In the ongoing pandemic, death statistics influence people’s feelings and government policy. But when does COVID-19 qualify as the cause of death? As philosophers of medicine interested in conceptual clarification, we address the question by analyzing the World Health Organization’s rules for the certification of death. We show that for COVID-19, WHO rules take into account both facts and values.

I argue against a principle that is widely taken to govern metaphysical explanation. This is the principle that no necessary facts can, on their own, explain a contingent fact. I then show how this result makes available a response to a longstanding objection to the Principle of Sufficient Reason—the objection that the Principle of Sufficient Reason entails that the world could not have been otherwise.

An argument that the major metaphysical theories of facts give us no good reason to accept facts in our catalog of the world. -/- In this book Arianna Betti argues that we have no good reason to accept facts in our catalog of the world, at least as they are described by the two major metaphysical theories of facts. She claims that neither of these theories is tenable—neither the theory according to which facts are special (...) structured building blocks of reality nor the theory according to which facts are whatever is named by certain expressions of the form “the fact that such and such.” There is reality, and there are entities in reality that we are able to name, but, Betti contends, among these entities there are no facts. -/- Drawing on metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and linguistics, Betti examines the main arguments in favor of and against facts of the two major sorts, which she distinguishes as compositional and propositional, giving special attention to methodological presuppositions. She criticizes compositional facts (facts as special structured building blocks of reality) and the central argument for them, Armstrong's truthmaker argument. She then criticizes propositional facts (facts as whatever is named in “the fact that” statements) and what she calls the argument from nominal reference, which draws on Quine's criterion of ontological commitment. Betti argues that metaphysicians should stop worrying about facts, and philosophers in general should stop arguing for or against entities on the basis of how we use language. (shrink)

Traditionally, civil law jurisdictions in Scandinavia and the continent of Europe have not been willing to acknowledge the appropriateness of extending bankruptcy relief to consumer debtors and discharging any part of their debts. The opposition was based on the importance of upholding the sanctity of contractual obligations: pacta sunt servanda. This attitude stood in contrast to the fresh start philosophy of US bankruptcy law, which embraced a more forgiving attitude, focusing on the reintegration of the insolvent debtor into society, (...) substantially free of debt, after he has filed for bankruptcy and surrendered his non-exempt property for distribution among his creditors. The relaxation of credit controls and the rapid increase in the number of insolvent debtors in the late 1980s and early 1990s has forced many continental jurisdictions to reconsider their traditional opposition. They have since adopted debt adjustment plans providing various forms of debt relief to overcommitted debtors but only a substantial number of years after the initial proceedings. The American reaction has gone in the opposite direction. With the adoption of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, the United States has reversed its century old liberal fresh start tradition. The 2005 Act imposes a formidable means test as well as other preconditions to determine whether a debtor has sufficient discretionary income to pay off twenty percent of his or her unsecured debts under a Chapter 13 plan. If the answer is yes, the debtor is denied the right to file a bankruptcy petition under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code. This paper asks whether these developments on opposite sides of the Atlantic suggest that facts on the ground are more important than dogma and deeply entrenched beliefs. The author’s answer is that while there is certainly a trend towards convergence between continental European and US approaches to consumer insolvency, it is much too soon to speak of a common culture and a common approach. He notes, however, that Commonwealth jurisdictions have long adopted a means test to determine a debtor’s eligibility for discharge from debt and suggests that continental scholars would have done better to study the Commonwealth experience as embodying a suitable compromise than to flirt with the US fresh start philosophy, only to reject it as too alien to the continental moral sense. (shrink)

Some social scientists and philosophers (e.g., James Coleman and Jon Elster) claim that all social facts are best explained by means of a micro-explanation. They defend a micro-reductionism in the social sciences: to explain is to provide a mechanism on the individual level. The first aim of this paper is to challenge this view and defend the view that it has to be substituted for an explanatory pluralism with two components: (1) structural explanations of P-, O- and T-contrasts between (...) social facts are more efficient than the competing micro-explanations; and (2) whether a plain social fact (as opposed to a contrast) is best explained in a micro-explanation or a structural explanation depends on the explanatory interest. The second aim of the paper is to show how this explanatory pluralism is compatible with ontological individualism. This paper is motivated by our conviction that explanatory pluralism as defended by Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit is on the right track, but must be further elaborated. We want to supplement their contribution, by (1) introducing the difference between explanations of facts and explanations of contrasts; (2) giving examples from the social sciences, instead of mainly from the natural sciences or common sense knowledge; and (3) emphasizing the pragmatic relevance of explanations on different levels –social, psychological, biological, etc. – which is insufficiently done by Jackson and Pettit. (shrink)

