Daß Descartes – im Anschluß an den "Discours de la méthode" (1637) und die "Meditationes de prima philosophia" (1641) – mit der Veröffentlichung der "Principia" die Zäsur setzte, die seinen Rang als erster Denker der "Philosophie der Neuzeit" begründete, ist ein Topos der Philosophiegeschichte. Uneinigkeit besteht aber bis heute unter den Biographen und Interpreten über die Frage, ob Descartes selbst sich dessen bewußt war, daß alle Aussagen bzw. Erkenntnisse über das Geschehen in der Natur notwendig hypothetisch bleiben (unter metaphysischem Aspekt) (...) und dennoch (sofern methodisch gewonnen) die Wirklichkeit treffen und berechenbar machen. Oder ob er in den "Principia" nur deshalb darauf verfiel, alle seine Aussagen über die Prinzipien der körperlichen Dinge, die sichtbare Welt und die Erde in bloß hypothetischer Form vorzutragen, um der Verfolgung durch die Inquisition zu entgehen. Diese neue, zweisprachige Ausgabe der philosophiegeschichtlich Epoche machenden Schrift bietet neben dem lateinischen Originaltext und der völlig neu erstellten, terminologischen Unterscheidungen genau Rechnung tragenden Übersetzung erstmals auch eine umfassende Erschließung der von Descartes herangezogen Quellen, d. i. der zeitgenössischen Publikationen zur Untersuchung von Naturphänomenen, die wir heute – seit Descartes – als physikalische oder naturwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen einordnen können. (shrink)

Genau 150 Jahre nach dem Erscheinen der letzten vollständig zu nennenden Ausgabe der Odysseescholien von W. Dindorf (Oxford 1855) legt Filippomaria Pontani (im folgenden: P.) ein Buch vor, das berechtigten Anlaß zur Hoffnung gibt, daß das dringende Desiderat einer vollständigen Neuausgabe dieses Scholiencorpus endlich erfüllt werden wird. Als der kürzlich verstorbene Doyen der Homerscholienforschung, Hartmut Erbse, 1966 einen Neudruck von Ludwichs Specimina mit den Scholien zu Od. 1.1–309 besorgen ließ, äußerte er im Vorwort fast beschwörend den Wunsch, daß “Ludwichs gutgemeinter, (...) aber eben doch unfertiger Text einen jungen Gelehrten dazu anregen sollte, das ganze Werk von Grund auf zu erneuern und zu vervollständigen”. P. ist sichtlich gewillt (S. 5) und, nach dem zu besprechenden Buch zu schließen, auch fähig, diese schwierige, aber zweifellos lohnende Aufgabe zu übernehmen. Das Buch stellt gewissermaßen die Prolegomena zu einer Neuedition der Odysseescholien dar, weshalb das Augenmerk insbesondere auf der paläographischen, papyrologischen, kodikologischen, überlieferungsgeschichtlichen und textkritischen Untersuchung des Materials liegt, das die Grundlage einer (Neu-)Edition bildet. Aber das Buch leistet mehr, was maßgeblich an P.s Grundüberzeugung liegt, “che ogni manoscritto rappresenti il frutto di un'intenzione precisa, comprensibile solo in una determinata cornice storica e geografica” (S. 6). Diesem historischen und geographischen Kontext spürt P. denn auch durchweg und mit viel Akribie nach. Dadurch erfährt der Leser viel, was deutlich über das hinausgeht, was üblicherweise in einem Prolegomena-Band zu einer kritischen Ausgabe zu lesen ist. Zu einem gewissen Grad wird auch die Anordnung des Materials davon tangiert. (shrink)

