In this paper, we present and defend an analysis of harm that we call the Negative Influence on Well-Being Account (NIWA). We argue that NIWA has a number of significant advantages compared to its two main rivals, the Counterfactual Comparative Account (CCA) and the Causal Account (CA), and that it also helps explain why those views go wrong. In addition, we defend NIWA against a class of likely objections, and consider its implications for several questions about harm and its role (...) in normative theorizing. (shrink)

According to the “deprivation approach,” a person’s death is bad for her to the extent that it deprives her of goods. This approach faces the Lucretian problem that prenatal non-existence deprives us of goods just as much as death does, but does not seem bad at all. The two most prominent responses to this challenge—one of which is provided by Frederik Kaufman (inspired by Thomas Nagel) and the other by Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer—claim that prenatal non-existence is relevantly (...) different from death. This paper criticizes these responses. (shrink)

Pluralistic ignorance is a socio-psychological phenomenon that involves a systematic discrepancy between people’s private beliefs and public behavior in certain social contexts. Recently, pluralistic ignorance has gained increased attention in formal and social epistemology. But to get clear on what precisely a formal and social epistemological account of pluralistic ignorance should look like, we need answers to at least the following two questions: What exactly is the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance? And can the phenomenon arise among perfectly rational agents? In (...) this paper, we propose answers to both these questions. First, we characterize different versions of pluralistic ignorance and define the version that we claim most adequately captures the examples cited as paradigmatic cases of pluralistic ignorance in the literature. In doing so, we will stress certain key epistemic and social interactive aspects of the phenomenon. Second, given our characterization of pluralistic ignorance, we argue that the phenomenon can indeed arise in groups of perfectly rational agents. This, in turn, ensures that the tools of formal epistemology can be fully utilized to reason about pluralistic ignorance. (shrink)

To believe that logic has no history might at first seem peculiar today. But since the early 20th century, this position has been repeatedly conflated with logical monism of Kantian provenance. This logical monism asserts that only one logic is authoritative, thereby rendering all other research in the field marginal and negating the possibility of acknowledging a history of logic. In this paper, I will show how this and many related issues have developed, and that they are founded on only (...) one prominent statement by Kant. I will argue, however, that this statement takes on a very different meaning in a broader context of the history and philosophy of science, and that Kant and his supporters never advocated the logical monism that they are still said to hold today. (shrink)

A pure time preference is a preference for something to occur at one point in time rather than another, merely because of when it occurs in time. Such preferences are widely regarded as paradigm examples of irrational preferences. However, Rosemary Lowry and Martin Peterson have recently argued that, for instance, a pure time preference to go to the opera tonight rather than next month may be rationally permissible, even if the amounts of intrinsic value realized in both cases are identical. (...) In this reply, we argue that Lowry and Peterson's argument is unsuccessful. (shrink)

According to epistemic two-dimensionalism, or simply two-dimensionalism, linguistic expressions are associated with two intensions, one of which represents an expression’s a priori implications. The author investigates the prospects of conceptual analysis on the basis of a two-dimensionalist theory of meaning. He discusses a number of arguments for and against two-dimensional semantics and argues that properly construed, two-dimensionalism provides a potent and plausible account of meaning. Against the background of this account, the author then goes on to assess the value of (...) conceptual analysis in philosophical practice, outlining its goals, its promises, but also its limitations. (shrink)

This paper analyses a hitherto unknown technique of using logic diagrams to create argument maps in eristic dialectics. The method was invented in the 1810s and -20s by Arthur Schopenhauer, who is considered the originator of modern eristic. This technique of Schopenhauer could be interesting for several branches of research in the field of argumentation: Firstly, for the field of argument mapping, since here a hitherto unknown diagrammatic technique is shown in order to visualise possible situations of arguments in a (...) dialogical controversy. Secondly, the art of controversy or eristic, since the diagrams do not analyse the truth of judgements and the validity of inferences, but the persuasiveness of arguments in a dialogue. (shrink)

