Background The worldwide increase in older persons demands technological solutions to combat the shortage of caregiving and to enable aging in place. Smart home health technologies (SHHTs) are promoted and implemented as a possible solution from an economic and practical perspective. However, ethical considerations are equally important and need to be investigated. Methods We conducted a systematic review according to the PRISMA guidelines to investigate if and how ethical questions are discussed in the field of SHHTs in caregiving for older (...) persons. Results 156 peer-reviewed articles published in English, German and French were retrieved and analyzed across 10 electronic databases. Using narrative analysis, 7 ethical categories were mapped: privacy, autonomy, responsibility, human vs. artificial interactions, trust, ageism and stigma, and other concerns. Conclusion The findings of our systematic review show the (lack of) ethical consideration when it comes to the development and implementation of SHHTs for older persons. Our analysis is useful to promote careful ethical consideration when carrying out technology development, research and deployment to care for older persons. Registration We registered our systematic review in the PROSPERO network under CRD42021248543. (shrink)

Unlike the first English translation in 1974, this edition contains the text corresponding to Brentano's original 1874 edition.

With robots being introduced into caregiving, particularly for older persons, various ethical concerns are raised. Among them is the fear of replacing human caregiving. While ethical concepts like well-being, autonomy, and capabilities are often used to discuss these concerns, this paper brings forth the concept of social dignity to further develop guidelines concerning the use of robots in caregiving. By social dignity, we mean that a person’s perceived dignity changes in response to certain interactions and experiences with other persons. In (...) this paper, we will first present the concept of social dignity, and then identify a niche where robots can be used in caregiving in an ethical manner. Specifically, we will argue that, because some activities of daily living are performed in solitude to maintain dignity, a care recipient will usually prefer robotic assistance instead of human assistance for these activities. Secondly, we will describe how other philosophical concepts, which have been commonly used to judge robotic assistance in caregiving for the elderly so far, such as well-being, autonomy, and capabilities, are less useful in determining whether robotic assistance in caregiving is ethically problematic or not. To conclude, we will argue that social dignity offers an advantage to the other concepts, as it allows to ask the most pressing questions in caregiving. (shrink)

I present a formal theory of the logic and aboutness of imagination. Aboutness is understood as the relation between meaningful items and what they concern, as per Yablo and Fine’s works on the notion. Imagination is understood as per Chalmers’ positive conceivability: the intentional state of a subject who conceives that p by imagining a situation—a configuration of objects and properties—verifying p. So far aboutness theory has been developed mainly for linguistic representation, but it is natural to extend it to (...) intentional states. The proposed framework combines a modal semantics with a mereology of contents: imagination operators are understood as variably strict quantifiers over worlds with a content-preservation constraint. (shrink)

We present a new “reason-based” approach to the formal representation of moral theories, drawing on recent decision-theoretic work. We show that any moral theory within a very large class can be represented in terms of two parameters: a specification of which properties of the objects of moral choice matter in any given context, and a specification of how these properties matter. Reason-based representations provide a very general taxonomy of moral theories, as differences among theories can be attributed to differences in (...) their two key parameters. We can thus formalize several distinctions, such as between consequentialist and non-consequentialist theories, between universalist and relativist theories, between agent-neutral and agent-relative theories, between monistic and pluralistic theories, between atomistic and holistic theories, and between theories with a teleological structure and those without. Reason-based representations also shed light on an important but under-appreciated phenomenon: the “underdetermination of moral theory by deontic content”. (shrink)

Philosophically, one of the most important questions in the enterprise termed confirmation theory is this: Why should one stick to well confirmed theories rather than to any other theories? This paper discusses the answers to this question one gets from absolute and incremental Bayesian confirmation theory. According to absolute confirmation, one should accept ''absolutely well confirmed'' theories, because absolute confirmation takes one to true theories. An examination of two popular measures of incremental confirmation suggests the view that one should stick (...) to incrementally well confirmed theories, because incremental confirmation takes one to (the most) informative (among all) true theories. However, incremental confirmation does not further this goal in general. I close by presenting a necessary and sufficient condition for revealing the confirmational structure in almost every world when presented separating data. (shrink)

