Cerkveni očetje so bili v srednjeveških pridigah med najbolj pogosto navajanimi avtoritetami, takoj za Svetim pismom. Citati so se uporabljali na različne načine: kot eksegeza prebranega, kot komentar moralnega nauka ali kot močan argument za določeno izjavo. Hieronim je sodil v srednjem veku med najpomembnejše avtoritete, njegove odlomke in citate je najti v številnih zbirkah pridig. Prispevek predstavi recepcijo svetega Hieronima v zbirki pridig iz 15. stoletja, znani kot Sermones Discipuli de tempore et de sanctis cum Promptuario exemplorum et de (...) miraculis Beatae Mariae Virginis, ki jo je napisal nemški dominikanec Johannes Herolt (†1468). V tej zbirki so citati iz različnih Hieronimovih del, večinoma iz njegovih pisem. Kljub poudarku Hieronimovih besedilih analiza vključuje tudi odlomke iz t. i. psevdo-Hieronima. (shrink)

Future weapons will make life-or-death decisions without a human in the loop. When such weapons inflict unwarranted harm, no one appears to be responsible. There seems to be a responsibility gap. I first reconstruct the argument for such responsibility gaps to then argue that this argument is not sound. The argument assumes that commanders have no control over whether autonomous weapons inflict harm. I argue against this assumption. Although this investigation concerns a specific case of autonomous weapons systems, I take (...) steps towards vindicating the more general idea that superiors can be morally responsible in virtue of being in command. (shrink)

While organizations today make extensive use of complex algorithms, the notion of algorithmic accountability remains an elusive ideal due to the opacity and fluidity of algorithms. In this article, we develop a framework for managing algorithmic accountability that highlights three interrelated dimensions: reputational concerns, engagement strategies, and discourse principles. The framework clarifies that accountability processes for algorithms are driven by reputational concerns about the epistemic setup, opacity, and outcomes of algorithms; that the way in which organizations practically engage with emergent (...) expectations about algorithms may be manipulative, adaptive, or moral; and that when accountability relationships are heavily burdened by the opacity and fluidity of complex algorithmic systems, the emphasis of engagement should shift to a rational communication process through which a continuous and tentative assessment of the development, workings, and consequences of algorithms can be achieved over time. The degree to which such engagement is, in fact, rational can be assessed based on four discourse-ethical principles of participation, comprehension, multivocality, and responsiveness. We conclude that the framework may help organizations and their environments to jointly work toward greater accountability for complex algorithms. It may further help organizations in reputational positioning surrounding accountability issues. The discourse-ethical principles introduced in this article are meant to elevate these positioning contests to extend beyond mere adaption or compliance and help guide organizations to find moral and forward-looking solutions to accountability issues. (shrink)

Isaac Levi is more interested in inquiry and how it progresses than he is in metaphysics. Questions concerning the role of disposition predicates in inquiry are more central to him than those concerning the nature and reality of dispositions. It has not stopped him from giving me and others very useful metaphysical advice. Currently, where empirical metaphysics is in vogue, there is every reason to see whether the two forms of philosophical interest might interlock substantially. Levi has stimulating ideas indeed (...) on the two forms of philosophical interest, and has recently summarized them in the slogan: “The reality of dispositions is a work in progress”. We can learn much about what kinds of dispositions are acceptable from tracing and comparing the histories of successful and less successful disposition predicates in scientific inquiry. Levi explores one route along which dispositions become real. His idea is that the introduction of dispositions facilitates covering law explanation by increasing the number of laws. The successful disposition predicate eventually becomes integrated in scientific theory, much like an ordinary theoretical term, whereas the unsuccessful does not. My impression is that Levi thinks that this is the only way a disposition can become real. To evaluate this claim, an alternative course suggested by Jon Elster is introduced. I then try to bring out the differences between Levi's and Elster's views on dispositions, partly by suggesting that they resemble two aspects of full explanations discussed by Wesley Salmon. But more about that below. (shrink)

