Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative (...) outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. If participants lack competence or are prone to biases, a correct deliberative outcome requires limiting participation. The central question for public argumentation, therefore, is how to strike a balance between both ideals. Rather than advocating a preferred normative framework, our main purpose is to illustrate the complexity of this theme. (shrink)

The rapid dynamics of COVID-19 calls for quick and effective tracking of virus transmission chains and early detection of outbreaks, especially in the “phase 2” of the pandemic, when lockdown and other restriction measures are progressively withdrawn, in order to avoid or minimize contagion resurgence. For this purpose, contact-tracing apps are being proposed for large scale adoption by many countries. A centralized approach, where data sensed by the app are all sent to a nation-wide server, raises concerns about citizens’ privacy (...) and needlessly strong digital surveillance, thus alerting us to the need to minimize personal data collection and avoiding location tracking. We advocate the conceptual advantage of a decentralized approach, where both contact and location data are collected exclusively in individual citizens’ “personal data stores”, to be shared separately and selectively, voluntarily, only when the citizen has tested positive for COVID-19, and with a privacy preserving level of granularity. This approach better protects the personal sphere of citizens and affords multiple benefits: it allows for detailed information gathering for infected people in a privacy-preserving fashion; and, in turn this enables both contact tracing, and, the early detection of outbreak hotspots on more finely-granulated geographic scale. The decentralized approach is also scalable to large populations, in that only the data of positive patients need be handled at a central level. Our recommendation is two-fold. First to extend existing decentralized architectures with a light touch, in order to manage the collection of location data locally on the device, and allow the user to share spatio-temporal aggregates—if and when they want and for specific aims—with health authorities, for instance. Second, we favour a longer-term pursuit of realizing a Personal Data Store vision, giving users the opportunity to contribute to collective good in the measure they want, enhancing self-awareness, and cultivating collective efforts for rebuilding society. (shrink)

Comparing knowledge with belief can go wrong in two dimensions: If the authors employ a wider notion of knowledge, then they do not compare like with like because they assume a narrow notion of belief. If they employ only a narrow notion of knowledge, then their claim is not supported by the evidence. Finally, we sketch a superior teleological view.

Richard Feynman has claimed that anti-particles are nothing but particles `propagating backwards in time'; that time reversing a particle state always turns it into the corresponding anti-particle state. According to standard quantum field theory textbooks this is not so: time reversal does not turn particles into anti-particles. Feynman's view is interesting because, in particular, it suggests a nonstandard, and possibly illuminating, interpretation of the CPT theorem. In this paper, we explore a classical analog of Feynman's view, in the context of (...) the recent debate between David Albert and David Malament over time reversal in classical electromagnetism. (shrink)

Holbein produced a drawing of Sir Thomas More and his Family which was a preparatory sketch for a larger painting. The painting was acquired by Karl von Liechtenstein-Kastelkron, Archbishop of Olomouc, Moravia, and was last recorded in 1691 as being kept in the episcopal residence in Olomouc; it is generally assumed that the painting was lost in the 1752 fire at the Archbishop's château in Kroměřiž. There are, however, five extant versions of the Family Group. The three main versions are (...) the full-sized oil on canvas, The Family of Sir Thomas More, now at Nostell Priory, and two paintings of Sir Thomas More, his Household, and Descendants: one kept at the National Portrait Gallery, the other at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. There has been much discussion about the transformation from a family at prayer—as portrayed in the original drawing—to a conversation on Seneca. Based on editions of Oedipus prior to the Nostell painting, the history of More's descendants, and a cameo that belonged to More's family, this paper argues that the Elizabethan transformation is a story of conformity and non-conformity. (shrink)

The once-lost introduction to the philosophy of science by Philipp Frank (1884-1966), a leading member of the Vienna circle of philosophers and biographer of Albert Einstein.

