Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 2, Page 155-163, February 2022. This article comments on Asger Sørensen’s stimulating book “Capitalism, Alienation and Critique”. The article argues that Sørensen overlooks an important methodological contiunuity between Max Horkheimer’s and Axel Honneth’s work: namely, the model of immanent critique, to which both remain committed. Moreover, through a critical discussion of Honneth’s method of normative reconstruction, the article argues that globalized capitalism represents a serious methodological challenge not only to Honneth’s work, but to (...) the Frankfurt School model of immanent crituque as such. (shrink)

Algorithms have developed into somewhat of a modern myth. On the one hand, they have been depicted as powerful entities that rule, sort, govern, shape, or otherwise control our lives. On the other hand, their alleged obscurity and inscrutability make it difficult to understand what exactly is at stake. What sustains their image as powerful yet inscrutable entities? And how to think about the politics and governance of something that is so difficult to grasp? This editorial essay provides a critical (...) backdrop for the special issue, treating algorithms not only as computational artifacts but also as sensitizing devices that can help us rethink some entrenched assumptions about agency, transparency, and normativity. (shrink)

This paper offers a unified semantic explanation of two observations that prove to be problematic for classical analyses of modals, conditionals, and disjunctions: the fact that disjunctions scoping under possibility modals give rise to the free choice effect and the fact that counterfactuals license simplification of disjunctive antecedents. It shows that the data are well explained by a dynamic semantic analysis of modals and conditionals that uses ideas from the inquisitive semantic tradition in its treatment of disjunction. The analysis explains (...) why embedding a disjunctive possibility under negation reverts disjunction to its classical behavior, is general enough to predict less studied simplification patterns, and also makes progress toward a unified perspective on the distinction between informative, inquisitive, and attentive content. (shrink)

Robert Sugden (2018. The Community of Advantage: A Behavioural Economist’s Defence of the Market. Oxford University Press) offers an alternative account for normative economics grounded in the view that it is in each individual’s interest to have more opportunity rather than less, irrespective of whether their decisions reveal well-ordered preferences. Our paper characterizes Sugden’s proposal as a step in the right direction, but as insufficient. His opportunity criterion does not go far enough in taking insights from psychology seriously. Sugden defends (...) an idea of agency understood as a person’s subjective sense of being in control of her actions. To realize this sense of being in control, we argue that a focus on opportunity-only is problematic; people also need agentic capabilities. We use self-determination theory (SDT) to develop a subjective account of agency that is grounded in psychological science. (shrink)

Algorithms have become a widespread trope for making sense of social life. Science, finance, journalism, warfare, and policing—there is hardly anything these days that has not been specified as “algorithmic.” Yet, although the trope has brought together a variety of audiences, it is not quite clear what kind of work it does. Often portrayed as powerful yet inscrutable entities, algorithms maintain an air of mystery that makes them both interesting and difficult to understand. This article takes on this problem and (...) examines the role of algorithms not as techno-scientific objects to be known, but as a figure that is used for making sense of observations. Following in the footsteps of Harold Garfinkel’s tutorial cases, I shall illustrate the implications of this view through an experiment with algorithmic navigation. Challenging participants to go on a walk, guided not by maps or GPS but by an algorithm developed on the spot, I highlight a number of dynamics typical of reasoning with running code, including the ongoing respecification of rules and observations, the stickiness of the procedure, and the selective invocation of the algorithm as an intelligible object. The materials thus provide an opportunity to rethink key issues at the intersection of the social sciences and the computational, including popular concerns with transparency, accountability, and ethics. (shrink)

