It is argued that the so‐called principles of “strong centering” and “weak centering” central to the traditional Lewis‐Stalnaker semantics for counterfactuals are both fallacious. A foundation for an alternative semantics without these prinsciples is outlined. The core idea is that the statistically normal worlds – rather than those worlds most qualitatively similar to the actual world – should serve as the semantical fulcrum.

The two essays brought together in this volume are born from the conviction that recent discussions of the foundations of history and science of man cannot be fully understood without reference to their historical and philosophical background. A careful examination of the methodological assumptions of any given discipline is an essential part of its development. Yet the problem has been ignored, for the most part, by historians and social scientists alike until very recently. They have been inclined to confine themselves (...) to the refinement of research techniques and to leave the question of the methodological and theoretical foundations of history and the social sciences entirely to the philosopher. It is primarily with this question that this book is concerned. Thus it is a study of history as well as a study of philosophy of science. (shrink)

In The Philosophical Quarterly, 48 , Alexander Bird raises an objection against the conditional analysis of dispositions: where an ‘antidote’ is present all the supposed conditions for manifestation of a disposition are fulfilled but the manifestation does not occur. But Bird’s argument suffers from equivocation. If we spell out properly whether the disposition's conditions are to include the presence of the antidote or not, the apparent counter‐examples disappear. So his examples do not undermine the conditional analysis of dispositions; they show (...) merely that we need to be careful about describing the examples consistently. (shrink)

We know things that entail things we apparently cannot come to know. This is a problem for those of us who trust that knowledge is closed under entailment. In the paper I discuss the solutions to this problem offered by epistemic disjunctivism and contextualism. The contention is that neither of these theories has the resources to deal satisfactory with the problem.

Gettier's reminder that knowledge cannot be identified with justified true belief started a heated debate about what knowledge really is.

In his ‘Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking’ (Sats – Nordic Journal of Philosophy: 2005), Joshua Smith presents some very interesting points of criticism relating to my ‘Outline of a New Semantic for Counterfactuals’ (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85: 2004). In the following I'll do three things. I will briefly summarise the central theses from that paper and sketch the arguments that I take to support these theses. Then I will discuss Smith's objections; identify some points of agreement – but also some (...) points of disagreements – and try to shed some more light on certain central views of mine that might otherwise give rise to objections akin to those offered by Smith. Finally I will pursue a bit further a line of enquiry taken up by Smith. The central question here is to which extent, and why, tracking (and safety) theories of knowledge are vulnerable to Gettier cases. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that a sensitivity theory of knowledge cannot account for intuitively appealing instances of higher-order knowledge. In this paper, we argue that it can once careful attention is paid to the methods or processes by which we typically form higher-order beliefs. We base our argument on what we take to be a well-motivated and commonsensical view on how higher-order knowledge is typically acquired, and we show how higher-order knowledge is possible in a sensitivity theory once this (...) view is adopted. (shrink)

You've just read the first sentence of this paper. Would you have read it if some butterfly in Brazil had had some extra nectar for breakfast? You probably think so. But this trivial observation apparently has very dramatic consequences. For instance, it seems to imply that you would have read that very sentence even if someone had offered you $1.000.000 not to do so. This paper is about what thus looks like a paradox in that a counterintuitive conclusion can seemingly (...) be derived from plausible premises and assumptions. The key is to recognise that ‘you would have read the sentence if the butterfly had feasted’ admits of distinct readings: one on which it is false, which is the traditional counterfactual implying causal relevance, and another on which it is true, which we call an irrelevant semifactual. While a fully satisfactory solution would need to develop and defend a semantic analysis of such conditional sentences, our modest aim is merely to sketch how the paradox might be solved. The underpinning theoretical work is for a different paper. (shrink)

