Time and communication are important aspects of the medical consultation. Physician behavior in real-life pediatric consultations in relation to ethical practice, such as informed consent (provision of information, understanding), respect for integrity and patient autonomy (decision-making), has not been subjected to thorough empirical investigation. Such investigations are important tools in developing sound ethical praxis.

When interests and preferences of researchers or their sponsors cause bias in experimental design, data interpretation or dissemination of research results, we normally think of it as an epistemic shortcoming. But as a result of the debate on science and values, the idea that all extra-scientific influences on research could be singled out and separated from pure science is now widely believed to be an illusion. I argue that nonetheless, there are cases in which research is rightfully regarded as epistemologically (...) deficient due to the influence of preferences on its outcomes. I present examples from biomedical research and offer an analysis in terms of social epistemology. (shrink)

This paper advocates for making epistemic interests a central object of philosophical analysis in epistemology and philosophy of science. It is argued that the importance of epistemic interests derives from their fundamental importance for the notion of objectivity. Epistemic interests are defined as individuated by a set of objectives, each of which represents a dimension of the search for truth. Among these dimensions, specificity, sensitivity, and productivity are discussed in detail. It is argued that the relevance of productivity is often (...) overlooked in debates about the ends and means of science. A definition of the objectivity of inquiry is proposed that takes the notion of epistemic interest as its starting point. (shrink)

This paper aims to give an insight into developments that contributed to the significance of the work of Jakob von Uexküll and stresses the importance of his occupation in Hamburg. A biographical survey pays tribute to the implication of the historical pretext and context. A scientific survey describes findings and ideas of Uexküll that proved important for the development of biology and the cognitive sciences. In addition, this paper sets out to reject the common notion that Uexküll’s concepts were ideas (...) of a purely theoretical and philosophical character. It confirms that in fact the central aims of his work were to sustain the empirical method in biology and to give biology a sound epistemological basis. Some examples show how historical and theoretical developments converged at Uexküll’s Institut für Umweltforschung in Hamburg and ignited a productive research activity. (shrink)

Goldstein and Gigerenzer (2002) [Models of ecological rationality: The recognition heuristic. Psychological Review, 109 (1), 75–90] found evidence for the use of the recognition heuristic. For example, if an individual recognizes only one of two cities, they tend to infer that the recognized city has a larger population. A prediction that follows is that of the less‐is‐more effect: Recognizing fewer cities leads, under certain conditions, to more accurate inferences than recognizing more cities. We extend the recognition heuristic to group decision‐making (...) by developing majority and lexicographic models of how recognition information is used by groups. We formally show when the less‐is‐more effect is predicted in groups and we present a study where three‐member groups performed the population comparison task. Several aspects of our data indicate that members who can use the recognition heuristic are, not in all but in most cases, more influential in the group decision process than members who cannot use the heuristic. We also observed the less‐is‐more effect and found that models assuming that members who can use the recognition heuristic are more influential better predict when the effect occurs. (shrink)

Epistemic trust is crucial for science. This article aims to identify the kinds of assumptions that are involved in epistemic trust as it is required for the successful operation of science as a collective epistemic enterprise. The relevant kind of reliance should involve working from the assumption that the epistemic endeavors of others are appropriately geared towards the truth, but the exact content of this assumption is more difficult to analyze than it might appear. The root of the problem is (...) that methodological decisions in science typically involve a complex trade-off between the reliability of positive results, the reliability of negative results, and the investigation's power. Which balance between these is the ‘correct’ one can only be determined in light of an evaluation of the consequences of all the different possible outcomes of the inquiry. What it means for the investigation to be ‘appropriately geared towards the truth’ thus depends on certain value judgments. I conclude that in the optimal case, trusting someone in her capacity as an information provider also involves a reliance on her having the right attitude towards the possible consequences of her epistemic work. 1 Introduction2 Epistemic Reliance within the Sciences3 Methodological Conventionalism4 Trust in Science5 Conclusions. (shrink)