According to the truthmaker theory that we favour, all contingent truths are made true by existing facts or states of affairs. But if that is so, then it appears that we must accept the existence of the negative facts that are required to make negative truths (such as 'There is no hippopotamus in the room.') true. We deny the existence of negative facts, show how negative truths are made true by positive facts, point out where the (...) (reluctant) advocates of negative facts (Russell, Armstrong, et al.) went wrong, and demonstrate the superiority of our solution to the alternatives. (shrink)

In recent works, Časlav Brukner and Jacques Pienaar have raised interesting objections to the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics. We answer these objections in detail and show that, far from questioning the viability of the interpretation, they sharpen and clarify it.

A main thread of the debate over mathematical realism has come down to whether mathematics does explanatory work of its own in some of our best scientific explanations of empirical facts. Realists argue that it does; anti-realists argue that it doesn't. Part of this debate depends on how mathematics might be able to do explanatory work in an explanation. Everyone agrees that it's not enough that there merely be some mathematics in the explanation. Anti-realists claim there is nothing mathematics (...) can do to make an explanation mathematical ; realists think something can be done, but they are not clear about what that something is. I argue that many of the examples of mathematical explanations of empirical facts in the literature can be accounted for in terms of Jackson and Pettit's [1990] notion of program explanation, and that mathematical realists can use the notion of program explanation to support their realism. This is exactly what has happened in a recent thread of the debate over moral realism. I explain how the two debates are analogous and how moves that have been made in the moral realism debate can be made in the mathematical realism debate. However, I conclude that one can be a mathematical realist without having to be a moral realist. (shrink)

To verify the occurrence of a singular instance of testimonial injustice three facts must be established. The first is whether the hearer in fact has an identity prejudice of which she may or may not be aware; the second is whether that prejudice was in fact the cause of the unjustified credibility deficit; and the third is whether there was in fact a credibility deficit in the testimonial exchange. These three elements constitute the facts of the matter of (...) testimonial injustice. In this essay we argue that none of these facts can be established with any degree of confidence, and therefore that testimonial injustice is an undetectable phenomenon in singular instances. Our intention is not to undermine the idea of testimonial injustice, but rather to set limits to what can be justifiably asserted about it. According to our argument, although there are insufficient reasons to identify individual acts of testimonial injustice, it is possible to recognize recurrent patterns of epistemic responses to speakers who belong to specific social groups. General testimonial injustice can thus be characterized as a behavioral tendency of a prejudiced hearer. (shrink)

This book is an account of the philosophical movement named Lebensphilosophie, which flourished at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. There many philosophers who participated in the movement, but this book concentrates on the three most important: Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel. The movement was called Lebensphilosophie—literally, philosophy of life—because its main interest was not life as a biological phenomenon but life as it is lived by human beings. They regarded human (...) life and experience as the fundamental reality, the basis of all knowledge and value, and disputed the relevance of any supernatural realm transcending human experience. The purpose of life was therefore life itself. Lebensphilosophie was the first modern philosophical movement in the Western tradition. It was “modern” in the sense that it was entirely humanist and secular, deriving all values from a non-religious perspective. Nietzsche, Dilthey and Simmel were either atheists or agnostics; they denied the relevance of any transcendent reality or being for human life. They abjured the traditional Christian concern with salvation and immortality. They also disputed the existence of natural law, teleology or a providential order; human beings created their own values and they did not conform to any made by nature. In anticipation of later existentialism, the Lebensphilosophen maintained that human beings are the makers of their own fate. Contrary to pessimism, they affirmed the great value of life while still acknowledging its frequent tragedy. The Lebensphilosophen were champions of an individualist ethics, which maintained that the highest good for a human being was self-realization, the development of a persons’s unique individuality. Their ethics was neither utilitarian nor de-ontological: it was not utilitarian because it did not regard the highest good as pleasure; self-realization could be a very unpleasant experience; and it was not de-ontological because it grounded moral norms upon the facts of human development and experience. The Lebensphilosophen were major advocates of historicism. They believed that human experience is formed by history, and that its horizons and limits are historical. Just as it was impossible to transcend human experience, so it was impossible to transcend history. All values and norms were therefore historical. In attempting to describe historical experience, the Lebensphilosophen developed the discipline of hermeneutics. They refused to accept mechanical explanation as a paradigm of explanation. This book attempts to describe and analyze the fundamental aspects of Lebensphilosophie by looking in detail at the views of its three leading figures. It examines their ethics, their religious background, their responses to pessimism and relativism, and their contributions to hermeneutics and historicism. (shrink)