In social evolution theory, biological individuals are often represented on the model of rational agents, that is, as if they were ‘seeking’ to maximize their own (expected) reproductive success. In the 1990s, important criticisms of this mode of thinking were made by Brian Skyrms ([1994], [1996]) and Elliott Sober ([1998]), who both argued that ‘rational agent’ models can lead to incorrect predictions when there are positive correlations between individuals’ phenotypes. In this article, I argue that one model of rational choice—namely, (...) Savage’s model ([1954])—can actually be vindicated in evolutionary biology, provided that the pay-offs are computed in inclusive fitness terms. I also show that the use of this model is better avoided when pay-offs are non-additive, or when certain causal influences (due to manipulative behaviours) affect the outcome of natural selection. The result is a partial rehabilitation of this mode of thinking, conditional on both the additivity of the pay-off structure and the absence of any form of manipulation or coercion. 1 Introduction2 When Natural Selection and Rational Deliberation Part Ways3 A Simple Solution: Redefining the Pay-offs in Inclusive Fitness Terms4 Sober on Inclusive Fitness Maximization5 Inclusive Fitness with Non-additive Pay-offs6 Causal Influences and the Savage– Hamilton Model6.1 Reciprocity and partner choice6.2 Coercion and manipulation7 ConclusionAppendix. (shrink)

he paper examines the thesis that participants in shared intentional activities have first-person plural ‘practical knowledge’ of what they are jointly doing, in the sense of ‘practical knowledge’ articulated by G.E.M Anscombe. Who is supposed to be the subject of such knowledge? The group, or members of the group, or both? It is argued that progress with this issue requires conceiving of collective activities as instances, not of supra-personal agency, but of interpersonal agency; specifically: as involving communication. There is a (...) sense, it is suggested, in which the basic form of plural practical knowledge is relational: ‘I am doing x with you.’. (shrink)

What is the significance of attentiveness in teaching? A spontaneous answer would be that attentiveness is a crucial aspect in the practice of teaching, because if the students do not pay attention...

Malgré leurs divergences, les interprètes sont en général d’accord sur le fait que pour Aristote, le lieu est bidimensionnel et peu significatif du point de vue de l’ontologie. Dernièrement, ces présupposés ont cependant été remis en question par Casey et Lang. Dans cet article, c’est la position traditionnelle qui est défendue, et j’argumente en faveur de l’idée qu’Aristote développe sa théorie du lieu à partir du point de vue d’une mécanique du mouvement spatial et des outils nécessaires à un corps (...) organique pour son mouvement dans l’espace – et non à partir d’une théorie de la localisation des corps. Pour finir, la méthodologie aristotélicienne est comparée avec la physique contemporaine depuis Descartes. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research in the fields of forestry and sustainability studies often encounters seemingly incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The perceived incompatibilities might emerge from the epistemological and ontological claims of the theories or models directly employed in the interdisciplinary collaboration, or they might be created by other epistemological and ontological assumptions that these interdisciplinary researchers find no reason to question. In this paper we discuss the benefits and risks of two possible approaches, Popperian optimism and Kuhnian (...) pessimism, to interdisciplinary knowledge integration where epistemological and ontological differences between the sciences involved can be expected. (shrink)

In Being and Time, Division One, Chapter 4, Heidegger develops the structures “Being-with and Dasein-with [Mitsein and Mitdasein]” and “what we might call the ‘subject’ of everydayness—the ‘they’”. In the last section of the chapter, Section 27, Heidegger presents six characters of the ‘they’, namely, “distantiality, averageness, levelling down, publicness, the disburdening of one’s Being, and accomodation”. The meaning of the last five characters is relatively unproblematic. For instance, by “averageness” Heidegger obviously wants to indicate that the ‘they’ establishes a (...) set of behavioural patterns as normal and ‘natural’. For example, at certain junctures of their lives, individual Daseine have to choose, or are able to choose, among several options within a given set of options. However, the entire set of options as such has already been adopted by them in a self-evident way and without much thought. The ‘they’ forces this choice by suppressing other possibilities and other ways of handling given possibilities. Thus, the respective averageness results from a screening process in which the ‘they’ constantly rules out other possibilities or prevents them from emerging in the first place. Heidegger calls this “the ‘levelling down’ [Einebnung] of all possibilities of Being”. However, the first character, distantiality, seems more difficult to understand. In the English translation, Heidegger characterizes it thus. (shrink)

