The question of the use of speech act theory in accounting for conversational sequencing is discussed from the point of view of the explanation of linguistic interaction. On the one hand, this question lies at the heart of the opposition between conversational analysis and discourse analysis. On the other, it dominates the discussion around a text by Searle called "Conversation". After summarizing what is at stake in the debate, I focus on the positions of two authors, Dascal and Van Rees, (...) who favor the idea of a possible combination of illocutionary logic and the analysis of conversational interactions. My own position consists in taking into account the new elements that have recently enriched illocutionary logic within the framework of an essentially dialogical position. The proposed approach is in agreement with the theses of these two authors and complements them with elements that satisfy their demands. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence researchers interested in knowledge and in designing and implementing digitized artifacts for representing or sharing knowledge play a crucial role in the development of a knowledge-based economy. They help answer the question of how the computer devices they develop can be appropriated by the collectives that manage the flow of knowledge and the know-how underlying human organizations. A dialogical, constructivist view of interaction processes permits theorizing the role of digital tools, seen as sociotechnical devices that serve both as (...) resources and as sources of communication within our organizations. (shrink)

This paper provides an introductory review of the theory of judgment aggregation. It introduces the paradoxes of majority voting that originally motivated the field, explains several key results on the impossibility of propositionwise judgment aggregation, presents a pedagogical proof of one of those results, discusses escape routes from the impossibility and relates judgment aggregation to some other salient aggregation problems, such as preference aggregation, abstract aggregation and probability aggregation. The present illustrative rather than exhaustive review is intended to give readers (...) new to the field of judgment aggregation a sense of this rapidly growing research area. (shrink)

Defining ‘presentism’ in a way that saves it from being trivially false yet metaphysically substantively distinct from eternalism is no mean feat, as the first part of this collection testifies. In Wuthrich (forthcoming), I have offered an attempt to achieve just this, arguing that this is best done in the context of modern spacetime theories. Here, I shall refrain from going through all the motions again and simply state the characterization of an ersatzist version of presentism as it has emerged (...) from considerations there. Any acceptable formulation of presentism should remain neutral among competing spacetime theories in order to enable the present project of assessing the compatibility of presentism with various theories of modern physics, including both spacetime theories and theories of physical processes situated in a spatiotemporal setting. (shrink)

This paper has been published in 2015 in Environment and Planning D, 33 : p. 1080–1097. It is freely available from Copenhagen Business School. We thank the authors for the permission to reproduce it here.: This paper explores the relationship between bodily rhythms and market rhythms in two distinctly different financial market configurations, namely the open-outcry pit and present-day high-frequency trading. Drawing on Henri - Management et Business – Nouvel article.

The irreducibility of language : the history of rhetoric in the age of typewriters -- The failures of empiricism : language, science, and the philosophical tradition -- What is a trope? : the discourse of metaphor and the language of the body -- The nervous systems of modern consciousness : metaphor, physiology, and mind -- Interpretation and life : outlines of an anthropology of knowledge.

Many groups make decisions over multiple interconnected propositions. The “doctrinal paradox” or “discursive dilemma” shows that propositionwise majority voting can generate inconsistent collective sets of judgments, even when individual sets of judgments are all consistent. I develop a simple model for determining the probability of the paradox, given various assumptions about the probability distribution of individual sets of judgments, including impartial culture and impartial anonymous culture assumptions. I prove several convergence results, identifying when the probability of the paradox converges to (...) 1, and when it converges to 0, as the number of individuals increases. Drawing on the Condorcet jury theorem and work by Bovens and Rabinowicz , I use the model to assess the “truth-tracking” performance of two decision procedures, the premise- and conclusion-based procedures. I compare the present results with existing results on the probability of Condorcet’s paradox. I suggest that the doctrinal paradox is likely to occur under plausible conditions. (shrink)

