Mindfulness is intentional focus of one’s attention on emotions, thoughts, or sensations occurring in the present moment with a nonjudgmental attitude. Recently there has been increased interest in the effects of mindfulness practice on psychological processes such as concentration, focus, and attention. In the present study, a prepulse inhibition/facilitation paradigm was employed to investigate the effect of brief mindfulness practice on automatic attention regulation processes. PPI occurs when a relatively weak prepulse is presented 30–500 ms before a startle-inducing stimulus, and (...) reduces the magnitude of the startle response. Prepulse facilitation is the increase in startle magnitude when the prepulse is presented 500 ms or more before the startle-eliciting stimulus. In the present study, the effect of engaging in a 23-min mindfulness exercise on PPI and PPF was investigated. Participants listened to either a mindfulness instruction or relaxing music. In a PPI/PPF pretest and posttest, a startle-eliciting noise was presented at lead intervals of 60, 120, and 2,000 ms. Results showed that engaging in brief mindfulness practice increased prepulse facilitation at the 2,000 ms lead interval in the posttest compared to the pretest. The amount of PPI did not differ between tests. (shrink)

These days there are many different understandings and definitions of the term aesthetics. Sometimes it is regarded as identical to the pleasing or the sensual, other times it has a more workaday meaning, being associated with e.g. a well-stocked lunch table. The common denominator, however, is that aesthetics is understood as something that can be recorded in the real world, having been assigned an independent existence. The concept has thus undergone ‘ontological dumping’, by which we understand that an analytical concept (...) has become a “thing in the world”, i.e. an epistemological state has been transformed into an ontological state. The problem with this is that what can potentially be used to understand has instead turned into something to be understood. In the endeavour not to downgrade the epistemological dimension in favour of the experiential dimension, we attempt in this article to re-establish aesthetics as an analytical concept: Something to be seen with – instead of something that is seen. In addition, we put it into perspective alongside culture and art, which we feel has undergone the same ontological dumping. The article concludes with some reflections on the implications this may have for educational practice. As its theoretical springboard, the article takes the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, drawing its exemplary material from the Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård. (shrink)

In 2015, observers argued that the fourth agricultural revolution had been initiated. This article focuses on one part of this high-tech revolution: the origin, development, applications, and user value of unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Institutional changes connected to the UAS innovation are analyzed, based on a Swedish case study. The methods included autoethnography. The theoretical frame was composed by four perspectives: innovation, institutions, sustainability, and ethics. UAS can help farmers cut costs and produce higher quantity with better quality, and also (...) has environmental benefits. However, this promising innovation was exposed to institutional forces and suddenly became subordinated the Act of Camera Surveillance. This study illuminates how legislative institutions can inhibit responsible innovation. The study shows that different ethical perspectives can collide with each other. (shrink)

The health care systems are fairly similar in theScandinavian countries. The exact details vary, but inall three countries the system is almost exclusivelypublicly funded through taxation, and most (or all)hospitals are also publicly owned and managed. Thecountries also have a fairly strong primary caresector (even though it varies between the countries),with family physicians to various degrees acting asgatekeepers to specialist services. In Denmark most ofthe GP services are free. For the patient in Norwayand Sweden there are out-of-pocket co-payments for GPconsultations, (...) with upper limits, but consultations forchildren are free. Hospital treatment is free inDenmark while the other countries use a system without-of-pocket co-payment. There is a very strongpublic commitment to access to high quality healthcare for all. Solidarity and equality form theideological basis for the Scandinavian welfare state.Means testing, for instance, has been widely rejectedin the Scandinavian countries on the grounds thatpublic services should not stigmatise any particulargroup. Solidarity also means devoting specialconsideration to the needs of those who have lesschance than others of making their voices heard orexercising their rights. Issues of limited access arenow, however, challenging the thinking about a healthcare system based on solidarity. (shrink)