Zur Soziologie der Wissenschaftssoziologie* Von Nico Stehr Die Wissenschaftssoziologie ist in Bewegung geraten und mit ihr Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Wissenschaftstheorie sowie eine Reihe weiterer, im akademischen Bereich insti­ tutionalisierter wissenschaftlicher Spezialgebiete, die sich "Wissenschaft" reflexiv als Forschungsobjekt gewählt haben!. Die in diesem Band zusammengetragenen Aufsätze sind sowohl Ausdruck als auch Er­ gebnis dieser neuerlichen Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet der Wissenschaftssoziologie in verschiedenen Ländern und, wie man immer mehr feststellen kann, der ihr einerseits verwandten, andererseits aber auch vorausgehenden und komplementären theoreti­ schen (...) Ansätze in der Wissenschaftsgeschichte und der Wissenschaftstheorie. Der Zu­ sammenhang von Wissenschaftssoziologie (und Wissenssoziologie), Wissensgeschichte und Wissenschaftstheorie als solcher ist zwar keineswegs neu, schon in der Vergangen­ heit haben sich die in diesen Spezialgebieten dominierenden theoretischen Annahmen gegenseitig beeinflußt. Allerdings blieb der angedeutete Zusammenhang, und hier be­ sonders was die Wissenschaftssoziologie angeht, häufig implizit und war zudem von einem, die in der Wissenschaft herrschende Hierarchie von Disziplinen und Spezial­ gebieten wiederspiegelnden Abhängigkeitsverhältnis gekennzeichnet, bei dem die in einem Spezialgebiet vorherrschenden Annahmen die des anderen weitgehend bestimm­ ten. Im Gegensatz dazu kann man immer häufiger beobachten, daß Abhängigkeits­ verhältnisse von Strukturen abgelöst werden, die auf eine wachsende Zusammenarbeit der sich mit (wenn auch verschiedenen) Aspekten der Wissenschaftsentwicklung be­ schäftigenden Spezialgebiete schließen läßt. (shrink)

I argue that the offense generation pattern of slurring terms parallels that of impoliteness behaviors, and is best explained by appeal to similar purely pragmatic mechanisms. In choosing to use a slurring term rather than its neutral counterpart, the speaker signals that she endorses the term. Such an endorsement warrants offense, and consequently slurs generate offense whenever a speaker's use demonstrates a contrastive preference for the slurring term. Since this explanation comes at low theoretical cost and imposes few constraints on (...) an account of the semantics of slurs, this suggests that we should not require semantic accounts to provide an independent explanation of the offense profile. (shrink)

I argue that inferences from highly probabilifying racial generalizations are not solely objectionable because acting on such inferences would be problematic, or they violate a moral norm, but because they violate a distinctively epistemic norm. They involve accepting a proposition when, given the costs of a mistake, one is not adequately justified in doing so. First I sketch an account of the nature of adequate justification—practical adequacy with respect to eliminating the ~p possibilities from one’s epistemic statespace. Second, I argue (...) that inferences based on demographic generalizations tend to disproportionately expose group members to the risks associated with mistakenly assuming stereotypical propositions, and so magnify the wrong involved in relying on such inferences without adequate justification. (shrink)

Written by a sociologist and a biologist and science historian, this text considers the social aspects of organ transplantation and chronic hemodialysis. Their research, begun in 1968, focused on the experience of research physicians engaged in this work, the "gift- exchange" social dimensions of these practices, and the impact of these technologies on society as a whole. This reprint of the 1978 edition includes a new introduction by the authors. c. Book News Inc.

Several authors have recently suggested that moral factors and norms `encroach' on the epistemic, and because of salient parallels to pragmatic encroachment views in epistemology, these suggestions have been dubbed `moral encroachment views'. This paper distinguishes between variants of the moral encroachment thesis, pointing out how they address different problems, are motivated by different considerations, and are not all subject to the same objections. It also explores how the family of moral encroachment views compare to classical pragmatic encroachment accounts.

