A central intuition many epistemologists seem to have is that knowledge is distinctively valuable. In his paper 'Radical Scepticism, Epistemic Luck and Epistemic Value', Duncan Pritchard rejects the virtue-theoretic explanation of this intuition. This explanation says that knowledge is distinctively valuable because it is a cognitive achievement. It is maintained, in the first place, that the arguments Pritchard musters against the thesis that knowledge is a cognitive achievement are unconvincing. It is argued, in the second place, that even if the (...) arguments against the thesis that knowledge is a cognitive achievement were convincing, there is another explanation of the intuition that knowledge has final value available: the question-relative treatment of knowledge. (shrink)

BackgroundThere is ambiguity with regard to what counts as an acceptable level of risk in clinical research in pregnant women and there is no input from stakeholders relative to such research risks. The aim of our paper was to explore what stakeholders who are actively involved in the conduct of clinical research in pregnant women deem an acceptable level of risk for pregnant women in clinical research. Accordingly, we used the APOSTEL VI study, a low-risk obstetrical randomised controlled trial, as (...) a case-study.MethodsWe conducted a prospective qualitative study using 35 in-depth semi-structured interviews and one focus group. We interviewed healthcare professionals, Research Ethics Committee members and regulators who are actively involved in the conduct of clinical research in pregnant women, in addition to pregnant women recruited for the APOSTEL VI case-study in the Netherlands.ResultsThree themes characterise the way stakeholders view risks in clinical research in pregnant women in general. Additionally, one theme characterises the way healthcare professionals and pregnant women view risks with respect to the case-study specifically. First, ideas on what constitutes an acceptable level of risk in general ranged from a preference for zero risk for the foetus up to minimal risk. Second, the desirability of clinical research in pregnant women in general was questioned altogether. Third, stakeholders proposed to establish an upper limit of risk in potentially beneficial clinical research in pregnant women in order to protect the foetus and the pregnant woman from harm. Fourth and finally, the case-study illustrates that healthcare professionals’ individual perception of risk may influence recruitment.ConclusionsHealthcare professionals, RECs, regulators and pregnant women are all risk adverse in practice, possibly explaining the continuing underrepresentation of pregnant women in clinical research. Determining the acceptable levels of risk on a universal level alone is insufficient, because the individual perception of risk also influences behaviour towards pregnant women in clinical research. Therefore, bioethicists and researchers might be interested in changing the perception of risk, which could be achieved by education and awareness about the actual benefits and harms of inclusion and exclusion of pregnant women. (shrink)

This reflection focuses on what insights Catholic Social Teaching can provide for corporate governance. I argue that the ‘standard’ agency theory is overly reductionist and insufficiently incorporates important economic limitations as well as human frailty. As a result, such agency theory insufficiently distinguishes firms from markets, which can easily relativize how we treat others and facilitate rationalization of unethical behavior. I then explore how three pillars of CST—human dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity—can help overcome these limitations. CST proposes a vision of (...) the business corporation as a community of persons, working together in cooperative business relationships toward the shared purpose of contributing to human flourishing. (shrink)

[Presented at the 52nd Annual Conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), University of Oregon, 24-26 October. Part of the panel Events, Actions and the Problem of Agency in the Wake of Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, organized in collaboration with Sean Bowden and James Williams.] In this paper I will bring the positions of Gilles Deleuze and Paul Ricoeur into proximity with each other in order to draw out points of conflict. I do not aim to solve (...) these conflicts, nor to develop them into a full clash. Rather, I will show that both Ricoeur and Deleuze develop a theory of novelty that can be characterized as a reversal of Platonism. These theories are not opposed per se, but they differ in orientation. Deleuze situates novelty in the virtual event. This virtual event can be understood as a singular point of transition that transforms one system into another. Or to catch the event in a somewhat more concrete image, it is a kind of metamorphosis (in Kafka’s sense). In contrast, Ricoeur situates novelty in human actions that are played out as a fruitful tension between two poles. This tension opens up a field of potentiality in which new ideas and novel meanings can emerge. Ricoeur has analysed this tension on many levels. Its most basic structure can be found in what Ricoeur calls a living metaphor. This living metaphor is itself something ‘in action’; it brings two opposed semantic fields into a fruitful tension with each other. This tension reveals a previously unnoticed proximity between these two semantic fields, without destroying their distance. In this way a new, third semantic field is opened up that is only given in potential. Ricoeur argues that it is within tensions like this that generative differences arise, resulting in new ideas and novel meanings. The main point of divergence between Deleuze and Ricoeur can therefore be framed in two contrasting pairs: virtual event versus human action; point of transition versus tension (or: metamorphosis versus metaphor). (shrink)

For Kierkegaard the ‘psychological experiment’ is a literary strategy. It enables him to dramatize an existential conflict in an experimental mode. Kierkegaard’s aim is to study the source of movement that animates the existing individual (this is the psychological part). However, he is not interested in the representation of historical individuals in actual situations, but in the construction of fictional characters that are placed in hypothetical situations; this allows him to set the categories in motion “in order to observe completely (...) undisturbed what these require” without caring to what extent someone has met this requirement or is able to meet it (this is the experimental part). -/- The ‘psychological experiment’ is a category of indirect communication that is developed most extensively by Frater Taciturnus, the pseudonymous author of the third part of Stages on Life’s Way. (I) Taciturnus introduces the psychological experiment as a new trajectory in modern literature that offers an alternative to poetry and speculative drama. He develops this new trajectory in praxis (in the novella ‘“Guilty?”/“Not Guilty?” A Story of Suffering: A Psychological Experiment by Frater Taciturnus’) as well as in theory (in the ‘Letter to the Reader’ that accompanies his novella). (II) Two other pseudonymous authors further enrich the conceptual field of the psychological experiment. Constantin Constantius develops the notion ‘experimenting psychology’; Johannes Climacus reflects on the reader’s contemporaneity with the character. (shrink)

One of the hardest questions to answer for a (Neo)platonist is to what extent and how the changing and unreliable world of sense perception can itself be an object of scientific knowledge. My dissertation is a study of the answer given to that question by the Neoplatonist Proclus (Athens, 411-485) in his Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. I present a new explanation of Proclus’ concept of nature and show that philosophy of nature consists of several related subdisciplines matching the ontological stratification (...) of nature. Moreover, I demonstrate that for Proclus philosophy of nature is a science, albeit a hypothetical one, which takes geometry as its methodological paradigm. I also offer an explanation of Proclus’ view of what is later called the mathematization of physics, i.e. the role of the substance of mathematics, as opposed to its method, in explaining the natural world. Finally, I discuss Proclus’ views of the discourse of philosophy of nature and its iconic character. (shrink)