Scientific research that requires space flight has always been subject to comparatively strong external control. Its agenda has often had to be adapted to vacillating political target specifications. Can space scientists appeal to one or the other form of the widely acknowledged principle of freedom of research in order to claim more autonomy? In this paper, the difficult question of autonomy within planned research is approached by examining three arguments that support the principle of freedom of research in differing ways. (...) Each argument has its particular strengths and limitations. Together they serve to demonstrate particular advantages of scientific autonomy, but in the case of space science, their force ultimately remains limited. However, as the arguments highlight the interrelations between scientific autonomy, the democratic process and the collective interest in scientific knowledge, they suggest that a coherent and sustained space science agenda might best be ensured by increasing the transparency of science policy decisions and involving the democratic public. (shrink)

This book is a festschrift for Torsten Hagerstrand. "Through your work on migration, innovation diffusion, and time-geography you have helped demonstrate that geography's most profound insights are to be gained from the study of process rather than form.".

In various debates about science, appeal is made to the freedom of scientific research. A rationale in favor of this freedom is rarely offered. In this paper, two major arguments are reconstructed that promise to lend support to a principle of scientific freedom. According to the epistemological argument, freedom of research is required in order to organize the collective cognitive effort we call science efficiently. According to the political argument, scientific knowledge needs to be generated in ways that are independent (...) of the major political powers because of the important role it plays for the citizens and their capacity to form well-informed political preferences. Both arguments are examined critically in order to identify their strengths and limitations. I argue that the scientific freedom established by both rests on a number of critical preconditions, and that the arguments’ force must be weighed against competing societal interests and values in each case of their application. Appeal to a principle of scientific freedom should therefore never mark the end, but rather the beginning of a public debate about the ends and means of science. (shrink)

To study how religiosity affects family business goals, we merge literatures on goal setting, temporal orientation, and family business to argue that family business goals can be distinguished into short-term and long-term orientations and propose that religiosity affects both orientations, but to varying degrees. Drawing on a sample of private U.S. family businesses and applying partial least squares structural equations modeling, we find tentative support that religiosity has a stronger positive effect on long-term goal orientation than on short-term goal orientation. (...) We discuss implications for theory development and future research involving religiosity and family business goals. (shrink)

The issue of political violence is mostly absent from current debates about power. Many conceptions of power treat violence as wholly distinct from or even antithetical to power, or see it as a mere instrument whose effects are obvious and not in need of political analysis. In this paper, I explore what kind of ontology of power is necessary to properly take account of the various roles that violence can play in creating and maintaining power structures. I pursue this question (...) by contrasting the views of Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault. For Arendt, power is generated and maintained by communicative practices. She argues that power and violence are ‘opposites’ because violence can only destroy but not create these practices. In contrast, Foucault’s conception explicitly allows violence to play a constitutive role in generating power. I argue that while Arendt is right to insist that power and violence are not identical, it does not follow that violence cannot play any role in constituting power. Guided by Foucault’s approach, I formulate a non-dualist account of the relationship between power and violence that takes seriously the role that bodies, material things, and built infrastructures play in making social relations ‘more durable’ and constituting power. (shrink)

Preliminary Material -- Einleitung -- Zerlegung in Elemente, Denken in polaren Gegensätzen und das Ideal umfassender Weisheit bei Demokrit -- Die Polarisierung von Weisheit in göttlichen Dingen und Weisheit in menschlichen Dingen bei den Sokratikern -- Generalisierung, Elementarisierung, Paradigmatisierung und die Unterscheidung zwischen Theorie und Praxis bei Platon -- Die Pros-hen-Aussage und die Unterscheidung zwischen Theorie und Praxis bei Aristoteles -- Ausblick -- Literaturverzeichnis -- Stellenregister -- Namensregister -- Sachregister.

