We discuss a recent approach to investigating cognitive control, which has the potential to deal with some of the challenges inherent in this endeavour. In a model-based approach, the researcher defines a formal, computational model that performs the task at hand and whose performance matches that of a research participant. The internal variables in such a model might then be taken as proxies for latent variables computed in the brain. We discuss the potential advantages of such an approach for the (...) study of the neural underpinnings of cognitive control and its pitfalls, and we make explicit the assumptions underlying the interpretation of data obtained using this approach. (shrink)

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, ...

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)

Este manuscrito objetiva analisar, no âmbito do direito transnacional, do direito nacional e das convenções estabelecidas no mercado, características atinentes à certificação de orgânicos, tema extremamente relevante para a segurança alimentar. Desde 1970, o movimento orgânico se apresenta como um modelo alternativo em contestação aos impactos ambientais gerados pela agricultura industrial e pelos ditames da Revolução Verde. É nesta conjuntura que a Federação Internacional de Agricultura Orgânica (IFOAM) instaura um marco regulatório (certificação por auditoria) de abrangência global para este setor, (...) que, apesar de apresentar natureza privada, logra de legitimidade em inúmeros países. É oportuno destacar que a regulação não é exclusivamente oriunda do setor público, ela pode ser desenvolvida concomitantemente aos modelos estatais, assim, podemos ter modelos estatais nacionais, globais, inclusive oriundos do setor privado. Por seu turno, a legislação nacional também recepcionou estas diretrizes transnacionais, contudo alcançou identidade própria ao reconhecer os sistemas participativos de garantia da qualidade orgânica (SPG/OPAC) no intuito de contemplar a agricultura familiar de base agroecológica, o que, posteriormente, consubstanciará em uma inovação normativa em sede de soft law em nível internacional. Sem olvidar, inequivocamente, da exceção legal disposta para regularização da produção orgânica e agroecológica com vistas à venda direta da produção orgânica e agroecológica através das Organizações de Controle Social (OCS). Quanto à metodologia será utilizado o método dialético, abordagem qualitativa e objetivo analítico-descritivo, de sorte que a revisão bibliográfica será fundamental para analisar os materiais disponíveis sobre esta temática. (shrink)

In his book, Democratic Autonomy: Public Reasoning about the Ends of Policy, Henry Richardson suggests a process-based objection to bureaucracy – that is, an objection to bureaucracy that does not refer primarily to results, but rather to an ethical flaw that is inherent to bureaucratic procedures. Richardson’s worry is that, while large and complex societies rely on bureaucratic agencies to implement policies, there is a threat of those within bureaucratic institutions having more power than the average citizen when it comes (...) to making specific decisions about how to enact policy, and that this inequality in decision making power may be unjustified because undemocratic. If such inequality in decision making power is indeed a real threat, it will turn out that bureaucratic organisations, while being largely motivated by considerations of procedural fairness, may in fact constitute quite unfair procedures. Richardson proposes some institutional reforms that he thinks will enable us to avoid being dominated by bureaucracies, while retaining bureaucratic agencies, which he believes are necessary in modern societies. In what follows, I illustrate Richardson’s worry about bureaucratic domination and his proposed solution to the problem with a simplified, concrete example. If we compare Richardson’s proposed institutional reforms with Max Weber’s analysis of the concept of bureaucracy, however, I argue that it becomes apparent that bureaucracy is in fact incompatible with the sort of democracy that Richardson favours. If I am correct, this means that to the extent that we adopt Richardson’s proposed reforms, we will be replacing bureaucracies with something else. (shrink)

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)

In this paper I argue that coming into existence can benefit (or harm) aperson. My argument incorporates the comparative claim that existence canbe better (or worse) for a person than never existing. Since these claimsare highly controversial, I consider and reject a number of objectionswhich threaten them. These objections raise various semantic, logical,metaphysical and value-theoretical issues. I then suggest that there is animportant sense in which it can harm (or benefit) a person not to comeinto existence. Again, I consider and (...) reject some objections. Finally, Ibriefly consider what the conclusions reached in this paper imply for ourmoral obligations to possible future people. (shrink)

