Dov Gabbay is a prolific logician just by himself. But beyond that, he is quite good at making other people investigate the many further things he cares about. As a result, King's College London has become a powerful attractor in our field worldwide. Thus, it is a great pleasure to be an organizer for one of its flagship events: the Augustus de Morgan Workshop of 2005. Benedikt Loewe and I proposed the topic of 'interactive logic' for this occasion, with (...) an emphasis on social software – the logical analysis and design of social procedures – and on games, arguably the formal interactive setting par excellence. This choice reflects current research interests in our logic community at ILLC Amsterdam and beyond. In this broad area of interfaces between logic, computer science, and game theory, this paper is my own attempt at playing Dov. I am, perhaps not telling, but at least asking other people to find out for me what I myself cannot. (shrink)

Humean Laws for Human Agents presents cutting-edge research by leading experts on the Humean account of laws, chance, possibility, and necessity. A central question in metaphysics and philosophy of science is: What are laws of nature? Humeans hold that laws are not sui generis metaphysical entities but merely particularly effective summaries of what actually happens. The most discussed recent work on Humeanism emphasizes the laws' usefulness for limited agents and uses pragmatic considerations to address fundamental and long-standing problems. The current (...) volume develops and critically examines pragmatic Humean accounts, with innovative new work on the epistemology of laws and chance, the problem of induction, counterfactuals, special science laws, and a Humean account of essence. Taken together, the papers provide a roadmap for developing pragmatic Humeanism and connate views, setting the agenda for future research. (shrink)

Our ordinary causal concept seems to fit poorly with how our best physics describes the world. We think of causation as a time-asymmetric dependence relation between relatively local events. Yet fundamental physics describes the world in terms of dynamical laws that are, possible small exceptions aside, time symmetric and that relate global time slices. My goal in this paper is to show why we are successful at using local, time-asymmetric models in causal explanations despite this apparent mismatch with fundamental physics. (...) In particular, I will argue that there is an important connection between time asymmetry and locality, namely: understanding the locality of our causal models is the key to understanding why the physical time asymmetries in our universe give rise to time asymmetry in causal explanation. My theory thus provides a unified account of why causation is local and time asymmetric and thereby enables a reply to Russell’s famous attack on causation. (shrink)

An important task of philosophy is to provide substantial arguments concerning the basic structure of reality and its relation to the ultimate source of everything. Sometimes, philosophers are convinced that there is an absolutely certain starting point within philosophy. More often, however, they suppose that we start with certain intuitions about empirical reality and its source. Based on these intuitions, philosophers try to develop sound arguments with an intelligible logical structure. By this very fact, they place themselves in the realm (...) of public discussion and criticism. There are, though, different kinds of criticism. Good criticism shows that at least one premise in an argument is not true—which is to say that the argument is not sound—or it shows that the premises could be true while the conclusion is false—which is to say that the argument is not valid. Then, there is criticism that is beside the point. It seems to me that the reply to my paper by Latester belongs to the ki .. (shrink)

The advent of ChatGPT by OpenAI has prompted extensive discourse on its potential implications for science and higher education. While the impact on education has been a primary focus, there is limited empirical research on the effects of large language models (LLMs) and LLM-based chatbots on science and scientific practice. To investigate this further, we conducted a Delphi study involving 72 researchers specializing in AI and digitization. The study focused on applications and limitations of LLMs, their effects on the science (...) system, ethical and legal considerations, and the required competencies for their effective use. Our findings highlight the transformative potential of LLMs in science, particularly in administrative, creative, and analytical tasks. However, risks related to bias, misinformation, and quality assurance need to be addressed through proactive regulation and science education. This research contributes to informed discussions on the impact of generative AI in science and helps identify areas for future action. (shrink)

Philosophy of mathematics is moving in a new direction: away from a foundationalism in terms of formal logic and traditional ontology, and towards a broader range of approaches that are united by a focus on mathematical practice. The scientific research network PhiMSAMP (Philosophy of Mathematics: Sociological Aspects and Mathematical Practice) consisted of researchers from a variety of backgrounds and fields, brought together by their common interest in the shift of philosophy of mathematics towards mathematical practice. Hosted by the Rheinische Friedrich- (...) Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn and funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) from 2006-2010, the network organized and contributed to a number of workshops and conferences on the topic of mathematical practice. The refereed contributions in this volume represent the research results of the network and consists of contributions of the network members as well as selected paper versions of presentations at the network's mid-term conference, "Is mathematics special?" (PhiMSAMP-3) held in Vienna 2008. (shrink)