English summary: The Self and the Other: both face each other, and from our own Here, we look at the unknown There. The Self is only limited by what is unknown, and vice versa. What makes the Self? In search of identity, positions from antiquity to postmodernism are considered. From the geographical point of view, the author presents the question of the Where of the Self: how important is space for the construction of one's own identity? Here, the investigation must (...) tread a side road, which passes different geographical spatial concepts. For space for the construction of the identity of the Self must first be found. German text. German description: Das Eigene und das Fremde: Beide stehen sich gegenueber, und vom eigenen Hier fallt der Blick auf das fremde Dort. Dabei wird Eigenes nur vom Fremden begrenzt - und umgekehrt.Was zeichnet Eigenes aus? Auf der Suche nach dessen Identitat werden Positionen von der Antike bis in die Postmoderne betrachtet. Vom geographischen Standpunkt aus stellt der Autor dabei die Frage nach dem aWo des Eigenen: Welche Bedeutung besitzt Raum fuer die Identitatskonstruktion des Eigenen? Hier muss die Untersuchung einen Nebenweg beschreiten, der an unterschiedlichen geographischen Raumkonzepten vorbeifuehrt. Denn ein Raum zur Identitatskonstruktion des Eigenen muss erst einmal gefunden werden. (shrink)

What kind of thing, as it were, is power and how does it fit into our understanding of the social world? I approach this question by exploring the pragmatic character of power ascriptions, arguing that they involve fictional expectations directed at an open future. When we take an agent to be powerful, we act as if that agent had a robust capacity to make a difference to the actions of others. While this pretense can never fully live up to a (...) social reality whose future is open, acting on such expectations helps constitute social order. Fictional expectations are thus built into the material practices that constitute power. This account, I argue, helps us make sense of some of the deep disagreements about the nature of power. I develop the account by drawing on Thomas Hobbes’s myth of an original institution of sovereign power before expanding it to other forms of power. (shrink)

A common complaint against the increasing privatization of research is that research that is conducted with the immediate purpose of producing applicable knowledge will not yield knowledge as valuable as that generated in more curiosity‐driven, academic settings. In this paper, I make this concern precise and reconstruct the rationale behind it. Subsequently, I examine the case of industry research on the giant magnetoresistance effect in the 1990s as a characteristic example of research undertaken under considerable pressure to produce applicable results. (...) The example permits one to arrive at a more optimistic assessment of the epistemic merits of private, application‐driven research. I attempt to specify the conditions that, in this case, advanced the production of interesting and reliable knowledge. (shrink)

In order to select an area of ignorance and make it the target of inquiry, one first has to be aware of one’s own lack of knowledge in this particular area. In this paper, I explore this connection between ignorance and the aims of research. I emphasize the importance of distinguishing between all the things we don’t know—our total ignorance—and the totality of what we know we don’t know—our conscious ignorance. I argue that while our total ignorance may be conceptualized (...) as a set of true propositions that are unknown to us, our conscious ignorance is best understood as a set of questions. This enables us to identify the preconditions that have to be satisfied in order for a question to be an element of our conscious ignorance. The analysis reveals that conscious ignorance is a complex ability that can often require quite an amount of knowledge and competence. Items of conscious ignorance can, of course, differ in many important respects. To stress one of these differences, I introduce the notion of deep ignorance to signify cases in which we not only fail to know the correct answer to a given question, but cannot even name any plausible candidate answers. I argue that items of deep ignorance should be expected to possess particular attractiveness as targets of research (provided they are not entirely intractable). Finally, I suggest that in light of my analysis, some of the strategies of ignorance-mongers that have engaged agnotologists’ interests over the past years can be understood as attempts to undermine not only knowledge, but also conscious ignorance at the same time—or, in cases where that is not possible, to at least counteract the impression that the ignorance in question is deep. (shrink)

Geometric data models form the backbone of virtually all spatial information systems, such as GIS, CAD, and CAM. Yet a lot of spatial information from textual sources, including historical document...

