The paradigm for modelling decision-making under uncertainty has undoubtedly been the theory of Expected Utility, which was first developed by von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944) and later extended by Savage (1954) to the case of subjective uncertainty. The inadequacy of the theory of Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) as a descriptive theory was soon pointed out in experiments, most famously by Allais (1953) and Ellsberg (1961). The observed departures from SEU noticed by Allais and Ellsberg became known as “paradoxes”. The (...) Ellsberg paradox gave rise, several years later, to a new literature on decision-making under ambiguity. The theoretical side of this literature was pioneered by Schmeidler (1989). This literature views the departures from SEU in situations similar to those discussed by Ellsberg as rational responses to ambiguity. The rationality is “recovered” by relaxing Savage's Sure-Thing principle and adding an ambiguity-aversion postulate. Thus the ambiguity-aversion literature takes a normative point of view and does consider Ellsberg-type choices as behavioural “anomalies”. (shrink)

A Literary History of Medicine: The ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ of Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah. Edited and translated by Emilie Savage-Smith, Simon Swain, and Geert Jan van Gelder. Handbuch für Orientalistik, 1: The Near and Middle East, vol. 134. 5 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2020. $865. Open access: https://scholarlyeditions.brill.com/lhom/.

A critical examination of the history of theories and uses of concepts such as ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’ in the academic study of religion in imperial, colonial and postcolonial contexts is particularly urgent in our time with its demands to decolonise Western models of knowledge production. In Savage Systems (1996) and Empire of Religion (2014), David Chidester has contributed to this project by relating the invention and use of terms such as ‘religion’, ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’ by theorists of (...) religion in European imperial metropoles to South African colonial and indigenous contexts. This article intends to take Chidester’s project further by relating Gerardus Van der Leeuw’s phenomenological analysis of ‘primitive mentality’ (particularly in De primitieve mensch en de religie, 1937) to Chidester’s analysis and postcolonial critique of imperial theories of religion. By taking animism and dreams in Chidester’s and Van der Leeuw’s works as example, it is argued that in spite of the latter’s decontextualised use of ethnological material, a fundamental shift occurred in the judgement of ‘primitive’ religion from Tylor’s evolutionary to Van der Leeuw’s phenomenological analysis, which is contrary to claims according to which modern theories are unanimously denigratory of indigenous religions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:GAUGUIN: THE OSCILLATING STRUCTURE OF DISGUISE Ralph Hajj University ofMontreal In this essay we will examine Gauguin's self-portraits as ritualistic activity. Through them we will attempt to determine the formal and iconographical consequences ofhis extensive use ofdisguise and how this use can illuminate the nature ofart in general. The ritualistic function of disguise Within the framework ofa given social order, disguise functions as a ritualistic activity. Ritual is aframed (...) event where concepts—which in a non-ritualistic context are strictly differentiated and which take their meaning from this very differentiation—become undifferentiated.In Violence andthe Sacred, René Girard studied the function ofmask in ritual activity: he concluded that within the function of ritual, which is to reinforce the cultural differentiation through a repetition of its undifferentiated origins, the mask introduces undifferentiation between the self, (the human being wearing the mask), and the other (who or what the mask represents): Masks stand at that equivocal frontier between the human and the "divine," between a differentiated order in the process of disintegration and its final undifferentiated state—the point where all differences, all monstrosities are concentrated, and from which a new order will emerge. There is no point in trying to determine the "nature" ofmasks, because it is in their nature not to have a nature but to encompass all natures. (168). Disguise as a form of ritual activity is the representation of undifferentiation or non-representability. It is then a fundamentally paradoxical 168Ralph Hajj activity; an actofundifferentiating which has its condition ofpossibility in differentiated meaning. In turn differentiated meaning has its condition of possibility in a transcendental undifferentiation which the disguise represents. The mutual determination of the two, the totality of meaning and its negation, which is the condition ofpossibility ofmeaning as such, is represented through disguise both as a synchronic state and as a diachronic process. Thus, disguise is one of the forms of synchronic condensation leading to diachronic oscillation. This structure/process of condensation/oscillation is posited here as the universal underlying principle ofritual and in extension ofart in general. The structure/process of condensations/oscillations are seen most clearly in Gauguin's letters and the self-representations put forward inthem where he liked to call himselfa "savage." It is also seen in his self-portraits of 1888-1890, were he alternatively disguises himself as Jean Valjean, as Jesus Christ, and as a Breton priest, among other roles. A study of the paintings were these disguises occur will allow us to make the connection between his self-representation, as seen through his letters, and its consequences on the formal and iconographical level of these and other paintings. This in turn, will allow us to see how the structure/process of condensation/oscillation affects the form and iconography ofhis two most complex works; La Vision après le sermon [Fig. 1], and Van Goghpeignant des tournesols [Fig. 2], both ofwhich were painted in 1888. This choice of paintings will allow us to examine some fundamental generative aspects of Paul Gauguin's work during that period. Self-Portraits as tropes In 1888 Van Gogh, who was interested in creating a colony ofartists, and as a means ofpreserving his ties with the painters ofPont-Aven whom he considered as likely candidates, wanted to exchange his self-portrait with a portrait painted by Paul Gauguin representing Émile Bernard and one by Gauguin representing Bernard (Sugana 94). Gauguin, who had trouble painting Bernard (Correspondence No. 165, 230), painted a selfportrait instead with an outline of Bernard's profile on the background, entitling it Les Misérables [Fig.3] after Victor Hugo's novel. Simultaneously, Bernard painted a self-portrait with Gauguin's profile. Gauguin'sLesMisérables [Fig. 3] is typical ofhis self-portraits, where he is usually disguised, in this case as Jean Valjean. The picture shows Gauguin looking straight at the viewer, his prominent arced nose—which he considered as a sign ofhis "primitive" origins—emphasized. The Gauguin: The Oscillating Structure ofDisguise171 background is painted yellow with decorative designs vaguely reminiscent ofPersian carpets, exceptforagreen areaonthetop rightofthe canvasthat contains a linear portrait of Emile Bernard. In a letter written to Shuffenecker in October 1888, he describesthispaintingand its intentions:...I did a portrait... (shrink)

Some philosophical pluralists argue that both a top-down and a bottom-up approach serve as equally justified methods for engaging in ontological inquiry. In the top-down approach, we start with an analysis of theory and extrapolate from there to the world. In the bottom-up approach, we begin with an empirical investigation of the world and let our theory respond accordingly. The idea is that ontological conclusions arrived at via these two equally justified methods are then also equally justified. In this paper, (...) I argue that top-down/bottom-up methodological pluralism inadvertently grants primacy to the top-down approach. I go on to suggest that this is, in fact, unavoidable because it applies to ontological inquiry in general. Ontological inquiry invariably adopts the top-down approach because (a) ontological conclusions are not revealed during empirical investigations; instead, they are conceptual (i.e. theoretical) posits asserted top-down and (b) even if we consider both top-down and bottom-up approaches during ontological inquiry, such a consideration itself occurs from within theory (i.e. top-down). (shrink)

