The author draws attention to a modern technique of narration that inverts the meaning of ancient myths and stories. This practice creates a new type of story that conveys the anxieties and problems of contemporary life. Kafka's story inverts the meaning of the ancient parable of the Prodigal Son. It presents us with a wayward son who cannot find his way back home and with a father who does not see, embrace, kiss, or welcome his son. The essay explores the (...) connection between entering a human community and sharing a secret. It probes the relationships between homecoming and making sense of one's life. The essay also draws attention to a specifically feminine dimension of hospitality, domesticity and reciprocity. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

I argue that epistemic injustice manifests not only in the content of our concepts, but in the spaces between them. Others have shown that epistemic injustice arises in the form of “testimonial injustice,” where an agent is harmed because her credibility is undervalued, and “hermeneutical injustice,” where an agent is harmed because some community lacks the conceptual resources that would allow her to render her experience intelligible. I think that epistemic injustice also arises as a result of prejudiced and harmful (...) defects in the inferential architecture of both scientific practice and everyday thinking. Drawing on lessons from the philosophy of science, I argue that the inferential architecture of our epistemic practices can be prejudiced and wrongful, leading to a variety of epistemic injustice that I am calling “inferential injustice.” This type of injustice is fully structural; it inheres in our epistemic practices themselves rather than as a direct result of an individual’s action. For this reason, cases of inferential injustice are importantly different from extant cases of epistemic injustice and are especially hard to track. We need a better understanding of inferential injustice so that we can avoid and ameliorate cases such as the ones I present here. (shrink)

BackgroundConcerns about research misbehavior in academic science have sparked interest in the factors that may explain research misbehavior. Often three clusters of factors are distinguished: individual factors, climate factors and publication factors. Our research question was: to what extent can individual, climate and publication factors explain the variance in frequently perceived research misbehaviors?MethodsFrom May 2017 until July 2017, we conducted a survey study among academic researchers in Amsterdam. The survey included three measurement instruments that we previously reported individual results of (...) and here we integrate these findings.ResultsOne thousand two hundred ninety-eight researchers completed the survey. Results showed that individual, climate and publication factors combined explained 34% of variance in perceived frequency of research misbehavior. Individual factors explained 7%, climate factors explained 22% and publication factors 16%.ConclusionsOur results suggest that the perceptions of the research climate play a substantial role in explaining variance in research misbehavior. This suggests that efforts to improve departmental norms might have a salutary effect on behavior. (shrink)

In this book two of the leading figures in argumentation theory present a view of argumentation as a means of resolving differences of opinion by testing the acceptability of the disputed positions. Their model of a 'critical discussion' serves as a theoretical tool for analysing, evaluating and producing argumentative discourse. They develop a method for the reconstruction of argumentative discourse that takes into account all aspects that are relevant to a critical assessment. They also propose a practical code of behaviour (...) for discussants who want to resolve their differences in a reasonable way. This is a major contribution to the study of argumentation and will be of particular value to professionals and graduate students in speech communication, informal logic, rhetoric, critical thinking, linguistics, and philosophy. (shrink)

Leading scholars address the ethical and practical dimensions of Heidegger's thought.

In the pragma-dialectical approach, fallacies are considered incorrect moves in a discussion for which the goal is successful resolution of a dispute. Ten rules are given for effective conduct at the various stages of such a critical discussion (confrontation, opening, argumentation, concluding). Fallacies are discussed as violations of these rules, taking into account all speech acts which are traditionally recognized as fallacies. Special attention is paid to the role played by implicitness in fallacies in everyday language use. It is stressed (...) that identifying and acknowledging fallacies in ordinary discussions always has a conditional character. Differences between the pragma-dialectical perspective, the Standard Treatment, and the formal logic approach to fallacy analysis are discussed. (shrink)

My question in this paper concerns what eudaimonist virtue ethics (EVE) might have to say about what makes right actions right. This is obviously an important question if we want to know what (if anything) distinguishes EVE from various forms of consequentialism and deontology in ethical theorizing. The answer most commonly given is that according to EVE, an action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous person would do in the circumstances. However, understood as a claim (...) about what makes particular actions right, this is not especially plausible. What makes a virtuous person’s actions right must reasonably be a matter of the feature, or features, which she, via her practical wisdom, appreciates as ethically relevant in the circumstances, and not the fact that someone such as herself would perform those actions. I argue that EVE instead should be understood as a more radical alternative in ethical philosophy, an alternative that relies on the background assumption that no general account or criterion for what makes right actions right is available to us: right action is simply too complex to be captured in a ‘finite and manageable set of…moral principles’ (McKeever and Ridge, Principled ethics, Oxford University Press, 2006 , p. 139). This does not rule out the possibility that there might be some generalizations about how we should act which hold true without exception. Perhaps there are some things which we must never do, as well as some features of the world which always carry normative weight (even though their exact weight may vary from one context to another). Still, these things are arguably few and far between, and what we must do to ensure that we reliably recognize what is right in particular situations is to acquire practical wisdom. Nothing short of that could do the job. (shrink)

