We aim to devise a Ramsey test analysis of actual causation. Our method is to define a strengthened Ramsey test for causal models. Unlike the accounts of Halpern and Pearl ([2005]) and Halpern ([2015]), the resulting analysis deals satisfactorily with both over- determination and conjunctive scenarios.

In den letzten Jahren hat sich eine Vielfalt unterschiedlicher Gremien zur Ethikberatung entwickelt: vom Konsil mit einem einzelnen Berater bis zum Ethikkomitee. In dem Band werden die Ethikberatung, ihre Entwicklung und Anwendung, sowie die Gründung von Gremien in Krankenhäusern, Pflegeeinrichtungen, Hospizen und von niedergelassenen Ärzten anhand von Fallbeispielen erläutert. Dabei schlagen die Autoren eine Brücke zwischen traditioneller philosophischer Ethik und anwendungsbezogener klinischer Ethik. Auch rechtliche Fragen werden erörtert.

Aristotle’s most fundamental distinction between changes and other activities is not that ofMetaphysicsΘ.6, between end-exclusive and end-inclusive activities, but one implicit inPhysics3.1’s definition of change, between the activity of something incomplete and the activity of something complete. Notably, only the latter distinction can account for Aristotle’s view, inPhysics3.3, that ‘agency’—effecting change in something, e.g. teaching—does not qualify strictly as a change. This distinction informsDe Anima2.5 and imparts unity to Aristotle’s extended treatment of change inPhysics3.1-3.

Modal logic has been applied in many different areas, as reasoning about time, knowledge and belief, necessity and possibility, to mention only some examples. In the present paper, an attempt is made to use modal logic to account for the semantics of theoretical sentences in scientific language. Theoretical sentences have been studied extensively since the work of Ramsey and Carnap. The present attempt at a modal analysis is motivated by there being several intended interpretations of the theoretical terms once these (...) terms are introduced through the axioms of a theory. (shrink)

Nudging policies rely on behavioral science to improve people's decisions through small changes in the environments within which people make choices. This article first seeks to rebut a prominent objection to this approach: furnishing governments with the power to nudge leads to relations of alien control, that is, relations in which some people can impose their will on others—a concern which resonates with republican, Kantian, and Rousseauvian theories of freedom and relational theories of autonomy. I respond that alien control can (...) be avoided, if nudging is suitably transparent and democratically controlled. Moreover, such transparency and democratic control are institutionally feasible. Building on this response, I then provide a novel and surprising argument for more nudging: democratically controlled public policy nudging can often contain the power of private companies to nudge in uncontrolled and opaque ways. Therefore, reducing alien control often requires more rather than less nudging in public policy. (shrink)

A simple explanation of theoreticity says that a term is theoretical if and only if it refers to nonobservational entities. Paradigmatic examples of such entities are electrons, neutrinos, gravitational forces, genes etc. There is yet another explanation of theoreticity: a theoretical term is one whose meaning becomes determined through the axioms of a scientific theory. The meaning of the term ‘force’, for example, is seen to be determined by Newton’s laws of motion and further laws about special forces, such as (...) the law of gravitation. Theoreticity is a property that is commonly applied to both expressions in the language of science, and referents and concepts of such expressions. Objects, relations and functions as well as concepts thereof may thus qualify as theoretical in a derived sense. (shrink)

Two prominent relational egalitarians, Elizabeth Anderson and Niko Kolodny, object to giving people in a democratic community differential voting weights on the grounds that doing so would lead to unequal relations between them. Their claim is that deviating from a “one-person, one-vote” scheme is incompatible with realizing relational egalitarian justice. In this article, I argue that they are wrong. I do so by showing that people can relate as moral, epistemic, social, and empirical equals in a scheme with differential voting (...) weights. I end the article by showing that from the perspective of relational egalitarianism, it is sometimes true that differential voting weights are more just than equal voting weights. (shrink)

