Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Metaphysics and science have a long but troubled relationship. In the twentieth century the Logical Positivists argued metaphysics was irrelevant and that philosophy should be guided by science. However, metaphysics and science attempt to answer many of the same, fundamental questions: What are laws of nature? What is causation? What are natural kinds? -/- In this book, Markus Schrenk examines and explains the central questions and problems in the metaphysics of science. He reviews the development of the field from (...) the early modern period through to the latest research, systematically assessing key topics including -/- dispositions, counterfactual conditionals, laws of nature, causation, natural kinds, essence, necessity. -/- With the addition of chapter summaries and annotated further reading, Metaphysics of Science is a much-needed, clear and informative survey of this exciting area of philosophical research. It is essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy of science and metaphysics. (shrink)

The better best system account, short BBSA, is a variation on Lewis’s theory of laws. The difference to the latter is that the BBSA suggests that best system analyses can be executed for any fixed set of properties. This affords the possibility to launch system analyses separately for the set of biological properties yielding the set of biological laws, chemical properties yielding chemical laws, and so on for the other special sciences. As such, the BBSA remains silent about possible interrelations (...) between these freestanding sets of laws. In this paper, I explicate an emergence relation between them which preserves the autonomy or novelty of each special science’s laws but also shows their dependence: the autonomy of each level’s generalisations is given because nomicity is conferred to them system intrinsic, their dependence is established via their supervenience on lower level laws. As will be shown, the autonomy of special science laws is further strengthened by their ceteris paribus character. (shrink)

This paper concerns anti-Humean intuitions about connections in nature. It argues for the existence of a de re link that is not necessity.Some anti-Humeans tacitly assume that metaphysical necessity can be used for all sorts of anti-Humean desires. Metaphysical necessity is thought to stick together whatever would be loose and separate in a Hume world, as if it were a kind of universal superglue.I argue that this is not feasible. Metaphysical necessity might connect synchronically co-existent properties—kinds and their essential features, (...) for example—but it is difficult to see how it could also serve as the binding force for successions of events. That is, metaphysical necessity seems not to be fit for diachronic, causal affairs in which causal laws, causation, or dispositions are involved. A different anti-Humean connection in nature has to do that job.My arguments focus mainly on a debate which has been the battleground for Humean vs. anti-Humean intuitions for many decades—namely, the analysis of dispositional predicates—yet I believe (but do not argue here) that the arguments generalise to causation and causal laws straightforwardly. (shrink)

Advance directives (ADs) are assumed to reflect the patients’ preferences, even if these are not clearly expressed. Research into whether this assumption is correct has been lacking. This study explores to what extent ADs reflect the true wishes of the signatories.

The Theaetetus is about the definition of knowledge, but also about the young Theaetetus acquiring knowledge and sophia. By defining knowledge he gives an account of his personal vocation. According to the Protagorean interpretation of his first definition, any object of knowledge is at least co-determined by the subject who grasps it. There is no proper distinction between subject and object, no right or wrong epistemic approach or perspective on any object. The digression presents Theaetetus with a comparison of this (...) Protagorean sophia and true sophia which is the aim of the philosopher. It shows Theaetetus and the reader what a life that has either kind of sophia as its end amounts to. It also shows him that true sophia does involve a proper perspective toward its objects, that Theaetetus has to be careful which perspective he chooses, that he can improve upon his perspective, and that not everyone will approve of his choice of perspective and of the ensuing activities. The Thracian servant is an example for someone who does not approve, since she doesn’t know about perspectives. This is brought out in the anecdote, which presents the servant’s point of view. It is only the servant’s assumption that Thales fell into the well while observing stars. In fact, Thales wanted to observe zenith stars and deliberately chose a point of view, namely the bottom of a well, which allowed him to focus his field of vision on a well-defined section of the sky. Theaetetus must come to understand that the servant is missing the point of Thales’ actions. It must become clear to him that epistemic and moral success requires a careful choice of one’s perspective – and that this choice matters despite all adverse reaction he may have to face because of it. (shrink)

