This volume presents the proceedings of the Computer Science Logic Workshop CSL '92, held in Pisa, Italy, in September/October 1992. CSL '92 was the sixth of the series and the first one held as Annual Conference of the European Association for Computer Science Logic (EACSL). Full versions of the workshop contributions were collected after their presentation and reviewed. On the basis of 58 reviews, 26 papers were selected for publication, and appear here in revised final form. Topics covered in the (...) volume include: Turing machines, linear logic, logic of proofs, optimization problems, lambda calculus, fixpoint logic, NP-completeness, resolution, transition system semantics, higher order partial functions, evolving algebras, functional logic programming, inductive definability, semantics of C, classes for a functional language, NP-optimization problems, theory of types and names, sconing and relators, 3-satisfiability, Kleene's slash, negation-complete logic programs, polynomial-time oracle machines, and monadic second-order properties. (shrink)

Which political principles should govern global politics? In his new book, Simon Caney engages with the work of philosophers, political theorists, and international relations scholars in order to examine some of the most pressing global issues of our time. Are there universal civil, political, and economic human rights? Should there be a system of supra- state institutions? Can humanitarian intervention be justified?

In this collection of newly commissioned essays, the contributors present a variety of approaches to it, engaging with historical and empirical aspects of the subject as well as contemporary philosophical work.

Intentionalism is the view that the phenomenal character of a conscious experience is wholly determined by, or even reducible to, its representational content. In this essay I put forward a version of intentionalism that allows (though does not require) the reduction of phenomenal character to representational content. Unlike other reductionist theories, however, it does not require the acceptance of phenomenal externalism (the view that phenomenal character does not supervene on the internal state of the subject). According the view offered here, (...) phenomenal characters essentially represent subject-environment relations that are relevant to the possibilities for causal interaction between the subject and the environment; relations of the kind that J. J. Gibson dubbed affordances. I argue for this view chiefly through an examination of spatial perception, though other cases are also considered. The view assumes that a phenomenal character has an essential functional role; though it need not be assumed that a functional role is sufficient for a phenomenal character. (shrink)

We are partial to people with whom we share special relationships--if someone is your child, parent, or friend, you wouldn't treat them as you would a stranger. But is partiality justified, and if so, why? Partiality presents a theory of the reasons supporting special treatment within special relationships and explores the vexing problem of how we might reconcile the moral value of these relationships with competing claims of impartial morality. Simon Keller explains that in order to understand why we (...) give special treatment to our family and friends, we need to understand how people come to matter in their own rights. Keller first presents two main accounts of partiality: the projects view, on which reasons of partiality arise from the place that people take within our lives and our commitments, and the relationships view, on which relationships themselves contain fundamental value or reason-giving force. Keller then argues that neither view is satisfactory because neither captures the experience of acting well within special relationships. Instead, Keller defends the individuals view, on which reasons of partiality arise from the value of the individuals with whom our relationships are shared. He defends this view by saying that we must accept that two people, whether friend or stranger, can have the same value, even as their value makes different demands upon people with whom they share different relationships. Keller explores the implications of this claim within a wider understanding of morality and our relationships with groups, institutions, and countries. (shrink)

This is a very short introduction to ethics. It divides into three parts: first, introducing and discussing reasons for skepticism about ethics; second introducing themes of birth, death, happiness, desire and freedom to show how deeply our lives are interwoven with ethics; third, introducing attempts to found ethics, due to Aristotle, Kant, and the contractarian tradition.

The paper investigates the epistemic conception of quantum states---the view that quantum states are not descriptions of quantum systems but rather reflect the assigning agents' epistemic relations to the systems. This idea, which can be found already in the works of Copenhagen adherents Heisenberg and Peierls, has received increasing attention in recent years because it promises an understanding of quantum theory in which neither the measurement problem nor a conflict between quantum non-locality and relativity theory arises. Here it is argued (...) that the main challenge for proponents of this idea is to make sense of the notion of a state assignment being performed correctly without thereby acknowledging the notion of a true state of a quantum system---a state it is in. An account based on the epistemic conception of states is proposed that fulfills this requirement by interpreting the rules governing state assignment as constitutive rules in the sense of John Searle. (shrink)