Recently, there has been a heavy debate in the US about the government’s use of data mining in its fight against terrorism. Privacy concerns in fact led the Congress to terminate the funding of TIA, a program for advanced information technology to be used in the combat of terrorism. The arguments put forward in this debate, more specifically those found in the main report and minority report by the TAPAC established by the Secretary of Defense to examine the TIA issue, (...) will be analysed to trace the deeper roots of this controversy. This analysis will in turn be used as a test case to examine the adequacy of the usual theoretical frameworks for these kinds of issues, in particular the notion of privacy. Whereas the dominant theoretical framing of the notion of privacy turns around access to information, most of the core arguments in the debate do not fit in this kind of framework. The basic disagreements in the controversy are not about mere access, they involve both access and use. Furthermore, whereas the issue of access by itself refers to a more or less static situation, the real disagreements much more concern the organisational dynamics of the use of information, the mechanisms in the organisation that control these dynamics, and the awareness present within the organisation of the ‘social risks’ these dynamics represent. The bottom line question is whether the assessment of these gives sufficient reason for trust. (shrink)

This article does three things. First, it asks a new question about transformative education, namely ‘what is the role of power and trust in the decision of whether to transform one’s meaning scheme in the face of new information or whether to simply reject the new information?’ Secondly, it develops a five-stage model which elaborates on the role of this decision in transformative learning. Finally, it uses grounded-theory and the five-stage model to argue that power and trust play an important (...) role in facilitating transformative learning. (shrink)

This theoretical expose explores the complex notion of argumentative style, which has so far been largely neglected in argumentation theory. After an introduction of the problems involved, the theoretical tools for identifying the properties of the discourse in which an argumentative style manifests itself are explained from a pragma-dialectical perspective and a theoretical definition of argumentative style is provided that does full justice to its role in argumentative discourse. The article concludes with a short reflection upon the next steps that (...) need to be taken in argumentation theory in further substantiating the notion of argumentative style. (shrink)

The issues addressed in philosophical papers on quotation generally concern only a particular type of quotation, which I call 'closed quotation'. The other main type, 'open quotation', is ignored, and this neglect leads to bad theorizing. Not only is a general theory of quotation out of reach: the specific phenomenon of closed quotation itself cannot be properly understood if it is not appropriately situated within the kind to which it belongs. Once the distinction between open and closed quotation has been (...) drawn and properly appreciated, it is tempting to consider that only closed quotation is relevant to semantics. Open quotation is more a matter of pragmatics: it is a matter of what people do with words, rather than a matter of content and truth-conditions. In this way one can provide the beginning of a justification for the neglect of open quotation in current semantic theorizing. There is some truth in this view, yet the phenomenon of 'mixed quotation', investigated at length in this paper, is interesting precisely because it shows that things are not so simple. Important issues concerning the interface between semantics and pragmatics will thus be raised. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the exceptional severity of the Spanish flu, one of the most deadly events in recorded human history, is an unsolved mystery. However, even detailed aspects such as its W-shaped mortality curve are well explained by Paul Ewald’s theory of the evolution of virulence. Understanding the causes of the Spanish flu will help to prevent future epidemics.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

During the past thirty years the pragma-dialectical theorizing has developed in various steps from designing an abstract ideal model for critical discussion to examining strategic manoeuvring in the various argumentative activity types in which argumentative discourse manifests itself in argumentative reality. The response to the theoretical proposals that have been made includes, next to approval, also various kinds of criticisms. This paper explores the nature and thrust of these criticisms. In doing so, a distinction is made between criticisms concerning the (...) dialectical and the pragmatic dimensions of pragma-dialectics, the scope of the theory, the rhetorical dimension and moral quality, the treatment of the fallacies, and the epistemic dimension. (shrink)

According to van Eemeren, argumentation theory is a hybrid discipline, because it requires a multidisciplinary, if not interdisciplinary approach, combining descriptive and normative insights. He points out that modern argumentation theorists give substance to the discipline by relying either on a dialectical perspective, concentrating on the reasonableness of argumentation, or on a rhetorical perspective, concentrating on its effectiveness. Both the dialectical and the rhetorical perspective are interpreted in ways related to how they were viewed by Aristotle, but in modern argumentation (...) theory the relationship between the two, captured in Aristotle’s term antistrophos, is lost. According to van Eemeren, this relationship, which he considers crucial to a full-fledged argumentation theory, has been recovered in extended pragma-dialectics with the help of the theoretical notion of ‘strategic manoeuvring.’. (shrink)

