ZusammenfassungDie prospektive Analyse der ethischen Implikationen medizinisch-technischer Innovationen läuft immer auch Gefahr, sich in den Wunschbildern von Marketingexperten zu verfangen. Vor diesem Hintergrund könnte es durchaus nützlich sein, die Erkenntnisse der Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung zur Genese und Entwicklung neuer Techniken auszuschöpfen. Dies erscheint gerade auch für die ins Phantastische weisende Zukunft der Individualisierung medikamentöser Therapie, wie man ihr häufig in der Beschreibung pharmakogenetischer Behandlungskonzepte begegnet, angebracht. Techniken, die sich noch im Entwicklungsstadium befinden und deren breite Anwendung noch einige Jahre auf (...) sich warten lassen wird, sollten sehr sorgfältig auf ihren Realitätsgehalt und das zu erwartende Leistungspotenzial hin analysiert werden. Dazu gehört v. a. auch eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit den Leitbildern, Visionen und Nutzenversprechen, mit denen technische Innovationen oft sehr absichtsvoll ausgestattet werden. Wird dabei die Distanz zur Rhetorik der Protagonisten der neuen Techniken nicht gewahrt, gerät die ethische Reflexion unvermittelt in die Rolle, profane Marketingstrategien wortgewandt und ideenreich zu veredeln. (shrink)

Die prospektive Analyse der ethischen Implikationen medizinisch-technischer Innovationen läuft immer auch Gefahr, sich in den Wunschbildern von Marketingexperten zu verfangen. Vor diesem Hintergrund könnte es durchaus nützlich sein, die Erkenntnisse der Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung zur Genese und Entwicklung neuer Techniken auszuschöpfen. Dies erscheint gerade auch für die ins Phantastische weisende Zukunft der Individualisierung medikamentöser Therapie, wie man ihr häufig in der Beschreibung pharmakogenetischer Behandlungskonzepte begegnet, angebracht. Techniken, die sich noch im Entwicklungsstadium befinden und deren breite Anwendung noch einige Jahre auf (...) sich warten lassen wird, sollten sehr sorgfältig auf ihren Realitätsgehalt und das zu erwartende Leistungspotenzial hin analysiert werden. Dazu gehört v. a. auch eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit den Leitbildern, Visionen und Nutzenversprechen, mit denen technische Innovationen oft sehr absichtsvoll ausgestattet werden. Wird dabei die Distanz zur Rhetorik der Protagonisten der neuen Techniken nicht gewahrt, gerät die ethische Reflexion unvermittelt in die Rolle, profane Marketingstrategien wortgewandt und ideenreich zu veredeln. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie prospektive Analyse der ethischen Implikationen medizinisch-technischer Innovationen läuft immer auch Gefahr, sich in den Wunschbildern von Marketingexperten zu verfangen. Vor diesem Hintergrund könnte es durchaus nützlich sein, die Erkenntnisse der Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung zur Genese und Entwicklung neuer Techniken auszuschöpfen. Dies erscheint gerade auch für die ins Phantastische weisende Zukunft der Individualisierung medikamentöser Therapie, wie man ihr häufig in der Beschreibung pharmakogenetischer Behandlungskonzepte begegnet, angebracht. Techniken, die sich noch im Entwicklungsstadium befinden und deren breite Anwendung noch einige Jahre auf (...) sich warten lassen wird, sollten sehr sorgfältig auf ihren Realitätsgehalt und das zu erwartende Leistungspotenzial hin analysiert werden. Dazu gehört v. a. auch eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit den Leitbildern, Visionen und Nutzenversprechen, mit denen technische Innovationen oft sehr absichtsvoll ausgestattet werden. Wird dabei die Distanz zur Rhetorik der Protagonisten der neuen Techniken nicht gewahrt, gerät die ethische Reflexion unvermittelt in die Rolle, profane Marketingstrategien wortgewandt und ideenreich zu veredeln. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to assess the relation between causation and the notion of emptiness described in Buddhist philosophy. While the Madhyamaka school argues that some entity’s being caused implies its being empty, some contemporary authors have argued that there is a ‘Humean’ regularity account of causation that can both be understood as a plausible model of the earlier Buddhist Abhidharma account of causation and also block the Madhyamaka inference from causation to emptiness. After describing the Abhidharma account (...) of causation, the ‘Humean’ regularity account and the Madhyamaka argument from causation to emptiness, we assess some ways in which this argument may be developed, with particular focus on the ‘ladder of causation’ and on the Madhyamaka account of time. The debate about the relation between causation and emptiness, it appears, is a facet of a more comprehensive metaphysical debate between a (moderate) foundationalism and a thoroughgoing anti-foundationalism. (shrink)