Elijah Fenton’s Phaon to Sappho has so far never been in the focus of literary criticism. The article aims at a more detailed understanding of Fenton’s technique of literary reception by means of a close reading of both Phaon to Sappho and Fenton’s model, the Ovidian Epistula Sapphus. As will be seen, Fenton offers an unexpected perspective on the ancient myth through the eyes of ‘his’ Phaon: Phaon did not leave Sappho out of faithlessness but was completely unable to entertain (...) any feelings of true love, because he had been cursed by Venus for being unfaithful to his former girl-friend in Malea. Phaon merely enjoyed Sappho’s gift of song as a temporary remedy for the agony within his cursed mind, but had to leave her whenever she stopped singing. At this point Phaon is asking for Sappho’s intercession with Venus on his behalf. Although Fenton makes crucial changes to the plot, he does neither ‘deconstruct’ nor ‘correct’ the myth as such: instead, he meticulously retains all the major motifs developed in Ovid’s epistle and thus achieves a literary transformation of the myth, enabling the reader to regard either perspective on the two protagonists’ relationship as logically possible. (shrink)

In the course of his active teaching career of over fifty years, Adolf von Harnack only once lectured on the „Encyclopaedia of Theology“. This occured in the summer of 1884 when he was a young university professor in Gießen, lecturing twice a week from 9 to 10 in the morning. The handwritten script of the dictation booklet has so far gone unnoticed in the literature. It is documented here for the first time and in a full reproduction. These lecture notes (...) present a condensed, overall impression of Harnack's concept of theology, probably unlike any other his texts. Of particular interest is the detailed outline of a concept of religion that Harnack developed through an intense examination of drafts on this topic by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl as well as Ritschl's prominent students, Julius Kaftan and Wilhelm Herrmann. Within the history of Harnack's opus, the lecture for the Encyclopaedia was done in close working relationship with the great literary project of the Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte. (shrink)

The Protestant sources used by Max Weber in his early writings, especially The Protestant Ethic, are well known. They show his familiarity with the theological discourses of his day. Weber's conception of religious individualism and his activities in church politics, e.g. the Evangelisch-Sozialer-Kongress, are the result of his juxtaposition of Lutheranism and Calvinism, of active and passive states of religiousness. This itself was deeply influenced by nineteenth-century Protestant theology. Due to this, it is common to speak of Weber's affinity with (...) German liberal theology. Although Weber's famous lectures on science and politics as a vocation, delivered in Munich in 1917 and 1919, have been called, the authentic offspring of The Protestant Ethic‘, the lectures have not yet been properly researched with respect to their theological sources. This paper argues that in Science as a Vocation Weber, firstly, regards modern Protestant theology and its distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘theology’ as a fundamental insight favouring the rise of modern science. This has to be understood in the context of the debate on the ‘revolution in science’ in the early twentieth century, when Weber passionately defended the right of specialised science. Secondly, Weber had been increasingly influenced by Julius Wellhausen's work on the history of Israel, especially his interpretation of the prophets, which Weber studied intensively for his own work on ancient Judaism. Wellhausen's opposition of the prophet's heroic individualism, on the one hand, and institutionalized religion, on the other, affects Weber's later interest to clearly distinguish between the Christian ethics of brotherhood and the needs of modern politics. This is of fundamental import for the well-known differentiation between ‘the ethic of principled convictions’ and ‘the ethic of responsibility’. This paper puts forward the thesis that in the lecture Politics as a Vocation Weber develops a normative and radical concept of religion and theology, which leads him to criticize the conception of liberal theology within its own terms – despite the fact that it was a major source for his own work. (shrink)

