It has often been remarked that Bohr's writings on the interpretation of quantum mechanics make scant reference to the mathematical formalism of quantum theory; and it has not infrequently been suggested that this is another symptom of the general vagueness, obscurity and perhaps even incoherence of Bohr's ideas. Recent years have seen a reappreciation of Bohr, however. In this article we broadly follow this "rehabilitation program". We offer what we think is a simple and coherent reading of Bohr's statements about (...) the interpretation of quantum mechanics, basing ourselves on primary sources and making use of and filling lacunas in|recent secondary literature. We argue that Bohr's views on quantum mechanics are more firmly connected to the structure of the quantum formalism than usually acknowledged, even though Bohr's explicit use of this formalism remains on a rather global and qualitative level. In our reading, Bohr's pronouncements on the meaning of quantum mechanics should first of all be seen as responses to concrete physical problems, rather than as expressions of a preconceived philosophical doctrine. In our final section we attempt a more detailed comparison with the formalism and conclude that Bohr's interpretation is not far removed from present-day non-collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This book offers an array of important perspectives on Kant and nonconceptualism from some of the leading scholars in current Kant studies. As well as discussing the various arguments surrounding Kantian nonconceptualism, the book provides broad insight into the theory of perception, philosophy of mind, philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, and aesthetics. His idealism aside, Kantian nonconceptualism is the most topical contemporary issue in Kant’s theoretical philosophy. In this collection of specially commissioned essays, major players in the current debate, including Robert (...) Hanna and Lucy Allais, engage with each other and with the broader literature in the field addressing all the important aspects of Kantian nonconceptualism. Among other topics, the authors analyse the notion of intuition and the conditions of its generation, Kant’s theory of space, including his pre-Critical view of space, the relation between nonconceptualism and the Transcendental Deduction, and various challenges to both conceptualist and nonconceptualist interpretations of Kant. Two further chapters explore a prominent Hegelian conceptualist reading of Kant and Kant’s nonconceptualist position in the Third Critique. The volume also contains a helpful survey of the recent literature on Kant and nonconceptual content. Kantian Nonconceptualism provides a comprehensive overview of recent perspectives on Kant and nonconceptual content, and will be a key resource for Kant scholars and philosophers interested in the topic of nonconceptualism. (shrink)

The paper attempts to look at silence from the point of view of Grice's maxim of quantity, viz. if one has nothing to say, then one is silent. This will be examined against the background of studies that have been published over the last decades especially anthropological research on tribes in Africa and North America, and studies on Finnish silence.

The ArugmentThis essay answers a single question: what was Robert Hooke, the Royal Society's curator of experiments, doing in his well-known 1665 work,Micrographia?Hooke was articulating a “universal cure of the mind” capable of bringing about a “reformation in Philosophy,” a change in philosophy's interpretive practices and organization. The work explicated the interpretive and political foundations for a community of optical instrument users coextensive with the struggling Royal Society. Standard observational practices would overcome the problem of using nonstandard instruments, while inherent (...) inrepresentation– the interpretive practice championed in the text – were important theological and political meanings. Hooke's kind of experimental philosophy undermined the claims made by “atheists” and “enthusiasts” – the enemies of the restored church and state – while also producing useful knowledge. Equally important, Hooke modeled the community described inMicrographiaupon the classicalres publica, but his community made important concessions to Restoration political realities, especially the growing role of commercial or transactional relationships. (shrink)

Self-care apps are booming. Early iterations of this technology focused on tracking health and fitness routines, but recently some developers have turned their attention to the cultivation of character, basing their conceptual resources on the Hellenistic tradition (Stoic Meditations™, Stoa™, Stoic Mental Health Tracker™). Those familiar with the final writings of Michel Foucault will notice an intriguing coincidence between the development of these products and his claims that the Hellenistic tradition of self-cultivation has much to offer contemporary life. In this (...) article, I explore Foucault’s cryptic remarks on this topic, and argue that today’s self-care developers can improve future products by paying attention to the Hellenistic exercises of self-cultivation he identifies as especially important. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin famously argued that legal positivism is a defective account of law because it has no account of Theoretical Disagreement. In this article I argue that legal positivism—as advanced by H.L.A. Hart—does not need an account of Theoretical Disagreement. Legal positivism does, however, need a plausible account of interpretation in law. I provide such an account in this article.

