Given an admissible indexing φ of the countable atomless Boolean algebra B, an automorphism F of B is said to be recursively presented (relative to φ) if there exists a recursive function $p \in \operatorname{Sym}(\omega)$ such that F ⚬ φ = φ ⚬ p. Our key result on recursiveness: Both the subset of $\operatorname{Aut}(\mathscr{B})$ consisting of all those automorphisms which are recursively presented relative to some indexing, and its complement, the set of all "totally nonrecursive" automorphisms, are uncountable. This arises (...) as a consequence of the following combinatorial investigations: (1) A comparison of the cycle structures of f and f̄, where f is a permutation of some free basis of B and f̄ is the automorphism of B induced by f. (2) An explicit description of the permutations of ω whose conjugacy classes in $\operatorname{Sym}(\omega)$ are (a) uncountable, (b) countably infinite, and (c) finite. (shrink)

This paper offers an explanation of the fact that sentences of the form (1) ‘X may A or B’ may be construed as implying (2) ‘X may A and X may B’, especially if they are used to grant permission. It is suggested that the effect arises because disjunctions are conjunctive lists of epistemic possibilities. Consequently, if the modal may is itself epistemic, (1) comes out as equivalent to (2), due to general laws of epistemic logic. On the other hand, (...) on a deontic reading of may, (2) is only implied under exceptional circumstances – which usually obtain when (1) is used performatively. (shrink)

The paper is about the interpretation of opaque verbs like “seek”, “owe”, and “resemble” which allow for unspecific readings of their (indefinite) objects. It is shown that the following two observations create a problem for semantic analysis: (a) The opaque position is upward monotone: “John seeks a unicorn” implies “John seeks an animal”, given that “unicorn” is more specific than “animal”. (b) Indefinite objects of opaque verbs allow for higher-order, or “underspecific”, readings: “Jones is looking for something Smith is looking (...) for” can express that there is something unspecific that both Jones and Smith are looking for. Given (a) and (b), it would seem that the following inference is hard to escape, if the premisses are construed unspecifically and the conclusion is taken on its under- specific reading: Jones is looking for a sweater. Smith is looking for a pen. Smith is looking for something Jones is looking for. (shrink)

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into critical domains such as healthcare holds immense promise. Nevertheless, significant challenges must be addressed to avoid harm, promote the well-being of individuals and societies, and ensure ethically sound and socially just technology development. Innovative approaches like Embedded Ethics, which refers to integrating ethics and social science into technology development based on interdisciplinary collaboration, are emerging to address issues of bias, transparency, misrepresentation, and more. This paper aims to develop this approach further to enable future projects (...) to effectively deploy it. Based on the practical experience of using ethics and social science methodology in interdisciplinary AI-related healthcare consortia, this paper presents several methods that have proven helpful for embedding ethical and social science analysis and inquiry. They include (1) stakeholder analyses, (2) literature reviews, (3) ethnographic approaches, (4) peer-to-peer interviews, (5) focus groups, (6) interviews with affected groups and external stakeholders, (7) bias analyses, (8) workshops, and (9) interdisciplinary results dissemination. We believe that applying Embedded Ethics offers a pathway to stimulate reflexivity, proactively anticipate social and ethical concerns, and foster interdisciplinary inquiry into such concerns at every stage of technology development. This approach can help shape responsible, inclusive, and ethically aware technology innovation in healthcare and beyond. (shrink)

Many urgent problems that societies currently face—from climate change to a global pandemic—require citizens to engage with scientific information as members of democratic societies as well as to solve problems in their personal lives. Most often, to solve their epistemic aims (aims directed at achieving knowledge and understanding) regarding such socio-scientific issues, individuals search for information online, where there exists a multitude of possibly relevant and highly interconnected sources of different perspectives, sometimes providing conflicting information. The paper provides a review (...) of the literature aimed at identifying (a) constraints and affordances that scientific knowledge and the online information environment entail and (b) individuals' cognitive and motivational processes that have been found to hinder, or conversely, support practices of engagement (such as critical information evaluation or two-sided dialogue). Doing this, a conceptual framework for understanding and fostering what we callonline engagement with scientific informationis introduced, which is conceived as consisting of individual engagement (engaging on one's own in the search, selection, evaluation, and integration of information) and dialogic engagement (engaging in discourse with others to interpret, articulate and critically examine scientific information). In turn, this paper identifies individual and contextual conditions for individuals' goal-directed and effortful online engagement with scientific information. (shrink)