The Danish word 'incognito' means to appear in disguise, or to act under an unfamiliar, assumed name (or title) in order to avoid identification. As a concept, incognito occurs in several of Kierkegaard’s works, but only becomes a subject of reflection in two: the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments by Johannes Climacus and Practice in Christianity by Anti-Climacus. Both pseudonyms develop the concept from their own perspective and must be understood on their own terms. Johannes Climacus treats incognito as (...) a category of existence, defining it as a comic contradiction that creates a disguise in order to hide and protect the inwardness of the existing individual. However, Anti-Climacus treats incognito as a category of communication. He defines it as “a sign of contradiction” that creates a disguise in order to activate and disclose the inwardness of a listener or reader. (shrink)

This article demonstrates a novel conceptualization of sublimity: the sublime in the pedestrian. This pedestrian mode of sublimity is exemplified by the Biblical Abraham, the central figure of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous Fear and Trembling. It is rooted in the analysis of one of the foundational stories of the three monotheistic religions: Abraham’s averted sacrifice of his son Isaac. The defining feature of this new, pedestrian mode of sublimity is that is remains hidden behind what I call a total incognito. It is (...) similar to the classical ‘elevated mode of sublimity’ as developed by Burke, Kant, and Schiller insofar as it denotes two contrasting feelings at once: repulsion and attraction. It is different insofar as Kierkegaard’s pedestrian mode of sublimity remains hidden from view and can only be shown indirectly. This article expounds the new, pedestrian mode of sublimity by investigating the relation between the incognito and the sublime in Fear and Trembling. It achieves that goal by engaging three perspectives: (1) the sublime failure that comes to the fore in the incognitos of an imaginary Abraham; (2) the ‘fear without being afraid’ that is invoked by God’s incognitos; (3) the total incognito of the pedestrian which conceals Abraham’s sublimity. (shrink)

Many philosophers are building a solid case in favour of the knowledge account of assertion (KAA). According to KAA, if one asserts that P one represents oneself as knowing that P. KAA has recently received support from linguistic data about prompting challenges, parenthetical positioning and predictions. In this article, I add another argument to this rapidly growing list: an argument from what I will call ‘reinforcing parenthesis’.

This article discusses the possibility of a rationally justified choice between two options neither of which is better than the other while they are not equally good either (‘3NT’). Joseph Raz regards such options as incomparable and argues that reason cannot guide the choice between them. Ruth Chang, by contrast, tries to show that many cases of putative incomparability are instead cases of parity—a fourth value relation of comparability, in addition to the three standard value relations ‘better than’, ‘worse than’ (...) and ‘equally good as’. It follows, she argues, that many choice situations in which rationally justified choice seems precluded are in fact situations within the reach of practical reason. This article has three aims: (1) it challenges Chang’s argument for the possibility of parity; (2) it demonstrates that, even if parity would exist, its problematic implications for practical reason would not differ from those of Raz’s incomparability; (3) it discusses the underlying cause of hard cases of comparison: the fact that none of the three standard value relations applies (‘3NT’). It will be shown that the problematic implications for the rational justification of the choice are due to 3NT itself, irrespective of whether 3NT is explained as incomparability or parity. (shrink)

While Minsky’s work is often identified with the critique of financial speculation, this paper argues that there is a different side to his work. We argue that Minsky can be read as offering a post-foundational perspective on political economy that recognizes the speculative dimension of all economic activity. This post-foundational reading allows for an understanding of neoliberal policymaking in terms of the provision of liquidity to too-big-to-fail constituencies. The article discusses how some segments of Western societies have been able to (...) participate in the inflationary logic of this too-big-to-fail dynamic, whereas others are locked out and face increasingly tight liquidity constraints. This differential access to liquidity is an increasingly central aspect of the stratifying rationality of contemporary capitalism. By connecting Minsky’s insights into the temporal logic of capital to key issues in social theory, the article presents a new theorization of (il)liquid life that advances on extant accounts. (shrink)

Subject sensitive invariantism is the view that whether a subject knows depends on what is at stake for that subject: the truth-value of a knowledge-attribution is sensitive to the subject's practical interests. I argue that subject sensitive invariantism cannot accept a very plausible principle for memory to transmit knowledge. I argue, furthermore, that semantic contextualism and contrastivism can accept this plausible principle for memory to transmit knowledge. I conclude that semantic contextualism and contrastivism are in a dialectical position better than (...) subject sensitive invariantism is. (shrink)

In 1848, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote a short yet highly significant theater review, titled “Mr. Phister as Captain Scipio.” This review deals with a seemingly prosaic problem: how can an actor convincingly play the role of a drunk police captain while simultaneously disclosing that this captain is deliberately concealing his intoxicated condition? This article argues that this ‘disclosure of concealment’ underlies Kierkegaard’s oeuvre. It elucidates this argument by illustrating that the three levels of theatrical performance highlighted in “Mr. (...) Phister as Captain Scipio” correspond to three parallel levels of authorial performance. Drawing inspiration from the actor, Kierkegaard adopts the persona of a pseudonym who conceals his true identity behind an incognito while simultaneously disclosing that this pseudonym is hiding something. Emulating the dramatic performativity of the actor, Kierkegaard developed a method of indirect communication that constantly works against itself and thus relies on a form of linguistic performativity. (shrink)

This essay discusses implications of incommensurability of values for justified decision-making, ethics and justice. Under particular conditions incommensurability of values causes what might be called ‘incomplete comparability’ of options. Some leading theorists interpret this in terms of ‘imprecise equality’ and ‘imprecise comparability.’ This interpretation is mistaken and conceals the implications of incommensurability for practical and ethical reasoning. The aim of this essay is to show that, in many cases, incommensurability prevents the assignment of determinate weights to competing values. This may (...) have problematic consequences for a complete and impartial justification of decisions concerning conflicting values to the extent that they depend on the need of weighing them. (shrink)

Psycholinguistic studies often look at the production of referring expressions in interactive settings, but so far few referring expression generation algorithms have been developed that are sensitive to earlier references in an interaction. Rather, such algorithms tend to rely on domain-dependent preferences for both content selection and linguistic realization. We present three experiments showing that humans may opt for dispreferred attributes and dispreferred modifier orderings when these were primed in a preceding interaction (without speakers being consciously aware of this). In (...) addition, we show that speakers are more likely to produce overspecified references, including dispreferred attributes (although minimal descriptions with preferred attributes would suffice), when these were similarly primed. (shrink)

Contrastivism can be applied to a variety of problems within philosophy, and as such, it can be coherently seen as a unified movement. This volume brings together state-of-the-art research on the contrastive treatment of philosophical concepts and questions, including knowledge, belief, free will, moral luck, Bayesian confirmation theory, causation, and explanation.