The problem addressed in this paper is “the main epistemic problem concerning science”, viz. “the explication of how we compare and evaluate theories [...] in the light of the available evidence” (van Fraassen, BC, 1983, Theory comparison and relevant Evidence. In J. Earman (Ed.), Testing scientific theories (pp. 27–42). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Sections 1– 3 contain the general plausibility-informativeness theory of theory assessment. In a nutshell, the message is (1) that there are two values a theory should exhibit: (...) truth and informativeness—measured respectively by a truth indicator and a strength indicator; (2) that these two values are conflicting in the sense that the former is a decreasing and the latter an increasing function of the logical strength of the theory to be assessed; and (3) that in assessing a given theory by the available data one should weigh between these two conflicting aspects in such a way that any surplus in informativeness succeeds, if the shortfall in plausibility is small enough. Particular accounts of this general theory arise by inserting particular strength indicators and truth indicators. In Section 4 the theory is spelt out for the Bayesian paradigm of subjective probabilities. It is then compared to incremental Bayesian confirmation theory. Section 4 closes by asking whether it is likely to be lovely. Section 5 discusses a few problems of confirmation theory in the light of the present approach. In particular, it is briefly indicated how the present account gives rise to a new analysis of Hempel’s conditions of adequacy for any relation of confirmation (Hempel, CG, 1945, Studies in the logic of comfirmation. Mind, 54, 1–26, 97–121.), differing from the one Carnap gave in § 87 of his Logical foundations of probability (1962, Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Section 6 adresses the question of justification any theory of theory assessment has to face: why should one stick to theories given high assessment values rather than to any other theories? The answer given by the Bayesian version of the account presented in section 4 is that one should accept theories given high assessment values, because, in the medium run, theory assessment almost surely takes one to the most informative among all true theories when presented separating data. The concluding section 7 continues the comparison between the present account and incremental Bayesian confirmation theory. (shrink)

The widely discussed "discursive dilemma" shows that majority voting in a group of individuals on logically connected propositions may produce irrational collective judgments. We generalize majority voting by considering quota rules, which accept each proposition if and only if the number of individuals accepting it exceeds a given threshold, where different thresholds may be used for different propositions. After characterizing quota rules, we prove necessary and sufficient conditions on the required thresholds for various collective rationality requirements. We also consider sequential (...) quota rules, which ensure collective rationality by adjudicating propositions sequentially and letting earlier judgments constrain later ones. Sequential rules may be path-dependent and strategically manipulable. We characterize path-independence and prove its essential equivalence to strategy-proofness. Our results shed light on the rationality of simple-, super-, and sub-majoritarian decision-making. (shrink)

Dem durch Kant verschütteten Verständnis der aristotelischen Kategorienlehre brach schon Brentanos erste Schrift 'Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles' Bahn. Zu ihrem Thema kehrt er in den hier vereinten Diktaten aus seinem letzten Jahrzehnt zurück.

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Die Entwicklung der Austauschverhältnisse im Alten China" verfügbar.

We compare a “Mach-Zehnder interferometer in time” for cold neutrons with its well-known spatial counterpart and demonstrate the intimate connection between space and time for both setups. Further, we outline a combined space-time interferometer, which coherently splits a wavepacket in longitudinal and lateral direction. On the way towards time interferometry “neutron computer holography” seems to be an attractive application. It allows the three-dimensional reconstruction of an object from the scattered intensity, but in contrast to holography with light, there is no (...) need for a reference wave. On the other hand, the possible resolution is worse than in the light case. (shrink)

What is the relationship between degrees of belief and binary beliefs? Can the latter be expressed as a function of the former—a so-called “belief-binarization rule”—without running into difficulties such as the lottery paradox? We show that this problem can be usefully analyzed from the perspective of judgment-aggregation theory. Although some formal similarities between belief binarization and judgment aggregation have been noted before, the connection between the two problems has not yet been studied in full generality. In this paper, we seek (...) to fill this gap. The paper is organized around a baseline impossibility theorem, which we use to map out the space of possible solutions to the belief-binarization problem. Our theorem shows that, except in limiting cases, there exists no belief-binarization rule satisfying four initially plausible desiderata. Surprisingly, this result is a direct corollary of the judgment-aggregation variant of Arrow’s classic impossibility theorem in social choice theory. (shrink)

Condorcet's famous jury theorem reaches an optimistic conclusion on the correctness of majority decisions, based on two controversial premises about voters: they are competent and vote independently, in a technical sense. I carefully analyse these premises and show that: whether a premise is justi…ed depends on the notion of probability considered; none of the notions renders both premises simultaneously justi…ed. Under the perhaps most interesting notions, the independence assumption should be weakened.