Videoüberwachung ist heute allgegenwärtig. Sie dient dazu, Delikte im Nachhinein aufzuklären, zur Echtzeit-Überwachung oder zur Abschreckung. Darüber hinaus gibt es aber auch wirtschaftliche Interessen für eine Videoüberwachung und automatische Erfassung von Personen – z.B. zur Erstellung von Kundenprofilen und somit zur Analyse von Kaufverhalten. Dem gegenüber stehen Rechtsanspruche sowie ethische und gesellschaftliche Grundnormen, etwa dass Menschen nicht unter Generalverdacht gestellt oder ohne Zustimmung aufgezeichnet werden dürfen. In dieser Arbeit wird ein technischer Lösungsansatz behandelt, der eine flexible Handhabung der Videoüberwachung erlaubt. (...) Es werden in diesem Zusammenhang neben der technischen Umsetzung auch ökonomische, ethische und juristische Fragen betrachtet. Der Lösungsansatz besteht darin, Personen auf Videoaufnahmen durch ein kryptographisches Verfahren unkenntlich zu machen, noch bevor die Aufnahmen die Kamera-Elektronik verlassen. Nur mittels eines geheimen kryptographischen Schlüssels können einzelne Zeit- und Bildbereiche einer Aufnahme wieder deanonymisiert werden, wodurch rechtlichen wie ethischen Bedenken Rechnung getragen werden kann. In kommerziellen Szenarien erlaubt es diese digitale Tarnkappe, dass Kunden z.B. im Rahmen eines Prämien-Programms freiwillig auf Anonymisierung verzichten. Während in der Literatur der Informatik bereits seit längerem Technologien für solche System beschrieben werden, werden in dieser Arbeit Wege gezeigt, wie dessen Einbettung in die Gesellschaft wirklich realisiert werden könnte. (shrink)

A. H. Sommerstein has recently directed our attention away from the belaboured topic of the essential and original structure of Old Comedy to the more productive question of how the extant plays of Aristophanes are shaped. He begins with the question of the source of ‘the five-act principle, standard in Menandrian comedy’ . Correctly looking to the chorus as the key element in articulating a play's form, Sommerstein finds that the five-act format already dominates the shape of Old Comedy, although (...) he argues that the number of acts ranges from four to seven and that only in the fourth century do the acts become about the same length. His analysis is largely correct, I think, but it is in danger of being ignored because his criteria are not objective and have not been applied systematically. Thus, B. Zimmermann has more recently described the structure of Aristophanic comedy as free. (shrink)

It is becoming more common that the decision-makers in private and public institutions are predictive algorithmic systems, not humans. This article argues that relying on algorithmic systems is procedurally unjust in contexts involving background conditions of structural injustice. Under such nonideal conditions, algorithmic systems, if left to their own devices, cannot meet a necessary condition of procedural justice, because they fail to provide a sufficiently nuanced model of which cases count as relevantly similar. Resolving this problem requires deliberative capacities uniquely (...) available to human agents. After exploring the limitations of existing formal algorithmic fairness strategies, the article argues that procedural justice requires that human agents relying wholly or in part on algorithmic systems proceed with caution: by avoiding doxastic negligence about algorithmic outputs, by exercising deliberative capacities when making similarity judgments, and by suspending belief and gathering additional information in light of higher-order uncertainty. (shrink)