A theory is usually said to be time reversible if whenever a sequence of states S 1 , S 2 , S 3 is possible according to that theory, then the reverse sequence of time reversed states S 3 T , S 2 T , S 1 T is also possible according to that theory; i.e., one normally not only inverts the sequence of states, but also operates on the states with a time reversal operator T . David Albert (...) and Paul Horwich have suggested that one should not allow such time reversal operations T on states. I will argue that time reversal operations on fundamental states should be allowed. I will furthermore argue that the form that time reversal operations take is determined by the type of fundamental geometric quantities that occur in nature and that we have good reason to believe that the fundamental geometric quantities that occur in nature correspond to irreducible representations of the Lorentz transformations. Finally, I will argue that we have good reason to believe that space-time has a temporal orientation. (shrink)

Recent experiments in moral psychology have been taken to imply that moral reasoning only serves to reaffirm prior moral intuitions. More specifically, Jonathan Haidt concludes from his moral dumbfounding experiments, in which people condemn other people’s behavior, that moral reasoning is biased and ineffective, as it rarely makes people change their mind. I present complementary evidence pertaining to self-directed reasoning about what to do. More specifically, Albert Bandura’s experiments concerning moral disengagement reveal that moral reasoning often does contribute effectively (...) to the formation of moral judgments. And such reasoning need not be biased. Once this evidence is taken into account, it becomes clear that both cognition and affect can play a destructive as well as a constructive role in the formation of moral judgments. (shrink)

A theory is usually said to be time reversible if whenever a sequence of states S 1, S 2, S 3 is possible according to that theory, then the reverse sequence of time reversed states S 3 T, S 2 T, S 1 T is also possible according to that theory; i.e., one normally not only inverts the sequence of states, but also operates on the states with a time reversal operator T. David Albert and Paul Horwich have suggested (...) that one should not allow such time reversal operations T on states. I will argue that time reversal operations on fundamental states should be allowed. I will furthermore argue that the form that time reversal operations take is determined by the type of fundamental geometric quantities that occur in nature and that we have good reason to believe that the fundamental geometric quantities that occur in nature correspond to irreducible representations of the Lorentz transformations. Finally, I will argue that we have good reason to believe that space-time has a temporal orientation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Crisis of Meaning in Sartor Resartus—Thomas Carlyle's Pioneering Work in Articulating and Addressing the Existential ConfrontationFrank Martelawhat i call an "existential confrontation" is the encounter with the possibility that human life is absurd: created for no purpose and devoid of any lasting value or meaning. It is "the hour of terror at the world's vast meaningless grinding" that William James (Will to Believe 173) examines, described by Todd May (...) (xi) as "the confrontation of our need for meaning with the unwillingness of the Universe to yield it to us." This confrontation with the existential void and the potential absurdity of human existence is often not just an intellectual dilemma, but felt as a deep personal crisis accompanied by melancholia, angst, nausea, or even suicidal thoughts. Young William James confessed in a letter to a friend that "all last winter" he "was on the continual verge of suicide" (quoted in Gunnarsson), writing later that "too much questioning" leads "to the edge of the slope" wherein lies "nightmare or suicidal view of life" (James, "Is Life Worth Living?" 6). Similarly, Leo Tolstoy (54) reports how his inability to identify a lasting meaning of life drove him to a "state of lunacy" where "the best I could do was to hang myself."Despite a few earlier allusions—most famously the Book of Ecclesiastes proclaiming that "all is vanity and a striving after wind," and Shakespeare's Macbeth lamenting that life is "a tale told by an idiot … signifying nothing"—the existential confrontation is predominantly a modern phenomenon (Martela, A Wonderful Life). The modern history of descriptions of existential confrontations start at the turn of the nineteenth century, and includes Søren Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death, Leo Tolstoy's A Confession, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Camus's Outsider, Sartre's Nausea, and T. S.Eliot's The Waste Land.There are many responses that the confrontation with the existential void has generated. Sartre embraced the lack of values imposed from outside and [End Page 80] emphasized human freedom. Human beings are "cast into this world … condemned to be free" without any "luminous realm of values" providing "justification or excuse," as Sartre famously summarized in "Existentialism Is a Humanism" (29). Other responses range from Søren Kierkegaard's leap of faith and William James's will to believe to Albert Camus's happiness from absurdity.While some of the responses end up finding a new way of connecting with God and faith, and others are explicitly atheistic, embracing the "death of God," a common thread in most responses is an acknowledgment of the situatedness of human experience and an emphasis placed on human subjectivity and the opportunity to live one's life more authentically. While existentialism, broadly conceived, is often seen as the central philosophical tradition dealing with the existential void, the confrontation was very much alive in the United States as well, visible in both literature and philosophy. As already alluded, William James had an existential confrontation in his youth, writing about the topic in "Is Life Worth Living" and other essays in Will to Believe. There has also been much back-and-forth between Europe and the United States around these themes, with the influences crossing the Atlantic on many occasions. For example, William James cites Thomas Carlyle in Will to Believe, while Sartre cites William James in Nausea, when discussing themes related to the existential confrontation. Similarly, Emerson inspired Nietzsche who inspired Josiah Royce. Typically, the histories tracing the early encounters with the existential confrontation acknowledge Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard, and Fyodor Dostoevsky as key nineteenth-century predecessors to Existentialism, as all faced directly the question of the meaning of life and the dreadful possibility that life might not have any meaning or value to it.However, there is a key author usually not mentioned in these histories, despite the fact that he played a pivotal role in introducing existentialist themes to the English-speaking audience, coining the phrase "meaning of life" in the English language. Thus, in writing the prehistory of Existentialism, we need to examine Thomas Carlyle and his Sartor Resartus, which has been described by literary historians as "one of... (shrink)