In the theory of judgment aggregation, it is known for which agendas of propositions it is possible to aggregate individual judgments into collective ones in accordance with the Arrow-inspired requirements of universal domain, collective rationality, unanimity preservation, non-dictatorship and propositionwise independence. But it is only partially known (e.g., only in the monotonic case) for which agendas it is possible to respect additional requirements, notably non-oligarchy, anonymity, no individual veto power, or implication preservation. We fully characterize the agendas for which there (...) are such possibilities, thereby answering the most salient open questions about propositionwise judgment aggregation. Our results build on earlier results by Nehring and Puppe (2002), Nehring (2006), Dietrich and List (2007a) and Dokow and Holzman (2010a). (shrink)

Agents are often assumed to have degrees of belief (“credences”) and also binary beliefs (“beliefs simpliciter”). How are these related to each other? A much-discussed answer asserts that it is rational to believe a proposition if and only if one has a high enough degree of belief in it. But this answer runs into the “lottery paradox”: the set of believed propositions may violate the key rationality conditions of consistency and deductive closure. In earlier work, we showed that this problem (...) generalizes: there exists no local function from degrees of belief to binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions of rationality and non-triviality. “Locality” means that the binary belief in each proposition depends only on the degree of belief in that proposition, not on the degrees of belief in others. One might think that the impossibility can be avoided by dropping the assumption that binary beliefs are a function of degrees of belief. We prove that, even if we drop the “functionality” restriction, there still exists no local relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions. Thus functionality is not the source of the impossibility; its source is the condition of locality. If there is any non-trivial relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs at all, it must be a “holistic” one. We explore several concrete forms this “holistic” relation could take. (shrink)

We give a review and critique of jury theorems from a social-epistemology perspective, covering Condorcet’s (1785) classic theorem and several later refinements and departures. We assess the plausibility of the conclusions and premises featuring in jury theorems and evaluate the potential of such theorems to serve as formal arguments for the ‘wisdom of crowds’. In particular, we argue (i) that there is a fundamental tension between voters’ independence and voters’ competence, hence between the two premises of most jury theorems; (ii) (...) that the (asymptotic) conclusion that ‘huge groups are infallible’, reached by many jury theorems, is an artifact of unjustified premises; and (iii) that the (nonasymptotic) conclusion that ‘larger groups are more reliable’, also reached by many jury theorems, is not an artifact and should be regarded as the more adequate formal rendition of the ‘wisdom of crowds’. (shrink)

Philosophers typically rely on intuitions when providing a semantics for counterfactual conditionals. However, intuitions regarding counterfactual conditionals are notoriously shaky. The aim of this paper is to provide a principled account of the semantics of counterfactual conditionals. This principled account is provided by what I dub the Royal Rule, a deterministic analogue of the Principal Principle relating chance and credence. The Royal Rule says that an ideal doxastic agent’s initial grade of disbelief in a proposition \(A\) , given that the (...) counterfactual distance in a given context to the closest \(A\) -worlds equals \(n\) , and no further information that is not admissible in this context, should equal \(n\) . Under the two assumptions that the presuppositions of a given context are admissible in this context, and that the theory of deterministic alethic or metaphysical modality is admissible in any context, it follows that the counterfactual distance distribution in a given context has the structure of a ranking function. The basic conditional logic V is shown to be sound and complete with respect to the resulting rank-theoretic semantics of counterfactuals. (shrink)

Bayesianism is the position that scientific reasoning is probabilistic and that probabilities are adequately interpreted as an agent's actual subjective degrees of belief, measured by her betting behaviour. Confirmation is one important aspect of scientific reasoning. The thesis of this paper is the following: if scientific reasoning is at all probabilistic, the subjective interpretation has to be given up in order to get right confirmation—and thus scientific reasoning in general. The Bayesian approach to scientific reasoning Bayesian confirmation theory The example (...) The less reliable the source of information, the higher the degree of Bayesian confirmation Measure sensitivity A more general version of the problem of old evidence Conditioning on the entailment relation The counterfactual strategy Generalizing the counterfactual strategy The desired result, and a necessary and sufficient condition for it Actual degrees of belief The common knock-down feature, or ‘anything goes’ The problem of prior probabilities. (shrink)

According to standard rational choice theory, as commonly used in political science and economics, an agent's fundamental preferences are exogenously fixed, and any preference change over decision options is due to Bayesian information learning. Although elegant and parsimonious, such a model fails to account for preference change driven by experiences or psychological changes distinct from information learning. We develop a model of non-informational preference change. Alternatives are modelled as points in some multidimensional space, only some of whose dimensions play a (...) role in shaping the agentís preferences. Any change in these "motivationally salient" dimensions can change the agent's preferences. How it does so is described by a new representation theorem. Our model not only captures a wide range of frequently observed phenomena, but also generalizes some standard representations of preferences in political science and economics. (shrink)