Each state’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit prosecutes billing fraud cases against individual healthcare providers who fraudulently bill Medicaid for services provided. Once an individual is convicted of billing fraud, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services may exclude the individual from billing any federal government healthcare program, including Medicaid. Excluded individuals are added to a public list of exclusions, which restricts their ability to practice professionally. Prompted by criminology research into the impact of policing (...) resources, we test whether these government enforcement initiatives against fraud serve as a deterrent to would-be fraudulent billers. We document that key enforcement proxies, the staffing level and budget of an MFCU, are positively associated with the yearly number of exclusions added at the state level. Our results are consistent with the exclusion list not being a deterrent but provide support for MFCUs’ fraud detection efforts. This paper provides industry-specific fraud insights for auditors and other individuals involved in public policy, specifically Medicaid, and introduces a novel dataset to the accounting fraud research literature. (shrink)

Law-enforcement agencies are increasingly able to leverage crime statistics to make risk predictions for particular individuals, employing a form of inference that some condemn as violating the right to be “treated as an individual.” I suggest that the right encodes agents’ entitlement to a fair distribution of the burdens and benefits of the rule of law. Rather than precluding statistical prediction, it requires that citizens be able to anticipate which variables will be used as predictors and act intentionally to avoid (...) them. Furthermore, it condemns reliance on various indexes of distributive injustice, or unchosen properties, as evidence of law-breaking. (shrink)

The problem of moral disagreement has been presented as an objection to contextualist semantics for ‘ought’, since it is not clear that contextualism can accommodate or give a convincing gloss of such disagreement. I argue that independently of our semantics, disagreements over ‘ought’ in non-cooperative contexts are best understood as indirect metalinguistic disputes, which is easily accommodated by contextualism. If this is correct, then rather than posing a problem for contextualism, the data from moral disagreements provides some reason to adopt (...) a semantics that allows contextual variance in the meanings of ‘ought’. (shrink)

In addition to protecting agents’ autonomy, consent plays a crucial social role: it enables agents to secure partners in valuable interactions that would be prohibitively morally risk otherwise. To do this, consent must be observable: agents must be able to track the facts about whether they have received a consent-based permission. I argue that this morally justifies a consent-practice on which communicating that one consents is sufficient for consent, but also generates robust constraints on what sorts of behaviors can be (...) taken as consent- communicating. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Retention, Reliability, and DedicationRenee J. TillmanI love what I do. I am a Hospice and Palliative Nurse Assistant. I have been for 16 years. I have worked in this field for 37 years—in long term care, private duty and home health. I still like getting up and going to work. I have a great work ethic. I think it came about when I started working for Leader Nursing and (...) Rehabilitation Center. My plans were to become a nurse, just like my mother. This employer believes that if he contributed to his employees by way of educating them he would accomplish two things. Loyal employees and highly skilled nurse aides. He knew we were the backbone of his center and believed in his strategy to give the very best care his employee's could provide.I was one of the first nursing assistants in the building. I started on the 11-7 shift, myself and a licensed vocational nurse (LVN). She was a gem. In a four story building. They had security for us. They started from the top and filled the building up. I was never so proud to be a nurse aide. Pretty soon we were filled. I worked the night shift for three years and decided to go to the day shift, 7 to 3. [End Page 154]It was then that I decided this profession was for me, and I was going to be the best. Everything we did was a learning experience. We received report at the beginning of our shift. We were asked to be on the job 15 minutes before shift, and we did so without pay. We felt it was important to get information to care for the residents. The incentives were what they called the Leader Ladder. This Ladder was there for you to climb to the highest occupation in the nursing field you wanted to go, with the help from the scholarship program in place. The goals of the employer were retention, reliability, support, and dedication from the employees.That is not in place today, especially in the long-term care settings. There is a revolving door in most places. In most places employees don't even have nametags. If they do have them, they're in the pockets just to swipe the clock. Uniforms are not decent, I mean wrinkle-free and clean. Even hair and faces are not groomed. Yes I see this today. We are the forgotten, the invisible. Shame on those watch dogs. When I was with Leader, I would watch my nurse do everything—catheters, suctioning, wound care—everything. We used to do wound care and finger sticks. In some places, they don't even let the aides do vital signs.One of the cases I will never forget, this was at a rehabilitation center with a floor that was skilled. This lady was admitted. She was only 60. She had the biggest tumor I had ever seen on the side of her neck; it was cancerous. The tumor was growing outside her neck. I was just 25. When we received report that morning, we were told of physical and history, where she was with her disease, and that she had come there to die. She had no family. We quickly became her family. She was tall and skinny with dark hair. We were also told how she would die and to be prepared so it would not be scary for her or for us. She was going to bleed to death from the tumor. But, our biggest challenge, you see, was not to show that there was an odor when in her room or where ever she was. The cancer was very foul-smelling. I think that is why she loved us; we acted like there was no smell. The day she died, her tumor started a steady flow of blood. She knew it was the end. We had dark towels for her, she lay in her bed, she was never left alone. We had our work to do, but she was never left alone. What I remember the most is her eyes; you see, she could not speak that day. She... (shrink)

