This article is the text of an interview with D. H. Mellor conducted in Cambridge on 30 May 2001 by Anna-Sofia Maurin and Johannes Persson for the philosophical journal Theoria.

Containment and support have traditionally been assumed to represent universal conceptual foundations for spatial terms. This assumption can be challenged, however: English in and on are applied across a surprisingly broad range of exemplars, and comparable terms in other languages show significant variation in their application. We propose that the broad domains of both containment and support have internal structure that reflects different subtypes, that this structure is reflected in basic spatial term usage across languages, and that it constrains children's (...) spatial term learning. Using a newly developed battery, we asked how adults and 4-year-old children speaking English or Greek distribute basic spatial terms across subtypes of containment and support. We found that containment showed similar distributions of basic terms across subtypes among all groups while support showed such similarity only among adults, with striking differences between children learning English versus Greek. We conclude that the two domains differ considerably in the learning problems they present, and that learning in and on is remarkably complex. Together, our results point to the need for a more nuanced view of spatial term learning. (shrink)

Comparing knowledge with belief can go wrong in two dimensions: If the authors employ a wider notion of knowledge, then they do not compare like with like because they assume a narrow notion of belief. If they employ only a narrow notion of knowledge, then their claim is not supported by the evidence. Finally, we sketch a superior teleological view.

Patronizing the Public is the first detailed and comprehensive examination of how American philanthropy has transformed culture, communication, and the humanities. Drawing on an impressive range of archival and secondary sources, the chapters in the volume shed light on philanthropic foundations have shaped numerous fields, including film, television, radio, journalism, drama, local history, museums, as well as art and the humanities in general.

A target question for the scientific study of consciousness is how dimensions of consciousness, such as the ability to feel pain and pleasure or reflect on one’s own experience, vary in different states and animal species. Considering the tight link between consciousness and moral status, answers to these questions have implications for law and ethics. Here we point out that given this link, the scientific community studying consciousness may face implicit pressure to carry out certain research programs or interpret results (...) in ways that justify current norms rather than challenge them. We show that because consciousness largely determines moral status, the use of nonhuman animals in the scientific study of consciousness introduces a direct conflict between scientific relevance and ethics—the more scientifically valuable an animal model is for studying consciousness, the more difficult it becomes to ethically justify compromises to its well-being for consciousness research. Finally, in light of these considerations, we call for a discussion of the immediate ethical corollaries of the body of knowledge that has accumulated and for a more explicit consideration of the role of ideology and ethics in the scientific study of consciousness. (shrink)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte argues that one semantic presupposition of claims about our entitlements is the idea that others are capable of autonomy. Individuals cannot demand anything from others, even submission, unless they also presuppose—although perhaps without acknowledging this to themselves—that others are free agents. Thus, the autonomy of others is a pre-condition of our exercise of autonomy. Why do individuals and groups often try to justify their own entitlement to rights at the expense of the freedom of others, thereby simultaneously (...) assuming and denying their freedom? This paper investigates what constitution of group agency gives individual members of the group the best chance to develop and sustain a moral character consistent with the ideal of equal autonomy. I argue that liberalism fosters the sort of group agency that improves individuals’ chances to acquire epistemically reliable beliefs about the moral status of others. I apply my findings to the discussion of court decisions in Gaines, Brown, and the race nuisance cases. (shrink)