Generally, we want certain ethical claims to be unconditionally true. One such claim is “Apartheid was unjust”. In this paper, I discuss a group of South African post-structuralist philosophers who call their view Critical Complexity (CC). Because of post-structuralism’s radical contextualism, CCists can only claim that things are ‘as if’ Apartheid was unjust. They cannot claim that Apartheid was unconditionally unjust. Many will find this unsatisfying. I argue that a naturalised or Darwinian notion of rationality can help CCists (and perhaps (...) post-structuralists in general) in this regard. This kind of rationality is what has come to be known as embodied rationality. We employ embodied rationality when navigating the ecological and social domains. It has, though, been co-opted for navigating the ethical domain. We can, then, claim that Apartheid was unconditionally unjust because it is embodied rational to do so. This does not involve embracing the kind of Cartesian rationality that CCists rightly reject. (shrink)

Across numerous languages, the attitude verb "think" is learned later than other attitude verbs like "want." But why? This essays advances a new hypothesis: children initially treat think as a veridical yet non-factive verb akin to a class of verbs I call "confirmatives." This hypothesis is argued to better explain existing data that troubles other hypotheses, and to find support from the ease with which children represent knowledge but not belief.

### ­ In Who shall go first? A multicriteria approach to patient selection for first clinical trials of cardiac xenotransplantation, Kögel et al recommend the inclusion of patients who (1) have a (high) medical need for an allograft, (2) have the capacity to benefit from a xenograft, (3) have a ‘real’ choice between enrolment in a first-in-human clinical trial and an alternative life-sustaining treatment option and (4) have no clear record of previous non-compliance.1 As the authors discuss, patient selection must (...) promote the goal of gaining reliable and valid knowledge about the risks and benefits of cardiac xenotransplantation. While the four criteria outlined above certainly promote this goal, we argue it is crucial to add a fifth criterion emphasising the need to include diverse populations, particularly regarding sex, age, ethnicity and socioeconomic background.i In this commentary, we present two arguments for our claim and discuss the impact of neglecting diversity from the first trials on. ### The scientific rationale for including diverse populations First, including diverse populations in the first clinical trials of cardiac xenotransplantation enhances the scientific value of the data by assessing safety and efficacy among various populations. Treatment response can differ among patient (sub)groups as a result of genetic, physiological and socioeconomic factors.2 By including diverse populations from the first trials on, researchers can identify these …. (shrink)

It seems like a problem to say that love can be merited—its value is located in its transcendence of comparative judgments. However, we commonly make judgments about who is and is not worth loving. We deem certain romantic partners, friends, and family members as worth or not worth our loving time, attention, and effort. In this paper, I argue that love can be merited, and it is merited because of a person’s intrinsic valuable qualities. However, it is not the fact (...) that such qualities can be compared that is relevant. What is relevant is the fact that such qualities are gradable, and what it means for someone to merit love is that their qualities meet a threshold or standard of value for love. Moreover, love requires some amount of practical wisdom in discerning these thresholds and when someone meets or fails to meet them. This is important to recognize since we are creatures of finite love. We do not have the capacity to love everyone who is both worthy and unworthy of love. Given our finite capacities, I argue that making wise and discerning judgments about whom to love should be kept in mind when philosophizing about love. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss in what sense physics, chemistry, and the life sciences constitute a systematic unity according to Kant. I start by discussing Christian Wolff’s views on the hierarchy of sciences. I then argue that in one specific sense physics, chemistry and several life sciences constitute a unity: physics and chemistry provide statements that can be used to provide proofs in the life sciences. However, the unity of physics, chemistry, and the life sciences is limited in scope, since (...) Kant claims that the purposeful unity of organisms is mechanically inexplicable. I finally discuss whether there are laws within the life sciences according to Kant. I argue that the fact that Kant acknowledged that physics and chemistry ground the life sciences does not imply that there are laws of life. The reason is that life sciences of Kant’s time were concerned with explaining the purposeful unity of organisms, which is mechanically inexplicable according to Kant, and the regularities discussed by life scientists in Kant’s time lack a priori grounding. (shrink)

How should we interact with people in echo chambers? Recently, some have argued that echo-chambered individuals are not entitled to civility. Civility is the virtue whereby we communicate respect for persons to manage our profound disagreements with them. But for civil exchanges to work, people must trust one another and their testimony. Therefore, some argue, we can be moderately uncivil towards those in echo chambers who are unlikely to trust our attempts to be civil. I argue against this position. I (...) suggest the focus should be on trying to rebuild these social relationships in alignment with the Confucian value of harmony. In this tradition, we aim to manage social relationships with disagreeable others by turning inward and cultivating certain dispositions in ourselves: open-mindedness, amenability, tactfulness, and courage. I argue this helps us craft a concept of ‘reparative civility’: an ideal for managing our fraught social relations in a world of echo chambers. (shrink)

Social egalitarianism holds that justice requires that people relate to one another as equals. To explain the content of this requirement, social egalitarians often appeal to the moral equality of persons. This leads to two very different interpretations of social egalitarianism. The first involves the specification of a conception of the moral equality of persons that is distinctive of the social egalitarian view. Social (or relational) egalitarianism can then claim that for people to relate as equals is for the relations (...) between them to conform to this conception of their moral equality. I will argue against this type of view. Instead, I will argue that social egalitarianism should propose a distinctive conception of social equality as a purely sociological phenomenon. I will show how this conception allows us to formulate the types of normative claims social egalitarianism should make. On this picture, social egalitarianism, instead of identifying social hierarchy as a distinctive kind of wrong, makes standard normative claims about a distinctive kind of social phenomenon. (shrink)

Pregnancy has a profound impact on individuals’ lives, yet the subjective experience is often absent from the discourse on reproductive rights and ethics. Although pregnancy is an epistemically transformative experience, phenomenology can help us describe common structures in the many different subjective experiences of pregnancy. Doing so shows us that the effects of pregnancy go beyond the physical symptoms; they invade the experience of the self and the world and transform identity. If someone wants to formulate an argument against abortion, (...) they will have to include the existential impact of pregnancy. In this paper I will further explore the impact of pregnancy through a phenomenological analysis of birth and birthmothers and show that the existential impact of pregnancy does not cease to exist after birth. Giving birth fundamentally changes the world of the pregnant person and leads to irreversible changes in identity. Their world will never return to the way it was before pregnancy. Arguments against abortion would have to take these existential implications into account as well. Finally, I will argue that a similar argument will also become relevant in the discourse on ectogenesis. (shrink)

This paper is forthcoming in The Moral Psychology of Resentment (Rowman & Littlefield).

