Diese Festschrift für Michael Fischer ist ein Patchwork und eine wunderbare Mischung aus Wissenschaft, Persönlichem, Freundschaft und Genuss. Sie setzt sich aus unterschiedlichen und vielseitigen Texten, Zeichnungen und Bildern zusammen, von Menschen, die ihn begleitet haben, manche viele Jahre, manche nur eine kurze, aber entscheidende Zeit. Studentinnen und Studenten, die von ihm gelernt haben, Kolleginnen und Kollegen, die mit ihm Ideen entwickelt, Projekte initiiert und geforscht haben, Freunden aus Kunst und Kultur, Theater, Oper und den Bühnen des Lebens, nämlich: (...) Eric Hobsbawm, Claudio Magris, André Glucksmann, Wolf Singer, Johannes Hahn, Volker Gerhardt, Thomas Fischer, Rudolf (+) und Gundl Hradil, Helga Rabl-Stadler, Gerard Mortier, Jürgen Flimm, Brita Steinwendtner, Veit Heinichen, Peter Ruzicka, André Tubeuf, Thomas Oberender, Stefan Zweifel, Hermann Lübbe, Eduardo Chitas, Wilhelm Donner, Hans Eichhorn, Reinhard Kacianka, Tina Perisutti, Ulrich H. J. Körtner, Markus Hengstschläger, Henriette und Conrad Ulrich-Hürlimann, Michael Hagner, Thomas Macho, Johann Weyringer, Birgit Recki, Walther Ch. Zimmerli, Andreas Cesana, Kurt Seelmann. (shrink)

One effect of information technology is the increasing need to present information visually. The trend raises intriguing questions. What is the logical status of reasoning that employs visualization? What are the cognitive advantages and pitfalls of this reasoning? What kinds of tools can be developed to aid in the use of visual representation? This newest volume on the Studies in Logic and Computation series addresses the logical aspects of the visualization of information. The authors of these specially commissioned papers explore (...) the properties of diagrams, charts, and maps, and their use in problem solving and teaching basic reasoning skills. As computers make visual representations more commonplace, it is important for professionals, researchers and students in computer science, philosophy, and logic to develop an understanding of these tools; this book can clarify the relationship between visuals and information. (shrink)

This book is devoted to a thorough analysis of the role that models play in the practise of physical theory. The authors, a mathematical physicist and a philosopher of science, appeal to the logicians’ notion of model theory as well as to the concepts of physicists.

Explores the origin and evolution of the Greek concept of nature up until the time of Plato.

Current research findings on metaphor in language and thought may be interpreted as producing a paradox of metaphor; that is, most metaphor is not processed metaphorically by a cross-domain mapping involving some form of comparison. This paradox can be resolved by attending to one crucial aspect of metaphor in communication: the question whether metaphor is used as deliberately metaphorical or not. It is likely that most deliberate metaphor is processed metaphorically (by comparison), as opposed to most nondeliberate metaphor, which may (...) be assumed to be typically not processed metaphorically (that is, by categorization). This resolves the paradox of metaphor because it suggests that all “metaphor in communication” (all deliberate metaphor) is processed metaphorically. Detailed comments are offered on the notion of metaphor deliberateness and on the nature of a three-dimensional model of metaphor in discourse involving metaphor in language, thought, and communication. (shrink)

We present a Kripke model for Girard's Linear Logic (without exponentials) in a conservative fashion where the logical functors beyond the basic lattice operations may be added one by one without recourse to such things as negation. You can either have some logical functors or not as you choose. Commutatively and associatively are isolated in such a way that the base Kripke model is a model for noncommutative, nonassociative Linear Logic. We also extend the logic by adding a coimplication operator, (...) similar to Curry's subtraction operator, which is resituated with Linear Logic's contensor product. And we can add contraction to get nondistributive Relevance Logic. The model rests heavily on Urquhart's representation of nondistributive lattices and also on Dunn's Gaggle Theory. Indeed, the paper may be viewed as an investigation into nondistributive Gaggle Theory restricted to binary operations. The valuations on the Kripke model are three valued: true, false, and indifferent. The lattice representation theorem of Urquhart has the nice feature of yielding Priestley's representation theorem for distributive lattices if the original lattice happens to be distributive. Hence the representation is consistent with Stone's representation of distributive and Boolean lattices, and our semantics is consistent with the Lemmon-Scott representation of modal algebras and the Routley-Meyer semantics for Relevance Logic. (shrink)

