as at the object level; and second, if an expression has a clear meaning in natural language, then the corresponding concept can equally well be deployed in a formal language. The determinate nature of the power set operation is one such substantive issue in set theory. Whether there is a determinate power set of an infinite set can only be presupposed in set theory, not proved, so the use of second-order logic cannot be ruled out by virtue of presupposing one answer to this question. Moreover, the legitimacy of presupposing in the background logic that the power set of an infinite set is determinate is guaranteed by the clarity and definiteness of the notions of all and of subset. This is also exactly what is required for the same presupposition to be legitimately made in an axiomatic set theory, so the use of second-order logic in set theory rather than first-order logic does not require any new metatheoretic commitments. (shrink)

Die Aufklärung ist gerade auf ihrem Höhepunkt, als Johanna Charlotte Unzer in der Männer dominierten Gelehrtenwelt von sich reden macht. Sie interessiert sich für Philosophie, diskutiert mit und will verstehen, was Metaphysik bedeutet. Aber sie darf sich nicht ganz den Wissenschaften verschreiben. Für die Gesellschaft ist Johanna Charlotte in erster Linie Frau. Und das bedeutet, dass sie im Hintergrund bleiben, ihrem Mann eine gute Ehefrau und ihren Kindern eine gute Mutter sein muss. Die Autorin Ursula I. Meyer zeigt im (...) neuen Band der Reihe PhilosophinnenLeben das Spannungsfeld zwischen gelehrtem Anspruch und bürgerlicher Frauenrolle. Johanna Charlotte gibt zwar die Wissenschaften auf, zieht sich aber nicht ins Privatleben zurück. Mit der Veröffentlichung ihrer Gedichte hält sie sich ein Hintertürchen offen. Und sie behandelt auch darin wissenschaftliche Themen, spöttelt über den Metaphysicus oder setzt den Unterschied zwischen einer Uhr und einem Frauenzimmer poetisch um. (shrink)

Elise v. Bernstorff erweitert auf der Grundlage der Theorien des New Materialism den Diskurs über die Erforschung von Bildungspraktiken, indem sie ihre Beobachtungen nicht auf Lehrer*innen und Schüler*innen beschränkt, sondern Stimmen, Klänge und Räume als Akteure einer interaktiven Bildungsperformance beschreibt. Indem sie spezifische Unterrichtssituationen an einer Schule als Zusammenwirken humaner als auch an non-humaner Akteure darstellt, vermittelt v. Bernstorff der Leser*in ein Bild von aktuellem Schulunterricht, das den Charakter des Exemplarischen zugunsten des Experimentellen aufgibt. Ursula Rogg hat nach Jahren (...) freiberuflicher künstlerischer Arbeit als Lehrerin für Kunst und Theater gearbeitet. Seit 2013 ist sie mit dem Schwerpunkt Kulturelle Bildung in der Schulentwicklung tätig. Ihr besonderes Interesse und ihre Forschung gilt den aktivierenden Potenziale auditiven Dokumentierens im schulischen Kontext unter Berücksichtigung der perspektivischen Diversität. In ihrer response sucht sie nach Antworten auf die Fragen, woher die Texte v. Bernstorffss ihre faszinierende Kraft beziehen, welche theoretischen Referenzen ihnen zugrunde liegen und wie das von ihr entwickelte performative writing im Kontext von Bildungsforschung wirksam werden könnte. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to discuss theoretical arguments concerning the idea that emotional mimicry is an intrinsic part of our social being and thus can be considered a social act. For this, we will first present the theoretical assumptions underlying the Emotional Mimicry as Social Regulator view. We then provide a brief overview of recent developments in emotional mimicry research and specifically discuss new developments regarding the role of emotional mimicry in actual interactions and relationships, and individual differences (...) in emotional mimicry. We conclude with open questions for future research. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study is situated within corpus-assisted discourse analysis. Corpora and discourse studies: Integrating discourse and corpora. London: Palgrave Macmillan.) and provides a critical discussion of key topics and stances in the marriage equality debate in Germany. The ways in which the German print media covered the debate are explored through two corpora which include relevant texts from three German newspapers and two magazines from two key periods ; in 2001, Germany introduced ‘civil unions’ but it was only in 2017 that (...) marriage was opened to same-sex couples. Qualitative and quantitative analyses using AntConc and ProtAnt suggest that while there are parallels to marriage equality debates in other countries, there are also language-/culture-specific features. For example, there is a stronger focus on children’s welfare in the contemporary data, since marriage equality meant joint adoption rights for same-sex couples. Through an exploration of keywords/collocations and close reading of prototypical texts, it is shown how linguistic choices contribute to framing the arguments for/against marriage equality and how these stances are connected to culture-specific and cross-cultural norms. (shrink)