This paper examines what agents should do when others fail to comply with their responsibilities to prevent dangerous climate change. It distinguishes between six different possible responses to noncompliance. These include what I term (1) 'target modification' (watering down the extent to which we seek to prevent climate change), (2) ‘responsibility reallocation’ (reassigning responsibilities to other duty bearers), (3) ‘burden shifting I’ (allowing duty bearers to implement policies which impose unjust burdens on others, (4) 'burden shifting II’ (allowing some to (...) protect peoples rights in ways which impose otherwise unjustified burdens on the duty bearers, (5) 'compromising moral ideals' (permitting agents to compromise non-justice ideals that they are otherwise bound by); and (6) ‘promoting compliance (implementing policies and creating institutions which reduce noncompliance). It concludes by outlining a methodological framework for evaluating these options, and by setting out my tentative and provisional evaluation of which responses are the least bad. (shrink)

I argue against the claim that there are principled as well as pragmatic reasons for compromise in politics, even within the context of reasonable moral disagreements such as the abortion controversy.

This paper examines explore the issues of intergenerational equity raised by climate change. A number of different reasons have been suggested as to why current generations may legitimately favor devoting resources to contemporaries rather than to future generations. These - either individually or jointly - challenge the case for combating climate change. In this paper, I distinguish between three different kinds of reason for favoring contemporaries. I argue that none of these arguments is persuasive. My answer in each case appeals (...) to the concept of human rights. It maintains that a human rights-centered perspective to climate change enables us to address each of these reasons. (shrink)

The badness of having conflicting emotions is a familiar theme in academic ethics, clinical psychology, and commercial self-help, where emotional harmony is often put forward as an ideal. Many philosophers give emotional harmony pride of place in their theories of practical reason.1 Here we offer a defense of a particular species of emotional conflict, namely, ambivalence. We articulate an conception of ambivalence, on which ambivalence is unresolved inconsistent desire (§1) and present a case of appropriate ambivalence (§2), before considering two (...) alternative defenses of emotional conflict (§3). We then argue that inconsistent desires can be fitting (§4) and that it can be reasonable not to resolve inconsistent desires (§5), before considering an objection (§6) and concluding the discussion (§7). (shrink)

You care about what others believe about you. What others believe about you determines whether you have a good reputation, whether you have the respect of your peers, and whether your friends genuinely like you. Your caring about others’ beliefs makes sense, because others’ beliefs bear directly upon your level of well-being. Your beliefs can influence others’ well-being, as much as their beliefs can influence yours. How your beliefs influence another’s well-being is a different matter from whether your beliefs are (...) supported by the evidence. Sometimes you can benefit another person by regulating your beliefs in response to considerations of her well-being, not of the evidence. Usually, you do not have strong reasons to regulate your beliefs in response to considerations of the interests of others. But it can be different when the person in question is your friend. Within some perfectly good friendships, the support that each friend provides for the other extends as far as their being willing to regulate their beliefs with the goal of benefiting the other, even if that makes it less likely that their beliefs will be supported by the evidence. Within our friendships, we then have reasons for belief that do not arise directly from, and sometimes compete with, reasons provided by evidence. This claim conflicts with the widespread Aristotelian view that good friendship is oriented to virtue. But it fits with a more plausible view about friendship, on which the function of friendship is to help us cope with the fact that we are not fully virtuous, and to serve needs that we have because we are not fully virtuous. (shrink)

This paper defends a global principle of equality of opportunity, which states that it is unfair if some have worse opportunities because of their national or civic identity. It begins by outlining the reasoning underpinning this principle. It then considers three objections to global equality of opportunity. The first argues that global equality of opportunity is an inappropriate ideal given the great cultural diversity that exists in the world. The second maintains that equality of opportunity applies only to people who (...) are interconnected in some way and infers from this that it should not be implemented at the global level. The third, inspired by Rawls's The Law of Peoples, maintains that it is inappropriate to thrust liberal ideals (like global equality of opportunity) on nonliberal peoples. Each of these challenges, I argue, is unpersuasive. (shrink)

The descriptions 'good' and 'bad' are examples of thin concepts, as opposed to 'kind' or 'cruel' which are thick concepts. Simon Kirchin provides one of the first full-length studies of the crucial distinction between 'thin' and 'thick' concepts, which is fundamental to many debates in ethics, aesthetics and epistemology.

A heuristic comparison is made of relativistic and non-relativistic quantum theory. To this end the Segal approach is described for the non-specialist. The significance of antimatter to the local and microcausal properties of the fields is laid bare. The fundamental difference between relativistic and non-relativistic (complex) fields is traced to the existence of two kinds of complex numbers in the relativistic case. Their relation to covariant and Newton-Wigner locality is formulated.

