This article is a collective writing experiment undertaken by philosophers of education affiliated with the PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). When asked to reflect on questions concerning the Philosophy of Education in a New Key in May 2020, it was unsurprising that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on society and on education were foremost in our minds. We wanted to consider important philosophical and educational questions raised by the pandemic, while acknowledging that, first and foremost, it (...) is a human tragedy. With nearly a million deaths reported worldwide to date, and with everyone effected in one way or another by Covid-19, there is a degree of discomfort, and a responsibility to be sensitive, in reflecting and writing about it academically. Members of this ‘Covid Collective’ come from various countries, with perspectives from Great Britain and Ireland well represented, and we see academic practice as a globally connected enterprise, especially since the digital revolution in academic publishing. The concerns raised in this article relate to but move beyond Covid-19, reflecting the impact of neoliberalism [and other political developments] on geopolitics with educational concerns as central to our focus. (shrink)

A interlocution containing a stimulating lead essay on the relationship between law and violence by one of the key third-generation Frankfurt School philosophers, Christoph Menke, and engaged responses by a variety of influential critics.

This paper aims to develop a novel account of the normativity of assertion. Its core thesis is that assertion has an etiological epistemic function, viz. to generate knowledge in hearers. In conjunction with a general account of etiological functions and their normative import, it is argued that an assertion is epistemically good if and only if it has the disposition to generate knowledge in hearers. In addition, reason is provided to believe that it makes sense to regulate the practice of (...) assertion by a speaker rule—and, more specifically, by a knowledge rule—as so regulating assertion contributes to ensuring that assertion fulfils its etiological function reliably. (shrink)

Sind platonische Ideen oder Formen wirklich in dem Sinn als „eingestaltig“ konzipiert, dass sie nicht aus Teilen bestehen können? Ganz und gar nicht! Christoph Hochholzer zeigt, dass die Relation von Teil und Ganzem einer Form neben der Relation der Teilhabe an Formen zu den zentralen Grundannahmen der Ideenlehre gehört. Von diesem Befund ausgehend, entwickelt die detaillierte Textanalyse eine ganz neuartige Interpretation des Sophistes. Der eleatische Fremde, der Sokrates in dem Spätdialog als Gesprächsführer ablöst, präsentiert demnach eine ausgereifte Variante von (...) Platons Philosophie, mit deren Hilfe er unterschiedlichste Fragen präzise beantwortet: Was ist die Bedeutung von „... ist seiend“ oder „... ist verschieden von...“? Gibt es Nicht-Seiendes? Können auch Formen an Formen teilhaben? Was genau sind eigentlich Sophisten und wieso kann Sokrates ihnen nicht helfen? Die Untersuchung beinhaltet eine streng logische Rekonstruktion des Textes ohne die literarische Form des Dialogs und seine Stellung in Platons Gesamtwerk zu vernachlässigen. Sie bietet eine neue Übersetzung und einen philologisch gründlichen Kommentar. Daraus werden eine Vielzahl von neuen Positionen zu klassischen Forschungsfragen, wie die nach der Selbstprädikation oder dem Mythos, entwickelt. (shrink)

According to what Williamson labels ‘the C account of assertion’, there is one and only one rule that is constitutive of assertion. This rule, the so-called ‘C Rule’, states that one must assert p only if p has property C. This paper argues that the C account of assertion is incompatible with any live proposal for C in the literature.

Heuristics make decisions not only fast and frugally, but often nearly as well as “full” rationality or even better. Using such heuristics should therefore meet health care standards under liability law. But an independent court often has little chance to verify the necessary information. And judgments based on heuristics might appear to have little legitimacy, given the widespread belief in formal rationality.

According to Fred Dretske's externalist theory of knowledge a subject knows that p if and only if she believes that p and this belief is caused or causally sustained by the information that p. Another famous feature of Dretske's epistemology is his denial that knowledge is closed under known entailment. I argue that, given Dretske's construal of information, he is in fact committed to the view that both information and knowledge are closed under known entailment. Hence, if it is true (...) that, as Dretske also believes, accepting closure leads to skepticism, he must either embrace skepticism or abandon his information theory of knowledge. (shrink)

This paper argues that the standard evidence for the knowledge norm of assertion can be extended to provide evidence for a corresponding knowledge norm of blame.

