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)

Satztheorien. Texte zur Sprachphilosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie im 14. Jahrhundert.

Throughout its history, the renowned Kaṭha Upaniṣad has often been described as being both incoherent and contradictory. The aim of this paper is to show to what purpose the text was created. To this end, it discusses the connection of the three paths to salvation depicted in the text, viz. the Agnicayana (a powerful Vedic fire-ritual), the Upaniṣadic method of self-knowledge, and yoga. The first part retraces how in the Upaniṣads, the Agnicayana was transformed into a non-material or mental ritual (...) and linked with self-knowledge. The second part analyses how the various salvation goals (heaven, the World of Brahman, liberation from rebirth) could be related to each other. First, the authors redefined the Agnicayana’s salvation goal, heaven, to make it identical with liberation. Secondly, they introduced self-knowledge and yoga as alternative and equally powerful means to the same end. In practice, however, the new and world-negating methods were implied to be superior to the costly ritual from which they had drawn their authority. Thus, the authors of the Upaniṣad were more concerned with showing continuity between different religious approaches than upholding consistency of content. (shrink)

To prevent ordinary people from being harmed by natural language processing (NLP) technology, finding ways to measure the extent to which a language model is biased (e.g., regarding gender) has become an active area of research. One popular class of NLP bias measures are bias benchmark datasets—collections of test items that are meant to assess a language model’s preference for stereotypical versus non-stereotypical language. In this paper, we argue that such bias benchmarks should be assessed with models from the psychometric (...) framework of item response theory (IRT). Specifically, we tie an introduction to basic IRT concepts and models with a discussion of how they could be relevant to the evaluation, interpretation and improvement of bias benchmark datasets. Regarding evaluation, IRT provides us with methodological tools for assessing the quality of both individual test items (e.g., the extent to which an item can differentiate highly biased from less biased language models) as well as benchmarks as a whole (e.g., the extent to which the benchmark allows us to assess not only severe but also subtle levels of model bias). Through such diagnostic tools, the quality of benchmark datasets could be improved, for example by deleting or reworking poorly performing items. Finally, in regards to interpretation, we argue that IRT models’ estimates for language model bias are conceptually superior to traditional accuracy-based evaluation metrics, as the former take into account more information than just whether or not a language model provided a biased response. (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)

In der 1970 gegründeten Reihe erscheinen Arbeiten, die philosophiehistorische Studien mit einem systematischen Ansatz oder systematische Studien mit philosophiehistorischen Rekonstruktionen verbinden. Neben deutschsprachigen werden auch englischsprachige Monographien veröffentlicht. Gründungsherausgeber sind: Erhard Scheibe, Günther Patzig und Wolfgang Wieland. Von 1990 bis 2007 wurde die Reihe von Jürgen Mittelstraß mitherausgegeben.

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)

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)

In this paper, I argue that there are significant instances of educational injustice in the context of philosophy teaching that can be effectively reduced by an increased implementation of digital technologies. More specifically, I show that there are good reasons to believe that testimonial injustices constitute serious instances of educational injustice that will frequently occur in philosophy classes. Using digital tools to anonymize student contributions opens up a promising way of dealing with these injustices. If convincing, my arguments give reason (...) to perceive epistemic injustices in educational settings as a serious threat to educational justice and to reconsider the implications of increased digitalization for issues of educational justice. (shrink)

The debate on empirical tests of social mechanisms suffers from a fragmented view on the relative benefit of the empirical method a researcher considers to be superior, compared to the flaws of all other methods. In this outlook. I argue that disciplinary barriers might be surmounted by a common methodological perspective on the analysis of social mechanisms. First, experimental, quantitative, qualitative, and simulation methods (agent-based modeling) are all required, but also capable to deal with the issue of causal identification, respectively. (...) Second, having established causal identification (among which I subsume strategies to deal with causal heterogeneity). each method disposes of genuine techniques to deal with the most crucial property of mechanism-based explanations: input-mechanism-output (IMO) relations. (shrink)

Fantasies have the power in the very midst of political communities, consciously and unconsciously alike, to suppress internal antagonisms in times of crisis. More specifcally, they help blur aporias of a community's ideological structures by invoking a common sense that reconstitutes the community, similar to an act of religious conversion. Their impact on the.

Bestattungen im Friedwald, Plastination oder der Versuch, durch Einfrieren den Leichnam zu konservieren: All dies sind neue Phänomene der Bestattungs- und Erinnerungskultur, die in diesem Band diskutiert werden. Der Tod, so die These, soll durch den gezielten Einsatz des eigenen toten Körpers gefügig gemacht und durch eine spezifische Vorstellung von Unsterblichkeit umgangen werden.

Satz, Seele und Sachverhalt. Der propositionale Wahrheitsbegriff im Spätmittelalter.

