During a conference entitled “_Un logicien consciencieux. La philosophie de Evert Willem Beth_,” held in Nancy in 1998 and published in this journal, volume 3, cahier 4 [Barth, Heinzmann _et al._ 1998-1999], the participants regretted that a reasoned biography of Beth was not available. In view of the efforts made since then in this direction, in particular by Paul van Ulsen in his PhD thesis in Dutch [2000], this article attempts to provide an overview of Beth’s work for a (...) broader community of philosophers of science. However, my focus is not so much on Beth’s widely discussed and important contributions to mathematical logic, where his most creative merits reside. My aim is to emphasize Beth’s philosophical and cultural background. Both are also discussed in the first two chapters of Ulsen’s thesis, which globally focuses on Beth’s work in logic. Of course, philosophical and scientific aspects cannot be systematically separated, but Beth’s influence on the philosophy of mathematics be... (shrink)

Willem Witteveen, a member of the Upper House for the Dutch Labour Party and professor at Tilburg University, was among the passengers on the MH17 aircraft that crashed in eastern Ukraine in July 2014. Prior to this tragic incident, he had submitted the manuscript of “De wet als kunstwerk [The Law as a Work of Art]”. The posthumous edition of the book has been augmented with a foreword by his son, Freek Witteveen, and a series of collages (...) and miniatures. Consequently, it serves as a tribute and memorial to a distinguished jurist and esteemed politician. In his book, Witteveen presents a measured critique of the neoliberal ideology that has predominated in Dutch society for numerous years and has been embraced by both conservative and progressive political factions. He posits that this ideology demonstrates limited regard for the law as an end in itself, instead primarily utilizing the law as a means for addressing social issues: 'As soon as someone discovers the possibility of establishing rules, whether or not enforced with power or carried by authority, the temptation arises to see the rule as a solution to a problem, as the instrument in the hands of the community to make the problem manageable.' (450) Witteveen problematizes this inclination by examining the central metaphor underlying it: the metaphor of the tool. In this context, the laws enacted by the legislature are analogous to the tools employed by a craftsman, such as a mechanic or carpenter. [in Dutch: Willem Witteveen, Eerste Kamerlid voor de PvdA en hoogleraar in Tilburg, was een van de inzittenden van het passagiersvliegtuig MH17 dat in juli 2014 neerstortte in Oost-Oekraïne. Vlak voor deze tragische vlucht had hij het manuscript van De wet als kunstwerk ingeleverd. De postume uitgave van het boek is uitgebreid met een voorwoord van zoon Freek Witteveen en een serie collages en miniaturen. Het functioneert zodoende als eerbetoon en nagedachtenis aan een begaafd jurist en een bevlogen politicus. In zijn boek verzet Witteveen zich op ingetogen wijze tegen de neoliberale ideologie die de Nederlandse samenleving al vele jaren domineert en die door zowel de rechter als de linkerflank van de politiek is omhelsd. Volgens hem heeft deze ideologie weinig oog voor de wet als een doel op zichzelf, maar gebruikt ze de wet vooral als middel voor het oplossen van maatschappelijke problemen: ‘Zodra iemand de mogelijkheid ontdekt om regels vast te stellen, al dan niet met macht gehandhaafd of door gezag gedragen, doet zich de verleiding voor om de regel als een oplossing van een probleem te zien, als het instrument dat de gemeenschap in handen heeft om het probleem hanteerbaar te maken.’ (450) Witteveen problematiseert deze impuls door te kijken naar de centrale metafoor die eraan ten grondslag ligt: de metafoor van het gereedschap. Hierin worden de wetten van de wetgever vergeleken met het gereedschap van een ambachtsman, zoals een monteur of timmerman.]. (shrink)

Finally, some brief responses to the kind observations on my book by the three respondents, with a view to possible improvements of the model I have proposed. I began the outline of my analytical model by confronting it with that of Teubner, as mentioned in the response of Willem Witteveen. As Witteveen states, it is my goal and ambition to replace the flow model of communication (Teubner) with something new. Witteveen maintains that Teubner has already discarded (...) the flow model of communication. However, even Witteveen acknowledges (along with many others) that in the autopoiesis theory Teubner developed a one-sided communication model: that of the flow of legal rules between different social subsystems. The legal system is one such social subsystem, rule addressees are other social subsystems. Teubner’s model of legal messages concentrates basically on legal rules which aim to produce factual results in the form of behaviour conforming to the rules. The flow of legal messages takes pl .. (shrink)