Francois Recanati has recently argued that each perceptual state has two distinct kinds of content, complete and explicit content. According to Recanati, the former is a function of the latter and the psychological mode of perception. Furthermore, he has argued that explicit content is temporally neutral and that time-consciousness is a feature of psychological mode. In this paper it is argued, pace Recanati, that explicit content is not temporally neutral. Recanati’s position is initially presented. Three desiderata for a theory of (...) time-consciousness are subsequently introduced. It is then argued that a theory locating time-consciousness as a feature of psychological mode will fail to satisfy these desiderata. In the last section the intentionality of memories is discussed. Using the notion of shiftable indexical, it is argued that memories have the same explicit content as perceptions, but that they nevertheless can have different conditions of satisfaction since they are entertained in different modes. (shrink)

The book provides a historical and systematic exposition of the semantic theory of truth formulated by Alfred Tarski in the 1930s. This theory became famous very soon and inspired logicians and philosophers. It has two different, but interconnected aspects: formal-logical and philosophical. The book deals with both, but it is intended mostly as a philosophical monograph. It explains Tarski’s motivation and presents discussions about his ideas as well as points out various applications of the semantic theory of truth to philosophical (...) problems. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers of science have recently called for an extension of evolutionary theory. This so-called ‘extended evolutionary synthesis’ seeks to integrate developmental processes, extra-genetic forms of inheritance, and niche construction into evolutionary theory in a central way. While there is often agreement in evolutionary biology over the existence of these phenomena, their explanatory relevance is questioned. Advocates of EES posit that their perspective offers better explanations than those provided by ‘standard evolutionary theory’. Still, why this would be the case (...) is unclear. Usually, such claims assume that EES’s superior explanatory status arises from the pluralist structure of EES, its different problem agenda, and a growing body of evidence for the evolutionary relevance of developmental phenomena. However, what is usually neglected in this debate is a discussion of what the explanatory standards of EES actually are, and how they differ from prevailing standards in SET. In other words, what is considered to be a good explanation in EES versus SET? To answer this question, we present a theoretical framework that evaluates the explanatory power of different evolutionary explanations of the same phenomena. This account is able to identify criteria for why and when evolutionary explanations of EES are better than those of SET. Such evaluations will enable evolutionary biology to find potential grounds for theoretical integration. (shrink)

The 13th century is often regarded as the epitome of the Middle Ages. The present volume aims to demonstrate new perspectives in research into this century. The main topics in the book are questions from the fields of theoretical and practical philosophy, theology, the history of institutions, problems in literature, art, learning and education, and cultural contact. This 27th volume of the Miscellanea Mediaevalia contains the papers delivered to the 31st Medievalists’ Conference held in Cologne in September 1998, together with (...) a number of additional contributions. In keeping with the basic idea of the Cologne Medievalists’ Conferences, the volume is divided into 10 sections containing the 38 papers from philosophy and history, literary history and theology, and the history of learning and the arts. (shrink)

The larger part of Yearbook 6 of the Institute Vienna Circle constitutes the proceedings of a symposium on Alfred Tarski and his influence on and interchanges with the Vienna Circle, especially those on and with Rudolf Carnap and Kurt Gödel. It is the first time that this topic has been treated on such a scale and in such depth. Attention is mainly paid to the origins, development and subsequent role of Tarski's definition of truth. Some contributions are primarily historical, others (...) analyze logical aspects of the concept of truth. Contributors include Anita and Saul Feferman, Jan Wolenski, Jan Tarski and Hans Sluga. Several Polish logicians contributed: Gzegorczyk, Wójcicki, Murawski and Rojszczak. The volume presents entirely new biographical material on Tarski, both from his Polish period and on his influential career in the United States: at Harvard, in Princeton, at Hunter, and at the University of California at Berkeley. The high point of the analysis involves Tarski's influence on Carnap's evolution from a narrow syntactical view of language, to the ontologically more sophisticated but more controversial semantical view. Another highlight involves the interchange between Tarski and Gödel on the connection between truth and proof and on the nature of metalanguages. The concluding part of Yearbook 6 includes documentation, book reviews and a summary of current activities of the Institute Vienna Circle. Jan Tarski introduces letters written by his father to Gödel; Paolo Parrini reports on the Vienna Circle's influence in Italy; several reviews cover recent books on logical empiricism, on Gödel, on cosmology, on holistic approaches in Germany, and on Mauthner. (shrink)