The practice of early modern natural history depended on the collective collecting activities of a great variety of people. Among them, artisans played a major role in acquiring and distributing knowledge about the natural world and they contributed significantly to the scholarly labour in natural history. This distributed labour was both acknowledged by contemporaries as well as hidden from sight, reflecting the period′s dominant norms for class and gender. By combining an interpretation of the visual representation of labour in European (...) insect studies with an examination of written sources about natural history practices from about 1680 to 1810, this article decodes the often‐codified frontispieces and other more symbolic illustrations to offer new insights into the labour of natural history. Those who identified as scholars and artisans (or both) conceptualised their own intellectual and practical engagement with natural history within the semantic field of work. Some seemed to have even envisioned a new social role for academics as well as artisans. This article analyses the diversity of the “productive forces” in insect studies as they changed over time and it reconstructs what I will call the social imaginaries of participation. (shrink)

The paper argues that, although the role of responsibilist epistemic virtues is unclear in the framework of traditional knowledge-centred individualist and idealised epistemology, it can be properly understood if one considers other epistemic goods and activities, adopts insights from social epistemology, and acknowledges the non-ideality of our epistemic world. It proposes to explain the value of epistemic virtues in terms of their contribution to a healthy epistemic social environment. Specifically, it is argued that responsibilist virtues are essential (1) for respecting (...) listeners who commit to testimonial justice; (2) for distinguished epistemic agents in their roles of teachers, guides, and exemplars; and (3) both to create and properly recognise these roles and epistemic positions within social networks. In that way, responsibilist virtue epistemology finds its place among the newly emerging topics of social epistemology. (shrink)

High levels of trust have been linked to a variety of benefits including the well-functioning of markets and political institutions or the ability of societies to solve public goods problems endogenously. While there is extensive literature on the macro-level determinants of trust, the micro-level processes underlying the emergence and stability of trust are not yet sufficiently understood. We address this lacuna by means of a computer model. In this paper, conditions under which trust is likely to emerge and be sustained (...) are identified. We focus our analysis mainly on the individual characteristics of agents: their social or geographical mobility, their attitude towards others or their general uncertainty about the environment. Contrary to predictions from previous literature, we show that immobile agents are detrimental to both, the emergence and robustness of trust. Additionally, we identify a hidden link between trusting others and being trustworthy. (shrink)

Our contribution argues for some differentiations in the recurring debates about pedagogical tact. To this end, we will proceed in three steps. First we will refer to classical aspects of pedagogical tact such as its intermediate function between general conceptions and the specifics of concrete pedagogical situations. In a second step we will refer to Plessner and highlight that underlying the pedagogical dimensions of tact there are social dimensions of tactful behavior. Thirdly, we further develop this aspect by asking about (...) the current social framings of tact in pedagogical fields. Our argument is that the contextualizing of tact is relevant in two ways: First, it can prevent us from placing overly high expectations on individual action. Second, it directs our attention to the fact that tact also manifests itself in how we deal with the social framing of pedagogical arrangements and not just in the actions within these arrangements. (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)

The influence of Latin texts on Greek literature of the Imperial period remains somewhat understudied. However, there are some Greek texts that seem to depend from a Latin pretext, from works of Vergil in particular. This article discusses an epigram by Apollonides (Anth. Gr. 6.239), in which an old beekeeper named Kleiton is presented in much the same way as the old Corycian in Vergil’s “Georgics” (4.116-148). Vergil’s famous digression might therefore be a pretext for Apollonides’ poem. Moreover, Apollonides apparently (...) alludes to an epigram by Leonidas of Tarentum (Anth. Gr. 6.226) which features another old farmer named Kleiton. Apollonides’ poem could thus serve as an ‘appendix’ to Leonidas’ epigram based on the model of Vergil’s senex Corycius. (shrink)

The journal publishes exceptional articles in all areas of Western philosophy from antiquity up to contemporary philosophy. The Archiv articles are distinguished by precise argumentation and lucid prose.

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)

This volume analyses ancient and medieval theories of intentionality in various contexts: perception, imagination, and intellectual thinking.

Group judgements are often – implicitly or explicitly – influenced by their members’ individual expertise. However, given that expertise is seldom recognized fully and that some distortions may occur (bias, correlation, etc.), it is not clear that differential weighting is an epistemically advantageous strategy with respect to straight averaging. Our paper characterizes a wide set of conditions under which differential weighting outperforms straight averaging and embeds the results into the multidisciplinary group decision-making literature.