Het Leids-Haags Allegorieënlexicon toont nieuwe perspectieven op de maatschappelijke werkelijkheid met een actuele duiding van vijftig kernthema’s uit de wetenschap. De auteurs zijn de duale promovendi en hun promotores van Leiden University Dual PhD Centre The Hague. Ze worden daarbij geïnspireerd door de metafoor van de grot van Plato: Waar ben ik? Waar sta ik? Welk beeld zie ik? Hoe kan ik dat begrijpen? Er ontstaan beeldende voorstellingen van begrippen waarin op zoek wordt gegaan naar de centrale gedachten die ten (...) grondslag liggen aan die begrippen. Zo wordt de veranderende wereld waargenomen met het besef dat we nooit kunnen weten of we de gehele werkelijkheid kunnen zien of begrijpen. De waarneming is afhankelijk van de zichtpositie die de waarnemer inneemt. Zo ontstaan verbeeldingen van waarnemingen van ons menselijk bestaan. Zoals: assimilatie, creativiteit, gender, kunstenaarschap, magistraat, participatie, regels, tragedie en verzorgingsstaat. Eerst wordt actuele literatuur besproken. Daarna volgt discussie. Tenslotte neemt de auteur positie in. Met bijdragen van promotores Wilfried Admiraal, Ingrid van Biezen, Hans Borgman, Paul Cliteur, Jaap van den Herik, Rikki Holtmaat, Willem Otterspeer, Jos Raadschelders, Robert Tijssen, Wim Willems en promovendi. (shrink)

The general view is that metaphysical explanation is asymmetric. For instance, if resemblance facts can be explained by facts about their relata, then, by the asymmetry of explanation, these latter facts cannot in turn be explained by the former. The question however is: is there any reason to hold on to the asymmetry? If so, what does it consist in? In the paper we approach these questions by comparing them to analogous questions that have been investigated for scientific explanations. Three (...) main asymmetry criteria have been proposed for the latter: (i) causation, (ii) unification, and (iii) explanatory dependence. We argue that the last criterion, but not the former two, can be of help to metaphysical explanation: metaphysical explanations are asymmetric if the explanatory dependence criterion (in modified format) holds of them. (shrink)

Wellbeing describes how good life is for the person living it. Wellbeing comes in degrees. Subjective theories of wellbeing maintain that for objects or states of affairs to benefit us, we need to have a positive attitude towards these objects or states of affairs: the Resonance Constraint. In this article, we investigate to what extent subjectivism can plausibly account for degrees of wellbeing. There is a vast literature on whether preference-satisfaction theory – one particular subjective theory – can account for (...) degrees of wellbeing. This is generally taken to be problematic. However, other subjective theories – namely, desire-satisfaction, judgment- and value-fulfillment theories – do not suffer from the same difficulties. We introduce two models of degrees of wellbeing a subjectivist can employ: the Relative and the Absolute Model, and defend the claim that both models face difficulties. In particular, we argue that a subjectivist theory should describe instances of depression as instances of low degrees of wellbeing. We also argue that a reduction of desires may sometimes improve one’s degree of wellbeing, an idea we call the Epicurean Intuition. We then argue that the Relative Model fails to account for the disbenefit of certain types of depression, while the Absolute Model fails to meet a central commitment of subjectivism – the Resonance Constraint – and is unable to accommodate the Epicurean Intuition. The upshot of the paper is that subjectivist theories cannot account for degrees of well-being in a plausible way. (shrink)

Can a person’s degree of wellbeing be affected by things that do not enter her experience? Experientialists deny that it can, extra-experientialists affirm it. The debate between these two positions has focused on an argument against experientialism—the experience machine objection—but few arguments exist for it. I present an argument for experientialism. It builds on the claim that theories of wellbeing should not only state what constitutes wellbeing, but also which entities are welfare subjects. Moreover, the claims it makes about these (...) two issues should have a certain coherence with each other. I argue that if we accept a particular plausible answer to the second question—namely that all and only sentient beings are welfare subjects—extra-experientialist theories face a problem of coherence. While this problem can typically be solved, doing so will involve steps that are unattractive. On experientialist theories, on the other hand, the answer to these questions cohere perfectly. (shrink)

