1. Művészet és társadalom; válogatott esztétikai tanulmányok.--2. Világirodalom; válogatott világirodalom tanulmányok 2 v.

Subverting a once widely held Quinean paradigm, there is a growing consensus among philosophers of logic that higher-order quantifiers (which bind variables in the syntactic position of predicates and sentences) are a perfectly legitimate and useful instrument in the logico-philosophical toolbox, while neither being reducible to nor fully explicable in terms of first-order quantifiers (which bind variables in singular term position). This article discusses the impact of this quantificational paradigm shift on metaphysics, focussing on theories of properties, propositions, and identity, (...) as well as on the metaphysics of modality. (shrink)

Using a countable support product of creature forcing posets, we show that consistently, for uncountably many different functions the associated Yorioka ideals’ uniformity numbers can be pairwise different. In addition we show that, in the same forcing extension, for two other types of simple cardinal characteristics parametrised by reals, for uncountably many parameters the corresponding cardinals are pairwise different.

ABSTRACT This essay examines the exhibition of dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Dinosaurs provide an especially illuminating lens through which to view the history of museum display practices for two reasons: they made for remarkably spectacular exhibits; and they rested on contested theories about the anatomy, life history, and behavior of long-extinct animals to which curators had no direct observational access. The American Museum sought to capitalize on the (...) popularity of dinosaurs while mitigating the risks of mounting an overtly speculative display by fashioning them into a kind of mixed-media installation made of several elements, including fossilized bone, shellac, iron, and plaster. The resulting sculptures provided visitors with a vivid and lifelike imaginative experience. At the same time, curators, who were anxious to downplay the speculative nature of mounted dinosaurs, drew systematic attention to the material connection that tied individual pieces of fossilized bone to the actual past. Freestanding dinosaurs can therefore be read to have functioned as iconic sculptures that self-consciously advertised their indexical content. (shrink)

Vorrede, von T. Pinkus.--Sein und Bewusstsein, von G. Lukács und H.H.Holz.--Gesellschaft und Individuum, von G. Lukács und L. Kofler.--Grundlegendes zu einer wissenschaftlichen Politik, von G. Lukács und W. Abendroth.--Vorläufige Bilanz, von G. Lukács, W. Abendroth und H. H. Holz.--Bibliographie (p. 125-[128]).

Wright (1998) and Bar-On (2004) put pressure on the idea that self-knowledge as an explanandum should be identified with privileged belief formation. They argue that setting up the discourse on the level of belief and belief formation rules out promising approaches to explain self-knowledge. Hence, they propose that we should characterize self-knowledge on the level of linguistic practice instead. I argue against them that self-knowledge cannot be fully characterized by features of our linguistic practice. I propose that in some circumstances (...) – disagreements about one's mental states – self-knowledge plays a role, but this role cannot be described in virtue of features of our linguistic practice. I consider three objections to the argument and conclude that we should not conceive self-knowledge solely in terms of linguistic practice. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic introduction to the debate on historical emissions and climate change, for students, researchers and policymakers.

What is the practical relevance of the Non-Identity Problem (NIP) for our climate change-related duties? Climate change and the NIP are often discussed together, but there is surprisingly little work on the practical relevance of the NIP for the ethics of climate change. The central claim of this article is that the NIP makes a relatively minor difference to our climate change-related duties even if we pursue what has become known as the ‘bite the bullet’ strategy: endorse a person-affecting view (...) threatened by the NIP and not modify it in such a way as to evade the NIP. In particular I will argue that a harm-based view can justify the big-picture call for action emerging from the field of climate ethics. The key to reaching this conclusion is pointing out the consequences of our climate change-related decisions for people whose existence does not depend on these very decisions. (shrink)

The literature on Base of the Pyramid strategies emphasizes that creating social value requires collaborative, multi-stakeholder business approaches. However, there is limited understanding of how businesses can successfully coordinate such value creation processes in the developing economies that face significant institutional voids. This study adopts a business model perspective for analyzing social value creation processes that span organizational boundaries. We introduce a novel, theoretically grounded business model framework that helps conceptualize social value by locating the various loci of value creation, (...) and the stakeholders that partake in creating and capturing this value. We subsequently analyze the mechanisms of social value creation in M-Pesa, a renowned boundary-spanning mobile money system that has advanced financial inclusion among tens of millions of users in Kenya. The results show that information and communications technology can help advance social value creation by reducing the cost of coordinating boundary-spanning business models that integrate diverse societal stakeholders. The results further point to uneven distributional outcomes in self-governing social value creation strategies where the focal firm plays a coordinating role. (shrink)