"Das Rechtssystem geht davon aus, dass der Mensch – und nur der Mensch – eine natürliche Person ist. Das sei ein Irrtum, argumentiert Malte-Christian Gruber, denn die Rechtssubjektivität wird keineswegs alleine mit dem bloßen Menschsein begründet. Es ist die sittliche Autonomie, die den Menschen zu einem »Subjekt, dessen Handlungen einer Zurechnung fähig sind« (Kant) und mithin zur Person macht. Personen werden nicht mit dem Menschsein als solchem identifiziert, sondern durch die Zuschreibung von Handlungs- und Rechtsträgerschaft. Eine solche funktionale Vorstellung (...) von Rechtssubjektivität ist prinzipiell auch dazu imstande, neben Menschen noch weitere autonome Agenten als Träger von Rechten und Pflichten ein- zusetzen, z.B. technische Artefakte und andere nicht-menschliche Agenten. Christoph Menke macht dagegen darauf aufmerksam, dass die Erfindung neuer Rechte das eigentliche Bewegungsgesetz der politischen Emanzipation in der Moderne war. Das begann mit den bürgerlichen Revolutionen und ist immer noch das generelle Modell, mit dem Politik und Theorie operieren, die neue Rechte für nicht-menschliche Lebewesen und Artefakte einfordern. So wie im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert die rechtliche Emanzipation zunächst über die Grenzen bürgerlicher Subjektivität hinausgeführt hat und soziale und kulturelle Rechte erfand, so sollen wir nun den weiteren, konsequenten Schritt tun und auch noch die Bindung der juridischen Anerkennung an die Kategorie menschlicher Subjektivität aufbrechen. Auch Bio- und Artefakte sollen als eigenständige Rechtssubjekte rekonstruiert werden. Es fehlt ihnen allerdings etwas, das in den emanzipatorischen Kämpfen der Vergangenheit schlechthin grundlegend war: Ein Träger von Rechten zu sein, hieß, ein Fordernder von Rechten, ja, ein Kämpfer für Rechte gewesen zu sein. Man konnte keine rechtliche Person als Träger von Rechten sein, ohne ein politisches Subjekt als Kämpfer und Denker von Rechten gewesen zu sein. Wenn die Bindung der rechtlichen Personalität an die menschliche Subjektivität aufgelöst wird, damit es Bio- und Artefakt-Rechte geben kann, löst sich zugleich auch diese Einheit von rechtlicher Personalität und politischer Subjektivität auf, die die moderne Idee der Rechte definiert hatte. The legal system assumes that human beings – and only human beings – are natural persons. That is erroneous, argues Malte-Christian Gruber, because legal subjectivity isn’t founded in humanity alone. It is moral autonomy that makes man into a “subject whose actions are capable of attribution” (Kant) and thus into a person. Personhood is not identified with being human as such, but by the attribution of actions and legal ownership. Besides human beings, such a functional concept of legal subjectivity can in principle also be applied to other autonomous agents as holder of rights and obligations, e.g. techno- logical artifacts and other non-human agents. Christoph Menke in turn points out that the invention of new rights was the actual law of motion of political emancipation in modern times. This began with the bourgeois revolutions and is still the general model with which politics and theory operate to claim new rights for non-human creatures and artifacts. Just as in the 19th and 20th centuries, the legal emancipation initially led beyond the limits of bourgeois subjectivity and in- vented social and cultural rights, so should we make a further consequent step and break with the dependence of juridical recognition on the category of human subjectivity. Also bio- and artifacts are to be reconstructed as independent legal entities. However, they lack something that was absolutely fundamental in the emancipatory struggles of the past: to be a subject of rights meant to have demanded rights, indeed, to have been a fighter for rights. One could not be a legal person and holder of rights without having been a political subject as fighter and thinker of rights. To suspend the dependence of legal personhood on human subjectivity so that there may be bio- and artifact-rights also means to dissolve the unity between legal personality and political subjectivity that once defined the modern idea of rights. ". (shrink)

Folklore has it that Sobel sequences favor a variably strict analysis of conditionals over its plainly strict alternative. While recent discussions for or against the lore have focussed on Sobel sequences involving counterfactuals, this paper draws attention to the fact that indicative Sobel sequences are just as felicitous as are their counterfactual cousins. The fact, or so I shall argue here, disrupts the folklore: given minimal assumptions about the semantics and pragmatics of indicative conditionals, a textbook variably strict analysis fails (...) to predict that indicative Sobel sequences are felicitous. The correct lesson to draw from Sobel sequences is that their felicity challenges classical implementations of the variably strict and of the plainly strict analysis alike. In response to this challenge I develop a dynamic strict analysis of conditionals that handles indicative Sobel sequences with grace while preserving intuitive constraints on the semantics and pragmatics of their members. A discussion of how such an analysis may handle the challenge from reverse Sobel sequences is provided. (shrink)

Schulz has shown that the suppositional view of indicative conditionals leads to a corresponding view of epistemic modals. But his case backfires: the resulting theory of epistemic modals gets the facts wrong, and so we end up with a good argument against the suppositional view. I show how and why a dynamic view of indicative conditionals leads to a better theory of epistemic modals.

