Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

The concept of ‘pareto superiority’ plays a central role in ethics, economics, and law. Pareto superiority is sometimes taken as a relation between outcomes, and sometimes as a relation between actions—even where the outcomes of the actions are uncertain. Whether one action is classed as (ex ante) pareto superior to another depends on the prospects under the actions for each person concerned. I argue that a person’s prospects (in this context) can depend on how that person is designated. Without any (...) constraints on acceptable designators, then, the concept of pareto superiority is ill defined and gives inconsistent results. I consider various ways of completing the definition and draw out some surprising implications. (shrink)

Many have argued that a rational agent's attitude towards a proposition may be better represented by a probability range than by a single number. I show that in such cases an agent will have unstable betting behaviour, and so will behave in an unpredictable way. I use this point to argue against a range of responses to the ‘two bets’ argument for sharp probabilities.

In this paper I present a new way of understanding Dutch Book Arguments: the idea is that an agent is shown to be incoherent iff he would accept as fair a set of bets that would result in a loss under any interpretation of the claims involved. This draws on a standard definition of logical inconsistency. On this new understanding, the Dutch Book Arguments for the probability axioms go through, but the Dutch Book Argument for Reflection fails. The question of (...) whether we have a Dutch Book Argument for Conditionalization is left open. (shrink)

_Levinas, Subjectivity, Education_ explores how the philosophical writings of Emmanuel Levinas lead us to reassess education and reveals the possibilities of a radical new understanding of ethical and political responsibility. Presents an original theoretical interpretation of Emmanuel Levinas that outlines the political significance of his work for contemporary debates on education Offers a clear analysis of Levinas’s central philosophical concepts, including the place of religion in his work, demonstrating their relevance for educational theorists Examines Alain Badiou’s critique of Levinas’s work (...) Considers the practical implications of Levinas’ theories for concrete educational practices and frameworks. (shrink)

Recent health legislation in Norway significantly increases access to specialist care within a legally binding time frame. The paper describes the contents of the new legislation and introduces some of the challenges with proliferations of rights to health care. The paper describes some of the challenges associated with the proliferation of legal rights to health care. It explains the benefits of assessing the new law in the light of a rights framework. It then analyses the problematic aspects of establishing additional (...) priority rules as solutions to rights conflicts. It then defends adequacy criteria for acceptable priority rules when such rules are unavoidable. It finally defends our proposed method and explores concrete applications. (shrink)

This article aims to establish an understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s view of creative expression, and of its phenomenological function, setting out from the intriguing statement in his essay “Cézanne’s Doubt” that the painter (or writer or philosopher) finds himself in the situation of the first human being trying to express herself. Although the importance of primary or creative expression in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy is well known, there is no consensus among commentators with respect to how this notion is to be understood, and (...) of its apparently paradoxical relation to experience in his philosophy. On the one hand, Merleau-Ponty seems to presuppose that there is an original meaning pre-given in experience; on the other hand, expression is described as a hazardous enterprise, because the meaning to be expressed does not exist before expression has succeeded. In order to resolve this tension, I explore the significance of the precariousness of creative expression, arguing that it must be related to its other side: the constituted, all too often petrified meaning that we must start out from. (shrink)

Podejmując problem niejęzykowych myśli, Bermudez rozważa go przede wszystkim na dwóch płaszczyznach: epistemologicznej i eksplanacyjnej. Płaszczyzna epistemologiczna dotyczy tego, jak możliwe jest przypisywanie myśli do istot nieposługujących się językiem oraz czy możliwe jest poznanie treści niejęzykowych myśli. Do rozwiązania tego problemu Bermudez posłużył się koncepcją semantyki sukcesu, która umożliwia poznanie zawartości przekonań i pragnień oraz zastosowanie wyjaśniania psychologicznego. Płaszczyzna eksplanacyjna dotyczy natomiast takiej atrybucji myśli do NC, która odpowiednio wyjaśniałaby ich zachowanie. W tym celu Bermudez rozszerza pojęcie racjonalności do NC (...) przez wyróżnienie jej różnych poziomów. Ponadto wyodrębnia protologikę, ukazującą, jak praktyczne rozumowanie może być przypisywane do NC. Główne zarzuty w stosunku do jego stanowiska dotyczą m.in. relacji między myśleniem a wnioskowaniem, stosowanej metodologii oraz rozszerzonego pojęcia racjonalności. (shrink)

The Objects of Credence grew from a simple insight, which is that credence claims are opaque (or ‘hyperintensional’). This central idea can be illustrated using the following example:(1)Tom has a high credence that George Orwell is a writer.(2)Tom has a low credence that Eric Blair is a writer.

I’m so grateful to the commentators for their insightful and constructive responses! Below I continue this exchange with a brief note of reply.

