Ethical dilemmas are common in the neonatal intensive care setting. The aim of the present study was to investigate the opinions of Swedish physicians and the general public on treatment decisions regarding a newborn with severe brain damage. We used a vignette-based questionnaire which was sent to a random sample of physicians (n = 628) and the general population (n = 585). Respondents were asked to provide answers as to whether it is acceptable to discontinue ventilator treatment, and when it (...) actually is discontinued whether or not it was acceptable to use drugs which hasten death unintentionally or intentionally. The response rate was 67 % of physicians and 46 % of the general population. A majority of both physicians [56 % (CI 50–62)] and the general population [53 % (CI 49–58)] supported arguments for withdrawing ventilator treatment. A large majority in both groups supported arguments for alleviating the patient’s symptoms even if the treatment hastened death, but the two groups display significantly different views on whether or not to provide drugs with the additional intention of hastening death, although the difference disappeared when we compared subgroups of those who were for or against euthanasia-like actions. The study indicated that physicians and the general population have similar opinions regarding discontinuing life-sustaining treatment and providing effective drugs which might unintentionally hasten death but seem to have different views on intentions. The results might be helpful to physicians wanting to examine their own intentions when providing adequate treatment at the end of life. (shrink)

A scientific paradigm typically embraces research norms and values, such as truth-seeking, critical thinking, disinterestedness, and good scientific practice. These values should prevent a paradigm from introducing defective assumptions. But sometimes, scientists who are also physicians develop clinical norms that are in conflict with the scientific enterprise. As an example of such a conflict, we have analyzed the genesis and development of the shaken baby syndrome paradigm. The point of departure of the analysis is a recently conducted systematic literature review, (...) which concluded that there is very low scientific evidence for the basic assumption held by Child Protection Teams: when certain signs are present the infant has been violently shaken. We suggest that such teams have developed more value-based than scientific-based criteria when classifying SBS cases. Further, we suggest that the teams are victims of “groupthink,” aggravating the difficulties in considering critics’ questioning the criteria established by the teams. (shrink)

Ruben Östlund’s film Force Majeure was mostly received as a depiction of the crisis of masculinity. And it is, but that particular theme is also placed within a larger context concerning questions of value, understanding, order, and control, questions asked not only on a thematic level but also through cutting, framing, and the use of camera views. Not accepting any simple dichotomy between form and meaning, Force Majeure places itself firmly in an avant- garde and modernist tradition. Thereby the film (...) is also related to this tradition’s ambition of investigating Western thought, knowledge and art anew, problematising given forms of rational thinking in order for something new to emerge. In the wake of World War II it was, for thinkers like Adorno, Foucault, Stockhausen, and Boulez, seen as unavoidable and urgent to deconstruct the conventions and norms that had made Auschwitz possible. It is still urgent. This article takes its starting point in the connections between avant-garde serialism in music, Foucault’s serialist methods of research and Deleuze’s theories of modernist film, in order to grasp how the aesthetics of Force Majeure continues to deconstruct. (shrink)

This book is a concise hands-on guide that provides students a useful tool for a systematic approach to scientific inquiry. Science Theory for Engineers and Physicists provides a basic understanding of "the method" as a question and to understand how a reliable answer that can be validated is constructed. It covers the basic terminology and methods which are exemplified for ease of understanding for the reader. Testing of hypotheses and quantitative understanding of uncertainty and uncertainty propagation are also illustrated. The (...) book is intended to be used with experimental work as a final or thesis project for undergraduate or graduate students who have not had prior experience in science theory or data handling and uncertainty. (shrink)

Epidemiological studies indicate that the incidence of shaken baby cases is overestimated and that this is due to biased classifications, based on ethical rather than scientific considerations. In...

