The “fearful ape hypothesis” is interesting but is currently underspecified. We need more research on whether it is specific to fear, specific to humans (or even cooperative breeders in general), what is included in “fear,” and whether these patterns would indeed evolve despite arms races to extract help from audiences. Specifying these will result in a more testable hypothesis.

A systematic treatment of Hume's conception of imagination in all the main topics of his philosophy.

Is the objective passage of time compatible with relativistic physics? There are two easy routes to an affirmative answer: (1) provide a deflationary analysis of passage compatible with the block universe, or (2) argue that a privileged global present is compatible with relativity. (1) does not take passage seriously. (2) does not take relativity seriously. This paper is concerned with the viability of views that seek to take both passage and relativity seriously. The investigation proceeds by considering how traditional A-theoretic (...) conceptions of passage might be generalized to relativistic space-times without incorporating a privileged global present. I argue that the most promising position marries the idea that open possibilities for the future are settled as time passes with a ‘non-standard’ interpretation of the relevant formal models. (shrink)

Critically engaging the work of Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida together with her own observations on contemporary politics, environmental degradation, and the pursuit of a just and sustainable world, Kelly Oliver lays the groundwork for a politics and ethics that embraces otherness without exploiting difference. Rooted firmly in human beings' relationship to the planet and to each other, Oliver shows peace is possible only if we maintain our ties to earth and world. Oliver (...) begins with Immanuel Kant and his vision of politics grounded on earth as a finite surface shared by humans. She then incorporates Hannah Arendt's belief in plural worlds constituted through human relationships; Martin Heidegger's warning that alienation from the Earth endangers not only politics but also the very essence of being human; and Jacques Derrida's meditations on the singular worlds individuals, human and otherwise, create and how they inform the reality we inhabit. Each of these theorists, Oliver argues, resists the easy idealism of world citizenship and globalism, yet they all think about the earth against the globe to advance a grounded ethics. They contribute to a philosophy that avoids globalization's totalizing and homogenizing impulses and instead help build a framework for living within and among the world's rich biodiversity. (shrink)

What is morality? How many moral values are there? And what are they? According to the theory of morality-as-cooperation, morality is a collection of biological and cultural solutions to the problems of cooperation recurrent in human social life. This theory predicts that there will be as many different types of morality as there are different types of cooperation. Previous research, drawing on evolutionary game theory, has identified at least seven different types of cooperation, and used them to explain seven different (...) types of morality: family values, group loyalty, reciprocity, heroism, deference, fairness and property rights. Here we explore the conjecture that these simple moral ‘elements’ combine to form a much larger number of more complex moral ‘molecules’, and that as such morality is a combinatorial system. For each combination of two elements, we hypothesise a candidate moral molecule, and successfully locate an example of it in the professional and popular literature. These molecules include: fraternity, blood revenge, family pride, filial piety, gavelkind, primogeniture, friendship, patriotism, tribute, diplomacy, common ownership, honour, confession, turn taking, restitution, modesty, mercy, munificence, arbitration, mendicancy, and queuing. These findings indicate that morality – like many other physical, biological, psychological and cultural systems – is indeed a combinatorial system. Thus morality-as-cooperation provides a principled and powerful theory, that explains why there are many moral values, and successfully predicts what they will be; and it generates a systematic framework that has the potential to explain all moral ideas, possible and actual. Pursuing the many implications of this theory will help to place the study of morality on a more secure scientific footing. (shrink)