Our main considerations take as a starting point the educational policy demand for a model of competence of text comprehension, which should make it possible to measure and systematically increase comprehension accomplishments and competences. The approach of classical cognitive psychology appears particularly suitable for this purpose, which determines comprehension as a rule-guided transfer of a sign complex into a mental representation. However, such representationalism tends to be aporetic in character. A way out of this problem is offered by recent concepts (...) of understanding from the area ofEmbodied Cognition, according to which all mental operations are embedded in physical interaction processes. Comprehension means, in this sense, letting physical primary experiences be reproduced in a trial-action fashion. This approach is, in this paper, reconsidered in relation to the role of subjectivity and affect: Physical experiences are meaning-generating because they exhibit a subjectively perceived affective valence between pleasure and suffering. The beginning of all understanding therefore is to be located within the emotional sphere.Such a conception of understanding is supposed to have a considerable impact upon language- and literature teaching in schools. For example, training of reading skills should always be embedded in body-bound experiences. Moreover, learning and understanding both mean cultivating an alert ear for affective undertones, needs and irritations, which might even lead to drawing the curricular benchmarks and competency targets into question. Finally, as art and literature establish areas of freedom and play, literature teaching, especially, needs to be founded on affective awareness, discursive openness and proceeding voluntariness. (shrink)

Kripke’s theory of truth is arguably the most influential approach to self-referential truth and the semantic paradoxes. The use of a partial evaluation scheme is crucial to the theory and the most prominent schemes that are adopted are the strong Kleene and the supervaluation scheme. The strong Kleene scheme is attractive because it ensures the compositionality of the notion of truth. But under the strong Kleene scheme classical tautologies do not, in general, turn out to be true and, as a (...) consequence, classical reasoning is no longer admissible once the notion of truth is involved. The supervaluation scheme adheres to classical reasoning but violates compositionality. Moreover, it turns Kripke’s theory into a rather complicated affair: to check whether a sentence is true we have to look at all admissible precisification of the interpretation of the truth predicate we are presented with. One consequence of this complicated evaluation condition is that under the supervaluation scheme a more proof-theoretic characterization of Kripke’s theory becomes inherently difficult, if not impossible. In this paper we explore the middle ground between the strong Kleene and the supervaluation scheme and provide an evaluation scheme that adheres to classical reasoning but retains many of the attractive features of the strong Kleene scheme. We supplement our semantic investigation with a novel axiomatic theory of truth that matches the semantic theory we have put forth. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss recent evidence from experimental economics on the impact of social preferences on workplace behavior. We focus on situations in which a single employer interacts with multiple employees. Traditionally, equity and efficiency have been seen as opposing aims in such work environments: individual pay-for-performance wage schemes maximize of efficiency but might lead to inequitable outcomes. We present findings from laboratory experiments that show under which circumstances partially incomplete contracts can create equitable work environments while at the (...) same time reaching surprisingly efficient outcomes. (shrink)

In mainstream educational trends and in particular in public debate, one might perceive a rather superfi cial/uncritical handling of the concept of ‘subject matter’, a handling which infl uences political decisions considerably. This article sets out to analyze the concept of ‘subject matter’ and makes the point that it is both intimately connected to a one dimensional idea of utility and that it as concept marginalizes teaching’s nature of encounter and dialogue, and hereby narrows ‘school’ to ‘learning’ and to some (...) few basic subjects. Furthermore the argument is made that by comparing this narrow utility-like concept to the aesthetics the concept of subject matter can be qualifi ed as closely bound to a form-content side and this in turn opens up to the aspect of character formation. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Habermas fragt vor dem Hintergrund geschwächter Kräfte der sozialen Integration in kritischem Bezug auf Carl Schmitt nach dem vernünftigen Sinn der alteuropäischen Kategorie des Politischen. Schmitt versteht seinen Begriff des Politischen im Sinne des jus reformandi, mit dem sich die Reformatoren für das Politische in seiner klassischen Gestalt und für religiösen Zwang entscheiden. Habermas erhofft sich einen komplementären Lernprozess von religiösen und säkularen Bürgern und vom eschatologischen Denken einer unter demokratischen Bedingungen erneuerten Politischen Theologie, dass es gegenüber einem idealisierenden, (...) normativen Denken ‚Zeitempfindlichkeit‘ einklagt. Sein Ansatz bei der in Geschichte und Sprache inkarnierten Vernunft ist einer am Ereignis des Wortes Gottes und der Kommunikation des Evangeliums orientierten Theologie eng verbunden und hilft deren Bedeutung für das Politische zu klären. (shrink)