Predictive policing has become a new panacea for crime prevention. However, we still know too little about the performance of computational methods in the context of predictive policing. The paper provides a detailed analysis of existing approaches to algorithmic crime forecasting. First, it is explained how predictive policing makes use of predictive models to generate crime forecasts. Afterwards, three epistemologies of predictive policing are distinguished: mathematical social science, social physics and machine learning. Finally, it is shown that these epistemologies have (...) significant implications for the constitution of predictive knowledge in terms of its genesis, scope, intelligibility and accessibility. It is the different ways future crimes are rendered knowledgeable in order to act upon them that reaffirm or reconfigure the status of criminological knowledge within the criminal justice system, direct the attention of law enforcement agencies to particular types of crimes and criminals and blank out others, satisfy the claim for the meaningfulness of predictions or break with it and allow professionals to understand the algorithmic systems they shall rely on or turn them into a black box. By distinguishing epistemologies and analysing their implications, this analysis provides insight into the techno-scientific foundations of predictive policing and enables us to critically engage with the socio-technical practices of algorithmic crime forecasting. (shrink)

Eristic has been studied more and more intensively in recent years in philosophy, law, communication theory, logic, proof theory, and A.I. Nevertheless, the modern origins of eristic, which almost all current researchers see in the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, are considered to be a theory of the illegitimate use of logical and rhetorical devices. Thus, eristic seems to violate the norms of discourse ethics. In this paper, I argue that this interpretation of eristic is based on prejudices that contradict the original (...) intention of modern eristic. Eristic is not an art of being right or winning an argument, but an art of protecting oneself from the one who deliberately violates norms of discourse ethics to gain argumentative acceptance. For this reason, eristic must be seen as a discipline of Enlightenment philosophy and a correlate of discourse ethics. Especially in the age of alternative facts and post-factual politics, this makes eristic a valuable discipline. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the connection between the causal exclusion argument and the supervenience argument and, in particular, with two exclusion principles that figure prominently in these arguments. Our aim is, first, to reconstruct the dialectics of the two arguments by formalizing them and by relating them to an anti-physicalist argument by Scott Sturgeon. In a second step, we assess the conclusiveness of the two arguments. We demonstrate that the conclusion of both the causal exclusion argument and the supervenience (...) argument (a negation of the so called ?non-identity premise?) is not tantamount to the claim that all mental events are identical to physical events and that a cause-supervenience exclusion principle is actually required for the validity of the first stage of the supervenience argument. Moreover, we show that this new exclusion principle makes an epiphenomenalism with respect to mental events an impossible position, and that there are good reasons to believe in its falsity, rendering the supervenience argument inconclusive. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the question of whether a person’s existence can be better (or worse) for him than his non-existence. Recently, Nils Holtug and Melinda A. Roberts have defended an affirmative answer. These defenses, I shall argue, do not succeed. In different ways, Holtug and Roberts have got the metaphysics and axiology wrong. However, I also argue that a person’s existence can after all be better (or worse) for him than his non-existence, though for reasons other than those (...) provided by Holtug and Roberts. (shrink)

A prominent objection to the counterfactual comparative account of harm is that it classifies as harmful some events that are, intuitively, mere failures to benefit. In an attempt to solve this problem, Duncan Purves has recently proposed a novel version of the counterfactual comparative account, which relies on a distinction between making upshots happen and allowing upshots to happen. In this response, we argue that Purves’s account is unsuccessful. It fails in cases where an action makes the subject occupy a (...) high well-being level though one of the available alternatives would have made it even higher. In fact, it fails even in some cases where each of the available alternatives to the action that was actually performed would have made the subject’s well-being level lower. (shrink)

Counterfactual conditionals have been appealed to in various ways to show how the mind can be causally efficacious. However, it has often been overestimated what the truth of certain counterfactuals actually indicates about causation. The paper first identifies four approaches that seem to commit precisely this mistake. The arguments discussed involve erroneous assumptions about the connection of counterfactual dependence and genuine causation, as well as a disregard of the requisite evaluation conditions of counterfactuals. In a second step, the paper uses (...) the insights of the foregoing analyses to formulate a set of counterfactuals-based conditions that are characterized as sufficient to establish singular causal claims. The paper concludes that there are ample reasons to believe that some mental events satisfy all these conditions with respect to certain further events and, hence, that mental events sometimes are causes. (shrink)