Fact/value holism has become commonplace in philosophy of science, especially in feminist literature. However, that facts are bearers of empirical content, while values are not, remains a firmly-held distinction. I support a more thorough-going holism: both facts and values can function as empirical claims, related in a seamless, semantic web. I address a counterexample from Kourany where facts and values seem importantly discontinuous, namely, the simultaneous support by the Nazis of scientifically sound cancer research and morally (...) unsound political policies. I conclude that even by the criteria available at the time, Nazi cancer research was empirically weak, and the weaknesses in their research are continuous with their moral failures in just the ways predicted by the holism I support. (shrink)

That the soul of a human person is infused at conception is a metaphysical claim. But given its traditional articulation, it has the empirical consequence that the zygote must have a substantial continuity with the adult person, a continuity which is already determined at conception. This empirical consequence is contradicted by the fact that the zygote may become a hydatidiform mole, or several persons. The metaphysical claim is falsified by the facts. Keywords: abortion, information capacity, metaphysical account, person, zygote (...) CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Truthmaker necessitarianism is the view that an object is a truthmaker for a truth-bearer only if it is impossible for the object to exist and the truth-bearer be false. While this thesis is widely regarded as truthmaking "orthodoxy", it is rarely explicitly defended. In this paper I offer an argument in favor of necessitarianism that raises the question of what the truthmakers are for the truths about truthmaking. The supposed advantages of non-necessitarianism dissolve once we take these truths into account.

This book is a personal history and apology, written by one of this century's most distinguished small mammal ecologists, for a life in science spent working on problems for which no final dramatic conclusion was reached. Included along the way are some important anecdotes and history about Charles Elton and the pioneering work at the Bureau of Animal Population at Oxford University, from which most of modern population ecology has grown, and insigts on the philosophy and practice of science.

The principal claims supported include: (i) that 'believe' and 'know' take the same grammatical object 'that p'; (ii) that each may take grammatical objects that the other cannot take; (iii) that merely grammatical considerations cannot determine whether 'that p' designates a proposition or a fact; (iv) that, on an epistemically relevant interpretation, 'that p' may be construed either as designating a proposition or a fact or both; (v) that propositions and facts are correlative and heuristic entities. The issues are (...) developed in the context of exploring chiefly the views of Zeno Vendler, Alan White, and Peter Geach. Complications bearing on the distinction between thought and speech are considered. (shrink)

My sights in this paper are trained on facts. Most people think that they know what facts are; that while their friends often, and themselves occasionally, are ignorant of the facts, at least they know what sort of things facts are---they can recognise a fact when they see it. Facts, in the popular philosophy of today, are good, simple souls; there is no guile in them, nor any room for subjective bias, and once we (...) have made ourselves acquainted with them, we have reached the beginning and summit of all wisdom. (shrink)

Commentators have long agreed that Wodeham’s account of objects of judgment is highly innovative, but they have continued to disagree about its proper interpretation. Some read him as introducing items that are merely supervenient on (and nothing in addition to) Aristotelian substances and accidents; others take him to be introducing a new type of entity in addition to substances and accidents—namely, abstract states of affairs. In this paper, I argue that both interpretations are mistaken: the entities Wodeham introduces are really (...) distinct from substances and accidents, but, like substances and accidents, they are concrete (rather than abstract). Moreover, the key to understanding the significance of his theory, I contend, lies in a proper understanding of the theoretical role these entities play in his theory of judgment. (shrink)

This new edition of Frithjof Schuon's Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts is a fully revised translation of the French edition, and has an extensive Appendix ...

