Pragmatism gained considerable attention in bioethical discussions in the early 21st century. However, some dimensions and contributions of pragmatism to bioethics remain underexplored in both research and practice. It is argued that pragmatism can make a distinctive contribution to bioethics through its concept, developed by Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey, that ethical issues can be resolved through experimental inquiry. Dewey’s proposal that policies can be confirmed or disconfirmed through experimentation is developed by comparing it to the confirmation of scientific (...) hypotheses, with a focus on the objection that the consequences of following a moral view or policy do not provide guidance on choosing among competing ethical perspectives. As confirmation of scientific hypotheses typically relies on evidence gathered from observation, the possibility of ethically relevant observation is then explored based on Peirce’s views on feelings as emotional interpretants. Finally, the connection between Dewey’s experimental ethics and democracy is outlined and compared to unfettered ethical progressivism. (shrink)

Joint attention is an early-emerging and uniquely human capacity that lies at the foundation of many other capacities of humans, such as language and the understanding of other minds. In this article, I summarize what developmentalists and philosophers have come to find out about joint attention, and I end by stating that two problems or questions of joint attention require additional research: 1) the relation between joint attention and the skills for dyadic sharing or affect exchange in young infants, and (...) 2) the evolution of joint attention. (shrink)

This book aims at beginning the rewriting of the history of skepticism by highlightening the medieval sources of the modern skeptical discussions.

In this book, Henrik Lagerlund offers students, researchers, and advanced general readers the first complete history of what is perhaps the most famous of all philosophical problems: skepticism. As the first of its kind, the book traces the influence of philosophical skepticism from its roots in the Hellenistic schools of Phyrronism and the Middle Academy up to its impact inside and outside of philosophy today. Along the way, it covers skepticism during the Latin, Arabic, and Greek Middle Ages and (...) during the Renaissance before moving on to cover Descartes's methodological skepticism and Pierre Bayle's super-skepticism in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, it deals with Humean skepticism and the anti-skepticism of Reid and Kant, taking care to also include reflections on the connections between idealism and skepticism. The book covers similar themes in a chapter on G.E. Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and then ends its historical overview with a chapter on skepticism in contemporary philosophy. In the final chapter, Lagerlund captures some of skepticism's impact outside of philosophy, highlighting its relation to issues like the replication crisis in science and knowledge resistance. (shrink)

This book presents the first study of the development of the theory of modal syllogistic in the Middle Ages.

As Michel Foucault and others have shown, from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, Western political discourse has perpetuated an art of governing aimed at societies and populations. This article argues that this modern art of governing is now coming undone, in the name of governance. The discourse on governance is taking us from an art of governing premised on producing policy for a society or a population to an art of governing premised on solving problems with no necessary reference (...) to any kind of society or population. Tracing the evolution of that discourse, the article argues that existing social and political theory has failed to make sense of this shift. It concludes that in order to access and assess the new art of governing on its own terms we need a sociological imagination that stretches beyond societies and a political imaginary without the presupposition of collectivities. (shrink)

This thesis explores whether the three standard value relations, “better than”, “worse than” and “equally as good”, exhaust the possibilities in which things can relate with respect to their value. Or more precisely, whether there are examples in which one of these relations is not instantiated. There are cases in which it is not obvious that one of these relations does obtain; these are referred to as “hard cases of comparison”. These hard cases of comparison become interesting, since if it (...) not the case that the standard three value relations obtains in these cases then the three standard relations do not exhaust the possibility of instantiated value relations. It is argued that for some of the hard cases of comparison, the standard relations determinately obtain. For some it is indeterminate, due to vagueness, which of the three relations obtains, but it is determinate that one of them obtains. Thereafter it is argued that the influential Collapsing Argument fails in ruling out other accounts of the hard cases of comparison. Since one cannot depend on the Collapsing Argument in order to conclude that all items are related by the standard three relations, the investigation continues. It is argued that none of the hard cases of comparison are cases of incomparability. Furthermore, none of them are cases of a fourth basic positive value relation such as “parity”. Consequently, for all the hard cases of comparison one of the standard value relations holds, although sometimes we do not know which one and sometimes it is indeterminate which one holds. This means that there is no reason to assume that one of the standard three value relations does not hold between items we are comparing. This is followed by a brief discussion about the normative consequences of this result. The thesis ends with four different appendices in which related topics are discussed. (shrink)

