When are we responsible for addressing the acute deprivations of others beyond state borders? One widely held view is that we are responsible for addressing or preventing acute deprivations insofar as we have contributed to them or are contributing to bringing them about. But how should agents who endorse this “contribution principle” of allocating responsibility yet are uncertain whether or how much they have contributed to some problem conceive of their responsibilities with respect to it? Legal systems adopt formal norms (...) that set the burden of proof, the standard of proof, and the constraints on admissible evidence, which help courts to apply liability rules in cases where there are significant evidential uncertainties. Applying principles for determining ethical responsibilities, too, require such norms. Their content, however, should be much different from that found in criminal and even civil legal settings, where the moral costs of falsely holding those responsible for bringing about some harm are more worrisome. Instead of demanding that an agent be shown to have contributed to some deprivation “beyond a reasonable doubt,” we should express a willingness to err in favor of the acutely deprived subjects, demanding that even those agents who merely suspect that they may have substantially contributed to these deprivations undertake efforts to address them. (shrink)

American society has a history of turning to physicians during times of extreme need, from plagues in the past to recent outbreaks of communicable diseases. This public instinct comes from a deep seated trust in physician duty that has been earned over the centuries through dedicated and selfless care, often in the face of personal risks. As dangers facing our communities include terroristic events physicians must be adequately prepared to respond, both medically and ethically. While the ethical principles that govern (...) physician behavior—beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and social justice—are unchanging, fundamental doctrines must change with the new risks inherent to terroristic events. Responding to mass casualty disasters caused by terrorists, natural calamities, and combat continue to be challenging frontiers in medicine. Preparing physicians to deal with the consequences of a terroristic disease must include understanding the ethical challenges that can occur. (shrink)

Previous studies with adult participants have investigated reasoning from one or two uncertain premises with simple deductive arguments. Three exploratory experiments were designed to extend these results by investigating the evaluation of the plausibility of the conclusion of "combined" arguments, i.e. arguments constituted by two or more "atomic" standard arguments which each involved the same conclusion and one uncertain premise out of two. One example is "If she meets Nicolas it is very improbable she will go to the swimming pool; (...) if she meets Sophie it is very probable she will go to the swimming pool; she meets Nicolas; she meets Sophie". With two conflicting arguments, one supporting and one unfavourable, participants chose a compromise stance (Exp. 1), unless the thematic content of the premises allows one to consider one argument as more important than the other (Exp. 3). With two favourable arguments and rather unfamiliar materials, two typical behaviours appeared. One consisted in choosing a degree of plausibility of the conclusion that is intermediate between the modals asserted in the premises, and the other in choosing a more favourable degree than the most favourable modal (Exp. 1). The plausibility of the conclusion increased when the number of supporting atomic arguments increased from one to three, and decreased when the number of unfavourable arguments increased (Exp. 2). Theoretical implications are discussed and a model is sketched. (shrink)

The debate about the nature of the representational format of concepts seems to have reached an impasse. The debate faces two fundamental problems. Firstly, amodalists (i.e., those who argue that concepts are represented by amodal symbols) and modalists (i.e., those who see concepts as involving crucially representations including sensorimotor information) claim that the same empirical evidence is compatible with their views. Secondly, there is no shared understanding of what a modal or amodal format amounts to. Both camps recognize that the (...) two formats play essential roles in higher cognition, leading to an increasing number of hybrid proposals. In this paper, I argue that the existence of those fundamental problems should make us suspicious about a modal/amodal dichotomy. Also, I suggest that hybrid approaches, as they currently stand, do not provide suitable solutions to the impasse. Instead, we should overcome the dichotomy and treat the modal/amodal distinction as a graded phenomenon. I illustrate this hypothesis with an example of a cognitive-computational model of concepts based on the Predictive Processing framework. (shrink)