What is the normative import of telling a genealogy of our present reason-giving practices? In this paper, I will focus on Michel Foucault’s materialist genealogies in Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, which attend to the social and material settings in which we act and give and ask for reasons. A number of influential critics have interpreted them as a critical evaluation of our reason-giving practices. But understood in this way, Foucault’s genealogical project faces significant philosophical (...) problems. I will sketch a different account, arguing that telling a genealogy can have an uncanny effect: It can disrupt our familiarity with the everyday world by revealing to us the embodied norms that structure our everyday activities. Once we recognize that our situation is structured by normative demands, we cannot simply let ourselves be carried along by found norms. Genealogies call on us to take responsibility for these norms and to practically transform the space in which we act. (shrink)

Power is often taken to be a central concept in social and political thought that can contribute to the explanation of many different social phenomena. This article argues that in order to play this role, a general theory of power is required to identify a stable causal capacity, one that does not depend on idiosyncratic social conditions and can thus exert its characteristic influence in a wide range of cases. It considers three promising strategies for such a theory, which ground (...) power in (1) the ability to use force, (2) access to resources, or (3) collective acceptance. It shows that these strategies fail to identify a stable causal capacity. The lack of an adequate general theory of power suggests that the concept lacks the necessary unity to play the broad explanatory role it is often accorded. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that when we trust the results of scientific research, that trust is inevitably directed at least in part at collective bodies rather than at single researchers, and that accordingly, reasonable assessments of epistemic trustworthiness in science must attend to these collective bodies. In order to support this claim, I start by invoking the collaborative nature of most of today’s scientific research. I argue that the trustworthiness of a collaborative research group does not supervene (...) on the trustworthiness of its individual members and point out some specific problems for the assessment of epistemic trustworthiness that arise from the specific nature of today’s collaborative research. Next, I argue that the social diffusion of trustworthiness goes even further; we always also need an assessment of the trustworthiness of the respective research community as a whole. Communities, I claim, play an essential role in the epistemic quality management of science. To see why this role is indispensible, we have to appreciate the full complexity of determining what is desirable in a method of inquiry. The relevant features of a method include three different dimensions: the reliability of positive results, the reliability of negative results, and the method’s power. Every methodological choice involves a trade-off between these three dimensions. The right balance between them (the “distribution of inductive risks”, or DIR) depends on value judgments about the costs of false results and the benefits of correct ones. Conventional methodological standards of research communities impose constraints on admissible DIR and thereby harmonize the implicit value judgments. Trusting that the research community has set the limitations on DIR in a suitable way is thus always part of placing our trust in a scientific result. (shrink)

As nation-states make greater efforts to regulate the flow of people on the move—refugees, economic migrants, and international travelers alike—advocates of DNA profiling technologies claim DNA testing provides a reliable and objective way of revealing a person’s true identity for immigration procedures. This article examines the use of DNA testing for family reunification in immigration cases in Finland, Germany, and the United States—the first transatlantic analysis of such cases—to explore the relationship between technology, the meaning of family, and immigration. Drawing (...) on our analyses of archival records, government documents, and interviews with immigration stakeholders, we argue that DNA testing is not conclusive about the meaning of family. While the technology may facilitate decision making for both would-be immigrants and state officials, our study shows hesitancy among the latter to let DNA testing make the final determination. We introduce the concept of social validity—whether the interpretation of test results matches social or political meanings in a given local context—in order to make sense of the complexities and challenges of DNA testing in practice. We show that DNA testing is not just a technology of belonging or a way to claim citizenship rights. It may also enable exclusion and denial of rights. (shrink)

In recent years, the philosophy of Ludwig Boltzmann has become a point of interest within the field of history of philosophy of science. Attention has centred around Boltzmann’s philosophical considerations connected to his defense of atomism in physics. In analysing these considerations, several scholars have attributed a pragmatist stance to Boltzmann. In this paper, I want to argue that, whatever pragmatist traits may be found in Boltzmann’s diverse writings, his defense of atomism in physics can not be analysed this way. (...) In other words, I wish to show that he did not defend atomism as “preferable for its practical virtues”, as has been alleged.1 On the contrary, Boltzmann considered the atomist picture to be indispensable — more precisely, an indispensable prerequisite for making the application of continuous differential equations an understandable enterprise. (shrink)

