In our lives, we aim to achieve welfare for ourselves, that is, to live good lives. But we also have another, more impartial perspective, where we aim to balance our concern for our own welfare against a concern for the welfare of others. This is a perspective of justice. Nils Holtug examines these two perspectives and the relations between them.

The contributors to the volume are: Richard Arneson, Linda Barclay, Thomas Christiano, Nils Holtug, Susan Hurley, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Dennis McKerlie, ...

This is a comprehensive introduction to the history of Western Philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to Twentieth Century thought. In addition to all the key figures, the book covers figures whose contributions have so far been overlooked, such as Vico, Montesquieu, Durkheim and Weber. Along with in-depth discussion of the philosophical movements, Skirbekk and Gilje also discuss the natural sciences, the establishment of the Humanities, Socialism and Fascism, Psychoanalysis, and the rise of the social sciences. _History of Western Thought_ is an (...) ideal introduction to philosophy and the sociological and scientific structures that have shaped modern day philosophy. (shrink)

Kendall Walton argues that photographs are transparent; we literally see the things depicted in them, not just the depictions. This intriguing claim has endured numerous criticisms from those I call the ‘egocentrists’, according to whom seeing—literal seeing—requires the conveyance of egocentric information; to count as seeing something, a visual experience of that thing must impart some information, however spare, about its position relative to the viewer. Since photographs fail to convey such information, the egocentrists claim, Walton’s transparency thesis fails. This (...) paper considers several ways this egocentric condition on seeing has been developed and shows that none of them is persuasive. Seeing, I argue, does not require the conveyance of egocentric information. As such, and barring other problems, Walton’s transparency thesis stands. The paper closes with a speculative discussion of the kinds of empirical and action-guiding considerations that motivate egocentrism. (shrink)

F. P. Ramsey was a remarkably creative and subtle philosopher who in the briefest of academic careers made significant contributions to logic, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language and decision theory. His few published papers reveal him to be a figure or comparable importance to Russell, Carnap and Wittgenstein in the history of analytical philosophy. This book was the first critical study of Ramsey's work, offering a thorough exposition and interpretation of his ideas, setting the ideas in their historical context, (...) and assessing their significance for contemporary research. The study is intended to complement the reissue of Ramsey's papers edited by Professor Hugh Mellor. (shrink)

According to several recent studies, a big chunk of college students in North America and Europe uses so called ‘smart drugs' to enhance their cognitive capacities aiming at improving their academic performance. With these practices, there comes a certain moral unease. This unease is shared by many, yet it is difficult to pinpoint and in need of justification. Other than simply pointing to the medical risks coming along with using non-prescribed medication, the salient moral question is whether these practices are (...) troubling in and of themselves. In due consideration of empirical insights into the concrete effects of smart drugs on brain and behavior, our attempt is to articulate wherein this moral unease consists and to argue for why the authors believe cognitive enhancement to be morally objectionable. The authors will contend that the moral problem with these practices lies less in the end it seeks, than in the underlying human disposition it expresses and promotes. Some might ask, what is wrong with molding our cognitive capacities to achieve excellence, get a competitive edge, or, as the whim takes us? In all of these occasions, the usage of smart drugs serves a certain goal, a telos. The goal is, broadly speaking, this: outsmarting opponents in an arms race for limited resources and thereby yielding a competitive edge. In plain words: competition is valued higher than cooperation or solidarity. What is wrong with striving for this goal? The authors submit that the question whether people really want to live in a society that promotes the mentality ‘individual competition over societal cooperation' deserves serious consideration. In developing their answer, the authors draw on an ‘Ethics of Constraint' framework, arguing that widespread off-label use of smart drugs bears the risk of negative neural/behavioral consequences for the individual that might, in the long run, be accompanied by changing social value orientations for the worse. (shrink)

This is a commentary on MM McCabe's "First Chop your logos... Socrates and the sophists on language, logic, and development". In her paper MM analyses Plato's Euthydemos, in which Plato tackles the problem of falsity in a way that takes into account the speaker and complements the Sophist's discussion of what is said. The dialogue looks as if it is merely a demonstration of the silly consequences of eristic combat. And so it is. But a main point of MM's paper (...) is that there is serious philosophy in the Euthydemos, too. MM argues that to counter the sophist brothers Euthydemos and Dionysodoros, Socrates points out that that there are different aspects to the verb 'to say' that run in parallel to the different aspects of the very 'to learn'. So just as there is continuity rather than ambiguity between 'to learn' and 'to understand', so there is continuity between the different aspects of saying. Thus Socrates puts forward a teleological account of both learning and meaning. Following up on some of MM's thoughts, I argue that the sophists subscribe, despite appearance, to a theory of meaning that respects serious and widely accepted philosophical theses on meaning. -/- Forthcoming in the Australasian Philosophical Review. The curator of the volume is Fiona Leigh, and the committee also has Hugh Benson and Tim Clarke. You can find MM's paper as well as the commentaries by Nicholas Denyer and Russell E. Jones and Ravi Sharma (and myself) by registering. (shrink)