Machine intelligence already helps medical staff with a number of tasks. Ethical decision-making, however, has not been handed over to computers. In this proof-of-concept study, we show how an algorithm based on Beauchamp and Childress’ prima-facie principles could be employed to advise on a range of moral dilemma situations that occur in medical institutions. We explain why we chose fuzzy cognitive maps to set up the advisory system and how we utilized machine learning to train it. We report on the (...) difficult task of operationalizing the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence and patient autonomy, and describe how we selected suitable input parameters that we extracted from a training dataset of clinical cases. The first performance results are promising, but an algorithmic approach to ethics also comes with several weaknesses and limitations. Should one really entrust the sensitive domain of clinical ethics to machine intelligence? (shrink)

The positive, non-exclusive inference of _only_ has been famously elusive with respect to its projective status and its content: in some cases the positive inference behaves like a presupposition, while in others it does not; in some cases the inference is non-modal, corresponding to the prejacent of _only_ or an existential counterpart of it, while in others it is modalized. This behavior, we argue, surfaces the exceptive nature of _only_ (cf. von Fintel and Iatridou in Linguist Inq 38(3):445–483, 2007). More (...) specifically, if the import of _only_ is distributed between a minimality and a subtraction component, as has been argued for exceptives (esp. Gajewski in Nat Lang Semant 16(1):69–110, 2008), the apparently irreconcilable properties of _only_ can be captured. (shrink)

This paper addresses a theory of intergenerational justice that we refer to as “needs-based sufficientarianism”. According to needs-based sufficientarianism, the present generation ought to enable future generations to meet their basic needs — for example, their needs for drinkable water, food and health care. Our aim is to explain and defend this theory in a programmatic way. First, we introduce what we regard as the most plausible variant of needs-based sufficientarianism. Then we argue that this variant is superior to several (...) alternative ways of thinking about intergenerational justice. In particular, we defend basic needs as the currency of intergenerational justice and sufficiency as its principle. Our arguments for these claims are neither fully comprehensive nor fully conclusive. Yet, we hope that they suffice to show that needs-based sufficientarianism is a major contender, with significant pro tanto advantages over other views. (shrink)

Clark and Chalmers propose that the mind extends further than skin and skull. If they are right, then we should expect this to have some effect on our way of knowing our own mental states. If the content of my notebook can be part of my belief system, then looking at the notebook seems to be a way to get to know my own beliefs. However, it is at least not obvious whether self-ascribing a belief by looking at my notebook (...) is a case of introspection the same way that knowing my non-extended beliefs is. Traditionally this sort of introspection is thought to be privileged and special in ways that the extended introspection case seems not to be. There is nothing privileged about looking at my notebook. Anyone could do it. The aim of the paper is to find out how to understand extended introspection and whether there is something privileged and special about knowing one’s own extended beliefs. Moreover, the notebook case has close analogs using twenty-first century technology. It seems possible to know our beliefs that are extended to smartphones, wearable technology or a cloud-based data store. First, I present the case of extended introspection. I then discuss whether it should be understood as ordinary introspection or as mind-reading. Both seem to be bad fits, which finally prompts an original account for extended introspection based on epistemic rules. (shrink)

We seem to ascribe mental states and agency to groups. We say ‘Google knows such-and-such,’ or ‘Amazon intends to do such-and-such.’ This observation of ordinary parlance also found its way into philosophical accounts of social groups and collective intentionality. However, these discussions are usually quiet about how groups self-ascribe their own beliefs and intentions. Apple might explain to its shareholders that it intends to bring a new iPhone to the market next year. But how does Apple know what it intends? (...) How do groups get to know their own mental states? This is the question of collective self-knowledge. I argue that collective self-knowledge is a distinct phenomenon that deserves our attention. In particular I suggest: that we should be interested in collective self-knowledge, because our behaviour indicates that we already engage with collective self-knowledge in practice; that groups can collectively avow, which indicates that they have privileged and peculiar access to their own intentional states; and that collective self-knowledge is not reducible to intentional states of individuals and therefore is an independent explanandum. (shrink)