In this paper I reply to the critiques of my recent book *Kant's Radical Subjectivism* by Andrew Brook, Anil Gomes, Robert Howell and Alexandra Newton.

In den Gesellschaftsdiagnosen soziologischer wie feuilletonistischer Provenienz spielt die Angst eine zentrale Rolle. So zeichnet etwa Heinz Bude in seiner Diagnose einer Gesellschaft der Angst ein buntes Spektrum insbesondere sozialer Abstiegs- und Exklusionsängste, die sich seit der Nachkriegszeit vervielfacht und zu einer diffusen sozialen Grundbefindlichkeit erzeugt hätten. Das Aufstiegsversprechen des deutschen Sozialstaates habe sich in eine latente Drohung prekärer Existenz verkehrt und vor dem Hintergrund der umfassenden Zurückverwiesenheit der Individuen auf sich selbst zur Entstehung einer Gesellschaft geführt, in der Angst (...) den größten gemeinsamen Nenner aller Mitglieder bilde. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe relationship between symbolic expression and affect tends to be investigated from the perspective of recipients in contexts like media, politics, and advertising. A more producer-centri...

Interview with Richard Rorty, April 1997, Amsterdam. Occasion for the interview was Rorty being the occupant of the Spinoza Chair in 1997. The interview is mostly about Rorty's paper 'The Intellectuals and the Poor', in which he criticises the politics of left-wing academics.

One of the problems with a superficial reading of “Belief Itself” and “Women, the Sacred, Money” is that Irigaray is too easily understood as merely saying that woman is the hidden victim of sacrifice and that one is called to reveal this hidden victim. While this is an important aspect of Irigaray's work, a more radical interpretation is opened up when it is read alongside the work of Lacan and Žižek. Irigaray's work disturbs the traditional discourses on revelation, sacrifice, and (...) woman on one level while at the same time reinforcing their most extreme ramifications. (shrink)

In his celebrated "Letter on Humanism," Heidegger spoke of the need for an "original ethics" which did not submit itself to the ideal of something like a "subject" or the "human," two notions that he suggested were no longer serviceable for the task of thinking the problems of ethical life. The purpose of this article is to look at how Gadamer's hermeneutics might offer an avenue for developing this original ethics. To this end, Gadamer's discussion of language, in particular the (...) relation of language and freedom, serves as the guideline for unpacking this claim. (shrink)

In this article, I respond to critiques of my book Kant’s Radical Subjectivism: Perspectives on the Transcendental Deduction (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). I address issues that are raised concerning objectivity, the nature of the object, the role of transcendental apperception and the imagination, and idealism. More in particular I respond to an objection against my reading of the necessary existence of things in themselves and their relation to appearances. I also briefly respond to a question that relates to the debate (...) on Kantian nonconceptualism, more in particular, the question whether Kant allows animals objective intentionality. Lastly, I respond to one objection against my reading of Hegel’s critique of Kant. (The copy uploaded here is an English translation of the original Dutch version that is published in the journal.). (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that corruption research can benefit from studying corrupt transactions as a particular form of social interaction. We showcase the usefulness of a theoretical focus on social interaction by investigating online user reports on the website Frontdesktip.com. Through this focus, we can observe users sharing experiences and tips on the best ways of bribing hotel clerks in Las Vegas for attaining room upgrades and other complimentary extras. We employ a logistic regression analysis to examine what factors (...) influence the “successful” performance of this bribery practice. Our study makes a twofold contribution to existing research on corruption. First, on the theoretical level, we show that the typified and scripted character of social interactions can help explain the occurrence of corrupt transactions. Second, on a methodological level, our study showcases online self-reports as a useful data source to study corrupt transactions in an unobtrusive way. (shrink)

Using the example of Newton's Opticks, the author develops the concept of 'classic' as applied to landmark works in the history of the sciences. A discussion of themes drawn from H.-G. Gadamer and T. Kuhn is followed by an introduction of the notions of the texture and contexture of scientific works, conceived as the result of an author's weaving together foreground and background concerns. These notions assist in understanding how certain works can exercise a continuing appeal to both specialists and (...) nonspecialists. The essay concludes with reflections on the pedagogical purpose of using classic scientific texts in university education. (shrink)

