In public political deliberation, people will err and lie in accordance with definite patterns. Such discourse failure results from behavior that is both instrumentally and epistemically rational. The deliberative practices of a liberal democracy cannot be improved so as to overcome the tendency for rational citizens to believe and say things at odds with reliable propositions of social science. The theory has several corollaries. One is that much contemporary political philosophy can be seen as an unsuccessful attempt to vindicate, on (...) symbolic and moral grounds, the forms that discourse failure take on in public political deliberation. Another is that deliberative practices cannot be rescued even on non-epistemic grounds, such as social peace, impartiality, participation, and equality. To alleviate discourse failure, this book proposes to reduce the scope of majoritarian politics and enlarge markets. (shrink)

We systematically study the completion of choice problems in the Weihrauch lattice. Choice problems play a pivotal rôle in Weihrauch complexity. For one, they can be used as landmarks that characterize important equivalences classes in the Weihrauch lattice. On the other hand, choice problems also characterize several natural classes of computable problems, such as finite mind change computable problems, non-deterministically computable problems, Las Vegas computable problems and effectively Borel measurable functions. The closure operator of completion generates the concept of total (...) Weihrauch reducibility, which is a variant of Weihrauch reducibility with total realizers. Logically speaking, the completion of a problem is a version of the problem that is independent of its premise. Hence, studying the completion of choice problems allows us to study simultaneously choice problems in the total Weihrauch lattice, as well as the question which choice problems can be made independent of their premises in the usual Weihrauch lattice. The outcome shows that many important choice problems that are related to compact spaces are complete, whereas choice problems for unbounded spaces or closed sets of positive measure are typically not complete. (shrink)

Nelson’s programme for a stochastic mechanics aims to derive the wave function and the Schroedinger equation from natural conditions on a diffusion process in configuration space. If successful, this pro- gramme might have some advantages over the better-known determin- istic pilot-wave theory of de Broglie and Bohm. The essential points of Nelson’s strategy are reviewed, with particular emphasis on concep- tual issues relating to the role of time symmetry. The main problem in Nelson’s approach is the lack of strict equivalence (...) between the cou- pled Madelung equations and the Schroedinger equation. After a brief discussion, the paper concludes with a possible suggestion for trying to overcome this problem. (shrink)

We prove that the Weihrauch lattice can be transformed into a Brouwer algebra by the consecutive application of two closure operators in the appropriate order: first completion and then parallelization. The closure operator of completion is a new closure operator that we introduce. It transforms any problem into a total problem on the completion of the respective types, where we allow any value outside of the original domain of the problem. This closure operator is of interest by itself, as it (...) generates a total version of Weihrauch reducibility that is defined like the usual version of Weihrauch reducibility, but in terms of total realizers. From a logical perspective completion can be seen as a way to make problems independent of their premises. Alongside with the completion operator and total Weihrauch reducibility we need to study precomplete representations that are required to describe these concepts. In order to show that the parallelized total Weihrauch lattice forms a Brouwer algebra, we introduce a new multiplicative version of an implication. While the parallelized total Weihrauch lattice forms a Brouwer algebra with this implication, the total Weihrauch lattice fails to be a model of intuitionistic linear logic in two different ways. In order to pinpoint the algebraic reasons for this failure, we introduce the concept of a Weihrauch algebra that allows us to formulate the failure in precise and neat terms. Finally, we show that the Medvedev Brouwer algebra can be embedded into our Brouwer algebra, which also implies that the theory of our Brouwer algebra is Jankov logic. (shrink)

In this paper we present a Gentzen system for reasoning with contrary-to-duty obligations. The intuition behind the system is that a contrary-to-duty is a special kind of normative exception. The logical machinery to formalise this idea is taken from substructural logics and it is based on the definition of a new non-classical connective capturing the notion of reparational obligation. Then the system is tested against well-known contrary-to-duty paradoxes.

Starting from considering how radical Hobbes' rejection of teleology was, this paper presents a coherent reading of Hobbesian reason, as applied to the justification of political obligation, striking a more perspicuous third way between the ‘orthodox’ and the ‘revisionist’ readings. Both families of interpretations are partial to some elements of Hobbes' thought, therefore incapable of providing a coherent reading of its whole. A precise rendering of Hobbes' deontological reason allows a better hermeneutical understanding of his philosophy as well as a (...) keener appreciation of its relevance for past and present political thought. (shrink)

ArgumentThis article investigates the reasons behind the disappearance of Francis Glisson's theory of irritability during the eighteenth century. At a time when natural investigations were becoming increasingly polarized between mind and matter in the attempt to save both man's consciousness and the inert nature of theres extensa, Glisson's notion of a natural perception embedded in matter did not satisfy the new science's basic injunction not to superimpose perceptions and appetites on nature. Knowledgeofnature could not be based on knowledgewithinnature, i.e., on (...) the very knowledge that nature has of itself; or – to look at the same question from the point of view of the human mind – man's consciousness could not be seen as participating in forms of natural selfhood. Albrecht Haller played a key role in this story. Through his experiments, Haller thought he had conclusively demonstrated that the response given by nature when irritated did not betray any natural perceptivity, any inner life, anysentiment interiéur. In doing so, he provided a less bewildering theory of irritability for the rising communities of experimental physiology. (shrink)