In this chapter I will concentrate on compromise in ethical conflict and disagreement. I will discuss compromises related to disagreement with respect to public decisions between options that represent conflicting incommensurable human values. The central question will be whether in those cases a principled compromise is possible. A ‘principled compromise’ can be defined as a rational way to achieve a trade-off or balance between conflicting values, for instance, by rational assignment of relative weights. I will argue that in some cases (...) incommensurability will prevent a principled compromise in the defined sense. I will show why phrases used by some philosophers, such as ‘making a rational trade-off’, ‘striking the right balance’, ‘finding the Aristotelian Mean’ or ‘splitting the difference’, are based on misunderstandings about the characteristics of incommensurable values that are usually at stake in the pursuit of a compromise. I will show that incommensurable values lack an equivalence relation and how this prevents a determinate trade-off or balance between them. This is especially important with respect to the pursuit of compromises in ethical conflicts, including conflicts of justice, where we need a rational and ethical justification for the final decision. I will argue that the model of deliberative democracy presents a promising procedure for making the final decision legitimate but that, in the relevant cases, it cannot avoid an ethical deficit. (shrink)

In this introduction to the special issue of Social Epistemology on epistemological contrastivism, I make some remarks on the history of contrastivism, describe three main versions of contrastivism, and offer a guide through the papers that compose this issue.

One of the most important questions about divine revelation is the question – what is the nature of divine revelation? This conceptual question even precedes such epistemological questions as whether we can know that a divine revelation occurred, or whether divine revelation can produce religious knowledge. In this paper, I argue for a particular analysis of the concept of divine revelation. Key to my proposal is that ‘to reveal’ is a term of epistemic appraisal: if a subject revealed a proposition (...) to a receiver, then this implies that the receiver actually accepted the information offered. I will end this paper by investigating what the consequences of my proposal are for answering the two epistemological questions. (shrink)

From the beginning, Augustine's "Confessions" presents itself as a dialogue with God. Taking a cue from Ludwig Feuerbach’s "The Essence of Christianity [Das Wesen des Christentums]," this dialogue can easily be dismissed as a projection of the self. This would imply that the divine otherness is nothing more than a mirror of one’s own fears and preferences. “Does this critique,” I asked myself in this piece, “really do justice to a position like that of Augustine?” For a long time, I (...) did not know how to approach what I had — provisionally — called Augustine’s dialogue with God. It appeared to me that Augustine, in an accidental and indirect way, had re-invented the Platonic dialogue and had turned it into a new Christian genre. “It is true,” I told myself, “that the genre of the Confessions shows family resemblances with the hagiography and the autobiography. But most certainly it cannot be reduced to these genres.” The Greek words ‘hagios’ (holy) and ‘autos’ (self) are in flagrant contradiction with the intention of the Confessions. Augustine tries to stay clear of any claim of holiness and only highlights his own ‘self’ to immediately question it. “Is the Platonic dialogue,” I asked myself, “not a far more appropriate predecessor for Augustine’s dialogue with God?” Both types of dialogues can be seen as true dia logoi in which at least two different voices emerge. However, contrary to what one would expect, it is not the dialogue form itself that frames these two voices. Instead the two voices emerge within the discourse of a single speaker, incorporating true otherness within the discourse of the self. Building on these reflections, I explore how Augustine's dialogue with God succeeds in eluding Feuerbach's charge of self-projection. (shrink)

Standardisation is increasingly seen as a means to insert ethics in innovation processes. We examine the institutionalisation of responsible innovation in de jure standardisation as this is an important but unexplored research area. In de jure standardisation, stakeholders collaborate in committees to develop standards. We adopt the anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness responsible innovation framework as our theoretical lens. Our study suggests that responsible standardisation processes should embody forms of these four dimensions. We investigate the institutionalisation of these dimensions and (...) identify 96 factors that can motivate, hinder, or facilitate responsible standardisation. Factors were found through in-depth interviews with managers of a standard developing organisation. These are subsequently validated/rejected using surveys completed by committee representatives. The results suggest that the social desirability of standards is not self-evident. This study could pave the way for future research on responsible standardisation processes, complementing research on legitimacy, responsible innovation, and standardisation. (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on the problem of novelty as seen from the perspective of two French philosophers: Paul Ricoeur and Gilles Deleuze. As such, a new interpretation of the works of these two philosophers is developed. I argue that two models can be derived from their works: a model that strives to make tensions productive (based on Ricoeur) and a model that aims to organize encounters between bodies (taken from Deleuze). These models are developed on their own terms without superimposing (...) one over the other. Hence, the first part of the dissertation focuses on Ricoeur, the second on Deleuze. Through an extensive reading of Ricoeur’s La métaphore vive, it is shown that the living metaphor creates a productive tension in which two previously distinct domains are drawn together. This results in a semantic innovation that first appears as an image and only later can be conceptualized. This argument is further developed by analyzing Augustine’s notion ‘time is a distention of the mind (distentio animi)’ as an example of how a living metaphor introduces a new language that re-describes reality. This example prepares the way for broadening the model of productive tensions by showing how, from Ricoeur’s perspective, the innovative potential of actions can be understood in terms of a productive tension between two orders of imagination. In contrast to Ricoeur, Deleuze’s conception of novelty is not analyzed in terms of a productive tension between two heterogeneous domains, but in terms of an encounter between bodies in which a creative coupling or an affective relation emerges that links these bodies together in a common trajectory. On the basis of a reading of Deleuze’s essays on literature, it is shown how such an encounter can give rise to a single process of metamorphosis. This process can be divided in two closely connected moments: a mutual metamorphosis that sets the whole process in motion and a continuous metamorphosis of proliferating series that keeps it alive. This first, intuitive understanding of the model is deepened by linking it to a metamorphic ontology of expression that is derived from Deleuze’s works on Spinoza. This provides the model with a more rigorous vocabulary and also shows in how these encounters can be organized in such a way that they create the conditions for novelty in three forms of thinking: science, art, and philosophy. (shrink)