Das Buch legt in geschichtlicher Reihenfolge dar, wie sich herausragende Denker des Abendlandes Gott geistig und geistlich angenähert haben und wer für sie Gott im Wesentlichen war. So war für die antiken Philosophen Platon und Plotin das Göttliche vor allem das Gute, Schöne oder Eine. Als christliche Denker suchten dann im Früh- und Hochmittelalter Augustinus, Richard von St. Viktor und Thomas von Aquin auf je eigene Weise die Dreieinheit Gottes zu erklären. Am Beginn der Neuzeit endete die lebenslange Suche des (...) Nikolaus von Kues nach dem angemessensten Gottesbegriff schliesslich beim "Können selbst." In der Neuzeit erfuhr Teresa von Avila Gott als das Innerste ihrer Seele, während ihr Ordensbruder Johannes vom Kreuz Gott als lebendige Liebesflamme erlebte. In seinen "Meditationen" bestimmte Descartes Gott als das vollkommenste Wesen. Wiederum dem dreieinen Gott näherte sich Hegel mit seiner spekulativen Lehre vom Reich des Vaters, des Sohnes und des Geistes. Für Hans Urs von Balthasar war im 20. Jh. das stellvertretende Leiden des Gottessohnes für uns Menschen von entscheidender Bedeutung. Im selben Zeitraum verstand Karl Rahner Gott primär als das heilige Geheimnis. Anhand eines Hauptwerkes oder mehrerer Werke wird jeweils der Weg oder ein Weg dieser Denker zu Gott nachgezeichnet. Ausserdem werden mithilfe neuerer angelsächsischer Diskussionen einige Eigenschaften Gottes erörtert: sein Schöpfertum sowie seine Allmacht, Allwissenheit und Ewigkeit.-- Back cover. (shrink)

This chapter presents three unpublished works by Karoline von Günderrode. In them, Günderrode discusses and assesses the moral philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling’s philosophy of nature, while also developing her own ethical account of the human relation to the earth in the essay “Idea of the Earth.” Widely regarded as her most important and radical contribution, “Idea of the Earth” distinguishes Günderrode among her contemporaries and places her in proximity to current environmental thought.

Im Allgemeinen widmet sich das vorliegende Buch dem gemeinsamen Problembereich der zeitgenössischen Theologie und Philosophie, aber den konkreten Anlass der hiesigen Beiträgen geben jedoch die Parallelität in der Erscheinung der Enzyklika Fides et Ratio vom Papst Hl. Johannes Paulus II., und die Heiligsprechung Edith Steins (Mitpatronin Europas) von demselben heiligen Papst. Die Autoren des Bandes reflektieren sich auf die Gemeinsamkeit des Denkens dieser zwei Heiligen des 20. Jahrhunderts, auf ihre philosophischen Engagements in der christlichen Philosophie, sowie auf die heutigen (...) Möglichkeiten des gemeinsamen Denkens von Philosophie und Theologie. (shrink)

Proven experience can be shared. Given this, we cannot assume that the character of proven experience is always manifest as a physical token in each individual sharing it. But the token might still exist somewhere. Perhaps that is a condition of the proven experience’s existence. Something similar could have been accepted as true of scientific knowledge, especially if those who argued that scientific claims were only shorthand for more complicated claims about observations had been right. But it seems that they (...) were not. Hence there might be an ontological difference explaining why there will always be a netto divergence between science and proven experience. (shrink)

in Undetermined Table d’Hôte Ingar Brinck: Investigating the development of creativity: The Sahlin hypothesis 7 Linus Broström: Known unknowns and proto-second-personal address in photographic art 25 Johan Brännmark: Critical moral thinking without moral theory 33 Martin Edman: Vad är ett missförhållande? 43 Pascal Engel: Rambling on the value of truth 51 Peter Gärdenfors: Ambiguity in decision making and the fear of being fooled 75 Göran Hermerén: NIPT: Ethical aspects 89 Mats Johansson: Roboethics: What problems should be addressed and why? 103 (...) Johan Laserna: Ambivalenta bilder 113 Anna-Sofia Maurin: Metaphysical explanation 161 Kevin Mulligan: Is preference primitive? 169 John D. Norton: How does your garden grow? 181 Johannes Persson & Annika Wallin: The distinction between internal and external validity 187 Johanna Seibt: Becoming our selves 197 Paul Slovic, Robin Gregory, David Frank, and Daniel Vastfjall: Confronting the collapse of humanitarian values in foreignpolicy decision making 209 Peter Sylwan: Det eviga livet 215 Claudine Tiercelin: Chance, love and logic: Ramsey and Peirce on norms, rationality and the conduct of life 221 Epilog 257 Frank Ramsey. (shrink)