Objective The objective of this article is to provide an ethical analysis of a high-risk, advanced treatment case where the patient received transcatheter aortic valve insertion (TAVI), for aortic valve stenosis. Particular emphasis will be placed upon the significance of evidence and the implications for priority setting. Method One paradigmatic case involving a TAVI patient from a large university hospital in Norway is described and analysed. The method used was ethical case analysis modified after Kymlicka by Miljeteig et al. Perioperative (...) mortality risk was estimated using the Euroscore risk-logarithm and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ risk model, STS. These predict the risk of operative mortality and morbidity associated with adult cardiac surgery. GRADE, the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation, was used to evaluate the evidence. Results In the case analysis, we found that it would be ethically justifiable not to recommend TAVI treatment for this patient. Although the patient had a severe condition in need of treatment, the expected improvement was marginal, the quality of evidence was low and the opportunity costs for other patients and society were higher than usually deemed appropriate. Conclusions Decision-making in the absence of high quality evidence from randomized trials is a complex process involving difficult ethical judgments. Novel high-risk devices often enter the European market with limited clinical evidence. Transparency and improved clinical evaluation are required so patient safety is not jeopardized. We argue that implementation of high risk, high cost interventions should be better regulated at a national level. Background All clinical decisions imply priority setting and therefore indirectly affect other patients and other patient groups. The use of expensive, innovative health technologies has an affect on individual patients as well as on other patient groups competing for the same resources. (shrink)

Background and objectives: Summary measures of overall health inequality are independent of group membership and enable international comparisons of distribution of health. We compare inequality between and within countries over time and identify normative issues underlying such comparisons. Methods: We used a set of modeled historical life tables for 193 World Health Organization member states from the years 1990, 2000 and 2008 and calculated inequality in age at death and inequality-adjusted life expectancy. Results: Our calculations suggest that overall health inequalities (...) in age at death have been decreasing in the period 1990–2008 in most countries of the world. Only 20 countries experienced increasing distribution in age at death. Simultaneously, overall life expectancy has increased in 85 per cent of all countries. Thus, the combined measure IALE has improved globally. The same overall trend of reduced health inequality applies to all groups of countries stratified by income level. Conclusion: Overall health inequalities, in addition to average health outcomes, could be reported regularly to monitor the health status of populations and the performance of health systems. We find, on normative grounds, the combined measure IALE to be preferable to measuring trends in inequality only. Likewise, we find the Absolute GiniH to be preferable to Relative GiniH. (shrink)

Thomas Kjeller Johansen presents a new account of Aristotle's major work on psychology, the De Anima.

Plato's dialogue the Timaeus-Critias presents two connected accounts, that of the story of Atlantis and its defeat by ancient Athens and that of the creation of the cosmos by a divine craftsman. This book offers a unified reading of the dialogue. It tackles a wide range of interpretative and philosophical issues. Topics discussed include the function of the famous Atlantis story, the notion of cosmology as 'myth' and as 'likely', and the role of God in Platonic cosmology. Other areas commented (...) upon are Plato's concepts of 'necessity' and 'teleology', the nature of the 'receptacle', the relationship between the soul and the body, the use of perception in cosmology, and the work's peculiar monologue form. The unifying theme is teleology: Plato's attempt to show the cosmos to be organised for the good. A central lesson which emerges is that the Timaeus is closer to Aristotle's physics than previously thought. (shrink)

This book offers an important study of Aristotle's theory of the sense-organs. It aims to answer two questions central to Aristotle's psychology and biology: why does Aristotle think we have sense-organs, and why does he describe the sense-organs in the way he does? The author looks at all the Aristotelian evidence for the five senses and shows how pervasively Aristotle's accounts of the sense-organs are motivated by his interest in form and function. The book also engages with the celebrated problem (...) of whether perception for Aristotle requires material changes in the perceiver. It argues that, surprisingly to the modern philosopher, nothing in Aristotle's description of the sense-organs requires us to believe in such changes. (shrink)

Aristotle thinks that an account, alogos, of some sort is characteristic of craft,technē. Some scholars think that thelogoselement oftechnēis tagged onto experience as a theoretical element not directly engaged in successful production: I argue instead that thelogosgrounds the productive ability of craft, and also that is practically orientated in a way that distinguishes it from thelogosof theoretical science. Understanding thelogosof craft thus helps us explain how the craftsman differs both from the merely experienced practitioner and from the theoretical scientist.

