This paper offers a modification of Fabrice Correia’s and Alexander Skiles’ (_Grounding, Essence, and Identity_) definition of grounding in terms of generalized identity that extends it to _zero_-grounding. The definition promises (1) to improve our understanding of zero-grounding by capturing it within the framework of generalized identity, and (2) to unlock the theoretical potential of zero-grounding for Correia’s and Skiles’ account. The latter is demonstrated by arguing that the definition allows an essentialist theory of modality based on Correia’s and Skiles’ (...) account to answer a recent explanatory challenge by Jessica Leech (_From Essence to Necessity via Identity_) by combining the following two ideas: (1) Some necessities are grounded in truths about zero-grounding, and (2) at least some identity-propositions are zero-grounded. Finally, some advantages of the zero-grounding approach over Correia’s and Skiles’ recent definition of necessity in terms of generalized identity and logical consequence are argued for. (shrink)

This paper first identifies several plausible desiderata on satisfactory explanations of logical theorems, shows that ordinary grounding explanations cannot satisfy them and argues that there is reason to believe that no alternative grounding explanations of logical theorems can be given. It then develops an alternative explanation of logical theorems based on Yablo’s idea of reductive truthmaking. The resulting proposal invokes instances of reductive truthmaking that bear an interesting structural similarity to the notion of zero-ground, in virtue of which it is (...) able to satisfy the identified desiderata. (shrink)

This paper explores a novel notion of self-explanation that combines ideas from two sources: the tripartite account of explanation, according to which a proposition can help explain another either in the capacity of a reason why the latter obtains or in the capacity of an explanatory link, and the notion of an empty-base explanation, which generalizes the ideas of explanation by zero-grounding and explanation by status. After having introduced these ideas and the novel notion of self-explanation, I argue that the (...) latter has the potential to resist extant arguments against the possibility of self-explanation. In the remainder of the paper, I discuss candidates for such self-explanatory propositions and suggest possible applications for Humeanism about laws of nature, the debate on the grounds of ground, the rationalist tradition, and philosophical theology. (shrink)

Amijee ("Inquiry and Metaphysical Rationalism") argues that as long as we have not yet discovered that any fact is ungrounded, we ought to be committed to a version of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), according to which every fact is grounded. In this note I present Amijee’s argument, rebut it, and diagnose where it fails. In a nutshell, the issue with Amijee's argument is that in general, rationally searching for something/seeking something/trying to achieve something does not require believing that (...) one is able to reach one's goal. (shrink)

This paper explores the practice of explanation by status, in which a truth with a certain status is supposed to be explained by its having that status. It first investigates whether such explanations are possible. Having found existing accounts of the practice wanting, it then argues for a novel account of explanation by status as empty-base explanation. The latter notion captures a certain limiting case of ordinary explanation so that according to the empty-base account, explanation by status can be fruitfully (...) understood as a corresponding limiting case of ordinary explanation. One way in which the empty-base account is argued to be superior to other treatments of explanation by status is that it allows for a principled assessment of the possibility of particular kinds of explanation by status. Thus, one result of the present discussion is that explanation by essential status and status as a law are possible, while explanation by merely necessary status is not. (shrink)

This paper discusses a novel response to two closely related regress arguments from Bolzano’s Theory of Science and Carroll’s What the Tortoise Said to Achilles. Bolzano’s argument aims to refute the thesis that full grounds must include propositions involving notions such as entailment, grounding or lawhood which link the respective grounds to their groundee. This thesis is motivated, Bolzano’s argument is reconstructed, and a response based on self-referential linking propositions is developed and defended against objections concerning self-reference and Curry’s paradox. (...) Finally, the idea is applied to a reading of Carroll’s dialogue and a corresponding solution to the so-called infinite regress problem of inference is proposed. (shrink)