The aim of the present study was to corroborate or undermine a previously presented conjecture that physicians’ estimations of others’ opinions are influenced by their own opinions. We used questionnaire based cross-sectional design and described a situation where an imminently dying patient was provided with alleviating drugs which also shortened life and, additionally, were intended to do so. We asked what would happen to physicians’ own trust if they took the action described, and also what the physician estimated would happen (...) to the general publics’ trust in health services. Decrease of trust was used as surrogate for an undesirable action. The results are presented as proportions with a 95 % Confidence Interval. Statistical analysis was based on inter-rater agreement -test as well as χ2 test and Odds Ratio with 95 % CI. We found a moderate inter-rater agreement between what would happen with the physicians’ own trust in healthcare and their estimations of what would happen with the general population’s trust. We identified a significant difference between being pro et contra the treatment with double intentions and the estimation of the general population’s trust. Focusing on either decreasing or increasing own trust and being pro or contra the action we identified a strong association [OR 79 ]. Although the inter-rater agreement in the present study was somewhat weaker compared to a study about the explicit use of the term ‘physicians assisted suicide’ we found that our hypothesis—physicians’ estimations of others’ opinions are influenced by their own opinions—was corroborated. This might have implications in research as well as in clinical decision-making. We suggest that Merton’s ideal of disinterestedness should be highlighted. (shrink)

Today, intimate partner violence is addressed by most government authorities, including the government of Åland. In Åland the government required the official organizations to implement an Operation Kvinnofrid Programme. In this study, a descriptive case study design was used to explore the impact of the government's recommendations to the organizations to implement the programme. The organizations responses were limited. They used a top‐down approach and almost no resources were allocated to the issue.

Berg, J. Buñuels dagdröm.--Bergström, L. Pessimismens konsekvenser.--Furberg, M. Möjliga teser hos Johannes Climacus.--Halldén, S. Teckenrelationen och språkreglernas juridik.--Hedenius, I. Ett argument mot den rättsfilosofiska domstolsrealismen.--Mates, B. Om Platons argument "den tredje människan."--Marc-Wogau, K. Kant om lögnen.--Næss, A. Om filosofiske projekter som forener empirisk semantikk og metafysisk spekulasjon.--Ofstad, H. Får nazister lettere magesår enn humanister?--Prawitz, D. Om moraliska och logiska satsers sanning.--Stenius, E. Om Descartes' psykofysiska modell.--Tranøy, K. E. Filosofenes etiske ansvar.--Wright, G. H. von. En filosof ser på filosofien.

A wide range of gene knockout experiments shows that functional stability is an important feature of biological systems. On this backdrop, we present an argument for higher‐level causation based on counterfactual dependence. Furthermore, we sketch a metaphysical picture providing resources to explain the metaphysical nature of functional stability, higher‐level causation, and the relevant notion of levels. Our account aims to clarify the role empirical results and philosophical assumptions should play in debates about reductionism and higher‐level causation. It thereby contributes to (...) the development of a philosophical foundation for systems biology. †To contact the authors, please write to: CSMN/IFIKK, University of Oslo, Box 1020 Blindern, N‐0315, Oslo, Norway; e‐mail: [email protected] , [email protected]. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that sentences containing a non-denoting description embedded in the scope of a propositional attitude verb have true de dicto interpretations, and Russell's (1905) analysis of definite descriptions is often praised for its simple analysis of such cases, cf. e.g. Neale (1990). However, several people, incl. Elbourne (2005, 2009), Heim (1991), and Kripke (2005), have contested this by arguing that Russell's analysis yields incorrect predictions in non-doxastic attitude contexts. Heim and Elbourne have subsequently argued that once certain (...) facts about presupposition projection are fully appreciated, the Frege/Strawson analysis of definite descriptions has an explanatory advantage. In this paper, I argue that both Russell's analysis and the Frege/Strawson analysis face a serious problem when it comes to the interaction of attitude verbs and definite descriptions. I argue that the problem observed by Elbourne, Heim, and Kripke is much more general than standardly assumed and that a solution requires a revision of the semantics of definite and indefinite descriptions. I outline the conditions that are required to solve the problem and present an analysis couched in dynamic semantics which can provide a solution. I conclude by discussing some further issues related to propositional attitude verbs that complicate a fully general solution to the problem. (shrink)

This book is about what Celsus wrote about Jesus in the Second Century, what Celsus's image of God was like, and especially where Celsus found the ammunition to criticize Jesus so fiercely. Why did Christianity's growth bother a pagan philosopher, who was committed to Roman religion? Why did it bother a Platonic philosopher, although Christianity was never meant to be a philosophy? -- Egge Tijsseling explores the idea that Christians finished the Roman Empire, because they did not want to join (...) the army - Jesus preached nonviolence, and if they did join the army, they only recruited more Christians, and finally because Christianity was 'soft', and therefore attractive for many in the strict and hierarchic Roman world. -- This book investigates Celsus' reasons to write such a versatile book against Jesus, that Origen almost a century later needed eight books to refute him. (shrink)

