Fathom is a sound installation by Jane Grant and John Matthias, which was commissioned by the River Tamar Project and was premiered at the Factory Cooperage Building in Royal William Yard, Plymouth, UK in September 2013. Visitors entering the installation were able to hear live and edited sound recorded underwater in Plymouth Sound, a large estuarine body of water from which the Plym, Tamar and Hamaoze Rivers flow into the sea. Six-step ladders in the centre of the installation space surrounded (...) by several additional speakers enabled visitors to climb out of the underwater sonic environment, above the fathom, and hear live acoustic sound relayed by microphones above the water. The artists worked with a team including production manager, Simon Honywill and Martin Audio to create a sonic ‘surface’ 6ft above the ground to enable this to happen. This article will describe how Fathom was created and, in particular, will focus on how the creation of the sonic surface affected the way in which the visiting public interacted with the work. (shrink)

Encyclopedia entry on the debate over simplicity/parsimony and Ockham's Razor in the philosophy of science.

This paper examines what agents should do when others fail to comply with their responsibilities to prevent dangerous climate change. It distinguishes between six different possible responses to noncompliance. These include what I term (1) 'target modification' (watering down the extent to which we seek to prevent climate change), (2) ‘responsibility reallocation’ (reassigning responsibilities to other duty bearers), (3) ‘burden shifting I’ (allowing duty bearers to implement policies which impose unjust burdens on others, (4) 'burden shifting II’ (allowing some to (...) protect peoples rights in ways which impose otherwise unjustified burdens on the duty bearers, (5) 'compromising moral ideals' (permitting agents to compromise non-justice ideals that they are otherwise bound by); and (6) ‘promoting compliance (implementing policies and creating institutions which reduce noncompliance). It concludes by outlining a methodological framework for evaluating these options, and by setting out my tentative and provisional evaluation of which responses are the least bad. (shrink)

How can we equalize opportunities while respecting people’s freedom? According to a view that I call libertarian resourcism, people’s fair shares of resources should normally take the form of uncon...

Causal queries about singular cases, which inquire whether specific events were causally connected, are prevalent in daily life and important in professional disciplines such as the law, medicine, or engineering. Because causal links cannot be directly observed, singular causation judgments require an assessment of whether a co‐occurrence of two events c and e was causal or simply coincidental. How can this decision be made? Building on previous work by Cheng and Novick (2005) and Stephan and Waldmann (2018), we propose a (...) computational model that combines information about the causal strengths of the potential causes with information about their temporal relations to derive answers to singular causation queries. The relative causal strengths of the potential cause factors are relevant because weak causes are more likely to fail to generate effects than strong causes. But even a strong cause factor does not necessarily need to be causal in a singular case because it could have been preempted by an alternative cause. We here show how information about causal strength and about two different temporal parameters, the potential causes' onset times and their causal latencies, can be formalized and integrated into a computational account of singular causation. Four experiments are presented in which we tested the validity of the model. The results showed that people integrate the different types of information as predicted by the new model. (shrink)

Boghossian's discrimination argument for the incompatibility of externalism and a priori self-knowledge presupposes the relevant-alternatives account of knowledge, more precisely, the claim that the ability to rule out relevant alternatives is a necessary condition for knowledge. In the first two sections of this essay, I object to Boghossian's argument by showing that the standard way of supporting the claim just mentioned, namely with recourse to Goldman's famous barn example, will not convince a rational externalist who knows the relevant facts. In (...) section three, a second challenge to the discrimination argument is developed. First, a descriptive variant of Goldman's barn example is distinguished from a demonstrative variant of this scenario. Then, it is argued that the fact that Goldman's protagonist does not have knowledge in the demonstrative variant cannot be explained by the claim that the ability to rule out relevant alternatives is necessary for knowledge. From this it is concluded that it is not possible to substantiate the claim just mentioned with recourse to Goldman's barn example. The upshot of the discussion in sections one through three is that one cannot argue for the incompatibility of externalism and a priori self-knowledge by drawing on the claim that the ability to rule out relevant alternatives is required for knowledge. In the final section of the article, it is shown that one can furthermore not argue for the incompatibility thesis by invoking the contention that so-called global reliability is necessary for knowledge. (shrink)

