Jennifer Nagel (2010) has recently proposed a fascinating account of the decreased tendency to attribute knowledge in conversational contexts in which unrealized possibilities of error have been mentioned. Her account appeals to epistemic egocentrism, or what is sometimes called the curse of knowledge, an egocentric bias to attribute our own mental states to other people (and sometimes our own future and past selves). Our aim in this paper is to investigate the empirical merits of Nagel’s hypothesis about the psychology involved (...) in knowledge attribution. (shrink)

This book presents a concise introduction to the epistemology and methodology of the Austrian School of economics as defended by Ludwig von Mises. The author provides an innovative interpretation of Mises’ arguments in favour of the a priori truth of praxeology, the received view of which contributed to the academic marginalisation of the Austrian School. The study puts forward a unique argument that Mises – perhaps unintentionally – defends a form of conventionalism. Chapters in the book include detailed discussions of (...) individualism, historicism, epistemological positions, and essentialism. The author goes on to discuss Mises’ justification of the fundamental axiom and proposes a conventionalist interpretation. By presenting praxeology as a conventionalist research programme, the author aims to reinvigorate the interaction between the Austrian School, mainstream economics, and the philosophy of science. This comprehensive reconstruction is suitable for economists interested in the history and philosophy of their discipline, as well as for philosophers of science. (shrink)

Relational egalitarians argue that democratic institutions are justified by appeal to relational equality. According to the skeptical challenge, equality of political power is not required for relational equality, and the relational egalitarian case for democracy fails. I defend the relational egalitarian justification of democracy. I develop an analysis of social status and show that inequalities of power will not entail inequalities of status. I then show that inequalities of power will robustly cause inequalities of status and argue that this vindicates (...) the relational egalitarian case for democracy, because such theories have a much more pragmatic standard of success for the justification of democracy than conceptual necessity. I consider the objection that if inequalities of power robustly cause inequalities of status, then relational egalitarians should also oppose democratic institutions, because officials such as legislators or judges will have more power than citizens. In reply, I argue that relational egalitarians are only opposed to inequalities of status that mark a failure of recognition respect, and that inequalities of status that follow from democratically licensed inequalities of power will not mark such a failure. I conclude that the skeptical challenge is unsuccessful, and that the relational egalitarian justification of democracy is sound. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the trust-based mechanisms underlying the relationship between ethical leadership and followers’ organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs). Based on three-wave survey data obtained from 184 employees and their supervisors, we find that ethical leadership leads to higher levels of both affective and cognitive trust. In addition, we find support for a three-path mediational model, where cognitive trust and affective trust, in turn, mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and follower OCBs. That is to say, we found that (...) ethical leadership leads to the development of cognitive trust, which subsequently influences the development of affective trust. Affective trust, in turn, induces followers to exhibit OCBs as a means of reciprocating the leader’s favourable behaviour. Our findings suggest that both affective and cognitive trust plays an important role in the social exchange processes that underlie the relationship between ethical leadership and the discretionary behaviour of followers. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 1, Page 48-69, March 2022.

This paper points out neglected considerations about the standing to blame. It starts from the observation that the standing to blame debate largely focusses on factors concerning the blamer or the relation of blamer and wrongdoer, mainly hypocrisy and meddling, while neglecting the victim of wrongdoing. This paper wants to set this right by pointing out how considerations about the victim can impact a third party’s standing. The first such consideration is the blamer’s personal relation to the victim. It is (...) argued that persons close to the victim thereby gain standing even in the presence of factors that would normally undermine it. Arguing from the well-known sexual assault case of Chanel Miller and the public reactions to it, the paper then introduces two more considerations about standing hitherto neglected. First, given that blame has an expressive function and serves to contradict expressive aspects of wrongdoings, it is argued that third-party blame can morally support the victim in the face of wrongdoing and that such support matters to victims. It is argued that this importance of third-party blame can ground standing. Thirdly and relatedly, the paper argues that insufficient collective responses to wrongdoing, i.e. when other bystanders do not respond with sufficient blaming responses, can equally ground standing of third parties. It is argued that these considerations are relevant not only for an ethics of blame broadly conceived but also for standing to blame in particular. Thereby, the paper establishes that considerations about the victim are central for discussion of the standing to blame. (shrink)

Cantor proved that no set has a bijection between itself and its power set. This is widely taken to have shown that there infinitely many sizes of infinite sets. The argument depends on the princip...