Machine intelligence already helps medical staff with a number of tasks. Ethical decision-making, however, has not been handed over to computers. In this proof-of-concept study, we show how an algorithm based on Beauchamp and Childress’ prima-facie principles could be employed to advise on a range of moral dilemma situations that occur in medical institutions. We explain why we chose fuzzy cognitive maps to set up the advisory system and how we utilized machine learning to train it. We report on the (...) difficult task of operationalizing the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence and patient autonomy, and describe how we selected suitable input parameters that we extracted from a training dataset of clinical cases. The first performance results are promising, but an algorithmic approach to ethics also comes with several weaknesses and limitations. Should one really entrust the sensitive domain of clinical ethics to machine intelligence? (shrink)

Antonin Broi argues that the thesis of phenomenal revelation is in tension with the best available accounts of similarity and certain other relations between phenomenal properties and should hence be rejected. In the following, I investigate Broi’s argument, show how the notion of collective essence can be used to withstand it, and consider a corresponding “collective” version of the revelation thesis.

This clearly designed and illustrated book is dedicated to a complete overview of Richard Meier's Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, completed in 1995. Located in the area of the Casa de la Caritat, a former monastic enclave, this extraordinary building maintains a unique dialogue between the city's old urban fabric and the contemporary art housed within the museum. Barcelona's first institution devoted entirely to twentieth-century art, this museum synthesizes the striking contemporaneity of its bold architecture and the rich medieval (...) history of its context. Meier's masterful use of materials -- pristine white aluminum panels, glass, stucco, and granite -- and characteristic modern style emphasize a play of solid and void, light and shadow, through the museum's fluid, geometric forms. An external ramp leads from the sweeping plaza to a triple-height atrium space. An internal, glass-enclosed ramp unfolds vertically along the front facade of the building, offering breathtaking vistas of a sixteenth-century church and the romantic city beyond and leading to three floors of open exhibition areas. This unique publication documents the dramatic design with preliminary sketches, models, drawings, and lavish color photographs. (shrink)

This book develops and applies a novel kind of explanation: Empty-Base Explanation. While ordinary explanations have a tripartite structure involving an explanandum, a base of reasons why the explanandum obtains, and a link that connects the reasons to the explanandum, this book argues that there are explanations whose corresponding set of reasons is empty. This novel idea is located in the theoretical background of several fundamental philosophical issues. For example, it provides a convincing kind of ultimate or final explanation that (...) completely and conclusively explains a phenomenon without involving other phenomena for which further explanations could be demanded. -/- The possibility and fruitfulness of empty-base explanation is defended by general considerations from the theory of explanation, as well as concrete applications to (1) the practice of explanation by status, (2) the explanation of logical theorems, causal connections, and laws of nature, (3) self-explanation, (4) the use of IBE in metaphysics, (5) the notion of zero-ground (which it provides with a solid theoretical footing), and (6) ultimate explanation and its application to philosophical cosmology, the debate about the PSR, and the question of why there is anything at all. (shrink)

Le français est, par définition, le vecteur d’une des plus grandes aires culturelles du monde contemporain, celui de la francophonie, mais il est inséparable de sa coexistence avec les 2 000 langues de l’espace francophone. C’est dire à quel point une vision purement hexagonale de la francophonie est en totale contradiction avec les données du monde d’aujourd’hui. On pourrait en dire autant des autres espaces linguistiques : le cloisonnement des langues et des cultures est incompatible avec les développements actuels de (...) la mondialisation. Autrefois essentiellement instruments de pouvoir et de domination, les aires culturelles et linguistiques se transforment en instruments de cohabitation et de diversité, ce qui place la question du plurilinguisme et de la traduction aux centre des enjeux majeurs du monde contemporain.The French language, by definition, is the vehicle for the Francophone world, one of the largest cultural areas in the world of today. But French cannot be considered in isolation from the 2 000 languages with which it coexists in the Francophone sphere. This underlines how completely the Francophone concept, when seen from the perspective of France alone, contradicts the realities of today’s world. The same could also be said of other linguistic areas : dividing up the world in terms of languages and cultures is fundamentally incompatible with current trends in globalisation. While cultural and linguistic spheres were, in the past, essentially instruments of power and domination, they are now becoming instruments of cohabitation and diversity, and this brings the issues of multilingualism and translation to the very heart of the major global issues of today. (shrink)