The study of word meanings promises important insights into the nature of the human mind by revealing what people find to be most cognitively significant in their experience. However, as we learn more about the semantics of various languages, we are faced with an interesting problem. Different languages seem to be telling us different stories about the mind. For example, important distinctions made in one language are not necessarily made in others. What are we to make of these cross-linguistic differences? (...) How do they arise? Are they created by purely linguistic processes operating over the course of language evolution? Or do they reflect fundamental differences in thought? In this sea of differences, are there any semantic universals? Which categories might be given by the genes, which by culture, and which by language? And what might the cross-linguistic similarities and differences contribute to our understanding of conceptual and linguistic development? The kinds of mapping principles, structures, and processes that link language and non-linguistic knowledge must accommodate not just one language but the rich diversity that has been uncovered. The integration of knowledge and methodologies necessary for real progress in answering these questions has happened only recently, as experimental approaches have been applied to the cross-linguistic study of word meaning. In Words and the Mind, Barbara Malt and Phillip Wolff present evidence from the leading researchers who are carrying out this empirical work on topics as diverse as spatial relations, events, emotion terms, motion events, objects, body-part terms, causation, color categories, and relational categories. By bringing them together, Malt and Wolff highlight some of the most exciting cross-linguistic and cross-cultural work on the language-thought interface, from a broad array of fields including linguistics, anthropology, cognitive and developmental psychology, and cognitive neuropsychology. Their results provide some answers to these questions and new perspectives on the issues surrounding them. (shrink)

A dynamic semantics for epistemically modalized sentences is an attractive alternative to the orthodox view that our best theory of meaning ascribes to such sentences truth-conditions relative to what is known. This essay demonstrates that a dynamic theory about might and must offers elegant explanations of a range of puzzling observations about epistemic modals. The first part of the story offers a unifying treatment of disputes about epistemic modality and disputes about matters of fact while at the same time avoiding (...) the complexities of alternative theories. The second part of the story extends the basic framework to cover some complicated data about retraction and the interaction between epistemic modality and tense. A comparison between the suggestion made in this essay and current versions of the orthodoxy is provided. (shrink)

This essay explores Giorgio Agamben’s engagement with Reiner Schürmann, focusing in particular on their ontological understanding of anarchy. Setting out from the lacuna in the literature on this issue, it gives a close reading of the passages where Agamben addresses Schürmann, interrogates the role of of arche in Agamben’s works and links his interest in Schürmann to his long-standing critique of Derrida. Tracing these issues through Agamben’s and Schürmann’s texts, it becomes apparent that both authors operate with a strikingly similar (...) approach, while adumbrating different understandings of the rapport between arche, anarchy and difference. Specifically, the essay argues that Schürmann’s work can be seen as an incisive reference point in Agamben’s recent theory of “destituent potential” by focusing on the epilogue of The Use of Bodies. Here, arche and anarchy are positioned as the basic operative categories of the entire Homo Sacer project, while the concept of “true anarchy,” developed in critical dialogue with Schürmann, turns into its philosophical vanishing point. With and against Schürmann’s attempt to think anarchy as an interruption of identity through difference, Agamben develops his notion of anarchy as as a suspension of difference, that is, as in-difference. (shrink)

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are a major success story, promising to improve science and policy. Despite some controversy, RCTs have spread toward Northern and Southern countries since the early 2000s. How so? Synthesizing previous research on this question, this article argues that favorable institutional conditions turned RCTs into “hinges” between the fields of science, politics, and business. Shifts toward behavioral economics, New Public Management, and evidence-based philanthropic giving led to a cross-fertilization among efforts in rich and poor countries, involving states, (...) international organizations, NGOs, researchers, and philanthropic foundations. This confluence of favorable institutional conditions and savvy social actors established a “global interstitial field” inside which support for RCTs has developed an unprecedented scope, influence, operational capacity, and professional payoff. However, the article further argues that the hinges holding together this global interstitial field are “squeaky” at best. Because actors inherit the illusio of their respective fields of origin—their central incentives and stakes—the interstitial field produces constant goal conflicts. Cooperation between academics and practitioners turns out to be plagued by tensions and contradictions. Based on this analysis, the article concludes that the global field of RCT support will probably differentiate into its constituent parts. As a result, RCTs may lose the special status they have gained among social science and policy evaluation methods, turning into one good technique among others. (shrink)