Self-organized criticality (SOC) is based upon the idea that complex behavior can develop spontaneously in certain multi-body systems whose dynamics vary abruptly. This book is a clear and concise introduction to the field of self-organized criticality, and contains an overview of the main research results. The author begins with an examination of what is meant by SOC, and the systems in which it can occur. He then presents and analyzes computer models to describe a number of systems, and he explains (...) the different mathematical formalisms developed to understand SOC. The final chapter assesses the impact of this field of study, and highlights some key areas of new research. The author assumes no previous knowledge of the field, and the book contains several exercises. It will be ideal as a textbook for graduate students taking physics, engineering, or mathematical biology courses in nonlinear science or complexity. (shrink)

This is a review of contemporary philosophical discussions of population policies. The focus is on normative justification, and the main question is whether population policies can be ethically justified. Although few analytical philosophers have directly addressed this question – it has been discussed more in other academic fields – many arguments and considerations can be placed in the analytical philosophical discourse. This article offers a comprehensive review and analysis of ethically relevant aspects of population policies evaluated on the basis of (...) the main ethical theories. This analysis is preceded by a brief historical contextualisation of when and how population policies became ethically contentious and how this relates to philosophical debates in environmental ethics, population ethics and political philosophy. The article also includes a conceptual analysis of population policies in which the empirical intricacies around individual fertility decisions are sorted out and the different ways in which they can be affected are categorised in a taxonomy which highlight the most relevant ethical aspects of population policies. The ethical analysis shows that while population policies can be justified on the basis of most ethical theories, it all depends on what prior assumptions are made about what is at stake. (shrink)

_This paper will explore two strands of Vilhjálmur Árnason’s extensive body of work: his analysis of dialogue ethics within medical ethics and his analysis of ethics in the Icelandic sagas. The central thesis is that combining these two strands, bioethics and literary analysis, can provide valuable insights to further the discussion of ethics among citizens in multicultural communities. _ _Vilhjálmur’s 1 analysis of the Icelandic sagas shows that the sagas have a specific value foundation, specific virtues as well as narrative (...) in how to present the ethical aspects. In the field of bioethics, he has developed the study of dialogue ethics in several aspects, such as between patient and professional, in interdisciplinary research, and in public deliberation. By integrating insights from historic literary studies with contemporary bioethical research we gain an interesting platform for a discussion on Western assumptions of what constitutes a good dialogue. One of the core aspects in dialogue ethics is how to develop the procedure for a fair, open-minded, and oppression-free discussion in ethical issues. Vilhjálmur’s contributions are summarized here, but could they also be extended beyond the Icelandic and Western horizon?_ _I will compare his ethical framework to a recent parallel discussion on the claims of indigenous peoples for a fair dialogue. That is, a dialogue that must be inclusive with a carefulness about deciding the foundation of inherent values and the procedure of how to perform the dialogue. Finally, I draw conclusions on what dialogue ethics will gain from this explorative work._ _Keywords: _dialogue ethics, one health approaches, Indigenous peoples, bioethics, interdisciplinarity, ethics in the Icelandic sagas, medical ethics, literary analysis, multicultural communities. (shrink)

The aims of this study were to present themes in nursing motifs as depicted in tattoos and to describe how it reflects upon nursing in popular culture as well as within professional nursing culture. An archival and cross‐sectional observational study was conducted online to search for images of nursing tattoos that were freely available, by utilizing the netnographic methodology. The 400 images were analyzed in a process that consisted of four analytical steps focusing on metaphors and meanings in the tattoos. (...) The findings present four themes: angels of mercy and domination; hegemonic nursing technology; embodying the corps; and nurses within the belly of the monster. The tattoos serve as a mirror of popular culture and the professional culture of nurses and nursing practice within the context of body art. Body art policy statements have been included in nursing personnel dress code policies. Usually these policies prohibit tattoos that are sexist, symbolize sex or could contribute and reproduce racial oppression. The results show that the tattoos can be interpreted according to several layers of meanings in relation to such policies. We therefore stress that this is an area highly relevant for further analyses in nursing research. (shrink)