This paper sketches an account of the standard of acceptable proof in mathematics—rigour—arguing that the key requirement of rigour in mathematics is that nontrivial inferences be provable in greater detail. This account is contrasted with a recent perspective put forward by De Toffoli and Giardino, who base their claims on a case study of an argument from knot theory. I argue that De Toffoli and Giardino’s conclusions are not supported by the case study they present, which instead is a very (...) good illustration of the kind of view of proof defended here. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a novel reading of Spinoza’s position in his exchangewith Boyle about Boyle’s experiment with nitre. Boyle claimed to have shownthrough experiments that nitre ceased to be nitre after heating. Spinozadisagreed and proposed the alternative hypothesis that nitre has changed itsstate and not its nature. Spinoza’s position was construed in the literature asrational scepticism denying that experiments can yield knowledge ofessences because all sensory experience is underdetermined and open tomultiple interpretations. I argue for an alternative (...) reading of Spinoza’sposition which focuses on Bacon’s notion of crucial instance. According tothis reading, Spinoza did not deny the possibility of knowing byexperimentation whether nitre has changed its nature, he asked for a crucialinstance, i.e. an experiment that would refute the hypothesis that nitre haschanged merely its state. Spinoza’s argumentative strategy shows that,contrary to the mainstream reading, the representational content of sensoryideas can be determined even if it does not represent the essence of theobject: we can know with absolute, rather than merely moral, certaintywhether nitre ceased to be nitre without knowing what nitre is. (shrink)

We make some remarks on the mathematics and metaphysics of the hole argument, in response to a recent article in this journal by Weatherall ([2018]). Broadly speaking, we defend the mainstream philosophical literature from the claim that correct usage of the mathematics of general relativity `blocks' the argument.

In this article, I examine what Kant’s Formula of Universal Law requires of an individual agent in situations of great need, e.g.: if you can easily help a drowning child, or if you know of a famine situation in another country. I first explain why I do not simply apply the standard interpretation of how one can derive concrete duties from Kant’s Universal Law formulation of the Categorical Imperative. I then glean an alternative procedure from Kant’s texts and give the (...) reasons for using that interpretation. Finally, I apply the alternative procedure to situations of great need. – According to the interpretation I glean from Kant’s texts, one (i) should not make an exception to (ii) laws that we believe to be objectively necessary, whereby we derive these rules from (iii) universal ends of humankind. Since we take survival as one of the universal ends of mankind, we deem helping someone whose life is in danger as objectively necessary (to achieve the end). The formal Categorical Imperative demands that one does not make an exception to this rule. Applying this interpretation to cases of great need depends on at least three factors: (i) how urgent the need is, (ii) how great the costs are to the one who helps, and (iii) how many people can help. But at one extreme, where you are the only one who can easily save an innocent person’s life, the Kantian procedure generates a strict duty to help the other in need. (shrink)

We are, Julia Kristeva writes, strangers to ourselves; and indeed much of contemporary theory describes the human condition as one of alienation. Eloquently arguing that we cannot explain the developement of individuality or subjectivity apart from its social context, Kelly Oliver makes a powerful case for recognizing the social aspects of alienation and the psychic aspects of oppression.

I argue that Helen Knight and Margaret Macdonald expressed views on the nature of ‘good’ in aesthetic contexts which anticipate to a striking extent the dispute between Peter Geach and R. M. Hare over ethical uses of ‘good’ several years later. I show that Knight introduced a distinction between uses of adjectives later drawn also by Geach, and that she employed that distinction, as Geach did, in order to defend a descriptivist approach to ‘good’ according to which ‘good’ is not (...) ambiguous. I also show that Macdonald conceived of evaluative statements as commendatory, and that her conception of evaluative language therefore closely resembles the position which Hare would later advance. (shrink)

We all learn about the mistake of treating ‘nothing’ as if it were a term standing for something; but is it a mistake to treat it as an empty term, denoting nothing? We argue not, and we introduce ‘zilch’, defined as ‘the non-self-identical thing’, as a term which is empty as a matter of logical necessity. We contrast its behaviour with that of the quantifier ‘nothing’, and illustrate its uses. We use the same idea to vindicate Locke’s, Descartes’ and Hume’s (...) handling of ‘nothing’, and we show how Heidegger’s ‘das Nichts nichtet’ comes out as logically true. (shrink)

