Introduction -- Henri Lefebvre : the production of theory -- Research : from practices of dwelling to the production of space -- Critique : space as concrete abstraction -- Project : urban society and its architecture -- Afterword : toward an architecture of jouissance.

English summary: With this work, Otto Kaiser presents the Tria Corda lectures on the three topics of destiny and freedom and divine providence as well as the beauty and harmony in the world and the problem of the existence of evil.

Back cover: This book develops a philosophical account that reveals the major characteristics that make an explanation in the life sciences reductive and distinguish them from non-reductive explanations. Understanding what reductive explanations are enables one to assess the conditions under which reductive explanations are adequate and thus enhances debates about explanatory reductionism. The account of reductive explanation presented in this book has three major characteristics. First, it emerges from a critical reconstruction of the explanatory practice of the life sciences itself. (...) Second, the account is monistic since it specifies one set of criteria that apply to explanations in the life sciences in general. Finally, the account is ontic in that it traces the reductivity of an explanation back to certain relations that exist between objects in the world (such as part-whole relations and level relations), rather than to the logical relations between sentences. Beginning with a disclosure of the meta-philosophical assumptions that underlie the author’s analysis of reductive explanation, the book leads into the debate about reduction(ism) in the philosophy of biology and continues with a discussion on the two perspectives on explanatory reduction that have been proposed in the philosophy of biology so far. The author scrutinizes how the issue of reduction becomes entangled with explanation and analyzes two concepts, the concept of a biological part and the concept of a level of organization. The results of these five chapters constitute the ground on which the author bases her final chapter, developing her ontic account of reductive explanation. (shrink)

This paper defends the Blockian Proviso against its critics, Kinsella in particular, and interprets it as a law of non-contradiction in the theory of just property rights. I demonstrate that one may not lawfully appropriate in such a way as to forestall others from appropriating an unowned land because such appropriation would result in conflict-generating norms, and conflict-generating norms are not rationally justifiable and just norms. The Blockian Proviso, which precludes forestalling, operates therefore at the level of original appropriation and (...) determines, according to the homestead principle of justice in first acquisition, what may and what may not be lawfully appropriated. Hence, the Blockian Proviso is not an add-on to the homestead principle but part and parcel thereof. (shrink)

The current global COVID-19 pandemic has led to a deep and multidimensional crisis across all sectors of society. As countries contemplate their mobility and social-distancing policy restrictions, we have a unique opportunity to re-imagine the deliberative frameworks and value priorities in our food systems. Pre-pandemic food systems at global, national, regional and local scales already needed revision to chart a common vision for sustainable and ethical food futures. Re-orientation is also needed by the relevant sciences, traditionally siloed in their disciplines (...) and without adequate attention paid to how the food system problem is variously framed by diverse stakeholders according to their values. From the transdisciplinary perspective of food ethics, we argue that a post-pandemic scheme focused on bottom-up, regional, cross-sectoral and non-partisan deliberation may provide the re-orientation and benchmarks needed for not only more sustainable, but also more ethical food futures. (shrink)

Modern technology offers an increasing number of tools for teaching mathematics, but technology adoption in schools encounters many barriers. The Technology Acceptance Model explains that technology usage is dependent on intentions, which rest on perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. Less is known about the relationship between intentions and actual behaviour. In the current study we show that the level of cognitive investment on the part of the teachers, captured by the construct of Need for Cognition (NC), is crucial (...) in the use of technology in mathematical instruction, while controlling for a variety of background factors. Furthermore NC moderates the relationship between intentions and technology use, such that high NC weakens the relationship between the perceived usefulness of technology in pedagogy and its actual use. (shrink)

Can ownership status influence probability judgements under condition of uncertainty? In three experiments, we presented our participants with a recording of a real horse race. We endowed half of our sample with a wager on a single horse to win the race, and the other half with money to spend to acquire the same wager. Across three large studies, we found the endowment effect – owners demanded significantly more for the wager than buyers were willing to pay to acquire it. (...) However, we also found that probability estimates of each horse winning the race did not differ between owners and non-owners of the betting slip. Our results demonstrate that distorted perception of probability is unlikely to be a mechanism explaining the endowment effect. (shrink)

Only six men have written a major work on Old Testament ethics in the last hundred years, and only two of these works, both written before 1900, are in English.