In reference to two central concepts of Albert Camus' philosophy, that is, the absurd and the rebellion, this article examines to what extent hisThe Plague is of interest to medical ethics. The interpretation of this novel put forward in this article focuses on the main character of the novel, the physician Dr. Rieux. For Rieux, the plague epidemic, as it is described in the novel, implies an unquestioning commitment to his patients and fellow men. According to Camus this epidemic (...) has to be understood as a symbol of the absurd. Unable to base his actions on a Christian, metaphysical value system, Rieux sees his commitment as a continuous rebellion against the fact of the absurd, which opposes him in the form of evil, suffering and death. As a physician, Rieux is therefore forced to adjust his actions to life in its immediacy, that is, the suffering of his patients. In this article, it will be shown that Rieux's attention to the immediate is of particular interest to medical ethics: Theother person in need, rather thanmy moral convictions, sets the norm. (shrink)

During the last decade it has been widely claimed that Mileva Marić, Albert Einsteins first wife, made essential contributions to the scientific papers of theannus mirabilis 1905. But the remaining documents do not support this view. Drawing that picture of her as ‘the mother of relativity’ even though means pushing things too far.

O mágico de Oz, obra de L. Frank Baum, muito embora tenha sido escrita no fim do século XIX, permanece atuando sobre o imaginário infantil cem anos depois. Centrado na personagem feminina, o texto não só desconstrói os estereótipos do conto de fadas tradicional, ao relativizar o papel da bruxa, que pode ser boa ou má, como também garante o estatuto de herói para uma personagem infantil do gênero feminino. Nessa perspectiva, este trabalho pretende discutir qual é a representação (...) de gênero veiculada pelas personagens femininas, fundamentado em estudos de crítica feminista. (shrink)

The following text is a translation of Semyon Frank’s “L’intuition fondamentale de Bergson” published in Henri Bergson: Essais et témoignages inédits, edited by Albert Béguin and Pierre Thévenaz, Neuchâtel: Éditions de la Baconnière, 1941. In this article, Frank addresses Bergson’s notion of intuition, his anti-intellectualism, his mysticism, his closeness to Lebensphilosophie, the notion of lived experience, the distinction between intuition as pure contemplation and intuition as living knowledge, the distinction between cognition of the atemporal essence of reality (...) and cognition of the world of becoming, pragmatism, the disinterested and open intuitive spiritual attitude vs the utilitarian attitude of social groups closed in on themselves, the transrational vs the irrational, spiritual life, psychic life, the Absolute, and the temporal flux. The article contains criticisms of Bergson on the issues of time and intuition: the durée, the intuitive time, is incomprehensible without an atemporal foundation. Therefore, according to Frank, Plato was correct—contra Bergson—to define time as the moving image of eternity. And, if there is such an atemporal foundation, then, contrary to what Bergson seems to think, intuition as living knowledge cannot be the sole mode of intuition. Moreover, unlike what Bergson appears to think, an intuition of the Absolute would be an intuition of the transrational rather than of the irrational. The translation is preceded by an introduction tracing the genesis of the article, which was commissioned by the Swiss philosopher Pierre Thévenaz. (shrink)