We are living in a world which is severely crisis-ridden and faces some major challenges. The fact that we are currently facing a genuine global pandemic brings about even more uncertainty. The social and political institutions, which emerged and consolidated during the 20th century, and which created stability, have become fragile. The young generation born in the 1990s and onwards have experienced 9/11 and the ‘war against terrorism’, the financial crisis of 2008, changes to climate, environmental degradation, and most recently (...) the COVID-19 pandemic. The generation born between 1960 and 1990 have had the same experiences along with severe economic crises in the 1970s and 1980s and the Cold War. Some of these challenges are in different ways intertwined with capitalism and its crises, while others are linked to the rapid development of new technologies, in particular innovations within communication and information technologies. This introduction lists the most important grand challenges facing the world as they have emerged more recently. The five articles following this introduction address some of these challenges, with particular attention to the problems of capitalism and democracy and the relation between these two areas. Most authors agree that climate change and the destruction of the environment are the biggest and most pertinent problems to address, but it is their stance that we can only meet these challenges if democracy is functioning well. (shrink)

_English summary_ This article investigates the impact of moral statistics on suicide in Denmark in the 19. century. Championed as a new European social science, moral statistics was able to reveal statistical regularity on social and moral issues – such as suicide. Statistics proved, firstly, that Denmark experienced one of the highest suicide rates in Europe. Secondly, as demonstrated in 1846 by the Danish physician C. J. Kayser, statistics uncovered that suicides over time occurred regularly in the case of frequency, (...) gender distribution, method of self-killing etc.. This new knowledge encouraged Danish statisticians and physicians to look for societal causes rather than the former theological focus on individual sin. The statistical representations of suicide paved the way for two different interpretations of suicide in the second half of the 19. century, one of which linked suicide rates to the evils of modernisation and secularisation of society, emphasizing drunkenness, alcoholism, and moral decline as causes of suicide. Another, less prevalent, explanation stressed the social and economic inequality of industrialisation as the cause of rising suicide rates. ‘The moral explanation’ prevailed and the official statistical reports as well as newspaper articles was clearly affected by the idea that the rising suicide rates of the 19. century reflected an attack on core values of bourgeois society; moral, sobriety and religion. This way suicide statistics was embedded in a broader social representation reflecting a fear of breakdown of traditional values in modern society. (shrink)

Limiting intensive care is paid increasing attention. In the echoing call for physicians’ ethical self‐restriction, it is easily overlooked, however, that ethics needs a critical epistemological analysis before it can suffice as an emergency brake to futile treatment. This analysis is provided by the present essay. The authors suggest that the difficulties of resolving moral dilemmas related to limiting intensive care may just be due to the unclarified epistemological status of moral claims. Even if normative ethics cannot prescribe right decisions, (...) but only draw conclusions from defined premises, the premises may or may not be true. Their intertwined descriptive and normative evidence is endorsed in an academic and political discourse. There will necessarily be various demands for rationality in prudent decisions between physicians, their patients and society. These demands are formulated dialogically through critical questions and justified answers. A good argument is the convincing one that, finally and ideally, leads to the absence of open objections. Thus, in the end the rightness of a given decision does not depend on axiomatic moral principles, but is comparative and conditional, as it is given in an omnilateral argument. Neither is it the democratic process of shared decision making that we should evaluate, but rather the argumentative state itself, when we judge the morality of health politics and clinical practice. (shrink)

The World Health Organization has declared a world pandemic due to COVID-19. In response, most affected countries have enacted measures involving compulsory confinement and restrictions on free movement, which likely influence citizens' lifestyles. This study investigates changes in health risk behaviors with duration of confinement. An online cross-sectional survey served to collect data about the Spanish adult population regarding health behaviors during the first 3 weeks of confinement. A large sample of participants from all Spanish regions completed the survey. Binomial (...) logistic regressions adjusted for socioeconomic characteristics, body mass index, previous HRBs, and confinement context were conducted to investigate associations between the number of weeks confined and a set of six HRBs. When adjusted, we observed significantly lower odds of experiencing a higher number of HRBs than before confinement overall in a time-dependent fashion: OR 0.63; 95% CI: 0.49–0.81 for the second and OR 0.47; 95% CI: 0.36–0.61 for the third week of confinement. These results were equally consistent in all age and gender subgroup analyses. The present study indicates that changes toward a higher number of HRBs than before confinement, as well as the prevalence of each HRB except screen exposure, decreased during the first 3 weeks of COVID-19 confinement, and thus the Spanish adult population may have adapted to the new situational context by gradually improving their health behaviors. (shrink)