The Homo Sacer series can be understood as an inquiry into the conditions of possibility of Western politics. Martijn Boven discusses the coherence of the series and how Agamben unfolds this "philosophical archaeology" within it. -/- In 1995, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben published Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Homo sacer. Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita), the first book in a series of nine. Nearly twenty years later, in a gesture characteristic of Agamben, the project (...) was not so much concluded as "abandoned" (abbandonata). According to Agamben, this is the only way a philosophical work can come to an end—it can never be completed, only discontinued. He perceives philosophical work as an impossible construction, one that, from its very inception, can only be conceived of as a ruin. The structuring of the Homo Sacer series into four unequal sections evokes this same image of a deliberately constructed ruin. -/- [In Dutch: De Homo sacer-reeks kan begrepen worden als een onderzoek naar de mogelijkheidsvoorwaarden van de westerse politiek. Martijn Boven bespreekt de samenhang van de reeks en hoe Agamben daarin deze ‘filosofische archeologie’ uiteenzet. In 1995 verscheen Homo sacer. De soevereine macht en het naakte leven (Homo sacer. Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita) van de Italiaanse filosoof Giorgio Agamben, het eerste boek in een reeks van negen. Bijna twintig jaar later, met een geste die typerend is voor Agamben, wordt het project niet zozeer afgerond, maar ‘opgegeven’ (abbandonata). Dit is volgens Agamben de enige manier waarop een filosofisch werk kan worden beëindigd. Het kan nooit worden voltooid, maar kan alleen worden gestaakt. Hij ziet het filosofische werk als een onmogelijk bouwwerk dat al vanaf zijn vroegste begin alleen als ruïne denkbaar is. De indeling van de Homo sacer-reeks in vier ongelijke afdelingen roept ditzelfde beeld van een bewust geconstrueerde ruïne op.]. (shrink)

In late antiquity, logic developed into what Ebbesen calls the LAS, the Late Ancient Standard. This paper discusses the Neoplatonic use of LAS, as informed by epistemological and metaphysical concerns. It demonstrates this through an analysis of the late ancient debate about hypothetical and categorical logic as manifest in the practice of syllogizing Platonic dialogues. After an introduction of the Middle Platonist view on Platonic syllogistic as present in Alcinous, this paper presents an overview of its application in the syllogizing (...) practice of Proclus and others. That overview shows that the two types were considered two sides of the same coin, to be used for the appropriate occasions, and both relying on the methods of dialectic as revealing the structure of knowledge and reality. Pragmatics, dialectic, and didactic choices determine which type or combination is selected in syllogizing Plato. So even though there is no specific Neoplatonic logic, there is a specific Neoplatonic use of LAS. (shrink)

In 1842, Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard published Repetition: A Venture in Experimenting Psychology under the pseudonym Constantin Constantius. In this complex and distinctive work, he introduced a novel approach to philosophical inquiry. In Gilles Deleuze’s apt summary, Kierkegaard invents “an incredible equivalent of theater within philosophy” and establishes repetition as “the fundamental category of the philosophy of the future.” -/- [In Dutch: In 1842 publiceert de Deense filosoof Søren Kierkegaard De herhaling: een proeve van experimenterende psychologie onder het pseudoniem Constantin (...) Constantius. In dit curieuze en eigenzinnige boek introduceert hij een nieuwe manier van filosofie bedrijven. Kierkegaard, zo vat Gilles Deleuze het treffend samen, verzint “een verbluffend equivalent van het theater in de filosofie” en maakt de herhaling tot “de fundamentele categorie van de filosofie van de toekomst”.]. (shrink)

In this paper I show that Proclus is an adherent of the Classical Model of Science as set out elsewhere in this issue (de Jong and Betti 2008), and that he adjusts certain conditions of the Model to his Neoplatonic epistemology and metaphysics. In order to show this, I develop a case study concerning philosophy of nature, which, despite its unstable subject matter, Proclus considers to be a science. To give this science a firm foundation Proclus distills from Plato’s Timaeus (...) the basic concepts Being and Becoming and a number of basic propositions, among others the quasi-definitions of the basic concepts. He subsequently explains the use of these quasi-definitions, that are actually epistemic guides, in such a way that he obtains a connection between a rational and an empirical approach to the natural world. A crucial task in establishing the connection is performed by the faculty of doxa and by geometrical conversion. The result is that Proclus secures a universal, necessary and known foundation for all of philosophy of nature. (shrink)

-/- In Plato's work the "Sophist", Socrates, who typically occupies a central position in Plato's dialogues, is assigned a supporting role. This has led some scholars to argue for a shift in Plato's oeuvre, where he distances himself from Socrates and introduces a new main protagonist. However, this new protagonist remains unnamed and is only identified by his social position as Xenos, indicating that he is an outsider and a stranger whose identity is ambiguous. In this article, I argue that (...) Plato's decision to leave the character unnamed serves to raise a first problem: the question of whether this stranger is a friend or an adversary of philosophy. At the beginning of the dialogue, Socrates employs a series of references to Homer to bring into play a second problem: the problem of disguise. The third problem, “What is a sophist?”, is attributed to the Xenos. This is the only problem that is explicitly developed and is, therefore, the most prominent in the dialogue. If we relate these three problems to each other, it becomes clear that they represent contradictory intuitions without providing us with a strict criterion for deciding which of these intuitions is correct. By presenting these problems in their entanglement without providing a way out, Plato invites his readers to think without making explicit what the outcome of this thinking should be. -/- [In Dutch: In de "Sofist" speelt Sokrates, vaak het meest prominente personage in Plato’s dialogen, alleen maar een bijrol. Dit heeft veel interpreten ertoe verleid om een breuk in het oeuvre van Plato te postuleren, waarbij Plato afstand zou nemen van Sokrates ten behoeve van een nieuw personage. Ik zal echter laten zien dat Plato er bewust voor kiest om dit nieuwe personage naamloos te laten en hem alleen aan te duiden via zijn sociale positie als xenos (vreemdeling). Hiermee roept Plato, zo zal ik betogen, impliciet een eerste probleem op: is deze naamlo- ze Xenos een vriend of een vijand van de filosofie? Aan het begin van de dialoog wordt er door Sokrates een tweede probleem in spel gebracht: het probleem van de vermomming. Het derde probleem — ‘wat is een sofist?’ — wordt toegeschreven aan de Xenos. Dit is het enige probleem dat expliciet wordt uitgewerkt en is dan ook het meest prominent aanwezig in de dialoog. Als we deze drie problemen op elkaar betrekken dan wordt duidelijk dat ze tegenstrijdige intuïties vertolken, zonder dat we een strikt criterium krijgen aangereikt om te beslissen welke van deze intuïties de juiste is. Door deze problemen in een nog niet ontwarde kluwen te presenteren, nodigt Plato zijn lezers uit tot denken, zonder expliciet te maken wat de uitkomst van dit denken zou moeten zijn.]. (shrink)

