A number of papers have argued in favour of the material account of indicative conditionals, but typically they either concentrate on defending the account from the charge that it has counterintuitive consequences, or else focus on some particular positive argument in favour of the theory. In this paper, I survey the various positive arguments that can be given, presenting simple versions where possible and showing the connections between them. I conclude with some methodological considerations.

To rationalize the selection of a research methodology, one must understand its philosophical origins and unique characteristics. This process can be challenging in the landscape of evolving qualitative methodologies. Grounded theory is a research methodology with a distinct history that has resulted in numerous approaches. Although the approaches have key similarities, they also have differing philosophical assumptions that influence the ways in which their methods are understood and implemented. The purpose of this discussion paper is to compare and contrast three (...) widely used grounded theory approaches with key distinguishing characteristics, enabling a more thoughtful selection of approach. This work contributes to the existing literature through contrasting classic Glaserian grounded theory, Straussian grounded theory, and constructivist grounded theory in a systematic manner with prominent distinguishing characteristics developed from a review of the literature. These characteristics included historical development, philosophical perspective, role of the researcher, data analysis procedures, perspective of the grounded theory, and strengths/critique. Based on this analysis, three considerations are proposed to direct the methodological choice for a study: purpose, philosophy, and pragmatics. Understanding the similarities and differences in the grounded theory approaches can facilitate methodological transparency and determine the best fit for one's study and worldview as a researcher. (shrink)

Recent interest in non-well-founded set theories has been concentrated on Aczel's anti-foundation axiom AFA. I compare this axiom with some others considered by Aczel, and argue that another axiom, FAFA, is superior in that it gives the richest possible universe of sets consistent with respecting the spirit of extensionality. I illustrate how using FAFA instead of AFA might result in an improvement to Barwise and Etchemendy's treatment of the liar paradox.

An analysis of Moore's paradox is given in doxastic logic. Logics arising from formalizations of various introspective principles are compared; one logic, K5c, emerges as privileged in the sense that it is the weakest to avoid Moorean belief. Moreover it has other attractive properties, one of which is that it can be justified solely in terms of avoiding false belief. Introspection is therefore revealed as less relevant to the Moorean problem than first appears.

This paper extends the defense of a simple theory of indicative conditionals previously proposed by the author, in which the truth conditions are material, and Grice-style assertability conditions are given to explain the paradoxes of material implication. The paper discusses various apparent counter-examples to the material account in which conditionals are not asserted, and so the original theory cannot be applied; it is argued that, nevertheless, the material theory can be defended.

Aphantasia is a condition that is often characterized as the impaired ability to create voluntary mental images. Aphantasia is assumed to selectively affect voluntary imagery mainly because even though aphantasics report being unable to visualize something at will, many report having visual dreams. We argue that this common characterization of aphantasia is incorrect. Studies on aphantasia are often not clear about whether they are assessing voluntary or involuntary imagery, but some studies show that several forms of involuntary imagery are also (...) affected in aphantasia (including imagery in dreams). We also raise problems for two attempts to show that involuntary images are preserved in aphantasia. In addition, we report the results of a study about afterimages in aphantasia, which suggest that these tend to be less intense in aphantasics than in controls. Involuntary imagery is often treated as a unitary kind that is either present or absent in aphantasia. We suggest that this approach is mistaken and that we should look at different types of involuntary imagery case by case. Doing so reveals no evidence of preserved involuntary imagery in aphantasia. We suggest that a broader characterization of aphantasia, as a deficit in forming mental imagery, whether voluntary or not, is more appropriate. Characterizing aphantasia as a volitional deficit is likely to lead researchers to give incorrect explanations for aphantasia, and to look for the wrong mechanisms underlying it. (shrink)