The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) challenges much of our traditional understanding of military ethics. What virtues and what sort of ethics education are needed as we move into an ever more AI-driven military reality? In this article we suggest and discuss key virtues that are needed, including the virtue of prudence and the accompanying virtue of good and proper storytelling. We also reflect on the ideal of “explainable AI,” and philosophize about the role of fear in helping us understand (...) what is actually at stake in a military infused with AI-enabled and AI-driven weapons. (shrink)

Incommensurability is the impossibility to determine how two options relate to each other in terms of conventional comparative relations. This book features new research on incommensurability from philosophers who have shaped the field into what it is today, including John Broome, Ruth Chang and Wlodek Rabinowicz. The book covers four aspects relating to incommensurability. In the first part, the contributors synthesize research on the competing views of how to best explain incommensurability. Part II illustrates how incommensurability can help us deal (...) with seemingly insurmountable problems in ethical theory and population ethics. The contributors address the Repugnant Conclusion, the Mere Addition Paradox and so-called Spectrum Arguments. The chapters in Part III outline and summarize problems caused by incommensurability for decision theory. Finally, Part IV tackles topics related to risk, uncertainty and incommensurability. Value Incommensurability: Ethics, Risk, and Decision-Making will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in ethical theory, decision theory, action theory, and philosophy of economics. (shrink)

Environmental pragmatism has faced numerous criticisms for relativism and crude instrumentalism as well as for sidestepping the fundamental concerns of environmental ethics. Recently, Andre Santos Campos and Sofia Guedes Vaz have proposed a new ‘method’ of environmental pragmatism, justificatory moral pluralism, with the aim of overcoming these criticisms. It is argued that this new approach is plagued by the traditional concerns. Instead, the pitfalls of pragmatism can be avoided by adopting the central insight of the classical pragmatists that values may (...) be revised in light of experience in a process that resembles scientific inquiry. The resulting view may not be satisfying for those who expect pragmatism to live up to its periodic promise of immediate and concrete results. Nevertheless, pragmatism presents the environmental ethicist with a range of promising tasks. (shrink)

Olsen and Toddington argue that equivocation on the central issue here - that of obligation - has brought legal theory to the point where leading legal ...

It is argued that the emergence of controversial views in discussions of theoretical medicine and bioethics is best explained by the assumption of moral realism within those discursive practices. Neither of the main alternatives of realism in contemporary meta-ethics — moral expressivism and anti-realism — can account for the rise of controversies in the bioethical debate. This argument draws from the contemporary expressivist or anti-representationalist pragmatism as advanced by Richard Rorty and Huw Price, as well as the pragmatist scientific realism (...) and fallibilism of the founder of pragmatism, Charles S. Peirce. In accordance with the fallibilist view, it is proposed that presenting controversial positions may serve epistemic purposes within bioethical debates, providing opportunities for inquiry by pointing towards problems to be solved and arguments and evidence for and against to be put forward. (shrink)

Recent metaphysics has seen a surge of interest in grounding—a relation of non-causal determination underlying a distinctive kind of explanation common in philosophy. In this article, I investigate the connection between grounding and another phenomenon of great interest to metaphysics: ontological dependence. There are interesting parallels between the two phenomena: for example, both are commonly invoked through the use of “dependence” terminology, and there is a great deal of overlap in the motivations typically appealed to when introducing them. I approach (...) the question of the relationship between grounding and ontological dependence through an investigation of their modal connections. I argue, firstly, that on the common assumption that grounding is factive, it can be shown that no known variety of rigid ontological dependence is either necessary or sufficient for grounding. I also offer some suggestions in support of the claim that this generalizes to every possible form of rigid ontological dependence. I then broaden the discussion by considering a non-factive conception of grounding, as well as by looking at forms of generic ontological dependence. I argue that there is at least one form of rigid ontological dependence that is sufficient for non-factive grounding, and that a form of generic dependence may be necessary both for factive and non-factive grounding. However, justifying even these fairly weak modal connections between grounding and ontological dependence turns out to require some quite specific and substantive assumptions about the two phenomena that have only rarely been discussed. (shrink)

Why is democracy good, or preferable to other systems of governance and political decision-making? Democracy has been argued to incorporate or promote central values, such as equality or freedom. On the other hand, many contemporary defenses of democracy have relied on arguments that attempt to show that democracy promotes or enables some second-order good, such as the validity, justification or legitimacy of political decision-making. Recent decades have seen the rise of epistemic arguments for democracy that belong to this latter type. (...) For example, David Estlund has proposed that democracy is epistemically preferable among the societal arrangements that could be acceptable to all citizens. In turn... (shrink)

Explores the range and depth of work currently being done in the humanities and social sciences on the conceptual, normative and empirical aspects of global community.

