Freiheit ist in der Rechtsordnung kein ungeregelter Zustand und damit eben kein grenzenloses Alleskönnendürfen in einem theoretischen Naturzustand. Umgekehrt bewirkt im Regelfall erst die Normierung von Freiheitsrechten einerseits ihre gerichtliche Durchsetzbarkeit, markiert aber andererseits auch die Grenzen tatsächlich gleicher Freiheit für alle Bürger in einem Rechtsraum. Das gilt heute für die nationale wie europäische Ebene. Freiheitsrechte bilden in liberalen Verfassungsstaaten den Kern der Grundrechtsordnung, sind aber heute mit Gleichheitsrechten und der Menschenwürde verwoben. Dabei kann die soziale Durchsetzung von Freiheitsverbürgungen für (...) alle gelegentlich das individuell verstandene Recht auf Freiheit und Eigentum zurückdrängen. (shrink)

Este trabajo se propone estudiar las características de los paralogismos de composición y división (Retórica II 24.II, 1401a), de la consecuencia (Retórica II 24.VI, 1401b20-30) y de la causa aparente (Retórica II 24.VII, 1401b30-34), de modo de analizar si Eurípides los utiliza en el agón de Andrómaca de los versos 577 a 746 This paper intends to study the characteristics of paralogisms due to composition and division (Rhetoric II 24.II, 1401a), due to consequent (Rhetoric II 24.VI, 1401b20-30), and due to (...) false cause (Rhetoric II 24.VII, 1401b30-34), in order to analyze if Euripides uses them in the agon in Andromache (577-746). (shrink)

A recent article by Kuhn1 showcases the plethora of proposed solutions for the mind-body problem as it is understood in current ’consciousness science’. Perusing this article, philosophers will likely find it surprising to see the inclusion of for instance Indian idealism and Buddhist thought, but neither German, nor British or US idealists, which seems especially unbalanced when instead of them theories like Kastrup’s analytical idealism (Hegel for physicists?) or Hoffmann’s interface theory (Kant for psychologists?) are included. The listings of dualist, (...) panpsychist and further theories seems equally eclectic, with for instance Descartes no more than a side-note in a number of entries, but several listings of religious ideas of body and soul. A possible problem with such omissions is of course that not taking philosophical history more seriously comes with the peril of repeating (now) avoidable errors. Nevertheless, judging from the disclaimers, Kuhn is well aware of this and most likely sees his list as more of a ’sociology of consciousness science’, i.e. a list of people and ideas that are currently circulating in this field. -/- It can in any case be taken from Kuhn’s monumental work effort, that it is often assumed that a solution to the mind-body problem would be either (in the wider sense) materialistic (including nonreductive and quantum theories), dualistic, panpsychistic (including monist theories) or idealistic. The core problems faced are then those of emergence (of consciousness), interaction (between brain and mind), de/combination (of ‘mind dust’ or a unity into proper subjects) or emanation, where the emanation problem is the problem of explaining in detail(!) how the physical world and our scientific theories arise from a given idealistic setup. To me it seems more likely that all these views have a point, but that none manages to cover the whole picture – and that it therefore might be possible to integrate these views into ’consensus models’, if we do not look at the proposed solutions, but the initial intentions and/or intuitions for setting them up (much like as if we would mediate a social conflict). (shrink)

In this paper, we address critical thinking skill assessment in the context of management education. This paper uses Ennis' well-known list of critical thinking abilities to identify assessable critical thinking components present in student work. A sample of 152 graduate written assignments designed to assess critical thinking is used as a basis for analysis. These were taken from a business analysis subject in a large Australian business school over a 6-year period. A methodological framework is proposed and applied to this (...) data set, offering a way of assessing evidence of five representative categories pertaining to critical thinking in a business context. The framework includes a basic clarification (BC), bases for inferences (BI), inferences (IN), advanced clarification (AC) and auxiliary abilities (AA). Results indicate that the essays rank highly on AA and AC but low on BC, BI and IN. While critical thinking is partially evidenced in the study corpus, attention is needed in terms of refining the measurement framework dedicated to eliciting specific critical thinking components. We provide the initial elements of such a framework in this paper and make suggestions for how it can be improved. Implications for the theory and practice of management education are outlined. (shrink)