Illness and injury are often accompanied by experiences of bodily objectification. Medical treatments intended to restore the structure or function of the body may amplify these experiences of objectification by recasting the patient’s body as a biomedical object—something to be examined, measured, and manipulated. In this article, we contribute to the phenomenology of embodiment in illness and medicine by reexamining the results of a qualitative study of the experiences of nurses and patients isolated in an intensive care unit during the (...) first wave of COVID-19. Drawing upon the phenomenological concept of embodiment—as developed in the work of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Emmanuel Levinas—we reconsider how bodily objectification manifests in complex clinical encounters. We show that, in these settings, objectification is not simply the unilateral act of a clinician objectifying a patient. Rather, both clinicians and patients reported a variety of objectifying experiences influenced by their interactions, the immediate context of the intensive care milieu, and the broader atmosphere of a global pandemic. In light of these findings, we argue that bodily objectification in illness and medicine can often be more complicated than typically presented in the phenomenological literature. (shrink)

BackgroundDecision-making in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest should ideally include clinical and ethical factors. Little is known about the extent of ethical considerations and their influence on prehospital resuscitation. We aimed to determine the transparency in medical records regarding decision-making in prehospital resuscitation with a specific focus on ethically relevant information and consideration in resuscitation providers’ documentation.MethodsThis was a Danish nationwide retrospective observational study of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests from 2016 through 2018. After an initial screening using broadly defined inclusion criteria, two experienced (...) philosophers performed a qualitative content analysis of the included medical records according to a preliminary codebook. We identified ethically relevant content in free-text fields and categorised the information according to Beauchamp and Childress’ four basic bioethical principles: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. ResultsOf 16,495 medical records, we identified 759 (4.6%) with potentially relevant information; 710 records (4.3%) contained ethically relevant information, whereas 49 did not. In general, the documentation was vague and unclear. We identified four kinds of ethically relevant information: patients’ wishes and perspectives on life; relatives’ wishes and perspectives on patients’ life; healthcare professionals’ opinions and perspectives on resuscitation; and do-not-resuscitate orders. We identified some “best practice” examples that included all perspectives of decision-making. ConclusionsThere is sparse and unclear evidence on ethically relevant information in the medical records documenting resuscitation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. However, the “best practice” examples show that providing sufficient documentation of decision-making is, in fact, feasible. To ensure transparency surrounding prehospital decisions in cardiac arrests, we believe that it is necessary to ensure more systematic documentation of decision-making in prehospital resuscitation. (shrink)

Bu metnin gayesi, dil felsefesi, mantık ve ontoloji alanlarında ortak olarak karşılaşılan boş adlar problemini ele almaktır. Metinde, çağdaş semantik kuramlarının ve dil felsefesinin ortaya çıkışında önemli rolü olan J. S. Mill’in özel adlar üzerine düşüncelerinden başlanarak, analitik felsefenin temelini atan, köşe taşları diyebileceğimiz G. Frege ve B. Russell’ın semantik kuramlarına değinilecektir. Daha sonra, kendi dil felsefesi pozisyonunu bu iki isimin eleştirisi üzerinden kurgulayan S. Kripke’nin, bu isimlere karşı olan argümanları incelenecektir. Metinde, bu incelemeyi gerçekleştirdikten sonra, S. Kripke ve B. (...) Russell’ın dil felsefesinde savundukları pozisyonlar ile onların ortaya koydukları mantık modellerinin arasındaki ilişki ele alınacaktır. Nihai olarak, dil felsefesi, mantık ve ontolojinin sınırlarının ne kadar iç içe geçmiş olduğu, ismi geçen filozofların dil felsefesindeki kuramlarının ontolojik çıktıları incelenerek ortaya konulacaktır. (shrink)

