Some of our beliefs are institutional; that is, beliefs whose content is to a large extent shaped by institutions, such as beliefs about intellectual property, trade policy, or traffic rules. In this chapter, we propose a novel account of institutional beliefs, as we call them. In particular, we argue that institutional beliefs are primarily attributable to social entities, such as groups or collectives, and only secondarily to individual agents. This is because institutional beliefs respond to specific problems that, in principle, (...) only collectives face. However, existing methodology in behavioural science primarily relies on eliciting beliefs through individual choice data, which presents challenges for empirically modelling our proposed concept of institutional beliefs. To address this challenge, we propose to speak of institutional beliefs attributable to individual agents as ‘qua beliefs’. That is, institutional beliefs attributable to individual agents acting qua members of certain institutionally shaped groups. Within this framework, individuals’ qua actions occur in a shared realm of problems that can only be addressed through collective efforts. The relationship between individuals and their groups can be rendered tractable under formalised conditions. Under these conditions, choice data collected from individuals need not obstruct the elicitation of institutional beliefs for empirical study at both the collective and the individual level. We refer to these conditions as “IS conditions”, which are developed based on the synthesis between an interpretationist understanding of mental states and standard models of revealed preference theory as used in experimental economics. For an illustration of how this approach can be operationalised experimentally, we direct our readers to chapter 10 of this volume, where an experimental study applied our account of institutional beliefs. (shrink)

Proceedings of a conference held Dec. 4-5, 1998 at the Universit'at G'ottingen.

The target article highlights the sources of open-endedness of human communication. However, the authors' perspective does not account for the structure of particular communication systems. To this end, we extend the authors' perspective, in the spirit of evolutionary extended synthesis, with a detailed account of the sources of constraints imposed upon expression in the course of child development.

We examine second order intuitionistic propositional logic, IPC². Let $F_\exists $ be the set of formulas with no universal quantification. We prove Glivenko's theorem for formulas in $F_\exists $ that is, for φ € $F_\exists $ φ is a classical tautology if and only if ¬¬φ is a tautology of IPC². We show that for each sentence φ € $F_\exists $ (without free variables), φ is a classical tautology if and only if φ is an intuitionistic tautology. As a corollary (...) we obtain a semantic argument that the quantifier V is not definable in IPC² from ⊥, V, ^, →. (shrink)

Two major philosophical movements have sought to fundamentally rethink the relationship between humans and their environment(s): environmental ethics and enactivism. Surprisingly, they virtually never refer to or seek inspiration from each other. The goal of this analysis is to bridge the gap. Our main purpose, then, is to address, from the enactivist angle, the conceptual backbone of environmental ethics, namely the concept of intrinsic value. We argue that intrinsic value does indeed exist, yet its "intrinsicality" does not boil down to (...) being independent of the interests and needs of humans. Rather, it is brought forth by what we callshared enactionof an axiological domain. The latter is built upon such core posits of enactivism as autonomy, enaction, participatory sense-making as well as the most recent concept of loving as knowing proposed by Hanne De Jaegher. (shrink)

Marc-Wogau, K. Mina filosofiska fördomar.--Gustafsson, L. Om klassifikation.--Kanger, S. Några synpunkter på begreppet inflytande.--Torstendahl, R. Minikrav, optimumnormer och paradigm i historisk vetenskap.--Lagerberg, D. Punktkommentarer till dialektiken.--Nordenfeldt, L. Om olika former av interaktion.--Puterman, Z. An indeterminist interpretation of Marx's historical determinism.--Carls, R. Kunskap och frihet.--Andersson, J. S. Some notions of pragmatic implication.--Tönisson, I. A preliminary study of interpreting K[subscript x]ø¹.--Bergström, L. Vilken handlingsutilitarism är den riktiga?--Alfredsson, T. Kärlekskoefficienter.--Segerberg, K. The assignment problem as a problem of social choice.--Åqvist, L. En tidslogisk variant (...) av Morgenstjärneparadoxen. (shrink)

Hugely controversial on publication, this is an insightful and characteristically entertaining survey of animal behaviour and the evolution of aggression throughout the animal world.