Science is a social epistemic enterprise. The complexity of research requires the division of cognitive labor. As a consequence, scientists have to present results and incorporate the results of others into their body of knowledge. This creates the possibility of strategic behavior, leading to phenomena such as publication bias. To analyze the dynamics of strategic behavior in epistemic communities, agent-based modeling suggests itself as a method. The phenomena generated by the developed agent-based simulation model reveal a diverse set of possible (...) dynamics in strategically heterogeneous groups and support the claim that there is a trade-off between a behavioral rule’s efficacy to generate accurate beliefs under optimal conditions and its robustness to variation in the composition of the epistemic environment. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 43 Heft: 1 Seiten: 306-319.

In the recent literature on episodic memory, there has been increasing recognition of the need to provide an account of its adaptive function. In this context, it is sometimes argued that episodic memory is critical for certain forms of decision making about the future. We criticize existing accounts that try to give episodic memory a role in decision making, before giving a novel such account of our own. This turns on the thought of a link between episodic memory and the (...) emotion of regret. We discuss how both experienced and anticipated regret can have a distinctive influence on decision making, and argue that the ability to recollect past events in episodic memory underpins the capacity to engage in the sophisticated types of mental time travel recruited in experiencing and anticipating regret. (shrink)

This paper presents a cross-cultural study on peoples’ negative attitude toward robots. 467 participants from seven different countries filled in the negative attitude towards robots scale survey which consists of 14 questions in three clusters: attitude towards the interaction with robots, attitude towards social influence of robots and attitude towards emotions in interaction with robots. Around one half of them were recruited at local universities and the other half was approached through Aibo online communities. The participants’ cultural background had a (...) significant influence on their attitude and the Japanese were not as positive as stereotypically assumed. The US participants had the most positive attitude, while participants from Mexico had the most negative attitude. The participants from the online community were more positive towards robots than those not involved. Previous experience in interacting with Aibo also had a positive effect, but owning an Aibo did not improve their attitude. (shrink)

In a number of recent papers Duncan Pritchard argues that virtue epistemology's central ability condition—one knows that p if and only if one has attained cognitive success (true belief) because of the exercise of intellectual ability—is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge. This paper discusses and dismisses a number of responses to Pritchard's objections and develops a new way of defending virtue epistemology against them.

The question of whether cognition can influence perception has a long history in neuroscience and philosophy. Here, we outline a novel approach to this issue, arguing that it should be viewed within the framework of top-down information-processing. This approach leads to a reversal of the standard explanatory order of the cognitive penetration debate: we suggest studying top-down processing at various levels without preconceptions of perception or cognition. Once a clear picture has emerged about which processes have influences on those at (...) lower levels, we can re-address the extent to which they should be considered perceptual or cognitive. Using top-down processing within the visual system as a model for higher-level influences, we argue that the current evidence indicates clear constraints on top-down influences at all stages of information processing; it does, however, not support the notion of a boundary between specific types of information-processing as proposed by the cognitive impenetrability hypothesis. (shrink)

: This article analyzes German debates on the microbiology of infectious diseases from 1865 to 1875 and asks how and when organic pollution in tissues became noteworthy for aetiology and pathogenesis. It was with Ernst Hallier's pleomorphistic microbiology that the organic character of alien material in tissues came to be regarded as important for pathology. The process that followed saw both vigorous biological critique and a number of medical applications of Hallier's work. Around 1874 contemporaries reached the conclusion that pleomorphous (...) vegetation was most likely of little importance if not accidental in relation to the aetiology of infectious diseases whereas the idea of monomorphous micro-organisms facilitated a causal explanation. It was only then that notions such a pure cultures, bacterial specificity, etc. favored by Ferdinand Julius Cohn and his school became popular in medical circles. (shrink)

One of Ludwik Fleck’s ideas about the development of scientific knowledge is that—once a system of interpretation is in place—the process that follows can be characterised as one of inertia: any new evidence comes under a strong pressure to be incorporated into the established frame. This can result in what Fleck called a harmony of illusions when contradictory evidence becomes almost invisible or is incorporated into the established frame only by huge efforts.The paper analyses early explanations of the tuberculin reaction (...) as a case study of Fleck’s argument. For Robert Koch, who had presented tuberculin in 1890, the compound was supposed to be a diagnostic tool and a cure for tuberculosis. His conception of its effect was rather peculiar, but strictly in line with ideas on the pathogenesis of infectious diseases he had developed much earlier. After tuberculin was released in late 1890, whether Koch’s conception was convincing depended on the place that a given observer had in the medical world in late-nineteenth-century Germany. Inside Koch’s group, the status of the tuberculin reaction remained stable and tuberculin retained its value as a diagnostic and curative tool. On the other hand, observers from outside that thought collective, and in particular from clinical medicine, soon pointed to flaws in its conception. These critics developed a rather different picture of tuberculin as a mysterious and dangerous drug. No reconciliation followed and what we find instead in German medicine around the year 1900 is the presence of rather contradictory concepts and practices surrounding Koch’s wonder cure. (shrink)

This article analyzes how aesthetic experience arises. Referring to Pina Bauschs Kontakthof, I examine the following issues: performance and performativity, Kontakthof as play, comic: disappointed expectations, missing gestures, clothes and objects as actants, music and resonance, gender battle still in old age, repetition and ritualization, rhythm, aesthetic experience through mimetic processes.