Relying on aesthetic testimony seems problematic. For instance, it seems problematic for me to simply believe or assert that The Velvet Underground's debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico (1964) is amazing solely because you have told me so, even though I know you to be an honest and competent music critic. But why? After all, there do not seem to be similar reservations regarding testimony from many other domains. In this paper, I will argue that relying on aesthetic testimony (...) seems problematic because we are attached to an ideal of aesthetic authenticity and feel that living up to this ideal is anathema to simply relying on aesthetic testimony. (shrink)

High profile (and controversial) events and installations, like the Helter-Skelter in Norwich and the Crazy Golf Bridges in Rochester, have drawn attention to innovation and public engagement within Anglican cathedrals. The present study contextualised these innovations both empirically and conceptually. The empirical framework draws on cathedral websites to chronicle the wide and diverse range of events and installations hosted by Anglican cathedrals in England and the Isle of Man between 2018 and 2022. The conceptual framework draws on Edward Bailey’s theory (...) of implicit religion to classify and to explore these events and installations. Two insights from the theory of implicit religion emerged as of particular significance. First, the notion of implicit religion softens the boundaries between the sacred and the secular. This was exemplified by eight categories of events: scientific exhibitions, festivals, musical events, art exhibitions, theatre, markets, community events and installations. Second, the notion of implicit religion draws attention to the themes and activities that generate meaning and purpose. This was exemplified by seven themes: social justice and social conscience, violence and reconciliation, remembrance, migration and sanctuary, COVID-19 and lockdowns, personal well-being and nature and environment.Contribution: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, this article identifies the range of innovative events and installations hosted by Anglican Cathedrals in England and the Isle of Man and assesses the significance of these events and installations through Edward Bailey’s lens of implicit religion, discussing first the softening of boundaries between the sacred and the secular and then the generation of meaning and purpose through the core themes raised by these events and installations. (shrink)

What is the relation between time and change? Does time depend on the mind? Is the present always the same or is it always different? Aristotle tackles these questions in the Physics. In the first book in English exclusively devoted to this discussion, Ursula Coope argues that Aristotle sees time as a universal order within which all changes are related to each other. This interpretation enables her to explain two striking Aristotelian claims: that the now is like a moving (...) thing, and that time depends for its existence on the mind. (shrink)

Many philosophers, following Williamson (The Philosophical Review 105(4): 489–523, 1996), Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits, Oxford, Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2000), subscribe to the constitutive rule account of assertion (CRAA). They hold that the activity of asserting is constituted by a single constitutive rule of assertion. However, in recent work, Maitra (in: Brown & Cappelen (ed). Assertion: new philosophical essays, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011), Johnson (Acta Analytica 33(1): 51–67, 2018), and Kelp and Simion (Synthese 197(1): 125–137, 2020a), Kelp and (...) Simion (in: Goldberg (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Assertion, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020b) aim to show that, for all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion proposed in the literature, asserting is not an activity constituted by a single constitutive rule and that therefore CRAA is very likely false. To reach this conclusion, they all present a version of what can be dubbed the engagement condition objection. That is, they each propose a necessary condition on engaging in rule-constituted activities. Then they argue that, for all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion proposed in the literature, one can make assertions without satisfying this condition. In response, I present a counterexample that shows that the proposed engagement conditions lead to coun- terintuitive results, and I propose an alternative that better captures our intuitions. Then I argue that this alternative engagement condition is compatible with all the most popular versions of the constitutive rule of assertion. (shrink)

