In the introductory “Intellectual Autobiography” of the Georg Henrik von Wright volume of the Library of Living Philosophers series, von Wright mentions the discrepancy he always felt between his narrow logical-analytical professional work and a drive to make philosophy relevant to his life, calling it a rift in his philosophical personality. This article examines the nature of the rift and the various stages the problem went through during von Wright’s career. It is argued that the initial impression that his books (...) The Varieties of Goodness and Explanation and Understanding had contributed to healing the rift, was subdued by a gradual shift in existential focus from individualistic ethics towards a critical concern for destructive ways of thinking inherent in the Western culture, connected with von Wright’s “political awakening” at the end of the 1960s. The most urgent questions of our times called for novel, non-analytical, ways of doing philosophy, employed in von Wright’s later works on science and reason, and the myth of progress. Eventually von Wright’s earlier methodological concerns were also alleviated by his belief that logical-analytical philosophy was inherently unsuitable for exposing the cultural structures it was very much a part of. (shrink)

This paper describes the design and evaluation of a personality for the robotic user interface “iCat”. An application was developed that helps users find a TV-programme that fits their interests. Two experiments were conducted to investigate what personality users prefer for the robotic TV-assistant, what level of control they prefer, and how personality and the level of control relate to each other. The first experiment demonstrated that it is possible to create convincing personalities of the TV-assistant by applying various social (...) cues. The results of the second experiment showed that an extravert and agreeable TV-assistant was preferred over a more introvert and formal one. Overall, the most preferred combination was an extravert and friendly personality with low user control. Additionally, it was found that perceived level of control was influenced by the robot’s personality. This suggests that the robot’s personality can be used as a means to increase the amount of control that users perceive. (shrink)

Der Autor stellt die Seinsfrage von dessen Bejahung durch eine fundamentalontologische Liebe aus. Ihre psychosozialen Möglichkeiten sowie die christliche Vergebungslehre werden ausgelotet und die Konfessionen daran erinnert, ihrer Kernbotschaft gerecht zu werden: das von ihnen gepredigte Sein auch selbst zu leben.

El análisis de rituales performativos de memoria supone un reto metodológico para la investigación social interpretativa, ya que las interacciones rituales están inscritas en un contexto más amplio, que está determinado por las tradiciones simbólicas y por los acuerdos institucionales que configuran el marco de las ceremonias. A partir del estudio de ceremonias conmemorativas del Día Internacional de Recuerdo del Holocausto se mostrará la interconexión en el análisis de estos distintos niveles. Para ello nos basamos en datos videográficos de un (...) proyecto de investigación en curso sobre ceremonias de memoria del Holocausto en Espana y Alemania, que examina la tesis sobre una incipiente “cultura de la memoria global”. En el análisis de los materiales seguimos enfoques metodológicos que provienen de la sociología del conocimiento hermenéutica y la sociología de géneros comunicativos. (shrink)

This book is an analytically oriented investigation into the problems of value theory and ethics. It develops a conceptual systematization of the notions of value, taking the concept of merit, explicated in terms of the degree to which something meets some requirements as basic. The origin of value is identified as the source of these requirements. Being completely general in its scope, the analysis offers a consistent picture of the field, where ethics is introduced by understanding its central concerns as (...) related to the goodness of the world. A fresh approach to questions such as the relevance of arguments for value judgements, the relation between facts and values and the place of happiness in ethics is presented. (shrink)

Vår skapende evne -- Liberalisme og ekstremisme -- Karl Popper og rasjonell politisk handling -- Vasemachos eller samtalekunstens tragedie -- Hvem er de fremmedgjorte -- Ved profetens føtter -- Den totalitære lengsel -- Har Camus bidratt til filosofien -- Om å lese Glucksmann -- Camus og Glucksmann -- Ved Jean-Paul Sartres død -- "Udraabere af inderlighed" og a dre moralske dyr.

In March 2022 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a risk assessment of a recent animal gene editing proposal submitted by Acceligen™. The proposal concerned the possibility of changing the cattle genome to obtain a slicker, shorter hair coat. Using CRISPR-Cas9 it was possible to introduce an intentional genomic alteration (IGA) to the prolactin receptor gene (PRLR), thereby producing PRLR-SLICK cattle. The goal was to diminish heat stress in the cattle by enhancing their heat-tolerance. With regard to unintended (...) alterations (i.e., off-target effects), the FDA stated that the IGA posed a low, but still present, risk to animal safety. The aim of this article is to present some initial insights into the welfare issues raised by PRLR-SLICK cattle by addressing the question: Do SLICK cattle have better welfare than non-SLICK cattle when exposed to heat stress? Two potential welfare concerns are examined. The first is pleiotropy, an issue that arises when one gene affects multiple traits. Given the pleiotropic nature of prolactin, it has been suggested that the IGA for SLICK cattle may also affect their hepatic and other functions. The second concern relates not primarily to direct effects on cattle health, but rather to the indirect risk that this more heat-tolerant animal would just be used in the livestock sector under farming conditions that are such that the net welfare improvement would be non-existent. (shrink)

The article draws a connection between three items preserved at the von Wright and Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Helsinki (WWA), namely a book by Wilhelm Busch and two copies of the photos of von Wright and Wittgenstein in Cambridge taken by Knut Erik Tranøy in 1950, by suggesting that the photos contain an allusion by Wittgenstein.