18. yüzyıl, estetik kuramları açısından felsefe tarihinde daha önce görülmemiş ölçüde verimli bir dönemdir. Bu dönemde oluşturulan estetik kuramları, 18. yüzyılda epistemoloji, yöntem, ontoloji ve insan doğası üzerine yapılan tartışmaları doğrudan yansıtır. İlk estetik kuramlarını incelediğimizde, kuramların kendilerinden beslendiği iki ana hatla karşılaşırız. Bunlardan ilki kartezyen felsefenin estetikteki karşılığı olan nesne merkezli estetik, diğeri ise Lockeçu empirizmin estetikteki karşılığı olan özne merkezli estetiktir. Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, 18. yüzyılın hemen başlarında “Şiir ve Resim Üzerine Eleştirel Düşünceler” adlı çalışmasında nesne merkezli felsefenin (...) eleştirisini yaparak özne merkezli estetiği kurmuştur. Du Bos estetik soruşturmanın odağına özneyi yerleştirmiş, sanatı ve estetik deneyimi öznenin bilişsel yetilerinden, duygularından ve psikolojisinden hareketle tanımlamıştır. Eleştirel Düşünceler yalnızca bir estetik kuramı değil, aynı zamanda bir sanat tarihi, sanat sosyolojisi ve sanat psikolojisi çalışmasıdır. Çalışma farklı sanat türlerinin tarihsel gelişimlerini inceler ve bu türlerin yüzyıllar içinde nasıl evrildiğine bakar. Bunun yanında, coğrafi koşulların ve kültürel normların sanat kuramlarına etkisini inceler. Daha önce görülmemiş ölçüde bir kapsama sahip olan Eleştirel Düşünceler, estetiğin bağımsız bir disiplin olarak kurulmasında belki de en önemli rolü oynamış, 18. yüzyılda estetik alanında yazan tüm düşünürleri etkilemiştir. Bu makale, Eleştirel Düşünceler’de geliştirilen estetik kuramının ana hatlarını inceleyerek Jean-Baptiste Du Bos’nun modern estetiğe yaptığı katkıyı ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. (shrink)

In a recent article, Lars Bo Gundersen has suggested a new semantics for counterfactuals (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85: 1-20, 2004). The new semantics gives up on the idea that the actual world must be at the center of world orderings. Instead, statistically normal worlds are at the center. Part of the motivation for this idea is that a very influential account of knowledge, so-called ‘tracking’ accounts, seem right, but suffer serious problems with more traditional semantics for counterfactuals. Gundersen's semantics, (...) if correct, helps tracking accounts with certain problems, but leads to new problems that seem intractable. So while Gundersen's semantics might be correct, those who endorse tracking accounts of knowledge should be loath to endorse it. (shrink)

For Hegel, modern selfhood is an implicitly poetic, normative capacity for actions that could not be empirically explained. Thus it eludes the “clarification” offered by classical tragedy, but modernity’s apparent loss of tragedy conceals the dialectical refinement of tragic into comic form that most defines modern selfhood. If Aristotle contrasted poetry and history, Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit derives a modern, comic ethical poetics from the form of historical contingency itself. Focusing on Hegel’s reading of Antigone, I solicit Gillian Rose (...) and Dieter Henrich to defend this account against tragic assessments of modern selfhood by J. M. Bernstein, Patricia Jagentowicz Mills, and Judith Butler. (shrink)