Signed languages display a variety of pointing signs that serve the functions of deictic and anaphoric pronouns, possessive and reflexive pronouns, demonstratives, locatives, determiners, body part labels, and verb agreement. We consider criteria for determining the linguistic status of pointing signs. Among those criteria are conventionality, indexicality, phonological compositionality, being subject to grammatical constraints, and marking the kinds of grammatical distinctions expected of pronouns. We conclude that first-person points meet all these proposed criteria, but that nonfirst person points are in (...) part gestural. Lastly, we review evidence for the grammaticization over time of systems of pointing signs within signed languages. (shrink)

Can machine intelligence do clinical ethics? And if so, would applying it to actual medical cases be desirable? In a recent target article (Meier et al. 2022), we described the piloting of our advisory algorithm METHAD. Here, we reply to commentaries published in response to our project. The commentaries fall into two broad categories: concrete criticism that concerns the development of METHAD; and the more general question as to whether one should employ decision-support systems of this kind—the debate we (...) set out to ignite with our target article. (shrink)

Noël Blas Saenz has recently argued for a counterfactual condition on grounding called Sensitivity, with which he tries to show that there are no mereological sums and that universalism abo...

Zangwill (“Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat”, “If you care about animals, you should eat them”) has argued that we have a duty to eat meat. In this paper I first show that Zangwill’s essays contain two distinct conclusions: (1) a rather weak thesis that his argument is officially supposed to establish, and (2) a much stronger, advertised thesis that his argument is not officially supposed to establish, but on whose basis he gives concrete recommendations for action and launches polemic (...) attacks on vegans, animal rights activists, and others. Consequently, I argue that Zangwill is likely culpable of some combination of epistemic failure, objectionable carnist activism, and trolling. In the second part of this paper I rebut Zangwill’s argument proper. I conclude by identifying some important issues in the vicinity concerning the suffering of wildlife and population ethics generalized to both human and non-human animals. (shrink)

English summary: This book concerns a metaphysical definition of artifacts, taken as a key term of the philosophy of technology. Due to the fact that classical determinations are not only insufficient at explicating the term but also inapplicable to real artifacts, the work tries to develop a concept of artifacts using the thought of truth given by Martin Heidegger. In so far as a hermeneutic interpretation of his oeuvre shows us, truth actually is an object-generating happening. That is why an (...) analysis of forms of judgments allows the description of factic things. Assuming that there are theoretical judgments concerning technique - wherefore technique is an historically contingent kind of metaphysics - artifacts are given as geometrical universals, meaning terms, without being able to subsume thought-independent of individuals, unless artifacts exceptionally are known as subjects of practical philosophy. German description: Diese Studie befasst sich mit der metaphysischen Bestimmung des Gegenstandes Artefakt, der fur die Technikphilosophie zentral ist. Da klassische Bestimmungen weder eine zureichende Explikation des Begriffes noch die eindeutige Identifikation solcher Sachen erlauben, greift der Autor dazu auf das Denken der Wahrheit bei Martin Heidegger zuruck. Eine hermeneutische Deutung von dessen Werk zeigt, dass Wahrheit als ein Geschehen zu betrachten ist, das Gegenstande generiert. Demzufolge ermoglicht die Analyse von Urteilsformen, faktisch begegnende Sachen zu bestimmen. Nimmt man an, dass es spezifisch technik-theoretisches Urteilen gibt - weshalb Technik als ein historisch kontingenter Metaphysiktyp aufgefasst werden muss -, zeigt sich, dass Artefakte als geometrische Universalien begegnen. Sie sind also Begriffe, unter welche keine denkunabhangigen Einzeldinge subsumiert werden konnen, es sei denn man fasst Artefakte ausschliesslich als Gegenstande der praktischen Philosophie auf. (shrink)