Paradigms of anthropology -- Evolution-hominization-anthropology -- Philosophical anthropology -- Anthropology in the historical sciences: historical anthropology -- Cultural anthropology -- Historical cultural anthropology -- Core issues of anthropology -- The body as a challenge -- The mimetic basis of cultural learning -- Theories and practices of the performative -- The rediscovery of rituals -- Language-the antinomy between the universal and the particular -- Images and imagination -- Death and recollection of birth -- Future prospects.

What does it mean to understand something? I approach this question by comparing understanding with knowledge. Like knowledge, understanding comes, at least prima facia, in three varieties: propositional, interrogative and objectual. I argue that explanatory understanding (this being the most important form of interrogative understanding) and objectual understanding are not reducible to one another and are neither identical with, nor even a form of, the corresponding type of knowledge (nor any other type of knowledge). My discussion suggests that definitions of (...) the concepts of explanatory and of objectual understanding must include a commitment condition, a grasping condition, an answering-the-facts condition, and an epistemically internal justification condition, but no further external anti-luck condition. On this basis I argue against reducing explanatory understanding to propositional understanding, and in favour of identifying propositional understanding with propositional knowledge. (shrink)

We can not just see, hear or feel how things are at a time, but we also have perceptual experiences as of things moving or changing. I argue that such temporal experiences have a content that is tenseless, i.e. best characterized in terms of notions such as 'before' and 'after' (rather than, say, 'past', 'present' and 'future'), and that such experiences are essentially of the nature of a process that takes up time, viz., the same time as the process that (...) is being experienced. Both claims have been made before, though usually separately from each other, and I don't believe the connection between them has been sufficiently recognized. (shrink)

Upon entering clinical medicine in the 1940s, antibiotic therapy seemed to complete a transformation of hospitals that originated in the late nineteenth century. Former death sinks had become harbingers of therapeutic progress. Yet this triumph was short-lived. The arrival of pathologies caused by resistant bacteria, and of nosocomial infections whose spread was helped by antibiotic therapies, seemed to be intimately related to modern anti-infective therapy. The place where such problems culminated were hospitals, which increasingly appeared as dangerous environments where attempts (...) to combat infectious diseases had instead created hothouses of disease evolution. This paper will focus on one aspect of that history. It caused clinical medicine and hospital hygiene in particular to pay attention to a dimension of infectious disease it had previously paid little attention to thus far: The evolution of infectious disease—previously a matter of mostly theoretical interest—came to be useful in explaining many phenomena observed. This did not turn hospital hygienists into geneticists, though it did give them an awareness that the evolution of infectious disease in a broad sense was something that did matter to them. The paper advances its argument by looking at three phases: The growing awareness of the hospital as a dangerous environment in the 1950s, comprehensive attempts at improving antibiotic therapy and hospital hygiene that followed from the 1960s and lastly the framing of such challenges as risk factors from the 1970s. In conclusion, I will argue that hospital hygiene, being inspired in particular by epidemiology and risk factor analysis, discussed its own specific version of disease emergence and therefore contributed to the 1980s debates around such topics. Being loosely connected to more specialized studies, it consisted of a re-interpretation of infectious disease centred around the temporality of such phenomena as they were encountered in day-to-day dealings of clinical wards. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, David Botting defended pragma-dialectics against epistemological criticisms by exponents of the epistemological approach to argumentation, i.e. Harvey Siegel, John Biro and me. In particular, Botting tries to justify with new arguments a Functional Claim, that the function of argumentation is to resolve disputes, and a Normative Claim, that standpoints that have the unqualified consensus of all participants in a dispute will generally be epistemically sound. In this reply it is shown that Botting’s arguments (...) are fallacious, that the two Claims are false and that the epistemological approach to argumentation, of course, outclasses pragma-dialectics epistemically and is at least as good as it in other respects. (shrink)

