The second volume of the Adagia of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin texts of Erasmus gives an introduction in German and a critical edition of the Latin text of the second half of the first thousand Adages.

I exist, but I am not a thing among things; X exists if and only if there is something such that it=X. This is consistent, and it is a view that can be supported. Calvino’s novel The Non‐Existent Knight can be read so as to illustrate this view. But what is my relation to the things there are if I am not identical with any of them – things such as my arms, my garden, the city I live in? I (...) name this the Gurduloo problem, after the Knight’s page. This relation must be one that admits of degrees; I suggest that we say that I manifest myself through the things thus associated with me. Several pseudo‐problems, pertaining to volitional action, supervenience, observability, and the emergence of consciousness, dissolve upon inspection. (shrink)

In his discussion of pleasure, Aristotle assumes the thesis that a perfect activity always and necessarily yields pleasure. The occurrence of pleasure is even presented as a sign that the activity is perfect. But this assumption seems to be too easy. It is possible that we do feel pleasure in activities which are not perfectly performed, and on the other hand, it is not certain at all that I will enjoy a perfect activity. Pleasure falls into the category of what (...) J. Elster has called 'states that are essentially by-products'. Up to a point, Aristotle acknowledges this, but he does not follow this analysis to its final consequences. If one agrees, as Aristotle does, that there is a difference between the perfect activity and pleasure, it should be possible that an activity is perfect without yielding pleasure, or that pleasure will accompany even an activity which is not perfect. (shrink)

Peterson's objection to my proposal to treat new technologies as social experiments seems straightforward. Doing so would replace the old question ‘Is technology X ethically acceptable?’ (Let us ca...

We say that a sentence A is a permissive consequence of a set X of premises whenever, if all the premises of X hold up to some standard, then A holds to some weaker standard. In this paper, we focus on a three-valued version of this notion, which we call strict-to-tolerant consequence, and discuss its fruitfulness toward a unified treatment of the paradoxes of vagueness and self-referential truth. For vagueness, st-consequence supports the principle of tolerance; for truth, it supports the (...) requisite of transparency. Permissive consequence is non-transitive, however, but this feature is argued to be an essential component to the understanding of paradoxical reasoning in cases involving vagueness or self-reference. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false ES-CO X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 In this paper we study the Kantian conception of punishment in the Metaphysics of Morals. We look at Foucault’s reformulation of the right to punish which is mostly a critique of the kantian conception. Then we introduce the conception of restorative justice grounded on the social ideal of recognition, which corrects certain aspects of the Kantian conception, but gives to justice its status of an institution rather than being a critique (...) of it. (shrink)

Whether its title, ύπέρ τοῦ μ γεννᾶν is authentic or not, the work transmitted as ‘Book X’ of Aristotle's History of Animals deals with a wide range of possible causes for failure to conceive and generate offspring. It sets out by saying that these causes may lie in both partners or in either of them, but in the sequel the author devotes most of his attention to problems of the female body. Thus he discusses the state of the uterus, the (...) occurrence and modalities of menstruation, the condition and position of the mouth of the uterus, the emission of fluid during sleep , physical weakness or vigour on awakening after this nocturnal emission, the occurrence of flatulence in the uterus and the ability to discharge this, moistness or dryness of the uterus, wind-pregnancy, and spasms in the uterus. Then he briefly considers the possibility that the cause of infertility lies with the male, but this is disposed of in one sentence: if you want to find out whether the man is to blame, the author says, just let him have intercourse with another woman and see whether that produces a satisfactory result . The writer also acknowledges that the problem may lie in a failure of two otherwise healthy partners to match sexually, or as he puts it, to ‘run at the same pace’ ἲσοδρομῆσαι during intercourse, but he does not go into this possibility at great length , and he proceeds to discuss further particulars on the female side. (shrink)