One influential response to apparent higher-order dilemmas implies that agents can rationally both believe p on the basis of their evidence and simultaneously believe that their evidence does not support believing p. This possibility of rational epistemic akrasia seems to call into question the Enkratic Requirement, which prohibits believing a proposition p according to one’s lower-level evidence, while believing that one’s lower-level evidence does not support believing p. In this chapter, we explore two ways to defend the Enkratic Requirement. First, (...) evidentialists about epistemic justification are committed to holding that an ex post (or doxastically) justified belief, as part and parcel of being ex post justified, is accompanied by a corresponding higher-order belief that the first-order belief is supported by the evidence. In a dilemma case, this higher-order belief comes into direct rational conflict with the subject’s other higher-order belief, that her evidence does not support the belief – so the subject has contradictory beliefs. In this way, the so-called ‘level-splitting’ strategy for the claim that being akratic is not per se irrational is called into question. Our second argument for the Enkratic Requirement presupposes normativism about belief and appeals to the conditions of having epistemically permissible beliefs. We sketch an argument starting from an influential view about the normativity of belief: that irrational beliefs are impermissible beliefs. From this claim, together with some widely held as-sumptions about the notion of rationality, we show that agents who display akratic combi-nations of attitudes hold impermissible beliefs. (shrink)

According to anti‐exceptionalism about logic (AEL), logic is not as exceptional in terms of its subject matter and epistemology as has been conventionally thought. As such, AEL either outright rejects certain traditional properties of logic, such as its formality, apriority, or necessity, or rather proposes that while logic possesses these properties, it does so in a similar way to other research areas. In this second part of a two‐part entry on AEL, we focus on contemporary proposals for Methodological AEL, the (...) view that the mechanisms of theory‐choice in logic are similar to those in the sciences. Firstly, we consider the various contemporary motivations for Methodological AEL and highlight how these motivations need not equally motivate Evidential AEL, the view that the sources of logical evidence are the same as the sources of evidence within the sciences. Secondly, we discuss the two most prominent versions of Methodological AEL in the literature, logical abductivism and predictivism, and end by briefly outlining some of the important challenges presently facing Methodological AEL. (shrink)

In his _Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind_, Yuval Harari claims that humans are able to cooperate in large numbers because they share common beliefs in fictions or “things that do not exist at all”. Examples of these fictions are religious doctrines, nations, laws, justice and money. In my paper, I argue that Harari is right to point out the importance of social constructs, entities that depend for their existence on the beliefs of the members of a society, for cooperation. (...) But he is wrong to characterise social constructs as fictions or imagined realities. Doing so makes it difficult to distinguish between real social constructs and social constructs that are fictitious or merely imagined. Harari tries to remedy this problem calling fictitious social constructs lies; but this suggestion unhelpfully associates mere fictions or imaginings with deceptive intent. (shrink)

What does it take for an individual to be personally responsible for behaviors that lead to increased risk of disease? We examine three approaches to responsibility that cover the most important aspects of the discussion of responsibility and spell out what it takes, according to each of them, to be responsible for behaviors leading to increased risk of disease. We show that only what we call the causal approach can adequately accommodate widely shared intuitions to the effect that certain causal (...) influences—such as genetic make-up or certain social circumstances—diminish, or undermine personal responsibility. However, accepting the causal approach most likely makes personal responsibility impossible. We therefore need either to reject these widely shared intuitions about what counts as responsibility-softening or undermining or to accept that personal responsibility for behaviors leading to increased risk of disease rests on premises so shaky that personal responsibility is probably impossible. (shrink)

These six essays present one of the most significant stages in the development of Buber's philosophical thought and particularly his philosophical anthropology. This edition includes an appendix consisting of an interesting dialogue between Buber and psychologist Carl R. Rogers.

