The paper analyses two preliminary epistemological problems in Robert Spaemann’s philosophy that have not yet been addressed as mutually linked. The common root of both problems lies in the way Spaemann specifically applies Kant’s statement “being is not a real predicate”. The first problem concerns the criteria for distinguishing between waking and dream cognition, the second the criteria for distinguishing a living being from a simulation. The analysis shows, among other things, the broader context of Spaemann’s epistemological position, its three (...) main characteristics, and Spaemann’s specific use of the term Anerkennung (“acknowledgement”), which he adopted from German idealism. (shrink)

Článek pojednává o filosofickém pozadí, charakteristických rysech a aktuálních podnětech etiky techniky židovského filosofa Hanse Jonase (1903-1993). Cílem autora je pokusit se téma představit a kriticky reflektovat v širším kontextu relevantních německých zdrojů. V první kapitole jsou představena filosofická východiska jonasovské etiky techniky, především epistemologicko-ontologický a antropologický předpoklad moderní techniky, jonasovská interpretace geneze moderní techniky a jejího vztahu k moderní koncepci vědy. Ve druhé kapitole najdeme jonasovskou analýzu technické praxe v podobě jejích pěti specifických vlastností: ambivalence účinků, nutnost použití, globální (...) rozsah a dosah v prostoru a čase, prolomení antropocentrismu a vzbuzování metafyzických otázek. Na začátku třetí kapitoly autor velmi stručně srovnává jonasovský přístup s přístupem španělského filosofa Ortegy y Gasseta, a také s přístupem Günthera Anderse, Martina Heidegerra a Karla Jasperse, tak, aby vynikly charakteristické rysy přístupu jonasovského. Dále autor některé vybrané charakteristické rysy kriticky reflektuje a zabývá se i otázkou aplikace principu předběžné opatrnosti. Třetí kapitolu uzavírá výčet možných aktuálních podnětů jonasovské etiky techniky a formulace etických maxim, které autor navrhuje, vycházeje přitom z pěti uvedených vlastností techniky, přidávaje šestou: utopické tendence. Závěr práce shrnuje dosažené poznatky a prohlubuje autorovu reflexi ze třetí kapitoly. Článek představuje sondu do tématu, které nebylo v českém myšlenkovém prostředí dosud podrobněji zpracováno. (shrink)

The paper analyses the concept of ‘bad infinity’ in connection with Hegel’s critique of infinitesimal calculus and with the belittling of Hegel’s mathematical notions by the representatives of modern logic and the foundations of mathematics. The main line of argument draws on the observation that Hegel’s difference is only derivatively a mathematical one and is primarily of a broadly logico-epistemological nature. Because of this, the concept of bad infinity can be fruitfully utilized, by way of inversion, in an analysis of (...) the conceptual shortcomings of the most prominent foundational attempts at dealing with infinite quanta, such as Cantor’s set theory and Hilbert’s axiomatism. As such, the paper is an attempt at reconstructing Hegel’s philosophy of mathematics and its role in his philosophical system and, more importantly, as a contribution to logic in the more general and radical sense of the word. (shrink)

Reflecting on a three year long exploratory research of ethics committees in the Czech Republic authors discuss the current role and identity of research ethics committees. The research of Czech ethics committees focused on both self-presentation and self-understanding of ECs members, and how other stakeholders (representatives of the pharmaceutical industry) view them. The exploratory research was based on formal and informal communication with the members of the ethics committees. Members of the research team took part at six regular voluntary meetings (...) of the ethics committees' members, organised by the Forum of Czech Ethics Committees, and at three summer schools of medical ethics. There were realised twenty-five semi-structured interviews as well as six focus group sessions and a participant observation of several regular meetings of three ethics committees. On the grounds of experience from the interviews a simple questionnaire survey was realised among the members of the ethics committees. The ethics committees comprise a community of members working voluntarily, without claims to remuneration or prestige; the unifying goal is protection of subjects of research. The principal working methods are dialogue and agreement. The members of the ethics committees thus, among other things, create an informal community, which can be to a certain extent seen as a Kantian ethical community in a weak sense. The phenomenon of ethics committees can also be described by terms of an epistemic community and a community of practice. These concepts, which are borrowed from other authors and areas, are used as a way how to think of ECs role and identity a bit differently and are meant as a contribution to the current international debate on the topic. (shrink)

