This stunning new edition retains the book's broad aims, intended audience, and multidisciplinary approach. New chapters take into account the more current backdrop of globalization, particularly events such as 9/11, and attendant developments that make a reconsideration of race relations in education quite urgent.

Inspired by Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions, Wittgenstein held that the surface grammar of a proposition may be highly misleading as to the underlying structure of a proposition. Wittgenstein explains how elementary propositions can have sense by drawing an analogy with a picture or model, such as the model of the scene of an accident. One key claim of the picture theory of meaning is that elementary propositions are capable of being true and capable of being false independently of one (...) another. If it is a matter of debate whether or not Wittgenstein adhered to a deflationary account of truth at the time of the Tractatus, it is clear that he later espoused deflationary views about truth. One problem for deflationary accounts of truth along the lines of Prior has been the treatment of propositions in which we seem to be faced with an ascription of truth to a named proposition. (shrink)

Aus einer philosophisch-phanomenologischen und literaturwissenschaftlichen Perspektive heraus gewinnt Nadine Benz nahere Erkenntnisse uber das temporale Phanomen des Wartens. Zunachst wird die historische Entwicklung der Zeitvorstellung aus philosophisch-phanomenologischer Sicht thematisiert, spezifisch im Hinblick auf die Fragen nach Messbarkeit, Vermitteltheit und nach objektiven und subjektiven Komponenten von Zeiterfahrung in ihrer Aporetik. Im Anschluss wird vom Konzept der Lebenswelt zur Literatur ubergeleitet: Die vorliegende Studie bindet die Aporien der Zeit zunachst theoretisch in eine Narratologie von Zeiterfahrung ein, die vor allem den Faktor (...) des Fiktiven produktiv berucksichtigt. Schliesslich werden die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse und Instrumente fur eine Analyse von Erzahltexten des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts fruchtbar gemacht. Hier erlangen die literarischen Konfigurationen von Wartezeit als Semantiken des Wartens fur die Subjekte der fiktiven Zeiterfahrung einen konstitutiven Status. (shrink)

It is often maintained that co-referential terms can be substituted for one another whilst preserving truth-value in extensional contexts, and preserving grammaticality in all contexts. Crispin Wright calls this claim ‘The Reference Principle’ . Since Wright defines extensional contexts as those in which truth-value is determined only by reference, it is the assertion about substitution salva congruitate that is significant. Wright argues that RP is the key to understanding how Frege came to hold, paradoxically, that the concept horse is not (...) a concept, and to providing a resolution to the paradox .RP and Wright's application of it to Frege's Paradox have recently been criticized by Oliver . 1 Oliver argues that the syntax of natural languages is too complicated for the failure of two terms to fit into the same forms of speech to indicate a difference in semantic significance: RP is, he claims, an empirical falsehood.I shall argue that, although Oliver's arguments show that RP is false as it stands, a revised version of the principle, employing a more robust notion of substitution, is nevertheless correct. I shall end by outlining the implications of this revision for the appeal to RP and for Wright's resolution of Frege's Paradox.1. Referring terms and referential positionOliver's case against RP appeals to an impressive array of counter-examples. For our purposes it will be useful to regard these as being of three sorts. The first sort can be dealt with relatively swiftly: examples of the second and third sorts are more challenging.The first sort of counter-example involves referring terms that feature as parts of complex referring expressions. Oliver's examples include ‘William’ in the complex expression ‘William the Conqueror’ . The substitution of expressions co-referential with ‘William’ into sentences employing the complex referring expression often results in ungrammatical …. (shrink)

The paper reviews criteria which have been used to distinguish science from nonscience and from pseudo–science, and it examines the extent to which they can usefully be applied to “creation science.” These criteria do not force a clear decision, especially as creation science resembles important eighteenth–century forms of orthodox science. Nevertheless, the proponents of creation science may be accused of pious fraud in failing to concede in their political battles that their “science” is tentative and tendentious and will continue to (...) be so while it remains archaic and poorly integrated into the rest of science. (shrink)