A number of (insect) parasitoids have been found to avoid superparasitism, i.e., these parasitoids distribute their eggs more evenly over the available hosts than might be expected from chance only. By doing so each parasitoid individual ensures a greater probability of survival for its offspring as a result of a reduced within-host-competition.Recently a number of mathematical models have been developed, describing the distribution of the parasitoid eggs in the hosts. This paper gives a survey of these models, placing them within (...) one and the same mathematical framework. An essential conceptual distinction, neglected up to now, emerges: parasitoids can either react to the number of previous visits to a particular host, or they can react to the number of eggs already present in that host. (shrink)

This article presents an approach to how to make reasonable social choices when independent criteria (e.g., prioritarianism, religious freedom) fail to fully determine what to do. The article outlines different explanations of why independent criteria sometimes fail to fully determine what to do and illustrates how they can still be used to eliminate ineligible alternatives, but it is argued that the independent criteria cannot ground a reasonable social choice in these situations. To complement independent criteria when they fail to fully (...) determine what to do, it is suggested that society must engage in public deliberation by way of generating new reasons that can determine how to rank the alternatives. It is suggested that the approach to social choice presented here reveals a way of accepting the relevance of independent criteria for social choice without letting go of the idea that the attitudes of affected parties matter. (shrink)

In recent years, a new argument in favor of Donnellan’s (Philos Rev 77: 281–304, 1966) semantic distinction between attributive and referential descriptions has been proposed by Michael Devitt and Marga Reimer. This argument is based on two empirical premises concerning regularity of use and processing ease. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate (a) that these empirical observations are dubious and fail to license the conclusion of the argument and (b) that if the argument were sound, it would severely overgenerate. (...) The general lesson of the paper is that empirical observations about (a) how frequent an expression E is used to mean M and (b) how easy and fast M is processed cannot be taken to provide reliable evidence about the lexically encoded semantic properties of E. (shrink)

This book discusses Gadamer's theory of context-dependence. Analytical and partly critical, the book also shows exegetical accuracy in the rendering of Gadamer's position. It explores the following questions that Gadamer's theory of context-dependence tries to answer: in what way is thought influenced by and thus dependent on its historical context? To what extent and in what way is the individual able to become reflectively aware of and emancipate himself from this dependence? The book takes Gadamer's wide interests into account, e.g. (...) issues relating to the history of historiography and the nature of art and aesthetic experience. The problem of the context-dependence of thought is prominent in contemporary philosophy, including the fields of structuralism, post structuralism, deconstruction, certain forms of feminist philosophy and the philosophy of science. In this sense, the book discusses an issue with wide repercussions. (shrink)

Essai sur l'évolution de la pensée du philosophe, et de son approche du concept d'égalité, égalité intellectuelle, égalité politique et égalité sensible. Electre 2018.

Abstract Normative criteria for evaluations of economic and social outcomes are often formulated in terms of social welfare functions which are essentially and importantly non-satiable. However, there are good reasons to consider certain normative criteria and many policy objectives to be capped, i.e. bounded, and thus satiable provided sufficient resources are made available for their satisfaction. Inspired by the Foster–Greer–Thorbecke class of indicators, this paper uses an interdisciplinary approach to develop a model for assessing outcomes in terms of capped objectives (...) based on an understanding of individual shortfalls from the objective, denoted needs. We present an indicator to measure need satisfaction in a population of individuals with heterogeneous needs and highlight an aggregation problem under scarcity. For such situations, we develop three ways in which the indicator can be weighted that reflect respectively concerns over the frequency, depth and severity of the need shortfalls and show that normative evaluations based on these weighting schemes can conflict, yielding mutually inconsistent outcome rankings. The indicator can be adapted to measure a wide variety of phenomena, e.g. health needs, education shortfalls, deprivation, etc., and it is suited for targeting exercises and other policy implementations. In particular, it allows for exogenous weighting schemes, i.e. weights that can incorporate non-shortfall characteristics relevant for the evaluation, e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, etc. The indicator thus enables new ways for researchers to promote and study satiable objectives in a wide variety of contexts relevant to economic and social policy, e.g. human development programs, poverty reduction, healthcare policies, etc. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between two phenomena and their respective concepts circulating in contemporary affect theory, i.e., ‘affective resonance’ and ‘affective atmosphere.’ Identifying the main aspects of the two concepts clarifies how the phenomena differ from each other, as well as how they may relate in a dynamic interplay. In light of a distinction between and a conjunction of the aspects of ‘affective relationality’ and ‘affective spatiality,’ the paper proposes a conceptualization of this dynamic interplay through the concept of (...) ‘affective attunement,’ in which resonance and atmosphere are held to converge. As part of this endeavor, the paper further investigates the diverging philosophical traditions to which the two concepts of affective resonance and affective atmosphere originally belong, respectively Spinozist affect theory and New phenomenology. (shrink)

