How can imitation lead to free musical expression? This article explores the role of auditory imitation in jazz. Even though many renowned jazz musicians have assessed the method of imitating recorded music, no systematic study has hitherto explored how the method prepares for aural jazz improvisation. The article picks up an assumption presented by Berliner (1994), suggesting that learning jazz by aural imitation is “just like” learning a mother tongue. The article studies three potential stages in the method, comparing with (...) imitative, rhythmic, multimodal, and protosymbolic behavior of infant perception (building on the works of Stern, Trevarthen, and Merleau-Ponty). The demonstrations of the aural-imitation method draw on pedagogic experiences accumulated since 1979 in the Jazz Program at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. By analyzing structures of behavior suggested by the method, the article indicates key traits that render aural jazz improvisation possible, such as a fundamental sense of rhythm, formation of symbolic behavior, joint musical attention, and the facility to “hear via the other.” In conclusion, we critically address a frequent theoretical model describing musical improvisation as a synthesis of discrete elements or building blocks. (shrink)

In collective harm cases, bad consequences follow if enough people act in a certain way even though no such individual act makes a difference for the worse. Global warming, overfishing and Derek Parfit’s famous case of the harmless torturers are some examples of such harm. Shelly Kagan argues that there is a threshold such that one single act might trigger harm in all collective harm cases. Julia Nefsky points to serious shortcomings in Kagan’s argument, but does not show that his (...) conclusion is incorrect. I argue that our best theories of vagueness (the epistemic view of vagueness, three-valued logic, and supervaluationism) entail that there is a threshold in all collective harm cases. However, my analysis points to another problem with Kagan’s argument: the thresholds are not necessarily perceptible. Given the assumption that only perceptible differences matter morally, passing such a threshold does not necessarily trigger morally relevant harm, pace Kagan. Last, I consider two variants of Kagan’s argument and find both problematic. One controversially assumes that observational relations like ‘cannot perceive the difference between’ are transitive. The other problematically assumes that so called triangulation always is possible. (shrink)

Problem solving can be readily described as one of the key activities regularly performed by professionals in any workplace setting. Despite its importance, however, there is relatively little linguistic research which looks at the complex ways in which problems are constructed in discourse. This article sees the enactment of a ‘problem’ as a discursive phenomenon with fluid boundaries. It draws on business meeting data recorded in multinational companies in Europe and focuses on excerpts identified by the participants as having a (...) PbS function. The data show that problem solving processes and practice are anchored to the structure of the organizations, the local history and employees’ shared perceptions of professional practices and hierarchies in their workplace. The analysis also shows two focal points in the PbS talk of the participants in this study, namely identification of a problem and its ownership. These, however, are not predetermined starting points but rather locally constructed in relation to the status, expertise and shared/past history of the interactants. (shrink)

Do I cause global warming, climate change and their related harms when I go for a leisure drive with my gas-guzzling car? The current verdict seems to be that I do not; the emissions produced by my drive are much too insignificant to make a difference for the occurrence of global warming and its related harms. I argue that our verdict on this issue depends on what we mean by ‘causation’. If we for instance assume a simple counterfactual analysis of (...) causation according to which ‘C causes E’ means ‘if C had not occurred, E would not have occurred’, we must conclude that a single drive does not cause global warming. However, this analysis of causation is well-known for giving counterintuitive results in some important cases. If we instead adopt Lewis’s analysis of causation, it turns out that it is indeterminate whether I cause global warming when I go for a single drive. Still, in contexts where we seek to control or understand global warming, there is a pressure to adopt a more fragile view of this event. When we adopt such a view, it turns out that a single drive does cause global warming. This means that we cannot like Sinnott-Armstrong and Kingston and Sinnott-Armstrong reject the idea that I should refrain from going for a leisure drive simply because such a drive does not cause global warming. (shrink)

