We argue for an intimate relation between semantic externalism and semantic deference and propose a typology of speakers’ metasemantic views as revealed by their deferential attitudes. Building on this typology, we then offer a classification of metasemantic disagreements understood as verbal disputes between speakers who (consciously or unconsciously) hold divergent metasemantic views about the same word. In particular, we distinguish lower-order metasemantic disagreements between speakers who disagree on the exact source of meaning determination for a word yet agree on the (...) kind of deferential attitude this word is liable to, from higher-order metasemantic disagreements between speakers who do not even agree on the suitable kind of deferential attitude. We demonstrate the fruitfulness of our classification through the concrete implications it has for conceptual engineering. (shrink)

This paper addresses the ongoing debate over the relation between belief and credence. A proposal is made to reverse the currently predominant order of analysis, by taking belief as conceptually basic and credence as the phenomenon to be clarified. In brief, the proposal is to explicate an agent’s credence in a proposition P as the agent’s tendency toward believing P. Platitudinous as this reduction may seem, it runs counter to all of the major positions in the debate, including the Threshold (...) View, the Certainty View as conventionally understood, Dualism, Eliminativism, as well as Credence Primitivism. Section 1 gives an overview on the current state of the debate. Section 2 considers unsuccessful predecessors of the proposed belief-first approach to credence. Section 3 motivates and lays out the basics of a conceptual framework for thinking about doxastic states that characterizes such states in terms of two formally independent dimensions, one pertaining to the agent’s tendency toward believing P, the other to the level of resilience with which the agent manifests that tendency. Against this backdrop, it is argued in Sect. 4 that the present reduction satisfies a set of standard, theoretically neutral criteria of adequacy for theories of credence, at least once they are purged of a quite common conflation of tendency and resilience. Section 5 argues against all of the above competing accounts. (shrink)

Student relativism is a widespread phenomenon in philosophy classes. While the exact nature of student relativism is controversially discussed, many authors agree on two points: First, it is widely agreed that SR is a rather problematic phenomenon, because it potentially undermines the very purpose of doing philosophy—if there is no objective truth, arguing seems to be pointless. Second, it is widely agreed that there will be some close connection between SR and a tolerant attitude towards conflicting opinions. In this paper, (...) I will argue that if these two assumptions are true, then discussing some basic philosophical insights about the concept of tolerance with students will be a promising new strategy of dealing with SR. (shrink)

Are there “social kinds” the way there are “natural kinds”? Are social sciences likely to hit upon “essences” the way natural sciences do? Or are all social phenomena purely theoretical constructs? Questions about whether there are natural kinds, what exactly they are and which kinds of phenomena they cover have been the object of heated epistemological and metaphysical debates. We think the issues can be clarified within the limits of the philosophy of language: by looking into what ranges of general (...) terms are perceived by speakers as rigid designators of natural kinds. The first step to take is to ground the various kinds of semantic externalism in distinct brands of semantic deference. Our focus is on spotting the words for which speakers would defer not to the current usage of the word in the linguistic community, nor to the current experts of the field to which the word pertains, but ultimately to the very nature of the referent of the term. When speakers’ deference conforms to that pattern, we argue, that is evidence that indexical externalism provides the right metasemantic account of how the meaning of the word is determined; the word is treated like a natural-kind term. But how can patterns of deference be measured? In an ongoing survey, which shows a kinship with work by Braisby et al., Jylkkä et al., and Genone & Lombrozo, we confront participants with conditions that may prompt them to revise certain classificatory statements. Each condition makes salient one of the targets we have identified for deference: the community usage, the experts, the ‘world as it is’. In the condition that seeks to tap into the latter kind of deference, participants are presented with a scenario in which future scientific discoveries result in excluding from the extension of a term certain members currently thought to fall under that extension. Our reasoning is that, if participants significantly modify their statements in the light of that scenario, they can be taken to ‘defer’ to the nature of the referent, thus vindicating indexical externalism. We test if words not normally assumed to be natural-kind terms, including terms for social phenomena, exhibit patterns of deference similar to those for natural-kind terms. If so, speakers have something like realist intuitions with respect to words whose meaning is usually taken to be purely conventional or polemical, and there’s therefore a case for an extension of indexical externalism beyond its usual boundaries. Braisby, N., Franks, B. & Hampton, J. 1996. Essentialism, word use, and concepts. Cognition 59, 247-74./Genone, J. & Lombrozo, T. 2012. Concept possession, experimental semantics, and hybrid theories of reference. Philosophical Psychology 25, 717-742./Jylkkä, J., Railo, H. & Haukioja, J. 2009. Psychological essentialism and semantic externalism: Evidence for externalism in lay speakers’ language use. Philosophical Psychology 22, 37-60./Schwarz, S. 1983. Reply to Kornblith and Nelson. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 21, 475-481. (shrink)