The overarching topic of this dissertation is the semantics and pragmatics of definite descriptions. It focuses on the question whether sentences such as ‘the king of France is bald’ literally assert the existence of a unique king or simply presuppose the existence of such a king. One immediate obstacle to resolving this question is that immediate truth value judgments about such sentences are particularly unstable; some elicit a clear intuition of falsity whereas others simply seem awkward or strange. Because of (...) these variations, truth value judgments are generally considered unreliable. In the first chapter of the dissertation, an explanation of this phenomenon is developed. It is observed that when these types of sentences are considered in the context of a discourse, a systematic pattern in judgments emerges. This pattern, it is argued, should be explained in terms of certain pragmatic factors, e.g. whether a speaker’s utterance is interpreted as cooperative. A detailed and general explanation of the phenomenon is then presented which draws importantly on recent research in the semantics and pragmatics of questions and focus. It is shown that the behavior of these judgments can be systematically explained, that truth value judgments are not as unreliable as standardly assumed, and that the proposed explanation best supports the conclusion that definite descriptions presuppose rather than assert existence. In the second chapter, the following problem is investigated. If definite descriptions are assumed to literally assert existence, a sentence such as ‘Hans wants the ghost in his attic to be quiet’ is incorrectly predicted to be true only if Hans wants there to be a ghost in his attic. This prediction is often considered evidence against Russell’s quantificational analysis and evidence in favor of the referential analysis of Frege and Strawson. Against this claim, it is demonstrated that this problem is a general problem about the existence commitments of natural language determiners, i.e. not an argument in favor of a referential analysis. It is shown that in order to avoid these undesirable predictions, quite radical changes to the semantic framework are required. For example, it must be assumed that a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ has the open sentence ‘x is G’ as its asserted content. A uniform quantificational and presuppositional analysis of definites and indefinites is outlined which by exploiting certain features of so-called dynamic semantics unproblematically assumes that the asserted contents indeed are open sentences. In view of the proposed quantificational/presuppositional analysis, the dissertation is concluded by a rejection of the argument put forward by Reimer and Devitt that definite descriptions are ambiguous between attributive and referential uses. Reimer and Devitt’s argument is based primarily on the assumption that definite descriptions are conventionally used to communicate singular thoughts and that the conventional meaning of a definite description therefore must be fundamentally indexical/directly referential. I argue that this argument relies crucially on tacit assumptions about semantic processing for which no empirical evidence is provided. I also argue that the argument is too general; if sound, it would be an argument for an indexical treatment of most, if not all, other determiners. I then conclude by demonstrating that the view does not explain any new data and thus has no clear motivation. In short, this dissertation provides a detailed pragmatic explanation of a long-standing puzzle about truth value judgments and then outlines a novel dynamic semantic analysis of definites and indefinites. This analysis solves a significant problem about existence commitments — a problem that neither Russell’s nor the Frege/Strawson analysis are equipped to handle. This analysis is then defended against the claim that definite descriptions are ambiguous. (shrink)