This study delves into the unexplored intersection of Socinianism, a religious movement challenging Christian orthodoxy in the Early Modern period, and Tacitism, a political discourse inspired by Tacitus. Both fostered critical thinking, intertwining in nuanced ways. Socinianism’s theological skepticism questioned established beliefs, while Tacitism scrutinized historical and political accounts. Their controversial nature resulted in covert existence among elite intellectuals, shaping socio-political discourse. Socinianism’s theological nonconformity, akin to Tacitism’s critique of traditional political narratives, often sparked conflicts with authorities, revealing the intricate (...) relationship between religion and politics in the Early Modern Era and influencing the development of secular thought. (shrink)

Johann Heinrich Tieftrunk has a place among the early Kantians in Halle as both a theologian and a philosophical thinker. After situating Tieftrunk within this intellectual history and determining his theological and philosophical position, this paper provides a chronological account of the concept of hope—which lies at the basis of Kant’s moral philosophy—in Tieftrunk’s writings on philosophy of religion. In particular, the discussion centers on the relationship between the foundation of hope in the moral law and the exclusion of a (...) legalistic fulfilment of hope. The “love of the law,” which emerges especially in Tieftrunk’s work, takes a prominent position in the interpretation. The investigation is accompanied by an evaluation of Tieftrunk’s role in the early reception of Kant. (shrink)

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has confronted us with constantly new challenges. We need to browse new inventories of scientific knowledge to reflect on previous experiences and thus facilitate societal learning. In line with the first volume on the COVID-19 pandemic in this series, contributions from different disciplines and fields of practice create an awareness of the complexity of this crisis and help us to understand the diversity of challenges it poses. The first part focuses on philosophical, sociological and psychological problem (...) diagnoses, the second on reactive strategies in the fields of medicine, nursing care, the economy and law. After taking a look at religious contexts and fields of practice, leading experts from the healthcare sector share their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic. With contributions by Mahmoud Abdallah, Désirée Amschl-Strablegg, Cornelia Baptist-Kröpfl, Herbert Beiglböck, Ulrike Berdnik, Alois Birklbauer, Anneliese Derkits, Reinhold Esterbauer, Franziska Grossschädl, Katharina Heimerl, Andreas Heller, Marie-Christin Hinteregger, Hartmann Jörg Hohensinner, Elisabeth Horvath, Isabella Jonveaux, Anna-Christina Kainradl, Ulla Kriebernegg, Wolfgang Kröll, Ulrike Kylianek, Martin M. Lintner, Saskia Löser, Christa Lohrmann, Sandra Müller, Gerold Muhri, Manfred Novak, Sabine Petritsch, Eva Peyker, Michaela Pfadenhauer, Barbara Pichler, Johann Platzer, Lisa Pongratz, Maria Puntigam, Elisabeth Reitinger, Hans-Walter Ruckenbauer, Hellmut Samonigg, Walter Schaupp, Georg Tafner, Christa Tax, Wolfgang Toller and Jürgen Wallner. (shrink)

Simulation modeling, the core thesis of Calculated Surprises, is transforming the established conception of mathematical modeling in fundamental ways. These transformations feed back into philosophy of science, opening up new perspectives on longstanding oppositions. The book integrates historical features with both practical case studies and broad reflections on science and technology.

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)