This paper aims to assess current theoretical findings on the origin of coordination by salience and suggests a way to clarify the existing framework. The main concern is to reveal how different coordination mechanisms rely on specific epistemic aspects of reasoning. The paper highlights the fact that basic epistemic assumptions of theories diverge in a way that makes them essentially distinctive. Consequently, recommendations and predictions of the traditional views of coordination by salience are, in principle, based on the processes related (...) to the agent’s presumptions regarding the cognitive abilities of a co-player. This finding implies that we should consider these theories as complementary, and not competitive, explanations of the same phenomenon. -/- . (shrink)

The paper presents a novel view of social norms that reflects the importance of different agent types, their specific motivations and roles. How one identifies with a role and behavioral options available to the agent is crucial for the sustainability of the social norms. The analysis of a simple case of social norm is suggested as a default model for analysis, and then the classification of subjects, enforcers, and audience is introduced. This triangular typology of agents is extended by introducing (...) a network of interlocking patterns underlying social behavior. Lastly, the paper describes two categories of transgressions based on misidentification. (shrink)

:The aim of this article is to reopen the rather neglected issue of the nature and internal structure of the.

A discussion of European understanding of the physical world from the 9th century to the 15th, ranging from astronomy to zoology and refuting the more recent ...

Reviewing the beginnings and the further development of logicistic idea I am mainly focusing on the tradition of Frege and Russell, i. e. the tradition which was in the closest relationship with the enterprise of modern logic. I am trying to assess its connections to other „logistic“ programs such as Dedekind’s structuralism or Peano‘s axiomatism, to underline its specific features and the share in the success of modern logical semantics, including both its substantial contribution and limitations.

C.S. Lewis’s ‘Argument from Desire’ is best summed up by his famous line, ‘If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world’. In short, unfulfilled ‘seemingly transcendent desires’ point to fulfilment in another realm. Lewis’s argument is fraught with disagreement, and subsequently, questions remain as to its efficacy as a theistic argument. In this essay, I will take a novel approach by using (...) Bayes’ theorem to assess the success of Lewis’s argument in support of theism over and against naturalism. As I will argue, a strength of this approach is that it allows me to largely bypass a significant area of disagreement within the literature, namely, whether these desires are best seen as natural or artificial. Additionally, I will argue for why these desires are the sort of good God would be interested in giving to persons. Then, I will proceed to outline what I take to be the best naturalistic accounts of these desires and outline some of the challenges these accounts face. Finally, I will conclude with plugging these results into Bayes’ theorem. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The article deals with the evolution of the foundations of arithmetic: from the auspicious beginnings with Frege and Dedekind through the cataclysm of Russell’s antinomy to the late writings of Hilbert and the work of Paul Lorenzen . The proposed historical and dialectic reconstruction does not consist in ad hoc attempts to overcome formal difficulties of the systems in question. It rather shows how Frege’s and Dedekind’s original intentions are to be understood and can partly be justified. For this, Gödel’s (...) famous results are of great importance. (shrink)

The article deals with Cantor’s diagonal argument and its alleged philosophical consequences such as that there are more reals than integers and, hence, that some of the reals must be independent of language because the totality of words and sentences is always count-able. My claim is that the main flaw of the argument for the existence of non-nameable objects or truths lies in a very superficial understanding of what a name or representation actually is.

The series publishes monographs and essay collections devoted to the history of philosophy as well as studies in the theory of writing the history of philosophy. A special emphasis is placed on the contextualization of philosophical historiography into the areas of the history of science, culture, and the wider scope of intellectual history.

Both Brandom and Wittgenstein base their concepts of experience on the game metaphor and the associated concept of rule. In fact, what Brandom seems to do is further refine Wittgenstein’s vocabulary by specifying the game as the game of giving and asking for reasons and rules as the rules of inference. By replacing the plurality of “games” with the one and only “game”, though, Brandom also lays the ground for a possible discord. This relates particularly to the cognitive significance of (...) different forms of human experience, such as music or art in general, which are treated by Wittgenstein as language games despite their being rather independent of claims and commitments and despite their utterly lacking the representational dimension. In my paper, I will show that with respect to these objections, one can argue that Brandom is in fact true to Wittgenstein’s instruction to always read his Investigations against his Tractatus. The general idea is to look at the game and picture metaphor as parts of a single concept that both philosophers work on together by going back to the very idealist concept of reflexivity or self-consciousness. (shrink)

