We give a precis of our book Insensitive Semantics.

This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology. The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy (...) and neighbouring fields, including those of mathematics, psychology, literature and film, and neuroscience. (shrink)

This paper addresses four issues: 1. What is nonsense? 2. Is nonsense possible? 3. Is nonsense actual? 4. Why do the answers to (1)–(3) matter, if at all? These are my answers: 1. A sentence (or an utterance of one) is nonsense if it fails to have or express content (more on ‘express’, ‘have’, and ‘content’ below). This is a version of a view that can be found in Carnap (1959), Ayer (1936), and, maybe, the early Wittgenstein (1922). The notion (...) I propose abstracts away from their favored (but wrong) theories of what meaning is. It is a notion of nonsense that can be appealed to by all semantic frameworks and all theories of what content is, but structurally it is just like e.g. Carnap’s. Nonsense, as I construe it, is accompanied by illusions of thought (and I think that was part of Carnap’s conception as well). 2. Yes. In particular, I examine three arguments for the impossibility of illusion of thought (which on my construal accompanies linguistic nonsense) and they are all unsound. 3. Yes. There might be a lot of nonsense, both in ordinary and theoretical speech. In particular, it is likely that much of contemporary philosophy consists of nonsense. Empirical work is required to determine just how much. 4. The struggle to avoid nonsense (and achieve meaningfulness) is at least as important as the struggle for truth. The avoidance of nonsense is a precondition not just for having a truth value but also for more important properties such as saying something interesting or kind. (shrink)

Philosophers of language and linguists tend to think of the interpreter as an essentially non-creative participant in the communicative process. There’s no room, in traditional theories, for the view that correctness of interpretation depends in some essential way on the interpreter. As a result, there’s no room for the possibility that while P is the correct interpretation of an utterance, u, for one interpreter, P* is the correct interpretation of that utterance for another interpreter. Recently, a number of theorists have, (...) for separate reasons, argued in favour of a radically different view of communication – a view in which the interpreter and her context play what should be thought of as a content-creating role. According to such views, natural languages contain what I’ll call interpretation sensitive terms: terms the correct interpretation of which varies across interpreters (or, more generally, contexts of interpretation).3 An interpretation sensitive sentence can have one content relative to one interpreter and another content relative to another interpreter. This paper is a development and (partial) defence of the view that interpretation sensitivity is ubiquitous in natural language. I call the view that there are interpretation sensitive terms content relativism. Before starting the discussion of content relativism, it is worth pointing out that recent attempts to develop semantically motivated versions of truth relativism should be seen as part of this trend of giving the interpreter a more active role. (shrink)

In the past two decades, individual explanations of scientific misconduct have increasingly given way to systemic explanations. Where did this interest in systemic factors come from? Given that research ethicists often present their interventions as responses to scientific misconduct, this article tests the hypothesis that these systemic explanations were triggered by high-visibility cases of scientific norm violation. It does so by examining why Dutch scientists in 2011 explained Diederik Stapel’s grand-scale data fabrication largely in systemic terms, whereas only fifteen years (...) earlier, in the René Diekstra affair, such explanations had been close to absent. Drawing on a wealth of historical sources, the article suggests that cases like Stapel’s as such do not explain why early 21st-century commentators exchanged individual explanations for systemic ones. Only against the background of an existing discourse of criticism of the science system, developed in the 1990s and 2000s in response to rapidly increasing competition for research funding, could the Stapel affair achieve notoriety as an example of how systemic factors provoke bad conduct. (shrink)