All medieval philosophers in the Aristotelian tradition agreed that the human intellect is not only able to know other things, but also itself. But how should that be possible? Which cognitive mechanisms are required for self-knowledge? This chapter examines three models that attempted to answer this fundamental question: (i) Thomas Aquinas referred to higher-order acts that make first-order acts and eventually also the intellect itself cognitively present, (ii) Matthew of Aquasparta appealed to introspection, (iii) Dietrich of Freiberg claimed that no (...) special cognitive process is necessary because the intellect is by nature always fully present to itself. An analysis of these three models shows that scholastic philosophers intended to provide an epistemological foundation for the explanation of Socratic self-knowledge. (shrink)

Dass das Verständnis von und die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit argumentativen Zusammenhängen für den Philosophie- und Ethikunterricht von besonderer Bedeutung ist, ist unumstritten. Ebenso unumstritten ist es, dass es sich bei der schulischen Vermittlung von Argumentationskompetenzen um keinen Selbstzweck handelt, sondern dass Lernende vor dem Hintergrund der erworbenen Fähigkeiten und Kenntnisse zu einer fundierten Meinungsbildung befähigt werden sollen. In diesem Artikel argumentiere ich vor dem Hintergrund neuerer Ergebnisse der erkenntnistheoretischen Forschung dafür, dass das soeben skizzierte Bild jedoch einer grundlegenden Ergänzung bedarf, (...) da im spezifischen Kontext des Philosophie- und Ethikunterrichts nicht die Bildung, sondern vielmehr die Aufgabe eines eigenen Urteils das epistemisch wünschenswerte Ergebnis darstellt. (shrink)

In diesem Buch setzen sich zehn Wissenschaftler und Autoren aus verschiedenen Disziplinen mit dem unfaßbaren Thema Glück auseinander. Weit davon entfernt, Glücksratgeber zu sein, hinterfragen die hier versammelten Autoren verschiedene Glücksdefinitionen: Philosophisch gesehen findet sich das Glück zum Beispiel im «guten Leben». Wer der schwierigen Frage, was ein gutes Leben sei, aus dem Weg gehen will, der sucht das Glück vielleicht lieber in konkreten Dingen, wie Geld, Sport, Drogen, Musik, Reisen oder Lesen. Neben dem individuellen Glück werden auch große, kulturelle (...) Glücksbeschaffer besprochen, denn Religion, Ideologie und Magie wollen ebenfalls das Glück herbeibringen - oder sie versprechen es zumindest. Im Licht der unterschiedlichen Methoden und Fragestellungen treffen in diesem Band verschiedene Facetten der zutiefst menschlichen Suche nach dem Glück aufeinander. Aus der Summe der Perspektiven eröffnet sich ein fragmentarisches Panorama, welches auf eindrucksvolle Weise die Größe des gesuchten Gefühles offenbart. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 22 Heft: 2 Seiten: 456-461.

Causal mechanisms' portability and their predictions in sometimes counterfactual settings point to the value of studies with details of interactions and/or convenience samples that depart from those in the proximate contexts of the phenomena of interest. The proper role of such contexts must be construed within an explanatory framework attentive to the nature and properties of relevant causal mechanisms.

Brams’ paradox of new members and Shenoy’s paradox of smaller coalitions are, in a sense, equivalent. They are both implied by the monotonicity of a power index: while the first is exhibited on every simple game that is not strong, the latter can be observed on every simple game in which players are not almost symmetric. For the Shapley–Shubik index, this symmetry condition is not only necessary but also sufficient to avoid the paradox of smaller coalitions.