Is the primary function of an educator to elucidate and convey their own knowledge? French philosopher Jacques Rancière demonstrates that an incidental experiment by Joseph Jacotot presents an alternative paradigm: the ignorant schoolmaster. In his work The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation [Le maître ignorant: cinq leçons sur l'émancipation intellectuelle], Rancière posits that the ignorant schoolmaster is equally, if not more, capable of instructing students compared to the knowledgeable educator. Rancière examines two educational methodologies: the conventional approach of (...) the knowledgeable educator who explicates and imparts knowledge, and the experimental approach of the ignorant schoolmaster who refrains from explanation and primarily focuses on verifying attentiveness. By providing a brief analysis of these two methodologies, this article aims to demonstrate how Rancière’s work can be utilized to construct a model for articulating the implicit theoretical principles in educational practices. This model is predicated on the following premise: by taking either a successful or a problematic educational practice as an example, one can articulate the theoretical principles inherent within it. The article hopes to facilitate a shift in focus from practices to principles, thereby offering a novel perspective on educational practices and enabling its theoretical explication......... [In Dutch: Bestaat de kernactiviteit van de meester erin om zijn eigen kennis uit te leggen en over te dragen? De Franse filosoof Jacques Rancière laat zien dat een gelegenheidsexperiment van Joseph Jacotot ons een ander voorbeeld aanreikt: de onwetende meester. In zijn boek De onwetende meester: vijf lessen over intellectuele emancipatie (Le maître ignorant: Cinq leçons sur l'émancipation intellectuelle) stelt hij dat de onwetende meester evengoed of zelfs beter in staat is leerlingen iets te leren dan de wetende meester. Rancière neemt in feite twee onderwijspraktijken als voorbeeld: de traditionele praktijk van de wetende meester die uitleg geeft en kennis overdraagt en de experimentele praktijk van de onwetende meester die geen uitleg geeft maar vooral gericht is op de verificatie van aandacht. In dit artikel wil ik op basis van een korte analyse van deze twee praktijken laten zien hoe we uit Rancière’s boek een model kunnen afleiden voor het articuleren van de theoretische principes die impliciet in onderwijspraktijken werkzaam zijn. Dit model is gestoeld op het volgende uitgangspunt: door een succesvolle of juist problematische onderwijspraktijk als voorbeeld te nemen kunnen we de theoretische principes articuleren die erin werkzaam zijn. Dit schept de mogelijkheid om de focus van de van de praktijken naar de principes te verleggen. Hierdoor wordt de onderwijspraktijk op een nieuwe manier inzichtelijk en kunnen we haar theoretisch expliciteren.]. (shrink)

Many religious, ideological and other beliefs are induced by upbringing. In ‘Paradoxes of Conviction’ G.A. Cohen asks why we persist in a belief, when we know we have this belief rather than a rival one, because we were brought up to believe it. Cohen adduces a syllogistic argument (named ‘the Argument’) that seems to demonstrate the irrationality of holding on to such a nurtured belief. If the Argument is right, it has far-reaching consequences because many nurtured religious and other beliefs (...) should then be abandoned as being irrational. This essay shows that the Argument is fallacious. (shrink)

Persons and nations agree on the importance of justice but disagree on its requirements. In The End of History and the Last Man Francis Fukuyama argues that human history moves towards liberal democracy as the final ideal for all societies. It is conceivable that liberal democratic societies will converge to similar conceptions of justice and that global spread of liberal democracies will promote consensus. This paper tries to show that consensus on justice is, nevertheless, unlikely, due to reasonable disagreement. Reason (...) does not give a single rational or reasonable solution to conflicting demands of justice. This means that apart from reason, other factors play a role in what is regarded as just. Jurisdiction is influenced by tradition and zeitgeist. This explains why also liberal democracies, which may recognize similar principles of justice, still arrive at differing rankings of these principles and divergent results of jurisdiction in time and place. (shrink)

There is uncertainty and disagreement about the question which preventive actions are rationally justified with regard to moderately elevated levels of nuclear radiation. This may have at least four causes: ignorance, insufficient information, inconclusiveness and indeterminability. After the nuclear disaster with the Fukushima nuclear power plant the advice, given by some authorities, to leave Tokyo was largely based on the former two factors: ignorance and insufficient information. By contrast, the uncertainty and disagreement amongst experts about the size of the area (...) to be evacuated was mainly caused by the latter two factors: inconclusiveness and indeterminability. Inconclusiveness concerns the question whether moderately elevated radiation levels cause real and significant health risks that require drastic measures. Indeterminability concerns the problem of rationally weighing disparate benefits and costs of the preventive measures, to wit, expected health benefits versus the costs and burdens of mass evacuation. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommends that no measures should be taken unless they produce a positive net benefit. Exposure to moderately increased levels of radiation may increase the risk of fatal cancer in the future, while mass evacuation has burdensome and disruptive consequences for the society and for the persons who have to leave their residential and/or working area for a long time. Ordering of mass evacuation seems rationally and ethically justified only if the expected future benefits outweigh the present and future burdens. Small or uncertain future health benefit may be outweighed by large costs and burdens of mass evacuation. Because we have to take into consideration not only public but also individual costs and benefits, it is important to take into account the personal absolute increase in health risk of elevated radiation in addition to relative risk. Unlike relative risk, absolute risk reveals the individual chance of getting a radiation-based disease. The increase in absolute risk – that is, the difference between the chances of getting the disease with and without the exposure to the increased level of radiation – is a useful measure to reveal the personal chance of health benefit from evacuation. This personal benefit must be balanced against the personal costs and burdens. The key question is which levels of radiation absorption and health risks outweigh the burdens of mass evacuation. There seems consensus amongst experts about the justification of mass evacuation in cases of expected individual radiation absorption > 500 mSv over a year. Similarly, experts agree that expected extra radiation absorption < 10 mSv does not justify mass evacuation. But between these two extremes there is a wide range of 50-fold increasing radiation levels in which it is not clear whether the personal and public benefits from mass evacuation outweigh the personal and public costs. This may partly explain why experts and authorities gave conflicting advice about the radius of the area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant within which people had to be evacuated. The uncertainty about the right thing to do with respect to a wide range of moderately elevated levels of radiation seems to be caused not only by inconclusiveness but also by indeterminability, that is, impossibility of determinately weighing disparate costs and benefits. (shrink)