The studies contained in this volume range widely and include the following: K. Bormann, on the concept of truth and the doctrine concerning Nous in Aristotle and some of his commentators; K. Jacobi, on "good" and "evil" and their opposition in Aristotle, some Aristotelian commentators, and Thomas Aquinas; P.-B. Lüttringhaus, on God, freedom, and necessity in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy; G. Vuillemin-Diem, a long study concerning William of Moerbeke's translation into Latin of Aristotle's Metaphysics; R. Wielockx, on Godfrey of Fontaines (...) as a witness in support of the authenticity of Albert the Great's Summa theologiae; R. Hissette, on Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas and the Paris Condemnation of 1277; A. Zimmermann, on Thomas Aquinas's De veritate, qu. 1; C. Kopp, an edition and study of the fallaciae breves contained in a British Museum manuscript; I. Craemer-Ruegenberg, a study on the terminatio materiae primae as found in a commentary on Aristotle's Physics dating from the second half of the fourteenth century; H. G. Senger, a study of a question by Lambert of Heerenberg, concerning whether Aristotle's soul was saved. Limitations of space will force me to confine my remarks to only a few of these carefully researched investigations. In the first study Bormann seeks to determine Aristotle's views concerning the ultimate ground for universally valid propositions and Aristotle's justification for his belief that certain of these are valid for all men and at all times in spite of the differences in human language. This quickly leads him to consider Aristotle's views concerning mind as active and mind as passive, especially as found in De anima III, 5. Mind as active is not to be identified with Aristotle's Unmoved Mover of Metaphysics XII; it unites with the soul of the individual man during the latter's lifetime, is free from all potentiality, is never acted upon, and exists in separation from the individual human being with the death of the latter. Mind as passive passes away with the individual soul when a particular man dies. Bormann then examines subsequent efforts to clarify Aristotle's thought concerning this by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, John Philoponus, Averroes, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas. Lüttringhaus introduces his discussion of Boethius's views on God, freedom, and necessity by drawing an interesting contrast between freedom as found in the One of Plotinus and freedom in Boethius. Given his Christian Neoplatonism, Boethius must reconcile human freedom with an omnipotent and omniscient God. His efforts to do so in the Consolatio are then carefully analyzed by Lüttringhaus. As Lüttringhaus points out, Boethius's distinction between absolute necessity and hypothetical necessity in Bk. V is crucial for his defense of human freedom, along with his distinction between divine eternity and human temporality. G. Vuillemin-Diem's study offers new and valuable information concerning Moerbeke's revision and translation of the Metaphysics. Contrary to the long held view that Moerbeke had only newly translated one book and had simply revised an earlier translation for the others, she shows that he newly translated Bks. XI, XIII, and XIV. Moreover, she reveals that a long overlooked surviving Greek manuscript may have served as the model for Morebeke's revision and translation, either directly or through a copy. R. Wielockx turns to three manuscripts from Godfrey of Fontaines' library which still survive in order to cast some new light on the disputed authenticity of Albert the Great's Summa theologiae. The manuscripts contain a number of excerpts taken from the first part of Albert's Summa; many of those contained in the two last-mentioned manuscripts are explicitly attributed to Albert by Godfrey's own hand, according to Wielockx. Given this and the relatively early dating Wielockx has established for the copying of these excerpts into the manuscripts in question, he has here discovered a valuable external and positive indication pointing to the authenticity of at least this earlier part of Albert's Summa. Having already published an important book in 1977 on the Paris Condemnation of 1277, R. Hissette here returns to the disputed issue whether some of these condemned propositions were directly aimed at Thomas Aquinas or at Albert the Great. Hissette acknowledges that a number of positions held by Aquinas and by Albert were in fact touched on by various condemned propositions. He also notes that the authors of the decree itself must have known that the condemned propositions were held by Aquinas and by various Masters from the Arts Faculty at Paris. But given the statement in the prologue of the decree to this effect that it was aimed at members of the Arts Faculty, Hissette continues to deny that either Thomas or Albert was a direct target of this condemnation; they were only indirectly implicated. Some may wonder whether this distinction defended by Hissette is real or only verbal. In his careful analysis of Thomas's De veritate, 1, 6, Zimmermann draws some interesting comparisons and contrasts between Thomas's views concerning whether any created truth is immutable and Anselm's De veritate, on the one hand, and Bertrand Russell's "Truth and Falsity," on the other.