In the literature, regress arguments often take one of two different forms: either they conclude that a given solution fails to solve any problem of a certain kind (the strong conclusion), or they conclude that a given solution fails to solve all problems of a certain kind (the weaker conclusion). This gives rise to a logical problem: do regresses entail the strong or the weaker conclusion, or none? In this paper I demonstrate that regress arguments can in fact take both (...) forms, and clearly set out the logical difference between them. Throughout the paper, I confine myself to metaphysical examples from the early Russell. Only now that we know they are valid can we start to discuss whether they are sound. (shrink)

In contributing a foreword to this book I am complying with a wish my husband expressed a few days before his death. He had completed the manuscript of this work, which may be considered a companion volume to his book Formal Methods. The task of seeing it through the press was undertaken by Mr. J. J. A. Mooij, acting director of the Institute for Research in Foundations and the Philosophy of Science (Instituut voor Grondslagenonderzoek en Filoso:fie der Exacte Wetenschappen) of (...) the University of Amsterdam, with the help of Mrs. E. M. Barth, lecturer at the Institute. I wish to thank Mr. Mooij and Mrs. Barth most cordially for the care with which they have acquitted themselves of this delicate task and for the speed with which they have brought it to completion. I also wish to express my gratitude to Miss L. E. Minning, M. A., for the helpful advice she has so kindly given to Mr. Mooij and Mrs. Barth during the proof reading. C. P. C. BETH-PASTOOR VII PREFACE A few years ago Mr. Horace S. (shrink)

Is the content of our thoughts determined by norms such as ‘if I know that p, then I ought to believe that p’? Glüer & Wikforss (2009a) set forth a regress argument for a negative answer. The aim of this paper is to clarify and evaluate this argument. In the first part I show how it (just like an argument from Wittgenstein 1953) can be taken as an instance of an argument schema. In the second part, I evaluate the relevant (...) premises in some detail, and argue that the dialectical situation is slightly more complicated than a ‘dilemma of regress and idleness’, as Glüer & Wikforss have dubbed it. (shrink)

This paper explores the fact that linear opinion pooling can be represented as a Bayesian update on the opinions of others. It uses this fact to propose a new interpretation of the pooling weights. Relative to certain modelling assumptions the weights can be equated with the so-called truth-conduciveness known from the context of Condorcet's jury theorem. This suggests a novel way to elicit the weights.

Cancers often express hundreds of genes otherwise specific to germ cells, the germline/cancer (GC) genes. Here, we present and discuss the hypothesis that activation of a “germline program” promotes cancer cell malignancy. We do so by proposing four hallmark processes of the germline: meiosis, epigenetic plasticity, migration, and metabolic plasticity. Together, these hallmarks enable replicative immortality of germ cells as well as cancer cells. Especially meiotic genes are frequently expressed in cancer, implying that genes unique to meiosis may play a (...) role in oncogenesis. Because GC genes are not expressed in healthy somatic tissues, they form an appealing source of specific treatment targets with limited side effects besides infertility. Although it is still unclear why germ cell specific genes are so abundantly expressed in cancer, from our hypothesis it follows that the germline's reproductive program is intrinsic to cancer development. (shrink)

Strategic ignorance is a widespread phenomenon. In a laboratory setting, many participants avoid learning information about the consequences of their behaviour in order to act egoistically. In real life, many consumers avoid information about their purchases or the working conditions in which they were produced in order to retain their lifestyle. The question is whether agents are blameworthy for such strategically ignorant behaviour. In this paper, I explore quality of will resources, according to which agents are blameworthy, roughly, depending on (...) their moral concern. The account I will propose—the Maximal Account—has three innovative features: it utilizes a suitable concept of maximal moral concern, it offers an accountability version of the account which significantly differs from the more familiar attributability variant, and it maintains that agents without maximal concern are blameworthy. (shrink)