According to many philosophers and scientists, human sociality is explained by our unique capacity to “share” attitudes with others. The conditions under which mental states are shared have been widely debated in the past two decades, focusing especially on the issue of their reducibility to individual intentionality and the place of collective intentions in the natural realm. It is not clear, however, to what extent these two issues are related and what methodologies of investigation are appropriate in each case. In (...) this article, I propose a solution that distinguishes between epistemic and ontological interpretations of the demand for the conditions of reduction of collective intentionality. While the philosophical debate has contributed important insights into the former, recent advances in the cognitive sciences offer novel resources to tackle the latter. Drawing on Michael Tomasello’s research in the ontogeny of shared intentionality in early instances of interaction based on joint attention, I propose an empirically informed argument of what it would take to address the ontological question of irreducibility, thus making a step forward in the naturalization of collective intentionality. (shrink)

psychiatric diagnoses such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a rapidly growing and globally increasing phenomenon, not least in different educational contexts such as in family and in school. Children and youths labelled as ADHD are challenging normative claims in terms of nurturing and education, whereas those labelled as ADHD are considered a risk for society to handle. The dominant paradigm regarding ADHD is biomedical, where different levels of attention and activity-impulsivity are perceived as neurobiological dys/functions within the brain best (...) managed by means of an individual diagnosis and instrumental pedagogy. The majority of those labelled as having ADHD encounter a dominant educational model in the form of what is referred to in this article as neurobehaviorism, which is based on onto-epistemological violence. As opposed to this act of violence against being—and against the psychiatrized subject—a less violent educational model is proposed, based on French philosopher Alain Badiou’s ontological examination of being and his concept of love as a truth procedure. In terms of the latter, the focus is on the potential of the encounter as a ‘Two scene of love’. Here, the encounter is a place where it is possible to create new truths and subjects, instead of taking the individual diagnosis as an axiom which only leads to individuals having fixed identities codified in a hierarchical order. This argument is drawn from the ‘mathematical’ formula 1 + 1 = ♥, which originates from an online forum for people who have come into contact with ADHD in one way or another. (shrink)

Nietzsche vs. Kant? Der siebzehnte Aphorismus aus dem ersten Teil von Menschliches, Allzumenschliches schliesst mit der korrosiven Bemerkung, das Ding an sich [sei] eines homerischen Gelachters werth. Aufgrund dieser Passage nun aber zu vermuten, Nietzsche habe diesen von Kant stammenden Terminus einfach so ad acta gelegt, ware jedoch ubereilt, denn die Auseinandersetzung mit der Unterscheidung zwischen Erscheinung und Ding an sich lasst sich als Konstante durch Nietzsches gesamtes Werk verfolgen. Mattia Riccardi widmet sich in seiner Studie den verschiedenen Positionen, (...) die Nietzsche im Zusammenhang mit dieser Problematik eingenommen hat: von der im Hintergrund der Geburt der Tragodie prasenten Artisten-Metaphysik bis zur radikalen Infragestellung des kantischen Denkmusters in den Jahren nach 1880. Riccardi beschrankt sich aber nicht auf eine historisch akkurate, direkte und indirekte Textquelle mit einbeziehender Rekonstruktion von Nietzsches kampferischer Lekturepraxis. Vielmehr stellen die wiederholt auftretenden Bezuge auf Kants Begrifflichkeit fur ihn ein geeignetes Instrument dar, um die Entfaltung von Nietzsches Denken in aller Scharfe sichtbar zu machen. Die Kritik an Kant wird auf diese Weise zum Ausgangspunkt einer differenzierten Interpretation von Nietzsches perspektivistischer Philosophie der Macht im Sinne einer relationalen Ontologie. Damit versteht sich das Buch auch als Beitrag zur - vor allem im englischsprachigen Raum sehr lebendigen - Debatte um das Verhaltnis Nietzsches zu Kant. (shrink)

Nowadays, almost everyone seems to agree that science is facing an epistemological crisis – namely the replicability crisis – and that we need to take action. But as to precisely what to do or how...