This paper argues that true singular existentials are rationally indubitable. After the claim is clarified and motivated (Section 1), it is defended against objections inspired by Cartesian skepticism and semantic externalism (Section 2), a Fregean fine‐grained conception of propositional content (Section 3), Kripke's causal theory of reference (Section 4), a Stalnakerian coarse‐grained conception of propositional content (Section 5), as well as Evans's account of descriptive reference fixing (Section 6). The discussion is brought to a close by concluding that either true (...) singular existentials are a priori or apriority is not necessary for rational indubitability (Section 7). (shrink)

This paper discusses a scenario borrowed from Williamson (2000) and repurposes it to argue for the possibility of conflict between two _prima facie_ categorical norms of epistemic rationality: the norm to respect one’s evidence and the norm to be coherent. It is argued, _pace_ Williamson, that in the conflict defining the scenario, the evidence norm overrides the coherence norm; that a rational agent with our evidence would lack evidence about some of their own credences; and that for agents whose evidence (...) is limited in this way, incoherence fails to entail irrationality. The above possibility claim has also been defended by Worsnip (2018), albeit on a quite different premise set and in conjunction with a coherence-centered account of epistemic rationality that issues predictions incompatible with those licensed by the evidence-centered account recommended here, as illustrated towards the end of the paper. (shrink)

I assume that voters mark ballots exclusively to express their true preferences among parties, leaving aside any considerations about an election’s possible outcome. The paper then analyzes the resulting voting behavior. In particular, it studies how effective different voting systems such as plurality rule, approval voting, and range voting are in fostering high turnout rates of such expressive voters.

One popular description of current society is that it is a depressed society and medical evidence about depression’s prevalence may well make such an estimation plausible. However, such normative-critical assessments surrounding depression have to date usually operated with a one-sided understanding of depression. This understanding widely neglects the various ways depression manifests as well as its comorbidities. This becomes evident at the latest when considering one of depression’s most prominent and well-known comorbidities: chronic pain. Against this background, we aim in (...) this article to substantiate our leading claim that the phenomenal interconnection between depression and chronic pain must be acknowledged in the global diagnosis of a depressive society. Thus, we argue here for a complementation of the dominant interpretation of a depressed society. This would support the overcoming of oversimplified images and estimations about depression in current society and further, help to recognize chronic pain properly on the larger scale of assessments that address society as a whole. (shrink)

Die Intentionalitätsproblematik steht nicht nur im Mittelpunkt der heutigen philosophischen und kognitionstheoretischen Debatten. Sie wurde bereits im Mittelalter scharfsinnig diskutiert, ja die scholastischen Autoren prägten als Erste die Fachausdrücke "Intentionalität" und "intentionale Existenz" und entwarfen verschiedene Modelle, um das Rätsel der kognitiven Bezugnahme zu lösen. Dieses Buch stellt fünf einflußreiche Intentionalitätsmodelle vor, die im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert entstanden sind. Dabei werden so unterschiedliche Autoren wie Thomas von Aquin, Petrus Johannes Olivi, Dietrich von Freiberg, Johannes Duns Scotus, Petrus Aureoli, Hervaeus (...) Natalis, Wilhelm von Ockham und Adam Wodeham berücksichtigt. -/- "Die anschauliche und präzise Art, in der Perler mit den Denkern des Mittelalters und der Gegenwart argumentierend spricht, lockert seine gestrenge Gedankenarbeit auf, ohne darüber hinwegzutäuschen, daß dieses Buch eine Reihe von Entdeckungen und Klärungen enthält, wie sie auf diesem schwierigen Feld selten vorkommen. Er bietet eine Meisterleistung an Konzentration und Darstellungskunst. Wenige Bücher zur Philosophie des Mittelalters vereinen so glücklich wie dieses geschichtlichen Takt und Problemsinn." Kurt Flasch -/- The problem of intentionality is not only at the centre of today's philosophical and cognitive theory debates. It was already discussed astutely in the Middle Ages; indeed the scholastic authors were the first to coin the technical terms "intentionality" and "intentional existence" and designed various models to solve the riddle of cognitive reference. This book presents five influential models of intentionality that emerged in the 13th and 14th centuries. It takes into account authors as different as Thomas Aquinas, Petrus Johannes Olivi, Dietrich von Freiberg, Johannes Duns Scotus, Petrus Aureoli, Hervaeus Natalis, Wilhelm von Ockham and Adam Wodeham. Upun reading this book, Kurt Flasch remarks that it "contains a wealth of discoveries and clarifications that are rare in this difficult field. [Perler] offers a masterly performance of concentration and art of representation [...]. Few books on medieval philosophy succeed so thoroughly in uniting historical and philosophical perspicacity such as this one". (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)