The problematic issues connected to post-truth communication emerged in all their social relevance after the victory of Brexit and Donald Trump in 2016. Fake news, echo chambers, filter bubbles, and a crisis of experts are some of the phenomena of this epoch of digital revolution that everyone is forced to deal with on daily basis. Public media echoed the plea for a return to a connection between reality, truth, and communication that has been advocated for by philosophy and communication studies (...) since the beginning of the century. However, the strategy for effecting this return is not clear. The paper presents two of the most common strategies employed by practitioners of communication in the newsrooms: reliance on a new form of positivism and the necessity of inculcating critical media literacy into the general population. Concluding that both proposals are inadequate, the paper proposes a rich, relational realism stemming from Peirce’s semiotic and metaphysical studies. (shrink)

We prove a generalization of Maehara’s lemma to show that the extensions of classical and intuitionistic first-order logic with a special type of geometric axioms, called singular geometric axioms, have Craig’s interpolation property. As a corollary, we obtain a direct proof of interpolation for (classical and intuitionistic) first-order logic with identity, as well as interpolation for several mathematical theories, including the theory of equivalence relations, (strict) partial and linear orders, and various intuitionistic order theories such as apartness and positive partial (...) and linear orders. (shrink)

In a recent paper, I have analysed and criticised Leggett and Garg’s argument to the effect that macroscopic realism contradicts quantum mechanics, by contrasting their assumptions to the example of Bell’s stochastic pilot-wave theories, and have applied Dzhafarov and Kujala’s analysis of contextuality in the presence of signalling to the case of the Leggett–Garg inequalities. In this chapter, I discuss more in general the motivations for macroscopic realism, taking a cue from Einstein’s criticism of the Bohm theory, then go on (...) to summarise my previous results, with a few additional comments on other recent work on Leggett and Garg. [To appear in: E. Dzhafarov, Contextuality from Quantum Physics to Psychology.]. (shrink)

Brentano hat in seinen Analysen der Wahrnehmung zwei wichtige Punkte hervorgehoben: (a) daß die innere Wahrnehmung nur ein Bewußtsein "nebenbei" sei; und (b) daß die äußere Wahrnehmung ein räumlich Ausgedehntes (und nicht eine Idee) zum Objekt habe. Er ging aber nicht weit genug, sondern blieb dem Kartesianismus verhaftet, indem er die innere Wahrnehmung immer noch ein Erkennen nannte, und andererseits vom Objekt der äußeren Wahrnehmung sagte, daß es in Wahrheit gar nicht bestehe. Wenn man aber weiter geht und zugesteht, daß (...) die sogenannte innere Wahrnehmung gar kein eigentliches Erkennen ist, und daß es im Gegenteil die äußere Wahrnehmung ist, welche die Wirklichkeit erkennt, dann wird es unmöghch, sich in der Erkenntnistheorie mit Descartes auf unmittelbare untrügliche Evidenz zu berufen. Descartes bleibt aber insofern im Recht, als es trotz allem sinnvoll bleibt, zur Rechtfertigung von Erkenntnissen auf die sogenannte innere Wahrnehmung zu verweisen. (shrink)

Recent years have yielded many discussions on how to endow autonomous agents with the ability to make ethical decisions, and the need for explicit ethical reasoning and transparency is a persistent theme in this literature. We present a modular and transparent approach to equip autonomous agents with the ability to comply with ethical prescriptions, while still enacting pre-learned optimal behaviour. Our approach relies on a normative supervisor module, that integrates a theorem prover for defeasible deontic logic within the control loop (...) of a reinforcement learning agent. The supervisor operates as both an event recorder and an on-the-fly compliance checker w.r.t. an external norm base. We successfully evaluated our approach with several tests using variations of the game Pac-Man, subject to a variety of “ethical” constraints. (shrink)

Since Kraeplin and Kretschmer, the clarification of the limits between ordinary sadness and clinical depression has been a major concern. Much of the controversy has focused on whether and on which bases can be fixed a boundary in the continuum from the experience of sadness to major depressive episode. The new emphasis on the role of clinical judgment introduced by DSM-5 can be regarded as a way to address these issues, though leaving several questions open. After examining the implications of (...) the main topics raised by this still ongoing discussion, we will argue that in a clinical reality both mobility and intensity of emotional states may account for the discontinuity between ordinary sadness and clinical depression. (shrink)

This paper provides a computational framework, based on defeasible logic, to capture some aspects of institutional agency. Our background is Kanger-Lindahl-Pörn account of organised interaction, which describes this interaction within a multi-modal logical setting. This work focuses in particular on the notions of counts-as link and on those of attempt and of personal and direct action to realise states of affairs. We show how standard defeasible logic (DL) can be extended to represent these concepts: the resulting system preserves some basic (...) properties commonly attributed to them. In addition, the framework enjoys nice computational properties, as it turns out that the extension of any theory can be computed in time linear to the size of the theory itself. (shrink)

In this commentary I focus on similarities, discrepancies, and problems in the four large theoretical perspectives on emotions presented in this issue. Focusing on the approaches’ ideas about the functionality of emotions, I will discuss limitations that call for (additional) smaller and more focused theories.