Józef M. Bocheński began his philosophical career as an eclectic philosopher, then switched to Thomism and finally became a representative of the analytic school. As a Thomist he wanted to reform this orientation by the resources of modern formal logic. This tendency culminated in the establishment of the Cracow Circle (established in 1936) whose members were Bocheński, Jan F. Drewnowski, Jan Salamucha, and Bolesław Sobociński. However, the program of the Cracow Circle was rejected by most Thomists who considered traditional logic (...) as an entirely sufficient device of philosophy. Bocheński was very disappointed by this attitude of his Thomist fellows. His evolution toward analytic philosophy, free of any ideological pressure, can be regarded as his reaction to the conservatism of Thomism. (shrink)

We introduce a cyclic proof system for the two-way alternation-free modal μ-calculus. The system manipulates one-sided Gentzen sequents and locally deals with the backwards modalities by allowing analytic applications of the cut rule. The global effect of backwards modalities on traces is handled by making the semantics relative to a specific strategy of the opponent in the evaluation game. This allows us to augment sequents by so-called trace atoms, describing traces that the proponent can construct against the opponent’s strategy. The (...) idea for trace atoms comes from Vardi’s reduction of alternating two-way automata to deterministic one-way automata. Using the multi-focus annotations introduced earlier by Marti and Venema, we turn this trace-based system into a path-based system. We prove that our system is sound for all sequents and complete for sequents not containing trace atoms. (shrink)

Research on the relation between sound and meaning in language has reported substantial evidence for implicit associations between articulatory–acoustic characteristics of phonemes and emotions. In the present study, we specifically tested the relation between the acoustic properties of a text and its emotional tone as perceived by readers. To this end, we asked participants to assess the emotional tone of single stanzas extracted from a large variety of poems. The selected stanzas had either an extremely high, a neutral, or an (...) extremely low average formant dispersion. To assess the average formant dispersion per stanza, all words were phonetically transcribed and the distance between the first and second formant per vowel was calculated. Building on a long tradition of research on associations between sound frequency on the one hand and non‐acoustic concepts such as size, strength, or happiness on the other hand, we hypothesized that stanzas with an extremely high average formant dispersion would be rated lower on items referring to Potency (dominance) and higher on items referring to Activity (arousal) and Evaluation (emotional valence). The results confirmed our hypotheses for the dimensions of Potency and Evaluation, but not for the dimension of Activity. We conclude that, at least in poetic language, extreme values of acoustic features of vowels are a significant predictor for the emotional tone of a text. (shrink)

When there are equally strong claimants for a scarce good, lotteries are often argued to be a fair method of allocation. This paper reproduces four of the views on the fairness of lotteries that have been presented in the literature: the distributive view; the preference view; the actual consent view; and the expressive view. It argues that these four views cannot offer plausible explanations for the fairness of lotteries. The distributive view is argued to be inadequate because, even though receiving (...) expectations to a good is of value to the participants, this value cannot plausibly make a contribution to the satisfaction of a participant’s claim. Both the preference and actual consent views are argued to be implausible because they lead to accepting procedures as legitimate that fail to correspond with what a claim is. Finally, it is contended that the expressive view identifies a value that is relevant to respecting equal claimants, but that cannot plausibly be related to a procedure’s fairness. The paper concludes by maintaining that an equal treatment view can accept all the valid insights from these four views without needing to accept their untenable implications. (shrink)

This is a paper about The Causal Self-Referential Theory of Perception. According to The Causal Self-Referential Theory as developed by above all John Searle and David Woodruff Smith, perceptual content is satisfied by an object only if the object in question has caused the perceptual experience. I argue initially that Searle's account cannot explain the distinction between hallucination and illusion since it requires that the state of affairs that is presented in the perceptual experience must exist in order for the (...) perception to be veridical. Smith's account is interestingly different in that the descriptive content, i.e. the content that presents the perceptual object as having certain properties, does not determine the object of the experience. His account consequently does not require that the state of affairs that is presented in perception exists in order for the perception to have an object. Smith argues instead that perceptual reference is determined by a specific kind of demonstrative content. In this paper it is argued that Smith's account of demonstrative content is too indeterminate and in certain circumstances prescribes the wrong object. It is subsequently argued that the theory of demonstrative content can be modified so as to avoid these consequences. This modification involves deriving the conditions of satisfaction of seeing an object from the conditions of satisfaction of seeing the shape of the object, where the shape of the object is conceived of as a particularized property, what is also called a ‘trope’. (shrink)