Psychologists are increasingly interested in embodiment based on the assumption that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are grounded in bodily interaction with the environment. We examine how embodiment is used in social psychology, and we explore the ways in which embodied approaches enrich traditional theories. Although research in this area is burgeoning, much of it has been more descriptive than explanatory. We provide a critical discussion of the trajectory of embodiment research in social psychology. We contend that future researchers should engage (...) in a phenomenon-based approach, highlight the theoretical boundary conditions and mediators involved, explore novel action-relevant outcome measures, and address the role of individual differences broadly defined. Such research will likely provide a more explanatory account of the role of embodiment in general terms as well as how it expands the knowledge base in social psychology. (shrink)

The most serious objection to Beall and Restall’s case-based logical pluralism is the so-called collapse argument. According to the collapse argument, logical pluralism is not genuinely pluralistic and collapses into a single privileged relation of logical consequence. In response, Caret offered an account of logical contextualism that supposedly maintains the merits of Beall and Restall’s case-based logical pluralism while circumventing the collapse argument. In this paper, I first point out a gap in the collapse argument in that it does not (...) affect pluralists who assume that there is no uniquely strongest admissible consequence relation. This gap, then, is closed by an improved version of the collapse argument, which makes use of Eklund’s classification of types of pluralism. Finally, I discuss how Caret’s logical contextualism cannot hold up against this new formulation of the collapse argument unless implausible assumptions about the contents of normative operators are made. Moreover, by reformulating the collapse argument, I determine the extent to which logical monism and pluralism oppose each other, paving the way for fruitful future discussion. (shrink)

Recent publications on digital health technologies highlight the importance of ‘responsible’ use. References to the concept of responsibility are, however, frequently made without providing clear definitions of responsibility, thus leaving room for ambiguities. Addressing these uncertainties is critical since they might lead to misunderstandings, impacting the quality and safety of healthcare delivery. Therefore, this study investigates how responsibility is interpreted in the context of using digital health technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), telemonitoring, wearables and mobile apps. We conducted a scoping (...) review with a systematic search in PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CINAHL and Philosopher’s Index. A total of 34 articles were included and categorized using a theoretical framework of responsibility aspects, and revealed two main findings. First, we found that digital health technologies can expand and shift existing ‘role responsibilities’ among caregivers, patients and technology. Second, moral responsibility is often equated with liability or accountability, without clear justification. Articles describe new ways in which physicians can be held accountable, particularly in the context of AI, and discuss the emergence of a ‘responsibility gap’ where no-one can be fully responsible for AI-generated outcomes. The literature also shows that m-Health technologies can increase patients’ accountability for their own health. However, there was limited discussion in the reviewed literature on whether these attributions of accountability are appropriate. We conclude with implications for practice and suggestions for expanding the theoretical framework of moral responsibility, recommending further study on responsibility of collectives and artificial entities, and on the role of virtue in digital health. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been overwhelming public health-care systems around the world. With demand exceeding the availability of medical resources in several regions, hospitals have been forced to invoke triage. To ensure that this difficult task proceeds in a fair and organised manner, governments scrambled experts to draft triage guidelines under enormous time pressure. Although there are similarities between the documents, they vary considerably in how much weight their respective authors place on the different criteria that they propose. Since most (...) of the recommendations do not come with ethical justifications, analysing them requires that one traces back these criteria to their underlying theories of distributive justice. In the literature, COVID-19 triage has been portrayed as a value conflict solely between utilitarian and egalitarian elements. While these two accounts are indeed the main antipodes, I shall show that in fact all four classic theories of distributive justice are involved: utilitarianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, and communitarianism. Detecting these in the documents and classifying the suggested criteria accordingly enables one to understand the balancing between the different approaches to distributive justice—which is crucial for both managing the current pandemic and in preparation for the next global health crisis. (shrink)

Good physical experiments conform to the basic methodological standards of experimental design: they are objective, reliable, and valid. But is this also true of thought experiments? Especially problems of personal identity have engendered hypothetical scenarios that are very distant from the actual world. These imagined situations have been conspicuously ineffective at resolving conflicting intuitions and deciding between the different accounts of personal identity. Using prominent examples from the literature, I argue that this is due to many of these thought experiments (...) not adhering to the methodological standards that guide experimental design in nearly all other disciplines. I also show how empirically unwarranted background assumptions about human physiology render some of the hypothetical scenarios that are employed in the debate about personal identity highly misleading. (shrink)