If it is ethically wrong to hold some beliefs, there may be a conflict between the demands of morality and the demands of rationality. A recent theory holds that no such conflict exists: any morally wrong belief is also irrational to hold, made irrational through a phenomenon of radical moral encroachment. In this paper, I argue that radical moral encroachment fails to coordinate ethical and epistemic norms, given plausible epistemological principles and various substantive accounts of which beliefs are morally wrong, (...) including those endorsed by radical moral encroachment theorists themselves. (shrink)

Family Values shows how the various contradictions at the heart of Western conceptions of maternity and paternity problematize our relationships with ourselves and with others. Using philosophical texts, psychoanalytic theory, studies in biology and popular culture, Kelly Oliver challenges our traditional concepts of maternity which are associated with nature, and our conceptions of paternity which are embedded in culture. Oliver's intervention calls into question the traditional image of the oppositional relationship between nature and culture, maternal and paternal. Family (...) Values also undercuts recent returns to the rhetoric of a "battle between the sexes" by analyzing the conceptual basis of these descriptions in biological research and the presuppositions of such suggestions in philosophy and psychoanalysis. By developing a reconception of maternity and paternity, Family Values offers hope for peace in the battle of the sexes. (shrink)

In Subjectivity without Subjects, well-known philosopher and feminist theorist Kelly Oliver looks at aspects of popular culture, film, science, and law to examine contemporary notions of paternity and maternity. Oliver studies the roles of paternal responsibility, virility, and race in such events as the Million Man March and the Promise Keeper's movement and suggests alternative ways to conceive of self-other relations and the subjective identity at stake in them. In addition she offers a detailed analysis of particular works (...) by such well-known filmmakers as Polanski, Bergman, and Varda in developing a theory of identity that opens the subject to otherness and difference. (shrink)

I chart the philosophical development of neglected figure Margaret Macdonald and situate that development in the context of mid-century analytic philosophy more broadly. I examine Macdonald’s changing attitude towards verificationism, and show that these changing views led her, in 1950 and beyond, to a very thorough appreciation of language use as capable of being employed in the execution of distinctive kinds of performative act. I compare Macdonald’s views with the far better known work of J. L. Austin, and I emphasise (...) the extent to which she has, despite her insightful contributions, been omitted from the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Ever since Eve tempted Adam with her apple, women have been regarded as a corrupting and destructive force. The very idea that women can be used as interrogation tools, as evidenced in the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos, plays on age-old fears of women as sexually threatening weapons, and therefore the literal explosion of women onto the war scene should come as no surprise. From the female soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib to Palestinian women suicide bombers, women and their bodies (...) have become powerful weapons in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In _Women as Weapons of War_, Kelly Oliver reveals how the media and the administration frequently use metaphors of weaponry to describe women and female sexuality and forge a deliberate link between notions of vulnerability and images of violence. Focusing specifically on the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, Oliver analyzes contemporary discourse surrounding women, sex, and gender and the use of women to justify America's decision to go to war. For example, the administration's call to liberate "women of cover," suggesting a woman's right to _bare_ arms is a sign of freedom and progress. Oliver also considers what forms of cultural meaning, or lack of meaning, could cause both the guiltlessness demonstrated by female soldiers at Abu Ghraib and the profound commitment to death made by suicide bombers. She examines the pleasure taken in violence and the passion for death exhibited by these women and what kind of contexts created them. In conclusion, Oliver diagnoses our cultural fascination with sex, violence, and death and its relationship with live news coverage and embedded reporting, which naturalizes horrific events and stymies critical reflection. This process, she argues, further compromises the borders between fantasy and reality, fueling a kind of paranoid patriotism that results in extreme forms of violence. (shrink)

