This article has a twofold aim. On the one hand, it will seive as an introduction to the three essays by Johannes Bartuschat, Luca Bianchi and Paolo Falzone. In this sense, it provides an updated survey of the educational milieu in thirteenth century Tuscany and presents a sketch of Dante’s broader intellectual climate, quickly touching on a few instances of philosophical learning that Dante elaborated on: the hierarchy of knowledge and his conception of Christian Skepticism. On the other (...) hand, these pages try to draw a more individual profile of Dante as a thinker and involve the existential relevance of issues like that of ”recognized dignity’. Here, I will also suggest an unusual approach to look at Dante’s original philosophical project: i.e., a robust effort to draw the last implications from a radical understanding of Love. (shrink)

Bd. 1: Grundlegung der Ästhetik. Bd. 2: Die ästhetischen Grundgestalten. Bd. 3: Kunstphilosophie und Metaphysik der Ästhetik Bd. 1 , XII- 560, Bd. 2 , XX-602 und Bd. 3 : XX-600.

Episodic memory has been analyzed in a number of different ways in both philosophy and psychology, and most controversy has centered on its self-referential, autonoetic character. Here, we offer a comprehensive characterization of episodic memory in representational terms and propose a novel functional account on this basis. We argue that episodic memory should be understood as a distinctive epistemic attitude taken toward an event simulation. In this view, episodic memory has a metarepresentational format and should not be equated with beliefs (...) about the past. Instead, empirical findings suggest that the contents of human episodic memory are often constructed in the service of the explicit justification of such beliefs. Existing accounts of episodic memory function that have focused on explaining its constructive character through its role in future-oriented mental time travel do justice neither to its capacity to ground veridical beliefs about the past nor to its representational format. We provide an account of the metarepresentational structure of episodic memory in terms of its role in communicative interaction. The generative nature of recollection allows us to represent and communicate the reasons why we hold certain beliefs about the past. In this process, autonoesis corresponds to the capacity to determine when and how to assert epistemic authority in making claims about the past. A domain where such claims are indispensable are human social engagements. Such engagements commonly require the justification of entitlements and obligations, which is often possible only by explicit reference to specific past events. (shrink)

It is often assumed that deflationist accounts of truth are a product of philosophy of logic and language in the twentieth century. In this paper I show why this assumption is historically short-sighted. An early version of deflationism about truth can already be found in Brentano’s 1889 lecture “On the Concept of Truth.” That Brentano is a precursor of deflationism has gone largely unnoticed because of a different reception of his lecture: according to most scholars, Brentano proposes in it a (...) revision of the correspondence theory of truth that he later rejected in favour of an epistemic theory. Contrary to this received interpretation, I argue that Brentano actually tried to show how one can minimize an account of truth without thereby sacrificing a robust realist intuition about the objectivity of truth. Brentano held on to this deflationist view in his later years, when he assigned self-evident judgments a primary role in our understanding of truth. (shrink)

Demographic change, change in family structures, growing ethnic plurality resulting from migration, social inequality and so on require new ways of addressing spiritual and social needs in many Western European countries. In view of these current social changes, increasingly more effort is being put into strengthening cooperation between church congregations and diaconal institutions at the local level. This article will focus on the reciprocal relationship between the church and its immediate local context by focusing on one of the church’s ministries (...) – diaconia – as a service of God’s people to the world. Although diaconia is part of the church, it has developed in organisations separate from the church and thus as a parallel structure to the institutionalised church structure in many countries. The current changes offer opportunities for the church and diaconia to join forces and to overcome cooperational difficulties at the local level. The objective of this article is to draw attention to the potential of the social space for collaboration, to analyse hindrances to collaborative efforts on a practical level and to point out what steps the church and diaconia may take to further local collaboration.Contribution: The contribution of this article is to analyse the social space with regard to the collaboration between local churches and diaconal organisations, and thereby to point out its potential for their further development in line with the journal’s focus on original ideas in practical theology. (shrink)

In Persson & Wallin we show that the common claim that internal validity should be understood as prior to external validity has, at least, three epistemologically problematic aspects: experimental artefacts, the implications of causal relations, and how the mechanism is measured. Each aspect demonstrates how important external validity is for the internal validity of the experimental result. This note is an invited summary of these results.