Space philosophy offers rich insights in the future and is already well‐developed new branch of philosophy. However, space philosophers still do not pay much attention to a number of bioethical issues that may occur in space. This paper aims to introduce space bioethics, as a new branch in space philosophy, space ethics and space policy, to the philosophical and bioethical discourse. The basic issues discussed in space bioethics include—but are not limited to—human reproduction in space and human enhancement for space. (...) This paper concludes that the new space bioethics should be a feminist new bioethics that is free from many of the historical biases associated with a male‐centred perspective in philosophy and bioethics. Bioethical issues in space have also impact on future political decisions related to objectives and nature of space missions. (shrink)

This article presents an empirical examination of the consequences of the virtual entailment principle proposed by Jean Buridan to resolve the Liar paradox. This principle states that every sentence in natural language implicitly asserts its own truth. Adopting this principle means that the Liar sentence is not paradoxical but false, because its content is contradictory to what is virtually implied. As a result, humans should perceive the Liar sentence the same way as any other false sentence. This solution to the (...) Liar paradox received criticism for making ad hoc claims about the natural language. However, thanks to modern advancements in psychophysiology, it became possible to empirically investigate if the human brain really perceives the Liar sentence like a false sentence. We designed and conducted an experiment to examine brain activity in response to true sentences, false sentences and self-referential sentences. Our results provide support for the Buridan’s hypothesis and show that the Liar sentence is processed by the human brain identically to false sentences, while the Truthteller sentence is perceived identically to true sentences. This agrees with predictions derived from the virtual entailment principle and supports the idea that humans think with the logic of truth—a logic for which the truth is a designated value of its adequate semantics. (shrink)

Religious beliefs can be explained in two different ways, cognitive and adaptationist. Each of them is another kind of explanation, one is proximate and the other ultimate. Each of them provides the other with a specific status for religious beliefs, such as by-product or adaptation. However, there is no clarity of how cognition itself could be religiously biased and how the religious/theistic approach could work as a default cognitive mode, as Cognitive Science of Religion suggests. I would like to criticize (...) cognitive assumptions in the study of religion and show how adaptationist accounts are preferable. I specifically focus on the functional context of religious components, the social and psychological applications. I suggest how discussing about a cognitive basis does not matter in these fields and the cognitive account cannot explain the ubiquity of religious components that lie in their function, rather than the alleged connection with cognition. (shrink)

In the processual approach to identity, the role of the interaction between subjective and contextual factors in the process of its development is emphasized. Based on the model of Luyckx et al. relationships between identity and educational context, as well as the tendency to experience shame and guilt were analyzed.. 821 people aged from 14-25 and belonging to six educational groups: lower secondary school, basic vocational school, technical upper secondary school, general upper secondary school, post-secondary school and university, took part (...) in the research. Two questionnaires were used: The Dimensions of Identity Development Scale, to allow the measurement of the five dimensions of identity postulated by Luyckx et al and The Personal Feelings Questionnaire-2 to measure of the shame and guilt proneness. The results show that general upper secondary school students in terms of the dimensions of identity are closer to lower secondary school students rather than to their peers from technical and vocational schools. Among general upper secondary school students not only was a higher intensity of an identity crisis observed, but also a strong tendency to experience shame and guilt. Among lower secondary school students and general upper secondary school students, people with diffusion and moratorium as identity statuses prevailed, while in the remaining groups the achievement and foreclosure identity were observed more frequently. A general relationship was also observed, namely, a greater tendency to experience shame was associated with a higher intensity of an identity crisis. (shrink)

Climate change poses a challenge to bioethics due to overpopulation and a declining quality of life, among other factors. In this article, we discuss four scenarios of possible human development in the near future. Two of them are horrible scenarios. One of them assumes that living conditions will significantly deteriorate and people will live in great poverty. The second of the horrible scenarios is one in which a large part of humanity will die. Two other, non-horrible scenarios offer more optimism, (...) either because of faith in technological capabilities, or because of faith in the development of human solidarity and social justice. In this article, we show why rational calculation suggests considering the horrible scenarios as the most realistic. (shrink)

The paper discusses the concept of the cognitive niche and distinguishes the latter from the metabolic niche. By using these posits I unpack certain ideas that are crucial for the enactivist movement, especially for its original formulation proposed by Varela, Thompson and Rosh. Drawing on the ontology of location, boundaries, and parthood, I argue that enacting the world can be seen as the process of cognitive niche construction. Moreover, it turns out that enactivism—as seen through the lens of the conceptual (...) framework proposed in the paper—considers cognition as a kind of connection between the subject and the world. This post is pointed to as the key idea laid down in enactivism. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPrior research and theory has suggested that rumination plays a role in nonsuicidal self-injury, and rumination increases recall of negative autobiographical information in dysphoric...

1. Die wissenschaftstheoretische Problemstellung seines ersten Systementwurfs -- 2. Der Übergang von Atomismus zu einem mechanistischen Aristotelismus -- 3. Eine Wissenschaft für ein aufgeklärtes Europa.