Physicians frequently encounter situations in which their professional practice is intermingled with moral affordances stemming from other domains of the physician’s lifeworld, such as family and friends, or from general morality pertaining to all humans. This article offers a typology of moral conflicts ‘at the margins of professionalism’ as well as a new theoretical framework for dealing with them. We start out by arguing that established theories of professional ethics do not offer sufficient guidance in situations where professional ethics overlaps (...) with moral duties of other origins. Therefore, we introduce the moral theory developed by Christine M. Korsgaard, that centres around the concept of practical identity. We show how Korsgaard’s account offers a framework for interpreting different types of moral conflicts ‘at the margins of professionalism’ to provide either orientation for solving the conflict or an explanation for the emotional and moral burden involved in moral dilemmas. (shrink)

The ability to understand other minds is key to communication, social organization, and culture, and actively researched in disciplines such as psychology, ethology, and primatology. The German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) developed an elaborate theory of how we understand others, then commonly referred to as empathy (Theorie der Einfühlung). Much recent work on Husserl's theory has interpreted him in opposition to Theory of Mind (ToM), but Husserl's layered account of empathy has received little attention, and so have the more recent (...) versions of ToM, which work with orders of intentionality, and which are applied widely in social cognition research today. This article focuses on Husserl's layered approach, highlighting the main takeaways of his theory, while also providing a commentary, which reflects on his work from a contemporary perspective. This yields a rather different interpretation of him, one which reveals hitherto unnoticed connections with diverse areas of social cognition scholarship. (shrink)