Given his hostility to intensional locutions, it is not surprising that Quine was suspicious of the subjunctive conditional. Although he admitted its usefulness as a heuristic device, in order to introduce dispositional terms, he held that it had no place in a finished scientific theory. In this paper I argue in support of something like Quine’s position. Many contemporary philosophers are unreflectively realist about subjunctives, regarding them as having objective truth values. I contest this. “Moderate realist” theorists, such as Lewis (...) and Stalnaker, admit that subjunctives are context-relative and often indeterminate; I argue, using some examples from the contemporary literature on conditionals, that these features are deeper and more widespread than they think. “Ultra-realist” theories, which deny any indeterminacy, are not credible. Hence subjunctives are unsuitable for certain purposes, in particular the description of mind-independent reality. (shrink)

A view often expressed is that to classify the liar sentence as neither true nor false is satisfactory for the simple liar but not for the strengthened liar. I argue that in fact it is equally unsatisfactory for both liars. I go on to discuss whether, nevertheless, Kripke''s theory of truth represents an advance on that of Tarski.

Mathematicians frequently use aesthetic vocabulary and sometimes even describe themselves as engaged in producing art. Yet aestheticians, in so far as they have discussed this at all, have often downplayed the ascriptions of aesthetic properties as metaphorical. In this paper I argue firstly that the aesthetic talk should be taken literally, and secondly that it is at least reasonable to classify some mathematics as art.

This paper seeks to question the position of ZF as the dominant system of set theory, and in particular to examine whether there is any philosophical justification for the axiom of foundation. After some historical observations regarding Poincare and Russell, and the notions of circularity and hierarchy, the iterative conception of set is argued to be a semi-constructvist hybrid without philosophical coherence. ZF cannot be justified as necessary to avoid paradoxes, as axiomatizing a coherent notion of set, nor on pragmatic (...) grounds, and should be replaced by a system allowing non-well-founded sets. (shrink)

Meaning, Interpreting, Understanding In his Kritik der verstehenden Vernunft (2018), Vittorio Hösle attempts to develop a comprehensive foundation for the so-called Geisteswissenschaften (humanities). The basis for this foundational work is a conception of understanding that ties all understanding to the interpretative grasp of what we and others mean by the use of certain symbols or linguistic expressions. The present essay argues that this makes Hösle’s approach vulnerable to a particular form of skepticism, as it is expounded by Saul Kripke in (...) his Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982). The first part of the essay outlines this skeptical challenge and its implications for Hösle’s conception of understanding. The second part advances the argument that this conception's vulnerability to skepticism undermines its viability as a foundation for the humanities. Instead, it invites the kind of skepticism described in Kripke’s challenge, where understanding itself seems to be impossible. The essay concludes with some tentative suggestions for an alternative conception of understanding that not only avoids this skepticism altogether but also makes room for a way of thinking about the mental that is of independent interest. (shrink)

Argumentation mining aims to automatically detect, classify and structure argumentation in text. Therefore, argumentation mining is an important part of a complete argumentation analyisis, i.e. understanding the content of serial arguments, their linguistic structure, the relationship between the preceding and following arguments, recognizing the underlying conceptual beliefs, and understanding within the comprehensive coherence of the specific topic. We present different methods to aid argumentation mining, starting with plain argumentation detection and moving forward to a more structural analysis of the detected (...) argumentation. Different state-of-the-art techniques on machine learning and context free grammars are applied to solve the challenges of argumentation mining. We also highlight fundamental questions found during our research and analyse different issues for future research on argumentation mining. (shrink)

Mathematics as a Science of Patterns . By Michael D. Resnik. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Pp. xiii + 285. Price £35.00.) Naturalism in Mathematics . By Penelope Maddy. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp. viii + 254. Price £32.50.) Realistic Rationalism . By Jerrold J. Katz. ( MIT Press, 1998. Pp. xxxiv + 226. Price £22.50.) The Principles of Mathematics Revisited . By Jaakko Hintikka. ( Cambridge UP, 1996. Pp. xii + 288. Price £40.00.).