In De Trinitate XII Augustine refuses the idea that a family could be the image of God. This is curious, because the theologian that in De Trinitate elaborates a “communitarian model” of the Trinity – the Lover, the Beloved and the Love – at the same time does not see the image of God in the first natural community, the family. The purpose of this paper is to show the deeper reasons for this refutation. After the exposition of Augustine’s argument, (...) the paper identifies Augustine’s polemical reference to a part of the Eastern Tradition, which used the example of the first family (Adam, Eve and Abel/Seth) in order to express the mystery of the Trinity. It examines also how the example of the first family was used by Gregory of Nazianzus in his fifth theological discourse (which some scholars identify as the possible source of the idea of the family as the image of God for Augustine) in a trinitarian way. This study then considers two aspects of Augustine’s argument: that his refutation is not justified by the association of the Holy Spirit with the mother and the bride; that the real reason for it is exegetical, and dependent upon Augustine’s reading of Gn. 1:26. Finally the paper shows that the view of gender differences as merely corporeal is what prevents the Doctor of Grace from reading Gn. 1:27 in a relational-dialogical way to express the intimate communion of the Trinity. (shrink)

In On What Matters Derek Parfit advocates the Kantian Contractualist Formula as one of three supreme moral principles. In important cases, this formula entails that it is wrong for an agent to act in a way that would be partially best. In contrast, Parfit’s wide value-based objective view of reasons entails that the agent often have sufficient reasons to perform such acts. It seems then that agents might have sufficient reasons to act wrongly. In this paper I will argue that (...) such reasons are a symptom of a fundamental inconsistency between the Kantian Contractualist Formula and Parfit’s view of reasons. The formula requires that we consider what everyone could rationally will, while a wide value-based objective view requires that we consider only what the agent has sufficient reasons for doing. The same inconsistency is particularly obvious in Parfit’s version of the Consent Principle, which share important features with the Kantian Contractualist Formula. Parfit accepts that moral principles might entail that we sometimes have sufficient reasons to act wrongly. However, to accept that supreme moral principles have such implications is objectionable if you, like Parfit, also hold that principles with such implications should be rejected or revised. I suggest that we could abandon the requirement that we have to consider the reasons of everyone. This would make the Kantian Contractualist Formula consistent with Parfit’s view of reasons, at least in this respect. I also argue that we can keep most implications of the Kantian Contractualist Formula that Parfit finds attractive. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this essay I draw attention to conceptual similarities in Walter Benjamin’s and Theodor W. Adorno’s reflection about language, with special attention to Benjamin’s 1916 essay about language as such, including its theological impulses. In Adorno’s case, I concentrate on language theory as it comes forth in relation to his philosophy of music and the supposed language-character of music. I argue that this particular connection between Benjamin and Adorno is largely unexplored in the literature, and I show that their conceptual (...) affinities have far-reaching consequences for a proper understanding of Adorno’s philosophy as a whole. Music is of fundamental importance for Adorno’s critical theory, and this fact points to an intricate entwinement between materialism and theology, stemming from Benjamin’s theory of language. Thinking of music as secularized prayer means to emphasize that music relates to reality in a way that resembles the logic of Benjamin’s understanding of a pre-lapsarian language of... (shrink)

In this article we use proportional hazards models to examine how low-level processes affect the probability of making a saccade over time, through the period of fixation, during reading. We apply the Cox proportional hazards model to investigate how launch distance (relative to word beginning), fixation location (relative to word center), and word frequency affect the hazard of a saccadic response. This model requires that covariates have a constant impact on the hazard over time, the assumption of proportional hazards. We (...) show that this assumption is not supported. The impact of the covariates changes with the time passed since fixation onset. To account for the non-proportional hazards we fit step functions of time, resulting in a model with time-varying effects on the hazard. We evaluate the ability to predict the timing of saccades on held-out fixation data. The model with time-varying effects performs better in predicting the timing of saccades for fixations as short as 100 ms and as long as 500 ms, when compared both to a baseline model without covariates and a model which assumes constant covariate effects. This result suggests that the time-varying effects model better recovers the time course of low-level processes that influence the decision to move the eyes. (shrink)