A la recherche du temps perdu van Proust lezen is binnen een reflectie op de zintuiglijkheid niets minder dan een feest. We raken via de rijke evocaties en metaforen in de werkelijkheid van oorden en plekken ondergedompeld. Dat wil zeggen dat we zelf deel gaan uitmaken van hun lijfelijkheid en bijgevolg van hun eigen tijd. In de reflectie genieten we van een ‘ont-plooiing’ van het sensuele, van een verlangen naar wereldlijkheid. Een tegenpool vinden we in het latere werk van Beckett. (...) Zijn wereld schijnt af te sterven, het lichaam-subject vergaat, de oorden en plekken verschrompelen, de dingen vervreemden en de gebeurtenissen zijn nog slechts accidenten waarvan de reikwijdte niet meer te verwoorden valt. Er is een ‘in-plooiing’ van het sensuele. De woorden sterven. De wereld ‘ontwereldlijkt’. (shrink)

Dat in het rituele gedrag symbolen geen lege vormen zijn die buiten alle werkelijkheid zouden staan, is een uitdaging aan de moderniteit die in natuurwetenschappelijkheid haar hoogste kenniseisen vervuld ziet. In dit artikel nemen we een oud dispuut over de transsubstantiatie of wezensverandering in het ritueel of sacrament van de christelijke avondmaalsviering of eucharistieviering als uitgangspunt. Dit dispuut gaat over de werkelijkheidswaarde van brood en wijn als het lichaam en bloed van Christus. Als we het symbool in zijn oorspronkelijke betekenis (...) van het verbindende nemen en de notie ‘werkelijkheid’ niet uitsluitend aan de criteria van de natuurwetenschappelijkheid onderwerpen, dan kunnen we inzien hoe rituelen, juist omdat ze symboliseren, werkelijkheid op het oog hebben. (shrink)

There is no reason to expect that the twenty-first century will not see the rise of new modes of religiosity, which will demand new styles of analysis and new categories of thought.

In this article it is pointed out what kind of rules for communication and argumentation are required in order to make it possible to resolve disputes in an orderly way. In section 2, Gricean maxims and Searlean speech act conditions are integrated in such a way that five general rules for communication can be formulated. In section 3, starting from Lewis's definition of convention, it is argued that the interactional effect of accepting is conventionally linked with the complex communicative act (...) complex of argumentation. In section 4, the rules for argumentation are placed in a dialogical perspective. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We outline a number of ethical objections to genetic technologies aimed at enhancing human capacities and traits. We then argue that, despite the persuasiveness of some of these objections, they are insufficient to stop the development and use of genetic enhancement technologies. We contend that the inevitability of the technologies results from a particular guiding worldview of humans as masters of the human evolutionary future, and conclude that recognising this worldview points to new directions for ethical thinking about genetic (...) enhancement technologies. (shrink)

Although there is a consensus among philosophers of mathematics and mathematicians that mathematical explanations exist, only a few authors have proposed accounts of explanation in mathematics. These accounts fit into the unificationist or top-down approach to explanation. We argue that these models can be complemented by a bottom-up approach to explanation in mathematics. We introduce the mechanistic model of explanation in science and discuss the possibility of using this model in mathematics, arguing that using it does not presuppose a Platonist (...) view of mathematics and allows one to gain insight into why a theorem is true by answering what-if-things-had-been-different questions. (shrink)

In Waartoe Wetenschap? onderzoekt Frans W. Saris de wetenschap in evolutionair perspectief en hij bepleit een radical enlightenment in een dertiental essays en een toneeltekst waarin zulke uiteenlopende wetenschappers verschijnen als ...

With the transition from a one-person psychology of instinctual needs to a two-person psychology of relational needs, the metapsychological focus tends to shift from instinct theory to emotion motivation and systems theory, and, accordingly, familiar concepts have to be rethought. In this article, the superego is reconceptualized as a psychic regulation system for self-evaluation, comprising the capacity for empathy, the proneness to experience self-conscious emotions, such as shame, pride, and guilt, and the capacity for moral reasoning. This new conceptualization provides (...) useful tools for addressing the actual functioning of the conscience in clinical psychoanalysis. Affective neuropsychoanalysis can make important contributions to this rethinking of the superego. It also brings clinical practice and psychoanalytic metapsychology closer to empirical research beyond the scope of clinical psychoanalysis. The new model offers ample opportunities for integrating affective neuroscience into the functioning of the conscience. (shrink)