The “practice turn” in philosophy of science has strengthened the connections between philosophy and scientific practice. Apart from reinvigorating philosophy of science, this also increases the relevance of philosophical research for science, society, and science education. In this paper, we reflect on our extensive experience with teaching mandatory philosophy of science courses to science students from a range of programs at University of Copenhagen. We highlight some of the lessons we have learned in making philosophy of science “fit for teaching” (...) outside of philosophy circles by taking selected cases from the students’ own field as the starting point. We argue for adapting philosophy of science teaching to particular audiences of science students, and discuss the benefits of drawing on research within science education to inform curriculum and course design. This involves reconsidering teaching resources, assumptions about students, intended learning outcomes, and teaching formats. We also argue that to make philosophy of science relevant and engaging to science students, it is important to consider their potential career trajectories. By anticipating future contexts and situations in which methodological, conceptual, and ethical questions could be relevant, philosophy of science can demonstrate its value in the education of science students. (shrink)

This paper presents the progicnet programme. It proposes a general framework for probabilistic logic that can guide inference based on both logical and probabilistic input. After an introduction to the framework as such, it is illustrated by means of a toy example from psychometrics. It is shown that the framework can accommodate a number of approaches to probabilistic reasoning: Bayesian statistical inference, evidential probability, probabilistic argumentation, and objective Bayesianism. The framework thus provides insight into the relations between these approaches, it (...) illustrates how the results of different approaches can be combined, and it provides a basis for doing efficient inference in each of the approaches. (shrink)

One widespread argument against the efficacy of subjective well-being as a measure of well-being is the adaptation problem as formulated by Sen and Nussbaum: the phenomenon that people may adapt to deprivation and find satisfaction or happiness in objectively bad circumstances. It is not generally noticed that there are two distinct arguments for why the phenomenon of adaptation is a problem for subjective well-being as a measure of well-being. The Axiological Adaptation Argument is a counter-example to theories of well-being that (...) rely on mental states. The Epistemic Adaptation Argument illustrates that levels of happiness or satisfaction cannot be measured well when people have adapted. I argue that the most serious threat to subjective well-being measures is not the Axiological Argument, but the Epistemic Argument. I reflect on the implications the epistemic problem has for the empirical literature in general, and for research on the phenomenon of adaptation in particular. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept derivative blameworthiness for ignorant conduct – the idea that the blameworthiness for one’s ignorance can ‘transfer’ to blameworthiness for one’s subsequent ignorant conduct. In this chapter we ask the question what it actually means that blameworthiness would transfer, and explore four distinct views and their merits. On views (I) and (II), one’s overall degree of blameworthiness is determined by factors relevant to one’s ignorance and/or one’s subsequent conduct, and transfer only involves an increase in scope. On views (...) (III) and (IV), one’s overall degree of blameworthiness is determined by factors relevant to one’s ignorance as well as one’s subsequent conduct, and transfer might not only entail an increase in scope, but also in degree. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate compassion and its place within mindfulness-based approaches. Compassion is an orientation of mind that recognizes pain and the universality of pain in human experience and the capacity to meet that pain with kindness, empathy, equanimity and patience. We outline how learning to meet pain with compassion is part of how people come to live with chronic conditions like recurrent depression. While most mindfulness-based approaches do not explicitly teach compassion, we describe how the structure of the (...) programme and teachers' embodiment enable participants to cultivate compassion in the landscape of suffering. We describe a case example of how this process unfolded for someone through mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. (shrink)

Dietzgen's philosophy is monistic in nature. This study is focused on the question in what way Dietzgen treats the relation between unity and diversity as an epistemological and ontological issue. How does Dietzgen formulate the unity of all that exists, and what is the place and the role of the process of gaining knowledge in this formulation? These questions serve as stepping stones to the central question: What is the position of Dieagen's thinking with regard to the philosophy of Feuerbach, (...) and that of Marx and Engels? This is an important question in the light of the history of the labour movement. In the early years of this century, Dietzgen's work became a subject of discussion. Some said that Dietzgen had nothing to add to Feuerbach's philosophy; others regarded him as the perfect Marxist philosopher. This discussion has not ended. The present study seeks to clarify the positions in this discussion by means of an analysis of Dietzgen's philosophy itself. This raises the additional questions of it's relation to Kant's epistemological theory, to scientific and Darwinist-oriented materialism, and to Dietzgen's ethical ideas and criticism of religion. (shrink)