In this paper, I re-examine Barry Smith’s list of features of Austrian Philosophy in his Austrian philosophy. The legacy of Franz Brentano. Open Court, Chicago, 1994). I claim that the list properly applies only in a somewhat abbreviated form to all significant representatives of Austrian Philosophy. Moreover, Smith’s crucial thesis that the features of Austrian Philosophy are not shared by any German philosopher only holds if we compare Austrian Philosophy to a canonical list of German Philosophy II. This list, however, (...) was established in twentieth century as a result of historical misrepresentations. If we correct these misrepresentations, we obtain another list of hidden representatives called German Philosophy I. German Philosophy I is fundamentally identical to Austrian Philosophy, whereas German Philosophy II is entirely different from both Austrian Philosophy and German Philosophy I. Therefore, a slightly modified version of Smith’s Austrian Philosophy account still makes sense as a tool to position the proscientific and rational currents of Austrian Philosophy and German Philosophy I against the tendentially anti-scientific and irrational current of German Philosophy II. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that 1 participants are reluctant to accept a conclusion as certainly true when it is derived from a valid conditional argument that includes a doubtful premise, and 2 participants typically link the degree of uncertainty found in a given premise set to its conclusion. Two experiments were designed to further investigate these phenomena. Ninety adult participants in Experiment 1 were first asked to judge the validity of three conditional arguments Modus Ponens, Denial of the Antecedent, and (...) Affirmation of the Consequent . They were then required to evaluate conclusion uncertainty as a function of two degrees of asserted uncertainty in the major conditional premise If p then it is very probable that q and if p then it is not very probable that q of the arguments from the first task that were otherwise unchanged. Results revealed an effect for asserted-uncertainty in two of the three argument forms. Marginal support was found for the hypothesis that perceived argument validity would be a predictor of performance. Experiment 2 investigated the way 40 adult participants combined two sources of asserted uncertainty, one in the major premise and another in the minor premise, when they had to score the uncertainty of the conclusion. The two most prominent kinds of responses were to choose the same likelihood as the weaker of the two expressed in the premises, or a lower one. However, the within-subject consistency was poor. Theoretical implications are discussed. (shrink)

As work on practical wisdom and medicine accelerates, now is a good time to outline some important challenges that any approach to developing an account of this virtue faces. More specifically, I develop five challenges having to do with the existence and nature of practical wisdom, and whether it connects with objective and general normative truths. The main goal is to provide a guide to the challenges themselves and some of the options available for tackling them, rather than trying to (...) resolve them here. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is an analysis of the different standpoints of Parsons and Schutz concerning Weber’s suggestion that sociological explanations have to include the subjective point of view of the actors, the Cartesian Dilemma that the actor’s consciousness is not accessible to the researcher, and the Kantian Problem that theories are necessary in order to interpret sensory data, but that there is no guarantee that these theories are true. The comparison of Schutz’s and Parsons’s positions shows that Parsons’s (...) methodology is na?ve and unsuitable for a sociological analysis. But although Schutz’s methodological standpoint is much more reasonable, it is also problematic, because it excludes highly abstract social “facts” such as social systems from the research agenda. Parsons can deal with such highly abstract facts, despite the drawback that with his methodology the truth content of theories cannot be judged. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be impacting all industry sectors, while becoming a motor for innovation. The diffusion of AI from the civilian sector to the defense sector, and AI’s dual-use potential has drawn attention from security and ethics scholars. With the publication of the ethical guideline Trustworthy AI by the European Union (EU), normative questions on the application of AI have been further evaluated. In order to draw conclusions on Trustworthy AI as a point of reference for responsible research (...) and development (R&D), we approach the diffusion of AI across both civilian and military spheres in the EU. We capture the extent of technological diffusion and derive European and German patent citation networks. Both networks indicate a low degree of diffusion of AI between civilian and defense sectors. A qualitative investigation of project descriptions of a research institute’s work in both civilian and military fields shows that military AI applications stress accuracy or robustness, while civilian AI reflects a focus on human-centric values. Our work represents a first approach by linking processes of technology diffusion with normative evaluations of R&D. (shrink)