Autonomy and ethics are related to each other in complex ways. The paper starts by distinguishing and characterizing three basic dimensions of this relation. It proceeds by arguing for the compatibility of moral realism with a due respect for human autonomy. Nevertheless, supernaturalist moral realism seems to pose a special challenge for the autonomy of ethics as a self-standing normative realm. The paper ends with some considerations on the role of divine authority both in metaethics and in the general theory (...) of value. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the positivist–conventionalist interpretation of the Restricted Principle of Relativity is flawed, due to the positivists’ own understanding of conventions and their origins. I claim in the paper that, to understand the conventionalist thesis, one has to diambiguate between three types of convention; the linguistic conventions stemming from the fundamental role of mathematical axioms, the conventions stemming from the coordination betweeh theoretical statements and physical, observable facts or entities, and conventions that are made possible (...) by possible revisions to theory. I claim that it is not possible to interpret the Principle of Relativity as based on one of these three types of convention. This renders the conventionalist interpretation of the Principle of Relativity untenable. The paper is part of a larger project that aims to understand the philosophical significance of the Principle of Relativity. (shrink)

In response to Kuper's article Singer writes, " I show that his counter-examples are often irrelevant to what I am advocating, and he has not substantiated his extraordinary claim that the approach I advocate would 'seriously harm the poor'.".

The papers in this collection discuss the central questions about the connections between language, reality and human understanding. The complex relations between accounts of meaning and facts about ordinary speakers’ understanding of their language are examined so as to illuminate the philosophical character of the connections between language and reality. The collection as a whole is a thematically unified treatment of some of the most central questions within contemporary philosophy of language.

Legal and moral reasoning share much methodology, and they address similar problems. This volume charts two shared problems: the relation between theory, principles and particular judgments; and the role of facts and factual assertions in normative settings. The relation between 'theory' and 'practice' and between 'principle' and 'particular judgment' has become the subject of much debate in moral philosophy. In the ongoing debate, some moral philosophers refer to legal philosophy for a support of their views on the (...) primacy of 'practice' over 'theory'. According to them, legal philosophy should have a more balanced view in that relation. In the contributions to Part One this claim is critically analysed. The role of the facts is underestimated in discussions on legal reasoning and legal theory, as well as moral reasoning and ethical theory. Factual statements enter into moral and legal discussions not only because they link the conclusion with a rule. They also play a role as background assumptions in supporting a theory. Its focus on the role of facts in normative reasoning makes this book of special interest to scholars of legal and moral argumentation. (shrink)

In his recent paper Gellner singles me out for special comment and some reply is called for. He attributes to me several propositions which he says I made in my note on ‘Physical and social kinship’ in this journal, and he then refutes them. Reading his paper I cannot avoid thinking that he exaggerates the differences between us, thereby apparently strengthening his argument. Some substantial differences there are, but others are fictional. A line-by-line analysis of what he says about me (...) in his paper might be amusing but would be of only ephemeral interest. In this reply I confine myself to a few important issues. (shrink)

The authors investigate MacCormick and Weinberger's claim that the Institutional Theory of Law provides a conceptual framework for the study of legal phenomena from a socio-legal point of view. They evaluate this claim by confronting both the Institutional Theory of Law and Weinberger's theory of action with two approaches in socio-legal theory, i.e. the instrumentalist and the constitutive approach. The conclusion is that the Institutional Theory of Law lends itself to empirical research from an instrumentalist perspective, for both place the (...) concept `institution' in the context of law. Weinberger's theory of action may provide a basis for empirical research from a constitutive perspective. The authors make some suggestions for refinement of Weinberger's theory of action in order that the relation between institutions and action can be labeled dynamic. (shrink)

In chapter 17 of his book, Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory , Ian Hacking makes the disquieting claim that “perhaps we should best think of past human actions as being to a certain extent indeterminate.” 1 Against what may appear like the self-evident conception of the past as fixed and unalterable, Hacking suggests that when it comes to human conduct and experience, there are reasons to adopt a more flexible view. This suggestion (...) has caused lively debate, in the journal History of the Human Sciences and elsewhere. 2 Central to this debate is the question of what it means to use a recently invented vocabulary to redescribe past human affairs. In particular, it is asked: How do the linguistic, cultural and social differences between past and present matter to the possibility of such a redescription's being true? We who do research in the humanities and social sciences often make retroactive redescriptions of precisely this sort. Hence, the debate is clearly of some general importance for how to conceive the goals and methods of our inquiries. My overall aim in this paper is to clarify what we may learn from the clash between Hacking and his critics. (shrink)