Perceptual processes differ from cognitive, this paper argues, in functioning to be causally controlled by proximal stimuli, and being modular, at least in a modest sense that excludes their being isotropic in Jerry Fodor's sense. This claim agrees with such theorists as Jacob Beck and Ben Phillips that a function of stimulus-control is needed for perceptual status. In support of this necessity claim, I argue, inter alia, that E.J. Green's recent architectural account misclassifies processes deploying knowledge of grammar as perceptual. (...) _Pace_ Beck and Phillips, however, I argue a function of stimulus-control is insufficient for perceptual as opposed to cognitive status. One consideration in favour of such insufficiency, noted but (I argue) not convincingly rebutted by these theorists, concerns perpetually grounded demonstrative thought. Two other considerations trade on the fact that a function of stimulus-control can arise not from blind nature but intentional design or social institutions, where so-functioning processes may but need not be perceptual. I offer two cases where such processes are cognitive, viz. skilful play-by-play announcing of ongoing events, and voluntary visualizing of ongoing events under the guidance of apt play-by-play announcements, dubbed announcement-driven visualizing (ADV). The cognitive status of these three diverse phenomena cannot be explained by an absence of a perception-like representational format or content (for ADV has such) or by a presence of personal-level mental states causally mediating between stimuli and outputs (for perception has such). A bettter explanation invokes, I argue, the non-modular character of the generating process. (shrink)

Emotions, like actions, this paper argues, are typically embodied processes that are responsive to reasons, where these reasons connect closely with the agent’s desires, intentions, or projects. If so, why are emotions, nevertheless, typically passive in a sense in which actions are not; specifically, why are emotions not cases of doing something intentionally? This paper seeks to prepare the ground for answering this question by showing that it cannot be answered within a widely influential framework in the philosophy of action (...) that has been dubbed the Standard Conception of Action, shared by such diverse theorists as G.E.M. Anscombe, Donald Davidson, Jennifer Hornsby, Michael Smith. and Michael Thompson. The Standard Conception approaches agency via the notion of someone’s doing something intentionally, and links the latter notion closely to that of doing something for a reason, so as to imply ‘Anscombe’s Thesis’ that, if someone is doing something for a reason, they are doing it intentionally. The paper shows how emotions, as reason-responsive embodied processes, counterexemplify this claim. Qua processes, they can aptly be described in the progressive, as cases of trembling with fear, exploding with anger, etc. They are a kind of ‘doing’ something, for a reason, yet not intentionally. (shrink)

Todd (2016) proposes an analysis of future-directed sentences, in particular sentences of the form 'will(φ)', that is based on the classic Russellian analysis of definite descriptions. Todd's analysis is supposed to vindicate the claim that the future is metaphysically open while retaining a simple Ockhamist semantics of future contingents and the principles of classical logic, i.e. bivalence and the law of excluded middle. Consequently, an open futurist can straightforwardly retain classical logic without appeal to supervaluations, determinacy operators, or any further (...) controversial semantical or metaphysical complication. In this paper, we will show that this quasi-Russellian analysis of 'will' both lacks linguistic motivation and faces a variety of significant problems. In particular, we show that the standard arguments for Russell's treatment of definite descriptions fail to apply to statements of the form 'will(φ)'. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a critical review of research concerned with social/environmental mechanisms that modulate human neuroendocrine function. We survey research in four behavioral systems that have been shaped through evolution: competition, partnering, sex, and pregnancy/parenting. Generally, behavioral neuroendocrine research examines how hormones affect behavior. Instead, we focus on approaches that emphasize the effects of behavioral states on hormones (i.e., the “reverse relationship”), and their functional significance. We focus on androgens and estrogens because of their relevance to sexually selected (...) traits. We conclude that the body of research employing a reversed or bidirectional perspective has an incomplete foundation: participants are mainly heterosexual men, and the functionality of induced shifts in neuroendocrine factors is generally unknown. This area of research is in its infancy, and opportunities abound for developing and testing intriguing research questions. (shrink)

Both historically and in common human practices, attitudes, and beliefs, a sense of human exceptionality in comparison with other animals undergirds normative anthropocentrism, i.e. prioritization of human interests. The question I wish to address in this article is whether we can use a particular element of the cognitive apparatus or toolkit that supposedly makes us special, namely our s e n s e of wonder, to decenter us. Several authors have argued that when we view other beings or the natural (...) world with wonder, we are inclined to care for and wish to protect them. But here I am interested in what happens when we turn our sense of wonder onto ourselves as the peculiar animal, the strange evolutionary experiment that we are. Not, as has historically been done, in an admiring way, but in an evaluatively more neutral way, characterized by puzzlement, an attunement to mystery, and a sense of unlikeliness and contingency. In particular, how might our thinking about ourselves change when we think from a wonder that revolves around our embodiment, around that which roots us most firmly in the world, in “nature,” and reminds us most clearly of our membership of a community of earthly life? Wondering at and about ourselves as an animal species may remind us of our material embeddedness in the world, but what could its ethical import be? More specifically, the paper explores whether there is an escape from the ethical quandaries of human exceptionality, which relate to the impossibility of doing with or without that exceptionality. I argue that there is not, but that in wonder we can hold together incompatible possibilities. (shrink)