Paul Valéry is the poet who maintains silence; the thinker who refuses to be a philosopher; the writer who takes language to court; the expert who insists on being an amateur; the mystic who seeks refuge in mathematics; the stutterer who suffers from an ailment of precision; the Narcissus who might have preferred to embody Orpheus. He is the chronicler of thought and the master of contradiction. I try to imagine him. It is 1894, Valery sits at his table, writing (...) in the notebooks in which he records his thoughts every morning "entre la lampe et le soleil," resulting in approximately 30,000 pages of unstructured incompleteness: the Cahiers. -/- [In Dutch] Paul Valéry is de dichter die zwijgt; de denker die weigert filosoof te zijn; de schrijver die de taal in staat van beschuldiging stelt; de expert die volhoudt een amateur te zijn; de mysticus die zijn heil zoekt bij de wiskunde; de stamelaar die aan een kwaal van precisie lijdt; de Narcissus die misschien toch liever Orpheus had willen zijn. Hij is de chroniqueur van het denken en de meester van de tegenspraak. Ik probeer me hem voor te stellen. Het is 1894 en hij zit gebogen te schrijven in de schriftjes waarin hij elk ochtend 'entre la lampe et le soleil' zijn denken fileert, een project dat uitmondde in ca. 30.000 bladzijden weerbarstige onvoltooidheid: de Cahiers. (shrink)

This paper defends a right to the justification of contract, with reciprocal and general reasons, and explores its main implications for the law of contract and its theory. It argues that the leading essentialist and other monist contract theories, offering blueprints for an ideal contract law based on the alleged ultimate value or essential characteristic of contract law, cannot justify the basic structure of contract law. Instead, it argues, a critical discourse theory of contract can contribute to the realisation of (...) the right to justification of contract by exposing patterns of contractual injustice, in particular exploitation and domination by contract, that contract law can and should prevent. (shrink)

The principle of philosophy, Schelling declares in his 1810 Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen, is the Absolute or God.1 The terms are brought into close yet ambiguous proximity by this assertion. Yet how are we to think them together? It is far from clear just how the Absolute—the abstract, universal, all-encompassing name Idealism gives to what, most fundamentally, there is—and God, a name with a rather longer life story, are to be related. Are we to take it that the Absolute and God are (...) to be baldly equated? That the one is a mere term of convenience properly understood in the light of the other? That the one is a supplement or corrective that the other is in need of? And who would be the arbiter of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Time’s Causal Power: Proclus and the Natural Theology of Time by Antonio Luis Costa VargasM. MartijnVARGAS, Antonio Luis Costa. Time’s Causal Power: Proclus and the Natural Theology of Time. Boston: Brill, 2021. i + 231 pp. Cloth and eBook, $162.00The metaphysics of time in Neoplatonism tends to be described top-down: From transcendent eternity, time as we know it emanates. This is hardly informative about the nature of time (...) as such, however. Vargas’s monograph about Proclus’s theory of time instead takes a bottom-up approach: From the effects of time, he ascends to transcendent and divine Time as their cause—a natural theology. In the process, we learn that the key element of Proclus’s theory is that Time, which orders events and distributes “lifetimes,” provides us with the possibility of understanding the world as an ordered, intelligible whole.The book contains four chapters providing a genealogy of sorts by systematically laying out Proclus’s inspiration from the philosophy of time in Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Plotinus respectively. Chapter 1 starts from Plato’s Timaeus and the distinction between the “order of time” and the “flow of time.” The order of time is the intelligible, transcendent substance that causes the “flow of time,” that is, time as change. From the Republic, Proclus harvests “true Number” as determining the former, and the motions of the heavenly bodies dispensing lifespans to all beings as determining the latter. [End Page 732]Chapter 2 starts from Aristotle’s criticism of Platonic time as motion: A motion belongs to a specific substance, but time should be omnipresent. Vargas shows how Aristotle’s understanding of change, causality, and time helps Proclus shape the order of time as a cosmic intelligence that makes the world intelligible through the number by which its processes are measured. In this chapter, Vargas presents a beautiful and rich analysis of how Neoplatonists adopt elements from Aristotle’s physics, psychology, and biology in order to build their Platonic notion of time as “number that counts” or productive number. In Neoplatonic terms: Aristotle’s first intellect as first mover becomes the substantial Order of Time in Proclus, the transcendent monad, and his lower movers become the chain of emanated lower times as kinds of intelligence.In chapter 3, Stoic biology helps elaborate the understanding of time as the order within the cosmos, the world as a living being, and contributes the idea of one simultaneous present or “now” for everything. This cosmic life helps counter Aristotle’s criticism: All motions belong to specific substances but are part of the life of the cosmos. Vargas here also brings in an interesting link to more recent discussions in physics concerning the nature of simultaneity: How do we know whether things occurring far away from each other are simultaneous? The cosmic “now” and the notion of sympathy, which Proclus finds in synchronous processes, provide a metaphysical framework for such simultaneity.In chapter 4, Plotinus’s contribution to Proclus’s theory is discussed: the flow of time as the life of the world soul, which underlies all life in the cosmos and ties it together. It consists in the presence in the soul of the effects, that is, the external activity, of the emanated internal activity of Intelligence. Intelligence, according to Plotinus, must be alive because it is fully active, and its emanation in the world soul leads to the soul’s own external activity, that is, its uniform and discursive production of the world. This external activity is time in the strictest sense of the word. The main difference between Plotinus and Proclus is that for Proclus the flow of time is inferior to the eternal life of the world soul, belonging to its external activity, but for Plotinus it coincides with the world soul. Another interesting difference Vargas highlights is that, where Plotinus denied the possibility of time being a number of changes because of the eternity of the world soul’s production, Proclus instead ascribed it countable infinity resulting from the everlasting repetitions of the Great Year.Vargas’s analyses contain very rich and detailed discussions of metaphysical issues such as the Aristotelian difference... (shrink)

In the realm of the humanities, Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) is widely viewed as one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He published an impressive and comprehensive oeuvre that made an impact on almost all areas of the humanities. By combining the resources and insights of phenomenology and hermeneutics, he developed new perspectives on the text, on metaphor, on narrative, and on personal identity that pervaded theology, history, linguistics, psychoanalysis, ethics,(philosophical) anthropology, cognitive sciences, and so on. In light (...) of his centennial in 2013, the question arises whether his theories have a future and can be extended to capture new phenomena studied in the humanities: What is the impact and meaning of the oeuvre of Paul Ricoeur for the humanities? In particular, one may develop this question as follows: Which of Ricoeur’s major contributions can be expected to remain relevant for the humanities? In what way can we relate Ricoeur’s oeuvre to ideas and methods of other philosophers and scientists? Does Ricoeur’s paradigm of the text still provide a relevant framework for thinking about the basic questions that concern the humanities today? If so, how can we bring Ricoeur’s perspective in a fruitful tension or dialogue with other, competing paradigms? (shrink)