Several promising approaches have been developed to represent conscious experience in terms of mathematical spaces and structures. What is missing, however, is an explicit definition of what a ‘mathematical structure of conscious experience’ is. Here, we propose such a definition. This definition provides a link between the abstract formal entities of mathematics and the concreta of conscious experience; it complements recent approaches that study quality spaces, qualia spaces, or phenomenal spaces; and it provides a general method to identify and investigate (...) structures of conscious experience. We hope that ultimately this work provides a basis for developing a common formal language to study consciousness. (shrink)

The goal of the present article is to contribute to the epistemology and methodology of computer simulations. The central thesis is that the process of simulation modeling takes the form of an explorative cooperation between experimenting and modeling. This characteristic mode of modeling turns simulations into autonomous mediators in a specific way; namely, it makes it possible for the phenomena and the data to exert a direct influence on the model. The argumentation will be illustrated by a case study of (...) the general circulation models of meteorology, the major simulation models in climate research. (shrink)

This chapter examines the deep connections between biological organization, agency, and evolution by natural selection. Using Griesemer’s account of the reproducer, I argue that the basic unit of evolution is not a genetic replicator, but a complex hierarchical life cycle. Understanding the self-maintaining and self-proliferating properties of evolvable reproducers requires an organizational account of ontogenesis and reproduction. This leads us to an extended and disambiguated set of minimal conditions for evolution by natural selection—including revised or new principles of heredity, variation, (...) and ontogenesis. More importantly, the continuous maintenance of biological organization within and across generations implies that all evolvable systems are agents or contain agents among their parts. This means that we ought to take agency seriously—to better understand the concept and its role in explaining biological phenomena—if we aim to obtain an organismic theory of evolution in the original spirit of Darwin’s struggle for existence. This kind of understanding must rely on an agential perspective on evolution, complementing and succeeding existing structural, functional, and processual approaches. I sketch a tentative outline of such an agential perspective and present a survey of methodological and conceptual challenges that will have to be overcome if we are to properly implement it. (shrink)

This book is the first to trace the origins and significance of positivism on a global scale. Taking their cues from Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, positivists pioneered a universal, experience-based culture of scientific inquiry for studying nature and society—a new science that would enlighten all of humankind. Positivists envisaged one world united by science, but their efforts spawned many. Uncovering these worlds of positivism, the volume ranges from India, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula to Central Europe, (...) Russia, and Brazil, examining positivism’s impact as one of the most far-reaching intellectual movements of the modern world. Positivists reinvented science, claiming it to be distinct from and superior to the humanities. They predicated political governance on their refashioned science of society, and as political activists, they sought and often failed to reconcile their universalism with the values of multiculturalism. Providing a genealogy of scientific governance that is sorely needed in an age of post-truth politics, this volume breaks new ground in the fields of intellectual and global history, the history of science, and philosophy. (shrink)

Was macht das vergleichende Sehen mit Bildern und Betrachter*innen? Wie wird der Blick durch das Vergleichen gelenkt und wie werden Bilder vergleichbar gemacht? Ob unter Kunstkenner*innen des 18. Jahrhunderts, in Ausstellungen oder in der Videokunst des 20. Jahrhunderts: Überall animieren Vergleichspraktiken zu körperlichen, medialen oder metaphorischen Blickwechseln. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes nehmen in breiter historischer sowie systematischer Perspektive die Praktiken in den Blick, die dem Vergleichen von Bildern und Artefakten zugrunde liegen. Ein besonderes Augenmerk liegt dabei auf den Verkettungen von (...) Praktiken, Akteur*innen und Objekten. (shrink)

Polygenic effects have more than one cause. They testify to the fact that several causal contributors are sometimes simultaneously involved in causation. The importance of polygenic causation was noticed early on by Mill (1893). It has since been shown to be a problem for causal-law approaches to causation and accounts of causation cast in terms of capacities. However, polygenic causation needs to be examined more thoroughly in the emerging literature on causal mechanisms. In this paper I examine whether an influential (...) theory of mechanisms proposed by Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden and Carl Craver can accommodate polygenic effects and other forms of causal interaction. This theory is problematic, I will argue, because it ascribes a central role to activities. In it, activities are needed not only to constitute mechanisms but also to perform the causal role of mechanisms. Any such mechanism-as-activity will be incompatible with causal situations where either no or merely another kind of activity occurs. But, as I will try to illustrate in this paper, both kinds of situation may be frequent. If I am right, the view that Machamer and colleagues suggest leads to an impoverished conception of mechanism. (shrink)

Marketing ethics is normally marketed as a sub-specialization of business ethics. In this paper, marketing ethics serves as an umbrella term for advertising, PR and sales ethics and as an example of professional ethics. To structure the paper, four approaches are distinguished, with a focus on typical professional conflicts, codes, roles or climates respectively. Since the moral climate approachis more inclusive than the other approaches, the last part of the paper deals mainly with moral climates, within the above-mentioned marketing sub-professions.