Der vierbändige Titel Die Welt der Philosophin liefert eine anschauliche Darstellung vom Leben einzelnen Philosophinnen, die als Repräsentantinnen ihrer Zeit zu sehen sind. Mit Auszügen aus ihren Texten (zum Teil erstmals in deutscher Übersetzung), ausführlichen Einführungen in die historische Epoche mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Lage der Frauen und einer ausführlichen Biografie bieten die Bände spannenden Einblicke in das Leben von Philosophinnen. The four-volume title The World of the Female Philosopher provides a vivid account of the lives of individual female philosophers (...) who are to be seen as representatives of their times. With excerpts from their texts (some of them in German translation for the first time), detailed introductions to the historical epoch with special attention to the situation of women and a detailed biography, the volumes offer exciting insights into the lives of women philosophers. (shrink)

In this article, we present results from an interdisciplinary research project aimed at assessing consciousness in dreams. For this purpose, we compared lucid dreams with normal non-lucid dreams from REM sleep. Both lucid and non-lucid dreams are an important contrast condition for theories of waking consciousness, giving valuable insights into the structure of conscious experience and its neural correlates during sleep. However, the precise differences between lucid and non-lucid dreams remain poorly understood. The construction of the Lucidity and Consciousness in (...) Dreams scale was based on theoretical considerations and empirical observations. Exploratory factor analysis of the data from the first survey identified eight factors that were validated in a second survey using confirmatory factor analysis: INSIGHT, CONTROL, THOUGHT, REALISM, MEMORY, DISSOCIATION, NEGATIVE EMOTION, and POSITIVE EMOTION. While all factors are involved in dream consciousness, realism and negative emotion do not differentiate between lucid and non-lucid dreams, suggesting that lucid insight is separable from both bizarreness in dreams and a change in the subjectively experienced realism of the dream. (shrink)

Recently, Jennifer Saul (“Racial Figleaves, the Shifting Boundaries of the Permissible, and the Rise of Donald Trump”, 2017; “Racist and Sexist Figleaves”, 2021) has explored the use of what she calls “figleaves” in the discourse on race and gender. Following Saul, a figleaf is an utterance that, for some portion of the audience, blocks the conclusion that some other utterance, R, or the person who uttered R is racist or sexist. Such racial and gender figleaves are pernicious, says Saul, because, (...) among other things, they can shift the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable to think or say. This paper expands on Saul’s picture in a threefold way: It is first argued that appeals to statistics can function as figleaves. It is then argued that—as far as figleaves go—there is reason to believe that statistics-as-figleaves are especially pernicious. Finally, the paper explores some strategies for counterspeech. (shrink)

Modal logic has been used to analyze potential infinity and potentialism more generally. However, the standard analysis breaks down in cases of divergent possibilities, where there are two or more possibilities that can be individually realized but which are jointly incompatible. This paper has three aims. First, using the intuitionistic theory of choice sequences, we motivate the need for a modal analysis of divergent potentialism and explain the challenges this involves. Then, using Beth–Kripke semantics for intuitionistic logic, we overcome those (...) challenges. Finally, we apply our modal analysis of divergent potentialism to make choice sequences comprehensible in classical terms. (shrink)

What is the relation between time and change? Does time depend on the mind? Is the present always the same or is it always different? Aristotle tackles these questions in the Physics. In the first book in English exclusively devoted to this discussion, Ursula Coope argues that Aristotle sees time as a universal order within which all changes are related to each other. This interpretation enables her to explain two striking Aristotelian claims: that the now is like a moving (...) thing, and that time depends for its existence on the mind. (shrink)