Even though standard economic theory traditionally ignored any motives that may drive incentivized social decision making except for the maximization of personal consumption utility, the idea that ‘preferences for fairness’ (following social norms) might have an economically tangible impact appeared relatively early. I trace the evolution of these ideas from the first experiments on bargaining to the tests of the hypothesis that pro-sociality in general is driven by the desire to adhere to social norms. I show how a recent synthesis (...) of economics approach with psychology, sociology, and evolutionary human biology can give rise to a mathematically rigorous, psychologically plausible, and falsifiable theory of social norms. Such a theory can predictwhich norms should emerge in each specific (social) context and is capable of organizing diverse observations in economics and other disciplines. It provides the first glimpse at how a unified theory of normative decision making might look like. (shrink)

In Ignorance of Law, Doug Husak defends a version of legal moralism on which ‘we should recognize a presumption that the criminal law should…be based, on conform to, or mirror critical morality’. Here I explore whether substantive criminal law rules should directly mirror not moral blameworthiness, but a distinct legal notion of criminal culpability – akin to moral blameworthiness but refined for deployment in legal systems. Contra Husak, I argue that the criminal law departing from the moral ideal embodied in (...) the standard of moral blameworthiness is not always to be regretted. After showing how criminal culpability might come apart from moral blameworthiness, I argue that my alternative to Husak’s view has practically interesting upshots. In particular, it allows us to resist Husak’s central conclusions about the exculpatory force of normative ignorance. There are good reasons for the criminal law to make certain charitable presumptions about citizens as competent agents, which the standard of moral blameworthiness needn’t similarly embody, and this calls into question Husak’s argument for the claim that normative ignorance exculpates. (shrink)

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

Late Edmund Husserl’s examination of the crisis of the European sciences is the point of departure of this paper. Husserl’s views about wrong objectivisation and naturalization of reason in science and philosophy have prepared the ground for dissatisfaction with reason in various trends of 20th century Social and Political Philosophy. This intellectual climate has naturally bred the radical criticism against the social project of Enlightenment practiced by the first generation Frankfurt School. Later on, the Modern reason misfortunes in social and (...) political sphere are epitomized by Emanuel Levinas’ uprising against fundamentalontology for the sake of responsibility to the Other as well as by Julia Kristeva’s appeal to reestablish the social contract on new sensibility and new rationality. Finally, Jean Boaudrillard puts the univocal diagnosis that reason has surrendered to the code of consumerist simulacrum. In the second part of the paper, some suggestions proposed by the above philosophers (except for Baudrillard) about resolving the deadlock prepared by the Modern reason are viewed briefly. A conclusion is made that Baudrillard’s pessimistic position seems to be the most plausible and relevant in the current socio‐political and philosophical climate. (shrink)

In this volume, leading scholars present new and original essays to address controversies raised regarding the focus, structure and justification of the capabilities approach to equality.

Welche Rolle spielt Handlungswissen bei der Erkenntnis von Ursachen und Wirkungen? Wie argumentiert man etwa mit Experimentalergebnissen in der Evolutionsbiologie oder therapeutischem Wissen in der Medizin? Lassen sich Grenzen kausaler Erkenntnis gerade auch an Moglichkeiten des Eingreifens festmachen? Diesen Fragen geht das Buch nach - mit einer Diskussion der philosophischen Kausalitatstheorie des Interventionismus und einer Reihe wissenschaftstheoretischer Fallstudien aus der Physik, Biologie, Evolutionsbiologie, Psychologie, Medizin sowie psychiatrischer und psychoanalytischer Forschung.

Building on recent revisionist trends, this book offers a refreshing new perspective on the Renaissance and presents an invaluable examination of continuities and discontinuities from Petrarch to Machiavelli, from Giotto to Durer, and from Italy to Burgundy, Bohemia and beyond.".

But this changes nothing. The decisive claim is that in assessing the counterfactuals implicit in (A) we do not have to take sceptical worlds into the reckoning, whereas we must do that in assessing (B) because (B) explicitly speaks of them. Accept, provisionally, what is here said about (B) and focus on the claim about (A). Nobody should make it unless they are already in a position to assert that the actual world is not a sceptical world. And with that (...) we are back to the choice between impotence and redundancy. (shrink)

A Critical Notice of Liba Taub, Ancient Meteorology, Routledge, London and New York, 2003.

[ENGLISH] The present article is a contribution to the development of metrological structural realism. This position of philosophy of science goes back to Matthias Neuber, who introduces it as a third variation of the main structural realisms: epistemic structural realism and ontic structural realism. Here, Neuber attempts to tackle the problems of OSR and ESR while preserving their respective strengths. Of central importance to his approach, are the concepts of invariance, structure and, especially, measurement. Starting from Eino Kaila’s „non-linguistic, realist (...) account of logical empricism“, the present article investigates the necessity of yet another position of structural realism. The established structural realisms are examined for their strengths and weaknesses. Afterwards, the requirements on MSR are formulated in a way that extends beyond Neuber’s account. These requirements are of ontological, epistemological and metrological nature. -/- [DEUTSCH] Der vorliegende Aufsatz ist ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung des Metrologischen Strukturenrealismus. Diese Wissenschaftstheoretische Position geht auf Matthias Neuber zurück, der sie als dritte Spielart zwischen den großen Strukturenrealismen – dem Epistemischen Strukturenrealismus und dem Ontischen Strukturenrealismus – ansiedelt. Neuber versucht, die wissenschaftstheoretischen Probleme von ESR und OSR anzugehen, gleichzeitig aber ihre jeweiligen Stärken beizubehalten. Dabei sind die Konzepte der Invarianz, der Struktur und besonders der Messung von zentraler Bedeutung. Ausgehend von Eino Kailas „non-linguistic, realist account of logical empiricism“ untersucht der vorliegende Aufsatz die Notwendigkeit einer weiteren strukturenrealistischen Position. Dazu werden die etablierten Strukturenrealismen auf ihre Stärken und Schwächen hin untersucht. Es folgt eine Ausformulierung der Forderungen an den MSR, die über die Darstellung bei Neuber hinaus geht. Diese Forderungen sind ontologischer, epistemischer und metrologischer Natur. (shrink)