This essay expands upon an earlier work in which we analyzed the implications of the Verizon v RIAA case for P2P Networks vis-à-vis concerns affecting personal privacy and intellectual property. In the present essay we revisit some of the concerns surrounding this case by analyzing the intellectual property and privacy issues that emerged in the MGM Studios v. Grokster case. These two cases illustrate some of the key tensions that exist between privacy and property interests in cyberspace. In our analysis, (...) we contrast Digital Rights Management and Interoperability and we examine some newer distribution models of sharing over P2P networks. We also analyze some privacy implications in the two cases in light of the theory of privacy as contextual integrity. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhat did “historical distance” mean to historians in the Rankean tradition? Although historical distance is often equated with temporal distance, an analysis of Ernst Bernheim's Lehrbuch der historischen Methode reveals that for German historians around 1900 distance did not primarily refer to a passage of time that would enable scholars to study remote pasts from retrospective points of view. If Bernheim's manual presents historical distance as a prerequisite for historical interpretation, the metaphor rather conveys a need for self‐distanciation. Self‐distanciation is (...) not a Romantic desire to “extinguish” oneself, but a virtuous attempt to put one's own ideas and intuitions about the working of the world between brackets in the study of people who might have understood the world in different terms. Although Bernheim did not explicitly talk about virtue, the article shows that his Lehrbuch nonetheless considers self‐distanciation a matter of virtuous behavior, targeted at an aim that may not be fully realizable, but ought to be pursued with all possible vigor. For Bernheim, then, distance requires epistemological virtue, which in turn calls for intellectual character, or what Bernheim's generation considered scholarly selfhood . Not a mapping of time onto space, but a strenuous effort to mold “scholarly characters,” truly able to recognize the otherness of the past, appears to be characteristic of Bernheim's view of historical distance. (shrink)

Scepticism has been the driving force in the development of Greco-Roman culture in the past, and the impetus for far-reaching scientific achievements and philosophical investigation. Early Jewish culture, in contrast, avoided creating consistent representations of its philosophical doctrines. Sceptical notions can nevertheless be found in some early Jewish literature such as the Book of Ecclesiastes. One encounters there expressions of doubt with respect to Divine justice or even Divine involvement in earthly affairs. During the first centuries of the common era, (...) however, Jewish thought, as reflected in rabbinic works, was engaged in persistent intellectual activity devoted to the laws, norms, regulations, exegesis and other traditional areas of Jewish religious knowledge. An effort to detect sceptical ideas in ancient Judaism, therefore, requires a closer analysis of this literary heritage and its cultural context. This volume of collected essays seeks to tackle the question of scepticism in an Early Jewish context, including Ecclesiastes and other Jewish Second Temple works, rabbinic midrashic and talmudic literature, and reflections of Jewish thought in early Christian and patristic writings. Contributors are: Tali Artman, Geoffrey Herman, Reuven Kiperwasser, Serge Ruzer, Giuseppe Veltri, Cana Werman, and Casten Wilke. (shrink)

Dooyeweerd discusses in this work the pretended autonomy of theoretical thought; the sense of history and the historicistic world- and life-view; the relationship between philosophy and theology; and concludes with a chapter on the question: What is a human person.

Articles and clinical studies by psychologists, physicians, psychiatrists, theologians and philosophers explore human response to death and the treatment of death in modern art.

Religion and science are altogether too different to be rationally incompatible . If—as is done here—one defends such a thesis, one seems to sever the link between religion and truth. This link seems to many to be really essential: is not the highest requirement of a person, especially a religious person, „to live in the truth” ? And is it not necessary for rational beings to try and give a rational justification for one's religious beliefs? But perhaps „the truth” which (...) is of such importance to the religious person is not a theoretical truth; perhaps „to live in the truth” is not a matter of trying not to be fooled or of being prepared to change one's views according to new and better information. Furthermore, the desire for independent justification seems either incompatible with religious belief or rather pointless. The link between religion and truth can only be seriously discussed if one understands the relationship between religious beliefs and attitudes like truthfulness, trust, obedience to authority, etcetera. One objection to our position could be that it leads to a kind of „schizophrenic” split or disconnection between religion and the scientific outlook. To this objection we reply that since the arrival of science and technology human life is full of similar kinds of disconnection between non-scientific beliefs and attitudes, and scientific beliefs and technical approaches. To want to conserve science and technology and at the same time to want to restore the „Cosy Universe”-situation, is pure wishful thinking. (shrink)