Mindfulness meditation describes a set of different mental techniques to train attention and awareness. Trait mindfulness and extended mindfulness interventions can benefit self-control. The present study investigated the short-term consequences of mindfulness meditation under conditions of limited self-control resources. Specifically, we hypothesized that a brief period of mindfulness meditation would counteract the deleterious effect that the exertion of self-control has on subsequent self-control performance. Participants who had been depleted of self-control resources by an emotion suppression task showed decrements in self-control (...) performance as compared to participants who had not suppressed emotions. However, participants who had meditated after emotion suppression performed equally well on the subsequent self-control task as participants who had not exerted self-control previously. This finding suggests that a brief period of mindfulness meditation may serve as a quick and efficient strategy to foster self-control under conditions of low resources. (shrink)

Leibniz’ Briefwechsel wird 1705/06 vor allem von den politischen und militärischen Großereignissen bestimmt, über deren Verlauf sich Leibniz informieren lässt und zu denen er eigene Einschätzungen an seine Korrespondenten weitergibt: Zum Spanischen Erbfolgekrieg, zum Nordischen Krieg und zu der Aussicht des Hauses Hannover auf die Thronfolge in England. Um letztere zu forcieren und eine Einladung der Kurfürstin Sophie nach England zu erzwingen, entwirft und publiziert er im Namen von Rowland Gwynne ein Pamphlet, das in London jedoch das genaue Gegenteil bewirkt (...) und im dortigen Parlament zum Skandal wird. Im Bereich der Philosophie greift Leibniz in die zwischen J. Le Clerc und P. Bayle geführte Diskussion um das Werk von R. Cudworth, The true intellectual system of the Universe, 1678, mit seiner Considération sur les principes de vie, et sur les natures plastiques, ein. Im August 1705 erreicht Leibniz’ Korrespondenz mit den China-Missionaren (J. Bouvet, J. de Fontaney, Ch. Le Gobien, A. Verjus, C. Visdelou) einen letzten Höhepunkt. Der Austausch mit dem Pariser Oratorianer J. Lelong widmet sich weiterhin nebeneinander Bibel-Bibliographie und dem Streit um die Anwendbarkeit des Differentialkalküls. (shrink)

Evoked potentials in the amplitude-time spectrum of the electroencephalogram are commonly used to assess the extent of brain responses to stimulation with noxious contact heat. The magnitude of the N- and P-waves are used as a semi-objective measure of the response to the painful stimulus: the higher the magnitude, the more painful the stimulus has been perceived. The strength of the N-P-wave response is also largely dependent on the chosen reference electrode site. The goal of this study was to examine (...) which reference technique excels both in practical and theoretical terms when analyzing noxious contact heat evoked potentials in the amplitude-time spectrum. We recruited 21 subjects. We applied seven noxious contact heat stimuli using two temperatures, 51°C, and 54°C, to each subject. During EEG analysis, we aimed to identify the referencing technique which produces the highest N-wave and P-wave amplitudes with as little artifactual influence as possible. For this purpose, we applied the following six referencing techniques: mathematically linked A1/A2, average reference, REST, AFz, Pz, and mathematically linked PO7/PO8. We evaluated how these techniques impact the N-P amplitudes of CHEPS based on our data from healthy subjects. Considering all factors, we found that mathematically linked earlobes to be the ideal referencing site to use when displaying and evaluating CHEPS in the amplitude-time spectrum. (shrink)

Natur og menneske.--Hvorfor politiken bliver tilbage.--Om menneskeanlæg og om menneskekunst.--Om store mænd. Et vurderingsforsøg.

Magt og ideal.--Retfærdighet og kultur.--Kapitalisme og kollektivisme.--Nytteværdier og stemningsværdier.--Krig og fred.--Nationalisme og folkebrorskap.