Commercial success of big data has led to speculation that big-data-like reasoning could partly replace theory-based approaches in science. Big data typically has been applied to ‘small problems’, which are well-structured cases characterized by repeated evaluation of predictions. Here, we show that in climate research, intermediate categories exist between classical domain science and big data, and that big-data elements have also been applied without the possibility of repeated evaluation. Big-data elements can be useful for climate research beyond small problems if (...) combined with more traditional approaches based on domain-specific knowledge. The biggest potential for big-data elements, we argue, lies in socioeconomic climate research. (shrink)

Although physicalism has been the dominant position in recent work in the philosophy of mind, this dominance has not prevented a small but growing number of philosophers from arguing that physicalism is untenable for several reasons: both ontologically and epistemologically it cannot reduce mentality to the realm of the physical, and its attempts to reduce subjectivity to objectivity have thoroughly failed. The contributors to After Physicalism provide powerful alternatives to the physicalist account of the human mind from a dualistic point (...) of view and argue that the reductive and naturalistic paradigm in philosophy has lost its force. The essays in this collection all firmly engage in a priori metaphysics. Those by Uwe Meixner, E. J. Lowe, John Foster, Alvin Plantinga, and Richard Swinburne are concerned with ways to establish the truth of dualism. Essays by William Hasker, A. D. Smith, and Howard Robinson deal with the relation between physicalism and dualism. Benedikt Paul Göcke argues that the “I” is not a particular and Stephen Priest that “I have to understand myself not as a thing but as no-thing-ness.” In the final essay, Thomas Schärtl argues that there are limits to dualism as indicated by the concept of resurrection. By including two classical essays by Plantinga and Swinburne, the volume conveniently brings together some of the best and the newest thinking in making the philosophical case for dualism. "Seven of these essays are by eminent philosophers: Lowe, Foster, Plantinga, Swinburne, Hasker, Smith, and Robinson, each recapitulating his well-known position in the debate. To have these seven essayists together under one cover constitutes a remarkable book, which can be used as a textbook in philosophy of mind as well as in philosophy of religion courses, and which also opens up the debate in an original way among colleagues at an advanced level." —Fergus Kerr, University of Edinburgh. (shrink)

The article examines four principles of cost allocation (cost of mitigation, of adaptation, and of compensation) for environmental policies that aim to address climate change: “the polluter pays”, “who benefits pays”, “who is able to pay, pays”, and “the equal per capita”. It shows that they are all problematic. A better case can be built by the joint work of only the two principles of “the polluter pays” and “who benefits pays”.

In this paper we discuss Brandom's definition of necessity, which is part of the incompatibility sematnics he develops in his fifth John Locke Lecture. By comparing incompatibility semantics to standard Kripkean possible worlds semantics for modality, we motivate an alternative definition of necessity in Brandom's own terms. Our investigation of this alternative necessity will show that - contra to Brandom's own results - incompatibility semantics does not necessarily lead to the notion of necessity of the modal logic S5.

Die Jahrestagung 2018 der Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutschsprachiger Philosophiedozentinnen und -dozenten im Studium der Katholischen Theologie an wissenschaftlichen Hochschulen fand vom 20.-22. Februar 2018 in der Katholischen Akademie Schwerte statt. Die Fachtagung stand unter dem Thema "Welt - Geist - Gott. Erkundungen zu Panpsychismus und Panentheismus" und widmete sich der Frage, wie sich das Gott-Welt-Verhaltnis religionsphilosophisch und unter Berucksichtigung der heutigen naturwissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse adaquat bestimmen lasst. Der Fokus lag dabei auf zwei alternativen Gottes- und Geistkonzeptionen: Panentheismus und Panpsychismus. Beide Forschungsprogramme wurden intensiv (...) diskutiert und auf ihr jeweiliges philosophisches und theologisches Potential hin befragt, das Verhaltnis von Gott und Welt sowie Geist und Materie auf eine Art und Weise zu denken, die jenseits des bekannten Dualismus von Gott und Welt auf der einen Seite und Geist und Materie auf der anderen Seite liegt. (shrink)

The paper deals with Karl Christian Friedrich Krause's (1781-1832) Panentheism and argues for an holistic philosophy of science based on idealistic premisses.