Krifka (1998) argues that stressed postposed additive particles associate with a clausemate constrastive topic, which need not be overt as long as it satisfies the appropriate contextual role. English too is stressed. Of the two Hungarian particles, szintén is stressed, is is not.

Whatever societies accept as "knowledge" is embedded in specific epistemological, political and economic power relations. How is knowledge produced and functionalized? What is the difference between knowledge and the sciences? Can there be science without universal truth claims? Questions like these, all of them highly relevant, are discussed in twelve essays from the perspective of Sociology, Law, Cultural Studies and the Humanities.

The article presents results of a study aimed at exploring social concepts associated with bodily ‘normativity’ and ‘passability’: the notion of normative body weight and attitude towards over- and underweight individuals. We were particularly interested in the common concepts and notions associated with normative body weight as well as possible reasons for rejection of people whose bodies do not fall within the socially shared knowledge of what the ‘right’ body is. The article presents results of a qualita­tive, interview-based research study (...) conducted with the use of visual materials. (shrink)

In _Animals and Their People_, editors Anna Barcz and Dorota Łagodzka present a collection of texts providing a zoocentric insight into philosophical, artistic, and literary issues in Anglo-American and Central-Eastern European thought.

Novalis "Novalis" was the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, an early German Romantic philosopher, poet, and novelist. Born into a Pietistic family of minor, slightly cash-strapped, Saxon nobility in 1772, he died of tuberculosis in 1801 at the age of 28. Novalis is sometimes seen as … Continue reading Novalis →.

In this text I analyze the presence of the philosophy of Nietzsche in the literary and intellectual work of the writer Albertina Bertha de Lafayette Stockler (Rio de Janeiro, 1880-1953). The interest and passion of the writer by the German philosopher is demonstrated in references, epigraphs and quotes of the philosopher. Nietzsche’s discussion of Bertha holds a historical interest in the fact that it is rare for a woman to attend philosophical forums on an equal footing with men in Brazil (...) at the time. In addition to the celebrated 1914 conference, which became the chapter in Estudos (1920), Nietzschean notions permeate the writings of Albertina Bertha, both in novels and essays. (shrink)

The present article looks at the lexical elements from Russia in the speech of the Volga Germans in Argentina. For this data recollected during the field study conducted in the context of the PhD of the author is analyzed. After a brief theoretical introduction into language contact studies, the article will give an overview of the sociohistorical context of the group in question. Then the Slavisms found in the study will be analyzed in regards to their semantics and their phonetical (...) and morphological adaptation to the German variety spoken by the Volga Germans in Argentina. All in all this study contributes with over 100 new lexical units from Russian to the current state of research on the influence of Russian on the Volga German variety in Argentina. (shrink)

This paper investigates the reception of a set of Florentine anatomical wax models on display at the medico-surgical academy Josephinum in late-eighteenth-century Vienna. Celebrated in Florence as tools of public enlightenment, in the Habsburg capital the models were criticised by physicians, who regarded the Josephinum and its surgeons as a threat to their medical authority. The controversy surrounding these models from the empire’s periphery temporarily destabilised the relationship between surgeons and physicians in the Austrian capital. The debate on the utility (...) of the Tuscan anatomical models in Vienna highlights the fact that the centre of the Habsburg empire was by no means medically homogeneous, and that the implementation of reforms could be as difficult to achieve in the capital as in the provinces. (shrink)

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to better understand the characteristics of the language-related skills of bilingual children with specific learning disorders. The aim is achieved by analyzing language-related skills in a sample of bilingual and Italian monolingual children, with and without SLD.Patients and methods: A total of 72 minors aged between 9 and 11 were recruited and divided into four groups: 18 Italian monolingual children with SLD, 18 bilingual children with SLD, 18 Italian monolingual children without SLD, and (...) 18 bilingual children without SLD. Each child underwent tests to evaluate different aspects of language skills: lexical and grammar, metalanguage and executive functions.Results: With regard to lexical and grammatical skills, the conditions of SLD and bilingualism both impact naming in terms of total number of errors for words with low frequency of use, while the condition of SLD has an effect on semantic errors for words with low frequency of use. The condition of bilingualism impacts on the total errors for words with high frequency of use and on circumlocution-type errors for words with low frequency of use. There were significant effects of bilingualism and SLD on the metalinguistic test for understanding implicit meaning, and an impact of SLD on phonological awareness was also found.Conclusion: The results suggest that both SLD and bilingualism have an effect on some lexical skills, in particular for words with low frequency of use. Both conditions, bilingualism and SLD, seem to impact on metalinguistic abilities that depend on lexical knowledge. These findings reinforce the importance of improving understanding of the neuropsychological profile of bilingual children with SLD. (shrink)

In this article a certain "aesthetical" argument in favor of the situation ontology is presented. The connections between the claims concerning ontology, semantics and grammar are examined. The main thesis of the article is, that assuming the non-compositionality principle commits us to the acceptance of the primacy of situation.