In his recent book, Death and the Afterlife, Samuel Scheffler argues that it matters greatly to us that there be other human beings long after our own deaths. In support of this “Afterlife Thesis,” as I call it, he provides a thought experiment—the “doomsday scenario”—in which we learn that, although we ourselves will live a normal life span, 30 days after our death the earth will be completely destroyed. In this paper I question this “doomsday scenario” support for Scheffler’s Afterlife (...) Thesis. In particular, I suggest that Scheffler has underestimated the importance of a good ending. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to develop a semantics for Calculus CL. CL is a diagrammatic calculus based on a logic machine presented by Johann Christian Lange in 1714, which combines features of Euler-, Venn-type, tree diagrams, squares of oppositions etc. In this chapter, it is argued that a Boolean account of formal ontology in CL helps to deal with logical oppositions and inferences of extended syllogistics. The result is a combination of Lange’s diagrams with an algebraic semantics of (...) terms: Bit-CL, in which any ordered objects are identified by characteristic bitstrings. Then, a number of objections to Bit-CL are answered to, and the process of inference is explained in this new logical framework. (shrink)

I raise two objections against Christian List and Peter Menzies' influential account of high-level causation. Improving upon some of Stephen Yablo's earlier work, I develop an alternative theory which evades both objections. The discussion calls into question List and Menzies' main contention, namely, that the exclusion principle, applied to difference-making, is false.

Aufstieg zum Einen - das ist das Zentrum der Philosophie Plotins und des von ihm ausgehenden Neuplatonismus. Dass solcher Aufstieg zum Einen aber auch schon bei Platon eine zentrale Rolle spielt, gehört zu den wichtigsten Einsichten der neueren Platonforschung. Das vorliegende Buch zieht daraus die Konsequenz und bestimmt das Verhältnis zwischen Platon und dem Neuplatonismus neu. Es verbindet die erste umfassende Darstellung von Plotins Theorie des Absoluten mit einer Rekonstruktion von Platons Henologie. Dabei arbeitet es die enge Verbindung beider heraus (...) und macht zugleich die bleibende philosophische Relevanz des Themas deutlich. (shrink)

Novel neurotechnologies like deep brain stimulation and brain-computer interfaces promise clinical benefits for severely suffering patients. Nevertheless, such electroceuticals raise several ethical issues on different levels: while on the level of clinical neuroethics issues with direct relevance for diagnosis and treatment have to be discussed, on the level of research neuroethics questions regarding research and development of these technological devices like investigating new targets and different diseases as well as thorough inclusion criteria are dealt with. On the level of theoretical (...) neuroethics more general questions are examined including anthropological considerations on “normal” human functioning as well as implications on personality, personal identity and authenticity. This paper presents a brief review on ethical issues of deep brain stimulation and brain computer interfacing and simultaneously introduces to this themed issue with thirteen contributions dealing from different perspectives with ethical implications of electroceuticals for the human brain. (shrink)

Derek Parfit famously defends a number of surprising views about "fission." One is that, in such a scenario, it is indeterminate whether I have survived or not. Another is that the fission case shows that it does not matter, in itself, whether I survive or not. Most critics of the first view contend that fission makes me cease to exist. Most opponents of the second view contend that fission does not preserve everything that matters in ordinary survival. In this paper (...) I shall provide a critique that does not rely on either of these contentions. There are other, interrelated reasons to reject Parfit's defense of the two theses. In particular, the availability of the following view creates trouble for Parfit: I determinately survive fission, but it is indeterminate which fission product I am. (shrink)