What beliefs are, what they do for us, how we come to hold them, and how to evaluate them. Our beliefs constitute a large part of our knowledge of the world. We have beliefs about objects, about culture, about the past, and about the future. We have beliefs about other people, and we believe that they have beliefs as well. We use beliefs to predict, to explain, to create, to console, to entertain. Some of our beliefs we call theories, and (...) we are extraordinarily creative at constructing them. Theories of quantum mechanics, evolution, and relativity are examples. But so are theories about astrology, alien abduction, guardian angels, and reincarnation. All are products (with varying degrees of credibility) of fertile minds trying to find explanations for observed phenomena. In this book, Nils Nilsson examines beliefs: what they do for us, how we come to hold them, and how to evaluate them. We should evaluate our beliefs carefully, Nilsson points out, because they influence so many of our actions and decisions. Some of our beliefs are more strongly held than others, but all should be considered tentative and changeable. Nilsson shows that beliefs can be quantified by probability, and he describes networks of beliefs in which the probabilities of some beliefs affect the probabilities of others. He argues that we can evaluate our beliefs by adapting some of the practices of the scientific method and by consulting expert opinion. And he warns us about “belief traps”—holding onto beliefs that wouldn't survive critical evaluation. The best way to escape belief traps, he writes, is to expose our beliefs to the reasoned criticism of others. (shrink)

Das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Einzelinteressen und kollektivem Handeln ist ein klassisches Phänomen der Politik. Die Beiträge des Bandes behandeln dieses Thema aus verschiedenen theoretischen und methodischen Perspektiven.

According to the Harm Principle, roughly, the state may coerce a person only if it can thereby prevent harm to others. Clearly, this principle depends crucially on what we understand by harm. Thus, if any sort of negative effect on a person may count as a harm, the Harm Principle will fail to sufficiently protect individual liberty. Therefore, a more subtle concept of harm is needed. I consider various possible conceptions and argue that none gives rise to a plausible version (...) of the Harm Principle. Whether we focus on welfare, quantities of welfare or qualities of welfare, we do not arrive at a plausible version of this principle. Instead, the concept of harm may be moralized. I consider various ways this may be done as well as possible rationales for the resulting versions of the Harm Principle. Again, no plausible version of the principle turns up. I also consider the prospect of including the Harm Principle in a decision-procedure rather than in a criterion of rightness. Finally, in light of my negative appraisal, I briefly discuss why this principle has seemed so appealing to liberals. (shrink)

Normative ethics usually presupposes background accounts of human agency, and although different ethical theorists might have different pictures of human agency in mind, there is still something like a standard account that most of mainstream normative ethics can be understood to rest on. Ethical theorists tend to have Rational Man, or at least some close relative to him, in mind when constructing normative theories. It will be argued here that empirical findings raise doubts about the accuracy of this kind of (...) account; human beings fall too far short of ideals of rationality for it to be meaningful to devise normative ideals within such a framework. Instead, it is suggested, normative ethics could be conducted more profitably if the idea of unifying all ethical concerns into one theoretical account is abandoned. This disunity of ethical theorizing would then match the disunited and heuristic-oriented nature of our agency. (shrink)

In bilateral logic formulas are signed by + and –, indicating the speech acts assertion and denial. I argue that making an assumption is also speech act. Speech acts cannot be embedded within other speech acts. Hence we cannot make sense of the notion of making an assumption in bilateral logic. Attempts to solve this problem are considered and rejected.

ABSTRACTEvaluative aesthetic discourse communicates that the speaker has had first-hand experience of what is talked about. If you call a book bewitching, it will be assumed that you have read the book. If you say that a building is beautiful, it will be assumed that you have had some visual experience with it. According to an influential view, this is because knowledge is a norm for assertion, and aesthetic knowledge requires first-hand experience. This paper criticizes this view and argues for (...) an alternative view, according to which aesthetic discourse expresses affective states of mind, analogously to how assertions express beliefs. It is because these affective states require first-hand experience that aesthetic discourse communicates that such acquaintance is at hand. The paper furthermore argues that the lack of an experience requirement for aesthetic belief ascriptions constitutes a problem for the kind of expressivist who claims that evaluative belief states are covert non-cognitive states. (shrink)

This paper discusses proof-theoretic semantics, the project of specifying the meanings of the logical constants in terms of rules of inference governing them. I concentrate on Michael Dummett’s and Dag Prawitz’ philosophical motivations and give precise characterisations of the crucial notions of harmony and stability, placed in the context of proving normalisation results in systems of natural deduction. I point out a problem for defining the meaning of negation in this framework and prospects for an account of the meanings of (...) modal operators in terms of rules of inference. (shrink)