At the centre of responsible management (RM) learning is the development of managerial competence for ethics, responsibility, and sustainability (ERS). Important contributions have been made from each: the ethics, responsibility, and sustainability disciplines. However, we are yet to integrate these disciplinary contributions into a comprehensive interdisciplinary RM competence framework that corresponds to the interdisciplinary nature of RM challenges. We address this priority in this paper and report on the findings of an integrative structured literature review of 224 management competence articles (...) across the ERS disciplines. Our thematic template analysis has produced an interdisciplinary RM competence framework of three layers of personal, behavioural, and intellectual competences and independent and interdependent competence dimensions. The resulting 3 × 2 competence matrix framework accommodates 33 interdisciplinary ERS competence themes and 90 subthemes in the six competence domains of _being_ and _becoming_, _acting_ and _interacting_, _knowing_ and _thinking_. To the RM discussion, we contribute an interdisciplinary competence framework that enables the development of responsible managers who tackle the inherently interdisciplinary issues of RM. To the competence discussion, we contribute the interdependent competence dimension and future research directions through the lens of response-ability. _JBE Section:_ Business Ethics Learning and Education. (shrink)

Bio-ontologies are digital frameworks for handling biological and biomedical data. They consist of theoretical entities and relations with explicitly defined logical structures and precise definitions, whose purpose is to provide a shared language for representing information to be distributed and integrated across diverse scientific contexts. It is tempting to view bio-ontologies as clear and formal expressions of a scientific community’s ontological commitments about their domain of inquiry, and to view their integration as tantamount to the metaphysical unification of science that (...) some philosophers have envisaged. However, I argue that the local, practical, social and technological factors that influence their design prevent us from straightforwardly reading metaphysical conclusions from them. I discuss these complications and suggest how they can be overcome, revealing more general lessons for the development of a well-founded scientific metaphysics. (shrink)

On virtue ethical grounds, Barbro Fröding and Martin Peterson recently recommended that near-future AIs should be developed as ‘Friendly AI’. AI in social interaction with humans should be programmed such that they mimic aspects of human friendship. While it is a reasonable goal to implement AI systems interacting with humans as Friendly AI, I identify four issues that need to be addressed concerning Friendly AI with Fröding’s and Peterson’s understanding of Friendly AI as a starting point. In a first step, (...) I briefly recapitulate Fröding’s and Peterson’s arguments for Friendly AI. I then highlight some issues with Fröding’s and Peterson’s approach and line of reasoning and identify four problems related to the notion of Friendly AI, which all pertain to the role and need for humans’ moral development. These are that one should consider the moral tendencies and preferences of the humans interacting with a friendly AI, it needs to be considered whether the humans interacting with a Friendly AI are still developing their virtues and character traits, the indirect effects of replacing humans with Friendly AI should be considered with respect to the possibilities for humans to develop their moral virtues and that the question whether the AI is perceived as some form of Artificial General Intelligence cannot be neglected. In conclusion, I argue that all of these four problems are related to humans moral development and that this observation strongly emphasizes the role and need for humans moral development in correlation to the accelerating development of AI-systems. (shrink)

The use of behavioural science to inform policy is one of the main developments in the social sciences over the last several decades. In this book, Adam Oliver offers an accessible introduction to the development of behavioural public policy, examining how behavioural economics might be used to inform the design of a broad spectrum of policy frameworks, from nudges, to bans on certain individual behaviours, to the regulation of the commercial sector. He also considers how behavioural economics can explain (...) and predict phenomena as a challenge to economists' assumptions around how people perceive time, utility and money. The book offers an intellectual foundation for all those concerned with behavioural public policy, from academics, undergraduate and postgraduate students with a diverse range of disciplinary perspectives, such as economics, political science, sociology and anthropology, to policy makers and practitioners working directly with behavioural public policy in their everyday working lives. (shrink)