Our goal is to show how science fiction films have dealt with the augmentation of bodily and cognitive faculties. These cinematographic imaginaries allow us to question the interest of such innovations. They depict a world in which the artificialization and mechanization of many activities leads to a loss of control over them. This would mean that we would run the risk, in the long term, of being deprived of our human qualities. However, we will show that these films do not (...) question the viability of this type of society. Indeed, these fictions do not insist on the constraints that these transformations nevertheless impose on the environment. Faced with the ecological crisis, the hold of technological innovations on all societies, far from appearing as the solution, risks on the contrary being identified as part of the problem. (shrink)

Proponents of modern Frankfurt-Style Counterexamples generally accept that we cannot construct successful FSCs in which there are no alternative possibilities present. But they maintain that we can construct successful FSCs in which there are no morally significant alternatives present and that such examples succeed in breaking any conceptual link between alternative possibilities and free will. I argue that it is not possible to construct an FSC that succeeds even in this weaker sense. In cases where any alternatives are clearly insignificant, (...) it does not appear at all obvious that the agent can be held responsible. Present popular FSCs include alternatives that are ambiguous in their significance, and when the examples are sharpened to remove this ambiguity, they lose their force. Moreover, the proponent of such examples faces a problem: We can easily construct scenarios in which any alternatives are obviously insignificant, and in such scenarios, we are not intuitively inclined to suppose the agent is responsible. The proponent of new FSCs must therefore distinguish any alternatives she includes from the sorts included in these scenarios. The difference must now be such that this helps to make it seem intuitively likely that the agent is responsible where the agent otherwise would not appear responsible, and these alternatives are irrelevant to any judgment about whether the agent is responsible. I maintain that it is impossible to achieve both of these goals at once. (shrink)

Pereboom has formulated a Frankfurt-style counterexample in which an agent is alleged to be responsible despite the fact that there are only non-robust alternatives present (Pereboom, Moral responsibility and alternative possibilities: essays on the importance of alternative possibilities, 2003; Phil Explor 12(2):109–118, 2009). I support Widerker’s objection to Pereboom’s Tax Evasion 2 example (Widerker, J Phil 103(4):163–187, 2006) (which rests on the worry that the agent in this example is derivatively culpable as opposed to directly responsible) against Pereboom’s recent counterarguments (...) to this objection (Pereboom 2009). Building on work by Moya (J Phil 104:475–486, 2007; Critica 43(128):3–26, 2011) and Widerker (Widerker 2006), I argue that there is good reason to measure the robustness of alternatives in terms of comparative, rather than non-comparative likelihood of exemption, where the important factor for blame is whether the agent is “doing her reasonable best” to avoid blameworthy behaviour. I maintain that an agent only ever appears responsible when alternatives are robust in this sense. In Pereboom’s examples, both Tax Evasion 2, and his more recent version, Tax Evasion 3 (Pereboom 2009), I maintain the robustness of the alternatives, so understood, is unclear. We can clear up any ambiguity by sharpening the examples, and the result is that the agent appears responsible when the alternatives are made clearly robust, and does not appear responsible when alternatives appear clearly non-robust. The comparative nature of our judgements about blame, I maintain helps to explain the continuing appeal of the “leeway-incompatibilist” viewpoint. (shrink)

The concept of person arises in the conjunction of Greek Philosophy carried out by Saint Augustine. Both men and women are persons because they carry the image of God in their soul. The desire of Happiness, Truth and Good show the longings of the personal being.

In his article “Issues of Pragmaticism” published in 1905, in The Monist, Charles S. Peirce complains that “Logicians have been at fault in giving Vagueness the go-by, so far as not even to analyze it.” That same year, occupying himself with the consequences of “Critical commonsensism,” he affirmed, “I have worked out the logic of vagueness with something like completeness,” a statement that causes the majority of the commentators on his work, including the editors of the Collected Papers to ask (...) where this logic is to be found. The fever for finding Peirce's manuscripts is fed by the hope of some researchers of discovering the logic of vagueness, a hope that has grown since Carolyn Eisele's publication of his mathematical works. Others - and I count myself among them - believe that in reality this is a matter of something already known. That is, they interpret the affirmation ending the paragraph of reproach addressed to logicians, “The present writer has done his best to work out the Stechiology, Critic, and Methodeutik of the subject,” as a tripartite semiotic of the vague, still limited, according to Peirce's older works, to symbols, that is, to the signs of natural language examined from the perspective of logic. (shrink)