Welfare in economics is generally conceived of in terms of the satisfaction of preferences, but a general, comparable index measure of welfare is generally not taken to be possible. In recent years, in response to the usage of measures of subjective well-being as indices of welfare in economics, a number of economists have started to develop measures of welfare based on preference-satisfaction. In order to evaluate the success of such measures, I formulate criteria of policy-relevance and theoretical success in the (...) context of preference-satisfaction measures of welfare. I present a detailed case study of the methodological choices put forward in a prominent generalized proposal for measuring welfare through preferences recently published in the American Economic Review. I contrast this with an alternative welfare measure which also uses preferences to weight aspects of welfare: the ICECAP-A measure. I assess the methodology of both approaches in detail and argue that the two goals of a preference... (shrink)

We develop an approach to automatically identify the most probable multiword constructions used in children’s utterances, given syntactically annotated utterances from the Brown corpus of CHILDES. The found constructions cover many interesting linguistic phenomena from the language acquisition literature and show a progression from very concrete toward abstract constructions. We show quantitatively that for all children of the Brown corpus grammatical abstraction, defined as the relative number of variable slots in the productive units of their grammar, increases globally with age.

It is widely assumed that it is rational to suspend one’s belief regarding a certain proposition only if one’s evidence is neutral regarding that proposition. In this paper I broaden this condition, and defend, on the basis of an improved ancient argument, that it is rational to suspend one’s belief even if the available evidence is not neutral – or even close to neutral.

The dialogue between science and theology is no longer confined to discussing theology, physics and biology, but, as these essays make clear, sociology, psychology & neuroscience are now open for discussions between theologians and scientists.

The Copenhagen interpretation is critically considered. A number of ambiguities, inconsistencies and confusions are discussed. It is argued that it is possible to purge the interpretation so as to obtain a consistent and reasonable way to interpret the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics, which is in agreement with the way this theory is dealt with in experimental practice. In particular, the essential role attributed by the Copenhagen interpretation to measurement is acknowledged. For this reason it is proposed to refer to (...) it as a neo-Copenhagen interpretation. (shrink)

One of the many puzzles philosophy is dealing with is how meaning comes about. An increasing number of investigations in cogni-tive science indicate that the body plays a central role in grounding the meaning of concepts and language. Particularly there are many indica-tions that our abilities to move, perceive and act upon the world are di-rectly related to our capacity to understand linguistic expressions. In this paper we will review some of the more salient findings in this area of re-search (...) and indicate their consequences for the debate about how mean-ing and body are related. (shrink)

The present study investigated whether scores on the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) in 55 patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) were modified after long‐term psychotherapy and whether the pretreatment AMT scores would predict improvement in depression severity or BPD symptom severity at the end of treatment. In addition, it was analysed whether changes in ratings of mood, thought suppression, dissociation, and BPD symptom severity following treatment were associated with changes in AMT scores. Only patients with BPD and a comorbid diagnosis (...) of depression at time 1, generated significantly more specific memories and fewer categoric memories after 15 months of therapy. Moreover, these changes were unrelated to type of therapy and changes in depression severity, borderline symptom severity, dissociation, or thought suppression. The AMT scores at initial assessment did not predict depression severity at 15 months. The percentage of negative specific memories tended to predict BPD symptom severity. (shrink)

In 2002, Belgium was the second country in the world to legalize euthanasia following the Netherlands. Since then, a few studies dealing with Belgium euthanasia practices have been published that are based on a survey given to a sample of physicians and nurses . All these studies from the past decade have implicitly proposed the practice of euthanasia as a medical act. Moreover, the last article published in this journal argued that the Belgian experiment concerning medical end-of-life decisions is unique (...) in the world and that the Belgian palliative care system, including euthanasia, should serve as a role-model for the rest of the world .The Belgium law provides a definition for euthanasia which lacks the analytical precision to apply it to medical studies . When analyzing the latest data provided by the Belgian Federal Euthanasia Comm .. (shrink)