June 2022 A Revolutionary New Metaphysics, Based on Consciousness, and a Call to All Philosophers We are in a unique moment of our history unlike any previous moment ever. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. As I write, the planet is in deep trouble, heat, fires, great storms, and record flooding, (...) weather patterns drastic everywhere. Capitalism has been so successful in supplying us with an endless array of consumer items, that we have never noticed there is a cost. But there is a cost, the cost is the very life of the Earth herself, and now the day of reckoning is here. Days of reckoning are most often days of rath. But I am hoping that this is a day of major Awakening over the entire planet. We have caused a crisis so great for the Earth we can hardly get our minds around it. But I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis are ideas, about who and what the Earth is, Ourselves, and what we are here for. I am proposing that this is a call to all philosophy and philosophers to rethink ourselves from the ground up. The human race has never gotten the Earth right and now we must, for the Earth is the true foundation for civilization. We are in deep trouble with the Earth, and it owes to the fact that the great male thinkers never got the Earth right, they could never make the connection between the life of mind and the life of the Earth. I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis we are in are ideas. And that in fact the planet is in the grip of a false metaphysics, and scientific image of nature that really comes most recently from Descartes. His conviction that matter, and with it the Earth, are simply the weighable, the measurable the extended in space and time, utterly devoid of any inner life of mind thoughts or Consciousness. This view of matter and the Earth goes back to the very dawn of thought, Descartes is just its most recent and comprehensive version of things. This view of matter is really a false metaphysics that dominates most of the modern world and underpins the whole scientific image of nature itself. I am proposing this is a false metaphysics and offering a new version of things based on Consciousness. If there is a single idea fueling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something without Consciousness. When you intend to ravage and savage the planet, turn it into consumer items to be converted into money in the bank, first pretend that all of the bright beings in the natural world are devoid of Consciousness, just “things” you do not have to have any conscious about destroying them. I am proposing that this term Consciousness, that has appeared as term and a problem for modern science, is the key to getting ourselves right with the Earth. I propose this new theory for science will ramify into every other disciplines as well, and the ways we think just about everything. This old paradigm based on a false theory of matter, has run its course, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction. We need new ideas, and we need them now. You will find my recent work in the Scientific God Journal under the title: Consciousness as the Organizing Principle, and a very complete version of my arguments for this term Consciousness, along with radical reinterpretation of modern science itself, on the Galileo Commission site. It is a radical moment for all of the thinkers among us, take this as my small contribution to rethinking ourselves in new terms, based on my understanding that the true basis for the whole of Being, the Universe, the Cosmos, and with them Ourselves, is this term Consciousness. And unpack it. And I predict that with this term Consciousness every intractable human problem in both science and the modern world will go down like a line of dominos before it. And so, here are a few new ideas I would offer you. These are the times of the Reappearance of the Feminine, a great Awakening as of Springtime after a long dark and lonely Winter. We are leaving behind us an old civilization based on male dominance, fear lies and control, now in decay, disease, and death disintegrating all around us. We are moving into a whole new civilization based on Love and Truth. A new civilization requires new basic terms values and first principles. And so, I return to Descartes. 1. Just over 300 years ago a young man travelling with the army found himself stranded in a foreign town in a bare room lit by a candle with nothing to do but think. And in a couple of nights Descartes laid the entire thought foundations for modern science and most of the modern world. It isn’t clear that modern philosophers with their funding sources of grants, their graduate students, their reputation and all the perks and privileges of academia can do any better. Descartes claimed there are just two principles in the Universe, Matter and Mind. God was pure mind; human beings were mind and matter. And we are the only ones on the planet with mind. Everything else all of the bright array of beings who share the planet with us are simply matter. And matter? The weighable the measurable the extended in space and time utterly devoid of any inner life of thoughts, feelings, or Consciousness This classification was a boon for developing science. Scientists did not have to worry about any inner life in nature, ideas or Consciousness, they could just set about weighing and measuring, as they have until the present day. But it was a disaster for the Earth. Earth was once worshiped as a Goddess. With Descartes she became almost overnight “things.” Simply commodities and resources, an endless of supply of consumer items, to be turned into money in the bank. And now Descartes concept of matter is up for us. If there is a single idea that is enabling and driving the destruction of the Earth, it is the conviction that Earth is something without Consciousness. This whole scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is driving the destruction of the Earth, and driving us all insane, and it needs to change. Ever since Descartes formulated Dualism, scientists and philosophers have been trying to get rid of it. They have done this by attempting to make matter the fundamental term of reality, and to explain mind or Consciousness in terms of matter. And now, Consciousness has emerged as term and a problem for modern science. 2. The prevailing Universe picture has been mainly based on the belief that Consciousness appears only at the end of evolution in ourselves and some of the higher animals when matter attains “a certain state of complexity” and it is produced by neurons in the brain. But Consciousness is nothing real in itself, the neurons are doing the work, Consciousness is simply a byproduct of neural activity. As William James summed up this position, not his: Consciousness is to the brain as a shadow to the runner, it runs beside him but never influences his stride. And so, the great problem of neuroscience: How do neurons produce Consciousness? So far, no one has been able to say how. All we have is parallelism. Two processes are running in parallel a train of neural events and a train of Consciousness events. And so, which one is primary? The face of neuroscience and much of the modern world is that the neural events are what is really real, Consciousness is secondary. The conviction that Consciousness is something produced by neurons is so deeply held and has been so for so long, that it seems like an obvious fact. It is in fact an assumption and a theory, and it could all well be the other way around. The scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is now up for us. It has enabled the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a unique place in our own evolution where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, there are the best reasons for rethinking Descartes concepts of matter. Scientists and philosophers have been trying to escape dualism by making matter the fundamental term. And now, this has not worked. In a nutshell: The mind body problem, the “hard problem of Consciousness” ---how do neurons in the brain, atoms and molecules give rise to ideas thoughts and feelings and who what and where is the “I” who sees them? And then, the near-death experience. I remind you of the truth of the near-death experience. The body in the bed is brain dead eeg flat, but the patient, pure Consciousness is hovering at the ceiling watching the doctors work over the body below, able to read dials he could not have seen from the bed, sometimes able to events in the corridor beyond the room, all subsequently confirmed by the doctors. Evidence as good as it gets that the patient really was out of his body. And so, the patient is able to see without eyes, hear without ears and to think and remember without a brain. There is not a single scientific principle that can account for this. And I am proposing that the near-death experience is a threshold and a key for a much deeper understanding of the Universe. These three problems are so hard they cannot be solved by present scientific principles and therefore call all present principles and ways of thought into question. When your axioms cannot account for the data, it is time to drop them and find better fundamental terms. We have not been able to solve the problems of Consciousness with the assumption that matter is the most basic and fundamental term. And so, if Cartesian dualism is to be overcome at all, we need to try it the other way around. 3. We are in the position of Copernicus. Remember Copernicus? He was making his calculations on the assumption that the Earth was the center of the Universe until they became so unwieldy that he decided to try it all the other way around. To make the sun the center, the Earth revolving around it. And lo, all of his data fell neatly into place. I am proposing a whole new Universe picture. Evolution makes us continuous with every other being, Consciousness would not be in us if it were not in them also, and then, in the atoms and molecules and cells that make up living beings. I propose to make Consciousness the most basic term and see what follows. I am in fact, proposing a new Copernican Revolution, that Consciousness is the true basis for the Universe and the right fundamental term, for science itself all other disciplines as well, and the whole of the modern world. And I predict that every intractable problem in science or the modern world, will go down like a line of dominos before it. In a nutshell: Consciousness and not matter is “first and fundamental” in the Universe, it is there from the very “Beginning” everything has it and all of the true causalities, the explanatory principles belong to it. Not to matter. What then is matter? All matter is an Appearance of something much more real, Consciousness. All matter is an expression of Consciousness, even the least little bit of matter contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. And so, we revise the scientific image of nature. Science at present is two termed, matter/energy. It needs to become three termed: Matter/energy/Consciousness, with the recognition that all of the basic principles, the true causalities of events, and of the Universe belong to Consciousness. And now physics. To accommodate this new Universe picture physics needs to alter just one term, energy. All energy contains Consciousness, that idea alone will change our world forever. The animals the trees the plants are just as conscious as we are, as is the Earth herself, a continuum of many forms of Consciousness of which our own is one. The Earth consists of interacting and intersecting forms of Consciousness, Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness. A remarkable work has just appeared entitled “Beyond Words What Animals Feel and Think.” Describing in detail how like ourselves all of the animals are. And the more we can see how like us everything else really is, the harder it will be for us to do them all in, in the interest of turning them into consumer items. And so, here is a new principle of understanding, that entails completely new forms of explanation, and a whole new Universe picture to be spelled out in terms of Consciousness and its various properties. This is a Universe that is aware awake and Enspirited throughout. And so, there is only one principle, not two. And so, how does Consciousness work? There is “no mind/body problem.” My Consciousness is aligning the Consciousness of neurons in the brain, that aligns the Consciousness of all other cells in the body, that aligns the Consciousness of molecules and atoms themselves. Mainly from the top down, but also interactive, and not reduction to the purely physical forces. 4. And so, here is a radical new Universe picture, and with it a new way to think about the Universe itself, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. It requires a complete revision of both of the terms of modern science itself. The problem of the modern world owes in deep measure to Descartes concept of matter as something devoid of interior life. But he is only the most powerful and simple expression of a whole tradition of thought that predates him, that goes back to the very dawn of thought itself. It owes to the conviction of both Plato and Aristotle that the Earth was something devoid of reason, or mind, and therefore something to be held in complete contempt. We are emerging from a civilization based on contempt for the Earth, and down the road, it will become contempt for the body, sex, women, the Native people, and people of color everywhere. And so, this entire tradition is now up for us, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction, and we need to get beyond it. I am proposing that this term Consciousness is the way out. The missing piece of the puzzle and the idea whose time has come. And it will enable us to move into a completely new civilization based on respect for the Earth, women, sex, people of color, that honors everyone and has a place for all. Revolutions in science occur when new data show up that cannot be accounted for by existing paradigms (Thomas Kuhns: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Consciousness, and all the properties and problems of Consciousness are just such data, and they compel a new scientific revolution. But we are a scientific age. A new Copernican revolution in science is such as revolution everywhere. And Consciousness is the key to getting every other reality at all levels and depths right as well. It will enable us finally to get the Earth right, get ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. Archimedes: Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world. I am proposing a new synthesis among our fundamental terms in which this term Consciousness is the new lynchpin. And so, I return once more to Descartes. Descartes in the Mediations was a dualist, they were two realities interacting in the pineal gland mind and body. But Descartes age was high on “Cartesianisms,” on Descartes concept of matter. Animals were simply cleverly wired machines (Hobbes called them automata). Rumor had it that Descartes followers went about kicking dogs reasoning that their howls were not due to any feelings of pain, but simply the wiring of the machine. We have been doing this to the Earth ever since, and now the Earth is not going to stand for it any longer. It is time we all woke up. There is no matter in Descartes sense of it, or in Plato and Aristotle’s sense of it. This old concept of matter is embedded in all of the crisis and catastrophes---fires, drought, pandemics, over population, the disintegrating economies, our ways of life, capitalism and consumerism themselves. All matter is Enspirited, contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. Now I tell you something about Descartes you may not know. In the Mediations was a dualist, there are minds and bodies. But by the end of his life, he knew the truth. Descartes guided his whole life by these vivid dreams, and toward the end of his life he had this dream: He saw the Universe as a giant machine and in the heart of the machine propelling the whole, was Consciousness. And so, out of the shades and shadows and into the light of day. Here is a renewed and a new science, a new cosmology. And with it, a revolutionary new metaphysics. The whole of the modern world is in the grip of a false metaphysics, based on Descartes theory of matter. Here is a new, and finally true metaphysics based on the single term, Consciousness. 5. And in all my works, I spell out this new metaphysics based on Consciousness, and what it means for how we think about virtually everything: The Universe, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. Of who, what and where Spirit is, that we may connect with Spirit everywhere. There is only one term for the Universe, and not two, this single term Consciousness, that manifests itself in two modes: Consciousness in Form, Consciousness Formless. And so, here is a sketch of what this new term Consciousness really means. For four great aspects of the real, four new cornerstones for a whole new civilization on Earth, based on Love and Truth. A. For the Universe: New causalities, all matter is an expression of Consciousness, awake and aware, Enspirited throughout, which has a place for the causalities of love ideas intent plan and purpose, what Aristotle called final causality, that for the sake of which. And it has a place for subjectivity, the greatest mystery in the whole of the Universe, knowable only in ourselves, but there in everything else as well, bedrock in the chain of causalities. The buck stops here. Here are two very different Universe pictures. The Cartesian Universe consists of things, pushed, and pulled around by the physical forces that function blind. The true Universe consists of selves and not things. Selves at least in ourselves, are organized and focused about an I, an I am, or a sense of self in everything, ever other being dear to itself. Just one aspect of subjectivity. And so, it is Consciousness all the way down, and subjectivity all the way down. Science proceeds on the basis of the negligible of what it can leave out as unimportant. Subjectivity is the ultimate animating principle of the Universe. What Descartes really did was to strip from nature what is most essential about it, its animating principle Consciousness. And so, we come out of a long history of “clunk.” The great male thinkers have killed creation. First in concepts and now in the lived life. And so, after centuries of fruitless search, not all of it in vain, finally, and just in time the true basic principle for the Universe has shown up in virtually all disciplines, this term Consciousness. B. And so, the Earth: What does this term Consciousness really mean for the Earth? It means that all of the bright array of beings around us have Consciousness. And the more we can realize how like us they are, the harder it will be to do them all in. Is this what it really means to be “made in the image of Spirit?” To destroy ever other living being? The god of Genesis is a creator god who has created billions and billions of living forms. Man, taking himself to be made in the image of Spirit has destroyed virtually all of it. The Earth is not things, not commodities and resources, not an endless array of consumer goods. The Earth consists of conscious living spiritual beings like ourselves, who need to be honored and respected, nurtured and cared for, to be Loved. And if the human race can finally pull it off and bring Love here and start helping the Earth rather than destroying her, even our vast numbers now at 8 billion, may not matter. Deeply embedded in the modern world is a false cosmology based on the hitherto useful but ultimately false metaphysics of Descartes. In particular it owes to Descartes concepts of matter, and of the Earth, as something devoid of Consciousness. And now this concept is up for us. If there is a single idea enabling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something devoid of Consciousness. And we all have a vested interest in keeping this false concept in place. When you intend to ravage and savage the Earth, to turn it into consumer items, and money in the bank, first pretend she has no Consciousness that way we need not have any conscious about it. We are in deep trouble with the planet. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, here are a few new guiding principles for the planet, based on Consciousness. Consciousness has field properties. The Earth is Consciousness throughout, connected and interconnected throughout, intersecting and interacting fields of Consciousness of which our own is one. To harm one is to harm all. Only this understanding of the Earth can set our destructive technologies, and capitalism, their goals, and their limits. The real problem with capitalism, and with civilization itself is it has no true understanding of the Earth, all the exquisite networks and webworks that connect all beings with one another. Nor it is about to admit that the Earth is our “life support system,” reason gone insane in the modern world. We are destroying our life support system, capitalism is the full expression of the human death wish in the modern world, and it needs to change. And now, let the barriers between ourselves and all other beings go down. C. And so, Ourselves. This new Universe picture based on Consciousness opens into and has a place for new concepts of human identity. In particular, it has a place for reincarnation, a process whereby one Consciousness dons’ bodies again and again and lays them down. This is a process wholly impossible on materialistic theories. This new view of things puts a higher perspective on Freudian determinism, which is a partial knowing in a greater account. We are something more than the victims of genes drives and childhood. We are immortally eternal evolving spiritual beings who take on a cycle of earthly lives in order to achieve certain goals and abilities, and then, our earthly cycle complete, we depart the Earth plane for other areas of the Universe physical or purely spiritual, to continue our evolution elsewhere. The scientific evidence for reincarnation is increasing on all sides, see for example the work of Michael Newton, a mainstream scientist forced to confront the fact of reincarnation. A completely new reincarnational picture is now emerging everywhere. We choose our parents for abilities we could acquire through them. We all come here with reasons for being here, and we all have free will, an original property of Consciousness, and we work out our issues accordingly. We all come here with the same reason for being here. It is to experience the Earth plane and human society at all levels and depths, in every social role, every climate, both sexes male and female and in all races. We are all here to acquire a deep understanding of the Earth plane with all its challenges and all of its present problems. We are not here to devour and consume the Earth, but to honor her for the learning experience she makes available for us. And so, reincarnation is the great equalizer, the fundamental basis for any bill of rights. Many of the problems of the modern world owe to the fact that reincarnation has not been taught in the West. Reincarnation was the center piece of Jesus teachings. It was banned by a fourth century council that decided the populous could best be controlled through fear. They edited all mention of reincarnation from the scriptures, and inserted fear terms instead, a judgmental god, and so on. If reincarnation had been taught, there would have been no suppression of women, but the gift of both sexes would have been honored and developed. And there would have been no reason for contempt for people of color because who they are, we have been or will be. There is no reason to look down on anyone when we know that our own identity includes membership in theirs. The truth of reincarnation needs to be the foundation for getting ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. D. And so, Spirit. This new Universe picture, based on Consciousness, has a place for Spirit as simply Infinite Consciousness. All universes all worlds are formed out of this Consciousness, divine and sacred throughout. And Spirit is everywhere in the Earth and can be connected everywhere. And the Native North American people had things right. Everything has its own Spirit, and without contradiction is also an expression of Spirit. And what I am really doing in terms of concepts of modern science is presenting the Native North American version of the Real. And this new Universe picture has a place for the essential insight of all religions almost smothered by church tradition: Love. Not an emotion but a great Oneness, that can be found everywhere, even in a busy city street. But especially in the Earth, that is levels and depths of Oneness everywhere. And so, for the first time in their long and bitter antagonistic history, science and religion now share a common base with this term Spirit, the lynchpin in a new conceptual framework. And I offer an interpretation of where we are in our history, this present moment of historical grace, and these tumultuous times in which we live, the return of the Goddess and the Divine Feminine, the Reappearance of the Feminine in history, the Advent of Women, this great Awakening, as of Springtime after a long dark Winter, the Awakening, the Second Coming. And so, stay tuned! (shrink)