The claim that theoretical foundations are historically contingent does not draw the same intensity of fire as it did one or especially two decades ago. The aftermath of debates on the political boundaries created by foundations allows for a deeper exploration of the foundations of feminist theory. This article re-examines the (anti)-Hegelian foundations of the feminist standpoint put forward by Nancy Hartsock and argues that the Hegelian subject of the early Phenomenology of Spirit resists gender codification in its experience of (...) ongoing rediscovery and fallibility in knowing. The subject against which the feminist self was constituted does not fit the masculinity thought to be natural. Hegel’s master-slave dialectic and phenomenological subject reveal contradictions that cannot be resolved by an opposing feminist standpoint, and may provide resources that resist the rigid gender categories upon which the standpoint depends. Key Words: abstract masculinity • feminist standpoint • feminist theory • foundations • Nancy Hartsock • Hegel • master-slave dialectic • subjectivity. (shrink)

Supervenient libertarianism maintains that indeterminism may exist at a supervening agency level, consistent with determinism at a subvening physical level. It seems as if this approach has the potential to break the longstanding deadlock in the free will debate, since it concedes to the traditional incompatibilist that agents can only do otherwise if they can do so in their actual circumstances, holding the past and the laws constant, while nonetheless arguing that this ability is compatible with physical determinism. However, we (...) argue that supervenient libertarianism faces some serious problems, and that it fails to break us free from this deadlock within the free will debate. (shrink)

Background The worldwide increase in older persons demands technological solutions to combat the shortage of caregiving and to enable aging in place. Smart home health technologies (SHHTs) are promoted and implemented as a possible solution from an economic and practical perspective. However, ethical considerations are equally important and need to be investigated. Methods We conducted a systematic review according to the PRISMA guidelines to investigate if and how ethical questions are discussed in the field of SHHTs in caregiving for older (...) persons. Results 156 peer-reviewed articles published in English, German and French were retrieved and analyzed across 10 electronic databases. Using narrative analysis, 7 ethical categories were mapped: privacy, autonomy, responsibility, human vs. artificial interactions, trust, ageism and stigma, and other concerns. Conclusion The findings of our systematic review show the (lack of) ethical consideration when it comes to the development and implementation of SHHTs for older persons. Our analysis is useful to promote careful ethical consideration when carrying out technology development, research and deployment to care for older persons. Registration We registered our systematic review in the PROSPERO network under CRD42021248543. (shrink)

Fox and Spector use multiple instances of the exhaustivity operator EXH to derive the correct meaning of utterances that include pitch-focus marked disjunction in downward-entailing environments. They argue that the \ operator evaluates alternatives to be used by EXH. Though the method is sound and gets the right result, we argue that the way in which EXH would need to interact with other instances of EXH, as well as other focus-sensitive elements, is at odds with how EXH is used to (...) explain other phenomena. Specifically, the analysis in Fox and Spector predicts intervention effects for cases where EXH interacts with other focus-sensitive elements. This is problematic for many cases in which EXH is used to derive the desired inferences. We propose a different way of focus association for EXH that would work for the approach introduced in Fox and Spector as well as elsewhere. In addition, our account does not require a covert element to be focused. (shrink)