Nietzsche has the reputation of being a virulent misogynist, so why are feminists interested in his philosophy? The essays in this volume provide answers to this question from a variety of feminist perspectives. The organization of the volume into two sets of essays, "Nietzsche's Use of Woman" and "Feminists' Use of Nietzsche," reflects the two general approaches taken to the issue of Nietzsche and woman. First, many debates have focused on how to interpret Nietzsche's remarks about women and femininity. Are (...) all of Nietzsche's comments to be read literally, or is he being ironic, perhaps even parodying and subverting stereotypes about women? Second, is his philosophy useful to feminist theory? Can we separate his philosophy from his seemingly derogatory remarks about women? Can feminists use his criticisms of truth, objectivity, reason, and the autonomous subject to challenge the exclusion of women from the history of philosophy? Some view his critiques of dualism and essentialism as well as his perspectivism and social constructivism as adumbrating later feminist positions. Others find troubling his privileging of masculinity and paradigms of domination; they see Nietzsche's sexual dualism as countering otherwise transgressive themes. Contributors are Debra Bergoffen, Maudmarie Clark, Daniel Conway, Jacques Derrida, Jean Graybeal, Kathleen Higgins, Luce Irigaray, Sarah Kofman, Tamsin Lorraine, Kelly Oliver, David Owen, Marilyn Pearsall, Ofelia Schutte, Linda Singer, Lynne Tirrell, and Kathleen Wininger. (shrink)

Was the zoological garden a place for science in the 19th and 20th centuries? This question cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. Rather, this Special Issue suggests, we need to reconstruct how the concrete conditions of the zoo as an institution influenced, enabled, triggered, facilitated, obstructed, or impeded scientific research. The zoo was and is a multifunctional space serving different constituencies, such as scientists of different disciplines, artists, breeders, and the general public. This collection of articles argues (...) that despite or even because of its hybrid character, the zoo generated knowledge about exotic animals in often unexpected ways. This Special Issue conceives of “science at the zoo” as a an “impure,” yet very rich epistemic constellation with its very own dynamic, tensions, and contradictions. The first part of this introduction provides a historical overview of the topic. Synthesizing the existing secondary literature, it addresses the major themes of science at the zoo: the debate among scientists about the pros and cons of research conducted in and outside the cages; the gap between the promise of doing research at the zoo and the actual practices; and the emergence of new fields of knowledge such as zoo veterinary medicine, zoo biology, and conservation science. The introduction's second part draws out the common topics that connect the eight articles of this Special Issue: the multiplicity of spaces interacting with the zoo; the broad range of historical actors, including academics, animal traders, and zoo keepers; the changing roles of the zoo-going public; and the negotiation of authority and epistemic hierarchies in producing knowledge about zoo animals. The large numbers of zoos and the long temporal range these articles cover bring the constant evolution of “science at the zoo”-and hence its intrinsic historical dimension-to the fore. (shrink)

I argue, through appeal to the distinction between analysis and decomposition described by Dummett, that Wittgenstein employs both of those notions in the Tractatus. I then bring this interpretation to bear upon the issue of propositional unity, where I formulate an objection to the views of both Leonard Linksy and José Zalabardo. I show that both Linsky and Zalabardo fail to acknowledge the distinction between analysis and decomposition present in the Tractatus, and that they consequently mischaracterise Wittgenstein’s position with respect (...) to propositional unity. (shrink)

A crucial insight in Michelman’s ‘Constitutional Essentials’ is that constitutions may serve a justificatory or proceduralizing aim in modern liberal democracies. Yet the pervasiveness of moral disagreement – all-the-way-up; all-the-way-down – suggests, as I will argue, a democratic-experimentalist turn, which focuses on a non-hierarchical process of stakeholder deliberation and the court’s role in instigating and overseeing that process, ensuring non-domination. I believe that Frank is exactly right in arguing that a liberally justification-worthy political framework-law-in-place is normatively necessary for democratic politics (...) to succeed in divided societies. But I want to suggest that democratic experimentalism can offer further support to this claim. (shrink)