In this commentary, I critically assess Rex Welshon’s position on the neural substrates of ownership unity. First, I comment on Welshon’s definition of ownership unity and underline some of the problems stemming from his phenomenological analysis. Second, I analyze Welshon’s proposal to establish a mechanistic relation between neural substrates and ownership unity. I show that it is insufficient and defend my own position on how neural mechanisms may give rise to whole subjects of experience, which I call the neuro-integrative account (...) of consciousness. Lastly, I comment on Welshon’s philosophical contribution and claim that it leaves the reader theoretically stranded. (shrink)

According to contemporary understanding of the universal tree of life, the traditionally recognized kingdoms of eukaryotic organisms—Protista, Fungi, Animalia and Plantae—are irregularly interspersed in a vast phylogenetic tree. There are numerous groups that in any Linnaean classification advised by phylogenetic relationships would form sister groups to those kingdoms, therefore requiring us to admit them the same rank. In practice, this would lead to the creation of ca. 25-30 new kingdoms that would now be listed among animals and plants as “major (...) types of life”. This poses problems of an aesthetic and educational nature. There are, broadly speaking, two ways to deal with that issue: a) ignore the aesthetic and educational arguments and propose classification systems that are fully consistent with the Hennigian principles of phylogenetic classification, i.e. are only composed of monophyletic taxa; b) ignore Hennigian principles and bunch small, relatively uncharacteristic groups into paraphyletic taxa, creating systems that are more convenient. In the paper, I present the debate and analyze the pros and cons of both options, briefly commenting on the deeper, third resolution, which would be to abandon classification systems entirely. Recent advances in eukaryotic classification and phylogeny are commented in the light of the philosophical question of the purpose and design principles of biological classification systems. (shrink)

In an era of fiscal austerity and dualization of social protection, has organized labor become increasingly split along skill and industry lines? Against recent political science accounts of trade union involvement in social policymaking, this paper argues that, in the specific area of pensions, unions representing high-skilled workers and the core industrial sectors of the economy have paradoxically been led to increase their cooperation with unions representing the less privileged segments of labor, in order to improve coverage of private pensions (...) across the board. These unions’ motivations for doing so and the strategies they have employed have nonetheless differed according to the preexisting institutional design of domestic pension systems. The argument is supported with case studies of British, French, German, and Belgian unions’ involvement in contemporary pension reform. (shrink)

During the fall of 2001 (October 22–25), The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) and the Agricultural University of Norway arranged a consensus conference on the protection of the environment against ionising radiation. The motive for the conference was the need to study the ethical and philosophical basis for protection of nature in its own right. The conference was funded by Nordic Nuclear Safety Research (NKS), in cooperation with the International Union of Radioecology (IUR). The National Committee for Research Ethics in (...) Science and Technology (NENT) was hired as facilitators for the consensus process. This paper will give a brief outline of the aims and method of the conference, distinguishing these from other kinds of consensus conferences. The paper ends with some general reflections on the appropriateness of seeking consensus on ethics-related issues among experts. (shrink)

Hecht provides insights concerning the difficulty of empirically testing Shepard's internalization hypothesis, but his argument for an externalization hypothesis suffers from similar sins. [Hecht].

Cultural forces such as film create and reinforce rigidly-defined images of a doctor's identity for both the public and for medical students. The authoritarian and hierarchical institution of medical school also encourages students to adopt rigidly-defined professional identities. This restrictive identity helps to perpetuate the power of the patriarchy, limits uniqueness, squelches inquisitiveness, and damages one's self-confidence. This paper explores the construction of a physician's identity using cultural theorists' psychoanalytic analyses of gender and race as a framework of analysis. Cultural (...) theorists' politically-motivated work provides an excellent point of departure for destabilizing parts of the authoritarian medical hierarchy that can damage a student's professional development. Drawing on such discourse, this paper examines the processes by which a doctor's identity becomes rigidly defined and fixed by daily training. It finally proposes a way for a medical student to extrapolate himself from the current definitions of this identity and create a broader, more malleable concept of professional identity by defining himself from outside of, rather than through, difference. (shrink)