Enlightenment All the Way to Heaven: Emanuel Swedenborg in the Context of Eighteenth-Century Theology and Philosophy is an English translation of Friedemann Stengel's 2009 German habilitation (qualifying) thesis, which was published by Mohr Siebeck Tübingen in 2011, Aufklärung bis zum Himmel: Emanuel Swedenborg im Kontext der Theologie und Philosophie des 18. Jahrhunderts. In this volume, Stengel provides a survey of Swedenborg's philosophical influences, as well as an assessment of Swedenborg's own influence on the German theology of his time, thereby (...) giving the reader new insight into the nature of the Enlightenment. Exploring Swedenborg's many inspirations, from Plato to Aristotle, Augustine to Descartes, and Malebranche to Leibniz, just to name a few, Stengel shows the breadth of their impact on Swedenborg and the resultant sophistication of the Swedish prophet's ideas. Enlightenment All the Way to Heaven is the twenty-fourth installment in the Swedenborg Studies scholarly series. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION I. CETERIS PARIBUS LAWS An alleged law of nature—like Newton's law of gravitation—is said to be a ceteris paribus law if it does not hold under ...

This article offers a functionalist account of trust. It argues that a particular form of trust—Communicated Interpersonal Trust—is paradigmatic and lays out how trust as a social practice in this form helps to satisfy fundamental practical, deliberative, and relational human needs in mutually reinforcing ways. We then argue that derivative (non-paradigmatic) forms of trust connect to the paradigm by generating a positive dynamic between trustor and trustee that is geared towards the realization of these functions. We call this trust’s proleptic (...) potential. Our functionalist approach does not only provide important insights into the practice of trust and its place in the broader web of social life, but also illuminates existing philosophical debates. First, pointing out how opposing theoretical accounts of trust each capitalise on only one of its functions, our paradigm-based approach reveals why they each contain a kernel of truth but are also deficient: the optimal realization of each function is tied to the existence of the other functions as well. Second, we show how a functionalist re-orientation can illuminate two recent disputes regarding (i) the question whether trust is explanatorily two- or three-place and (ii) whether (and to what extent) we can decide to trust others. (shrink)

This paper tries to ‘liberate’ Augustine’s view on time from certain modern prejudices, e.g. that the church father’s theory of time involves the modern dichotomy between subjectivism and objectivism (Ricœur), that his understanding of time can be seen as a precursor of modern phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger), that Conf. XI lacks a coherent theory of time as such or that, at least, it falls short of the insights of Kant’s enlightened transcendentalism (Flasch). By contrast, the church father circumvents typically modern aporiai (...) by both differentiating between time on the level of physics and time on the level of soul as well as by accounting for the link between these two ‘times’: Whereas the time of physics tends to non–existence, it is the soul that, by cognizing a certain process in its (relative) entirety, establishes actual time; on the level of soul, time persists and is preserved (in contrast to physical time). Neither does Augustine propose nor need the notion of any ‘absolute time’. Maybe Augustine’s theory of time is compatible with certain assumptions of modern physics (e.g. Einstein’s theory of relativity) although the church fathers’ view can in no way be reduced to the level of physics. (shrink)

Neurons repeatedly exposed to similar perceptual experiences fire together and wire together to form ‘meaning kernels’ of concepts. Pulvermueller argues that abstract concepts may be devoid of meaning kernels, because the perceptual experiences that construct abstract concepts are subject to great variation and share few common features. Abstract concept are therefore grounded in the brain through features that belong to ‘meaning halos’, rather than to ‘meaning kernels’.