Kann die menschliche Vernunft theologische Wahrheiten mit Evidenz erkennen? Diese Thematik ist Kern der Briefe, die Nicolaus von Autrecourt in den dreißiger Jahren des 14. Jahrhunderts schrieb und in denen er die Möglichkeit theologischen Wissens wie auch die Bedingungen evidenter Erkenntnis überhaupt untersuchte.

Medieval philosophers clearly recognized that emotions are not simply "raw feelings" but complex mental states that include cognitive components. They analyzed these components both on the sensory and on the intellectual level, paying particular attention to the different types of cognition that are involved. This paper focuses on William Ockham and Adam Wodeham, two fourteenth-century authors who presented a detailed account of "sensory passions" and "volitional passions". It intends to show that these two philosophers provided both a structural and a (...) functional analysis of emotions, i.e., they explained the various elements constituting emotions and delineated the causal relations between these elements. Ockham as well as Wodeham emphasized that "sensory passions" are not only based upon cognitions but include a cognitive component and are therefore intentional. In addition, they pointed out that "volitional passions" are based upon a conceptualization and an evaluation of given objects. This cognitivist approach to emotions enabled them to explain the complex phenomenon of emotional conflict, a phenomenon that has its origin in the co-presence of various emotions that involve conflicting evaluations. (shrink)

The Violence of Reading: Literature and Philosophy at the Threshold of Pain expounds the scene of reading as one that produces an overwhelmed body exposed to uncontainable forms of violence. The book argues that the act of reading induces a representational instability that causes the referential function of language to collapse. This breakdown releases a type of “linguistic pain” (Scarry; Butler; Hamacher) that indicates a constitutive wounding of the reading body. The wound of language marks a rupture between linguistic reality (...) and the phenomenal world. Exploring this rupture in various ways, the book brings together texts and genres from diverse traditions and offers close examinations of the rhetoric of masochism (Sacher-Masoch; Deleuze), the relation between reading and abuse (Nietzsche; Proust; Jelinek), the sublime experience of reading (Kant; Kafka; de Man), the “novel of the institution” (Musil; Campe), and literary suicide (Bachmann; Berryman; Okkervil River). (shrink)

Like many philosophers in the scholastic tradition, Suárez claims that we cannot cognize anything unless we use a cognitive device, a so-called intelligible species. But how can we produce such a device? And what kind of cognition does it make possible? This chapter examines these questions, paying particular attention to Suárez’s rejection of traditional theories that explained the production of intelligible species by referring to efficient causation. On his view, there can only be a relation of occasional causation: the existence (...) of sensory images is simply an occasion for the intellect to produce intelligible species. This chapter first analyzes this type of causation and then looks at the function of the species. It argues that species are inner representations that make particular things cognitively present. In presenting this view, Suárez breaks with a long tradition that took species to be the product of a process of assimilation of universal forms and paves the way for early modern theories of representation. (shrink)

Die nicht zuletzt im Zuge der Deklaration eines „nachmetaphysischen Zeitalters“ für überzogen gehaltenen epistemologischen Ansprüche der klassischen Metaphysik scheinen sich auch und vor allem in der Auseinandersetzung mit skeptischen Argumenten bzw. Paradoxien tatsächlich als unhaltbar herauszustellen. Wenn sich bereits alltägliche Wissensansprüche unter dem Seziermesser skeptischen Scharfsinns als insgesamt problematische Klasse entlarven lassen, wie sollte man dann noch sinnvoll Metaphysik betreiben können? Doch der Anschein trügt, wie die Beiträge des vorliegenden Sammelbandes ausführlich darlegen. Dieses Buch reagiert damit auf einen aktuellen internationalen (...) Trend, denn neueste Arbeiten auf dem Gebiet der theoretischen Diagnose des Ursprungs skeptischer Argumente bzw. Paradoxien zeigen deutlich, dass gerade den dominanten neuzeitlichen Formulierungen skeptischer Probleme metaphysische Voraussetzungen zugrunde liegen, die von den großen Projekten der Metaphysik, die im Buch zur Sprache kommen, nicht geteilt werden. MIT BEITRÄGEN VON: Jarnes Conant, Michael Forster, Paul Franks, Hans Friedrich Fulda, Markus Gabriel, Leo Groarke, Jens Halfwassen, Anton Friedrich Koch, Dominik Perler, Jens Rometsch, Klaus Vieweg, Jörg Volbers, Michael Williams und Stephan Zimmermann. (shrink)