Background: Moral distress has been described as a major problem for the nursing profession, and in recent years, a considerable amount of research has been undertaken to examine its causes and effects. However, few research projects have been performed that examined the moral distress of an entire nation’s nurses, as this particular study does. Aim/objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency and intensity of moral distress experienced by registered nurses in New Zealand. Research design: The research (...) involved the use of a mainly quantitative approach supported by a slightly modified version of a survey based on the Moral Distress Scale–Revised. Participants and research context: In total, 1500 questionnaires were sent out at random to nurses working in general areas around New Zealand and 412 were returned, giving an adequate response rate of 27%. Ethical considerations: The project was evaluated and judged to be low risk and recorded as such on 22 February 2011 via the auspices of the Massey University Human Ethics Committee. Findings: Results indicate that the most frequent situations to cause nursing distress were (a) having to provide less than optimal care due to management decisions, (b) seeing patient care suffer due to lack of provider continuity and (c) working with others who are less than competent. The most distressing experiences resulted from (a) working with others who are unsafe or incompetent, (b) witnessing diminished care due to poor communication and (c) watching patients suffer due to a lack of provider continuity. Of the respondents, 48% reported having considered leaving their position due to the moral distress. Conclusion: The results imply that moral distress in nursing remains a highly significant and pertinent issue that requires greater consideration by health service managers, policymakers and nurse educators. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Perfume has not received much philosophical attention. I discuss a feature of perfume that partly contributes to this neglect: the pervasive changes that perfumes undergo. These changes are much more comprehensive than the changes that characterize other aesthetic objects, and we might think that perfume is, as a result, impossibly subjective and private an aesthetic object. I identify two categories of change that raise this worry: changes that happen to a scented liquid itself and changes that happen to perfumes (...) on bodies. In both cases, the appreciative practices for perfume take a collaborative approach to change and thereby help establish a public, shared aesthetic object. Change remains distinctive of perfume and becomes central to appreciation, but without becoming an obstacle to aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Moral Contractualism provides a compelling framework for understanding what we owe to each other and seems promising as a non-consequentialist intergenerational moral theory as well. However, the non-identity problem presents a critical challenge. Specifically, the question arises as to whether future individuals can have an objection against the principles allowing an act even if the future individual’s existence is contingent on this act and their lives will be worth living. A prominent response to this challenge is to understand the objections (...) of future individuals in a "non-comparative" way. The idea is that, whereas future persons cannot object that they are made worse off by our actions, they can complain that they are made badly off in some sense. It remains unclear how to best understand such a position within Moral Contractualism, whether it offers a coherent solution to the non-identity problem, and whether its substantial implications are convincing. This paper critically examines the possibilities and limitations of a non-comparative contractualist approach, concluding that non-comparative wellbeing-based objections above the threshold of a life worth living are not plausible. Consequently, a non-comparative response to the nonidentity problem referring to the well-being of future persons can, at best, provide a partial solution for Moral Contractualists. (shrink)

This article is concerned not so much with school improvement issues per se as with the messages about school improvement provided by academic texts. School im­provement texts are important because they can be expected to reflect the current state of play of intellectual thinking about school improvement and because they also clearly have some impact on policy and practice, that is, to some extent they frame up school improvement issues for practitioners and policymakers. Yet academics holding socially critical perspectives have (...) sometimes been dismissive of school improvement and other education management texts because of their per­ception of a 'problem-solving' tendency which is socially and politically decon­ textualised. Thus when Jenny Ozga provided a review of education management texts in the British Journal of Sociology of Education in 1992 she didn't actually review any books because she didn't think they were worth it (Ozga, 1992). (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the relationship between the method of arbitrary functions and single-case probabilities, and offer an interpretation of these probabilities by reference to physical symmetries of chance experiments. The method of arbitrary functions attempts to explain outcome frequencies through the underlying deterministic dynamics of chance experiments and the constant proportions of these dynamics that lead to different outcomes in repeated chance experiments. However, the method of arbitrary functions alone appears to provide no comprehensive interpretation of deterministic chance (...) since it relies on distributions of initial conditions that, in turn, require interpretation. Moreover, even without reference to distributions of initial conditions, the method of arbitrary functions may not be able to provide genuine single-case probabilities since the constant proportions appear to become relevant for outcomes only in repeated chance experiments. In this paper, I propose an explanation of the constant proportions of dynamics via the physical properties of single chance experiments. By doing so, I attempt to develop the method of arbitrary functions into a comprehensive interpretation of probability that does not rely on the distribution of initial conditions and covers genuine single-case probabilities. Specifically, I show how the constant proportions result from what I will call _the relevant physical symmetries of chance experiments_, i.e., from a regular constitution of chance devices with respect to the dynamically realized symmetry transformations in single chance experiments. (shrink)