This paper combines two ideas: (1) That the Lewisian best system analysis of lawhood (BSA) can cope with laws that have exceptions (cf. Braddon-Mitchell in Noûs 35(2):260–277, 2001; Schrenk in The metaphysics of ceteris paribus laws. Ontos, Frankfurt, 2007). (2) That a BSA can be executed not only on the mosaic of perfectly natural properties but also on any set of special science properties (cf., inter alia, Schrenk 2007, Selected papers contributed to the sections of GAP.6, 6th international (...) congress of the society for analytical philosophy. Mentis, Paderborn/Münster, 2008; Cohen and Callender in Philos Stud 145:1–34, 2009, Erkenntnis 73:427–447, 2010). Bringing together (1) and (2) results in an analysis of special science ceteris paribus laws. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed the rise of digital platforms that allow economic agents to arrange ever more fine-grained contracts. This article zooms in on labour-based platforms that permit the hire of labour in a just-in-time fashion (and are part of the broader trend towards on-demand work). Its principal contribution comes in three parts. First, exposing the frequently overlooked diversity of labour-based platforms, the article proposes to distinguish platform companies, which directly sell services and then purchase the labour needed to provide (...) them, and broker platforms, which act merely as intermediaries. Second, it examines how platforms of each type pose distinct threats to labour justice, thereby extending Daniel Halliday's (2021) analysis. Drawing on empirical studies of the experiences of platform workers, it identifies a power imbalance as the root cause of these threats across all platforms. Finally, the article assesses three strategies to counter these threats: introducing stricter regulation, turning platforms into worker-run co-ops, and improving outside job opportunities. In exploring how each strategy could be implemented for specific platforms, it makes the case for always discussing labour-based platforms with one eye to their specific structural features and the other eye to the broader labour market. (shrink)

Friedemann Affolderbach vertritt die These, dass Öffentlichkeit und Gegenöffentlichkeit als wechselseitig aufeinander bezogenes Verhältnis zu interpretieren sind. Entsprechend ist Öffentlichkeit als Deutungszusammenhang sowie Praxis umkämpft und bildet das Spannungsfeld sozialer Bewegungen zur Gewinnung von öffentlichen Erfahrungsräumen. Gegenöffentlichkeit im Sinne einer Demokratie als Lebensform kennzeichnet dabei die Möglichkeiten zur Erweiterung von Erfahrungs- und Experimentierräumen. Ihre Bedeutung besteht darin, Räume für Erfahrungen von Selbstverfügung herauszubilden und erweiterte Handlungsmöglichkeiten in praktische Weltverfügung umzusetzen. Gesellschaftliche Veränderung wird an dieser Stelle als eine öffentliche erfahrbar. (...) Die Herausbildung einer Gegenöffentlichkeit selbst wird als Praxis von Bildung interpretiert und am exemplarischen Beispiel untersucht. (shrink)

Many philosophers of science think that most laws of nature (even those of fundamental physics) are so called ceteris paribus laws, i.e., roughly speaking, laws with exceptions. Yet, the ceteris paribus clause of these laws is problematic. Amongst the more infamous difficulties is the danger that 'For all x: Fx ⊃ Gx, ceteris paribus' may state no more than a tautology: 'For all x: Fx ⊃ Gx, unless not'. One of the major attempts to avoid this problem (and others concerning (...) ceteris paribus laws) is to claim that the subject matter of laws are ascriptions of dispositions, powers, capacities etc., and not the regular behaviour we find in nature. That we do not know whether the cetera are paria in a specific situation does not matter to the dispositionalist because the objects have the disposition regardless of the circumstances. The defence of the latter claim is that dispositions can be instantiated without being manifested. Hence, the laws that ascribe dispositions are strict and it looks as if they do not face the above mentioned problems of ceteris paribus laws. In this essay I attempt to show that these assumptions are wrong. I hope to illustrate that not only does the ceteris paribus clause reoccur inside the dispositions, moreover, there are laws—laws about non-fundamental entities with instable dispositions—which bear a ceteris paribus clause that cannot be hidden in a disposition. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is thought to face an ‘implementation challenge’: the challenge of securing uptake of engineered concepts. But is the fact that implementation is challenging really a defect to be overcome? What kind of picture of political life would be implied by making engineering easy to implement? We contend that the ambition to obviate the implementation challenge goes against the very idea of liberal democratic politics. On the picture we draw, the implementation challenge can be overcome by institutionalizing control over (...) conceptual uptake, and there are contexts—such as professions that depend on coordinated conceptual innovation—in which there are good reasons to institutionalize control in this fashion. But the liberal fear of this power to control conceptual uptake ending up in the wrong hands, combined with the democratic demand for freedom of thought as a precondition of genuine consent, yields a liberal democratic rationale for keeping implementation challenging. (shrink)