The debate about the direction, coherence and possible imperialism of universal norms in global bioethics has been going on for years. Proponents of universal norms have fiercely stated their cases focusing on human rights, autonomy and/or further principles in bioethics. Equally forceful has been the opposition to such universal principles arguing mainly on grounds of cultural diversity. The alternative is commonly presented as one between moral relativism and moral imperialism; solutions that are equally unattractive. This paper suggests a way forward (...) for global bioethics by focusing on techniques of moral deliberation as well as on the specific social context from which moral dilemma arises. Such focus will show that the alternative between moral relativism and imperialism only arises when an unreflected notion of medical ethics is applied. The way forward for global bioethics is to acknowledge the way medical ethics is connected to a specific medical practice and to examine its cultural and conceptual foundation rather than insisting on context independent principles.If it is already doubtful whether bioethics exists, it is even more dubious for global bioethics. For almost two decades, discussion over such issue has been going on with hardly any progress. Some uphold the famous four principles as the universal standard; others would like to modify them while still hoping for universality; still others challenge the very notion of universality in the field of medical ethics. The discussion is trapped in a variety of antagonisms: between universalism and particularism, between liberalism and communitarism, between principalism and case-based-bioethics. This paper suggests a way forward beyond these antagonisms by asking about the very nature of medical ethics. First, however, we need to take a closer look on the issue at stake: the quest for a global bioethics and the debate over the identity of medical ethics. (shrink)

In this article the picture of Jacob in Genesis is compared with that of Jacob/Israel in Hosea 12. While a tendency exists in exegetical literature to choose between a negative or a positive view, the thesis here proposed is that the negative image of Jacob in Genesis as well as in Hosea is a preparation for his change into Israel. Hosea uses the ambiguity of Jacob/Israel as an example for his audience. They love to cheat, but can find in Jacob (...) a way to become Israel. (shrink)

El artículo compara los relatos oníricos de Jerónimo en su carta 22 y de Agustín en conf. 3,19 e Ibíd. 8,29, para destacar que probablemente los dos sueños sucedieron el mismo año, y que ellos ayudaron a ambos Padres de la Iglesia a convertirse, desde el amor a la literatura pagana, al amor de la Sagrada Escritura, la palabra de Dios escrita.

Although this review article is only about one book and about one man, it discloses a whole world, the world of Jerome, saint, scholar and stimulator of ascetism and of the study of the Bible. It is the merit of the book reviewed here to bring interesting insights into this other world, the emerging society of monks who were scholars and ascetic. In that world Jerome is one of the most fascinating patristic scholars. His choice for translating the Hebrew Bible (...) instead of the Greek Bible is one of the utmost examples that from time to time the conceitedness of one man wins. Williams’ book teaches us quite a lot about this man and his conceitedness. At the same time it explains us something about the Christian tradition, how asceticism could bring forth the wealth of libraries and abbeys. (shrink)

The aim of the article is twofold: to document how what the author labels the “Principle of Reference” – viz. the claim that that which is not cannot be referred to – inspires both actualist and possibilist philosophical conceptions in the analytic tradition as well as in scholasticism, and to show how Duns Scotus’s rejection of the Principle allows us to see that there are two distinct and logically independent meanings of the actualism–possibilism distinction: viz. metaphysical actualism/…possibilism, and semantic actualism/possibilism. (...) By way of an appendix, the author off ers some critical remarks on recent Czecho-Slovak debates about the ontological status of non-existents. (shrink)

SummaryTo defend the common sense against solipsism Jean-Paul Sartre points out the evidence of the Other beyond an epistemological perspective. But his phenomenological framework leaves no room for an ontological evidence of the Other but only for an evidence of the Other in thinking. As the gap between the In-Itself and the For-Itself is not a real one, but only a construction of the For-itself Sartre calls “Nothing”, the difference between the Other and me does not really exist, too. It (...) is overlooked mostly that Emmanuel Levinas also uses a kind of ontological proof in order to give evidence of the Other. Furthermore he combines his thinking of Otherness with theology by his thinking of infinity. In order to avoid an elimination of the subject by the infinite supremacy of the Other, the article suggests that condescendence of the Other is necessary. This article points out the theological implications of Otherness and compares the result with christian thinking of Trinity and Christology.ZusammenfassungUm den Common Sense gegen den Solipsismus zu verteidigen, betont Jean-Paul Sartre die Evidenz des Anderen unabhängig von einer epistemologischen Perspektive. Allerdings lässt sein phänomenologischer Ansatz nicht wirklich Raum für eine ontologische Evidenz des Anderen, sondern nur für dessen Evidenz im Denken. Weil nämlich für Sartre die Differenz zwischen Ansich und Für-sich keine reale ist, sondern nur eine Konstruktion des Für-sich, die Sartre »Nichts« nennt, kann die Differenz zwischen mir und dem Anderen ebensowenig existieren. Es wird weithin übersehen, dass Emmanuel Levinas auch den Typ des ontologischen Beweises verwendet, um die Evidenz des Anderen herauszuheben. Außerdem ist sein Denken des Anderen mit theologischen Sachgehalten kombiniert über den Gedanken der Infinität. Um aber die Selbstauflösung des Subjekts in die Übermacht des Anderen zu vermeiden, schlägt der hier vorliegende Artikel vor, die Kondeszendenz des Anderen als notwendig mitzudenken. Die theologischen Implikationen von Alterität werden in diesem Artikel herausgehoben und mit einer christologischen bzw. trinitätstheologischen Perspektive verglichen. (shrink)