Rights to do wrong are not necessary even within the framework of interest-based rights aimed at preserving autonomy. Agents can make morally significant choices and develop their moral character without a right to do wrong, so long as we allow that there can be moral variation within the set of actions that an agent is permitted to perform. Agents can also engage in non-trivial self-constitution in choosing between morally indifferent options, so long as there is adequate non-moral variation among the (...) alternatives. The stubborn intuition that individuals have a right to do wrong in some cases can be explained as stemming from a cautionary principle motivated by the asymmetry between the risk of wrongly interfering and that of refraining from interfering. (shrink)

Some, but not all, of the mistakes a person makes when acting in apparently necessary self-defense are reasonable: we take them not to violate the rights of the apparent aggressor. I argue that this is explained by duties grounded in agents' entitlements to a fair distribution of the risk of suffering unjust harm. I suggest that the content of these duties is filled in by a social signaling norm, and offer some moral constraints on the form such a norm can (...) take. (shrink)

A ‘vestigial social practice' is a norm, convention, or social behavior that persists even when few endorse it or its original justifying rationale. Begby (2021) explores social explanations for the persistence of prejudice, arguing that even if we all privately disavow a stereotype, we might nevertheless continue acting as if it is true because we believe that others expect us to. Meanwhile the persistence of the practice provides something like implicit testimonial evidence for the prejudice that would justify it, making (...) it rational for members of the next generation to acquire the corresponding prejudiced beliefs. This paper distinguishes between three different types of vestigial social practice in terms of the underlying explanatory mechanisms, and argues that the persistence of prejudicial social stereotypes is most tightly linked not to others’ beliefs or expectations, but to the ways that material infrastructure constrains options shapes social outcomes. Given that, the persistence of a practice only provides grounds to infer that most people endorse the corresponding prejudiced belief only if we are in a position to dismiss relevant alternative explanations. (shrink)

Sometimes speakers within a linguistic community use a term that they do not conceptualize as a slur, but which other members of that community do. Sometimes these speakers are ignorant or naïve, but not always. This article explores a puzzle raised when some speakers stubbornly maintain that a contested term t is not derogatory. Because the semantic content of a term depends on the language, to say that their use of t is semantically derogatory despite their claims and intentions, we (...) must individuate languages in a way that counts them as speaking our language L, assigns t a determinately derogatory content in L, and still accommodates the other features of slurs’ linguistic profile. Given the difficulty of doing this, there is some reason to give a non-semantic analysis of the derogatory aspect of slurs. The author suggests that rather than dismissing the stubborn as semantically incompetent, we would do better to appeal to expected uptake as moral reasons for the stubborn to adjust their linguistic practices. (shrink)