This paper proves normalisation theorems for intuitionist and classical negative free logic, without and with the $\invertediota$ operator for definite descriptions. Rules specific to free logic give rise to new kinds of maximal formulas additional to those familiar from standard intuitionist and classical logic. When $\invertediota$ is added it must be ensured that reduction procedures involving replacements of parameters by terms do not introduce new maximal formulas of higher degree than the ones removed. The problem is solved by a rule (...) that permits restricting these terms in the rules for $\forall$, $\exists$ and $\invertediota$ to parameters or constants. A restricted subformula property for deductions in systems without $\invertediota$ is considered. It is improved upon by an alternative formalisation of free logic building on an idea of Ja\'skowski's. In the classical system the rules for $\invertediota$ require treatment known from normalisation for classical logic with $\lor$ or $\exists$. The philosophical significance of the results is also indicated. (shrink)

Emergence is a universal phenomenon that can be defined mathematically in a very general way. This is useful for the study of scientifically legitimate explanations of complex systems, here defined as hyperstructures. A requirement is that the observation mechanisms are considered within the general framework. Two notions of emergence are defined, and specific examples of these are discussed.

Stakeholder theory has become an influential framework for addressing organizational challenges, including those related to sustainability. Yet, the inclusion of nonhuman stakeholders in stakeholder theory is complicated by ontological and epistemological obstacles. To overcome these, we turn to art and posthumanist practice theory and examine artist-led practices by focusing on the projects of two pioneering eco-artists, Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison. In this way we identify the ontological and epistemological challenges that impede the inclusion of nonhumans into stakeholder theory, (...) showing that artist-led practices allow for the inclusion of nonhuman stakeholders in two ways: (1) by specifying the temporal, spatial, and outcome distinctions that ontologically hinder their inclusion; and (2) by explicating the reframing of knowing and the emotional and imaginative dimensions of knowing that epistemologically enable their inclusion. We expand on the theorizing of nonhuman stakeholder inclusion by understanding the inclusion of nonhumans, first, not as a fixed state that is to be achieved but rather as one that materializes and gains meaning through specific practices of knowing; and, second, not as merely the absence of exclusion but rather as a dynamic interplay, where inclusion and exclusion mutually constitute one another. By advancing stakeholder theory’s theorizing and understandings of inclusion and exclusion, we also respond to urgent and contemporary environmental challenges. (shrink)

With the demand for “counter-knowledge” in the social movements of the 1970s and 1980s, “counter-experts” became an integral part of politics. In the field of environmental activism, counter-experts were particularly well represented in regions and agglomerations with high levels of industrial pollution. This essay argues that awareness correlated with a mode of knowledge production that was typical for the environmental sciences in the twentieth century. The history of the environmental sciences throughout that period was shaped by regional epistemologies, often emerging (...) in the context of large-scale infrastructural projects. Many counter-experts therefore had strong ties with the field of the environmental sciences. The article traces three influential counter-experts in the Frankfurt Main region by 1980: the pastor Kurt Oeser; scientific green activist Jutta Ditfurth; and the project of a “social natural science” related to the Darmstadt philosopher Gernot Böhme. (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)

The Ethical Question asks whether ethical values in artworks determine their aesthetic value and, if so, how. I argue that the question is ambiguous between a direct and an indirect reading. I show how the indirect reading is philosophically uninteresting because it has an obvious answer: a view called ‘immoralism’. I also show how most of the significant figures in the relevant literature address the indirect form of the question anyway—needlessly, if I am right. Finally, I consider whether some version (...) of the indirect question is more philosophically interesting, connecting it to the so-called ‘qua problem’. I attempt to give clarity to the discussion by applying work on the virtues and vices of explanations. (shrink)

This chapter examines autonomism. Autonomism is roughly the view that an artwork’s ethical properties do not bear on its aesthetic or artistic value. The author sketches some of the view’s history before describing various versions of it defended over the last quarter-century. These are divided into ‘radical’, ‘robust’, and ‘moderate’ forms of autonomism. The author considers the strengths and weaknesses of each. The author also devotes some space to the ‘interactionist’ views against which contemporary autonomism is typically opposed. In doing (...) so, he considers the so-called ‘qua problem’ at some length, as well its bearing on these various autonomist positions. (shrink)