In his opening speech, Timaeus (Timaeus27d5-29b1) argues that the cosmos must be the product of a craftsman looking to an eternal paradigm. Yet his premises seem at best to justify only that the world could have been made by such a craftsman. This paper seeks to clarify Timaeus’ justification for his stronger conclusion. It is argued that Timaeus sees a necessary role for craftsmanship as a cause that makes becoming like being.

Dans De Caelo III.2 Aristote affirme, en guise de critique, que la description platonicienne des traces dans la chôra implique nécessairement l’existence préalable d’un cosmos avant le cosmos. Dans cet article je me penche sur le passage visé par Aristote (Timée 52d2‑53b5), afin de montrer comment celui‑ci peut être défendu contre l’objection d’Aristote. J’argumente que les traces sont des formes géométriques qui assurent les matériaux au démiurge. Dans ce sens, elles peuvent être considerées comme constitutives potentiellement des quatre corps, et (...) rien de plus. (shrink)

This work investigates how ancient philosophers understood productive knowledge or technê and used it to explain ethics, rhetoric, politics and cosmology. In eleven chapters leading scholars set out the ancient debates about technê from the Presocratic and Hippocratic writers, through Plato and Aristotle and the Hellenistic age, ending in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus. Amongst the many themes that come into focus are: the model status of ancient medicine in defining the political art, the similarities between the Platonic and (...) Aristotelian conceptions of technê, the use of technê as a paradigm for virtue and practical rationality, technê´s determining role in Platonic conceptions of cosmology, technê´s relationship to experience and theoretical knowledge, virtue as an 'art of living', the adaptability of the criteria of technê to suit different skills, including philosophy itself, the use in productive knowledge of models, deliberation, conjecture and imagination. (shrink)

This article takes stock of the regularity theory of causation. It considers three challenges to the theory: the problem of joint effects, the problems of redundant causation, and omission‐involving causation. The former is often cited as a special, and especially challenging, problem for regularity theories. But the force of this problem has been greatly overstated. The threat to regularity theories instead comes from the latter two.

The notion of a capacity in the sense of a power to bring about or undergo change plays a key role in Aristotle’s theories about the natural world. However, in Metaphysics Θ Aristotle also extends ‘ capacity ’, and the corresponding concept of ‘activity’, to cases where we want to say that something is in capacity, or in activity, such and such but not, or not directly, in virtue of being capable of initiating or undergoing change. This paper seeks to (...) clarify and confirm a certain view of how Aristotle wishes us to see the relationship between the two uses of ‘ capacity ’ and ‘activity’. To that end, I consider also Aristotle’s employment of the terms in the De Anima, which sheds light on the key examples which direct the discussion in Metaph. Θ. (shrink)

Logic isn’t special. Its theories are continuous with science; its method continuous with scientific method. Logic isn’t a priori, nor are its truths analytic truths. Logical theories are revisable, and if they are revised, they are revised on the same grounds as scientific theories. These are the tenets of anti-exceptionalism about logic. The position is most famously defended by Quine, but has more recent advocates in Maddy, Priest, Russell, and Williamson. Although these authors agree on many methodological issues about logic, (...) they disagree about which logic anti-exceptionalism supports. Williamson uses an anti-exceptionalist argument to defend classical logic, while Priest claims that his anti-exceptionalism supports nonclassical logic. This paper argues that the disagreement is due to a difference in how the parties understand logical theories. Once we reject Williamson’s deflationary account of logical theories, the argument for classical logic is undercut. Instead an alternative account of logical theories is offered, on which logical pluralism is a plausible supplement to anti-exceptionalism. (shrink)