Arif Ahmed has recently argued that causal decision theory is dynamically inconsistent and that we should therefore prefer evidential decision theory. However, the principal formulation of the evidential theory, Richard Jeffrey’s Logic of Decision, has a mixed record of its own when it comes to evaluating plans consistently across time. This note probes that neglected record, establishing the dynamic consistency of evidential decision theory within a restricted class of problems but then illustrating how evidentialists can fall into sequential incoherence outside (...) of this class. Uncovering the evidentialist’s own dynamic inconsistencies reveals, contra Ahmed, that sequential choice considerations do not significantly favor the evidentialist’s theory over the causalist’s. (shrink)

This paper examines patterns of metaphor in usage. Four samples of text excerpts of on average 47,000 words each were taken from the British National Corpus and annotated for metaphor. The linguistic metaphor data were collected by five analysts on the basis of a highly explicit identification procedure that is a variant of the approach developed by the Pragglejaz Group (Metaphor and Symbol 22: 1–39, 2007). Part of this paper is a report of the protocol and the reliability of the (...) procedure. Data analysis shows that, on average, one in every seven and a half lexical units in the corpus is related to metaphor defined as a potential cross-domain mapping in conceptual structure. It also appears that the bulk of the expression of metaphor in discourse consists of non-signalled metaphorically used words, not similes. The distribution of metaphor-related words, finally, turns out to be quite variable between the four registers examined in this study: academic texts have 18.5%, news 16.4%, fiction 11.7%, and conversation 7.7%. The systematic comparative investigation of these registers raises new questions about the relation between cognitive linguistic and other approaches to metaphor. (shrink)

There is currently an unrecognised conflict between the utilitarian nature of the overall NHS and the basic deontology of the doctor-patient interaction. This conflict leads to mistrust and misunderstanding between managers and clinicians. This misunderstanding is bad for both doctors and managers, and also leads to waste of time and resources, and poorer services to patients. The utilitarian thinkers tend to value finite, short term, evidence based technical interventions, delivered according to specifications and contracts. They appear happy to break care (...) up into smaller pieces, which can then be commissioned from multiple providers. The deontological thinkers tend to think about care delivered through a long term continuous relationship, and regard that relationship as therapeutic and salutogenic in itself. To them breaking care up into smaller fragments is a denial of what caring is really about. Very rarely are either or both sides of this debate fully aware of where their powerfully felt and often well argued positions start from. In this paper we offer an appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of both moral viewpoints as applied in the UK NHS context and we suggest a way in which they can be reconciled, provided neither is pushed too far or too hard against the other. We believe this reconciliation would be good for patients, doctors, managers and improve the service as a whole. (shrink)

Aristotle's _Nicomachean Ethics_ is one of the most important texts in western philosophy, and arguably the most influential text on contemporary moral theory. This _GuideBook_ introduces and assesses: * Aristotle's life and the background to the _Nicomachean Ethics_ * The ideas and text of the _Nicomachean Ethics_ * Aristotle's central role in philosophy and his continuing contribution to our ethical thought.

There is no general agreement among scholars that Aristotle had a unified concept of phantasia. That is evident from the most cursory glance through the literature. Freudenthal speaks of the contradictions into which Aristotle seems to fall in his remarks about phantasia, and explains the contradictions as due to the border position which phantasia occupies between Wahrnehmung and thinking. Ross, in Aristotle, p. 143, talks of passages on phantasia in De Anima 3. 3 which constitute ‘a reversal of his doctrine (...) of sensation’ and perhaps do not ‘represent his deliberate view’. This is a serious state of affairs, since De Anima 3. 3 is Aristotle’s main discussion of phantasia. Of passages on phantasia, appearances and images in De Anima 3. 3, Hamlyn says: ‘There is clearly little consistency here’. Even Schofield, who is more optimistic about saving the unity of Aristotle’s concept than the last two scholars, grants that ‘some of the inconsistencies of Aristotle’s account seem more than merely apparent’.1 He thinks of Aristotle’s phantasia as a ‘loose-knit, family concept’. My purpose here is to suggest that Aristotle is more consistent in his use of phantasia than his critics will allow him to be. The translation of the term as imagination frequently adds unnecessarily to the confusion, so I shall avoid it and use transliteration instead. (shrink)