This book presents fresh insights into analogue quantum simulation. It argues that these simulations are a new instrument of science. They require a bespoke philosophical analysis, sensitive to both the similarities to and the differences with conventional scientific practices such as analogical argument, experimentation, and classical simulation. -/- The analysis situates the various forms of analogue quantum simulation on the methodological map of modern science. In doing so, it clarifies the functions that analogue quantum simulation serves in scientific practice. To (...) this end, the authors introduce a number of important terminological distinctions. They establish that analogue quantum ‘computation' and ‘emulation' are distinct scientific practices and lead to distinct forms of scientific understanding. The authors also demonstrate the normative value of the computation vs. emulation distinction at both an epistemic and a pragmatic level. -/- The volume features a range of detailed case studies focusing on: i) cold atom computation of many-body localisation and the Higgs mode; ii) photonic emulation of quantum effects in biological systems; and iii) emulation of Hawking radiation in dispersive optical media. Overall, readers will discover a normative framework to isolate and support the goals of scientists undertaking analogue quantum simulation and emulation. This framework will prove useful to both working scientists and philosophers of science interested in cutting-edge scientific practice. (shrink)

Analyzing situations where information is partial, incomplete or contradictory has created a demand for quantitative belief measures that are weaker than classic probability theory. In this paper, we compare two frameworks that have been proposed for this task, Dempster-Shafer theory and non-standard probability theory based on Belnap-Dunn logic. We show the two frameworks to assume orthogonal perspectives on informational shortcomings, but also provide a partial correspondence result. Lastly, we also compare various dynamical rules of the two frameworks, all seen as (...) generalizations of classic Bayes’ conditioning. (shrink)

It has often been said that we should enter into a dialogue with thinkers of the past because they discussed they same problems we still have today and presented sophisticated solutions to them. I argue that this “dialogue model” ignores the specific context in which many problems were created and defined. A closer look at various contexts enables us to see that philosophical problems are not as natural as they might seem. When we contextualize them, we experience a healthy alienation (...) effect: we realise that problems discussed in the past depend on assumptions that are far from being self-evident. When we then compare these assumptions to our own, we reflect on our own theoretical framework that is not self-evident either. This leads to a denaturalisation of philosophical problems – in the past as well as in the present. I argue for this thesis by examining late medieval discussions on mental language. (shrink)

Could God Deceive Us? Skeptical Hypotheses in Late Medieval Epistemology.

Toleranz – von vielen gewünscht und oft gefordert: Von der UNESCO, vom Papst, von Angela Merkel und Barack Obama. Doch was genau heißt es überhaupt, tolerant zu sein? Impliziert Toleranz Ablehnung? Oder ist Toleranz lediglich das Gegenteil von Dogmatismus? Und wie unterscheidet sich eine tolerante von einer gleichgültigen Haltung? Dominik Balg unterzieht, ausgehend von einer fundierten Explikation des Toleranzbegriffs, eine tolerante Haltung als intellektuelle Einstellung gegenüber konfligierenden Meinungen einer ausführlichen Kritik und diskutiert die Plausibilität allgemeiner Toleranzforderungen in spezifischen Domänen (...) wie Politik, Religion oder Ethik. Er erwägt mögliche Alternativen zu einer toleranten Haltung und stellt mit intellektueller Aufgeschlossenheit und Bescheidenheit zwei gehaltvolle Einstellungen vor, die von einer toleranten Haltung klar abgrenzbar sind und – im Gegensatz zu Toleranz - auch problemlos auf einer allgemeinen Ebene eingefordert werden können. - Mit einem Vorwort von Thomas Grundmann. (shrink)

Forming intimate relationships is a fundamental human motive. Emotions play a critical role in intimate relationships—they are central to the development and maintenance of these bonds, and these very bonds can influence both individual and interpersonal emotional dynamics across time. Investigating emotional dynamics in an interpersonal context provides unique insight into the functioning of intimate relationships and, at the same time, provides a window into the interdependence of partners’ daily experiences. Reviewing a selection of the literature involving emotional dynamics in (...) intimate relationships, we explore how intimate relationships shape partner’s emotional experiences and the implications this may have for their relationship across time. (shrink)