Phenomenology has primarily been concerned with conceptual questions about knowledge and ontology. However, in recent years the rise of interest and research in applied phenomenology has seen the study of political phenomenology move to a central place in the study of phenomenology generally. The Routledge Handbook of Political Phenomenology is the first major collection on this important topic. Comprising 35 chapters by an international team of expert contributors, the Handbook is organised into six clear parts, each with its own Introduction (...) by the editors: Founders of Phenomenology Existentialist Phenomenology Phenomenology of the Social and Political World Phenomenology of Alterity Phenomenology in Debate Contemporary Developments. Full attention is given to central figures in the phenomenological movement, including Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Levinas as well as those whose contribution to political phenomenology is more distinctive, such as Arendt, De Beauvoir and Fanon. Also included are chapters on gender, race and intersectionality, disability, and technology. Ideal for those studying phenomenology, continental philosophy and political theory, The Routledge Handbook of Political Phenomenology bridges an important gap between a major philosophical movement and contemporary political issues and concepts. (shrink)

Interessen for og fascinationen af middelalderen er for tiden så stor, at Umberto Eco i Slagmark nr. 5 ligefrem kan opstille ti forskellige "middelaldre", der rumsterer i den bølge, som ikke mindst hans egen "Rosens navn" er en vigtig del af.

This book offers a multidisciplinary collection of historiographical case studies which in various ways explore the question of the modes of interrelation between 'change' and 'continuity' in historical narratives in Western cultural history."--Introduction, p. [1].

This book is a synthesis of more than three decades of research into the concept of time and its semiotic nature. If traditional philosophy – and philosophy of time should be no exception – in the shadow of advancing biology can be said to have reached an impasse, one important reason for this, in harmony with Wittgenstein’s vision, appears to have been its lack of appropriate tools for explicating language. The present theory of time proceeds, accordingly, from the exploration of (...) temporal expressions in language as an evolutionary fact. It derives in a hypothetical, coherent feedback process of hierarchically ordered distinctions the semantics of time from its biologically dictated perceptual and cognitive-pragmatic origins. The corresponding abductive-regulative model is anchored in the assumption of biological rhythmization as the very foundation of perception and mental/physical action. Understood to originate in space and spatial perspective, time reveals itself as an instrument for temporal perspective on motion (events and situations) in a process of analysis, i.e., discontinuation of chaos made divisible and continuous by the rhythmical screen. Whereas traditional philosophy of time paid attention almost exclusively to the temporal category of tense, the biopragmatic model sees strong evidence in the perspectival nature of time for ascribing the decisive, and probably universal, role in temporal analysis to the linguistic category of aspect. Aspect may, according to the present findings, be assumed to partake already of change-of-state and cause-effect analysis without which man’s adaptation to new situations – and precondition for survival – would be inconceivable. The proposed model of space/time cognition, inspired by Hegelian dialectics, Heidegger-Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle and Peircean logic, makes Kantian a priori superfluous and liberates time from its enigmatic appearance. For the first time in temporal studies it thus appears possible to derive hypothetically linguistic expressions of time all the way from pretemporal, homogeneous continuity effected by biological rhythmization, via pretemporal metonymic (Gestalt), chunk-wise partitioning – as a general precondition for the perception and, based on primary metaphorization, the cognition of things, space and motion – to temporal analysis/discontinuation proper, primarily by aspectual perspective, and the subsequent synthesized, heterogeneous continuity of temporally ordered events. The conception of time, so disastrous for modern temporal logic, i.e., as moving object assigned extension, divisible continuity (‛linearity’) and direction, can be shown to have emerged as a result of secondary metaphorization. (shrink)

The right to health is enshrined in the constitution of the World Health Organization and numerous other international agreements. Yet today, an estimated 5.7 million people die each year from treatable infectious diseases, most of which are susceptible to existing antimicrobials if they were accessible. These deaths occur predominantly among populations living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries, and they greatly exceed the estimated 700,000 annual deaths worldwide currently attributed to antimicrobial resistance. Ensuring universal appropriate access to antimicrobials is (...) not only a critical part of realizing the right to health, it is necessary for mobilizing effective collective action against the development and spread of AMR. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider a few actual cases of mnemonic strategies among older subjects (older than 65). The cases are taken from an ethnographic study, examining how elderly adults cope with cognitive decline. We believe that these cases illustrate that the process of remembering in many cases involve a complex distributed web of processes involving both internal or intracranial and external sources. Our cases illustrate that the nature of distributed remembering is shaped by and subordinated to the dynamic characteristics (...) of the on-going activity and to our minds suggest that research on memory and distributed cognition should focus on the process of remembering through detailed descriptions and analysis of naturally occurring situations. (shrink)

Roughly, according to conditional egalitarianism, equality is non-instrumentally valuable, but only if it benefits at least one individual. Some political theorists have argued that conditional egalitarianism has the important virtue that it allows egalitarians to avoid the so-called objection. However, in the present article I argue that conditional egalitarianism does not offer the egalitarian a plausible escape route from this objection. First, I explain the levelling down objection and suggest some particular concerns from which it derives its force. Then I (...) provide a more precise definition of conditional egalitarianism. Finally, I give two arguments against this principle. According to the first, it violates the transitivity of the betterness relation (or more specifically, ). According to the second, there is no plausible explanation of why equality must benefit at least one individual in order to be non-instrumentally valuable. (shrink)