Growing interest has been shown toward humanism in the 21st century after decades of critique and rejection. Posthumanism and transhumanism have redefined the topic primarily through developments in technology and by focusing on relations of interconnectedness between humans and the environment. A different concern with ‘being human’ can be found in the writings of Zygmunt Bauman and Ernst Bloch. The leitmotif of Bauman’s sociology and of Bloch’s utopian philosophy is their assertion that humans have the distinct capacity to transcend necessity (...) and inevitability. Their works share the concern for a good society that would ameliorate social fragmentation and disintegration. Following this, the article seeks to theorize the meaning of humanism in the contemporary era. Taking up Bauman’s notion of interregnum, the article will argue that the contemporary importance of humanism is social in the sense of redeeming the currently casualized human condition, i.e. diminished life-chances, inequality and alienation. Interregnum marks a historical epoch where the old order has decayed, but the new one is not yet present. In interregnum, or in what Bloch calls Mischzeit, humanism is about a human being-in-the-world which contains the possibility to do better. (shrink)

Među mnoštvom dimenzija kolektivnog identiteta, ovaj rad istražuje identitet kao retorički alat. Identitetska oznaka je upravo primjer pragmatične učinkovitosti. Kako bi se objasnila ta moć, izložit će se hipotetički model identitetskih kategorija. Njegovi konstitutivni moduli oblikuju četiri osnovne dimenzije: pozicija, deindividualizacija, isključenje i kognitivna zaštita. Tako ocrtan narativni identitet postaje ekvivalentan neformalnoj ideologiji . Kao konstitutivna retorika , narativna konstrukcija identiteta pretvara autoreferencijalnu tautologiju u strategije diskriminacije, pročišćenja i istrebljenja nositelja drugosti. Masovna uništenja u prošlom stoljeću – totalitarizam, kolonijalizam, etno-nacionalizam (...) – proizvodi su identitetske paradigme. (shrink)

In “Principled Compromise and the Abortion Controversy” Simon C. May argues that we do not have a principled moral reason to compromise. While I seek to understand how more precisely we are to understand this suggestion, I also object to it: I argue that we have a principled moral reason to accept democratic decisions that we disagree with, and that this can only be so if disagreement can change what the all things considered right political position is. But if this (...) is so, then also a principled moral reason to compromise is possible. I suggest that there is a class of procedures, including compromise, voting, expert delegation, and coin flip, such that when we disagree about what justice requires, we have a principled moral reason to engage in one of these procedures. (shrink)

Este artículo revisa, de manera esquemática, cuatro diferentes estrategias para solucionar el problema del autoconocimiento, entendido como el problema de la compatibilidad del acceso a la vez peculiar y privilegiado que tenemos a la propia mente. La estrategia escéptica se ejemplifica por Gilbert Ryle y Peter Carruthers, la constitutivista por Dorit Bar-On y Crispin Wright, la racionalista por Sydney Shoemaker y la epistémica por Descartes, David Armstrong, Donald Davidson y Alex Byrne. En cada caso se examina brevemente si la estrategia (...) logra solucionar el problema del autoconocimiento y si es plausible en sí. Se concluye que la teoría de la transparencia de Byrne es la más convincente entre las examinadas y se señalan algunas áreas de ella que requieren una exploración más detallada. (shrink)

_How to Make Our Signs Clear_ focuses on selected aspects of Peirce´s philosophy and semiotic, possible historical connections of his work and contemporary challenges to Peirce’s semiotic theories.

According to Roberts, self-experimentation is a viable tool for idea generation in the behavioral sciences. Here we discuss some limitations of this assertion, as well as particular design and data-analytic shortcomings of his experiments.

Plato's rhetorical gesture invoking a 'quarrel' between philosophy and poetry points to a deep problem in our conception of rational discourse, often obscured or displaced in the history of philosophy's relations with imaginative literature, especially with respect to analytic philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century. Recent developments have helped focus attention on the overlap between philosophy and literature, which the contemporary retreat from philosophy's 'narrative turn' does little to undermine. Further work in the philosophy of language, the (...) logic of the imagination, and the relations between dialectic and rhetoric promise to throw light on that ancient problem. (shrink)