The notion of computation has changed the world more than any previous expressions of knowledge. However, as know-how in its particular algorithmic embodiment, computation is closed to meaning. Therefore, computer-based data processing can only mimic life’s creative aspects, without being creative itself. AI’s current record of accomplishments shows that it automates tasks associated with intelligence, without being intelligent itself. Mistaking the abstract for the concrete has led to the religion of “everything is an output of computation”—even the humankind that conceived (...) the computer. The hypostatized role of computers explains the increased dependence on them. The convergence machine called deep learning is only the most recent form through which the deterministic theology of the machine claims more than what it actually is: extremely effective data processing. A proper understanding of complexity, as well as the need to distinguish between the reactive nature of the artificial and the anticipatory nature of the living are suggested as practical responses to the challenges posed by machine theology. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle is acknowledged as a major figure in twentieth-century philosophy and yet discussions of Ryle's own writings are rare. This is a great pity, since his work is philosophically rich and the arguments and positions he develops are often subtler and more persuasive than those ascribed to him. In this collection, leading scholars engage with Ryle's writings on topics such as the concept of thinking, the explanation of action, the notion of a category mistake, and the analysis of hypotheticals. (...) Together the essays demonstrate the continuing relevance of Ryle's arguments to these areas of philosophy. The contributors are Maria Alvarez, Jonathan Dancy, Hans-Johann Glock, Christoph Pfisterer, Bede Rundle, Paul Snowdon, Rowland Stout, Julia Tanney, and Roger Teichmann. (shrink)

This book offers a detailed account and discussion of Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics. In Part I, the stage is set with a brief presentation of Frege's logicist attempt to provide arithmetic with a foundation and Wittgenstein's criticisms of it, followed by sketches of Wittgenstein's early views of mathematics, in the Tractatus and in the early 1930s. Then (in Part II), Wittgenstein's mature philosophy of mathematics (1937-44) is carefully presented and examined. Schroeder explains that it is based on two key (...) ideas: the calculus view and the grammar view. On the one hand, mathematics is seen as a human activity - calculation - rather than a theory. On the other hand, the results of mathematical calculations serve as grammatical norms. The following chapters (on mathematics as grammar; rule-following; conventionalism; the empirical basis of mathematics; the role of proof) explore the tension between those two key ideas and suggest a way in which it can be resolved. Finally, there are chapters analysing and defending Wittgenstein's provocative views on Hilbert's Formalism and the quest for consistency proofs and on Gödel's incompleteness theorems. (shrink)

In this paper I explore a neglected discussion of vagueness put forward by Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Grammar (1932–34). In this work, unlike Philosophical Investigations (1953), Wittgenstein not only discusses the venerable Sorites paradox but provides a novel conception of vagueness using an analogy with coin tossing and converging intervals. As he sees it, the problematic picture of vagueness arises because we conflate aspects of the functioning of vague concepts with those of non-vague ones. Thus, while we accept that vague (...) concepts have no sharp cut-off points (are boundaryless), we nevertheless retain the idea that we can progress towards the penumbra the way we progress towards the cut-off points of non-vague concepts. As a potential remedy, Wittgenstein's analogy with coin tossing and converging intervals replaces this picture and provides an understanding of the functioning of vague concepts in which no notion of a progression arises. (shrink)

The current assumptions of knowledge acquisition brought about the crisis in the reproducibility of experiments. A complementary perspective should account for the specific causality characteristic of life by integrating past, present, and future. A “second Cartesian revolution,” informed by and in awareness of anticipatory processes, should result in scientific methods that transcend the theology of determinism and reductionism. In our days, science, itself an expression of anticipatory activity, makes possible alternative understandings of reality and its dynamics. For this purpose, the (...) study advances G-complexity for defining and comparing decidable and undecidable knowledge. AI and related computational expressions of knowledge could benefit from the awareness of what distinguishes the dynamics of life from any other expressions of change. (shrink)

A large number of feminist philosophers and social critics accept that Simone de Beauvoir's conception of transcendence in The Second Sex relies on masculinist ontology. In contrast with feminist interpretations that see Beauvoir claiming the success of masculinist ontology, this article argues that transcendence as masculinist ontology does not succeed in The Second Sex because it requires a relation of domination, something contrary to its own definition of freedom-producing relations. The Second Sex obliquely reveals this failure, but Beauvoir does not (...) ruminate upon it. Instead, Beauvoir turns to imagine freedom-producing gender relations in the future where the body and consciousness are already emancipated from constitutive domination. This is a future that resonates with G. W. F. Hegel's `Stoic Consciousness'. The significance of this finding is that the location of freedom neither resides in the intertwinement of the male body and consciousness previously argued to be the case, for Beauvoir, nor does it reside in the intertwinement of the female body and consciousness. Rather, freedom resides in the intertwinement of male and female bodies and consciousness where domination is already absent, that is, a place outside of history. Thus, the conclusion of The Second Sex can be read as a consolation and an escape from the inescapable limits of the present. (shrink)