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Occupy Religion:Theology of the Multitude and Interreligious DialogueJoerg RiegerOne of the big questions for the present is how to bring the different liberation movements together. The different liberation theologies, as is well known, have addressed various forms of oppression along the lines of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and other factors. What is it that brings us together without erasing our differences? This question has important implications for interreligious (...) dialogue, as we shall see.In our book Occupy Religion Kwok Pui-lan and I use the term “multitude” to reflect on unity and difference.1 This term, made prominent by political scientists and philosophers Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri,2 has deep roots in our theological traditions. Several decades ago, Korean Minjung theology noted the prominence of the notion of the multitude (this is how the term minjung can be translated into English) in the Bible. In the Gospels, the so-called ochlos (the Greek term for the masses or the common people) does not describe only the ones who are the recipients of Jesus’ transformative ministry; the ochlos also describes the participants in it and the agents of change. In addition, our Latin American colleagues have highlighted the importance of Greek term laos in the biblical traditions, which is also used to designate the common people rather than the elites.There is a distinct difference between the Greek notions of democracy and laocracy or ochlocracy. Democracy describes the rule of the demos, which is constituted by the elite citizens of a city-state. Lower-class citizens, women, and slaves are not part of this rule. Laocracy and ochlocracy, on the other hand, describe the rule of the common people, including the proverbial “least of these” of which Jesus speaks frequently. These common people include all those who have been and are being marginalized on the basis of their gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class. In the ministry of Jesus, which is informed by the ministry of Moses, Miriam, Hannah, and the prophets, the common people are organized and become agents. God values their diverse contributions to life. In the world of laocracy and ochlocracy, there are different ways of being productive in the community, and all of them are acknowledged and needed. As Hardt and Negri remind us, the multitude is not the uniform entity of what has often [End Page 167] been called “the people” in various nationalisms or fascisms. Neither is the multitude the undifferentiated mass or the mob.3What brings the various liberation movements together, therefore, is not uniformity or a request to surrender difference. What brings us together is “deep solidarity,” the recognition that we are all in the same boat under the conditions of global capitalism.4 This insight is related to the topic of class, which has consistently been pushed underground in the United States but which has recently reemerged in the context of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The now-familiar notion of the 99 percent versus the 1 percent is a reminder that the majority of people are benefitting less and less from the neoliberal market economy. This includes even members of the middle class, as they have seen their retirement accounts dwindle, their job security take ever-more severe hits, their benefits erode, and their political power fade. Furthermore, the aspects of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity are closely linked to class, as they all increase the disadvantages of people in the neoliberal market economy, thus boosting the reality of deep solidarity. Deep solidarity ties together members of the 99 percent across the lines of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity, and it thrives on difference, as they can now work together and make use of their various opportunities and gifts.Deep solidarity differs from conventional ideas of solidarity, which were often based on the idea that those who are privileged place themselves on the side of those without privilege. While it is still possible for members of the 1 percent to place themselves on the side of the 99 percent, the majority of us are now part of the 99 percent, and thus belong to classes that have something to gain from liberation. Class struggle, as... (shrink)

The books by Annie Ernaux and Didier Eribon can be interpreted as testimonies of the struggle for belonging. With their rich descriptions of growing up in poverty, of shame and degradation, they make an important contribution to the analysis of orders of belonging. Educational institutions play a significant role in this. In this way, Ernaux and Eribon shed light on the mechanisms through which belonging is created or denied.

The purpose of this book is to present unpublished papers at the cutting edge of research on dialetheism and to reflect recent work on the applications of the theory. It includes contributions from some of the most respected scholars in the field, as well as from young, up-and-coming philosophers working on dialetheism. Moving from the fringes of philosophy to become a main player in debates concerning truth and the logical paradoxes, dialetheism has thrived since the publication of Graham Priest’s In (...) Contradiction, and several of the papers find their roots in a conference on dialetheism held in Glasgow to mark the 25th anniversary of Priest’s book. The content presented here demonstrates the considerable body of work produced in this field in recent years. With a broad focus, this book also addresses the applications of dialetheism outside the more familiar area of the logical paradoxes, and includes pieces discussing the application of dialetheism in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The article aims to introduce the Franciscan theologian Geraldus Odonis into the medieval historiographical debate about the different solutions offered to the famous liar paradox. In the first part the author presents briefly and in a schematic way the main kinds of solution to the sophism to then analyze Odon’s text, answering the question of its originality.