We have it on the authority of Aristotle that “reason (nous) is the best thing in us” (EN X.7, 1177a20). This idealization of reason permeates his account of eudaimonia, a term commonly translated as ‘happiness’, which Aristotle identifies with living and doing well (EN I.4, 1095a18-20). In harmony with a certain intellectualism peculiar to the mainstream of ancient philosophical accounts of eudaimonia, Aristotle holds that living well requires the unique practical application of rationality of which only humans are capable (EN (...) I.7, 1098a13-15/EE I.7, 1217a25-27). This dissertation investigates Aristotle’s substantive view on the practical application of reason by examining how, according to him, human agents use reason to decide what to do, what kind of person to be, and indeed how to live well. A distinctively human way of making decisions is deliberation (bouleusis), an exercise of practical reason par excellence. The first chapter reconstructs Aristotle’s account of deliberation from a wide range of texts in the corpus. It argues that deliberation is a complex decision-making process that, for the most part, unfolds into four stages: (1) positing a provisional goal; (2) constructing a set of alternatives; (3) identifying the best alternative; (4) forming an intention to do the most proximate action as identified in the penultimate stage. This reading offers a comprehensive representation of Aristotle’s theory while rendering his theory more sophisticated—and indeed more modern—than the alternatives in recent years. Deciding what to do often requires that we confront the question, “Which is preferable (hairetōteron) or better (beltion) between two or more options?” In Topics III, a text widely acknowledged as the inaugural treatment of the logic of preference, Aristotle articulates a set of principles to guide our preference-ranking. While scholars pay historical homage to Aristotle, there is little engagement with his treatment of preference logic. The second chapter addresses the need for a current study and reassessment of Aristotle’s preference-ranking principles. It argues that, despite differences in scope and methodology between the Aristotelian and modern systems, the description inaugural treatment of preference logic comfortably, and accurately, applies to Topics III. When one looks at the role that Aristotle allows reason to play in the production and motivation of action, it is tempting to conclude that Aristotle endorses the Humean division of labor. For Aristotle claims that deliberation is about “the things towards the goal” (EN III.3, 1112b11-16) and that virtue (aretē) makes our goals right (EN VI.12, 1144a7-9). Chapter three seeks to show, against a recent influential quasi-Humean interpretation, that the primary function of practical reason is mapping the landscape of value corresponding to the agent’s reasoned conception of what eudaimonia consists in, as a rational being that she is. Aristotle notoriously defends the political subordination of individuals he believes to have a defective deliberative capacity. In Politics I.13, he claims that the deliberative faculty is undeveloped in children and “ineffectual” (akuron) in women (1260a12). The concluding chapter considers a puzzle about the development of the female’s deliberative faculty: How do women become ineffective in their deliberation, but freemen do not, given that all children have deliberative faculties that are unperfected? Drawing from the theories defended in previous chapters, I argue that the female’s deliberative defect is primarily due to her lack of moral education rather than inalterable sexual, biological differences—a thesis widely endorsed by scholars lately. (shrink)

In his introduction to this extraordinarily important and useful volume, Herman Geertman (G.) points out that the editions of the Liber Pontificalis produced around a century ago by Theodor Mommsen and Louis Duchesne made the Liber more an instrument, than an object, of research. For some years an international group of scholars under the leadership of Girolamo Arnaldi, François Bougard, Paolo Delogu, and G. himself, have been conducting a collaborative project on “The Liber Pontificalis as Source for the History and (...) Material Culture of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: A Collective Research Project on the Biographies from 314 to 891.” This book arises out of that project. But the present study, reflecting in particular G.'s interests, does not confine itself to “history” and “material culture.” Although the volume contains many valuable contributions on these important subjects, it also emphasizes the nature of the text of the Liber Pontificalis, the intentions of its redactors, and the accessibility of the text in terms of its language, contents, and conceptual underpinnings. G. notes that the project and the book also attempt a systematic updating of Duchesne's historical and archaeological material. The volume under review contains excellent papers that do indeed update DUCHESNE, but it cannot be said that this volume is “systematic” if by that word one understands comprehensive and exhaustive. I am not, be it emphasized, criticizing G. and his collaborators for failing to accomplish the impossible. It is important to say, however, that G.'s approach makes the Liber Pontificalis once again an object as well as an instrument of research. (shrink)