Trolley problems and like cases are often thought to show the inadequacy of purely consequentialist moral theories. In particular, they are often taken to reveal that consequentialists unduly neglect the moral significance of the causal structure of decision problems. To precisify such critiques and one sort of deontological morality they motivate, I develop a formal modeling framework within which trolley problems can be represented as suitably supplemented structural causal models and various consequentialist and double effect-inspired moral theories can be viewed (...) as disagreeing over the inputs of a common decision rule. (shrink)

Teaching requires much emotion work which takes its toll on teachers. Emotion work is usually studied from one of two perspectives, a job or an individual perspective. In this study, we assessed the relative importance of these two perspectives in predicting emotional exhaustion. More than 200 teachers completed a questionnaire comprising the DISQ , the Dutch Questionnaire on Emotional Labour , and the UBOS . In line with previous studies, our findings indicated that emotional exhaustion is positively associated with emotional (...) job demands and surface acting. The relative importance of the two operationalisations of emotion work was assessed by comparing the results of two regression analyses. Whereas the model with job demands explained 18% of the variance, the model with emotional labour explained only 5%. In understanding what might contribute to emotional exhaustion in teachers, the emotional job demands might be much more important than the self‐regulation perspective that is measured with emotional labour. (shrink)

Philosophers’ two favorite accounts of rational choice, Evidential Decision Theory (EDT) and Causal Decision Theory (CDT), each face a number of serious objections. Especially troubling are the recent charges that these theories are dynamically inconsistent. I note here that, under the epistemic assumptions that validate these charges, every decision theory that satisfies a pair of attractive postulates is doomed to a similar fate and then survey various lessons rational choice theorists might opt to draw from this.

Defeasible reasoning is concerned with the logics of non-deductive argument. As is described in the literature, the study of this type of reasoning is considerably more involved than the study of deductive argument, even so that, in realistic applications, there is often a lack of resources to perform an exhaustive analysis. It follows that, in a theory of defeasible reasoning, the order and direction in which arguments are developed, i.e. theprocedure, is important. The aim of this article is to show (...) that debate is the most efficient procedure to argue in the presence of limited resources. To do so, there is first some general theory on defeasible argumentation, which is followed by an introduction to the problem of dialectical search. The problem of dialectical search is (or at least, should be) the essential issue in every theory on argumentation, and emerges at every occasion that involves adjudication on competing arguments. Starting with an example, it is explained that dialectical search can be best scheduled according to classical debating techniques, that work along well-tried methods. These methods (which include various forms of curtailment, interruption, and interpretation) have proven their value in keeping debating efforts within reasonable bounds. How they apply in a theory of formal argument, will be shown in this article. (shrink)

Adam and Eve’s theft marks the beginning of the human career as moral agents. This article will examine the assumptions underlying the notion of moral agency from the perspective of three unremarkable human beings who found themselves in situations of moral difficulty. The article will conclude that these three people could not have acted differently than they did. It will conclude that it is unreasonable to assume that ordinary human beings will inevitably possess the resources to address difficult moral decisions.

On a charge of murder or manslaughter it must be shown that the person killed was one who was in being. It is neither murder nor manslaughter to kill an unborn child while still in its mother’s womb although it may be the statutory offences of child destruction or abortion. If however the child is born alive and afterwards dies by reason of an unlawful act done to it in the mother’s womb or in the process of birth, the person (...) who committed that act is guilty of murder or manslaughter according to the intent with which the act is done. [Halsbury’s LAWS OF ENGLAND, 4th ed. reissue, Vol. 11 (1). London: Butterworths, 1990.]. (shrink)

La tradition utopique compte autant de projets de société promettant l’avènement d’une ère de loisirs que de projets dans lesquels le travail demeure le pilier de la cohésion sociale. Cette double lignée continue d’inspirer certains programmes politiques, mais à la différence des années 1970 une sorte de résignation semble s’être répandue. Cet article propose, au contact de l’histoire des idées politiques et de la philosophie politique contemporaine, de réexaminer les paradigmes de la conception du travail et de sa place dans (...) la société, et de dresser un bilan des théories et utopies sociales qui ont imaginé comment le règne de la liberté peut s’établir sur le règne de la nécessité. La relecture de la tradition utopique permet de faire justice d’une série de lieux communs. Par exemple la crainte qu’une organisation communautaire trop parfaite, « communiste », ne dissuade de travailler – un argument qui ne cesse de polluer toute réflexion sur une conception sociale globale (et non libéraleindividuelle) de la question du travail. (shrink)

Theologians have long appealed to Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine as a source for criteria to determine the genuineness of doctrinal developments. After pointing out that Newman changed his terminology from “tests” in the original edition to “notes” in the third edition, this article examines their current criteriological usefulness both in retrospect and in prospect.