‘The mathematisation of time has limits,’ writes Derrida in ‘Ousia and Gramme.’ Taking this quote in all possible senses, this paper considers Derrida’s definition of limit as gramme, trace, and ap...

Článek spadá do tematické oblasti současných snah o oživení Aristotelovy etické teorie. V užším vymezení jde o téma aktualizace konceptu morálního charakteru (či mravní ctnosti), které je spojováno s využitím poznatků psychologických věd. Zde pak klíčovou pozornost věnuji problému kritérií, podle kterých můžeme posuzovat adekvátnost návrhů na takovou aktualizaci. Vedle běžně respektovaných kritérií interdisciplinarity a empirické a normativní adekvátnosti představuji kritérium funkce, které je ústředním pojmem článku. Cílem článku je formulovat toto kritérium a pro jeho vyjasnění co nejlépe vystihnout funk­ci (...) (zjednodušeně řečeno užitečnost či přínos) Aristotelovy etické teorie. Dále je mým zámě­rem na příkladech představit, jaké důsledky by mělo přijetí tohoto kritéria (tedy zachování či zefektivnění funkce) pro posuzování adekvátnosti návrhů k aktualizaci Aristotelova konceptu morálního charakteru. Za funkci Aristotelovy etické teorie považuji zvyšování naší morální gramotnosti a tvrdím, že tato funkce vyplývá ze stěžejního rysu Aristotelovy práce, z důsledné analýzy a nalezení vzájemných vazeb mezi pojmy, které spojujeme s každodenní morálkou a s prožíváním dob­rého a spokojeného života. Na konkrétních příkladech ukazuji, jak snahy naplnit jiná kritéria adekvátní aktualizace mohou vést k pojmové redukci, zahlcení irelevantními informacemi, nebo jinak narážet na kritérium funkce. Naplnění všech zde představených kritérií ilustruji na analogii dovednosti, kterou jakožto aktualizaci představila Julia Annasová. (shrink)

From the ‘DuPont factory’ case in China, one can see that contemporary ecology is faced with two underlying problems: A lack of responsibility toward the environment beyond being economically profitable, and a lack of care for what is outside of one’s immediate environment. For the purpose of confronting these two problems, I suggest two Confucian concepts: 1. zhengming 正名 and 2. datong 大同 . These two concepts can be used to develop an environmental ethics and thus play a crucial role (...) in solving the two above-mentioned problems. Zhengming is originally a political concept that was put forward by Confucius. According to this concept, everyone should fulfill their duty to the utmost in accordance with their individual roles. Datong is Confucius’ political ideal and emphasizes gong 公 as a spirit for caring for tian xia 天下 . A Confucian-style harmonious society is achieved by ‘letting every being manifest its mandate to the full’ (ge jin xing .. (shrink)

The book is a collection of the author¿s selected works in the philosophy and history of logic and mathematics. Papers in Part I include both general surveys of contemporary philosophy of mathematics as well as studies devoted to specialized topics, like Cantor's philosophy of set theory, the Church thesis and its epistemological status, the history of the philosophical background of the concept of number, the structuralist epistemology of mathematics and the phenomenological philosophy of mathematics. Part II contains essays in the (...) history of logic and mathematics. They address such issues as the philosophical background of the development of symbolism in mathematical logic, Giuseppe Peano and his role in the creation of contemporary logical symbolism, Emil L. Post's works in mathematical logic and recursion theory, the formalist school in the foundations of mathematics and the algebra of logic in England in the 19th century. The history of mathematics and logic in Poland is also considered. This volume is of interest to historians and philosophers of science and mathematics as well as to logicians and mathematicians interested in the philosophy and history of their fields. (shrink)