Classical aesthetics sees the experience of the beautiful as an anthropological necessity. But, in fact, the beautiful is rather the central category designating classical art, and one can question the relevance of this category considering contemporary art. The reference term most frequently used for contemporary art is interesting: works of art solicit the interests of my faculties (the cognitiveintellectual, the pragmatic community-oriented moral, the affective aesthetic faculties). It is interesting to notice that the categories of the beautiful and the ugly (...) have an axiological-moral value. It looks as if the qualities of contemporary art works are judged according to the intensity of the impact on the interests of our faculties. It reveals important, in this respect, to distinguish the ugly from the sublime and the monstrous. Kant’s Third Critique is of some importance in defi ning these categories. (shrink)

The Ninth International Conference on Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry was held in Milwaukee, WI. Four papers originally presented at that conference are included in this issue of Computers and Society. The selected papers examine a wide range of information/computer-ethics-related issues, and taken together, they show great diversity in the field of information/computer ethics. We are continually negotiating with ethics, law, and policy in our technology-driven activities in the interconnected global arena. As we consider the themes within and among the papers (...) here, we encourage readers to think deeply about fundamental principles such as trust, accountability, anonymity, and human rights. Each of these papers takes us back, philosophically, to seminal and long-standing principles of ethics, broadly speaking, and then, brings us forward, to significant and contemporary challenges in ethics. The authors each weave narratives about our place and space as individuals, as members of cultural collectives, and evolving socio-political-technical norms around us, governing us, defining us. (shrink)

The author describes the recent changes of rules and proceedings in the House of Representatives, later on in the Senate and finally in both the new «cultural Assemblees», concerning the existence, the functioning and the importance of parliamentary groups and their leaders.Assimilated to the status of Vice-presidents of their Assembly, the parliamentary leaders are in charge of many responsabilities and more attention is given to the parliamentary group as such rather than to the individual members. Seating the members in the (...) House, allocating to their «mandated» members speaking time in important debates, replacing members of their group in the specialized committees, preparing with the Speaker the public debates, taking full responsability for the material aid provided to their group and their members the many tasks of the parliamentary leaders in the organization of parliamentary work are increasing.Their political functions are much more important. Usually the parliamentary leader sits in the top policy making organs of his party, very often he has had governmental experience and, as a floor leader, intervenes in the important debates.Even if essential differences can be observed between political parties the leader in the Parliament plays an important role as the link between political parties and parliament. (shrink)

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In this paper Galileo’s we seek to follow Galileo’s mind as he constructs the principle of the complete isochronism of the pendulum from experimental observations and theoretical demonstrations. Our conclusion will be that the principle came from experiments with relatively small angle pendulums, coupled with a „leap“ from free fall along circular chords and ideas about the natural frequencies of physical systems. The pendulum experiments of the First and Fourth Day were, in all probability, never performed. The results claimes were (...) simply illustrations of the isochronism principle. (shrink)

La montée des populismes ramène à l’avant-plan une question souvent négligée : la colère politique pousse-t-elle à l’action ou à l’inaction? Plus fondamentalement, nous cherchons ici à savoir si la propension à l’engagement politique est plus grande lorsqu’elle s’adosse au cynisme ou, au contraire, lorsqu’elle s’adosse au pragmatisme. L’analyse est menée sur deux fronts, l’un empirique, l’autre théorique. Dans le premier cas, la European Social Survey sert de corpus, avec plus de 100 000 répondants, répartis dans 12 pays, sur une (...) période de douze ans. L’analyse théorique s’appuie sur les réflexions de William James et de John Dewey, deux fondateurs du pragmatisme moderne. Ce double effort tend à corroborer l’approche pragmatique, à disqualifier radicalement l’approche cynique et, par ricochet, à s’interroger sur le rôle la colère citoyenne comme levier pour l’action. (shrink)