Festschrift for prof. Helge Malmgren. -/- Contents: • Kristoffer Ahlström: Two Levels of Epistemic Inquiry; • Jan Almäng: Till frågan om trancendentala argument; • Kent Gustavsson: Perceptionens gåta; • Björn Haglund: Some Notes on Induction; • Ingvar Johansson: Money and Fictions; • Frank Lorentzon: Intuition och kunskap; • Ingmar Persson: Double Effect Troubles; • Filip Radovic: Wittgenstein om tautologier och andra logiska satser; • Claes Strannegård: Anthropomorphic Artificial Intelligence; • Bolof Stridbeck: Den motbjudande slutsatsen & den plågade filosofen; (...) • Christer Svennerlind: Armstrong on Instantiation as Partial Identity; • Anders Tolland: Mr Darcys berättigade stolthet; • Björn Vickhoff: H-speech: the Musical Self - A Phenomenological Approach to Music & Emotion; • Dag Westerståhl: On the Aristotelian Square of Opposition; • Carl-Gustaf Wikstrand: On Pain States & Mental Causation;. (shrink)

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)

This article provides excerpts and highlights from the insights of twenty global leaders, business executives, and sustainability experts who gathered at the Esalen Institute in California for four days in March 2002 to discuss how to best leverage change toward an environmentally sustainable and socially equitable global economy. The conference topic was sparked by the path-breaking book Natural Capitalism, which outlines an expanded vision of capitalism suitable for the environmental era. The natural capitalism model is qualitatively different from industrial era (...) capitalism in that it counts both humanity and ecosystem services as valid sources of capital in addition to the traditionally recognized sources, financial and manufactured. One early adopter of natural capitalism, CEO of the Atlanta -based carpet tiling company, Interface, shared how increased efficiency and greater employee and customer satisfaction have resulted. Although some of the conference participants forecasted that globalization is likely to bring humanity face-to-face with a planetary-wide environmental, financial, and social crisis, the overall message of this gathering was positive. Through the imaginative implementation of evolutionary and biomimicry design models in the cultural, financial, and economic spheres, novel solutions to global problems already are being discovered, and, if such innovative and solutions-oriented design thinking can spread rapidly enough, humanity may be able to ameliorate-or even obviate-the deleterious effects of globalization. (shrink)

Slife and Reber issue a welcome challenge to "implicit biases" against the serious investigation of religious experience and phenomena in psychology. I agree with the main thrust of their article but express a few friendly reservations about their analysis and some concerns about how a productive dialogue between psychology and religion might best be pursued from this point forward. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

Yanchar, Slife, and their colleagues have described how mainstream psychology's notion of critical thinking has largely been conceived of as “scientific analytic reasoning” or “method-centered critical thinking.” We extend here their analysis and critique, arguing that some version of the one-sided instrumentalism and confusion about tacit values that characterize scientistic approaches to inquiry also color phenomenological, critical theoretical, and social constructionist viewpoints. We suggest that hermeneutic/dialogical conceptions of inquiry, including the idea of social theory as itself a form of ethically (...) motivated human practice, give a fuller account of critical thinking in the social disciplines. (shrink)

According to the expression account, assertion is the linguistic expression of belief. Given the knowledge rule of belief, this entails that knowledge is a normative requirement of sincere assertions. On this account, which is defended in Hindriks, knowledge can be a normative requirement of sincere assertions even though there is no knowledge rule that is constitutive of assertion. Ball criticizes this claim arguing that the derivation of the knowledge rule equivocates between epistemic and moral senses of obligation. In response, we (...) resist the charge of equivocation. Ball does not, after all, demonstrate that the distinction matters in the context at issue. In addition to this, we argue that it is a virtue of the account that the knowledge rule is restricted in application to sincere assertions. The case we present to illustrate this is that of the virtuous liar who knows what he believes, and is insincere because that is the right thing to do in the situation. It makes no sense, we suggest, to criticize the liar for not knowing that which he asserts. After all, it is his moral duty to assert what he knows to be false. Furthermore, his epistemic standing is impeccable, as he knows what he believes. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 12 Heft: 1 Seiten: 41-74.

_ Source: _Volume 46, Issue 1, pp 54 - 69 In this essay, I reconstruct Merleau-Ponty’s implicit critique of Husserl in his lectures on Husserl’s concept of the earth as _Boden_ or ground. Against Husserl, Merleau-Ponty regards the earth seen as pure _Boden_ as an idealization. He emphasizes the ontological necessity for the earth as _Boden_ to always hypostasize itself into the Copernican concept of earth as object. In turn, Merleau-Ponty builds this necessity into an essential feature of being, allowing (...) himself to retrieve ontology itself from its status as external to being, and to make room for it within the structure of being: ontology is one of the ways in which experiences become objectified, thereby allowing being to achieve its essential movement of hypostatization. (shrink)

Kochen has suggested an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which he denies that wavepackets ever collapse, while affirming that measurements have definite results. In this paper I attempt to show that his interpretation is untenable. I then suggest ways in which to construct similar, but more satisfactory, hidden variable interpretations.