A teleological explanation is an explanation in terms of an end or a purpose. So saying that ‘X came about for the sake of Y’ is a teleological account of X. It is a striking feature of ancient Greek philosophy that many thinkers accepted that the world should be explained in this way. However, before Aristotle, teleological explanations of the cosmos were generally based on the idea that it had been created by a divine intelligence. If an intelligent power made (...) the world, then it makes sense that it did so with a purpose in mind, so grasping this purpose will help us understand the world. This is the pattern of teleological explanation that we find in the Presocratics and in Plato. However, with Aristotle teleology underwent a change: instead of thinking that the ends were explanatory because a mind had sought to bring them about, Aristotle took the ends to operate in natural beings independently of the efforts of any creative intelligence. Indeed, he thought that his predecessors had failed to understand what was distinctive of nature, namely, that its ends work from the inside of natural beings themselves. (shrink)

This paper seeks to expand our understanding of initial trust by looking at how variation in risk influences the nature of trust and the process of initial trust formation. Four hypotheses were tested in two experiments involving participants with and without work experience. A first hypothesis suggested a positive relationship between a general propensity to trust and initial trust; a second hypothesis, a negative relationship between risk and initial trust; whereas a third hypothesis posited that risk would increase the importance (...) participants place on benevolence and integrity. A fourth hypothesis suggested that risk would have a positive and moderating influence on the effect of out-of-role behavior when presented after role-conformant in-role behavior. Findings are presented and discussed and practical implications suggested. (shrink)

Translated by Henrik Rosenmeier, _A History of Ancient Philosophy_ charts the origins and development of ancient philosophical thought. For easy reference, the book is divided chronologically into six main parts. The sections are further divided into philosophers and philosophical movements: *Pre-Socratic Philosophy, including mythology, the Pythagoreans and Parmenides *The Great Century of Athens, including the Sophists and Socrates *Plato, including The Republic, The Symposium and The Timaeus *Aristotle, including The Physics, The Metaphysics and The Poetics *Hellenistic Philosophy, including the Sceptics, (...) the Stoics, the Epicureans and Cicero *Late Antiquity, including Neoplatonism, Origen and St Augustine. This comprehensive and meticulously documented book is structured to make ancient philosophical thought and ancient thinkers accessible. It contains: *full references to primary sources *detailed interpretations of key philosophical passages, including surveys of previous philosophical readings *an overview of the development of ancient philosophical thought *discussions of the relationships between philosophers and their ideas *analyses of key philosophical concepts and ideologies including ontology, epistemology, logic, semantics, moral and political philosophy, theology and aesthetics *explanations of Greek philosophical terminology. (shrink)

This paper presents and discusses empirical results from a survey about the research practice of Danish chemistry students, with a main focus on the question of anomalous data. It seeks to investigate how such data is handled by students, with special attention to so-called ‘questionable research practices’ where anomalous data are simply deleted or discarded. This question of QRPs is of particular importance as the educational practices students experience may influence how they act in their future professional careers, for instance (...) in research. The ethical evaluation of QRPs however is not univocal. In parts of the literature QRPs are seen as unquestionably bad, while in other parts of the literature certain QRPs are seen as a necessary aspect of scientific practice. Results from the survey of Danish chemistry students shows that many students engage in certain types of questionable practices, and that a large minority of the students have been actively encouraged by their teachers to engage in such practices. The paper discusses to what extent and under what circumstances such instructional practices can be defended and suggests how the instructional practice connected to the handling of anomalous data can be improved. (shrink)