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) poses a significant challenge to an individual’s mental well-being. The obsessive preoccupation with perceived defects in one’s appearance affects individuals’ daily functioning and can result in serious risks, including suicidal ideation and self-surgery. While treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy and serotonin reuptake inhibitors can provide relief, they do not achieve complete remission. It has been suggested that therapy should not only interrupt the harmful behaviour, but should also address their sense of self, and that after (...) addressing their internalised values, individuals with BDD will be able to incorporate their perceived defect in a manner similar to how individuals with real deformities often do. Phenomenology of psychopathology analyses subjectivity in cases of pathology, and analyses of BDD show that the perceived defect has become a locus of shame. This implies that individuals with BDD have permanently incorporated the gaze of the Other and constantly experience their body as a body-for-others. This paper further explores the sense of self in individuals with BDD through Jenny Slatman’s interpretation of bodily integrity: bodily integrity as a never-ending process of identification. By comparing the experiences of individuals with BDD to those with real deformities and to those who have undergone cosmetic surgery, I will show that re-identification does not occur in individuals with BDD. This suggests that their bodily integrity is fundamentally disturbed and that addressing their internalised values alone will probably not be sufficient for the disorder to go into remission. (shrink)

A growing body of literature in the field of embodied situated cognition is drawing attention to the hostile ways in which our environments can be constructed, with detrimental effects on people’s ability to flourish as environmentally situated beings. This paper contributes to this body of research, focusing on a specific area of concern. Specifically, I argue that a very particular problematic quasi-Cartesian picture of the human body, the human mind, what it means for these to function well, and the role (...) of technology in promoting such functioning, animate our Western sociotechnical imagination. This picture, I show, shapes the sociotechnical niches we inhabit in an _ableist_ manner, perniciously legislating which body-minds have access to a rich world of affordances and are seen as agential and valuable. Because the ableist quasi-Cartesian commitments animating our Western sociotechnical imagination are problematic and pervasive, I argue that exposing and reimagining these commitments should be a prime focal point of those working at the intersection of science, technology, and human values. I present insights from enactive 4E cognition and critical disability studies as fruitful resources for such much-needed reimagining. I also make the case, more provocatively but also more tentatively, that the ableist view of bodily and minded well- functioning animating our Cartesian Western sociotechnical imagination is not only damaging to embodied minds who deviate from the presumed norm, creating inaccessible worlds for some of us; it is in fact a threat to human and planetary flourishing at large. (shrink)

This special issue arises from the observation that an exploration of the role of non-evidential considerations in epistemology through a broader lens is missing from the current landscape of philosophical research. The present collection of contributions fills this research gap by bringing together three central and much-discussed epistemological topics for which non-evidential considerations become relevant.

