Gegenstand des Bandes ist eine umfassende Evaluation epistemischer, praktischer, veridiktiver Sachverhalte aus der Perspektive jener Modi des Nichtgelingens, der Störung oder der Irritation, die unter dem Stichwort „Irrtum“ verhandelt werden. Dies soll aber nicht nur aus der Perspektive der Negativität geschehen, vielmehr soll gefragt werden, inwieweit der Irrtum zum Ausgangspunkt und zur Bedingung gelingender epistemischer Praktiken zu werden vermag. Doch was ermöglicht und garantiert die Unterscheidung von Wahrheit und Irrtum? Was sind die Kriterien einer solchen Unterscheidung? Wer ist unter welchen (...) Bedingungen in der Lage und berechtigt, den Irrtum zu erkennen und als einen solchen festzustellen? Welche Instanzen sind an dieser Unterscheidung beteiligt und hierfür legimitiert? Vermögen wir aus Irrtümern zu lernen? Hier tut sich ein breites Problemfeld auf, das sich zunächst aus dem Antagonismus von Irrtum und Wahrheit ergibt. Diesen Facetten von Irrtum soll in der ganzen interdisziplinären Breite in der lateinischen und griechisch-byzantinischen, in der arabischen und hebräischen Tradition, in der Laien- und der Gelehrtenwelt, aber auch in der Alltagskultur nachgegangen werden. (shrink)

The title of this Festschrift to Stephen Brown points to the understanding of medieval philosophy and theology in the longue durée of their traditions and discourses.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to aid legal decision making has become prominent. This paper investigates the use of AI in a critical issue in employment law, the determination of a worker’s status—employee vs. independent contractor—in two common law countries (the U.S. and Canada). This legal question has been a contentious labor issue insofar as independent contractors are not eligible for the same benefits as employees. It has become an important societal issue due to the ubiquity of the gig (...) economy and the recent disruptions in employment arrangements. To address this problem, we collected, annotated, and structured the data for all Canadian and Californian court cases related to this legal question between 2002 and 2021, resulting in 538 Canadian cases and 217 U.S. cases. In contrast to legal literature focusing on complex and correlated characteristics of the employment relationship, our statistical analyses of the data show very strong correlations between the worker’s status and a small subset of quantifiable characteristics of the employment relationship. In fact, despite the variety of situations in the case law, we show that simple, off-the-shelf AI models classify the cases with an out-of-sample accuracy of more than 90%. Interestingly, the analysis of misclassified cases reveals consistent misclassification patterns by most algorithms. Legal analyses of these cases led us to identify how equity is ensured by judges in ambiguous situations. Finally, our findings have practical implications for access to legal advice and justice. We deployed our AI model via the open-access platform, https://MyOpenCourt.org/, to help users answer employment legal questions. This platform has already assisted many Canadian users, and we hope it will help democratize access to legal advice to large crowds. (shrink)

Ignorant speech, which spreads falsehoods about people and policies, is pervasive in public discourse. A popular response to this problem recommends countering ignorant speech with more speech, rather than legal regulations. However, Mary Kate McGowan has influentially argued that this ‘counterspeech’ response is flawed, as it overlooks the asymmetric pliability of conversational norms: the phenomenon whereby some conversational norms are easier to enact than subsequently to reverse. After demonstrating that this conversational ‘stickiness’ is an even broader concern for counterspeech than (...) McGowan suggests—it applies not just to oppressive or hateful speech, but also to ordinary policy-related misinformation—I argue that a more sophisticated account of counterspeech can nevertheless overcome it. First, the stickiness objection overlooks the distinction between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ counterspeech. Instead of directly negating a distorted proposition, positive counterspeech affirms a correct proposition that is inconsistent with the falsehoods at hand. This, I contend, allows it to counter ignorant speech without triggering the properties that render it sticky. Second, the stickiness objection presupposes an unrefined conception of counterspeech’s temporality. Counterspeech should be understood as a diachronic process, which not only follows, but also pre-empts, ignorant utterances. Drawing on speech-act theories of silencing, I argue that pre-emptive counterspeech can condition the conversational context so as to prevent subsequent ignorant utterances from enacting sticky conversational norms. Thus, this theoretically-refined conception of counterspeech helps appreciate how verbal responses might overcome the stickiness of conversational norms; and, in doing so, it reveals that this stickiness need not provide reasons to prefer legal remedies to counterspeech. (shrink)