One of the hallmark themes of Karl Popper’s approach to the social sciences was the insistence that when social scientists are members of the society they study, then they are liable to affect that society. In particular, they are liable to affect it in such a way that the claims they make lose their validity. “The interaction between the scientist’s pronouncements and social life almost invariably creates situations in which we have not only to consider the truth of such pronouncements, (...) but also their actual influence on future developments. The social scientist may be striving to find the truth; but, at the same time, he must always be exerting a definite influence upon society. The very fact that his pronouncements do exert an influence destroys their objectivity.” (Popper 1963. (shrink)

This paper argues that recent arguments to the effect that the debate between presentism and eternalism lacks any metaphysical substance ultimately fail, although important lessons can be gleaned from them in how to formulate a non-vacuous version of presentism. It suggests that presentism can best be characterized in the context of spacetime theories. The resulting position is an ersatzist version of presentism that admits merely non-present entities as abstracta deprived of physical existence. Ersatzist presentism both escapes the charges of triviality (...) and promises to offer a route to solving the grounding problem which befalls its more traditional cousins. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap and Martin Heidegger shared with Max Weber the decisionist understanding of values as something that cannot be justified by scientists or philosophers. Although both accepted the challenge of modernity in this respect, they reacted in opposite ways. Carnap, along with the Vienna Circle, defended a scientific conception of the world in which science and instrumental rationality were to permeate all of life; Heidegger embarked on an understanding of metaphysics in which rationality and science were to be eliminated. Both (...) strategies were deeply political, and both resulted from the split in the German youth and life reform movement that took place during and immediately after World War I. I discuss this image here in the context of dialectical theology, the Vienna Circle, and the Davos Disputation, with a sideways glance at Ernst Cassirer, and with a view to earlier interpretations by Michael Friedman and Gottfried Gabriel. (shrink)

In order to reason in a non-trivializing way with contradictions, para- consistent logics reject some classically valid inferences. As a way of re- covering some of these inferences, Graham Priest ([Priest, 1991]) proposed to nonmonotonically strengthen the Logic of Paradox by allowing the se- lection of “less inconsistent” models via a comparison of their respective inconsistent parts. This move recaptures a good portion of classical logic in that it does not block, e.g., disjunctive syllogism, unless it is applied to contradictory (...) assumptions. In Priest’s approach the inconsistent parts of models are compared in an extensional way by considering their inconsis- tent objects. This distinguishes his system from the standard format of (inconsistency-)adaptive logics pioneered by Diderik Batens, according to which (atomic) contradictions validated in models form the basis of their comparison. A well-known problem for Priest’s extensional approach is its lack of the Strong Reassurance property, i.e., for specific settings there may be infinitely descending chains of less and less inconsistent models, thus never reaching a minimally inconsistent model. In this paper, we demonstrate that Strong Reassurance holds for the extensional approach under a cardinality-based comparison of the incon- sistent parts of models. Furthermore, we introduce and investigate the metatheory of the class of first-order nonmonotonic inconsistency-tolerant construct over the extensional or quantitative comparisons of their respec- tive models. Core model-theoretic properties for these logics, such as the Löwenheim-Skolem theorems, along with other nonmonotonic properties, are further studied. (shrink)

There can be little doubt that, over the last decade or so, the work of Carl Schmitt has emerged as a central point of reference, in both positive and negative terms, for many debates within contemporary political theory. Despite Schmitt's notoriously controversial and complex position within the intellectual field of modern political thought, a growing interest, for instance, in his critique of parliamentary democracy and his conceptualization of partisan warfare can be felt not only among political movements with revolutionary agendas, (...) but it can also easily be observed in main-stream political thought on both sides of the Atlantic.1 With the…. (shrink)

This paper addresses the seemingly insurmountable challenges the problem of personal identity raises for the prospect of radical human enhancement and synthetic consciousness. It argues that conceptions of personal identity rooted in psychological continuity akin to those proposed by Parfit and the Buddha may not provide the sort of grounding that many transhumanists chasing the dream of life extension think that they do if they rest upon ontologies that assume an incompatibility between identity and change. It also suggests that process (...) ontologies that take change to be primary, such as those that align with contemporary systems biology, offer a better way out of the personal identity dilemma. But the solution in this case, which regards biological organisms as processes rather than things, may constrain the possibility of biologically inspired superintelligent aliens (BISAs), which Schneider (following Bostrom 2014) posits as possibly the most common form of (extraterrestrial) superintelligence in the universe. (shrink)