Historismus, verstanden als umfassende Historisierung kultureller Gegebenheiten, prägt seit annähernd 200 Jahren die europäische Kultur der Moderne. Gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts mehrten sich Stimmen, die einem Zuviel an Geschichte eine schädigende Wirkung zusprachen. Namentlich die zweite 'Unzeitgemäße Betrachtung' Friedrich Nietzsches (1874) wird immer wieder als Initialzündung für die Krise des Historismus angesehen, die sich alsbald zur kritischen Reflexion der Erkenntnisgrundlagen überhaupt, zur gut fünfzig Jahre andauernden Krise der Wirklichkeit ausweitete.Johannes Heinßen interpretiert die Krise des Historismus als Folge der (...) Erosion geschichtsphilosophischer, sinnstiftender Ordnungsverfahren in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Über eine Vielzahl von Einzeldisziplinen (Theologie, Philosophie, Kunstgeschichte, Geschichtswissenschaft, Literaturwissenschaft, Soziologie, Naturwissenschaft) hinweg zeichnet er ein Bild zahlreicher, letztlich vergeblicher Rettungsversuche dieser Gedankenwelt. Auf der Grundlage der zeitgenössischen Kulturpublizistik entfaltet sich daneben ein Panorama heute vergessener Autoren wie Eduard von Hartmann, Moriz Carrière, Karl Christian Planck, David Friedrich Strauß und Karl Hillebrand, die als Epigonen des Idealismus oder des wissenschaftlichen Materialismus das Weltbild des Bildungsbürgertums dieser Jahre prägten.Zugleich wird hier eine Problemgeschichte der Klassischen Moderne geschrieben. Die Sicht auf das historische Denken um 1890 in seiner Breite erklärt wesentliche Strukturen der Geschichtskultur um die Jahrhundertwende: den Weg in die völkische Kulturkritik (Paul de Lagarde, Julius Langbehn) ebenso wie die Genese der Historischen Kulturwissenschaft. (shrink)

There is evidence that bidders fall prey to the winner’s curse because they fail to extract information from hypothetical events—like winning an auction. This paper investigates experimentally whether bidders in a common value auction perform better when the requirements for this cognitive issue—also denoted by contingent reasoning—are relaxed, leaving all other parameters unchanged. For my underlying research question, I used a lab experiment with two stages. In stage I, the subjects participate in a non-standard common value auction, called the wallet (...) game, in which a naïve bidding strategy can lead to both winner’s curse and loser’s curse. In stage II, the subjects in the treatment group learn whether their initial bid was the winning bid or not and they get the opportunity to change this bid. In this sense, the bidders face the same decision problems as in stage I again, but the need for hypothetical thinking is reduced in stage II. The overall pattern of the data suggests that the problem of irrational over- and underbidding can be weakened by giving the subjects ex ante feedback about their bid, but unlike related studies I also find negative effects of additional information. (shrink)

It is often assumed that deflationist accounts of truth are a product of philosophy of logic and language in the twentieth century. In this paper I show why this assumption is historically short-sighted. An early version of deflationism about truth can already be found in Brentano’s 1889 lecture “On the Concept of Truth.” That Brentano is a precursor of deflationism has gone largely unnoticed because of a different reception of his lecture: according to most scholars, Brentano proposes in it a (...) revision of the correspondence theory of truth that he later rejected in favour of an epistemic theory. Contrary to this received interpretation, I argue that Brentano actually tried to show how one can minimize an account of truth without thereby sacrificing a robust realist intuition about the objectivity of truth. Brentano held on to this deflationist view in his later years, when he assigned self-evident judgments a primary role in our understanding of truth. (shrink)

An increasing number of studies indicate that changes in cytosolic free Ca2+ ([Ca2+]c) mediate specific types of signal transduction in plant cells. Modulation of [Ca2+]c is likely to be achieved through changes in the activity of Ca2+ channels, which catalyse passive influx of Ca2+ to the cytosol from extracellular and intracellular compartments. Voltage‐sensitive Ca2+ channels have been detected in the plasma membranes of algae, where they control membrane electrical properties and cell turgor. These channels are sensitive to 1,4‐dihydropyridines, which in (...) animal cells specifically affect one class of voltage‐regulated plasma membrane Ca2+ channel. Ca2+‐permeable channels with different pharmacological properties have been found in the plasma membrane of higher plants. Recent evidence suggests the existence of two discrete classes of Ca2+ channel co‐resident in the vacuolar membrane (tonoplast) of higher plants. The first is gated by inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate, and bears a number of similarities to its animal counterpart which is located in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The second tonoplast Ca2+ channel is voltage‐operated. However, the specific roles of these tonoplast channels in signal transduction have yet to be elucidated. (shrink)