Are there moral constraints on the pursuit of the good? Our intuitions suggest that we may not use another person as a means to achieve a good outcome, even if that good outcome reduces the amount of using-as-a-means that occurs overall. These intuitions are assumed to be incompatible with consequentialism and to show the need for a deontological constraint on using others as a means. This assumption is a mistake. In this paper, I show that consequentialists can justify the same (...) case-based intuitions that are thought to support a moral constraint on using others as a means. (shrink)

Spinoza is usually understood to be internalist about the representation of adequate ideas and externalist about the representation of inadequate ideas. Existing readings of Spinoza's social epistemology do not challenge this view; they argue that the social context of the mind is an empowering enabling condition for acquiring knowledge. In this article, I argue that Spinoza is an externalist about the representation of both adequate and inadequate ideas: adequate ideas are constituted by the relation between the mind's real essence and (...) real objects. Since the mind's essence is desire, the mind knows its own real essence if it desires its real effects, that is, what follows from the common order of nature. Having an adequate idea is a social practice in two senses. It presupposes taking into account the striving of every other being and to desire only what is compatible with those beings (in this sense, it is also epistemically just). It also amounts to participating in the most collective action that can be joined by every other being, that is, in bringing about the world that can be shared by every being. (shrink)

Are we justified in keeping the demented in prison for crimes they committed when they were still healthy? The answer to this question is an issue of considerable practical importance. The problem arises in cases where very aged criminals exhibit symptoms of dementia while serving their sentence. In these cases, one may wonder whether lodging these criminals in penal institutions rather than in normal caretaking facilities is justifiable. In this paper, I argue that there are justificatory reasons for punishing the (...) demented for their past crimes. In part 2, I examine three theories of punishment—retributivism, prevention theories and expressivism—with regard to the question of whether they provide justificatory reasons for punishing the demented. I argue that only expressivism provides these reasons. In part 3, I defend the view that expressivism, though not convincing as a general theory of punishment, is plausible if applied only to a specific subclass of punitive actions. More precisely, expressivism, or so I argue, is plausible with regard to those acts of punishment that consist in intending to inflict suffering without actually inflicting suffering. Since the punishment of demented patients falls within this class, it can be justified on an expressivist basis. In part 4, I discuss six objections to my view and rebut them. (shrink)

Contemporary approaches to “non-market accounting” depend critically on methods of “monetization,” i.e., determining prices for goods outside the market. Monetization constitutes a case of economic measurement in a narrow sense that has not yet been analyzed in the literature on measurement in economics. Monetization, I will argue, uses homo economicus—originally created as a model to explain existing prices—as a measuring device, one that generates new prices for goods that are not traded on markets. Homo economicus, though long contested in microeconomics, (...) is thus enjoying a dubious revival in non-market accounting. (shrink)

Saint Anselm’s ontological argument is usually interpreted either (1) as an attempt to deductively prove God’s existence or (2) as a form of prayer, which is not intended to “prove” God’s existence, but rather to deepen the devotion of those who already believe. In this paper I attempt to find a mean between these two interpretations, showing that while Anselm’s argument is not a deductive proof, it is nevertheless a proof of God’s existence. I argue that Anselm’s ontological argument is (...) analogous to Aristotle’s to elegktikōs apodeixai (retorsive argument) for the truth of the principle of non-contradiction in Metaphysics IV: an argument that does not move from premises to conclusion, but rather demonstrates the truth of its conclusion by showing that its conclusion is always presupposed. I argue that interpreting Anselm’s ontological argument in this way exempts it from the most common objections against it. (shrink)

Reciprocal interactions between the host circadian clock and the microbiota are evidenced by recent literature. Interestingly, dysregulation of either the circadian clock or microbiota is associated with common human pathologies such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, or neurological disorders. However, it is unclear to what extent a perturbation of pathways regulated by both the circadian clock and microbiota is involved in the development of these disorders. It is speculated that these perturbations are associated with impaired growth hormone (GH) secretion and (...) sexual development. The GH axis is a broadly neglected pathway and could be the main converging point for the interaction of both circadian clock and microbiota. Here, the links between the circadian clock and microbiota are reviewed. Finally, the effects of chronodisruption and dysbiosis on physiology and pathology are discussed and it is speculated whether a common deregulation of the GH pathway could mediates those effects. (shrink)