"The Politics of Social Cohesion considers in greater detail the impact of immigration on social cohesion and egalitarian redistribution. First, it critically scrutinizes an influential argument, according to which immigration leads to ethnic diversity, which again tends to undermine trust and solidarity and so the social basis for redistribution. According to this argument, immigration should be severely restricted. Second, it considers the suggestion that, in response to worries about immigration, states should promote a shared identity to foster social cohesion in (...) the citizenry"--. (shrink)

For Hannah Arendt, the public is the realm where individuals show themselves to their fellow human beings. They do this by relating to each other through speaking and acting together. Both speaking and acting are only possible if men acknowledge each other as independent, autonomous individuals but at the same time keep a common interest, a reference point for their speaking and acting together. In or- der to recognize each other as equal yet unique, individuals must gain distance – to (...) themselves, to others and to the objects they speak of. They are only able to do this in public. Helmuth Plessner has developed a concept of publicity which ensures the individual’s »right to distance«. This »right to distance« can contribute to a better understanding of Hannah Arendt’s often misinterpreted separation of the private from the public realm and furthermore allows a better understanding of how Arendt envisioned a culture within which the political can be established. (shrink)

While the only extensive discussion of music in Kierkegaard’s work is the famous treatise based on Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni in the first part of the pseudonymous Either/or (1843), Kierkegaard did write other brief passages, in which he made comments on musical aspects. Two recent articles have pointed to attitudes toward music in such passages which seem to differ from the negative evaluation of music as a religious or theological medium in the first part of Either/or by the fictitious aesthete (...) A. With a point of departure in the two mentioned articles, I attempt to further discuss the possible relationship between the ethical and the aesthetic in Kierkegaard’s musical thought, involving passages from both parts of Either/or as well as a few journal-entries. Finally, Erika Fischer-Lichte’s distinction between staging and performativity is brought to bear on these issues. (shrink)

It is widely held within contemporary metaethics that there is a lack of linguistic support for evaluative expressivism. On the contrary, it seems that the predictions that expressivists make about evaluative discourse are not borne out. An instance of this is the so-called problem of missing Moorean infelicity. Expressivists maintain that evaluative statements express non-cognitive states of mind in a similar manner to how ordinary descriptive language expresses beliefs. Conjoining an ordinary assertion that p with the denial of being in (...) the corresponding belief state famously gives rise to Moorean infelicity:?? It’s raining but I don’t believe that it’s raining. If expressivists are right, then conjoining evaluative statements with the denial of being in the relevant non-cognitive state of mind should give rise to similar infelicity. However, as several theorists have pointed out, this does not seem to be the case. Statements like the following are not infelicitous: Murder is wrong but I don’t disapprove of it. In this paper, I argue that evaluative statements express the kind of states that are attributed by ‘find’-constructions in English and that these states are non-cognitive in nature. This addresses the problem of missing Moorean infelicity and, more generally, goes to show that there are linguistic facts which support expressivism about evaluative discourse. (shrink)

We are pleased to print here the winning entry for the 1995 European Business Ethics Essay Competition, which was sponsored jointly by the Foundation for Business Responsibilities and London Business School and to which entry was open to students for the MBA or equivalent management degree at any institution in Europe. The author, Mr Nils Elmark, subsequently gained his MSc degree in Public Relations at the Department of Marketing, University of Stirling, and is now with Marks and Brands, St. (...) Kirkstrade 3, DK‐1073 Copenhagen, Denmark. (shrink)

Unesco and the International Council of Music have begun work on a musicological project of considerable extent, since it is a universal history of music in ten volumes. At present, the provisional title is Music as a Language of Man: A World History of Music.

This paper formulates a bilateral account of harmony that is an alternative to one proposed by Francez. It builds on an account of harmony for unilateral logic proposed by Kürbis and the observation that reading the rules for the connectives of bilateral logic bottom up gives the grounds and consequences of formulas with the opposite speech act. I formulate a process I call 'inversion' which allows the determination of assertive elimination rules from assertive introduction rules, and rejective elimination rules from (...) rejective introduction rules, and conversely. It corresponds to Francez's notion of vertical harmony. I also formulate a process I call 'conversion', which allows the determination of rejective introduction rules from assertive elimination rules and conversely, and the determination of assertive introduction rules from rejective elimination rules and conversely. It corresponds to Francez's notion of horizontal harmony. The account has a number of features that distinguish it from Francez's. (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)