This is a survey paper giving a self-contained account of Shelah's theory of the pcf function pcf={cf:D is an ultrafilter on a}, where a is a set of regular cardinals such that a

Logic and Philosophy of Logic

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The notions of perceptual normativity and optimality have generated much discussion in the last decade or so in the literature on Merleau-Ponty. Husserl’s position on the topic has been far less extensively investigated. Surprisingly, however, Husserl wrote a great deal about the question of perceptual optimality. Not only are there a considerable number of important passages scattered throughout the manuscripts, the archive also contains a few important full texts on precisely this issue. Given the role of fulfillment for Husserl’s concept (...) of intentionality, this should not really come as a surprise, since the teleological nature of the fulfillment structure terminates in an experience of the optimum. Hence, however marginal this topic might seem at first glance, reflecting on it rapidly leads us to the heart of Husserl’s project and sheds further light on his conception of intentional experience. (shrink)

Faced with hate speech, oppressed groups can use their own speech to respond to their verbal oppressors. This “counterspeech,” however, sometimes itself takes on a hateful form. This paper explores the moral standing of such “hateful counterspeech.” Is there a fundamental moral asymmetry between hateful counterspeech, and the hateful utterances of dominant or oppressive groups? Or are claims that such an asymmetry exists indefensible? I argue for an intermediate position. There _is_ a key moral asymmetry between these two forms of (...) speech. But, this asymmetry notwithstanding, hateful counterspeech is capable of enacting serious harms—and so, contrary to what many legal theorists have argued, it is in principle an appropriate object of legal regulation. I begin by considering the central argument for thinking that hateful counterspeech is not seriously troubling. This argument holds that oppressed groups lack authority—and, by extension, “speaker power.” Yet this argument, I suggest, sits in tension with the fact that low-status members of dominant groups can, through their utterances, seriously harm members of oppressed groups. Philosophers of language have developed sophisticated arguments to explain this last phenomenon: they have argued that speaker power is relativised to particular jurisdictions; that it can be acquired dynamically in local settings; and that it is socially dispersed. I argue that, in light of these arguments, it appears that hateful counterspeech, too, can generate serious harms. Nevertheless, I show that this conclusion is compatible with recognising a crucial moral asymmetry between hateful counterspeech and the hate speech of oppressors. (shrink)

L’analyse du double emploi du verbe « valoir » dans l’évaluation et l’appréciation éclaircit quelques aspects de la valeur. Évaluer, c’est prendre conscience d’un être qui est valorisé ou valeureux, non d’un être qui a une valeur. La valeur appartient à l’être même d’un objet. Il n’est pas question de demander si celui-ci la possède ou non, de résoudre le problème et de prouver la solution. Toute évaluation est une épreuve : l’objet convainc l’évaluateur en lui révélant la valeur intrinsèque, (...) celle-ci n’est pourtant pas une propriété. (shrink)

Maxime Vachon | : L’objectif de cet article est de montrer l’unité du chapitre 14 du Peri Hermeneias, chapitre dans lequel Aristote retourne au fondement de l’échange dialectique, à savoir la doxa. Je montre ainsi que ce chapitre expose progressivement les trois conditions sémantiques que des points de vue doivent respecter pour être contraires : le sujet doit être le même, l’objet doit aussi être le même, mais le mode de prédication doit être contradictoire. | : The aim of (...) this paper is to show the unity of chapter 14 of the Peri Hermeneias, in which chapter Aristotle goes back to the basis of dialectical exchange, that is doxa. Thus I show that this chapter presents in successive order the three semantical conditions that points of view must respect in order to be contrary : the subject has to be the same, the object has also to be the same, but the mode of predication must be contradictory. (shrink)