A new landscape of prenatal testing is presently developing, including new techniques for risk-reducing, non-invasive sampling of foetal DNA and drastically enhanced possibilities of what may be rapidly and precisely analysed, surrounded by a growing commercial genetic testing industry and a general trend of individualization in healthcare policies. This article applies a set of established ethical notions from past debates on PNT for analysing PNT screening-programmes in this new situation. While some basic challenges of PNT stay untouched, the new development (...) supports a radical individualization of how PNT screening is organized. This reformation is, at the same time, difficult to reconcile with responsible spending of resources in a publicly funded healthcare context. Thus, while the ethical imperative of individualization holds and applies to PNT, the new landscape of PNT provides reasons to start rolling back the type of mass-screening programmes currently established in many countries. Instead, more limited offers are suggested, based on considerations of severity of conditions and optimized to simultaneously serve reproductive autonomy and public health within an acceptable frame of priorities. The new landscape of PNT furthermore underscores the ethical importance of supporting and including people with disabilities. For the very same reason, no ban on what may be analysed using PNT in the new landscape should be applied, although private offers must, of course, conform to strict requirements of respecting reproductive autonomy and what that means in terms of counselling. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Olivi’s theory of representation and aims at showing that his theory does not endorse epistemological representationalism . Moreover, there is no representation without self-representation for Olivi. Therefore, his account of self-representation or inner experience resembles modern higher-order theories of consciousness. But unlike most modern authors, Olivi seems to combine a higher-order thought theory with a higher-order perception one.

This paper discusses the problem of sensible qualities, an important, but underestimated topic in Leibniz's epistemology. In the first section, the confused character of sensible ideas is considered. Produced by the sensation alone, ideas of sensible qualities cannot be part of distinct descriptions of bodies. This is why Leibniz proposes to resolve sensible qualities by means of primary or mechanical qualities, a thesis which is analysed in the second section. Here, I discuss his conception of nominal definitions as distinct empirical (...) representations. The provisional and modifiable status of nominal definitions is then explained in the third section. Since nominal descriptions always contain sensible determinations, Leibniz claims that empirical knowledge is indefinitely changeable according to progress in sciences. In the final section, I address the criterion of coherence that enables us to approve of hypotheses that are based on both sensible and empirical properties. (shrink)

Meier shows how the structure of Greek communal life gave individuals a civic role and discusses a crucial reform that institutionalized the idea of equality ...

This essay assesses the morality of Ukraine's use of drones to attack targets inside Russia. Following its invasion by Russian forces, Ukraine has had a just cause to wage a war of self-defense. However, its efforts to achieve that cause remain subject to moral limits. Even a state that has been unjustly attacked may not, for example, respond by deliberately targeting the attacking state's civilian population. To do so would violate the jus in bello principle of discrimination. The essay first (...) describes how drone technology has frequently enabled long-range strikes against Russian military assets as well as other targets inside cities. It then explains why it would be morally wrong for Ukraine to attack its enemy's population centers. First, Russian civilians are not liable to attack, and this nonliability is undiminished by the injustice of Russia's invasion or by any in bello wrongs committed by the Russian military. Second, attacking Russian cities with drones would arguably achieve little or no self-defensive benefit for Ukraine, and it could even be counterproductive. (shrink)

Many philosophers and psychologists hold that intuitions are, or reduce to, beliefs. The argument from intuition without beliefs threatens to undercut any such doxastic account: since there are clear cases of intuition without belief, intuitions cannot be beliefs. Advocates of the intellectual seeming account conclude that intuitions belong to the basic mental kind of intellectual seeming. I argue that rightly understood, apparent cases of intuition without belief are cases of someone having the inclination to believe that p whilst believing that (...) not-p. These can be accommodated by a disjunctive doxastic account holding that to have an intuition is to either have a belief, or to have an inclination to believe. I conclude that intuitions reduce to beliefs, and that there is no need to acknowledge intellectual seemings as basic states in our mental taxonomy. (shrink)

_The Lamp that Integrates the Practices_ is a systematic and comprehensive exposition of the most advanced yogas of the Esoteric Community Tantra as espoused by the Noble Tradition, an influential school of interpretation within the Mahayoga traditions of Indian Buddhist esoterism. Equal in authority to Nagarjuna's famous Five Stages, Aryadeva's work is perhaps the earliest prose example of the "stages of the mantra path" genre in Sanskrit. Its studied gradualism exerted immense influence on later Indian and Tibetan tradition, and it (...) is widely cited by masters from all four major lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. This volume presents the _Lamp_ in a tri-lingual format: its Sanskrit original critically-edited from recently-identified manuscripts, a critical edition of the eleventh-century Tibetan translation by Rin-chen Bzang-po, and a thoroughly-annotated English translation. Includes an introductory study discussing the history of the Guhyasamaja and its exegetical traditions, surveying the scriptural and commentarial sources of the Noble Tradition, and analyzing in detail the contents of the _Lamp_. Features a detailed, tri-lingual glossary. Published by American Institute of Buddhist Studies. (shrink)

Zeit und Nichtigkeit (Kant, Hegel, Novalis).