In interdisciplinary research scientists have to share and integrate knowledge between people and across disciplinary boundaries. An important issue for philosophy of science is to understand how scientists who work in these kinds of environments exchange knowledge and develop new concepts and theories across diverging fields. There is a substantial literature within social epistemology that discusses the social aspects of scientific knowledge, but so far few attempts have been made to apply these resources to the analysis of interdisciplinary science. Further, (...) much of the existing work either ignores the issue of differences in background knowledge, or it focuses explicitly on conflicting background knowledge. In this paper we provide an analysis of the interplay between epistemic dependence between individual experts with different areas of expertise. We analyze the cooperative activity they engage in when participating in interdisciplinary research in a group, and we compare our findings with those of other studies in interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

Review of Mercédesz Czimbalmos's Intermarriage, Conversion and Jewish Identity in Contemporary Finland. A Study of Vernacular Religion in the Finnish Jewish Communities.

Drawing general inferences on the basis of single-case and small- n studies is often seen as problematic. This article suggests a logic of generalization based on thinly rationalistic social mechanisms. Ideal-type mechanisms can be derived from empirical observations in one case and, based on the assumption of thin rationality, used as a generalizing bridge to other contexts with similar actor constellations. Thus, the “portability” builds on expectations about similar mechanisms operating in similar contexts. We present the general logic behind such (...) “rationalistic generalization” and relate it to other ideas about generalization from single-case studies. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 207 Seiten: 327-368.

Bu çalışmada Çorlulu Ali Paşa ve Çorlulu Ali Paşa Külliyesi hakkında kısa bir bilgi verilerek Çorlulu Ali Paşa tarafından yaptırılan kütüphane, kütüphanenin tamiri, bu kütüphanede mevcut olan ilk kitapların isimleri ve hangi alanda oldukları ayrıntılı olarak açıklanmış ve 18. yüzyıl Osmanlı entelektüel dünyasında ne tür eserlerin okunduğuna dair ipuçları sununulmuştur. Çorlulu Ali Paşa tarafından Parmakkapı yakınında Simkeşhane’nin bulunduğu bölgeye 4 Muharrem 1121/16 Mart 1709 yılında inşası tamamlanan câmi‘-i şerîf, dârü’l-hadîs, hânkâh, imâret, kütüphane gibi bölümleri ihtiva eden bir külliye inşa edilmiştir (...) Çorlulu Ali Paşa Kütüphanesi farklı tarihlerde tamir edilmiştir. 1894’de meydana gelen büyük deprem neticesinde zarar görmesi nedeniyle tamirata ihtiyaç duyulmuştur 7 Cemaziyelevvel 1314/14 Ekim 1896 tarihli tezkire ile depremde hasara uğrayan medrese ve kütüphanenin tamir edilmesi belirtilmiştir. 1901 yılında ise tekrar kütüphanenin tamirine ihtiyaç duyulmuştur. Kütüphanenin kurulma tarihine yakın olması ve kütüphanedeki ilk kitaplar olabilmesi düşüncesiyle makalede temel alınan defter Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi’nde, Başmuhasebe Muhalefat Halifeliği Kalemi Defterleri arasında yer almaktadır. Defter ebrulu, 15x39,5 ebadındadır ve sayfa usülüyle numaralandırılmıştır. Toplam sayfa sayısı 24, numaralı boş sayfalar 1-3, 17-24’dür. Defterde ilk kayıttan anlaşılacağı üzere 20 C 1136/16 Mart 1724 tarihinde Çorlulu Ali Paşa Kütüphanesi’nde bulunan kitapların listesi verilmiştir. Defterde kütüphanede yer alan kitaplar tefsir, hadis, fıkıh gibi alan başlıkları altında sıralanmış ve cilt sayıları verilmiştir. Bazı eserlerin yazarlarının yazılmasına karşılık bazı eserlerin yazarları verilmeyip sadece eser ismi belirtilmiştir. Bu makaledeki amaç 18. Yüzyılda Osmanlı kütüphanelerinin birinde ne tür kitapların bulunduğu ve Osmanlı aydın kesiminin hangi türden kitaplara yoğun ilgi duyduğunu anlayabilmektir. Eserin sonunda defterin transkripsiyonu verilmiş ve kütüphane içerisinde hangi türde eserin daha fazla olduğu, türü ve miktarı grafiklerle analiz edilmiştir. (shrink)

Philosophischer Essay über Sokrates (ca. 470-399 v. Chr.) und seine Zeit.