According to an influential objection, which Martha Nussbaum has powerfully restated, expressing anger in democratic public discourse is counterproductive from the standpoint of justice. To resist this challenge, this article articulates a crucial yet underappreciated sense in which angry discourse is epistemically productive. Drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, which emphasize the distinctive phenomenology of emotion, I argue that conveying anger to one’s listeners is epistemically valuable in two respects: first, it can direct listeners’ attention to elusive (...) morally relevant features of the situation; second, it enables them to register injustices that their existing evaluative categories are not yet suited to capturing. Thus, when employed skillfully, angry speech promotes a greater understanding of existing injustices. This epistemic role is indispensable in highly divided societies, where the injustices endured by some groups are often invisible to, or misunderstood by, other... (shrink)

During the Zimbabwean crisis, millions crossed through the apartheid-era border fence, searching for ways to make ends meet. Maxim Bolt explores the lives of Zimbabwean migrant labourers, of settled black farm workers and their dependants, and of white farmers and managers, as they intersect on the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa. Focusing on one farm, this book investigates the role of a hub of wage labour in a place of crisis. A close ethnographic study, it addresses the complex, shifting (...) labour and life conditions in northern South Africa's agricultural borderlands. Underlying these challenges are the Zimbabwean political and economic crisis of the 2000s and the intensified pressures on commercial agriculture in South Africa following market liberalization and post-apartheid land reform. But, amidst uncertainty, farmers and farm workers strive for stability. The farms on South Africa's margins are centers of gravity, islands of residential labour in a sea of informal arrangements. (shrink)

У статті розглянуто проблему людської гідності за доби Просвітництва (на прикладі філософії І. Канта) у контексті сучасного філософського дискурсу проблеми. Зазначено, що подальший розвиток суспільства формує запит на правову соціально-орієнтовану державу, де надаються та забезпечуються широкі права та свободи для усіх громадян (незалежно від національності, віросповідання, культури, матеріального стану), що зрештою стає важливою засадою осмислення та буття людської гідності. Йдеться про право громадянина висловлювати свою думку та громадянську позицію, а завдання влади забезпечувати широкий спектр прав та свобод, які визначаються І. (...) Кантом як моральні (природні). Ось чому звернення сучасних філософів та дослідників до філософії І. Канта, його тлумачення природи людини, її прав та свобод, що зумовлене певною схожістю доби Просвітництва та сучасного етапу розвитку суспільства. Означена подібність втілилася у низці факторів, що створюють нову картину світу, а саме: кардинальні зміни політичного, соціального та економічного устрою; традиційного людського буття та життєвого світу; швидкість та глобалізм сучасних трансформацій не тільки у виробничих сферах, а й у соціально-побутових, морально-етичних та суспільно-політичних відносинах. Наголошено, що названі процеси втілюються у моральному (природному) та адміністративному праві і суттєво впливають на свободи та рівність усіх членів суспільства; самостійність дій кожного члена спільноти як громадянина; відсутність патерналізму на рівні взаємин громадянин-суспільство-влада. Таким чином, представлена І. Кантом етично-правова концепція людської гідності знаходить розуміння та застосування в концептах аргументативної та екологічної етики, етики відповідальності у прагненні до створення таких владних структур, за яких суспільний консенсус досягається через аргументований діалог усіх членів суспільства та колективну відповідальність за дії. Таким чином цілісна реконструкція роздумів І. Канта про людину, її гідність та свободу, засвідчує органічну приналежність української філософії до європейського інтелектуального та філософського контексту розуміння загальнолюдських морально-етичних норм, прав і свобод. (shrink)