Taking his critique of totalitarianizing conceptions of community as a starting point, this text examines Jean-Luc Nancy's work of an ‘ontology of plural singular being’ for its political implications. It argues that while at first this ontology seems to advocate a negative or an anti-politics only, it can also be read as a ‘theory of communicative praxis’ that suggests a certain ethos – in the form of a certain use of symbols (which is expressed only inaptly by the word ‘style’) (...) that would render the ontological plurality of singulars perceptible and practically effective. Finally, some recent texts by Nancy even sidestep the ontology of being-with and face the question of what politics, faced with demands of justice, could be and what a democratic politics could provide. Both of these aspects in Nancy's work, however, still remain to be spelled out more politically. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band umfasst den Briefwechsel Schleiermachers von April 1806 bis Ende 1807, dem Zeitpunkt seiner endgültigen Übersiedlung nach Berlin. Im Sommer 1806 lehrt Schleiermacher das letzte Semester an der Hallenser Universität, wobei er zum ersten Mal Kirchengeschichte und Christliche Sittenlehre liest. Mit dem Zusammenbruch Preußens und der Besetzung Halles durch französische Truppen im Oktober 1806 findet Schleiermachers akademische Wirksamkeit ein abruptes Ende durch die Schließung der Universität und die Vertreibung der Studenten. Er bleibt zunächst in Halle, um das Schicksal (...) der Universität abzuwarten, beginnt aber im Sommer 1807 mit Privatvorlesungen in Berlin, wohin er Ende 1807 endgültig übersiedelt, in der Hoffnung auf eine Berufung an die neu zu gründende Berliner Universität. Der drohende Krieg und die Niederlage Preußens sind zentrale Themen des Briefwechsels. Eine große Rolle spielen die beruflichen Perspektiven Schleiermachers und die Hoffnung auf die neu zu errichtende Berliner Universität. Von den insgesamt 425 Briefen dieses Bandes sind 240 an Schleiermacher gerichtet und 185 von ihm selbst geschrieben. 127 der hier dokumentierten Briefe konnten nur erschlossen werde; von ihnen ist kein Text überliefert. Von den übrigen Briefen waren bisher nur 80 vollständig gedruckt. 41 Briefe waren bisher im Verhältnis zu den überlieferten Texten bzw. Textzeugen nur gekürzt publiziert; sie werden hier erstmals entsprechend der Überlieferungslage vollständig ediert. 177 Briefe werden im vorliegenden Band überhaupt erstmals ediert. (shrink)

The modern term >fascination fascination force divided self< allow to indicate them as prototypical descriptions of fascination. References to Plato by Marsilio Ficin and Friedrich Nietzsche expose the importance of Socrates in the conceptual history of fascination.

This commentary compares the P-FIT model with psychometric and developmental models of intelligence and shows that there are isomorphisms and divergences between them. All three models involve some common dimensions, but the P-FIT model lacks many of the dimensions of the other models. Then we point to research that can lead to the integration of brain models with cognitive-developmental models.

Polemics are a sort of critique typically suffused with inimical emotions and passions. But how are these emotions and passions to be construed? Neither authorial expression nor actual arousal properly account for their rôle in polemics. Rather, the polemicist must stage an unequal battle between a polemical self and the polemical target vis-à-vis an anticipated audience, skilfully handling, through his words, the emotions ascribed to each of them.

Wie sehr unser Alltag auf Konsensen der unterschiedlichsten Art beruht, merkt man immer dann, wenn diese implizit oder explizit aufgekündigt werden. Damit verbunden ist eine Begriffs- und Theoriegeschichte, der sich die Beiträge dieses Bandes aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive widmen. Gegenstand ist der zentrale Beitrag eines vielsprachigen und multikulturellen Jahrtausends, das wir gewöhnlich Mittelalter nennen. Im Mittelpunkt der Begriffsarchäologie in historischer und systematischer Absicht steht der Begriff "consensus", der auch in gegenwärtigen Debatten eine beachtliche Konjunktur besitzt. Ein Konsens beruht auf einer in (...) vernünftiger Rede konstituierten Gemeinsamkeit. Die ihm zugrundeliegende Übereinstimmung ist jedoch von der Art der gut begründeten, anerkannten Meinungen, nicht von der Art der Beweise. Im Unterschied zur Zustimmung aus rein theoretischen Gründen tritt beim consensus zur Einsicht in die Gründe ein Moment willensmäßiger Zustimmung hinzu. Zugespitzt gesagt: Ein Konsens muss auch gewollt sein. Wie aber kommt ein Konsens zustande und was geschieht, wenn er aufgekündigt wird? Der historische Blick zeigt uns wie in einem Laboratorium die zentrale Idee wie auch die Perspektivenvielfalt der Konsensthematik. (shrink)

This essay aims to analyze the structure of Aristotle's Metaphysics Θ by explicating various senses of the term δύναµις at issue in the treatise. It is argued that Aristotle's central innovation, the sense of δύναµις most useful to his project in the treatise, is the kind of capacity characteristic of the pre-existent matter for substance. It is neither potentiality as a mode of being, as recent studies maintain, nor capacity for `complete' activity. It is argued further that, in starting with (...) the κύριος sense of δύναµις as capacity for change, Aristotle begins with the most familiar and acknowledged kind of capacity, in order to move to the less familiar but ultimately more useful notion of capacity for substance, and to bring these two kinds together through an analogical relation. (shrink)

In this paper, I review the motivation of connexive and strongly connexive logics, and I investigate the question why it is so hard to achieve those properties in a logic with a well motivated semantic theory. My answer is that strong connexivity, and even just weak connexivity, is too stringent a requirement. I introduce the notion of humble connexivity, which in essence is the idea to restrict the connexive requirements to possible antecedents. I show that this restriction can be well (...) motivated, while it still leaves us with a set of requirements that are far from trivial. In fact, formalizing the idea of humble connexivity is not as straightforward as one might expect, and I offer three different proposals. I examine some well known logics to determine whether they are humbly connexive or not, and I end with a more wide-focused view on the logical landscape seen through the lens of humble connexivity. (shrink)