This essay examines two conceptions of the ancient ideal of ‘living in the present’, one that may be called ‘Platonic’, suggested by a remark of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and one that may be called ‘Stoic’, developed by Pierre Hadot. On both conceptions, a life lived and considered in the right way is complete in the present, so that nothing is wanting. I introduce a problem concerning the coherence of this concept: Life involves movement, and movement is aimed at some completion in (...) the future. How, then, can a life be complete in the present and yet not be static? I consider and reject an answer by Hadot, based on psychological concentration on the present. I then propose an alternative answer, based on Aristotle's concept of complete activity, and discuss its significance for both the Platonic and the Stoic conception of the ideal. Throughout, my focus is on this metaphysical and conceptual problem, thus preparing the way for the ethical question whether ‘living in the present’ would be a good way to live. (shrink)

The Power of Reasons in European Private Law This article discusses the power of reasons in European private law. It does so in response to six articles written by critics, as part of a book symposium on Justifying Contract in Europe: Political Philosophies in European Contract Law (Oxford University Press, 2021). In particular, this contribution explores: the role of reasons in emancipatory political struggles; the meaning of reconciliation in pluralist societies; intersectional corrective justice through private law; the relationship between normative (...) questions and critical theory; the priority of justice in times of crisis; and the politics of general private law theory. (shrink)

This chapter provides an analysis of the often mentioned but rarely explained ‘systematicity’ of Proclus’ version of Neoplatonism, and an introduction into the basics of his metaphysics. Starting from the assumption that any philosophical system stems from the desire for explanations, and that for Platonists this involved bridging the opposition between explanandum and explanans, it formulates a number of ensuing requirements, which lead to the construction of what is generally called a philosophical system. The authors then show how this pans (...) out in Proclus’ metaphysics, specifically the One, causality, and triads. Finally, they address the relevance of all this for human life, and briefly evaluate the downsides of Proclus’ systematicity and what sets him apart from predecessors. (shrink)

In 1995, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben (born 1942) published the first volume of what would later develop into a series of political-philosophical studies under the title Homo Sacer. The series began with Homo Sacer: Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita (Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life) and was concluded in 2014 with L’uso dei corpi (The Use of Bodies). Now that the project has been completed, we aim to make a first attempt at an evaluation in this (...) special issue. [In Dutch: Van de Italiaanse filosoof Giorgio Agamben (1942) verscheen in 1995 het eerste deel van wat onder de noemer Homo sacer zou uitgroeien tot een reeks politiek-filosofische studies. De reeks werd geopend met Homo sacer. Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita (Homo sacer. De soevereine macht en het naakte leven) en in 2014 afgesloten met L’uso dei corpi (Het gebruik van lichamen). Nu het project is afgerond willen wij in dit themanummer een poging doen tot een eerste evaluatie.]. (shrink)

Speculative realism is driven by a strong resistance to anthropocentrism. It assumes that the non-human world contains within itself ways of organizing (or disorganizing) itself. This leads to a political analysis in which the boundaries of the human are mapped out in a fairer manner—that is, in a non-anthropocentric way. Or, to use the words of Bruno Latour, we as humans are part of a network of actors in which we still play an important role, but in which we are (...) more strongly influenced by other, non-human actors than we are often willing to admit. -/- Speculative realism has various branches, each emphasizing a specific philosophical, ethical, or political issue. To do justice to the diversity of theories and applications, we have invited five authors to describe one of the movements or themes at stake from their own area of expertise. -/- [In Dutch: Het speculatief realisme wordt gedreven door een sterk verzet tegen het antropocentrisme. Daarbij wordt verondersteld dat de niet-menselijke wereld in zichzelf manieren bevat om zich te organiseren (of te desorganiseren). Dit geeft aanleiding tot een politieke analyse waarin de grenzen van de mens op een eerlijkere (dat wil zeggen op een nietantropocentrische) wijze in kaart worden gebracht. Of, om met Bruno Latour te spreken, dat wij als mensen deel uitmaken van een netwerk van actoren, waarin we nog steeds een belangrijke rol spelen, maar waarin we sterker bepaald worden door andere, nietmenselijke actoren dan we zelf vaak willen toegeven. Het speculatief realisme kent verschillende vertakkingen, die ieder weer hun eigen nadruk leggen op een bepaald filosofisch, ethisch of politiek probleem. Om aan de verscheidenheid van theorieën en toepassingen recht te doen, hebben we vijf auteurs gevraagd om vanuit hun eigen expertise een van de stromingen of thema’s die erin op het spel staan te omschrijven.]. (shrink)

How the Author Disappeared from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus In this essay, I investigate the status of the written word in the (early, mostly) work of Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein tends to imagine language as written rather than spoken. This focus on writing goes together with a sense that the author is absent from the text. I argue that the problem is not with writing in general but specifically with books, and more specifically with the fantasy of a book of (...) everything, the importance of which to Wittgenstein’s early work was brought out by Eli Friedlander. On my account, such a book, by pretending to contain the whole world, leaves no place for an author. Since the early Wittgenstein imagines subjectivity in the form of a book of everything, he is unable to place subjectivity – subjects: you and I – in the world. I end by briefly suggesting that in his later work, Wittgenstein gives up on the fantasy of a book of everything and is in a better position to address the problem of finding subjectivity in the world. (shrink)

Contextualist theories of knowledge have received a lot of attention in the contemporary epistemological literature. The central idea of such theories is that contextual factors play an important role in determining whether a particular knowledge sentence is true or false. Thus, on contextualist theories of knowledge it might be the case that a particular subject knows a proposition in one context but fails to know that same proposition in another context--while the only thing that has changed is the context. Of (...) the extant contextualist theories of knowledge, attributer contextualism (that is, the type of contextualism that makes the context of the attributer of knowledge crucial in determining whether a subject knows a proposition) has been discussed the most. The papers in the present collection continue this focus on attributer contextualism, and offer a fairly critical treatment of this theory. Nevertheless, a number of papers also outline new types of contextualism. What results is a collection of papers that, though negative towards attributer contextualism, for the most part is sympathetic towards contextualism in general. (shrink)

Contextualist theories of knowledge have received a lot of attention in the contemporary epistemological literature. The central idea of such theories is that contextual factors play an important role in determining whether a particular knowledge sentence is true or false. Thus, on contextualist theories of knowledge it might be the case that a particular subject knows a proposition in one context but fails to know that same proposition in another context—while the only thing that has changed is the context. Of (...) the extant contextualist theories of knowledge, attributer contextualism (that is, the type of contextualism that makes the context of the attributer of knowledge crucial in determining whether a subject knows a proposition) has been discussed the most. The papers in the present collection continue this focus on attributer contextualism, and offer a fairly critical treatment of this theory. Nevertheless, a number of papers also outline _new_ types of contextualism. What results is a collection of papers that, though negative towards attributer contextualism, for the most part is sympathetic towards contextualism in general. (shrink)