Most twentieth‐century European philosophers have attempted to think anew the Kantian question about the necessary conditions of experience. A rapid survey of last century's European philosophy would easily show that in spite of the various criticisms formulated against the very project of transcendental foundationalism, the vast majority of the philosophers in the so‐called Continental tradition have not abandoned the project of formulating transcendental arguments altogether. These transcendental inquiries into the conditions of possibility of all these phenomena are certainly more immediately (...) visible in the early works, especially those on Husserl, but a patient reading would show that they are still very much present in the later writings as well. The overcoming of classical transcendentalism at work in deconstruction is indeed the outcome of an ultra‐transcendental strategy. In Of Grammatology, Derrida exposes this ultra‐transcendental logic for the first time when he famously claims that a “pathway” through the transcendental is necessary. (shrink)

During the nineteenth century, German philosophy developed from a type of general knowledge to an academic discipline at the university. Changes across disciplines to the philosophy of science and psychological surveys created new challenges for the place and purpose of philosophy in the educational system. The content of logic courses for secondary schools (Gymnasiums) was centred on the dissociation of nature and the scale of logic. In this paper, I will examine a number of projects for teaching philosophy at the (...) secondary school level from new humanism to reduce philosophical to philological concerns about different projects offered by Niethammer, Hegel and Herbart. Then, I will focus on the most successful – Adolf Trendelenburg’s Elements of Aristotle’s Logic (1st edition of 1836). This work is a compilation of the logical texts of Aristotle, and for as long as sixty years, it was an official textbook in Prussian secondary schools. The aim of the paper is to show how the rethinking of Aristotle’s heritage affected the theoretical and ideological expectations of propaedeutic courses and transformed the image of logic as a philosophical discipline. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 48, Issue 1, Page 40-78, Winter 2020.

The problems of diversity and pluralism have always been serious challenges to the stability of European societies. In the course of its history Europe elaborated various important ways of accommodation of differences, including toleration, respect and recognition. This article is devoted to discussion of the relations among them both in analytical and historical perspectives. I argue that toleration has always been based on a certain kind of respect and distinguish three main paradigms of the relations among these concepts. Then I (...) proceed to a discussion of the particular forms these paradigms took in European intellectual history and to an analysis of their applicability to the most important problems of contemporary society. I argue that pluralism and the complexity of contemporary society require pluralism in the modes of justifying toleration. (shrink)

When is choice affected by subliminal messages? This question has fascinated scientists and lay people alike, but it is only recently that reliable empirical data began to emerge. In the current paper we bridge the literature on implicit motivation and that on subliminal persuasion. We suggest that motivation in general, and implicit motivation more specifically, plays an important role in subliminal persuasion: It sensitizes us to subliminal cues. To examine this hypothesis we developed a new paradigm that allows powerful tests (...) of subliminal influences as well as stringent assessments of subliminality. The results of two experiments suggest that implicit motivation can enhance the effects of subliminal priming on choice. (shrink)

This article defends the democratic ideal of inclusive public discourse, as articulated in Democratic Speech in Divided Times, against the critiques offered by Billingham, Fraser, and Hannon. Specifically, it considers and responds to three core challenges. The first challenge argues, notably, that the “shared reasons” constraint should either apply everywhere or not at all, and that, if this constraint is to apply in divided circumstances, its justificatory constituency must be idealized. The second challenge contends that the resistance of hate speech (...) and misinformation to counterspeech cannot adequately be explained by considerations of salience, and therefore cannot adequately by countered (as I suggest) by “positive” forms of counterspeech. Finally, the last challenge objects that the ideal of inclusive public discourse I defend remains, as pessimists allege, excessively idealistic. (shrink)

This is the introduction to the symposium on Maxime Lepoutre, Democratic Speech in Divided Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). The symposium contains articles by Paul Billingham, Rachel Fraser, and Michael Hannon, and a response by the author.