Was ist eine menschliche Person? Durch welche besonderen Eigenschaften zeichnet sie sich aus? Und wodurch unterscheidet sie sich von einem blossen Lebewesen? Mittelalterliche Autoren widmeten sich mit viel Scharfsinn diesen Fragen, indem sie sich auf drei Dimensionen einer Person konzentrierten. Sie setzten bei der metaphysischen Dimension an, indem sie eine Person als eine individuelle Substanz mit einer rationalen Natur bestimmten. Dies fuhrte sie dazu, diese Substanz genauer zu untersuchen: ihre wesentlichen Bestandteile, ihre Einheit und ihre Identitat uber die Zeit hinweg. (...) Sie beschaftigten sich aber auch mit der psychologischen Dimension, indem sie die Reflexionsfahigkeit als die entscheidende geistige Fahigkeit einer Person analysierten. Zudem berucksichtigten sie die handlungstheoretische Dimension, indem sie festhielten, dass eine Person im Gegensatz zu einem blossen Lebewesen Handlungen hervorbringen kann. Sie betonten sogar, dass sich eine Person frei fur Handlungen entscheiden kann und daher fur sie verantwortlich ist. Dieses Buch, das sich auf Theorien des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts konzentriert, rekonstruiert die Debatten zu allen drei Dimensionen im historischen Kontext, wertet sie systematisch aus und schlagt dabei auch einen Bogen zu fruhneuzeitlichen und gegenwartigen Diskussionen. Es verdeutlicht, dass im Mittelalter die Grundlagen fur eine philosophische Anthropologie gelegt wurden. (shrink)

Zweifel und Gewissheit: Skeptische Debatten im Mittelalter (Philosophische Abhandlungen, Bd. 92).

Many have claimed that epistemic rationality sometimes requires us to have imprecise credal states (i.e. credal states representable only by sets of credence functions) rather than precise ones (i.e. credal states representable by single credence functions). Some writers have recently argued that this claim conflicts with accuracy-centered epistemology, i.e., the project of justifying epistemic norms by appealing solely to the overall accuracy of the doxastic states they recommend. But these arguments are far from decisive. In this essay, we prove some (...) new results, which show that there is little hope for reconciling the rationality of credal imprecision with accuracy-centered epistemology. (shrink)

The aim of the series Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind is to foster historical research into the nature of thinking and the workings of the mind. The volumes address topics of intellectual history that would nowadays fall into different disciplines like philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, etc. The monographs and collections of articles in the series are historically reliable as well as congenial to the contemporary reader. They provide original insights into central contemporary (...) problems by looking at them in historical contexts, addressing issues like consciousness, representation and intentionality, mind and body, the self and the emotions. In this way, the books open up new perspectives for research on these topics. (shrink)

It’s intuitively plausible to suppose that there are many things that we can be rationally certain of, at least in many contexts. The present paper argues that, given this principle of Abundancy, there is a Preface Paradox for credence. Section 1 gives a statement of the paradox, discusses its relation to its familiar counterpart for belief, and points out the congeniality between Abundancy and broadly contextualist trends in epistemology. This leads to the question whether considerations of context-sensitivity might lend themselves (...) to solving the Preface for credence. Sections 2 and 3 scrutinize two approaches in this spirit—one mimicking Hawthorne’s Semantic Contextualist approach to an epistemic version of the Preface, the other one analogous to Clarke’s Sensitivist approach to the doxastic version—arguing that neither approach succeeds as it stands. (shrink)

Anneliese Maier and the Study of Medieval Philosophy Today.

Thomas von Aquin reagierte im 13. Jahrhundert als erster europäischer Theologe auf den Occasionalismus, der sich im arabisch-islamischen Denken vom 8. bis zum 12. Jahrhundert entwickelte, und begann damit die bis in das 17. Jahrhundert fortdauernde Auseinandersetzung mit diesem Thema. Die Autoren stellen in chronologischer Reihenfolge die gesamte arabisch-islamische und europäische Diskussion vor.