For years analysts have recognized the error of assuming that experts in medical science are also experts in deciding the clinically correct course for patients. This paper extends the analysis of the use of the consensus of experts to their use in public policy groups such as NIH Consensus Development panels. After arguing that technical experts cannot be expected to be expert on public policy decisions, the author extends the criticism to the use of the consensus of experts in estimating (...) facts to provide a basis for policy decisions. It is argued that to the extent that (a) experts' views regarding a body of facts can be expected to correlate with their values relevant to those facts; and (b) the values of experts differ from the values of lay people, even the estimates of the facts given by the consensus of expert panels can be expected to differ from the estimates lay people would have given had they had the relevant scientific expertise. Keywords: consensus, expertise, fact/value distinction, NIH Consensus Development Panels CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

According to Hugh Mellor in Real Time II (1998, Ch. 12), assuming the logical independence of causal facts and the 'law of large numbers', causal loops are impossible because if they were possible they would produce inconsistent sets of frequencies. I clarify the argument, and argue that it would be preferable to abandon the relevant independence assumption in the case of causal loops.

In the epicenter of his attempt to justify the “objective validity” of morality and freedom in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant introduces a so-called fact of reason, which is rendered as the fact that human beings are consciou s of the moral ought’s categorical authority. However, few parts of Kant’s thinking have bemused commentators as much as this. In this article, the author explores a set of intersecting problems related to the fact of reason: (1) the problem of its (...) general argumentative role in Kant’s practical philosophy, (2) the problem of the fact as a brute fact. He argues that both problems can be understood and resolved only if we regard Kant’s introduction of the fact of reason as an implicit attempt to articulate intrinsic problems with reductive explanations of morality. His main claim, which has been surprisingly absent in most interpretations of Kant’s fact of reason, will be that the fact of reason functions as an undeniable yet improvable fact (similar to mathematical principles) from which other practical truths (such as the objective reality of freedom) can be derived. As Kant says unambiguously in the Jäsche-Logic : the “reality” of the moral law “is an axiom.”. (shrink)

Closest-continuer or best-candidate accounts of persistence seem deeply unsatisfactory, but it’s hard to say why. The standard criticism is that such accounts violate the ‘only a and b’ rule, but this criticism merely highlights a feature of the accounts without explaining why the feature is unacceptable. Another concern is that such accounts violate some principle about the supervenience of persistence facts upon local or intrinsic facts. But, again, we do not seem to have an independent justification for this (...) supervenience claim. Instead, I argue that closest continuer accounts are committed to unexplained correlations between distinct existences, and that this is their fundamental flaw. We can have independent justification for rejecting such correlations, but what the justification is depends upon much broader issues in ontology. There is no one-size-fits all objection to closest-continuer accounts of persistence. (shrink)

Politics is hugely complex. Some try to reduce its complexity by examining it through an ideological worldview, a one-size-fits-all prescriptive formula or a quantitative examination of as many 'facts' as possible. Yet politics cannot be adequately handled as if it were made of cells and particles: ideological views are oversimplifying and sometimes dangerous. Politics is not simply a moral matter, nor political philosophy a subdivision of moral philosophy. This book is devised as a basic conceptual lexicon for (...) all those who want to understand what politics is, how it works and how it changes or fails to change. Key concepts such as power, conflict, legitimacy and order are clearly defined and their interplay in the state, interstate and global level explored. Principles such as liberty, equality, justice and solidarity are discussed in the context of the political choices confronting us. This compact and systematic introduction to the categories needed to grasp the fundamentals of politics will appeal to readers who want to gain a firmer grasp on the workings of politics, as well as to scholars and students of philosophy, political science and history. (shrink)