The small improvement argument has been said to establish that the standard weak preference or value relation can be incomplete. We first show that the argument is one of three possible ‘small amendment arguments’, each of which would yield the same conclusion. Generalizing the analysis thus, we subsequently present a strong and a weak version of small amendment arguments and derive the exact rationality conditions under which they reveal incompleteness. The results show that the arguments (in any of their variants) (...) need not reveal a problem for the possibility of rational choice. In fact, it can be argued that they only reveal such a problem if the underlying relation is complete rather than incomplete. (shrink)

The Rawlsian conception of constituent power in Alessandro Ferrara’s Sovereignty Across Generations is burdened by a deep contradiction that renders the central argument in the book highly questionable. On the one hand, Rawls is (correctly in my view) presented as the thinker that confronted contemporary political theory with the problem of divisive pluralism. On the other hand, Rawls is also presented (incorrectly in my view) as the thinker who then suddenly found a solution for this divisive pluralism in the ‘common (...) values’ that all the members of these divisively pluralist societies share ‘unproblematically’. The combination of these two moves leaves one with the sense that Rawls rather frivolously put up the problem of divisive pluralism like a strawman that he could shoot down again without much ado. This article proposes a different reading of Rawls that considers him a serious thinker who did not amuse himself and his readers with strawman-problems. For this reading of Rawls, guidance is drawn from Hans Kelsen, the very thinker whom Sovereignty Across Generations casually dismisses for failing to grasp or appreciate the ‘common values’ that pluralist societies share so ‘unproblematically’. (shrink)

Politics and society today are characterized by anger and rancour. This paper reflects on this issue by linking: first, Norbert Elias’s sociological account of the complex dynamics of processes of civilization and decivilization, his thoughts on the interrelationship between technological and social organization and human habitus; second, the work done on the concept of ressentiment, introduced by Nietzsche and developed by Scheler and others. Linking these two conceptual frameworks enables a deeper reflection on the role of contemporary communications technology and (...) the ‘new structural transformation of the public sphere’ in the expanding significance of ressentiment in social and political life today. My argument will be that it is important to see the shifts taking place today as part of the interweaving of technological and social changes, with the spread of ressentiment in social media being the latest episode in the ongoing interweaving of processes of civilization and decivilization. (shrink)

Given a cofinal cardinal function $h\in {}^{\kappa }\kappa $ for $\kappa $ inaccessible, we consider the dominating h-localisation number, that is, the least cardinality of a dominating set of h-slaloms such that every $\kappa $ -real is localised by a slalom in the dominating set. It was proved in [3] that the dominating localisation numbers can be consistently different for two functions h (the identity function and the power function). We will construct a $\kappa ^+$ -sized family of functions h (...) and their corresponding localisation numbers, and use a ${\leq }\kappa $ -supported product of a cofinality-preserving forcing to prove that any simultaneous assignment of these localisation numbers to cardinals above $\kappa $ is consistent. This answers an open question from [3]. (shrink)

Moral case deliberation (MCD) is a specific form of clinical ethics, aiming to stimulate ethical reflection in daily practice in order to improve the quality of care. This article focuses on the implementation of MCD in nursing homes and the questions how and where to organize MCD. The purpose of this study was to evaluate one way of organizing MCD in two Dutch nursing homes. In both of these nursing homes the MCD groups had a heterogeneous composition and were organized (...) apart from existing institutional communication structures. As part of a naturalistic evaluation, systematic observations, interviews and focus groups were completed. The findings indicate that the heterogeneous composition and MCD meetings separate from existing structures have benefits. However, the participants also reported negative experiences. This gives rise to the question whether a mixed MCD group which meets separately is an effective way to embed MCD as an instrument for reflection on moral issues in daily practice. We conclude that there is no single answer to that question. In the end, the two implementation strategies (i.e. within existing communication structures and a mixed MCD group) can be complementary to each other. (shrink)

This article proposes a systematic application of recent developments in the logic of preference to a number of topics in deontic logic. The key junction is the well-known Hansson conditional for dyadic obligations. These conditionals are generalized by pairing them with reasoning about syntactic priority structures. The resulting two-level approach to obligations is tested first against standard scenarios of contrary-to-duty obligations, leading also to a generalization for the Kanger-Anderson reduction of deontic logic. Next, the priority framework is applied to model (...) two intuitively different sorts of deontic dynamics of obligations, based on information changes and on genuine normative events. In this two-level setting, we also offer novel takes on vexed issues such as the Chisholm paradox and modelling strong permission. Finally, the priority framework is shown to provide a unifying setting for the study of operations on norms as such, in particular, adding or deleting individual norms, and even merging whole norm systems in different manners. (shrink)

This study analyzes how ChatGPT portrays and describes itself, revealing misleading myths about AI technologies, specifically conversational agents based on large language models. This analysis allows for critical reflection on the potential harm these misconceptions may pose for public understanding of AI and related technologies. While previous research has explored AI discourses and representations more generally, few studies focus specifically on AI chatbots. To narrow this research gap, an experimental-qualitative investigation into auto-generated AI representations based on prompting was conducted. Over (...) the course of a month, ChatGPT (both in its GPT-4 and GPT-4o models) was prompted to “Draw an image of yourself,” “Represent yourself visually,” and “Envision yourself visually.” The resulting data (n = 50 images and 58 texts) was subjected to a critical exploratory visual semiotic analysis to identify recurring themes and tendencies in how ChatGPT is represented and characterized. Three themes emerged from the analysis: anthropomorphism, futuristic/futurism and (social)intelligence. Importantly, compared to broader AI imaginations, the findings emphasize ChatGPT as a friendly AI assistant. These results raise critical questions about trust in these systems, not only in terms of their capability to produce reliable information and handle personal data, but also in terms of human–computer relations. (shrink)