This article presents a study that investigates how anonymity influences user participation in an online question-and-answer platform [Quora ]. The study is one step in identifying hypotheses that can be used to address a research and design issue concerning the role of anonymity in online participation, particularly in sensitive situations where people are seeking social support. Based on the literature, we present a model that describes the factors that influence participation. These factors were used when analyzing the answers to questions (...) in the health category on Quora. The results of this study were completed by a survey asking Quora users about their use of the anonymity feature. The main result is that the only significant difference between anonymous and non-anonymous answers is that: with anonymous answers, social appreciation correlated with the answer’s length. (shrink)

This introduction summarizes the main contributions of this special issue titled “Quiet Politics and the Power of Business: New Perspectives in an Era of Noisy Politics.” The four articles in the issue use and extend Culpepper’s influential concept of “quiet politics” according to which business is able to shape policies and regulations when issues are of low salience to the public and politicians. The issue takes Culpepper’s analysis further in ways that respond to the rise of noisy politics over the (...) last few years, often associated with new strident forms of left- and right-wing populism. Three contributions are made. First, the articles show that salience is not an inherent property of a policy area but is socially constructed. Second, a variety of strategies are described that business uses when trying to keep politics quiet. Third, strategies are affected by the structure of business, which varies across types of capitalism. Future research can use these insights to extend our understanding of the limits, strategies, and dynamics of quiet politics across political economies. (shrink)

What should be the ‘informational base’ of welfare economics if one takes the insights from behavioral economics seriously? Sugden proposes individuals’ sets of opportunities. This paper discusses...

In der 1970 gegründeten Reihe erscheinen Arbeiten, die philosophiehistorische Studien mit einem systematischen Ansatz oder systematische Studien mit philosophiehistorischen Rekonstruktionen verbinden. Neben deutschsprachigen werden auch englischsprachige Monographien veröffentlicht. Gründungsherausgeber sind: Erhard Scheibe (Herausgeber bis 1991), Günther Patzig (bis 1999) und Wolfgang Wieland (bis 2003). Von 1990 bis 2007 wurde die Reihe von Jürgen Mittelstraß mitherausgegeben.

Biogeography is a multidisciplinary field with multiple origins in 19th century taxonomic practice. The Origins of Biogeography presents a revised history of early biogeography and investigates the split in taxonomic practice, between the classification of taxa and the classification of vegetation. This book moves beyond the traditional belief that biogeography is born from a synthesis of Darwin and Wallace and focuses on the important pioneering work of earlier practitioners such as Zimmermann, Stromeyer, de Candolle and Humboldt. Tracing the academic history (...) of biogeography over the decades and centuries, this book recounts the early schisms in phyto and zoogeography, the shedding of its bonds to taxonomy, its adoption of an ecological framework, and its beginnings at the dawn of the 20th century. This book assesses the contributions of key figures such as Zimmermann, Humboldt and Wallace, and reminds us of the forgotten influence of plant and animal geographers including Stromeyer, Prichard and de Candolle, whose early attempts at classifying animal and plant geography would inform later progress. The Origins of Biogeography is a science historiography aimed at biogeographers, who have little access to a detailed history of the practices of early plant and animal geographers. This book will also reveal how biological classification has shaped 18th and 19th century plant and animal geography and why it is relevant to the 21st biogeographer. (shrink)

The aim of research is determining the philosophical perspective on the afterlife for this purpose determine different theories included across different faith traditions. There is an important philosophical theory related to the afterlife which is termed as neutral monism. This theory is biased and explains individual importance depending upon ancestors. As in Hinduism, it is mostly considered that Brahmans are superior human beings so they will have no anomaly after death. The research study determines that philosophical perspective on the afterlife. (...) The research study based on comparative across different faith traditions. For measuring the research used different theories related to afterlife perspective. The other important philosophical theory related to the afterlife in different religions is Panpsychism. This theory is quite different and unique because it is related to Sufism. According to this theory, there is only the importance of the soul of human beings and there is no value of the human body after death. This theory enumerates that all the souls of human beings are part of God, so after death, the soul may Return to its origin so there will be no accountancy of human beings before God. This theory explains that God loves human beings so much that he will never hurt human beings in the afterlife as well. These are different and versatile philosophical theories that are related to the concept of the Afterlife in various religions across different faith traditions. (shrink)