The modem Hindu understanding of divinity has been preserved throughout the history of the religion by the ritual practice of successive generations of believers. Coming to understand the cultural origins and elaborations of the Hindu perception of the Divine can be perplexing to the individual situated in a Judeo-Christian cultural context. Likewise, making sense of Hindu ritual may also be confusing to the Westerner considering the negative light "idol worship" has been given by Judaism and Christianity. The purpose of this (...) paper is to investigate Hindu ritual via participant observation in an effort to comprehend the creation and transmission of the Hindu community's perception of the divine. The ethnographic data gathered herein supports a unique and often forgotten paradigm of religion as a system of bonds within a kinship structure originally perpetuated by William Robertson Smith. In light of such data, the application of Robertson Smith's theoretical perspective, and more modem interpretations of ancestral cult worship, significant light may be shed on the relationship of the contemporary Hindu to their pantheon and permits one to understand the cultural perception of god(s) as integrated members of the believing community. These results support an interpretive paradigm of Religion as a system of bonds created via a process of abstraction of familial bonds that may be applied more broadly to many conceptualizations of gods and ancestors cross-culturally. (shrink)

This essay argues that the deontological view of morality is connected to extreme and massive forms of violence through a kind of phenomenological necessity. In the first main section, I examine one family of such violence, which usually comes under the label of “religious violence”. I argue that it is not the religious element but the disqualification of context from the realm of justification which characterizes such violence. In the second main section, I examine the phenomenology of duty to conclude (...) that duty, by definition, denies any normative relevance to context. In the third main section, I use this sketch of a phenomenology of duty to propose a hypothesis about the underpinnings of the connection between mass violence and duty, namely, that the notion of duty carries with it the exclusion of moderation, and places the agent before an impossible situation that can only be resolved by violence. (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)

A brief review is given of the continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) model, in which a classical field interacts with quantized particles to cause dynamical wavefunction collapse. One of the model's predictions is that particles “spontaneously” gain energy at a slow rate. When applied to the excitation of a nucleon in a Ge nucleus, it is shown how a limit on the relative collapse rates of neutron and proton can be obtained, and a rough estimate is made from data. When applied (...) to the spontaneous excitation of 1s electrons in Ge, by a more detailed analysis of more accurate data than given previously, an updated limit is obtained on the relative collapse rates of the electron and proton, suggesting that the coupling of the field to electrons and nucleons is mass proportional. (shrink)

The restructuration of municipalities which has been decided by the Belgian government, is not only a purely technical operatzon but rather, and in the first place, a social problem. The shape and duty-profile of a local authority should not, indeed, be attuned only to fast changing expectations as far as services are concerned, but to consultation and participation as well.Public administration research cannot keep aloof from this debate, but is considerably hampered by the institutional confusion and the insufficient explicitation of (...) the aims of the present reform. A starting-pointcan, however, be found in the mergers of municipalities that were realized in 1964 and in 1970/1971. In 67 of these municipalities an inquiry was held concerning the consequences of the merger, and moreover, in twotest-cases this inquiry grew to a full-scale systematic policy analysis.This research shows that, as a rule, the former municipalities are reasonably represented in the new entity's council, but it also reveals that few efforts are made to give this representation a broader impact along formal or informal participation-channels. Integration of employees has not caused insurmountable problems. However, in large sized municipalities, resulting from mergers, one could notice a drastic increase in municipal personnel, not only with regard to new duties and objectives but to traditional administrative and police duties as well. Such a phenomenon points to the far-reaching changes which a substantial scale-increase provokes in a municipality's structure and policy profile. A large municipality resulting from mergers is no langer a simple sum of component parts, but a completely new entity, wishing to catch up as fast as possible with comparable municipalities that passed through a progressive growth process. Therefore, scale-increase is not only a means of economizing or an intra-administrative matter, but rather a way of creating chances for further development or wealth and well-being. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore stakeholder perceptions of the contribution of an Automatic Milking System (AMS) to sustainable development of organic dairy production in Denmark and the Netherlands. In addition, reasons for the current difference in AMS use on organic dairy farms between both countries were explored. To answer above mentioned aims, farmers and advisors in both countries were interviewed using a focus group approach. Questions of the interviews were based on a literature review on sustainability issues (...) affected by introduction of AMS. Participants expressed no moral problems regarding AMS use. They, however, pointed out uncertainty about the economic gain, difficulties with grazing, adaptation problems to technology, and image problems towards consumers. The latter results from a reduction in grazing time affecting both animal welfare and product quality. The participants did not recognize eutrophication, as result of high stocking density on farmstead lots, as a problem caused by AMS. The milk quality problem related to AMS use, although acknowledged as crucial towards consumers, was not prioritized very highly, especially not by the farmers in both countries. All groups were, however, unanimous in their perception of how important image was as far as the consumers are concerned. The perception analysis revealed that Dutch participants were more concerned about the economic payoff of AMS use, and showed more reluctance towards enlargement than Danish ones. In addition, they acknowledged the small-scale naturalness of organic production. These differences in perception could possibly explain observed differences in AMS use in organic dairy production between Denmark and the Netherlands. (shrink)