​I evaluate a suggestion, floated by Kimberly Ferzan (this volume), that the twitter hashtag campaign #BelieveWomen is best accommodated by non-reductionist views of testimonial justification. I argue that the issue is ultimately one about the ethical obligation to trust women, rather than a question of what grounds testimonial justification. I also suggest that the hashtag campaign does not simply assert that ‘we should trust women’, but also militates against a pernicious striking-property generic (roughly: ‘women make false sexual assault accusations’), that (...) distorts our evaluation of women’s testimony concerning sexual assault. I conclude #BelieveWomen does not demand that we believe against the evidence, or uncritically, or be more trusting than we have evidential justification to be. Rather, it aims to bring our trust closer to what is merited by the base-rate of reliable testimony from women concerning sexual assault. (shrink)

They have watched, as insiders, the first fumbling attempts to transplant kidneys, then hearts, then live‐donated lobes of liver and lung. Now the two sociologists most closely identified with organ transplantation have concluded that they must leave the field.

In some cases, there appears to be an asymmetry in the evidential value of statistical and more individualized evidence. For example, while I may accept that Alex is guilty based on eyewitness testimony that is 80% likely to be accurate, it does not seem permissible to do so based on the fact that 80% of a group that Alex is a member of are guilty. In this paper I suggest that rather than reflecting a deep defect in statistical evidence, this (...) asymmetry might arise from a general constraint on rational inquiry. Plausibly the degree of evidential support needed to justify taking a proposition to be true depends on the stakes of error. While relying on statistical evidence plausibly raises the stakes by introducing new kinds of risk to members of the reference class, paradigmatically `individualized' evidence---evidence tracing back to A's voluntary behavior---can lower the stakes. The net result explains the apparent evidential asymmetry without positing a deep difference in the brute justificatory power of different types of evidence. (shrink)

Adorno is often left out of the “canon” of influences on contemporary feminist theory, but these essays show that his work can provide valuable material for feminist thinking about a wide range of issues. Theodor Adorno was a leading scholar of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, otherwise known as the Frankfurt School. With Max Horkheimer he contributed to the advance of critical theorizing about Enlightenment philosophy and modernity. Inflected by Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, Adorno’s thinking defies (...) easy categorization. Ranging across the disciplines of philosophy, musicology, and sociology, his work has had an impact in many fields. His_ Dialectic of Enlightenment_ was profoundly influential as a critique of fascistic and authoritarian impulses in Enlightenment thinking in the context of late capitalism. Questions addressed in the volume range from dilemmas in feminist aesthetic theory to the politics of suffering and democratic theory. The essays are exemplary as works in interdisciplinary scholarship, covering a wide range of issues and ideas in feminism as authors critically interpret the many facets of Adorno’s work. They take Adorno’s historical situatedness as a scholar into consideration while exploring the relevance of his ideas for post-Enlightenment feminist theory. His philosophical and cultural investigations inspire reconsideration of Enlightenment principles as well as a rethinking of “postmodern” ideas about identity and the self. _Feminist Interpretations of Theodor Adorno _will introduce feminists to Adorno’s work and Adorno scholars to modes of feminist critique. It will be especially valuable for senior undergraduate and graduate courses in contemporary political, social, and cultural theory. In addition to the editor, contributors are Paul Apostolidis, Mary Caputi, Rebecca Comay, Jennifer Eagan, Mary Ann Franks, Eva Geulen, Sora Han, Andrew Hewitt, Gillian Howie, Lisa Yun Lee, Bruce Martin, and Lambert Zuidervaart. (shrink)

A regulative norm for permissible defense distinguishes the conditions under which we will hold defenders to be innocent of any wrongdoing from those in which we hold them responsible for assault or manslaughter. The norm must strike a fair balance between defenders' security, on the one hand, and other agents’ legitimate claim to live without fear of suffering mistaken defensive harm, on the other. Since agents must make defensive decisions under high pressure and on only partial information, they will sometimes (...) make mistakes. We have reason to want a norm that considers a mistake permissible when it was highly likely on the evidence that defense was proportionate and necessary to avert a threat. However, adopting an evidentialist norm under non-ideal conditions is treacherous business. I briefly survey empirical data suggesting that the type and extent of bias prevalent in the US renders a straightforward evidentialist norm unjust, and thus since the legal practice in the US relies on such a norm, we must explore avenues for reform. Preferably this will take the form of adopting a modified evidential norm, and I explore some promising options. If this proves impossible, however, then we have to accept a strict regulative norm (which does not consider any mistakes permissible), as the sole just alternative. (shrink)