We prize loyalty in our friends, lovers and colleagues, but loyalty raises difficult questions. What is the point of loyalty? Should we be loyal to country, just as we are loyal to friends and family? Can the requirements of loyalty conflict with the requirements of morality? In this book, originally published in 2007, Simon Keller explores the varieties of loyalty and their psychological and ethical differences, and concludes that loyalty is an essential but fallible part of human life. He (...) argues that grown children can be obliged to be loyal to their parents, that good friendship can sometimes conflict with moral and epistemic standards, and that patriotism is intimately linked with certain dangers and delusions. He goes on to build an approach to the ethics of loyalty that differs from standard communitarian and universalist accounts. His book will interest a wide range of readers in ethics and political philosophy. (shrink)

David Hume famously states, in his A Treatise of Human Nature, “that ’tis only from the selfishness and confin’d generosity of men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin”.1 This is Hume’s summary of the conditions under which the very idea of rules of justice makes practical sense, and he effectively repeats it in the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.2 To put it briefly at the outset, Hume’s point is simply (...) this: if there was either a superabundance or drastic scarcity of resources, or if everyone were either completely and unfailingly virtuous or completely and unfailingly wicked, we would not need rules. (shrink)

(1998). Liberal legitimacy, reasonable disagreement and justice. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 1, Pluralsim and Liberal Neutrality, pp. 19-36. doi: 10.1080/13698239808403246.

The reconstruction of Leibniz’s metaphysics that Deleuze undertakes in The Fold provides a systematic account of the structure of Leibniz’s metaphysics in terms of its mathematical foundations. However, in doing so, Deleuze draws not only upon the mathematics developed by Leibniz—including the law of continuity as reflected in the calculus of infinite series and the infinitesimal calculus—but also upon developments in mathematics made by a number of Leibniz’s contemporaries—including Newton’s method of fluxions. He also draws upon a number of subsequent (...) developments in mathematics, the rudiments of which can be more or less located in Leibniz’s own work—including the theory of functions and singularities, the Weierstrassian theory of analytic continuity, and Poincaré’s theory of automorphic functions. Deleuze then retrospectively maps these developments back onto the structure of Leibniz’s metaphysics. While the Weierstrassian theory of analytic continuity serves to clarify Leibniz’s work, Poincaré’s theory of automorphic functions offers a solution to overcome and extend the limits that Deleuze identifies in Leibniz’s metaphysics. Deleuze brings this elaborate conjunction of material together in order to set up a mathematical idealization of the system that he considers to be implicit in Leibniz’s work. The result is a thoroughly mathematical explication of the structure of Leibniz’s metaphysics. This essay is an exposition of the very mathematical underpinnings of this Deleuzian account of the structure of Leibniz’s metaphysics, which, I maintain, subtends the entire text of The Fold. (shrink)

In Ethics–Politics–Subjectivity, Simon Critchley takes up three questions at the centre of contemporary theoretical debate: What is ethical experience? What can be said of the subject who has this experience? What, if any, is the relation of ethical experience to politics? Through spirited confrontations with major thinkers, such as Lacan, Nancy, Rorty, and, in particular, Levinas and Derrida, Critchley finds answers in a nuanced “ethics of finitude” and defends the political possibilities of deconstruction. Democracy, economics, friendship, and technology are (...) all considered anew in Critchley’s bold excursions on the meaning and value of recent French philosophy. (shrink)

The view that an account of personal identity can be provided in terms of psychological continuity has come under fire from an interesting new angle in recent years. Critics from a variety of rival positions have argued that it cannot adequately explain what makes psychological states co-personal (i.e. the states of a single person). The suggestion is that there will inevitably be examples of states that it wrongly ascribes using only the causal connections available to it. In this paper, I (...) describe three distinct attacks on the psychological continuity theory along these lines. While I acknowledge that a number of interesting issues arise, I argue that the theory can withstand all three attacks. (shrink)

This paper defends an egalitarian conception of global justice against two kinds of criticism. Many who defend egalitarian principles of justice do so on the basis that all humans are part of a common 'association' of some kind. In this paper I defend the humanity-centred approach which holds that persons should be included within the scope of distributive justice simply because they are fellow human beings. The paper has four substantive sections - the first addresses Andrea Sangiovanni's reciprocity-based argument for (...) the claim that egalitarian principles apply only within the state. The second responds to Michael Blake's coercion-based argument for the thesis that egalitarian principles apply only within the state. A third section draws attention to a general problem with associational accounts of distributive justice. Finally, I seek to show how a humanity-centred cosmopolitanism can accommodate the insights associated with an associational approach. (shrink)