The artistic work of photographer Gudio Baselgia focuses on landscapes formed by nature s forces and, more recently, on the sky with the stellar and solar movements and phenomena as we see them from earth. Celestial mechanics have fascinated mankind in all known cultures, the Babylonians and ancient Egyptians as well as the Greek and Celts, the Maya, or the ancient Indians and Chinese. Until the present day we look at the sky and keep being amazed, and try to read (...) what it tells us. Many artists throughout history have been captivated by the spectacle we observe above us day and night. The modern term astrodynamics describes all movements of celestial bodies, in particular the solar system including the moon and other satellites, asteroids and comets, but also movements of stars within a stellar system or galaxy, or of galaxies towards each other. They are well understood today and depicted in coordinate systems and elaborate visualizations. Guido Baselgia s artistic project on astrodynamics and celestial phenomena has no scientific or didactic ambition. His analogue camera is used as a recorder inscribing the movement of stars on the light-sensitive surface of photographic paper. Thus Baselgia s images make traceable the trajectory of celestial bodies invisible to the human eye and show us astounding occurrences of light and shadow. Baselgia has been captivated in particular also by the phenomenon of the umbra, planet earth s shadow thrown into space. It becomes visible occasionally on a clear evening at sunset when a slight mist lies at the horizon: looking in opposite direction to the sun, a dark and sharply marked band of shadow can be seen rising while sun sets behind the observer. But also by recording sunrise and sunset at the polar circle or the tropic, Baselgia visualizes the geometry of celestial mechanics and the concurrence of forces, as well as the miracle of light as such that leaves us awestruck today as much as it did our ancestors. The new book "Guido Baselgia Light Fall" presents 80 outstanding black-and-white images from the artist s Light Fall project taken in Norway, the Tierra del Fuego archipelago in Argentina, in Ecuador, and the Swiss Alps. The brilliant tritone plates are complemented with essays by the German scholar Andrea Gnam and Swiss photography critic Nadine Olonetzky. ". (shrink)

Susser and Cabrera (2024) assess the role of bespoke neuro-privacy regulations including the creation of a novel right to mental privacy. They argue that focusing on what distinguishes mental priva...

With robots being introduced into caregiving, particularly for older persons, various ethical concerns are raised. Among them is the fear of replacing human caregiving. While ethical concepts like well-being, autonomy, and capabilities are often used to discuss these concerns, this paper brings forth the concept of social dignity to further develop guidelines concerning the use of robots in caregiving. By social dignity, we mean that a person’s perceived dignity changes in response to certain interactions and experiences with other persons. In (...) this paper, we will first present the concept of social dignity, and then identify a niche where robots can be used in caregiving in an ethical manner. Specifically, we will argue that, because some activities of daily living are performed in solitude to maintain dignity, a care recipient will usually prefer robotic assistance instead of human assistance for these activities. Secondly, we will describe how other philosophical concepts, which have been commonly used to judge robotic assistance in caregiving for the elderly so far, such as well-being, autonomy, and capabilities, are less useful in determining whether robotic assistance in caregiving is ethically problematic or not. To conclude, we will argue that social dignity offers an advantage to the other concepts, as it allows to ask the most pressing questions in caregiving. (shrink)

A “contrastive explanation” explains not only why some event A occurred, but why A occurred as opposed to some alternative event B. Some philosophers argue that agents could only be morally responsible for their choices if those choices have contrastive explanations, since they would otherwise be “luck infested”. Assuming that contrastive explanations cannot be offered for causally undetermined events, this requirement entails that no one could be held responsible for a causally undetermined choice. Such arguments challenge incompatibilism, since they entail (...) that causal determinism is a prerequisite for moral responsibility. However, I argue that for a significant class of choices, even if we stipulate that they are determined, we will be unable to provide a relevant contrastive explanation. Hence causal determinism is no remedy for luck infestation, and compatibilists do not fare much better than incompatibilists in the face of this requirement. This should serve to weaken its philosophical appeal. (shrink)