The central question of this contribution is: Why argumentation theory? Its points of departure are: (1) argumentative discourse is aimed at resolving a difference of opinion based on the merits of the argumentative moves that are made (“effectiveness through reasonableness”); (2) argumentation theory concentrates on the problems involved in the production, analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse. The comprehensive research program that needs to be carried out to tackle these problems includes philosophical, theoretical, empirical, analytical, and practical research. It is (...) illuminating to see to what extent these five components are given their due in the versions of the research program of the currently most prominent approaches: (1) the formal logical, (2) rhetorical/pragmalinguistic, (3) informal logical, and (4) pragmadialectical paradigm. Based on the research results, the discipline should serve several practical objectives: (1) providing a profound understanding of the concept of argumentation and a sound body of knowledge about the ways in which argumentation manifests itself; (2) assisting people in getting a better grip on the argumentative discourses they encounter in public life; (3) supplying tools for improving the quality of argumentative practices. The different versions of the research program implemented in the four approaches are not equally strongly designed to serve these practical objectives. Three basic problems complicate the treatment of argumentative discourse: (1) the natural communication predicament; (2) the varying institutional constraints on argumentative discourse in different macro-contexts; (3) the higher order conditions for resolving a difference that are prerequisites for reasonable argumentative discourse. (shrink)

Many global problems nowadays are collective action problems. It is only because many people act in some way that certain problems arise (e.g., climate harms). But when can one be said to participate in such groups in the first place? As Derek Parfit asked, “When we appeal to what groups together do, whom should we count as members of these groups?” As Julia Nefsky has shown, this problem has proven to be notoriously tricky, and without any adequate solution. We present (...) a solution. The proposed account not only overcomes a number of problems for participation-based views, according to which it is morally problematic to participate in such groups at all, but also helps make precise a prominent alternative view, according to which one should help bring about better outcomes. (shrink)

The paper gives, in the first place, a performative reading of Frege's account of non-alethic modalities. Second, it asks the question whether there is an influence of Kant's writings on Frege's notion of assertive force. It is generally acknowledged that the Neo-Kantian tradition has been essential to Frege's development. The paper shows that it can also be fruitful to look at more direct influences of Kant himself, especially on the early Frege. The paper shows that Kant's notion of assertoric modality (...) must have been an inspiration for Frege to make the distinction between judgement, including the assertoric force, and judgeable content. Kant's logical I may also have played a role in Frege's account of judgement in terms of the judging agent, the first person. The conclusion of the paper, though, is that Frege is not a Kantian philosopher, as his idea of logic as providing a positive standard of objectivity is completely new. (shrink)

Items were generated to explore the factorial structure of a construct of fundamentalism worded appropriately for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Results suggested three underlying dimensions: (a) External versus Internal Authority, (b) Fixed versus Malleable Religion, and (c) Worldly Rejection versus Worldly Affirmation. The three dimensions indicate that religious fundamentalism is a personal orientation that asserts a supra-human locus of moral authority, context unbound truth, and the appreciation of the sacred over the worldly components of experience. The 15-item, 3-dimension solution was (...) evaluated across Mexican ( n = 455) and American ( n = 449) samples. Fit indexes point out the viability of the new inventory across these two samples henceforward referred to as the Multi-Dimensional Fundamentalism Inventory (MDFI). Additional validity tests supported that the new inventory was negatively correlated with participants’ integrative complexity in a religious domain–specific way. (shrink)

When is AI environmentally just? In recent years, increasing attention has been drawn to the environmental impact of AI. Particularly, the development and training of AI systems require significant amounts of energy, water, and raw materials. This raises new ethical questions, such as: when is it (un)justifiable to develop an AI system, considering its environmental impact? This question has been scarcely addressed in the academic literature. To tackle this question, this article draws from the literature on environmental and energy justice. (...) In that field, three categories of justice are distinguished, referring to three elements that can be unjust: the distribution of benefits and burdens (distributive justice), decision-making procedures (procedural justice), and institutionalized social norms (justice as recognition). Based on these distinctions, we outline the criteria for determining the ethical admissibility of AI, given its ecological impact. (shrink)

The paper gives, in the first place, a performative reading of Frege's account of non-alethic modalities. Second, it asks the question whether there is an influence of Kant's writings on Frege's notion of assertive force. It is generally acknowledged that the Neo-Kantian tradition has been essential to Frege's development. The paper shows that it can also be fruitful to look at more direct influences of Kant himself, especially on the early Frege. The paper shows that Kant's notion of assertoric modality (...) must have been an inspiration for Frege to make the distinction between judgement, including the assertoric force, and judgeable content. Kant's logical I may also have played a role in Frege's account of judgement in terms of the judging agent, the first person. The conclusion of the paper, though, is that Frege is not a Kantian philosopher, as his idea of logic as providing a positive standard of objectivity is completely new. (shrink)

According to a dialectical approach to argumentation, a single argument can be seen as a dialogical "Why? Because!" sequence. Does this also apply to multimodal arguments? This paper focuses on multimodal arguments with a predominantly visual character and shows that dialogues are helpful for identifying and reconstructing arguments in multimodal communication. To include nonverbal arguments in dialectical argumentation theory, it is proposed to regard dialogue as mode-fluid. The account of multimodal argument as dialogue will be compared with Champagne and Pietarinen’s (...) account of visual argument as movement. (shrink)

In this chapter, I investigate the imaginary boundary between the actual world and fictional gameworlds by focusing on videogame situations in which this fourth wall is foregrounded or broken. For this purpose, I first define the videogame experience as a self-involving, interactive fiction experience, based on Kendall Walton’s account of fiction (1990). I then describe how, in the current academic discourse on games, it is often claimed that the concept of fourth wall breaks cannot be applied to videogames due to (...) their inherent interactivity. Within game studies, the consensus seems to be that the boundaries between the real and the fictional world are always already blurred in videogame experiences. This chapter instead shows how using interactive, digital technologies to represent fictional worlds does not necessarily complicate the conceptualization of the fourth wall, but rather reveals new ways in which it can be broken. More precisely, this chapter discusses how appreciators of videogames can not only actively participate in fourth wall breaks, but are also uniquely able to initiate these breaks themselves. -/- . (shrink)

It is frequently said that pain is incommunicable and even that it destroys language . This paper offers a phenomenological account of pain and then explores and critiques this view. It suggests not only that pain is communicable to an adequate degree for clinical purposes, but also that it is itself a form of communication through which the person in pain appeals to the empathy and ethical goodness of the clinician. To explain this latter idea and its ethical implications, reference (...) is made to the writings of Emmanuel Levinas. (shrink)

Grotius’s discussion on slavery exhibits a dual character, as it is based on natural law on the one hand, and on ius gentium on the other. This article focuses on the sources used by Grotius in his search for the rules of ius gentium on war slavery, and compares Grotius’s insights with the works of some of his contemporaries. After briefly discussing Grotius’s introduction to ius gentium and its sources, his references to three themes concerning war slavery are analyzed. The (...) research shows that, if need be, Grotius works according to his own rules even though it seems difficult for him to leave Greco-Roman antiquity and Europe behind; it also shows that he is content with flimsy evidence. In addition, analyzing his sources informs us about Grotius’s personal input regarding the legitimacy of war and slavery. It turns out that with regard to one of the most far-reaching principles concerning war slavery, Grotius’s insight is consistent with what seems to have been generally accepted among (European) scholars from antiquity to his own time. Another lesson learned: natural rights are not safe with Grotius, since ius gentium as presented by him is a serious threat to such rights. (shrink)