Tractatus 4.024 inspired the dominant semantics of our time: truth-conditional semantics. Such semantics is focused on possible worlds: the content of p is the set of worlds where p is true. It has become increasingly clear that such an account is, at best, defective: we need an ‘independent factor in meaning, constrained but not determined by truth-conditions’ (Yablo 2014, p. 2), because sentences can be differently true at the same possible worlds. I suggest a missing comment which, had it been (...) included in the Tractatus, would have helped semantics get this right from the start. This is my 4.0241: ‘Knowing what is the case if a sentence is true is knowing its ways of being true’: knowing a sentence’s truth possibilities and what we now call its topic, or subject matter. I show that the famous ‘fundamental thought’ that ‘the “logical constants” do not represent’ (4.0312) can be understood in terms of ways-based views of meaning. Such views also help with puzzling claims like 5.122: ‘If p follows from q, the sense of “p” is contained in the that of “q”’, which are compatible with a conception of entailment combining truth-preservation with the preservation of topicality, or of ways of being true. (shrink)

A naturalistic account of the strengths and limitations of cladistic practice is offered. The success of cladistics is claimed to be largely rooted in the parsimony-implementing congruence test. Cladists may use the congruence test to iteratively refine assessments of homology, and thereby increase the odds of reliable phylogenetic inference under parsimony. This explanation challenges alternative views which tend to ignore the effects of parsimony on the process of character individuation in systematics. In a related theme, the concept of homeostatic property (...) cluster natural kinds is used to explain why cladistics is well suited to provide a traditional, verbal reference system for the evolutionary properties of species and clades. The advantages of more explicitly probabilistic approaches to phylogenetic inference appear to manifest themselves in situations where evolutionary homeostasis has for the most part broken down, and predictive classifications are no longer possible. (shrink)

In recent years, autistic-coded characters have become a common staple in sitcoms. This paper will examine depictions of autistic-coded characters in two such sitcoms: CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, and NBC’s Community. Sheldon on Big Bang is stereotyped and mistreated by his friends, while Abed on Community challenges stereotypes and is beloved. The different treatment of autistic characters stems from the responses of the shows’ writers to the fear of accidentally misrepresenting autism, with the crew of Big Bang choosing to (...) avoid the label of autism, while Community embraced it and did research to better represent autistic people. This difference has a huge impact on audiences watching the shows. Seeing Sheldon’s friends belittling him because of his autistic-coded traits triggers shame in autistic viewers, while also validating ableist thought patterns in neurotypical viewers. In Community, however, seeing Abed’s confidence in his autistic embodiment serves to boost the confidence of autistic viewers, while his friends’ and classmates’ love and support of him serves as a model for neurotypical viewers of how to best interact with autistic people in the real world. The case of these two shows illustrates two important facts about autistic representation in media: failing to diagnose a character does not exempt a writer from ableist representations, and to avoid this ableism it is important to listen to audience feedback and do research to properly understand the characters from the perspective of the communities they stand for. (shrink)

H. 46 und H 47: >Geschichte der Philosophie mit älteren, von Brentano ausgeschiedenen Blättern. ... Vorlesung über >Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Philosophie im christlichen Abendland< nicht mehr angekündigt worden. ' Die von F.

Time has multiple aspects and is difficult to define as one unique entity, which therefore led to multiple interpretations in physics and philosophy. However, if the perception of time is considered as a composite time concept, it can be decomposed into basic invariable components for the perception of progressive and support-fixed time and into secondary components with possible association to unit-defined time or tense. Progressive time corresponds to Bergson’s definition of duration without boundaries, which cannot be divided for measurements. Time (...) periods are already lying in the past and fixed on different kinds of support. The human memory is the first automatic support, but any other support suitable for time registration can also be considered. The true reproduction of original time from any support requires conditions identical to the initial conditions, if not time reproduction becomes artificially modified as can be seen with a film. Time reproduction can be artificially accelerated, slowed down, extended or diminished, and also inverted from the present to the past, which only depends on the manipulation of the support, to which time is firmly linked. Tense associated to progressive and support fixed time is a psychological property directly dependent on an observer, who judges his present as immediate, his past as finished and his future as uncertain. Events can be secondarily associated to the tenses of an observer. Unit-defined time is essential for physics and normal live and is obtained by comparison of support-fixed time to systems with regular motions, like clocks. The association of time perception to time units can also be broken. Einstein’s time units became relative, in quantum mechanics, some physicist eliminated time units, others maintained them. Nevertheless, even the complete elimination of time units is not identical to timelessness, since the psychological perception of progressive and support-fixed time still remains and cannot be ignored. It is not seizable by physical methods, but experienced by everybody in everyday life. Contemporary physics can only abandon the association of time units or tenses to the basic components in perceived time. (shrink)

