Over the past century or so, questions concerning the word ‘meaning’ have been understandably prominent in the field of the philosophy of language. There is, however, a historical aspect to the debate that is of especial interest to literary critics – the fact that verbs and expressions of meaning have been applied to different kinds of things in a number of languages spanning the western literary tradition. I shall introduce the topic by focussing on the Latin expressionsibi uelleand on how (...) Roman authors exploited its ambiguities for the purposes of humour (§§ I and II). I shall then move on to a discussion of a later Latin phrase familiar from the pages of the Virgilian commentator Servius,hoc uult dicere, and argue that the assumptions we have about expressions of meaning may lead us to adopt a particular interpretation of it (§§ III and IV). In the final part of the paper (§§ V, VI and VII) I shall proceed to a discussion of why it is important for modern literary critics to pay attention to how they use verbs such as ‘to mean’: I argue that the different functions of the verb facilitate a personification of the text that allows us to equivocate about the role of the author. (shrink)

Hesiod’s Fable of the Hawk and the Nightingale remains a scholarly problem: its “might is right” moral seems to counteract the point that the poet appears to be making in this part of the Works and Days. Moreover, it is introduced with an address to the kings but finishes immediately prior to a dislocated appellation to Hesiod’s brother Perses. We have no clearly analogous fable to set next to this one. In this paper I step outside the Greek tradition and (...) present a comparable story from the Indic Mahābhārata that involves not only a hawk and a dove but also a king who protects the latter. I argue that the material it supplies can help us in our interpretation of the Hesiodic fable by opening up the possibility that there is in fact a third character within the drama – absent from the text itself but essential for our understanding of it – who had the power to protect the nightingale from the hawk but who failed to do so. (shrink)

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.

The imperative to practice hospitality constitutes a mark of Western civilization. Already in Homer’s Odyssey, the hero Ulysses punishes Polyphemus for not having respected the obligation of hospitality towards him and his companions. In fact, hospitality has been a constitutive element of the West, marked by linguistic, cultural, and religious differences, in a world whose borders are supposed to be well defined. In his discussion of hospitality, Derrida shows how Socrates, in Plato’s dialogue The Apology of Socrates, places himself in (...) the position of a foreigner. In fact, Socrates presents himself as foreigner, that is, someone who is alien to the language and procedures of the court that is judging him. According to Derrida, he shows, in this way, the extent to which the foreigner is forced to ask for hospitality in a language he does not know. The court reduces Socrates to the other, the different. Moreover, the court forces him to deny his difference, his own identity, asking him to adapt himself to a system that he does not control. The paradox arises when Socrates, who regrets being regarded as a foreigner, asks the court to treat him at least as a foreigner. He feels so outraged that he asks to be granted at least the rights of a non-national. In doing so, Socrates shows how recognizing the rights of the foreigner generates hospitality but, at the same time, also limits it. Whenever a human being is recognized as human being, he or she will necessarily be seen as another, as someone different. This person will have to adapt him or herself to a system, culture or world that will define him or her as a foreigner. In short, in the phenomena that we tend to see as hospitality there is always a certain hostility. In a world of ongoing migratory crises, and in the context of a return to nationalisms of exclusion combined with populisms of prejudice and aversion to those who are different, it becomes imperative to rethink the ethics and politics of hospitality. In this context, Derrida’s distinction between conditioned and unconditioned hospitality can be useful. (shrink)

An important argument against prohibiting organ sales is that it removes the best option available to individuals in dire circumstances. However, this line of reasoning fails to recognise that selling a kidney on a regulated market is only the best option in a very narrow comparison, where a regulated organ market is compared with banning organ sales. Once we acknowledge this narrowness, selling a kidney is not the best option. This paves the way for a distributive justice-based critique of the (...) ‘best option’ argument for organ markets, which illuminates that organ markets should be compared with a broader set of alternatives. If providing the option of selling a kidney is not the best option, but rather the best option we are willing to provide, and one which means that many people will remain in poverty and unjust circumstances, then this reflects poorly on those societies willing to offer only this option and not a better one. (shrink)