Europe is inseparable from its history. That history has been extensively studied in terms of its political history, its economic history, its religious history, its literary and cultural history, and so on. Could there be a distinctively philosophical history of Europe? Not a history of philosophy in Europe, but a history of Europe that focuses on what, in its history and identity, ties it to philosophy. In the two volumes of Europe: A Philosophical History - The Promise of Modernity and (...) Beyond Modernity - Simon Glendinning takes up this question, telling the story of Europe's history as a philosophical history. In Part 1, The Promise of Modernity, Glendinning examines the conception of Europe that links it to ideas of rational Enlightenment and modernity. Tracking this self-understanding as it unfolds in the writings of Kant, Hegel and Marx, Glendinning explores the transition in Europe from a conception of its modernity that was philosophical and religious to one which was philosophical and scientific. While this transition profoundly altered Europe's own history, Glendinning shows how its self-confident core remained intact in this development. But not for long. This volume ends with an examination of the abrupt shattering of this confidence brought on by the first world-wide war of European origin - and the imminence of a second. The promise of modernity was in ruins. Nothing, for Europe, would ever be the same again. (shrink)

The attempt to pursue philosophy in the name of phenomenology is one of the most significant and important developments in twentieth century thought. In this bold and innovative book, Simon Glendinning introduces some of its major figures, and demonstrates that its ongoing strength and coherence is to be explained less by what Maurice Merleau-Ponty called the 'unity' of its 'manner of thinking' and more by what he called its 'unfinished nature'. Beginning with a discussion of the nature of phenomenology, (...) Glendinning explores the changing landscape of phenomenology in key texts by Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas and Derrida. Focusing on the different ways in which each philosopher has responded to and transformed the legacy of phenomenology, Glendinning shows that the richness of this legacy lies not in the formation of a distinctive movement or school but in a remarkable capacity to make fertile philosophical breakthroughs. Important topics such as the nature of phenomenological arguments, the critique of realism and idealism, ontology, existentialism, perception, ethics and the other are also closely examined. Through a re-evaluation of the development of phenomenology Glendinning traces the ruptures and dislocations of philosophy that, in an age dominated by science, strive constantly to renew our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. Clearly and engagingly written, In the Name of Phenomenology is essential reading for students of phenomenology and contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

The idea of Continental Philosophy has never been properly explained in philosophical terms. In this short and engaging book Simon Glendinning attempts finally to succeed where others have failed--although not by giving an account of its internal unity but by showing instead why no such account can be given. Providing a clear picture of the current state of the contemporary philosophical culture Glendinning traces the origins and development of the idea of a distinctive Continental tradition, critiquing current attempts to (...) survey the field of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Gopal Sreenivasan’s “hybrid theory” states that a moral duty is directed toward an individual because her interests justify the assignment of control over the duty. An alternative “plain theory” states that the individual’s interests justify the duty itself. I argue that a strong moral status constraint explains Sreenivasan’s instrumentalization objection to a Razian plain theory but that his own model violates this constraint. I suggest how both approaches can be reformulated to satisfy the constraint, and I argue that a reformulated (...) plain theory can also avoid an insufficiency objection. The hybrid approach consequently has no clear advantage over the plain approach. (shrink)

I argue that some instances of constitutional religious establishment can be consistent with an expressivist interpretation of democratic legitimacy. Whether official religious endorsements disparage or exclude religious minorities depends on a number of contextual considerations, including the philosophical content of the religion in question, the attitudes of the majority, and the underlying purpose of the official status of the religious doctrine.

In response to prevailing perceptions, I contend that Søren Kierkegaard (1813–55) conceives of the wholly otherness of God via his dialectical category of the ‘infinite qualitative difference’ between the human and the divine, initially through the self's consciousness of sin and ultimately through the self's acceptance of the gift of forgiveness. Therefore, I claim that while the common designation of Kierkegaard's God as ‘Wholly Other’ may initially evoke the alterity of sin; it is not ultimately sufficient to describe the divine (...) alterity which Kierkegaard regards as more faithfully manifest in the ‘impossible possibility’ of forgiveness. Through this reading, I finally suggest that the ‘Wholly Other’ is not ultimately representative of God in Kierkegaard's writings and might be more faithfully supplemented by the appellation of the Holy Other. (shrink)