We develop the theory of generically stable types, independence relation based on nonforking and stable weight in the context of dependent theories.

In Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, Frege tried to show that arithmetic is logical by giving gap-free proofs from what he took to be purely logical basic laws. But how do we come to judge these laws as true, and to recognize them as logical? The answer must involve giving an account of the apparent arguments Frege provides for his axioms. Following Sanford Shieh, I take these apparent arguments to instead be exhibitions: the exercise of a logical capacity in order to bring (...) us into a state of judgement. I provide an account of what sort of inferential capacities are at play in such exhibitions, and explain how they lead us to judge that Frege’s primitive laws are general and undeniable. I will also situate my account with respect to other rival interpretations, particularly the elucidatory interpretations of Joan Weiner and Thomas Ricketts. (shrink)

Democracy as one of the forms of a governance and political process is at the same time a political value. The value’s aspects of democracy are closely connected with the character of democratic political regime, democratic process and democratic political culture of society. in the structure of democratic values one may roughly point out horizontal facet of them and vertical one. Horizontal values include following values: general social domain; the sphere of political institutions; the aspects of political process and procedures; (...) cultural sphere. As a rule, these values are out of doubt, though this fact doesn’t preclude there critic from various opponents of democracy. On the contrary, it’s a hierarchy of democratic values, which is the vertical facet of them is the point at scientific andpolitical debates. This fact also causes various approaches to democracy. The problems of democratic values inseparably linked with the questions about there universal character. Under an analysis of the universal character of democratic values it’s necessary to take into account its socioantropological aspect. The point is about developing essence of the human being under the impact of diverse internal and external factors. (shrink)

Abstract.The present paper is an attempt to describe the observational practices behind a large and homogeneous body of Babylonian observation reports involving planets and certain bright stars near the ecliptic (“Normal Stars”). The reports in question are the only precise positional observations of planets in the Babylonian texts, and while we do not know their original purpose, they may have had a part in the development of predictive models for planetary phenomena in the second half of the first millennium B.C. (...) The paper is organized according to the following topics: (I) Sections 1–3 review the format of the observations and the texts in which they are found; (II) Sections 4–6 discuss the composition of the Normal Star list; (III) Sections 7–8 concern the orientation of the reported celestial directions from star to planet; (IV) Sect. 9 concerns the relationship between the reported distances and the actual angular distances between planet and star; and (V) Sect. 10 discusses the reports of planetary stations, which are the most common reports giving precise locations of planets when they are not near their closest approach to stars, and draws some brief general conclusions about the utility of the Babylonian observations for estimating planetary longitudes and calibrating models in antiquity. (shrink)

S. 248-254: "Burckhardts Kulturkonstanten".

This book argues that Levi Gersonides articulates a unique model of virtue ethics among medieval Jewish thinkers. Gersonides is recognized by scholars as one of the most innovative Jewish philosophers of the medieval period. His first model of virtue is a response to the seemingly capricious forces of luck through training in endeavor, diligence, and cunning aimed at physical self-preservation. His second model of virtue is altruistic in nature. It is based on the human imitation of God as creator of (...) the laws of the universe for no self-interested benefit, leading humans to imitate God through the virtues of loving-kindness, grace, and beneficence. Both these models are amplified through the institutions of the kingship and the priesthood, which serve to actualize physical preservation and beneficence on a larger scale, amounting to recognition of the political necessity for a division of powers. (shrink)

A natural reading of Hume’s distinction between impressions and ideas is that impressions are forceful perceptions whereas ideas are faint. A problem emerges, however, when Hume countenances the possibility of faint impressions and forceful ideas. In this paper, I attempt a resolution to the problem. I argue that Hume characterizes impressions and ideas intensionally and extensionally, and sometimes uses the term in only one of the two senses. I argue that Hume intensionally defines impressions and ideas as forceful perceptions and (...) weak perceptions, respectively, but takes these to be extensionally equivalent to original and copied perceptions, respectively. Hume recognizes that his two characterizations—the intensional and extensional—don’t perfectly match up, and that there are exceptions to the purported equivalences (the exceptions being disease, sleep, madness, and enthusiasm). Nonetheless, I argue that Hume’s willing to proceed with his definitions. (shrink)