--John F. Wippel, The Catholic University of America. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 295 A study of Heidegger faces serious difficulties, for Heidegger is a difficult philosopher to comprehend. It is all too easy to fall into an oracular mode of presentation and to become obscure in that needless way of which one suspects Heidegger himself on many occasions. Seidel avoids these dangers admirably. His is a clear and careful, reasoned and unassuming account of Heidegger's views concerning the pre-socratics (...) and the historical fate of Being. His book should be a help to the scholar of Heidegger's thought and a stimulating, though perplexing, introduction to his philosophy. If it fails in the ways I have mentioned, it succeeds in many more ways than I have had the space to mention. It is a positive contribution to the literature concerning Iteidegger. STEPI-IEI~"A. ERICKSOR" Pomona College FiIosofia dell'arte. By Nicola Petruzzellis. Terza edizione riveduta ed accresciuta. (Napoli, Libreira Scientifica Editrice, 1964. I6~ pp. 642.) E' una terza edizione ma in cui l'ampiezza delle aggiunte ~ tale da far sl che non si possa parlare di un rifacimento soltanto perch~ i criter~ fondamentali dell'indagine tentata dall'autore (ed integrata dal felice volume su L'estetica dell'idealismo) sono rimasti gli stessi. Ma quello che prima era soltanto un motivo tematico s'~ sviluppato in una vogorosa e posscnte sinfonia, specie se ci si riferisce al panorama dell'estetica contemporanea, che, con ampiezza di vedute e spregiudicata freschezza d'informazione---integrando e continuando le note storie dell'estetica e della critica dello Zimmermann, dello Schlaser, del Bosanquet, del Croce e del Wellek--il Petruzzellis traccia all'inizio del libro "I1 panorama dell'estetica contemporanea, col quale si apre il volume---avverte--non vuol essere un'esposizione manualistica, e tanto meno un repertorio bibliografico pifl o meno completo, ma uno strumento d'indagine.... e vuo|e altresl fornire all'attento lettore le ragioni storiche e critiche deUe posizioni conclusive alle quali siamo pervenuti e dei consensi e dissensi in esse impliciti" (p. 6). II quadro ~ davvero completo, non solo in riferiment~ all'Italia, ch~ l'autore felicemente riassume e criticamente definisce, rendendo giustizia alle legittime esigenze di ognuno, le ricerche estetiche de Croce e Gentile, di Carlini e di Guzzo, di Stefanini e di Aliotta, di Rensi e di Baratono, di Carbonara e di Della Volpe. Il Petruzzellis 6 e~uriente anche circa le analisi sottili (che si ricoUegano all'esttismo ed al moralismo di SSren Kirkegaard) condotte intorno all'arte da Martin Heidegger e da Karl Jaspers, da Gabriel Marcel e da Jean Paul Sartre, mentre acutamente illustra quelle--ispirate ad un esistenzialismo positivo--di Nicola Abbagnano. Meno note le concezioni estetiche di Nicolai Hartmann e quelle fenomenologiche del Banff, del Morpurgo Tagliabue e del Dufrenne, sicch~ si deve dar atto al Petruzzellis della benemerenza d'averle minutamente illustrate, cosl come ha fatto con il problematicismo estetico di Ugo Spirito e del suo discepolo Armando Plebe. Sottilissima ~ poi l'analisi dei riflessi sulla filosofia dell'arte di correnti speculative ehe oggi (forse ~ effetto di moda) occupano, dal neoempirismo al marxismo, il palcoscenico culturale. Ms se tall correnti si agitano e si dimenano con notevole fracas~o in altri campi, penetrano solo furtivamente nel giardino delle Muse. Percib c'~ voluta tutta la paziente intelligenza del Petruzzellis per presentarci le riflessioni sull'arte (assai poco divulgatc specie in Italia) di John Dewey, di I. A. Richards, di Charles Morris, di B. C. Heyl, di Ernest Cassirer, di Susanne K. Langer e di GySrgy Luke. Quest'ultimo, in veritY, a differenza dei precedenti (mi riferisco sempre al solo lato estetico), ~ alquanto famoso, peraltro in effetti mal noto, ch~ la sua fortuna, dovuta prevalentemente a contingenti motivi politici, fa sl ch'egli sia pi~ citato che effettivamente letto. Un posto particolare in questo gran quadro il Petruzzellis assegna poi alle indagini semantiche di Guido Calogero e soprattuito a quelle penetranti ed acutissime di Antonino 296 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Pagliaro, mentre sviscera con intelletto d'amore il contributo estetico arrecato da grandi contemporanei ispiratisi alla Scolastica quali Maritain, Petit e Gilson. Quest'adesione alle loro vibrazioni spirituali ci svela il profondo motivo animatore di questa: Filosofia d;ell'arte che scritta "nel momento pi... (shrink)