The physicist–philosopher Philipp Frank’s work and influence, especially during his last three decades, when he found a refuge and a position in America, deserve more discussion than has been the case so far. In what follows, I hope I may call him Philipp – having been first a graduate student in one of his courses at Harvard University, then his teaching assistant sharing his offices, then for many years his colleague and friend in the same Physics Department, and finally, (...) doing research on his archival holdings kept at Harvard. I also should not hide my large personal debt to him, for without his recommendation in the 1950s to the Albert Einstein Estate, I would not have received its warm welcome and its permission, as the first one to do historical research in the treasure trove of unpublished letters and manuscripts, thus starting me on a major part of my career in the history of science. (shrink)

Frank Arntzenius has recently suggested that we should reject the standard view that the instantaneous state in classical mechanics consists of both the position and the velocity. In his view, the velocity as ordinarily defined-as the derivative of position with respect to time-cannot be genuinely instantaneous, and, thus, it should be excluded from the instantaneous state. After reviewing Bertrand Russell's traditional objections to the notion of an instantaneous velocity and suggesting that Russell's concerns can be effectively answered, I argue (...) that Arntzenius' attempt to show that the standard definition of velocity fails to yield an instantaneous property is not compelling either. Although I review several suggestions that Arntzenius makes against the existence of instantaneous velocity, much of his case rests upon an intuition, which has also appeared in the work of David Albert, about what is required of genuine instantaneous states. I argue in part that there is no reason to accept this intuition, and, thus, no reason to revise standard physical practice when it comes to the classical, instantaneous state. (shrink)

Leto II discusses not just the meaning of life for individuals as for ancient Earth philosophers from the Buddha and Socrates to Albert Camus and Susan Wolf, but the meaning of life for humanity itself. In God Emperor of Dune, Leto II talks with the Duncans, Moneo, and Hwi Noree not just about the meaning of life for individuals, but for humanity as a whole, across vast reaches of time. So for the Buddha, the meaning of life is to (...) end suffering. But for Socrates the meaning of life is to examine life. Frank Herbert was trying – in his own imperfect way – to imagine a multicultural future for humanity, one not dominated by Western cultures To wander back onto the Golden Path, Herbert's imperfect efforts, as well as Leto's example in God Emperor of Dune, show that learning from all of humanity is a key to the meaning of life. (shrink)

What is Albert Einstein’s place in the history of twentieth-century philosophy of science? Were one to consult the histories produced at mid-century from within the Vienna Circle and allied movements (e.g., von Mises 1938, 1939, Kraft 1950, Reichenbach 1951), then one would find, for the most part, two points of emphasis. First, Einstein was rightly remembered as the developer of the special and general theories of relativity, theories which, through their challenge to both scientific and philosophical orthodoxy made vivid (...) the need for a new kind of empiricism (Schlick 1921) whereby one could defend the empirical integrity of the theory of relativity against challenges 1 coming mainly from the defenders of Kant. Second, the special and general theories of relativity were wrongly cited as straightforwardly validating central tenets of the logical empiricist program, such as verificationism, and Einstein was wrongly represented as having, himself, explicitly endorsed those same philosophical principles. As we now know, logical empiricism was not the monolithic philosophical movement it was once taken to have been. Those associated with the movement disagreed deeply about fundamental issues concerning the structure and interpretation of scientific theories, as in the protocol sentence debate, and about the overall aims of the movement, as in the debate between the left and right wings 2 of the Vienna Circle over the role of politics in science and philosophy. Along with such differences went subtle differences in the assessment of Einstein’s legacy to logical empiricism. Philipp Frank–himself a dissenter from central points of right-wing Vienna Circle doctrine–deserves.. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce is generally regarded as the founder of pragmatism, and one of the greatest ever American philosophers. Peirce is also widely known for his work on truth, his foundational work in mathematical logic, and an influential theory of signs, or semiotics. Albert Atkin introduces the full spectrum of Peirce’s thought for those coming to his work for the first time. The book begins with an overview of Peirce’s life and work, considering his early and long-standing interest in (...) logic and science, and highlighting important views on the structure of philosophical thought. Atkin then explains Peirce’s accounts of pragmatism and truth examining important later developments to these theories. He then introduces Peirce’s full accounts of semiotics, examines his foundational work on formal and graphical logic, and introduces Peirce’s account of metaphysics, the least understood aspect of his philosophy. The final chapter considers Peirce’s legacy and influence on the thought of philosophers such as John Dewey and Richard Rorty, as well as highlighting areas where Peirce’s ideas could still provide important insights for contemporary philosophers. Including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading and a glossary, this invaluable introduction and guide to Peirce’s philosophy is essential reading for those new to his work. (shrink)