P. J. Rhodes: Preface Polly Low and Graham Oliver: Comparing Cultures of Commemoration in Ancient and Modern Societies Polly Low: The Monuments ot the War Dead in Classical Athens: Forms, Contexts, Meanings Alison Cooley: Commemorating the War Dead of the Roman World Angelos Chaniotis: The Ritualised Commemoration of War in the Hellenistic City: Memory, Identity, Emotion Avner Ben-Amos: Two Neo-Classical Monuments in Modern France: The Pantheon and Arc de Triomphe Graham Oliver: Naming the Dead, Writing the Individual: Classical (...) Traditions and Commemorative Practices in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Stefan Goebel: Cultural Memory and the Great War: Medievalism and Classicism in British and German War Memorials Lawrence A. Tritle: Monument to Defeat: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in American Culture and Society. (shrink)

The extreme length of chromosomal DNA requires organizing mechanisms to both promote functional genetic interactions and ensure faithful chromosome segregation when cells divide. Microscopy and genome‐wide contact frequency analyses indicate that intra‐chromosomal looping of DNA is a primary pathway of chromosomal organization during all stages of the cell cycle. DNA loop extrusion has emerged as a unifying model for how chromosome loops are formed in cis in different genomic contexts and cell cycle stages. The highly conserved family of SMC complexes (...) have been found to be required for DNA cis‐looping and have been suggested to be the enzymatic core of loop extruding machines. Here, the current body of evidence available for the in vivo and in vitro action of SMC complexes is discussed and compared to the predictions made by the loop extrusion model. How SMC complexes may differentially act on chromatin to generate DNA loops and how they could work to generate the dynamic and functionally appropriate organization of DNA in cells is explored. -/- . (shrink)

Erratum zu:N. Campagna et al.,Tocqueville-Handbuch,https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05754-9Ecrits sur le système pénitentiaire en France et à l’étra.

Die Schlusssatze von Darwins Entstehung der Arten formulieren ein Prinzip, das weit uber die Biologie hinaus einflussreich wurde: "Es ist wahrlich eine grossartige Ansicht, dass der Schopfer den Keim allen Lebens, das uns umgibt, nur wenigen oder nur einer einzigen Form eingehaucht habe, und dass... aus so einfachem Anfang sich eine endlose Reihe immer schonerer und vollkommenerer Wesen entwickelt hat und noch fort entwickelt." Die Autoren dieses Bandes beschaftigen sich mit dem Evolutionsgedanken im Christentum und Islam, gehen dem Zusammenhang von (...) Religion und der Entwicklung des Bewusstseins nach und setzen sich mit dem Prinzip Evolution in Philosophie und Religionstheorie auseinander. (shrink)

The admiration of the Soviet Union amongst Britain's interwar scientific left is well known. This article reveals a parallel story. Focusing on the biologists Julian Huxley and Lancelot Hogben and the scientific journalist J.G. Crowther, I show that a number of scientific thinkers began to look west, to the US. In the mid- to late 1930s and into the 1940s, Huxley, Crowther and Hogben all visited the US and commented favourably on Roosevelt's New Deal, in particular its experimental approach to (...) politics (in the form of planning). Huxley was first to appreciate the significance of the experiment; he looked to the Tennessee Valley Authority as a model of democratic planning by persuasion that could also be applied in Britain. Crowther, meanwhile, examined the US through the lens of history of science. InFamous American Men of Science(1937) and in lectures at Harvard University, he aimed to shed light on the flaws in the Constitution which were frustrating the New Deal. Finally, Hogben's interest in the US was related to his long-standing opposition to dialectical materialism, and when he finally saw the US at first hand, he regarded it as a model for how to bring about a planned socialist society through peaceful persuasion. (shrink)