By analyzing prefaces and other short excerpts written by different pseudonyms, this paper explores the pseudonymous authors’ relation to their spouses. It assumes that recurring motifs in the prefaces, such as ‘voice’ and the metaphor of ‘fertility,’ reveal, often in ironic tones, general gender-related aspects of identity in Kierkegaard’s works. The paper thus explores how the seemingly stereotyped and archaic conception of gender in the prefaces, such as the pseudonymous author’s assertion of superiority of reasoning through writing over the immediacy (...) represented in voice, reflect aspects of the individual’s disposition before God. (shrink)

Cinema and Agamben brings together a group of established scholars of film and visual culture to explore the nexus between the moving image and the influential work of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. Including two original texts by Agamben himself, published here for the first time in English translation, these essays facilitate a unique multidisciplinary conversation that fundamentally rethinks the theory and praxis of cinema. In their resourceful analyses of the work of artists such as David Claerbout, Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe Grandrieux, (...) Michael Haneke, Jean Rouch, and others, the authors put to use a range of key concepts from Agamben's rich body of work, like biopolitics, de-creation, gesture, potentiality and profanation. Sustaining the eminently interdisciplinary scope of Agamben's writing, the essays all bespeak the importance of Agamben's thought for forging new beginnings in film theory and for remedying the elegiac proclamations of the death of cinema so characteristic of the current moment. (shrink)

The view of substance defended by William Ockham and John Buridan in the fourteenth century differs radically from the traditional Aristotelian or Thomistic view of substance. Their metaphysical position of substance not only influences the development of natural philosophy, it also changes the preconditions for cognition and epistemology. In this paper I examine the implications of this view on Buridan’s epistemology and particularly on the compatibility of his view of substance with his claim that we have simple substance concepts. I (...) conclude that his metaphysics undermines this claim, but I also offer a suggestion for a possible solution to this problem. (shrink)

I-BLOCKS are an innovative concept of building blocks allowing users to manipulate conceptual structures and compose atomic actions while building physical constructions. They represent an example of enabling technologies for tangible interfaces since they emphasise physicality of interaction through the use of spatial and kinaesthetic knowledge. The technology presented in this paper is integrated in physical building blocks augmented with embedded and invisible microprocessors. Connectivity and behaviour of such structures are defined by the physical connectivity between the blocks. These are (...) general purpose, constructive, tangible user interface devices that can have a variety of applications. Unlike other approaches, I-BLOCKS do not only specify a computation that is performed by the target system but perform at the same time the computation and the associated action/functionality. Manipulating I-BLOCKS do not only mean constructing physical or conceptual structures but also composing atomic actions into complex behaviours. To illustrate this concept, the paper presents different scenarios in which the technology has been applied: storytelling performed through the construction of physical characters exhibiting emotional states, and learning activities for speech therapy in cases of dyslexia and aphasia. The scenarios are presented; discussing both the features of the technology used and the related interaction design issues. The paper concludes by reporting about informal trials that have been conducted with children. It should be noted that, even if both trials represent application scenarios for children, the I-BLOCKS technology is in principle open to different kinds of applications and target users like, for example, games for adults or brainstorming activities. (shrink)

This article explores the concept of metaphysically opaque grounding, a largely neglected form of metaphysical grounding that challenges the commonly held assumptions that grounding is an especially intimate and powerful connection between facts and that it is necessarily connected with the essences of things. I provide a definition of opaque grounding, identify some interesting philosophical views that are committed to it, and explore some consequences for the general theory of grounding. Finally, I briefly address some natural initial doubts about opaque (...) grounding and find them unwarranted. The upshot is that the notion deserves more attention than it has previously received. (shrink)