Hegel's Science of Logic has received less attention than his Phenomenology of Spirit, but Hegel himself took it to be his highest philosophical achievement and the backbone of his system. The present book focuses on this most difficult of Hegel's published works. Béatrice Longuenesse offers a close analysis of core issues, including discussions of what Hegel means by 'dialectical logic', the role and meaning of 'contradiction' in Hegel's philosophy, and Hegel's justification for the provocative statement that 'what is actual is (...) rational, what is rational is actual'. She examines both Hegel's debt and his polemical reaction to Kant, and shows in great detail how his project of a 'dialectical' logic can be understood only in light of its relation to Kant's 'transcendental' logic. This book will appeal to anyone interested in Hegel's philosophy and its influence on contemporary philosophical discussion. (shrink)

The paper proposes an alternative approach to the ontology of social institutions by systematizing various normative institutional influences and identifying processes that distinguish between conforming and violating behaviour. The prevailing – cost-based model – suggests that an agent's conformity to a specific institutional rule can be represented by a single measure – cost. The model is limited in its explanatory potential since it accounts for varieties of institutional behaviour in terms of single parametrical changes in the agents' utilities. The central (...) argument shows that normative attitudes represent a distinctive normative structure capable of explaining crucial aspects of institutional behaviour. These attitudinal aspects provide the structure necessary for understanding institutional normativity and its violations. (shrink)

The paper aims to explain different cases of disobedient institutional behavior using the attitude-based model. The issue of how to analyze and capture the faces of disobedience in a simple model is approached in three steps: first, misbehavior is defined as a certain lack in normative attitudes; second, these attitudes are distinguished in terms of normative acceptance and normative guidance; and third, combinations of these attitudes represent basic types of disobedience: opposing, transgressing and conforming. These three categories constitute an analytical (...) typology of disobedient agents compatible with the theory of social institutions. (shrink)

Although in his earlier ethical writings Kant explains the concept of moral feeling, inherited from the British sentimentalists, as a peculiar feeling of respect for the moral law that functions as an incentive for moral actions, the Doctrine of Virtue seems to add complexity to the issue. There, Kant discusses two similar aesthetic predispositions, moral feeling and respect, whose relationship to the feeling of respect is far from clear. This article offers a much needed elucidation of the relationship between these (...) three concepts. In the first part, I show that Kant, in the writings before the Doctrine of Virtue, transforms the British sentimentalists’ construal of moral feeling into that of the feeling of respect as the sole moral incentive. In the second part, I argue that, although in the Doctrine of Virtue Kant distinguishes, for a specific reason, between the aesthetic predisposition of moral feeling and that of respect, they are both ultimately identical to the feeling of respect. The conclusion is that nothing of substance changes between Kant’s earlier thinking and his views in the Doctrine of Virtue; for Kant there is just one feeling that properly deserves the name of moral feeling, the feeling of respect. (shrink)

In an effort to inform the discussion surrounding existential risks from AI, we formulate Extinction-level Goodhart’s Law as “Virtually any goal specification, pursued to the extreme, will result in the extinction of humanity”, and we aim to understand which formal models are suitable for investigating this hypothesis. Note that we remain agnostic as to whether Extinction-level Goodhart’s Law holds or not. As our key contribution, we identify a set of conditions that are necessary for a model that aims to be (...) informative for evaluating specific arguments for Extinction-level Goodhart’s Law. Since each of the conditions seems to significantly contribute to the complexity of the resulting model, formally evaluating the hypothesis might be exceedingly difficult. This raises the possibility that whether the risk of extinction from artificial intelligence is real or not, the underlying dynamics might be invisible to current scientific methods. (shrink)

Článek rozvíjí ideu Wittgensteinovy filosofické gramatiky a na příkladě její aplikace v hudbě ukazuje, jak Wittgenstein využívá pojmu "přehledného znázornění" ve vymezení filosofie jako něčeho, co nemůže být smysluplně vyřčeno. The paper elaborates on Wittgenstein’s idea of philosophical grammar by transposing it to the field of music and demonstrating how the concept of “perspicuous representation” can be used in delimiting philosophy as something that cannot be meaningfully said.

Text sleduje proměny reinkarnačních představ v počátcích řecké filosofie. Chce upozornit na několik méně známých a nesamozřejmých skutečností, které souvisejí se změnou pochopení převtělující se duše mezi presokratiky a Platónem.