The purpose of the study was to investigate how numeracy and acuity of the approximate number system (ANS) relate to the calibration and coherence of probability judgments. Based on the literature on number cognition, a first hypothesis was that those with lower numeracy would maintain a less linear use of the probability scale, contributing to overconfidence and nonlinear calibration curves. A second hypothesis was that also poorer acuity of the ANS would be associated with overconfidence and non-linearity. A third hypothesis, (...) in line with dual-systems theory (e.g., Kahneman and Frederick, 2002 ) was that people higher in numeracy should have better access to the normative probability rules, allowing them to decrease the rate of conjunction fallacies. Data from 213 participants sampled from the Swedish population showed that: (i) in line with the first hypothesis, overconfidence and the linearity of the calibration curves were related to numeracy, where people higher in numeracy were well calibrated with zero overconfidence. (ii) ANS was not associated with overconfidence and non-linearity, disconfirming the second hypothesis. (iii) The rate of conjunction fallacies was slightly, but to a statistically significant degree decreased by numeracy, but still high at all numeracy levels. An unexpected finding was that participants with better ANS acuity gave more realistic estimates of their performance relative to others. (shrink)

In 'The Reference Book' (2012), Hawthorne and Manley observe the following contrast between (1) and (2): -/- (1) In every race John won. (2) In every race, the colt won. -/- The name 'John' in (1) must intuitively refer to the same single individual for each race. However, the description 'the colt' in (2) has a co-varying reading, i.e. a reading where for each race it refers to a different colt. This observation is a prima facie problem for proponents of (...) so-called The-Predicativism which is the view that the name in (1) is really a covert definite description, viz. 'the John'. If the The-Predicativism is correct, (1) and (2) are therefore syntactically equivalent, but this makes it mysterious why only (2) would have a co-varying reading. In a recent paper, Fara (2015) argues that there is a simple and elegant way for proponents of The-Predicativism to explain this contrast. This explanation relies on discerning some subtle syntactic differences between (1) and (2) which in turn are based on assumptions about nominal restrictions a la Stanley and Szabó (2000). In this short paper, I demonstrate that Fara's proposed explanation has a variety of serious shortcomings and hence that the contrast between (1) and (2) remains a significant problem for Predicativism. (shrink)

This paper discusses different senses of Hegel’s claim that the individual is “a child of his time.” Hegel argues that the individual’s mind (“subjective Spirit”) is profoundly influenced by its time, i.e., the cultural context that forms its temporal setting (“objective Spirit”). However, Hegel makes somewhat conflicting claims in this regard: (i) that individuals harbor the presuppositions of their cultural context unreflectively; (ii) that philosophy overcomes the form of this unreflectiveness, but that the content of philosophy remains tied to its (...) time since it tries reflectively to justify current presuppositions; (iii) that this reflection occurs when a culture declines, and that reflection, too, therefore is a child of its time; (iv) that an individual may be a minority thinker (despite what claim [i] says), but that even such an individual is a child of his time in the (weaker) sense that he is unable to influence it precisely because he transcends it. (shrink)

The wide range of interpretations of aoristic and imperfective aspect in Ancient Greek cannot be attributed to unambiguous aspectual operators but suggest an analysis in terms of coercion in the spirit of de Swart (Nat Lang Linguist Theory 16:347–385, 1998). But since such an analysis cannot explain the Ancient Greek data, we combine Klein’s (Time in language, 1994) theory of tense and aspect with Egg’s (Flexible semantics for reinterpretation phenomena, 2005) aspectual coercion approach. Following Klein. (grammatical) aspect relates the runtime (...) of an eventuality and the current time of reference (topic time). We claim that these relations can trigger aspectual selection restrictions (and subsequent aspectual coercions) just like e.g. aspectually relevant temporal adverbials, and are furthermore susceptible to the Duration Principle of Egg (Flexible semantics for reinterpretation phenomena, 2005): Properties of eventualities must be compatible with respect to the duration they specify for an eventuality. The Duration Principle guides the selection between different feasible coercion operators in cases of aspectual coercion but can also trigger coercions of its own. We analyse the interpretations of aorist and imperfective as cases of coercion that avoid impending violations of aspectual selection restrictions or of the Duration Principle, which covers cases that are problematic for de Swart’s (Nat Lang Linguist Theory 16:347–385, 1998) analysis. (shrink)