In the past several years, observational entropy has been developed as both a quantum generalization of Boltzmann entropy, and as a rather general framework to encompass classical and quantum equilibrium and non-equilibrium coarse-grained entropy. In this paper we review the construction, interpretation, most important properties, and some applications of this framework. The treatment is self-contained and relatively pedagogical, aimed at a broad class of researchers.

Many late medieval Aristotelians assumed that a natural substance has several substantial forms in addition to matter as really distinct parts. This assumption gave rise to a unity problem: why is a substance more than a conglomeration of all these parts? This paper discusses Francisco Suárez’s answer. It first shows that he rejected the idea that there is a plurality of forms, emphasizing instead that each substance has a single form and hence a single structuring principle. It then examines his (...) account of the relationship between matter and form. While accepting the thesis that these two parts are really distinct entities, he claimed that there is a special “mode of union” that binds them together. With this account, he defended the essential unity of a natural substance, but he transformed the program of Aristotelian metaphysics: not substances, but entities and modes inside them, are now the basic building blocks of reality. (shrink)

A l'instar de ses confrères des années 1250-1260 à l'Université de Paris, Siger de Brabant prit activement part à un mouvement de prise de conscience et de revendication intellectuelle, d'émancipation de la raison contre l'autorité du dogme et le dogmatisme en général, et joua un rôle essentiel dans l'émergence d'un nouveau style, d'une nouvelle morale, d'une nouvelle forme d'existence : en un mot, à la vie philosophique. Il proposa une nouvelle éthique, établie à partir de la lecture d'Aristote, mais (...) une lecture essentiellement rationaliste qui, aux yeux des autorités, s'écartait en tous points de la sagesse chrétienne - affirmant notamment que c'est en cette vie que l'on peut trouver le. bonheur, et non dans l'autre. Siger de Brabant contribua ainsi à une renaissance de la philosophie, qui commence par la Logique qui ordonne la pensée et le discours du philosophe, lui donne aussi son style, au sens littéraire du terme - ce dont le Traité de l'éternité du monde est une bonne illustration. (shrink)

This study illuminates how a cross-sector social partnership legitimizes itself toward multiple internal and external stakeholders. Within a single-case study design, we collected retrospective and real time data on the partnership between Deutsche Post DHL and The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Within this partnership, Deutsche Post DHL provides corporate volunteers that support disaster response after natural disasters on a pro bono basis. The main objects that needed legitimacy as well as the audiences from which legitimacy (...) was mainly sought changed over time. In addition, we identified legitimation work as occurring across objects, audiences, and time. Thus, we introduce legitimation work as the purposeful effort of the legitimacy seeker to avoid certain issues while ensuring other issues that are of importance to the conferrer of legitimacy. These findings contribute to micro-level considerations within institutional theory which view legitimacy as socially constructed between legitimacy seeker and conferrer. Hence, we add another perspective on legitimation to the previously existing conceptualizations of legitimacy as a deterministic consequence of institutionalization. (shrink)

What kind of entities are faculties? How are they related to the soul and to the entire living being? How can they be classified? And in what sense are they responsible for a large variety of activities? This chapter examines these questions, which were extensively discussed by scholastic authors, and focuses on the metaphysical models established by William of Auvergne, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, and Francisco Suárez. It argues that there was no unified scholastic doctrine. While some authors (e.g. (...) Ockham) took the faculties to be mere ways of acting of the soul, others (e.g. Suárez) conceived of them as distinct entities with their own power. The latter theory gave rise to a new model of the soul—a model that presented it as a complex entity with many distinct causes. (shrink)

The emergence of economic inequality has often been linked to individual differences in mental or physical capacities. By means of an agent-based simulation this paper shows that neither of these is a necessary condition. Rather, inequality can arise from iterated interactions of fully rational agents. This bears consequences for our understanding of both inequality and rationality. In a setting of iterated bargaining games, we claim that expected utility maximizing agents perform suboptimally in comparison with other strategies. The reason for this (...) lies in complex feedback effects between an agents’ action and the quality of beliefs used to calculate expected utility. Consequentially, we argue that the standard notion of rationality as maximizing expected utility is insufficient, even for certain standard cases of economic interaction. (shrink)