Many liberal theories are committed to the promotion of population health, and the principle of non-interference in individual life plans. Public health interventions often bring out a tension between these two values. In this paper, I examine this tension by assessing the justifiability of liberty-restricting policies in the field of obesity prevention. As I want to show, a ‘soft’ form of paternalism, which interferes with people's choices to safeguard their true interests, goes some way in justifying such policies, but it (...) leaves unaddressed the problem of limiting the liberty of those whose true interest is in pursuing an unhealthy lifestyle. I argue that in this latter case, the key to reconcile the promotion of population health with the respect for individual liberty is distributive justice: when we cannot help those who care about their health without doing the same for those who do not, fairness will often require us to do so. (shrink)

During the last decades, social mechanisms have been broadly discussed in general sociology, but, in family sociology, they seem to be non-existent. Therefore, the first aim of this paper is to show that., although the term can hardly be found, prominent theoretical ideas use more or less explicitly mechanistic explanations. Focusing on the determinants of separation can show that all arguments connect (structural) input with (social) outcome and search for theoretical explanations in the sense of social mechanisms. We will demonstrate (...) how macro-structural traits are mechanistically connected with individual variables and how they lead to a stable or fragile partnership. As often mentioned, “mechanism-based storytelling” (Hedström/Ylikoski 2010, 64) should be accompanied by empirical research. Therefore, in a simple statistical model in the second part, we will show the results of our testing of some examples of well-known variables for the explanation of separations. It will show how correlations can be mechanistically explained and not simply statistically described. (shrink)

Zur Einführung.--Wissen und Glaube.--Das gebiet der leblosen Natur.--Die lebendigen Wesen.--Die seele der Grosshirntiere und ihr verhăltnis zum Menschen.--Die Abstammungslehre.--Der ursprung des Lebens auf der Erde.--Die abstammung des Menschen.--Ausblick in metaphysische Ferne.

This paper is a concluding speech of the Collegium Logicum that was held in Wittenberg from 20th October 1608 until 12th January 1609.

Proven experience can be shared. Given this, we cannot assume that the character of proven experience is always manifest as a physical token in each individual sharing it. But the token might still exist somewhere. Perhaps that is a condition of the proven experience’s existence. Something similar could have been accepted as true of scientific knowledge, especially if those who argued that scientific claims were only shorthand for more complicated claims about observations had been right. But it seems that they (...) were not. Hence there might be an ontological difference explaining why there will always be a netto divergence between science and proven experience. (shrink)

Im vorliegenden Buch geht es um die methodologische und epistemologische Charakterisierung der Computersimulation. Zu diesem Zweck werden Computermodelle vor der Kontrastfolie mathematischer Modelle betrachtet. Eine Strategie der Mathematisierung zielt darauf ab, komplexe Ph nomene in idealisierter Form zu modellieren und so die Komplexit t zu reduzieren. Die Simulation markiert das Ende dieser Strategie: Die Modelle werden nun selbst komplex und erhalten eine partielle Autonomie. Insbesondere der Prozess der Simulationsmodellierung erf hrt gegen ber traditioneller mathematischer Modellierung eine Transformation. Als zentrale Merkmale (...) der Simulationsmodellierung werden anhand typischer Beispiele analysiert: Artifizialit t, Experimentieren, Visualisierung, Plastizit t und epistemische Opazit t. Erst aus der Verkn pfung dieser Merkmale resultiert ein philosophisch neuartiges Bild, das wiederum zum Diskurs um das Verh ltnis von Wissenschaft und Technik beitr gt. (shrink)

The possibility of apparently negative causation has been discussed in a number of recent works on causation, but the discussion has suffered from beingscattered. In this paper, the problem of apparently negative causation and its attemptedsolutions are examined in more detail. I discuss and discard three attempts that have beensuggested in the literature. My conclusion is negative: Negative causation shows that thetraditional cause & effect view is inadequate. A more unified causal perspective is needed.