As work on practical wisdom and medicine accelerates, now is a good time to outline some important challenges that any approach to developing an account of this virtue faces. More specifically, I develop five challenges having to do with the existence and nature of practical wisdom, and whether it connects with objective and general normative truths. The main goal is to provide a guide to the challenges themselves and some of the options available for tackling them, rather than trying to (...) resolve them here. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The aim of the present text is to reflect on Kanawrow’s Tetralogy as an original approach to Kantian critcal metaphysics with a view to achieving the greatest clarity level of theoretical philosophising in formal and conceptual sense. Special light will be thrown here on some logical aspects of the transition from intentionality to intensionality. Transcendental synthesis is explicated toroughtly as a generative mechanism towards initially independent objectness: the virtual topos of thinking needs an emphasis on its metaphysically clarified purity. In (...) accordance with my own approach the transition from a priori to a posteriori should be clearly explicated as a transition from intentionality to intensionality – to regional (actual) human experience which falls in the range of presumed open valences of thinking. The newly considered virtualistic phenomenon is in use in accordance with transcendentalising of actual experience. In addition, logical functionality of thinking receives a cognitive significance against our actual experience. That guarantees a variety of successful routes of transcendental schematism in its virtualistic version (transcendental phenomenology).KEYWORDSCRITICAL METAPHYSIC, VIRTUALISTIC METAPHYSICS, VIRTUAL TOPOS OF THINKING, UNLOCKING, DEVIRTUALISATION, TRANSCENDENTAL SYNTHESIS.RESUMENEl objetivo del presente texto es reflexionar sobre la tetralogía de Kanawrow como un enfoque original de la metafísica critica kantiana con el fin de alcanzar el mayor nivel de claridad de filosofar teórico en el sentido formal y conceptual. Se esclarecerán especialmente algunos aspectos lógicos de la transición de la intencionalidad hacia la intensionalidad. La síntesis trascendental se explica como un mecanismo generativo hacia la objetividad inicialmente independiente: el topos virtual de pensamiento necesita un énfasis en su pureza que es metafísicamente aclarada. De acuerdo con mi propio enfoque la transición de a priori a a posteriori debe estar claramente explicada como una transición de la intencionalidad a la intensionalidad - hacia la (real) experiencia regional humana que se encuentra en el rango de valencias abiertas presumidas del pensamiento. El considerado virtualistic phenomenon está en uso, de conformidad con transcendentalisacion de la experiencia actual. Además, la funcionalidad lógica del pensamiento recibe un significado cognitivo en contra de nuestra experiencia real. Estas consideraciones garantizan una variedad de rumbos exitosos del esquematismo trascendental en su versión virtualistica (fenomenología trascendental).PALABRAS CLAVESMETAFÍSICA CRÍTICA, METAFÍSICA VIRTUAL,TOPOS VIRTUAL DE PENSAMIENTO, DE VIRTUALIZACIÓN. (shrink)

This article seeks to problematise the opposition between democracy and republic that is at the foundation of political philosophy. Following this horizon, firstly, it explores the reason that allows political thought, on the one hand, to recognise the merit of democracy as the founding act of a republic, but, on the other, to ignore its role within already founded political bodies. Secondly, and with the help of Louis Althusser’s perspective, it is suggested that this ambiguous and paradoxical role of democracy (...) can be interpreted from a mystifying way of understanding ideology that is present in the most hegemonic political philosophies. Finally, it is proposed to approach the relationship between democracy and the body politic from Althusser’s reading of Machiavelli in his text Machiavelli and Us. (shrink)