IntroductionIf we were to identify the beginning of the study of visual argumentation, we would have to choose 1996 as the starting point. This was the year that Leo Groarke published “Logic, art and argument” in Informal logic, and it was the year that he and David Birdsell co-edited a special double issue of Argumentation and Advocacy on visual argumentation . Among other papers, the issue included Anthony Blair’s “The possibility and actuality of visual arguments”. It was also the year (...) that Gail J. Chryslee, Sonja K. Foss and Arthur L. Ranney published their short text on “The construction of claims in visual argumentation” , stating that even though theorists may know a great deal about the process of argumentation, “virtually none of this knowledge is applicable to visual argumentation […] because of the properties that distinguish visual imagery from discursive symbols” .Texts on visual rhetoric have been written as far back as the early 1980s, .. (shrink)

Some forms of argumentation are best performed through words. However, there are also some forms of argumentation that may be best presented visually. Thus, this paper examines the virtues of visual argumentation. What makes visual argumentation distinct from verbal argumentation? What aspects of visual argumentation may be considered especially beneficial?

A central claim in abortion ethics is what might be called the Harm Claim – the claim that abortion harms the fetus. In this article, we put forward a simple and straightforward reason to reject the Harm Claim. Rather than invoking controversial assumptions about personal identity, or some nonstandard account of harm, as many other critics of the Harm Claim have done, we suggest that the aborted fetus cannot be harmed for the simple reason that it does not occupy any (...) well-being level. (shrink)

National Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategies articulate imaginaries of the integration of AI into society and envision the governing of AI research, development and applications accordingly. To integrate these central aspects of national AI strategies under one coherent perspective, this paper presented an analysis of Germany’s strategy ‘AI made in Germany’ through the conceptual lens of ordoliberal political rationality. The first part of the paper analyses how the guiding vision of a human-centric AI not only adheres to ethical and legal principles (...) consistent with Germany’s liberal democratic constitutional system but also addresses the risks and promises inherent to the ordoliberal problematization of freedom. Second, it is scrutinized how the strategy cultivates the fear of not achieving technological sovereignty in the AI sector. Thereby, it frames the global AI race as a race of competing (national) approaches to governing AI and articulates an ordoliberal approach to governing AI (the ‘third way’), according to which government has to operate between the twin dangers of governing too much and not governing enough. Third, the paper analyses how this ordoliberal proportionality of governing structures Germany’s Science Technology & Innovation Policy. It is shown that the corresponding risk-based approach of regulating AI constitutes a security apparatus as it produces an assessment of fears: weighting the fear of the failure to innovate with the fear of the ramifications of innovation. Finally, two lines of critical engagement based on this analysis are conducted. (shrink)

In this paper, we critically examine Molly Gardner’s favored solution to what she calls “the problem of justified harm.” We argue that Gardner’s view is false and that her arguments in support of it are unconvincing. Finally, we briefly suggest an alternative solution to the problem which avoids the difficulties that beset Gardner’s proposal.

Under the influence of groundbreaking work by John Meyer and Brian Rowen, as well as Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell, over the last 30 years research in the new sociological institutionalism has focused on processes of isomorphism. I argue that this is a one-sided focus that leaves out many insights from other institutional and macrosociological approaches and does not do justice to actual social change because it overlooks the role played by divergent institutional development. While the suggestion of divergent trends (...) is not new, there have been few attempts to integrate divergence into the theoretical premises of the new sociological institutionalism. Based on the typology proposed by DiMaggio and Powell, I show that the mechanisms identified by them as sources of isomorphic change can support processes of divergent change as well. The theoretical challenge is to identify conditions under which these mechanisms push institutional change toward homogenization or divergence. (shrink)

Reism or concretism are the labels for a position in ontology and semantics that is represented by various philosophers. As Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz and Jan Woleński have shown, there are two dimensions with which the abstract expression of reism can be made concrete: The ontological dimension of reism says that only things exist; the semantic dimension of reism says that all concepts must be reduced to concrete terms in order to be meaningful. In this paper we argue for the following two (...) theses: (1) Arthur Schopenhauer has advocated a reistic philosophy of language which says that all concepts must ultimately be based on concrete intuition in order to be meaningful. (2) In his semantics, Schopenhauer developed a theory of logic diagrams that can be interpreted by modern means in order to concretize the abstract position of reism. Thus we are not only enhancing Jan Woleński’s list of well-known reists, but we are also adding a diagrammatic dimension to concretism, represented by Schopenhauer. (shrink)