Considering the popular framing of an artificial intelligence as a rational agent that always seeks to maximise its expected utility, referred to as its goal, one of the features attributed to such rational agents is that they will never select an action which will change their goal. Therefore, if such an agent is to be friendly towards humanity, one argument goes, we must understand how to specify this friendliness in terms of a utility function. Wolfhart Totschnig, argues in contrast that (...) a fully autonomous agent will have the ability to change its utility function and will do so guided by its values. This commentary examines computational accounts of goals, values and decision-making. It rejects the idea that a rational agent will never select an action that changes its goal but also argues that an artificial intelligence is unlikely to be purely rational in terms of always acting to maximise a utility function. It nevertheless also challenges the idea that an agent which does not change its goal cannot be considered fully autonomous. It does agree that values are an important component of decision-making and explores a number of reasons why. (shrink)

In the Planetary Hypotheses, Ptolemy summarizes the planetary models that he discusses in great detail in the Almagest, but he changes the mean motions to account for more prolonged comparison of observations. He gives the mean motions in two different forms: first, in terms of ‘simple, unmixed’ periods and next, in terms of ‘particular, complex’ periods, which are approximations to linear combinations of the simple periods. As a consequence, all of the epoch values for the Moon and the planets are (...) different at era Philip. This is in part a consequence of the changes in the mean motions and in part due to changes in Ptolemy’s time in the anomaly, but not the longitude or latitude, of the Moon, the mean longitude of Saturn and Jupiter, but not Mars, and the anomaly of Venus and Mercury, the former a large change, the latter a small one. The pattern of parameter changes we see suggests that the analyses that yielded the Planetary Hypotheses parameters were not the elegant trio analyses of the Almagest but some sort of serial determinations of the parameters based on sequences of independent observations. (shrink)

Genetic engineering often generates fear of out of control scientists creating Frankenstein creatures that will terrorize the general populace, especially in the cases of human-animal chimeras. While sometimes an accurate characterization of some researchers, this belief is often the result of repugnance for new technology rather than being rationally justified. To facilitate thoughtful discussion the moral issues raised by human-animal chimeras, ethicists and other stakeholders must develop a rational ethical framework before raw emotion has a chance of becoming the dominating (...) justification for public opinion and policy. Derek Parfit’s work on lives worth living for human beings can provide valuable insight into the morality of creating chimeras. As long as their lives are overall good, then bringing them into existence does not harm them even if they are used for medical research or procedures, or they are created to carry on the homo sapiens’ “family” line. (shrink)

Time series analysis is a technique to describe the structure and forecast values of a particular variable based on a series of sequential observations. While commonly used in finance and engineering to understand structural changes across time, its applicability to humanistic processes like discourse is less clear. This article demonstrates the feasibility and complementary use of TSA with a case study of metaphor use in psychotherapy sessions. A conceptual sketch of how TSA components relate to discourse components is followed by (...) a step-by-step analysis of two therapist–client dyads. Each dyad is shown to be adequately described by a different model, and the key characteristics of the models are interpreted alongside prior qualitative analysis of the dyads, shedding new light on their structural properties and attendant implications. Limitations of the present analysis and future research directions are briefly discussed. (shrink)

“In an age where companies are scrutinised and transparency is the only way to gain trust,” says Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Rebien Sørensen, “social responsibility is vital to maintain a business advantage.” This case examines how transparency underlines the application of Novo Nordisk’s sustainability policy—how it is integrated, administered, monitored and measured throughout the organisation. It looks closely at one of Novo Nordisk’s business units, Diabetes Finished Products, to see the process in action. Novo Nordisk is a pharmaceutical company specialising (...) in diabetes care and hormone therapy. Since 2003, commitment to sustainability has been a keynote of company policy, supported by the Novo Nordisk Way of Management, a tool developed to help managers provide the leadership in sustainability within the organisation. But how far is it really possible to influence sustainability at the operational level through management control systems? And how effective are systems like the Novo Nordisk Way of Management in supporting sustainability organisation-wide? (shrink)