The draft Common Frame of Reference is likely to play a prominent role in the further development of European contract law. Therefore, with a view to its acceptability it is crucial to assess the draft from the point of view of social justice.The DCFR has all the characteristics of a typical European compromise. Ideological and esthetical purists will certainly be disappointed. This is not necessarily something to be worried about. A common frame of reference is not drafted, in the first (...) place (if at all), for esthetical or ideological reasons; it is meant to provide some normative guidance in the further development of European contract law. European citizens have very different interests, preferences and opinions in relation to almost all the subjects dealt with in the DCFR. A DCFR consistently based on only one conception about the right choices would inevitably have disappointed all European citizens with a different idea of social justice in European private law. Therefore, if we really want the further Europeanization of private law we will have to accept that it will probably look rather different from both the particular Member State law that each of us is familiar with and our personal ideas of social justice. The publication of the interim outline edition of the draft CFR, which is the result of a close collaboration between hundreds of legal scholars from all Member States, has brought that message home. The characterisations of the DCFR as 'a law for big business and competent consumers' or, alternatively, as a 'massive reduction of private autonomy' are both unfounded. Overall, from the point of view of social justice, the DCFR is fairly balanced. Nevertheless, there is certainly room for improvement.Even if the DCFR is going to remain only a soft law instrument it is still likely to have a considerable influence on the further development of private law in Europe and will therefore also affect, directly or indirectly, the lives of all European citizens. For this reason it is crucial that European citizens will not only be the addressees of the CFR, or of the legislative measures based thereon, but can also rightly consider themselves as its authors. After the drafting by legal experts and the rather one-sided 'stakeholders'' input that were both organised by the European Commission it is now time for the citizens' voice. Only a meaningful input from the European and national Parliaments can provide the final CFR with the regulatory legitimacy that it needs.The level of consumer protection in the DCFR is sufficiently high for it to be acceptable as the content of an optional instrument, which could be made applicable, for example, by clicking on a 'blue button'. However, as an absolute maximum beyond which the Member States would not be allowed to go in the case of full harmonisation, it is submitted, the level of protection in the DCFR is insufficient. Moreover, the DCFR draws a sharp distinction between B2C and B2B contracts. It categorically excludes from the protection that it grants to consumers all businesses, even the smallest ones that may be as vulnerable as consumers (or even more so) when it comes to a lack of information, inexperience and dependence. This sharp distinction deviates from the law in many Member States, is not required by the EC Treaty (which is relevant with a view to the CFR's role as a toolbox for revising the acquis and for drafting new acquis), and is potentially contrary to the fundamental principle of justice that any distinction between groups of people should favour the least privileged.General private law - the bulk of the model rules contained in the DCFR - cannot be said to be 'neoliberal' as the Social Justice Group feared it would. Nor is it 'socialist' as some business stake holders warned for. It strikes a balance between autonomy and solidarity that is quite similar to the ones drawn in the modern private laws (including the case law, i.e. not merely the civil codes) of the Member States. However, where the DCFR deviates from the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL) it is always in the liberal direction.Throughout the last Century general clauses, such as good faith, have played a prominent role in promoting social justice in private law in the Member States. In fact they became delegations of law-making power to the courts in order to allow them to find just and fair solutions in new cases. This tradition was codified in the PECL. However, in the DCFR the role of good faith is narrower and deliberately so. From the point of view of social justice it is important that in the final CFR the role of good faith as an undisputed legal basis for judge-made law should be restored.The catalogue of underlying values and principles, that is meant to become the preamble to the final CFR and is likely to play a crucial role in the interpretation and further development of the CFR, brings back to the foreground some fundamental values that have played a prominent role in private law making in the Member States but that have been overshadowed, on the European level, by the narrow focus on market building. Having said that, the list of values in the DCFR could be framed so as to be more balanced. In particular, the privileged position of party autonomy as the only principle that is also contained in the black-letter model rules seems unjustified. (shrink)

Computational modeling of the brain holds great promise as a bridge from brain to behavior. To fulfill this promise, however, it is not enough for models to be 'biologically plausible': models must be structurally accurate. Here, we analyze what this entails for so-called psychobiological models, models that address behavior as well as brain function in some detail. Structural accuracy may be supported by (1) a model's a priori plausibility, which comes from a reliance on evidence-based assumptions, (2) fitting existing data, (...) and (3) the derivation of new predictions. All three sources of support require modelers to be explicit about the ontology of the model, and require the existence of data constraining the modeling. For situations in which such data are only sparsely available, we suggest a new approach. If several models are constructed that together form a hierarchy of models, higher-level models can be constrained by lower-level models, and low-level models can be constrained by behavioral features of the higher-level models. Modeling the same substrate at different levels of representation, as proposed here, thus has benefits that exceed the merits of each model in the hierarchy on its own. (shrink)

When reading, orthographic information is extracted not only from the word the reader is looking at, but also from adjacent words in the parafovea. Here we examined, using the recently introduced OB1‐reader computational model, how orthographic information can be processed in parallel across multiple words and how orthographic information can be integrated across time and space. Although OB1‐reader is a model of text reading, here we used it to simulate single‐word recognition experiments in which parallel processing has been shown to (...) play a role by manipulating the surrounding context in flanker and priming paradigms. In flanker paradigms, observers recognize a central word flanked by other letter strings located left and right of the target and separated from the target by a space. The model successfully accounts for the finding that such flankers can aid word recognition when they contain bigrams of the target word, independent of where those flankers are in the visual field. In priming experiments, in which the target word is preceded by a masked prime, the model accounts for the finding that priming occurs independent of whether the prime and target word are in the same location or not. Crucial to these successes is the key role that spatial attention plays within OB1‐reader, as it allows the model to receive visual input from multiple locations in parallel, while limiting the kinds of errors that can potentially occur under such spatial pooling of orthographic information. (shrink)

This article engages with current discussions on the politics of aesthetics to theorize the role of popular art in reproducing or contesting urban orders. Specifically, we engage with scholars who have taken up the work of Jacques Rancière to understand how power structures are normalized through ‘the distribution of the sensible’. Building on and critically engaging with debates on the ‘post-political city’, we suggest that all too often scholars fall back on a binary, state-centric approach that depicts non-state popular aesthetics (...) as either revolutionary and disruptive, or as indicative of an alternative form of oppression. Drawing on our work in Kingston, Jamaica, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we argue that sensorial-political, art-based urban struggles shape multiple urban orders that are distinct but not necessarily antagonistic. Applying Stuart Hall’s work on popular culture to contexts of criminal governance, we show how art is often simultaneously supportive and disruptive of urban orders. (shrink)