Episodic representations can be entertained either as “remembered” or “imagined”—as outcomes of experience or as simulations of such experience. Here, we argue that this feature is the product of a dedicated cognitive function: the metacognitive capacity to determine the mnemicity of mental event simulations. We argue that mnemicity attribution should be distinguished from other metacognitive operations (such as reality monitoring) and propose that this attribution is a “cognitive gadget”—a distinctively human ability made possible by cultural learning. Cultural learning is a (...) type of social learning in which traits are inherited through social interaction. In the case of mnemicity, one culturally learns to discriminate metacognitive “feelings of remembering” from other perceptual, emotional, action-related, and metacognitive feelings; to interpret feelings of remembering as indicators of memory rather than imagination; and to broadcast the interpreted feelings in culture- and context-specific ways, such as “I was there” or “I witnessed it myself.” We review evidence from the literature on memory development and scaffolding, metacognitive learning and teaching, as well as cross-cultural psychology in support of this view before pointing out various open questions about the nature and development of mnemicity highlighted by our account. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

A condensed history of philosophy from the Pre-Socratics through to the 1960s, now extended to include the latest developments of Analytical philosopy. This new complemented edition follows the division of the original text into four parts: Ancient Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy, Modern Philosophy (17th and 18th century), and 19th and 20th century Philosophy. It contains a new preface and introduction, and a new fifth part on Analytical Philosophy by the Cambridge-based philosopher Clare Hay, carrying the story into the 21st century.

We claim that adjustable parameters play a crucial role in building and applying simulation models. We analyze that role and illustrate our findings using examples from equations of state in thermodynamics. In building simulation models, two types of experiments, namely, simulation and classical experiments, interact in a feedback loop, in which model parameters are adjusted. A critical discussion of how adjustable parameters function shows that they are boon and bane of simulation. They help to enlarge the scope of simulation far (...) beyond what can be determined by theoretical knowledge, but at the same time undercut the epistemic value of simulation models. (shrink)

Aim of the lectures -- Early Brahmanical literature -- Panini's grammar -- A passage from the Chandogya Upanisad -- The structures of languages -- The Buddhist contribution -- Vaisesika and language -- Verbal knowledge -- The contradictions of Nagarjuna -- The reactions of other thinkers -- Sarvastivada Samkhya -- The Agamasastra of Gaudapada -- Sankara -- Kashmiri Saivism -- Jainism -- Early Vaisesika -- Critiques of the existence of a thing before its arising -- Nyaya -- Mimamsa -- The Abhidharmakosa (...) bhasya of Vasubandhu -- The Abhidharmasamuccaya of Asanga and its bhasya -- Bhartrhari -- The problem of negation -- Dignaga and verbal knowledge -- The Bodhisattvabhumi -- Prajnakaragupta -- Indian thinkers and the correspondence principle -- Appendix. The Mahaprajnaparamitasastra and the Samkhya tanmatras. (shrink)

Facts are once again put to work in philosophical enterprises. The discussion in this paper is conducted under the presumption that we for this reason need to examine the nature of facts anew. To some extent it has been taken for granted that the question of properties and particulars is the primary problem to solve, and that the question of facts is secondary. This approach naturally leads to many of the old problems of facts and complexes. By taking facts as (...) truly basic, we should see how we can construct the particulars and universals we still have need for. In order to further this idea, I suggest that facts may be though of as tropes or once-for-all occurrent properties. However, this characterisation of facts is acceptable only if tropes manage without substances or "thin" particulars for their instantiation. (shrink)

Departing from frequent use of moral conflict cases in business ethics teaching and research, the paper suggests an elaboration of a moral conflict approach within business ethics, both conceptually and philosophically. The conceptual elaboration borrows from social science conflict research terminology, while the philosophical elaboration presents casuistry as a kind of practical, inductive argumentation with a focus on paradigmatic examples.