Climate change can be interpreted as a unique case of historical injustice involving issues of both intergenerational and global justice. We split the issue into two separate questions. First, how should emission rights be distributed? Second, who should come up for the costs of coping with climate change? We regard the first question as being an issue of pure distributive justice and argue on prioritarian grounds that the developing world should receive higher per capita emission rights than the developed world. (...) This is justified by the fact that the latter already owns a larger share of benefits associated with emission generating activities because of its past record of industrialisation. The second question appears to be an issue of compensatory justice. After defining what we mean by compensation, we show that different kinds of compensatory principles run into problems when used to justify payments by historical emitters of the North to people suffering from climate change in the South. As an alternative, we propose to view payments from wealthy countries for adaptation to climate change in vulnerable countries rather as a measure based on concerns of global distributive justice. (shrink)

The idea that particular legal institutions are artifacts is not new. However, the idea that the “law” or “legal system” is itself an artifact has seldom been directly put forward, due perhaps to the ambiguities surrounding philosophical inquiries into law. Nevertheless, such an idea has recently been invoked more often, though not always developed in detail in terms of what the characterization of the “law” or “legal system” as an artifact entails ontologically, and what consequences, if any, this has for (...) philosophical accounts of law. As a result, the primary aim of this paper is to attempt an inquiry into what the claim that “law” by its nature or character is an artifact entails, and what an artifact theory of law might look like. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore an under-investigated question concerning the class of formal models that aim at providing normative guidance. We call such models normative models. In particular, we examine the question of how normative models can successfully exert normative guidance. First, we highlight the absence of a discussion of this question – which is surprising given the extensive debate about the success conditions of descriptive models – and motivate its importance. Second, we introduce and discuss two potential accounts of (...) the success conditions of normative models. Our tentative conclusion is that the second account is more promising. (shrink)

This paper investigates the connection between two recent trends in philosophy: higher-orderism and conceptual engineering. Higher-orderists use higher-order quantifiers (in particular quantifiers binding variables that occupy the syntactic positions of predicates) to express certain key metaphysical doctrines, such as the claim that there are properties. I argue that, on a natural construal, the higher-orderist approach involves an engineering project concerning, among others, the concept of existence. I distinguish between a modest construal of this project, on which it aims at engineering (...) higher-order analogues of the familiar notion of first-order existence, and an ambitious construal, on which it additionally aims at engineering a broadened notion of existence that subsumes first-order and higher-order existence. After identifying a substantial problem for the ambitious project, I investigate a possible response which is based on adopting a cumulative type theory as the background higher-order logic. While effective against the problem at hand, this strategy turns out to undermine a major reason to embrace higher-orderism in the first place, namely the idea that higher-orderism dissolves a range of otherwise intractable debates in metaphysics. Higher-orderists are therefore best advised to pursue their engineering project on the modest variant and against the background of standard type theory. (shrink)

It has long been known that there exists a relationship between British analytic philosophy and American pragmatism.1 Recently, however, Cheryl Misak gave this story a new twist. Her 2016 book Camb...

In the past, experts have disagreed about whether Samuel Clarke accepted the idea that gravity is a power superadded to matter by God. Most scholars now agree that Clarke did not support superaddition. But the argumentation employed by Clarke to reject superaddition has not been studied before in detail. In this paper, I explicate Clarke's argumentation by relating it to an important discussion about the possibility of superadded gravity in the Clarke-Collins correspondence. I examine Clarke's responses to Collins and draw (...) on his other works to reconstruct Clarke's reasons for rejecting superadded gravity. (shrink)