Frank A. Lewis presents a close study of book Zeta of Aristotle's Metaphysics, one of his most dense and controversial texts, commonly understood to contain his deepest thoughts on the definition of substance and related metaphysical issues. Lewis argues that Aristotle returns to the causal view of primary substance from his Posterior Analytics.

This unusually accessible account of recent Anglo-American philosophy focuses on how that philosophy has challenged deeply held notions of subjectivity, mind, and language. The book is designed on a broad canvas in which recent arguments are placed in a historical context (in particular they are related to medieval philosophy and German idealism). The author then explores such topics as mental content, moral realism, realism and antirealism, and the character of subjectivity. Much of the book is devoted to an investigation of (...) Donald Davidson's philosophy, and there is also a sustained critique of the position of Richard Rorty. A final chapter defends the realist position against objections from postmodern thought. As a rigorous and historically sensitive account of recent philosophy, this book should enjoy a wide readership among philosophers of many different persuasions, literary theorists, and social scientists who have been influenced by postmodern thought. (shrink)

I present a “reduced” version of the fifteen Pragma-dialectical rules and inquire into their theoretical status as necessary conditions for a critical discussion. Questions: In what respect is PD’s non-sufficiency a deficiency, can and must it be remedied? Brief answers: with respect to defining the concept ‘critical discussion,’ possibly, yes, if, and only if, one seeks to identify the concept ‘critical discussion’; no, if PD is for fallacy-detection.

Review of "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman.

Personal life events of a chief executive officer can generate tensions between the CEO’s right to personal privacy and the desire of shareholders for information. Such circumstances can create information asymmetry between the executive management and the shareholders of a firm, a situation likely to produce unfavorable pressures on an organization’s stock price. Failure to fully disclose material personal life events can impact the decision-making actions of the CEO, causing the stock price of the firm to vacillate as a result (...) of rumors and other informational uncertainties. These vacillations in stock price may impact a firm’s liquidity, increase the cost of capital, and affect long term returns to shareholders. We draw upon the ethical leadership and signaling theory literatures to demonstrate how a firm can reduce stock price volatility through a CEO making non-required disclosures that reduce information asymmetry. (shrink)

According to German theorists historicism was the result of a dynamization of the static world-view of the Enlightenment. According to contemporary Anglo-Saxon theorists historicism resulted from a de-rhetoricization of Enlightenment historical writing. It is argued that, contrary to appearances, these two views do not exclude but support each other. This can be explained if the account of change implicit in Enlightenment historical writing is compared to that suggested by historicism and, more specifically, by the historicist notion of the "historical idea." (...) Aspects of the contemporary debate about the nature and the task of historical writing can be clarified from the perspective of the differences between Enlightenment and historicist historical writing. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis review essay attempts to understand the book under review against the background of Jameson's previous writings. Failing to do so would invite misunderstanding since there are few contemporary theorists whose writing forms so much of a unity. Jameson's book can be divided into three parts. The first and most important part deals with dialectics, the second with politics, and the third with philosophy of history. In the first part Jameson argues that dialectics best captures our relationship to the sociocultural (...) and historical world we are living in. The second part makes clear that Jameson is not prepared to water down his own Marxist politics in order to spare the liberal sensibilities of his political opponents. In the third part Jameson develops his own philosophy of history, mainly in a dialogue with Ricoeur. Dialectics is his main weapon in his discussion with Ricoeur, and it becomes clear that the Spinozism of dialectics allows for a better understanding of history and of historical writing than does Ricoeur's phenomenological approach. The book is an impressive testimony to the powers of dialectical thought and to its indispensability for a proper grasp of historical writing. (shrink)