1911. The philosophical writings of Sigurd Ibsen, son of the famous dramatist Henrik Ibsen.

Machery (2009) has proposed that the notion of ‘concept’ ought to be eliminated from the theoretical vocabulary of psychology. I raise three questions about his argument: (1) Is there a meaningful distinction between concepts and background knowledge? (2) Do we need to discard the hybrid view? (3) Are there really categories of things in the world that are the basis for concepts? Although I argue that the answer to all three is ‘no’, I agree with Machery's conclusion that seeking a (...) single characterization of concepts will not be fruitful for understanding cognitive representations and processes. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the emergence of a new gendered division of labour. More men than women occupy ‘greedy jobs’ that offer high wages and swift career progress in return for long work hours and unforeseeable schedules. As a result, women earn less income and occupy fewer positions of power than men. This division of labour is the result of patriarchal norms that make it costlier for women than for men to occupy greedy jobs. This article analyses the morality of (...) greedy employment. It offers a novel explanation of why norms that give rise to the new gendered division of labour are morally objectionable. The main claim is that it is morally objectionable to adopt the new gendered division of labour because this perpetuates patriarchal norms that impose unjustifiable costs on others. (shrink)

Grundsätzlich geht es dem Menschen darum, im Lichte seiner Endlichkeit ein gelingendes Dasein zu führen. Doch wie kann und soll dieses Dasein geregelt werden? Nichts erscheint vernünftiger als eine politische Ordnung im Lichte der Sakralität der Person - an die jedoch geglaubt werden muss. Nach einer kulturgeschichtlichen Aufarbeitung wird deutlich: Die "heilige Ordnung der Menschenwürde" erweist sich dem moralischen Dogmatismus absoluter Ordnungsprinzipien überlegen und vermag darüber hinaus das Prinzip politischer Selbstbestimmung zu garantieren, indem die Selbstgefährdung völlig ergebnisoffener Ordnungsformen überwunden wird. (...) Auf anthropologischer und psychologischer Basis wird die Sakralität der Person erklärt, begründet und vor dem Hintergrund des Konflikts zwischen Politik und Religion problematisiert. Die auf dem Prinzip der Sakralität der Person aufbauende "heilige Ordnung der Menschenwürde" wird darüber hinaus als vielversprechende Zukunft unserer Zivilisation diskutiert. (shrink)

Berichte über Schlachten wurden bislang fast immer mit der Absicht betrachtet, aus ihnen das tatsächliche Geschehen zu rekonstruieren. In diesem Aufsatz geht es hingegen um die Frage, wie mittelalterliche Menschen selbst das Kampfgeschehen deuteten und beschrieben, und vor allem darum zu ermitteln, welche Rolle dabei den topographischen Eigenarten des Schlachtfeldes zukam. Es zeigt sich, dass die Verfasser der Quellen keineswegs den Ablauf des Kampfes nüchtern protokollieren wollten, sondern stets ihre spezifische Erzählabsicht verfolgten. Insbesondere versuchten sie, jene Partei, der sie selbst (...) anhingen, möglichst günstig darzustellen. Dieser Erzählabsicht ordneten sie die Erwähnung topographischer Details klar unter. Außerdem flossen in die Schilderung auch scheinbar banaler topographischer Einzelheiten häufig Motive und Erzählmuster ein, die den Autoren und den zeitgenössischen Lesern schon bekannt waren und die daher Wahrnehmung, Erinnerung und Darstellung prägten. Aus dieser Analyse folgt, dass Rückschlüsse auf die örtlichen Gegebenheiten und den tatsächlichen Ablauf des Kampfes den Worten der Chronisten allenfalls mit größter Vorsicht zu entnehmen sind. Zugleich erweist sich, dass die sprachlichen Visualisierungsstrategien aufschlussreiche Erkenntnisse darüber bieten, wie die Autoren kriegerische Handlungen wahrnahmen. (shrink)

We propose that a principled understanding of meta-learning, as aimed for by the authors, benefits from linking the focus on learning with an equally strong focus on structure, which means to address the question: What are the meta-structures that can guide meta-learning?