Expectations play an important role in how people plan their lives and pursue their projects. People living in highly industrialized countries share a way of life that comes with high levels of emissions. Their expectations to be able to continue their projects imply their holding expectations to similarly high future levels of personal emissions. We argue that the frustration or undermining of these expectations would cause them significant harm. Further, the article investigates under what conditions people can be thought to (...) hold legitimate expectations, in particular about permissible levels of future emissions. We distinguish differing theories of understanding these conditions, namely authority-based and justice-based theories, that each allows us to systematically distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate expectations. Furthermore, with respect to individuals’ future permissible emissions we give several reasons for holding that such theories cannot identify a particular expectation to a specific level of personal emissions as the only legitimate one. Finally, we argue that the set of legitimate expectations that people hold with respect to a just and effective solution to climate change has normative significance in at least two ways: the differing but equally legitimate expectations ought to be taken into account when justifying what could count as such a solution and when determining the just way of arriving at and implementing such a solution. (shrink)

Gerechtigkeit findet nicht nur zwischen Zeitgenossen statt - auch das Handeln früher lebender Menschen kann Ansprüche und Pflichten gegenwärtig und zukünftig lebender Menschen begründen. Der Autor entwickelt die Theorie einer historischen Gerechtigkeit auf der Basis der Pflichten zwischen den Generationen. Pluspunkte: Darstellung eines zentralen Themas aktueller politischer, ethischer und gesellschaftlicher Debatten Diskussionsgrundlage für Philosophen, Politikwissenschftler sowie interessierte Laien zeigt praktizierbare Lösungsansätze auf.

According to Frege, expressions shift their reference when they occur in indirect contexts: in “Anna believes that Plato is wise” the expression “Plato” no longer refers to Plato but to what is ordinarily its sense. Many philosophers, including Carnap, Davidson, Burge, Parsons, Kripke and Künne, believe that on Frege's view the iteration of indirect context creating operators gives rise to an infinite hierarchy of senses. While the former two take this to be problematic, the latter four welcome the hierarchy with (...) open arms. In this paper I argue that the hierarchy should be avoided and that it can be avoided. (shrink)

Using the technique of prepared questions, Conversations with Lukacs is a brilliant gathering of thoughts and insights covering topics as ontology, the techniques of manipulative societies, the pitfalls of combating Stalinism with Stalinist methods, and the problems of intellectuals in advanced capitalist societies. Above all, there is the restatement of Lukacs unshaken conviction that the working class, with all the changes that have occurred in its way of life and composition, is still the historical carrier of social transformation. Lukacs's interlocutors (...) in these four conversations are Hans Heinz Holz, Leo Kofler, and Wolfgang Abendroth. Each of them engages Lukacs in separate dialogues, on being and consciousness (Holz), on society and the individual (Kofler), and on the elements of scientific politics (Abendroth). Lukacs, Abendroth, and Holz work toward a "Provisional Summary" in the last conversation. The interlocutors and the editor write that "These conversations show very clearly the basis of abstraction in the experiences of everyday life.... This gives these conversations with Lukacs a more than anecdotal value; for the unmediated way in which thought is produced in conversation corresponds exactly to that primary level of experience, the data of everyday reality, whose theoretical value Lukacs emphasizes.... They aspire to bear witness to the living thought of one of the great men of our century, and to provide the opportunity to approach this thought by the simplest possible route.". (shrink)

This very short introduction to the bibliography of modern epidemiology aims to achieve two modest goals. First, the works presented will be separated into two bodies of historical scholarship, to distinguish the history of the field as told by epidemiological practitioners from the work developed in the history of science, medicine, and public health. Second, this essay focuses on a modern history of epidemiology spanning the later nineteenth and twentieth century. These distinctions aim to capture the contours of the history (...) of epidemiology as it became a field of knowledge production and to some extent an academic discipline, a history told in part by those involved in the field themselves. The enclosed bibliography further distinguishes between geographic contributions to this historiography to capture the historical distribution of the scientific field and its associated histories. (shrink)

This article reports on the most important results of recent studies published in German that deal with Roman-dominated Judea/Palestine and contextualizes them within international research. Publications by Monika Bernett, Werner Eck, Linda-Marie Günther, Achim Lichtenberger and Julia Wilker offer an equally intense examination of the sources, but significantly differ in their perspectives. The question behind the examination asks whether this region has developed in a particular manner that has been shaped and created by Jewish religion and culture, or whether it (...) was a "normal" Roman province with a history shaped by the same circumstances and events as other parts of the Roman Empire. In the case of Judea, the findings of historical research are simultaneously at the center of contemporary legitimizing discourses. The discussion pleads for a cultural comparative historical investigation that critically questions the binary opposition of Jewish versus pagan. (shrink)