Mathematicians’ use of external representations, such as symbols and diagrams, constitutes an important focal point in current philosophical attempts to understand mathematical practice. In this paper, we add to this understanding by presenting and analyzing how research mathematicians use and interact with external representations. The empirical basis of the article consists of a qualitative interview study we conducted with active research mathematicians. In our analysis of the empirical material, we primarily used the empirically based frameworks provided by distributed cognition and (...) cognitive semantics as well as the broader theory of cognitive integration as an analytical lens. We conclude that research mathematicians engage in generative feedback loops with material representations, that they use representations to facilitate the use of experiences of handling the physical world as a resource in mathematical work, and that their use of representations is socially sanctioned and enabled. These results verify the validity of the cognitive frameworks used as the basis for our analysis, but also show the need for augmentation and revision. Especially, we conclude that the social and cultural context cannot be excluded from cognitive analysis of mathematicians’ use of external representations. Rather, representations are socially sanctioned and enabled in an enculturation process. (shrink)

This paper considers Theophrastus’ use in the De sensibus of the principles that like perceives like and that unlike perceives unlike to criticise his predecessors. It is argued that the aporiai that arise from either position serve to motivate the view of perception articulated by Aristotle in the De anima.

Over the last century, there have been considerable variations in the frequency of use and types of diagrams used in mathematical publications. In order to track these changes, we developed a method enabling large-scale quantitative analysis of mathematical publications to investigate the number and types of diagrams published in three leading mathematical journals in the period from 1885 to 2015. The results show that diagrams were relatively common at the beginning of the period under investigation. However, beginning in 1910, they (...) were almost completely unused for about four decades before reappearing in the 1950s. The diagrams from the 1950s, however, were of a different type than those used earlier in the century. We see this change in publication practice as a clear indication that the formalist ideology has influenced mathematicians’ choice of representations. Although this could be seen as a minor stylistic aspect of mathematics, we argue that mathematicians’ representational practice is deeply connected to their cognitive practice and to the contentual development of the discipline. These changes in publication style therefore indicate more fundamental changes in the period under consideration. (shrink)

The view that the soul can exist separately from the body is commonly associated with dualism. Since Plato’s Phaedo (Phd.) argues that the soul is immortal and survives the death of the body, there seems to be reason to call Plato, in that dialogue at least, a ‘dualist’. Yet, as we know, there are many kinds of dualism, so we have thereby not said very much. Let me therefore start with some distinctions. First of all, we can distinguish between two (...) kinds of dualism which say that the soul is a different kind of substance from the body. On one version, call it ‘strong’ substance dualism, no properties of mind can also be properties of body. Mind is defined as a kind of thing that uniquely has a certain property or set of properties, say consciousness, just as body is defined by its unique properties, say spatial extension. This would seem to be Descartes’ view. On another version, call it ‘weak’ substance dualism, no essential or defining properties of mind are also properties of body. This leaves it open whether the mind and body may share some accidental or non-defining properties. Finally, there is an even weaker kind of dualism which we may call property dualism. According to this view, there are mental properties which are distinct from and irreducible to bodily properties.4 However, these mental properties may or not be properties of an underlying substance that also has bodily properties. In other words, the same thing may have both mental and bodily properties, so having mental properties is not enough to make something a different kind of substance. (shrink)

This paper investigates the notion of semiotic scaffolding in relation to mathematics by considering its influence on mathematical activities, and on the evolution of mathematics as a research field. We will do this by analyzing the role different representational forms play in mathematical cognition, and more broadly on mathematical activities. In the main part of the paper, we will present and analyze three different cases. For the first case, we investigate the semiotic scaffolding involved in pencil and paper multiplication. For (...) the second case, we investigate how the development of new representational forms influenced the development of the theory of exponentiation. For the third case, we analyze the connection between the development of commutative diagrams and the development of both algebraic topology and category theory. Our main conclusions are that semiotic scaffolding indeed plays a role in both mathematical cognition and in the development of mathematics itself, but mathematical cognition cannot itself be reduced to the use of semiotic scaffolding. (shrink)