Focusing on stakeholder inclusion, this article investigates the consequences of implementing the responsible research and innovation framework in a public funding regime. I use a Norwegian transdisciplinary project as a case study, demonstrating how the Research Council of Norway relies heavily on the assumption that stakeholders will pay for further development of the project as long as they are appropriately engaged. In analysing my case, I show how a real risk exists for a project that can potentially deliver value to (...) society and address the grand challenges of our time ends up as waste. I refer to this as 4E Waste which I break into four types: Economic Waste – when money put into the initial project becomes “worthless” because the research is not followed up, Eidetic Waste – where knowledge is lost when the community of practice that is building the novel understanding dissipates, Ecological Waste – when polluting practices associated with current production methods prevail, and Ethical Waste – when the potential enterprise becomes a missed chance to do something good. Keywords: RRI; stakeholder inclusion; funding policy; Mode 2 research. (shrink)

Uitleg van het zogenoemde 'ontologisch godsbewijs' van Anselmus van Canterbury (gestorven in 1109).

Abstract: Nietzsche’s famously wrote that “consciousness is a surface” (EH, Why I am so clever, 9: 97). The aim of this paper is to make sense of this quite puzzling contention—Superficiality, for short. In doing this, I shall focus on two further claims—both to be found in Gay Science 354—which I take to substantiate Nietzsche’s endorsement of Superficiality. The first claim is that consciousness is superfluous—which I call the “superfluousness claim” (SC). The second claim is that consciousness is the source (...) of some deep falsification—which I call the “falsification claim” (FC). I shall start by considering Nietzsche’s notion of consciousness. Here, I shall argue that the kind of consciousness he is concerned with is in fact self-consciousness and that he put forward a higher-order theory of it. Then, I shall address the two claims. Regarding (FC), my proposal will be that, according to Nietzsche, the content of (self-)conscious mental states is falsified in virtue of its being articulated propositionally. Regarding (SC), I shall claim that it is best read as a weak version of epiphenomenalism about conscious causation. In addressing both points, I shall discuss in particular the influential reading of Nietzsche’s theory of consciousness offered by Katsafanas (2005). (shrink)

We often have reason to doubt our own ability to form rational beliefs, or to doubt that some particular belief of ours is rational. Perhaps we learn that a trusted friend disagrees with us about what our shared evidence supports. Or perhaps we learn that our beliefs have been afflicted by motivated reasoning or other cognitive biases. These are examples of higher-order evidence. While it may seem plausible that higher-order evidence should impact our beliefs, it is less clear how and (...) why. Normally, when evidence impacts our beliefs, it does so by virtue of speaking for or against the truth of theirs contents. But higher-order evidence does not directly concern the contents of the beliefs that they impact. In recent years, philosophers have become increasingly aware of the need to understand the nature and normative role of higher-order evidence. This is partly due to the pervasiveness of higher-order evidence in human life. But it has also become clear that higher-order evidence plays a central role in many epistemological debates, spanning from traditional discussions of internalism/externalism about epistemic justification to more recent discussions of peer disagreement and epistemic akrasia. This volume brings together, for the first time, a distinguished group of leading and up-and-coming epistemologists to explore a range of issues about higher-order evidence. (shrink)

There are many ways to advance our understanding of the human mind by studying different kinds of sociality. Our aim in this introduction is to situate claims about extended cognition within a broader framework of research on human sociality. We briefly discuss the existing landscape, focusing on ways of defending socially extended cognition. We then draw on resources from the recent literature on the socially extended mind, as well as the literature on collective intentionality, to provide a framework for thinking (...) about the social dimension of individual minds. We then turn to a brief overview of the individualistic approaches advanced by Ludwig and Spaulding in this volume. And we close with a discussion of the transformative role of the social mind in individual life presented by Kern and Moll, as well as the distributed approach to interacting systems defended by Goldstone and Theiner. (shrink)