Im Bild der «offenen Kreise» nimmt der Band Grundspannungen der Wissenschaften in den Blick. Sie ergeben sich aus ihren zentralen Fragestellungen und den Grenzen dessen, was überhaupt als wissenschaftlich gelten kann. Das Buch versteht sich daher als Beitrag zur Diskussion dessen, was die Wissenschaft als eine fortwährende Befragung der eigenen Standpunkte von allen anderen Formen der Erkenntnis unterscheidet. Die dazu versammelten Texte gingen mehrheitlich aus dem studium universale Leipzig hervor. Anlass war das 600-jährige Bestehen der Universität Leipzig. Zur Debatte steht (...) das grundlegende Selbstverständnis der Wissenschaften am Beispiel von Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Erkenntnistheorie, Sprachkritik und dem Fehlverhalten von Wissenschaftlern. Demgegenüber stehen Fragen zu den Grenzen der Wissenschaftlichkeit am Beispiel der Theologie, der Alchemie, des Farbempfindens, der Plastination oder der Tendenz zum Exzentrischen und Absonderlichen in der Wissenschaft. Das abstrakte Paradox der «geschlossenen Offenheit» der Wissenschaften kann letztlich von diesen selbst nicht eingelöst werden. Hierzu bedarf es der Kunst. Die beigegebenen Drucke Susanne Werdins laden zu einer solchen Reflexion ein. (shrink)

The files that have just recently been made available from Roman archives make it possible to shed new light on and relativize the often asserted,,Pope's silence." It can be seen, that there was no agreement within the Vatican on how to deal with National Socialism. Recent publications have constructed an antagonism between Cardinal Secretary Eugenio Pacelli and Alois Hudal, the politically active principal of the Collegio Santa Maria dell'Anima and supposedly a representative of,appeasement'. However, it can be shown that both (...) men initially agreed in principle with their assessment of National Socialism, even though they pursued different strategies. Hudal insisted on the public denunciation of National Socialism, on a clear positioning of the school, yet without success. Pacelli, a diplomat by training, was the one who thwarted nearly all of the Vatican's public proclamations against National Socialism. (shrink)

The book develops a philosophical foundation to the field of management education using the work of Martin Heidegger as a guiding philosophy. It asks the questions ‘what is a corporation?’ and ‘what is corporate management?’ These two questions are foundational for management thought in general and management ethics in particular. Most other academic fields are in some way defined and guided by a philosophical discourse. This philosophical discourse is largely missing in the field of management thought and education. Without this (...) foundation it can never be clear what actually belongs into a certain academic discipline and what does not. It also therefore lacks a sound and well articulated ontological foundation critical for developing approaches to ethical management. This book seeks to fill this gap and consequently represents an interdisciplinary effort between the academic field of management/business administration and philosophy, which is vital for business ethics. Intended as required reading for an elective on philosophy of management that is offered annually at the Wits Business School / University of the Witwatersrand / Johannesburg. The structure of the course will be largely based on the structure of the book. (shrink)

On their alethic reading, formulas,, and codify three of the most basic principles of possibility and its dual. This paper discusses these formulas on a broadly epistemic reading, and in particular as candidate principles about conceivability and its dual. As will be shown, the question whether and its classical dual equivalent, as well as and hold on this reading is not only a logical one but involves a distinctively metaphysical controversy between realist and antirealist views on the relation between truth (...) on the one hand and various cognitive conditions such as knowability, conceivability, and thinkability on the other. It will be argued that the stance we take with regard to the metaphysical dispute has consequences for our assessment of the plausibility not only of and its classical equivalent, but also of and—when that stance is combined with a structural account of propositions—potentially of as well; with all four taken in the above epistemic sense. A second upshot will be that the same sensitivity to metaphysical background commitment also applies to our view as to whether or not inconceivability of the opposite coincides with, or even entails, apriority. (shrink)

In eukaryotes, the messenger RNA (mRNA), the blueprint of a protein‐coding gene, is processed and packaged into a messenger ribonucleoprotein particle (mRNP) by mRNA‐binding proteins in the nucleus. The steps of mRNP formation – transcription, processing, packaging, and the orchestrated release of the export‐competent mRNP from the site of transcription for nuclear mRNA export – are tightly coupled to ensure a highly efficient and regulated process. The importance of highly accurate nuclear mRNP formation is illustrated by the fact that mutations (...) in components of this pathway lead to cellular inviability or to severe diseases in metazoans. We hypothesize that efficient mRNP formation is realized by a molecular mRNP packaging station, which is built by several recruitment platforms and coordinates the individual steps of mRNP formation. (shrink)

We develop a theoretical model of network formation where actors are limitedly farsighted. In this way we extend current models with a new set of micro-foundations. Computer simulations are used to predict the stable network structures that are likely to emerge under the new assumptions. The co-author model by Jackson/wolinsky (1996) is used as an example. The co-author model formulates a tension between stability and efficiency when actors are myopic. Limitedly farsighted actors can overcome this tension but only if the (...) network is small enough. Thus, changing the micro-foundations of the network formation model leads to new implications at the macro-level in the sense that different networks are predicted to be stable than for existing micro-foundations. (shrink)

Der kognitive Gehalt von Emotionen. Erklärungsansätze des klassischen Rationalismus.