Which function is computed by a Turing machine will depend on how the symbols it manipulates are interpreted. Further, by invoking bizarre systems of notation it is easy to define Turing machines that compute textbook examples of uncomputable functions, such as the solution to the decision problem for first-order logic. Thus, the distinction between computable and uncomputable functions depends on the system of notation used. This raises the question: which systems of notation are the relevant ones for determining whether a (...) function is computable? These are the acceptable notations. I argue for a use criterion of acceptability: the acceptable notations for a domain of objects D\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {D}}$$\end{document} are the notations that we can use for the usual D\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {D}}$$\end{document}-activities. Acceptable notations for natural numbers are ones that we can count with. Acceptable notations for logical formulas are the ones that we can use in inference and logical analysis. And so on. This criterion makes computability a relative notion—whether a function is computable depends on which notations are acceptable, which is relative to our interests and abilities. I argue that this is not a problem, however, since there is independent reason for taking the extension of computable function to be relative to contingent facts. Similarly, the fact that the use criterion makes a mathematical distinction depend on practical concerns is also not a problem because it dovetails with similar phenomena in other areas of computability theory, namely the roles of notation in computation over real numbers and of Extended Church’s Thesis in complexity theory. (shrink)

Aesthetic emotions are elicited by different sensory impressions generated by music, visual arts, literature, theater, film, or nature scenes. Recently, the AESTHEMOS scale has been developed to facilitate the empirical assessment of such emotions. In this article we report a semantic profile analysis of aesthetic emotion terms that had been used for the development of this scale, using the GRID approach. This method consists of obtaining ratings of emotion terms on a set of meaning facets which represent five components of (...) the emotion process. The aims here were to determine the dimensionality of the GRID features when applied to aesthetic emotions and compare it to published results for emotion terms in general, and to examine the internal organization of the domain of aesthetic emotion terms in order to identify salient clusters of these items based on the similarity of their feature profiles on the GRID. Exploratory Principal Component Analyses suggest a four-dimensional structure of the semantic space consisting of valence, power, arousal, and novelty, converging with earlier GRID studies on large sets of standard emotion terms. Using cluster analyses, 15 clusters of aesthetic emotion terms with similar GRID feature profiles were identified, revealing the internal organization of the aesthetic emotion terms domain and meaningful subgroups of aesthetic emotions. While replication for further languages is required, these findings provide a solid basis for further research and methodological development in the realm of aesthetic emotions. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper, I ask why Aristotle thinks that ethical virtue (rather than mere self-control) is required for practical wisdom. I argue that a satisfactory answer will need to explain why being prone to bad appetites implies a failing of the rational part of the soul. I go on to claim that the self-controlled person does suffer from such a rational failing: a failure to take a specifically rational kind of pleasure in fine action. However, this still leaves a (...) problem: could there not be someone who (unlike the self-controlled person) took the right kind of pleasure in fine action, but who failed to be virtuous on account of bad appetites? If so, would such a person be practically wise but not virtuous? I end with some suggestions about how Aristotle might answer this. (shrink)

Modal logic provides an elegant way to understand the notion of potential infinity. This raises the question of what the right modal logic is for reasoning about potential infinity. In this article I identify a choice point in determining the right modal logic: Can a potentially infinite collection ever be expanded in two mutually incompatible ways? If not, then the possible expansions are convergent; if so, then the possible expansions are branching. When possible expansions are convergent, the right modal logic (...) is S4.2, and a mirroring theorem due to Linnebo allows for a natural potentialist interpretation of mathematical discourse. When the possible expansions are branching, the right modal logic is S4. However, the usual box and diamond do not suffice to express everything the potentialist wants to express. I argue that the potentialist also needs an operator expressing that something will eventually happen in every possible expansion. I prove that the result of adding this operator to S4 makes the set of validities Pi-1-1 hard. This result makes it unlikely that there is any natural translation of ordinary mathematical discourse into the potentialist framework in the context of branching possibilities. (shrink)

This article revisits materialist second-wave feminist debates about domestic labour in the context of digitalisation. Using a differentiated typology of labour, it looks at how the tasks involved in housework have undergone dramatic changes through commodification, decommodification and recommodification without fundamentally altering the gender division of labour in social reproduction, drawing on recent research on the use of online platforms to deliver social reproductive labour via the market in a context in which reproductive labour sits at the centre of an (...) intense time squeeze. It reflects on the implications of the commodification of domestic labour for feminist strategy. The author points to the inadequacy in this context of traditional feminist strategies—for the socialisation of domestic labour through public services, wages for housework or labour-saving through technological solutions—concluding that new strategies are needed that address the underlying social relations that perpetuate unequal divisions of labour in contemporary capitalism. (shrink)