A proof-theoretic test for paradoxicality was famously proposed by Tennant: a paradox must yield a closed derivation of absurdity with no normal form. Drawing on the remark that all derivations of a given proposition can be transformed into derivations in normal form of a logically equivalent proposition, we investigate the possibility of paradoxes in normal form. We compare paradoxes à la Tennant and paradoxes in normal form from the viewpoint of the computational interpretation of proofs and from the viewpoint of (...) proof-theoretic semantics. (shrink)

The institutionalization of a rights-based proportionality review shares a number of salient features and puzzles with the practice of contestation that the Socrates of the early Platonic dialogues became famous for. Understanding the point of Socratic contestation, and its role in a democratic polity, is also the key to understanding the point of proportionality based rights review. To begin with, when judges decide cases within the proportionality framework they do not primarily interpret authority. They assess reasons. Not surprisingly, they, like (...) Socrates, have been prone to the charge that they offend the values and traditions of the community. The article discusses four types of pathologies that occasionally infect democratic decision-making that rights-based proportionality review is particularly suited to identify. But more basic and equally important is a second kind of justification: Proportionality-based judicial review institutionalizes a right to contest the acts of public authorities and demand a public reasons-based justification. Having a legal remedy that allows for the contestation of acts by public authorities before an impartial and independent court and demanding its justification in terms of public reason is as basic a commitment of liberal democracy as the right to vote. The real question is not whether judicial review is democratically legitimate, but how judicial institutions ought to be structured to best serve their democracy-enhancing and rights protecting purpose. If Socrates was right to insist that the practice of contestation he engaged in deserves the highest praise in a democratic polity, it is equally true that a well structured and appropriately embedded court engaged in rights based proportionality review deserves to be embraced as a vital element of liberal constitutional democracy. (shrink)

Nietzsche believes that we do not know our own actions, nor their real motives. This belief, however, is but a consequence of his assuming a quite general skepticism about introspection. The main aim of this paper is to offer a reading of this last view, which I shall call the Inner Opacity (IO) view. In the first part of the paper I show that a strong motivation behind IO lies in Nietzsche’s claim that self-knowledge exploits the same set of cognitive (...) capacities as well as the same folk-psychological framework involved in outward-directed mind-reading. In the second part I turn to Nietzsche’s view of agency and argue that he sees a fundamental discrepancy between the conscious attitudes we have introspective access to, on the one hand, and the subpersonal processes and states occurring at the unconscious level of the drives, on the other hand. (shrink)

This Special Issue titled "Severe Uncertainty in Science, Medicine and Technology" aims to shed new light on the understanding of severe uncertainty and its multifaceted implications. The main idea of the papers of this collection is that, despite possible sophisticated statistical judgments towards future risks in science, medicine, and technology, severe forms of uncertainty still exist.While ignorance is usually assumed to be a total absence of knowledge, uncertainty often refers to the incompleteness of knowledge or information. In its extreme form, (...) this is called "severe uncertainty" but is also known as "fundamental," "radical," "deep," "great," or "genuine" uncertainty. A common characteristic of these... (shrink)

This paper analyses the importance of the forest in understanding the Old French Partonopeus de Blois. The forest embodies the dual nature of the romance, mixing religious and supernatural elements. It provides a structural framework for the action, as both parts of the romance start with a journey into the forest: it is the passage to the Otherworld, the frontier between reality and the unknown. Placed at the limit of the civilised world, the forest is the space of perigrinations and (...) of reconciliation, both with other characters and with God. In Partonopeus the forest also leads to the sea, the next step in the journey to the Otherworld, and the passage from one realm of reality to the other is achieved with the help of an animal. The author also reflects on the otherworldly roles of Melior and Uraque, in the traditions of the fairy lover and the healing fairy. (shrink)