Die vorliegende umfangreiche Untersuchung erschliesst die werkgenetische Entwicklung von Jacques Maritains Personbegriff. Auf differenzierte Weise wird der Zusammenhang von Maritains Leben und Werk dargestellt. Daraus leitet der Autor eine originelle Unterteilung von Maritains Denken in vier Stufen ab, wobei er zugleich die innere Verschrankung von Ontologie, Gnoseologie und Anthropologie erhellt. Demzufolge konzentriert sich Maritain nach einer Phase geistigen Suchens vor allem auf die Erneuerung der scholastischen Erkenntnistheorie, deren konzeptualistische Engfuhrung er allmahlich mit Hilfe eines metaphysischen Existentialismus zu uberwinden versucht. So (...) findet er schliesslich zu einem koharenten Personalismus, d.h. er stellt die Person und die ihr eigene Freiheitsordnung in den Mittelpunkt seiner Uberlegungen.<BR> Die vorliegende Arbeit ist bislang die erste ihrer Art im gesamten deutschsprachigen Raum. Sie erschliesst einen Denker, der den Menschen von seiner Freiheit und nicht mehr von seiner (metaphysischen) Natur her zu bestimmen versucht. Daruber hinaus macht sie deutlich, wie sich Theologie und Philosophie auf dem gemeinsamen Terrain der Anthropologie gegenseitig erganzen und befruchten.". (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the history of the concept of where in ancient philosophy. Though Aristotle was the first to recognize the concept as a topic of philosophical interest, numbering the category of where among his ten categories, it is only from late antiquity that more extensive treatments of the concept have come down to us, in Plotinus' The Genera of Being and Simplicius' Commentary on the Categories. Plotinus rejects the category of where on the ground that, on any (...) plausible understanding of locatives, the things they signify do not make up a special category. To show this, Plotinus considers three at least plausible ways to construe the semantics of locatives: they may signify either places or something in something else, or relations. The paper examines these three construals together with Plotinus' dialectical arguments and Simplicius' counter-arguments, concluding that the former, though highly illuminating, are unsuccessful and that, by and large, Simplicius is right in his defence of the category of where. (shrink)

The assumption that a system described as ‘Confucianism’ formulated by Dong Zhongshu became accepted as the norm during the Western Han dynasty (202 BCE – 9 CE) is challenged and his supposed authorship of the Chunqiu fanlu examined.

Der Verfassungsrechtler und Rechtsphilosoph Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) ist ohne Zweifel ein faszinierender Autor. Die von ihm ausgehende Suggestion basiert auf der Virtuosität seines polemischen Stils, der oft vergessen macht, welch sachliche Kritik von Zeitgenossen an seinen Theorien geübt wurde. Erstmals liegt nun eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit den wichtigsten Aspekten seines Werkes vor, die die Nähe seines konservativen Denkens zum Nationalsozialismus systematisch aufzeigt. Gegenüber der vorherrschenden biografischen Behandlung dieses Verhältnisses lassen sich damit auch aktuelle politische Theoreme und Positionen sehr viel deutlicher (...) verorten. Ziel des Buches ist es, dem Leser sowohl die Komplexität dieses außergewöhnlichen Denkens als auch dessen Konsequenzen vor Augen zu führen. (shrink)

I summarize and critically respond to Raphael Lataster and Purushottama Bilimoria’s paper on panentheism. I show that their suggested concept of panentheism is useless for academic discourse because it refers to contradictory positions.

Cover -- Titel -- Impressum -- Inhaltsverzeichnis -- Gibt es einen prinzipiellen Konflikt von Theologie, Philosophie und Naturwissenschaft? Eine kurze Analyse am Beispiel des Handelns Gottes in der Welt -- Historisch-systematischer Teil -- Ich wird dich also an griffen / Das du mir nit mugist entwichen. Göttliche Aktivität, seelisches Leiden und die Rolle der Gnade in Christus und die minnende Seele -- Opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt. Ein Grundaxiom der Trinitätstheologie in augustinischer Tradition -- Concursus divinus und Weltgeschichte. Überlegungen (...) anhand des spätscholastischen Molinismus und G. W. F. Hegels Geschichtsphilosophie -- Bolzano über das Handeln Gottes -- Klassisch-systematischer Teil -- Außer Konkurrenz. Zur Rede vom Wirken Gottes als Sich-Geben -- Handeln Gottes - eine schöpfungstheologische und transzendentallogische Rekonstruktion -- Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan -- Gott liebt uns nicht -- Vom Wirken Gottes in der Welt -- Analytisch-systematischer Teil -- Ein dispositionalistisches Modell göttlichen Handelns in der Welt -- Die Offenheit eines handelnden Gottes -- Wunder verletzen die Naturgesetze nicht -- Der Creatio-Modus des Handelns Gottes -- Gottes Handeln in der Welt. Spekulation und die Adäquatheitsfrage -- Personenregister -- Sachregister -- Buchinfo -- Eigenanzeigen. (shrink)