Dance provides natural conditions for studying relationships between coordination patterns and human experience. von Zimmermann and colleagues investigate whether relatively simple or more complex forms of movement coordination are related to pro‐social experiences during group dance. They find that pro‐social experience depends on the degree to which movement patterns are distributed and diversified, but not the degree to which movement patterns are simply unitary.

This paper is about the semantic analysis of referentially opaque verbs like seek and owe that give rise to nonspecific readings. It is argued that Montague's categorization (based on earlier work by Quine) of opaque verbs as properties of quantifiers runs into two serious difficulties: the first problem is that it does not work with opaque verbs like resemble that resist any lexical decomposition of the seek ap try to find kind; the second one is that it wrongly predicts de (...) dicto (i.e. narrow scope) readings due to quantified noun phrases in the object positions of such verbs. It is shown that both difficulties can be overcome by an analysis of opaque verbs as operating on properties. This is a strongly modified version of a paper entitled lsquoDo We Bear Attitudes towards Quantifiers?rsquo that I have presented at conferences in Gosen (Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft), Ithaca (SALT I), and Konstanz (Lexikon). I owe a special debt to Hans Kamp and Arnim von Stechow for shaping my views on the subject of this paper during the past ten years or so. Comments from and discussions with the following friends and colleagues have also led to considerable improvements: Heinrich Beck, Steve Berman, David Dowty, Veerle van Geenhoven, Fritz Hamm, Irene Heim, Wolfgang Klein, Angelika Kratzer, Michael Morreau, Barbara Partee, Mats Rooth, Roger Schwarzschild, Wolfgang Sternefeld, Emil Weydert, Henk Zeevat, and three referees. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives have been praised as vehicles for tackling complex sustainability issues, but their success relies on the reconciliation of stakeholders’ divergent perspectives. We yet lack a thorough understanding of the micro-level mechanisms by which stakeholders can deal with these differences. To develop such understanding, we examine what frames—i.e., mental schemata for making sense of the world—members of MSIs use during their discussions on sustainability questions and how these frames are deliberated through social interactions. Whilst prior framing research has focussed (...) on between-frame conflicts, we offer a different perspective by examining how and under what conditions actors use shared frames to tackle ‘within-frame conflicts’ on views that stand in the way of joint decisions. Observations of a deliberative environmental valuation workshop and interviews in an MSI on the protection of peatlands—ecosystems that contribute to carbon retention on a global scale—demonstrated how the application and deliberation of shared frames during micro-level interactions resulted in increased salience, elaboration, and adjustment of shared frames. We interpret our findings to identify characteristics of deliberation mechanisms in the case of within-frame conflicts where shared frames dominate the discussions, and to delineate conditions for such dominance. Our findings contribute to an understanding of collaborations in MSIs and other organisational settings by demonstrating the utility of shared frames for dealing with conflicting views and suggesting how shared frames can be activated, fostered and strengthened. (shrink)

Linguistic expressions frequently make reference to the situation in which they are uttered. In fact, there are expressions whose whole point of use is to relate to their context of utterance. It is such expressions that this article is primarily about. However, rather than presenting the richness of pertinent phenomena (cf. Anderson & Keenan 1985), it concentrates on the theoretical tools provided by the (standard) two-dimensional analysis of context dependence, essentially originating with Kaplan (1989)--with a little help from Stalnaker (1978) (...) and Lewis (1979a, 1980), and various predecessors including Kamp (1971) and Vlach (1973). The current article overlaps in content with the account in Zimmermann (1991), which is however much broader (and at times deeper).. (shrink)

Contemporary conversations about religion and culture are framed by two reductive definitions of secularity. In one, multiple faiths and nonfaiths coexist free from a dominant belief in God. In the other, we deny the sacred altogether and exclude religion from rational thought and behavior. But is there a third way for those who wish to rediscover the sacred in a skeptical society? What kind of faith, if any, can be proclaimed after the ravages of the Holocaust and the many religion-based (...) terrors since? Richard Kearney explores these questions with a host of philosophers known for their inclusive, forward-thinking work on the intersection of secularism, politics, and religion. An interreligious dialogue that refuses to paper over religious difference, these conversations locate the sacred within secular society and affirm a positive role for religion in human reflection and action. Drawing on his own philosophical formulations, literary analysis, and personal interreligious experiences, Kearney develops through these engagements a basic gesture of hospitality for approaching the question of God. His work facilitates a fresh encounter with our best-known voices in continental philosophy and their views on issues of importance to all spiritually minded individuals and skeptics: how to reconcile God's goodness with human evil, how to believe in both God and natural science, how to talk about God without indulging in fundamentalist rhetoric, and how to balance God's sovereignty with God's love. (shrink)