This article examines some selected ethical issues in human space missions including human missions to Mars, particularly the idea of a space refuge, the scientific value of space exploration, and the possibility of human gene editing for deep-space travel. Each of these issues may be used either to support or to criticize human space missions. We conclude that while these issues are complex and context-dependent, there appear to be no overwhelming obstacles such as cost effectiveness, threats to human life or (...) protection of pristine space objects, to sending humans to space and to colonize space. The article argues for the rationality of the idea of a space refuge and the defensibility of the idea of human enhancement applied to future deep-space astronauts. (shrink)

This article proposes a new approach to the question of why so few Arabic documents have survived in their original archival context. Taking the Mamluk period as a case study it argues that the category “archive” itself needs to be reconfigured, away from the idea of fixed archival spaces, or even a Mamluk state archive, toward archival practices. These archival practices were spread across the Mamluk realm and involved numerous actors, which included the central bureaucracy in Cairo, individual secretaries, and, (...) most importantly, the small-scale administration managed by officers. These archival practices emerge not from normative and narrative texts, but primarily from a consideration of archival traces on surviving documents. (shrink)

Solomon, the legend goes, had a magic ring which enabled him to speak to the animals in their own language. Konrad Lorenz was gifted with a similar power of understanding the animal world. He was that rare beast, a brilliant scientist who could write beautifully. He did more than any other person to establish and popularize the study of how animals behave, receiving a Nobel Prize for his work. King Solomon's Ring , the book which brought him worldwide recognition, (...) is a delightful treasury of observations and insights into the lives of all sorts of creatures, from jackdaws and water-shrews to dogs, cats and even wolves. Charmingly illustrated by Lorenz himself, this book is a wonderfully written introduction to the world of our furred and feathered friends, a world which often provides an uncanny resemblance to our own. A must for any animal-lover! (shrink)

The Values in Action (VIA) classification of character strengths and virtues has been recently proposed by two leading positive psychologists, Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman as “the social science equivalent of virtue ethics.” The very possibility of developing this kind of an “equivalent,” however, is very doubtful in the light of the cogent criticism that has been leveled at modern moral theory by Alasdair MacIntyre as well as the well argued accusations that positive psychology, despite its official normative neutrality, is (...) pervaded by specifically Western individualism and instrumentalism. In order to evaluate whether the VIA project can be considered as substantially rooted in virtue ethical tradition, the classification was assessed against two fundamental features of the classical version of the latter: (1) the substantial interconnectedness of individual virtues, as expressed by the thesis of the unity of virtue, and (2) the constitutive character of the relationship between virtue and happiness. It turned out, in result, that the two above features are not only absent from but also contradicted by the VIA framework with the latter's: (1′) construal of individual virtues and character strengths as independent variables and (2′) official endorsement of the fact/value distinction. As soon as the arguments for the superiority of the classical virtue ethical perspective are provided, the potential responses available to the VIA's proponents are discussed. (shrink)

The book is the first formulation of a meta-philosophical scheme rooted in the embodied cognition paradigm. The latter views subjects capable of cognition and experience as living, embodied creatures coupled with their environments. On the other hand, the emergence of experimental philosophy has given rise to a new context in which philosophers have begun to search for a more thorough definition of philosophical competence. The time is ripe for these two trends to join their efforts. Therefore, the book discusses what (...) it means for a human being thought of as a living subject to pursue philosophy. In this context, in contrast to the existing literature, philosophical competence must not be conflated with competence in philosophy. The former is a skill or attitude. The book refers to this peculiar attitude as the recognition of one’s epistemic position. (shrink)

An attempt is made to develop a basic framework for an existential-phenomenological perspective on personality disorders. Its starting point is taken from the psychiatrist Antoni Kępiński and the philosopher Józef Tischner. The former provides a clinical framework capacious enough to allow ethical, existential, and phenomenological explorations. This conceptual “space” is then explicitly recognized, addressed, and fulfilled by the latter’s investigation of personality dynamics proper to “the hideout.” In order to supplement this thread of thought with a specific illustration, a “case” (...) provided by Fyodor Dostoevsky in his Notes from the Underground is investigated. Then, in turn, Paul Tillich’s The Courage to Be is referred to, so that the deepest roots of personality disorders can be identified with an ontological dynamic proper to the avoidance of non-being. Finally, some brief remarks are made concerning how all the above relates to the idea of a normatively neutral science and how it can be integrated with more up to date clinical practice. (shrink)