Die Aktivitaten der historischen Avantgardebewegungen, die im fruhen 20. Jahrhundert das kunstlerische Feld in Europa pragten, gingen unmittelbar mit dem Verfassen, der Herausgabe und Verbreitung von Manifesten einher. Die entsprechenden Texte dienten sowohl der Darstellung der jeweiligen Bewegungen in der Offentlichkeit als auch dem Bruch mit der bestehenden Tradition. Sie waren ein Medium der Abgrenzung von konkurrierenden Bewegungen und der Erklarung einer neuen asthetischen Praxis. Durch die Avantgarde wurde das Manifest zur treibenden Kraft des als einheitlich konzipierten Projekts kunstlerischer Erneuerung, (...) der politischen Revolutionierung, kulturellen Revitalisierung und spirituellen Regeneration. Ziel des Projekts war die Grundung einer neuen, genuin modernen und dynamischen Subjektivitat mit kunstlerischen Mitteln. 'Visionen des Neuen' ist eine breit angelegte Studie der fruhen avantgardistischen Manifestpraxis und dem ihr zugrunde liegenden Verstandnis eines radikalen asthetischen Voluntarismus. (shrink)

Milbank’s correlation of modern rationality with a myth of chaos and an ontology of violence can preclude a naive theological reception of the social sciences, but while Milbank suggests a critique that would trace modernity’s truncation of reason and its nihilistic outcome to the post-Thomist reification of the supernatural and to Scotus’ conceptualism, his option for Augustine’s supernaturalism appears regressive. Irony attends both the violence of Milbank’s performance on behalf of an ontology of peace and his non-analogical, typically Protestant construal (...) of the faith/reason relationship. Nonetheless, he also suggests resources for a positive move beyond the discourse of paradox and contradiction. (shrink)

Pars 1. Logica -- pars 2. Ontologia -- pars 3. Cosmologia -- pars 4. Psychologia -- pars 5. Theologia naturalis -- pars 6. Physica generalis -- pars 7. Physica particularis corporum totalium huius mundi -- pars 8. Physica particularis corporum partialium telluris nostræ.

Wie lasst sich pagan-antike Naturphilosophie und Naturkunde mit dem christlichen Glauben vereinbaren? Diese Frage stellte fur das Mittelalter kein akademisch-theoretisches Problem dar, sondern ein Anliegen, das die Deutung der Welt, der menschlichen Existenz und der Ethik unmittelbar betraf. Die Antworten, die das Mittelalter auf diese Fragen zu geben versuchte, differieren je nach Zeit, Standort und Intention der Autoren. Das im Rahmen des Sonderforschungsbereichs Wurzburg-Eichstatt durchgefuhrte Symposium stellt in chronologischer Anordnung verschiedene Antwortmodelle vor und gibt einen Uberblick uber das geistliche Naturverstandnis (...) des Mittelalters von der Karolingerzeit bis ins 14. Jahrhundert. Dabei werden die verschiedenen Disziplinen, die an Natur-wissen interessiert waren (Medizin, Theologie, Artes) unter Berucksichtigung der verschiedenen Gattungen (medizinisches Handbuch, Vision, Lehrdialog, enzyklopadisches Nachschlagewerk) einbezogen. Das Spektrum der behandelten Themen erstreckt sich von einem Karolingischen Arzneibuch uber den `Physiologus', Hermann von der Reichenau, Hildegard von Bingen, den altfranzosischen `Lucidaire' und `Sidrac', die Naturenzyklopadisten Thomas von Cantimpre und Bartholomaus Anglicus und reicht bis hin zu den Arzten Ortolf von Baierland und Paracelsus. (shrink)