Across the globe, conditions of labour are worsening, providing both challenges and opportunities. As labour is one of the places where the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class is always at work, new models of resistance are created here as well. Deep solidarity describes what happens when the 99% who have to work for a living realise what they have in common, in order to employ their differences productively in the struggle. In this article, a theologian and a (...) labour and community organiser work together showing how the Abrahamic religious traditions and developments in the world of labour help us to shape deeper forms of solidarity. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 2 Seiten: 239-243.

We conduct a standardized survey on risk preferences in 53 countries worldwide and estimate cumulative prospect theory parameters from the data. The parameter estimates show that significant differences on the cross-country level are to some extent robust and related to economic and cultural differences. In particular, a closer look on probability weighting underlines gender differences, economic effects, and cultural impact on probability weighting. The data set is a useful starting point for future research that investigates the impact of risk preferences (...) on the market level. (shrink)

What is health? This question figures prominently in several ethical, medicinal and psychological issues. Against this background the paper investigates the definition and the understanding of health in Karl Barth‘s dogmatics in its theological framework. The reconstruction provides a model of health, which allows treating contemporary issues, because it presents a dynamic and relational model with several dimensions, including the dimension of will. The will to health, though depending on somatic, psychic and social conditions, plays an important role in handling (...) with diseases, in living with imperfections and in supporting healthy lifestyle and preventive measures. This will must be interpreted as the will and the power to be a human being with its gifts and limits. (shrink)

Das Schleiermacher-Archiv ist primär ein begleitendes Publikationsorgan für die seit 1980 erscheinende Gesamtausgabe der Werke Friedrich Schleiermachers (KGA), welches Materialien und Untersuchungen veröffentlicht, die in engerer Beziehung zur KGA stehen. In Sammelbänden werden zudem Beiträge dokumentiert, die auf internationalen Schleiermacher-Kongressen vorgetragen worden oder in diesem Zusammenhang entstanden sind.

"Der Text gilt den Aporien der Medienanthropologie. Neben den Debatten um das mediale Apriori, wie sie vor allen die Arbeiten Friedrich Kittlers ausgelöst haben, geraten dabei zwei Dinge in den Blick. Zum einen die Möglichkeit, die Rede von der technischen Datenverarbeitung nicht nur metaphorisch, sondern der Sache nach auf die Verarbeitungsprozesse des Menschen zu übertragen und so quantifizierbare Kriterien für dessen Leistungsfähigkeit abzuleiten. Zum anderen wird in der Abwendung von einer spezifisch deutschen Medienwissenschaft gerade in der aktuellen internationalen Diskussion ein (...) Medienbegriff etabliert, der in seiner pluralen Ausrichtung Bezugnahmen etwa auch zur Biologie erlaubt (BioMedia). The paper is devoted to the aporias of medial anthropology. In addition to the debates about the medial a priori, as initiated primarily by the works of Friedrich Kittler, two things come into view: On the one hand, the possibility to apply the notion of technical data processing to human processes not only in a metaphorical, but also in a literal way, in order to derive quantifiable criteria for their performance; on the other hand, the turn away from specifically German media studies in the ongoing international discussion establishes a notion of media that, thanks to its pluralistic orientation, allows references to other fields of study, e.g. to biology (biomedia). ". (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “How and Why the Brain Lays the Foundations for a Conscious Self” by Martin V. Butz. Excerpt: There are circumstances when anticipation can be maladaptive. In the following paragraphs, the occurrence of maladaptive anticipation will be illustrated in reference to psychological disorders (depression, generalised anxiety disorder, social phobia). It will be shown that anticipation does not always lead to improved control of oneself and the environment and that anticipation is not always beneficial. Finally, (...) the question is raised of whether it is the strength of the anticipatory drive or the content of the anticipations that is the important factor in the development and construction of the self. (shrink)