I exist, but I am not a thing among things; X exists if and only if there is something such that it=X. This is consistent, and it is a view that can be supported. Calvino’s novel The Non‐Existent Knight can be read so as to illustrate this view. But what is my relation to the things there are if I am not identical with any of them – things such as my arms, my garden, the city I live in? I (...) name this the Gurduloo problem, after the Knight’s page. This relation must be one that admits of degrees; I suggest that we say that I manifest myself through the things thus associated with me. Several pseudo‐problems, pertaining to volitional action, supervenience, observability, and the emergence of consciousness, dissolve upon inspection. (shrink)

On a common view of evolution, natural selection is the major force that produces evolutionary change. Selection is thought to operate on different types (genotypes or phenotypes) in populations so as to generate differential reproductive survival of these types. This should engender changes in population composition. The conception of selection as a "force" should be considered as a convenient shorthand that easily misleads us. Selection is not a factor over and above items such as temperature regimes, predators, and so forth. (...) These items do causal work in evolutionary processes. The term "selection" is merely an abstract placeholder for them. Differential reproductive survival thus appears to depend on particular environmental items that influence different types in different ways. Such items are properly regarded as the selective agents. On the face of it, selection processes must always be due to the operation of such agents. I argue that this is a mistaken assumption. Processes of selection may well occur in the absence of selective agents. That is because environmental factors may contribute to differential reproductive survival even if they do not affect different genotypes or phenotypes in different ways. Considering the role of the environment in selection, we should distinguish between selective agents and contributive agents. (shrink)

Degree-sentences, i.e. sentences that seem to refer to things that allow of degrees, are widely used both inside and outside of philosophy, even though the metaphysics of degrees is much of an untrodden field. This paper aims to fill this lacuna by addressing the following four questions: [A] Is there some one thing, such that it is degree sensitive? [B] Are there things x, y, and z that stand in a certain relation to each other, viz. the relation that x (...) has more y than z? [C] In those cases in which degree sentences do not refer to phenomena that are degree sensitive, what is responsible for their prima facie seeming to do so? [D] If there are degree sensitive things, to which ontological categories do they belong? We answer each of these questions by arguing that there are, metaphysically speaking, different phenomena that degree sentences refer to: some refer to determinates that emanate from a certain determinable, others to tokens that are instantiations of a certain type, and yet others to what we call ‘complex, resultant properties that are constituted by stereotypical properties’. (shrink)

This article researches how a corporate code of ethics (CCE) implemented in local government X has influenced the behavior of its employees, middle managers, and managers. Metaphors from the existing and desired CCE elicited by these three groups provided information on how to improve the effectiveness of the CCE. This method proved to be very fruitful. It appeared that continuous systematic attention needed to be paid to the CCE after the CCE had been implemented, particularly by management. Initiatives from management (...) to start discussions about relevant questions of integrity appeared to be also necessary to make the topic a “normal” topic which employees were no longer afraid to discuss. In this way, the possibility could be created to develop collectively a “practical” frame of reference concerning relevant questions of integrity that would help employees to make decisions in difficult situations during their work in the future. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate a semantics for first-order logic originally proposed by R. van Rooij to account for the idea that vague predicates are tolerant, that is, for the principle that if x is P, then y should be P whenever y is similar enough to x. The semantics, which makes use of indifference relations to model similarity, rests on the interaction of three notions of truth: the classical notion, and two dual notions simultaneously defined in terms of it, (...) which we call tolerant truth and strict truth. We characterize the space of consequence relations definable in terms of those and discuss the kind of solution this gives to the sorites paradox. We discuss some applications of the framework to the pragmatics and psycholinguistics of vague predicates, in particular regarding judgments about borderline cases. (shrink)

The second volume of the _Adagia_ (Proverbs) of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin texts of Erasmus gives an introduction in German and a critical edition of the Latin text of the second half of the first thousand _Adages_.

The second volume of the _Adagia_ (Proverbs) of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin texts of Erasmus gives an introduction in German and a critical edition of the Latin text of the second half of the first thousand _Adages_.