Instrumentalism about moral compromise in politics appears inconsistent with accepting both the existence of non-instrumental or principled reasons for moral compromise in close personal friendships and a rich ideal of civic friendship. Using a robust conception of political reconciliation during democratic transitions as an example of civic friendship, I argue that all three claims are compatible. Spouses have principled reasons for compromise because they commit to sharing responsibility for their joint success as partners in life, and not because their relationship (...) involves strong affective attitudes of goodwill, solidarity, trust, and the like. Since shared responsibility for ends is an inappropriate element in the political relationship between citizens, the members of a divided society may manifest the constitutive attitudes of political reconciliation without any commitment to principled reasons for moral compromise. (shrink)

Cancer is a singular cellular state, the emergence of which destabilises the homeostasis reached through the evolution to multicellularity. We present the idea that the onset of the cellular disobedience to the metazoan functional and structural architecture, known as the cancer phenotype, is triggered by changes in the cell's external environment that occur with ageing: what ensues is a breach of the social contract of multicellular life characteristic of metazoans. By integrating old ideas with new evidence, we propose that with (...) ageing the environmental information that maintains a multicellular organisation is eroded, rewiring internal processes of the cell, and resulting in an internal shift towards an ancestral condition resulting in the pseudo‐multicellular cancer phenotype. Once that phenotype emerges, a new local social contract is built, different from the homeostatic one, leading to tumour formation and the foundation of a novel local ecosystem. (shrink)

Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why it Matters Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10677-011-9321-8 Authors Simon Derpmann, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Philosophisches Seminar, Domplatz 23, 48143 Münster, Germany Journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Online ISSN 1572-8447 Print ISSN 1386-2820.

The literature on global justice contains a number of distinct approaches. This article identifies and reviews recent work in four commonly found in the literature. First there is an examination of the cosmopolitan contention that distributive principles apply globally. This is followed by three responses to the cosmopolitanism, – the nationalist emphasis on special duties to co-nationals, the society of states claim that principles of global distributive justice violate the independence of states and the realist claim that global justice is (...) utopian and that states should advance national interest. (shrink)

What makes a friendship a good friendship? One way of answering that question, taken by Aristotle and many philosophers since, is to describe an ideal friendship, and then say that a friendship is a good friendship insofar as it resembles the ideal. An ideal of friendship, so presented, is intended to capture the qualities that all good friendships share, regardless of who the friends are and regardless of their circumstances. This approach to good friendship, I argue, fails to capture the (...) variety of good kinds of friendship and the role of friendship in real human lives. I propose an alternative approach, on which a good friendship is one that improves the lives of the friends by bringing to those lives some of the many disparate values especially associated with friendship. On this view, there are many forms of good friendship, often mutually incompatible; no single kind of friendship is a model for all others; and the point of friendship is to improve the lives of humans as they are, with all their distinguishing weaknesses, limitations, and needs. (shrink)

Trust is a natural mechanism by which an autonomous party, an agent, can deal with the inherent uncertainty regarding the behaviours of other parties and the uncertainty in the information it shares with those parties. Trust is thus crucial in any decentralised system. This paper builds on recent efforts to use argumentation to reason about trust. Specifically, a set of schemes is provided, and abstract patterns of reasoning that apply in multiple situations geared towards trust. Schemes are described in which (...) one agent, A, can establish arguments for trusting another agent, B, directly, as well as schemes that A can use to construct arguments for trusting C, where C is trusted by B. For both sets of schemes, a set of critical questions is offered that identify the situations in which these schemes can fail. (shrink)

Physicians make some medical decisions without disclosure to their patients. Nondisclosure is possible because these are silent decisions to refrain from screening, diagnostic or therapeutic interventions. Nondisclosure is ethically permissible when the usual presumption that the patient should be involved in decisions is defeated by considerations of clinical utility or patient emotional and physical well-being. Some silent decisions - not all - are ethically justified by this standard. Justified silent decisions are typically dependent on the physician's professional judgment, experience and (...) knowledge, and are not likely to be changed by patient preferences. We condemn the inappropriate exclusion of the patient from the decision-making process. However, if a test or treatment is unlikely to yield a net benefit, disclosure and discussion are at times unnecessary. Appropriate silent decisions are ethically justified by such considerations as patient benefit or economy of time. (shrink)

Introduction -- Marx and postwar French philosophy -- A writer full of affects : Marx through Lyotard -- Messianic without messianism : Marx through Derrida -- The history of the present : Marx through Foucault -- Becoming revolutionary : Marx through Deleuze -- Marx through post-structuralism.