This paper defends the persistence of the subjective or self-intimating dimension of experience in non-ordinary and pathological states of consciousness such as non-dual awareness, full absorption, drug-induced ego dissolution, and the minimal conscious state. In considering whether non-ordinary and pathological conscious states display any subjective features, we confront a dilemma. Either they do, in which case there needs to be some way of accounting for these features in phenomenal terms, or they do not, in which case there is nothing it (...) is like to be in them. But the dilemma only arises if we assume that opacity rather than phenomenality is a pervasive feature of these non-ordinary states. However, non-ordinary conscious states are deemed phenomenally opaque only by overly restrictive standards of conceivability that: (i) fail to account for the variety of nonordinary and pathological experience in non-arbitrary ways; (ii) sidestep the problem of the attribution and location of mental content (given intelligibility requirements for experience) or relegate them to illusory constructs; (iii) assume an unproblematic appeal to testimonial evidence. I discuss some cases from contemplative traditions and psychopathology and offer some plausible alternative explanations. (shrink)

This study represents a comparison between two radical gestures of literary self-reflexivity: romantic irony and postmodernist metafiction. It examines the impact of early German romantic theory and its central concept of irony on German and English romantic narrative fiction and relates the same to postmodernist self-reflexive novels, including its British and American variants. A primary objective of this comparison is to account for the radical skepticism that postmodernist metafiction voices with respect to the paramount philosophical question of truth and reality. (...) The immanent tension between an absolute idealistic and a radically skeptic position which romantic irony articulates and enacts is conceived of as an important and instructive link to the understanding of postmodernism. (shrink)

One of the main issues in philosophy is the refl ection on sciences. In order to conciliate the unity and plurality of sciences, this paper sets out a new strategy for theory reduction by means of functional sub-concepts. This strategy is intended to get around the multiple realization objection that leads to a dilemma for the scientifi c quality of the special sciences. Taking Kim’s argument for token identity as starting point, I shall show a strategy to establish a systematic (...) link between concepts of the special sciences with physical concepts. By this means, a conservative theory reduction is in principle possible despite multiple realization. (shrink)

How can collective decisions be made among individuals with conflicting preferences or judgments? Arrow’s impossibility theorem and other social-choice-theoretic results suggest that, for many collective decision problems, there are no attractive democratic solutions. In response, deliberative democrats argue that group deliberation makes collective decisions more tractable. How can deliberation accomplish this? In this paper, I explore the distinction between two different types of agreement and discuss how they can facilitate collective decision making. Deliberative democrats have traditionally defended the hypothesis that (...) group deliberation generates consensus on what decision option should be chosen: "substantive agreement". But substantive agreement is not only empirically unrealistic, but also logically unnecessary for meaningful collective decision making. An alternative, less demanding hypothesis is that, under certain conditions, group deliberation generates consensus on how a decision problem should be conceptualized: "meta-agreement". I assess the latter hypothesis, explain how it can be empirically tested, and cite some evidence consistent with it. My discussion addresses two contexts of democratic decision making: preference aggregation and judgment aggregation. (shrink)

The question of observability of sign changes under 2pi rotations is considered. It is shown that in certain circumstances there are observable consequences of such sign changes in classical physics. A macroscopic experiment is proposed which could in principle detect the 4pi periodicity of rotations.

Can collectives be wise? The thesis that they can has recently received a lot of attention. It has been argued that, in many judgmental or decision-making tasks, suitably organized groups can outperform their individual members. In this paper, I discuss the lessons we can learn about collective wisdom from the emerging theory of judgment aggregation, as distinct from the literature on Condorcet’s jury theorem.