Rather than defend each instance of problem suggested by Williams, what I propose to do is to respond by making two clarificatory points: first, I rule out two ways of understanding mathematical problems that might be clouding the water; and then, second, I further characterise how Deleuze thinks some mathematical problems, two in particular, are not just examples of mathematical problems, but provide mathematical models for what a mathematical problem in general can be understood to be. This is important because (...) it is how mathematical problems can be modelled in mathematics that provides Deleuze with a model for how problems can be modelled in other discourses. This will then get to the bottom of what is at stake in my approach to Deleuze and to Deleuze studies in general. (shrink)

Understanding subjective processes in mindfulness-based interventions and during contemplative learning is the goal pursued by Medeiros et al. in the present target article. Implicitly, they touch ….

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Metaphysik einst und jetzt" verfügbar.

Measures are designed to evaluate the processes and outcomes of care associated with the delivery of clinical (and non-clinical) services. They allow for intra- and interorganizational comparison to be used continuously to improve patient health outcomes. The use of performance measures always means to abstract the complex reality (medical scenarios and procedures) in order to provide an understandable and comparable output. Measures can focus on global performance. The more detailed data are available the more specific judgements with respect to the (...) appropriateness of clinical decision-making and implementation of evidence are feasible. Externally reported measures are intended both to inform and lead to action. By providing this information, deficiencies in patient care and unnecessary variations in the care process can be uncovered. Such variations have contributed to disparities in morbidity and mortality. The developments in information technology, especially world-wide interconnectivity, standards for electronic data exchange and facilities to store and manage large amounts of data, offer the opportunity to analyse health-relevant information in order to make the delivery of healthcare services more transparent for consumers and providers. Global performance measures, such as the overall life expectancy (mortality) in a country, can give a rough orientation of how well health systems perform but they do not offer general solutions nor spe-cific insights into care processes that have to be improved. In contrast to population-based measures, case-based performance measures use a defined group of patients depending on specific patient characteristics and features of disease. By means of these measures we are able to compare the number of patients that receive a necessary medical procedure against those patients who do not. The use of case-based measures is a bottom-up approach to improve the overall performance in the long run. They are not only a tool for global orientation but can offer a straightforward link to the areas of deficient care and the underlying procedures. Performance measures are relevant to providers as well as consumers, from their own individual perspective. Cased-based measures focus on the management of individual patient. This approach to performance measurement can inform physicians in a meaningful and constructive way by monitoring their individual performance and by pointing out possible areas of improvement. (shrink)

In this article I compare Ryle's notion of a thick description with Williams' notion of a thick concept so as to illuminate our understanding of both. In doing so I suggest lines of thought that show us that the notion of 'evaluation' in play in many people's writings should be broadened. Doing so will help to lessen the credibility of separationist notions of thick concepts.

Readings of Derrida’s work on law and justice have tended to stress the distinction between them. This stress is complicated by Derrida’s own claim that it is not ‘a true distinction’. In this essay I argue that ordinary experiences of the inadequacy of existing laws do indeed imply a claim about what would be more just, but that this claim only makes sense insofar as one can appeal to another more adequate law. Exploring how Derrida negotiates a subtle path between (...) classical Platonism and classical conventionalism about justice, the attempt is made to take seriously Derrida’s aim to affirm the idea of a ‘mystical’ foundation of the authority of laws by taking ‘the use of the word “mystical” in what I venture to call a rather Wittgensteinian direction’. (shrink)

Two major arguments have been advanced for the claim that there is a transmission failure in G.E. Moore’s famous proof of an external world. The first argument, due to Crispin Wright, is based on an epistemological doctrine now known as ‘conservatism’. Proponents of the second argument, like Nicholas Silins, invoke probabilistic considerations, most important among them Bayes’ theorem. The aim of this essay is to defend Moore’s proof against these two arguments. It is shown, first, that Wright’s argument founders because (...) one of its premises, viz., conservatism, invites scepticism and must therefore be rejected. Then the probabilistic argument is challenged, not because its formal part is dubious, but rather on the grounds that it incorporates an unconvincing philosophical claim as an implicit premise. Finally, the two most promising objections to dogmatism—the negation of conservatism—are repudiated. (shrink)

An examination of some of the abuses of philosophical technique in Steven Katz's book _The Holocaust in Historical Context_.