The Norwegian National Committee for Research Ethics inScience and Technology (NENT), collaborating with The NorwegianFisherman''s Association and The Research Council of Norway,started in 1999 a project aiming at an ethical assessment of Norwegian fisheries for the year 2020. The project was to preparethe ground for ethical debate in and of the fishery sector inview of pending important decisions on long term strategies. Thispaper has its focus on the method used for achieving these aims,rather than the substantive results concerning the fisheries. (...) Amethod was developed for this purpose, called the ethicalscenario process. This included the construction of scenarios forthe future of Norwegian fisheries, using an ethical matrix for evaluating strategies, and organizing a ``value workshop'''' whereparticipants from different stakeholder groups came together todo ethical evaluations. The positive achievements and theshortcomings of this method are discussed in this paper. The useof an ethical matrix was meant to combine a participatory approachwith insights from theoretical ethics. The project revealedinherent tensions between these two objectives. Possible ways ofdealing with this tension are indicated, but in general a goodgrasp of the socio-political context might be the best guardianagainst the possible pitfalls involved in such an approach. (shrink)

Assuming an essential difference between scientific data and phenomena, this paper argues for the view that we have to understand how empirical findings get transformed into scientific phenomena. The work of scientists is seen as largely consisting in constructing these phenomena which are then utilized in more abstract theories. It is claimed that these matters are of importance for discussions of theory choice and progress in science. A case study is presented as a starting point: paleomagnetism and the use of (...) paleomagnetic data in early discussions of continental drift. Some general features of this study are presented in formalized language. It is suggested that the presentation given is particularly suited for a semantic conception of theories. Even though the construction of scientific phenomena is the main topic of this paper, the view presented here is more adapted to realism than social constructivism. (shrink)

This article demonstrates how the Conservative system of social protection in Germany has been converging toward the Liberal American model during the past two decades, focusing on social protection for the unemployed and pensioners. In addition to public/statutory provisions, occupational welfare is also covered. Despite an overall process of convergence, we continue to witness stark dissimilarities in the arrangements for social protection outsiders: whereas Germany continues to constitutionally guarantee a legal entitlement to minimum social protection for all citizens, such a (...) guarantee does not exist in the United States. The lack of such legal entitlement for poor people of working age, combined with the criminalization of the "dangerous class," is a key differentiating characteristic of the US model at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The findings confirm but also qualify Franz-Xaver Kaufmann's analysis of the United States as "capitalism," which lacks collective welfare responsibility for all citizens, as compared to Germany's "welfare state.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to Marja Heimonen, “Justifying the Right to Music Education”Hermann J. KaiserFirst of all I would like to thank Marja Heimonen for her paper on a central problem not only for music education as practice but also for the theory of music education. She gives a very clear and convincing answer to a permanently irritating question: How do we justify music education within an ensemble of competing subjects (...) struggling to get a place within the school curriculum. And she does it in a rather uncommon way, that is, by means of legal philosophy. I think her arguments provoke several questions worthy of serious discussion. Some of these questions I shall try to indicate.The first question relates to the right to (music) education. Referring to the Nordic countries she states, "Their legal systems are based on enacted acts and statutes not only protecting the citizens against criminal acts but also securing their rights to receive a certain amount and standard of services the state is obliged to provide" and she continues: "Education is one of the basic rights in Nordic societies." I am interested very much in the wording by which these constitutions declare the right to education respectively to music education. The German constitution, for example, says only, but very bluntly that the entire schooling system stands under control of the state. That means, in connection with compulsory schooling, education at school means no right but a compulsion. (I shall come back to this point later.)The second question relates to the issue of internal versus external goods or instrumental versus self-justifying aims. In her attempt to justify music education Heimonen makes a distinction between internal and external goods, instrumental and self-justifying aims. I wonder if this distinction—though it is very common in theories of action and of value—really refers to different facts; perhaps [End Page 213] it is only a difference in perspectives. I will transform this problem into a question thus: Are aims and values emphasizing a person's well-being really not instrumental with regard to this person? The well-being aims look to me to be necessarily connected to self-justifying aims. Aims, values, activities, facts, situations, and so on, generating well-being, are always instrumental with regard to a person's well-being. What else should they be?On the other hand, are so-called external goods and instrumental aims not self-justifying aims as well, again from the point of view of the person concerned? Are not aims which favor the training of a future professional (so called instrumental aims) self-justifying with regard to this person since they contribute very much to his or her well-being? Thus music educators should not hesitate to demonstrate the real individual, social, economical, and so on, benefit of music education to the society concerned very energetically.The third question arises around the implicit theories of the teacher, the school, and the function of music education as set forth by Heimonen in her paper. Heimonen compares the structure of the (music) teacher's situation with that of a judge. She says:The judge has to operate between the tensions of different interests in the framework of the law consisting of written regulations and the tradition of previous cases that have been solved.... The judge works within a "legal puzzle" just as the music teacher operates in a "musical puzzle": both of them have to think holistically as they try to achieve the best possible solutions in a particular situation, and both of them have to act innovatively and creatively in their practice.Here the question arises as to whether the "musical puzzle" is really the corresponding moment to the "legal puzzle" or whether it is the "music-pedagogical puzzle." I think it is the latter. But the teacher does not have—like the judge "his" legal system—a framework of written regulations and he never is in the situation just to apply rules on different cases. That is to say, one cannot reduce educational activities to making decisions on the basis of right or wrong, good or bad. But even if one would acknowledge an identical structure of the... (shrink)