Smart Cities consist of a multitude of interconnected devices and services to, among others, enhance efficiency, comfort, and safety. To achieve these aims, smart cities rely on an interplay of measures including the deployment of interventions targeted to foster certain human behaviors, such as saving energy, or collecting and exchanging sensor and user data. Both aspects have ethical implications, e.g., when it comes to intervention design or the handling of privacy-related data such as personal information, user preferences or geolocations. Resulting (...) concerns must be taken seriously, as they reduce user acceptance and can even lead to the abolition of otherwise promising Smart City projects. Established guidelines for ethical research and practice from the psychological sciences provide a useful framework for the kinds of ethical issues raised when designing human-centered interventions or dealing with user-generated data. This article thus reviews relevant psychological guidelines and discusses their applicability to the Smart City context. A special focus is on the guidelines’ implications and resulting challenges for certain Smart City applications. Additionally, potential gaps in current guidelines and the limits of applicability are reflected upon. (shrink)

When two people move in synchrony, they become more social. Yet it is not clear how this effect scales up to larger numbers of people. Does a group need to move in unison to affiliate, in what we term unitary synchrony; or does affiliation arise from distributed coordination, patterns of coupled movements between individual members of a group? We developed choreographic tasks that manipulated movement synchrony without explicitly instructing groups to move in unison. Wrist accelerometers measured group movement dynamics and (...) we applied cross-recurrence analysis to distinguish the temporal features of emergent unitary synchrony and distributed coordination. Participants’ unitary synchrony did not predict pro-social behavior, but their distributed coordination predicted how much they liked each other, how they felt toward their group, and how much they conformed to each other's opinions. The choreography of affiliation arises from distributed coordination of group movement dynamics. (shrink)

Hermeneutics is the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, a behaviour that is intrinsic to our daily lives. As humans, we decipher the meaning of newspaper articles, books, legal matters, religious texts, political speeches, emails, and even dinner conversations every day. But how is knowledge mediated through these forms? What constitutes the process of interpretation? And how do we draw meaning from the world around us so that we might understand our position in it? In this Very Short Introduction (...) Jens Zimmermann traces the history of hermeneutic theory, setting out its key elements, and demonstrating how they can be applied to a broad range of disciplines: theology; literature; law; and natural and social sciences. Demonstrating the longstanding and wide-ranging necessity of interpretation, Zimmermann reveals its significance in our current social and political landscape. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

Body ecology by cosmosis refers to the experience of immersion, or the incorporation of the elements of nature through a body practice, leisure or sport. In this article, we propose comprehensive u...

This article asks about the conditions of a sociological operationalization of the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Raising the question of freedom and social opportunities, the capability approach has so far mainly been discussed by economists and philosophers. In order to adopt this approach for a sociological and pragmatist perspective, it engages with methodological and theoretical issues. Whereas capabilities have until now mainly been studied within quantitative frameworks, the author opts for a qualitative method of inquiry (...) that draws on a pragmatist and configurational approach. Such a shift towards qualitative inquiry is a key condition for a better sociological understanding of notions like freedom and opportunities that stand at the core of the capability approach. (shrink)

This textbook introduces undergraduate students of language and linguistics to the basic ideas, insights, and techniques of contemporary semantic theory. The book starts with everyday observations about word meaning and use and then gradually zooms in on the question of how speakers manage to meaningfully communicate with phrases, sentences, and texts they have never come across before. Extensive English examples provide ample illustration.

The purpose of this article is to investigate human spatiality and perception in general, with the experience of adventure sports as its background. These activities highlight especially our strong relationship with the world when we consider the specific way in which the environment participates in the development of human potential. We first analyse the notions of risk and instability as important elements in adventure sports. Then we explore the notion of experience and spatiality, considering the way in which we establish (...) our relationship with the world. The theoretical background is found in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and Bachelard’s phenomenology of imagination to investigate perspectives of space among adventurers. We hold that more than a different range of corporeal techniques, adventure sports can teach us a way of interrogating and looking at the world. They require a peculiar sensibility that allows our body to experience the environment in favour of a corporeal wisdom. Alternative sports indicate the possibility that we have to build up different ways of inhabiting the world and comprehending it. (shrink)