The author discusses the concept of an ideal object. The statement of O.I. Genisaretsky is quoted and problematized, stating that the obligatory feature that has been preserved for the object and the terms "object" and "ideal object" is, apparently, its representability or visibility. The author shows that ideal objects began to be created during the formation of ancient philosophy and thinking. Faced with contradictions, ancient thinkers dealt with this situation in different ways. If Protogoras recognized the right of the (...) reasoners to receive contradictions and, accordingly, to consider the world contradictory, then Parmenides considered the world consistent, arguing that the criterion for the correctness (truth) of knowledge is not a reasoning person, but this world, existence, which still needs to be reached with the help of correct thought. It was within the framework of the implementation of the Parmenides program that ideal objects began to be created, which, as the author shows, performed three main functions: they allowed us to think consistently, to know the world and its phenomena, to comprehend and interpret empirical phenomena (facts) in a different way. Based on the case of Plato's "Feast", the semiotic schemes on the basis of which Plato creates ideal objects are analyzed. It is argued that it is impossible to build ideal objects, bypassing schemes, since their inventors (creators) are people. By solving problems, they synthesize meanings belonging to different areas of consciousness. The analysis of Galileo's "Conversations" allowed the author to suggest that the construction of ideal objects is due to the historical type of philosophical or scientific thinking. The author considers it necessary, before claiming to create a modern doctrine of ideal objects, to analyze the main typical cases of the construction of these objects in philosophy and science, and such an analysis can make significant adjustments to the understanding of the nature and features of this concept. Nevertheless, he suggests, it is already clear that the construction of ideal objects is an important link in philosophical, scientific and a number of other types of thinking. (shrink)

(1) For much of this century, moral philosophy has been constrained by the supposed absolute gap between is andought, and the consequent belief that the facts of life cannot of themselves yield an ethical blueprint for future action. For this reason, ethics has sustained an eerie existence largely apart from science. Its most respected interpreters still believe that reasoning about right and wrong can be successful without a knowledge of the brain, the human organ where all the decisions (...) about right and wrong are made. Ethical premises are typically treated in the manner of mathematical propositions: directives supposedly independent of human evolution, with a claim to ideal, eternal truth. (shrink)

Das Problem, unter welchen Bedingungen eine Hypothese oder Theorienmodifikation als methodologisch akzeptabel gilt, wird in der wissenschaftheoretischen Tradition als die Frage des Ad-Hoc-Charakters von Hypothesen diskutiert. Das gleichartige Problem tritt aber auch in Lakatos' Methodologie wissenschaftlicher Forschungsprogramme auf, welche von methodologisch zulässigen Theorienänderungen die Vorhersage ‚neuer Tatsachen‘, verlangt. Über diesen Begriff der neuen Tatsache und damit der Adäquatheitsbedingungen für wissenschaftliche Erklärungen hat sich eine weitgefächerte Debatte entsponnen. In diesem Papier wird der Versuch unternommen, die Forderung der unabhängigen Testbarkeit einer Hypothese, (...) welche im Rahmen der Diskussion des Ad-hoc-Charakters von Hypothesen eine wichtige Rolle spielt, auch für die Frage der Spezifizierung von ‚neuen Tatsachen‘ fruchtbar zu machen. Ich argumentiere zugunsten der Bedingung, daß eine Hypothese als methodologisch akzeptabel gelten sollte, wenn sie zumindest zwei unabhängige Tatsachen erklärt. Ein derartiger Ansatz verlangt die Kennzeichnung dessen, was als ‚eine Tatsache‘ zu gelten hat. Die Schwierigkeit einer derartigen Kennzeichnung ist ein notorisches Problem jedes Kriteriums, das auf unabhängige Testbarkeit zielt. Eine Klärung dieses Problems wird über das Konzept der empirischen Generalisierung versucht. Als ‚eine Tatsache‘ im methodologischen Sinne gilt demnach ein gesetzmäßiger Zusammenhang zwischen zwei Meßgrößen. Dies erlaubt weiterführend eine Klärung des Problems, was methodologisch als ‚ein Experiment‘ zu werten ist, d. h. was als Reproduktion desselben und was als andersartiges Experiment gelten soll. Mit Hilfe dieser Klärungen wird unter anderem der Ad-hoc-Charakter der Lorentzschen Kontraktionshypothese sowie das Problem der Gleich- oder Verschiedenartigkeit von Michelson-Morley- und Kennedy-Thorndike-Experiment untersucht. (shrink)