Among the many strengths of the article by Lorenzo Gilardi and Giovanni Stanghellini one can find its open-ended character most directly reflected by the fact that these are "questions for further research," rather than a set of definitive theses, that are provided as concluding remarks. But it is not the mere occurrence of such a setting that is crucial. After all, even if somewhat atypical, the latter does happen to be used in scholarly literature. What makes the open-endedness of the (...) article and its somehow dialogical flavor so important is these features' full continuity with the method of dialectical psychopathology proposed. The form and the content, in other words, go hand in hand.As far as formal... (shrink)

Graf Egge, der Protagonist in Ludwig Ganghofers Schloß Hubertus, und Andreas, die Titelfigur in Hugo von Hofmannsthals gleichnamigem Romanfragment, stehen in einer vergleichbaren Konstellation: Beide projizieren ihre vielfältigen triebhaften Wünsche, die sie in der Welt der sozialen Bezüge nicht ausleben können, auf die Welt der Tiere, die sie nach Gutdünken lieben, quälen oder töten, um so ihren Empfindungen Ausdruck zu geben. Darüber hinaus imaginieren sie sich selbst als Tiere. Schließlich bündeln beide Romane diese Konstellation in Schlüsselszenen, die auf dieselbe Quelle (...) zurückgehen, nämlich einen Bilderbogen Max Arco-Zinnebergs, der eine Adlerjagd im Jahr 1860 beschreibt. (shrink)

The paper develops the idea that institutions are enablers. However, they do not only enable individuals and collectives to achieve their goals; first and foremost, they enable individuals and collectives to have a goal, to select and recognize certain possible states of affairs as targets of action, and as a result, to have a demand – especially a demand for further institutions. I make the case that properly functioning institutions are dedicated to making these states of affairs epistemically acquaintable. What (...) I will stress in particular is that acquaintance is first realized in the form of questions, which are linguistic expressions of acts of problematization. However, I will discuss less what an individual subject questions, but rather what the social dynamic of questioning is. This dynamic will be conceptualized in terms of epistemic dependence, and it will be singled out as the dynamic that gives rise to institutions. (shrink)

Based on a theoretical exploration in a previous article, this paper empirically analyzes which issues of SD are taken into account by corporations and stakeholders in what way, and to what extent the concept of sustainable development (SD) can be achieved through stakeholder relations management (SRM) on the corporate level. An important basis for this empirical analysis is a referential framework, which specifies 14 issues of SD. In a first empirical step, the literature-based framework has been operationalized for the business (...) world by analyzing sustainability reports. In a second empirical step, the operationalized framework served as the basis for a survey of selected MNCs. The analyses of the sustainability reports and the survey show how MNCs deal with particular issues of SD and what role they perceive particular stakeholders play. A key conclusion of the article is that SRM indeed promotes SD, but that it is no alternative to predictable government regulation. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 16 Heft: 1 Seiten: 95-114.

This paper aims to elucidate a kind of ignorance that is more fundamental than a momentary lack of information, but also not a kind of ignorance that is built into the subject’s cognitive apparatus such that the subject can’t do anything about it. The paper sets forth the notion of cognitive confinement, which is a contingent, yet relatively stable state of being structurally or systematically unable to gain information from an environment, determined by patterns of interaction between the subject and (...) the world. In order to unpack the idea of cognitive confinement the paper discusses niche construction theory, and then, in greater detail, the notion of cognitive niche once proposed by John Tooby and Irven DeVore. Cognitive confinement is here imagined as a pathologized form of cognitive niche. This posit is substantiated by referring to a case that has come to the fore in recent years and raised debate around the world: the rise of so-called filter bubbles. They turn out to be instantiations of a more general phenomenon of cognitive confinement. (shrink)

„Ein jedes Ding in der Natur wirkt nach Gesetzen. Nur ein vernünftiges Wesen hat das Vermögen, nach der Vorstellung der Gesetze, i.e. nach Prinzipien zu handeln oder einen Willen.“ So definiert Kant in der Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten den Willen oder, was für ihn dasselbe ist, die praktische Vernunft. Die Moral ergibt sich sowohl unter dem formalen Gesichtspunkt ihres Geltungsanspruchs wie unter dem materialen ihrer Grundnorm, nämlich des kategorischen Imperativs, aus der Selbstanwendung der apriorischen Grundstruktur der praktischen Vernunft. Damit (...) ist die Frage beantwortet, "von woher ein unbedingtes Sollen verbindet, was der Grund seiner Verbindlichkeit ist", wie sie beispielhaft Dirk Greimann formuliert. (shrink)

The Virtuous Psychiatrist: Character Ethics in Psychiatric Practice Jennifer Radden & John Z. SadlerOxford: Oxford University Press, 2010256 pages, ISBN: 0195389379 (hbk); $49.95Contemporary bioeth...