The goal of the article is to investigate some aspects of the logistic European integration at its origins by looking at the contribution of Jean Monnet. Focusing on the fifty years before the Schuman declaration, the text traces the formation of the “logistics rationality” of the Frenchman, centering on two crucial aspects of his action: the commitment to build transnational infrastructures and the creation of “logistic communities” of States. Following this route, the birth of the ECSC will emerge as the (...) final step of a long path, to which Monnet contributed by theorizing the construction of the “European logistic space”. (shrink)

Although Habermas has never worked out a conception of virtue and indeed criticizes this notion whenever he uses it, his theory crucially depends on the virtuous attitude of participants in discourse — be it in the realm of democracy and law or that of morality. In this paper, in which I deal only with the ethical foundations of morality, I argue first that the norms of discourse which are gained from a presuppositional analysis of speech as such have to be (...) complemented by the sensitive perception on the side of the recipients. Only when the claims are understood in their full significance for the speaker does the discourse live up to the ideal which is already anticipated in every speech act. This presuppositional analysis shows secondly that it is mainly the virtuous attitude that is morally relevant and not those capacities for acting morally that the agent already possesses. However, the virtuous attitude genuinely entails the obligation to strive to perfect all those capacities that enable us to sensitively understand the other's claim. A discussion of the capacities that have to be promoted leads to the singling out of sensitivity as contrasted to immediate empathy. It is the reflexive transcendence of the agent's evaluative patterns that allows this emotion to sit well with a post-conventional morality. Finally, I discuss a possible caveat of Wellmer and Habermas who might claim that the proposed conception of virtue would only be valid for participants in discourse, but not for agents acting in the life-world. However, because the discursive virtue is of wide latitude, it does not fall under this objection. (shrink)

La presente proposta – inserita nel quadro della ricerca di dottorato intitolata _Tonino Guerra sceneggiatore tra anni Cinquanta e Sessanta. Il lavoro con Antonioni e Rosi tra storia e inchiesta_ – si propone di illustrare la ricognizione archivistica condotta su alcune fonti di prima mano, relative al film _L’eclisse_ (1962) di Michelangelo Antonioni. Questi materiali preparatori inediti gettano luce su modelli sia interpretativi sia metodologici legati alla genetica testuale. In un’ottica storico-filologica, l’osservazione del metodo di lavoro di Guerra e Antonioni (...) consente di ampliare la portata ermeneutica del film in questione, soffermandosi su quello che Pierre-Marc de Biasi definisce il “divenire del testo”: dall’idea iniziale alla sua evoluzione fino alla versione definitiva, chiamando in causa materiali eterogenei. L’intervento si propone di spingere lo studio della sceneggiatura a dialogare con un più ampio concetto di materiali preparatori. (shrink)

The trope that modern Europe, emerging from its Dark Ages, is indebted to the Islamic Middle Ages is widespread. The article traces this ‘Islamic medievalism’ back to Muslim discourses of the late 19th and early 20th century. Focusing on the Egyptian intellectual Muhammad Lutfi Jum’a’s (1886-1953) portrayal of medieval Islam and its philosophers as well as his mobilization of these within a reformist ideology, it argues the following: Firstly, that Jum’a’s medievalism, perceiving medieval Islamic philosophy as the sine qua non (...) of European modernity, is indebted to readings of European orientalist histories of philosophy, demonstrating how medievalism emerged from a global discursive formation. Secondly, that Jum’a mobilized the medievalist argument and the philosophers to argue for the possibility of an alternative counter-modern Muslim and Eastern modernity where the materialist and disenchanting tendencies of European modernity are negated – a vision he shared with other so-called Easternist thinkers, who conceived of Muslim countries as belonging to a broader East ranging from North Africa to Japan. (shrink)