The late 19th century debate among German-speaking physicists about theoretical entities is often regarded as foreshadowing the scientific realism debate. This paper brings out differences between them by concentrating on the part of the earlier debate that was concerned with the conceptual consistency of the competing conceptions of matter---{}mainly, but not exclusively, of atomism. Philosophical antinomies of atomism were taken up by Emil Du Bois-Reymond in an influential lecture in 1872. Such challenges to the consistency of atomism had repercussions within (...) the physics community, as can be shown for the examples of Heinrich Hertz and Ludwig Boltzmann. The latter developed a series of counter-arguments, culminating in an ingenious attempt to turn the tables on the critics of atomism and prove the inconsistency of non-atomistic conceptions of nature. Underlying this controversy is a disagreement over specific goals of physical research which was considered crucially relevant to the further course of physical inquiry. It thereby exemplifies an attitude towards the realism issue that can be contrasted with a different, more neutral attitude of construing the realism issue as merely philosophical and indifferent with respect to concrete research programs in physics, which one also occasionally finds expressed in the 19th century controversy and which may be seen as the prevailing attitude of the 20th century debate. (shrink)

Self-determination is a central concept for political philosophers. For example, many have appealed to this concept to defend a right of states to restrict immigration. Because it is deeply embedded in our political structures, the principle possesses a kind of default authority and does not usually call for an elaborate defense. In this paper, I will argue that genealogical studies by Adom Getachew, Radhika Mongia, Nandita Sharma, and others help to challenge this default authority. Their counter-histories show that the principle (...) was used to justify, strengthen, and adapt imperial rule in the twentieth century. In particular, the idea that controlling a population's composition through regulating immigration is an essential aspect of self-determination emerged as a response to White anxieties about the migration of negatively racialized groups. Genealogies have not been adequately appreciated as a critical tool within the mainstream of political philosophy. I show that these genealogies have a critical role to play because they unsettle our uncritical attachment to the structures of the nation-state system and raise serious questions about the meaning and emancipatory force of the principle of self-determination. (shrink)

In recent years, a variety of philosophers have argued that the fundamental bearers of representational properties like truth are concrete particulars produced by cognitive agents—representational vehicles (“RVs”), as I will call them. This view apparently conflicts with other judgments that are part of our common sense understanding of truth. For instance, it is plausible that there are truths about the Milky Way that have and never will never be articulated by anyone. Whatever these truths are, it looks like they cannot (...) be RVs, because an RV is articulated just in case it exists. In this paper, I argue that it is consistent to hold that the fundamental truth-bearers are representational vehicles, while also acknowledging the existence of unarticulated truths. I argue that truth is a property that derivatively holds of kinds of RVs, that these provide the basis for our judgments that there are unarticulated truths, and I defend the view against putative counter-examples. (shrink)

The following article presents a fully revised critical edition of Advayavajra’s Tattvaratnāvalī, one of the earliest and most influential texts that can be accredited to the genre of Buddhist siddhānta literature. In this text Advayavajra not only reveals his own overall perception of the Indian Buddhist schools of the eleventh century, but also supplies manifold insights into the various tenets of Buddhist philosophy, providing the first key for anyone interested in entering the vast spheres of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies. This newly (...) revised edition takes into account new textual material which to this day has never been taken into consideration. Further parallels to other texts have been identified. And thus, it was possible to improve upon several passages in the previous editions. (shrink)

Through contact algebras we study theories of mereotopology in a uniform way that clearly separates mereological from topological concepts. We identify and axiomatize an important subclass of closure mereotopologies called unique closure mereotopologies whose models always have orthocomplemented contact algebras , an algebraic counterpart. The notion of MT-representability, a weak form of spatial representability but stronger than topological representability, suffices to prove that spatially representable complete OCAs are pseudocomplemented and satisfy the Stone identity. Within the resulting class of contact algebras (...) the strength of the algebraic complementation delineates two classes of mereotopology according to the key ontological choice between mereological and topological closure operations. All closure operations are defined mereologically if and only if the corresponding contact algebras are uniquely complemented while topological closure operations highly restrict the contact relation but allow not uniquely complemented and nondistributive contact algebras. Each class contains a single ontologically coherent theory that admits discrete models. (shrink)