Astrolabes serving all latitudes are very rare. This recently rediscovered sixteenth-century Spanish example raises a host of questions which can only be addressed by considering all other such instruments and the few available textual sources. The instruments can all be traced back, not always directly, to an invention of the eleventh-century Andalusian astronomer Ali ibn Khalaf, preserved in the Old Castillian Libros del Saber de Astronomía of King Alfonso X. The design of this particular astrolabe and the engraving on it (...) are investigated in detail, and the as yet unidentified maker is associated with the circle around Juan de Herrera, architect of the palace-monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. (shrink)

Probability kinematics is the theory of how subjective probabilities change with time, in response to certain constraints . Rules are classified by the imposed constraints for which the rules prescribe a procedure for updating one's opinion. The first is simple conditionalization , and the second Jeffrey conditionalization . It is demonstrated by a symmetry argument that these rules are the unique admissible rules for those constraints, and moreover, that any probability kinematic rule must be equivalent to a conditionalization preceded by (...) a determination of the values x i to be given to the members of such a partition. Next two rival rules which can go beyond such conditionalization are described. INFOMIN and MTP . Their properties are investigated and compared. (shrink)

There are two principles that lend Brouwer's mathematics the extra power beyond arithmetic. Both are presented in Brouwer's writings with little or no argument. One, the principle of bar induction, will not concern us here. The other, the continuity principle for numbers, occurs for the first time in print in [4]. It is formulated and immediately applied to show that the set of numerical choice sequences is not enumerable. In fact, the idea of the continuity property can be dated fairly (...) precisely, it is to be found in the margin of Brouwer's notes for his course on Pointset Theory of 1915/16. The course was repeated in 1916/17 and he must have inserted his first formulation of the continuity principle in the fall of 1916 as new material right at the beginning of the course.In modern language, the principle readswhere α and β range over choice sequences of natural numbers, m and x over natural numbers, and stands for ⟨α, α, …, α⟩, the initial segment of α of length m.An immediate consequence of WC-N is that all full functions are continuous, and, as a corollary, that the continuum is unsplittable [28]. Note that WC-N is incompatible with Church's thesis, [22], section 4.6.After Brouwer asserted WC-N, Troelstra was the first to ask in print for a conceptual motivation, but he remained an exception; most authors followed Brouwer by simply asserting it, cf. [18].Let us note first that in one particular case the principle is obvious indeed, namely in the case of the lawless sequences. The notion of lawless sequence surfaced fairly late in the history of intuitionism. Kreisel introduced it in [17] for metamathematical purposes. There is a letter from Brouwer to Heyting in which the phenomenon also occurs [7]. This is an important and interesting fact since it is the only time that Brouwer made use of a possibility expressly stipulated in, e.g., [5], see below. (shrink)

Responding to recent concerns about the reliability of the published literature in psychology and other disciplines, we formed the X-Phi Replicability Project to estimate the reproducibility of experimental philosophy. Drawing on a representative sample of 40 x-phi studies published between 2003 and 2015, we enlisted 20 research teams across 8 countries to conduct a high-quality replication of each study in order to compare the results to the original published findings. We found that x-phi studies – as represented in our sample (...) – successfully replicated about 70% of the time. We discuss possible reasons for this relatively high replication rate in the field of experimental philosophy and offer suggestions for best research practices going forward. (shrink)

This article researches how a corporate code of ethics (CCE) implemented in local government X has influenced the behavior of its employees, middle managers, and managers. Metaphors from the existing and desired CCE elicited by these three groups provided information on how to improve the effectiveness of the CCE. This method proved to be very fruitful. It appeared that continuous systematic attention needed to be paid to the CCE after the CCE had been implemented, particularly by management. Initiatives from management (...) to start discussions about relevant questions of integrity appeared to be also necessary to make the topic a “normal” topic which employees were no longer afraid to discuss. In this way, the possibility could be created to develop collectively a “practical” frame of reference concerning relevant questions of integrity that would help employees to make decisions in difficult situations during their work in the future. (shrink)