In present-day particle physics, empirical reasoning is highly inferential as experiments rely on complex instruments and an intensive use of computer-based methods. This paper investigates how these methods impact the evidential status of the data produced, using an expanded epistemic risk framework. Based on a case study from a top-quark physics experiment, we clarify the relationship between inductive and other epistemic risks. We argue that various epistemic risks that arise ahead of evidence affect the inductive risk of the experimental results, (...) and propose an understanding of epistemic risk in relation to different epistemic goals. Specifically, the case study shows how experimental tasks and their associated goals relate to the epistemic aim of the experiment, by revealing modalities of risk and risk dynamics throughout the experimental process. (shrink)

There are some cases where it appears permissible to perform a rescue at someone’s expense, and other cases where it appears impermissible to do so. Existing explanations for our asymmetric moral judgments about such cases either fail to provide intuitive moral verdicts or lack a satisfying rationale. In this article, I propose a new explanation of what is morally problematic about certain rescues that is subject to neither issue. My proposal is a version of the means principle which adds the (...) essential caveat that there is no moral presumption against using someone as a means to benefit herself. By attributing moral significance to the victim’s relationship to the beneficiary rather than the agent alone, my solution points to a new underlying rationale for the means principle as well as extensional and explanatory inadequacies in competing theories. (shrink)

The topic of annotating legal data has received surprisingly little attention. A key challenge of the annotation process is reaching a sufficient agreement between annotators and filtering mistakes from genuine disagreement. This study presents an approach that provides insights into and resolves potential disagreement amongst annotators. It (1) introduces different strategies to calculate agreement levels and compares (2) agreement levels between annotators (inter-annotator agreement) before and after a revision round and (3) agreement levels for annotators who annotate the same texts (...) twice (intra-annotator agreement). The inter-annotator agreement levels are compared to a revision round in which an arbiter corrected the annotator’s labels. The analysis is based on the annotation of EU legislative provisions at two stages (initial annotations, after annotator revisions) and for various tasks (Definitions, References, Quantities, IF-THEN statements, Exceptions, Scope, Hierarchy, Deontic Clauses, Active and Passive Role) by multiple annotators. The results reveal that agreement levels vary based on the stage of measurement (before/after revisions), the nature of the task, the method of assessment, and the annotator combination. The agreement scores - along with some initial measurements—align with those reported in previous research but increase after each revision round. This suggests that annotator revisions can substantially reduce disagreement. Additionally, disagreements were found not only between but also among annotators. This inconsistency does not appear to stem from a lack of understanding of the guidelines or a lack of seriousness in task execution, as evidenced by moderate to substantial inter-annotator agreement scores. These findings suggest that annotators identified multiple valid interpretations, which highlights the complexity of annotating legislative provisions. The results underscore the significance of embracing, addressing, and reporting about (dis)agreement in different ways and at the various stages of an annotation task. (shrink)

ABSTRACT What does it mean to have and maintain a position of integrity when reasoning and arguing in a series of different kinds of dialogues? When participants in a critical discussion fail to reach an agreement on the rational merits of their response to a practical problem, they may remain hopeful of reaching a compromise solution in a negotiation dialogue that they perceive as the most rational one that is socially feasible. This article considers whether one’s commitments can be managed (...) in such a way as to preserve the integrity of one’s position across these dialogues. After all, in compromise formation practical concerns may interfere with epistemic ambitions, and one may have to trade away what was deemed essential to one’s position in critical discussion. Conversational integrity is maintained when one’s position is sufficiently transparent, stable, inclusive, and authentic. These characteristics may provide guidance for those involved in political dealmaking. (shrink)

In order to defend moderate retributivism Anthony Duff and Christopher Bennett have invoked the idea of the enduring of punishment (including imprisonment) as a form of apologetic penance that is needed to reach atonement. They successfully argue that the concept of penance makes plausible the positive retributivist conviction that the guilty deserve to suffer. Two crucial steps in their argument however still harbor problems. (1) punishments are usually imposed against the will of the offender, which is at odds with the (...) character of penance, even if one stresses the ritual character of apology. Stubbornly unapologetic offenders who are forced to apologize cannot be said to have made an apology and be ‘reconciled’ even though they performed the ritual. (2) The claim that we need to limit offenders’ rights and liberties in order to express withdrawal of our recognition and respect (or as a sign that communal bonds are fractured) may have implications that are unacceptable for liberals. We could also limit offenders’ rights and liberties by forcing them into moralizing, educative or other rehabilitative programs. Suggestions will be given on how Duff and/or Bennett can adapt their approaches to avoid these problems. (shrink)

This paper is a study of the decisions that researchers take during the execution of a research plan: their researcher discretion. Flexible research methods are generally seen as undesirable, and many methodologists urge to eliminate these so-called ‘researcher degrees of freedom’ from the research practice. However, what this looks like in practice is unclear. Based on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in two end-of-life research groups in which we observed research practice, conducted interviews, and collected documents, we explore when researchers (...) are required to make decisions, and what these decisions entail.An abductive analysis of this data showed that researchers are constantly required to further interpret research plans, indicating that there is no clear division between planning and plan execution. This discretion emerges either when a research protocol is underdetermined or overdetermined, in which case they need to operationalise or adapt the plans respectively. In addition, we found that many of these instances of researcher discretion are exercised implicitly. Within the research groups it was occasionally not clear which topic merited an active decision, or which action could retroactively be categorised as one.Our ethnographic study of research practice suggests that researcher discretion is an integral and inevitable aspect of research practice, as many elements of a research protocol will either need to be further operationalised or adapted during its execution. Moreover, it may be difficult for researchers to identify their own discretion, limiting their effectivity in transparency. (shrink)

Neurodegenerative diseases encompass a spectrum of conditions characterized by the gradual deterioration of neurons in the central and peripheral nervous system. While their origins are multifaceted, emerging data underscore the pivotal role of impaired mitochondrial functions and endolysosomal homeostasis to the onset and progression of pathology. This article explores whether mitochondrial dysfunctions act as causal factors or are intricately linked to the decline in endolysosomal function. As research delves deeper into the genetics of neurodegenerative diseases, an increasing number of risk (...) loci and genes associated with the regulation of endolysosomal and autophagy functions are being identified, arguing for a downstream impact on mitochondrial health. Our hypothesis centers on the notion that disturbances in endolysosomal processes may propagate to other organelles, including mitochondria, through disrupted inter‐organellar communication. We discuss these views in the context of major neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and their relevance to potential therapeutic avenues. (shrink)

In his Understanding the Christianity-Evolution Relationship, Michael Ruse puts old wine in new skins. In an original and illuminating way, he approaches his topic from the perspective of the age-old divide between mechanistic and organicist ways of thinking. Yet, this does not bring him to new conclusions as compared to his earlier work on the topic. In response, I argue that a more rigorous conceptual and doctrinal analysis is needed to sort out whether Darwinian evolution makes God redundant or whether (...) it actually accords more with theism than with naturalism. (shrink)