This paper revisits the strained yet ubiquitous notion of sustainability to see where and how it can make a contribution to improved agricultural and natural resource management and policy making. The case of a three-year EU network on farm animal breeding and reproduction is used as a practical illustration. In this network, commercial breeders and breeding scientists were required, with professional assistance from philosophers and social scientists, to develop a definition of sustainable farm animal breeding. The word ‘sustainability’ does not (...) define a unique ethical perspective. At best it indicates a willingness to open an ethical agenda. However if the agenda is not specified in some detail, there is a real danger that necessary ethical discussion will be swept under the carpet. Even worse, the word may be used as a fig leaf in an attempt to legitimise projects which are ethically dubious. Used conscientiously, the framework of sustainability has two benefits: First, it invites parties involved in the planning of future activities in a company or sector to take a comprehensive look at potentially conflicting concerns and to face any difficult trade-offs. Second, it encourages concerns to be presented within a framework that is endorsed by society as a whole, and this enables the stakeholders to make room for communication to, and dialogue with, a broader audience than the rather narrow group of people directly involved. Adapting the definition of sustainability to specific conditions and circumstances is more than a technical or scientific task. It requires us to address carefully underlying questions about values. The fundamental dilemmas that emerge when the notion of sustainability is considered have no easy solutions, but they can be addressed by taking into account four key characteristics of sustainability discussed in this paper. (shrink)

In his important new book National responsibility and global justice, David Miller presents a systematic challenge to existing theories of global justice. In particular, he argues that cosmopolitan egalitarianism must be rejected. Such views, Miller maintains, would place unacceptable burdens on the most productive political communities, undermine national self-determination, and disincentivize political communities from taking responsibility for their fate. They are also impracticable and quite unrealistic, at least under present conditions. Miller offers an alternative account that conceives global justice in (...) terms of a minimum set of basic rights that belong to human beings everywhere. Primary responsibility for securing such rights for an individual lies with his or her state, but in so far as these rights go unprotected, responsibilities for fulfilling them may fall on outsiders. While less ambitious that cosmopolitan egalitarian justice, Miller argues that his own view would nevertheless enable us to articulate what is most morally objectionable about our current world. In this article it is argued that none of Miller's critiques of cosmopolitan egalitarianism is effective, and that while certainly preferable to the status quo, a world governed by Miller's principles is not an attractive ideal. (shrink)

Die Wissenschaftsphilosophie des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts ist reichhaltiger und differenzierter in ihren Standpunkten als lange vermutet. Die Autoren zeigen das anhand der nur teilweise erforschten Interaktion zwischen den Wissenschaftsphilosophen des deutschen und französischen Sprachraums. Das Buch liefert neue Erkenntnisse zur Rolle der Philosophiekongresse in Prag 1934 und Paris 1937 sowie zur Bedeutung einzelner Akteure wie Marcel Boll, der die Rezeption des Logischen Empirismus in Frankreich beförderte. Die Spuren, die Ernst Mach, aber auch der weniger bekannte deutsche Physiologe und Hirnforscher Ewald (...) Hering in der französischen Wissenschaftsphilosophie hinterliessen, verfolgen die Autoren bis hin zu den Ideen Jean Piagets. Im Mittelpunkt des Buchs stehen Philosophen aus Frankreich, Deutschland und Österreich und ihre Leistung, die Wissenschaften nicht nur erkenntnistheoretisch und logisch durchleuchtet, sondern auch erkannt zu haben, dass ihre theoretische Struktur nur dann vollständig erfasst werden kann, wenn ihre praktische Dimension mit einbezogen wird. Dafür steht Henri Poincaré, der die tragende Rolle der Konventionen für die Theoriebildung in der Mathematik herausstellte. Sichtbar wird der Bezug zur Praxis auch in Moritz Schlicks Überlegungen zu einer auf Empirie basierenden Ethik oder in der Arbeit Otto Neuraths, der eine aus den modernen Wissenschaften gewonnene Konzeption menschlichen Erkennens für das Projekt der gesellschaftlichen Aufklärung fruchtbar machen wollte. (shrink)