John Martin Fischer and Anthony L. Brueckner have argued that a person’s death is, in many cases, bad for him, whereas a person’s prenatal non-existence is not bad for him. Their suggestion relies on the idea that death deprives the person of pleasant experiences that it is rational for him to care about, whereas prenatal non-existence only deprives him of pleasant experiences that it is not rational for him to care about. In two recent articles in The Journal of Ethics, (...) I have objected that it is irrelevant what it is in fact rational for the person to care about. Fischer and Brueckner have replied to my critique. In this paper I respond to their latest pair of replies. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to settle the controversy around Kant’s notorious discussion of maternal infanticide in the ‘Doctrine of Right’ of 1797. How should a state punish an unmarried mother who has killed her newborn infant? The text (at DoR VI 335–37) is obscure. Three readings have been defended in the literature: 1. Lenience. Maternal infanticide does not count as murder; so, capital punishment is inappropriate. On this view, the child does not enjoy the full recognition of the (...) law (this is the standard view). 2. Temporary privilege. Lenience should prevail as long as social attitudes are barbaric and treating maternal infanticide like regular cases of murder is perceived to be unjust. The regular punishment for murder will be appropriate once sexual mores have changed. The child will then enjoy the full protection of the law (Hruschka, Varden). 3. No lenience. Capital punishment, though it appears to be unjust, is actually just and ought to be applied. Any child, whether born to married parents or not, enjoys the full protection of the law (Brandt, Uleman). Based on a close examination of the passage and the context of contemporary laws and attitudes, Kant is not, it will be argued, advocating lenience but certain legislative reforms, which are needed to dispel the perception that capital punishment is unjust. Progressive legislation will change social attitudes, not vice versa. Moreover, it will be shown that Kant does not, appearances notwithstanding, endorse the thesis that a child born out of wedlock has been smuggled into the state like ‘prohibited goods’ or ‘contraband merchandise’, which would deprive the child of the protection of the state; that is the view with which Kant saddles Cesare Beccaria. (shrink)

Logicians commonly speak in a relatively undifferentiated way about pre-euler diagrams. The thesis of this paper, however, is that there were three periods in the early modern era in which euler-type diagrams (line diagrams as well as circle diagrams) were expansively used. Expansive periods are characterized by continuity, and regressive periods by discontinuity: While on the one hand an ongoing awareness of the use of euler-type diagrams occurred within an expansive period, after a subsequent phase of regression the entire knowledge (...) about the systematic application and the history of euler-type diagrams was lost. I will argue that the first expansive period lasted from Vives (1531) to Alsted (1614). The second period began around 1660 with Weigel and ended in 1712 with lange. The third period of expansion started around 1760 with the works of Ploucquet, euler and lambert. Finally, it is shown that euler-type diagrams became popular in the debate about intuition which took place in the 1790s between leibnizians and Kantians. The article is thus limited to the historical periodization between 1530 and 1800. (shrink)

Includes articles by: Ulrich Arnswald, Jens Kertscher, Matthias Kross, Thomas Macho, Walter Mesch, Dieter Mersch, Regine Munz, Hans Julius Schneider, Hans-Peter Schutt, Ilse Somavilla, Samuel C. Wheeler III, Anja Weiberg, Rüdiger Zill.

Several attractive principles about prudential concern and moral responsibility seem to speak against animalism. I criticize some animalist responses to this kind of problem, and suggest another answer, which has similarites with the most important argument in favor of animalism: the “thinking animal” argument.