Disagreement persists about when, if at all, disenfranchisement is a fitting response to criminal wrongdoing of type X. Positive retributivists endorse a permissive view of fittingness: on this view, disenfranchising a remarkably wide range of morally serious criminal wrongdoers is justified. But defining fittingness in the context of criminal disenfranchisement in such broad terms is implausible, since many crimes sanctioned via disenfranchisement have little to do with democratic participation in the first place: the link between the nature of a criminal (...) act X (the ‘desert basis’) and a fitting sanction Y is insufficiently direct in such cases. I define a new, much narrower account of the kind of criminal wrongdoing which is a more plausible desert basis for disenfranchisement: ‘political wrongdoing’, such as electioneering, corruption, or conspiracy with foreign powers. I conclude that widespread blanket and post-incarceration disenfranchisement policies are overinclusive, because they disenfranchise persons guilty of serious, but non-political, criminal wrongdoing. While such overinclusiveness is objectionable in any context, it is particularly objectionable in circumstances in which it has additional large-scale collateral consequences, for instance by perpetuating existing structures of racial injustice. At the same time, current policies are underinclusive, thus hindering the aim of holding political wrongdoers accountable. (shrink)

In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant explains a perfect duty as one that “admits no exception in favor of inclination”. An imperfect duty must then, in turn, be one which does admit such exceptions. However, according to Kant, all duties are valid without exception, and so there has been broad agreement among Kantians and Kant interpreters from the beginning that perfect duties cannot be characterized by exceptionless validity. I would thus like to argue in favor of a (...) different reading of Kant’s explanation. My thesis is that he uses the term ‘exception’ in quite different ways, as can be documented, for instance, in the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Pure Reason. The term then has another meaning, and this is also the case in the passage in question in the Groundwork. (shrink)

Only recently have researchers gradually begun to consider the categories of freedom developed by Kant in his Critique of Practical Reason. This treatise is the first to examine the topic comprehensively and systematically. Far from being the result of unimaginative systems thinking, a closer inspection reveals thedoctrine of practical categories to be a secret focal point of Kant s practical philosophy.".

Some of the short pieces attributed in various Arabic manuscripts to Alexander of Aphrodisias in fact derive from Proclus's Elements of Theology. Twenty such pieces were published in 1973 by G. Endress, who traced the unnamed translator to the circle of Kindi. Another such piece is here identified, published, and assigned to the same translator. Its beginning and end seem to have been revised by a later transmitter. Section II of the article adduces a parallel case where the original Arabic (...) version still exists. Section III surveys a number of related pieces that would also appear to have been changed in transmission. Section IV argues that most if not all were once united in a single collection of Proclus and Alexander. Section V argues that since certain changes of detail were evidently made during or soon after translation, the general arrangement of the Kindi-circle Alexander, as of the Kindi-circle Liber de Causis and the Kindi-circle, is also likely to be peculiar to the Arabic tradition. The text from which Proclus Arabus was first translated need not have differed substantially from the transmitted Greek. (shrink)

Beauchamp and Childress’ definition of autonomous decision‐making includes the conditions of intentionality, understanding, and non‐control. In genetics, however, a relational conception of autonomy has been increasingly recognized. This article aims to empirically assess aspects of social influence in genetic testing decision‐making and to connect these with principlist and relational theories of autonomy. We interviewed 18 adult genetic counsellees without capacity issues considering predictive genetic testing for cancer predisposition for themselves and two counselling physicians in Switzerland. We conducted a qualitative analysis, (...) building on a grounded theory study about predictive genetic testing decision‐making. We found that some participants agreed to predictive genetic testing predominantly because relatives wanted them to do it, with some even acting contrary to their own convictions. Others, in contrast, based their decision on purely individualistic reasons but expressed difficulties in explaining their decision to their social environment. Healthcare professionals had a critical influence on decision‐making in many cases without being manipulative, as perceived by counsellees. Still, cases of coercion and social pressure occurred within social relationships. In conclusion, predictive genetic testing decision‐making includes relational and individualistic aspects, and both are compatible with autonomous decision‐making. While the principlist and relational notions of autonomy compete on a theoretical level, they are two sides of the same coin when used as analytical lenses for genetic testing decision‐making. Social acceptance of refusal of testing should be improved to mitigate social pressure. Individuals should be encouraged to decide for themselves how much their social environment influences their decision regarding predictive genetic testing. (shrink)

Jens Zimmermann suggests that the West can rearticulate its identity and renew its cultural purpose by recovering the humanistic ethos that originally shaped Western culture. He traces the religious roots of humanism, and combines humanism, religion and hermeneutic philosophy to re-imagine humanism for our current cultural and intellectual climate.