The paper focuses on some aspects of the early modern aftermath of supposition theory within the framework of the protestant logical tradition. Due to the growing influence of Humanism, supposition theory from the third decade of the sixteenth century was the object of general neglect and contempt. While in the late sixteenth-century a number of standard textbooks of post-Tridentine scholastic logic reintegrated this doctrine, although in a bowdlerized version, it remained for a century out of the scope of Protestant logic. (...) The situation changed when the Strasburg Lutheran theologian J.C. Dannhauer, who in 1630 developed and propagated the program of a new discipline which he called ‘general hermeneutics’, accentuating the importance of supposition theory as an indispensable device for the purpose of textual interpretation. Due to Dannhauer’s influence on later developments of hermeneutics, which in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was regarded as a logical discipline, supposition theory is still present in several logical treatises of the eighteenth century. The explication of the underlying views on the notion of supposition and its logico-semantic function may give at least some clues as to how to answer the question of what supposition theory was all about. (shrink)

Innerhalb des Gedankenexperiments eines natürlichen Zustandes bewegt sich Meier in der für seine Zeit üblichen Weise der Grundlegung einer Naturrechtslehre mit der Suche nach dem obersten Prinzip, aus dem alle weiteren Grundsätze und Regeln abzuleiten sind. Berücksichtigt man die naturrechtliche Tradition von Christian Wolff und Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, in die sich Meier mehrfach ausdrücklich stellt, würde man nun hier das Gebot des Strebens nach Vollkommenheit erwarten. Doch überraschenderweise legt Meier seinem Recht der Natur ein anderes Prinzip zu (...) Grunde, nämlich: „beleidige niemanden äusserlich in dem natürlichen Zustande.“ Sämtliche natürlichen Rechte und Pflichten des Menschen im Naturzustand folgen für Meier aus diesem ersten Grundsatz, der nun weniger an das Vollkommenheitsgebot des Christian Wolff erinnert als vielmehr eine systematische Parallele zu dem Bereich der für den äußeren Frieden förderlichen Handlungen des justum von Christian Thomasius aufweist, dessen Regel „Behindere andere nicht in der Ausübung ihrer Rechte“ aus den Fundamenta juris naturae et gentium dem Meierschen, „keinem andern Menschen das Seine“ zu nehmen, entspricht. Within the thought-experiment of a natural condition, Meier follows the usual method of his age by basing a doctrine of natural law on the search for a highest principle from which all further principles and rules are to be derived. Considering the tradition of Christian Wolff’s and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten in defining natural law, a tradition in which Meier several times expressly places himself, we would expect to find here the commandment to strive for perfection. But, surprisingly, Meier bases his natural law on a different principle: “offend no-one outwardly in the natural condition.” For Meier, all natural laws and duties of mankind in the natural condition follow from this first principle, which now seems less an echo of Christian Wolff’s precept of perfection than a systematic parallel to the sphere of actions required four outward oeace, the justum of Christian Thomasius, whose rule of “Do not hinder others in the exercise of their rights,” from the Fundamenta juris naturae et gentium correspondes to Meier’s rule not to take “from any other man what is his.”. (shrink)

Meier shows how the structure of Greek communal life gave individuals a civic role and discusses a crucial reform that institutionalized the idea of equality ...

We can hardly know for certain how strongly a scholarly discipline like history is able to affect politics and society, popular views and morals. Whatever its impact, it's influence also varies from epoch to epoch. During a few decades of the nineteenth century, historians were overwhelmed by so many questions and by such high expectations that there existed a large public space for them that they merely had to occupy. At other times, they have had to conquer this space first (...) if they wanted to gain continued attention.To be sure, a differentiation has to be introduced: any society has particular interests, e.g., in parts of its more recent past or in events that society sees as having something like a “mythical quality” about then, events that represent a major divide, that are deeply imprinted on that society's memory, that have attained a special role through tradition. There is, of course, always a space commanding wider public attention for these aspects. However, they are no more than small specks on the large canvas of history. (shrink)