It is a common view that benefits to the worse off should be given priority when health benefits are distributed. This paper addresses how to understand who is worse off in this context when individuals are differently well off at different times. The paper argues that the view that this judgment about who is worse off should be based solely on how well off individuals are when their complete lives are considered (i.e. 'the complete lives view') is implausible in this (...) context. Instead, it is argued that a pluralistic stance toward this issue should be accepted. This pluralistic stance recognizes that also the view that only focuses on how well off individuals are now and in the future (i.e. 'the forward-looking view') is relevant. The argument is based on appeals to intuitive judgments concerning who is worse off in different cases and reference to various underlying reasons why priority to benefits to the worse off is justified. (shrink)

Genetic modification leads to several important moral issues. Up until now they have mainly been discussed from the viewpoint that only individual living beings, above all animals, are morally considerable. The standpoint that also collective entities such as species belong to the moral sphere have seldom been taken into account in a more thorough way, although it is advocated by several important environmental ethicists. The main purpose of this article is to analyze in more detail than often has been done (...) what the practical consequences of this ethical position would be for the use of genetic engineering on animals and plants. The practical consequences of the holistic standpoint (focused on collective entities) of Holmes Rolston, III, is compared with the practical consequences of the individualistic standpoints (focused on individual living beings) of Bernard E. Rollin and Philipp Balzer, Klaus Peter Rippe, and Peter Schaber, respectively. The article also discusses whether the claim that species are morally considerable is tenable as a foundation for policy decisions on genetic engineering. (shrink)

This article is about professional skill and what happens when work is instrumented with technology. The purpose is to contribute to the understanding of the professional skill, its role and development in an increasingly digitalized working life. The article also argues that more research is needed to understand what is at stake in terms of professional skill in the age of digital technology. The research on which the article is based shows that people adapt their way of thinking and perceiving (...) reality to the technology they use. This means that people are gradually becoming more and more like machines. There is an ongoing intellectual inner mechanization, which can be contrasted with the outer mechanization of human muscle power that the industrial revolution entailed. The intellectually mechanized man observes and describes reality in the terms of technology and loses the ability to discern nuances and make qualified judgments gradually. The concepts of Turing’s man and functional autism capture these phenomena. Tacit engagement is a concept that captures the tacit knowledge that can only be expressed when people share physical space. The concept draws attention to the importance of the physical space and the body and what is at stake in terms of interpersonal knowledge in the wake of digital communication technology. It is not machines with supposedly human abilities and characteristics that we need to pay attention to when working life becomes increasingly digitalized, but people who gradually become like machines. What is required to safeguard the knowledge that is unique to man is bildung, i.e., to see the limits of the technology and the abstract theoretical models one uses. Art, classical literature, and drama, with their more plastic language, can reach areas where mathematics and natural science cannot reach. (shrink)

Theories of partial reference have been developed in order to retrospectively interpret rather stubborn past scientific theories like Newtonian dynamics and the phlogiston theory in a realist way, i.e., as approximately true. This is done by allowing for a term to refer to more than one entity at the same time and by providing semantic structures that determine the truth values of sentences containing partially referring terms. Two versions of theories of partial reference will be presented, a conjunctive (by Hartry (...) Field, 1973) and a disjunctive one (by Christina McLeish, 2006). In this paper, I will analyze them with regard to modal and epistemic aspects of those theories. It will be argued that a) theories of partial reference are (surprisingly) compatible with the rigidity of natural kind terms but face a weaker form of the so called “no-failures-of-reference-problem” and b) that the disjunctive account of partial reference suffers from a serious weakness: the impossibility of discriminating between descriptions that fix the reference of a term and those merely associated with it leads to the unacceptable result that past scientific theories containing such partially referring terms will come out as epistemically necessary, i.e., as a priori true. (shrink)