Elizabeth Anscombes 1958 erschienene Monographie Intention (Absicht) gilt als Klassiker der der Handlungstheorie des 20. Jahrhunderts. Das vorliegende Buch knüpft an das erneut wachsende Interesse an Anscombes Philosophie an und bietet erstmals in deutscher Sprache eine durchgängige Werkinterpretation von „Intention“. Anscombes Buch wird in den Kontext ihres Werks gestellt und vor dem Hintergrund ihrer Anknüpfung an die aristotelisch-thomistische Tradition der Handlungsreflexion sowie an die Spätphilosophie Wittgensteins diskutiert. Dabei werden Fehldeutungen korrigiert, die die Rezeption von Anscombes Handlungstheorie nach wie vor erschweren.

Logic diagrams have seen a resurgence in their application in a range of fields, including logic, biology, media science, computer science and philosophy. Consequently, understanding the history and philosophy of these diagrams has become crucial. As many current diagrammatic systems in logic are based on ideas that originated in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is important to consider what motivated the use of logic diagrams in the past and whether these reasons are still valid today. This paper proposes that (...) transcendental philosophy was a key inspiration for the development of logic diagrams and that such diagrams can be employed in transcendental arguments, even after the linguistic turn. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze and discuss Schopenhauer’s n-term diagrams for eristic dialectics from a graph-theoretical perspective. Unlike logic, eristic dialectics does not examine the validity of an isolated argument, but the progression and persuasiveness of an argument in the context of a dialogue or even controversy. To represent these dialogue situations, Schopenhauer created large maps with concepts and Euler-type diagrams, which from today’s perspective are a specific form of graphs. We first present the original method with Euler-type diagrams, then (...) give the most important graph-theoretical definitions, then discuss Schopenhauer’s diagrams graph-theoretically and finally give an example of how the graphs or diagrams can be used to analyze dialogues. (shrink)

Civil society participation in international and European governance is often promoted as a remedy to its much-lamented democratic deficit. We argue in this paper that this claim needs refinement because civil society participation may serve two quite different purposes: it may either enhance the democratic accountability of intergovernmental organisations and regimes, or the epistemic quality of rules and decisions made within them. (...).

This article examines the role of moral arguments in the delegitimation of transition policies. Previous research has highlighted attitudes and arguments that explain resistance against transition policies, including perceptions of unfairness; inefficiency and effectiveness; lack of trust; and ideology. This article provides further understanding of resistance to climate policies by zooming in on how social movements implicitly and explicitly use moral arguments to delegitimise low-carbon transition policies. Through a qualitative interview study with members of a Swedish social media movement against (...) low-carbon transport policies, we analyse central arguments against policies; how moral considerations figure in them; and how these strengthen argumentative delegitimation practices against transition policies in the transport sector. We show how moral arguments serve to legitimise protests both by instilling an urgency in the cause and generalising the demands to delegitimise mainstream transition policies, and suggest that recognition of this may contribute to both better analysis and policies. (shrink)

In light of the problem of logical omniscience, some scholars have argued that belief is question-sensitive: agents don't simply believe propositions but rather believe answers to questions. Hoek (2022) has recently developed a version of this approach on which a belief state is a "web" of questions and answers. Here, we present several challenges to Hoek's question-sensitive account of belief. First, Hoek's account is prone to very similar logical omniscience problems as those he claims to address. Second, the link between (...) belief and action he proposes is too rigid. We close by sketching a generalization of the account that can meet these challenges. (shrink)

We investigate the mathematics of a model of the human mind which has been proposed by the psychologist Jens Mammen. Mathematical realizations of this model consists of what the first author (A.T.) has called Mammen spaces, where a Mammen space is a triple in the Baumgartner–Laver model.Finally, consequences for psychology are discussed.

From the mid-1600s to the beginning of the eighteenth century, there were two main circles of German scholars which focused extensively on diagrammatic reasoning and representation in logic. The first circle was formed around Erhard Weigel in Jena and consists primarily of Johann Christoph Sturm and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; the second circle developed around Christian Weise in Zittau, with the support of his students, particularly Samuel Grosser and Johann Christian Lange. Each of these scholars developed an original form of using (...) geometric diagrams in logic. In this paper, I will trace the historical notes of John Venn and other modern logicians back to the original works published in the Weigel and Weise circles and describe the development of using geometric figures for logical reasoning and representation in that period of time. (shrink)