A temporal account of the mental capacities for processing information may not be relevant in a context where the goal is to search for storage capacity expressed in chunks. However, if mental capacity and information processing is the question, the time issue can be rehabilitated. A very different temporal viewpoint on capacity limit is proposed in this commentary.

The Sasquatch pastoral attempts to define the parameters of why mythic accounts of wild-men are so common. As a concept, it is a critically useful way of understanding how Sasquatch, Bigfoot, the Yeti, and other cryptozoological accounts fulfill a deep-seated and seemingly universal desire to understand humanity's own mythic origins. Whether such accounts have any veracity or not, the Sasquatch pastoral provides a theoretical vocabulary for conceptualizing the archetypal attractions of such accounts.

The paper is an attempt to show how a theory of morality which sees moral judgements as essentially expressions of personal attitude, can nevertheless explain and justify the way in which morality seems objective, and authoritative. It explores the genesis of notions of improvement, and correctness, and truth, in moral matters, thus trying to explain our right to these concepts, which other theories, such as realism, take too much for granted.

In this paper I ask whether either theology or religious practice actually contribute to ethical theory or ethical practice. I rehearse well-known Humean arguments that they do not. I then reflect on the idea from Professor O’Donovan’s paper that it is virtuous for us to entertain hopes for redemption or for fulfilment and suggest that a careful weighing of these words may indicate otherwise.

Gilles Deleuze maintains that an individual’s power to act is open to “metaphysical” or ontological changes. An individual for Deleuze is limited by the passive affections that it experiences in its interactions with other more composite bodies, which, at any given moment, have the potential to limit its further integration, and, therefore, the further development of its power to act, and by consequence, its actual existence. This limit determines the margin of variation of the expression of the given individual’s power (...) to act, which varies from a minimum, below which it would cease to exist (intensity = 0), to a maximum, which would only be limited by the extent to which its power to act is further integrated at any given moment in more composite relations, expressing the affective life of the individual. The paper will examine the implications of this interpretations of Spinoza, with a view to characterising the role that Spinoza plays in Deleuze’s broader project of constructing a philosophy of difference. (shrink)

This paper argues that even the most extensively refined comparative cost/benefit analysis must be supplemented by other factors, irreducible to it, if we are to develop an adequate framework to guide policy decisions affecting technological design and innovation.

Of the many ideological blind spots that have afflicted US and, to a lesser extent, European, perceptions and analysis of the economic, political and social milieu, none have been more debilitating than the equation of democracy with political liberalism. Thus those who attempt to derive propaganda value from such an equation are vulnerable, as the US government has found, to the rhetorical counter attack that in opposing democratically elected governments, such as that of Hamas or Hugo Chavez, they are not (...) merely being anti-democratic, but are in illiberally opposition to human rights and civil liberties also; an argument quiteindependent of the same charges, emanating more legitimately, from their support of, for example, the Masharraf regime and the Saud dictatorship.Furthermore no less an august body than the Council of Europe has drawn attention to the US government’s inhumane, humiliating, degrading and cruel treatment, including torture, of prisoners, at Guantanamo, and, seemingly even more extreme treatment of prisoners in the supposedly secret or “black” prisons operated both by the CIA, and other countries, where the torture of prisoners, often illegally or extra judicially rendered to them, has been outsourced. In light of this the paper takes up a discussion of the nature of the relationship between Liberalism, Democracy and Torture as it is germane to the current legitimation crisisfacing liberal democracies. (shrink)