"The nature of intuition and its relation to other mental faculties, particularly perception, is one of the most hotly contested debates in philosophy of mind and psychology. Do intuitions justify belief or merely dispositions to believe? Is intuition a mental state with distinctive phenomenal qualities and if so, how do these differ from normal perceptual states? Drawing on the most recent philosophical research on intuition and perception, Ole Koksvik defends the idea that intuition not only justifies belief but can play (...) a much wider role in our everyday epistemic lives than previously thought. Arguing that intuitional experience is similar to perceptual experience he develops a novel view of intuition as conscious experience. His argument involves both a close description of the kind of experience that intuition is and a defence of intuition against criticism from experimental philosophy. The picture that emerges defends intuitions not because they can be found to be true or false but because they permit us to consider the world as it is might otherwise be and are continuous with the rest of general human inquiry"--. (shrink)

Regularity theories of causation are guided by the idea that causes are collectively sufficient for their effects. Following Mackie [1974], that idea is typically refined to distinguish collections that include redundant members from those that do not. Causes must be collectively sufficient for their effects without redundancy. While Mackie was surely right that the regularity theory must distinguish collections that are in some sense minimally sufficient for an effect from those that include unnecessary hangers-on, I believe that redundancy is the (...) wrong mark of that distinction. I propose a way to develop the regularity theory without it. Instead of distinguishing minimal from mere sufficiency in terms of redundancy, we should look to the influence that events have in the world. Causes, so construed, must have just enough collective influence to ensure that an effect occurs. I argue that such an account provides a uniform solution to the problem of epiphenomena and to a pair of related problems that aris.. (shrink)

This book discusses key philosophical concepts and ideologies, including ontology, epistemology, logic, semantics, moral and political philosophy, theology and aesthetics during classical antiquity. Karsten Friis Johansen charts the history of ancient philosophy from the mythological oral tradition, Homer and early tragedy, to the giants of Plato and Aristotle through to paganism and the genesis of Christianity. A History of Ancient Philosophy also presents detailed analysis of individual ancient philosophers and interpretations and commentary on key philosophical passages.

This article analyses and discusses dilemmas, ambivalences and problematic issues related to research ethics. This is done firstly by making a distinction between procedural research ethics and particularistic research ethics. Such a distinction reflects a theoretical construction and generalization. In practice, there can be a very close correlation between the two types. In the following, the distinction will therefore be used as a starting point for the presentation of a pragmatic-dualist research ethics. The approach is dualist because it draws on (...) the presence of two independent, contrasting understandings, which are essentially different yet equal aspects of good research ethics; it is pragmatic because this dualism is structural and institutional by nature, and designed with an eye to what can realistically and expediently be done in practice. Thus the intention of the article is to both analyze and discuss two different understandings of research ethics and simultaneously qualify a research ethics that draws on both of these understandings. Furthermore, the intention is to visualize a different understanding of research ethics which others can address and elaborate on or qualify. Even at this point, this research ethic can be included in a catalogue of understandings of ethical research practice an can be exploited in ethical research practice. (shrink)

This paper sets out to conduct an embodied and situated aural analysis of what silence in Northern Norway is about, with the aim of bringing forward the background noise. The paper brings together theories on construction of the rural, time-space relations, soundscape ecology, and on affect and power, and it merges academic traditions about how to communicate findings from non-visual biased studies. This interdisciplinary framework provides a novel structure for both analysing material and communicating findings from embodied studies of listening (...) out. The study found that silence in Northern Norway is about not listening to the economy of scale, to the commodification of the natural conditions and the suppression of lifestyles and territory. The paper illustrates how power is an inherent part of listening and how listening is a practice that is enacted to create emotions that are associated with a specific time-space relation. (shrink)