Este artigo objetiva pensar o debate envolvendo a questão da literalidade na obra de Gilles Deleuze, mormente naquela escrita em parceria com Félix Guattari, a partir de um recuo pelo pensamento do filósofo Henri Bergson. Apresentada como um modo singular de operar com a escrita, a literalidade deleuze-guattariana exigiria que determinadas formulações, mormente aquelas de teor imagético fossem lidas ao pé da letra (a la lettre) ao invés de interpretadas como metáforas. Tendo adentrado em nosso país por meio do dossiê (...) Entre Deleuze e a Educação, publicado em 2005 no periódico Educação & Sociedade, a questão da literalidade fomentou uma discussão acalorada, nomeadamente no campo educacional – dado o fato de um dos participantes, François Zourabichvili, propor uma pretensa teoria de ensino deleuzeana a partir dessa noção. Longe de querer encerrar tal debate, almejamos pensá-lo sob a égide do pensamento bergsoniano, a fim de propor um escape do binarismo estabelecido. (shrink)

Probability logic studies the properties resulting from the probabilistic interpretation of logical argument forms. Typical examples are probabilistic Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens. Argument forms with two premises usually lead from precise probabilities of the premises to imprecise or interval probabilities of the conclusion. In the contribution, we study generalized inference forms having three or more premises. Recently, Gilio has shown that these generalized forms ``degrade'' -- more premises lead to more imprecise conclusions, i. e., to wider intervals. We distinguish (...) different forms of degradation. We analyse Predictive Inference, Modus Ponens, Bayes' Theorem, and Modus Tollens. Special attention is devoted to the case where the conditioning events have zero probabilities. Finally, we discuss the relation of degradation to monotonicity. (shrink)

The presented survey focused on moral challenges of Bavarian veterinary officers in their daily work and their expectations of an ethics module in their training program. The results suggest that Bavarian veterinary officers are confronted with morally challenging situations. However, they do not describe these challenges as dilemmas in which the veterinary officers do not know what the moral right choice would be. They are rather convinced to know what they should do from an ethical point of view but see (...) difficulties with the realization as the crucial moral challenge of their profession. The participants in the study do not only expect ethics to help them to find a morally justified way of dealing with moral challenges, but also to gain a better understanding of essential conflicts. In regard to a possible e-learning course on ethics, most veterinary officers were skeptical or highly critical because, from their perspective, ethics needs personal exchange, promoting a dialogue with colleagues, and this is best possible in a classroom-based seminar. Therefore, according to the participants in the survey, if e-learning tools are used, this should only be in combination with classroom-based events. (shrink)

C’est dans la dynamique de l’avènement du Royaume et de la manifestation de l’Esprit Saint qui l’accompagne qu’il convient de comprendre l’attitude de Jésus à l’endroit de l’impureté et sa relative indifférence à ce qui touche à la loi rituelle. Là où se manifeste la radicale nouveauté que représente l’irruption du Royaume, émerge une nouvelle compréhension tant de l’espace que de la responsabilité humaine. La sainteté vient envahir la sphère profane ; elle désenclave l’espace, ce qui modifie radicalement le rapport (...) à l’impureté. De cette prise de possession gracieuse de l’espace par la sainteté, résulte, en retour, une exigence éthique. Jesus’ attitude towards impurity and his relative indifference concerning the ritual law are to be understood in the context of the dynamics of the coming Kingdom and of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Wherever the radical newness of the imminent Kingdom comes to light, one can see a new understanding both of space and of human responsibility. Holiness invades the secular sphere and opens up space, which brings about a radical change in the attitude towards impurity. In return, this gracious occupation of space by holiness results in high ethical standards. (shrink)

The problem of distinguishing between willing and wishing and their significance for both the constitution of our consciousness as well as the constitution of our practical life runs all the way through the history of philosophy. Given the persuasiveness of the problem, it might be helpful to draw a sharp distinction between a metaphysical and a psychological or phenomenological approach to the problem. The first approach may be identified with the positions that Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche held, which (...) involved an identification of the will with reality/actuality in general, and which Heidegger tried to analyze in his later writings on the basis of his confrontation with Nietzsche. In this paper, however, I will not consider the metaphysical approach to the distinction; rather, I will focus on the second approach to distinguishing wishing and willing, which was initiated by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, and of which as we will see soon – Husserl and the early Heidegger are ultimately still heirs. Hence I will begin my consideration by recalling briefly the main claim in Aristotle’s discovery of the central position of will within our life. (shrink)