The emerging concept of systems medicine (or ‘P4 medicine’—predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory) is at the vanguard of the post-genomic movement towards ‘precision medicine’. It is the medical application of systems biology, the biological study of wholes. Of particular interest, P4 systems medicine is currently promised as a revolutionary new biomedical approach that is holistic rather than reductionist. This article analyzes its concept of holism, both with regard to methods and conceptualization of health and disease. Rather than representing a medical (...) holism associated with basic humanistic ideas, we find a technoscientific holism resulting from altered technological and theoretical circumstances in biology. We argue that this holism, which is aimed at disease prevention and health optimization, points towards an expanded form of medicalization, which we call ‘holistic medicalization’: Each person’s whole life process is defined in biomedical, technoscientific terms as quantifiable and controllable and underlain a regime of medical control that is holistic in that it is all-encompassing. It is directed at all levels of functioning, from the molecular to the social, continual throughout life and aimed at managing the whole continuum from cure of disease to optimization of health. We argue that this medicalization is a very concrete materialization of a broader trend in medicine and society, which we call ‘the medicalization of health and life itself’. We explicate this holistic medicalization, discuss potential harms and conclude by calling for preventive measures aimed at avoiding eventual harmful effects of overmedicalization in systems medicine (quaternary prevention). (shrink)

In this paper, we engage with the question of the normative content of the resilience concept. The issues are approached in two consecutive steps. First, we proceed from a narrow construal of the resilience concept – as the ability of a system to absorb a disturbance – and show that under an analysis of normative concepts as evaluative concepts resilience comes out as descriptive. In the second part of the paper, we argue that (1) for systems of interest (primarily social (...) systems or system with a social component) we seem to have options with respect to how they are described and (2) that this matters for what is to be taken as a sign of resilience as opposed to a sign of the lack of resilience for such systems. We discuss the implications of this for how the concept should be applied in practice and suggest that users of the resilience concept face a choice between versions of the concept that are either ontologically or normatively charged. (shrink)

The essays in this book give the first comprehensive picture of the medieval development of philosophical theories concerning the nature of emotions and the influence they have on human choice.

It is well known that Niels Bohr insisted on the necessity of classical concepts in the account of quantum phenomena. But there is little consensus concerning his reasons, and what he exactly meant by this. In this paper, I re-examine Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, and argue that the necessity of the classical can be seen as part of his response to the measurement problem. More generally, I attempt to clarify Bohr’s view on the classical/quantum divide, arguing that the relation (...) between the two theories is that of mutual dependence. An important element in this clarification consists in distinguishing Bohr’s idea of the wave function as symbolic from both a purely epistemic and an ontological interpretation. Together with new evidence concerning Bohr’s conception of the wave function collapse, this sets his interpretation apart from both standard versions of the Copenhagen interpretation, and from some of the reconstructions of his view found in the literature. I conclude with a few remarks on how Bohr’s ideas make much sense also when modern developments in quantum gravity and early universe cosmology are taken into account. (shrink)

Scientific realism is a critical target of anti-representationalists such as Richard Rorty and Huw Price, who have questioned the very possibility of providing a satisfactory argument for realism or any other ontological position. I will argue that there is a viable form of realism which not only withstands this criticism but is vindicated on the antirepresentationalists’ own grounds. This realist position, largely drawn from the notion of the scientific method developed by the founder of philosophical pragmatism, Charles S. Peirce, will (...) further be compared with the accounts of truth and objectivity proposed by the contemporary pragmatists, Rorty, Price, and Robert B. Brandom. (shrink)

Many democratic theorists hold that when a decision is collectively made in the right kind of way, in accordance with the right procedure, it is permissible to enforce it. They deny that there are further requirements on the type of reasons that can permissibly be used to justify laws and policies. In this paper, I argue that democratic theorists are mistaken about this. So-called public reason requirements follow from commitments that most of them already hold. Drawing on the democratic ideal (...) of civic equality, I show that it can successfully explain why political decision-making must have the right sort of procedure-independent justification. However, contra standard accounts of public reason, I argue that laws and policies need to be justified with convergence accessible, not shared, reasons. Public reasons are those that are accessible in light of evaluative standards shared by all, or in light of every citizen’s private evaluative standards. Since this will make the set of public reasons wider, it makes the theory more palatable to sceptics while retaining the framework’s justificatory potential. (shrink)