This paper explores the ways in which health care professionals, family carers, and older persons expressed attitudes and opinions on using Paro, a social robot designed to stimulate patients with dementia. Thereafter, we critically evaluate existing prejudicial views toward Paro users to provide recommendations for its future use. Using an exploratory qualitative interview method, we recruited a total of 67 participants in Switzerland. They included 23 care professionals, 17 family carers, and 27 older persons. Data obtained were analyzed thematically. Study (...) findings present general agreement that Paro is an appealing and beneficial social robot, but it is not a tool that everyone feels comfortable with. Because it is perceived as “child play,” it would be demeaning for competent adults to play with such things. Consequently, Paro is appropriate only for persons with dementia. These findings brought forth ethical concerns about deception, infantilization, and respecting older persons' dignity. The idea of who is an appropriate Paro user led to our discussions on predicting future Paro users. The meaning of using social robotics in nursing homes can be conditioned by a rigid interpretation of adulthood and playful behavior. To protect future selves when one is living with dementia from prejudices, it may be useful for older persons and their loved ones to plan their future care situations to ensure that they are treated in accordance with their delineated decisions. (shrink)

This study forms part of a larger research project examining the election process for the Nobel prizes for Physiology or Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and the role and function of the prizes in early 20th century Swedish and international medicine. The purpose of the study is to clarify the decision-making process which led to the Nobel prize for Paul Ehrlich in 1908, for work on immunity. His award was preceded by the most dramatic conflict within the prize (...) authority concerning any prizewinner prior to World War I, and thus is apt to illuminate both the implicit and explicit criteria and the strategies used in the prize deliberations.Ehrlich's chemical ideas on the immune response were criticized by the physical chemist Svante Arrhenius who recommended the application of his disciplines's methods and principles on immunological problems. This criticisms were brought into the Nobel prize debate by J.E. Johansson, a physiologist who asserted that Ehrlich's research was of little scientific value and therefore not worthy of a prize. Yet the majority of the Institute, led by its chairmam, the chemist K.A.H. Mörner, succeeded in awarding Ehrlich. (shrink)

Kroedel has proposed a new solution, the permissibility solution, to the lottery paradox. The lottery paradox results from the Lockean thesis according to which one ought to believe a proposition just in case one’s degree of belief in it is sufficiently high. The permissibility solution replaces the Lockean thesis by the permissibility thesis according to which one is permitted to believe a proposition if one’s degree of belief in it is sufficiently high. This note shows that the epistemology of belief (...) that results from the permissibility thesis and the epistemology of degrees of belief is empty in the sense that one need not believe anything, even if one’s degrees of belief are maximally bold. Since this result can also be achieved by simply dropping the Lockean thesis, or by replacing it with principles that are logically stronger than the permissibility thesis, the question arises what the permissibility solution is a solution of. (shrink)

What role, if any, should Confucianism play in the politics of our time? In some of my previous works, I claimed that modern liberal states are not permitted to promote Confucian values on the basis of their intrinsic merits. Yet, drawing insights from Joseph Chan’s moderate state perfectionism and John Rawls’s wide view of public political culture, I proposed the “wide view of moderate perfectionism.” According to this view, in public political discussion, citizens should be allowed to deliberate whether and (...) how Confucianism, among other reasonable moral doctrines, can make positive contributions to their social and political thinking and public policymaking, provided that certain conditions are met. This view has been criticized by some scholars, in particular Zhuoyao Li. Li argues that the practice of the wide view of moderate perfectionism would inevitably harm civility. In this article, I clarify and develop the wide view and respond to Li’s criticisms. (shrink)

From a systems-theoretical perspective, community music can be conceived of as a self-referential communication system with the capacity for self-observation and self-description. How do these self-descriptions relate to the economic and social-political agendas of recent decades? This paper argues that community music tends to adapt itself to neoliberal and advanced-liberal agendas by integrating their key semantics into its own self-description. Although this could be seen as a merely strategic necessity, it can be shown that the incorporated semantics not only modify (...) the way community music sees itself, but also “subjectivate” the people community music addresses. The apparent overcoming of neoliberal “individuality” by the advanced-liberal notion of “community” can be shown to be especially dangerous in this regard. (shrink)