A popular informal argument suggests that statistics about the preponderance of criminal involvement among particular demographic groups partially justify others in making defensive mistakes against members of the group. One could worry that evidence-relative accounts of moral rights vindicate this argument. After constructing the strongest form of this objection, I offer several replies: most demographic statistics face an unmet challenge from reference class problems, even those that meet it fail to ground non-negligible conditional probabilities, even if they did, they introduce (...) new costs likely to cancel out any justificatory contribution of the statistic, but even if they didn’t, demographic facts are the wrong sort to make a moral difference to agents’ negative rights. I conclude that the popular argument should be rejected, and evidence-relative theories do not have the worrisome implication. (shrink)

Plusieurs auteurs se sont inspirés des thèses du deuxième Wittgenstein pour proposer une nouvelle approche en sciences sociales qui viserait la justification plutôt que l'explication de l'action. Sur la base d'une étude de trois types d'énoncés formulés grâce au langage de l'action (factuels, normatifs et attributifs d'états mentaux), cet article évalue les difficultés et possibilités d'une telle suggestion.

This study provides a comprehensive intellectual biography of Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia. The author highlights Elisabeth’s place in the Western intellectual tradition and contextualizes her contributions within the social and cultural landscape of seventeenth-century Europe.

This contribution examines the role of diagrams in early modern pedagogy. It begins with an analysis of images from the 1632 Dialogo and 1638 Discorsi. I claim that Galileo often employed images in a pedagogical context, illustrating to readers through his dialogue how he may have used images in his own teaching. Building on the work of previous historians, I argue that a classification of Galileo’s images should include not only heuristic images and images used for virtual witnessing, but also (...) pedagogical images designed to illustrate to the reader (or student) how to reach conclusions about a given question. I then turn to the way Galileo’s readers at the University of Pisa employed Galileo’s images in their own teaching. I argue that Galileo’s readers employed his images in their own works in ways which reflected their training and the genre in which they wrote and taught. (shrink)

Si vous avez un jour hésité entre « F » et « M » en remplissant un formulaire, si enceinte de plus de huit mois et entrant dans un taxi on vous a appelé « Monsieur », si votre attirance pour le « sexe opposé » vous semble au contraire relever bizarrement davantage de l’homosexualité que de l’hétérosexualité, et si en plus vous êtes intéressé par les choses du corps, de la biologie et de la génétique, alors vous serez passionné (...) par cet ouvrage. Mais si vous vivez votre sexe physique et votre g... (shrink)

Galileo’s 1638 Two New Sciences, a canonical text of early modern science, is analyzed as a window into period practices of mixed-mathematical reading. Galileo’s depiction of reading reflects common scholarly practices, including those of summarizing, commenting, repeated study, and an interest in mathematical diagrams. With this text, Galileo also attempted to shape his readers’ practices, inciting them to approach topical-based reading strategies with care and to use experiment and experience to validate the written word. It is suggested that the concern (...) with reading practices exhibited in the text derived from circumstances surrounding Galileo’s 1633 condemnation. (shrink)

This essay considers the social effects of the strategy of "speaking out" about sexual violence to transform rape culture. I articulate the paradox that women's identification as victims in the public sphere reinscribes the gendered norms that enable the victimization of women. I suggest we create a more diversified public narrative of sexual violence and sexuality within the context of the movement against sexual violence in order to deconstruct masculinist power in feminine victimization.