Die antike Philosophie bietet eine differenzierte Diskussion zu akteurs- und handlungstheoretischen Fragen. Die deutschen und englischen Beiträge des Bandes geben einen Einblick in die Reichhaltigkeit dieser Diskussion vom 5. Jahrhundert vor unserer Zeit bis zur Spätantike mit einem Schwerpunkt auf Aristoteles. Diskutiert werden zum einen Fragen zu den rationalen und arationalen seelischen Faktoren, die antiken Philosophen zufolge dem Handeln zugrunde liegen. Diskutiert werden zum anderen Fragen zum Verhältnis von Handelnden, Handlungen und Handlungszielen. Zwei antike Überlegungen werden hier besonders in den (...) Blick genommen: Handlungen sind Ausdruck dessen, was sich den Handelnden in ihrer seelischen Verfasstheit als zu erstrebendes Gut darstellt. Zugleich gibt es objektive Maßstäbe für das Gut-Sein des Ziels und die Angemessenheit der Mittel, die es für ethisch richtiges Handeln auch angesichts von Unwägbarkeiten der Handlungsumstände richtig zu erfassen gilt. Diskutiert werden schließlich Fragen zur handlungsrelevanten Rationalität und zum Handeln in der Gemeinschaft. Die Band leistet einen Beitrag zur anhaltenden Forschungsdiskussion zu handlungs- und akteurstheoretischen Fragen in der antiken Philosophie. (shrink)

In his epic Paradise Lost, John Milton aims at a philosophically and theologically sound theodicy in order to “justify the ways of God to men”1. Milton’s approach has been criticised for creating an unsolvable tension between God’s foreknowledge and man’s free will and responsibility. The article wants to show that this criticism turns out to be unjustified if the philosophical basis behind the epic is thoroughly examined. Milton draws heavily on St. Augustine’s ontology: Every kind of being depends on its (...) intrinsic goodness insofar as it really is what it is by nature. God himself is the ultimate goodness: Therefore he is not subject to change, but transcends space and time. In his perfection, he cannot lack any kind of knowledge, but knows all things in an atemporal manner, without depriving men and women of their capability of free choice and action, for these are the distinct features that constitute the goodness of human nature. The crucial question of the article is why, according to Augustine and Milton, God’s foreknowledge should not at all be confused with fated determinism. (shrink)

Amit defines cell assemblies aslocal cortical neuron populationswith strong internal connections. However, Hebb himself proposed that cell assemblies are distributed over different cortical areas (nonlocal ortranscortical assemblies). We review evidence from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology supporting the assumption that cell assemblies are transcortical.

The HIT model comes close to a view suggested by Donald Hebb, that cognitive representations are organized as distributed neuron webs, cell assemblies, whose components are mutually connected and whose internal connections provide continuous information exchange among sub-components of the representation. Two questions are asked related to (1) the organization of internal connections of a concept representation and (2) the conditions under which information exchange between components are assumed in the HIT model.

In this response to multidisciplinary commentaries on the target article, “Words in the brain's language,” additional features of the cell-assembly model are reviewed, as demanded by some of the commentators. Subsequently, methodological considerations on how to perform additional tests of neurobiological language models as well as a discussion of recent data from neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and other behavioral studies in speakers of spoken and sign languages follow. Special emphasis is put on the explanatory power of the cell-assembly model regarding neuropsychological double (...) dissociations. Future perspectives on neural network simulations, neuronal mechanisms of syntax and semantics, and the interaction of attention mechanisms and cell assemblies are pointed out in the final paragraphs. (shrink)