Cognitive science is experiencing a pragmatic turn away from the traditional representation-centered framework toward a view that focuses on understanding cognition as "enactive." This enactive view holds that cognition does not produce models of the world but rather subserves action as it is grounded in sensorimotor skills. In this volume, experts from cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology, robotics, and philosophy of mind assess the foundations and implications of a novel action-oriented view of cognition. Their contributions and supporting experimental evidence show that (...) an enactive approach to cognitive science enables strong conceptual advances, and the chapters explore key concepts for this new model of cognition. The contributors discuss the implications of an enactive approach for cognitive development; action-oriented models of cognitive processing; action-oriented understandings of consciousness and experience; and the accompanying paradigm shifts in the fields of philosophy, brain science, robotics, and psychology. ContributorsMoshe Bar, Lawrence W. Barsalov, Olaf Blanke, Jeannette Bohg, Martin V. Butz, Peter F. Dominey, Andreas K. Engel, Judith M. Ford, Karl J. Friston, Chris D. Frith, Shaun Gallagher, Antonia Hamilton, Tobias Heed, Cecilia Heyes, Elisabeth Hill, Matej Hoffmann, Jakob Hohwy, Bernhard Hommel, Atsushi Iriki, Pierre Jacob, Henrik Jörntell, Jürgen Jost, James Kilner, Günther Knoblich, Peter König, Danica Kragic, Miriam Kyselo, Alexander Maye, Marek McGann, Richard Menary, Thomas Metzinger, Ezequiel Morsella, Saskia Nagel, Kevin J. O'Regan, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Giovanni Pezzulo, Tony J. Prescott, Wolfgang Prinz, Friedemann Pulvermüller, Robert Rupert, Marti Sanchez-Fibla, Andrew Schwartz, Anil K. Seth, Vicky Southgate, Antonella Tramacere, John K. Tsotsos, Paul F. M. J. Verschure, Gabriella Vigliocco, Gottfried Vosgerau. (shrink)

Two studies substantiating Blair's main postulates are summarized. The first study showed that fluid cognition, reasoning, and perceived competence about reasoning are separate and equipotent partners in g. The second study showed that reasoning, understanding of emotions, and perceived competence about reasoning and emotions partake in the formation of g, substantiating Blair's claim that cognition and emotion are linked in the brain.

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 this paper, we analyse actual causation in terms of production. The latter concept is made precise by a strengthened Ramsey Test semantics of conditionals: \ iff, after suspending judgement about A and C, C is believed in the course of assuming A. This test allows us to verify or falsify that an event brings about another event. Complementing the concept of production by a weak condition of difference-making gives rise to a full-fledged analysis of causation.

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)

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.

The present paper discusses the concept of imposed relevance as developed by Alfred Schutz. Th e discussion acts on the assumption that within his writings there are two different usages of the concept: a phenomenological one and a sociological one. The argument states that both usages may not be confused—a failure which might be induced by the fact that Schutz himself never dwelled on their correlation. This being said, this paper presents some basic considerations which try to utilize phenomenological reflections (...) for sociological analyses, keeping in mind that the difference between them may not be blurred. (shrink)

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)

The well-known formal semantics of conditionals due to Stalnaker Studies in logical theory, Blackwell, Oxford, 1968), Lewis, and Gärdenfors The logic and 1140 epistemology of scientific change, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1978, Knowledge in flux, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1988) all fail to distinguish between trivially and nontrivially true indicative conditionals. This problem has been addressed by Rott :345–370, 1986) in terms of a strengthened Ramsey Test. In this paper, we refine Rott’s strengthened Ramsey Test and the corresponding analysis of explanatory relations. We (...) show that our final analysis captures the presumed asymmetry between explanans and explanandum much better than Rott’s original analysis. (shrink)

This interview comprises different key aspects of Pierre Bourdieu’s work. Amongst others, the following topics are treated: the development of Frédéric Lebaron’s collaboration with Bourdieu, the political and ideological conditions prevailing at the time of Bourdieu’s early works and during the phase of his establishment, the epistemological foundations of Bourdieu’s relationism, the relationship to other modern paradigms such as Fligstein’s and McAdam’s field theory, Hedström’s analytical sociology, discourse analysis, network analysis, and a debate on relationalism, causality, and rationality within the (...) architecture of Bourdieu’s theory. (shrink)