Nanotechnology as an emerging field is strongly related to visionary prospects which are disposed to reappear as dystopian concerns. As long as nanotechnology does not provide reliable criteria for assessing these worries as rational or as irrational they remain a challenge for ethical reflection. Given this underdetermination, many nanovisions and their corresponding concerns should therefore be considered as “arational.” For that reason, a “constructivist” stance is endorsed which does not seek to take part in discussions as to how ethicists should (...) cope with controversial worries, but tries to observe how concerns are managed by different social actors. This perspective allows us to remodel some concerns such as “grey goo” not solely as a societal reaction, but also as challenging and irritating factors. As such they potentially initiate two different processes simultaneously: a differentiation in terms of demarcating science from non-science on the one hand, and a rationalization of concerns on the other. Analyzing these processes empirically allows to reconstruct how “arational” concerns are socially made rational or, on the contrary, irrational. (shrink)

Biological individuality is a notoriously thorny topic for biologists and philosophers of biology. In this paper we argue that biological individuality presents multiple, interconnected questions for biologists and philosophers that together form a problem agenda. Using a case study of an interdisciplinary research group in ecology, behavioral and evolutionary biology, we claim that a debate on biological individuality that seeks to account for diverse practices in the biological sciences should be broadened to include and give prominence to questions about uniqueness (...) and temporality. We show that broadening the problem agenda of biological individuality draws attention to underrecognized philosophical issues and discussions and thereby organizes and enriches the existing debate. (shrink)

The analysis of structures of argumentation in historical controversies is considered to be a basic contribution to the dynamics of theories. In this paper attention is drawn to the occurence of operational arguments in the history of physics. This is to be discussed especially in respect to the nineteenth-century debates on the consistency of Wilhelm Weber's electrodynamic law with the principle of conservation of energy.