Charles Taylor’s monumental book A Secular Age has been extensively discussed, criticized, and worked on. This volume, by contrast, explores ways of working with Taylor’s book, especially its potentials and limits for individual research projects. Due to its wide reception, it has initiated a truly interdisciplinary object of study; with essays drawn from various research fields, this volume fosters substantial conversation across disciplines.

It is a commonly held view in contemporary epistemology that for having knowledge it is necessary to have an appropriately based belief, although numerous different views exist about when a belief’s base is appropriate. Broadly speaking, they all share the view that one can only have knowledge if the belief’s base is in some sense truth-related or tracking the truth. Baseless knowledge can then be defi ned as knowledge where the belief is acquired and sustained in a way that does (...) not track the truth. I will argue that rejecting baseless knowledge leads to controversial consequences. The problem increases if we consider contrasting persons who know because of appropriate belief forming processes but who fail to possess further epistemic virtues such as understanding. I will not argue which belief bases constitute a suffi cient condition for knowledge. Rather I will stress the point that the common assumption that an appropriate basing relation constitutes a necessary condition for knowledge has controversial consequences. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 36, Issue 1, pp 35 - 52 A number of Protestants and their adversaries produced striking testimonies to the influence which Erasmus exercised on Protestant-minded people in the sixteenth-century Southern Netherlands. Yet Erasmus’ impact on the break-through and the further development of the Protestant reform movements is more complex than these testimonies seem to suggest. The first part of this article tries to probe Erasmus’ influence by using the evidence from the printing press. Data about book production, (...) book ownership, and the index of forbidden books point to a strong distribution of Erasmus’ work even in the vernacular. The second part of the article highlights how a number of rhetoricians active in Brabant and Flanders assimilated and adapted Erasmus’ ideas for a broader vernacular audience. The printing press, the activities of the rhetoricians, and schooling were interconnected agents of cultural and intellectual life which reinforced each other. They created in any case a fertile soil for religious change. (shrink)

A number of articles have highlighted the resemblances between Collingwood’s and Wittgenstein’s positions in the domains of philosophy of language, anthropology, and logic. The introduction of this essay recalls some aspects of these resem­blan­ces. However, the main difference between the two philosophers con­sists in their attitudes toward metap­hysics. Whereas Wittgenstein’s thesis in On Certainty is that “I know” does not tolerate metaphysical emphasis, Collingwood claims in An Essay on Metaphysics that it is the specific task of metaphysics to articulate our (...) basic presuppositions in their historical transformations. That difference has been noted, but never really examined. Moreover, the majority of Collingwood scholars see no reason why his historical study of basic presuppositions should usurp the name of metaphysics and, therefore, reject the term as an unfortunately chosen one. The main purpose of this essay is to explain why Collingwood’s term “metaphysics” is not so idiosyncratic as it is supposed to be and in what sense his metaphysics differs from Wittgenstein’s approach. (shrink)

The latest book by Louis Dupré, The Quest of the Absolute, is the third and final volume of a trilogy on the intellectual history of modernity. It follows Passage to Modernity (1993) and The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture (2004). Elegant writing and remarkable erudition go hand in hand with a deep insight into the objectives, achievements and deadlocks of the Romantic movement. It is not possible to look into the overwhelming variety of issues and figures that (...) come to the fore in this book and the trilogy as a whole; instead, this article focuses on Dupré’s central claim as to the development and significance of modern Western culture, starting from a specific question that time and again recurs as a key motive throughout the three volumes of his trilogy: are we postmodern or late modern? Dupré’s answer that we are dwellers of a late modern era rather than inhabitants of a postmodern age is dependent on his definition of modernity as a still ongoing ‘event that has transformed the relation between the cosmos, its transcendent source, and its human interpreter’. Since we are still standing in the midst of the event of modernity, shaped by the evolutionary process of and the strains and tensions within and between its three waves (humanism, Enlightenment, romanticism), Dupré underlines the necessity to move from hermeneutic to ontological questions. He even explicitly pleads for the rediscovery of a symbolic religious language in a tentative search for its ontological dimension and for a source of significance beyond the realm of human mind. The main question, however, is whether contemporary Western man is still capable of such a rediscovery. (shrink)