Researchers have recently provided proof of concept for uterus transplantation, giving rise to a discussion about priority setting. This article analyses whether absolute uterine‐factor infertility (AUFI), the main indication for uterus transplantation, gives rise to a healthcare need and the extent to which such a need places justified claims on public funding in a needs‐based welfare system. It is argued that, regardless of the concept of health to which one subscribes, there is a healthcare need for uterus transplantation in women (...) with AUFI. The provision of alternative ways of addressing this need, such as surrogacy and adoption, reduces its severity. Hence, where such alternatives are publicly funded, uterus transplantation is unlikely to become cost‐effective. However, where surrogacy and adoption are not publicly funded, uterus transplantation should be given a similar priority level to other assisted reproductive technologies. In these circumstances, public funding for uterus transplants may well be justified, particularly in well‐funded healthcare system with relatively generous cost‐effectiveness thresholds. (shrink)

The current public health crisis has exposed deep cracks in social equality and justice for marginalised and vulnerable communities around the world. The reported rise in the number of ‘do not resuscitate’ orders being imposed on people with disabilities has caused particular concerns from a human rights perspective. While the evidence of this is contested, this article will consider the human rights implications at stake and the dangers associated with using ‘quality of life’ measures as determinant of care in medical (...) decision-making and triage assessments. (shrink)

Jin Yuelin 金嶽霖 was a Chinese philosopher and logician. From 1914 to 1920 he studied at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University, and received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia in 1920. From 1921 until 1925, he studied in Europe and visited Great Britain, Germany, France, and Italy, among other countries. During these years, he studied at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences and at the University of Cambridge. At the end of 1925, Jin returned to (...) China and soon became a professor at Tsinghua University, where he began teaching logic in 1926. In 1931–1932, Jin went to Harvard University as a visiting scholar to study logic with the logician Henri M. Sheffer... (shrink)

This study reports findings of gender differences in tax attitude changes influenced by better tax knowledge. Male students are more exposed to tax knowledge in a way that makes them reconsider more easily their attitudes towards their own tax evasion, i.e. tax ethics, than their female peers. Male students get a significantly stricter attitude towards their own tax evasion. On the other hand, female students are more exposed to tax knowledge in a way that makes them reconsider their attitude towards (...) other people's tax evasion than their male peers, i.e. they get a significantly stricter attitude towards others tax evasion. Improved tax knowledge significantly changed both male and female students attitude towards the fairness of the tax system, i.e. they considered the tax system to be more fair. Implications for ethical behaviour of taxpayers are highlighted. (shrink)

Education ecology is a new crossover research field in network age. Its research content can be either microscopic classroom teaching or macro educational ecology research on teaching and culture. The university music classroom is a special kind of ecology. The reason why this is special is that compared to natural ecology, the classroom ecology of university music has a unique relationship between the environment and the subject. The classroom is ecological and becomes the logical prerequisite for ecological research in the (...) classroom. In the Internet age, as the most advanced teaching medium, it has become the need for the development of the new era. The Internet era has broadened the channels and scope of people's access to information and greatly enriched the information resources. The design of teacher's music teaching should have sustainable development. It is no longer a pursuit of only the answer. It must consider the students' multiple ways of learning and must leave room for students to practice independently. Guides help students continue to explore musical arts. This article mainly conveys the innovation of the traditional teaching “learning” and “learning” dichotomy to form an interactive and harmonious classroom ecosystem. The interaction between various factors has handled according to the principles of educational ecology, combined with the development of network technology and Cultivate students' enthusiasm for learning, self-study ability and practical ability, to improve the effectiveness of university music teaching. (shrink)