Recent findings demonstrate sex-related differences in the neurobiological mechanisms by which emotional arousal influences memory, and raise questions about the extent to which memory for emotional events may differ between males and females. Here we examine whether sex-related differences exist in the recall of central information and peripheral detail from an emotional story. Healthy subjects viewed a brief, narrated slide-show containing emotional elements in its middle section. One week later, they received an incidental multiple-choice recognition test for the story. Following (...) the test, each subject completed the BEM Sex-Role Inventory, an assessment of sex-related masculine and feminine traits. The results reveal no differences in recall of either central or peripheral story information when considering the performance of actual men and women, but a significant difference when considering male and females as determined by their BEM test scores. “BEM” males showed significantly enhanced recall of central emotional information. “BEM” females did not. Both groups showed significantly enhanced recall of peripheral emotional information, although this effect appeared larger in BEM females than in BEM males. The influences of “BEM” sex and type of information significantly interacted to influence emotional memory performance. These findings confirm the existence of sex-related influences in the recall of emotional information, and suggest that sex-related traits, rather than actual sex per se, may be a more sensitive indicator of these influences. (shrink)

R. Laudan and L. Laudan (1989) have put forth a new model intended to solve the problem of disagreement, the problem of consensus, and the problem of innovation in science. In support of this model they cite the history of the acceptance of continental drift, or plate tectonics. In this discussion, I claim that this episode does not constitute an instance of their model. The historical evidence does not support this model. Indeed, closer examination seems to weaken it. I also (...) sketch an alternative model. (shrink)

The contributors to _The Anomie of the Earth_ explore the convergences and resonances between Autonomist Marxism and decolonial thinking. In discussing and rejecting Carl Schmitt's formulation of the nomos—a conceptualization of world order based on the Western tenets of law and property—the authors question the assumption of universal political subjects and look towards politics of the commons divorced from European notions of sovereignty. They contrast European Autonomism with North and South American decolonial and indigenous conceptions of autonomy, discuss the legacies (...) of each, and examine social movements in the Americas and Europe. Beyond orthodox Marxism, their transatlantic exchanges point to the emerging categories disclosed by the collapse of the colonial and capitalist frameworks of Western modernity. Contributors. Joost de Bloois, Jodi A. Byrd, Gustavo Esteva, Silvia Federici, Wilson Kaiser, Mara Kaufman, Frans-Willem Korsten, Federico Luisetti, Sandro Mezzadra, Walter D. Mignolo, Benjamin Noys, John Pickles, Alvaro Reyes, Catherine Walsh, Gareth Williams, Zac Zimmer. (shrink)

The central aim of this article is to specify the ontological nature of constitutive mechanistic phenomena. After identifying three criteria of adequacy that any plausible approach to constitutive mechanistic phenomena must satisfy, we present four different suggestions, found in the mechanistic literature, of what mechanistic phenomena might be. We argue that none of these suggestions meets the criteria of adequacy. According to our analysis, constitutive mechanistic phenomena are best understood as what we will call ‘object-involving occurrents’. Furthermore, on the basis (...) of this notion, we will clarify what distinguishes constitutive mechanistic explanations from etiological ones. 1 Introduction 2 Criteria of Adequacy 2.1 Descriptive adequacy 2.2 Constitutive–etiological distinction 2.3 Constitution 3 The Ontological Nature of Constitutive Mechanistic Phenomena 3.1 Phenomena as input–output relations 3.2 Phenomena as end states 3.3 Phenomena as dispositions 3.4 Phenomena as behaviours 4 Phenomena as Object-Involving Occurrents 4.1 What object-involving occurrents are and why we need them 4.2 The object in the phenomenon 4.3 The adequacy of option 5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Beyond Whitehead brings the reader up to date with the latest developments in process philosophy, concerning the study its basic concepts and their roots, and its potential extensions and revisions.

We take the potentialities that are studied in the biological sciences (e.g., totipotency) to be an important subtype of biological dispositions. The goal of this paper is twofold: first, we want to provide a detailed understanding of what biological dispositions are. We claim that two features are essential for dispositions in biology: the importance of the manifestation process and the diversity of conditions that need to be satisfied for the disposition to be manifest. Second, we demonstrate that the concept of (...) a disposition (or potentiality) is a very useful tool for the analysis of the explanatory practice in the biological sciences. On the one hand it allows an in-depth analysis of the nature and diversity of the conditions under which biological systems display specific behaviors. On the other hand the concept of a disposition may serve a unificatory role in the philosophy of the natural sciences since it captures not only the explanatory practice of biology, but of all natural sciences. Towards the end we will briefly come back to the notion of a potentiality in biology. (shrink)