L’évolution du modèle normatif de l’accueil familial, en reconnaissant l’importance de la filiation d’origine de l’enfant placé et professionnalisant la mère d’accueil en assistante maternelle, a placé la famille d’accueil dans une position paradoxale. Est ainsi dénié ce qu’il y a de parental et de familial dans l’accueil : la dimension professionnelle doit prendre le dessus sur la dimension maternelle et père et fratrie d’accueil sont placés dans l’ombre pour préserver les liens parentaux d’origine. Une telle façon de voir découle (...) de notre modèle de la parenté établi sur l’exclusivité biparentale de la filiation, et place la famille d’accueil au cœur d’injonctions contradictoires. La problématique de la parentalité, en mettant en évidence la possibilité d’une pluriparentalité et l’organisation en dispositif évolutif des relations et des liens de type familial, permet de renouveler l’analyse. Elle autorise le dépassement de cette conception antérieure, trop exclusive, et ouvre à une meilleure compréhension de la parentalité d’accueil et de ses modes de suppléance familiale. (shrink)

This paper explores the suggestion (Steen, 2023a, 2023b) that most metaphor may be structurally ambiguous between deliberate and non-deliberate meanings, which in turn affords multivalent metaphor use. The paper begins by examining a sample of 56 Metaphor-Related Words in 25 examples of language use from corpus research about metaphor in discourse about cancer and the end of life (Semino et al., 2018). These data are analyzed by means of a new method proposed by Deliberate Metaphor Theory (Steen, 2023a; cf.; Reijnierse (...) et al. 2019). Results show that all metaphors in the sample that are both polysemous and conventional can be given two interpretations, one non-deliberate and one deliberate. This ambiguity is largely corroborated by additional analysis of these same data by Wmatrix. Subsequent inclusion of all other cases from the same chapter in Semino et al. (2018) offers additional support. This finding offers a critical perspective on the idea that metaphor is a strong psychological device for figurative framing in discourse, for the structural ambiguity of most metaphor allows for multivalent metaphor use, where, in fact, most metaphor may typically be comprehended non-metaphorically (Steen, 2008, 2023a, 2023b). The ambiguity of metaphor hence also explains the paradox of metaphor. (shrink)

We know that Husserl knew the text of the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, which he had at least partly read in Hartenstein’s edition of Kant’s Sämtliche Werke. In the section called « On the inhibition, weakening, and total los of the sense faculties », Kant poses the problem of death in terms comparable to those of Husserl. Here, I argue that in his analysis of sleep, birth and death in the so-called C-Manuscripts, Husserl makes a transcendental and (...) non-anthropological use of Kant’s non transcendental anthropology. If we can say, along with Saulius Geniusas, that the C-manuscripts « mark the emergence of the problematic of birth, death, and sleep into the critical scope of Husserl’s phenomenology of time », then we need to add that the analysis of the sense faculties in the Anthropological Didactic marks the period of gestation. (shrink)

Classical theories of truth are monistic, since they fundamentally search for the essence of truth. The correspondence theory of truth is the most representative in this regard. There are several difficulties with the essentialist theories of truth, which led to the emergence of several alternatives. The purpose of this article is to critically evaluate three of them: the pragmatic theory of truth, the deflationary theory and the pluralistic approach. I argue for overcoming monism and for accepting pluralism in our understanding (...) of truth. At the same time, I argue – from a wittgensteinian point of view – for abandoning the attempt to build a general philosophical theory of truth. I plead for limiting the philosopher’s role to the clarification of the specific ways in which the concept of truth is used in various forms of life and areas of scientific investigation. Multiple uses of the concept of truth in different thematic areas cannot be synthesized, properly speaking, through a particular philosophical theory. (shrink)