Approximately twenty years after it was necessary to fight for human rights, the time came when it was necessary to do it again. Or to begin at the very least to protect them very strongly and thoroughly in a preventive manner. Other methods and means will revert to time when human rights were formally anchored but their material establishment is not yet realized, or not at least to the extent expected corresponding to their real substance. The beginning of the 90’s (...) in Central and Eastern Europe was a success in that human rights began to be looked on as natural, forming the basis of democratic State respecting the rule of law. Today we are increasingly more often encountering the reality that human rights, on the contrary, to the same extent that they have been able to be established, they are losing in value. The biggest danger consists in the fact that limiting of human rights often is attended by silence, without wider public discussion or deliberations. The lack of qualified discussion during the limiting of human rights by way of laws and implementing regulations is however a systemic problem. Correction of its results can be often very complex and doing away with the causes a long term effort. It is dependent on the quality of representative democracy and of the civil society as well. This article is devoted to problem of implementation of evidence of data accompanying telecommunications traffic, the so-called data retention, and in its development from lack of legal regulation to roughly unconstitutional legal regulation and finally to hope for a reasonably constitutional solution. (shrink)

The paper discusses the impact of the thought of Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911) on several Polish emigré writers, including Józef Czapski and Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, but first of all Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) and Aleksander Wat (1900–1967). Miłosz’ approach oscillated between early fascination through an unjust rejection during the war, due to the “appropriation” of Brzozowski’s thought by the right wing publicists, to the new phase of fascination after the war, culminating in the publication of a book on Brzozowski ( A Man Among (...) Scorpions , 1962) and prolonged in several important articles till the very end of his life. Wat’s approach shifted from the communist practice of “overcoming” Brzozowski through the affirmation of his criticism and rejection of catholic obscurantism to the process of the internalization of the catholic faith. (shrink)

What is logical relevance? Anderson and Belnap say that the “modern classical tradition [,] stemming from Frege and Whitehead-Russell, gave no consideration whatsoever to the classical notion of relevance.” But just what is this classical notion? I argue that the relevance tradition is implicitly most deeply concerned with the containment of truth-grounds, less deeply with the containment of classes, and least of all with variable sharing in the Anderson–Belnap manner. Thus modern classical logicians such as Peirce, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and (...) Quine are implicit relevantists on the deepest level. In showing this, I reunite two fields of logic which, strangely from the traditional point of view, have become basically separated from each other: relevance logic and diagram logic. I argue that there are two main concepts of relevance, intensional and extensional. The first is that of the relevantists, who overlook the presence of the second in modern classical logic. The second is the concept of truth-ground containment as following from in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. I show that this second concept belongs to the diagram tradition of showing that the premisses contain the conclusion by the fact that the conclusion is diagrammed in the very act of diagramming the premisses. I argue that the extensional concept is primary, with at least five usable modern classical filters or constraints and indefinitely many secondary intensional filters or constraints. For the extensional concept is the genus of deductive relevance, and the filters define species. Also following the Tractatus, deductive relevance, or full truth-ground containment, is the limit of inductive relevance, or partial truth-ground containment. Purely extensional inductive or partial relevance has its filters or species too. Thus extensional relevance is more properly a universal concept of relevance or summum genus with modern classical deductive logic, relevantist deductive logic, and inductive logic as its three main domains. (shrink)

Global climate change is complex to address. It will require people to interact publicly as well as set policy, as a crucial part of addressing it. To date, skills for effective public interaction—where such interactions even exist—do not measure up to the demands of such global complexity. Hierarchical complexity is used to analyze common forms of public talk and interaction. Its premises are applied to approaches to conduct public discourse, including postformal approaches. The Scale of Public Interactions is introduced and (...) indicates that Metasystematic stage approaches to climate change hold the most potential for addressing it. (shrink)

No detailed description available for "Theory of the Linguistic Sign".

Though this moderately-priced anthology dates back to 1983, its lively articles are as relevant as ever. Topics covered include suicide, euthanasia, war, punishment,world hunger, abortion, sexual relations, equality, affirmative action, and future generations.

‘Racism’ has become the name of something we are all against. But what exactly is it, and why are we against it? This general account proposes that in many cases and contexts, the making of racial (and other) distinctions in such a way as to give some kind of preference to members of one such group among others is quite acceptable. When isn’t it, then? The answer proposed here is that it’s unacceptable when the kind of behavior done to some (...) such group is independently wrongful behavior—in particular, seriously injurious. Various examples are given. The result is to make racism a clear notion whose unjustifiability is obvious—but to imply that many things often claimed to be racist should not be so regarded. (shrink)