This paper examines freedom and the determination of the will in §4 of Hegel’s Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, in light of Aristotle’s concept of leading arts (architektonikē technē) from Metaphysics A.1–2. Traditionally, intellect determines truth, while will determines action—a distinction central to Aristotle’s differentiation between theoretical and practical philosophy. Hegel, however, challenges this division, arguing that will is an extension of intelligence, integrating insight and goal-setting into a unified self-determination. By engaging with contemporary interpretations—Fulda, Pippin, and Pinkard—this paper explores (...) the tension between theory and practice. While Fulda defends philosophy’s indirect political relevance, Pippin argues it lacks practical justification. Pinkard links philosophy to institutional self-understanding, grounding practical reasoning in human biology. Reassessing Hegel’s implicit use of Aristotle’s leading arts, this paper argues that freedom of the will in §4 should be understood as intersubjective self-determination—not a mere choice among possibilities, but an identification with a politically and normatively determined highest practical ground. This reading reconciles theory and practice while emphasizing the institutional and social dimensions of self-determination. (shrink)

The immediate occasion for this special issue was Christia Mercer’s influential paper “The Contextualist Revolution in Early Modern Philosophy”. In her paper, Mercer clearly demarcates two methodologies of the history of early modern philosophy. She argues that there has been a silent contextualist revolution in the past decades, and the reconstructivist methodology has been abandoned. One can easily get the impression that ‘reconstructivist’ has become a pejorative label that everyone outright rejects. Mercer’s examples of reconstructivist historians of philosophy are deceased (...) (P. F. Strawson, Margaret J. Osler, Richard Watson, and Bernard Williams), anonymous (the fans of philosopher* mentioned by Lisa Downing), or authors whose more recent work followed a contextualist methodology (Jonathan Bennett). The reconstructivist camp seems to have turned into a shadowy group, largely extinct by now, not unlike the Death Eaters in the fictional universe of Harry Potter. There are some figures who previously belonged to this group, but they have since reformed their ways – or so it seems. Sometimes it is rumoured that certain people may still have secret allegiance to it, but no one dares to fly its banner openly. We decided to create this special issue because we believe that reconstructivist methodology does not deserve this shadowy existence. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against Michael Morris’ claim, that the Tractatus view involves holding that the possibility of truth-functional combination is prior to the possibility for sentential constituents to combine with one another. I provide an alternative interpretation in which I deny the presence of any distinction in the Tractatus between these two possibilities. I then turn to Adrian Moore’s ‘disjunctivist’ account of sentencehood, itself inspired by the Tractatus view. I argue that Moore’s account need not involve a commitment (...) to the kind of priority Morris describes, and that it need not involve a commitment to transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Die Schreibwerkstätten am Literaturhaus in Stuttgart haben in Deutschland Massstäbe gesetzt. Was vor über 10 Jahren als ein Angebot für Schülerinnen und Schüler begonnen hatte, mündete konsequenterweise auch in ein innovatives Programm zur Lehrerfortbildung: die Gesprächsreihe "Literatur und ihre Vermittler". Zehn Autorinnen und Autoren äusserten sich zu wesentlichen Fragen des literarischen Schreibens und gewährten einen sehr persönlichen Blick hinter die Kulissen. Wo und wann beginnt Literatur? Ist Schreiben erlernbar? Wann wird Sprache literarisch? Ist Scheitern die Voraussetzung für etwas Neues? Wer (...) bestimmt die Kriterien, was Qualität ist und was nicht? Diesen und anderen Fragen sind die Schriftsteller nachgegangen. Die Gesprächsreihe "Literatur und ihre Vermittler" wird gefördert von der Breuninger Stiftung Stuttgart. (shrink)