A common presupposition in epistemology is that the processes contributing to the generation of knowledge do not extend beyond the knower's skin. This paper challenges this presupposition. I adduce a novel kind case that causes trouble for a number of even the most promising accounts of knowledge in current literature (virtue epistemological and modal accounts), at least so long as the presupposition is in place. I then look at a couple of recent accounts of knowledge that drop the presupposition and (...) expressly allow the relevant processes to extended beyond the knower's skin. While these accounts can handle the problem case, they encounter difficulties elsewhere: extension occurs too easily and so the accounts predict knowledge where they ought not. Finally, I offer a novel way of extending epistemology and argue that it can steer clear of the problems on both sides. (shrink)

_Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation_ offers a resolution of one of the most vexing problems in Nietzsche scholarship. As perhaps the most significant predecessor of more recent attempts to formulate a postmetaphysical epistemology and ontology, Nietzsche is considered by many critics to share this problem with his successors: How can an antifoundationalist philosophy avoid vicious relativism and legitimate its claim to provide a platform for the critique of arguments, practices, and institutions? Christoph Cox argues that Nietzsche successfully navigates between relativism (...) and dogmatism, accepting the naturalistic critique of metaphysics and theology provided by modern science, yet maintaining that a thoroughgoing naturalism must move beyond scientific reductionism. It must accept a central feature of aesthetic understanding: acknowledgment of the primacy and irreducibility of interpretation. This view of Nietzsche's doctrines of perspectivism, becoming, and will to power as products of an overall naturalism balanced by a reciprocal commitment to interpretationism will spur new discussions of epistemology and ontology in contemporary thought. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to develop a novel virtue reliabilist account of justified belief, which incorporates insights from both process reliabilism and extant versions of virtue reliabilism. Like extant virtue reliabilist accounts of justi- fied belief, the proposed view takes it that justified belief is a kind of competent performance and that competent performances require reliable agent abilities. However, unlike extant versions of virtue reliabilism, the view takes abilities to essentially involve reliable processes. In this way, the proposed takes (...) a leaf from process reliabilism. Finally, I will provide reason to believe that the view compares favourably with both extant versions of virtue reliabilism and process reliabilism. In particular, I will show that in taking abilities to essentially involve reliable processes, the view has an edge over extant versions of virtue reliabilism. Moreover, I will argue that the proposed view can either solve or defuse a number of classical problems of process reliabilism, including the new evil demon problem, the problem of clairvoyant cases and the generality problem. (shrink)

Contract-based approaches have been a focus of attention in business ethics. As one of the grand traditions in political philosophy, contractarianism is founded on the notion that we will never resolve deep moral disagreement. Classical philosophers like Hobbes and Locke, or recent ones like Rawls and Gaus, seek to solve ethical conflicts on the level of social rules and procedures. Recent authors in business ethics have sought to utilize contract-based approaches for their field and to apply it to concrete business (...) dilemmas. However, the application of contractarianism to management contexts can cause difficulties. Our article discusses this conceptual problem of contractarian business ethics and presents the idea of order ethics as an alternative. Order ethics, as we argue, can make a difference by conceptually bridging the gap between contractarianism and business ethics. (shrink)

We present a computer-supported approach for the logical analysis and conceptual explicitation of argumentative discourse. Computational hermeneutics harnesses recent progresses in automated reasoning for higher-order logics and aims at formalizing natural-language argumentative discourse using flexible combinations of expressive non-classical logics. In doing so, it allows us to render explicit the tacit conceptualizations implicit in argumentative discursive practices. Our approach operates on networks of structured arguments and is iterative and two-layered. At one layer we search for logically correct formalizations for each (...) of the individual arguments. At the next layer we select among those correct formalizations the ones which honor the argument’s dialectic role, i.e. attacking or supporting other arguments as intended. We operate at these two layers in parallel and continuously rate sentences’ formalizations by using, primarily, inferential adequacy criteria. An interpretive, logical theory will thus gradually evolve. This theory is composed of meaning postulates serving as explications for concepts playing a role in the analyzed arguments. Such a recursive, iterative approach to interpretation does justice to the inherent circularity of understanding: the whole is understood compositionally on the basis of its parts, while each part is understood only in the context of the whole. We summarily discuss previous work on exemplary applications of human-in-the-loop computational hermeneutics in metaphysical discourse. We also discuss some of the main challenges involved in fully-automating our approach. By sketching some design ideas and reviewing relevant technologies, we argue for the technological feasibility of a highly-automated computational hermeneutics. (shrink)