Distributed cognition refers to processes which are (i) cognitive and (ii) distributed across multiple agents or devices rather than performed by a single agent. Distributed cognition has attracted interest in several fields ranging from sociology and law to computer science and the philosophy of science. In this paper, I discuss distributed cognition from a social-choice-theoretic perspective. Drawing on models of judgment aggregation, I address two questions. First, how can we model a group of individuals as a distributed cognitive system? Second, (...) can a group acting as a distributed cognitive system be ‘rational’ and ‘track the truth’ in the outputs it produces? I argue that a group’s performance as a distributed cognitive system depends on its ‘aggregation procedure’ – its mechanism for aggregating the group members’ inputs into collective outputs – and I investigate the properties of an aggregation procedure that matter. (shrink)

Der Band versammelt einen Großteil der Beiträge, die internationale Experten anlässlich der Tagung „Philosophie und Wissenschaft bei Hermann Cohen“ im November 2014 am Institut Wiener Kreis der Universität Wien präsentiert haben. Mit der Tagung zu Hermann Cohen, der zusammen mit Paul Natorp die Marburger Schule begründete, wurden zwei Ziele verfolgt: erstens die Aspekte in der Philosophie des Kantianers Cohen herauszuarbeiten, die an die Idee einer Einheitswissenschaft anknüpfen und zweitens Divergenzen und Übereinstimmungen Cohens mit der wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung, der Programmatik des Wiener (...) Kreises um Rudolf Carnap und Moritz Schlick zu identifizieren. Der Tagungsband ist in drei Teile gegliedert. Die Aufsätze im ersten Teil beschäftigen sich mit der Bedeutung von Erfahrung und Empirismus für das Philosophieverständnis Hermann Cohens. Im zweiten Teil gehen die Autoren der Frage nach, welche Rolle Theorien aus den Bereichen Mathematik, Naturwissenscha ften und Psychologie für Cohens Denken gespielt haben – unter anderem Hermann von Helmholtz‘ Theorie des Messens und die Bedeutung der Infinitesimalrechnung für die Philosophie der Marburger Schule. Die Beiträge im dritten Teil des Bandes stellen die Philosophie Cohens und der Marburger Schule den Vertretern des Wiener Kreises und der Berliner Gruppe um Hans Reichenbach gegenüber. Dabei wird Reichenbachs Rezeption der Relativitätstheorie in den Kontext einer Relativierung Kants bei Cohen und Ernst Cassirer gestellt und „versteckte Verwandtschaften“ zwischen Cohen und dem Logischen Empirismus aufgedeckt. Der Band richtet sich an Wissenschaftler auf dem Gebiet der Geschichte der Philosophie. (shrink)

This popular introductory text provides a unique set of teaching tools for instructors who prefer a synoptic approach. The text is visually appealing and reader friendly. The author accents his accessible writing with cartoons, quotations, and related findings from the social and physical sciences, reinforcing his conception of philosophy as the individual's attempt to unify disparate world views. The style of writing makes central philosophical concepts readily engaging to students. Interspersed biographies give the student a feeling for the lives of (...) the great thinkers who have fashioned the Western philosophical tradition and have determined largely how we think today. Above all, this text nurtures the analytical skills students will need to critically engage the "big picture" of Western philosophy for themselves. (shrink)

L'existence d'un tiers-secteur de la communication, s'appuyant sur la recherche d'une autonomie accrue de la gestion de médias, apparaît à des moments divers et selon des formes variées, en correspondant notamment à différents cadres juridiques. Ainsi dans la période récente, les exemples tiennent à des coopératives d'édition de presse, des télévisions associatives et à un forum regroupant des sociétés de rédacteurs.The existence of third-sector communication, drawing on research increased autonomy of media management, appears at various times and in various forms, (...) in particular corresponding to different legal frameworks. Thus in recent years, examples of cooperatives hold publishing press, television associative and a forum of companies editors. (shrink)