Dispositional accounts of various phenomena have claimed that dispositions can be intrinsically masked. In cases of intrinsic masking, something has a disposition while also having an intrinsic property that would prevent that disposition from manifesting in the face of its stimulus. This paper develops a theory of disposition ascriptions capable of recognizing such dispositions. The theory is modeled on the view that dispositions are powers. I propose that having a disposition is a matter of exerting a corresponding kind of influence. (...) Unlike powers theories, however, the account largely falls silent on questions of fundamental metaphysics. It does not build dispositions into fundamental ontology, posit necessary connections between properties, or otherwise appeal to sui generis modality. (shrink)

Causation is extrinsic. What an event causes depends not just on its own nature and the laws, but on the environment in which it occurs. Had an event occurred under different conditions, it may have had different effects. Yet we often want to say that causation, in at least some respect, is not extrinsic. Events exert an influence on the world themselves, independently of what other events do or do not occur in their surroundings. This paper develops an account of (...) such influence and argues that it provides a solution to the causal exclusion problem. By locating that solution largely within the metaphysics of causation, we can solve the exclusion problem without taking on a commitment to a theory of mind. (shrink)

This article examines a social accounting cycle in a Danish savings bank with specific focus on how employees interacted with the cycle. The case study is based on archival material and observations of employee engagement sessions that were a significant part of the cycle. The article exposes the ways in which the cycle can be understood as an initiative that prompts different forms of accountability. The cycle had the potential to bring different forms of accountability together, but the cycle also (...) faced challenges that threatened its relevance from an employee perspective. These challenges might have implications for the way we perceive social accounting and the role of employees. (shrink)

Trust has a great potential for furthering our understanding of organizational change and learning. This potential however remains largely untapped. It is argued that two reasons as for why this potential remains unrealized are: (i) A narrow conceptualization of change as implementation and (ii) an emphasis on direct and aggregated effects of individual trust to the exclusion of other effects. It is further suggested that our understanding of the effects of trust on organizational change, should benefit from including effects of (...) trust on the formulation stage. It should also benefit from exploring the structuring effects of trust in organizations. Throughout this chapter, ways to extend current research on trust in organizations are suggested. The chapter also provides examples of relevant contributions where available. In order to capture organizational effects of trust, it is suggested that trust should be studied over longer time intervals, and include several referents of trust, spanning both horizontal and vertical relationships in the organization. (shrink)

Anti-exceptionalism about logic is the Quinean view that logical theories have no special epistemological status, in particular, they are not self-evident or justified a priori. Instead, logical theories are continuous with scientific theories, and knowledge about logic is as hard-earned as knowledge of physics, economics, and chemistry. Once we reject apriorism about logic, however, we need an alternative account of how logical theories are justified and revised. A number of authors have recently argued that logical theories are justified by abductive (...) argument (e.g. Gillian Russell, Graham Priest, Timothy Williamson). This paper explores one crucial question about the abductive strategy: what counts as evidence for a logical theory? I develop three accounts of evidential confirmation that an anti-exceptionalist can accept: (1) intuitions about validity, (2) the Quine-Williamson account, and (3) indispensability arguments. I argue, against the received view, that none of the evidential sources support classical logic. (shrink)

This article analyses and discusses research-ethical dilemmas, ambivalences and problematic issues. This is done firstly by making a distinction between procedural research ethics and particularistic research ethics. Such a distinction refl ects a theoretical construction and generalization – in practice there can be a very close correlation between the two types. Hereafter, the distinction will therefore be used as a jumping-off point for the presentation of a pragmatic-dualist research ethics. Th e approach is dualist because it draws on the presence (...) of two independent, contrasting understandings, which are essentially diff erent yet equal aspects of good research ethics; and it is pragmatic because this dualism is first and foremost structural and institutional by nature, and designed with an eye to what can realistically and expediently be done in practice. Thus the intention of the article is to both analyze and discuss two different understandings of research ethics and simultaneouslyqualify a research ethics that draws on both these understandings. At the same time, the intention is to try to visualize a diff erent understanding of research ethics which others can address and elaborate on or qualify but even at this point can be included in an arsenal or catalogue of research-ethical understandings and approaches that can be exploited in research-ethical practice. (shrink)